Ingonish

Kathy and I are here at Ingonish, Cape Breton, on the edge of Cape Breton Highlands National Park, staying in a lovely little cottage on a cliff above the ocean, with a view of the famous Cape Smokey. In the foreground stands the peninsula known as Middle Head, upon which rests the luxurious Keltic Lodge resort, its bright white buildings nestled among the trees. It’s quite the vista. A little while ago we were basking in a hot tub, sipping champagne and watching the Sun go down. In the twilight a Great Blue Heron, an ineffably elegant creature, flapped by just feet in front of us, heading north, then reversing south, I suppose travelling toward wherever it was it meant to settle down for the night. It felt as if somebody up there had decided we deserved a little gift.

Now it’s midnight. A brilliant, nearly full moon has risen over the sea, so bright it washes out most of the stars in the sky, squelching any hope of seeing the Milky Way (as I did at this very place a couple of years ago, standing under a glorious night sky), but oh, the quality of the moonlight illuminating the clouds, and reflecting off the ocean. I wish I could capture it on camera, but you’d need something a little more sophisticated than the device embedded in my iPad to properly record the image.

This is the best I can do with what I have:

It’s disappointing; what the eye perceives is so, so much lovelier than that. It’s the sort of scene you wish you could fix perfectly in your memory, so you might always be able to call it up again in your mind’s eye, but in my experience, sadly, memory doesn’t work that way, not quite. I’ll recall the feeling, sure enough. The image, though, will be just a blurry, dull, low-resolution approximation of tonight’s perfect, subtle, delicate, serene reality.

The air is crisp, cool, fresh, and still. Just another supernaturally beautiful night here in Nova Scotia, where there doesn’t seem to be any other kind.

Still, as I’ve been writing this, clouds have been rolling in, obscuring the moon, and darkening the sky. No more reflections on the ocean. The perfect moment’s passed. Never mind. This is Nova Scotia. There’ll be more.