Defeatist Maritime Life
My city and province, Halifax, Nova Scotia is expierencing a cultural and well-being attack seemingly overnight.
I need not go into all the political details and drama as a quick google study would inform anyone of what Halifax is up against this season with a new budget being proposed without the input of it's dwellers and industry leaders.
Ultimately it all means that Nova Scotia's rise to be a place where people would want to stay and be inspired by is being cut. We were never a province that one stays for the 'money'.
No, we stay for the lifestyle.
Yeah, that East Coast Lifestyle company that came out of the roots of this city with a vision that has become world renown. Their creativity and ingenuity started here.
So this Lifestyle that speaks of ocean spray, anchors dropped, salt air-in-lungs, music heavy and all those bodies yelling and screaming praise to the sky as they embrace every wave that comes their way, it is worth it to protect.
The life we've been working so hard to shake is that 'defeatist maritimer'. The 'too much snow', 'too much rain' , 'not enough stores' , 'nothing to do' , 'if you want money, go out west' , 'we loose them all to B.C.'
Thats a tired Lifestyle. It's old. It's aging. We've had enough!
Those of us who have stayed here have seen a culture arise out of the defeatist ground and we celebrate every spring when the creatives and artists come out of there work spaces and spread their work. Spread our stories for the world to see.
I am one of them.
I didn't believe I lived in a city where I could be anything but 'boring', and then a maritime actor told me to submit a play in "The Atlantic Fringe Festival". A festival that film and stage workers alike make possible. It was there, after all the support my small group of friends and fellow creatives, that I began to believe my city offered me more than just a dead end dream.
Now, nine months pregnant, I am still figuring this 'Creative Life' out, but I wouldn't want to do it anywheres but this East Coast Lifestyle place where the salt air fills my lungs and the coffee shops are littered with aspiring writers, bloggers, actors, film makers and doers.
I am over this Maritime Defeatist Life.
We are more than this Halifax, Nova Scotia.
We are worth more than just a cut in our growth.