Now available!

Facebook Fan Page

For anyone who's interested, I've added a Facebook author page. 

To click "like" on the page will keep you up to date on any news or info related to my writing career, including book signings, reviews, public appearances, and, in the event of a natural disaster, awards.

I've come to realize, and acknowledge, that sometimes a person just wants the news without the responsibility of being a Facebook friend. This might particularly apply to readers, colleagues, acquaintances and both former and present students.

Of course, you're always welcome to join my Facebook friends list as well where I post a lot more often and am a lot more chatty and exuberant.

On my FB author page, expect the occasional update.

I wasn't certain, of course, how well this new venture would work out, but within twenty seconds of going live, the page already had its first dozen members. Thanks, everyone -- both Facebook friends and others, who have signed on.

So come on over, if it be your will. And feel free to share this link to anyone you wish.

Gerard

Pitch and Plug: It's not just the Blue Jays' bullpen quandary

 
Salty Ink

The young and saucy Salty Ink book blog (curated by the young and saucy Chad Pelley, author of the critically acclaimed novel Away From Everywhere) posted this feature a few days ago in which I manage to articulate something half insane about my first novel Finton Moon, and something totally sane about Riel Nason's novel The Town That Drowned.

Have a look by clicking here.

GC

"The best and most huggable"

BOOK ReMARKS

By: Harold N. Walters

The Clarenville Packet

Finton Moon

Gerard Collins has written a novel. I always knew he could—would?  And what a stupendous novel it is.

          Finton Moon [Killick Press] is the best, the most huggable novel I’ve read all summer—truly.

          Huggable?

          Yes, huggable.

          Surely you’ve felt the urge to wrap your arms around a book, especially after its pages are all puffed up and swollen from reading, embrace its characters and clutch its content to your bosom as if clinging to stirring moments that you know are certain to fade…

          …or something.

          No surprise, there is darkness in the human heart. Gerard Collins tickles that darkness almost making it merry. Or is that just my imperfect thinking?

          Example. Finton has been to confession and has revealed his dark ol’ sins to the priest. Back outside the confessional, Finton feels better about himself as if God has cleansed him “like taking a toilet scrubber to his soul and scouring it clean.”

          Go on. Grin.

          Remember that Frank O’Connor story—“First Confession”—in one of the school books in which Jackie climbs atop the wicket to unload his burdensome sins?

Beaucoup yucks in that yarn…

          …but none any funnier that Finton vomiting on the priest.

          In times before electricity reached Newfoundland outports, before the lights came, many houses—especially those dark and dank grandmother homesteads—had shadowy corners beyond the range of lamplight, shadowy corners in which—who knows?—black-hearted [as opposed to sweet and cuddly] demons dwelt.

          Gerard Collins knows what lurked in those corners.

          Next door to Finton’s home is the Battenhatch house, candlelit and delightfully gloomy with oodles of shadowy corners: “There was something delicious in the dark, musty air of the Battenhatch house that held him [Finton] captive.”

          Speaking of the Battenhatch house…

          …Battenhatch…idden that a name that would lure Old Charlie D. from his grave and have him scravelling for his pen?

          Bridie and Morgan Battenhatch are women who worm their way into your brain and coil up in serpentine curls. Like seductive red fruit dangling from limbs in Eden, Bridie and Morgan are—each in her own way—characters you acknowledge only in the “delicious dark.”

          As does Finton: “Miss Bridie pursued him to the darkest corners of his mind,”…to say nothing about where Morgan takes Finton as you’ll see when you read this book. “I just want to corrupt you,” she says, fruit of sinful knowledge in hand—kinda.

          Finton’s mother Elsie constantly cleans. She scrubs dishes and swings her broom more industriously than the Dutch Cleanser missus dusts her doorstep. It seems as if Elsie’s life is a continuous effort to sweep away ugly dark stuff: “Elsie was almost religious in her ritualistic gathering of dust, hair, furballs, and bits of lostness to her dustpan.”

          …bits of lostness…

          I’ve probably mentioned before that my favourite dead English novelist is Thomas Hardy. Reading Gerard Collins’ stories reminds me of less-than-sunny Tom.

