It's been a lot of less than stellar news out of hospice lately. In time, so long as I intend to remain honest (and I do), that is inevitable. I have low days, I feel the pain of loss of my outside life. But I mark little milestones, celebrate little pleasures, and do my best to be a little silly every day.
I don't always succeed. Succeeding isn't the point. Remembering that I have tried before and can try again is whats been keeping me going.
If I'm going outside, but not leqcinf grounds, I say I'm going to the courtyard. It isn't really a courtyard, a small garden seperates the chapel exit (which is closer to the elevators, too) from the main entrence and exist, used by general admission, emergency, and all other patients. The garden offers some privacy, some quiet, although its frequently broken by people using the exit as an exit.
During the high summer, the heat in the courtyard was strong. Surrounded on two sides, with the other two hardly open, the heat could build. To a lapsed chemo patient like myself, that heat was desirable, but occasionally overwhelming. But there was plenty of shade on those dog days of summer (often literally) and those days were magnificent.
As the sunsets have marched steadily West, outside the angle I can see from bed (the change happened so fast I barely noted it, but I know I stopped talking about their magic and the importance of daily observance. ADHD recall is a real thing, after all, and apparently you can forget your own star). And the sun has decided to hang low in the sky, like a bauble I can nearly reach.
The sun hanging like this, and the long shadows it causes to fall, is my favourite time of year. The weather it brings, and the harvest festivals, and the flavours (I'm already waste deep in pumpkin spice, and I didn't even like coffee until last month) are all the greatest. But the way the sun hugs the horizon most of the day, taking a lazy trip low into the sky.
In the courtyard, in the afternoon, there's no escape from the sun. The courtyard is under direct sun until it falls far enough that emergency itself provides shade, when the sky itself is exploding in colour, and maybe someday I'll take a sunset hidden like that, but these days I have a hallway I can share, and sometimes do.
These long shadows are nothing like the kilometer long shadows Tiny Marsh used to provide me. But they're still beautiful, and still remind me of the unknowable, unrecognizable part of everything. Of the little bit of unknown and spooky we love about the season. I think the harsh winter of. Elliot Lake would render my little courtyard too cold for all but the smokers, and spring the joy of sunshine and the plants recovering. But I shouldn't be seeing those. And that's fine, the geese and shadows returned to me one last time, and we accept our little blessings.
The Toronto Zoo is one of my partner, Alicia's, favourite places in the world. And over the course of our relationship, in the various forms it's taken, it's become one of mine as well.
As friends, it was a group outing we'd almost always both attend. Alicia, because she was the driving force behind nearly every zoo trip I ever went on. Me, because I went with the flow and an afternoon with friends and cool animals was always a delight. These trips were usually taken in the heat of the summer (now, as a zoo expert, I know know that summer is a fool's time to visit the zoo, it's full of children and the animals are all asleep, but, as groups, this is the time we had together).
Years later, and after many more trips, Alicia and my first real date was to the zoo. We knew we were a thing, of sorts, the day before. We'd had our conversation, started to define the nature of what we would be (which lasted about a month, before we realized we were just another romantic couple (attached, polyamourously, to another romantic couple, Alicia and her wife, Catherine)). That was the most memorable trip to the zoo I've ever taken, although I'll be damned if I remember much of the animal content of the trip. It was late August, 2018, it was hot, and the animals were all sleepy. The parrots were entertaining, monkeys rambunctious, and we drank so very much bluraspberry slushy (because we always did). The zoo membership discount was a compelling and silly argument to always have more, while the powerful daystar beating down upon us was a powerful and overwhelming argument in favour of hydration by that delicious fruitish flavoured drink.
The big cats are still an impressive sight in the heat of the sun. They're what I remember best from that trip. Basking all together, the lions especially retain their majesty and wonder more than most other animals, although a pack of wolves (which we did not see that day) can have similar effect. The tigers are somewhat less impressive, but sprawled out in the shade of their enclosures, but still radiate their beauty. Alicia and I are fundamentally cat people (even if I'm a pretty even split on dogs), observing the big cats do anything, even if it's as close to literally nothing as possible, is still a treat for us. Its an opportunity to pretend that our house cats are like the big cats. Thomasin is a Sumatran tiger, stalking the underbrush. Nemo, Alicia's cat (a sleek black house panther if there ever was one) is most like the clouded leopard, the way they both move through the trees (or bookcases, in Nemo's case) is similarly mesmerizing.
The zoo is a place that I will always think of as an us place, maybe even The Us Place, a place where we could always just be a couple. We haven't always been able to be out, career's and religion don't always agree with polyamory (or our bisexuality, but mercifully that was rarely a concern), but the zoo was far enough away from home that it was always safe to just be us, and to be an Us.
