HOME for EASTER

 "Home isn't where you're from, it's where you find light when all grows dark...."
                                     -Pierce Brown (Golden Son)
                
 HOME. Victoria. In the 1950's. Before my time. It lives in photographs and stories . These ones come come around Easter time. When the house at 1425 Fairfield was new.When the Dodge was new. My mother planted daffodils.  They eventually grew into the grass into the surrounding forest. Once in a while, when I was a child,  they would pop up and my mother would mow around them.

 The Ivy hung from the side of the house. Birds lived in there. So did rats. They would scuttle . It was cut down years later. In the Spring.  I remember running down the expanse of grass  grabbing the pieces of ivy and tossing them into the air.

 My mother loved this photo. She and my dad would go to Beacon Hill Park right around Easter and sit in the daffodils. She always  looked forwards to it. All these years later, the daffodils still march down the hills.... 

 In the 50's my parents would get dressed up, always,  and go for drives and find out of the way paths........

 They'd bring my grandparents along, and the neighbour's dog. Neighbour went away for four years and left them the dog. One spring they returned and wanted their dog back....they still went on one last car ride. For the Dog, my mother said.......

 In April  street photographers would come out. My mother always  bought one of their photographs. She knew they would be on Government street. She knew to dress in her best..She's make my dad put on a suit and hat. He didn't complain.

 She was caught more than one time, as she walked to work close to the Empress Hotel.......

One spring , close to Easter they had company. The new slacks were all the rage.  The lady sang. And sang. Made my father sing as well.

 The  Easter Bonnet Competition. My mother won. Biggest hat. Most stuff on it. She won a bunny.  It was not a stable hat. She had to hold it. She always grinned from ear to ear whenever she talked about it years later. I didn't recognize her in the photos. She always looked so different. 

"The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned......"-Maya Angelou

 Home for my mother , in those early years, was Saskatchewan. Bethune. In the Spring. When the snows had gone on the farm. Her dad, her brother Stuart and Bill. Her sister had married and moved away. Home grounded her. We went a few times when I was little. I loved the rolling fields, the calm. The breakfasts my Uncle Bill made: bacon, eggs, Scones dripping with butter and soft creamed honey. It was the best.

In the 50's my grandparents, getting more elderly, came to live in Victoria with my mother and father. Even then the art of Cat Whispering was alive and well.  Neighbouring cats came from next door, three houses down, to visit. My grandmother was blind by this time, but she could feel their fur and hear them purr.....

 Butchart gardens, Easter, Victoria B.C.in the 50's. Still the same beautiful place now as then. My mother went , at least once, with her friend Katie. They were best friends. Years later, my mother talked of Katie in hushed tones. Katie died in a car crash, not long after, on the Malahat......

My mother had a water colour of Cowichan Bay,  Katie painted. It hung in my mother's room forever. Now it  hangs on  my wall in the music room......She's part of the home.

"If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard, because it isn't there. I never really lost it to begin with...." -Noel Langley, The Wizard of Oz.

 Easter again. Sometime in the 50's . With Cousin Sheila and  the daffodils. Always the daffodils.

 Wherever there were daffodils, you would find my mother sitting  in them. Even long after my father was gone, and I was young. She's make ME sit in the daffodils , camera or no camera. And she'sdsit there quietly, probably remembering .  I would break off the flowers and  try and make a daffodil chain which never worked. And then my mother would get up , dust herself off and we'd go home. For Easter.....where time  went on, and everything home was wonderful.....

 " A person will come and go from many homes. It does not mean those places leave us. They follow us, like shadows, until we come upon them again, waiting for us in the mist...." -Ari Berk

2020

Photographs 2020

VICTORIA B.C. in 14 hours.......

 EARLY DAY! Hour 1. Leave Campbell River. Head south along Inland Island Hwy. "HOME" is four hours away.....We've lived in so many places that sometimes it's hard to remember where home actually exists. But Victoria will always be "home"......

 HOUR 1 . Still. Big sky. Approaching Courtenay.

 HOUR 1 1/2. Approaching Discovery Passage Lookout. Are we there yet?

 Are we there now?

 And farms. Lots of farms.

 HOUR 2. Approaching Nanaimo.

 Still HOUR 2. Houses. Way up high in Nanaimo.

 HOUR 3 ( approximate). Crossing Cowichan bridges.

 Arriving in Ladysmith. Take a break.  Are we almost there?

 HOUR 4. Arrive in Langford Lake. Outskirts of Victoria. Friend. Old friend.

 "Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that  new world is born." (Anais Nin)

 Langford Lake.  Development. Where are all the boats?

 My favourite view of Langford Lake. Stop and stand still.

 HOUR 4 1/2 . Stop to visit. Friend. Old friend.

 "The only way to have a friend is to be one." (Emerson)

 Spend time with loved ones.

 Laugh .Share a chew toy.....

 "It is not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts." (Adlai Stevenson 1879-1881)

 HOUR 5. Time to leave. Push on through the traffic that leads you into Victoria.

 HOUR 6. Arrive at in-laws house. Closed up. Quiet.

 Garden gone  wild. Snakes. Racoons.

 HOUR 6 1/2: Find my mother's antique pottery platter. After 28 years. 
 See the wild in the garden take over.

 Dandelions gone to puff.

 Chamomile  raging .

 Poppies flopping through the garden boxes.

 Ancient tables rusted .

Silent shoes. Silent stairs. All that are left of shadows.
                                   
 Silent street.

 HOUR 7. Find Canada Geese sitting on sand bars. Time for a tour.

 Piano perched at edge of ocean.

 Selfie Stick. Most important.

 Freighter in Gonzales Bay.

 Sailboat.

 People eating lunch. Doing laundry. Hanging out by beach.

 Gonzales Observatory.

 From the hill.

 From the Cliffs.

 From the ocean.

 HOUR 7 1/2: Trial Island.

Beacon Hill Flag in the distance. HOUR 7 is ticking down.

 Sailing around the point.

 Perched at the edge.

 TOURISTS. The ultimate photo op. They come wit their own photographer. What a gig that would be.

 HOUR 8: Kite Flying at Clover Point.

 We used to do that as kids.

 Then head out of town. Douglas Street.

 The old church.My old church. Next time. Stop. GO in. See. Stand still.

 HOUR 9 and 10 . Dinner with friends.  "I think that wherever your journey takes you.....there is patience and laughter." (Susan M. Watkins, 1945-)

 HOUR 11. Head up the Malahat. Back to where you came.

 Take selfie in car. Boy I'd love to take a selfie with the prime minister. It would be a hoot.

 HOUR 12. Into setting sun. Don't squint. Find sunglasses.

 HOUR 12. Watch alien cloud track your car.

 HOUR 13. Watch sun blind  the road.

 HOUR 14. Just home. Then do it all over again.......
"Happiness isn't something you experience, it's something you remember." (Oscar Levant)