May 8

It was a beautiful day today, the warmest day of the year so far. It was a great day to go to Big White. We needed to go to Big White to check out my place and get it ready to rent or sell. We needed to figure out what to do, It had been rented out seasonally for the past three years. Too bad covid came along and messed up real estate. Everything seemed alright because the sunshine was warm and the blue sky glowed brightly overhead.

When we left our home in West Kelowna we noticed the increased traffic right away. We got to the bridge and it became clear that traffic was now almost back to normal. People have grown impatient and are moving around much more than only two weeks ago. We journeyed through the city and up Highway 33 to our mountainous destination.

 We arrived to the welcome quiet that is a ski resort in May. Sunshine beamed brightly overhead and lit up the snow covered runs that two months ago were alive with people enjoying themselves, oblivious to the sudden stop the ski season was about to have. Snow banks were dwindling into the sand and gravel from the roads. I felt like I had stepped back slightly into a piece of frozen time.

We opened the mountain home we have been renting out and aired out the foreign smells that occur from other people. Settled in we went to a friend’s deck to enjoy the spectacular views of the Monashee mountains. I felt safe in our mountain oasis and enjoyed reconnecting with our friend whom we haven’t seen since the day we left Big White. Forty-five days ago we left and I wrote my first entry in my journal – it feels like a lifetime ago.

On the ski run below us we saw the first billows of smoke and then the flames leapt up as someone had lit a fire. Our plan was to join our friends at their place for a campfire, theirs is a propane one. When we saw a real fire blazing below we decided to investigate and join the two gentlemen enjoying its warmth. As fate would have it we knew them and had a laugh as we reconnected with some more of our winter people. 

The seven of us stood spaced around the roaring fire enjoying the connection and catching up on the plan for the ski hill. Big White hopes to open but without Aussies where would they get enough people to staff it?  Invariably the topic of conversation seemed to return to what the world is caught up in.  I observed that the world has caught this disease merely because we have all been hi-jacked by it. We stopped and changed our focus. Our focus became the amazing surroundings that we were blessed to be a part of. The endless mountain peaks before us gave us all pause to reflect on the amazing beauty of our world; of our mountain home.

When we left the fire that night we cherished the connection and agreed we would do this again. We would have more fires, we would enjoy more views. We would thrive in the new normal whatever that may be.