Better Late Than Never

When I sit down to write a post here, I generally have a theme in mind, and then try to come up with an appropriate (and hopefully, snappy) title. And sometimes, like today, the title itself will lead me to other possibilities and areas of discussion. Thus it is that we begin on 'Better Late Than Never'.

 

The primary instance that suggested this theme occurred last night. I was watching World War Z again. What a great movie it is. I'm not generally into the whole Zombie craze, and most of the flics of the genre I've seen, other than the classic Shaun of the Dead, leave me uninspired. WWZ, on the other hand is stunning in its presentation, both scary as hell and wonderfully portrayed through CGI. Because it was a 'zombie movie' I hadn't bothered to see it for ages, but finally, my curiosity got the better of me, and I was really blown away. Better late than never!

 

Anyhow, as I was near the end, Marcelle appeared at the door to the room where we have the TV and told me that there was an amazing sunset in progress. I grabbed my cameras and we drove the short distance to our local Big Beach as I could see it fleeting already. By the time we got to the picnic table overlook it was virtually gone, but it managed to snap off the few images you see here. Better late then never!

While composing this post, I also reflected that with our upcoming move back to the city, and the subsequent radical downsizing we are having to do, that I am finding what I can only describe as a 'peacefulness' in shedding so much of the clutter and possessions that we have been dragging around with us for years. Over the past seventeen years, we have moved seven times, each time perhaps not so much downsizing as jettisoning possessions, and with our expected move going from 2600 to 600 square feet, we could say a brutal culling is called for. Yet once we had made the decision on going for such a small place, as I said, I realized that there is only a subset of what we have that is absolutely necessary for our practical usage and happiness. It's a good feeling. Better late than never!

 

Finally, in reflection, one of the things that we have been disappointed about in our year here in Ucluelet is that we have met almost no one. We tried attending some of the local events but found that for the most part, they were geared for the younger, family crowd with small kids. I tried several times to see if anyone was interested in the free photography workshop that I have presented to high schools and charities, but all of my overtures were ignored. We found that the community that we wanted to be a part of seemed to have other ideas. Perhaps we simply haven't given it enough time, but other factors have intervened to call us back to the mainland, hence the upcoming move.

Ironically, since we made our decision to return to the Vancouver area, we have indeed met a couple of people that have reaffirmed our expectations about this wonderful place. We met Vi Mundy when she commented on Facebook on some of my posting, and subsequently had a wonderful few hours of gabbing over coffee, learning some fascinating history of the area and of the First Nations peoples, a subject on which we had wanted to expand our knowledge.

Then yesterday, I noticed that someone had posted on the 'Used Ukee' Facebook page that they were looking for some materials for projects, and since, as part of our drastic downsizing, I had some candidates, we ended up spending an interesting hour with David Paul Crombie, a fellow photographer whose excellent work you, Dear Reader, should definitely check out. As both photographers and musicians and technofiles, we hit it off immediately, and we look forward to spending some more time together, both before the move, and hopefully afterward as well.

Better late than never!