Doing Nothing

Whenever I come into contact with old friends from Toronto, they invariably ask the same question:

“What do you do up there now that you’re retired?”

This is sometimes followed by another more pointed query:

“Don’t you get bored?”

Sometimes my answer to the first question is: Nothing! And to the second I always say: No!

Every day is Saturday and every week is a long weekend. I wish for little and want for nothing as far as time goes. I have come to appreciate the phrase my father used to say to me when I spent summers working for him as a bricklayer’s apprentice. Whenever he threw down his trowel at the end of the day he would look at his handiwork and wish for:

“…la dolcezza di non fare niente…”

Literally translated he longed for retirement and “…the sweetness of doing nothing.”

I am living his wish right now. But if he were alive he’d be up here. And, I’d be labourer to his stonemason as we built one of his famous outdoor fireplaces that doubles as a Bar-B-Que and pizza oven. It would be a satisfying way of doing nothing. But that’s another story.

I am at the far end of the continuum now. Things happen at my pace. My decisions are influenced only by those closest to me. Although I’d like a radio station that plays jazz all day…and a place that bakes bagels like Gryfe’s does, and a bakery that knows how to make a true croissant. But these are just little things. In the grand tapestry of life they are but loose threads.

All of which brings to mind the lines Leonard Woolf (Virginia’s husband) once wrote:

“There are other assets of old age. The storms and stresses of life, the ambitions and competitions, are over. The futile and unnecessary and false responsibilities have fallen from one’s shoulders and one’s conscience.”

He was 85 when he came to this conclusion. I reached it a long time before that.

RIVER RISE

Slowly – at trolling speed – a solitary fisherman guides his boat under the Albert Street Bridge and turns into the shadows along the shore of the Saugeen hardly leaving a wake. The sun is burning its way through the trees casting a trail of sparkling diamonds on the water.

High in the blue western sky the waning moon is still visible. Yesterday evening, in its fullness, this harvest moon lit up the night with an eerie silver light. But, it’s done now.

There’s a chill in the morning air. Frost sits on roof tops and covers lawns with a white tint. Mist rises over the river’s surface. The vivid fall colours are close to over. Some trees are already bare. A cold wind stripped them the other day. Now they lay in haphazard piles on the lawns, in the fields on sidewalks and roads, their colours dying. They decay into dust or mush depending on the heaviness of the morning dew. Walking though them creates a rustle that makes you smile.

Sunsets are earlier. Sunrise is later. Snow fences are going up along the beach. Summer people are boarding up their homes and cottages. Summer is long gone. 

Southampton is known for its sunsets. Tourists gather all summer long at the big flag on the shore of the lake to watch and listen as the Piper provides background music for the sun’s setting. Our sunrises, on the other hand, are seldom celebrated. And what a shame.

The best place to watch the rising sun is from the bridge. It gives you a long view down the Saugeen. So you can watch the big golden ball climbing up over the horizon and throwing its light down on the river bringing a completely different brand of beauty.

The river is a good indicator of the change. There are fewer boats on shore. Most of the docks are in. Only one or two still remain. Ducks and Cormorants are heading south. Some of the summer residents have done so as well. Highberry Farms’ migrant workers will be heading home to the warmth of Mexico in a few days. Southampton is quite. All the signs are there. We are relentlessly moving towards winter.

As the sun rises over the river and the trees reflect themselves on the surface it is hard to imagine the freeze that’s coming. How thick will the ice be?  Will the town people gather on the harbour shore – day after day – waiting and watching for the ice out – as they did two winters ago?

These are questions for the coming cold. For now, the Saugeen basks in the morning sun…waiting.

 

 

SEPTEMBER SKETCH*

On crisp September sunrise mornings mist floats from farm fields as grey-decaying, falling down barns stand stoically against the ages. Ambling slowly from pasture to fence edge cattle play follow-the-leader, their breath hanging in the cold morning air. Backpack laden, school-bus-waiting children at end-of-driveway-shelters stand self-absorbed in their own private world. All along dew-drenched, empty county roads once summer green corn fields have turned to autumn gold their harvest taken, their stalks ploughed into clods of brown earth providing an unseen harvest for gulls and geese. Come September the sun shifts its path in the evening sky. At infinity’s edge lake sunsets come earlier where the water meets the horizon. Wind ripples the surface of the fast running river as salmon push their way in from the lake towards the daunting dam. Along the empty wet sand shore, waves wander in with the wind to ruffle rocks at beach edge sending them clattering and clacking, stone over stone smoothing and shining one another. Summer has slipped into autumn while northwest winds strip the colour from tired trees. The serenity of September settles on Southampton.

I have been given the gift of seasons.

I take it with gratitude and humility knowing it is given without debt.

 

*Written last September (obviously) A little early in the season, but, over the last three weeks it has felt like September up here. Posted on the first day of summer. I like the irony of it.  

Ed