01/20/2023
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ANONYMOUS FRIENDLINESS
Years ago, I knew a photographer who told me of the hours he'd spend erasing power lines from an image. All I could think was: "Must be a hard life hating reality so much." It's been a long time since I learned to lean into what's ugly, revel in the beauty found there. It's a ragged business of ordinary life lingering, here at the corner of Greenfield and Gaspereau River Road. This many-branded XTR station – preferred supplier of independent stations – has a compact Kwik-Way store inside, and a sign stating: "Gaspereau Gas & Convenience". It might seem sleepy at this exact moment, but at just past 5PM, evening traffic home from Wolfville and elsewhere makes this a popular stop. Lit by weak white lights, three-fourths shining, some dim bulbs on the building and no shelter for rain. My ears are filled from the nearby river that gives this valley, road, community, and gas station its name. Raging and slightly spilling over its banks, at the far end of another rainy day. Just a couple degrees about freezing, barely scraping by this side of blizzard weather.
It's a struggle to explain how attracted I feel to places like these on the edge of night. Just a couple aging pumps, gotta pay inside, maybe grab some mass-produced snack that's not expired. Go back on your way in a couple minutes, deeper down the shadows of South Mountain. Maybe you're heading to one of the many dead ends in Wallbrook, Robinson Corner, or Greenfield. Slipping off secretively into Black River Lake, or the lands of Lumsden Dam. Driving until the road runs out is always my favourite experience, and I've been all over those today. Watching out the window for what stares back through the trees, wondering which windows are watching me. A man parked his truck out of frame as a favour to me, and we waved to each other's shadowed faces we couldn't see across the way. Blank and anonymous friendliness – some days, it's all I want or need.
January 16, 2023
Gaspereau, Nova Scotia
Year 16, Day 5545 of my daily journal.