Always Coming Home

Some might call it an iconic, or perhaps clichéd, Maritime scene:

the road curving round an inlet, or a harbour, or a bite,

the land extended out with a wharf, or two,

standing on heron legs.

Cape Islanders, their day’s labour done, bob at anchor,

bows pointing back out to sea,

eager to slip the tame safety of the land-enclosed harbour

for the freedom of the open ocean.

It could be EveryRoad, leading home.

It could be NoRoad, leading Everywhere.

I grew up an airforce brat, have travelled the world, knowing no geographical homeplace. Like the turtle, the

military family carries home with it, setting up the little icons, the chachkes as my mom called them, that allow

any/everyplace to become Home: the photos and art, familiar furniture, dishes, knickknacks, bedding. One

becomes adept at carrying the essence of a life in a suitcase, guardians against Lethe. I have a few, mostly

photos of family, of animals, of places. The places mean little, I’ve come to realize. It’s the ghosts that inhabit

them that linger in my heart.

“Places never cooperate by revering you back when you need it. In fact, they almost always let you down…Best just to swallow back your tear, get accustomed to the minor sentimentals and shove off to whatever’s next, not whatever was. Place means nothing”

~Richard Ford - Independence Day

I first came to Nova Scotia with my mother to visit my brother and his wife in 1977. Unsuspecting, I walked

down the ramp to the tarmac.

I have a sharp remembering of the overwhelming feeling of coming home.

It still can bring me to tears, that memory.

I didn’t understand it, didn’t understand what a physical “home” was. Made no sense to me at all, this feeling.

Didn’t yet know that the ever-present booming of the distant surf was going to anchor me through the many

turbulent years to come.

But the sea teaches the land that it must never take its dominance, its permanence, for granted.

Solid becomes liquid, becomes overwhelmed, becomes lost.

Drowned Atlantis,

Phuket,

Sendai.

Less dramatic eroded coastlines, worn down, worn out, worn

Away.

There are no roads on the ocean.

I fled (back)/to Nova Scotia in 1979, seeking refuge from the turbulence that was my life. Learned that

changing locations doesn’t equate with changing lives. Fell into the eddies that were born from the rapids of my

previous life. Went under, then resurfaced, almost drowned, but fought my way back to the surface. Knew in

my gut that I had come Home. Didn’t know what home was.

In the first five years here, I moved 15 times, not an uncommon phenomenon among military children once they

become adults. Desperately seeking, desperately fearing, permanence.

I moved back to Ontario to finish my undergrad degree, lengthening but never severing the ties to the sea.

Returned before I finished.

Finished here.

Lived in apartment after apartment, job to job, running hard, yet, oddly, staying anchored in place. Finding my

island, solid and consistent, even if I wasn’t.

Bought a house, moved to PEI, was lonelier than even I, who was used to being Other, non-belonger, had ever

been. Black with loneliness. Watched my soul withering, helpless.

Fled – again – Home to Nova Scotia.

If one is going to be alone, one should be allowed to choose the place of solitary confinement.

I am loner, but I am not alone. I do not speak as part of a collective voice. My voice echoes other voices, but it does not seek to mimic or impersonate other voices, or to silence other voices, or to harmonize with other voices. Instead, I seek to make sounds that are like trumpet calls to listen to the light, to wake up to know the world differently, outside the typical parameters and predictions. I am part of a network of loners who seek to give heart to one another, speaking to the heart of the other, hearing the heart of the other in our hearts.

~Carl Leggo

One day, driving aimlessly down a side road on the Eastern Shore, I turned a corner and found Home.

Stopped the car, bought the land, built the house:

The Havens at Bramblefield in Three Fathom Harbour.

Dionne Brand tells us: I stepped into the cool opening of the Door of No Return. My feet landed where my thoughts were. This is the trick of the door – to step through and be where you want to be. Our ancestors were bewildered because they had a sense of origins – some country, some village, some family where they belonged and from which they were rent. We, on the other hand, have no such immediate sense of belonging, only of drift.

It was, of course, too much.

Too much house,

too much time,

too much space,

too much permanence.

Sold the house, moved to Ontario, went back to school.

Missed Juan and White Juan.

Missed

Home.

For us in particular – who happen to live in ruthless times, times of competition and one-upmanship, when people around seem to keep their cards close to their chests and few people seem to be in any hurry to help us…the word ‘community’ sounds sweet. What that word evokes is everything we miss and what we lack to be secure, confident and trusting…. ‘Community’ is nowadays another name for paradise lost – but one to which we dearly hope to return, and so we feverishly seek the road that may bring us there.

~~Zygmunt BaumanCommunity: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World)

This is where I live now. Am tied to this place, this shore.

It is literally painful for me to be away from it for any length of time.

The perspective in the photo is misleading.

The road appears to end, to settle,

crosses the ocean’s bite gently,

leads, perhaps, to home,

to that elusive “community” of fellow wanderers.

But perspective is a liar, because the road leads ever on and on

Away.

Still I’m restless.

Have travelled 30 years, always coming home.

In Zen Buddhism, there is a concept called satori:

the notion of

movement within stillness

which is also

stillness within movement.

And so, we end where we started.

Three Fathom Harbour.

Juan left nothing standing, tore down the wharves, the fish shacks.

Boats gone,

Fishermen gone.

Only the road – and the ocean – remain.