Lyndhurst Part 2 (June 22, 2016)

1

The next morning Dad and I went again in pursuit of rumoured swimming hole - this time, a beach we'd seen distant and white across the lake the day before, rumoured to be "west, just beyond the Lyndhurst cemetery." We both wanted to see the cemetery, and also the Nearly New Shop at St. Luke's Anglican Church, so we followed Oakel Street east into Camp Hyanto.

Camp Hyanto is everything you would expect a small Anglican church camp to be: painted bunkhouses, fire pit with a a large cross planted firmly into the nearby earth, and the occasional cheerful youth with a guitar bustling around in preparation for campers to arrive the following week.

Within moments we were through the camp and entering the cemetery. A long hill of deciduous trees with open spaces between them rose on our left, to the north; to the south, the cemetery sloped down towards a treeline and then the lake.

I was suddenly overcome by a most wonderful feeling of home. Maybe it was because it was the first time I'd been close to a significant number of trees - a woods - since I arrived. Maybe it was because the trees and the hill reminded me so much of the rolling and steep hills of Southern Ontario, rather than Canadian Shield. Maybe it is because I spend a lot of time in Mount Hope Cemetery in Waterloo and this cemetery was reminding me of that. Wherever their source, the feelings I often experience in my beloved home parks unfolded themselves on the land around me. Peace, stillness, presence, a subtle magic - with a feeling of familiarity now made novel by being so far from home.What a gift, to be in a strange place and find my home again, and know I could return whenever I wanted.

Dad, meanwhile, was going on fairly enthusiastically about how this place reminded him of a Steven King story where people enter a small town and then later are eaten at a BBQ. I was semi-ignoring him so I'm still pretty unclear about how his brain had made that connection.

Near the end of the road through the cemetery, a tall monument rose from a circle of hostas. Beyond this was a long, thick, high hedge, marking the end of the cemetery on the east. The path continued through a high, arched tunnel carved into the hedge, and I could see a sunny, grassy field though the opening at the end. We stopped so I could take a picture of the monument, and then turned to enter the tunnel through the hedge, since surely this was the way to the beach. How idyllic it all was!

Quite suddenly, something bit me on the upper arm. I jumped, and looked at my arm in surprise and dismay.

"Something BIT me!" I remarked to Dad.

"Oh yeah," he said, glumly, "A horsefly."

I recalled a vague memory from childhood travels, as well as stories from friends who camp. Yes. Right. Bugs with teeth (or or pokers - or stingers - or stabbers - or chompers - I don't know exactly how the mechanism works).

Bravely ignoring the little biter, we pushed on through the archway. But now the Steven King-esque townsfolk of Horsefly Castle Rock had all been made aware of the BBQ meal and descended en masse to land on the broad and delicious expanses of my own and Dad's body. We started to run madly. I took a moment from my mad flight to take a picture of Dad.

Dad captioned this:  "urban male is confronted with nature...the 'Wildman' within him is running from his troubles"

The pretty field turned out to be not the idyllic Eden it had appeared moments before, but rather a stabby, pokey, stingy nightmare of sunshine and biting. I had just enough time to look down the hill and see absolutely no sign of the beach and then we turned and ran back to the cemetery. We continued a brisk pace, Dad continuing to tell his grotesque Steven King story, me taking a last longing look at this lovely untouchable place.

Ah well, at least I have my own sweet horsefly free Southern Ontario woods to come home to!

2

Our next destination was St. Luke's Anglican Church Nearly New Shop, north of camp and up the hill. On our walk towards the shop, we saw more of the camp and encountered several enthusiastic and sweaty young adults moving around with purpose and cheerfulness preparing for camp season.

We passed the barn-like church hall and turned left towards to the rectory. A sign by a small door at the back of the rectory showed us into the Shop. In a low roofed, linoleum floored addition, shelves of trinkets and households object lined the walls. Another room, an addition to the addition, perhaps, housed books.

I had only moments to take this in before we were immediately greeted by a friendly, comfortable, slightly dominating woman of indefinable age. Dad and the Shop lady immediately got into an escalating one-up-manship game in which each tried to prove to the other (and possibly me, and possibly God) the superiority of their knowledge and appreciation for the Shop. As fast as the Shop lady could tell us where things were located, Dad was equally quick to to guess where they might be. As quickly as she covered the bases on what the Shop held, Dad was replying saying that he was looking for that very thing. As quickly as he spoke of his needs, she was proudly cutting in with even more important information about this illustrious centre of retail. I'd never seen two people more on the same mental wavelength about how to engage with a space, while at the same time sounding more like they were in battle. As an introvert on the verge of "too much vacation", I took a conscientious objector position and avoided eye contact with either of them. 

The conversation went on, but I lost track of it for a while as I got lost in knick knacks, jewelery, and books. I drifted to the original rectory building, passing through a 60s looking kitchen converted into a workspace, a small hallway piled with boxes and then into a room that was probably once a dining room or a study, with white walls, tall windows and the look and feel of a pleasantly or gracefully haunted house. I absorbed myself in the women's clothing there, looking for a dress for a friend. She had recently watched several episodes of Friends and developed an obsession with 90s style Phoebe Buffet dresses, but was having a hard time finding them. I felt certain there would be no better place than St. Luke's Nearly New Shop in Lyndhurst, Ontario, to find a dress from the 90s.

While I sorted through old clothes, Dad and the Shop lady's conversation continued, drifting in from the kitchen. It had transitioned into an intense bout of name-dropping related to the Anglican Diocese of Ontario. Between the two of them, they knew every deacon, priest, server and lay person in all of eastern Ontario. It was like a gentle buzz of who's who in the heady world of Anglicanism in my ear.

My attention was caught when I suddenly heard,

"Perhaps you would like a coffee while your wife is shopping?"

I was half way into a dress, over my tank and shorts (while still wearing Dad's Tilly hat), and I went back to the kitchen in this state of semi-undress.

"Did you think I was his wife?" I asked.

"Well, anything goes these days, you know!" said the woman.

"I'm his daughter," I said, laughing, and went back into the other room.

 For some reason, I found myself feeling really flattered. I thought it over while continuing to shop. I wasn't flattered necessarily at the idea that my dad would have chosen me for a wife or that he was a great catch (though given his extensive knowledge of Anglican society and his confident attitude in orienting towards her Shop, certainly the Shop Lady might admire him), but that I had somehow, at the age of 37, transitioned to an age where I might be a reasonably aged wife for a man in his early 60s (although the "anything goes" part of the comment suggested I can probably still pass for a dewy young trophy wife). It was the sort of feeling one might get if one overhears a parent's friend remarking on one's maturity as one enters the teen years - a sense of finally belonging to a limited and status-y club. A feeling came over me, standing half dressed in a rectory  in a small Ontario town, that I was finally a grown up. And it was a good feeling.

I bought: four glasses, two shirts, a Phoebe Buffet dress for my friend, and a YA romance novel. The glassware reinforced my grown up feelings, while the YA reminded that no aging could truly alter my destiny to be, as a friend once called it, "quietly eccentric". A fine balance.

