Where I Am, Where I'm At

The unimpeded view of the sunset here, standing at Fort Anne where the rivers meet the Atlantic Ocean, is among the best in the Annapolis Valley. I used to sit in nearly this exact spot, atop a cannon, every couple of years when I was younger, and evaluate my life. Now I've lived here for a few months. And I kind of hate it.

The people here are great; there's a mix of American expats, Brits and Australians, locals whose roots go back a few generations- 500 of them making up one of the most diverse and interesting little populations on the East coast. There's a community potluck every week, as pictured earlier, book groups, film groups, theatre groups. The most artists per capita of any Nova Scotian town- in 2005 this place was deemed 'Cultural Capital of Canada' by some government-appointed body. The town has its own arts council with its own gallery space; this and many other artist-owned spaces hold remarkable work and are completely free of the clothesline-and-lobster trap romanticism of most commercial galleries you'll find across the province. They hold life-drawing classes one a week. I can walk across the street and access an indefinite stretch of the wintry Trans-Canada trail along the Annapolis River. There's a Shambala meditation centre beside the Save-Easy.

Every one of these things has been a part of my life while I've been here. It's a rich life- for someone who's cut out for it. But goddamn it, as much as I try to deny it, my mentality is urban, and it always has been. There will, perhaps, be a time and place for this type of life, for the beauty and peace and everything that generates and assists, but as it is now, I feel completely cut off from the blood-pulse of the world. The sun is setting on my time in this town- I'm here for another month and a half, and as it stands another two years in this province.

A common misconception about me is that I'm actually indigenous to this province. I'm not- one side of my family is from Ontario, the other from St. John New Brunswick, and that side fled en masse to Toronto as soon as it became convenient. My mother and father are the only members of each that live here. This has resulted in my feelings about the region fluxuating between tumultous and ambivalent. I used to say that Nova Scotia was like a loving mama that would hardly ever hand over the car keys- you never knew if she was looking out for you or just being a stone bitch. Any deep understanding of the place has been helped along by people whose roots go deeper, from playwrights and poets to farmers and fishermen. When I love it it's through them.

And, in deeper searches for clarity, I realize I could have been born poor in Sierra Leone.