I read an article by Jackie Torrens where she talks about being an orphan and how, as an orphan, she has always felt “untethered”. I like the work and the sentiment and sensation it creates in me. Since my fols have passed away I feel different. I feel like I am missing a piece, like there are few people who have known me since my birth. Reading Jackie’s article, an address to the summer residency students of the Creative Non Fiction Program at UKings here in Halifax, I got to thinking about becoming an orphan and how it “untethers” you once your parents are gone.

I have been in Halifax for almost a month. Halifax is home. It has been a fabulous opportunity for rebirth or reinvention in the place where I was born. There is a freedom here. The ocean sooths me. The sunshine warms me. I feel different and alive. A sail boat moves across the water out my window and it calms me. I have had opportunities to spend time with family and old friends, to write and to meet people who are involved in the King’s College Program I am registered for for 2020.

I know that the weather is influencing my euphoria. It has been magnificent. And I also know that it is not always like this. I have loved through cold miserable winters here in the past. Still I feel the pull of the ocean’s tides and wonder how I can leave here and return to the Alberta landscape and find the same kind of fulfillment, the same sense of wonder and ease that I have found here.

I have wonderful people in St Albert. I love them dearly. That thought keeps me from staying … for the time being. I am toying with visiting them and living here. TOYING. So many things to consider and yet…. It is a wonderful dream to spend the next year or maybe two living on the waterfront, enjoying the place where there are people who know my roots, my family and me.

Saturday I go back. I will let you know how this goes. I have felt untethered there for a while. Here there is a safe harbour for a short stay while I am still young enough to enjoy it. There are like minded individuals working at writing like me. It is a fleeting idea based on blue skies and the call of the North Atlantic? Maybe. Or is this the seed of an idea, a plan I might be able to pull off? I don’t know. Stay tuned.