3

The rest of the afternoon spent itself lazily in more antiquing, wandering, Netflix and eating, interspersed with intermittent feelings of irritation with Dad's basic existence in my world mixed with feelings of immense love for him and gladness for his company (classic family vacation mode). After an early dinner, we decided to go canoeing.

Canoeing had been an high point in my imagination leading up to this trip. From the agoraphobic perspective, canoeing represents Amazonic strength and freedom. To be able to not only leave your home or neigbhourhood, but also THE LAND, and then KEEP LEAVING IT, further and further way, until you are floating over a dark abyss requiring your ongoing brute strength and mental perspervance to continue to not die in it - well. I pictured my strong, tanned arms matching Dad's equally powerful strength as Group of Seven like landscapes passed by, the wind in our hair, like characters from a Fitzgerald or Irving novel, strong, beautiful, tanned, healthy, better than other people ... that was going to be the apex of my vacation, I knew it, the moment I could say: I AM A NORMAL PERSON DOING NORMAL THINGS and thus I AM A GREAT PERSON!

Regretting my choice not to bring my Crocs on vacay, and rueing the necessity of leaving my knock-off Tom's on land (perceiving they would be getting wet pretty much immediately), I somewhat anxiously bare-footed into the canoe which we'd managed to flip over from the grass near the dock and shove into the slime at the edge of the water.

Oh the slime, the slime! Memories of family camp on the Rideau River, where once a year some unlucky bastard would fall in and the cry would go up, "So and so fell in the slime!" and all the other kids would run down the hill to laugh and point at the child whose tears were mixing with slime as his mother comforted him.

I cast a mistrusting look at the slime, took a deep breath, and sat down in the front of the canoe while Dad sweated and grunted to get the canoe launched. I've never seen anyone have such a hard time getting a canoe into water. It was as if the very water did not want me in it. I was certainly not feeling like I wanted to be in it either anymore. I had forgotten how high up one sits in a canoe, trembling there above and yet so close to the water, unable to avoid looking down into it's hellish depths. The slime was perilously close. And under the slime: who knows what! It wasn't even so much the one foot of water that felt primally frightening to me so much as the certain knowledge that soon it would deepen into a yawning abyss of darkness, on which I would be floating like a tiny perishable bug ready to be snapped at or tentacled by any lurking sea monster.

Dad finally got the canoe into the water and we were afloat. As we paddled out into the lake, the water did indeed deepen and now I could see longer weeds (oh god, their ghostly fronds lurking up to caress unsuspecting ankles! I felt like Sam and Frodo in the Dead Marshes).

Then came the darkness of the deep - but oh, it was sparkling like diamonds on the surface in the wind as the wind picked up.

Heart-breakingly beautiful in the sunshine.

Strong tanned arms! Group of Seven Landscapes! Wind in my hair! F. Scott Fitzgerald! Normal person!

The canoe continued to bob and shift in the water as Dad pushed us out further into the lake. The wind on my face was like magic, but my brain could not come to terms with the water and soon my moment of euphoria was lost to feelings of dread. The canoe was like a fine skin separating me from the existential void if the unknown. It was like standing on the top of a very high building, except the building is located over an alien planet that forces you to review everything you understand about physics. Oh for solid ground! Oh for plants that poked rather than insinuated! Oh for logs that were seats rather than foot catchers and fish-hiders! Oh for empty spaces that were light filled vistas rather than dark nights of the soul!

I tried to keep looking at the surface. Just look at the surface! It was filled with light.

"Dad," I said, "I'm not sure I can do this."

"You're fine, "he said.

"Mm. No." I said, "I don't think I can do this."

"It's good," he said.

"Nope. Can't do this! Can't do this!"

"You'll be ok," he said.

"RESPECT MY CHOICES!" I commanded, in a voice that suggests that although I don't have kids, I'd probably be a very good at bossing them around if I did have them. "BACK TO THE SHORE! NOW!"

"Ok! Back to the shore!" said Dad, without a trace of irritation or judgment in his voice, bless his heart.

In a very short time we were lugging the canoe back onto the shore. I was deciding whether to feel ashamed or not. Should I be mad at myself for failing at the thing I felt like it would be the apex of success on this trip? Thinking back over the many things that I'd done over the past few days, I decided not to. It's ok sometimes to realize when you've reached your limit; it's ok to rest after you've achieved a great deal already. And well, after all, this IS a vacation. I felt proud of myself for everything I'd acheived thus far, and decide that facing my primal fear of lakes (something I had WAY before agoraphobia) was an adventure of another day.

Yet - I didn't feel quite ready to quit.

"Can we go out in the rowboat?" I asked Dad.

"Sure!" he said.

Soon Dad was rowing me back out on to the lake while I sat in the bottom of the boat. It was wonderful to sit there, nestled down low within the sturdy walls of the boat, unable to see into the water, my eyes in line with the horizon rather than the abyss. The early evening was warm and pleasant in the boat sun-warmed boat. I watched my Dad row me and remembered him rowing me and my sister around the Mississipi Lake when we were kids. I felt like crying in a nice way.

At my request we hugged the lake edge where I could easily ask Dad to "pull over", if I needed to make a mad dash onto the back forty of another cottage. Every dock felt like a bus stop does when I'm challenging myself to take a bus - a reassuring exit point. Dad said hi to a guy on his dock. I checked out people's boats and lawn furniture.

As we came around the lake to the opening where the river flowed into it, the place where we'd gone swimming the day before, the light shifted and we were bathed in the direct warmth of the deep yellow of a 5 o'clock sun. The wind picked up and fine strands of my hair blew in front of my eyes. I squinted at Dad as he pulled at the oars above me in the boat. My dad. My father. I felt safe and protected and loved. I felt completely cared for, taken care of. Yes, I was floating above an existential void in a small craft with no bailing bucket, but my father was at the helm of this vessel.

We passed beyond the river and out into the lake. The wind picked up more and the lake was a wide expanse of white ripples and glittering reflections and cool air.

Dad was reflecting on how unnecessary it was to purchase insurance which would provide coverage for returning your body to Canada should you die in another country.

"Who cares if your body comes back?" he mused. "They can bury me wherever."

I admired the Group of Seven shoreline of craggy rocks and bending pines. A loon popped up and down. We explored further along the shoreline and I wondered again about the lives of the people who lived in this beautiful, yet (to me) isolated place.

After a while, we went back to the cottage straight across the lake. This was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time, with the sparkling and the light and the air and the distance from shore and the abyss and the sky. Back near the shore to the east of the cottage, Dad got me to pick a yellow water lily, and later he carefully put the lily, some lake water and some rocks in a little tupperware container so he could bring the flower back to Kingston with us, carrying a little bit of its home with it.

Lyndhurst, Part 1 (June 20-21, 2016)

I

Later in the evening, after returning from Kendrick Beach, Dad settled in with a book and I decided to go for a walk. Tomorrow we'd be exploring Lyndhurst proper, but it was about to rain so I decided to walk only a few blocks away from the cottage.

