On a recent trip I was forced to wait for paving work partway across the eight-mile bridge connecting my birthplace, Prince Edward Island, to Canada’s mainland.
Perhaps the Travel Gods had a purpose. I needed to slow down after driving over the speed limit since crossing the border in Maine three hours earlier. My red-streaked eyes took in the panoramic view. A rust colored ribbon of low sandstone cliffs outlined my Island home. Like sandwich filling, the soil oozed from a grassy green top layer and the shifting black water lapping at its feet. The sight renewed me after driving 800 miles and I thought of visits with family and friends and the laughter, stories and fresh-from-the-ocean lobster we would share.
Even though I’ve been gone over 15 years being back here feels like putting on my favorite jeans, the ones that stretch where I need them to and are the most comfortable thing I own. The language, the pace, the lifestyle here all have their own unique rhythm and I slip into it as soon as I step on the sandy red soil.
In the last few years conversation often turns to the young people leaving for Alberta, following the oil industry’s boom and bust cycle. Growing up in a province having fishing, farming and too many summer tourists as its main businesses limits career choices. Like this generation of young people I made career choices too, beginning when I left in 1991. Returning each year is my essential refueling. After toiling in the business world the sound of waves rolling ashore and vistas of green and red strips of fields quilting the landscape rebalances me in a way no amount of yoga, meditation or zen practices can achieve.
Perhaps “rebalance” isn’t the right word, though I struggle for a better one. Am I rebalanced when I head back to the Maine border, always trying to outrun the turmoil of emotions triggered when each visit ends? My husband and I have a great life in the United States. Five of my six siblings and their 16 children live in Prince Edward Island. I’m lucky enough to slip between both worlds. Yet the emotional toll of leaving the island again is far greater than the Confederation Bridge toll charged for departing vehicles.
Making a different career choice is easy. Living with the choice is harder. Phone calls about sick friends or relatives have sent me into tailspins of guilt and helplessness. Even though I was raised on a farm, knowledge gained since about different ways of cultivating the land or protecting the oceans often conflict with Island ways, so I worry about the livelihoods depending on those critical resources. More than anything, there are hold-your-breath feelings of suspension while hovering between Island time and the rest-of-the-year-time. It feels like letting go of one trapeze while waiting to grab hold of another, all without a net below.
This year I will arrive back in Connecticut on Independence Day. I’ll attend fireworks with my husband and we’ll hug friends and swap stories as we catch up on each other’s lives since we last met. It will be like slipping into jeans again, the Connecticut pair, but they won’t feel comfortable right away. We’ll stand with hands on hearts and join in singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” under a star-filled sky beside a peaceful lake. And every few minutes my thoughts will travel 800 miles northeast, to the other trapeze, to my Island life.
My freedom allowed me to leave Prince Edward Island. Now I am blessed to enjoy life on both sides of the Canadian and US border. I’ve become a trapeze artist. It was not a deliberate choice. It was a necessity.
Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Independence Travel Writing competition and tell your story.
