10 April 2019 – I only notice the slogan later on. “Dream so big…” it says, “people laugh in your face.”

I’m not dreaming anything, big or small, as I head-swivel my way past endless independent retail shops and cafés, out here in Vancouver’s Point Grey neighbourhood.

And if I had to name something in particular that I am not dreaming, at this very moment, I might nominate … oh … a lion.

Maybe especially a lion on a canoe.

Perhaps most especially a lion on a canoe on a van.

But here he is.

I move in closer. I admire the crossed paws.

The van driver is grinning at me through his windshield. He rolls down the passenger window, leans across to urge me to check out the lion from the street. “He’s dark on that side,” he explains. “Half light, half dark. Go look!”

So, with a cautious eye for cars, bicycles, motorcycles and city busses, I step onto the street.

Half & half, just like the man said.

Now his driver’s-side window is also open, and I can see that his hat is just like his lion.

There’s no commercial application to all this, he tells me — though he thinks he might try some busking this summer — and he has no webpage, no business card.

He’s just a cheerful man with a lion on-his-canoe-on-his-van.

I don’t get to ask about the “dream so big” slogan, because I only notice it on the van side panel as I start to walk away, and before I can turn back, he is pulling out into traffic.

Doesn’t matter. We did laugh in each other’s face, didn’t we, and I’m still giggling a bit as I walk on down the street.