Needless to say, as days go by, not a lot changes in the lives of the Howes! Well, that's not entirely true. But on the HoweHome front, there's less things going on than watching paint dry.
I was home last right before my trip to Spain (Chris and I flew the same day from Vancouver, both of us to Frankfurt, and him onto Bangkok). Summer was still trying to get a head start at that time, it being the beginning of May.
May on Salt Spring is always a great time of year. It's trying to transition out of raining 100% of the time to summer, and if you throw the May Long soccer tournament in there, it promises to be an excellent month. Chris and I only had about a week there in transition before our trips, but we brought some good weather from Alberta with us. Even though the house is empty every time we come home, it's ok. There's no laundry service or free meals or anything like that anymore - which many of our friends associate going home to - but there is a certain level of comfort. Actually, there's a huge level of comfort.
It's hard to say how 'home' changes for a student who has left high school over the years. I can clearly remember saying when I was 19 - 'Salt Spring isn't home anymore'. WHAT WAS I THINKING.
I can also clearly remember internally quarrelling with myself just yesterday - as I do often these days - how Salt Spring is going to stay in my life in the future.
For right now, the house exists in a solid state. I walk in the door and the blanket on the back of the couch is in the same position that I left it two months ago. The fridge is always empty and the cupboards only contain random spices and baking necessities - nothing immediately consumable except for the half empty package of 'West Coast Crackers' that I left from last time (how I didn't eat the whole box is beyond me). I like this though. It's quiet there. All I need is the kettle to boil some tea, a bit of wireless internet and the walls to fold up around me and tell me that I'm home. It is so hard to not want to move back to Salt Spring this very moment, but Chris and I know that it's just not an option. Being at peace with that fact is hard though, and making time get back there is even more difficult. I suppose what we're more happy about is that it will always be there - Dad doesn't have any plans to sell it forever (ie Chris and I get to fight over it), but that fact doesn't make it any easier to be away from it in the mean time!
As an added treat - you might've noticed that I just sort-of rearranged my blog. I also found a post a wrote just before my trip. It tacks stunningly onto the end of this one.
Chris and I arrived home on Salt Spring last week just for a quick, interim trip.
I leave for Spain for a month at 11am on Thursday and Chris flies to Thailand with his highschool boys for the summer later that afternoon.
It had been absolutely incredible to be back. It is the first time that we have both been back since Christmas, so it has been a long time. The only schedule that really have is to pack and get ready for our trips, sign some tax documents, and general, run-of-the-mill life/being back on salt-spring catch up kind of stuff.
We appear to be a lot more important than we are.
For those of you that don't know, I literally just (meaning about a week and a half ago) finished my final degree requirement: my practicum. It was worth the weight of 4 courses but the only thing that I really had to do for it was keep a daily journal and do some legacy projects. I am very happy to be done.
Coming back to Salt Spring - and if you followed my blog last year there was a totally different feel to the whole coming-home-for-the-summer kind of thing - feels different every time. The island always gives me some gentle indication that I am back on an island/to my roots within the first 24 hours of my return. You would think that I would usually prepare for and think these things through, but this is not the case. I always imagine my home to be pristine, with only it's known quirks and quarks. I've been wanting to share this story with you since I got back because it truly shows how different life on Salt Spring can be. It goes like this:
I mentioned my Practicum, and how it involved a few forms and the like. Well the final evaluation that I had to sign and acknowledge was due two days after i got back to salt spring. My supervisor had sent it to me the day that we were driving back to the coast - overnight none-the-less, so my perception of time was way off. I woke up Friday morning knowing that I had to sign the thing, scan it, and get it back to my Supervisors. I knew I would be able to do this no problem. It didn't help that my Practicum Advisor had of course emailed me at 8:30 am BC time to remind me that "If i didn't get this in by the end of the day, I would fail my practicum and therefore not be able to graduate". It did not take me long to light a fire under my ass and get me out of bed.
I figured that I would just go up to Dad's computer and print them off/re scan them, no big deal. I was already anticipating scanning them individually even though at work all you gotta do is feed them into the printer, enter the email, and BAM there the whole pdf document is, one big beautiful file. I knew it would take a bit more time than this. So then when dad said that his printer didn't have a scanner, I obviously asked him how we were going to deal with this. I calmly asked him if the fax was working - he said no, that had been disconnected a while ago. Fair enough.
He then suggested that we email it to Apple Photo in town, then DRIVE into town, and have them make a pdf file out of it - therefore also costing money. I gave him a more than 'ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME' look. That would take over an hour. Completely absurd.
THEN I decided that because I had fixed the computer upstairs in our house last year as well as hooked up my old printer to it, that would be sure to work. No problem! I turn it on, and then blindly remember that because the software on the computer is so out of date, it isn't able to automatically download the DRIVER for a new MOUSE. So the computer worked, but I couldn't do anything because the MOUSE didn't work.
Plan D. Why I didn't think of just using my new computer is beyond me. New computers instantly and automatically download the software for printers and mouses. So I plug it in . .. . 5 seconds later, shazam! Printer installed and working. However, because you have to scan one page at a time on the
old, personal printers, and BECAUSE my software is outdated and I could only scan to a JPG instead of a PDF . . . yep you guessed it. I had to copy paste each JPG onto a word page and then save the whole darn thing as a PDF. And THEN I was able to send it back, narrowly avoiding failure of my practicum.
It probably only took me an hour. No biggie. 24 Hour Salt Spring reality check? yep. I hope you are laughing at the ridiculous-ness of this story, because life on Salt Spring is literally like this all of the time. There is no real world, just a world that we mash together so we can kind of keep in tune with what is going on at the other end of the ferry terminal.
Ridiculous reality vs. Salt Spring story aside: Being back on Salt Spring after a difficult semester in Calgary gives me a lot to think about and reflect on. There are many reasons why the Island and the people mean so much to me and why I value them so much. I've struggled in my Practicum with individuals who are not happy in life, and who treat me like I'm nothing. It had given me great perspective on the type of people that I want to be around long term. Up until moving to Calgary, I had only known positivity,support, and kindness. Seeing another side was really important, but re-enforced how much I do not want to waste my energy around people like that. The simplicities of community, respect, and understanding are all anyone should really have to ask for. I realize more and more how valuable my time is and I don't want to waste it in places where I am not learning or where I am being compromised and put down. I have recently been laughed at for having a movie theater that doubles as a square dancing hall; looked at because
everyone in the room hates quinoua and I love it; put down when all i want to create is community. I won't stand for it. There are about a bazillion better things in life and about a bazillion better ways to spend my time.
Case in point. I haven't been to the Fall Fair on Salt Spring since I graduate high school (7 years) because I am always somewhere else. Every year though, there is a 'Ruckle Farm Day' at the South End of the island. The Ruckle Family is a family that I like to think of as one of the founding families of Salt Spring. Our amazing Provincial Park was named after them and all of their barns and homesteads still exist on the Park land. Growing up, these Farm days were just the absolute BEST. They would have horse pulls with big beautiful draft horses, horse cart rides, apple pressing, horse shoe-ing demonstrations, sheep dog demonstrations, you NAME it. The highlight of my blue eyed-blonde haired-kindergarten-aged years, second to the Fall Fair. I hadn't been in literally years. I had seen the sign since I had been home and decided that if it worked, I would try and go.
It turned out to be the absolutely perfect day, and turn of events. We got to take the next generation of children down to have a look at what was going on. Total win. TOTAL win. I was so happy. So that 'pro' thing that I mentioned in the title? Yup, this is one of the pros of coming home to Salt Spring for a getaway.Peace and love. :)
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