Have you read that book "Snow Falling On Cedars"?\u00c2\u00a0 No, not seen the movie.\u00c2\u00a0 The movie, which got mediocre reviews, ruins the experience.\u00c2\u00a0 The real truth is in your mind.\u00c2\u00a0 A great book is fully fleshed out in your brain, you can not only see it, but FEEL IT!<\/p>\n
About a decade ago, after a long Christmas holiday, I petered out.\u00c2\u00a0 It was New Year’s Day, a Sunday I believe, the last day off before people went back to work, before the year began.\u00c2\u00a0 I could not move, could barely get out of bed, the deafening silence, the lack of connection, it had finally become too much.\u00c2\u00a0 Trying to figure out how to entertain myself within the confines of my abode, my eyes stumbled on a copy of the book someone had given me months before.\u00c2\u00a0 I was in one of those moods where I could dedicate myself to plowing through the first twenty pages, and I got hooked.<\/p>\n
I love books.\u00c2\u00a0 But what everybody recommends, they don’t reach me.\u00c2\u00a0 I need something immediate, something not caught up in description.\u00c2\u00a0 And therefore my previous attempt at "Snow Falling On Cedars" had failed.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it’s not my kind of book.\u00c2\u00a0 But like an album you don’t like the first time through, after spending enough time with it I became enraptured.\u00c2\u00a0 The mood resonated, of a cold silent night when too much snow brought a village to a crawl.\u00c2\u00a0 I knew the feeling, from my college days in Vermont.<\/p>\n
At the last meeting Ted was peeling stickers off a hat.\u00c2\u00a0 He told me he’d bought it at the Roots store on Robson.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s when I realized that I could be in Vancouver and not SEE Vancouver, that I had to get out of the hotel, preferably before the sun fell.\u00c2\u00a0 And after calling Bruce Allen, that’s what I did.\u00c2\u00a0 Exit the Sheraton in the waning light.\u00c2\u00a0 Towards what I thought was Robson.<\/p>\n
But after a couple of blocks without stores I got worried.\u00c2\u00a0 I summoned all my courage and asked the young man at the corner.\u00c2\u00a0 Who grudgingly informed me I had it all wrong, that I needed to turn around, backtrack and then go off on a ninety degree angle.<\/p>\n
Actually, he didn’t tell me to backtrack.\u00c2\u00a0 But I did so.\u00c2\u00a0 Figuring I’d better start from the hotel, so I could remember the cross street, so I could find my way back.<\/p>\n
Now I didn’t only ask about Robson, but the water.\u00c2\u00a0 Which way was THAT?\u00c2\u00a0 Turns out I was 180 degrees off on that.<\/p>\n
Although Robson was felt to be too commercial in our little discussion group, it satiated me.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it was ALIVE!\u00c2\u00a0 There was a beat, a pulse, that you don’t find in Los Angeles, where nobody walks.<\/p>\n
And turning at the HMV, I started to stride towards the agua, even though only concrete was in sight.<\/p>\n
It was funny.\u00c2\u00a0 You had emporia.\u00c2\u00a0 Selling the unnecessary items of an upwardly mobile society.\u00c2\u00a0 And TONS of ethnic restaurants.\u00c2\u00a0 Mostly Asian.\u00c2\u00a0 And Asian is my favorite.\u00c2\u00a0 I could live here.\u00c2\u00a0 And I noticed there were high rises just off the boulevard.\u00c2\u00a0 That people DID live here.<\/p>\n
And then the stores ended.\u00c2\u00a0 It was fully residential.\u00c2\u00a0 But I pressed on.\u00c2\u00a0 Slipping and sliding in my Nikes on the frozen sidewalk.\u00c2\u00a0 I went down a hill, then up one.\u00c2\u00a0 And just when I felt I had it wrong and was about to turn around I saw a yellow sign off in the distance, in the middle of the road.\u00c2\u00a0 This had to be a dead end.\u00c2\u00a0 This had to be the water.<\/p>\n
But it turned out not to be the bay.\u00c2\u00a0 But a river.\u00c2\u00a0 Off in the distance, high in the sky, I could see the lights of Grouse Mountain, where people were night skiing.\u00c2\u00a0 But down at my level…\u00c2\u00a0 There was fog.\u00c2\u00a0 Across the river were evergreens fading in and out of sight.\u00c2\u00a0 It was just like "Snow Falling On Cedars".\u00c2\u00a0 There wasn’t a single other soul there, but I felt so ALIVE!\u00c2\u00a0 It was just me and my thoughts.\u00c2\u00a0 L.A. is fun in the sun, Vancouver is people.\u00c2\u00a0 Three-dimensional.\u00c2\u00a0 Not dieted down for photo shoots, but human beings.<\/p>\n
You think you’re at the center of the universe.\u00c2\u00a0 But then you realize how many crazy components make up a society.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody’s got to have shoes, everybody’s got to eat, and not everybody likes the same thing.\u00c2\u00a0 Individuals posit what others might want, and then open stores.\u00c2\u00a0 Peddling these wares.\u00c2\u00a0 Which sometimes grow into chains and other times go out of business and still other times stay just the same, in the original location.<\/p>\n
And I stumbled onto a library.\u00c2\u00a0 Crowded in a way bookstores NEVER are.\u00c2\u00a0 People are hungry for information, for experiences, not everybody can afford the price of acquisition, but should they be shut out of the system?\u00c2\u00a0 If the price is lowered suddenly do record stores become hubs of action once again?<\/p>\n
And after making a left turn, I end up at the bay.\u00c2\u00a0 Off in the distance…\u00c2\u00a0 Could it be a ship?<\/p>\n