a quilt as deep as time

Sometimes, when I was a kid, I’d be tasked with dusting the living room shelves. It wasn’t my favourite activity. There were always books to be read, or beds to be lain on, or dreams to be imagined into being, and those things were always much more important than cleaning.

Not much has changed in the intervening years (cue your favourite uncleaning meme here).

But back to my story: when I was a kid, I was asked to dust. Dry dusting, with a cloth, not a feather duster (which, honestly? Would have made dusting that much more fun, but we didn’t have one, and I digress). We had a lot of ‘stuff’ on our living room shelves, and if you’re picturing knick knacks of various sorts, you’d only be very partially right. Because most of our stuff wasn’t knick knacks (although perhaps for my geologist dad, they were).

Our shelves were (and still are!) filled with rock samples. Pyrite. Fossils. Amethyst. Agate. Garnets. Crystals of various sorts.

And let me tell you something: it’s one thing to wipe down the glossy surfaces of ceramic tchotchkes. It’s something entirely different to try and wipe down jagged columns of crystals, layers of pyrite, and pointy amethysts.

*looking under the surface. Penny Beach, NS. December 2024.*

I’ve been thinking about those rocks again this week, while I’m on a self-directed writing residency at Jampolis Cottage, a lovely getaway in Avonport, about an hour outside of Halifax. The residency program is run by the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia and I’m here with a writing friend who flew in from Calgary.

*The view from my writing desk. Could a girl ask for more?*

Jampolis is a 200+ year old cottage right on the Minas Basin. Its owners – the Jampolises – made this their summer home, and later, established a trust so that this place could be used for writers’ or artists’ retreats. What a gift it is.

Here at Jampolis, my bedroom looks right out over the red mud that emerges and submerges with the Fundy tide. In the distance, I can see Blomidon, and sometimes, if we’re lucky we see a group of guinea fowl scurrying across the front lawn. The floors creak and they are uneven, a comfort to my romantic old-house-loving self.

The air is crisp and clear. And the light! The light here is magic.

*layers and layers and layers. I counted 46 on this rock, but there were definitely more than that….*

On my second day, I walked down to Blue Beach. About 3 km from the cottage, this beach is known for its rich fossil deposits, from tetrapod footprints to plant and animal fossils, and if there were fossils to be found, this Alberta-raised dinosaur-loving child of a geologist was going to find them!

(my dad, had he still been alive, would have joined me, and we’d have been there for hours and hours…. and hours … and he'd have been grunting and exclaiming in delight all the while)

And I did find fossils, at least hints of them.

*some kind of fossil that I’d likely have been able to identify if the museum had been open.*

*More fossily hints, with other stones artfully arranged into the face of a chow. or a panda. or?*

But what I ended up spending more time with were tiny pieces of shale. I picked up the still morning-damp rocks by the handful and ran them through my fingers, watching them sparkle against the sun, and I thought about time, and how we mark it and about what it might mean to think of shale as a life writer.

*shale shards (with my decidedly inelegant foot - shoe size 10.5 - for scale)*

Then, because I can’t help myself when it comes to pebbles and small stones (like father, like daughter?), I gathered some together to take back to the cottage (I’m not the only one – honest! - there are little treasures along many windowsills here) where I arranged them into a quilt as deep as time.

What stories might this quilt stitch into being?

With deepest thanks to the Jampolises, the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, and everyone who makes this place - and these retreats - possible. I’ve already informed them I’m never going home. Also? Here’s to you, Pappie, for gifting me your endless curiosity about the world and what it all might mean.

beached

writing fragments