14 - Loop d' Loop
Fiction Writer, Nancy SM Waldman’s Archived Newsletters
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This was first published in October, 2025.
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October 2025
Loop d’ Loop
Hanging near the door
A ristra, vivid welcome
Heat and sunshine stored
Greetings,
I am traveling this month in a huge loop from my home in Nova Scotia to Maine, New Mexico, North Carolina, back to Maine with a side trip to Vermont, and home again.
It’s a lot, especially for someone who really likes to stay home, but it’s also a joyful trip along familiar paths. I wrote last month about the comfort of a beaten path, but familiar paths is a better phrase for this journey. These are all places I have been many times.
While I travel, themes arise, the beauty of this beset, bedraggled world displays itself, children delight, strangers surprise, and conversations foster and deepen connections, compassion, and curiosity. Familiar places help me find brand new truths.
I will forgo my usual format for this newsletter and invite you to go with me on my travel-loop. Here are the tidbits that rose up and stood out: the colors my synesthesia superimposes on places, the *surprises, the welcomed familiarities, and those moments that granted me feelings of transcendence.
And there’s a scorecard of sorts at the end.
LEAVING
::Nova Scotia to New Brunswick::
Before I have been gone two minutes, my forward movement is arrested by the sight of a burned-out hulk of a truck in the ditch along my driveway. I take photos and send them to my husband I’ve just kissed goodbye. Life is weird.
Later, we are told that this is likely an “insurance job” for someone who can’t afford payments. This is outside our worldview…for which I can only be grateful. On the other hand, I was gone and didn’t have to clean up the mess. Thank you, police and Barry, for doing that.
On the road, I take in one of the most beautiful displays of fall color I’ve seen in Cape Breton in years while I listen to a speech my niece gave at the MFA in Boston to honor a woman who lived a very full life and recently died in her 90s. Quinn speaks of learning from this person’s example to empower herself by breaking some of the impeding rules we women learn through societal osmosis.
I take it all in and decide that considering the option to break rules should become part of the weft of my journey. One rule she advises we break when necessary is to always be nice. Instead of breaking it, I decide to try to be extra nice.
Breaking the rule of overly focusing on the end goal, I take the time to pull off at St. Ann’s Bay.
GOING
:: Into Maine::
After spending the night in Quispamsis, New Brunswick, which is silver and red (New Brunswick is midnight blue). I get an early start to Bangor, where I will leave my car and fly away. At the border, a lovely man gestures me into the country of my birth after questioning me only about the presence of fruit and alcohol. He calls me Miss Nancy.
*Surprise: I am charmed by border patrol.
Maine is deep green and red with a side of deep sea blue.
I am early for my flight. My youngest son lives not too far away on the coast. According to my schedule, I will visit him and his kids on the last leg of the Loop, but I am almost pulled off course by my need to see him now. Technically, I could make it and still have time to catch my flight. Wise old woman that I am, I choose to do what will be easiest for me: stay on schedule. I go to the airport and fill some of the wait time with a long text chat with my son.
But, what if?
Before catching a flight to Albuquerque, I am warned by two well-meaning people that there are many delays at my transit airport, Chicago O’Hare, due to the government shutdown and low staffing of air traffic controllers. For a time, I let the warnings get to me. I do not want to have to spend the night in Chicago. I do not want to be in the skies above when there are too few of those magical people who keep us all safe. I do not want chaos or worse.
The wise old woman asks herself: what if things go as planned? What if the news reports my well-meaning worriers heard were exaggerated? What if all the air traffic controllers show up and do their jobs as expected? What if no one had ever mentioned to me that there were massive delays, and I never started worrying about this thing that may not happen?
Everything goes as planned.
I ask for assistance at O’Hare and am wheeled with invigorating speed by a science fiction fan from Pakistan.
Pushing me through the
Airport crowd, he believes we
Are in a spaceship
::The High Desert::
Albuquerque is the palest rust, washed-out browns and bright turquoise. It’s one of those cities that is unique and distinctive. You always know you are in “the Burque” because: the Sandia Mountains, the adobe homes, roadrunners, street art, cottonwood trees.
The airport is small and beautiful and ten minutes from my son’s home. I am picked up by my loved ones and swept into their tight-knit family life. I stay in a safe, rustic cottage four doors down.
Conversations roll along as if there’s no other thing in the world. We talk. We talk. We talk.
My grandson is 10. He gets sick. When he’s feeling better, he does a good twenty-minute monologue about his illness: the way vomit looks and tastes; the crust that forms on one’s nostrils overnight; how it feels not to be able to breathe through one’s nose. He is hilarious and poignant and has our full attention. We are so happy that he feels well enough to tell us everything he’s been through. Yes, this is a highlight. I wish I had recorded it.
He’s doing a major project on the city of Athens and, after he is feeling better, does his presentation for me. He’s a natural. The night before I leave, he rests his sweet head on my lap, and I tell him about our trip to the island of Rhodes when his daddy was 5 years old. He giggles at my story about taking a wrong turn in our rental car and arriving in the town “square” of a tiny village. The road ended at the town well, and we had to back up and go forward repeatedly in order to turn around. The priest, old ladies in black, women in long skirts and aprons, and children definitely not in western T-shirts—came out to stare at these odd people who happened upon their hometown. This was an unfamiliar path story for sure. We talk about the Colossus of Rhodes and look up the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and agree that the Colossus was the best.
