The minute we crossed the bridge, I felt at home. Passing quiet, tiny towns in the dark of a late autumn evening, I felt welcomed by this tiny Canadian island. Home, like the potato fields of Aroostook County, but with a salt smell in the air that reminds you the sea is just on the other side of the horizon. Home, with Pride flags flying and rainbow stickers in the windows, and with more diversity on one tiny island than I’ve seen in my whole home state. Home, a safe place with a deep sense of community and the same stoic resilience I’m used to from New Englanders, just in the Maritimes.
No place is perfect, but I think PEI is perfect for me.
As family vacations go, it was a rich one. We explored Charlottetown’s restaurants and shops, and ate Cow’s ice cream every night. We drove up to Brackley Beach, enjoying a warmer-than-average day searching for sea glass and shells and skipping iron-rich stones into the briny, ice-cold water. I forgot to pack my painting kit, which gave me an excuse to support a local art shop and try some Canadian-made paints from Beam (now I need all of them, damnit). I had the fried fish at Richard’s seafood for the second time in my life, and it’s just as tasty as I remember. Gwen and I took a late-evening walk to her favorite playground at Victoria Park.
When we left, I felt a familiar pang; the sinking feeling in my stomach I used to get when returning to boarding school after spending a long weekend with my family. The feeling that I was leaving something vitally important behind. I, not for the first time, Googled our eligibility for citizenship. Tim started looking at homes, eyeing the prices.
I think we might do this. Not right away, but someday, sooner than retirement.
I think this might be my mid-life crisis, but it’s a good crisis.
