The Island is wanting its way with me, and I am about ready to succumb. Our bags are unpacked, stored stuff brought out and activated, the garden prepped and planted, our first dinner guests served, and first week is almost over.
The relatively slow traverse over the North American continent to reach this place – 3000 miles – doesn’t immediately release me from the grip of the desert, the variety of landscape and human habitations we traveled through not withstanding. My inner landscape still carries the images of the vast llano, the sculpted mountains still trumpeting their ancient thrusts out of the deeper terrains, the sleeping volcanoes nestled among their own long finger beds of lava, the ragged edges of the great Colorado Plateau with its cliffs and outcroppings, and the slender threads of streams giving now only hints of the melted snows, all bathed in constant sunshine and winds.
The Island’s first declaration is “you are boundaried”. It comes first in the conversation between sea and land, one that has been has been going on a long time, since the retreat of the last great Ice Age, 15,000 years ago, began a conversation that comes sometimes in the slow pulsing of comfortable chit-chat, sometimes the intense power of chaotic conflict. The ebb and flow of the tides mark each day twice while the moon’s phases determining how far in and out the tide will go. Boundary, tide-time and ebb-flows are once again becoming essential vocabulary in my metaphorical lexicon.
The next declaration is “Welcome home”. That greeting is offered not just by “the Island” but by everyone around us who are not ‘from away” (another distinction the boundaries create). When first we meet again, after inquiries about the weather, the greeting is offered, “When did you get back home?”
And it is home, in a way. My ancestors arrived here in 1827, coming from Appledorf or Ashreigney or Bidford, in Devon County, western England. I’m not certain which village as records for peasants are not all that clear. Even though families in that area trace their lineage back into the time when Bideford was a Celtic settlement, there is no clear paper trail for the Fords. In fact, the origin of our name is Celtic: “port”. We were people from “the port” (Bideford); that’s the full accounting of our worth back then.
King George III had gotten this Island which the original people, the Micmaqs, called Epekwitk ( meaning "resting on the waves") from the French (who named this 104th largest island in the world – although they didn’t know it at the time – Ile de St. Jean). After expulsing the French (in a tragic manner) he had it surveyed into 64 parcels which were then sold off to English noblemen and rich merchants who in turn could use the allotment for their own personal income source. He also changed the name to Prince Edward (who later was the father of Victoria). Many of the lot owners in turn recruited sharecroppers to come and clear 50 acres of land in turn for having a farming site of their own. In 1827 George Ford accepted the offer, came to the Island, cleared 50 acres of land in the township of Ebenezer and had at last “a home”.
This development phase, unfortunately, almost denuded the Island of its original forest as most of the limber was shipped back to England, which was already bereft of building supplies. But it also resulted in establishing the primary economic base of the Island: farming. By 1850 the sharecroppers wanted the right to ownership, and a series of minor revolts took place, eventuating in the English Para lament, granting the right to the farmers to actually own their property.
The Island is extraordinarily fertile. It evolved originally from fresh water streams dumping silt and debris off the continental shelf between 250 and 300 million years ago into what is now the Gulf of St. Lawrence. With the last Ice Age, a deep gouge was formed between the ‘debris’ and the continent. By this time the ‘debris’ was mostly sandstone or mudstone with heavy concentrations of iron oxides creating the predominantly reddish brown sandy and clay soils. As ocean levels rose with the melting of the glaciers, and as the land rebounded, the crescent shape of the Island emerged about 5000 years ago. (Check your Google maps to see what it looks like today).
That is the Island’s 3rd declaration: “Not the biggest island by any means, but if you accept the boundaries of sea and weather, there is a carved-out place here for you, where you can grow and flourish; you can have a name here.” That may be what a homeland is all about.
Yesterday after planting our veggie garden, my muse spoke this haiku to me:
Finger presses seed
Into soil womb, lingers
Forming birth prayers
I loved this post, as we have shared your experience of moving from the unboundaried west to the boundaried east, but not seen the differences between them expressed so well.
ReplyDeleteThe Island's 3rd Declaration, in your phrasing, is how central Massachusetts speaks to us too. It is like an island, tho separated by distance not sea. Here, we've found that 'time' is another island boundary -- it takes a while just to arrive, and natives warm slowly to newcomers. But the wait is worthwhile....
Interesting observations, Kirsten. Your perspective about New England as boundaried place give me a new appreciation of what its like when we drive through there. I had named it "claustrophobic" before; now I can see it as another experience of being "from away". I probably just need to get off I-90 and I-95 more often. :>)
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