"Vocal Local", Lillooet News, July 7, 2010

So I was asked to be one of the "Vocal Locals" for the Bridge River/Lillooet Newspaper. Basically, I don't get paid for it, but 4 times a year, I write 700-900 words about whatever the heck I want. Sounds good to me...watch out, Lillooet! Here's the first article...

"I walked for the first time down the quaint little main street of Lillooet.

This was the tiny little town in which I had been placed by the nursing temp agency for a five-week stint in community health. Yes, following six months in downtown Toronto, five years in downtown Vancouver, and one year in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, these five weeks would be a welcome break from city life.

The weak, late October sun did little to warm my body as my internal regulator still struggled to acclimatize to temperatures less than 40 C following my recent return from the Middle East.

The sun made up for its meagre thermal attempts by casting its late afternoon rays eastward and creating magnificent shadows accentuating the craggy reliefs on Fountain Ridge.

Yes, I could definitely be comfortable here…for now. A few more weeks up here and I would no doubt be more than ready to return to bustling city life…

As I picked my way around a giant, fire-hydrant-sized hunk of jade that someone seemed to have forgotten in the middle of the sidewalk, I was pulled out of my reverie by a startlingly unfamiliar sound.

”Hi there, how are you?”

I recoiled in fear, being sure to go wide around the gigantic “Mile 0” labeled pyramid rock thingy in my path so as to put a solid physical barrier between myself and the smiling middle-aged woman whom I had never before seen in my life.

She shrugged at my “keep-walking-and-pretend-not-to-have-heard/seen-you” city reflex. Several minutes later, I was still trying to recover when I was verbally assaulted yet again.

“Hello young lady!”

A cheerful elderly gentleman shuffled along the sidewalk. I quickly turned off the main street and headed home on the back roads. I was quite certain that if one more stranger acknowledged my presence with seemingly no strings attached, I would drop down and retract into the fetal position in an attempt to protect myself against this display of social anarchy.

Over time, of course, I grew slowly accustomed to the friendliness of the community, especially as I began to feel more and more a part of it.

I am now over eight months and a permanent position into my “five-week contract”. I am happy to say that it is now I who greets unsuspecting city folk.

Those are the ones marching the downtown streets on their rigidly time-pressed missions to see all the stones on the Jade Walk. Then they can tick it off their “to do while on vacation” list, clamber back into their rented CanaDream RVs, and be off to the next destination on their itineraries.

I smile to myself when I think of all they are missing.

At first, as much as I was enjoying the job placement during the week, I was traveling back to Vancouver nearly every weekend to get my city fix. As time wore on, however, I began to notice a strange phenomenon: I started to WANT to stay up here for the weekends.

I had made friends with a couple of great guys who were running a hop farm across the river, joined the naturalist society, and generally started to integrate into what was proving to be, in my humble opinion, one of B.C.’s “hidden gems”.

I mean this not just in terms of landscape, but also in the quality of people, the richness of the slowly healing and resurfacing native culture, and the sense of community to which I was becoming increasingly privy. The assurances I made to my city friends that I would be back soon became less and less convincing.

One of my turning points was stepping outside following the first snowfall in the surrounding mountains. I felt like I was sitting in the pit of a giant martini glass, looking up at the sugar-coated rim all around me. It was beautiful. I was hooked.

Despite my growing love for small-town life, the city in me still comes out every so often when I least expect it.

I was out for a bike ride in the early spring with a couple of other locals who share my passion for skinny tires, empty roads, and obnoxiously coloured spandex. We were riding along the highway, when all of a sudden our pristine silence was rudely interrupted by a loud chirping noise.

Red-faced, I quickly started fumbling in the back pocket of my jersey as I turned to my friend. “Is that you or me who forgot to turn our phone ringer off?”

My riding partner gave me an odd look before erupting into laughter. “Fiona, that was a bird,” he said, and he pointed up at the little brown blob perched on the wire above us. Go figure.

I smile again today as I turn my face to the sun and inhale the fragrant smell of sage carried on the hot bursts of wind.

The audible surf-like roars as the gusts force their way through the tree branches around me are metaphorically representative of the city stress which has been filtered out of my life since moving up here.

I am now proud to call myself a “Lillooet local”, and I thank each of you for teaching me to slow down and take in all there is to offer in your beautiful community."