Notes from a Seafloor Trench

            One summer, I filled my days with university requirements— Oceanography and Earth Sciences, written up as science credits with easy math. There was no way I could memorize the rate of seafloor spreading, seafloor trenches, and measure the sedimentation spreading. The mind-boggling theories about faults, fracture zones, and tectonically active plates require the figures. My friend Patty, the hydrogeologist, agreed to coach me through the math. In return, I offered Italian affogatos.            

           At the same time, through a series of personal tectonic collisions, I sank into one of those seafloor trenches. I moved into a co-op on the corner of Robson and Thurlow, the busiest street in Vancouver. I knew nothing about co-op budgets or building maintenance, but I plunged into the committee work, along with the gardening on the rooftop. I tuned in nightly to listen to Suzie Orman, the portfolio chef, expound on the light and the dreary of formulas to save money. I adopted Max, a needy porky, who kept me company while I wrote the first draft of a novel. I stayed faithful to my church community. Or maybe it was the reverse. Grace, one of those invisible mysteries, appeared in a form called the Manhattan Co-op.

            Another summer arrives with the headline—Covid 19. The plunge into altered activities returns. Yesterday it was the attendance of an outdoor wedding at Jericho Beach in Vancouver by Zoom. I go to church on Facebook. Today instead of a regular visit to my doctor, he phoned me. France has lavender fields, but so does Québec, so no trips this year. Our landscapes have shifted much like the oceanic and continental plates, the coming together is now the spreading apart and there will be interaction at new boundaries where no distinct landforms arise – at least not yet.