Push of the Tide

So. Here I am writing my very first blog ever.  I am rather newly retired and at 51 years old and after raising 3 young boys to manhood I've been somewhat floating around as to what to do with the rest of my life. Several people have told me that I can have a way with words and ask why am I not writing. These are old friends of my childhood where we've all reunited on the infamous Face  Book. So I get on Face Book a half dozen times a day or so and every once in a while I feel inspired or moved and then share that in thought and words in my status  box. Some people like what I have to say..so they tell me. So here I am taking their advice and suggestions and for the first time in my life I'm going to spill my guts on lots of stuff and be as honest as I am capable of! I guess I'm giving it up to the push of the tide and going with it.

This blog may end up being all over the place in subject matter but, that is the way I am in my interests and opinions and the blog I'm sure willl reflect this. I'll also being trying my hand from time to time at some short stories based on true stories...that will come with time.

I'm not even sure if there will be daily entries or weekly or bi-weekly. To do more than I'm genuinely inclined to do would then make it feel like 'work', a very heavy chain around my neck. I guess what the real reason for all this is that I just want to remain productive in as many ways as I can in my early retirement during my middle years. I want to always remain honest and genuine and being real should be the easiest thing that we do. Second nature. So now a little more info on me.........................

I'm 51 and female. I am married to Eric and live with him, our dog Bear who has stories of his own and our cat Stewie Griffin. If his name means something to you then enough said.
We reside in Chance Harbour New Brunswick Canada. I was born in a very small town named Dodsland Saskatchewan Canada. When I was 3 years of age my Mother and I moved from Dodsland to Saint John New Brunswick. Saint John was to be my home for over 40 years.
Chance Harbour is a 30 minute drive from the city of Saint John. It is a beautiful little fishing village on the Bay of Fundy. We are new residents still as we've only been here a little over 4 months. We have been gradually fitting into the community and find the people so friendly that it's as if we've lived here our whole lives. Living on the bay is new and refreshing everyday. We live in a sweet little cottage with the bay about 150 yards from our door. Our cottage sits on a compound of 5 homes owned by a very nice american couple from the state of Maine. I've never lived on a compound before, don't know of anyone that has. We aren't gated off or anything but still the layout of the homes is that of a grouping.  A lovely long stretch of beach is part of the compound which is to say the least a BONUS.
Needless to say I spend a lot of time looking out over the beach and the bay contemplating many things. I'm so grateful to be able to do that. The inside of the cottage is very warm and inviting with pine planking or boarding all throughout on the walls and ceilings. We've made it our own with our modest furnishings and find we are very comfortable. Our favorite part of the house is the open concept living room and kitchen where we spend 98% of our time. The wall facing the bay is all windows so we have a view to die for. Crow Island is just off shore...in our back yard and holds a lot of facination for many people as it draws a lot of them in.

Chance Harbour is also very rich in history and has been here for 250-300 hundred years. There is even an old graveyard on a part of the upper beach where the very first grave was ever dug in Chance Harbour. It holds the remains of an unknown soldier. His story isn't much as much isn't known about him. Just that he washed up on this very beach and a local resident buried him. He was a British Officer and that is all that is known. I find myself thinking of this soldier often wondering where he came from, did he have a wife and children? How many looked and waited for his return home. Maybe some day we will know but for the meantime we live with the mystery.

I love the water. I love living on the water, watching the water, smelling the water and feeling the dewy spray of the water. My astrological sign is the crab, a native to the water. The sun is in my first house and the moon is my ruling planet.
From where I sit with my laptop at my kitchen table I can see the bay, the beach, sunrises and moonrise's. So it is with  little wonder why I feel a connection with the beautiful surroundings I find myself living in. And those are just the visual delights. The sounds are what brings it all alive. The daylight hours carry all the sounds of the birds from eagles and herons to goldfinches and chickadees.
In the evenings can be heard the howling and yippings of a traveling pack of coyotes, the chirpings of tiny bats swiftly swooping through the air snatching up mosquitoes and spiders and the soft soothing sounds of the crickets. And in the background of all that is the sound of the sea...the surf that rolls in with each heave and wave of the tides. It crashes on the beach and fills me with awe and a sense of how big the Atlantic is and it's overwhelming presence in the world. Somehow the enormity of that doesn't make me feel small but, leaves me feeling a part of it all. So when I walk along the beach I no longer feel like my steps are just impressions left behind in the sand but, like the push of the tides I too leave my mark in the bigger scheme of life.
From inside my modest little cottage when I sit at my kitchen table looking out over the bay I hope to continue to be pushed with each tide into inspiration so that I may too somehow leave my mark on you, the reader.

Until next time...........Natalie