16 November 2023 – I’m thinking about pathways. I like the very concept of “pathway” and all that it implies. The top quote on my blog home page is a reminder from poet-philosopher Antonio Machado that “paths are made by walking.” Pathways — physical, mental, spiritual — invite us to be curious, to explore, to discover, to resonate more broadly and deeply.

I’m not consciously thinking all this, as I stand at the foot of Trafalgar Street and look out northward over English Bay. I’m not even aware that these steps will drop me down onto the Point Grey Foreshore. Not until signage tells me so — and also points out that this rich intertidal zone is “one of the last natural beaches in Vancouver.”

A tree trunk marks the western end of a little footpath that will lead me eastward to Kitsilano Beach Park and the Seawall proper –the 23-km walking/cycling/jogging path that runs from Coal Harbour around Stanley Park and lines Burrard Inlet and False Creek all the way to Kits Beach.

Just a few minutes’ walk from that huge tree trunk, randomly placed by a storm, to very small icon, deliberately placed by human hands.

I am arrested by the sight. My mind jumps back some 50 years to another waterfront icon, this one on Lombok in Indonesia. A young man parked his scooter long enough to light joss sticks and offer a prayer.

I photographed him, and the image has (literally, metaphorically) stayed with me.

My mind jumps from that memory to another, the memory of a book i’ve had for many decades: Pathway Icons (The Wayside Art of India), by Priya Mookerjee. (Later, back home, I fill in the factoids: it was published by Thames and Hudson in 1987 and — to my delight — is still available via abebooks and others, and is even in the our library system.)

With all these associations in mind, I gently lift up the Point Grey icon long enough to look at it more closely…

and then carefully put it back. I recognize Ganesha, but not the other imagery. I’ll welcome any further information anyone can provide.

Are pathways not wonderful? From the physical, to remembered photos, to remembered books, and back to the physical…

Very physical, in fact!

I am now on the Seawall, in Kitsilano Beach Park, where I watch a fitness enthusiast take advantage of an empty stage to do his skip-rope routine.

Also physical: a swimmer.

Okay. Not a real, live swimmer out there in the water. We have all kinds of walkers, joggers and cyclists today, also some boaters, but nobody physically in the water.

Up in the wind, though? Ahh. That is another matter.

Up there we have Wind Swimmer.

She is a great story, for multiple reasons: Doug Taylor first created her to be a swimming companion for an old gentleman he met who regularly went swimming off Stanley Park. The sculpture was originally installed there, then smashed by a storm, rebuilt and moved to Kits, redesigned and rebuilt and reinstalled again. And still she swims!

And still I walk — my own path now leading me along the Seawall toward Burrard Bridge and beyond that Granville Bridge and all the busyness of Granville Island and its shops.

Where I enjoy a brie & feta feuilletée before rejoining my own pathway onward to home.