Dear Reader,
Today's guest author, Carol M. Cram, loves the arts, food, travel, and writing novels about people who follow their passions. She is the author of three award-winning novels of historical fiction about women in the arts: The Towers of Tuscany, A Woman of Note, and The Muse of Fire. Carol's latest novel, Love Among the Recipes, is a contemporary read about a woman searching for new passions amid the sights and tastes of Paris.
Please say "Hello" to Carol and welcome her to the book club.
Sixteen years ago, I moved from the city to Bowen Island, a three-humped jewel set in the Salish Sea within sight of Vancouver, British Columbia. I grew up in the city and thought of Bowen Island only as a place to swim and catch shiners and stay in cramped and moldy summer cottages.
It wasn't a place to live year-round.
In 2005, all that changed when my husband called to tell me he'd found the perfect place for us to buy. With prices for Vancouver real estate perpetually on the rise, we'd long since given up the dream of home ownership.
"Where?" I asked, expecting him to say a fixer-upper out in the Fraser Valley, a two-hour commute in bumper-to-bumper traffic from the college where I taught communications.
"Bowen Island."
"Oh."
Well, why not? It was free to look, and island prices were almost within our reach.
On a sparkling blue day in April, we joined scores of happy day-trippers on the top deck of the ferry that shuttled between Horseshoe Bay and Bowen Island. The 360-degree view of mountains and ocean and islands captivated us. Could Bowen Island be our new home? The very idea seemed preposterous. I had a job at a college in the city, and our daughter was still in university. On the other hand, she'd be off pursuing her own life soon, and as commutes went, the ferry ride wasn't so bad, and definitely beat stop-and-go traffic for two hours.
The realtor took us to several places, none of which lived up to their website hype. We'd just about given up on the idea of moving to an island when we found ourselves on the deck of an unassuming two-story log home overlooking a jam-packed garden that we later discovered harbored a LOT of garter snakes, and a view of very blue water and green mountains. The neighborhood was called Bluewater and now we knew why.
We looked at each other and, almost at the same time, said yes.
Over the years, I've discovered an unexpected benefit of living on an island. The 20-minute ferry ride is just long enough to write a short scene in my current work-in-progress.
I drive on to the ferry, run upstairs to the passenger lounge, snag a window seat, and crack open my laptop. So long as I don't run into someone I know (a not uncommon occurrence when living on an island with a year-round population of 2000 souls), I can usually bang out about 300 words. Then, happy with my progress, I return to my car and either set off for a day on the mainland (the "continent" as we call it now) or drive home along a winding country road that cuts through dense temperate rainforest and affords occasional flashes of shimmering blue water.
I am grateful.
-- Carol M. Cram
Carol expresses her enthusiasm for the written word and the arts on Art In Fiction (www.artinfiction.com), an extensive database of close to 2000 novels inspired by the arts in ten categories. The website features blog posts, author interviews, newsletters, and The Art In Fiction Podcast.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
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