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It’s best known for its cliffs; the hanging rocks taunting the bubbling water, seemingly a mile below. The cracked rocks are heavy with teenage nostalgia for anyone who grew up in the area; back in the not-so-distant past when jumping into unknown water didn’t hold any consequence.
Since it opened in July of 1954, Elora Gorge Conservation Area has played host to numerous families, children’s camps and tourists. I’ve slept on its cosy bed of cedar needles and fluffy earth numerous times. But this time, I stroll through it after the park is closed for the season.
I park on the street in front; the gates swung shut to visitors. My car is nestled between two others, on the gravel shoulder beside a field of horses kept contained by a wooden fence.
Walking along the windy road into the park, I’m first met with a sign indicating that the park has a complete alcohol ban. It’s the only park in the Grand River Conservation Authority’s care that does. When the full ban was put in place years ago, I stood in the wooden registration cabin, with its thin walls and undated furniture, while I submitted my information and credit card.
“There’s a total ban now?” I asked, surprised.
“Yeah, there is now. And we haven’t had any deaths this year yet,” the teenage boy in the ranger uniform answered. The word “yet,” hung in the air as he scribbled my license plate number across the parking permit.
Now, walking through the area the week after it closed, it has the feeling of an abandoned amusement park. I expect to see thirsty, dried water slides and a rusted Ferris wheel. The swimming pond is drained, leaving a miniature rolling hillside of murk and muck. The wind whips through the trees and you can almost hear children as they run, playing tag; their tube socks pulled up to their knees and their shaggy haircuts growing in the wind. The sun crawls over the pavilion and reaches the old shore, warming up the last smells of summer.
A plaque stands on disintegrated stones in front of the pond, the colour of the words running into each other from the sun and time. It reads that the area “became the first in a series of areas dedicated to public use and recreation by the Grand Valley Conservation Authority.” Above it, three flags ripple in the wind.
In the shade, a touch of chill, the looming winter, hits my face. As the leaves crunch under my feet, sounding far too much like snapping snow, I am reminded of the time when I stayed here in the hazy days of summer, trying to find the safety of shade from the glaring sun and sticky air. When I stayed here, I did so by myself. A liberating experience at the tender age of 30, I finally overcame my fear of the dark and my fear of strangers. Finally.
The park offers tubing down the Grand River. As I walk past the rental hut, its gates pulled down, I almost see the kids running up to the teenage girl working the booth, her head slumped in her hand, looking off to the distance. On their tippy-toes, and their hands on the counter, the two young girls peered at the tube-girl and told her about their dog, who was trying to run in the opposite direction, pulled back by its leash.
“What’s your dog’s name?” I asked.
The two girls hesitantly answered. It must have been the lack of uniform making them uneasy.
As an avid camper who has been far and wide to sleep out under the stars, this is still my favourite park, and walking through, even on the off season, confirms it. As I walk past the campsites right next to the rolling rocks, I imagine a family on its first trip, young children running around with sticks, full of immortality, and nerve-wracked parents repeating once again that they come away from the edge of the cliffs. Or a young couple, on their first trip away together, judging whether their relationship can withstand being stripped of pretense, makeup and blow-dryers. Through the creaky windblown trees, I see the raccoons, breathing a sigh of relief at the lack of disorder only humans bring, yet missing the open bag of potato chips, left on the picnic table overnight by inexperienced campers.
After two hours of walking the trail of the park and running into just one middle aged woman walking her dog, I’m left in a cloud of nostalgia, a sense of awe and a haze of imagination. The park is full of wonder during the summer months, but has a completely different sense of wonder in the off-season, too.
Heather stood, facing forward. As the man on her left’s warm arm pushed against hers, she pivoted her back ever-so-slightly and spoke to Matt on her right. She yelled trivial words into his ear to provide purpose to her turn; she didn’t want to offend. As she spoke, skinny streams of smoke bounced in front of her, slid up her face, crawled over her lips and clawed into her nostrils. She twisted her head and scanned the faces behind her. She let her eyes fall to their hands, looking for the glowing red. She turned back to Matt, who glared at her, then nodded forward.
