The Very Edge of the World

I had been looking forward to this morning for the last few days as my daughter Chaya was going to meet me for breakfast.

Chaya surprised me by showing about 15 minutes early. She was in a great mood and the first thing we did was to walk up to the dollar store where she purchased some containers for her Christmas baking (gifts) and a few decorations. She told me that she has changed her mind about "not doing Christmas" this year and is going to put up a tree.

Immediately I thought about how much this will mean to Kadir.

We walked up Davie towards the beach and tried out the little restaurant called The Red Umbrella that I pass so often but have never visited. She had sausages and eggs and I ordered a single blueberry pancake and a fruit cup.

She wound up sharing mine too, at my invitation. It was great food, tasting very homemade and at a good price.

Afterwards we walked back home along the seawall. She headed home to start baking and after checking mail I went back towards Safeway to do my grocery shopping. It had started to rain when Chaya left but by the time I got back to English Bay the sun had re-appeared and so I took the opportunity to stroll up to 2nd Beach and get in a bit of exercise.

Along the way I saw two elderly men talking, or rather one holding court and the other listening with an over-polite, and rather conciliatory expression on his face. The one talking said, “If you dig a deep enough hole, you can bury anything.”

I often wonder at these out of the blue enigmatic "messages from the universe".

The water was calm and serene and it felt peaceful to look out at the horizon as I walked, but on my return along an especially smooth stretch of sandy beach I paused to admire the way the water touched and spread over the sand.

I was engrossed in the tactile look and feel of sea caressing shore when I heard the unexpected crash of surf behind me and noticed that there were several large waves arcing in which I assumed was the result of a wake of a recently passing freighter.

The surf subsided and as I walked further I was startled and awakened by even heavier surges hitting the beach I had just passed.

I stopped again to study the surface of the water and a few huge waves, seemingly out of nowhere, crashed into the seawall where I stood and splashed up over the seawall so that I had to jump back to avoid being soaked.

This activity continued for several more minutes as I stood and watched. There was a young woman standing by a bench a few steps away, talking to someone on her cell phone and she was yanked from that ho-hum ritual by this sudden activity of nature and I heard her say, “What’s with these fucking big waves?” My sentiments fairly exactly!

As I stood there I had an inkling of what it must feel like to be caught in a tsunami. I thought maybe this was a mini tsunami and still feel that this may have been the case.

For a few brief moments I was reminded how it must feel to stand at the very edge of the world.