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a cape breton shower

Today, I’m writing while on a plane to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Close friends of mine live a few hours out of Halifax and a few hours away from Cape Breton. And you know, the whole area is fast becoming one of my happy places. Both coasts of Canada are gorgeous, but there’s something more mellow about the eastern end of the country. It’s just…less. I mean that in a good way. There’s not a lot of people. The people that do live there are so kind. Life is simpler (I mean, I think). The ocean is close.


Everyone’s masked. Keeping to themselves, in their seats. Offering to help each other with suitcases. Polite. Honestly, I love planes full of Canadians. Even if I was on a plane and no one told me where it took off from and where it was going, I would be able to tell whether I was on my way home or not.


Back to the water. It strikes me how big and small the world is when I’m standing on a beach, watching the waves roll. I’ve had the luck to walk along shores all over, from New Zealand to India, from Tanzania to Portugal, and of course, here in Canada, and increasingly, I am amazed that all those bodies of water connect at some point. How vast that network is. Where the water meets the land is what we can see and feel…but there is a whole world out there beyond that. Below the surface and far beyond what the naked eye can see. It brings perspective to who we are and our place in the world. Suddenly, that anxiety-inducing task I’ve been putting off or the disorienting nature of an uncomfortable conversation or my most seemingly stressful problem is put in perspective.


I have a fond memory of my Nova Scotian friends sharing their seaside lifestyle with me. They and my sister had visited me in South Africa back in 2018. We were driving back from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Town, passing stunning beaches. I cannot even express how beautiful these beaches are. At one, we spontaneously stopped on the side of the road, stripped down, and ran into the ocean for a quick ‘Cape Breton shower.’ Cold, refreshing, and natural. I think I was mostly the photographer at the time, but there’s nothing I am craving more right now than to run into the ocean, gasp at the temperature of the water, and look out to that wide, open, and magical horizon.


somewhere in south africa, 2018.


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