Feeling a pressing need to spend this Canada Day outside of the city, the Hero MD™ and I drove deep into the countryside outside of Toronto, first north to Kleinburg, in then west towards Georgetown, specifically Norval, then back north again to Orangeville and Camilla.
I've been most positively marked in my life by the countryside, first as a child in Switzerland, then on the exquisite Western prairies during my high school years, then later with the Hero MD™ when we lived in Milton, before it became the sprawling, sclerotic suburb community it has since become. In the countryside, my blood pressure drops. The absence of my fellow man is a balm like no other, and there is something ineffably soothing about the miles of farmlands, forests, and blue skies.
The silence of the countryside isn't merely aural; you can feel it in your soul. And in the oddest way, it roots me in my family's Ontario history—a history that was never emphasized by my father, but which came to me in later life, and with which I connect, like WiFi, whenever I'm outside the demanding, even oppressive forcefield of Toronto, which has been my home for 42 years now. I love my "home" cities, here and abroad. They make sense to me, and I can navigate them with joy and ease. But the countryside is who I am when I'm most still, and most myself.
Today was a perfect example of that. The fireworks outside the house will probably blast on for hours yet—thank God Beckett is too ancient to be bothered by them. But I checked in with my country, and my roots, hours ago, and had a Canada Day that made sense to me, whoever (if anyone) else it might have made sense to, or not. 
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