          Hardy’s novel The Woodlanders features a giant tree that might be, disregarding metaphor, just a tree.

          Forgive me, Gerard. I can’t help thinking of Hardy when Finton considers that Bridie Battenhatch—Battenhatch, jim dandy!—“looked a lot better from the distance of a high tree branch.”

          I know. My imperfect slant again.

          As do John in “Treed” [Cuffer Anthology II], and Finton Moon, I do understand the succour to be found up beyond where birdies nest.

          Sometimes, however, danger hangs among the boughs of a too flimsy fir.

          Once upon a time in a different bay, a callow bay-boy watched a movie in which some lumberjacks bobbed the tops off several of those humongous trees that grow out in British Columbia.

          Next day, said impressionable bay-boy dragged a bucksaw up a fir with a mere three inch butt, intending to imitate the movie lumberjacks.

          The bay-boy set the saw and made a stroke. The tree jerked. The saw jumped and ripped its teeth across frail human flesh.

          Look, the scar is still visible in the meat of my left hand.

          Thank you for reading.

ghwalters@persona.ca

SEPTEMBER 20-12

 

         

Thanks to a generous invitation from the Writers' Federation of New Brunswick, I'll be in Woodstock on October 20, reading from my published work and particpating in a panel discussion with the talented Joan Clark, author of Eriksdottir and An Audience of Chairs, among other acclaimed novels. Besides all the great literary stuff, there's an open mic (might I sing in public for the first time in over a decade, having recently turned down literally dozens of dollars to do exactly that somewhere else?) and music by young, accomplished singer-songwriter Babette Hayward.

This will be my first-ever visit to the great province of New Brunswick, and hopefully not my last. I'm truly looking forward to the opportunity to meet up with many of my friends who are from there and/or live there. An autumnal n the bordertown of Woodstock, just a few days before Halloween, reading from my decidedly dark works, Finton Moon and Moonlight Sketches, sounds like balm for my soul.

 Hope you can be there!

GC

P.S. Check out the very cool poster from the talented graphic artist, Colleen Maguire. I'll be looking to abscond a copy of this for myself.

Lassoing the Moon: Buy it or win it!

 

The cooler autumn air has put me in a generous mood, so I'm running a brief contest to give away a copy of Finton Moon. The drawing will take place Monday evening (Sept. 10) at 7 p.m. Once again, I'll be putting the names into a hat (my artsy hemp fedora) and pulling out a name. If you want your name in the drawing, either drop me a line at gnc@nf.sympatico.ca or join me on Facebook, go to my post about the drawing, and click "like."

Meanwhile, I've received countless emails and Facebook comments from people wondering where they can buy either Finton Moon or Moonlight Sketches, and, though I've posted this information before, here it is once again, for your convenience.

Finton Moon is available Coles, Chapters, and Indigo stores throughout Atlantic Canada and at some of them across the rest of Canada. If your local bookstore doesn't carry it, you can just order it at the checkout, and they'll bring it in for you. It's also available from Amazon.ca (Amazon.uk or Amazon.com have my books listed, but I'm not sure what their situation is n reality.) There are other outlets as well. Downhome stores (and their outlets) throughout Atlantic Canada will have it. That includes some airports, drugstores, and the occasional independent retail space. Moonlight Sketches was (and is) available in every province of Canada, and I assume the same will eventually be true of Finton Moon.

For those who don't live in St. John's (the hub of the literary world), however, one of the easiest, safest, and quickest routes is by ordering directly from my publisher. The publisher's assistant, Pamela, tells me that it takes only 1-2 days to process and order and ship it out to whoever orders it. How long it takes after that depends on the mail system both in Canada and wherever you are. Could be rural Newfoundland, Atlantic Canada, Nunavut, or another country altogether. They've even been known to ship books to the U.S. as well as Europe and as far away as Australia. The costs will vary of course, as it often costs substantially more to ship to foreign countries or even to other provinces.

Of course, if you want a signed copy, you can come to book signing. There should be one in October in St. John's, details to be announced, and I'll definitely be in Woodstock, New Brunswick for the WordsFall event on October 20. There might be more signings, perhaps even a reading or two. I'll announce them as soon as I know what's happening.

