Ebb and Flow

As I sit on a terrace overlooking the tropical themed pool area at the hotel that will be our home away from home for the next week or so, the smell of chlorine burns my senses. The sounds of the splashing water brings forth emotions of how much I love the water. While the sound of water rushes forward in an unnatural setting here, in my mind’s eye, I can still see the trickle of the water from the brook close to my Nanny and Grandpy Power’s old place in Caplin Cove. If I listen closely and close my eyes for the briefest of moments, I can see and hear the great over falls on the property next to a dear aunt’s and uncle’s house cascade to the bottom of a clear pool, attached to a stream that will eventually ebb and flow towards the ocean. Finally, if I listen even more closely still past the sound of the squeals of playing children and really poor renditions of Caribbean music, the sounds of the waves crashing on the shore and the sea gulls’ cries ring in my ears just down the lane from my Nanny Oliver’s.

As a transplanted Quebecer/Newfoundlander who found herself and her new fiancé (now husband) living in Ontario back in the Fall of 1999, I don’t suppose there was ever a person on earth as home sick as I was. Aside from weeping torrents of salty tears on an almost daily basis for my family, I mourned the natural beauty and the ruggedness that is the Avalon Peninsula on the Island of Newfoundland. As long as I live, I’ll never forget the day in that first November from home when I was surprised with a drive to Owen Sound without being informed of where we were going beforehand. Surprise would be an understatement to reflect the bevy of emotions that bubbled forth as I found myself looking upon the largest body of water I had seen since I left home. While Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay was not the ocean I had known and loved, just the fact that I was able to gaze upon open water as far as the eye could see was like a balm to my soul. Happy tears were shed and much to his chagrin, the tears for my family continued well until we went back to the Island months later to be married. 

For the past decade, I’ve been living in a place that has numerous lakes to drench my soul. That mere fact, however, does not take away from the fact that I still miss the Atlantic Ocean. Millions of years old, it is a force of nature that can take and give so much. To me, there is hardly a site in nature that is as beautiful as waves lapping gently against the shore, crashing violently against the cliffs and rocks, or glistening calmly beneath a moonlit and starry night sky. These visions are fully imprinted on my mind and my heart.