First I will explain that the cottage we rented was one of three, on a property not much larger than any small town plot with a big house in the front and a large yard in the back. Except this yard contains three delightful cottages and a steep hill down to Lyndhurst Lake, and a dock and boat launch. All the houses nearby are similar, minus the cottages. From the street front, though, I felt just like I was in any small town, quiet and seemingly deserted on a summer evening. About 100 feet east of our cottages, Oakel Street ends at Camp Hyanto, an Anglican church camp that was currently quiet but in two short days would begin to percolate with youthful voices singing hippie Christian campfire songs. Just past Hyanto, not visible but indicated by a sign, is the Lyndhurst cemetery. Across the road from the cottage property is a massive empty lot that I was later told became a veritable Dionysian revel of country music and vintage cars and human excitement during the annual Lyndhurst Turkey Festival in September (I never quite managed to figure out how turkeys came into it). To the west is the little hashtag of Lyndhurst neighborhood streets (#smalltown). I went that way (#adventuretime).

I took the first left from Oakel Street on to Ford Street and  walked back towards the lake, which was further away as the line of it extended more southerly. A sign helpfully let me know about a public boat launch at the end of the street, but I never made it there as I ended up talking for a fair while with a friendly local on her deck. She hailed me by shouting "Are you a Lyndhurster?" and we went from there. We talked about her house, built by a Loyalist (#oldschool) but not of course during the revolution (#longmemories).  We talked about the town and she shared some gossip I could make no sense of, no knowing anyone (#towndrama). She asked me if I liked antiques and did I want to come into her house to look at some (#strangerdanger?). She introduced me to her cat (#cute). I envied her beautiful cottage (#cottageenvy). She told me about a secret swimming hole on the west side of Lyndhurst (#lyndhurstawesome). We parted ways and she said she might drop by our cottage (#introvertsworstfear).

After that I walked back up Ford and turned left to continue west on Oakel. I knew from Google Maps that at the end of this street was a ravine with a river, and I was curious to see it. The street was almost completely silent except the occasional rumbling of thunder, and it was unnaturally dim on the longest day of the year because of the heavy clouds. Everything felt surreal, or hyperreal - like a dream. I'd studied this street online, in preparation for my trip, and now I was on it. It was like reading a book and then finding yourself a character in it. It was a miraculous feeling to have been in one place, thinking about another place, and then be there. To being seeing the same sights, but to be also feeling wind and raindrops on my skin, to feel my feet walking the earth, to feel my soul knowing this place.

To be here. To be there. To be.

I began to notice that many of the houses were clearly abandoned, yet strangely neat. One house in particular, an old farmhouse, had peeling white paint, and was on an obvious tilt, and when I looked in the windows only blankness and broken furniture looked back, yet the lawn was neatly cut and flowers were planted around the edge of the house and in a pot on the back porch.

This immensely increased the surreal feeling.

Near the end of Ford Street, just coming up to the ravine, I passed a man working in a garage that spilled yellow light into the dusk. He felt like the only other person in the world at that moment, and I felt acutely aware of my aloneness and my strangeness and my unknowing of this town. I rarely feel more stranger danger in downtown Kitchener than I did in this tiny corner of Eastern Ontario. I also felt as though in translating my image from Google Maps into reality, I'd overlooked the intimacy, the privacy, of real life. Who was I, this strange person, to come exploring into this domestic space? Was it my street, my neighbourhood, my ravine, only, to discover? What secrets and lives and worlds lurked in the shadows, lives unknown to me?

The rain was coming, so I walked back to the cottage, deep in thought.

From the screened porch, Dad and I watched the lightening flicker and spark over the lake, until it was time to sleep.

II

Tuesday morning's plan was to explore the main street of Lyndhurst (unoriginally but appropriately entitled Lyndhurst Road) and locate the swimming hole I'd been told of the night before.

In the bright light of morning, the strangely well-cared for derelict buildings of Lyndhurst were even more stark and beautiful. Lyndhurst is composed of, essentially, three types of buildings: a) well-maintained old buildings that are falling apart, b) well-maintained old buildings that are not falling apart (all of which have strange architectural quirks that make them even more delightful than most small town Victorians), c) bungalows built in the 1980s. The main street was an exaggeration of this pattern, with larger buildings that looked even more injured and preserved.

At the east end of the drag, up the hill, is St Luke's Church, and at the west end, the Canadian Tire, a big box far enough away from the downtown that it feels more like a marker of a return to urban society than an architectural disruption. Heading east to west, we checked out the Green Gecko, a funky gift shop (well maintained Victorian), the library (80s bungalow), several blocks of semi-occupied derelicts with haunting murals and attractively peeling paint, and the small town apartments and houses where people were living their domestic lives more or less right on the street. Then, the diner and ice cream place, Wing's Bait and Tackle, an old mill turned antique store, and, heart of the town, the oldest extant bridge in Ontario, flowing gracefully over the river, which featured a riverside park and swimming/boating dock.

Beyond the bridge, on the south side of the street, ancient mansions, gracefully ruined, with neat lawns, and gardens of wild trees and Canadian Shield rock, require an up-close look to tell if they are occupied. Dad and I looked for tiny signs of life, marveling at the impossibility of knowing for sure what lives were lived here, if any, the strangeness of small towns to our urban eyes. I wandered through gardens half overtaken by woods, lost myself among trees and massive Shield rock, while Dad strolled on perfectly maintained front lawns that led up to crumbling foundations, all the while wondering if Miss Havisham watched us from upper story windows. In search of lost swimming holes, or the mysteries of other people's old dreams.

In all of these wanderings, we had yet to seen any sign of a path towards the swimming hole. Not that I expected there to be a sign (this isn't, after all, Waterloo, home of the WaterlooLoop), although I did see a cool record of fish-catchings at the Bait and Tackle Shop.

We stopped for a while to rest on the swimming/boating dock. I lay down on the wooden slats and peered into the water. Unexpectedly, little river fish swam up, about the size of my hand, finger to wrist. I watched them move about in the dusky water, their little explorings and retreats. I bravely put in a finger and let them nibble. I lay there for a long time, until I felt like we would always be friends.

Dad returned from wherever he'd been during my break from the world of human interaction and we explored up the north side of the river, where it widened into a sunny, marshy vista. But no swimming hole.

Our last effort, we decided, would be to follow Jonas St (one block west of Ford) up from Lyndhurst Road and see where that took us. We turned off the main drag and made our way past yet more bungalows, Victorians, and derelicts. As we came closer to the lake, a new type of building emerged: fancy cottages. The road turned east along the lake and became more rural, with trees close to the road and a wide field to the north west. As the road curved again towards the south, we noticed a small plaque by the road, and just beyond it, down a steep, loose rocked bank, the river, catching up to us again.

