Today’s Taxi (324/365)

November 20, 2015 – Not a bad mode of transportation on a beautiful day like today 🙂

Technically today was my day off, last Friday was supposed to be my day off too. I seem to be pushing my days off forward because things keep coming up.

Last week I wanted to do anything but fly but had to anyway.

This week…well…just look at that day!

I had been asked, sort of last minute, to attend a meeting at a place I used to work, at a place where I have happily not set foot in ten years. But that was a different time, and I was in a different personal place then. Today I have settled into a new and fulfilling place, I am comfortable and confident in what I do and who I am. So even though there was some trepidation at walking in, in the end it was fine, and started off on a happy foot when one of my former colleagues saw me, rejected my extended hand, and gave me a hug.

That was pretty awesome, and it broke down some of the remaining internal barriers that had erected all those years ago.

The meeting was short, and an hour and a half later two of us had to cut out early to make the last float plane back across the Georgia Straight to home.

Although the day was spectacular, the view down on the water and the boats plying the waters below, there was one moment that made me sad.

As we came into Vancouver, we flew over Stanley Park and I looked down and could see the Vancouver Aquarium below. Outside of the main buildings I could see the pools, one for the dolphins, one for the harbour seals, one for the sea lions, and one for the beluga whales.

I could see two beluga whales, their bright white bodies a striking contrast to the blue water in their enclosures.

I was struck by the fact that Stanley Park was a small piece of land, surrounded on three sides by ocean, that ocean extending out to the Straight, up Burrard Inlet, out past English Bay and into False Creek. And within that small plot of land, was a small pool of water, that contained several large whales.

Their enclosure was so small relative the the waters around, so close.

Dixie cup came to mind.

And since that moment, just a few hours ago, I have suddenly found it difficult to support the Vancouver Aquarium as long as they continue to keep and breed these animals, in such a small place, when they deserve so much more.

Zoom in and out on this spot in Google Maps (https://goo.gl/maps/zz426DyjfJ42 – 49.300962, -123.131476) and tell me that it isn’t wrong.