something that comes to mind

...in the still blue-pink light that hangs over the horizon just after a summer sunset.

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...

progress

Rain evasive measures forced us on the road early this morning and moved us forward all day. When the options are to either drive through mad winds and sideways rain (rumor has it, a sort of drop-out hurricane) or to not go anywhere, I will opt for progress, even if it is tense-shoulder, white-knuckle progress. So that is how we have come to find ourselves already in southern Maine.

Our departure was quick and unceremonious, the midday border crossing brief and undistinguished ("oh, we're back in the U.S.?") as we moved from shades of grey to shades of grey...

I am resigned to my struggle to reconcile forward progress with backward glances. I want what comes next but I am reluctant to let go of the vestiges of former experiences. All day I resisted the urge to shake the red sand from my shoes -- the sand I collected last night as I walked this sunset, mid-tide beach on the Bay of Fundy.

good

...night

i'm not going to lie

...there have been some homesick moments today and more than a little longing for some creature comforts. We moved from one wet camp to another and our feet, clothes, gear, spirits -- all of it is fairly soggy. Interestingly enough, it's not exactly raining but I can imagine this is what it must be like to live in a heavy cloud. The fog is thick (and cold) and water just seems to collect and saturate and drip from every surface.

So I find myself thinking of home, of what and who I am missing, but I am also thinking of my heroes -- sailors, cowboys, gypsies, hobos, hippies -- and their songs and poems of loneliness and longing, the costs of wanderlust and freedom. I feel at peace again, in my small way, to count myself among them.

this is how it went down...

Cold, wind, rain. Four people playing cards in a three man tent, drinking wine straight outta the bottle, foghorn blowing in the distance...

home

It feels like we are a long way from home and we are, but then there things that make us feel like it doesn't matter how far away we are, we are at home --gifts of butter, garlic, firewood, friendship and conversation. We wanted to say thank you and all we had were s'mores which we delivered on Christmas cocktail napkins. They were so warmly received, you would have thought we baked a cake.

And then there is the bathhouse wired for sound and playing classic country music... Inspired!

best evah

Multiple trips to the French Canadian grocery have yielded many delights by it will be tough to surpass, wait for it... Chocolate covered graham crackers. There will never be a better s'more.

addendum