The plaque indicated that the field we'd just passed had once been a fairground, although now it was someone's front forty. I guessed this rocky entry to the river must be the entry to the swimming hole. The river was clear, relatively deep, and beautiful in the sunlight through the trees. I scrambled down in a flurry of excitement. Dad remained on top and refused to come down, reasonably asserting that the loose rocks might cause him to twist his ankle. I climbed back up, and vehemently exclaimed that I would find an easier path down for him. We continued down the road and a few paces later we came to a bridge, where the river turned suddenly east to meet with Lyndhurst Lake just after it flowed under the bridge. To the east of the bridge, where it met the lake, piled ruins of an older bridge sat atop Shield rock, and between them the river flowed over a small series of a plateaus, everything gurgling and yellow white and deep blues in the sunshine.

I found a path to the water via the scrubby bank on the far side of the bridge and made my way down. I called Dad to join me.

Dad refused.

I cajoled.

Dad refused.

I described the ease of the path.

Dad refused.

I described the awesomeness of being down on the cool, watery rock while he was up on the hot, dry bridge.

Dad refused.

I started getting into the water.

Dad began to explore the edge of the bridge.

I started wading in the cool water, describing how the rocks created steps down into the deepening lake.

Dad located what I later discovered was an unnecessarily difficult way down and began to navigate it.

I watched fish and repressed thoughts of leeches.

Dad arrived on the rocks and took off his shirt.

He sat down in the water by the tiny waterfall where the plateaus met and looked content.

I sat down in the slightly deeper water beyond and looked out at the lake.

We let the sunshine warm us, and reflected on subtle wonder of us being here, in this place, together.


III

I emerged from a haze of heat-strokey sleep later that day in a sort of daze. My travels had caught up with me and I was tired to the very soul. Luckily I was in the absolutely perfect place to do absolutely nothing.

I spent the early part of the evening lying on my stomach on the dock by our cottage watching the fish. Had I known the number of fish that make their home under this dock when I first got in the water the day before, I am sure I would have been even more tightly curled in the fetal position. Happily, I had been unaware. Now, I traced my fingers on the surface of the water and watched them come up, little grey cousins to the fish I'd met earlier that day, just smaller than my hand, to nibble my fingers. The water was fairly still, reflecting the sky. I sipped tap water that tasted like lake water. The dock, only loosely tethered, slowly drifted back and forth, moving me back and forth over the weedy landscape, the fish coming up and down, but also back and forth, as I drifted near and far from them.

As the sweet, sunny evening wore on, I wandered again, this time on my own, back to the main street. It was very quiet; the few things that had been open in the day were now closed. A pre-teen boy drifted past on a BMX; a woman sat in front of the library looking like she was waiting for a bus, but surely no bus would ever come. I wandered down Jonas Street to the north, where it ended at the marshy widened river. Nearby, a man sat in a car by the side of the library; the pre-teen cruised into an empty basketball court and did some listless tricks; over to the west I could hear the distant sounds of men working on cars, drinking, laughing, listening to country music. A wild tree lot revealed a ruined boat among the greenery with an orange cat perched on it. The cat stared at me for a very long time in the stillness.

I turned back towards the main road and walked all the way to the bridge and back. As I walked, people began to emerge into my visual field, like fish swimming up to the surface of my awareness. A woman and her husband had a small tiff on a porch. A group of chatting women emerged from the library and one of them got into the car of the waiting man. A portly man and his portly son sat on the bench outside the Tackle Shop. Not for the first time on this trip, I wondered what people do in a place this small and quiet. I tried to imagine myself being friends or lovers with any of them. I don't know if other agoraphobics experience this, but whenever I travel, I always on some level orient towards the new place as a new home. I'm not sure whether this stems from a need to feel at home, or from an anxious need to imagine if I could survive emotionally if I lived here, a sort of byproduct of so many years of trying to meet all my needs within a few city blocks of wherever I am.

Just outside the Green Gecko, I ran into the cottage proprietress talking with the owner of that store. I ambled up as if I was running into old friends, and walked home with the proprietress. Along the way she told me she had just come from a meeting of the Lyndhurst Rejuvenation Committee. This is when I learned that all the derelict buildings are indeed kept in good shape in an effort to revitalize Lyndhurst. I also learned about many other interesting efforts being made on behalf of this small but well-cared for town.

Dad and I spent the rest of the evening (and several hours over the next few days) watching Season 4 of Orange is the New Black, which had just come out. My memories of well-tended, serene Lyndhust thus mix strangely with images of sanitized prison violence. Such is a vacation where one has unlimited access to Wifi.

Kendrick Beach (First Day of Summer) (June 20, 2016)

Around 5 pm Dad and I roused ourselves from the cocoon of sleeping (him) and Netflix (me) that we had formed around us during the hottest part of the day. It was hot and windy outside, the cottage was sleepily warm and we were moving slowly.

We had a light dinner and then gathered some things to take to the beach.

Dad knew where it was. I pictured it as improbably right in the middle of town, or just beyond it. Some part of me must have known of course it wouldn't really be there, otherwise we'd be walking, but my continuing lack of informing myself of where we were headed was going strong and my mind was a little fuddled by confidence and sunshine.

We drove through Lyndhurst. It took five seconds. I became anxious the moment we passed Wing's Bait and Tackle shop/the main dock/the bridge, aka, the centre of town, as the reality of the beach not being six seconds away became clear. Dad mumbled the directions given us by the cottage proprietress: "turn right at the Canadian Tire", etc.

The Canadian Tire was just outside of town. Once in view of it, I breathed a sigh of relief, as here was a side road and the beach must be close by (based on a indistinct mental impression from Google Maps from two weeks ago when I was planning this trip which somehow had not in any way conflicted in my mind with my alternative image of the beach being directly beside Wing's Bait and Tackle).

But no. The beach was, in fact, not close by.

The road itself was beautiful, winding through deep farm country with gorgeous green blossomings of trees and shrubs and ditch grass, all warmth and sleepy summer abundance, and then neat fields, and resting cows, and all of it leading ... to more of it ... and my own mounting anxiety, like a tiny storm cloud on the perfectly blue horizon.

Ah ... my WTF moment was coming! Hello, my friend! I was tired, hot, sleepy, had been in three different towns in two days. Felt overall decent, but still ... might there be a limit? Might I have reached my max? I was frankly amazed at myself for coming as far as I had. So stories of "this is too much, you will hurt yourself" that hearken back to the early traumas that caused my condition fluttered in my head. I responded to them mentally in my professional voice: This is you now, you could be here or there or anywhere. It's peaceful here. And if you need to, you can leave. But you're good. Let peace and beauty be your support, be your rest. Let yourself be this person who does these things.

Dad suddenly mentioned the distance - even he was wondering where this beach was. This immediately made me anxious again, more so, in a way best visualized as a cat resisting entry into a  cat carrier.

I articulated an amount of that anxiety to him and speculated that I might want to turn around if the beach didn't appear soon, in a falsely casual manner.

I didn't want to turn around, not really. It has felt so good to feel so free, so present to what was before me, to be so fearless. I reminded myself that I could feel this uncertainty, and then later feel better. Just getting into the water might make me feel better. Just relaxing into the peaceful beauty of the surroundings might do it.

