Every time I go for a walk in the forest known as Pacific Spirit Regional Park in my lovely and tragically overpriced dumb blonde of a city, Vancouver, it is with the instinctive expectation that I am going to be there alone. I am always disappointed. There will be someone jogging or biking past me, usually from behind, usually without warning, usually on a narrow trail. There will be two or three people of any gender but often female who simply cannot shut the f-you-see-k up so that someone else can enjoy the silence of the forest. There will be family groups with kids who behave worse than their dogs and there will be dogs that have to bark at and threaten anyone who has the temerity to walk past.
I think this expectation of solitude has two sources: the fact that when I began walking in this forest some forty-three years ago I was usually almost always alone. It wasn't a park in those days but simply an unofficial forest with trails. Nobody went there unless they lived nearby and even then it was a well-kept secret. The other reason is a little more nuanced: I always have a natural, perhaps instinctive expectation that the forest is going to be silent and unpeopled, as it always has been and always should be.
I have learned how to cope. When the first irreverent boob destroys my tranquility, often within the first five minutes of my being there, I try to remind myself now that this is the current normal. The University Endowment Lands, given by the Crown to the University of British Colombia, were bought by the provincial government and transformed into a regional park. This meant that the huge forest would never become an endless network of housing developments and shopping malls. It also meant that the forest finally had public legitimacy. Suddenly everyone was coming there. The tranquility was destroyed. Now, when I go, I have to employ coping strategies of letting blabber mouths pass so I don't have to endure their babble while listening for birds. I have learned to be (mostly) gracious towards insensitive joggers and cyclists whom would sooner trample over you than civilly let you pass. I have learned to welcome strangers to share my favourite bench (there were no benches before it became a park), to chat with them and to even make new friends. I have become super-concerned about visitors who appear lost while anxiously studying one of the many maps posted at trail intersections. To my surprise I enjoy the interaction as well as the opportunity to help.
The inevitability of other people is rather like the Caps Lock key on my keyboard. It always comes up whether expected or not. During my break in my favourite café on campus an entire family asked if they could share my table (I was in one of the comfy chairs). Remembering my good Canadian manners I smiled and said, yes of course, please join me. They sat and drank and ate, husband, wife and baby and toddler. I asked if they were from Korea. They were Mongolian, the first Mongolian people I have ever met. She is studying mining engineering. They were nice, we enjoyed visiting. I showed them my drawings (I was working in my sketchbook, as always). I learned that in Mongolia the Chinese are hated and the Russians are loved, even though the Russians are ill-mannered brutes and the Chinese are polite and diplomatic. The children were quiet and frequently held, hugged and cuddled by both parents. Very well-loved children. Even though I was glad to have my space back when they left I also felt a sense of loss as they left as quickly as they had appeared.
People are necessary and inevitable. We cannot live without each other, no matter where you fit on the artificial spectrum of the introvert-extrovert binary. But sometimes it is just so lovely to have a few hours in the forest, mesmerized by sunlight filtering through trees, by the timeless music of birds and leaves rustling in the wind, and bathed in the illusion that you are the only person in existence, if only for two or three precious hours.
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