Northern Hospitality

What do you say when someone cleans your car inside and out without you knowing it. There is no recourse, no comeback, the deed is done and your left gob smacked silly in gratitude. A break after camping allowed me to see another side of Cape Breton, the lazy morning visiting friends for hours at the local café and sitting, coffee in hand, watching the yachts come and go in Baddeck. My body ached to move yet my mind was valuing these precious moments, listening with absolutely no agenda and not in control of what laid ahead in the day. What most westerners forget, myself included, is that easterners and more poignantly Maritimers have perfected the sport of friendship. A sense of belonging, having purpose and value, knowing if one blunders and mistakes are made, there is someone there without advice or judgements.

We rolled from one back road to another visiting friends, dangling our toes in different waters of the Bras D’or Lake and for me learning about my friends back home, what really went on in their youth hood. What really got me going was coming back to Big Bras D’or changing into my swimsuit and yelping quietly as our bodies pushed against the currents and weeds. Never having masters the gift of plunging into cold waters, I waddled back and forth on each proceeding rock until my belly, and then like a scared child reaching out to his mother my body squirmed into the liquid. Once in, confidence soars, as if I was born with gills, except if sea weed touched me, we swam up current and floated back down several times watching ships pass by. Dinner was late, conversation was great, and I told to head to Glace Bay.

It wasn’t at its best the day I didn’t see Glace Bay. Sheets of rain whipped at my windshield while tree branches feel onto the highway and byways, forcing the semi in front of me off the road, and I followed suit. My gut was wrenched with knots and what I could see of the harbor was bleak. I thought to wait it out and ran into a café, soaked to the bone within 15 ft. Never having experienced this before, I thought hard about asking Hal to move to this part of the country that I have so yearned to return to. Lush landscape, wondrous harbors and colorful yachts, ships, and fishing vessels were not to be seen. What I could see clearly were ships being flung to and fro damaging hulls in the protected harbor. What would Halifax bring?

Hal had buddies from his young adulthood that permitted me to grace them, and it didn’t take long for stories to evolve, divulge, that my husband party and drinking habits have diminished from his past. The virtuous, religious, conscientious man, has altered his state. Blessed with honesty, integrity and humor the Button’s relished my appetite. The husband was originally from the Rock and his father used to send him pork scrunching’s and salted cod, and the story goes that few and far would partake in this delicacy, but Hal was in there licking his fingers. Kindness and generosity radiate from their home and I thank them for allowing me to learn. Halifax was a marvelous gift.

I was also blessed to visit my parent’s friends and learn of their lives, then and now. Moving from childhood memories to new marriages, their work, loves, fears and joys. A lunch at Saltie’s delighted our palates and my ears. I feel very honoured to have met new friends and old.