I wrote this post after midnight because I was too pumped to sleep. Last night I followed Laura to a most amazing event. It was a pot luck and party to celebrate the solstice. I noticed everyone coming in with guitars. Laura told me that the owner of the home was a luthier. There were guitars hanging on the walls the way some people might hang art…and to be honest, these guitars are art.
We ate and I met lots of people many of them artists. I strolled in a beautiful garden admiring the work that had gone into it. It was immaculate and it perfumed the night air. A gardening inspiration.
After dinner Laura had another commitment and left but I stayed. I could hear instruments being tuned. As the evening progressed people began to collect in and around the sunken living room. I grabbed a seat in a corner on the step near the wall. At one point there were 6 guitars being played, one fiddle, a mandolin and a type of flute or whistle. People were singing, harmonizing and just listening. An energetic almost two year old danced circles around us all. I was just vibrating. The music was folk, blues, rock and some old sea shanty/hobo music…a watery kind of blues. The evening took on a dream like quality as the music circled from player to player. I was a stranger here and yet totally embraced by the experience. Around 10:30 I stood up and realized that my body had cramped sitting in my little corner and yet I had not noticed at all until I tried to walk away. I love music and that kind of evening doesn’t happen often enough for me. Maybe that is a change that needs to be made. After I left, the sounds and vibrations of the evening it seemed like I wouldn’t be able to sleep, but I did. Well and long. Wow!
Earlier in the day I went for tea with a woman who had emailed me because a friend of her’s had sent her my website. That was a great experience. Ruth has lived on the coast all of her life and it was great hearing her perspective on the coastal community.
In the early afternoon I was back to Laura’s to make a dish for the evenings pot luck dinner. I settled on my old standard, the Tortellini salad. Unfortunataely I couldn’t find Tortellini in the grocery store so just did it with tri coloured pasta. Not bad. I used fresh basil from the garden.
Besides being an artist who works with stained and fused glass Laura performs marriages. She had a wedding to go to on Savary Island. I decided to go with her to Lund and then take the water taxi over to the island. (for everyone who recommended that I go to Lund and Nancy’s Bakery…I went and yes the butter tarts must be the best in the country…at the very least on the Sunshine Coast). We took a 20 minute water taxi ride over. It put me in mind of skimming across the waves on Lake Huron in Dad’s cedar strip motor boat. The water taxi was a little bigger, the passengers were protected from the wind but the ride itself was worth the price of the crossing.
Once we arrived Laura headed for her wedding, I struck out hiking just to see what I could see. The island population is mainly comprised of cottagers. There is no hydro there but the cottages are beautiful. I spent a good part of my time there on the sandy beach taking pictures and sketching. What a place.
It was a long day, and as pumped as I was after the party, I fell into a deep and refreshing sleep. I am finding so much here, more than I thought I would.
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