August 2, 2016
Destination Bookshop: Lighthouse Books in Brighton, Ontario
Yesterday we rolled out of Presqu’ile Provincial Park after three feral days in wilderness, dirt-laden, mosquito-bitten, sick of marshmallows and stinking of outhouse. We decided to stop in the nearby town of Brighton, Ontario, for some ice cream and a sweet hit of air-conditioning, and I promise you that what I absolutely was not expecting as we walked along the main street was to find a bookshop. Nobody believed me when I told them that either, but I swear it’s true. And the bookshop was just closing, the owner flipping around the sign when she saw us walking by—it was a Holiday Monday and they’d stayed open from 10-2. And then they proceeded to stay open just a little while longer while Stuart picked up the new Harry Potter and while he was paying for it, the children discovered tiny hedgehog stuffed toys and as Harriet is a hedgehog maniac, we had to have one, and while all that was transpiring, it was dawning on me that this was a truly exceptional bookstore—incredible selection, a wonderful spotlight on Canadian titles, lovely displays, and a friendly, knowledgeable owner—so it was clear that I would have to get a book as well.
I mean, check out these books—so so good. And then Harriet told the owner how she’s been obsessed with hedgehogs ever since Anakana Schofield came to visit and brought her a toy one, and the owner said, “Well, at least she didn’t bring you Martin John,” and we got to talking about how great that book is and also about how one has to be careful who one recommends it to. And then she told us how much she liked Neil Gaiman’s The View From the Cheap Seats, and now I’m sort of sorry I didn’t buy that book, but I’m not sorry that the one I did get was Carol Shields’ Startle and Illuminate.
Lighthouse Books is totally worth the drive to Brighton, which is a pretty little town just two hours east of Toronto (and worth stopping in at on the way to Prince Edward County too). Presqu’ile is minutes away with its gorgeous beaches and hiking trails, and downtown Brighton features great stops for tea and coffee, lunches and ice cream. Both times we’ve been, we’ve had ice cream at Mrs. B’s Country Candy, where they make their own gelato.
The bookstore, which is owned by Kathryn and Dan Corbett, is open from Tuesday to Saturday, 930-530. You can find out more about them on their Facebook page.
August 1, 2016
Getaway
It was such a relief to get away this weekend, to leave the world behind by actually venturing deeper into it. Like many people, I’ve found the last two months incredibly upsetting, and while instances of violence and carnage are inevitable in this global atmosphere of decisive, angry and hateful political rhetoric, that it all makes sense doesn’t make the awfulness any easier to process. I have particularly found the “breaking” nature of violent events unfolding difficult to deal with—clicking on Twitter hashtags to find out what unthinkable thing has been thought of now and then having to filter tweets by racists, nitwits, and conspiracy theorists. Putting the pieces together in the absence of real information and analysis. It’s hurting my brain. A few nights I was served very well by turning off social media altogether after 6pm—whatever horrible thing unfolds tonight, I told myself, I will read about it in the newspaper in the morning.
But this weekend we got away altogether, three days of camping and no WiFi and it was so relaxing and freeing. To consider too that this moment, this place, this quiet solitude with my people is just as real, and important, and vital for me to pay attention to, to witness, as anything else that’s happening in the world. To just be in the world to, immersed in nature. The trees, the bugs, the birds, the dirt, the wide sandy beach, and that huge huge sky.
I read the two-day-old paper this morning before the campfire and considered how much I like receiving news this way. How much good it does me. (I loved Marsha Lederman’s column, “In a World Gone Mad, The Arts Matter More Than Ever.”) And the only other thing I read this weekend (except for an ARC of the new Louise Penny novel, which is her very best yet since the exceptional How the Light Gets In!!!) was headlines from a newspaper from last August, which I found in the bottom of our box of camping stuff, saved for starting fires. Articles about Mike Duffy, when Steven Harper was Prime Minister. It read as though it were from another world, and it was. Not necessarily a more innocent one either, although Jo Cox was still an obscure MP and Donald Trump a fringe candidate. But Rob Ford was alive and Chris Alexander a cabinet minister, so it goes to show that you never can tell.
I took comfort from packing up pieces of Saturday’s paper with my matches and collapsible bowl, and imagining what we might make of it in another year’s time. When we’re back in nature whose very nature is a constant, even though it isn’t really—we walked through a marshland today, and learned how sediment sweeping from the lake will one day render it solid ground. Everything is always changing, and very often in ways that we’ve never imagined. The universe has still not lost its capacity to surprise us. Always, always, there is grounds for hope, as well as humour and heart and faith in goodness.
