Victoria's secret

I've been hesitating about making this blog entry, for fear it might undermine the sanctity of something I'm coming to adore – Victoria's surprising and attractive complexity – simply by letting it be known about more generally. But I'm pretty sure almost no one is reading this blog and there's something compelling me to set my observations down in print.

Victoria is deceptive. She looks from the outside like a quaint little old lady who people want to come and visit once in awhile before going home to their much more exciting lives and circles of family and friends. To pay a little homage, perhaps, have a delicious cup of tea and a home-made scone, hear a bit of gossip, then kiss the genteel hand and depart. But even after just three months of living here it's already clear to me Victoria is much more nuanced, intelligent, complex, and intriguing than her image.

She's really more like university professor, middle aged perhaps, but still hip and attractive. Seasoned, sexy, and smart. Not a prof tied to just one department, either, but in some sort of special cross-disciplinary field. She's the kind of prof who is popular with both students and faculty because she's witty, urbane, ironic, playful, wise, knowledgeable and both willing and able to pass her knowledge and wisdom on to others. She's got some interesting history, full of eccentric and iconic characters, but she's also got a fascinating and engaging present.

But she doesn't let most people know this, at least not the multitudes who drop by at intervals for those obligatory visits to their elderly relative. They come in by ferry, by cruise ship, by plane, stay a few hours or days, see all the common sights, smell the flowers, taste the tea, and return home to tell friends about this quaint and beautiful city they visited. Of course, they loved visiting it, but they wouldn't dream of living here.

Which is just as it should be, because if it ever becomes widely known what an amazing city this is, it will be flooded with immigrants who will change it into Vancouver, Seattle, or Calgary, full of too many people and too many big box stores, everyone rushing around, obliterating the very traits they found so charming when they first came, literally loving the place to death.

No, let Victoria retain her old lady image. It's her best protection against the Borg. Victoria's secret.