Ah, Wilderness!!

I missed it by just a minute. I wasn't ready. The light was a perfect, golden wash and the trees were just starting to show brilliant scarlet. But before I knew it, the van rounded a bend, and the view was gone. So this is what I ended up with.

My fellow planetarium Hosts and I went to Algonquin Provincial Park this weekend on a field trip. Our in-house astronomer thought it would be a good idea to see a true, dark night sky, and this was also the weekend members of the Royal Astronomical Society would be stationed on the beach at Mew Lake, their fancy portable telescopes
aimed at the heavens. So we packed up our camping gear and sallied forth in search of the Milky Way, old-school style.

By the time we set up camp, dark was settling in beneath the pines and maples. Once bellies were full, tents and sleeping bags were ready for occupancy, dishes were put away (sort of...at least they were stowed in the vehicles, away from hungry raccoons and god knows what else) -- it was off to the beach!

The beach was swarming with hobby astronomers, shmancy gear, and an enormous number of interested campers. But enough of the earthly scene, what about the sky? In short, breathtaking. The weather was perfect. We had a razor-sharp view of little diamond-shard stars, the Milky Way was glorious, even the shooting stars were glamorous. I could make out our nearest galactic neighbour, the Andromeda Galaxy, the red giant star Antares, the Little Dipper... Through the telescopes I saw other wonders: Jupiter and three of its moons, the Pinwheel Galaxy, the Veil Nebula, globular clusters galore.

Lucky, lucky us. In the face of the vastness of space, something we miss in the city, that familiar, universal feeling of insignificance overtook all of us, I think. Despite the cold seeping under my (obviously inadequate) layers of clothing, I had a fantastic night communing with the cosmos.

The next morning, mist had gathered overnight, drifting inland off the lake, and as it burned off, the suns rays shot through the forest canopy, making for a great photo-op.

Still cold after trying to sleep through a 0-degree C night, we desperately warmed ourselves around the campfire, ate, packed and set off for a short hike before the drive home. The trail was a steep climb uphill to a lookout over Smoke Lake. Again, the light was dazzlingly clear, and we could have sworn the trees were now twice as colourful as the night before, giving hints of the show to come in another week or so.

I have so few chances to escape the city for experiences like this. Astonishingly, everything aligned for a perfect star-gazing trip. And we were paid to do this. Once again I say: lucky, lucky, us.

Whiplash

Portrait of a desperate 40-something wanna-be-20-something, or an attractive, uninhibited bon-vivant?
(p.s.: that's not me)

Today I had my first mammogram; along with it, the expected rush of anxiety over whether the technicians will find anything abnormal with the girls. The procedure was far less traumatic than I thought it would be (not that I had visions of Spanish Inquisition-like tortures involving spikes and leather straps -- or is that my BDSM fantasy?...but I digress...). The technician talked me through it in such a matter-of-fact way, that it almost took on the air of a dental cleaning or getting fitted for a new pair of shoes. So, if ever you or someone you love is facing a
mammogram for the first time, take heart, it's not always that horrible. Nonetheless, it still gave me a mild case of the willies.

The mammogram is just the latest worry about my declining body. I'm starting to acknowledge the fact that I'm really, truly aging. Yeah, yeah, forty is the new thirty is the new twenty, but the old saw, "I'm not as young as I used to be." is really beginning to resonate within my psyche, like a jarring gong. Last weekend, at the CNE, The Boyfriend and I did the 'Guess Your Age/Weight to within 2 yrs./3 lbs.' game. He has snow white hair, I have an enviable lack of wrinkles, so we thought we'd be walking out with a big, plush alien doll in no time. Sadly, disappointingly, crushingly, upsettingly, we were wrong, oh, so wrong. He nailed our ages. BAM! and BAM! I was the 43-yr-old I have never fully accepted, he was the 45-yr-old with a 75-yr-old's hair colour. I felt as if the whip-wielding Goddess of Reality had just given me twenty lashes on my cheeks, for my smug state of denial.

However, what bothered me the most, was my reaction. If I can't be forever young, I'd really love to grow old joyously and graciously. I don't want to be a stereotype, trying desperately to pretend my cells haven't oxidized at all. I don't want to fall into the stereotypical 'cougar' trap (witness this feminist reproach SNAP!!!! -- the sound of a thousand bra straps being released at once). I don't want to ignore the fact that my body is gradually breaking down and I will have to deal with the reality of tending it, and making plans for its inevitable shut-down. I don't want to mourn the fact that I can't bounce back like I used to after a night of debauchery. At the same time, part of me feels like I haven't fully squeezed out all that my youth has to offer. And, though I could stand to shed one or two or ten pounds, and I can't bench press 125, and my 'pores' aren't as small as they used to be, I'm told I'm not too hard on the eyes. I'm pretty youthful for a forty-three-year-old. I could pass for ten years less, according to some. Geez, no wonder Reality's whip stung so sharply.

Should that really matter? Am I not more than just (wrinkled, age-spotted, sagging) skin deep? Am I not the sum of all I have experienced? Aren't I waaaaay more interesting now than I was twenty years ago? It would be futile -- not to mention impossibly expensive and foolish -- to try to erase that. Or so I hope.

Now, to find the right scar-minimizing cream at the local snake-oil shop ...

