Finding – and marrying – the right travel partner

Sometimes memory is selective.  Maybe filtering out what it considers to be inconsequential experiences, ideas, and bits of knowledge.  Housecleaning, as it were.  In any event, although I’ve frequently told myself and others that I first met my now husband at Easter time in 1981, in fact I’d met him not once but twice before.  Evidently those times didn’t ‘count.’  But for the record, here’s the truth.  Well, as I recall it now, some 45 years later.

One of the paintings for my Velito story

In the fall of 1979 I was still ‘just back’ from a six month solo adventure in South America.  I was slowly – very slowly – adjusting to the cultural shock of re-entering a society and culture that seemed, to me, to have too much of everything but still wanting more.  I had no fixed address, but was temporarily staying at a lakeside resort on Salt Spring Island.  I spent my days writing and painting an allegorical story about Velito, a lizard-like creature searching for him or her self.  The watercolour paintings were very colourful, and based on figures found in Andean weavings, pottery and carvings.  

Some long-time friends of mine – and also my husband-to-be’s – asked if we (he and I) would look after their kids – one around two and a half and the other just over a year old – for a day and a night.  I don’t recall now where they were going, but that’s definitely inconsequential so not anywhere in my memory.  What I do remember is that they were then in a nice house on Booth Canal Road on Salt Spring.  On a promontory overlooking the canal.  With a nice grassy yard.  And I remember the colourful leaves of fall.  So it might have been mid-October.  Certainly not much later.  

Me in South American poncho, Vancouver

These friends had for some time been telling me about D, who was recently out of a long term relationship and who, in their view, would be perfect for me.  I had to meet him.  I was not in the market for a relationship with anyone, having made the decision even before my South American sojourn, that I was and would be happy on my own.  Thank you very much.  But they’d asked D to look after the kids with me, either feeling that the two boys needed two baby-sitters or, more likely, that this would be a perfect way of putting D and me ‘together.’

What I recall of that meeting, in addition to lots of time outdoors with two little ones, was that I found D to be an interesting fellow.  Very different from the career-oriented urbanites I was accustomed to.  D hailed from the Kootenays, where he’d been living for 10 years or so, on a property he referred to as ‘The Cliff,’ overlooking Kootenay Lake.  I remember most that he had very expressive hands, with many rings.  One butter amber ring that caught my eye.  He also had an earring in his left ear that he said he got when he was in Lebanon.  He was very well traveled, having been to Southeast Asia in the mid 70’s, and all over Europe before that, at times on a moped, and at times in a raft.  He was (and is) a superlative story-teller.  And I remember that he was kind, considerate and gentle.  A gentle soul.  With a soft, somewhat higher-pitched voice.  

Although I found D interesting and fun, and we had some great conversations once the kids went to bed, there was no feeling of a deeper connection.  In any event, he was heading to South America within a week or two, and who knows for how long, but certainly for the winter, which he preferred not to spend in Canada.  And I, for whatever reasons – maybe the many rings on the expressive hands, maybe the softness of voice and character – had the impression that he was gay.  Not that it mattered.  But we said our good-byes without any arrangement to meet up again.

Drexel summer home on Savary Island

The next time we met was in the summer of 1980.  I was now living in Vancouver, near the Greek area of West Broadway.  I’d recently taken a trip up to Savary Island, a place in the middle of the northern Georgia Strait, roughly between Powell River to the east and Campbell River to the west,  known for its clear waters and white sand beaches.  And for the wealthy Vancouverites that had their summer homes there.  My family had a summer home up there, built by my father and grandfather.  It was near what was then Green Point, subsequently renamed Mace Point.  

I had gone there to reconnect with the place, and spent a lot of time walking and re-exploring old haunts: our beach, of course, and the ‘other side,’ where I watched eagles with locked talons spiral down almost into the water before breaking apart.  And of course hiking to the ‘big arbutus tree,’ (fondly referred to by Savaryites as the biggest arbutus tree in BC, but really, who knew?), where years ago my family had poured my father’s ashes into one of the hollows in the tree, only to see them spilling out the bottom.  Some of us giggled.  We figured our dad, ever the joker, would have appreciated that last laugh.  

Ian Hayward

While I was up there I got a surprise phone call.  The first surprise was that the phone, which was a new addition to the old place, rang at all.  Apart from my mother, who knew I was there?  But the bigger surprise was that the person calling was someone I’d never met, and never heard of.  Ian Hayward.  A British engineer and consultant to BC Hydro.  He wanted me to come work for him on a major environmental assessment project: reviewing three proposed transmission line corridors from the Liard and Stikine Rivers all the way to the Lower Mainland.  I asked how he’d gotten my name.  Ken Farqhuarson, a Scottish engineer that I’d worked with, assessing the environmental impacts of Seattle City Light’s proposal to dam the Skagit River.  To cut this part short, I tried to make myself into an undesirable candidate by demanding ridiculously high pay and equally ridiculously limited working hours, as well as working conditions at that time not common – I wanted to work mostly from home.  He agreed to all of my demands without the least hesitation.  And so my itinerant bohemian lifestyle came to an end and I took up residence in Vancouver.

