A month goes quickly.

Don and Kristine at the Margaree cottage

I'm sitting in the kitchen of a motel room with two queen beds, a deck with a gas grill, a view of the Bay of Fundy, that smells of cigarette smoke.  The New Brunswick-Maine border at 30 minutes drive west.  The last two days I was in the perfect cottage in Margaree Harbour, hosted by friends Kristine & Don, Shambhala friends and owners of the fabulous Larch Wood cutting board business.  (They are a work of art that only improve with regular use - wood craftmanship of the highest order).  The Margaree river valley and beaches reminded me so much of Cape Cod and the work I used to do with Joel Meyerowitz.  It has a certain kind of light through all times of day that render the land/sea-scape so vividly, and a pastoral peacefulness that could nurture a year of writing. The view and interior were as if I'd designed my perfect environment - the pine walls, white floor, window seats, old wood furniture; the view of windblown grasses and tiny houses and churches dotting the green hills, the mountains in the distance, the church and general store, the turquoise and blue water at the beach, the grassy path to the beach cutting through the view, leading to sand dunes. The lovely inviting shrine room, the light penetrating in the chilly morning, and glazing everything with a soft glow in the afternoon.

Cottage at dawn, Margaree Harbour, Cape Breton

Margaree Harbour, Cape Breton

Before that, I visited Gampo Abbey in Pleasant Bay, also on the western coast of Cape Breton.  A short stop on the way to Margaree from Kalapa Valley, it was a grounded place within a dramatic landscape of windblown cliffs dropping into the ocean.  Before that, I was in Kalapa Valley, Great Space of green and strong thriving poplars and birches echoing winds from the deeper valley crests. A solitude of people but not of spirit.  The presence of my teachers and the wild sacredness of mouse scat. Before that an Inn in Baddeck.  Before that, far east near Canso in a tent enduring unceasing wind by a steep shore on Chedabouctou Bay. Before that, a cozy campground in Murphy's Cove with a maritime village feel and free mussels at the nightly campfire.  Before that, a B&B between two churches in Mahone Bay on the South Shore with a clawfoot tub and a chatty, cynical, despairing european owner and his efficient wife, cheerful gray dog with white moustache and eyebrows.  A sailing harbour, as was Baddeck. Margaree is a fishing harbour.  Mahone Bay was a ship-building harbour, but not deep enough once the ships were cargoed.  Lunenberg down the next cove took on that port business instead.  Before that, Windhorse Farm in New Germany for 10 days on solitary retreat in a cabin with solar lights, looking out on a beaver pond and the Wentzell Lake beyond.  Gardens with blueberries lining the grassy paths among the perennial beds, plenty of places to wander aimlessly.  Before that, Halifax at friends near the Common who were walking companions as we went back and forth downtown to our Shambhala program for 3 days.  Before that, St. John New Brunswick, at a B&B for a very late (dark) arrival and quick transition from Eastern to Atlantic time, mist along ancient townhouse Loyalist streets and coffee in hand, a peaceful cematary park, an industrial harbour.

Gampo Abbey pathway

 Last night I passed St. John in daylight, the only disruption to the endless trees and rolling hills of three hours of NB-1 Trans-Canada Highway.  The motel a recommendation from the Margaree friends, it is a good place, but the contrast is great.  Shortly I head over the border towards "home," stopping in Maine with friends, or camping, I haven't decided.  Friends haven't written back.  Its been just under a month in the Maritimes, the 29th of July to now.  And just about 3 months since I gave up my job and apartment - doesn't feel like a season could go so quickly and yet May 28 seems so long ago as well.  I expect to spend September reorganizing for the fall, writing, preparing for the month-long program at KCL I am one of the meditation instructors for.  "Reorganizing for the fall" - really more reorganizing for more groundlessness.  Things are not clear, although my time in Nova Scotia informed a lot. What is clearer are the true aspirations and the options that I want to be part of the conversation - with myself, my friends, and acquaintances who have a view on my intentions.  My ability to stay with the open space is tenuous - it would be much easier to just do the obvious, choose the option based on easing my mind rather than following the deeper intentions.  I'm aware that at some point this could transform into trying to keep options open, which never accomplishes anything.  Adam Gopnik once wrote about a piece of advice a professor gave him when he was trying to decide his university path - art or neuroscience.  It was agonizing...the professor then said something like "if the choices are equally valid and inspiring, it doesn't matter which you choose; whatever it is will work out."  Good to know...if only I could be entirely convinced.