field notes: nova scotia

I don't know if it is because of the presence of so much water, on the earth and in the air and in the sky, or if it is the way that rock dominates the landscape or maybe it's because we seemed so far away.  Nova Scotia feels heavy.  I have brought with me the memory of a feeling of weight, not oppressive, but still pressing, creating and filling my own space with its great presence.

Beyond this feeling I have brought back very little that I could hold in my hand, a plastic grocery bag of rocks, a piece of driftwood, pictures.  We experienced many things in our travels.  We were blessed to meet many kind and generous individuals.  There were many moments that will not be held in any snare but that of memory and imagination.  To try to do so could only diminish.  Murray Spenser, son of a sail-maker, his weathered face, each line and crease punctuating his sentences as he talked of living off the grid in a repurposed insulated truck trailer, eel fishing and truck-driving, the way his voice grew soft each time he spoke of his late wife, Anita.  So many others we met like him, open, anxious to share with us their stories and thoughts and opinions and anything else they had.   I did not take photographs of these people nor their beautifully worn but well-tended houses, barns, fields, gardens, clothes drying on lines.  To do so would have been disrespectful, as if their lives and labors were a quaint spectacle for tourists.  There are also no pictures of the Milky Way, arching wide over a beach grown dark as the last embers of sunset and campfire fade, a great and humbling swath of celestial light -- and then there were streaming, falling, shooting stars -- too many to count.  Never before, never again.  Oh I wanted to try, to set up my camera and fuss with settings and angles and capture and somehow save rare perfection, but how could I give up that exquisite but fleeting moment to attempt the impossible?

Home now, for long enough that when I close my eyes I no longer see painted lines on asphalt or feel the vibration of hours and miles of forward motion.  From the comfort of my home I miss my travel company and our outfit.  The sharp-eyed girl who was my co-pilot.  I smile as I remember her duct-taping wildflowers into her journal, pausing to write down the name of a song she likes, pulling out her phone to take pictures of clouds, slowly accumulating her own bag of rocks.  My faithful back-seat companion who entertained us for hours with extraordinarily detailed narratives of his dreams from the nights before and also with his constant questions:  Who would you rather be, Zeus or Posiedon ... Athena or Aphrodite ... Apollo or Ares ... When/What/Where are we going to eat next?  My mother, the only woman I know who would take this trip with me and suffer all of my obsessive-compulsive tendencies and still have a good time and be the one person in our group who is not shy about talking to strangers, the one who opened the door to all our conversations and friendships.  I am grateful because the sum of this shared experience is exponentially greater than that of my own individual experience.

I have to end with a list from Nova Scotia and everywhere in between -- nowhere near comprehensive, but here goes:

Feeling the shudder of earth while standing at the edge of Niagara Falls
Picnic at Niagara Falls while waiting for CAA to unlock the keys from the car
Bridges
Speaking French in Quebec
Eating French in Quebec
Deciphering French traffic signs in Quebec
Tunnels
Lunch in a cafe on the St. Lawrence River
Campfires built with gathered wood
Whittling sticks for marshmallow roasting
Smores made with chocolate covered graham crackers
Sunrise walk along the beach on Lake Ontario
The smell of the sea and salt air

Gathering mussels from shore rocks in the Northumberland Straight and then cooking and eating them on the beach while watching the sunset

Milky Way and shooting stars
Lavender farm
Waking up to see the sun rise over the ocean from a tent window
Barns
Rocks (especially large ones that are good for climbing over and hiding under)
Water
A fiddler, composer, former light-house keeper, married to a potter
Lupine (though not native and apparently terribly invasive, still lovely)
Sweet and sour spam over linguine -- and the pleasant surprise of finding sweet pickle relish, tomato paste, soy sauce and Tang to be a palatable flavor combination!
Campground swimming pools
Celebrating a birthday
The smell of dairy farms
Clouds
Lighthouses
Ship bells, foghorns, and the cry of gulls coming from somewhere deep within a heavy fog
Otherworldly landscapes created by tides on the Bay of Fundy
Well-guyed tents and cozy sleeping bags in a storm
Detailed advice on how to best immigrate to Canada
Talking in animal sounds because the road is long and we've run out of things to say in our own language
Lobster rolls and cold beers
Rolling into a hotel lobby in a cloud of mosquito repellant and campfire smoke
Hotel showers and real towels
Complimentary breakfasts (and lunch thank you very much)
Pulling into my own driveway
Dreaming up what comes next...