“Here is to the lost souls, just like myself, who are trying to reconnect with something healing and nurturing.”

THE NEED TO RECONNECT

Winters in Vancouver can be especially cold because of the empty streets and the shorter, mostly rainy, days. The prevailing mood is quite depressing because of a deprivation of our most basic human needs—sunlight and human connection. Each winter I find myself craving for a place to reconnect with myself and others. I anxiously start looking for something to nurture me back to health and vitality.

On top of that, there is a pandemic that has hit us universally. A palpable sense of collective grief has emerged as Scott Berinato explains in the HBR article. The grief of having lost our lives we got used to, following an emerging panic of having to re-invent ourselves to adapt to the new normal. Part of that new normal is, of course, the added virtual dimension. But there is something about life online that’s creating a void inside my soul and the only available way to fill that void is by reconnecting with the all-embracing power of nature.

The month of March I’m spending on Salt Spring Island, which is one of the Gulf Islands in the Salish Sea between mainland British Columbia, Canada and Vancouver Island. I went there to find new creative inspiration but also to reconnect with something real. There is just something about island life that’s hard to grasp in words. They say that no man is an island, but ironically an island is where I find people relying on the company and comfort of others the most. I think it’s because they are living more in harmony with their surroundings.

LOSE YOURSELF

Where do you find your inspiration? For me, it has always been in people and places. And there is such a diversity of people and places all around us, we just need to get out of our comfortable sofa’s and out into the world.

By creating an independent and flexible lifestyle we can choose experiences over matter. By trying to find fulfillment with the bare essentials there is more space for experiences. Especially those who push us out of our comfort zone and reveal something new about ourselves.

I love that sensation of a new discovery, it’s what makes me come alive. It’s what reconnects me with my true self. Mr. Camus has explained my feelings about this wonderfully:

What gives value to travel is fear. It is the fact that, at a certain moment, when we are so far from our own country … we are seized by a vague fear, and an instinctive desire to go back to the protection of old habits … this is why we should not say that we travel for pleasure. There is no pleasure in travelling, and I look upon it more as an occasion for spiritual testing … Pleasure takes us away from ourselves in the same way as a distraction, in Pascal’s use of the word, takes us away from God. Travel, which is like a greater and a graver science, brings us back to ourselves.  

—Albert Camus

Since travelling out of the country is off the charts at this moment, why not travel locally. Why not just sublet your place and change the scenery. Do something crazy. Don’t think of it as an escape from something but a re-connection with yourself. That’s why this quote resonates so much. We have to lose ourselves in order to find ourselves again.

THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF NATURE

This unpleasant period we are going through collectively has disrupted our bonds with each other. But in every crisis hides an opportunity and this is our chance to honour our time in solitude.

Many of us are stuck inside, awaiting a release with no light yet visible at the end of the tunnel. As social creatures, we crave human connection, but since our circumstances have decided otherwise we have to find alternatives. That’s where mother nature comes to the rescue. She is always prepared to comfort our hearts and offer safety if we just allow her to embrace our lost and grieving souls.

Below are a few of my favourite places to find solitude around Vancouver, BC:

Murrin Provincial Park, BC

55km or 50min from Vancouver