Even when I was there, Ucluelet was hard to put into words. A peninsula on the edge of the Pacific, a town fit between a natural harbour and the wide-open ocean. Wild cedars, sand and rock. These are all words that fit Ukee, but it feels like not enough.
So this is a photo essay from a tarot reading I got on the day I left the coast. I’m not going to write much, because the reading was personal, but I hope in the photos you’ll see some of what I felt on the small streets between salt water.
Alishia said that her favourite card was The Fool, and I don’t remember why but I do remember the steadiness with which she held the card. I remember the warmth of her voice and the candidness of her reading. She wasn’t pretending to do magic. She was offering me a chance to look within myself, open some things and close others. It’s a chance that perhaps we don’t get often enough; and that moment in an incense-sweet room on the farthest west coast, more than a hundred and fifty days from the beginning of the journey, is a moment for which I’ll be forever grateful.
