One day, we just went.
No real plan. Just the memory of something I once read — that in Victoria, you can go from mountain to city to sea in just a few minutes. So that's what we did.
We headed to Mount Tolmie first. It was almost five when we left. We brought the car, parked, walked just a few steps — and just like that, the city was below us.
We've been here before. But I was seeing it like I hadn't. Maybe I was just paying more attention. My daughter had her small binoculars and kept peeking through them, pointing at everything. She got so excited thinking she spotted our house. It didn't matter if she actually did. That's the thing about her — she finds joy in the seeing, not just in being right.
We stood around the compass marker too, trying to figure out which directions we'd already been. Tracing the lines with our eyes like we could actually see that far. Like we could see Seattle. Like we could see where we'd come from.
And then I took the photo. My husband and my daughter, backs to me, both looking out.
It hit me quietly. All of us looking forward. And still not knowing which way to go.
The compass is right there. Carved in stone, even. And yet.
We live here. We are trying, genuinely, to plant ourselves here. But there's something no one fully prepares you for — how it feels to follow every direction and still find yourself turned around. How the path shifts. How you adjust your footing not because you lost your way, but because the ground keeps moving.
We live here. And also, not quite yet.
I don't think anyone who hasn't done this will ever fully understand it. You do everything right. You follow the markers. And then directions change. And you're left standing on a rock somewhere, looking out at a city that is yours and also still becoming yours, holding on, hoping the path you're on leads to where you're trying to go.
We don't always know. But we keep looking forward.
And for now, that's enough.