And then suddenly, there it was, the beach, up ahead.

As we turned in to the grounds, I could not imagine of what possible benefit it would be to me to be there. I felt I'd be better off resting, at home, with my computer. I was afraid to say anything to Dad because I didn't want the stress of having to convince him that I needed to go, didn't want to get into that mindset, so I just kept my focus, pretending I was just waiting for the train, or just another hour on the train, stay strong, and it will pass. Hoping we'd not have to stay long.

The beach was beautiful. So beautiful. I removed my dress and was already in my suit, whereas Dad had to go change. In my current mindset, Dad might as well have been practicing a new social theory in action called the Slow Change Movement, as he meandered up the hill to the washrooms. I wanted to physically push him faster into his bathing suit, but instead I went down to the sunny water to wade.

A disparate looking group of what I later discovered to be Scottish tourists were the only other people on the beach. As far as I could tell, there was the ruddy-faced, blond-curled patriarch; what looked like two sets of couples, one sallow looking with an age difference so great I literally couldn't decide if they were lovers or mother and gown child, the other scrubbed and churchy looking; an actual child (the centre of everyone's attention); and a gloriously and almost absurdly fit 20 something man in a speedo. As they sported in the shallows I collected shells on the beach. I considered them peace and bravery shells and I gave them to my wonderful supportive friends when I got back home to Kitchener. I placed the shells on the beach in a little encouragement pile, waded out into the water, and then back in again as Dad arrived back on the beach.

"Your swimsuit looks like my mother's" he said. "We only saw Mom go in the water once a year. Usually it was August. 'MOM'S GOIN' IN!!!' we'd all yell."

Dad and I waded out, picking up zebra mussels and talking about invasive species. The sun was slanting across the greenish-yellow rippling waters, the sky was so blue overhead, with a view to a tiny island with a cottage on it, and the treed shoreline all around. This lake was colder than the one we are staying on, because it is part of the Rideau system. The air was so warm and windy. I recalled that it was the first day of summer.

Dad went fully into the water but I didn't because I was afraid it would make me cold and that that would provoke anxiety.

When he came out, he said, "The cold water and the warm air are creating absolute balance in my body temperature!"

I felt a the balance between the fear and the magic, the darkness of the past and the sunshine of the present, and beyond it all, the biggest love for my father.

We came across two dragonflies floating on the water. I urged Dad and we picked them up to rescue them from drowning. We held them up in the yellow light and let the wind dry out their wings. My dragonfly's little limbs started moving. I kept him in the palm of my hand as I waded in the sun. Dad felt his dragonfly was too far gone, and gave him a burial at sea. Mine was gaining more and more, some wing motion was happening, so I took him in to shore and put him in a protected area near some rocks. I checked before we left and he had gone.

Back in the water Dad and I roamed around the water checking out more zebra mussels. Dad started singing Barnacle Bill, a song he's still yet to sing in full to me, but that I am given to understand is quite dirty and misogynistic. He then explained that that was how he learned, as a boy, about sexuality, a fact that he seemed complacently disturbed by. He then went on to tell me about another sexual learning experience he'd had, as a teenager, in the See-Way Drive-In on Ogdensburg, NY. Apparently this drive-in showed pornography (oh, the 70s). It was the first one he'd ever seen and he was grossed out and confused at the close-ups. As we continued to wade through the water, I told Dad that a male friend had shown me a similar thing on VHS when I was that age, and I'd had the same reaction.

"But this was on the drive-in screen," reiterated Dad, "That is REALLY large." Yep.

Coming round back into the shallows, we struck up a conversation with the Scots. Dad got into a lengthy political conversation about Brexit with the patriarch, who said Aye alot and had some strong opinions about politics in the UK. I made a tiny amount of small talk, including gently yelling "FIRST DAY OF SUMMER!!" in the direction of the rest of the family, who were now sitting on the shore looking tired. The churchy man gave a mildly enthusiastic hurrah, but the rest ignored me; they were on their way out. They urged the patriarch along but he and Dad were right in it. Not even a group of Canada Geese and their adorable babies coming onto the beach could distract Dad and the patriarch for more than a few moments (although long enough for me to learn that Canada Geese winter in Scotland and that there they are called Barnacle Geese - bringing it all full circle to Barnacle Bill.). Finally the family left the beach and a few minutes later their car horn sounded from the parking lot and Dad and the patriarch reluctantly parted ways.

After that Dad and I took some pictures, but we were ready to go also. Before leaving, I finally made myself get fully into the water, ready to face the anxiety of cold, since we were leaving soon. But Dad was right. Once I came out, the warm windy air on my cool skin brought me into perfect balance with my world.

Kingston to Lyndhurst

I spent the evening in Kingston eating Swiss Chalet, wandering Dad's neighbourhood, and staying pretty much glued to my smartphone.

This morning Dad woke me up at the ungodly hour of 8:30 am mainly because he wanted a box of plastic zip bags that were in the Room of Requirement that is his basement guest room, where I slept guarded over by two fridges, a kitchenette, two bags of loose plaster, fifty thousand pillows, a bunch of boxes and another entire bed, propped up vertically between my bed and the wall. Which was actually pretty cosy, once I clarified with Dad that it wouldn't fall over and smother me in the night.

I tried to ignore him and mumble that my sleep situation was under control, ie, I wasn't going to be late. I should explain that lateness is genetically impossible in the lineage that comes through Dad into me. My mother and sister seem not to share that genetic code. We told the cottage people we'd be there at noon. I knew we would be there at 10:30, no matter how hard we might try to relax and take it easy. And if any family was going to find a way to try hard to relax, it would be ours.

A few minutes later I eased myself out of bed and into the day. The next hour was filled by loading the car and making sure nothing was forgotten.

First stop, grocery store. It seemed like Dad had taken out almost all the food from the cupboards and fridges and packed it into an ever multiplying number of boxes, coolers, and his familiar spirit, the milk crate (as I was taking this picture for my readers who have no idea what this is, Dad told me that in fact, in University he'd had every colour of milk crate to house his record collection, including "The Holy Grail" of milk crate, the only yellow one he'd ever seen)

milk crates, the pride and joy of dudes of the 70s

 yet there was still more I wanted to get so we chugged down the road in probably the most un-roadworthy hunk of metal Dad's ever driven, a rusty, dirty 199- Chevy Cavalier he pulled out of storage for the trip. CAA picking us up is to some degree built into our travel plans. I'm impressed by my ability to not freak out about that. Anyway, we made it to the grocery store and Dad did this victory dance for finding a grocery cart that didn't require a quarter.

victory dance

Back on the road, I realized that although Dad knew where Lyndhurst was, and I had a Google Maps image in my head, I had forgotten to write down directions, address or contact information for the cottages. I look, hopelessly and futilely, at the dashboard of old 'Fire. No GPS there. The dusty dash mocked me like an ancient artifact from a forgotten civilization.

"We're fine," Dad said, "I know where Lyndhurst is. We'll ask around!"

Shades of Steckle. My bad!

