Down to the Woods

My Birthday. I worked today but luckily from home, started early and finished early. I was thinking about my round trip yesterday, to the Okanagan. Ninety-seven minutes on a plane and at least five hours in the rental car, a Ford Focus, not to mention the two taxi rides to and from the airport. In the taxi on the way back home I told the taxi driver about my highlight in the OK: a black bear crossing the highway half way back to Kelowna from Rock Point, the junction of Highways 3 and 33. Coming toward me was a light blue pickup, then the bear broke out of the forest on the right and lumbered between us across the highway into the forest on the left, and the driver in the blue pickup up slowed down, and so did I. The bear was gone into the bushes and I couldn’t take my eyes off the road for too long. I didn’t look at the other driver, and put my foot on the gas. I remember saying, Hey, to myself, when I first saw the bear, and the way it gauged how fast it needed to run, like it wasn’t scared.

On the way down to Rock Point and further to Grand Forks, right around Beaverdell, the forest opens out to the right and you’ll get a glimpse of the most beautiful, pebbly creek flowing through the woods and under the highway. Then a Rest Stop. So you pull over and park the car and get your bag and step out into the sun and breeze. You lock the car and head to the outhouse, and use the outhouse, no details necessary, other than the wooden door slams when you close it and you’ll jump. Outside again there’s the dappled parking lot and grass and the trees to the right, and what looks like a path to the river, so you think, Why not? So you head down the path through the woods, to the sandy shore, which makes you realize this creek, more a river, has been here a long time. And you look at the beautiful pebbles and rocks and water and trees on the opposite bank and some kind of factory on the other shore, high up and back. The colour of brick. And you look at the water and the pebbles and think, Why not? So you step off the sand onto the rocks and stop at the water’s edge and bend down and dip in your hand. The water’s cool. Then you dip in both hands, then stand up and pat your hands dry on the back of your coat. Maybe you stand there for a while and soak in the sun, maybe you get out your cell phone and take pictures. At some point you’ll turn around and head back to the path through the woods and the parking lot. Maybe when you’re on the bank you hear the sound of the bathroom door slam, and realize you’re not alone.

It’s only a day later, today, that I realized the potential danger. That there could have been a bear on the shore of that river, or someone. And what that would have been like. Good or bad.