Southern Ontario, all gussied up in its most flamboyant garb, stood waving to me as my rental car headed for Guelph. Not since my fall trip to Ottawa for Trudeau's funeral many years ago have I so richly savoured the explosion of pathetic colours. Nevermind that my 9 hour flight, and 3 hour ordeal at Charles de Gaul had tired me. No matter that the movie had made me cry with unwanted sentiment. I dedicated myself to appreciating what lay before me, (while quietly cursing the huge blind spots in the clunky Pacifica I'd rented).
On reaching Guelph, I made my way to Kate's, and there was a reunion of two spirits torn apart, and now full to overflowing with feeling. We spent the entire weekend quietly overwhelmed with each other. The days passed. We drove to London that night, staying down the road from my family, and visiting the next morning. My brother gave me a typical family gift- he gave me back the iPod Nano I'd bought him for his birthday, and upgraded himself to the 80 Gb version. Ahhh, it felt so good to be home. He really ought to have bought some balloons though.
We hit Christina and Melissa's wedding, which was great, although we missed the speeches *cough, cough* We were greeted by the information that there would be a Soul Line, which Christina put some chutz-pah behind, and we nodded dumbly. There was not only a soul line, where Kate strutted her gymnastic/breakdancing stuff to the admiration of all, but a polka song, where apparently I had the ladies turning their blue-tinted heads, leading one of the brides around the room to E-I-E-I-E-I-O!! We all have our strengths...
On Sunday, we spent the day in the Elora Gorge, adventuring. Kate and I began our friendship with some winter mountain-biking through the Gorge, but this time we were on the Princess Park side- the side for bi-peds and tourists. I found myself naming all the climbs down there, pointing out which ones I'd named, the stories behind each, the story of the bridge, and some tales of donut shops and recruiting fresh belayers. On our way home, I offered to show her the house I'd grown up in, and we ended up walking through childhood fields, all the way to the fields on the far side of the Silver Barn, where trails, bramble, and thorns opened before us, just like I'd described, inviting a crab-apple fight and merriment. The smells carried back to me over the years of that particular earth, those grasses, and the simple dust in the air. I didn't realize it was all still there. I thought of Anita and Christine, and vowed to call them.
I'm back in Vancouver now- another 3 hours removed from my body-clock, and I was up for hours last night, starting at 3am. I knew better than to drop into slumber at 8pm, but I returned to boxing yesterday, and I exerted myself with fairly wild abandon. My coach is very impressed, and has urged me for the second time to get involved in the fight scene. I am interested in more boxing, maybe some sparring, but out and out fights will be saved for dreamland, where I'm also wearing a cape, and can simply change the scene when things don't go my way. "uh oh, what's that over there? a dragon! Everyone run!!!" But I hug the praise, and think smugly- you haven't even seen my right hook...
I picked up Dallas last night, who was thrilled to be rescued from her 4 star surroundings. When we got home, she positively cavorted out of the Element onto the garage floor, like it was something she'd been dreaming of. The steps up were nothing to slow her down, and she made several happy circuits of the apartment before noticing she could be begging for food. Which she got, sucker that I am...
Feeling: Sated.
