Tricycle | Awake in the World

The new neighbors were hidden from view by the spruce that covered the rise separating our properties. From behind the trees came the buzzing of saws, and the banging of nails. Through my kitchen window I watched their truck struggling up the steep incline toward the building site, weighted with lumber and gyp rock. Sometimes I watched them walking on the road. A man, a woman, a kid, a dog.

In good weather it had been my habit to bring my morning coffee to the front door, lean up against the jamb with my dog, Moses, and face east into the sun. Ever since I came here I had had this stretch of road to myself. My Cape Breton farmhouse with the spruce behind me and in front, open fields sloping down to the St. Lawrence Seaway. There had always been nothing else. And that’s the way I wanted it to be.