Quamichan Lake

We're house sitting, a dog and 6 chickens. Quamichan Lake is 2 blocks away , a boat launch at Art Mann Park. Goose Shit Park is what Annie used to call it as Isaac happily informed his classmates his first year of school at Queen of Angels, just down the road. Not much has changed.
My shoes are now loaded up as I carefully place them in the hatch after rolling the kayak into the water. I push off, do my stretches and glide into the tules (toolies). The first one I pull comes after slight resistance, so I know now is the time. In the next few days I will return to harvest some to dry and later made into baskets, hats and ..?
I paddle on. A brief visit to the summer program for special needs kids at the Moose Lodge.
Unfortunately they are out at the moment, I'll have to come back ungarbed.
Back in the boat I cruise past more stands of tule, cattail and another reed blooming with yellow and black flower balls. I'll bring my camera next time. there are frogs everywhere,dropping down as I glide past with a slight "plonk" the water momentarily clearing of the peasoup like algae that restricts seeing past the first 4 inches.
Some of the tule has been draped in the prolific weeds that grow below the surface, like netting as the spears rose up from the mud, captured as the water evaporates or is pumped onto the local farmers fields.
An enormous eye looks up at me, the unopened flower of the water lily , they too are draped and clothed in this thick, netlike dense collection of water weed, the pads hung over, enclosed and breaking through the drying vegetation. Little flies and waterstriders skip across the scum and debris as I chase a Great Blue Heron along the shore. Eventually he/she flies out of the reeds onto a snag and I glide by avoiding eye contact. I'm blown away (somewhat) when what looks like a Golden Eagle flies over and around me.
My compass reads 0" I am heading straight north towards Saltspring Island. The perspective down this low is remarkable. I cannot tell where I am in relation to the roads. I'm looking into waterfront properties, some with landscaped water access, docks and boat houses, others a jumble of bulldozed material and the default response, low maintenance willows, reeds and cottonwoods. A huge acreage of farmland then back to the high end houses some as close to water as possible.
On the south side of the lake developers have condos lining the sward interspersed with older houses none of them modest. The lake however remains the same, the reeds and brush lining and dipping in punctuated by great "fields' of water lilies, cattails and the tule in isolated clumps. An Osprey calls and flaps its great wings up onto the thinnest of branches in a big cottonwood snag.
As I approach the park a small child on the swing tries to get his mother's attention as he spots me. I wave, he waves back.

Defining myself

I have been and will continue to be, an educator. But, something else is happening to me. I have set in motion a retirement, new vistas and new possibilities for my own learning.
When I pay attention there are opportunities for promotion and notoriety. Or is that recognition and fame? Woah that brings up the shadow!
Apparently today one must brand and market to establish a presence that attracts a following in order to survive. As a writer. Did I ever consider myself as such?
Yes I have aspired to this dream. Being a writer. The rest of it seems like such triviality and hubris. I look at the sites of some writers. Paulo Coelho says he spends 3 hours a day on social networking and his blog.
I have that kind of discipline. I am making that commitment.
My life at the moment is in transition. I feel like a neophyte, in chrysalis, about to emerge in another place, another time, another incarnation of myself.
What I want is to share those sparks of recognition, of identification and possibly, enlightenment. To make you laugh, share intimate moments of embarrassment and pleasure. See the world through my eyes.
That caterpillar reaching out to investigate my camera lens is a great metaphor. The vast horizon stretches out before me in all directions.
First a summer spent enjoying the Cowichan Valley while I determine what to keep and what to discard or give away. Then a fund raising bazaar (Bizarre?) garage sale fund raiser for the folks in Tanzania. Money is lighter than bicycles and sewing machines which we can buy there. Spiced with many visits to friends and acquaintances, face to face remembrances to cherish and recall as we go our separate ways.
And as for making a living writing... what comes from traveling? New roads, horizons, acquaintances, friendships and experience. That will define me.