Ocean Health & Rambling

This afternoon I browsed through the online apartments for rent. My thoughts turned to my past roommates, specifically the three flatmates with whom I'd lived for all of 2005 after 4 months of being a 10th & Ontario St. Vancouverite. (I'd moved from Salt Spring to Vancouver to live with a friend of a friend who needed a roommate to sublet a place with her for 4 months. There, I read books and hung out at UBC all week.) Come December, I spotted the tiny Strathcona room on craigslist. An ad for housing @ $325/month inclusive?! My student-ey senses were madly tingling. I didn't care how tiny the room -- I figured I would be outside all summer anyway -- the smartest thing is to have low monthly overhead, right? Right.

So, being that I'm truly the luckiest person in the world (and a fast responder to e-mails), I landed the room. I moved in with the three boys and quickly realized that I was sharing granola with some seriously passionate, invested-in-reality beings. These flatmates were always active in the community (organizing Trips for Kids - giving inner city youth opportunities to mountain bike on the North Shore) or jogging around Stanley Park or kayaking around Vancouver Island, reading something brilliant, planning the city's green areas, entertaining with wine parties and in general leading flourishing lives of integrity and purpose and FUN. I remember H. and G.'s family as something out of a magazine: both parents doctors; huge hearts; living life to the fullest; always on the go. I, on the other hand, played the reclusive new person's role. Just to balance things out, you know? Yeah. Occasionally I would venture out of my room to talk with them about bikes or discuss 'how to make life decisions' with Hugh or his best friend, Ryan. (Ryan generously donated his old bike when I didn't have one, and hooked me up with a photovoltaic cell class contact. I baked him a sugarless, vegan chocolate zucchini cake to show my appreciation -- unfortunately, the cake didn't turn out, so I didn't give it to him. He probably thinks I'm ungrateful). Looking back, their enthusiasm for showing up in this life called out the same energy in me at the time and I am the better for having lived with them.

Without further ado, this is what they're up to: sailing around the world and surfing while raising awareness about the present state of our oceans. Fun and disturbing and inspiring action....