800-year-old tree in Cathedral Grove, Vancouver Island

If you can open your front door and step directly outside, you are more blessed than the millions of people that surround us in China. We step out into a tiny hallway that is shared with our neighbours, then into a crowded elevator, down to a maze of roads and narrow pathways. Being in Canada, I am rediscovering the wonder of personal space.

I think we are in crowd detox. When outside in China, our kids often play tag in a space smaller than most Canadian driveways. If they try to expand they are bumping into buildings or stepping onto the road. There isn’t anywhere else for them to go.

During our first week here, we took the kids for a walk in the park and had an Asian moment. The two boys and I were walking so close we were making physical contact. We didn’t know what to do with the narrow two-lane walking path, so rather than walking single-file we were shoulder to shoulder squished together. An Asian family dressed in white skin. I’m sure we get a puzzled look here and there.

Despite our small cultural faux-pa we are enjoying being in Canada and having some personal space. We went to the beach today and my children actually spread out. They dug holes and discovered life hidden in the sand of the ocean floor, uncovered by the lowering tide, and they loved it.

Being at the beach made me realize that we are not just in a crowd detox but also a construction zone detox.  Our neighbours are renovating so when I step out of my door in China, into our tiny hallway, cement chunks crunch under my feet. When I walk out the gate of my housing complex, I step into a construction workers’ waiting zone. Lines of people are seated along the curb, hoping to get work for the day. Cranes surround us, building up our city and as I breathe in the dust and grit, the whole scene becomes a part of me.

But now, I am sitting on the back porch of Brian’s grandma’s cottage, listening to birds singing, the wind chime jingling and the vibration of a hummingbird’s wings.

Over the past two weeks, the kids have watched bunnies darting from one bush to another and have seen deer come out to graze. They even saw a mother with her fawn, and a black bear on the side of the road. There is so little wildlife in urban China. We have seen a couple of squirrels in our decade there. One was in a city park, and we were just as excited as the crowd that surrounded, snapping photos. The other was outside of the city in a quiet park walking on a ledge. We spotted it just before it was hit by a stone from a sling shot, fell from the ledge and was writhing on the ground in pain. Men leaped down from the wall to bag it; supper.

You can imagine our wonder at experiencing the nature of British Columbia. “Everything is sweeter here,” Brian said in wonder, “even the smell of the air.” I am breathing it in now, enjoying the calm and being thankful for something I wouldn’t have even thought of when I lived here. Every breath. Each one is full and sweet. No crowds, no cranes building up towering skyscrapers, the beauty of nature and wildlife surrounding us.

At the beach this afternoon, I took in the sparkling water with a backdrop of snowy mountains, the sound of waves lapping and the pinch of tiny crabs scurrying across my feet. It started to wash away the months of noise and gritty air. ‘One joy scatters a hundred griefs,’ an old Chinese proverb says. How many days at the beach would it take, I wonder, to wash it all away?

But if I get to that point, will I forget what a joy it is?