“It’s still raining.”
I’m walking up to the car rental place on Saturday morning to retrieve the car in which my girls and I will drive down to the much anticipated Shores of Erie wine festival in our home town when Debbie calls. “Bring rubber boots, raincoats, umbrellas, tarps, dinghies – whatever you got. And for heaven’s sake, don’t wear anything white. Or nice.”
I’d been getting updates on the back home weather all week; it started pouring about five days previous and hadn’t stopped; until that moment I’d nicely avoided thinking about the consequences. And call me a reckless avoider, but I don’t even consider taking that freshly ironed white shirt out of my suitcase.
The back home weather report is inconceivable. It’s the most perfect morning of the entire year, and I wish we could move the entire festival four hours up the highway. Luscious September days like this are precious: sunny with a soft breeze – the kind that caresses your skin with the gentlest of kisses. There isn’t an ounce of humidity and the sky is so clear it sparkles.
After collecting the girls we get on the highway, happy in spite of the mucky news. The event is about old friends, wine, food and live music. Last year we had such a good time, seeing so many of my home people dishing out so much love. Add to that memory the gorgeousness of that September and the beautiful setting alongside a familiar river – not going was not an option.
The luscious weather remains perfect for pretty much the whole ride down the highway. When we’re down to a half hour away, we begin to see layers of cloud formations: some thick and cotton-like, seemingly miles deep, others wispy and flying fast underneath them. And then the occasional black one hanging like a lame threat over some farm field.
When we finally pull into the yard at Debbie and Len’s, it’s stopped raining and Deb’s looking disbelievingly at the breaks of blue in the sky. We did our best to bring it along, we say.
The rolling grounds of Fort Malden are a sloppy mess. We’re talking barnyard. It seems no less crowded than last year. Apparently wine lovers are a serious lot, and no one is going to let a little rain and mud diminish any of their fun. Kind of like making lemonade out of life’s lemons, what was once a promenade of cute dresses and sandals has morphed into a parade of audacious wellies.
Thousands of pairs of audacious wellies – beautiful thing number sixty-three.
One doesn’t venture away from one’s table much this year for fear of going topsy turvy in the muck. And yes, I wore that white shirt. At one point Kelsey has to ask a bloke to give her a pull because she gets stuck. She isn’t the only one suffering mucky dilemmas. We witness a number of fall-downs one amusing one by a guy who is gallantly carrying a girl on his back. It is amusing because Princess is NOT pleased and climbs BACK on his slimy back for the rest of the journey to the paved walk about five feet away.
Next day, Sunday, the sun joins the party and by after lunch when we go back to the site, the conditions have improved considerably, and continue to do so until the event closes. Sarah Harmer, who we’d stayed the extra day to hear play charms everybody. With the crowds considerably thinned and the sun shining, it is a most pleasant day.
They say that for a time Fort Malden served as a lunatic asylum. I’m amused by the thought of what those who walked the Fort Malden grounds a couple hundred years ago might be thinking from the vantage point of a netherworld, of these hoards of people in crazy-coloured rubber footwear happily wallowing around in acres of mud and seeming to celebrate that with endless toasting and good cheer.
If I were one of those netherworld beings, I might see that party down there, mud and all as most definitely beautiful thing number sixty-four.
I'm clinging to the waning summer like a security blanket. Where I live, it's the most glorious and gentle changing of seasons, warm and sunshiny days lingering on and cooler nights sliding in. I stood in the street the other day admiring the freshness after some spectacular thunderstorms the night previous, and imagined what it will look like in three or four months. Then I told myself to STOP IT and get right back into NOW. We're blessed with so much this time of year, and the older I get, the more I relish it for all I'm worth.
Last Saturday my girls and I had a picnic in Kelsey's backyard under the canopy of grapevines. It was our favourite kind of meal – a hodgepodge of contributions from each of us: new potatoes roasted with rosemary and olive oil, corn on the cob, Greek salad, lentils and rice, cucumbers, cherries and chardonnay while we listened to Blue Rodeo songs, some of which we've been listening to since those girls were tiny.
After dinner we jump in a taxi to go hook up with cousin Pati and a couple of her pals to see the very band play at their annual summer show in the Molson Ampitheatre on the grounds of Ontario Place. It's a fun event – a very "Toronto" experience, with the local guys playing and lake behind us and the city skyline to the east and the just-opened Canadian National Exhibition (CNE – or "the Ex") to the west.
Pati and I agree that they knew what they were doing when they designed that stage with its giant windows showing those views behind the performers. Both audience and band are outsanding, as is supporting act Steve Earle. There is a spitting rain, off and on, and nobody cares. Little kids dance and run around, people lounge under umbrellas and drink beers sing along to favourites.
After the show we walk through the CNE and eat junk food and ride a ride.
And we enjoy this rather spectacular view of the city from a quiet corner of Ontario Place.
It's rainy off and on again the next day when we go to my sister's for supper. As usual, Cathy and Stan lay on a gorgeous meal; this time: barbequed roast beef, corn on the cob, green and yellow beans, field tomato drizzled with olive oil and French bread. Need I mention wine? We try to grab a few moments outside but the impetuous stormy weather won't cooperate. My sister does manage to take a few moments between raindrops to plant the Pearly Everlasting which she'd brought home from the Manitoulin Island the day previous.
My father had transplanted a hunk of it from what was his grandparents' farm to his cottage, and now my sister has this living family memento in her garden.
The other day after work I take the short walk over to City Hall to look at the ongoing tribute to Jack Layton. The public response to his death has been remarkable.
Here in Toronto where he lived, and where he was an activist and member of the city council before he got into national politics, the tribute has taken the form of what started as a few chalked messages in the City Hall squre, and has grown to cover the square and the adjacent ramp up to the buildings. Where the rain washed messages away, they were soon replaced.
The week was both happy and sad. Thinking about the loss of one of the rare politicans who actually inspired people and the public's response to that loss makes me grateful for what I have, for being alive and for sharing these moments with my family. And for the humanity we all share. It's another reminder of how important it is to stay living in the NOW; after all, it's the only thing any of us can be certain of, isn't it?
Chalk Love – Beautiful thing number sixty one.
The proverbial hip shot.
(In which neither I, or my hip, knew the camera was on.)
Yes, I kind of like that tiny tuft of a stranger's hair. Given that there were hundreds and hundreds of people around that day, I think the tiny hint of one strangers's head is another lucky accident.