It happens every year around this time... Wanderlust... I’ve got it, it’s bad, and it’s sure to get worse as spring morphs into summer.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I have had a love affair with the ocean. The first time I saw “big water” was in 1976, on a family trip to Vancouver. We were living in Edmonton at the time… Now there’s a whole ‘nother’ story…
We had moved to Ottawa in 1974, from Alexandria (via a year in Cornwall) and my gypsy mamma decided that it was time to sell everything we owned (not that there was that much to begin with) and move across the country. I can remember all our belongings being laid out on the front lawn at the grandmother’s place and it being auctioned off, carried away, by strangers… toys, records, dishes, everything…
We only stayed out west for a couple of months. I remember returning back to Ottawa and living in a virtually empty apartment, for a while. Eventually, my sister and I bought a second hand record player from the neighbour upstairs, financed by our babysitting money. At least, we had music. We collected 45s. It was the summer of Bohemian Rhapsody, You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, and Silly Love Songs…
Anyway… Back to Vancouver…
Although I was very young, I can remember feeling how grand and special the ocean was. It was early spring, cold and rainy, but my mother still took off her shoes and put her feet in just to say she was in the ocean. I may have missed the significance at the time, but I realized as I got older that it was something else that I inherited from my mother - an unmistakable draw to the ocean.