Hope this info helps in your search for quality, award-winning fiction about which Jean Graham of the Northeast Avalon Times says is "a razor-sharp portrait of much of what is worst and some of what is best) about small towns."

G

Some of you may have seen this already: "Going underground to get some writing done. Won't be answering emails, reading manuscripts or attending events of any kind for the next four weeks unless I've already agreed to it. Summer's almost gone and my opportunity for finshing some projects is rapidly fading. Figure if I say this out loud I might be able to stick to it. Sincerely, a friend." That was my status update a week ago. I haven't been on Facebook since then, just trying to sort through some things, but mostly trying to finish the first draft of my new novel.

In Person. (Sort of.)

It's been such a fantastic and busy summer--nicer weather than we've seen in years--and two book launches for Finton Moon, in St. John's in June and Halifax in July. Before that, there was the Atlantic Book Awards, which was extremely busy and distracting week. Before that, I was working on revisions for that novel pretty much since Christmas Day. Of course, that doesn't count the judging for writing competitions, mentoring, reading manuscripts, book signings, and various other writing-related activities.

So I decided, reluctantly, that I needed some time away from FB to just get some work done before the fall semester begins and I'm back teaching, which takes up nearly all my time when I'm doing it. I've been contracted to write stories and articles, and I do want to finish that novel (I've got around 300 pages written, but I've been at that stage for over a year now).

I don't miss Facebook. But I do miss my Facebook friends. Some of you, in particular, I miss the almost daily updates and bantering. I never realized how much a part of my life it had become.

Okay, well I did, actually. That's why I had to step away for a while: I knew exactly how much a part of my life it had become. And it will be again.

The thing is with Facebook--it's not about Facebook. It's about the people on there. It's easy to forget that sometimes. We tend to make the distinction between our "real" friends and our "Facebook friends," but I'm not so sure there's a difference. I see lots of conversations and support and arguments on there that I'm not sure would ever have occurred in real life.

Sure, it's nice to hold a baby in your arms, feel its squishy, soft little fingers in your own larger hands. It's good to give a hug or get -- nothing really replaces that. And it's great to have a beer with your buddies, have an all-night gab fest with an old friend in the soft light of your living room.

But that doesn't diminish the friendships we make with people we've never met in person. They touch our lives, our hearts, our souls and they challenge and engage our minds. If you don't believe me, try telling someone on your friends list that you don't want them around anymore. Just see if you don't hurt their feelings. Just try walking away from that with a clear conscience. Fact is, you risk the same emotional connection -- if not sometimes a little more -- with your on-line friends. You risk the same kind of falling out (believe me, I've had those) and you risk the out-loud laughter (not the fake LOL thing that I can't stand--but the real stuff).

Anyway, I could go on and on, but I won't.

I'm not making much progress on the novel -- not yet anyways. But I will. Working on some stories and articles first. I'll bet some of you were silly enough to think, "Oh good for Gerard--taking a break from Facebook must mean he's taking a break, enjoying life." I wish that were true. I mean, yes, I'm enjoying life--but that wouldn't be true if I didn't enjoy work because these days, it's all work.

Not complaining. Just speaking the truth.

So back to work I go. This blog is part of that, I suppose. But I mostly just wanted to check in. Blogging is easier. I can control my time. I don't get involved in conversations and need only spend the 15 minutes or so it took to write this.

Just wanted to say "Hi!" and I'll be around again soon. Oh, and I'll likely be blogging again over the coming days and weeks. Keeps me in the game.

I miss the daily triumphs and tribulations, the wry witticisms and the useless talk about what's wrong with CanLit. I say that knowing I've engaged in such useless talk quite often myself and will do so again. It's all useless in a way. But then it's all good.

It really is.

Gerard

First Review for 'Finton Moon'

My editor emailed me just before the Halifax launch of Finton Moon, asking if I'd seen this review. It took me a couple of weeks, but I was finally able to read it yesterday morning. It's nice to see a review that's thoughtful and critical, not just plot summary.

