Pilgrimage to the Salt
I wake before my alarm as the sun is rising in a pink sky, although I can’t see it well from my basement window. Still, I watch as early morning light waltzes the velvety dark towards the forgotten corners of my apartment. It’s a rare treat because I usually sleep in after staying up until 1 or 2 a.m. studying every night. As I climb out of bed, I’m thinking of Mary Oliver writing, “every day, I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight.” I grin to the empty room and flick the kettle on, checking the weather while I wait for my tea.
The forecast tells me it’ll be -15 degrees (-20 with wind chill) and no chance of precipitation. Perfect. I’d been planning a trip to see the ocean for a month now, since I learned I couldn’t go home to Prince Edward Island for Christmas.
Although New Brunswick has become a second home these past few years, not being able to visit my home province, Prince Edward Island, has left me feeling restless. At home in PEI, I can look out my north-facing window and see the ocean. Moving across the kitchen to the south-facing windows, I can then watch our horses in the field. The view outside my basement apartment in Fredericton just can’t compare. So, I figured I’d visit the ocean to see if it helps.
During the drive to Saint John, I see mountains covered in fog and the imagery comes to my mind as a poem: mountains met sky in a distant spectacle, hidden by shy fog offering privacy. Feeling elated, I recite the line in my head until I arrive, then rush to write it down.
The hiking loop is about 7 kilometers long and wraps around a peninsula. It starts out in the woods, but here and there I glimpse the water as I get farther towards the edge. When I reach the ocean, I stop. Having grown up with the waves as a soundtrack to my life — did you know you can never be more than 16 km from the water on PEI? — I always feel unsettled when I’m inland for too long.
I stare for about 30 seconds, then realize I’m not breathing. When I take a deep breath in, it comes out shaky and a tear slides down my frostbitten cheek and over my wide smile. I think of Kahil Gibran when he wrote, “there must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.” This feeling of belonging stays with me for the rest of the hike, and I think of one more poet as I’m standing beside my car, watching the waves from the bay hit the rocks.
E. E. Cummings wrote that, “for whatever we lose (like a you or a me), it’s always our self we find in the sea.” After months away from my Island, I have the delight of watching the waves roll in and out, ebb and flow, inhale and exhale, shhhh shhhh. That feeling stays with me the whole drive home, and I fall asleep with a smile despite being alone.
This story was written for the Senior Seminar in Journalism. The assignment was to write about something that gives you delight (with apologies to This American Life for lifting the idea.)
