Keats

I remember the smell of blackberries, the sight of well-trodden trails through the forest and the taste of orange Tang and Lipton Chicken Noodle Soup on which my father and I feasted in the tiny old kitchen. It was the kind of place that assaulted the senses and there are still things that I taste and smell that remind me of those times. Our cabin had been in my family for at least a couple of generations before I came along and it was rundown, a bit musty, and yet totally charming. The coast below was jagged and rocky; I remember the sound of the waves pounding against the rocks all day and that salty redolence that anyone who has grown up near the ocean will try to describe, yet always fails to truly capture. As it is now during the summer, my favourite part of the day was the evening as the breezes curled in from the sea and the deer came out to graze on the lush green fields around Keats Camp. And who could forget the golf carts, which residents of Keats use to travel any distance since traditional vehicles are not driven on the island!

I spent parts of my boyhood summers on Keats Island, which is on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia opposite Gibsons. In order to get there, you had to take three ferries: Departure Bay to Horseshoe Bay, Horseshoe Bay to Langdale, and from Langdale you hopped on a little ferry called The Dogwood Princess to get to Keats Island. This annual summer trip was the highlight of my year when I was a kid because Keats was a little boy's paradise: fishing for shiners off the Government Wharf, catching crabs, swimming, boating, picking blackberries and freely tramping through the forest without a care in the world along with Casey, our faithful Golden Retriever. It was easy to while the days away up on Keats because there was no schedule and more than enough to keep a curious, energetic kid like me busy. For example, one of my favourite 'toys' was the electric fly swatter--I loved sizzling bugs of all kinds with it and it kept me occupied for hours on end! Another Keats pastime was hanging out with my second cousins, who had a cabin on the lot next to ours, whenever our vacations overlapped. They were a lot of fun and loved adventure, so being the youngest I loved that they treated me well and let me tag along on their forays around the island. However, as much as I associate Keats with summer and fun, I also equate it with one person: my father.


My father was my hero growing up and Keats was a place that brought us closer together, which was essential for me because I lived with my mother. I always sensed that Dad felt more at peace when he was here--he had license to putter around, work on the cabin, read, and he always enjoyed taking me to Sandy Beach (a highly original name, I know) and Salmon Rock, both of which were a fair trek away from the cabin. I idolized my father as a boy--in my eyes, he could do no wrong. He was patient with me, he gave me rides on his back when my feet were tired from walking, he helped me (and later my younger sister) make blackberry jam because I was too young to make it myself, and he taught me how to do a variety of other things. My father is a teacher and so he can take almost any situation and turn it into a 'teachable moment'; there were many teachable moments in the summers as I learned how to tie proper knots, bait a hook, properly weight a backpack and how to steer a boat. We spent all of our time together--I peppered him with questions, talked with him about his work as teacher, and just generally desired to know as much about him and his life as I could because it was a foreign world to mine. Dad and I bonded at Keats and I know that we were both sad to leave each summer when our time had come to an end.

These days, my relationship with my father has changed considerably as I am (arguably) a grown man and my father lives 200 kilometres away with his second wife and three young daughters. As I grew up I began to view Dad through a far different lens; I began to grasp that he was not a superhero, but merely a man with flaws, frustrations, and insecurities like anyone else. I count this as the first real feeling of loss that I ever experienced and I imagine that I am still coping with the effects of that loss. It is inevitable that a boy's relationship with his father changes when he becomes a man, yet it's often strange to me that my father has taken more of a backseat role by virtue of the paths our respective lives have taken and the physical distance that separates us. The father-son relationship is often a complicated one and I think that over the years ours has been no exception. I am both the oldest of his five children and his only son; there are a lot of expectations and pressures there, both real and perceived. Like most good fathers, I am sure he had a vision of what what kind of man he wanted me to be and like most sons, I craved his acceptance and approval. These days, the two of us live very distinct lives, do not always see eye-to-eye (especially about faith and politics), and I think we frequently struggle to understand one another. Even so, I am thankful that despite our differences there is a mutual respect, love, and affection between us. And the Leafs. You can never forget the Leafs...

Recently it has dawned on me just how much I miss about those summers at Keats: spending all day outdoors in the sun, the sound of the ocean pounding against the shore at night as I fell asleep, and hanging out with Dad. I have always had a bit of a "Peter Pan complex" (as I've termed it), a fear of growing up and being responsible because I am convinced that for all that you gain with adulthood, you lose elsewhere in equal measure. And thus as I think back on those times I realize that what I yearn for most, more than freedom or time with my father, is my innocence. I often ache to not know all that I now know about life, pain and human nature--the weight of it is sometimes completely overwhelming. Perhaps I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about this as it occupies my thoughts far more regularly the older I get, but I find I can't help it. Countless times I have wished that I could erase certain events, things that have been said, or things that I have been told, but sadly that is impossible. My life has changed irrevocably and will never be what it was. Thankfully, I always have these wonderful recollections of my boyhood to which to escape, a time of naivety that was infused with wonder and the belief that everything was going to be okay. And the memory of feeling safe as I rested in my father's strong, sun-bronzed arms.