This is the end of a journey, and the beginning of a new one. On October 5th, 2006 I began this blog. I was filled with angst then, full of uncertainty about who I was and what was to come. I remember sitting in the lounge of the hostel with my laptop, a heaviness upon me and a fear that I would not find what I was looking for. My soul was weary that I would not change on this journey and return with cuts still bleeding. I'm glad to say that this is not what transpired.

Now 8 months and 10 days later I am writing my last entry. I don't know what it is about time that changes things so much - but it must be magic and perhaps the healing hand of god, of the universe that conspires in your favor to bring you your greatest gifts.

In those earliest days of Vancouver, my heart screamed out for love. I looked everywhere for salvation within the warmth of another's heart, but I did not find it here. Looking back now, even if I did find a lover then, I know the coldness and fear inside of me would not have passed. It was not the security of another I needed, but the security within myself. It is fitting that now in the last days of this dream, I have fallen in love again, not with a man, but with the ocean and the surf. I feel safe now, knowing that when darkness draws upon me once more, when life no longer makes sense, I can retreat to the ocean and the waves.

Surfing was not the only gift that the universe brought me in this time, it also gave me back my soul. I feel finally that I am no longer walking the abyss between death and life - I do not feel that I will fall. The sky still stands; my heart still beats.

Now I move forward to Edmonton where a new city awaits me. A new life and another island to rest upon. There I know I will find love again, there I will become a man.

Thanks everyone for riding the waves of this dream with me. See you soon.

Love
QC

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.


Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.


Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.


And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

C.P. Cavafy
______________________

May you find solace in the ocean
May the waves take away your pain and set you free

I have finally found a part of myself I've been searching for. The waves have given birth to me, the great water mother who lifts me up and plunges me into existence. I feel a desire in me I have not felt for many years, a yearning to live and to be free. I want to capture what I felt in the water in every moment of my life.

In the deep blue everything made sense for once. The questions faded from my mind and the answers no longer mattered. I have searched my entire life for this kind of peace, this kind of understanding and being.

I now know the man I want to become; I know what kind of life I wish to lead.

God I have never felt anything so amazing like this except for falling in love. And in a way this is falling in love as well...falling in love with the ocean and the beauty and terror that it holds.

I want to feel again the waves in my face, the pure force of the water around me. It is fate that brought me to the waves, and it is destiny that will take me back there again.

Out in the ocean, there is nothing but me and the waves. The world fades away.

I paddle out to sea on my surfboard, struggling through the burning in my arms and body. The waves crash into me and my mouth fills with a saltiness so pungent it takes my breath away. What a plunge into existence. What a way to feel alive, struggling against this beast.

And then, turning around and catching the breaking water...the acceleration into air...the rumbling beneath me. It is as if the ocean has become a part of me, no longer an enemy but a bird that lifts me free.

I can see nothing but water. I can hear nothing but the waves. I can taste nothing but the saltiness. I can feel nothing but the cold living liquid against my body.

And though my body is aching, screaming at me to give up and go back to shore....there is nothing I want more but to head back out into the swirling water, to become the sea.

Surfing has changed my life.

"Surfing and life can be defined as how well you can get on the back of this shifting beast."

-Sam Bleakley

Wednesday night in Tofino. The hostel is like a communal home...people come and go, cook, live, laugh and cry here. It is a safe place for those who seek it. What am I seeking? What do I want more than anything else in the world?

I swam in the ocean today. It filled me with fear and joy as if I finally believed I was alive. The coldness of the pacific jarred me into awakening and the salt in my mouth lifted me into the sky. And running on the beach...I felt like a bird free to fly to wherever the wind blows.

I am waiting here, resting here, waiting for that final moment when love will knock on my door.

Pray for me, pray for happiness for me and peace along this great journey. Tonight I serenade the past goodbye.

I am closing chapters, I am ending. It seems a whole lifetime has passed here, it seems that everything before here has faded into shadow. And now the city itself is retreating. I am pulling my awareness from its streets.

