It's the people, stupid

I’d settled firmly into a post-exotic travel malaise this week. It happens every time I travel: after the constant stimulation of travel, home life seems, well, mundane. Of course returning to Prince Edward Island in the middle of a late-spring return to brisk rainy conditions makes it all the more challenging. “Why exactly do we live here,” I am forced to ask myself.

Faced with the stark reality that Prince Edward Island is not as [exotic \| stimulating \| old \| mountainous \| warm] as [exotic place] and that it doesn’t have anywhere near as wonderful the [wine \| cheese \| chocolate \| pad thai \| elephants], it’s easy to fall into a funk.

Today I popped out of the funk, as quickly as I fell into it.

Why? It’s the people, stupid. May sound trite and sentimental (or thoughtless), but I’d forgotten how many wonderful people there are here on the Island. And today was jam-packed with deliberate and happenstance encounters with an uncommon number of them, including:

• My fellow directors on the L.M. Montgomery Land Trust, all of whom care passionately about the Island, and work to preserve it.
• Brother Johnny.
• Derek Martin from City Cinema, who single handedly maintains Charlottetown’s primary “big city” cultural lifeline.
• The enigmatic Eugene Sauve, owner of The Landmark Cafe, world traveler.
• The folks at the Formosa Tea House and Monsoon, who keep me alive. Literally.
• My friends and landlords at silverorange. You couldn’t ask for better lords. And today they threw away all of our accumulated garbage in the middle of a spring cleaning frenzy.
• Woman of many hats — interesting in all of them — Cynthia Dunsford.
• Diane and Jacques from Gaudreau Fine Woodworking and fibre artist Barbara Henry, all of whom I met during my time with the PEI Crafts Council.

There are many, many more Islanders, ones I didn’t happen to bump into today, who make this a good place to live. We might not have the cheese or the elephants, but we’ve got them. Thanks.