Summer saw their weathered hands building ships and haying fields, and sunsets that ribboned over the water, daring the skies to turn night. When spring came, they worked the green-scented earth, planting crops that would keep, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, turnips.

When the deer began to huddle on the back of the mountain, they became hunters and woodsmen. When it was time for the shad, herring and cod to come in, they were fishermen, dark with tiresome wet from the sea. The seasons were reflected in their faces, and in the movement of their bodies. laughing as they chorused, no matter how rough, we can take it. They joked with one another in fire-warmed kitchens after sunset, smoking their pipes, someone bringing out a fiddle. The men did whatever they had to do to get by.

Our little village, perched on the crook of God’s finger, has always been ruled by storm and season. Each morning you set your sights on the tasks ahead and hope that when the day is done you’re farther along than when you started. Strength and a sense of knowing, that’s what you have to have to live in the Bay. His callused hands, veined with pride, had a memory for measure and a knowing of what it takes to withstand the sea. Father was an intuitive carpenter, carrying out his work like holy ritual. Oak for stability and certainty, yellow birch for new life and change, spruce for protection from the world outside. He and his five brothers, shipbuilders by trade, raised her worthy from timbers born on my grandfather’s land. A strong house for a Rare woman, he said. My father, Judah Rare, built this farmhouse in 1917. Together, the house and I have held strong against the churning tides of Fundy. My house stands at the edge of the earth.

The Birth House by Ami McKay