Tofino in Words
It has been weeks since I was in Tofino, but if I close my eyes it all comes back.
I am standing on the shore of the wild Pacific, in pure awe. This is my first encounter with an unrestricted Northern Ocean. The first time that I've seen it without Vancouver Island between us to smooth down our rough edges.
I can only hear one or two sounds at a time. This is sensory overload at its most pleasurable. The water out at sea is roaring like a lion. The waves are crashing like an entire ensemble of percussion instruments. The water in the small streams that run off the ocean into the black rocks on the shore is coursing like blood through the veins. The wind is a wolf in the trees. Rain is tapping out a million different rhythms: one on the hood of my jacket, another on the trees that I'm sheltering myself under, another on the rocks below this cliff, another on the water just ahead.
We are so close to the Ocean that the rain seems like it should taste like salt. But it doesn't. It's not until the wind picks up from the West that I taste the Ocean on my lips. I drink it in. The Pacific tastes so much cooler than the Atlantic.
My eyes are drawn to the origin of the spray. It is impossible to describe the colour of the waves. A precious stone should be named after this colour, or it after a precious stone. I would like to freeze this aquatic beauty and take it home with me. Unfortunately I have to content myself with seeing these waves here and now.
Theirs is a purposeful collision; a graceful yet violent dance. They rise thirty, no, forty feet into the air and dash themselves against giant, black rocks. Ebony on Charcoal and as big as houses. The kind of rock you build a house upon. But as purposeful as the waves come in to court their sedimentary friends, they are dragged back to a Cobalt and Navy sea. The once powerful force recoils, a clenched fist releasing fluid fingers that claw at the rocks.
The camera is glued to my hand. My brain is turning over phrases and words that refuse to make sentences. I am caught between experiencing the glory before me, and wishing I had the talent to capture this moment forever. On film, on canvas, in print.
It was so real. So real that I longed to recreate it, and knew I never could.
~g. mango stands in awe
I am standing on the shore of the wild Pacific, in pure awe. This is my first encounter with an unrestricted Northern Ocean. The first time that I've seen it without Vancouver Island between us to smooth down our rough edges.
I can only hear one or two sounds at a time. This is sensory overload at its most pleasurable. The water out at sea is roaring like a lion. The waves are crashing like an entire ensemble of percussion instruments. The water in the small streams that run off the ocean into the black rocks on the shore is coursing like blood through the veins. The wind is a wolf in the trees. Rain is tapping out a million different rhythms: one on the hood of my jacket, another on the trees that I'm sheltering myself under, another on the rocks below this cliff, another on the water just ahead.
We are so close to the Ocean that the rain seems like it should taste like salt. But it doesn't. It's not until the wind picks up from the West that I taste the Ocean on my lips. I drink it in. The Pacific tastes so much cooler than the Atlantic.
My eyes are drawn to the origin of the spray. It is impossible to describe the colour of the waves. A precious stone should be named after this colour, or it after a precious stone. I would like to freeze this aquatic beauty and take it home with me. Unfortunately I have to content myself with seeing these waves here and now.
Theirs is a purposeful collision; a graceful yet violent dance. They rise thirty, no, forty feet into the air and dash themselves against giant, black rocks. Ebony on Charcoal and as big as houses. The kind of rock you build a house upon. But as purposeful as the waves come in to court their sedimentary friends, they are dragged back to a Cobalt and Navy sea. The once powerful force recoils, a clenched fist releasing fluid fingers that claw at the rocks.
The camera is glued to my hand. My brain is turning over phrases and words that refuse to make sentences. I am caught between experiencing the glory before me, and wishing I had the talent to capture this moment forever. On film, on canvas, in print.
It was so real. So real that I longed to recreate it, and knew I never could.
~g. mango stands in awe
POSTED BY G. MANGO at 18:06
<< Home