Dad informed me that the gas needle of the 'Cav had been going up the more he drove, so we decided to get gas right away. I texted a friend from the station and she texted me back the cottages address. Internet of life!

Fully gassed and knowledged up, we headed east on the 401 and then moved over to the 15.  What the 'Cav lacks in cleanliness and current dash tech, it makes up for in retro awesomness, and we both enjoyed Sting's ...Nothing Like the Sun album on tape. The weather was warm (A/C broke) and the roads were good. I enjoy a good farmland scene and there was plenty of those.

nothing like the gps

farms are so romantic to urban-dwellers

Lyndhurst is just about as small as it seemed on Google Maps, and a little more paint-peely, but from what I saw driving through, I like it. The cottage we rented is amazing (although as a person who hasn't travelled much, I'm not sure I am the best judge - but Dad agrees and he's seasoned traveller). I'm really into the cottage look so right away for me, aesthetically, I'm in heaven. There are some nice extra touches too, a little hipster chic in the metals and woods of the bathroom. Dad was confused by a fake squash on the table: "What the heck is this for??" "It's a fake decor squash, Dad!" "...??".

hipster can

Stopping only to empty all the stuff from the car into the cottage and put the cold food away, I changed right into my bathing suit. I wanted to be in my bathing suit literally the second my vacation started and remove it when I left. I told Dad that and added that I even brought a pack of Canestan for the inevitable but well worth it yeast infection.

The lake is gorgeous. There's a bit of that wonderful green slime of an eastern ontario lake of my youth. Beyond, the vast rippling water. Along the shores, the canoes and boats I'm excited to use.

water!! big water!!

I ran down the hill and out to the end of the dock and prepared myself for joyous, reckless, splashing entry.

I stopped.

The lake was dark and had many weeds (as lakes will do).

I eyeballed them.

A fish swam by.

I put a toe in the water.

I climbed halfway into the water on the little ladder.

I curled in a fetal ball as close as I could to the dock, trying to get as much of my body in while touching as little weeds as possible and keeping my feet at maximum distance for the lake bottom.

I shuddered at the thought of weeds touching my bum.

I enjoyed myself tensely for a proud sunny moment.

I got out and back on the dock.

I've faced a lot of fears in the past two days.

I'll get this one tomorrow!

Plus Dad told me that the propietor here told him there is a sand beach in Lyndhurst. We'll go there this evening after we rest up.

But by the end of this week, I will be swimming in that lake!

Kitchener to Kingston June 19, 2016

Today I write to you from Kingston Ontario! Specifically from my father and stepmother's living room, filled with elegant overstuffed furniture, paintings, pictures and embroidered pillows, in the corner house in a suburb near John A. MacDonald Blvd and Princess St.

Tomorrow Dad and I are driving to Lyndhurst Ontario to stay at a rental cottage on the lake. Lyndurst seems like a very small town from my Google Maps observations and is famous for having the oldest extant bridge in Ontario.

Last night, I dreamed about bed bugs. I don't think I've ever had a dream about bed bugs before, and I sincerely hoped it was not a premonition. I decided to take it as an advisement from my subconscious and be sure to keep my suitcase elevated and closed. At least I think that is what you are supposed to do. Must research that.

It was an anxious start (as these things can be for an agoraphobic). You start the day and the biggest question in your mind is why? Why the h-e-double hockey sticks am I doing this? You remember the day before, the week before, the month before, all those moments where you were like, this is going to be good/fun/possible/instructive/tolerable ... but in the morning, you forget. You can barely drink your smoothie and you skip your vitamins altogether (mainly because they are already in your suitcase). In fact travel days are great for weight loss. I think all I have eaten since breakfast is a bun, five crackers, a table spoon of humus, and a banana.

S picked me up and took me to the station, reassuring me with positive slogans, which was most helpful. I became anxious that we would miss the train. I could feel my anxiety escalating.

The train was delayed. This was also good because it gave me some time to calm down, although I would use that term relatively. Calm down to a level of functional non-running and non-screaming.

Everyone around me looked peaceful. It was a beautiful morning. A guy and his little son were both wearing train conductor hats. A woman was wearing shorts that were so short they were more effectively underwear, and she seemed fine with that. A white guy asked his Spanish travel mates if they understood the French coming over the loudspeaker since “Spanish and French share a few words”. Girls with reflector aviator shades and pink luggage looked bored.

I flitted among these people nervously, trying to calm myself with my internal professional voice; "this is just another day of my life to get something done". I also worked on convincing myself that these people were my new family and the train was my new home and I would live forever with them on the train and if I got sick or scared, they would love me and help me always.

Eventually, even though the thoughts in my head were saying this was going to be the worst day of my life and providing some very vivid imagery to back that up, I just decided I was getting on that train and let the chips fall where they may! This was calming. Sometimes decisions are very stressful.

It helped to tell myself that this was my life, going in this direction, on this train, and not backwards.

Finally the train 84 (Kitchener, Guelph, Georgetown, Brampton, Union Station) arrived and I boarded. I didn't look out the window much at first – just once, right before Breslau, and I saw what looked like a very large dog – very large!– running down the middle of an industrial  side road. Strange. And then we were past.

I focused on arranging myself stuff and setting up my computer.

Last time I took this trip I had my WTF moment in Guelph, which was next up. Happily, I had already had it in the car on the way to the station/at the station, and now Guelph was like an old combat buddy I was having an emotionally controlled reunion with.

My time on train 84 passed more quickly than I expected. It helped to have to spend a huge amount of time figuring out how to access the Wifi. Once that was done, I caught up on some computer administrative tasks. This is where my brain really turned the corner. For like 20 minutes, it felt like I was at my desk at work, and that was enough to create a safe mental space to return to when my mind started to flicker with anxiety. I know this is a wierd metaphor, but it was sort of like the cloth you might put under a plant to absorb the excess water but also keep the water to nourish the plant. I wish I could explain that metaphor, but I can't quite.

At Georgetown, I hid in the bathroom. My ex lives there. I'm sure he had nothing better to do that day than stand on the station platform staring at train cars making me feel even more anxious! Funny how an entire town can become a person.

We arrived at Union Station almost before I realized it. The CN Tower gave me the thrill it usually does, as it rose suddenly above me amidst all the new buildings going up. It's like seeing a Mountie or watching a Blue Rodeo video; the rare experience of Canadian patriotism (in all of US command!), reserved mostly Canada Day and Heritage Moments commercials.

Toronto: I always have to, and I like to, remind myself that people live there – that it isn't just some amazing larger than life installation art project.

The transfer from train 84 to 64 was pretty straightforward. It was made more pleasant by some chitchat talk with two small Latina women, and less pleasant by an arty looking middle aged guy who seemed completely oblivious to me trying to get by to my train, while he endlessly hugged two Asian teenagers, one of whom was holding a massive cake.

Train 64 – I always forget how swank it feels, with the arm rests that go up and that spacious foot area.