She could feel the crowd’s roar rise from her feet, past her hips to her shoulders. Shadows ran from all directions into the centre of the stage. One gave a wave, another ducked to swing a strap over its head before striking the right hand down loudly and forcefully. The lights popped, igniting the crowd.
And so Heather faced forward, as thousands of others did, forgetting all about the man on her left.
againstthedyinglight-deactivate asked: It's been so long. When will you write again?
I’m working on it; a bit of writer’s block, to tell the truth …
Thanks for missing whatever it is that I do here. I’ll get back to it soon.
“Do you have kids?”
“No. Do you?”
“I use to … I lost a child.”
“Shit. I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine that.”
“Yeah.”
“How old was he or she?”
“She. And she was 23.”
“Crap. When was this?”
“Two years ago. Overseas.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. At least she died for a noble cause.”
“You think?”
The woman spins her head around and Jane flinches.
Jane then stands up, grabs her bag, excuses herself and quietly exits the waiting room.
Kylie is dumbfounded as Greg grabs his chin and tugs. He winces and peels the skin upward.
She is aware that her words are starting to run dry: they’re only drizzling from her mouth now. She bites her lip to contain the last of them. And as her legs take a step backward, she feels her neck stretching, propelling her wide eyes closer.
He’s peeling at his nose.
She feels her legs take yet another step back.
And as the light catches what is underneath, she wonders why she couldn’t see it before.
“Ok, Here’s the truth. I’ve had a crush on you for years. Well, more than a crush,” His eyes are closed as he lays on the bed.
She waits.
“I love you, actually.”
She kisses him.
“I love you, Jennifer.”
“Please don’t tell me that for the first time. Not now. Not when you’re drunk.”
“Shit. Of course you wouldn’t believe that if I’m drunk.”
“No.”
“Okay, I retract it. I retract it,” he kisses her forehead.
“You can’t just retract something like that.”
“Yes I can. It’s done.”
She strokes his chest, cuddling into his shoulder.
And she pauses.
“It just terrifies me.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to turn into everyone else.”
Pause.
“What’s really bothering me are two things.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, one is that I write better when I’m miserable. So I haven’t been writing lately.”
“I’m sure I’m going to make you miserable at some point,” he laughs.
“And the other is that I have this idea of what I want to do.”
“How so?”
“I want to travel. I want to live throughout the world.”
“What do you mean? Traveling?”
“I mean, I want to live in other countries for a couple years at a time.”
He sighs.
“Well. You’ve got to do what you need to. And if that’s what you want to do, I’m probably going to kick myself for this later, but I’m not going to stop you. Do what you need to do.”
But what she was really terrified of was this: with him, she wouldn’t ever want to go anywhere else ever again.
Charlotte walks past Robert as he is seated with people who are alien to her. And as she does this, she purposely brushes his shoulder. She doesn’t want to appear rude by ignoring him, and she also doesn’t want to intrude.
But Robert flips his head around and buries it into her stomach, groaning softly. His arms loosely wrap around her and he asks her how she is. She replies as she would to a grocer: polite and distant. The attention is making her a little uncomfortable. She tries to return to her table when she feels Robert pulling at her arm. He introduces her to one of the aliens.
“And who is Charlotte?” The alien asks in a tease.
Charlotte heaves her head over toward Robert, for she was curious as to how he would respond. She concentrates on his mouth as she sees that it is widening, and a dim beam of light is pulling itself through his teeth. She stares and watches as his skin begins to turn yellow and glow. And shortly after that, she feels the eyes of everyone at every table rotating toward them, searching out the blinding light source.
Once he has lit the night up, Robert raises his arms above his head. Leaning back, he tosses himself onto his glowing hands and flips his yellow legs over. He does this again. And again. And again.
Charlotte turns to the alien.
“I’m just a girl,” she answers after he has flipped himself into the sky, disguising himself as a star.
I would just like to thank all of you for the follow. It’s greatly appreciated. Thank you: onwiththeshananigns, vanesanice, joyjoy791, flairey, smilesforzander, youropenpalms, thesmokinghobo, yourconfessions, christellamontella, ithinkyouarelovelyy, saucyyoungtrollop, loveepicly, blueberrystars, happyniss. And to iamcaptiveinyoursky: thank you for all your kind words. It’s sometimes a challenge to put my writing out there like this, but you make it easier.
