In May 2011, after four years of life on McNutt's Island, we moved to Montreal. This blog remains, though, as a (sort of) daily record of our time on the island, and a winding path for anyone who would like to meander about among its magical places. For additional perspectives and insights I recommend Greg's book, Island Year: Finding Nova Scotia (2010), and my Bowl of Light (2012). I'll continue to post once in a while. If you do want to read this blog, one option would be to begin at the beginning of it (which is, as we all know, in blog-world, at the end), and read forward, concluding with the most recent entry. It's a journal, really, so it does makes more sense if you read it that way. But, you know, read it any way you like.

about

As it turns out, I love keeping this blog. I love how I can layer a photograph or a document from long ago with an experience as immediate as today -- how they meet up, far-flung elements at home here in this remote place, with a hug and a kiss.  Never thought I'd see you again, they say. Or: I've been longing to meet you! 

I love the element of story telling, and looking for the story. Because there's always a story to be found. I love how blogging makes me curious, and makes me want to go out and discover things, and how in the writing and shaping of what I have seen or learned, the experience becomes more intense, and its meanings unfold in the palm of my hand.   

I love the ephemeral quality of it -- the way my blog doesn't really exist as an object, but hovers insubstantially in a cloud somewhere waiting for me or for you to tap a button, like snapping our fingers or waving a magic wand and summoning it. What you are reading this minute looks like ink on paper, I know. I even chose a font for it. But actually, what you are reading is the crazy, jumping sum of countless pixel angels breakdancing on the heads of countless pins. 

I love the danger of it, too: I could, if I felt like it, just hit "delete this blog," and it would vanish, completely.  I never would, but just thinking of the possibility is like running along the edge of something.  

Most of all I love how intrinsic it is. This blog is not a step toward some further goal. It just is, and so writing it is entirely for the fun of it. Though, of course, you never know how something new might come out of it.

Nova Scotia Island Journal aims to illuminate -- in as many different ways as I can think of -- the complexity and richness of life on McNutt's Island. It isn't necessarily about our life -- the life of Anne and Greg -- though often it is. But it's also about the island's life, in all its dimensionality and layering of meaning, from its ancient rocks and the sea that surrounds it to its odd, obscure history and its always-changing present. 
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