Every person getting on car 3 of train 64 was under 30 and hot. Statistically I am not even sure how that is possible. I don't think in any one place in Waterloo have I ever seen such a totality of hotness. (Incidentally most of them later got off at Belleville. I wracked my brain - which was less anxious by that point, somewhat, and thus had some bandwith for idle speculation – what all these hot people were DOING in Belleville. In my mind Belleville is composed solely and totally of senior citizens, and, once a year or so, my uncle, who absolutely loves the Quinte Mall).

Then, I discovered, even more improbably, that the train staff were also really hot. The ticket guy had a face like a young and fine-boned Peter Sarsgaard. He looked at every passenger as if he was in delightful anticipation of making joyous love to them. He was positively aquiver with beauty and ticket-taking.

As we pulled out of Toronto I saw another dog running wild in a large park.

Then of course the water ... how wonderful.

By this time I'd figured out how to access Via's Wifi and was into Dragon's Den. Dragon's Den is like the Tylenol of TV – seemingly always available, consistent and so soothing.

To be honest, the trip passed much more quickly than I expected. Maybe it's because it is the second time this year I have done this. Or maybe the side-effect of aging – time moving more quickly – is in favour of the travelling agoraphobic.

I arrived at Kingston Station and my step mother was waiting for me in the car. At first I didn't see the car and had the mildest of freak outs, for like a milisecond, but then I felt I would be ok, even if I had to cab to the house. But there she was, in the sunshine, just like last fall.

And now I have to go order some Swiss Chalet, and watch copious amounts of library DVDS.

Forwell Creek Storm Management Area (Between Lexingon and Weber)

I found myself in this corner of Waterloo because I had to get my computer looked at and the service provider had just moved to Columbia and King.

Still breathing deeply to rid the smell of epoxy from the still-being-renovated store from my lungs, and wanting to get a second quote from another provider south on King, I shifted my plans to bike through North Campus and instead turned east to head down Forwell Creek trail.

First I admired the outdoor greenhouse at Canadian Tire. How lovely the little impromptu landscapes made up by rows of plants for sale, some tall, some small. It reminded me of visiting the greenhouse at the Experimental Farm in Ottawa as a child. A completely human created forest.

As I continued east on Forwell Creek Road, I speculated on such questions as "Could I be truly fulfilled in a technology dominated future where all nature was virtual?" and "Could we really actually be living in a computer simulation?" and "Wow that would be some really intense coding!" to "How we long to know, and how little we do know about the origin and purpose of matter, from the expanding galaxy to this pine tree."

My next thought was: What a gorgeous place this is, no matter how it came to be or why.

When I first moved here and lived on Austin Drive, Forwell Creek was my first discovery and first love. Looking south over the eastern storm water pond, from the lonely road that looks down on it from above, I felt I was seeing a little Eden. At that time there were no houses to the east, just wild land. Soon of course came the razed fields (how it hurt my heart) and then the hosues - but this tiny wilderness lives on as lushly and enchantingly as ever, albeit slightly more constrainted from the perimeter.

Today though I decided to re-explore the west side area. I've been down that less well-used trail before - never to the end (which would, I imagine, come out at Lexington and Marsland - and I've been a little ways in on that side too, but there were too many snails available for crushing to make that experience anything other than upsetting and karmically damaging). Coming from the north, I usually stop at what feels like a half way point, where the hill comes down a little, and where for a long time there was a lone chair under a tree, awaiting a contemplator. Typically I stop because I feel so very far from any other person and I feel a probably reasonable anxiety of stranger danger.

(Sidenote: Agoraphobics, well, at least me, have an interesting relationship to stranger danger. On the one hand, it is, of course, stressful (for the possible assault) and irritating (for the limitations it imposes when wandering in wild places alone). On the other hand, there is nothing more relieving than a rational fear for giving you permission to turn around when you're forcing yourself forward against agoraphobic tendencies. But I digress.)

The landscape had become so lush and full of June that I couldn't find the trail. The last few times I'd explored here, it had been fall, when there is less abundance and more empty calm spaces. After a few moments of searching, I found it, a little fainter than it once was, but navigable. It felt slightly risky, as though it could disapear at any moment into a sea of laughing, anonymous grass.

As the trail turned from an eastern orientation along the edge of the pond towards the south and into the forest and field, it opened into a sheltered space of sumacs to the west and the pond beyond, and pines to the left and the long hill down to the creek to the east. The sumacs framed the pond, a latticework of dark across a canvas of light, and colour - colour was everywhere. Small birds were flying through the lattice.

Sometimes you are surprised by such unexpected wild beauty in unexpected spaces, and it make you delight for the ten thousand landscapes to be discovered right in your own little corner of the earth.

I continued to follow the path and it became became clearer, dirt now instead of flat grass. It started moving downhill. The mosquitoes were substantial.

(Another thing agoraphobics appreciate - mosquitoes. A reasonable reason not to sit and feel the feels, but to keep moving!)

I came to a fork in the path. The western branch, fainter, went up the hill into grassy sunshine. The eastern, down into woody gloom. I chose west, since I'd been east before.

The path dropped and dropped futher down the hill into the dim, damp piney woods.

Next I came to a ancient spreading willow and remembered the night in first year univeresity that S and I got in a fight at the McDonad's drive through on Columbia and King, after coming back from the Revolution Nightclub. The fight was me being young and stupid, the kind of young and stupid where so much love is given to you that the only thing you know to do with it is fling it back with complaints. After we fought, he ran into the night and I went home to cry dramatically with my roommate. Later he came back and we made up. He told me he'd been sitting in a large tree near the creek, listening to the water, and he brought me a stone. It was the only time he'd ever been truly mad at me. The forest and the water had let him forgive. I thought, as I passed the willow, that this must be his forgiving tree.

I was now deep in.

I began to feel the tinges of stranger danger anxiety - too far alone, too far alone. I kept going, I couldn't stop, curiousity pushed me joyfully and expansively.What is around this next corner, down this next hill?

I saw ahead a clearing filled with clothing and bottles and broken off tree limbs angled over living trees.

My first thought was this was a perfect location for rough sleeping in the sense of it being very private, probably very safe, and very pretty.

My second thought was that this was where I definitely needed to turn around.

I tend not to approach urban encampments unless they are very close to a main path. This one looked abandoned, but I wasn't very close to it. My a-brain was like, YEAH, sweet! Let's turn around (because it always likes that feeling). But my rational brain was like, yeah, you really should.

I turned around, vowing one day to return with a companion and follow this entire trail.

Back at the fork I still felt the enthusiasm for exploration so I turned west.

I was rewarded by a most enchanting clearing.

I think this is where the chair once sat, too.

And then above that, a view up a hill.

The way the clearing was scooped into a little sunlit valley among tall trees and bushes, out of the side of a tall slope, was so unusual to me and striking.

The mosquitoes were also really enjoying the space, and me in it. So I turned to head back after one last loving look.

On my return to the fork, I realized: this path is not great. It is clear enough, but not really clear. This is the kind of path that your archetypical mother voice tells you to be careful on and not get lost.

