The sky was awash with brooding and bright clouds after a recent
atmospheric river of rain fell where the sculpture of a passenger stood as if ready to hop onboard a train at the former station, now
White Rock Museum, where my
Penelope cards and book live. Many scenes captured my imagination that day as did the Poets and Storytellers United prompt Mary Oliver’s “The Uses of Sorrow”:
Someone I loved once gave me / a box full of darkness. / It took me years to understand / that this, too, was a gift.
Most harbor private sorrows. Sometimes we cherish them like old friends that we call upon from time to time. Most also know that life is too precious not to be savored.
I contemplated many things as I walked on the pier and took in the surroundings.
The White Rock Pier, said to be the longest boardwalk (1540 ft.) in Canada, was upgraded to wheelchair friendly recently. From the pier, I saw the museum and a rail of the still active track for trains that no longer stop there. The painted rock for which the small city is named was in the distance. Apartment buildings and homes large to little were stacked on the hilly horizon. Birds were recovering from the downpour, seeming to enjoy resting and grooming in the after-the-storm calm.
