By Maryanna Gabriel
" The ache for home lives in all of us.
The safe place where we can go and not be questioned."
- Maya Angelou
The safe place where we can go and not be questioned."
- Maya Angelou
I was right about one thing. The answer was a complete surprise - one I would never have come to on my own. Nelson was a beautiful little town with a heritage feel in the mountains of the Kootenays, which someone on social media was calling Whoville, sometimes referred to as the sister city of Salt Spring Isand. It was a place I had been to often and enjoyed. Maybe I was overreacting to the crowding I had experienced on the Southern Gulf Islands, but I knew it would give me access to the wildness of British Columbia that I so loved. After absorbing the implications in stunned silence for a time, I noticed a furnished place for rent in the area that was reasonable. It had a view, a fire, and a bathtub - the bathtub being a big selling point. The next thing I knew, doors opened and with questions happily behind me, I packed my bags. It would be an experiment, I decided. One never knows until one tries, right?
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| Pencil sketch- "a little town with a heritage feel..." |
I could only bring what my Toyota would hold. Packing was a mess. Half my things were irretrievably buried in my storage locker. Usually organized, I was unable to find certain items I might need and had access to items that were not terribly relevant. Oh well.
Decades of coastal living had trained me. Snow is something I fear when it comes to it. But it turned out my fears were needless. The weather was unseasonably lenient, and the trip beautiful, with hardly any of the white stuff. I could even see out the rear car window.
Decades of coastal living had trained me. Snow is something I fear when it comes to it. But it turned out my fears were needless. The weather was unseasonably lenient, and the trip beautiful, with hardly any of the white stuff. I could even see out the rear car window.