Babe in the Woods

About 7 years ago, my husband (then, boyfriend) and I made the decision to move out of the city and into 'the country.' And we're not talking city suburb to small town suburb; we're talking two blocks from the heart of Kitsilano in Vancouver, to two blocks from the middle of nowhere. The learning curve started the first night when, after a full day of unpacking, we made the 25-minute drive into town to find something for dinner and luckily caught the A&W drive-thru 5 minutes before it closed. The grocery stores were dark, cafés long shut, sidewalks rolled up for the night, so to speak. An early wake-up call, coming from the land of 24-hour consumption.

For the first few months, it felt like we got a few glasses of cold water thrown in our faces. Back in Kits, I delighted in being able to walk on all my errands: groceries, drug store, post office, doctor. Suddenly, I was extremely reliant on my car (there's no bus service out this far). Then when you get to town, there's no guarantee that they'll have what you're looking for. The produce manager at one of grocery stores once looked blankly at me when I asked if he had any tomatillos (sure, not everyone is familiar with exotic vegetables, but I assumed a produce professional would have at least heard of a tomatillo). What I missed most, though, was the restaurants. There are some great restaurants in Sooke, but there were probably twice as many places to eat in one block of our old neighbourhood than there are in our entire adopted new town (yes, after 7 years we're still considered newcomers by some of the 'real' locals). When we lived a few blocks from the 5th Avenue Cinemas, we caught a couple of great movies every month. Now, with no local movie theatre (as well as the addition of our son) we're lucky to see one movie on the big screen per year. And while our local community centre offers some great classes and services, they're no match for the variety you can find in an urban centre.

That's just one side of the equation, though. We've learned and gained so much from living out in the bush. For instance, I learned that an adolescent black bear can fit through a dog door, and I should therefore NOT store a full bag of garbage out on the enclosed porch overnight. I've learned how to live more simply; how to be better organized and how to make do with what I have (since going back to the grocery store for something I forgot is generally not worth the time). It's forced me to become a better cook, because there's no pizza delivery out to our neck of the woods. I've gained trees, relatively secluded beaches, dazzling displays of stars in the night sky, bugs and slugs, bunnies, quail, eagles, bears, otters and seals. While I do have to work a little harder at finding social outlets for my son, I've never felt the need to buy one of those books on how to facilitate your child's connection with nature. We generally have to work at keeping nature from waltzing in the front door.

Is one better than the other? Depends on who you are, and who you ask (and for me, it sometimes depends on what day you ask). I do sometimes miss the energy and vibrancy of the city, but even the thought of leaving my little cabin in the woods makes me a little teary-eyed. It's been said that Vancouver Island moves at a slower pace than Vancouver itself, but I think it's more accurate to say that it just vibrates at a lower frequency. The energy is completely different; it's less about where you're going, and more about where you are. Less about finding your place in the world, and more about finding the world in it's place. And that's a beautiful thing.