Fair to Partly Cloudy

Most summer days in Nova Scotia bordered so close to perfect that you'd have been hard pressed to tell the difference.  The sky was a brilliant blue, lazy clouds drifted by, the air was clear and clean and tinged with salt, the ocean was placid with gentle whitecaps.
We would run through the strawberry field with the dogs at our heels, sit on the white washed side porch and daydream, wander down The Old Road and around to the cove to see who was brave enough to wade into the icy water.  Even as a child, I knew there was no more perfect place in the whole world - but when the fog came in, dense, wet and so thick you couldn't see your hand in front of your face - well, then everything changed and became dismal and forlorn and a little mysterious.  There was a sense of isolation and loneliness to the fog - you felt lost and disoriented, closed in and uncertain if the landscape would be the same when it eventually lifted.  But of course it always was.
Westport was always still just across the passage, Peter's Island was intact, the lighthouse still stood.  There were no hungry Stephen King creatures milling about and waiting to snatch an unsuspecting child, there was just a solid wall of fog that distorted sounds and frizzed even the straightest hair.

Nana, of course, was a veteran of the weather and always made sure we were well stocked with books and board games.  She kept several decks of cards on hand and when all else failed and we became whiny and restless, she could always be counted upon to invent a chore that needed doing.  It was no small task to keep three active children and their mother entertained and out from underfoot - often for several days at a time - but she was resigned and did her best not to become cross with us.  She taught us dominoes and card tricks, let us play our 45's on the sunporch until her head ached, baked cookies and refereed the inevitable arguments and spats.  She showed me calligraphy and let me use her best stationery and quill ink pen to practice.  Confined and ill tempered, my mother drank earlier and would often shut herself in her room, wanting no part of these somewhat desperate efforts to kill time.  Aunt Vi and Aunt Pearl arrived to gossip and play canasta and the knitting ladies came once a week, but mostly people stayed home and waited for the sun.

The highlight of such days was the afternoon mail run - feeling closed off and suffocated and bored, we would all pile into the old Lincoln and drive ever so slowly to the post office. There might be a Boston newspaper or a new Spiegel catalogue, seed packets for the window boxes or even a new crossword puzzle book.  The joy was in never knowing and the possibility of a surprise.

Two things signaled the approach of clearing weather:  radio reception improved albeit marginally and Nana's arthritis pain, always the more reliable prognosticator, eased considerably.

These old bones know, she would say with a relieved smile, It'll be fine tomorrow.

And it was - I would wake to the sounds of chattering seagulls and not the sorrowful foghorn.  Sunshine would be streaming in through the open window and I would hear the cheerful back and forth of the men laying out fish on the drying racks.

Wake up, sleepy head!  my grandmother would call, Daylight's burnin'!


Westport shone in the morning light, the tide was high on Peter's Island and the ocean glistened like crystals.  Since then I've lived in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Florida and Louisiana.  I've visited San Francisco, Dallas, New York City, New Orleans, Chicago, Atlanta and Memphis, spent two weeks in Hawaii and a week cruising the Caribbean.  And still I've never been anywhere as perfect as a small island in Nova Scotia.
Everywhere else is just fair to partly cloudy.