Lichen

Last week, I headed over to my parents’ house before my mom had come home. The house was so quiet… a very serene quiet. Not lonely, but comforting, nostalgic. As soon as I walked in the door it had that certain scent. You know, how every house smells like the people and things who live in it but you can never smell the one you live in. The entry is like a combination of my parents, the wood, the things they keep and the numerous and often fragrant plants that make the entry solarium a jungle when everything’s sprawling.

I helped myself to lunch just as Mom arrived with some fresh groceries. We caught up over hot soup and newspapers, and later headed out for a walk to our favourite park. She remarked emotionally that it really is her park (or their’s, including my dad), and I feel the same way. It’s rare that just the two of us go for a walk; perhaps the last time was Mother’s Day maybe a decade ago, during high tide when the ocean threatened to soak our shoes. (Burrard Inlet is tame anytime compared to the ruthless force of the Pacific Ocean at Long Beach during a storm.)

We brought along the little camera and before we could even step into the park, she had her eye on some wild daffodils, while I stalled over a rock covered in vines, and the texture of three different kinds of plant life one over the other.

A few metres down I came upon an interesting find: a chunky stick suspended on a salmonberry branch, quite randomly, and presumably fallen off a tree. (Or perhaps someone put it there?) In the middle of the stick, as if to roast it over a fire, was a huge ball of lichen. As if “in tune” with nature, we touched the beard-like clump, seeking to gain understanding as might a child.

We’d never seen the tide out so far. Seagulls were enjoying it, of course, and a dog that ran a circle from one end to the other, so thrilled he didn’t even stop to say hello. I didn’t realise it at the time, but he probably loved the unusual, open space on a beach, and in retrospect, I wish I’d been able to run as fast as I could across that vast area… but it teeming with life, and my wearing dress boots, I didn’t want to set foot in it. We left the quiet beach and were met with daisy-covered grass that upon reaching the sand, showed erosion of its banks. No doubt children like myself contributed by climbing up the steep dirt because it’s more fun than stairs. Right before the field drops off, there used to be a weathered, stone-carved seal, arching up and keeping watch of the little lighthouse.

Yes, this is the kind of park to which you can build stories out of visits. I have many. Twenty-odd years going there will never be paralleled by any other park, and even after twenty-odd years, I still enjoy every single visit. As with any park, the scenery and people change every time, but no other park has captured the same magic I feel there. I guess it’s just home, really.

There was a sign posted in front of a fallen tree, roots ripped from the ground by the same windstorm that wreaked havoc on Stanley Park. The passage that stood out to me spoke of the Chief’s ancestors, whose bones and blood are in this place. Ay, there’s the magic.