It seems so long ago, taking off from my sweet little home in Patten, Maine and heading to a great big island in the North Atlantic. I donb't know exactly when Newfoundland captured my soul -I think it was when my friend Kathy and I were sitting in a theater on Broadway just days after reopening from the "pandemic". I was so moved by the story and music of Come From Away, I felt so hopefu.l I also felt curious. I started thinking about Newfoundland. I wondered could this eastern most province in Canada (actually Newfoundland Labrador) be as friendly and welcoming as the 9/11 story I had just heard? What is it like to be on rock in the North Atlantic? The "rock" gets lots of icebergs, it even has an iceberg alley. I was hooked. Icebergs, thousands of years old, surviving while splitting and breaking and melting, icebergs. A place that continues to be in process of reconciliation between the First Nation Indigenous Peoples and white immigrant settlers. An old, old, old place where the Beotuk, "true people" lived for thousands of years before being felled by European diseases.
I became totally moved by icebergs, finding websites, tracking maps, pictures, pictures and more pictures of icebergs, of the horizons, of the water, the sunrise and sunsets. Then I met people who actually grew up in Newfoundland, and people who have traveled to Newfoundland and I was really really hooked.
How is it that I find myself drawn further North, further remote, further away? I keep asking myself this question and to date I am still in the process of finding answers. I know that there is something about vistas. I know that I can embrace a vista with green and trees and water much more easily than the vistas I have seen at the Grand Canyon. I seem to find my way to water, whether stream, river, lake, pond, great lakes or ocean. The air, when I bought the house in Millinocket, Maine and started visiting I kept on having deep gratitude for the air, the way the sunlight angles and warms. I keep going further north, further east the light calls to me and i feel bathed in the moment.
So I am on a journey, with unexpected changes, real challenges and absolute wonder. I am seeking, I am open, I am curious and I am on my way to the newest Canadian province - Newfoundland Labrador.
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