I AM MOVING TO SALT SPRING ISLAND 2013

 I am Moving to Salt Spring    2013

Once, a few years ago, I joined 6 other women on a sailboat and we sailed around the Gulf Islands together for a week. We did yoga in the morning on deck and cooked together and took turns at the steering wheel and as crew members manning the sails. We hiked on little island gems and soaked in the hot tub at Poet’s Cove.

One hot Saturday July morning we sailed into Ganges Harbour on Salt Spring Island and took the dinghy to shore.

As we walked up the dock, I heard a play being enacted. I stood and watched, fascinated, as a cross-gendered version of Cyrano de Bergerac was played out by a group of teenagers. It was fabulous and I could hardly tear myself away.  It was outside under the park’s gazebo with folks sitting on blankets on the low-rise hills around it. 

Behind the play was a bustling market of white-canopies lined up in rows in an L-shape around the entire park. We were drawn in and soon found cheeses, bread, wine, fruit and fresh vegetables to eat. There were amazing crafts - hand-sewn monsters,, glass pipes, jewellery of every description, flowers, lavender soaps and creams and plants, kombucha, mushrooms, French pastries, gorgeous handmade steel guitars and ukuleles,, kale chips, organic breads, handwoven and spun toques and blankets, sheepskins, hand-painted silk clothing felted scarves, and hats, spices, Vendors said everything here with either made or baked on island. I tasted goat cheese, homemade organic jams, pastries, a fruit popsicle.

I was blown away by the whimsical crafts and was astonished to discover how many were made by men like the giant metal insects and bird houses fashioned from driftwood.Wow - what a place - so many artistic people in one place,”  I thought to myself.

People were smiling and happy and eager to chat. The air smelled sweet. I loved everything about it.

I asked myself, “How do I move here?”.

I told everyone at work, "I'm retiring and moving to Salt Spring Island." 

Man, I loved saying that. I said it quite often in the last few months of my working life, which was spent at the BC Hydro tower in Burnaby.  

I loved how people's faces would kind of mist over and a dreamy faraway look would come into their eyes. Then they would congratulate me, and wonder aloud how it was even possible. It was like people thought it to be the impossible dream, and yet I was doing it. 

I came to Salt Spring as often as I could. It felt so magical to be here.

One day I learned that I was to receive an inheritance from my father and grandfathers’ estates. What a miracle. So many years of living in poverty as a never-working-quite-enough actor had led me to think I would be a renter all my life.

I started looking at MLS listings - I called it real estate porn and could not look at it enough!

I called Susan de Stein and we started looking at properties. Every so often I would call it off and look for rentals. But then I would come over and see a listing on one of the windows in the real estate offices downtown and off we would go again. Jill of Hummingbird Hill B&B  told me about a property I should watch for - someone she knew in the garden club was selling up and the house had a magnificent garden and a water view, too. 

So I kept my eyes open and one t weekend I saw the place had a For Sale sign up and I called Susan and said, “Let’s go.” 

The minute I walked in thru the gate, I knew this was it. I said to Susan, “Unless the house is uninhabitable, this is the one for me.”

I put in an offer - which was accepted! My amazing dream was coming true. I was going to be living on Salt Spring Island. I could get myself  the English Springer Spaniel I had been longing for. It was all coming true!!!

HOME. One of the most evocative words for me ever. I was coming home.

May 2013 I moved here with my new puppy, Sadie.We both fell in love with our house and our garden and the beach and the people here. It is home. Absolutely, positively, the most at home I have ever felt in a long, long time.