John and Christopher are downstairs getting things set up for the potluck. I helped for a while, getting out and setting up tables and dishes and chairs and stuff, but they accepted my excuse that I was tired, so they happily let me take off up here to my dear little bedroom for a siesta. I just told them I'd been out for a walk. I didn't tell them where, and I'm not going to tell them, or not yet anyway.
I took the trail, the grand staircase, as John calls it, down to the beach. In the summer people go naked here, so it is a nudist beach. When I found my way to the bottom there was a concrete gun tower, built in the Second World War, facing towards Japan. What a sad era that must have been, living in fear and hate, and yes, I know about how badly treated were the poor Japanese Canadians here, stripped of their property, their citizenship and herded into concentration camps. David Suzuki spent part of his childhood in one of those camps, but he has said that this gave him time and freedom to explore nature and to awake his passion for the environment. and Suzuki has been my biggest inspiration to enroll in environmental studies, where I plan to soon continue again.
There is a second gun tower, at the other end of the beach, before it bends around to the notorious Wreck Beach, where people go naked. Must be quite a sight.
I don't know where I got the idea, but I started piling stones together, into a mound, and then it seemed to be a kind of altar. When it was finished, I lay down on the altar, as though offering my life to God. I don't know what this means, or if it's going to mean anything. I have never done anything like that before...
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