Only now, in these darkening moments of the dream, have I began to realize the massiveness of the endeavor here. I sank into the depths of the abyss, breaking apart the walls of former illusions and letting go of pasts I no longer wished to remember. I was destroyed, fractured into pieces I wasn't sure I would ever put together again.

But now, now I feel whole and free. I feel like a new day is finally beginning. From the darkness of the moon I rise into the glory of the sun.

Within the last few weeks I have spent here, a new thought is emerging - I am becoming a man. This arcane feeling rises and stirs for moments at a time and I am uncertain at what it means. I only know that I feel this solidness, this awareness of an unbreakable rock within me, this knowing that somehow I have a found a part of myself that will never change again. It makes me feel safe and certain. I am sure that further exploration in regards to this lies ahead in Edmonton.

This blog I began on my second day in Vancouver. It has chronicled my entire time here, capturing the essence of what I felt and the thoughts going on inside me. I have one more week left here, and it almost time I end it. It has been a good excercise, allowing me to express my thoughts and forcing me to be honest since I am not the only reader. But I am glad to be leaving it behind...there is too much heaviness here. Thank you to all those who have followed along on this journey.

I am glad to be moving forward again and I am excited to see what is to come.

I sit quietly in my room, breathing in, alive in this moment and plunging into the unknown abyss of the future. Will you be there with me? Do you see where I am going?

My things are scattered around me, pages of written poems and stories, brief moments of clarity and vision. This is my history laid out before my eyes. Faces in pictures gaze out at me - my mom drawing and cutting patterns on a bed, my brother smiling in a red and plaid one-piece jumper - all reminders of what has passed and perhaps an omen of what is to come. I sing at the top of my lungs, swaying to the music filling my ears - I am drunk with emotion.

My life is folding and enfolding in layers and circles, cycles and paths. I can feel the magic of the landscapes I have called home. I see the ocean, I see the river, I see the lake and I belong to all of these places. I belong to you and to me. Oh mother earth, take me now, take me down and swing me low to the bosom of your warmth - in the fields, in the skies I dig and soar into you.

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I remember walking with you down the path on the prairie. It was so straight, trodden down by man in a field of knee-high grass and barely visible. Somehow we found it and followed in the footsteps of those before us. This was a dragon line, a ley line of the earth that is said to reflect the dreams of stars above. The more we walked, the more our souls flew forth into the forefront of existence and suddenly everything seemed so unbelievably clear. I loved you and you loved me and that was the only truth there was. "You know, I could spend the the rest of my life with you." These words spoke themselves truthfully from within me - there was nothing we couldn't make through together. But even as I spoke it I knew that it wasn't meant to be, that it was for another life and not this one. Then I fell to my knees, bowing to the greatness of the goddess. Her fingers of wild grain touched my face and the setting sun peaked through the swirling stormy clouds. This was it, this was the moment when it all ends. And I was grateful then, for being able to see how all this was meant to be, I was grateful for your presence beside me because no one should ever experience this beauty alone.

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In my mind I am driving through the yellow prairie, glorious in the full bloom of canola and I am winding through the valleys of the okanagan, alight in orange from the evening sun. The highway wind blows in my face and I am both inside and outside of myself. I am the land, and I am the sky. What is this love affair with the earth? How often have I fallen asleep in her arms to awaken to the sound of birds and the tingle of insect legs upon me? How often have I fallen in love with you over and over again?

And now I am returning to you. Soon I will be in your forests and on the edge of the great ocean, where all things come from and all things return. My life is shifting, my insides are turning and moving with the rhythms of your soul and the tides of the moon. I pray to you to bring me peace on this journey. I pray, please find me and embrace me in your presence. Then, I can move forward without fear, without the edge of pain that hangs so sharply against me, and without any doubt that I, indeed, am going where my dreams are leading me.