Muskoka at Peace
The Paradise that is The Bog
There is an encompassing, soothing, pleasant, altogether peaceful lull here now at this late January hiatus between the thaw and the burdens of an unpredictable ice-clad February. I would so much rather be immersed in this actuality of change than holed-up at Birch Hollow now at this boring old keyboard. I find many excuses in any day to conduct my field studies across the lane, in the grand bog that unfurls in this shadowed snowscape, a secret respite is a blessed thing when weary becomes the master author.
There have been times so far this new year, when I have wished so intently to retreat much deeper into the fiction of these woodlands, to a Thoreauesque cabin with a modest window, a few sticks of furniture, a humble stove, a candle and stand, and a writing table would be nice. I’d like very much to get away from phones and computers that vex me throughout the day of business, which lately seems to run so much longer than ever before. Maybe it is too much to ask that I be allowed to escape my fetters for the rest of this winter, to hide away in such a shelter as Thoreau found so comforting at Walden Pond. As the years go by the urge to get away from the bustling world increases. As a travel-crazed teenager, I even thought about engaging the essences and pleasures of a hobo’s life.
It’s a rather crazy period, don’t you agree, in the rolling year, when there is the clearness of sky reminiscent of the first days of spring, yet the hulk of February is the merchant of ill will, to hold us back from rebirth for yet another dark and stormy month.
This has been a gloomy January so far, and despite the most recent thaw and unusual floods that resulted, it wasn’t as tempting to the spring of heart, as it is now, at this very moment….so much colder but wonderfully bright and universal. Each January I commence the new writing season with a plan to reduce the worldly and economic burdens, like the nudist shedding inhibiting attire. Each year there seems to be some new and unanticipated situation that develops to hold me to this keyboard, when in heart, I would so love to be trundling down the forest path, and exploring the shelters made by snow-laden cedars and burdened venerable spruce arched to the ground. The deer have found safe haven here by the busy trail east and west, along the upper bank bordering the bog.
It’s the silence that I find so wonderfully embracing and healing……as there is nothing quiet about our abode which is loaded full of clocks and technology clicking and clacking and resounding noisily throughout day and night. Here it is the occasional wash of wind over the boughs, and the soft tinkling of ice and the melt in the sunglow, and that could never be considered intrusive or an encumbrance against such a peaceful hiatus. Even the patting down of hooves in the snow from some nearby deer is as much a sweet enchantment of harp and violin. Diamond prisms of ice-light twinkle in this mid-afternoon fairy tale lending so very much to the author staring abroad in contemplative awe. What to write, what to write….that it would describe the invigoration of tired soul and weak heart. It is no effort at all to sit here and make these mental notes about the saving graces of solitude. This is the Muskoka I adore. The Bog we spared from the developer’s plans.
Note: A project for 2008 is to convince the good neighbors here at The Bog to stop dumping unwanted items into the woodlands. This winter we have already had the Christmas tree dumpers busy, and it will be a task once again this year to retrieve them and cut off the branches and dispose properly to enhance habitat. As far as the other folks who dump so much more than just lawn and garden debris, we hope to erect some type of signage that will clearly identify penalties for illegal dumping. Many folks around here cherish the woods like we do but don’t seem to worry about the crap they toss over there on a weekly basis. We have a handyman in this wee burg who routinely casts off debris such as glass, plastic and metal into the woods after raking a local lawn. We’re watching for him this year and hopefully the town bylaw office will help us enforce “no dumping” policies. Each year we fill three full bags of garbage in an area of no more than one full block which is outrageous. Please help look after the eco-system of this wonderful lowland in the midst of the urban jungle. Till we meet again.


