A Return Across Time
There are places that remain still
while we move through years.
I went back to see the totem.
Not as a tourist.
As someone returning to a former version of himself.
Memory of a Younger Self
Twenty-five years earlier, I used to wait nearby for the bus.
To go downtown.
Or toward the sea.
I remember standing there in the cold mornings.
Looking at the carved wood.
Not fully understanding it —
only sensing its presence.
Seeing Differently Now
This time, I stood longer.
The totem had not changed.
The colors felt deeper.
The silence around it heavier.
Travel can return you to the exact coordinates of your past.
But you never arrive as the same person.
Beyond Personal Memory
Waiting there again, I remembered the rhythm of those days.
Bus schedules.
Salt in the air.
A younger patience.
But beyond that, something larger remained.
These lands have held stories for thousands of years.
Indigenous hands carved symbols into wood
long before I stood there waiting.
There is humility in that realization.
If you’ve read Around the Lake Until Dusk, you know that circling a place often brings you back differently.
What Remains
This was not a dramatic return.
No revelation.
No conclusion.
Just a quiet recognition.
Some forms of travel are not about discovery.
They are about standing still long enough
to feel the weight of time.
The bus stop may have changed.
The route may be different.
But the totem remains.
And so does the memory of waiting beneath it.