Anticipation

On my bike rides to and from work, I pass through the Don River valley, overgrown with plants both native and foreign. It's truly a charmed way to commute. Even in winter I've been able to occasionally snowshoe to work. Not exactly efficient, but I loved it. As a result, I see the valley change throughout the year, from cold and white, to lush and green, to dry and colourful. Okay, except for a brief time when I have to give in and take the bus during the messy spring thaw and early winter freeze.

Right now, the path is lined with late-summer goldenrods, asters and expired thistles, backlit by the low morning and afternoon sun. On the far slope, across the river, one or two maples have decided to throw in the towel a little early and start turning scarlet, blazing out against their still-green siblings. More and more dead leaves are crushed under my tires. I have a little trouble distinguishing them from the sex-crazed grasshoppers that lie in the path after work, trying to soak in a few extra minutes of post-coital sunshine (or so I assume). In the afternoon, the shrill whirr from their legs rubbed together, as well as the electric hum of the cicadas, is my soundtrack going home. Even with a freeway running through it, the valley thrums with life. It hits my eyes, ears and nose, even my skin, with surprisingly warm late-summer sunshine (where was it in July????).

I downloaded a recording by McGill neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, who was once a top-tier pop/rock recording producer. It's titled 'Anticipation', and consists of a compilation of count-ins, drumstick taps, and first breaths, seconds before the first note of a song. I love that sort of stuff. I revel in the moments before culmination: the tender, focused pause before a first kiss; the coiled-spring tension of a cat just before she pounces on that tantalizing string dangled before her; the moment I reach the summit crest, looking at the steeply-pitched rollercoaster track or the killer hill I'm about to tear down on my bike. I'll avoid the obvious sexual reference here -- you can fill in that blank on your own.

On the bike path, my favorite days are the ones in early spring and late summer. These are the times I sense the potential, just before the tipping point. At the earliest, when the first few birds are completing their exhausting migration north and I hear songs I haven't heard in months. Buds are about to yield tender, light emerald leaves. The old tangle of brittle grass is being pushed aside by determined new blades. And later, the last of the summer flowers go down heavy with spent blooms, bees and wasps desperately clinging to their yielding petals and diving for one final sip of nectar to tide them over for the winter. Or the waiting trees, not quite ready to relinquish their summer colour, look almost languorous in the shifting fall breeze, on the verge of beginning their autumnal burlesque show.

Spring and fall are my favorite seasons, but those moments when the changes are just beginning captivate me most of all. I can't wait for them to start and yet I never want them to end. It's magical, enchanting realism in my own backyard.

Softly Glowing Night

Friday night we went to the Illumination at the Sharon Temple, in Sharon, ON, north of Toronto. The temple was built by a religious sect that broke away from the Quakers of Newmarket around 1818. Led by the charismatic David Willson, the sect, called the Children of Peace, became known for its charity, music, and astonishing belief (for the time) in the equality of all humankind.

The building itself was inspired by the biblical Temple of Solomon, but, lacking the resources to build a gilded stone monument in the Upper Canada wilderness, they settled for a skillfully-built, completely square wooden building, with some remarkable touches, like a delicately-arching, dizzyingly-steep staircase -- dubbed 'Jacob's Ladder -- climbing to a second story open to the worship space below. The building rests on a six-inch stone foundation, supported by strong fir beams connected with wooden pegs. On the outside, at the corners of all three tiers, glass lamps containing candles were lit once a year, on the first Friday of September, during the Illumination ceremony. The many windows, on all sides of the building, also glowed softly with candlelight. Members marched down the main street of town, singing and playing instruments, into the Temple for a worship celebration. The evening culminated with a communal feast and sharing the 'Illumination Cake'.

Friday night the weather was clear and soft. We arrived at dusk, the last of the sunset making the white clapboard walls of the Temple glow. Inside, it was packed for this very popular event. The Boyfriend and I slipped in a wee bit late and perched on the last empty chairs visible in the dim light. An odd, but skilled, folk music choir, made up of people from the very old to the very young (age eight? nine?) started with a hymn written by the sect's founder Willson. The crowd, squinting at copies of the music in the faint light, were invited to sing along. Not for the first time lately I've wished for reading glasses. My time is coming, mark my words...

Acoustically, with the hard wooden walls and high ceilings, the room is as live as a downed electric wire. The choir leader sang a tenor solo from the era, accompanied by piano, and in-between verses a violinist had his own solo drift down ("...as a rose from above.", the singer said) from the second story. Ethereally sigh-inducing, in a good way.

A guest speaker gave a disjointed, but nonetheless inspiring speech primarily about good, responsible, constructive citizenship, which tied nicely into the Children of Peace ethos. More music followed, clear, bright and bracing, with a slightly out-of-tune pump organ hooting in the corner. 'Illumination Cake' and tea and coffee followed the ceremony in the out-buildings, under the almost-full moon. We admired the Temple from the outside now, the candles as warm golden points on its perimeter, stars glittering coolly in the velvety, dark background. The crickets were singing madly somewhere in the bushes and I could feel dew collecting low in the air at our feet.

I took a few pictures with my digital cameras, and didn't do too badly, but they pale in comparison with the real event. The staff and volunteers at the Temple pulled off a secular, yet still thoroughly spiritual, event that will linger in my memory for a long time. Bravo to them. If there's a heaven, I'm sure the Children of Peace are smiling down from there, over Sharon, on the first Friday of September.