“I rush things.”
“I noticed.”
“It’s intense, I realize that.”
“Yeah, it can be.”
“I don’t want things rushed, trust me.”
“Then why do you do it?”
“Because I get excited. I get so excited with certain things in life that I can’t contain myself; I want to jump up and down.”
“You get excited?”
“Yeah. And I feel this time pressure. We’re not going to be here forever. I mean, someday, and someday relatively soon, we’ll both be gone. I’m always very conscious of that.”
“Yeah, we all go at some point.”
“Yeah. I just don’t want any regrets.”
“Do you have any regrets here?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“What are they?”
“That I rush things. I’d like to be patient here. Because this is worth waiting for.”
“Yes. Yes it is.”
Jane walks through the city-made park with the borrowed dog. She’s thinking that the dog is pleasant enough company: friendly and old and fat enough that she keeps a good pace. Plus, the dog only barks at people who she, herself, would bark at too, if only it was allowed.
As well, the dog reminds Jane of her best friend from childhood. But today, as the clouds bump and bounce against each other, playing monkey-in-the-middle with the sun, she’s not thinking of the past; she’s not feeling sorry.
And while the breeze cools and sticks to her bare arms, she’s barely thinking of him. Even though he was seated high up in the maple she just passed.
He was floating in the creek when she sat to rest, too. Lying on his back and giving an irregular kick to keep his legs from falling. He was staring, his eyes fixed, while she just kept talking to the dog as if they were alone: as if no one could hear the ridiculousness of her conversation with a dog.
Even when she walked past the pathetic petting zoo to give the donkey a bit of pity, she found him there. He was smiling at the chain link fence, feeding the animal some bread. Jane was about to tell him about better feed options, but kept her mouth shut instead.
So Jane just keeps walking with the leash in her right hand, a bag of shit in her left and a smile on her face.
Claire is seated by the brook. She’s listening to the bubbles tinkling against the rocks in her left ear, and to the lyrics of random music in her right.
(There’s this lingering feeling, like I’m missing something. I feel like I’m missing something)
With heavy eyes, she’s trying to make sense of the days past; trying to find more revelations. Blank sheets lay strewn against the moss, moistened topsoil and fire ants. Rebelling against the sheets, the pen taps against her hand, playing along to the music.All she’s managed thus far is to make a To-Do list.
1. Buy a ticket to see a wonderful band.
2. Continue observing.
(I’m feeling the pull, dragging me off again. And I’m feeling so small against the big sky tonight.)
Her gaze hangs on the ducks with their ducklings. And she wonders if that’s all there is to life; if it could be that simple. To grow, learn, reproduce and teach.
“There has to be more.”
(Sometimes stillness is the only way to be)
There’s rustling behind her, breaking leaves and strewn twigs. Claire turns. It’s bouncing around her, a flurry of brown. She can’t focus on it until it jumps directly beside her: a small ferret-like rodent, the eyes focused on hers.
“What the hell are you?”
It tilts its head to the side and drops a dead mouse at her thigh: the eyes open and free of rot.
(If you can love me, you’ll be the very best thing I’ve found)
The ferret nods at her, then bounces away.
Words and actions escaping her, she’s trapped in time, glancing from where this creature use to be to the dead mouse and back again.
(She’s just passing by; she got no love for solid ground. She’s a butterfly. And she’s got blue skies overhead)
A lifetime later, with certainty and confusion fluttering around her like pollen, the creature bounces back. He stops in front the mouse, pulling his eyes up to her. He cocks his head, first to the right, then to the left, picks the mouse up with his teeth and bounces away, stopping once to turn.
(So I made myself some promises. I told myself I wouldn’t care. I took a bath, I took a pill, I went to sleep. I felt my promises disappear into the air.)
She feels herself descending into the cool earth below, eyes weighing her down. She gives a quick thought to the fire ants, and dismisses it. She grabs her To-Do list and scribbles:
3. Do not fall asleep in the park.
She walks, but feels herself gliding instead.
That’s probably the drinks.
Staring up at the sky, she sees the stars staring back at her. They’re welcoming, embracing, reminding her of all the wishes made on their backs when she was a child.
When did I turn into a fucking hippie?
