CAPE BRETON DAYS - PART TWO

(I'm just back from a week in Cape Breton, staying with friends. I had no internet access there, but wrote two blogposts. The first one went up on July 31; this is the second)

The day after that mist and magic swim I had a quite different morning that started with pink dawn and became leaden-skied grey with soft mild air. My river swim was as invigorating as the previous day’s but not nearly as beautiful, with one exception: there were wild rose petals drifting along in the water, bright patches of pink on the silvery-grey-brown surface, little travelling companions as I stroked along slowly.

And on every subsequent morning my swim was distinctive - always a mix of soft mild water and chilly cold - and always a pleasure, but each day different. Now, this afternooon, as I sit in Halifax airpot wating for my flight to Toronto, I can picture each of them, like a small short film of body sensations and moving images. 

And the same goes for the other hours in my days.

On my first trip out in the boat, we left Judique port in mid-afternoon. There were some substantial swells and a wind as we headed out, but the wind gradually died down. We anchored in the lee of Port Hood Island, where the water was millpond smooth and inviting. But it sure felt cold when I dipped a foot in. I slowly inched my way into the water (as unbrave non-dive-right-in-people like me tend to do) from a ladder on the side of the boat; once I was immersed the water immediately lost its power to chill.

I tend to think of sea water and ocean swimming as very second-best compared to the lovely light slipperiness of fresh water swimming. In all that attitude I forget about the fabulous bouyancy of salt water. On that first ocean immersion, swimming around the anchored boat and drifting along on my back, and chatting and hanging, the effortlessness was a delight. And so was being able to get straight into the water from the boat rather than having to wade in from a sandy or stony shore.

We cooked fresh lightly olive-oiled scallops, just barely, on a grill on the boat, and feasted on them, with tender corn and chopped tomatoes too, as the sun disappeared behind the island and the sky paled into opalescence.  And then it was time to head back to the harbour on the now-calm sea, sated.

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One day we were out in the boat and saw a pod of pilot whales (which people from hereabouts call “black fish”). We thought they looked like dophins, and so they do, but they are whales, small and elegant. In the pod were two very young ones, one of them a pale grey. The whales were hanging around close together in the lee of Port Hood Island, in a shallow bay. The bigger ones would surface casually with a lovely sighing exhale, then dip below the surface, leaving a dorsal fin casually trailing above the water. They were feeding, it seems, and also teaching the young ones. And so suddenly one and then the other “baby whale” did a kind of headstand in the water, so that it could slap its tail - slap-slap-slap-slap - on the surface, before finally toppling over. 

Maybe the naturalists are wrong and there was no teaching but instead just the babies goofing off. And later we were told by some experienced people that one of the whales was giving birth. Whatever the reality for the whales, it was amazing and moving to see these creatures out freely in their element, on a lovely calm day.

The next day as I slowly breast-stroked my way up the river in front of the house in the early morning I tried to imagine the feeling a whale or porpoise must have in the water. I love swimming in the river, welcome the water’s slipperiness, but I’m almost always aware that it’s an alien medium, that dry land is where I feel safest. Water is like a slightly risky treat, temporary sensual pleasure, but not home. Nor can it ever be, even when we put on mask and a tank and give ourselves the freedom to stay underwater. 

Is there an analogy in other parts of life? Do we feel safer and surer in our home environment than elsewhere? Can we ever feel as secure, as grounded, in another cultural or emotional environment? If our home environment is NOT safe and secure, how do we find that feeling elsewhere?

And speaking of baby whales, I haven’t spent time with a small human baby in the last few years, and so it was a treat when, a few days into my visit, a gorgeous three-month-old came with her parents to stay with her grandmother in the house in Cape Breton. Her strong cry is firm but not really penetrating, but her gaze, her steady blue gaze, is deeply so. She’s a reminder that the person in a small child’s body is already all there. She’s going to bloom and develop in ways that show us more clearly who she is, but in fact she’s there from the start, mostly hidden from our view, except for the occasional clue, like her penetrating gaze.

We drove with the baby and her parents to Mabou market; it’s held every Sunday in a large hall. The place was filled with small stalls selling everything from produce (kale, lettuce, potatoes, fresh garlic, etc) to local sausages and meat, to locally spun and dyed wool, soap, hand-carved wooden spoons, and more. Hard to resist those spoons!

Later that afternoon as I sat writing in my airy whitewashed cosy bedroom, the day having turned grey and a little threatening, my friend C brought me a small plate of squares of local bread, each topped with bright green pesto she’d made from the garlic scapes we’d bought, a pick-me-up that jolted me from the calm of writing and back into engagement with the here and now. wowza.

