A Good Place To Be

Funny how life comes at you.

Recently, an old friend from the childhood I spent on a small island in Nova Scotia connected with me and sent me to a site about the life and times of the village where we grew up.  There were names and pictures of people and places that sent me reeling with nostalgia and sweet, sweet memories.  I scrolled through page after page, often fighting back tears and feeling incredibly lonely for those summers by the ocean.  Simply put, there has never been a time in my life when I was happier - though I was from away, it was and will always be home.  It calls to me still, reminding me that time is not as endless as I once thought, that I need to go back and recapture those memories on film, surround myself with old friends, lost loves, and salt air.

More powerful is the realization that to me, those summers meant serenity and peace and innocence.  Life was - and still is for those who stayed or returned - cleanly simple and straightforward. 

The house at The Point is still there, still a stone's throw from the water, still almost exactly as I remember it except that it's no longer in the family, a fact which saddens me enormously.  Many of the people I knew and loved are gone but the village remains and I still dream about it.

We were different.

Younger.

With all the time in the world.

And in a way, we still are.

Island life fed my soul, gave me roots and a sense of belonging.  I  learned the value of community and friendship,  how people could come together and form a united front, the way in which friends and neighbors got along.  Houses and cars were never locked and if someone was in need, everyone knew and responded.

There were no luxuries, none of the things I took for granted when we left - no paved roads or fancy cars, no color televisions, no department stores or dinner parties.  

It was just home and a good place to be.

“Sometimes memory is the only gift we give ourselves and the only hope we have of finding our way home.” ~ Harley King

I'm going back one day because my heart never left.