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.