Sunset Rock

My parents are moving up north soon; in the near of where I now live. While packing up, my mom came across this short story I wrote for a creative writing class I took in grade 12, when I was just 17 years old. I grew up in Toronto, where I spent 24 years of my life...then my husband and I moved to Germany where we lived for a couple of years. We made the inevitable decision to move back to Canada in 2020, and all at once, decided to ditch the city for good. This story was written a whole 14 years ago now, and it's beautiful to read the words I wrote at that time, extracted from my very real experience of heavy emotions and the healing power of a very special place in nature.

This story is set on the exit road of Quinn Lake Campground (OTF); a place we have been visiting each summer since I was 5 years old. This land has held me over the years in ways I cannot quite describe. The soil has soaked up my salty tears, the fresh country air has extinguished my anger, and the birds have sung songs of joy alongside me; this land has sculpted huge parts of my childhood. This place has been my solace for a long time... so much so that I now live less than an hours drive away. Unfortunately however, people who know nothing about how special this place is to hundreds of people, have made the decision to sell it, now making it unacessable to visit. My heart aches and greives for this loss... the things money does to people makes me sad. But what they will never be able to take away are the nostalgic memories, and the profound impact this land has made in shaping who I am and where I chose to build a life.

Re-reading this story after years of forgetting, has shown me that I am exactly where I have always dreamed to be. Sometimes it's easy to loose sight of how far we've come; lifetimes inside of lifetimes. Today I looked at a couple photos of me standing on the stage at graduation; cap and gown, with a silly look on my face... having absolutely NO IDEA what was coming next.

I hope you are able to feel the same warmth and solace in the world of this short story as I felt, coming back to it after all these years.

(I was going to re type it out, but I kind of like the idea of sharing scanned pictures of the original paper I submitted... maybe I'll add a typed version at a later time).

Enjoy!