We've Wandered Many a Weary Foot

Ready or not, here comes 2026.

Photo by Tim Foster on Unsplash

I haven’t written much since I arrived in Nova Scotia in early October. Some of you have noticed, and I appreciate your questions about when Bayview Wonder would return and your encouragement to continue.

I didn’t set out to take more than a week off, but time slid by as I completed the permanent residency process, imported my Jeep, and started to learn the Canadian healthcare system. I’m adjusting to a new professional role and doing a lot of dreaming and a little scheming about what my future job (or jobs) will look like. Hayley has a busy teaching schedule, so I’ve been trying to keep ahead of things around the house—I even built a dog gate for the top of the stairs. Duke is mostly recovered from his knee surgeries in July and October. He’s not as fast as before, but last week he started joining me on little hikes through the forested land behind our home.

We hosted Canadian Thanksgiving for Hayley’s family in October, threw a joint housewarming/Hayley’s-belated-birthday party in November, traveled to Minnesota in early December to visit family and wrap up a few checklist items before selling our house there, and spent a quiet Christmas in Pictou.

I guess that seems like a pretty good list now that it’s written out. It’s been a good fall and early winter.

I like it here.

And I’ve managed to collect a few stories as I wonder along the way.

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This time a year ago, I was preparing to return to Minnesota as Hayley stayed in Nova Scotia to start her new position as a faculty member at St. Francis Xavier University.

At work, I was in the midst of a search to find the next president of Gustavus Adolphus College, the liberal arts college where I went to school and spent most of my career. As the search coordinator, it was my job to manage communications, processes, and relationships while serving as the central connection point between the board, search committee, search consultants, and campus community. It was a neat role that played to my strengths. The search, nearly a year-long process from start to finish, was probably the most fascinating and educational project of my career.

It was also pretty stressful. I don’t recommend doing a project like that while also preparing to sell a house and move to a different country.

Fortunately, everything else in the world was stable and predictable in 2025, right?

Ah, well. I guess not.

Yesterday, I bagged up garbage and compost before our biweekly pickup. It was time to get rid of Christmas leftovers and stale cookies. I wanted to start the new year with a cleaner slate, or at least a cleaner refrigerator.

I was hauling a bag out to the garage when I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. A bald eagle was taking off from its perch atop a big evergreen at the edge of our yard. I stopped and watched it take flight.

In the spirit of the times, go ahead and choose your own metaphor. There are lots of options. It could be anything, really.

Whatever interpretation you choose to apply, just be prepared to promote and defend your story with vigor. Remember, whatever you say loud enough and often enough is what counts as truth these days. Even better if you can find someone to blame, whether they’re at fault or not. Try it. Doesn’t even matter if it’s a stretch.

The great bird’s wings beat once, twice, three times, then it glided silently across Division Road and disappeared into the distance.

Was the visit a reminder of my departure from the states? A sign of friendship? A symbol of the rapidly expanding surveillance state? Why not all three?

Or perhaps it’s that the ideals of freedom and liberty persist, even in this harsh December.

To be honest, I didn’t think much about the bird at the time. Too busy cleaning up my own messes, I guess. Plus, I see a lot of bald eagles around here. More than I did back in Minnesota.

Is that the metaphor, that life in Canada is somehow more free? That’ll touch a nerve. Before he died, my father-in-law often made a point to tell me that he thought so. I don’t know.

There’s a cattle farm half a mile from here that processes some of its own beef. The eagles gather in the fields to fight for carcass scraps. That’s probably where the bird was headed.

Hmm.

My civics are rusty, perhaps, but 2025 didn’t really jive with what I learned back in seventh grade when I first visited Washington D.C. on a school trip.

Anyway, I digress.

Like Freud said, sometimes an eagle is just an eagle.

It’s nice to have garbage pickup day on December 31 this year. Out with the old and all that. I tied a knot in the top of the trash bag and went inside to bake biscuits. Control what you can control.

My world has gotten very small over these last few months. I work from home, rotating from the living room to the kitchen table to our makeshift office that’s waiting for me to save up the money and motivation for a paint job and some new bookshelves. I spend time in the garage or picking my way through the overgrown trees at the back of our lot. The worst traffic I encounter is in the shared parking lot between Sobey’s grocery store and Tim Horton’s. Once in awhile I cross the harbour to run an errand in New Glasgow. We see friends and Hayley’s family. We’re happy to cook at home and quietly spend most evenings in front of the wood fireplace.

A few years ago I stumbled across an article about what’s known as the coastline paradox. The math behind it is sort of convoluted, at least for me, but the gist of it is this—the smaller the unit of measurement that you use to measure a coast, the longer the coastline will appear to be. Using centimeters or inches will allow you to take much finer measurements of the shoreline’s contours than doing the same thing in kilometer- or mile-long segments. And if you use small enough measurements, the coastline’s length can approach infinity.

The more you zoom in, the more detail you see. There’s a richness that you need to slow down to fully appreciate.

That makes sense, right?

Looking ahead to 2026, it sure does to me.

Take a cup of kindness this New Year. And give some too.

Do it for auld lang syne.

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2026 Resolutions:

• get better at fixing stuff

• walk the dog

• catch some fish

• more seafood, more meatballs

• spend summer on the water

• read more books

• write a bunch

• embrace the coastline paradox

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