One Year Ago Today

A year ago today, our household packed into a moving truck, we set off on a new adventure. Our Ford cargo van packed solid with immediate necessities like food, money and clothing, we departed our Ontario home of twenty years in the hills and began our three-day journey eastwards, all the way to our new home on the Atlantic Ocean in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

The weather was sunny and the landscape through eastern Ontario and Quebec largely draped in snow. Having skirted Montreal and Quebec City, our first night's rest was at a lovely inn in Montmagny. The second day, we pressed on into the high, open mostly-treed terrain of New Brunswick, all the way to our longtime friends Anna Torma and Istvan Zsako, who live at the border to Nova Scotia in lovely countryside outside Baie Verte. After a bubbly reunion, a hearty meal and a pleasant overnight, we set off on day three into Nova Scotia and then across the Canso Causeway onto Cape Breton Island, rising up in welcome before us.

The drive along the eastern shore of the Bras d'Or Lakes is winding and scenic, offering long vistas. By afternoon we reached Marion Bridge via a dirt road shortcut as the fog filled our vision. Here we picked up our new house keys from Judy Hussey, our real estate agent, and negotiated the last leg to Louisbourg and along the bumpy, pot-holed road to Little Lorraine. Our house and surrounds sat shrouded in mist, and the boom from the ocean, waves on the beach, salt-tang sea air greeted us energetically.....

And, here we are today, one full year later. We sit, yes, shrouded in mist and the ocean is booming, waves rolling in, fresh sea air filling our lungs. We are ensconsed in our home, looking out in all weathers to wonder at our good fortune to have found this haven. Spring was cool and foggy; Summer took her time to arrive, then passed in a flash; Fall lingered lusciously with extended warmth and colour; Winter has been largely white, punctuated with several snow- and wind-storms. The coast and sea are mesmerizing, continually changing in appearance as the winds rise and fall, the sun comes and goes, the skies cover up and clear, precipitation sets in and tapers, dark follows day, and the tides rise and fall. And a panoply of stars reveals itself by night, as the Milky Way appears to tumble into the sea.

Gundi likes to comb the beaches for purple and green-tinged rocks and pebbles, striated, flecked, weathered, and polished. I tend to sea-gaze, take in the wave action, and scout out seaweeds of all kinds - kelps, dulse, wracks. Each passing storm system washes up a whole new shoreline of deposited plant material, dredged and ripped up from the sub-tidal sea floor. Upon the land, our step springs with the bounce from the carpet of berries, mosses, lichens.

Gundi is always working her hands. She is designing, making, sewing, crocheting, reading, cooking, eating, drinking, exploring.... I find myself drawn to reading, writing, learning, and, lately, growing, gathering, and harvesting food. This act of producing and consuming food locally, in our own community, is vital as we negotiate fresh paths in our common future. 

We have got to know our friendly, caring neighbours, local fisherfolk, farmers, food producers, chefs, community leaders in Little Lorraine, Louisbourg, Albert Bridge, Gabarus, and Sydney; we have established new friendships. Everything takes time and perseverance, especially in this current pause of distanced communication and interaction. We are using this time - while we are precluded from exchanging visits - as an opportunity to connect more with friends and family who live far away. I believe it is deepening our personal bond to each other, our love for each other, even at a societal level. Our heightened vulnerabilities strengthen our empathy.

Here by the ocean, we miss the changing colours of deciduous trees, the folds of the land in the Northumberland Hills, the village of Warkworth, farmers markets and regular customers, the warmth and company of dear friends. I still miss family and friends across the ocean. But, we make our choices in life, and this move to Cape Breton, with its natural beauty, vibrant geography, history, and culture, has been a very rewarding one for us. In a year, we have been off-island just once, to visit with friends and take in the bountiful attractions of our new province of Nova Scotia, over on the mainland. While no man is an island, I guess I always was, will remain, an islander at heart.