TEA FOR TWO
The Covid winter of 2020/21 was for the most part a pretty mild one here on coastal British Columbia. And with that, came those inevitable days of warm weather and clear skies. Those are the days Joy and I made sure we got the most out of them. In times of personal isolation, being restricted from close contact with family and friends, time in the fresh air was a wonderful necessity.
We’d use those days by picking wild mushrooms in the west coast rain forest. We’d drive to some Sunshine Coast destination and do a walk of a trail we’d not tried before. Perhaps a bit of yard work got us out for that necessary exercise and fresh air. When conditions allowed, we’d even go out for a paddle on the Salish Sea in our canoe. But, one thing we tried to do for sure on those clear winter days, was to get to Bonniebrook Beach for the sunset. There were times when we’d go with another couple, build a fire and cook up some hotdogs as we watched the day end over Vancouver Island. Other times, Joy and I would go alone to Bonniebrook and enjoy the last rays of the setting sun.
We found the perfect private spot for our technicolour sunset theatre. It was under an alder tree right on the very edge of the beach. We’d position our folding camp chairs such that any breeze would be broken by its huge trunk. We’d place a log at our feet as a footrest, pour one of many varieties of teas that we’d foraged from the local forest last summer, and we’d just sit and visit while the evening arrived. It was our time together. It was our calm and quiet way of fighting the invisible virus apparently all around us. We would enjoy the place and the moment. The setting sun, the rhythmic, metronome cadence of the lapping waves, and tea for two. No matter the news of the day, that quiet time together was a familiar calming factor in that Covid winter.
One evening as we sat just watching nothing in particular, the artistic tangle and mesmerizing maze of branches caught my eye. I’d been looking for a painting that’ll forever remind me of our time together as we weathered the oppressive isolation of the pandemic. And this was surely it. No matter what the day had presented, our little secret hideaway place at that beach was always, and always will be, a place of peace, quiet and solace. It’ll always remind me of that foraged tea, our time together, and the seaside alder that embraced us each time we went there to watch the setting sun and to have our “Tea for Two”.
