Ontario Boy Gets Sappy For Home

It's been two months since our Triumphant Return! from Vancouver, and I am glad to report that everything is as we hoped. Newmarket is actually a lot lovelier than I remembered, Toronto still rules the Earth and all who walk upon it, and this Province is a far more beautiful place than people in BC give it credit for.

We're right at the peak of the Fall Colours here in Ontario, which is something that I hadn't truly appreciated since I was a little kid being walked through the forest at Thornton Bales. The truth is that after spending two years in Vancouver, where there are only two seasons, Summer and The Rain, I've begun appreciate this transitional time of the year more than I thought I could. The Fall has always been Suzanne's favourite season because she gets to wear her wooly sweaters, but having always fancied myself a Spring man, I am shocked by how crazy in love I am with everything right now. In the morning when I leave for work, I watch the kids all trooping off to school and I find myself longing for my old school days, so much so that I can almost smell pencil crayons and brand new binders. There isn't frost on the cars yet, but there will be soon, and when I ride down the street, fallen leaves scatter behind me like a wake. In the morning you can see your breath, and in the evening too, when woodsmoke is thick in the air, and because of that smell, and because everyone's decorated their porches with pumpkins and cornstalks, you can feel that Hallowe'en is right around the corner. At this time of year we eat root vegetables with dinner and sometimes, when you're driving in the country, the moon is so fat and low in the sky that for a second or two, when you first see it, you don't even know what it is you're looking at. It's true that that are no mountains here, and no sea either, but I know now that those beautiful luxuries come at a price.

My mom says the Fall makes her sad, and I think I used to feel that way too, but having lived without it for two years, I can't imagine ever again giving up the Ontario Autumn. I do hope that I don't get this sickly nostalgic for the Winter that inevitably follows; if I get teary at the sight of the moonlight on a snowy field, my eyes will freeze shut. But I'm sure it'll be worth it.