19 March 09 - 02:13
What the Mountains Had to Say
I am writing this tonight from the beautiful city of Vancouver, British Columbia, where my family is vacationing over March Break. Since our kids first went to school we have never taken a trip during March Break. But the kids had never seen mountains before, and since my hubby's sister and her family live in Vancouver, and they've been begging us to come for a few years now, we decided to just do it.
That's quite a leap of faith for me, to decide on something and just do it. I always have to weigh the pros and the cons, working hard to come up with the optimal solution that takes all the variables into account. I have a sneaking suspicion that sometimes that's really all about making the decision so hard that I can decide in good conscience not to do anything at all. Maybe as I get older I'm getting more ruthless, but we tossed the idea around for a week or so in January, and finally I said to hubby, "We need to do this." And so we did.
On Monday, on a moist drizzly afternoon, we took the family to Lynn Canyon Park and walked across the swaying suspension bridge, followed the trails to the Twin Falls and the 30 Foot Pool (we think, it kind of headed off into a canyon out of sight), and admired the audacity of the Café to charge $10.95 for a plate of fish and chips. We ate a granola bar and some grapes we'd packed in with us. Since my kids are all absolutely mad about Twilight, which takes place on the rainy west coast of the US, I was glad to show them what a little slice of rainforest looks like up close and personal.
On Tuesday, we went to Stanley Park on a surprisingly sunny day -- my cousin tells me that I've now learned exactly how far to trust a Vancouver weather report, since it was supposed to rain the whole week we're here -- and saw the Vancouver Aquarium, including the dolphin show, the beluga show, and an otter that either had some very thorough grooming habits or else a really bad case of hives, because he scratched his fur just about everywhere while we watched. On the way back to the car, my ten year old daughter and her six year old brother stopped at a waterside playground with a breathtaking view of the mountains above North Vancouver, and we decided we were in no hurry, and stopped to let them play. I pointed out the mountains to my son, and he said, "I didn't come here to see mountains, I came here to have fun." Well, all right then. He and his sister spent their time finding animals and castles carved into the rock pile that held up their climbing structure, more taken by the small rocks beneath their feet than the huge rocks above their heads.
My hubby and I sat on the park bench and recalled that the last time we had seen those mountains, I had been a few weeks pregnant with my not-quite-thirteen year old (too sophisticated for playgrounds, she'd left the aquarium with her cousins), and that had been the last summer in our lives that we had been free to come and go as we pleased. Since then, every decision had to be weighted against our need to drag first one, then two, then three little lives along behind us. A lot of times, we've bailed out on things we wanted to do because we didn't feel up to the energy it would take to do that dragging. But as our soaring spirits were lifted by the beautiful mountains in front of us, I was wondering, have we often bailed too soon? Have we not done things that we would have loved to do because we were afraid of what it would cost us to do them?
Today we took a rest day, though my brother-in-law and I took a walk down on the Stevenson dykes south of Richmond, with an evening meal at a lovely Malasian restaurant called The Banana Leaf. Tomorrow we plan to see Science World and connect with my cousin who lives here with her husband and baby. Then Friday we're flying home, to deal with the jet lag in the other direction from the sun, and take the weekend to get ready for our return to school and work. The kids may not be as impressed with the mountains as we wish they were, but I'm glad we've taken the trip. And maybe it's a lesson that in future we should do what our souls need us to do, and not count the cost so high.
Blessings, Heather.
No comments
No trackbacks:
