This post may end up reading more like a stream of consciousness journal entry than a coherent narrative. I may never post it—remains to be seen.

Also, someone recently said that the use of an em dash is the hallmark of AI. I take umbrage with this. I love and will continue to use the em dash.

Em dash foreva.

There are many, many deeply emotional circumstances in my life right now. Most of them are not mine on which to speak directly, so I will be oblique not from a sense of creating mystery and drama, but from a place of respect.

My father-in-law has officially entered home hospice. Many years ago, he planned finances carefully, suspecting that one day, he would need ongoing care that would be expensive. He was right.

Jim is really struggling being so far from home during this time. While we visited, he spent 4 days with his parents, helping care for his dad, while I schlepped children around Asheville to doctor appointments and friends’ houses. Gemma was in heaven, spending the whole week with her best friend in the world. I was happy to spend time with close friends, as well.

I’ve said that Jim hates Newfoundland, but that isn’t true. He doesn’t hate this province. He loves the natural beauty as much as I do. What he loathes is being away from home.

You can take the boy out of Appalachia, but you cannot take the Appalachia out of the boy. The mountains will always be home.

Speaking of mountains, I was stunned at the size of the Appalachians. Living in the South my entire life, I have always been awed by the natural beauty of my home. Being away for 6 months, in a vastly different landscape, made coming home a bit of a revelation. I didn’t remember the mountains being so deep. And they felt mysterious and haunted and magical.

Aside from the weight of Jim’s homesickness, the elder girls are struggling. With what, it’s not my place to share, but they are teen girls, and usually that’s enough said.

I also have a dear friend mired in some very hard things with which I can’t truly offer help. Mostly, I stand by helplessly and watch.

All that to say that the trip was fraught with difficult emotions.

Standing in the line at the Charlotte airport for security, I thought of the would-be shooter in the Atlanta airport several months ago. I idly wondered if someone would crash a car through the doors, into the security line.

I saw the reports of our crumbling health institutions. Measles deaths in Pennsylvania- the first in 35 years. A 2500% increase in food recalls in this quarter (compared to last year) and much more serious concerns such as multiple Class 1 recalls, which means real risk of illness and/or death.

Our public health institutions have been gutted. A horrifying, pointless war grinds on in Iran costing the lives of Americans, in an attempt to shift the public’s attention away from the nauseous Epstein files.

The US is so lost and utterly corrupted. I’d like to think it can find a way forward again, but I am not optimistic.

My mom asked what effect the US government has actually had on our lives. It’s a good question. I realize that I am upper class, white, and born in America. Of all the people the systems in place were designed to benefit, I’m up there, second only to white men. I acknowledge this. My life would probably continue on largely unchanged, for a while. Maybe forever.

Or my children might be victims of gun violence. Or they may become immunocompromised and contract a preventable disease from an unvaccinated person. Or they may need cancer treatment that doesn’t exist, because of the damage to research institutions and the loss of years of progress. Or they may need gender affirming care later in life or an abortion, and they could suffer legal consequences as a result. They might die from a food borne disease because the CDC monitoring of all but 2 bacteria was slashed.

And yes, before you ask, I do understand that all of these things are ultimately completely out of my control. Having lost a child and shepherded another through panedmic-era chemo, my own inability to protect them has been made abundantly clear.

But it doesn’t mean that I have to stay somewhere where I feel patently unsafe while I watch the walls crumble.

I’m happy to be back in our home. I feel safer. Calmer. Quieter. Where home ultimately ends up being is anyone’s guess.

I guess I will post this after all, in its meandering-ness.

A wave of homesickness nearly took me down this week. Maybe because after 6 months of being here, I’ve finally been able to pause from the work transition to 40 hours, moving, the house, all of it, and look around and realize I’m not home anymore.

Living in Newfoundland is very different than the US. It’s hard to put a finger on exactly why. The culture is slower. Island time, I suppose they call it. Also, there’s really nothing here. Musical acts don’t come here—at least not well known ones. Good restaurants are centered around St John’s, 20+ km away. Hiking and the outdoor life are abundant but other pursuits less so.

Newfoundland is out-of-the-way, to say the least.

And that’s what I wanted, when I get right down to brass tacks. I wanted to take the kids somewhere peaceful and quiet and somewhat forgotten. Somewhere away from guns and violence and school shootings and out from under the thumb of Amazon and mega-corporations and oligarchs destroying a country with impunity.

Our lives are quieter here.

And in many ways, that’s a good thing.

But tonight, we went out to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant, and a sense of intense wistfulness came over me—a desire to be back in North Carolina, eating at one of our favorite spots in West Asheville, hoping a friend might walk by. Here, I find myself looking for people I know everywhere I go, and then with a start, realizing that this isn’t home, and I know hardly anyone.

We are actually heading back to the States in about a week. A variety of familial considerations lead to the decision to head back. I don’t know if it will be good for my soul or not. I’m a little apprehensive, to be honest.

Today, Ev, Jim, and I hiked Middle Cove Beach. It was a very foggy, secretive sort of day. Hiking along the clifftops felt like being submerged in a shimmery magic fairy world.

Tomorrow, James would be 10 years old. It’s hard to fathom. Always.

Our family will be back in Asheville/Greeneville Aug 22-28. Yell if you’d like to meet up.

Photos from my week.

Greetings from Mordor, which apparently is across the Bay from us.

When Mom gets out the snacks but doesn’t share.

Amanita (?) mooshroom.

Middle Cove/Silver Lead Mine hike

My favorite lichen.

A quite pretty rock.

Wild rose

Harebells

They say the body keeps the score, and lately, I’ve been tremendously lethargic, no matter how much sleep I do or do not get. I frequently find myself playing the ‘is this perimenopause or cancer?’ game late at night.

A few nights ago, into the wee hours, I woke suddenly and a brief litany of photo-like memories flashed through my brain. James: his birth, his illness, his time at home, his death. Hazel: the first, absolutely horrible days of chemotherapy, her broken leg, the hospitalization, the sadness of watching her hair fall out, of lying in bed next to her bloated, aching body while she whimpered in her sleep.

So many old hurts rising to the surface of my mind.

It’s been 10 years since James was born.

A decade.

In some ways, it feels like yesterday. In others, it sometimes feels like he was never here. If he was here, he’d be ten. That’s so hard to imagine.

We are slowly integrating into our new home, and I genuinely love it here. It makes me wonder if something is broken in me that I am genuinely happy, even this far away from everything and everyone I’ve ever known and loved, while my husband yearns for our home country.

In a moment of astounding clarity today, I realized what it is that is different between us.

While Jim and I have suffered the same losses—our son, Hazel’s healthy early childhood, our coping mechanisms are vastly different. I can’t speak exactly to his, but I believe it to be deeply rooted in time and place and people.

For me, every day that I wake up, and my body is functioning, and I’m not in significant pain or debility, and my heart isn’t aching with a grief that feels unrelenting, I feel gratitude.

The day is coming when again when we will be plunged into sadness and loss. It may be one of us being diagnosed with serious illness or, god forbid, one of our children. It may be losing another parent or unexpectedly losing some other loved one without warning. It may be the fracturing of an old friendship.

I’m watching someone I love struggle with crushing loss, and her words brought me to this realization. She said "[I] just don’t want to feel this way anymore.” Nothing describes grief and loss more accurately than those words.

Life, for many humans, is crushing loss and sorrow, bracketed by moments of heart-stopping, ordinary beauty. Beauty so unmomentous that we stop seeing it. The beauty of a job with people you like, where you laugh more than not. A home that is warm, comforting, safe. A sunset on the ocean. The breeze through tree branches and the smell of wildflowers. The ability to eat food that we like, to move our bodies without pain or restriction.

I think of those who survived the Holocaust often. Those who outlived every single person they loved and went on to have meaningful lives.

Most of us will never know that level of hellish devastation.

But anyone who loves will grieve, and grieve terribly, one day.

I am so alive. I am here. Right now. My heart is peaceful and calm. I have come through the storms. I have not merely survived. I have found purpose and meaning and calm.

The peace will not last forever. I will age, fall into senescence, and die. Everything I loved and everyone that loves me will end. But right now, right this second, I am at home in this body and this world. I am content.

And that is all I need.

I gave that up to move here, hopefully for a better life for all of us. And I do love it. Newfoundland is stunningly beautiful. I never knew how much the ocean calls me, but living alongside it has been a dream. The hiking here is out of this world. Ask anyone in Asheville, I never liked to hike. Turns out, it was because my hikes lacked the ocean.

Fort Amherst in the Narrows

Newfoundlanders are famously friendly and welcoming. But we moved here amidst a brutal winter, and so we spent our first few months isolated by the snow and the cold and the work of establishing a new life and a new routine.

Now that the weather is warming, we’re out and about hiking, bike riding, etc. I’ve made some friends. I was invited to join a local book club that—to my delight—is amazing. They even let me pick the next read. We’re slowly,

slowly,

slowly moving toward feeling at home.

St John’s from Signal Hill

Skandi Mobiliser in the harbor

Cabot Tower

But one thing that hasn’t been going smoothly is our dog. Lilo is a coonhound mix, a breed notorious for being escape artists and runners that follow their noses. She is also not trained. Despite being a veterinarian (and a good one, if I do say so myself), I am most definitely NOT a dog trainer. In the States, we had an underground fence, and she was well-trained on it. We had one installed here, but it’s not working well for a variety of reasons. These DO include the fact that I am NOT a dog trainer.

My asshole dog, a portrait.

Lilo is also incredibly, incredibly fast and exceptionally sneaky. She will lie in wait near the doors for someone’s attention to lapse, and then she will bolt out the door and run as if the hounds of Hell are chasing her. She has no recall.

Did I mention that I’m absolutely unqualified to train dogs? Fix a toy stuck in their intestines….110%. Train a recall? 0% qualified.

At any rate, it’s causing some annoyance with some of our neighbors. Lilo is completely harmless, but I realize that doesn’t matter, as many people are fearful of being approached by strange dogs. And not all dogs are other dog friendly. So, it’s been a constant issue that we’re working on.

It’s been a distressing additional stressor.

On the bright side, my oldest and dearest friend, Alison, and her kids, my niece and nephew, are visiting us. (For those that don’t know us well, my high school best friend married my husband’s brother, so now we’re sisters-in-law).

Fiver on the cliffs

The kids love having photos taken.

We went on a spectacular hike today around Signal Hill, we watched whales yesterday in Bay Bulls, and we’ll be celebrating Gemma’s 8th birthday tomorrow with local friends and family from afar.

The excitement of these kids about to whale watch is palpable.

The weather has been really lovely.

Alison is adjusting to the mercurial nature of the weather. The temperature went from upper teens/low 20s to 10 very quickly (in the 50s).

We went on our second whale watching trip with my American colleagues and their families on Saturday. Words really can’t capture, but I’ll try!

We went out with O’Brien’s based in Bay Bulls, Newfoundland, about 35 minutes from our house. What I really appreciate about the whale watching in Newfoundland is that it’s not crowded. There are 2 main companies that run out of that area, and it appears that at peak, only a boat from each company is out on the ocean at the same time. There are also smaller fishing boats and small eco tours, but the ocean is uncrowded.

When they spot whales, the captains do not approach within 100 yards, then they cut the engines and drift. They don’t ‘chase’ whales but let them approach if they wish.

On our first tour with my mom, we saw many, many whales at a distance, but they were relaxed and swimming calmly, no lunging (<40-50% of the body leaves the water) or breaching (>40-50% of the body out of the water). On this trip, there were only a couple of whales visible, but they were extremely active.

Within a few minutes of leaving the dock, we were floating, engines off, while two very curious young humpbacks investigated us. I know that we shouldn’t anthropomorphize creatures, but the whales genuinely seemed curious. They floated around and beneath our boat for half an hour, lazily swimming in circles and coming to the surface to drift serenely.

After watching them at touching distance, they finally started to lose interest and head off. We also departed, and as we did, they sped up and one of them completely breached for us. The other lunged several times. It was absolutely incredible, and it was hard not to think that they were playfully racing alongside us.

Photo credit to Daniel

Barrel roll:

Photo credit to Corinne

Lone puffin

CBS Animal Hospital DVMs + Corinne <3

Alison (my best friend/SIL) and niece and nephew arrive on Tuesday, and we’ll do the whole whale/puffin thing again on Friday. It’ll be my third trip in 10 days. It might be hard to top this one, but I should be able to give the tour by then.

When I receive news or someone spills hot tea or I’m worried about something or I’m sad or angry or happy, I always want to call him first. I think that’s the way I gauge my love. Who do I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night and when I wake up in the morning? (Let’s be honest, I don’t want to talk to anyone prior to noon.)

It’s been almost three decades since we started dating on January 19, 1997 (what would turn out to be our middle child’s birthday, no less). Since this was in the late 1900s and predated smart and dumb phones, I have written receipts in the form of my little backpack calendar.

When we met, I think I was lonely. I was also boy crazy. I cycled through a crush on every remotely popular boy in both high schools I attended. Jim was no exception. When I was a freshman, I went through a brief, starry-eyed moment where I crushed hard on the slim, tall, dark eyed and dark haired senior varsity wrestler and cross-country runner. He didn’t know I existed. Supposedly. Although I talked to him at Wednesday night dinner. He claims he doesn’t remember. He was also fasting to drop into a weight division well below his normal weight by subsisting on 800 calories a day, so his memory might be suspect.

Good lord, that corsage. (Me my Sr year of HS and Jim at his Sr prom)

He graduated, and we didn’t see each other again until a random night, in Greeneville, Tennessee, our hometown. I went to Wal-Mart after work (Captain D’s…and I smelled like it) to use my hard-earned cash for CD singles. Remember, young followers, this was the late 1900s. There was no Spotify or Apple Music. I owned a tape with a cord attached that powered my CD DISCMAN.

Picture for reference

Some of my favorites from that time that really stand out were Joan Osborne’s song “One of Us?” and anything by Natalie Merchant.

I digress.

We started talking there, in the Wal-Mart aisle. We went on for an hour, but I can’t remember anything we said. Not. a. single. thing. That night, Jim did NOT ask me for my number, and we didn’t exchange on the spot because cellphones didn’t exist. Also Jim was a very shy, awkward guy.

I had to find a payphone to call my mom and explain my lateness home from the fish shack.

Payphone for reference.

Sadly, I thought he’d floated out of my life again. Until I went to hang out with my long-time close friend, and he was there.

We spent time together over the next couple of weeks, watching Forrest Gump (his favorite movie at the time), and after much painfully obvious flirting on my part, I finally asked him out. He was never going to do it.

We dated for a while, and then one night, a few months in, I blurted out over dinner that I thought I was in love with him. And, I wondered, did he ever feel that way about me? We were eating cheese fries at Outback Steakhouse. This matters later.

God love him and his honest-to-a-fault soul. He thought about it for a while and then told me no.

I’ve had my heart curb stomped much harder by life since that word issued from his mouth, so it’s relative, but my heart broke when he uttered that two letter word. I tearfully asked him if he ever thought he could love me. Again, he thought before answering, but the answer was the same.

Being the gentleman that he’s always been, he drove me home and sat with me while I wept like the world was ending. It felt like it was, I know that, but I can’t feel it anymore like I did then. Life has served me much harder pills to swallow.

We kept dating. I liked having someone to pick up the tab, since I never had any money (spending it all on CDs and posters for my walls and 0.99/gallon gas for my shitty litle car). And I was going away to college in Florida come August anyway. I figured it would peter out around that time.

But I went off to college, and somewhere in the 1300 round trip miles to visit me, Jim realized he couldn’t do without me and professed his love in the parking lot of Lakeland, Florida’s Outback Steakhouse. I don’t know if it was our separation, my newfound confidence and freedom, or the fact that I was hanging out with a lot of frat boys (look, we all make poor choices in college), but I became irresistible to him.

Our engagement was equally romantic. After a ‘gap year’ back in Tennessee (no one called it that in the 1900s), I decided to return to college in Florida. He casually stated it was probably best if he came with me since we already lived together. I proposed marriage. He accepted.

We got married on July 2, 1999 in Greeneville, a mere 6 days after I turned 20. I couldn’t even drink at my own wedding. Our youngest wedding party members were Jim’s brother, Sam, and my brother, Phillip, both around 10. We were such children.

This picture was in color - we’re not quite that old. I honestly don’t remember these children very well anymore.

This was his Abercrombie head shot (*no, not really).

This is the time when I tell everyone that it’s been amazing and challenging and terrifying and heartbreaking. We’ve been through the run-of-the-mill, finishing our extended schooling, finding jobs, moving, welcoming children. And we’ve been through the tragically heartbreaking—turning off our beloved son’s life support and watching our daughter suffer through 2.5 years of chemotherapy during the COVID pandemic. We’ve lost my grandfather and dad and watched our home area devastated by Hurricane Helene.

And yet.

Moving to Newfoundland has sometimes strained our relationship to what felt like breaking points. It has definitely exposed any pre-existing tensions that we were smoothing over or tamping down or just dealing with it quietly. Irritations and quirks annoy more, annoyances fester and erupt into brief spats. Thank god for our respective therapists and the fact that at the end of the day, he’s still the one I call when I’m sad or happy or angry or lonely.

Monogamous love that lasts a lifetime…I haven’t had that yet. After all, my life isn’t complete. I hope to have many, many more years.

What Jim and I have takes work. A lot of work. Sometimes it’s dragging the ugly and painful out into the light for examination. At the end of the day, we want to be with each other. We always come back to one another. There are many times where he could’ve given up on me, on us, and vice versa. We aren’t perfect. We aren’t even perfect for each other. We’re opposites in a thousand ways. I process so differently than he does that sometimes it’s like speaking foreign languages.

At the end of the day, romantic, heart pounding love isn’t what keeps us together. I am not totally sure what keeps us together sometimes other than that he is genuinely my best friend, and I can’t imagine my life without him. Losing him would be like losing a limb. Defining it is beyond my articulation.

That’s the stunning lack of wisdom that 27 years of marriage has imparted upon me.

Now, back to whale watching from my deck and reading an apropos book. Two humpbacks have been swimming back and forth in front of our house for hours. It’s 19 degrees here today (75ish).

Crappy dorsal fin pic for your enjoyment, look in the middle.

My reading spot

Lupine love it here…apparently it’s the sandy, poorly draining, rocky soil.

Cuz tonight will be the night that I fall fur yooooouuuuuuuuuu

well…

it’s shit.

And that no one moves here (or stays here) for the weather. St John’s, the capital city, is one of the foggiest cities in the world—nicknamed Fogtown. An acronym you learn quickly is RDF. It stands for rain, drizzle, fog (not rude, drunk, and feisty, as I hoped). It’s also cold here.

Which of course you’re probably thinking, ‘but DUH, Cat, you moved to CANADA. FROM THE SOUTH.’

Here’s the thing. I don’t mind the weather. In fact, I like its mercurial nature. Another good saying is that if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes. No truer words have been spoken.

I thought I’d struggle with it still being cold. I’m not. I love it here. The ocean is outside my bedroom windows, and it changes hour to hour. Sometimes it’s so placid, I mistake it for a mirror. Sometimes, the waves froth and chop. Other times, it looks virtually Mediterranean.

The temperature nowadays is vacillating wildly between around 6 Celsius to 20 (42-70). Wildflowers are blooming. It’s odd to see things blooming here that finished in Asheville a month ago.

Lupine grow wild everywhere—ditches, vacant lots, the trails. Trying to be a good steward of the environment, I googled whether it was legal to pick them. Turns out that the giant lupine is invasive here. There are several native species too. So I picked to my heart’s content.

I haven’t built my first garden yet, but I have a slow plan building in my head for the front of the house. I plan to fill it with natives.

These dahlias are from my garden in Asheville just last year. It’s crazy to think of the difference in climate and how these would be blooming there now.

I wanted to say something profound about the contentment and release I feel here. I can’t think of how to phrase it. Do I have those flowers above right now? No. Do I have breathtaking beauty around me all the time? Absolutely.

I am so grateful to be alive, to be here, every day. I’m not in Venezuela. I’m not in Afghanistan. I have everything I need and my children are provided for and relatively safe in a country that protects women’s rights to their bodies and tries to provide medical care to all. Our kids go to a small, rural school behind a church, yet during this whole month, pride signs were posted everywhere. When they started in February, I noticed a rainbow poster in the office welcoming everyone.

So, due to my lack of ability to put it eloquently, I’ll just say that I really love Newfoundland and all it has to offer. And I’m grateful that we could come here as a family in pursuit a country and a culture more in line with our family’s ideals.

I’m lucky. Every single day of these 47 years of my life, good, bad, comic, tragic, have been a gift that taught me something.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of being unhappy—of thinking about what isn’t here instead of what is here. Even I find myself doing it. If only the weather would get warmer. If only it wasn’t so windy or foggy. If only the kids immediately fit in and felt right at home … if only, if only, if only.

It’s so easy to wait to feel happiness and joy. But none of us know that we have tomorrow. We know we have right now. And right now is when we need to feel happiness. Not tomorrow, not when it’s warmer or less rainy or somehow perfect in a way it’s not RIGHT NOW.

It’s a choice.

No, we can’t control our emotions necessarily. But we can control our mindset.

So I’m choosing to be happy even when it doesn’t come naturally sometimes.

Because every day, I wake up and I’m grateful that my body works, that I can ride my bike, walk the dogs, hike. I get to sit in bed with coffee and watch the ocean. I’m so ridiculously lucky in the life I’ve created that feeling sadness or being unhappy seems ungrateful. (I’m not saying that I don’t have heavy feelings. I absolutely do. But I don’t let them subsume my joy).

James informs me too. He never got to walk alongside the ocean, see a whale catching fish, feel the joy of creating a beautiful family that gives purpose to everything he does. I honor him by living with intention and kindness and gratitude.

Newfoundland is beautiful. My coworkers at CBS are so much fun and happen to be great at their jobs. My two colleagues that also moved from the US are easy to work with, we practice very similar medicine, and we all get along well. The kids are making friends and getting involved in hobbies again.

This morning, I brunched with Emily and Jessica, and then we took our kids to Topsail Beach. It’s a remarkable rock beach where enormous cliffs come down to meet the sea. You can watch the ferry leave the Avalon peninsula and cross to Bell Island in the bay.

Despite the fact that I was wearing a sweater and a hat, Gemma had no issue wading into the ocean with a net. I remember what it felt like to be able to stand that cold. I remember what it felt like to be that carefree.

It reminded me that life is a gift.

Topsail Beach by Ray Mackey (pronounced Topsul for anyone that isn’t a local and says it like I do - TopSAIL).

My less impressive Topsail pano view today.

Learning about gardening in Zone 5a with rocky, acidic soil.

Oh my, columbine. Who knew?

One of my first and greatest loves was my grandfather. He lived to be in his mid-80s, still vigorous, still traveling from Florida to Tennessee at least a couple times annually. He lived to see many great grandchildren be born. He lived long enough to meet Gemma. He was a generous, fun-loving man who did what he wanted, when he wanted.

Things that always remind me of him are bike rides, the ocean, soup, and stacks of books.

As long as I can remember, he had a pile of books beside the bed, and an overstuffed, teetering-on-the-verge-of-collapse bookshelf in his bedroom. I do the same, though I’m a little more organized.

We traveled to the beach every time we visited. He loved the water—oceans, ponds, lakes. He had a host of canoes and ocean craft.

We rode bikes at his house and when Papa was younger, he rode them with us. We grew up in the 80s and 90s, a time before bike helmets and basic safety precautions. I remember vividly his visit to our home in Middle Tennessee when he took a tumble from his bike and hit his head on the pavement.

We drove him to the hospital, blood leaking from a wound on his forehead, and he sat tranquilly, only asking occasionally “what happened?” He repeated it several times and my 10 year old self was in a panic, just knowing that he would die. He was too old and frail to survive a head injury. He was probably 51 or 52.

My bike ride yesterday. I am slow and fall off a lot.

I think about him when I see something that reminds me of him. It happens often. He died in 2019. I’m glad he never saw Hazel with leukemia. It would’ve broken his already battered heart. He lost his father at the age of 15 to gun violence, his beloved grandson in 2005, his great grandson (James) in 2017, and his beloved eldest son and best friend, Dara, in 2017.

I still miss him. I always will.

I wonder what he would think of this adventure to the great white North. I think he would have been simultaneously envious and excited and also would’ve thought it was foolhardy. Whatever he thought, he wouldn’t have hesitated to share it with me. Of that I am certain.

Newfoundland remains cold and windy. It’s been an adjustment to the prolonged icy weather. Today, it was around 13 Celsius, but the wind is making it feel like 0. Literally. People are still gardening, so I bought some boxes for the front porch and planted pansies with Gemma. They’re hardy and should be able to survive the cold.

Jim and I discovered a beautiful cafe in Portugal Cove called The Grounds. It’s part of a big greenhouse called Murray’s, so I was able to roam amidst the houseplants and gardening supplies while drinking coffee. Portugal Cove is a ridiculously quaint village perched on rolling hills that overlook the Atlantic Ocean.

Photo by N Joan Rickert (NOT ME)

We brunched and then went for a hike to Cape Francis, the northernmost tip of the Avalon peninsula. It is an incredibly isolated area that is exactly what people picture when they imagine Newfoundland—a deep cove with a few old dwellings scattered on the shore, miles from everything. There was no sound other than the rolling ocean, the wind, and the gulls.

It’s a lonely place, Newfoundland. I’m not sure it will ever feel like home. Maybe anywhere outside the South won’t feel like home. But we’re going to find out.

Biscan Cove

The bike trail near our house

This move is hard. I realize it sounds somewhat ridiculous. We moved to a first world country, abutting the States, where everyone speaks English, and the economies share many similarities. What’s so challenging about it?

First, it’s still cold here. It’s a week away from June, and the temperature with wind chill today was -5 (Celsius - about 22F). The day became utterly beautiful with a truly spectacular sunset, but the wind retained its icy bite. I’m not used to it being cold for so long, although I’m doing fairly well embracing it. I went for a bike ride along the East Coast Trail, realized I’m not in great shape, nearly passed out, and came back.

Sunset tonight, no filter.

Despite the cold, the trees are budding and flowers are blooming. The flowers that bloomed in Asheville in late February are just opening here (tulips, hyacinths, daffodils, lupine). When people said the growing season was short, they certainly weren’t kidding. I haven’t been out to garden yet, but I think I just need to embrace the cold and do it anyway. At least, I need to build a bed. The ground is mostly rock here, so it’s going to be raised bed.

Weather aside, it’s hard emotionally. I don’t pause to dwell on our isolation much, but we are isolated. It has its pros and cons. I feel safe outside the US. I am able to mostly ignore the news. But I am really, really far away from home. And sometimes I think about how big and mostly empty Newfoundland is. Outside of St John’s/CBS area, the island is vast, open space.

As silly as it sounds, it’s kind of strange to think that there isn’t an Outback Steakhouse nearby. That’s how I frame my lostness in this landscape.

It’s also psychically taxing to think of why we’re here. I didn’t leave the US on a lark, and I don’t regret it. I didn’t think gallivanting off to the land of puffins would be a delightful little adventure (although it is an adventure). If it had just been me and Jim, I never would have pushed to leave. I left for the girls and my sanity as their mother.

Living somewhere as an expat because your home country is rapidly sliding into decline doesn’t feel great.

As a parent, I also carry the weight of my family’s wellbeing, whether rightly or wrongly. What I said before about sitting in discomfort still holds true. Major change isn’t comfortable. Any change isn’t comfortable. If it was easy and palatable, we’d all be changing all the time.

I’m also working through realizing that everyone’s feelings about the move are not my job to manage, and that the kids (and Jim, to be honest) have to figure out navigating this move. I can support everyone but I cannot take away unhappy feelings or make life magically easier.

Wherever you go, there you are.

It’s hard to explain to children the benefits of moving here, because some of there are concepts that they haven’t quite grasped yet - bodily autonomy, as women, for instance. It’s something I’ve only really begun to understand in recent years.

Gun control and lack of violent crime they can understand, but they’ve never been directly victimized in the US (unless you count lockdown drills and having a perpetually jumpy mother who seeks multiple exits everywhere in public). On the other hand, I do know more than one person that has been a victim of gun crime, including a beautiful soul named Lindley, who died in senseless act of violence.

You can read a beautiful eulogy about her here. I never met her, but she was close friends with a dear friend of mine, and I came to know her through my friend’s stories.

Canada also has MAID - medical assistance in dying, of which I am a huge advocate. Dignity in dying, something I have witnessed firsthand at the death of my son, my father, and as my grandfather was dying, though I was not there at the very end, matters deeply to me.

The health care here is a challenge. I don’t know how to compare it to the US, because I’ve not availed myself of it yet. I will likely never have a PCP here. We’re on the waitlist which can take years. That gap is filled by nurse practitioners, telemedicine, urgent care centers, etc.

For children, there is the Janeway - the local children’s urgent care and emergency, as well as ongoing care for kids. Again, not something we’ve used yet, but my new colleague did for her daughter and reported an excellent experience.

I’ve meandered away from the original point and lost the thread of what I wanted to say.

This isn’t easy. The weight of the US’s decline and the madness of King Trump is much lighter now, but other weights have come to take that place.

I have been feeling very low these past couple of days, so I asked myself what I like to do and got up and did it. I walked along the ocean, I rode my bike and didn’t die, I cooked beef short ribs with mashed potatoes and asparagus, and made myself a homemade (not box) yellow cake. It came out really tender and tasty…except the part where I didn’t coat the baking pan quite enough.

We have a new iceberg in our bay. Jim kayaked out to it today. I watched from the shore and felt envious. Sea kayaking is on my list of things to learn to do.

Good night, from Newfoundland, with love and fondness.

New and cool adventures.

I don’t think about gun violence and school shootings.

Statler and Waldorf are my new friends.

I love my work place and work friends.

The beauty here is absolutely breathtaking.

I’ve been able to tune out the news from home mostly.

Other people from the States are here too…with new friendships.

At the end of the day, I’m grateful for my life.

I’m on an island, and I’m 2300 miles away from my community. I’m here without a safety net other than my husband.

Of course, this isn’t news to me. I knew where we were moving and that the only access to our new home is by plane or ferry. But knowing it and living it are two different realities. For some reason, I’ve been able to insulate myself from the shocked feeling of isolation most of the time. Work helps. I’m also resilient and know that I can probably survive anything the world throws at me (wanting to survive it is different).

I’m taking a disaster/emergency preparedness class. It sounds alarmist, like I’m afraid that the powder keg world is about to detonate. And it might, let’s be honest. But that’s not why I’m doing this. Or at least, not the only reason.

First, I have to think about things like Jim and I both being incapacitated simultaneously and unable to reach the kids. It sounds dramatic but only a couple of weeks ago, a young veterinarian, her child, and her husband were killed in a horrific car accident. As terrible it is to think about, it could happen. I’ve been through enough in my life to realize that none of us are exempt from tragedy.

So what would happen with the girls? We know virtually no one here, and certainly no one intimately. Back home, my emergency contact list was three deep. The kids knew what to do if something happened to us. Here, not so much.

And to compound this, we’ve been through an actual natural disaster. It still doesn’t feel real to say that. Hurricane Helene stripped us of power and internet for weeks, as well as cell service initially (a shocking turn of events), running water for almost two months, then no potable water for weeks beyond that. I learned what words like turbidity meant in reference to our reservoir, and I learned why our water supply system failed. We all became dilettante hydrologists.

When I think back to those 2 months, it’s a blur of dust, helicopters, working out of the Popeye’s parking lot and later the Unitarian Church to help people who’d lost everything, and exhaustion. And dust. So.much.dust.

It only makes sense to evaluate how we would handle another emergency. We’re living in an increasingly unstable climate—political and environmental.

The course is legitimate, not some manosphere or similar rabbit hole, put together by a fascinating emergency room physician named Julie Shamas. She has survived 10 hurricanes in Florida (she must be really committed to the state, lord knows why).

If you’re interested in her free information, it’s at Prepping Partner. Everything is evidenced based, organized, thoughtful, and actionable. It’s not panicky, “building a bunker in my basement.” It’s more “how do I weather an unexpected emergency such as a hurricane or a blizzard or a flood?” - all of which could apply to living on the beach in Newfoundland.

Sidenote: let’s be honest for a moment. In case of the zombie apocalypse or Captain Trips (points for getting the reference), I want to go out in the first wave. I’m doing this planning for the kids. Living without running water and internet for 2 months was enough of the pioneer lifestyle for me.

Switching gears, the weather today is beautiful. It feels like true spring is finally coming. I walked along the beach with the dogs this morning. There was a heavy cloud sitting on Conception Bay at the time, and it was impossible to tell where the sky met the ocean. There were chunks of iceberg-lets floating in the bay, calving from our resident grounded berg, and I saw a mink along the shoreline.

These icebergs predate civilization, estimated at 10,000-15,000 years old.

Iceberglet floating to shore.

Someone sent me this recently. The nadir is generally agreed upon to represent 6 months. So we’re at 3 months and on the down curve. El oh el.

I’m still adjusting to my new work schedule and life and I’m continuing to mostly lay low. I’ve made friends with some crows in the backyard. They’re big fans of Cheerios. I’m hoping they see fit to bring me trinkets soon. I’ll keep you posted.

It was also a struggle for Jim to come here, more so than it was for me. He’s never really envisioned himself living far from his family or the Appalachian mountains. He identifies strongly with the region, as a true Appalachian, and moving far, far away was never something he really considered. We moved because I was concerned about our children’s safety and wellbeing in an increasingly unstable United States.

Talking about my vulnerabilities, my reservations, my experience in any way that was not positive would seem to reinforce his feelings of unease and displacement. So I’ve kept quiet.

But recently, I’ve come to the realization that change is really hard, no matter the circumstances. Most of us struggle with change, and when it’s something as major as moving to another country, it’s going to be challenging. And it’s ok for it to be that way. It’s ok that it’s not all sunshine and roses. It’s fine to admit that it’s hard, and this hasn’t been perfect.

I haven’t been homesick in the way that I expected. I’m not yearning for Asheville or our home on Monte Vista. I have a feeling of instability. I think about the fact that we’re on an island. I can’t just pile the kids into the car to go see their grandparents for the day. In fact, if I tried to do so, I’d encounter an ocean between us and them.

Our house has also caused deep unease. Jim and I both take solace in our physical home. Thankfully, we own this place now, but the way we were treated by the previous owner left a terrible taste in our mouths. Further, the people we hired to make sure the sale was done properly dropped the ball badly. We have a lawyer involved now, which we should’ve done long ago.

I have to remind myself that at the end of the day we love this house by the sea, it’s solid and a good investment. But the way in which we finally ended up here, in the home we’d been so excited for, felt bad.

Yet, we are still lucky to live in this comfortable, safe home, far from the chaos of the United States, in a country where my daughters have reproductive freedom, among other things. I still really like the clinic where I work, and the people I’m working with have been fun and welcoming.

Life is definitely quieter here. CBS is a small town, very akin to the place I’m from in Tennessee, if I’m being honest. And that’s a place I never wanted to live again. St John’s is nearby, so that’s some comfort.

I’ve also been struggling with the fact that I’m not actively helping anyone right now. There’s no Street Dog. I’m not storytelling. I’m basically adjusting to my 40 hour work week, which is more like 43 hours, and realizing how exhausting it is. I come home, eat dinner, play with a kid, read a book, go to bed, and do it all over again daily. My life has narrowed to this new existence, as I adapt.

I’m trying to give myself grace, that I don’t have to plunge myself into a busy, hectic life here immediately, or ever. Yet, the world feels more urgent than ever, and I’m hiding on an island, not helping anyone.

Change is hard. All of it. Major change is like stretching a muscle you don’t use often. It’s going to be stiff and sore for a while before it strengthens.

Jim and I talked about whether moving here was a mistake. We have different ideas of the importance mistakes play in our lives (or if mistakes actually exist). I don’t see much as a mistake, because every choice leads us somewhere, expected or not. I certainly never imagined living on this island, enjoying hiking, of all things. And here we are.

I’ve slowly slipped away from the news in the US. I see it, of course, but if I find myself scrolling, I back away from it. It’s a privilege, I realize. But one I am currently exercising for my own mental health.

And man, winter is never-ending here. NEVER.ENDING. I thrill for the first real, warm day of summer, because it look as if spring doesn’t exist here.

Today, I met Agnes and we did part of Deadman’s Bay Path. What could go wrong?

The sky is utterly flawless, but with the wind, it’s still 20 something degrees. Ahhhhhh, spring in Newfoundland.

Deadman’s is a steep ascent to the top of a bluff overlooking the St John’s harbour. We started at Fort Amherst. The hike takes you high enough to be level with Signal Hill, across the entrance to the harbour. There is still snow and ice on the trail, but we made it up in one piece. And down again, which was really the trick.

Can we talk about the pros of menopause, for a second? We all hear the negatives, but there are some really amazing things.

For instance, I’m never cold for long. If I get cold, I can just minimally exert myself, and it’s like a furnace has been ignited within me. Free heater. Amazing.

Also, I just don’t care about anything anymore. I don’t care about my looks, my weight, whether I’m wearing a bra when I go out in public, what people think about me in any way, shape, or form. I border on combative sometimes. I may be getting a bit too blase about things, because a dog attempted to attack me at work the other day, and in my head, I thought “bring it on. See if I’m scared.”

Because I’m not scared anymore. Not really of anything. Not confrontation. Not pain. Not hurt. None of it. Because I am the adult, and I am the arbiter of my happiness and my boundaries. And if you can’t or won’t accept that then….move along.

Humpback whales and dolphins have already been spotted in Dildo this year. It’s early, but it’s exciting! I’ll be there next weekend, and if I’m lucky, we’ll see some whales.

5 miles later, I’m back. The East Coast Trail in front of our house is really spectacular. The water is very calm and glassy today, the sea birds are out, and I was in short sleeves.

I decided I wanted to hear myself talk, so I recorded some thoughts on our move to Newfoundland.

Enjoy.

Our fellow US refugee.

A loon.

They came bearing gifts.

Omeprazole is prescription here. You can only get Nexium (esomeprazole) OTC. And they also brought some Asheville favorites. Gemma is in seventh heaven, since her best friend Bea is here till Friday.

The adults took a trip to St John’s today—we ate at Quidi Vidi Brewery, hiked part of the Sugarloaf segment of the East Coast Trail, enjoyed hot beverages at Coffee Matters, walked around St John’s a little, and came home. It was a blustery, cold day with bursts of blue sky.

Near Quidi Vidi, which is a neighborhood around the eponymous lake, is a large storage tank area. The sign reads “synthetic fluid storage.” There are no other details. We have some questions.

So far, I’d say my experience of Canada has been mixed. The people here are very nice. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know the clients at work and hearing their stories and meeting my furry patients. St John’s is a great city, much like Asheville but on the ocean. Work has been challenging emotionally but overall, it’s moving in a hopeful direction.

I’m about to start a book club with a few friends.

I’ve done some research on local homeless initiatives for volunteering with the unhoused and their animals, so my life may take a turn for busy again. But right now, I’m enjoying this period of just floating between work and home.

Other things:

Loonies are $1 and toonies are $2 (coins).

The RMS Titanic sank 400 miles off the coast of southeast Newfoundland/the Avalon Peninsula (where we live).

Jim has joined the ‘fastest growing’ sport in Newfoundland, whitewater kayaking, because he has now increased the people doing it here by 20%. He met two of the five guys who do whitewater kayaking in NL. Seriously.

The movie theater is straight out of the early aughts. It’s stadium seating, but the seats are the old red scratchy kind, and the aisles are incredibly narrow. American recliner theaters with wide aisles and armrests have apparently ruined me.

Other thoughts in no particular order…

The cost of living here is seriously crazy. It’s hard to wrap my head around it sometimes, because I would think an island of Canada, isolated from the mainland, would be cheap. I have no idea why that was my assumption. It was clearly wrong.

It’s still really cold.

Will we stay here long-term? I have absolutely no idea. Living here has it challenges. Yes, we can get back to the States. And when everything aligns, it’s a straightforward flight to Toronto, then to Charlotte. But when you introduce kids and weather, and things such as tight layovers in big international airports, things get tricky. Getting my mom here proved to be a challenging dance. And an expensive one, which we’re finding out.

Because…we live on an isolated island.

I saw a clickbait(ish) type headline the other day. It read “Heathrow Flight Diverted to Icy, Isolated Canadian Island.”

They were referring to Newfoundland.

Newfoundland is still sunk in winter; it refuses to loosen its icy grip. The trees here aren’t budding up yet, and the grass is still dead. I’m ready for winter to end, but I’m not suffering through the winter. There are many, many beautiful, albeit cold, days. The nice thing about the weather in Newfoundland is that if you don’t like it, you just need to wait 5 minutes.

Today, I met a new friend for a hike starting at Middle Cove Beach. It’s considered one of the most beautiful beaches on the Avalon peninsula and is a mix of black sand and rock. The scenery is nothing short of breathtaking. We hiked along the ocean, marveling at the views. One moment, you’re among the trees and snow, and the next, the view opens out before you—crashing, foamy aquamarine waves dashing up against black rock. The icicles are truly magnificent.

Tomorrow at 430am, we’re expecting a significant snowfall—up to 20cm (8 inches). Winter continues unabated.

It was a busy work week, and one I mostly enjoyed. I helped a cat that was growing a tumor on his leg (warning for gory picture below of the tumor AND the leg post-op). I amputated the leg, and he was feeling good by the next day.

In other news, it’s hard to ignore what’s going on in the USA, although my mental health is much better here, because I’m not continuously checking the news. But it does effect us, even here on an island in the N Atlantic. Gas is at $2/liter ($1.44/L USD) which translates to about $5.75/gallon USD. Groceries are utterly bonkers expensive. I caved and got a Costco membership, despite not wanting one. If you haven’t had the great misfortune of visiting a Costco, I think a short stay in hell might be more pleasant.

NL also has a 15% harmonized sales tax. Living here is not cheap. It’s more costly than living in Asheville in the US, which is hard to believe. Real estate seems to be the exception, and I’m grateful that we can live on a beach in a house we love.

Sometimes, I am really nervous, because we DO live on an island. I’ve been reassured that if we’re cut off from the mainland, we can fish to survive. The problem is…I’d have to eat fish. Ha.

That’s about all to report right now.

Our friends from Asheville are arriving Monday to spend several days with us, bringing along Gemma’s best friend. We’re really looking forward to the visit.

This is North Pond Brook where it empties into the ocean.

I’ve been near constantly mulling over the complexities of what is happening in America. It’s always in the back of my mind as I adjust to a new country, a new job, a new home. What do we owe our country? What do we owe our children? What do we owe ourselves? How does the self intermingle with the state? How do we have agency in our own lives when it can be taken away at a moment’s notice? Do we even have true agency?

I started writing publicly again during this enormous life change, keeping this journal of our move to a windy cold island in the North Atlantic. I don’t write to lament politics, but I need to get this down and out of my brain.

Nazi Germany and the proliferation and existence of the concentration camps is becoming easier and easier to understand.

I was talking with someone back home today, and I asked them how it feels to still be in the US. They commented that nothing really feels different. It makes sense. They’re upper middle class White people. Like me. And for us, nothing really has dramatically changed in the US other than gas and grocery prices.

We are unlikely to be detained in an ICE facility, unlikely to be harassed in our day-to-day lives for the color of our skin or our religious affiliation. It just doesn’t happen when you’re a White person in America.

And so day-to-day life is “normal.”

Meanwhile, detention centers are allowing federal agents to sexually assault detainees. Americans are being arrested based on color of their skin or primary language. Two Americans were shot in the street and it was captured on video, but their murderers walk free.

But life isn’t really different in any measurable way for most people in America. At least, not White people.

I wonder if Nazi Germany was this way.

There’s a movie I mean to watch called “The Zone of Interest.” It follows the day-to-day lives of Germans living next to a concentration camp. The mundanely shocking point of the movie is the normalcy of people living alongside mass crematoriums and mass death on a genocidal level—how life just went on. The trains kept running. The world kept turning.

In America, the world is still turning for most people. It has not ground to a halt. Yet, there are people disappearing or dying or being sexually assaulted and impregnated in ICE detention facilities. It’s all in the news.

But the trains still run. And people still live their lives. Because to protest, to burn it all down (literally and figuratively) interrupts the “freedom” that we have. It puts us at risk. It puts our children at risk. We have traded safety for the erosion of our freedoms AND the freedoms of others.

What is our obligation to our children and their safety? And to ourselves?

I left because the drip,
drip,
drip….

….

erosion of rights, especially women’s rights, was terrifying to me. The steady loss of free speech, of free media. It doesn’t happen at once, but slowly. I can’t blame all of this on MAGA and Trump, though it sped up exponentially under him.

Leaving was an act of rebellion and an act of agency and an act to protect my female at birth children and their rights. It was also an act of cowardice.

I don’t have the answers for any of this. I feel that the safety of my children is important above all, but this is inherently privileged.

I realize I have chosen to leave and live in relative comfort and safety for as long as I can, rather than risk my life or even my comfort for others.

But I’m also realizing that we really have no control, at the end of the day. You’d think after James, after Hazel and leukemia and COVID and Helene, I would be well-versed in that lesson. But it bears remembering that our freedom can be stolen at any moment by powerful men with delusions of grandeur and power and war. They don’t care about us. They care for nothing but themselves. It would do well for us to remember that they see us as the proletariats in Orwell’s 1984.

There were so many people willing to fight for the rights of others—throughout time and history. It turns out that in a pinch, I can only fight for those that I bear responsibility for. And my fighting looks like running. At least for now. Maybe forever.

I’ve picked up some new slang.

“Sookie” is a term for being clingy/needy (but can also mean whiny/whining). An owner was telling me about his cat’s snotty breathing and how it gets worse when the cat is “sookie.” Because the Newfoundland accent can be very thick at times, I thought he was saying ‘sleepy’ until I realized that clearly he wasn’t. He showed me a video of his derpy orange cat lying in his lap, making biscuits. Apparently, that’s being sookie.

“Yes, b’y” is another great term that can have many meanings. I liken it to the British use of twat. It can be a good thing or a bad thing or a funny thing. For instance, “I think we should have Tim’s for lunch” can be met by “yes, b’y!” as an enthusiastic assent.

A difficult owner coming in can provoke a deep sigh, as in “it’s Ms Simms again,” with a dark, “yes, b’y.”

“Best kind” makes me laugh. I think it’s usually a positive thing as in “Timbits are best kind, yes, b’y.”

By the way, Timbits are donut holes from Tim Horton’s, a North American chain. Tim Horton was a hockey player. Tim’s in Canada is like Starbucks in America. There’s one on every corner. There’s also a Starbucks on every corner so do with that what you will.

My work is sandwiched between a Tim’s and a Starbucks, so I’m covered for coffee and donuts time eternal.

In other news, I do feel safer and much less anxious here. I only check the news 1-2 times per day rather than every 30 minutes. It’s still horrifying. A veterinary colleague’s two preschoolers attended the Temple Israel preschool which was targeted earlier this week, and for the terrifying drive from her work to the school, she didn’t know if they were alive. Thankfully, they were.

We’re locked in a quagmire/unwinnable war with a president in the throes of dementia and gas prices are skyrocketing. Just another day in America 2026.

The kids are really homesick and all agree that they hate it here and want to go home. It’s nothing specific, although the mercurial weather has been a hard transition for them. They have more freedom in school, they’re allowed to talk at lunch and actually spend recess outside every day, so there have been wins. We went 5 pin bowling with my work colleagues and kids this weekend, and I think everyone had fun.

Jim is also struggling away from home, which I expected. He hasn’t settled into his exercise habits yet, as we’ve been busy adjusting to both working 40 hour weeks, the new house, only having 1 car, and the weather shifting rapidly and unpredictably (52 degrees/10C today and windchill of -20C yesterday).

I’m actually feeling quite good about being here, although I do miss home and my friends. I’m still grateful and aware that my schooling and privilege in life allowed me to move my family somewhere safer and quieter.

Tonight, it’s so warm that I have my window open, and the wind is roaring. It’s strange to live somewhere that incredible wind like this is the norm. It still makes me anxious to hear it. If I was in North Carolina, I’m pretty sure I’d be hiding in the basement.

Getting the house finished has been a surprisingly ugly struggle. It was supposed to be finished at the beginning of February, but it kept getting pushed back for unclear reasons. We finally closed at the beginning of this month, but the owner, who still has renovations that he is contractually obligated to finish, has been poorly responsive and required constant prodding.

I finally broke down and was aggressive and mentioned lawyers. I was informed that I should ‘bury my anger,’ which we all know is man-code for ‘calm down.’ That only helped me reach Defcon level 1. I dropped the lawyer word and how things aren’t up to code and suddenly, work’s getting done. At last, I have a closet with shelves in my bedroom.

We went into St John’s for dinner last night at a place called Piatto, which is fast becoming a favorite for Neopolitan style pizza.

Newfoundland doesn’t feel like home yet, but I am confident that with time, it will. The house is becoming homey.

I love work, and CBS has a great team. I already have patients I adore…like this smol friend.

And Jessica is here, another American colleague that is fleeing America, so I’m not alone. And Emily joins us in May from the US, hooray!

I give NL a thumbs up. Pretty sure everyone else is thumbs middle or down at the moment. I feel like spring is going to help. And when the whales arrive…