It is interesting to me that although I have lived here in Alberta ALL of my adult life, close to 50 years, I still home when I go to Nova Scotia. What I miss Alberta has none of … big bodies of salt water. I remember how unfamiliar the landscape was when I arrived here all those years ago. The difference was stark. The mountains are majestic and the fields in full bloom are a sight to behold but I am so looking forward to spending the whole month of August on the waterfront in Halifax. I hope to reconnect with childhood friends and my wonderful cousins and enjoy the awesome surroundings of salt air, wind in sails and music and song that are rarely heard away from the shore. I want to walk that shore line and feel the mist on my face. The sea draws me back.

I think the place of your birth influences you even if you leave it when you are young. I also think that you settle where your children are born or where they settle. I love my life here. My children and grandchildren are everything to me. So it is also wonderful that Mandy and Kassidy will join me for the later part of the trip. We will introduce Kassidy to Halifax and other parts of Nova Scotia, to the cousins she will immediately fall in love with and they with her. Then we will spend a few days in St John’s to visit more relatives and more geography that has influenced our family’s history.

Time and place.