On the day I was born, or thereabouts, my parents pulled into a dock at Powell River and made their way to the hospital.
I am pretty sure it went that way. They never actually spelled out the details and I never asked. I can't imagine we lingered more than a couple of days in that seaside town after I was delivered.
The next year and a half was spent on their fish boat. I am told I developed sea legs. I assume that is true. I never fell into the chuck. They never mentioned it anyways. We finally came to shore in Nanaimo. A Pulp Mill had to be built. My father signed on.

I came of age in Nanaimo. In my later teens, I left, had a truncated Canadian military encounter in Kingston, a tail-between-my-legs return to High School to repeat Grade 12 (after signing a behavioural contract,) and a second, more permanent exit into my own wonky version of maturity and liberation.

I attended SFU as a charter student, dropped out whilst remaining within, immersed myself in student politics, had a six month flirtation with Frontier College and spent more than a decade living in the CRCA, a New Westminster Co-op/Commune which is celebrating its Fiftieth Anniversary in August, 2017.

For a career, I spent twenty-four years with MCFD, initially as a family support worker and, post-Solidarity, 1983, as a child protection social worker.

In 2002, I accepted early retirement but after a couple of months of mind-numbing sloth, went to work, for one and a half years, with the Lower Mainland Purpose Society headquartered in New Westminster. Previously I had served on the Board of Directors for many years.

All along the plan, our post-work life plan, was for my partner and I to live in the country, preferably on an Island. Devil's Island or Denman Island. It didn't matter. Well, it mattered some. Life on Denman has been full, mostly with writing, volunteering, table tennis and, of late, Pickleball.

To keep as active as is befitting a retired social worker who writes, I
maintain a blog, www.engleson.ca, and occasionally post both musings on writing and observations on the state of Child Welfare.

There is an intensity to rural life yet, all the while, a comfortable detachment exists, can exist. The community struggles, yet comes together.
I like to think my writing hasn't hindered its intermittent coalescence.