I’ve been spending time in Vancouver, B.C. First I was staying in an older high-rise downtown, near Davie and Robeson, near English Bay. Do you know the area? My mother, daughter and I were together on the first night, and we took a walk down to the quiet shores of the bay after dark…ha! I mean, we walked a few blocks to a rollicking Indigenous HipHop festival in full swing on the main stage right on the beach, in the middle of a sprawling crowd, and it was unexpected and awesome, free and casual and loud and theatrical and fantastic.
More recently, I’ve been up on Grouse Mountain, at the very upper edge of the housing before developments drop off into wilderness, parks and skiing areas. Here, things really are quiet. There’s definitely no HipHop festival. It’s essentially silent, after dark. My mom has gone home, my daughter is starting college. Here, we don’t put out food scraps in the compost to avoid attracting bears. At first, my car had some trouble—running gutless and rattling. The hills were daunting, when the car was so damn feeble. I was clunking and rattling a sound like chains, slowly climbing through the dark into a foggy night. The first road I take to get to where I’m staying starts in in a line, directly up the mountain, not a zigzagging road or a circling-around, which would mitigate the climb.
Coming up the long hill, then into the winding curves, I took a wrong turn somewhere—the GPS’s relationship to satellites warped or confused by the mountainside’s curving hills, perhaps. It was near midnight. I found myself in front of a giant, walled-in building. Red, glowing neon near the gates read VELVET VILLA, the letters blurred only by the dampness on my windshield, the fog and the darkness. I could knock, ask for directions…?
Ha! No way. I made a quick U-turn on the narrow street, up on the hillside under the moonlight, saved any “VELVET VILLA” adventure for another day—or never, right?—and found my way back to my rented rooms.
Along Burrard Bay, there’s a stretch of town called Ambleside with a seawall walk. It’s pretty much a perfect spot for early morning writing, coffee and peace. The beach is calm, the boats are like a boat diorama, a working exhibit, showing big-to-little, tankers, cruises, sailboats, speedboats, kayaks, paddleboards, crossing and mixing in the waves. Sometimes I spot the bobbing head of a creature, a seal or a sea otter, I don’t know.
In a swank strip mall, there’s a sculpture of a vertebrae, fixed to a metal plate that serves as a convenient stopping spot to reorganize bags, or rest a latte while taking a photo of the water. That’s what I was doing, anyway. The sculpture is clearly a single piece of vertebra but so large it evokes a hipbone, a larger bone. The metal is inviting, the way polished and weathered metal always is, though birds have shit on the sculpture and somebody left a plastic cup the way they so often do at art openings, reminding me of days decades back when I was a security guard at the Portland Art Museum.
Then I saw the sign, on the ground: Douglas Coupland.
Mr. Gen X! Coiner of the term. Cool!
Back when it came out, in 2000, I read City of Glass, his book of essays and one story about Vancouver. I loved it. And even though City of Glass at times has been coming to mind as I drive through downtown areas, where the buildings are so glass-and-steel, I’d forgotten to consider that Copeland was, or is, from around here. It turns out he lives in West Vancouver, perhaps near Ambleside, I don’t know.
I haven’t kept up with his writing. What the sculpture said to me was that a writer was here, is here.
Looking at the sculpture left me with the mixed feelings of what it means to make things: the sculpture is cool. I love the idea of writing and making artwork. Sometimes, I paint. This work, though, needs to be cleaned. That’s the way of the world, isn’t it? What does it mean to leave objects out in public, in this way?
We make things and send them out into the world. To publish is to make public.
When I travel, I always tell my family where I am. Lately, I want to call my dad, tell him I made it home, tell him I got the car fixed. I want to tell him where I am. He’s gone, though, and we are left with his possessions and his life’s work, his writing.
We make things—art, writing and children, families—and we send them out into the world.
Sending love.
M
Well in my mind it was a whale bone. It was always a deer bone though. Probably only something I'd pick up if I got up close.
Of all the beaches in Vancouver Ambleside is my favorite! It's the only beach where you can still light a small camp fire without stirring trouble.
I had no idea the whale bone sculpture was a Douglas Coupland piece!