MUSKOKA

The New Year and a clear perspective

I have often sat here for hours on end, staring out this window onto the snow laden lilacs, squandering my time poeticizing life as it becomes framed by this physical portal. There are times when I have sat here for two hours and not written one complete sentence let alone the half dozen pages needed for the next most pressing deadline. I might initially feel bad about this non effective use of time but then only if my wife was to be gauging my disappearance from the normal fare of homestead life. I can justify the poor work ethic simply as a legitimate writer’s preparatory hiatus. The time invested in this pondering and observational exercise will spawn a much greater supply of written material one day soon.
When I was a kid growing up in Burlington I must have done a lot of this…..observing stuff. It’s funny how I can be looking out this window onto our beautiful Muskoka woodland, yet be thinking about those days of childhood wandering the creek hollow that opened onto the expanse of Lake Ontario. I know for a fact many others have accused me of daydreaming away important business day hours. I used to take twice as long to walk home from Lakeshore Public School in Burlington because there was so very much to look out for and wonder about. Some who know me well would say that this preoccupation could be a fatal flaw. Of course they’ve been saying that behind my back for years and yet I’m still puttering along. I might be consumed by an inferno while deep in thought or run over by a speeding vehicle taking too much time to cross an intersection…..being too absorbed by the blossoms on a flowering crab apple tree to notice my life hanging in the balance.
When I was younger there was seldom if ever a time I couldn’t compose a story or feature article for a local publication within minutes of sitting down at a typewriter. All the time spent pondering in the early years of my life added up quite a store of enthusiasm and observation from which to draw ideas. Over three decades of writing since I officially turned pro, it’s pretty obvious the wondering and daydreaming worked to inspire a pretty fair quantity of editorial material. The difference now, moreso than the necessity to spend twice as much time in thoughtful contemplation, is the ability to kick-off the nagging stuff like local politics and aggravating current event issues in our community; sparking the old newsman’s fire in the stacked (for a warm fire in retirement) kindling, representative of a wonderful self-imposed complacency. I’ve even found myself gnashing teeth this morning, while walking through the ever-so peaceful bog, because of some intrusion of local affairs that has pulled me once again out of pacifism to the plains of editorial confrontation. The past year was one of the most intrusive years in recent memory for getting involved in local political issues, and defending for example this beautiful woodland that was slated to be hacked down to accommodate more residential housing…..and other business community nonsense that inevitably sucked me in like a twister gouging over the landscape. I was agitated for over a year. It’s why sitting here now overlooking the January snowscape, I can become deeply withdrawn, cradled so wonderfully by the softness of this gentle place on earth……a writer’s hiatus, and I will not feel guilty whatsoever.
I think possibly I’m staring into space more now to refill my reserve of goodwill and insightfulness because the several most recent forays have tapped my patience. It’s a coping mechanism sitting here, watching the birds and squirrels flit from branch to branch, and the trace flurries that the wind drifts by, depositing large flakes onto the warm glass, the water trail attracting my interest as the poet studies the changing light at dusk….. and the heartbreak of so much time lost. Suzanne has actually had to come and physically stir me from this eyes open coma, wondering aloud if I’m dead or alive…..because there’s no other evidence other than I’m still seated where I began….. with nothing to show for it on the wavering blue computer screen. It used to be that she would look over my shoulder into the belly of the old underwood and even pull up the paper in the roller to see if my time spent had been worth anything at all. I’ve never really tried to evade the enquiries about productivity yet she knows I can write a book in a week, or twenty columns for local publications in about the same time.
I do fear my pessimism and anger raised by these irritating shortfalls in democracy around here, has drained away an unspecified amount of enthusiasm and optimism mostly. I find it somewhat harder to escape issues of conscience and it was this way when the bog seemed doomed. It was one of my most unproductive years in creative writing but my most prolific year writing scathing reports and new releases for the local press and online. I would so much prefer the pacifist life, the carefree scampering of poetic license and the freedom to ponder all the live long day without even the slightest inkling that something was wrong at town hall….. or with the local dysfunctional business cooperative.
I so much enjoy in these hiatus periods of subtle comforts, the liberated, free-flowing recollections of my childhood….the soaker footed quests along Ramble Creek, and the great unfloatable rafts I spent hours crafting…..to eventually sail across the lake and onto the seven seas. Ah, what imagination unfurled in those days….. feeling, sensing with my soul, the raw hope of possibility and the raw energy of expectation realized…..that made immortal what was flesh and bone, to travel the universe in thought, and to return without consequence at bedtime……only to look forward to the same satisfying regimen the next day and the million after that.
I’ve caught a little of that right now, thanks to this old man’s wish to be unfettered and as the song says, to live “consequence free.”
Thanks for letting me share these thoughts via my Muskoka blog-site.