Friday night Christmas market in Mahone Bay

December 7, 2024

It’s Saturday morning. Today and tomorrow I’m writing for school. I made a schedule for these next couple months with the hopes that seeing it all laid out on a calendar with an actual completion date will give me some hope.

I absolutely will finish this degree. All I have is one big paper left. This final paper is a like a capstone project (I call it that for context, it’s never called that in the program) that’s worth the equivalent of three courses - 12 credits - so it’s more than a paper. In the program it’s called an “Extended Essay” which is what it is. And having typed out the word capstone, what it actually feels like is a millstone around my neck.

I never anticipated feeling this much loathing for my studies. I have loved this program and the expansion of my perspectives and knowledge being in it. But something happened since moving here. It’s actually been happening beneath the surface for longer than that, but the move made it very evident.

I’m not prepared to write about that right now. It would take too long to articulate and these posts are about publishing, not excavating. And they are about pretty things not the yuck I feel in my soul about this paper.

The sun in shining on my face I sit and type this. The fire is burning in front of me. The snow is sparkly on the deck. Chickadees are landing at the bird feeder that Damien put up recently. It’s 9 am and Damien is already off for the day to make music with a friend in Dartmouth. I’m so happy for him making these connections and for his midlife love for music.

I have my Winter Wonderland candle lit and I am soaking in all these sensory pleasures, fortifying myself for the task at hand. I have experienced difficulties writing before. Nothing like this. That’s all I’ll say about that.

These December days are the magic days, some of my favorite days of the year. Actively bringing wonder into my life is more accessible in December and it’s especially accessible in my new home and community.

Thursday was grocery day, which I wrote about here. Yesterday was a working day.

I had done some research on Christmas happenings in the area last weekend and discovered that Mahone Bay had some stuff going on Friday night. (There is stuff going on all over the place - shows, markets, festivities of all kinds, more than can be taken in.)

I invited Mom for a Friday night date to Mahone Bay and we visited all the “where things were happening” as listed on the pamphlet. Our favorite of these was the market at St James Anglican Church Parish Hall.

While we were there Dad texted us a photo. My nineteen year old nephew had cooked a roast and the guys (Dad, Brad, Joah & Damien) were all eating at Mom & Dads while Mom and I were out on the town. It is absolutely as heartwarming as it sounds.

Mom and I enjoyed chili from the Texas BBQ restaurant in town, the one run by a Texan transplant, served from the through-window of the Parish kitchen.

The cultural amalgam of Texan Chili (we had the football tailgate kind where the chili is served overtop fritos) being served from an Anglican church kitchen in a coastal town of the Canadian Maritimes is a feast for my imagination which is especially captivated by people’s migration stories.

Also, I can’t believe I live in such a pretty, pretty place.

Mom and I especially enjoyed the music at the hall, which was Celtic Christmas if I was pressed for a genre. Basically if there’s a guitar, fiddle and a bohrán, what else can it be?

I bought a handmade, loom woven rug for my kitchen sink.

You know how you visit markets and see so many beautiful things and want to buy them all but mostly you just look, and oh and ah? Well, last night I bought a beautiful thing.

Also, I won a doorprize at the first place we visited in the evening. Literally, it was a prize for walking through the door of the shop - this cute Merry Christmas pillow.

When we came home Mom and I started watching The Sticky. The guys were watching Sicario on the big screen and projector at Mom & Dad's so Mom & I crashed on our loft couch and made-do (ha!) with our regular ol' wall mounted screen.

I was in bed with my book by 9:15 and lights out by 9:30. These are December nights.

It was a lovely evening at the end of an emotionally and mentally difficult week. A little breather before more difficult work today and tomorrow.

It’s now time to sit down with my complicated, sad, and disturbing thoughts about my paper's subject matter; grab my stack of articles (yep, I print and read old-school style with pen and highlighter the articles I cite in my paper) and put words onto the paper. Sentence by sentence by sentence.