Now Entering Wonderland
This past weekend I went to Canada’s Wonderland for the first time in about eleven years. The place has changed in that time, but more outside its boundaries than inside. Sure, they’ve built a few more rides over last decade — the Italian Job is a real thrill — but the most noticeable difference was at the gates.
Getting inside the park grounds is now like going through U.S. Customs. Each entry lane takes you through a metal detector and into the hands of uniformed personnel dressed alarmingly like U.S. Homeland Security. I watched in dismay as a pair of highschool kids ahead of me were searched thoroughly, each forced to empty pockets and dump out knapsacks. A pocket knife was confiscated from one of them. No one was asked to remove their shoes or submit to a body search, but I was waiting for it.
It was a strange experience, one that reminded me of traveling to and from Colorado a couple of years ago. When I finally cleared Canada’s Wonderland Customs, I half-expected to see a sign inside the gate annoucing “You are now entering the United States.” Not that I was worried, of course. I had my “passport to summer fun.”
Cycles
It used to be that the coming of fall triggered within me a depression that deepened with the colour of the leaves. The first yellows and reds signaled the end of my beloved summer, a time in which the heat of the sun mirrors the fullness of life. “Fall is the most beautiful time of year,” most people say with an affected air of romance. “And if I was Tom Thompson,” I used to think, “I would agree.”
I love the smell of my camping gear. Not that virginal smell of synthetics just purchased from MEC, but the scent of a tent, tarp, and pack after years of being buffeted by wind, soaked with rain, and baked dry in the sun. It’s the smell of strain and rest, worry and calm, hunger and satiation, cold and warmth, risk and reward. The endless cycles of trial and triumph that define the wilderness experience polarize, and therefore maximize, these sensations. The smell of my camping gear is the smell of being alive.
Walking among the gold-flecked hills and vales of Hockley Valley Provincial Nature Reserve and, more recently, hiking through the fiery highlands of Algonquin Provincial Park, I am slowly beginning to recognize a connection between the cycle of the seasons and the patterns of suffering and reward I unconsciously seek in the backcountry. For me, to embrace the renewal of change is the difference between merely existing and truly experiencing life.
Cell Phone Slavery
Like many people, I own a cell phone. And like most cell phone owners, I carry it with me wherever I go. I suspect, however, that unlike most cell phone owners, I do not necessarily answer it regardless of where I am or what I’m doing. Some moments are sacred, after all, such as those spent within the bubble of contemplative silence you find yourself in while sitting on “the throne.” There is no better justification for voice mail than to delay the interruption of an incoming call during such a private moment. Believe it or not, though, I once heard someone answer a business call — while doing his — inside the toilet stall of the bathroom at my office. It made me wonder how many others take their cell phone slavery to such an extent. Would you — or have you — ever taken a call in “the can?”