In the third week of April, Ward and I lifted off the ground. We travelled to visit family (hence the long time between my musings and postings). We left in a blizzard and flew to the east coast where grass was already green. There was garden planting, shore walks to Peggy’s Cove and chowder by an inlet lined with colourful houses and boats by the docks. Then we flew to Toronto. We strolled amongst the fluffy pink and white cherry blossoms of the Japanese Somei-Yoshino Cherry Trees in High Park. (quite the opposite of fluffy white snowflakes). The cherry blossoms represent the renewal, strength and delicateness of life. The citizens of Tokyo donated the trees in 1959 as a thank you to Toronto for helping to relocate Japanese people after the Second World War.
Then on Music Monday, May 6th, we left Toronto. We found ourselves rising above Billy Bishop airport at the exact hour that 600,000 school children from across Canada sang Is Somebody Singing with astronaut Chris Hadfield live from the space station. On the plane I mouthed the words along with them, enjoying the moment of communal voice as I headed home.
Now Hadfield too is back home, but he has a much bigger adjustment than we pilgrims have as we try to shed the skin of winter. He has the loss of real weightlessness to deal with. Returning to an atmosphere with gravity, he even struggles with the weight of his lips and tongue. But that hasn’t stopped him from making great comments. I smiled when he said that he took as much pride in building a dock with his buddy as he did in working with the Canadarm!
While building docks is a common Victoria Day weekend project, I enjoyed a more leisurely way of spending the holiday. May 2four always has been one of my favourite times of year. You can hear a collective sigh across the country as people make preparations for the long weekend. Folks acknowledge the urge to seek the outdoors. Tents and bicycles and RVs find life. Marshmallows or a beer by a campfire, staring at a sunset or catching a fine fish power the pedals to a getaway spot. Ahhhh Canada, spring is upon us.
On the sunny Saturday afternoon, before the soggy Sunday and Monday mornings when thunder bellowed in this new season and rain drummed on the roof ( bravo to all tenters that survived the downpours), I took a few hours to walk the beach at Agawa Bay. Lake Superior Park had opened its gates for another camping season. Some hikers were rambling through the park’s interior trails but I had chosen to stick to the shore. Along the way I spied some of last year’s earthstars. These intriguing life forms, about the size of the end of your thumb, are related to the puffball or “stomach” family of fungi. The old earthstars resemble curled up flowers or opened stars. When early peoples saw them, they mythed that earthstars were the remains of stars from the heavens.
Theose I spotted had grown under the pines at the top of the beach last year. They have a fascinating life cycle. In June, the young earthstars’ onion shaped sacs are filled with spores. Three layers of skin or peridium allow the earthstars to do an amazing feat. When it rains, two layers of the skin split and uncurl to form arms which make a star shape. The arms raise the sac higher up in the air and it gets ready to release the spores. Sometimes the arms lift the plant so high that they force the earthstar off the ground and away from the root of the parent body. Even they have troubles staying grounded.
I held the brittle, curled earthstar in my hand for a moment and then continued on. The lake was a mirror with just a few wrinkles teasing up the surface. There were no bugs and the warm sand was perfect for barefoot walking. The winter fell off my feet as toes squished between tiny shimmering quartz pebbles. I took in all the driftwood sculptures and listened to the orchestral whispers from the lake. The beach sighed. It was fresh from the weight of winter. The promise of summer had never really left.
The walk showed me something. Getting grounded isn't so hard after all. It can be as simple as getting beached.