::Western North Carolina::
I am aware and a bit surprised as I travel that people are still nice. The security in Albuquerque checking for metal in my body (it’s there, where I told them it would be) is smiling and kind. The agents at the desk are also agreeable when I ask to get on the plane first as I am still and probably always going to be slow. I have accepted this as a perk of getting older and am charmed that the elderly and disabled are taken care of when getting through airports and on and off planes. I know this doesn’t always work as it should, but I feel that it may work better in this country than some others because it is legislated. Not everything here is broken.
I especially want to mention that people are being nice to each other because, from outside the US looking in, you wouldn’t know this is the way people treat each other. I do not in any way minimize the great divide in this country, or that it is more likely for someone to be nice to a white person than a person of color, but I see evidence that there is still room for hope.
My flights go as planned.
The best played plans
The plan was to have a surprise reunion in North Carolina. As you see above, my sister has a newly debuted display of her art at The Marquee, a beloved venue in the River Arts District. It was destroyed a year ago in the floodwaters brought on by Hurricane Helene. It’s been rebuilt, and the community is thrilled.
The reunion was to be with the two other members of what the four of us call Group. We have been meeting together since 1974. Yep. They made a movie about us. Hah. Not really, but there have been those movies, right? Women have a way of purposefully locking in with friends over their lifetimes. Our group was always focused on personal growth, emotional intelligence, working through problems, untangling knots of personality, genetics, habits, and toward becoming the better selves we envisioned. None of us would be the people we are without each other. So, three of us decided to surprise my sister with a mini-reunion to celebrate her artistry and willingness to put herself out there.
Things don’t always go to plan. For a number of reasons, it couldn’t happen this week. Why does it seem that we get busier the older we get? Can’t wait till we can make it happen.
When plans fall through, you get to do other things!
:: Mt. Desert Island::
If it’s Friday, I must be flying
I fly back to Maine via Philadelphia. It goes according to plan. I have fairly short flights with an easy connection. People are still being nice to me. But remember the rewritten rule I chose not to break but to lean into? Since there are no stakes associated with me being nice, I choose to smile a lot and assume the best of people. Maybe that’s helping. Or maybe they are helping me. Either way, it’s working.
I arrive and get a shuttle to my car. My Car! I am so happy to see it, to drive it. It’s a little part of home.
The drive from Bangor to Mt Desert Island used to take over an hour—at least to my memory. This time it was closer to 40 minutes. Some things get better!
I pick up surprisingly good Mexican food, unknowingly leave my credit card behind, and drive to an apartment I have stayed in many times. It’s three-minutes from my son’s house, unless it’s sunset, when you have to slow down so that you don’t hit one of the many deer. The apartment has a panoramic water view.
Mt Desert Island is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Acadia National Park is here. There is water around and in, and there are rolling mountains and many very tall trees. Is it a family trait to choose to live near mountains, or are we just very lucky people? I guess both.
The first thing I do at the apartment is stumble on the stairs and come down hard on my left knee and wrist. I twist things in other parts of my body. Soft-tissue trauma. I sit there for a while, expecting my hosts to come running out of their house, because I sensed that my fall was thunderous. Happily, no one comes. I recover, rearrange the jostled takeout food, and gingerly rise, hoping against hope that I haven’t done any real damage.
My son and 11-year-old grandson arrive and bring up all my luggage. I realize that my body is okay. Nothing broke. We eat, we talk, we laugh.
Both my sons are treasure troves of information, compassion, intelligence, insight, and emotional and moral curiosity. When I am with them, I am like Scrooge McDuck lying amongst his piles of gold. I am rich.
Mini-Loop
:: Western Vermont::
As I close this marathon newsletter, it’s Friday again, and of course, I am on the move.
My Maine kids and I are driving to Vermont for the weekend to see my granddaughter! This drive comes with more beautiful mountains and sunsets and more family fun.
I bid you a Happy Halloween and goodbye till next month!
:: MY BOOKS NEED YOUR HELP! ::
The Liminalis, (partly because I did not spend a lot of time this go-round, searching out advance readers and sending out review copies to strangers) does not have any reviews online. It feels very sad.
They will come, but I feel the need to bump up the likelihood. IF you think you might like to help me with this, please let me know and I will happily send you a free book to read. If you’ve already bought and read it, please consider leaving some online feedback for other possible readers! If you prefer fantasy, Every Rule Undone, can use your reviews as well.
Thanks!
SCORECARD
Airports: 5
Flights that went as planned: 6
Provinces / States: 9
Mountain ranges: 5ish
Islands: 2
Deserts: 2
Good Surprises: 20
Bad Surprises: 3 - maybe 4
Missing Credit Cards: 1
Found Credit Card: 1 (included in good surprises*)
Falls: 1
Broken Bones: 0 (*)
Colds: 0
Covid: 0
Allergies: constant
Audiobooks: 1 (Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky - unfinished as of this writing, but recommended if you like dystopian novels with a well-behaved robot as the MC. I do.)
Find The Liminalis online: https://nancysmwaldman.com/book-liminalis
My archived newsletters on Substack
The First Northside Book Fair! The Story Forge writing group in North Sydney, Saturday, November 22, 12 - 5, Northern Yacht Club, 23 Seaview Dr.
MORE FICTION FOR YOUR TBR LIST!
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Book 1 in the groundbreaking Maddie & Nate series—where the same destined couple finds love across different timelines. Discover why readers are calling this ‘the book about life choices that everyone should read’.
From Author M. Jacqueline Murray
Site content, design & photos (unless otherwise credited) by Nancy SM Waldman
The familiar paths part... what if new truths need new paths?