Future Cairn

Anywhere free from snow has been quietly calling. Howling winds on lonesome Long Island help salt spray shake down winter, blown across in restless mist from Tiverton to Freeport. It’s the one sure place with patches of bare earth showing. The harsh sun shouldn’t be mistaken for offering warmth. Well, maybe from the driver’s seat where wind can’t reach me. There’s plenty of life in tiny homes on the coast, but as always, I turn to what’s dying. This wharf is slowly rotting its way to being nothing but a breakwater, rocky companions already present for some pre-stacked future cairn. There’s nowhere I’ve felt more foreign when I’m not really so far from home. It’s the longest dead-end drive in the province that does it, following Digby Neck till the highway sinks to the sea at East Ferry. Being on an island makes you think of time differently. Sometimes slower, when there’s less to do or places to go. Sometimes faster, as the rushing clock warns you that you ferry back is leaving. If my life was not so subject to wandering, island life might suit me well.

March 5, 2026
Freeport, Nova Scotia

Year 19, Day 6689 of my daily journal.