Coastal Adventure Day 12: Victoria

Wednesday, September 20th, 2023

A number of years ago, Bre and one of her best and longest-standing friends experienced a deep and painful rift in their friendship and they were unable to speak to one another with the comfort and familiarity they had both so enjoyed. This schism lasted for many years but neither party gave up on the other and recently after several difficult conversations they managed to heal and return to the friendship they both cherished so deeply. And so, earlier in the year, Bre travelled to Victoria to spend time with her friend and her beautiful family to fully return to their old bond. It was a beautiful chapter in Bre's life and I was deeply happy for her having been by her side for the whole ordeal. Now it was my turn to join them and participate in the renewed friendship across families. This is my last stop on the trip and again I find myself waking up in a comfortable bed and not my tent; but this trip is no longer about proving myself as a self-sufficient entity. This trip has become about people, connection and healing. This trip has become about redemption.

I step into the kitchen which is a flurry of activity. Bre and her friend are making a banquet of fresh waffles, coffee and other odds and ends. A small toddler eats at her chair making a disastrous mess as breakfast is prepared and our dog Abigail watches the proceedings warily. We eat our fill, or should I say, I eat my fill and then we are subsumed into the beautiful and chaotic world of a young mother with small children. Our first order of business is to pick up the older brother from preschool. Our little troup sets out and meanders through a character neighborhood, stopping to smell the fennel, rosemary and other herbs that explode from every home's garden. Once we have added the second child to our brigade, it's off to the park for swings, catch-up and sunshine. On our way home we stop to look in store windows and ogle at the mighty excavators that so capture a young child's immagination. The pace of the morning is perfect and I bask in this sojourn of a child's day.

When we get home I find myself conscripted to play with my new ally and his collection of trains and hot-wheels tracks. "It's broken!" he announces, producing two tracks from his extremely well organized set that have snapped clean in half. With zest I set about mending the broken pieces and as I do I feel my heart healing from fractures long forgotten. I hang them up to let the glue dry; everything broken takes time to mend. For the remainder of our play time I am ordered into dutiful servitude by my young captain who is astoundingly clinical and clever. I watch in amazement as he rebuilds a racetrack from memory and then engineers iterations for me to produce and we see what will happen to the propelling car with each variation. Our yelps and hollering can be heard around the house before we are called to lunch.

Bre and I quickly learn that there's a fitness required to parenting and caring for children. Neither of us have any of that and so like the kids, are sent off for an afternoon nap. We awake for a grocery shop and then, wanting to give our friends the night off from the ultra-marathon that seems to be parenting, offer to take the kids for the evening. Our offer meets with little protest and suddenly I feel myself getting nervous; did either of us really think through what we signed up for??

Our grateful friends disappear like a puff of smoke. Their anniversary just passed and this is their chance to enjoy each other in peace and celebrate. Our time has come. The evening proceeds with stories, teeth brushing, a couple extra episodes of a show (because the uncle and auntie are in charge) and then one more story. By the end of it all we achieve a total team knock-out, our side more-or-less intact. It is concurrently a magical, miniscule and mighty evening and by the time our friends come home from their date, Bre and I are ready to retire.

Once again I come to the end of day completely drained. I no longer stress about writing; I will get to it at some point but not today. I am learning to accept this journey and the path it has taken me on. It is a journey that has completely taken me by surprise and although initially resistant, I find myself richer for embracing its gifts.

Thank you for staying with me, dear reader. We have one day to go.