In the summer of 1980 I went over to Salt Spring Island, where my friends with the two kids were still living.  They’d recently bought a 10 acre property on Weston Lake, down on the infamous ‘south end’ of the island.  The property came with a cabin, more rightly referred to as a shack.  And that summer all sorts of friends were helping them prepare it as a more permanent place to live.  One morning, quite early, we were sitting together on the ‘deck,’ having our café con leches, when I spied a tall figure, draped in a South American poncho, ambling along the trail above us.  It was, of course, D, come to do a little light carpentry on the shack.

There were quite a few people coming and going that day.  Lots of stimulants of various descriptions.  And lots of fun.  But not lots of lasting memories except for this one: D was inside the shack working on a window frame.  There was no glass in the window (that might have been months, if not years, away).  I wandered up and ordered an ice cream cone.  I don’t remember the flavour, but my guess would be strawberry.  I remember his ready smile, but not his repartee, though I am quite sure, knowing him as I do now, that he would have had a witty reply.  He always does.  

So that was meeting #2.

Meeting #3, which both of us consider our first ‘real’ meeting, happened at Easter, 1981.  D was living full time on Salt Spring, working for BC Ferries.  I was living in Vancouver, still working on the BC Hydro project with Ian Hayward, who turned out to be a capital fellow.  My Salt Spring friends, now living in their ‘cabin’ on Weston Lake, had called me to invite me over for the weekend.   They told me D was now living on Salt Spring and gave me his phone number to call, suggesting he could pick me up at the ferry to save me from having to bring a vehicle (and knowing that getting a vehicle on a ferry on that weekend might be challenging).  

I called the number and got a woman’s voice.  Girlfriend?  Live-in?  Whatever, I just asked if D was there.  He was.  When he came to the phone all he said was ‘hi.’  But that was it.  He had me on ‘hi.’  I was his, and he, I was sure, was mine.  Don’t ask me how I knew.  I just did.  So when my friend, who saw me just before I left for the ferry, asked me ‘what’s up with you, you look completely different, are you meeting someone?’ I responded, without any hesitation and certainly without any concrete plan: ‘I’m going to meet the man I’m going to marry.’  Really?  Marry?  Where did that come from?

So he picks me up and we head to Weston Lake.  As usual it’s a party atmosphere.  And if you asked our friends they would likely tell you that D and I were at the centre of it.  They of course were ecstatic that, after months and months of them haranguing us about how we were perfect for one another we’d finally realized it for ourselves.  At one point we went for a little ride in our friends’ rowboat.  And went in circles for at least an hour, or maybe even two or three.  It was a beautiful sunny day, and we had lots to talk about… .  We spent the night together in our friends’ VW bus.  

It was, for reasons partly biological and partly self-protective, a chaste night, but our attraction to one another was genuine, and deep.  Chemistry?  Magnetism?  Something ‘in the air?’  Whatever pulled us together was a force that defied definition, and denied resistance.  We gave ourselves up to it wholly, and with ‘gay abandon,’ or, as we said then ‘gay sarong.’  We were meant to be.

That night we talked almost non-stop.  I had been planning a year long trip around the world, hoping to go with a friend who decided it was not the right time for her.  Well, it was the right time for D! (of course).  So we started planning when – before his birthday on October 21^st, which was when he preferred to ‘get out of Dodge’ – and where – Asia, where he had been, and I had not.  Thailand, Malaysia (Penang!), Nepal, India, Indonesia and maybe Burma and  Sri Lanka, where D had not yet been.  We also talked about our mutual love of amber.  We both had collections of it.  He had a nice piece of butter amber in a ring; most of my amber, from Israel, was cherry or deep purple, some of it on a necklace, but most of it loose.

And so, in one short weekend, both of our lives changed.  I informed my ‘boss,’ Ian Hayward, that I’d met the man I was going to marry, and would be quitting my job with him by summer’s end.   We found a replacement, and I started ‘training’ her right away.  (Interestingly, the Liard and Stikine projects were shelved within a few months of my departure.)  Although I continued living in Vancouver, and D on Salt Spring, I was over there, or less frequently he was in Vancouver, and we were together much of the time.  

