Historical Perspectives And Collective Trauma 19

This must be our fifth time in Stanley Park in as many days.  Ilhuitl and Juan are agreed that for them this is the best part of Vancouver and of 2017.  We have been walking in the forest for almost an hour.  Some of the huge old growth trees remain, some over five hundred years old with such massive trunks as could scarcely be imagined.  Ilhuitl, from time to time, crouches down, gathers up soil in his hands from among the roots and puts it to his nose.  Juan, on the other hand, cannot refrain from commenting on how many ships could be made from the timber.

Both my charges are weary and overwhelmed with the new world they have been abducted into.  Especially Juan, who makes every effort to try not to notice his surroundings.  He appears
to be in a perpetual bad temper and seldom can refrain from belittling Ilhuitl as an ignorant savage that worships devils.  Twice I have had to pull him off of someone he was about to deliver a good beating for getting in his way on the sidewalk.  It seems futile trying to explain to him that when pedestrians are glued to their phones they become as useless as two tits on a bull and cannot be faulted for getting in the way.  It would be like hitting a child.

We come out onto the seawall where several times I have to remind and almost bodily restrain both of them from wandering onto the bike path, where already they have had a few close shaves with oblivious cyclists.  I had to bodily restrain Juan from going after one of them.  There are not many people out today, being the morning of a weekday, and they both seem a little less overwhelmed than usual. 

There are already a few sunbathers on Third Beach, a few young women in bikinis among them.  Juan is scandalized that men and women are permitted to go nearly naked together in public places and seriously wants to know what the men have to do when they get an erection.  The women he stares hard at, as though trying to take in and memorize every tantalizing detail.  Ilhuitl seems more chill about it and I catch him casting admiring glances at skimpily clad women and men without any show of preference.

At Siwash Rock we stop to admire the great towering rock just off the seawall, jutting out from the ocean.  I tell them both the legend of Siwash, a great Squamish chief who became famous for his generosity and that as a reward, instead of dying was transformed into this huge rock.  Juan appears all set to admire and appreciate.  I explain to him and Ilhuitl both that Siwash was one of our indigenous peoples, from the same bloodline as the Mexica, and that he might even be a distant cousin to Ilhuitl.  A shadow of scorn passes across the face of Juan, but then he gently places his arm around Ilhuitl's shoulder and briefly cuddles him, like a beloved little brother.  Ilhuitl says nothing, smiles briefly, then quickly pulls away.