I meet a lot of people in my various endeavors and shenanigans. Sometimes I see the culture shock of people who have moved here to Nova Scotia written all over their faces.
I will tell them gently and with a smile to “settle down.” We are not bothered here by the things that other people are in the world. Things get done when they get done, after a yarn or two. We have special languages, nicknames, and our own set of unpublished “Yellow Pages”.
I worked with a lady in healthcare who moved here and couldn’t believe the first twenty minutes of every meeting was spent catching up on everyone’s relatives.
So ineffective. But how else do we truly know people to care for them if we don’t know their hearts?
When we want something done here, a coffee delivered to the right person, would make a CEO weep in its’ simplicity. Get’er done.
It’s a different way of life here.
It seems an inadequate way to describe it but it’s a standard that needs to be established to avoid frustration. No one is deliberately sabotaging the timeline. Lobstering season rules the school calendar. I feel Nova Scotia is to Canada what Rome is to Europe. Much rougher and much, much younger though. A different time zone, its own language, things happening organically in their own way. A beautiful thing run on community or something with an ugly underbelly of backwardness-both things can be true. Come in like a bulldozer wanting this done and that on a specific timetable but first off, we need to know who your mother’s father second cousin was. We have to establish a tethered relationship of some sort.
It’s that sense of community which has allowed us to survive the harsher landscapes, the tragedies and the realities of living on the east coast.
We can’t change it. It’s ingrained. Our internal time clocks run on land and sea. The dense forests, thick with the sound of birdsong and heavy smell of moss keep us a little wild. The open sky, slightly salty sea air can be smelled everywhere. It preserves our skin. It makes us forget to look at our watches.
So forgive us, dear world, we are who we are.
We are on Nova Scotia time.
It’s not always reliable but it’s an honest to goodness excuse if we need one.
Love Jenn xx