 

Gothic novels set in Newfoundland

by Jean Graham, The Northeast Avalon Times, July 2012

I always wonder why there aren't more horror and/or fantasy novels set in Newfoundland and Labrador. Surely we have the weather, the landscape, the old graveyards, and the human characters to inspire more than our share of the gothic.

Look what Stephen King has done for Maine -- I've never been to that state, but I know if I ever drive through, my skin will crawl whether I'm in a rural area or Bangor/Derry.

This is not a complaint about what most of our authors do write about -- don't be writing to the editor to complain that I don't like your favourite artist-downtown or coming-of-age-in-the-bay or historical fiction tale. I probably do. I just would also, greedy soul that I am, like to see our genre fiction expand.

Every so often, someone here makes at stab at it, however, and for this month's column I have two books -- one outright horror, the other described on the jacket as a "gothic, adult fairytale." Each has been a decade in development, according to the author notes. Both maybe be perfect additions for your summer reading pile, depending on your literary tastes.


Finton Moon
By Gerard Collins
Killick Press
330 Pages; $19.95

Finton Moon actually first emerged on the local literary scene as the 2001 winner of the Percy Janes First Novel Award. Eleven years later, it's here as an extraordinary addition to the scene.

It's a coming of age book, but one such as we've never seen here. Or perhaps anywhere -- books about children and adolesecents with unusual powers not being the norm these days. (And yes, I do remember the '70s -- but most of those kids were evil, possessed by demons, or both.)

The title character is a misfit in his family and his small bay town, Darwin. His father is called Tom, but I do not think that is an allusion to Stephen King's character Tom Moon in The Stand.

Finton has always healed quickly from injuries. Astonishing quickly, I mean -- minutes instead of weeks. Eventually, as a child, he discovers he can heal other people, which brings him instant notoriety in his town. The power disappears right after his first sexual experience, but show signs of re-emerging, if never quite as strong as it was originally.

A distant cousin is found dead. Tom is the suspect. there is secrecy and there are whispers. There is gossip and nastiness, both overt and covert.

Collins has created a town of characters that is both believable and memorable. You will recognize many of them -- Finton's hard-ticket best friend, his religious grandmother, supportive teachers and priests among them.

There is an unnattainable girl, and a girl who is a soulmate, but not recognized as such by Finton -- at least partly because she is from a family even lower on the town's social totem pole than his own.

The dialect never rings false, and the people Collins has created are not caricatures.

The book spans several years, and many of the central characters are children when it starts. The character development is clever -- they grow and develop and change, but none of them change in such a way as to become unrecognizable.

Eventually, the various strands of plot form a satisfying tapestry of a story. Every plot line has a conclusion -- many of them not exactly the ones you might expect, but none of them jarring with the story.

I read most of this book in one sitting of several hours, and would happily do so again. Collins has produced a razor-sharp portrait of much of what is worst and some of what is best) about small towns, thrown in a splash of fantasy and created a story that is well worth the decade or so we've been waiting for a finished product.



(Jean Graham goes on from here to review Charles O'Keefe's new novel, The Newfoundland Vampire.)

Home in Halifax

I'm going back to Halifax soon.

This coming Monday night, July 23, with the help and inspiration of some friends -- particularly Creative Publishing and Halifax arts maven* Bobbi Zahra -- we'll be celebrating the Maritime launch of my newest book and first novel, Finton Moon. At the fabulous Uncommon Grounds coffee shop at 1030 South Park Street, friends, acquaintances, literati, passersby, media members and interested onlookers will gather in the name of literature and fine coffee to mark the occasion. The inimitable Peggy Walt will be doing the author introduction, while the esteemed Don Sedgwick will represent the publisher by playing host to the event. Finton Moon has just made its way into bookstores across the Maritimes within the past few days, and so the timing is perfect.

