My Favorite Place
Tofino is my favorite place on earth. My parents drove us there every year as children when it was just a gravel logging road. We would stop and picnic on hard-boiled eggs, buttered rolls and a thermos of hot tea beside the Taylor river, sitting on the rocks, and then we would continue to the fork in the road, with Ucluelet to the left and Tofino to the right. Soon the smell of the salt spray and pungent seaweed would hit you. It is the greatest smell on earth. We had arrived!
We would find our rustic rental cottage on the beach. I remember gathering a myriad of beautiful shells and big sand dollars. There were white limpet “China hats”, pink furrowed scallops, bumpy twisted whelks and smooth mauve-olive sea snails. We all wanted to find a nice oyster shell to give our parents for an ashtray. We’d bring these treasures home to display in the woven First Nations cedar baskets we bought from the Nuu-cha-nulth First Nation craft store, although back then they were just referred to as Coast Salish.
My mother gathered Periwinkles and cooked them and dared me to try one. It was just like eating escargot, which does not appeal to any seven-year-old. Exploring the tidal pools created the most magical memories of my childhood. When you stared down into them, they seemed like a microcosm reflecting life in the entire universe. There were limpet crabs dragging their little houses behind them, reddish tentacled starfish, purple fronded sea urchins, tiny bullheads zipping across, black mussels clustered in families and every manner of sea grass.
My sister and I swam in the ocean for hours until we could no longer feel our legs. Once, my father had to pluck me out of the undertow as I nearly drowned. I can feel this memory right now with every fibre of my being; the panic, the relief of being rescued and the unforgettable knowledge of the sea’s power. No wonder this place left an indelible mark on my soul.
My lifelong obsession with the ocean cannot be denied. I am drawn there in such an inexplicable way. Don’t tell anyone, but I secretly believe that I’m a mermaid. Perhaps it’s because my mother was raised by the sea in England? It’s almost as if some past life regression is drawing me back to a birthplace I have never known. Do you have a place where you feel this connected?
