Sitting outside on a chilly morning feels very different in May than in October. The promise of spring makes it seem warmer, happier. The nip in the air is softer, and pretty soon you can peel off the scarf around your neck. The trees are popping their baby green leaves and buds. The willow tree is a magnificent bouquet of lime green elegantly draping down to the ground. The woodpeckers are hard at work, and the sparrows are singing their mating songs.
I sit outside in the sun until I feel as though my skin is starting to burn. I move inside, wondering what to do with this beautiful day. No obligations, no deadlines. This is what retirement looks like. Prioritizing is the hardest part. Keeping the body moving is one priority, which I have to fit in with all the sedentary activities I enjoy : knitting, writing, machine knitting, and to some extent, gardening. Gardening sounds like exercise, but unless you’re actually digging holes or dragging bags of soil around, it’s not great cardio. Today we’re going out canoeing on the lake near my brother-in-law’s cottage. That gives me a bit of exercise, so that’s good.
Later: it was a lovely row on the lake, but since I was sitting between two strong guys I didn’t have to do much rowing, so maybe it wasn’t great exercise. It was so early in the season the lake was quiet, in fact, we might have been the only canoe on the lake and no motor boats to be seen. It was a warm day but the breeze kept us from roasting. Couldn’t have been more idyllic. We gaped at some of the huge mansions that have sprung up in recent years, wondering why anybody needs a house that could easily accommodate 12 people who would prefer not to run into each other. It’s become the fashion I guess, and if these people bought land here it’s because the land has become so expensive closer to Toronto or Ottawa. The cottage is at Lake St. Peter, which sits north of Bancroft off hwy 127, very near the eastern edge of Algonquin park. It’s not a huge lake, but it’s big enough to accommodate many cottages and a provincial park, which was probably the reason the lake road was built.. We’ve been visiting this cottage for twenty years and things haven’t changed all that much in the area, except for the addition of those huge mansions. My BIL’s cottage is not right on the lake, so the lake activity doesn’t affect him very much. He can always put his canoe on his car and take it to any number of lakes in the neighbourhood when Lake St. Peter is too full of Jet-skis and motor boats.
When we were younger, and our kids were kids, Dave and I discussed the possibility of buying a cottage near Montreal, but I hesitated because of the expense, the upkeep and the black flies. I worried that it would be a burden more than a blessing. We never had a cottage when I was growing up so maybe I didn’t see the pros that would have made those cons worth it, and now it feels too late. To afford it now we’d have to sell our house and move to the cottage permanently, but houses in the country are not that cheap anymore. Had we done it twenty years ago, maybe it would have been affordable, but we had just bought the house we live in now, and money was a bit tight. Hindsight being 20-20, it would have been smart to buy both! Who could have imagined that the pandemic would create a cottage boom and those little places on the edges of lakes would end up being worth a small fortune. The days of 50,000$ cottages are gone, it seems.
Being a city girl from my infancy, I’m not sure I would be happy living permanently in the country. I would miss my friends and the conveniences of the city, as much as I love being in the country from time to time. Still, I often wonder if we should try it out for six months or so, to see what it’s like. How many of you are city people with a cottage? Or country people with a pied à terre in the city? Or maybe neither a house nor a cottage is within your reach, but you dream of a country life? When the warm weather comes I start thinking about being in the country, but the reality might be that the bugs would keep me indoors more than if I stayed put here in Montreal, where there are no black flies and even mosquitoes aren’t a huge problem. One reason to escape the city would be the “peace and quiet”, but I have to say sometimes the noise of the country is almost the same as the city! There are still idiots that use leaf blowers, and construction or renovations going on, and somehow the noise is that much more irritating because one expects it to be quiet. As I write that, I have to laugh, because I really sound like a city slicker. Please comment below if you have a decided preference for either the city or the country and why. I’m so curious!
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P.S. I want to point you to another blog that I’ve long enjoyed it. The Marginalian is full of contemplative stories, poetry, art, etc, etc and every time the email arrives in my inbox announcing another digest of the posts from the week, I find myself pretty much devouring the whole thing, even if I didn’t plan to. The link above takes you to a particularly touching poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Enjoy!
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