On my last evening a bunch of us headed to a weekly dance at a community hall inland from Mabou. The place was packed when we got there at ten, people sitting in chairs along the walls and also at long tables at one end of the hall. At the other end, on a raised platform, were the musicians, a fiddler (in this case an ex-premier of Nova Scotia named Rodney MacDonald) and a piano player, playing and playing, as circles and lines of dancers, people of all ages and descriptions, danced their way through the measures. (Many jokes of course about whether “Rodney” is a better fiddler than politician - the answer seems to be a sure “yes!”.)

I watched and wondered and longed to dance, but couldn’t imagine how that would happen. And then a kindly older man, distantly related to my friends, asked me to pair with him for the next set (three dances in a row). What a pleasure. He’s a very good dancer, and his footwork was lovely; I managed footwork issues by retrieving steps from the highland dancing I’d done as a child, simple jig movements. And as for the larger dance patterns, they were similar to the contra-dancing I’ve done in Grey County, so suddenly I stopped worrying at all about messing up. Fun!

The big crowd made navigating a little complex at times, and the dancing formations not as tidy as they might have been, but there was good will all round, many experienced dancers, and the sure rhythm of the fiddle, to keep us sorted out. I danced the next set too, in an even larger crowd, the fiddler that time being the wonderful Kinnon Beaton.

The tunes are still echoing in my head, days later. So are the stories I heard during my stay in Cape Breton, of the flight of people from the Hebrides to the New World, of the traditions and family connections they share, of the hardships and richness of life on Cape Breton in the last two hundred years. It’s another place of complexity, dealing with plenty of outsiders like me, while holding onto a   distinctive culture in a challenging world.

I’m looking forward to being back there - next year? perhaps...

CAPE BRETON DAYS - PART ONE

{I’ve been in Cape Breton for a week, away from internet access, staying with friends. I’ve written two blogposts while there, this is the first, posted from Halifax airport on my way home.}

I’m on a different coast this week, the west coast of Cape Breton, where the early morning sun has come up over the low hills to the east, the small birds are twittering, and the crows are giving an occasional caw-caw. The wind is coming up now, so the poplars are rustling in crescendo.

There was no hint of wind an hour ago, sometime before seven, when I walked across dew-silvery grass chilly to my bed-warm feet, down to the edge of the small tidal river below the house. The river is narrow here, about eight metres wide, with tuffted green banks. On the far side of the opposite bank is more water, sea water in the inlet. 

The river’s surface was smooth but moving, flowing gently out to the sea, drawn out by the receding tide. Looking east upstream where the river curves away in the distance, a soft mist flowed and drifted above the water’s surface, lit by the young sun, like a romantic Impressionist dreamscape.  I left my clothes and towel on the bank and stepped into the water, then pushed off, heading upstream toward the sun.  The top inches of water were soft and warm, and below that was the chilliness of the salt water. As I swam upstream with long breast strokes I disturbed the still water so that before me, like an announcement, the ripples headed upstream in parallel straight lines into the bright mist.

Do otters and muskrats feels the same pleasure as they slide through river water, leaving beautiful rippling wakes?

Swimming upstream against the outgoing flow, I made slow progress. I had time to look at the details of the long grasses on the banks, to notice the occasional darting bird, to glance up at the hills beyond. Eventually I got farther upstream, around a curve of river, and almost to the small wooden bridge that carries the coastal path across the water. It was time to turn around, for by now the water was shallow, not past my waist, the bottom firm-packed when I stood up.

The trip back was less beautiful - no sunlit mist - and much faster of course.  I zipped along  with the flow of the water, feeling like a strong powerful swimmer for once.  As I climbed out onto the grassy bank the crows in the big tree complained in loud caws, then went on to something more interesting.

This morning’s swim is just another in a series of delights since I landed in Halifax airport yesterday late morning. The three hour drive up with my friend C (she did all the driving, leaving me to gaze at the landscapes we passed through) was filled with layers of talk. When we got here to this welcoming wood house, the interior painted in wonderful colour combinations, the outside soft grey wood shingles, it felt like a coming home. In late afternoon we drove a short way to the Fish Co-op to buy fresh haddock and there in the lobster tank was a one in two million (they say) amazing sight: a cobalt-blue lobster, startling and beautiful, too beautiful for someone’s pot. 

Later, after eating grilled haddock with coriander chutney, and grilled kale, and basmati rice, we drove to a small hall nearby to hear the fiddling of Andrea Beaton, a young woman whose music flows from her in the great tradition of Cape Breton fiddlers. She’s a first cousin of Nathalie MacMaster, but that’s not the important thing about her; her fluid, supple, marvellous music is all. People danced as she played, sometime step-dancing, but to most tunes the wonderfully practised form of Cape Breton group dancing that has its own patterns and order. What a treat.