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Today: Danny at Casa Loma.

Casa Loma is an extravagant mansion built in the early 20th Century, now one of Toronto's chief tourist attractions, and deservedly so. This photo was taken near the top of the highest tower.

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I come back with a series of relatively happy memories. It seems an important point. During the past few years I couldn't have spent so much time with my parents and come home with my sanity intact.

Loneliness can be a terrible thing. In solitude, it's bad enough. Loneliness in the company of family is worse. In recent years I often felt lonely in the company of my parents. This year it didn't happen.

Partly, it comes from having a relationship with an unprecedented quality of security.

In one of my favourite books, Intimacy and Solitude, author Stephanie Dowrick explains that sometimes our loneliness has the terror of an infant child's whose mother walks out of the room. Up to a certain age, nothing we can do or say to that child will reassure it that the parent will reappear. It has no accumulated experience from which to gather such security. For all it knows, it is utterly abandoned.

I used to have the feeling that the people I loved would eventually disappear from my life. Lately, that fear has begun to diminish. This makes it easier to enjoy experiences despite being separated from those I care about. On a deeper level, it means I can enjoy my own company, knowing that I am not cut of from pleasurable experiences with others.

Today Danny and I had a busy day around Toronto with Marian and Brenna. We started rather late with brunch at the Golden Griddle, then did a little sightseeing, winding up touring Casa Loma for several hours and finally stopping at the Yonge and Dundas park, where an ice sculpture exhibit was in the process of being installed. Someone from CTV filmed me taking photographs, so don't be surprised, Ontarians, if you see me on the evening news. By then the temperature had started to plummet drastically, so my companions drew me away from the scene with anticipation of turkey noodle soup.

So here I am, happy with ones I love, and also pleasant images of things left behind: Mom's tight hugs, the fragrance of hot apple cider, Dad playing Chopin on the piano, plenty of good food. It is good to store up these things: ammunition against the darkness.

( ice sculpture )