Muskoka in the January Thaw

PEACE AND SOLITUDE - AN INSPIRATIONAL PLACE - THE CRICKET AND THE STORM

MUSKOKA AS WALDEN

FOR MANY YEARS I THOUGHT A CHORUS OF TWENTY EMPLOYEES YELLING AT ONE ANOTHER, WAS A NECESSARY COMPONENT OF AN INTERESTING LIFE. IT WAS EXCITING. I WASN'T IN THE MIDDLE OF A WAR ZONE, OR ANYTHING, REPORTING ON THE PROGRESS OF ARTILLERY FIRE, OR ANYTHING REMOTELY SIMILAR. IT WAS FAR MORE GENTLE AND PASSIVE THAN BEING A WAR CORRESPONDENT.

STILL, ON A LESSER SCALE, I WAS IN THE MIDST OF LIFE FOR THE LIVING. YOU COULDN'T GET COMPLACENT, BECAUSE EVEN IF YOU GOT USED TO THE DIN, THAT PARTICULAR DAY, THE REPORTING STAFF, COULD AT ANY MOMENT, RECEIVE AN EMERGENCY CALL, TO A FIRE OR MAJOR ACCIDENT OCCURRING SOMEWHERE IN THE REGION. WE WERE THEN, OFF AND RUNNING, CAMERAS SWINGING AROUND OUR NECKS, NOTEPADS STUCK AWKWARDLY UNDER OUR ARMS. I LOVED THE SOUND OF FIVE TYPEWRITERS BEING EMPLOYED AT ONCE, AND I GOT PRETTY GOOD AT WRITING EDITORIAL CONTENT, WHILE HAVING A PARADE OF STAFFERS WALKING BY MY DESK……SOMETIMES STOPPING TO HAVE A LITTLE SOCIAL GET-TOGETHER, ABOUT OFFICE POLITICS OR UPDATES ABOUT THE PARTY PLANNED FOR THE WEEKEND. THERE WERE MORE PEOPLE FLYING BY MY DESK IN THAT LITTLE NEWSROOM THAN ACTUALLY WORKED AT THE HERALD-GAZETTE, IN BRACEBRIDGE. IT WAS PRETTY DIFFICULT COMPOSING A STORY IN THE MIDST OF CHAOS BUT FOR JUST OVER A DECADE, I WAS ABLE TO PUT EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE, AND PRODUCE SOME READER-FRIENDLY EDITORIAL COPY. TODAY. NO FREAKING WAY! I'M MORE INTO SOLITUDE THAN EVER. "WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU TED…..YOU'VE GONE SOFT ON US," MY MATES CHIRP LIKE THE ANNOYING CRICKET IN MY ARCHIVES.

Even this past Christmas season, my archives cricket was driving me nuts, with the ever-intrusive hops he took, from one corner to the other, and the occasional chirping that always seemed to happen at a critical moment, during some writing project. What I used to be able to get past in a newsroom, including flying lunch items, and muffin stumps getting tossed about like grenades, pop getting spilled onto the keys, by some co-op student, trying to read my copy upside-down. How pathetic and old I feel, when all it takes to unsettle a little creative exercise, is a wee cricket and expectation…….when it will chirp next. I guess if the cricket multiplies, before I can catch him / her and prepare for a humane exit from Birch Hollow, I will just have to get used to the intrusions…..unless I must retire from writing altogether. I have, after all, learned to deal with the inmate cats making noise constantly, although purring is most definitely more soothing than the dripping tap situation with that cricket…..silent today, which is nice.

I've written in the heart of London, England, while staying at the Regent Palace Hotel, and the residence of the University of London, and in Nottingham's Sherwood Forest; in pubs, bars, on the beach at Ponce Inlet, in Florida, in Macon, Georgia, Findlay, Ohio and well, on the shore of Lake Joseph, here in Muskoka, while living in the miniature estate, known as "Seven Person's Cottage." There have been a few crickets and assorted wee beasties in all of these places, but they didn't bother me. This one does. As if it is the re-incarnation of a school yard bully, bound and determined to get written into my biography by one means or another.

Birch Hollow has been a respite, I guess you might say, from the rigors of the old days, when I wrote better in a bar-room, with a jug-full of beer on the table, than sitting in solitude, watching the snow flurries dust over The Bog. I'm not at all sure, these days, as an elder statesman in this neighborhood, if I will ever again be able to write amidst the hustle and bustle of the urban world. I won't even listen to music here, while I'm writing, because I don't want any other influences, than what I see framed by my window out onto the front garden, and out upon The Bog and its fringe woodland. Suzanne reminds me that my interest in writing bypasses all the intrusive actions and re-actions, and wonders aloud about such nonsense as this……..refusing to believe I couldn't write about a current event, by being right at the epicenter. "You know it's what you thrive on," she responds. "You will never let interruption or noise stop you from writing…..I know you better than that. You just add the reality of what's going on around you, into the story, that's all. You know that cricket?" "Yes, but what does it have to do with it," I bark with indignation. "Well, for months you've been complaining about the bug, and I couldn't help noticing, that you've been writing about it since November." "True enough," I respond. "But that's just an observational thing." "No, Ted, it's part of the story line. You even start feeling sorry for it, and make a point, that even if you caught it, you wouldn't throw it outside in case it had family here in the basement," she retorted. "And that the poor devil would get cold." She made the point, "That cricket is one of your mates, not an intruder! The cricket, as an annoyance, and intruder, and what you call a 'bandy legged wee beastie,' is now part of your journal. So what would be the difference if you were working in a busy newsroom again……you'd just figure a way through the noise and confusion to get your work done. Birch Hollow has made you think, solitude is the only way you can work." Suzanne knows me too well. As my manager / editor and motivational speaker, on speed-dial, I guess she knows best. I just don't call her "my muse." She doesn't like that I would think of her as a source of inspiration. She doesn't like her name appearing in anything I publish, and she outrightly refuses to have her picture taken by the local press. I had a hand in that…..for a lot of years being associated with the print media, when her picture was in the paper every other week. She was a good sport then, just not now.

But I do like the solitude here this morning, and the chirp-free environs at this moment. I like the sound of the wind, and the way the raspberry canes are smacked up against the window pane, and how the lilacs in the front garden, dance in the gusting wind. It is haunting to hear the mysterious banging against the homestead, of maple boughs to my right, and evergreen to my immediate left, and the sound of footsteps on the crunching ice along the lane. Ice pellets have been hitting the window, and the wind has become very strong in the last few minutes, and the howl through the lowland is the kind of natural intrusion I welcome to my story-line, writing this morning about Muskoka as Walden.

In re-reading the last paragraph, I know what Suzanne was talking about. It's certainly not the case, Birch Hollow is a silent place. Quite the opposite. But it is the place I'm used to writing…..used to relaxing in, with no office-mates, and coffee-time gossip to influence my day. Yet there are still many interesting intrusions I've learned to live with…..and welcome, in fact…..like the storm front moving over the lakeland at present…..and how it inspires me to write…….not walk away from the opportunity, because there is a din brewing.

What a magnificent din it is. Just no flung sandwiches, or spilled pop into the keyboard. I like that about the present.