Slow Moments: Week Four.

“The reason birds can fly and we can’t is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.”

– J. M. Barrie

I saw him my first morning on Vashon Island, perched on a square wooden raft that hovers a few meters off shore.

I knew instantly what he was, but my mind second-guessed itself – do they even have bald eagles in the Pacific Northwest? (Apparently they do.)

I watched him from the glass-walled living room of the house I’m currently staying in, owned by a lovely 94-year-old woman named Vera. Her home is set right on the edge of Quartermaster Harbor, and never before have I felt so immersed in the natural world on a daily basis. During high tide, it feels like the waves brush against our very foundations.

As I work each day at the dining room table, my eyes are constantly drawn outside – to the western grebes and mergansers dancing across the bay, to the gulls swooping and diving through the air, to the clouds arranging themselves in dizzying formations. One afternoon, a solitary sailboat skimmed past the house, its sail a pale triangle set against the evergreens.

But on my first morning, it was the eagle who most captured my attention. I stood up from my makeshift desk and leaned against a window, content to observe him floating on the raft. I’d seen eagles a few times before, but never so up-close and only when they were soaring high above me. I’d never seen an eagle at rest.

These two weeks on Vashon, where I’m grateful to be hanging out before moving into the yurt on Salt Spring Island, have felt just as unusual. For someone accustomed to a life of constant movement, stillness is a strange sensation. It feels uncomfortable at times – to not be plotting my next move every night, for the days to have a steady rhythm and routine. But in my unmoving eagle friend, I made a little more peace with the slower pace of my life right now.

I went to find my camera, but by the time I returned to the window, he’d taken off from the raft. Ironically, the only photo I managed to get shows him with wings unfurled and outstretched, a piercing look in his eyes and the catch of the day in his golden left talon.

This morning, I asked Vera what the wooden raft is called, as I’d initially thought to describe it as a dock.

She answered me and then asked, rather knowingly, “Are you writing about the eagle?”

I told her that I was – and how he taught me that whether in flight or at rest, we always have our wings.

Slow moment in Vietnam: Carmel

You wouldn’t think a slow moment could occur on the back of a motorbike driving 60km/hour through the twists and turns of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the central highlands of Vietnam, but it did.

Shawn and I were stuck in Saigon for two weeks prior to coming to central Vietnam thanks to an error with our visas and the crush of travelers for the Tet holiday. We were in need of some peace and quiet. We spent a couple nights in Da Nang and a week in Hoi An, enjoying a slower pace and some beach time before we started our 5-day motorbike tour. The beaches were nice, but I still found myself getting stressed over the thousands of tourists, locals and motorbikes all vying for space in the small town.

It wasn’t until our second day of the motorbike trip that I started to realize that the slower pace I needed was out in nature – away from the chaos and noise of cities, up in the mountains where the air is clean and the traffic is light.

Being a passenger on the bike and responsible for just staying on, I find myself in a meditative trance most of the time, only being interrupted by the occasional stop to stretch our legs and observe the beautiful scenery or the cheerful “hellos,” accompanied by smiles and waves, of the children we pass. My breath slows down, my heart feels full and I can feel the stress of the previous weeks melting away.

Carmel and her husband Shawn are currently traveling around the world and blog at: www.thejourneyitself.com

There are just about two weeks left for the Slow Moments Project, so I look forward to sharing more of your stories! If you’d like to submit a Slow Moment, please send it to [email protected].