Shucking Oysters: How Was Your Summer?
By Alex Allen
Aaah September: my favourite time of the year for many reasons. September has always represented a new beginning. It must be a school thing. The January new year has never resonated with me. Why should I be forced to stay up until midnight and make resolutions that I will never follow? No, September is when I start new projects and ponder deep thoughts (like the varying surface tension of coffee). Another reason. We get our island back.
I don’t know about you but each year I find myself saying, “that was the busiest summer, ever.” Like the weather, every year we get hotter. Sometimes I ask myself, can our island even handle getting busier every year. Is it sustainable? Why can’t we be like a nightclub and only let the same amount of people in when the same amount of people leave? Six of you? Sorry, only two couples have left, and no, children do not count as pets.
Let’s be honest, living and working on Hornby in the summer can be a challenge. Everything we take for granted in the off season is null and void in the summer. A seemingly simple jaunt to the Co-op can provoke road rage, where a six-minute journey turns into 20 minutes. Even if you time your commute with the ferry arrival, it doesn’t work because they’re constantly shuttling. So just sit tight and wait for the 40 vehicles to go by and relaaaaaax.
The Urban Dictionary defines an emotional meltdown as “what happens when a person freaks out, cracks, or loses control of themselves.” We know the feeling. You’re following a group of bicyclists who insist on taking the entire road, oblivious to your need…to get….home…now. Instead of honking, you gun the engine, and the bicyclists scurry to the side of the road like startled wood bugs. I can hear you laughing crazily as you drive by. Why do we even use the word meltdown to describe a loss of decorum? Joel Hinrichs writes: “This is one of those over-the-top exaggerations. A nuclear meltdown is pretty dramatic don’t you think? Chernobyl, anyone?” Umm, I’ll get back to you.
Lie comfortably on a couch or bed. Make believe that you are floating on a cloud. Be the seaweed in the ocean floating back and forth.
There seems to be four kinds of summer drivers this year, the:
1. I brake for anything driver: an approaching car, a bicyclist on the other side of the road, the view, a driveway, possibly a pine cone, I’m not sure.
2. No, I won’t pull over driver. I know where we’re going. OK, I lied, I have no idea. But I sure as hell, won’t admit it. Ever!
3. 40K then 30K then 20K driver. Often talking on their cell phone. Completely oblivious, but one with Hornby, oh yeah.
4. The aggressive, giant diesel truck driver. Stinky fumes and attitude. Likes to drive in the middle of the road and usually brings his propane BBQ, ATV, and SeaDoo along.
The four-way stop. What is it that people don’t get? It’s not a duel. It’s not a contest on who has more attitude and or who will win. Repeat after me, if two vehicles arrive at the same time, the driver on the right goes first. Otherwise, be prepared to have a staring match with the guy in the diesel truck over who has the entitled right of way.
Start with your feet. First, turn each foot a few times; then think of your feet as being very loose, dangling like a pair of socks, Now relax your thighs. Then let your legs lie heavy. Think of your legs and feet as completely relaxed.
Back in 2005, an article on Hornby Island in BC Magazine noted: “It’s not always easy, on an island of 1,000 free spirits, to find consensus. But there are two topics sure to get islanders nodding: the rare beauty of their island and the impact of visitors on it…You can understand, then, why islanders might feel some ambivalence toward visitors: in peak periods holidayers may outnumber residents 10:1.” The author added, “yet we tourists are the lifeblood of the economy…It’s ecology versus economy, a paradox acknowledged annually in a symbolic Hornby ritual..the Wave-Off.” There lies the paradox, indeed, and that was 21 years ago.
Take a few breaths as deep as possible. Breathe gently out and then in. Feel your body sink. Get rid of every thought of tension. Instead, tense your arms; stretch them as far as you can. Tense your fingers, spread them as apart as rigid as you can. Make tight fists as though you were boxing.
As someone said, “everybody wants Hornby to stay exactly the same as the day they moved here.” How do we grapple with the ever-growing influx? How do we move together toward a future we want, in all our different ways? Maybe a good place to start is to ask ourselves: What’s important about this place and what made us all come here? Sure, Hornby has managed to retain some of its unique ways, but it’s not what it was seven, let alone 15 years ago.
In the meantime, I’m going to go to the woods and hug a tree and complain to it for 15 minutes. Next summer? Like a piece of seaweed in the ocean, I’ll probably be in the fetal position daily rocking back and forth on the living room floor.
