Timing Matters

When I decided to move to an island in the North Sea in October, I was driven by two things: COVID & the feeling that if I could survive short days and a wet, windy winter, I’d be all set. Turns out there was an added benefit.

If I had moved here in the more obvious springtime, as the days were getting longer, it would have been harder to fit in. For the months of October through April, my accent set me apart, and people got to know me and remember me. I stood out. But now, every other person walking down the street or wandering into a shop or pub has a North American accent, and every local I met would have assumed I was a cruise-boat tourist, in Orkney only for one day.

Yesterday, as I was weaving in and out of the crowds on Albert Street (our main drag), I was hailed by a neighbour, and then by a pub owner. This afternoon I was in one of my favourite shops, which also gets a lot of tourist foot traffic. I was trying to get past people, saying, “excuse me; pardon me”, in my polite Canadian accent, sounding, I am sure, exactly like many of them. But when I got to the front of the line to pay, the clerk said, “hiya, did you friend get back home okay?” and the clerk behind him asked, “How’s Scout?” And one of the bus drivers waved to me at the zebra crossing.

(I do know it sounds nuts to keep harping on about being ‘one of them’, but I’m on the other side of the ocean from friends and family, I’m on my own, and, well, anything that makes me feel more a part of a community matters.)