In the car, intend to generate a Slow Lane from here. This space, indeed to a degree this island, is a little, a lot perhaps, Snug Cove-centric, so I’m on the move. I have gone farther afield than the Cove to write the Lane before (on the ferry, at Killarney Lake, at the Golf Course etc.) but not for awhile.
I drive along Government Road and slip Chris Isaak’s ‘Forever Blue’ into the disc player. Pass by Keith Buchannan, who doesn’t seem to want a ride. I spot two strangers and consider pulling over to talk but it may alarm them and why should I expect strangers to help me write my column, especially if it ends up with them somehow being put off, or worse - traumatized.
Up past Miller Road stands a hitchhiker. Now I pull over. It is a Jared Steward, relatively new to Bowen. Offer Jared my notebook to write anything he wants and tell him it’ll go to print but, fool that I am, I keep him listening to me talk so much that all he has time to write is his name and that of his wife, Moira.
Typical for Bowen (we’ve all said that, no?) turns out the Stewards are living at Paul and Basia’s, personal friends of mine (Paul, readers may recall, is my best friend on Bowen). Drive Jared to their place at the end of Adams with a view to visiting Billy and Skipper (the labs) but they’re not home. Billie, incidentally, has not adjusted to parenthood and mostly acts like Skipper is someone to goof around with and set a bad example for, like my mode d’emploi with the Boy (that’s for him, he speaks French now).
Alone again. Where to? Not Tunstall Bay, wrote a column out that way a few months ago. Not Bowen Bay, last column I wrote out there (in June of 2010) nothing whatever happened and I had to resort to naming who I saw sitting on a bus that passed and to taking selfies.
Horror of horrors but I find myself driving toward Cape Roger Curtis. My pulse quickens. I am aware, as are most of us, that sensitive ground lies ahead. Yet, frankly, I seem to take a perverse pleasure in lamenting the loss of what could have been and taking shots at those I deem responsible. Before long the dreaded inner dialogue begins.
“Let it be,” my conscience orders. “Don’t bring up the potential community and the beachfront and the 319 acre-park. You always do that, but it is past time for this island to move on!”
“You think I don’t know that?” I yell. “I know we have to, but I also know what it is that we have to move on from, and it ain’t easy. From homes and people and kids – kids! - and dogs and untouched woods, from that to a bunch of private10-acre lots? Man, it hurts! It’s never going away! Never, do you hear me!”
“Turn back!” my conscience screams. “Turn the car around now!”
But I can’t! It’s too late! Cripes. I’m past the sign and I am there – I’m in the Cape. I see no people, of course. Just roads and signs and the trees. I drive all the way out to the end of Cape Drive. Parked now, I can’t think straight; I have this vague sense of an impending emotional... tsunami?
And then it hits - OH MY GOD THE VIEW!
There’s no resisting it. Out. Stand. Drink it in. It is breathtakingly beautiful. We should have had a vote! But wait. Come on. Are things that bad? We have the road. We can drive out here and stand in this people-less world. Say – maybe I’ll get a role on a hit series and buy a lot and be one of the lucky 59. Yeah, sure, as likely as B.C. Ferries removing that stupid security gate. Dream on, Bucko!
Don’t think. Breathe. Calm the mind.
“I am not the pheasant feather plucker, I’m the pheasant feather plucker’s son; I’m only plucking pheasant feathers ‘till the pheasant feather plucker comes.” Better. Back in car. Ignition. Turn around. Pass the back of the CRC sign as Chris Isaak sings:
This is the end of everything, this is the end I know.
This is the end of everything, take your love with you when you go.
This is the end of happiness, this is the end of dreams.
This is the end of everything, it’s the end for you and me.
