October 26

I hope that one day, my house will be a place where even a complete stranger can feel at home.  It’s not because of the ocean, or the trees.  It’s not just because we can lay back and relax.  It’s not because they love and spoil us.  It’s that little something extra, that blissfully indescribable feeling, kind of like the taste of pure fresh cool water on a warm day.  It dances around your mouth and slides down your throat. It quenches your thirst, rejuvenates, comforts, and leaves you satisfied.  

Nova Scotia is beautiful.  It is a breathtaking combination of natural beauty with an added touch of quaint, artistic, easy-going personality.  It is magnetic and magical.  We’ve spent many hours driving along roads which gently lead up and down hills, and around abstract turns through rolling fields and pituresque forests. Even though it is definitely past the peak of autumn, the leaves are still bright with impossibly saturated gold, orange, and red.  I love the historic beauty preserved in the houses, elaborate gravestones, and even the shop signs.  I love the coastal pride - fishing nets, lobsters, shells, and boats decorate restaurants and boutiques which sell fresh bread, warm soup, honey, pottery, and trinkets.   There is a certain style - maybe it’s the way that homes are situated on property, or the contrast of colours, or the folk-art tin stars which hang on most houses.  Maybe it’s as complex as the architecture.  But something ties each of the places I’ve seen together.  We’ve dipped our fingers in beautiful lakes, stood    braced against the wind, standing away from the powerful waves of an angry atlantic ocean, jackets zipped, hair flying, eyes watering, voices raised to try and overpower the magnificent sounds around us.  We’ve watched the sun rise, the birds, and the rain.  

Last year at thanksgiving, a friend of mine introduced me to someone, who said “you’re in first year, aren’t you?” My friend mentioned how she thought I looked older than I was, and asked how she could tell.  And the girl said, “because you don’t have bags under your eyes.”  The other day, I was alone in the elevator on my way home from school.  I was looking in the mirror, and realized that with the exception of bangs, I currently have the same haircut I had in grade nine.  I remember being so in love with the way my hair had begun to curl, thinking it made me look grown up and beautiful.  And that was the point my eyes shifted from my curls to my face - and discovered the bags under my eyes.  

I’ve had lots of time to sleep, to relax, and to think only about things which give me pleasure this week - and the bags are still there.  “That’s what school does to you.  It drains your youth away. You can always tell how many years you’ve been in school by how dark the bags under your eyes are.” 

This week we’ve practiced drinking water upside down from the wrong side of the cup (a proven hiccough cure), “Danced our pants off” with Richard Simmons, watched 4 ridiculous, either girly or nerdy movies (one of them more than once), and lay awake having conversations on par with those I may have had at 13.  So, tease if you must, but I could say that what I’ve been doing this week may be the ultimate anti-aging strategy. I’m having a relaxing, exciting, and extremely fun reading week, and loving every moment of it.

And don’t worry, I actually have opened my books once or twice.