Welcome back. Things are strange here in rural Nova Scotia
Three weeks to settle in is not enough
Last year in September was the first and last time I visited Nova Scotia. I stayed in Halifax for a month. I traced my slow, 20-year journey from the North End of Boston to the North End of Halifax, I caught Covid for the first time, and I recovered during Hurricane Fiona, which left people without power for 3 days and more and left massive tree branches shattered all over our sidewalks.
It was brilliant.
Halifax! Covid and a hurricane!
It was so brilliant, in fact, that even after Covid and a hurricane, and further adventures in Ottowa, Montreal and Quebec through the remainder of 2022, my partner and I decided that Halifax—or at least, Nova Scotia—was the place.
Our first stop this time, though, for our introductory month as Canadian resident-hopefuls, is a tiny village on the northern coast, facing the Bay of Fundy, famous for its huge tides. We’re staying in a nearly 200-year-old house with too many rooms and zero doors that close properly. There’s an unlikely-sized lawn, a firepit that’s not been used in an amount of time measurable by the height of the grass around it and dug too near a gracious old chestnut tree, and window-spiders that I’ve named. The living room has a smell of damp we can’t pinpoint, most of the light fixtures are about ready to die, and the wallpaper is structural.
It’s brilliant.
There’s a strange effect, though, to this month of rest I cleverly planned for us. If we’re going in August, I thought, why not start out in one of those lovely places close to the ocean? Why not truly get away from it all, have the quiet, be just with each other, and calm down from the madness of the move? (And from living above extremely chaotic neighbors?)
Well, there’s quite a few reasons why not, actually. We’re still working, of course; if anything work has ramped up somewhat for both of us. So that takes some of the relaxation out of it.
There’s also the fact that the house sits right on the bend in the road that brings you into the little town. We’re directly across from the community hall, which so far has hosted outdoor live music events at least three times. Fireworks—sanctioned ones, by their appearance—go off for very little reason. And of course everyone around here has these enormous lawns, and every day, somebody different needs to mow them, or trim their hedge, or work on their roof, or… Honestly, the noise situation isn’t that much different from living in the Masssachusetts suburbs, although at least we don’t have the nightly episodes of Townie Family Drama unfolding just beneath our beds. The nights, indeed, are very quiet.
One of the biggest lessons I learned about last year’s four-month mini-tour of eastern Canada was that one month is not long enough to really understand a place. It’s a nice amount of time to stay somewhere; longer than your typical vacation, but shorter than it takes to know what it would be like to live there, truly, day in and day out. Our time here in Margaretsville is over in a week, and I feel like we barely know the place. We’ve driven around to different places in the region, too, seeing if rural life might be the thing. It is quiet here, slow, friendly.
But that’s the other piece that makes it less relaxing, oddly: the missing stress.
It takes a long time to unwind, it turns out, from months of ramping up to move nation-states. There’s an awful lot of unspooling adrenaline, unclenching jaws, sleep catchup, new rhythms to establish. And then there’s the fact we’re still a couple of trauma survivors, and the change to a much lower-stress environment can feel…suspicious. Our bodies are primed for the next upsetting stimulus. The process of Calming TF Down is not quick, or easy, for people who have lived with chaos and uncertainty for so long.
But we’re working on it. (Working: it’s what people in therapy are always doing, isn’t it? Why not playing on it, or resting on it?)
In the meantime, Nova Scotia is utterly charming, and I’m doing my best to enjoy the little world up here.
Some highlights from our first couple weeks
Down at the farm market store called Gouchers, the sign out front in the completely unlined gravel parking lot says, "Hodge-Podge Time." Inside a lot of oddball codgers shop and socialize. Two old men talk maybe politics, and one keeps yelling “I know! I know!” to the other before he can even finish his thoughts.
Driving up the road toward the highway, as we made our way to Antigonish for the day to see friends who had come up here by strange chance. Everything slowed down as my partner said, slowly, "Whooooa," and gently pressed the brake. Out of the field came bounding a buck deer with splendid antlers, prancing across our path.
In the area of Antigonish, the very Scottish part of Nova Scotia, a handful of climate activists demonstrated in front of the town hall. Two teenage boys with a guitar and a trumpet, a group of moms and kids holding signs with pictures of Greta Thunberg and messages like "Leave something for our children." Across the street a lone (maybe?) counterprotestor held a sign saying "Winter Is Not Coming," with Not crossed out. Confusing.
One of the countless lighthouses on the Nova Scotia coast, a beautiful tall white one with a donation box and no way in. A fellow with a Big 5 South Africa hat came up, just making conversation, and told us the story of the Empress of Ireland, a shipwreck nearly as terrible as the Titanic and only two years later, but swept into the dustbin of history by the advent of the First World War.
Swimming in the ocean, for the first time in years, stepping gingerly over the beastly endless rocks of Nova Scotia seashores, this time in the Northumberland Strait. Feeling the ease of childhood as my feet found the soft ocean floor sand, the familiar rock of the waves over my hips.
Coming home, late, after two big drives. In our driveway, a huge black bunny just sitting there, tharn. I thought of the Black Rabbit of Inlé, but this guy was too fat and afraid for that. Never seen a rabbit that big or that dark. We had to get out of the car and chase him up the driveway.
In the morning, bagpipes.
Finally, on the way to Antigonish and back again, I saw these signs over and over: “East Hants - We Live It!” Which seems like...an inadequate slogan. It wasn't until the way back that I saw its rival sign: “West Hants - The Best of Everything.” I couldn't help but wonder at the relationship between these divided towns, these two houses, both alike in dignity. Or ARE they. If West Hants has the best of everything, one wonders what's left for East Hants to live. And what exactly is the “it” they live? An eternal mystery. But once I've heard “We Live It,” it's hard not to hear “The Best of Everything” without a kind of silent, “Unlike those losers in EAST Hants!”
Alternate West Hants slogans:
East Hants’ Smarter Older Brother
East Hants: The Second-Best of Everything
…There's Another Hants?
*complicated and vaguely threatening hand signal*
Fuck East Hants.
Next time…
I’m quite likely to be in Halifax, hopefully with neither Covid nor a hurricane. Thanks for your patience while I adjust to the quite real possibility of becoming a Canadian. And as always, if you enjoy the things I share here, please pass it on.