She trips on the sidewalk, is robbed of her mood for a moment, looks around to see if her stumble was witnessed. She sees that she’s alone, then throws herself back into the wave of nostalgia.
She’s thinking of the light inside of her. She’s thinking of the water dream and how it’s settled now. She’s thinking of the emotion that sits on her shoulder, the one she can’t label; the one she doesn’t want to label; the one that feels like it’s watching. She’s thinking of the star and she’s thinking of her wish upon it: to feel like this forever.
Maybe that’s not the best of wishes.
She remembers the day she walked to work, sweating. She remembers hating the world and wanting to quit: school, work, life. Just quit. She remembers wanting the relief of the air conditioned variety store; relief that would only last for a moment, that moment before the anger toward the children with allowances would set in. She loved that time, but fuck, it would never last. She walked with dread and reached the scorching parking lot. She tried to ignore everyone around her, keeping her head low.
Fuck!
She almost tripped over her: hunched over, seated on the pavement, her white hair frizzy in the humidity. She didn’t notice our narrator; she didn’t notice anything but her sketch pad, looking up every three seconds.
What the fuck is she looking at?
Our narrator squinted her eyes, wiping the sweat away with her right hand and there, amongst the heat waves pulling themselves away from the pavement, was a shoot of green; a flower forcing its life upon the parking lot.
And this woman with the frizzy white hair was capturing it.
Our narrator turned her head, still walking toward the variety store, staring at the woman.
She’s beautiful. Absolutely fucking beautiful.
And on this day,as she walks through her new neighbourhood, when she’s thinking of this moment lost so many years ago, she thinking that the worst thing that air conditioning has done is that no one has screen doors anymore.
“You’re working on calling people?” She glances at the paper in my hand.
“Yeah. Just the orders that are ready,” Dammit. Do I need to look busier than this?
“Ok, when you’re done, can you clean up aisle 41?” she turns, taking a couple strides out of the cove of the department.
“Sure,” I tell her back. “Oh, and …”
She turns. “Yes?”
“Just a heads-up, I’m going to be giving two week’s notice tonight. I’ll write up the letter later,” I can’t look her in the eyes. Instead, I focus on the paper in front of me, pretending I’m scanning it for my next call out. I’m trying to make my comment look like an aside, but I can feel myself come off as awkward. I pull up my eyes to look directly at her.
“Oh no. Why?” she tilts her head. She’s facing me squarely now.
It’s none of your business; I don’t owe you any explanation.
“Well, to be honest, my marriage is done and I have to actually support myself. I really can’t do that on minimum wage,” There. Now you have it.
“Ok,” she stretches out the ‘O’, and it sounds billowy and soft against the sharp ‘K’. I get an image of a balloon, floating softly and slowly toward a needle. “I’m so sorry,” she adds, coming toward me with out-stretched arms. I don’t want the embrace, nor do I need it.
I loosely pat her back, thank her and change the subject.
“So, clean up the aisle, then?”
“Yeah, if you could,” she turns to walk away again. “And when you’re done that, could you grab the wedding aisle, too? Thanks,” and she’s gone.
“Sure,” I mutter out, staring at the space where she use to be.
“What now?” she asks herself. Her cheeks are flushed, she’s out of breath and she can feel a slight wetness in her armpit. Lifting up her arms, she examines the spot in the mirror and wonders how anyone could ever find her attractive. She’s just finished dancing in front of a mirror, pretending she’s being admired.
Throwing her hand at herself, dismissing her reflection, she walks away and grabs the sponge out of the sink. She feels the wooziness of her drinks and keeps thumping her leg to her mp3 player. She grabs a dish and lets the soap devour it. She thinks of David Suzuki and how he would spit on her at this very moment.
“Fucking Suzuki.”
She laughs out loud and wonders if the man has ever been cursed before.
“Shit!” she screams as the glass shatters in the sink. She sees blood and turns her hand around. She sees the cut, it’s deep, and curses herself for swearing so much.
Fumbling to rip paper towels from the roll, she presses down. It will likely need stitches, but she knows she won’t bother. Without warning, she looks at the cream wall ahead, deep into the pockets of the wall’s pores and hears a voice, it sounds like a child’s.
“Go to England. Just fucking go,” it says calmly, assertively.
And she knows she now has no choice.