The zoo is Alicia's natural date location. A good date doesn't have to include the zoo, but a great date is going to have a targeted zoo visit. One where you pick a section and thoroughly explore it, planning things so you get to see a feeding (ideally the otters) and maybe a zookeeper talk. The whole zoo is too big for a day, and it took me a long time to realize this. The whole zoo is for tourists and families and school outings. A zoo date visits a third of the animals, then departs before you're too exhausted to enjoy a nice dinner.
Toronto has all the dinner options one could want, and we'd generally pick some nationality of food that's harder to get to in the Midland area, often stopping for dimsum before the zoo or whatever east Asian option struck our fancy as we were leaving. I generally did the legwork picking some restaurants so we'd have an easy time dealing with choice paralysis on the way home. We always ate well.
During the pandemic, these outings became how we saw each other. Which so much outside time, we didn't have to stress as hard about transmission. This became even more true after I got diagnosed with cancer and started chemotherapy. The outdoor portions let us be close, because I was always immunocompromised and Alicia is a primary school teacher. A difficult combination any time, but especially with covid-19 still surging. These outings are where we got to play pretend things were normal, and have our dates.
After the first round of chemo ended, and my surgery failed, we started taking a lot more risks. Zoo trips became more normal and frequent. We spent more time inside the pavilions, greenhouses and other indoor spaces. At the worst moment in my life, we had a special place to visit, to spend time at, and to enjoy the big cats and fatrounds. It took months before I was well enough to make the trip, but it was a highlight of that adventuring period in my life.
The Toronto Zoo did not start as a special place to me. I grew up too far away, it was a neat commercial I'd see on TV sometimes, on par with Marine Land and the occasional cross border ad for an American zoo or aquarium or African Lion Safari or similar. But it's a special place to me now, one of the most special and important in the world. Home to most of my favourite fatrounds, all of my favourite non-house-cats, and more memories than I'd care to count.
Of all the adventures I can no longer have, it's the one I'd jump at first for a do over. Fall's nearly here, the weather is just right for the large carnivores to be active, and soon Alicia will have a small break in her work schedule, just after report cards are in (school just started a week or two ago, but that's how school does), and we could have one more perfect little afternoon.
Tiny Marsh was my quiet piece of tranquility (except during hunting season) for near seven years. The Pond was round, crossed by two intersecting dikes, with a path they covered most of the circumference. Part of the circumference path had a boardwalk and lookouts. It was one of those perfect places in the world, maybe it could be improved, theoretically, but some of the real magic or the place would be lost in the transaction.
Tiny Marsh, more than any other place in southern Ontario is home to me, on an emotional level. It's where I'd go for a walk to clear my head (frequently after a unnecessarily convoluted drive to get there, because sometimes your head just needs that much of a clearcut). I recorded dozens of videos there, and until the Hospice videos started coming out was by far the most emotionally honest recording there vs home or my parents' place.
It's special. It contains real magic, the sort I've chased my whole life. It's not just the geese (although it is absolutely the geese, and their water fowl friends).
Around the east side, it has a small bunch of feral apples. Not the tastiest apples you've ever had for sure, but after all the walking you've done up to this point, they're exactly what you want. Round the west side there are lookouts, and a groundhog mountain (hill? wiser men have debated this). Sometimes you even see the little critters. But in the fall, what you do see are cascades of leopard frogs, bounding away from you with every step you take. If you're quick, maybe you can catch one, but why? Let them flow like water across the path, away from you in all directions. It's more beautiful this way.
We haven't even talked the turtles, foxes, rabbits, turkeys (and other land fowl). Or the green heron, strangest bird I've ever seen with my own eyes. We discussed swans, but not swans in the spring, singing to each other, or in the fall, calling out and learning to take off for their preposterous flights. We haven't talked the dark passages through the trees carved out by the paths, the strange bridges, drainage ditches, the carp and bass (maybe, I'm only good at identifying caught fish), the cat tails, reeds and sedges.
Tiny Marsh is a place of wild magics. I cannot share a story about it because they're all beautiful, but they bleed together. Like many things, sharing the details would spoil the whole. So I'll leave the exploration of these spaces up to you. Just be kind to the spaces, and talk with the geese. They love that.
Exciting new development: goosebumps so intense that they're nearly painful
James Petrosky: I'd be okay if it meant the geese would be my friends, but I don't think they'll care about my suffering
Join me as I walk the length of the main dyke at Tiny Marsh. We see sandhill cranes, great blue herons, swans, some ducks and geese and a whole lot of frogs.
The first half, we talk about the wildlife, the marsh, and stories I have about these creatures. On the way back, we talk about Meg 2: The Trench and other magnificently stupid movies.
This is shot with a head mounted camera, so the camera moves a lot and is shakier than is idea.
Cycle 5 Day 11
I visited the Toronto zoo with my partner today ❤️ It was a good day, but I learned how much by ability to produce and retain body heat has been affected.
Some additional photos (without me in them)
Gang, today I achieved a major life goal I didn't know I had until moments before achieving it: I honked at geese with a fork lift and had them honk back as they slowly waddled out of my way.