As of last week, it has been a full year since North America began to lock down due to Covid-19.
Looking back on the year that’s been is a heady experience. From the early days when we weren’t sure how long lockdowns would last, until today when we know the still-growing rates of illness and death, the vaccine rollouts, and the fact that some of us have personal losses to mourn, we have all learned, grown, and become new versions of ourselves.
I’ve noticed a tendency to become quiet and turn inward. I don’t do much. I work, I walk, and I take my dogs out. My son makes a once-a-week grocery run, but other than that, I’m not spending money, and I’m not going out.
Over the summer, I had to cancel a long-planned trip to visit friends in Newfoundland.
This forced pause can be maddening in some ways, but it’s not all negative. Our savings are growing, for one, and we’re also being called to focus on what is important, and to try out some new ways of being.
I live on the water, and in both summer and winter, I’ve noticed many more people out on the water enjoying themselves — boating in summer, skating in winter — than in years past. I attribute it to the fact that we’re not going out to movies and hockey games, so what we’re seeing instead is people outside, learning to depend on the natural world for their entertainment.
With a newfound freedom to their days, more families are out on the ice together more than ever.
I understand that impulse. I love the water; I have since I can remember. In my childhood, my grandfather Ashton, who had been a lighthouse keeper at Gannett Rock, entertained us all with tales of storms he’d been caught in. He particularly recalled the gale of 1974, when he climbed high in the lighthouse to get away from the rushing water as waves broke windows over the bottom floor of the building.
That storm must have been terrifying, but the romantic idea of living on the edge where the land, sky and sea all meet caught hold of my young imagination. From my home base in Ontario, I pledged to live near the water someday.
I love setting goals like this. Covid has been particularly challenging for this aspect of my personality because it’s so difficult to set goals when we’re caught in a loop of sameness, never sure how long this will go on. None of it is a good recipe for personal or professional progress.
Back in 2003, when I was 29, I worked with a business coach, Dory. I told her that I had this goal of living on the East Coast by the time I turned 30. Dory encouraged me to do a visualization exercise; she had me close my eyes and get quiet.
“Take everything out of your head, and focus on what your goal is,” Dory said. “Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?”
And a very clear picture swam into my head: standing on a big cliff, overlooking the water, a beautiful grand vista right on the edge of the land, with nothing in sight but the sea below and sky above.
It probably wasn’t dissimilar to what my grandfather saw on Gannett Rock all those years before.
Not long after that exercise, I took a trip out to New Brunswick to begin scouting for a place to live. I was aiming for a town called Alma. It had been a long drive that day, and the sun went down as I continued to navigate dark, winding, hilly roads studded with moose signs.
I remember thinking, “Who in their right mind would want to live in Alma?”
Eventually, the trees broke near a cliff and there was a stopover point. I got out of my car to look.
And what I saw was lights from the town reflecting off the water, and you could even, out in the distance across the Bay of Fundy, make out the hazy landmass of Nova Scotia.
It was, incredibly, the exact view I’d dreamed of when Dory had asked me to visualize my goal. I’d never seen it before, but I knew it with a familiarity that defied understanding.
I went into town to look at the real estate listings; a woman in a shop said “You’re crazy. You don’t want to live here.”
And I said, “No, I really do.”
I bought my house from the former mayor for $50,000, and my goal — my years of dreaming of moving east — was satisfied. I moved a few months after my 29th birthday.
Living on the water has filled me with happiness ever since, but living here during the pandemic is a particular gift, as I’ve gotten to see how our communities are growing and reshaping themselves during a period of difficulty. Compared to years past, I can see how many more people are outside, enjoying the time with their families.
Learning to play hockey instead of just watching hockey on TV.
This is the gift of this time for all of us: a chance to slow down, to turn inward, to rethink what is truly important to us, and even to manifest something new.
Though it’s hard to set goals in the same way as we did pre-Covid, we can all dream up new intentions, as I did about moving east so long ago. Personally, I’m dreaming up what I plan to do with all the money I’ve been saving this past year. Planning that trip to Newfoundland seems likely.