I'm as baffled as anyone as to how this whole thing came to be. I've always loved Halifax, have always considered it  a place where I feel very much at home. So when the opportunity arose during a discussion with the afore-mentioned and generous Bobbi -- about the same time I was launching my new novel in St. John's in late June -- I immediately said I would love to do it. Halifax is one of the places where I grew up as a writer, where I plotted my stories and schemed my literary aspirations -- all in the coffee shops of the downtown. There's much more to the story than that, which I'll save for my ramblings to the gathering on Monday night. Suffice to say, I'm very happy to be returning to a city and province that are very dear to my heart and inspire my writing at nearly every turn.

My time there will be brief, but I'm trying to fit in as much as possible. Monday afternoon, July 23, I'll be doing a booksigning at Bayers Lake Chapters at 188 Chain Lake Drive from 1-3 p.m. I'm very much looking forward to meeting some readers from the area. It'll be easy to spot me: I'll be the scruffy looking one who looks like he hasn't changed his clothes in a day or so.

The launch event is at 7 p.m. Monday night. I'll be talking about my connections with Halifax and Nova Scotia, about the gestation period for Finton Moon, which took many years to complete, and offering a couple of short readings from the novel. After that, I'll be able to sign some books, chat with people and unwind. I'll have some drinks with friends and new acquaintances, let loose a little, get 3 or 4 hours of sleep before an early rise the next day.

Heidi Petracek, CTV host

Tuesday morning at about 7:15 a.m. (Halifax time) I'll be on CTV's Breakfast Television show talking with the talented and vivacious Heidi Petracek. I last spoke to Heidi nearly a decade ago when she was a fill-in host on CBC Radio's On the Go. I don't even know if she remembers me, but I had a lot of fun then, and I'm sure it'll be even more fun this time--yet another part of my life coming full circle.

Shortly after, I'll be back on a plane and headed home to St. John's, no doubt wondering if it all really happened.

Uncommon Grounds, 1030 South Park St.

If you're in the Halifax area, I hope you can join us for the celebration at the aptly named Uncommon Grounds.

Also, this Saturday--before I even leave for Halifax--I'm having a booksigning at Chapters in St. John's on Kenmount Road (Saturday, 1-3 p.m.). I'll be signing copies of Finton Moon and Moonlight Sketches. If you're in the St. John's area, again, I'll be happy to see you.

And, finally, yesterday, the dynamic duo that runs Fierce Ink Press (coincidentally based out of Halifax) made an announcement about a new project that I'm proud to be a part of. Here's the link, if you're interested (http://fierceinkpress.com/award-winning-acclaimed-atlantic-canadian-authors-contribute-fierce-shorts-digital-imprint-related-charities/). I'll be talking more about this fantastic publication event, as well the press itself (a YA publishing house owned and operated by Kimberly Walsh and Colleen Mckie) in the coming days and weeks. For now, just lettin' you know.

So yeah, there's that.

GC


*maven: from the Hebrew or Yiddish, meaning "an expert or connoisseur" or a person of "understanding."

Happy, Indeed.

July 1, 1995.

I wondered if there would be fireworks on the ferry.

We were going to Canada and would be travelling by boat to North Sydney, Nova Scotia--an overnight crossing from darkness to daylight.

It wasn't the first time my wife and I had left our home in St. John's to seek a place in the world. In 1989, we had sold off everything we owned--which, by any standard, wasn't much--and flew to Ontario to live in Oakville. In terms of finding employment and prospects, Oakville wasn't a kind place, and yet I had loved every moment of being there. But that's a story for another day.

On Canada Day in '95 we boarded the ferry in Argentia and a couple of hours later, we stood in stunned silence as the rocky, barren shores of our homeland receded into the fog. Fireworks were no longer a part of my thoughts.

I wondered how long it would take to get there. I wondered if we would like it, if Nova Scotia was a place we could ever call home. Looking back, I never expected it would feel like home. After all, I've lived in St. John's for most of my adult life and never really felt it was home. I've always--give or take a few years--lived in Newfoundland and, again, that feeling of "home" has never been mine, except fleetingly.

N. and I talked about it over breakfast this morning--what exactly is "home," and why has it been so elusive? I said that even now I get the occasional moment--whether lying on the couch next to her and reading, or watching a movie, sometimes late at night when we're settling into bed, and once in a while when we're walking the trails, or I'm out for a jog, or even when I meet someone I know and have a great conversation in a parking lot or a shop--I feel something like homefulness. It's a sense of connection to your surroundings, feeling like the place around you is a reflection of who and what you are, what you've become. The place might even hold some history for you, but I don't think that's essential.

