Two Decades Later: Dreams, Schemes & Fairy Tales

A few days ago, sprawled in the sun on the deck of the Spirit of British Columbia ferry, I was remembering my first journey across what is now called the Salish Sea, winding through the Gulf Islands to Schwartz Bay, just north of Victoria.

Back then, in another millennium, I was sixteen. I'd just come off a flight from Montreal, so excited to start my journey at Pearson College that I imagined everyone remotely within my age range on the flight was headed for the College, too (As it turns out, the skinny guy drinking milk in front of me, reading a physics textbook for fun, ended up becoming one of my best friends in first year).

Some things don't change. While the ferry deck this time was filled with families and tourists and ESL students from China and Korea wielding all manner of digital devices and selfie sticks, I still napped against my backpack on the metal life jacket containers while the sun dazzled Mount Baker and the rugged, snow-covered Olympic mountains. A pod of Orca whales played hide and seek alongside the ferry beside us. A colony of sea lions slept on a rocky outcropping on the tip of Galiano Island. Seagulls shrieked and begged for Hickory sticks and fries.

A bit later, driving through Metchosin, spotting the green Pearson College sign near the MyChosen Cafe, snaking along the winding, winding, hilly, hilly driveway (fact: the hills get higher with age), all the old feelings came back. Though I've been back to the College many times since our wailing, tearful, early morning departure in 1993, the same tumble of memories come back...late evening walks in the dark with a friend down to Weirs Beach, to spill our heartfelt secrets; jogging through the rain along the Galloping Goose to Matheson Lake; the pungent smell of salt and cedar and muck and moss permeating every cell and molecule of my being. Despite what's been a long, snowy winter on Vancouver Island, the daffodils are set to bloom. Project Week is just around the corner. Meditating in the gorgeous new Spiritual Centre overlooking Pedder Bay, deer nibbled fern and salal as the mists rose over the water and daylight finally broke.

I'm not sure about you, but over the years I've had dreams, every now and then, where I return to the College, as a kind of second chance to relive my time. In these dreams, I'm often accompanied by my entire cohort of fellow years, or sometimes just a few. Sometimes faces will appear, co-years or first years or second years I never really had the chance to know, except as a passing face, and I'll realize, in the dream, that I'll finally have the chance to sit down and have that heart to heart conversation. In these dreams, we're getting off a bus from the city or wandering along the trail to the waterfall or prepping for an exam (or realizing that the IBs are tomorrow, and we have missed an entire two years of class! Dreams of anxiety, anyone?). We're eating tacos in the  noisy dining hall or running off to service or suiting up to launch a kayak or clambering onboard Second Nature to head out to Race Rocks. These dreams are often beautiful, a distillation of time and sensation, like peering into a kaleidoscope.

I'm not back as a student, but in a lot of ways, waking up this morning to the sound of rain on the roof, making my way, with sleepy eyes, towards the Caf for a cup of coffee, sitting in one of the back rows of the Max Bell Hall for Global Affairs--it all still feels like a dream.