WALDEN INTERRUPTED
It wasn’t much different in Thoreau’s day either. There were lots of distractions, like work for example, that took the author away from his cabin at Walden Pond. Canadian painter, Tom Thomson, was always being interrupted by necessity, and would have to guide in Algonquin Park to raise money to support his artistic endeavors, which never became particularly fruitful until after his demise in 1917. Although it’s a pretty long stretch to put myself in their shoes, and their circumstance of which they were both quite successful, I too have succumbed to necessity and conventional thought. While I quite enjoy ambling away on this forest path, daydreaming of all sorts of fantastic eventualities, over the past while it’s been work heaped upon more work. Enjoyable pursuits mind you, and in the field antiques which I adore but none the less, a practical period for an impractical thinker. I’ve been glued to this keyboard for more than a month, working our online business which has certainly been a global enterprise recently. We’ve been shipping Canadiana and advertising memorabilia all over the world. True enough, business has been good.
I have finally cleared a little portal on my furniture-stacked porch, so I could set up my summer office, where I work frequently past midnight in the glow of a treasured old oil lamp, I rescued from a Muskoka farm auction some years back. I love sitting out there, looking over the lush ferns and wildflowers of our Birch Hollow, and then across the lane, The Bog and woodland, that truly makes this place an oasis within the urban jungle of even rural Ontario. I am enthralled to hear those faithful Loons that have been haunting this lowland for decades, and the Owls hooting away in the halo of mist and shadow on cool spring nights. I will sit and write for several hours and feel as if it had only been minutes. After a winter of hugging the hearth, it is truly amazing to be afforded this horizon of new growth, and regeneration of fern and flower, the sprays of lilacs now weighing down the boughs.
From mid December, when my father Ed suffered a stroke, ultimately ending his life later in January, to the work-load of an estate we were asked to sell for the family of a Toronto Minister, it was a season largely missed by pre-occupation. Although it wasn’t much of a winter, by Muskoka and Canadian standards, I do feel bad about missing my hiatus periods, writing this journal....which of course is based almost entirely on the escape, even if only mindfully, into my Walden....this adjacent bog and woodland that has been my source of inspiration for the past twenty years or so.
I have again been venturing into the awakening woods numerous times through the day, and finding all sorts of inspiration from what is considered commonplace to others in this neighborhood. There are fewer trees in some quarters of The Bogland, due to the powerful wind storms that have pounded over our region in the past few weeks. There are more birds chattering in the tree tops than I’ve seen for years, and there are at least three Owls residing in a small acreage, trying to find enough to eat. The Loons have been more numerous and closer to our homestead than in years past, and although I haven’t taken a scientific count, I do believe there are more this year than in the past two. We haven’t seen our area wolves and coyotes yet this season, and we hear that a bear has been visiting a neighbor’s bird feeder for snacks. But it is all very restorative to the weary soul, and I’ve vowed to reduce business a tad, to get out and meet the demands of property and appearance, which admittedly my wife prides moreso than another blog entry for her writer husband.
Get out and enjoy what Muskoka has to offer......and it is magnificent. Stop and enjoy the view. It’s a healthy thing to do.