From this time I remember wonderful, relaxing, fun times on Salt Spring.  I remember learning more about who this person was.  That in addition to being kind, and gentle, and thoughtful, he was also the most widely read and intelligent people I’d ever met.  But he was modest, almost self-effacing, offering up his knowledge when asked or needed.  He was interested in everything – history, geography, the animal kingdom, birds, the cosmos, mechanics, and all of the arts.  He was also resourceful, capable and creative: he could and did fix damn near anything.  And he was always present in the moment, not distracted by the pushes and pulls of a job or career, as most of the men I had known were.  When we were together, he was with me.  And he was loyal.  I had never met anyone like him (and still haven’t).

One funny memory I have from our times on Salt Spring was driving around with D.  We’d be cruising through town and there’d be a gal on the sidewalk who’d see and recognize his car and with a big smile on her face, raise her hand in a friendly, expectant wave.  Then she’d see me in the passenger seat, sitting rather closer to D. than a ‘regular friend’ might do, and her smile would fade, and her arm would lower – not quickly, not dramatically, but just ever so slowly.  Word got around, as it always does in small communities.  There were some who were affronted that a non-local had scooped up an eligible bachelor on an island well known for its shortage of them.  Too bad, so sad…

Once I’d wrapped up at work and settled my affairs in Vancouver, sub-letting my apartment and loaning my car to a friend, we headed up to Kootenays.  By that time we’d decided to get married, and planned to do that on September 14, the anniversary of my father’s mother’s wedding.  I had her wedding band, which was engraved: ‘F.D. to A.W. Sep 14, 1910’).  I had worn the band ever since my trip to South America, when I used it to ward off unwanted advances, mostly by ‘Latin lovers.’  We decided it would be perfect.  And I wanted no fancy engagement ring: we’d both rather spend our sheckles on travel, maybe get a ring there.  I called my mother to let her know I’d met a gypsy and I was going to marry him.  Why I chose to characterize him in that way I can’t explain, except to make it clear that he was no doctor, lawyer or Indian chief.  In her typical fashion when confronted with news for which she had no ready response, she said: “you’re not.”  And I said: “I am.”  Of course Dot met D later, and like pretty much everyone loved him, and he her.

Me on 'The Cliff'

We spent what was left of the summer camping on ‘The Cliff’ overlooking Kootenay Lake.  Visiting old friends of D’s.  I loved it there.  The people were so real, so grounded in their homes, their land and their families.  It felt very different from Salt Spring, which increasingly felt like a place where ‘being seen’ was more important than being.  

One funny thing was the number of times, as we were driving along a lonely stretch of the road, D would suddenly stop, and say: ‘Just a minute, I’ll be right back.’  Then he’d head into the bush, out of sight, and return a few minutes later with a bag of nails or some other bits of construction material.  It turned out he had a few caches like this.  They’re likely still there, but of course he can no longer remember just where.

D had some very special friends, Al and Lou, an older couple who D had known for years.  They had a farm about six miles out of Nelson, with chickens and goats and a huge garden.  Al had had one of the oldest trap lines in the province, and worked for the forestry department. He’d been D’s boss at times.  Lou was a home body who gardened and then preserved, pickled and bottled just about everything.  Their cellar was a sight to behold.  Al and Lou had no kids, so no one to look after their place if they wanted to get away.  So, for a couple of weeks every summer D looked after the goats and chickens and garden while they went down to Chilliwack to visit friends.  Al and Lou were wonderful salt-of-the-earth people.  They were happy we were planning to marry, and ‘pleased as punch’ when we asked them to be witnesses at our ‘wedding.’  Al said he’d bring his shot gun.

And so on September 14, 1981 we went to the Nelson courthouse and said we’d like to be married.  We’d made no appointment.  We just showed up.  After a bit of a kerfuffle the Gold Commissioner agreed he could conduct the ‘ceremony.’  An office girl said she would get the room ready and put flowers in it.  We said we’d be just as happy, happier in fact, in the Gold Commissioner’s office.  So he straightened it up a bit, ushered us and Al and Lou in (Al in his green military – or forestry – style pants and shirt, but no shot gun, and Lou in a pale blue polyester pant suit), and within 10 minutes or so we were married.

Wedding photo, September 14, 1981

Al and Lou, in celebration, took us out to lunch at a barbecue ribs joint in Castlegar.  But the clincher, that afternoon, was that D sold his beloved 1952 Dodge Fargo.  He'd had that truck for 10 years or more.  He'd built a funky wooden cabin on the back of it, and lived in it, up there on The Cliff, for the 7 or 8 summers he was there.  (D only spent one winter in the Kootenays.  It was his first, and last.  And never again.  Just too bloody cold.)  Anyway the joke was that he'd traded the truck for me.  He said he figured he was 'up on the deal.'  I've never been quite sure.  It was a great truck.

About a month later we were on our way to Asia.  First stop Narita, Japan.