A blond squirrel
Ah Toronto, second home, vertical city, squirrel-spattered, sparrow-flattered city of cold grey steel and warm-hearted people. It’s been a heavy-hearted visit as we watch someone who was always so curious, so full of interest in other people, reduced to a ten-minute cycle of repetitive questions.
3.19 p.m. (totality) in Mount Pleasant Cemetery
The city gave us days of brilliant sunshine, until the eclipse (of course) when the clouds rolled in and all those eclipse-glasses turned out to have been unnecessary. Except for that brief ten minute window before ‘totality’ when you could see the moon taking a bite out of the sun in a gap between the clouds. Not long enough to get a photo, of course, but some things are better experienced than captured.
And the birds, so anxious and confused.
And the woods and the wetlands, and the view of geese flying home as the sky reddened.
And the beavers, of course.
At the end of two weeks I’m always both sad to be leaving and happy to go home. There always seems to be so much more to explore, and yet a feeling that I’ve had enough. What a strange thing, and how fleeting, how quickly two weeks goes.
As I look out of the window of this cafe (upstairs in Indigo if you should be looking for a spot to chill) you can see the old Town Hall, and three Canadian flags fluttering with their big red maple leaves. One shows the flag of Ontario which still has a Union Jack in one corner, and a trio of golden maple leaves in the other. It’s won my heart over the twenty-four years that I’ve been visiting, and I will miss it, and the people who were John’s friends but who have made me so very welcome. But I know the months will fly, and I’ll be back before I know it, eating pancakes the size of a side-plate in the Sunset Grill and hanging out at the Queen Mother Café. And until then, there will be an exam to do for my Open University course, and a trip to the Azores to watch whales to experience, and no doubt the garden will be a jungle.
Bye for now, Toronto, and thank you for everything.
The sun beginning to fade over Toronto
I meant to ask you about your studies for the Open University course so I’ll look forward to learning more about them in the coming weeks. I will be thinking of your family members when I participate in a Zoom call on May 1 with other participants in our local university dementia study group. It’s a privilege to hear about leading edge research and continue to get to know some of the brilliant young minds bringing a fresh perspective and so much empathy to the subject.
A heartfelt farewell to more than ‘just a place’.