Life Cycles

Just pondering how some things have come around again in my life, so many years and so many miles later...

I grew up in Point Alexander, a mile from the highway, at the end of a dirt road. As such, the sound of a car in the driveway always sent me racing to a window to find out who'd come to visit, or what stranger had managed to get lost. When I moved away to Guelph at 16, I remember how it took me a few days to get used to the fact that I had to ignore the sound of nearby vehicles. Now, I've come full circle. There are very few vehicles in Longido and I definitely live at the end of the road (a nearly impassable road on occasion, especially when there's heavy rain). So when vehicle noise is heard, it's impossible not to look out to see who has arrived, or to determine if I need to go out to open the driveway gate for a visitor.

When I was a pre-teenager I took ballet lessons in town. Since we lived several miles away, my dad would come to pick me up after my classes. We had our routine...each night after class we'd stop at the drug store to pick up two bottles of Gini to drink on the way home. Gini (which I'm quite sure has been off the market for many years in Canada now) was this wonderful bitter lemon soft drink. I remember it coming in smaller-than-normal green pop bottles, with the outside painted to look rather like a raffia-wrapped European wine bottle. I never lost the taste for Gini, though perhaps as much because it was such a reminder of special times with my dad, as for the taste. And now, yikes, I find myself with daily access to a Coca-Cola product called Krest Bitter Lemon which is, in fact, my Gini once again. Lightly carbonated, one of the few 'sodas' that manages to taste refreshing in the absence of refrigeration, and not so syrupy sweet as all the others here. And, free memories with every bottle, to boot! Here's to you, Daddy! Wish you could see your 'kiddo' now!

I expect that my growing up in an isolated rural setting has a lot to do with the peace I find in living here now. As a child, with very few nearby playmates, I learned to spend hours reading, poking around outside learning about bugs and various little critters ranging from tree toads to chipmunks, and finding ways to amuse myself when, technically, there was 'nothing' to do. I remember in the winter, falling asleep with eerie night noises...used to be that packs of wolves would come across the frozen Ottawa River and end up quite close to our house. Never suspected that would be preparation for lying alone in the pitch black of an African evening, listening to all the unidentifiable night sounds.

I'll spare you all the details about a few years of my childhood spent living with a two-seater outhouse, far too often home to big, but harmless (or so I was promised), wood spiders...

Funny how life just keeps going around, huh?

Contemplative, but content....

Jotu