September 4 - Always get a bit maudlin this time of year - I think it’s because I’m used to new beginnings in September.

 A piece I scribbled in the early 2000s - Autumn is a season which I truly miss being ‘back home,’ but after 29 years, BC is now my home. There’s so much of it I’ve yet to explore though!

MY TRINITY HOME

I live in a city. The house we rent holds all my treasures, but I don't always feel safe inside the four walls. Last night, some speed freak broke into our car and stole the digital camera that holds the images of our beautiful grandchildren and the memories of our weekends. This morning, I hear on the news that another shooting took the life of another mother's son, and even though the sun is shining and the music on the radio is upbeat, by heart is low and I miss my Newfoundland home.

 On my desk sits a Mason jar filled with pieces of clay pipes, treasures I gathered from the beaches that edge a little town called Trinity, on the east coast of Newfoundland. I wasn't born there, and I didn't move there until I was 19 years old, but it is my home. 

 Here, in a town seeped in history, I settled with my husband and raised my children. They were happy to be outport kids, to explore the hills and the beaches. They climbed on trees, not monkey bars. they skated on frozen ponds, not indoors in circles following the same music as everyone else.

There were dangers, of course. Springtime brought ice break-up, and 'ice pans' would pack the harbour. These were smaller pieces of ice floating together, almost like a jigsaw puzzle, always tempting to a child. Jump on one, jump to the next - oh,oh, this one's sinking, quick, to the next one - and so it would go, and boys would come home with wet feet to receive a good 'tongue banging' from whichever parent caught him sneaking in from 'copying pans.'

(Note: this is NOT one of my boys. They would never do this. They always had a good explanation of why their feet were wet when they came home on an early spring day.

My favourite season was Autumn, with the beauty of late September and early October, sunny and fresh and filled with colour. I loved berry picking on the barrens then, so peaceful, with no world sounds or people sounds, only a berry-picking buddy (for protection from bears and fairies), and the plop of berries in the bucket.

 As I walked along the beaches of my town, I picked my treasures. Broken pieces of clay pipes, stems and bowls, carried in with the waves and hidden among the seaweed and pebbles, found a home in my Mason jar. I would imagine the men of the village standing there a hundred years ago, chatting about the weather or the catch, smoking their pipes, and throwing them in the water when they were all worn out.

 Hundreds of speeding vehicles keep the road in front of our house smooth, and the blare of horns and sirens often fill the air. But when I look at the jar on my desk, I remember the roll of the waves on the beach, and I feel how they tickled my feet. I hear the sigh of the tides, and the cry of the seagulls, and I realize that home, like all good memories, is only a thought away.