I spent yesterday with one of my very first boyfriends (I make it sound like there are dozens of them out there 😛). We dated in London when I was in university and haven’t seen each other since 1993. About every 5 or 10 years or so, one of us would find the other on FB, or via an old email address, or something, and we’d have a quick 3-email catch-up exchange, and then we’d fade away again. But that had really been it for three decades, until I let him know I’d be in the Halifax area for a few days this month.
He’s lived on the South Shore in Nova Scotia for years and I would be staying about 30 minutes north of his place, so we decided to get together for lunch and an afternoon of sightseeing.
Fish and chips at the local yacht club, then down to the village he lives in along the coast, about 25 minutes outside Halifax, for gin & tonics at his place. Below are the views from his deck (absolutely stunning). Then a walk along the shore to check out the flora (he makes his own candles from bayberries that he picks along the cliff tops), and fauna (we saw what was either a very large seal or a very small whale swimming below us – likely the former).
Seven hours of reminiscing (I had forgotten we saw A Chorus Line together, but we both still clearly remember the camping trip to Algonquin with his family) and catching up – all in a beautiful setting, on a gorgeous sunny September day.
He has always been a life-in-the-wild, environmentally conscientious, socially responsible sort of a person – much like the rest of his family, and a part of me wanted to find a way to say I was quite supportive of Trump and thought we needed something similar up here in Canada, just to see his reaction. I mean, people do change over time, and I did pursue a much more capitalist career than he did, so he might have actually bought it. But I simply couldn’t do it with a straight face. We were too busy having fun comparing life notes and talking about our plans for the future. A great day.
Oh, and while this absolutely should not matter, and has nothing to do with the kind of person he is, I do have to say: he was an incredibly good-looking boy at 18, and over 40 years later? An incredibly good-looking grown man. (like, stunning. Really.) And every bit as sweet, and nice, and interesting, and funny as ever. Best day I’ve had in ages.
