A Sweet Moment (6)

  I am not sure if this really qualifies as a sweet 'moment' but in some ways it really is one of the sweetest; it is just a different kind of sweet ~ and this is a bit of a longer story than some.
  This one dates back and starts when I was twelve or thirteen. My parents allowed me to go on holidays with a family that lived down the road from our farm. We lived on Vancouver Island at the time. This family and I were headed to a magical, you can't even believe how magical, island called Hornby. I have different clear memories from this time ~ like fresh croissants from the little store at the campsite if we got there early enough in the morning, phosphorescents in the water at night, really camping for one of the first times in my life, wild ocean, sleeping on a boat, and having a sense of freedom to make my own choices I had never experienced. I could go on and on but this is not the point of the moment other than the freedom.
  I think a lot of my life I felt constrained. I was always holding back or holding something in and even though I couldn't put a finger on it I knew a lot of 'me' was buried deep down somewhere. One day on Hornby island we were at the nude beach. I feel like a lot of Canadians are a bit conservative in that sense and so there are not nude beaches absolutely everywhere. There are certain few and many stay well away from them. Well on this island there was a nude beach. My dad had expressly told me to stay away from this beach but this was the beach the family went to when they were on Hornby. I tried to be a good girl and the first time we went there my friend and I walked to the other beach that was not nude but it felt scary to be away from adults and in the ocean sort of alone. The next day was cloudy and overcast and so when we went to the nude beach really no one was there. We stayed for a while (my friend and I stayed covered just in case anyone was worried) but then my friend and I got cold and we went and sat in the car to warm up.
  There was a house above the beach. It reminded me of the White Sands Hotel in some ways (in Anne Of Green Gables) because it was set just above the ocean looking out onto it, and I remember wishing I could live there. I really noticed that house and looked at it while in the car. Then I saw something else.
  Down by the waters edge danced a woman. She was naked and she was not dancing in a way that was at all provocative. She was dancing in the most beautiful way I have ever seen someone dance and it was the dance of total freedom. It was like she was casting off all her shackles and all her chains and she was one with the water, sand and waves. It was not bright sun, the wind was blowing and it was cold but she was dancing, and I just wished I could do the same...somehow I could feel that freedom that she was portraying.
  I never forgot her.
 Years and years later I went to Hornby again. I was going with a small group of friends and I was pregnant with my fourth child. I didn't know the location of where we would be staying while on the island I just joined the trip and went. When I arrived I realized I was staying at the White Sands Hotel! We were at the house above the beach where years before I had wished I could be. I realized I was looking down at the same beach I saw the dance. That trip was filled with an ethereal and exquisite beauty. There were wild flowers, sunlit orchards, forest paths, sandy beaches, pottery delights, delicious food and a precious time to watch stars, rest and bond with my baby within.
  I got some pictures taken there that in some way epitomized how far I had come in casting off constraints and although there maybe wasn't one specific sweet moment...there was in the realization that I was back in that very place where I had realized I wished to be free... and to realize how much more free I had become and what a hard and beautiful journey it had been.

Here are some pictures (the last few taken by my friend Emily)