Epilogue
“Things we lose have a way of
coming back to us in the end,
if not always in the way we expect.”
- J K Rowling
On the morning after the last day of my
nine day solo canoe trip,
I lower the treetop kitchen and pack up
all of the gear.
Then I tackle the tent site.
Bud spends an hour at water's edge,
deconstructing the raft, transporting the
cedar lengths into the woods,
gathering up the fine cord.
All that has been my home
for a week and a half
disappears.
Apart from flattened and trodden
ground, cleared trail and
well used fireplace,
it is as if I hadn’t been here at all.
Like the last day of camp.
We each solo a canoe away from
my bay, each with half of the gear.
We meander close to the shore.
It is still and calm, though a bit cooler.
We stop for a cup of coffee at
‘The Cabin”,
as is our habit, and in spite of having
already breakfasted,
are lured by the
bacon, egg and hash-brown smell
into having the full fry-up.
I notice a couple enter,
and make for a sunny table in the corner.
I try not to do the ‘Haliburton Stare’,
that moment when everyone in a small
country eatery looks up to see who it is.
As they turn, I see that it is
Joan and Harvey,
Joan and Harvey of the dock visit,
the excellent coffee, the pre-cliff part
of my pilgrimage,
Only four days ago.
They settle in at their table
and Bud and I wander over.
I introduce Bud and we have
a good chat, exchange numbers.
Harvey fixes me with a gimlet eye.
“Not sure you were straight with
us the other day,”
he says with a hint of a grin.
“Saw you battle your way across
the lake in that wind.”
I manage to laugh, and stammer out
that I’d been on something of
a mission, and that all had gone well.
He reaches up to touch my cheek,
a gesture so like my father
would have done,
I feel a lump tighten in my throat.
We promise to drop by their cottage
in the next couple of weeks.
There is some repair work that they’d
like Bud’s advice about.
Four weeks later,
we celebrate a not quite typical,
not quite traditional,
very happy Thanksgiving.
We have weekend guests from afar,
arriving on Friday evening –
Ginny and Margie,
bringing a fantastic array
of vegetarian foods, the makings
of a Sunday feast.
And Meg and Elle, also with
Thanksgiving offerings –
three dozen Montreal bagels,
cream cheese, lox, veggie platter,
wines, and a package of Montreal
smoked meat for Bud.
My doctor brother Dennis
and his wife Lula pop in on Saturday on
their way to Algonquin.
Lula is Middle Eastern and a fantastic
cook, and they gift us with some of
her delicacies.
Elle is fascinated that Dennis and I
are twins, so I unearth a photo album of
our summers on Trinity Lake,
when we were small, and Dennis and I
actually looked alike.
This prompts a lot of laughter.
Elle, the album open on her lap,
on the sofa between Ginny and Bud.
Trinity Lake in the '50's.
My father reading on the deck.
My mother at her desk, turning to
look at the photographer.
Their five children, all under ten,
lined up on the shore in khaki shorts,
bare feet and chests.
And later,
Ginny and me at camp
the first year I knew her.
Bud and me
in a canoe in our early twenties.
Trinity Lake.
*
After we see Dennis and Lula
on their way,
we plan a road trip for Sunday morning -
Bud, me, Meg, Elle, Ginny, Margie.
Three canoes, (truck, trailer, car),
6 paddles, 6 PFDs, 3 bailers,
and a large picnic lunch.
We plan to head to the public landing
near the old camp.
And do a bit of exploring.
Bud sterns with Meg in the bow.
I paddle with Margie.
Elle, with my old camp paddle,
in the bow of Ginny's canoe.
We spend a glorious four hours on
Trinity Lake.
We paddle slowly by the old camp,
now cottages,
with a few people about, it being
Thanksgiving weekend.
We picnic on tiny Blueberry Island.
Baguette, cheeses, sausage rolls,
lettuce, cherry tomatoes, fruit.
Lemonade and light beer.
Local butter tarts.
*
Bud, Meg and Margie, deep in
conversation,
nibble at the picnic remains.
Ginny and I sit on a rocky outcrop
looking out over Trinity Lake
toward the old camp.
As it's October,
we are in bulky sweaters,
the tiny island scattered with leaves.
We watch Elle, rubber-booted, playing in
the shallows,
my camp paddle within her reach.
The old camp, now cottages, but still
so familiar.
Still the same land.
Land where I feel a deep sense of
belonging.
I think of Wren.
Thankfully, something which is no longer
painful to do.
For a fleeting moment, I think of Wren
and the old days at camp,
laughing hysterically (but silently) as we
negotiate the ink black
midnight Camp Trident trails,
avoiding the oncoming train of Willie's
spotlight,
and feeling nothing but our own light of
ecstatic intense love.
I watch Elle playing on the pebbled shore.
Wren's granddaughter.
The paddle, I will give to her.
It will be the paddle she uses to learn to
stern a canoe.
And eventually
to canoe trip in this very place.
For now, it holds a long straight line of
tiny stones collected from the shore,
shaped and rounded smooth
by the waters of Trinity Lake.
*
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