Writer's Block: Coast Range
If you had to choose, would you rather live in the mountains or by the ocean?
I grew up by the ocean. Grand Bank is a fishing village. The Atlantic surrounds it from one end to the other, on several beaches and in the harbour mouth. When I was six we moved to a house that was right next to one of those beaches. When there were storms, or when it was really windy, you could hear the water sloshing and crashing and rolling, and eventually the sounds became incredibly comforting. When we moved again, when I was 12, I really missed the sounds. The wind would come right off the water and the entire cul-de-sac would hear their windows rattle and feel their houses shake. You could go down on the rocks in your rubbers watch the whitecaps roll, making the buoys dance. The sky was always the most beautiful colours in the springtime, red, grey, purple, orange... it seemed even more amazing on calm days when the horizon blended between the water and the skyline and you couldn't tell where either started or began. You'd see the fishing boats heading out in the morning, see the seagulls circling and diving, and best of all, you'd smell the salt water. God do I ever miss that wonderful smell.
The first time I left Newfoundland (that I can remember), I went to Ontario, where the air smells like feet because of all the pollution. Ottawa wasn't so bad--Toronto is most definitely the worst. Paris smelled like... sweet. The French countryside was intoxicating, and at the time it was raining, which made the scent and taste even more delicious. It had nothing on saltwater, though. Every time I get off of a plane in St. John's, as soon as I'm outside, I just take a deep breath and drink it in.
There's a lake here in Kelowna, but it just smells like wet dog. There are lakes much prettier than the Okanagan around the area, but none of them are the ocean. It's much easier to breathe in than Ontario ever was, though, and on every side of the city there are the Okanagan mountains; these magnificent, towering things, enclose Kelowna in it's little valley and almost... watch over us. The feel like a security blanket. I didn't notice the first time I left, when Robyn and I went to Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria, but when we went again in September for the Hanson shows, it kind of hit me how strange it was not to be surrounded on all sides. I felt weirdly exposed. I guess I've really adjusted to the feeling of the city.
I dipped my fingers in the Pacific ocean when we went to Victoria. It's a beautiful city. Someday I'd really like to live there, even if it's only for a little while. Vancouver Island is very similar to Newfoundland in terms of weather (as it's often raining), except it's warm and comfortable instead of cold and stupid. There were harbours and beaches and seagulls there too, and fishing boats. We never got to see the waves roll, but I still couldn't help but look out there, with the fog settled around the surface of the water, and remember how much I'd enjoyed growing up where I did. The only thing missing was that smell, the one that tells stories of my mother's youth, when Grand Bank was a prosperous place, when the fishplant bell told you it was time to go home for dinner, of my grandfather's time as a fisherman, of my grandmother and great-grandmother spreading and salting fish on the beaches, of my great-grandfather--a fishing boat captain--who built what's now my grandfather's home for his wife because she wanted something with that 'Victorian' style, and for always being told that Grand Bank was a cornerstone in Newfoundland's history. Which it is.
I guess the truth of all this is (or the answer to the question, anyway) that the ocean means so much to me, I'd love to be near it again, even if it's only for a short amount of time. I haven't been home in two years. In the meantime, however, I do have the mountains, and I love them, I really do. They are not some second-rate eye candy. I know that if I do leave Kelowna, I'll really miss them.
I think that what the ocean and the mountains have in common, for me, is how beautiful they are to be around, and how nice it is to be somewhere where you can look out your windows and see a real 'force' of nature.