I still hold a sort of residual fondness for this place—the slice of Southern Ontario roughly triangulated between Rockwood in the West, Terra Cotta in the North, and Norval in the East—but it's mainly nostalgic, where enjoyment of it is dependent on a certain innocence that's all but lost.
When I was five, my family migrated from mountainous British Columbia to rural Ontario in a mid-70's model camper van with all our worldly possessions in tow. I remember virtually nothing of the trip (two weeks though it was) just the vaguest snippets of experience. However, a great deal of it must have been spent driving through the endless fields of the prairie provinces, and it's not too much of a stretch to infer that those wide open spaces made some sort of permanent impression on my young mind. I would, after all, find myself returning to them (for better or worse) over and over again in the years to come. And, while their pull may have faded, they retain the power to draw me back still.
Arriving in Ontario—on the outskirts of a place that could at once be called Georgetown, Acton, or Limehouse—I was greeted by a huge backyard lined with tall trees on either side. At the end of the yard was a one-step stream, beyond which were bulrushes, vine mazes, warring ant mounds, and a marshy forest sprinkled with secret ponds. Beside all of this, just over a rickety old wooden fence, was a massive field, going on, it seemed, forever; its endlessness broken only by a distant barn.
The barn, like all barns, had a character all its own. This one was deadwood gray and rusty-roofed, unused but not dilapidated. Just a proud old barn unafraid of another winter, and comfortable with the fact that it didn't have many left. There were other barns in the area that hadn't aged so well (hollow skeletons of their former selves) and still others that flaunted fresh paint and fancy new materials. But the older barns have always been my favorite, standing like abandoned castles lording over their crops.
When I was nine, I liked to climb trees. I can recall a time when I climbed a tree in my backyard and jumped over to the next one without any fear or hesitation, simply because I could. I remember the leap—the flashing thrill of being in mid-air—and latching onto the opposite trunk. Sure, I got scratched up, but I made it. Though, was I really not afraid? Did I maybe hesitate, but do it anyway? That moment is long gone.There's no way to be sure. The purity of it—the pure daring of the act itself—is lost. The only witness was the forever field.
One particularly nostalgic summer in my early twenties, I hiked back behind my old house with a friend, hoping, I suppose, to glimpse some physical manifestation of my childhood, and bask in the memories. Instead, I found a landscape so violently different as to be completely unrecognizable. Gone was the expanse of grass, the trees (where I had once jumped so bravely) the fence, the yard. All that remained was a narrow patch of dirt. Behind it, nothing but a featureless bog.
Change carries an immediacy that is never really there. My backyard didn't change overnight, it just felt that way because I hadn't seen it in twelve years. Changes in landscape usually occur over a relatively long timescale; continental glaciers retreat over millennia, wilderness is transformed into agricultural land over centuries, and farmland is turned to town in decades. Changes in life, however, usually occur over a matter of months, weeks, or days. Our perception plays tricks on us, but the signs of change are always there. Whether it's the slow encroachment of city sensibilities on small towns, or the worrisome way a girlfriend keeps mentioning that guy she works with—life is full of foreshadowing. Once you learn to spot the clues, there are few surprises. The trade off for this earned insight, is a gradual yet unstoppable dimming of vibrancy, like someone turning a dial in the mind from bright to grayscale. Memory, I think, behaves in much the same way.
The memories that stick are those that we have the greatest investment in emotionally. So it's no wonder that a great deal of our personality—our memory—stems from our childhood, when emotions were flying high and every day was a hyperreal adventure. As we grow older, we try to recapture this magic in different ways. Vicariously through the eyes of children, or through the consumption of media, alcohol, or other drugs. Also, through specialization. Photographers, with enough experience, patience, and luck, can occasionally capture a feeling on film. Dedicated writers may gain an increased ability to spot things (or invent them) and meticulously render them at a later time. Of course, none of these things approach the first-hand natural wonder of a child, but why not try?
This land once held magic, and maybe it still does, it's just more difficult to see it now.
At a glance, this landscape is unspectacular; trees, a few old houses, farmers fields. But for those willing to explore it further, there is surprising variety to be found here: kilns, caves, abandoned buildings, badlands, clayhills, rivers, trails, tree farms, marshland, escarpment, orchards, waterfalls, golf courses, glacial potholes. Even a beach. Yes, there are modest wonders here, private nooks and crannies where a person can disappear for a few hours, where the incredible can happen now and then. Sometimes in a field.
In University, I hiked over 500km of the Bruce Trail from Niagara Falls to Walter's Falls, Ontario. I did this, in part, to escape the drudgery of the city, to reconnect with nature, and to challenge myself physically. As one would expect, I covered an assortment of different terrain in this distance, but soon (re)discovered that fields were my favorite; for their honest simplicity. Forests were too dark, buggy. Walk through a forest an hour before sunset and you'd swear it was already dark, but step into a field before sunset and the sky opens right up, letting you enjoy the last wisps of color as they soak into the clouds.
Hiking had an unexpected effect on my perception of space as well. The further I ventured out, the more my preconceived boundaries broke down. I never knew I could hike 50+km in a day until I tried. Why hadn't I just walked directly to school all those years, instead of taking the roundabout route to wait for a bus? I could have got there in half the time, and it would have been twice as fun. I could have saved dozens of hours. Weeks! What was stopping me from hiking to Kingston, Montreal, or New Brunswick? Across Continents?
Well, I never did hike across any continents. I guess lack of time, money, and other obligations are common enough excuses. But what I got to do was even better. Travel overseas, start a career, meet the woman I would marry, climb a few mountains, see the fields of six different countries; sometimes through a hole in the fog, sometimes from a train, sometimes grazed to the soil by herds of scruffy yak, sometimes populated by a single, wiry farmer bent over his crop, sometimes terraced like liquid glass spilling down a mountainside, sometimes dotted with great overgrown bunkers like concrete turtle shells.
It would be easy, in some ways, to stick around and let the subtleties of my home province reveal themselves to me, over time. But I think, in going away for a while, I'll learn to appreciate the differences between here and elsewhere more fully. To travel is to experience a different perspective, not only on the places travelled, but also of where you came from. I have a lot of fond memories here, but it's time to make new ones. Branch out. See what I can see.
Maybe I'll even find that elusive magic, somewhere in a far off field.
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