mystery solved

Okay, it's no big secret or anything but the other day I ran out of room talking about the reasons we're feeling ready to leave Portland. After that come the reasons why we're ready to leave the US. Maybe it's enough to say I arrived in this country during the Carter administration thinking now that Nixon was gone everything would be okay. Fooled me, eh? We're not rich but we can afford the rent and food somewhere else. (You didn't guess I was that old, did you?) What we can't afford is paying for medical insurance. Hmmm. Where to go?

To tell the truth I was very interested in Chile - nice climate, beautiful scenery, ancient architecture and friendly people all sounded pretty good. Numb, on the other hand, was leaning more towards Tahiti or its tiny neighbor, Moorea (a heart shaped island surrounded by a heart shaped reef). It looks lovely but I'm averse to living in the South Pacific with the oceans rising. You can keep moving to higher ground for just so long on a little island and I'm not convinced the talks in Copenhagen are going to change things.

So we decided to move to Canada. Okay, country chosen but where there?

Toronto is a large and comfortable city much like a version of LA North but I grew up there - so no. Vancouver and Victoria are beautiful and very modern but they're also very expensive - so no. Cities in central Canada like Calgary, Regina (as well as everywhere in the Far North) are all too too cold in winter and often in summer too - so no. Montreal and Quebec are wonderful cities but totally French speaking and neither of us is quite ready for that - no again. Where else? Finally. the answer struck us - Nova Scotia!

We spent 16 years in New England but neither of us have ever lived in Nova Scotia so it will be a new adventure. I did visit the Maritime provinces long ago and visions of blue green waves exploding into white spray against rocky shores has remained a powerful memory. I see dunes and gorse in my dreams. Then too we're pretty much settled on continuing to be urban dwellers but like older cities - places with enough old buildings that nobody would dare pull down to build a shopping mall or insurance office. It sounds a lot like Halifax which isn't that far from Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Providence. I've promised our son not to make a nuisance of myself.

If all goes well that's where we'll be by the end of next summer. Why do I hedge that statement? It's simply because the documentation required by the Canadian government in regard to sponsoring someone is so complicated we decided to hire an attorney to help us through the process. No more, 'Hi, I just ran away from the US Army and I want to live here now' to which they used to say, 'Welcome, we feel the same way about your endless wars of aggression'.


There'll be more to tell you as time goes by and I'll even talk about many of the wonderful people I've known as well as the things I'll miss. For now I just wanted to clear a minor mystery.

At least I won't have to knit Crow a new umbrella for that winter. Besides, he loves dancing to Celtic music and knows Pema Chodren quite well :-)