Sarita Falls
Since coming out to the west coast six years ago I've had an increasing appreciation of the ocean--first through surfing, then through sailing and now through the marine science centre here in Bamfield. The ocean dominates everything about living here--even from the top of Forbidden Plateau. When I sit by a lake I'm reminded of childhood summers and canoes--it's a simple nostalgia of Quebec and Ontario, mosquitoes and blackflies and crushes that never materialized. It is only a waterfall that seems to combine the ocean's majesty with a lake's tranquility.
When I got out to Sarita Falls yesterday, I felt something I haven't felt since Mexico. If the sun had never set, if time had never moved but I had kept going I could have stayed forever. Feeding on huckleberry and salal, drinking from the river, basking naked in the sun forever by the side of the river. The most peaceful memory of solitude in recent memory. And yet time does pass. I walked back up the dirt trail, and back out the dusty road. I came back into the sleepy buzz of town knowing that in my mind at least the sun never has to set.