I experienced a moment of panic. It was not a clear path. Yes, I could SEE it, but it wasn't totally clear, and I couldn't see in my head exactly what it looked like ahead, because everything was so overgrown and unfamiliar.

Then a thought came:

Truth the path.

I only need to be able to see it a few feet ahead, and follow, and since I know I followed it in, I know it will reveal itself to me, in time.

I know there is a path here, and now I need to trust it.

I followed.

This was a new kind thought for me, a new path in my brain. Still just flattened grass, but visible and navigable.

Let go of your map, and your fear that your map will fail you, and trust the signs on the ground.

The panic didn't fully recede.  The path was still not very clear, with so many twists and turns. I thought (as I alway do in urban parks) "Well, you can hear traffic, won't get lost if you move towards it." Except I couldn't hear it that well. And this was a very strange landscape to me, hills and valleys and areas I hadn't even looked at on Google Maps and creeks and ponds barring staight lines in any direction. So suddenly, it felt like getting lost was a possibility. Would it be possible to wander for days literally almost in view of the Canadian Tire? Maybe! I could imagine it!

Panic again, and then the thought: Trust the path. Truth the path.

Let go of the map and trust the path.

I continued on. I could only see a few steps ahead, because of the twists and turns. At every turn, I thought, I don't remember what comes next! What if this is where the path disapears and I go stark raving mad, lost in the wilds? Become a naked, hairy feral adult living off Forwell Creek minnows and berries, always searching for the elusive Lexington road and all it offers for my renewed membership in human civilization?

Or worse, what if I have a panic attack?

Trust the path, trust the path.

And. Amazingly. The. Path. Kept. Being. There.

As I always knew it was, as it always had been.

With great relief, I finally reach the edge of the pond, and the view through the sumac, which signified re-entry into the known world. I spent a few moments admiring the view, and then followed a more clear branch of the entry path out onto the road a little further east from where I'd entered. There was my bike, reassuringly locked to a post. I unlocked it, feeling like a mountaineer descended from Everest, while a middle aged couple, the woman sporting a maple leaf tattoo on her ankle to match her red tshirt, walked by on a pleasant afternoon stroll.

Trust the path.

Steckle Farm (Bleams Road, address still unknown!)

In two weeks I will (God willing) be attending the wedding of some dear friends at Steckle Farm in Kitchener,Ontario.

Imagine my relief when I first learned that wedding wasn't on top of a mountain in NZ or in the Muskokas! Steckle Farm is most certainly outside my (expanding) zone, but, I think it's do-able!

Yesterday P agreed to drive me to Steckle Farm so we could check the place out in anticipation of the main event. Google maps told me it took about 15 minutes via the 8 or Westmount to Bleams Road. I promptly forgot to write down any directions, including even the address, on the assumption that everyone who owns a car has a GPS (being unfamiliar with owning either myself).

In fact P's cute little smart car DOES have a GPS, but was not familiar with simply "Steckle Farm".

There followed some conversation about directions, locations, checking phones, me not having data, him driving and not able to check phone. The GPS was not adding much of use to the conversation. I apologized. My head felt unclear. I recognized that I had been more relaxed about this then might have been reasonable given the challenge that it actually was. That's progress!

By this time we were at the roundabout on Margaret, which is the edge of my "walk" zone - the area I feel I can easily walk home from, my sanctum sanctorum.

After this: here be (possible) dragons!

I had some vague flutterings of panic - too much disorganization. Yes, I told myself, it does say something about how far you've come in terms of not tattooing the exact drive route on my brain and reviewing it anxiously like a map into Mordor. Yet I feared P would be irritated with  me, which in my ag-brain translates irrationally into him booting me out of the car somewhere in the wilds of Bleams Road (aka deepest Kitchener suburbia): an agoraphobic's nightmare.

I did some breathing and then he asked me if him choosing an unexpected route to the high way (yep, that was also happening) was "freaking me out". It was in fact not freaking me out (since at least I knew how to get to the highway!), but more importantly, I could feel P's concern for me and this was infinitely relieving and confidence building in this entire process. I assured him I was not freaked out.

And felt myself un-freak a little.

Soon we were on the highway. After a few moments I took note in my body of how extremely fast we were going. It was fast. 110. Think about how that feels to a person who rarely leaves the construction infested traffic jam of Uptown/Downtown. I felt like how I imagine my hamster used to feel when I unexpectedly removed her from the cage and carried her over to the couch. Little heart beating very quickly! I knew I would acclimatize soon so I just let myself feel the strangeness.

Somewhere between the King St and Fisher Hallman exits came the first "WTFWTFWTF" thought. It always happens at some point. It was not so bad. I put myself into work mode, where I have a duty to perform, not a big deal, just get 'er done. The feeling passed.

Then I experienced the most wonderful sensation of ... enjoyment. Like I was actually enjoying being in this car with P and that in fact we could live the rest of our lives in this little car in the sunshine watching the Petsmarts and row houses run by. Nice. Good moment. It reminded me of traveling with my Dad when I was a teenager.

Now we were definitively in suburbia. I had never been here in my life, that I can recall, in this part of Kitchener. The sky was very big and the grass seemed very long. Houses and buildings were spread out. A strange new world.

We finally reached Bleams. This was the point that P's geographical knowledge ran into my complete lack of memory of even the essentials of the specific location as visualized on Google maps.  He knew how to get us the area, but now we were true pioneers, discovering uncharted territories!

It was at this point also that a very strong need to go to the bathroom, which had been building over the past few minutes, became a clear and present reality.  I shared this with P. He told me we could stop at McDonald's.

I had lost track of the concept that there might even be bathrooms nearby, given how wild and deep this suburban adventure had become for me.  Also I felt I couldn't face getting out of the car at McDonald's. I told P I could go in the grass by the road and then he told me he could just slow the car down and I could stick my ass out the window.

We were momentarily distracted as P chose this moment to turn off into Huron Business Park to check the GPS. An old school GPS, also known as a hand-drawn sign in a ditch, alerted us to the fact that we were in the vicinity of "Steckle Farm Parking". Jackpot! shouted my heart. I still have to go! shouted my bladder.

I asked P to pull over by the entrance to the farm, and I spidered down into a ditch (that I prayed had no poison ivy) to pop a squat.

There is nothing more freeing that peeing in the great outdoors. Pee splash might dampen my knock-off Tom's, but nothing can dampen my joy! Also, it's very satisfying to urinate in a location that is, for you, an achievement to arrive at. 

Steckle: I came. I saw. I conquered. 

I marked my territory!

Back in the car, P and I drove down the drive but we decided not to get out of the car because apparently Ashley and Jeremy were getting married at the farm that day (according to another cute little sign) and we didn't want to wedding crash. Plus A was waiting for us to meet her in at the Village Creperie in Belmont for a well-earned brunch in 20 minutes.

P decided to take Strasburg back. I placed my trust in him completely since I more or less had no idea where we were or how to get back. That's cool. I like that I got into that place mentally. I trust him. I hope he wants to go on more drive challenges with me.