I know of Newfoundlanders who travel the world and settle in places like Ireland, England and even Australia and feel that immediate connection with a place and they stay there for the rest of their lives, presumably content most of the time, rarely wishing they could be any place else.

But that hasn't been my story. On Canada Day, I always find myself--as a sort of subconscious, reflexive activity--thinking about my connection to this country, whether I feel part of it, whether I don't. It's a dangerous thing to say you don't feel connected to your country, but there it is: I don't. But it's not the country nor its people: rather, it's all countries and all people.

But that doesn't stop me from trying. Like I said, I catch precious moments of being "at home," although I crave it most of the time, a low-murmuring, perpetual thrumming that reflects my yearning for a place to lay my head, not just physically but also spiritually and emotionally. For a writer, too much contentment is not a good thing. I have always craved adventure. I have never wanted to stay in one place for too long. I feared atrophy. I still do, to some extent. But ever since I can remember, I just wanted to keep moving--sipping the wine, nibbling the food, observing the people, their habits, tasting the culture, the lay of their land, a sense of how they feel about themselves and their own place in Canada. In the Fraser Valley, where I lived for a while, I didn't meet many people from British Columbia. Most were from other places. For instance, the young woman who often cut my hair was from Switzerland, and I couldn't help thinking that--with her vivaciousness--Switzerland must be a sadder place for having lost her. The middle-aged woman who served my coffee at Tim Horton's in Chilliwack was from Newfoundland. I met people all over town from Nova Scotia, Alberta, England, and France. I can't ever remember meeting a British Columbian there.

But a year before the B.C. experience, we were en route to Nova Scotia. I was going to do a Masters degree in English at Acadia University in Wolfville. My first impression was that it was small but beautiful. My wife, who had entertained prospects of finding meaningful employment there, was quickly disspelled of that notion. Before we ever landed in Wolfville, though, we stayed with relatives in Lower Sackville, essentially a suburb of Halifax, and that city is where we spent a lot of our time for the next two months. We saw movies at Park Lane, spent the occasional afternoon at the Public Gardens, went to a lot of coffee shops. I particularly remember the 10-mile walk on Sunday mornings for breakfast at Harvey's before heading off to the gigantic flea market just up the road. We never bought anything heavy, always mindful of the long trek homeward. The weather in Nova Scotia was warmer, brighter, and gentler than anything we'd known on The Rock. Perhaps, I thought, we can live here.

Wolfville was idyllic, although I had the sense of a dark underbelly, especially late at night. The decaying manses and massive willows wreaked of Southern Gothic and set my imagination astir. But I could never have lived there forever. It was too small. My wife--because she'd left everything she knew behind in St. John's--wasn't happy with the experience at first. She tried for my sake, but there was nothing there for her. We got lucky in January when a professor of mine and his professor wife moved away to conduct research at Princetion and asked if we would look after their house. A house meant a home, and while it wasn't ours, it could be. We imagined it was ours, but it was awfully big.

The next year, we moved back to Lower Sackville so I could finish my thesis--mostly in the bowels of Dalhousie University and the coffee shops of Spring Garden Road. N. found work for the summer at The Body Shop where she fared well, but they paid very little and expected too much. I'm not sure it was ever a good fit for her. As for me, while I finished my studies, I worked as a tutor, which left me plent of time for haunting the coffee shops in search of a writing career. I wrote voraciously and, up until recently, it was the most creative--perhaps even the happiest--time of my life. Everything  I wrote--including some Darwin stories that never exactly made it to print, but were the origins for Finton Moon and Moonlight Sketches--had that spark of something special, feeling like something I'd never written before. In Halifax, I felt I could be anything and write anything, that my imagination and creative powers were limitless.

