On the subject of Canada: a wistful and fanciful account of a brief visit

Sunsets normally give me the feeling of being in slow motion so it strikes me as odd to watch one flashing by through the window out one side of a speeding airplane. A pretty stunning one as sunsets go even, somehow oddly like a pastry. A warm glowing red center sandwiched by the darkened and muted shades of earth and blue-black silhouettes of thin, swiftly shifting clouds. Out the other side, the day old full moon is giving an entirely different feel to the cloudscape. Instead of an intense and defiant setting sun, we have a softly glowing countryside of cotton hills. So much more the subtle and yielding, is the moon, and yet as dependable and powerful as the sun. Tonight it is the silent companion to this otherwise unseen landscape of clouds.

If I sound overly romantic and dreamy, I am.

I am in love...

I am in love with the countryside where I was born, from which I am sadly returning as I write. So much would I rather be going there. It may be that all it needs to be is home for me to love it, the feeling being something for which I constantly yearn. Ontario's countryside offers me a taste of that unique quality which so many reach for and find elusive. It's a curious thing the concept of "home", at once tangible as it is so often rooted in place and ethereal nonetheless. Truly it has only to do with the people I love who are in that place but the land itself is so central in my worldview that I cannot discount it. Ultimately I must concede, having cornered myself into this cliché, that home is indeed where the heart it, and only as tangible as love itself. (Note to those in Ontario: Sorry if I drove you all mad with my constant chatter about wanting to be living there... hehehe)

So if this letter is stemming from love, then it is planted in the intangible stuff itself and could grow any which way. I now feel very strange about putting it to paper at all.

On that note let us return to the land. As a child I spent enough time out in the woods and the fields exploring and learning the lay of it that it was always filling my head with ideas and ideals. You might say that it kind of impregnated me with the stuff of what I would eventually become (ie an incorrigible dreamer). The land was born into me as much I was born into it.

I can't help but wonder if the intensity of my feeling for it would diminish were I to live there again, as opposed to just visiting. Likely it would, however even just to take a quiet stroll in the woods and catch sight of something which brought that feeling back, once in a while, in all its expansiveness, I think would be enough. The way I see it it's like enlightenment; the fleeting moments we experience of it are enough to keep us striving toward it, each in our own way. Just as we meditate as a means to catch those glimpses of peace than if people and place can bring a similar feeling than why not be there?

Now let me describe this little piece of paradise for you… Those of you have the pleasure of living there will know it well but perhaps you may still appreciate the small reminder from eyes which see it less often. Caledon Ontario is given the hills it's known by from the Niagara Escarpment which runs through it serving to display all the better it's beautiful forests and rocks. Those with and eye for details will notice the wide variety of mushrooms, which though they sprout everywhere no less give the forest a little extra charm. Ferns give a little softness to the spaces between fallen logs in the hardwoods, and needles soften your steps in the evergreens. And everywhere else, meadows lest we forget the countryside is mostly cultivated. There are many horse farms and some dairy's. I like the mix because it reminds me of the essential character of Ontario, wild and domestic at once. Cows make me think "masses" while horses, no less domestic nevertheless give me a feeling that the essential wildness will never be bred out of them, I certainly hope not anyway. I also cannot ignore the horrible sprawl spreading out from Toronto into the countryside which is no wilderness either, orchards and farms, but despite it wolves can still be spotted and go a little ways north and you could probably find somewhere to disappear and never be seen again.

Fall there is by far my favorite. The awareness of the encroaching bitter cold of winter forces you to be present and appreciate each moment, crisp, colourful and perfect.

My family, their friends, and even some I'm lucky to still call my friends (having not lived there for the last 12 years) have set a precedent for lifelong friendship that I am genuinely grateful for. It seems to me at least in this day in age, the age of so called "mass communication" that in fact people communicate very poorly with one another and shallowly more often than not. I am refreshed finding this not to be case back there, that people I've only known well many many years ago are still good friends with one another and also welcoming to me. My heart is warmed to be so quickly and unquestionably accepted back into the fold. So before I get too sentimental which is not normally the way I am I'll leave it at that.

I love you all.

And a special thanks to Jim and Anne for helping me get there, and really for helping me get anywhere ever. You're amazing.