Who, me, confused?

You walk outside and have a sinking feeling
something's very wrong. It's not that you're
going to stop going the tried and true way, you
just wish someone would tell you the truth (and
you're crossing your fingers hoping there IS a
truth). You're a lot closer to the truth than
most people.


Are You Politically Brainwashed?
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No apparent reason

My parents are at the cottage this week. The cottage has never had power. It has most of the usual conveniences, including a propane refrigerator, wall lamps and fireplace, and an oil furnace. Dad, who is an engineer and fairly inventive, has even connected an electric generator to pump lake water into a large tank on the hill behind, feeding it back by gravity so we have a flush toilet and running water in the kitchen and bathroom. And hot water, thanks to a propane heater.

Part of the fun is not relying on power. My family bought the cottage in time for Thanksgiving weekend the year I was 15. Mom and my oldest brother, in trying to figure out how to use the propane oven, caused a small explosion which gave them sunburns and turned their eyebrows to ash, but eventually we figured it out. The neighbours offered to let us share their electric oven for Thanksgiving dinner, but we declined.

On Thanksgiving morning the power went out for no apparent reason, and stayed out for about 18 hours. Our immediate neighbours used our propane oven to cook their turkeys.

These inexplicable outages continue to occur with startling frequency. It happened for three days last summer in clear weather. So propane is more reliable, and adds to the atmosphere of our cottage.

Earlier this summer my parents had reserved tickets to a musical performance in Gravenhurst on Thursday night. Not knowing anything was amiss, they left the cottage around 6 p.m., drove for an hour and arrived early at the theatre to pick up their tickets. Two people sitting in the box office said they would have to wait and see if the power came back before 8 p.m. My parents were understandably surprised.

"Too bad we didn't know about it," my father said. "We drove all the way from Dorset."

The ticket people looked at each other in bewilderment.

"The power is out everywhere," they said.

My parents waited until 8 p.m. but the power didn't come back on. The box office gave them their tickets to redeem for a future performance. On the way home, Mom and Dad tried to tune in a radio station that would give them some news. Ironically, the one they found was my local station, CJOY, which I was listening to 200 km away. It couldn't offer much information except what officials and listeners were phoning in. It was far more amusing to my parents than to me, sitting here by the light of a single candle.

On the way in the lane, my parents were surprised to see lights on in their neighbours' cottages. Arriving home, they phoned to see if everyone was okay.

Why? What's the matter? the neighbours asked.

The matter was that millions of people were out of power. All over Ontario, the hydro went out. It went out in Toronto, Hamilton, London, Windsor and Ottawa. It went out in all the cities around cottage country: Peterborough, Lindsay and Gravenhurst. It went out in North Bay, a couple hours further north.

But the neighbouring cottagers didn't find out until my parents got home. At Lake Fletcher, the power never went out.

Hi Bruce!

A wave for mylastsigh with a smile especially for Paul poetbear and a twinkle in my eye for Danny djjo.

While I'm at it, hi to everyone.



Anyone else gonna say hi?

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Spinning words into gold

This morning the breeze, gently and blessedly cool, yearns toward September. Many people amble up and down the wooded path adjacent to the Eramosa River, walking their dogs. Today, everyone smiles and says hello. A griffin passes me silently.

"He's a little aloof with strangers," his owner says, and calls the dog back to greet me.

"He's very nice," I say earnestly.

Around the grassy point where my daughters often find tadpoles, a new generation of leopard frogs rustles invisibly under cover of arched blades.

An elderly man wanders in search of a large snapping turtle he saw the other day. Spying my camera, he starts complaining about one he bought at a garage sale yesterday.

"It won't wind the film," he says. "I bought a roll but it doesn't work. It's a Vivitar. It flashes and everything but the film won't wind. Guess that's what I should expect from paying two dollars for a camera."

I nod in response and squat near a log to take a picture of a clump of arrowhead bursting beside the riverbank. The arrowhead and the clear blue of the sky today remind me of Lake Fletcher. I have been eyeing the same plant all week, wanting an image of its elegant leaves extending like grateful hands to the sun over the river, this river I have come to love so much, simply because it is here, keeping me company, opening my eyes. This morning the light is perfect for a picture, glowing fondly on the leaves, turning the reflected sky into heaven.

At one point along the path I have to lift my bare arms safely above my head to push past nettles, their gaunt stems lounging across the path. They brush past my shirt.

"I see you're acquainted with nettles," says someone coming up behind me. It's turtle-camera man.

The riverbank is infested with slim, scruffy men in ball caps fishing. But one fisherman is particularly handsome, neither scruffy nor skinny. I abandon the path searching futilely for a vantage from which to photograph him.

The wildflowers are too tall: goldenrod and joe-pye weed, and a big wild elderberry bush with clusters slowly ripening to purple in the August sun. Bright thickets of jewelweed hum with bees. Their thick, watery stems crunch succulently underfoot. Wild cucumber vines drape themselves everywhere and lace it all in white.

I don't know what to do with all this happiness. Somehow the beauty spinning in my mind has to turn into gold I can put in the bank. I need to meet Rumplestiltskin wandering along the river and strike a deal with him. Maybe that was him, with the broken camera. Then like the princess in the fairytale, I'll live happily and wealthily ever after. Of course she had to cheat him in the end, but that's okay because she was sweet and pretty, and he was a nasty, greedy little man.

I can do sweet and pretty. Unfortunately those virtues never fare as well in Oscar Wilde's fairytales as they do in the Brothers Grimm or Hans Chrstian Anderson. Dear old Oscar didn't necessarily believe in happy endings for the suffering artist, but he did believe that art redeemed society. I'll just have to write my own story, in which the poet with the silver pen always turns around to find the jewelweed and goldenrod have banded together to pay his rent and put food on the table.

On a morning like this I can almost believe magic is alive in the world, waiting around every turn in the path.

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