And then we came home. It was an abrupt end to a lengthy, hot summer that included forty straight days of blistering, hot weather. I've blended our three separate sojourns in Halifax into one--not consciously, but subconsciously. But the truth is, after I finished my MA, we went to BC for a while, then came back to Nova Scotia, and during the first year and a half in Nova Scotia, we lived in the Halifax area on two separate occasions. Constantly moving. Ebbing and flowing as regularly and dramatically as the Fundy Tide.

I still have a fondness for Halifax and Nova Scotia in general. But, as a friend reminded me a couple days ago, wherever you live for a while, you always miss it when you leave. And that's the way it is with Nova Scotia. Except I know in my heart it wasn't a fabrication, and certainly not a product of nostalgia. Even when I was there, I knew I was in love with the life. To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, I was a free man in Halifax. I was free to write in the coffee shops of Spring Garden, Barrington, and Coburg. I was free to be a student. Free to wander the just-burgeoning Harbour Front and listen to buskers. Free to sit at Second Cup, the windows wide open in the evening and listen to the lonesome sound of a busker's saxophone or, across the street, the breezy, cool sounds of the Jazz festival. But, above all, I wrote. Letters to friends. Short stories. Poems. Essays. Articles. Huge chunks of never-to-be published novels. All of it--the experiences, as well as the writing--have contributed to what I am now, whatever I am. Homelessness, it would seem, brings out the best in me.

And while a permanent sense of "home" has eluded me, I know that I have felt at home many, many perfect times in my imperfect, perfect life.

Here in St. John's, I feel that same urge for going on a daily basis now. I don't know if it means we'll be leaving again soon or not. I no longer feel the need to prove myself in the world or to the world. In many ways, St. John's has been extremely good to us. Traveling is no longer some sort of internal competition wherein you feel you're nobody until you've done it, and done it enough. Now, it's a matter of necessity, just as it once was. But the necessity has shifted. I need to write. I require inspiration. But mostly, I need to be happy and for that I need adventures and the occasional something new.

I'm not sure where this is leading. I feel a shift in my personal universe. There are times I think Newfoundland is the best place to be. For all the reasons of restlessnes I've mentioned above, we've never bought a house in St. John's and, although we've been looking for a while now, sometimes I wonder if it's really a coincidence at all. You might say I've looked at St. John's from both sides now, and I really don't know it at all. Maybe, subconsciously, we've never been ready to settle here or anywhere.

Or maybe we're ready to settle but are simply feeling that old familiar necessity for one last big adventure.

Of maybe just a new series of original happenings.

Either way, I'm intrigued. And that means I'm writing more. But I don't wish to write from memory. I get so easily bored by nostalgia or by books that write only about the (yawn) "nature of memory."

I crave newness. Originality. If you turn on the oldies station, the radio might end up in the harbour with all the other raw sewage.

I want something I've never heard before, but with enough connection to the past that I feel at home when I hear it. You can use the same instrument to play an original song.

Just in saying that, maybe I've just found the answer I've been seeking.

Happy Canada Day?

Happiness is fleeting, but at least comes occasionally and often. Canada isn't home, but it's an incredible simulation and a fine holding ground. But every day is Canada Day, isn't it, really? You sort of have to celebrate it every day, even in the face of such a brazen attack as the current right wing prime minister is waging on its ideals, as well as its citizens, even the very people who voted for him.

Happy, indeed.

Where's my black armband? The one I used to wear on March 31 to commemorate the surrender of Newfoundland independence without a single shot being fired because our own future premier had hidden away the key to the munitions cabinet.

Even if I could have voted in 1949, I would not have voted for this. In fact, I can say with absolute certainty, that in 1995, I would not have sailed into it.

I now reach the point where I'm not exactly sure what this blog post is about. although when the journey began... oh, who am I kidding? I've never really known where any journey was going to end up. That's why I take them.

I'm not nostalgic for that day we sailed wide-eyed and yet blindly into the North Sydney Harbour, and I'm certainly not misty-eyed about the day we returned to St. John's. Maybe I'm just reconsidering what it means to be me, what it means if I continue to live here, what it would mean if I left it.

All I can say, with any certainty, is that there were no fireworks on the ferry that night. And I think they missed an opportunty for glory.