By Maryanna Gabriel
Heading back to one's past is always a tricky business and here I was going to it. It is always a sense of coming home when I look at the mountains of Vancouver. On the north shore where I lived I feel like everything is miniaturized somehow. I have grown larger or it has become diminutive and feeling much like Alice In Wonderland, scale and perspective are all askew as I take it all in.
My spirits soaring, I skip in the sunshine by the sparkling waters of Burrard Inlet. Happy childhood memories return to me as doggies amble by and seagulls swoop in circles. I stop for awhile and watch a fisherman cast a circular net then admire the tasteful and subdued rock formations placed as natural sculptures by oceans edge. Lovely wave-shaped wooden benches curl beside bundles of grasses as running water pools and splashes into gushing fountains. I deliver the painting that had been commissioned and visit with my friend who is always wonderful to see. We eat crab cakes and gossip happily. Housing prices here average three million and it is always nice to think - if only... but it is time to go. Later I mused that this was the first time I have visited and not returned to the old family home. I take this as a good sign. I point the car north.
