I decided at the last minute to go to the island with Nathan. So much for all of the “should haves”. Besides, how am I supposed to know ‘what’s in it for me’ unless I make an effort to find out?

I really liked Nanaimo—at least the part of it where we were, in Harewood or ‘University Town’. Harewood isn’t too far from Nanaimo proper, the notorious downtown with the ancient bastion, cute little harbour and myriads of crackheads. Harewood is low-end, with huge potential. Lots of 40’s era quirky abodes housing students, Hell’s Angels, and stray cats; all sporting yards with dried-out grass lawns. And in the case of Nathan’s friend Aaron’s place, pots full of colourful fake flowers (he and his girl Jennie readily admit to an absence of green thumbs in their household). I think the rent they are paying for their 2-bedroom house-and-yard is roughly equivalent to what Nate and I are dishing out for the one-bedroom basement suite in Aldergrove. I think Aldergrove should pay ME to live here.

Anyway, Nanaimo stuck me as dirty and sweet—ripe for a little cultural revolution. There are some arty-funky shops downtown which always bolsters my spirit. It seemed like the more icky-type shops (Pawn Shops, XXX Video Stores and the Hydroponic Supply) were shut down. That’s since the last time I was there, about a year ago. I found my imagination scrambling to imagine what business I would run if the storefront was mine… a futurizing activity I haven’t partaken of in a while. I guess Nanaimo inspired me a little. I’ve always been a sucker for potential!

When we first arrived, Nate quickly involved us in a hike to some waterfalls with his buddies Jeremy and Griffin, and two other guys. These are the type of guys who are made out of elastic bands. They eat McDonalds. They skateboard and do backflips off of sandpiles. They can climb like monkies and fly like squirrels and recover from a hangover in the space of a couple of hours. In short, they were young, healthy, and fully capable of kicking my ass. I didn’t realize that I had something to prove, until I couldn’t prove anything…

Yeah. So the waterfalls? Lovely. One after another tumbling into each other in a deep, ferny, mossy, cool forest. Getting to them required navigating some goat paths and then rappelling down some steepish dirt paths, and THEN (to get to the bottom two waterfalls) rappelling down a rock face. I use the term “rappelling” in the loosest sense. What I mean is that there was some nasty old plastic rope with knots in it, tied around a tree at the top of the rock face, and I squealed and grunted all the way down, hoping to hell that if I fell that Nate would catch me (or that I wouldn’t kill him if I fell on him). I made it down. I was pumped full of adrenaline! I was awesome! I rewarded myself with a panty-and-bra dip in the frigid second-waterfall pool. The monkey boys scaled a rock face to the bottom pool. I took some pictures, waited and wandered a bit. Admired ferns. Then, slap, bang, time to go! One monkey up the rock face, two monkeys, three… and this little piggy stayed home.

I couldn’t do it. Could not. I tried with shoes and without. I tried to find another path. I tried with Nathan below, trying to hoist my bountiful booty up, up, up… Couldn’t do it. The monkeys were gone, long gone. Just me and Nathan, stuck at Waterfall Two. What if we were stuck there forever? What if a bear could smell my fear and decided to come and eat me?

Thank goodness Nate stayed with me to find a solution. We ended up traversing up the mossy ferny pitch to our immediate right, pulling ourselves nearly on our stomachs through the brambles and snails. I had dirt in my panties. I had spiders in my bra. But I wanted to live, I wanted to escape!

The monkeys came back, hooting “HALOOOoooo” through the woods until the located us from a vantage point above, and directed us the last bit of the way up to the path. They had all gone all the way back to the cars before they realized that we weren’t ahead of them. Or behind them.

Getting back to the cars was satisfying, a victory. I didn’t prove anything to anybody but myself—and that is, that I can survive. Ha! Take that, imaginary bears! You didn’t eat me, after all!

The rest of the weekend was fun, if less death-defying (by my standards). We saw “Dark Knight” and slept on a futon. I visited Jess and Ryan in Courtenay, and built sandcastles (or one big sand mound, really) with Colin and Anna-Maria’s kids. I found a starfish and hermit crabs and a very interesting baby sea-slug. (fluorescent orange boobily-tendril body with neon-blue antennae—like a crawling anemone). I smiled into the sun. I took pictures of the ocean.

It’s weird to me how our ‘long weekends’ are just big party weekends, with no common purpose. You can go camping or hiking, boozing, cruising or snoozing. There’s no real guideline for how a Canadian holiday MUST be celebrated. (Other than Canada Day, which means wearing red and white and having flags painted on your cheeks and watching fireworks). I think it’s nice, the autonomy to choose. I also think it’s sad, as we’re missing that “piece of a bigger pie” feeling that I got at hana-mi or hana-bi festivals in Japan.

Regardless. I had fun. And I survived!