At the Market, on this rainy autumn Saturday, wrapped in a shawl of warm sensory delight: 

The canopy of murmuration, the swirling soft-edged swell of voices, of vendors and wanderers engaged in exchanging a word before exchanging goods or services; the organic artistry of stacked colours, textures, and scents…a mosaic of inspiration and potential; the trio of loons brushing by on the grey-green rippling harbour canvas that is out beyond the safety red boat tie-offs; catching up with B who spoke about both her dance group and the life that brings her as well as the on-going question of ‘where to move last’ with her partner of over fifty years; the child whose audible upset has circulated throughout this metal marketplace, bouncing off of different panels according to the grocery needs of the adults who are minding the wee wailer; the music that flows up and over my right shoulder, weaving its colour through the other yarns on the loom creating this comforting embrace for which there is no particular pattern and plenty of room to receive what is offered; it’s a shawl…it’s an embrace…it is a living story that is richer for all of these languages that converge here…the language of farming and growth, friendly commerce, art, organic beauty, family, neighbour, stranger, encounter…

I come here to listen to these stories that are spoken, sung, worn on a sleeve, tattooed on an arm, and built into the vibrantly orange covered cells of the knobbly carrot wedged into a corner of my bag.  I come here to listen—and to weave my own thread, my own words, over-under-over the other tales that pass through here…each one becoming a new part of the The Story that has been since the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, chapters without end.