We fly home this evening. West across the Canadian Shield. West across the prairies towards the rugged ridges of the Rockies that line the horizon, and, as one rancher said, “block the view”.

The view here at the edge of the lake is peaceful. Grey on white clouds spread themselves across the sky, drifting aimlessly by. The lake ripples where bugs flit and fish jump to catch them. A Bluejay calls from the feeder and a chipmunk chatters in a tree.

We are flying home.

Yesterday, Andrew took the ‘younger women’ on a boat ride down the lake, through the narrows into Madawaska River. As we drifted slowly down the placid channel, his brother, Conrad, appeared on his SeaDoo and invited me to climb on. I ditched my compatriots in the boat and climbed aboard.

What a blast! We sped across the surface of the lake, water pluming behind us. The sun was red hot. The water wet and refreshing against my face where it sprayed up to hit me. We sped down the river to the far end where two dams block the flow, creating energy for the valley. Back again, up the river, under the bridge in Combermere, through the channel and out into the wide open lake where the wind had picked up and the waters were choppy.

“A miracle is when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A miracle is when one plus one equals a thousand.”
― Frederick Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace

Yesterday was a day of miracles and wonder. A day where doing the math added up to a whole lot of magic.

From skimming across the lake on a SeaDoo to walking barefoot across a blanket of pine needles into the forest to spy into a birchbark hut some unknown wayfarer created years ago in the quiet of the sheltering pines, to laughing and chatting amidst a group of friends celebrating the birthday of someone dear, to sitting on a dock with the delightful 12 year old granddaughter of the ‘birthday boy’ kicking the water with our feet and blowing bubbles from a giant wand to watch them float effortlessly down towards the water, it was a day of miracles and wonder.

And when it seemed it couldn’t get anymore full, we drove back from the birthday party in the silky darkness, down the dirt road towards the cottage, the trees pressing in on either side. As we reached the meadow that spreads out at the corner, just before we turn along the lake shore, we spied a deer standing at the side of the road. I turned off the lights and we sat in the dark watching her move slowly to the other side.

And that’s when we spied them.

Fireflies. Hundreds of them. Tiny bubbles of light shimmering in the darkness of the meadow beside the car, floating on the night air.

We sat breathless, our eyes wide as we watched the magic of their flight. Slowly, lights still off, I drove forward. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

When we returned to the cottage we were all still buoyed up by the beauty of what we’d witnessed. We sat and chatted and shared a glass of wine and laughed and spoke of the wonder of what we’d seen.

And then, we four ladies decided it was time. A new day had just been born and it was time to celebrate with one last dip into the lake. Shedding our clothes and donning robes, we traipsed down to the dock, turned out the flashlight and dove in.

Above us the stars littered the sky, a blanket of twinkling lights cast across the black velvet night like diamonds on a jeweller’s cloth. We found the Big Dipper and its brother. Cassiopeia. Aries. And a host of constellations we could not name all danced above us, their brilliance slipping in and out of the Milky Way that reached far and wide.

But even the light of the constellations could not dim the joyful sparkle of the fireflies that flit about us, skimming across the water.

These are the days of miracles and wonder.

We fly home today. Back to where my daughter is still displaced from her apartment. Back to where people are still digging out from the debris of a flood that swept the everyday happenings of my city away. Bact to where the Stampede goes on “Come Hell or High Water” in defiance of Mother Nature’s blast. Back to where my home calls me to return and be once more at peace.

We fly home and with me I carry memories of wedding vows and time with family. Of connecting once again with good friends, old and new. Of laughter and joy and relaxing in the sun. Of rain showers falling in the night, of chipmunks chattering and leaves rustling with the stories of the breeze.

And the magic of fireflies reminding me that there’s nothing to fear in the dark when I open my eyes to the miracles all around.

I have always wanted to visit Bancroft, Ontario. Don’t know why. It is just a name of a town (pop. 3,700) that sits on a map somewhere near Ottawa, a forty-minute drive from Barry’s Bay where we are spending the week.

Yesterday, I got my wish. C.C. and I traveled to Bancroft to check it off my list of ‘places I must visit.’

As far as picturesque or artsy or interesting goes, Bancroft doesn’t rate high on the list. Highway 60 drives into the main street, running for two blocks along the York River before forking, east and south. There’s a playhouse that has a full summer theatre playlist, a McDonald’s, DQ and at the far, far end of downtown, a Canadian Tire. And, there’s the IDA drugstore where I experienced a first when stopping to buy a can of bug spray.

“Are you 60?” the woman behind the cash register tentatively asked as she rang in the sale.

I think the look of consternation on my face confirmed her trepidation in asking me the question. “No!” I promptly and vehemently replied. “But he is,” and I pointed at C.C. who was standing a few feet away. (My motto – always deflect when faced with confusion, bad news or simply the truth!)

“She’s always throwing me under the bus,” he jokingly replied, graciously accepting that his age got us the ‘Senior’s Discount’ on the day.

“I’m heartbroken,” I told him over a late lunch at the MIrrors Inn on Lake Paudash, a beautiful waterside restaurant 15 kilometres south of Bancroft. “It finally happened. I’m looking my age.” Oh, that and the fact, I qualified for a senior’s discount.

Ok. Well not quite. My birthday is in December — that’s when I qualify officially for senior’s discounts for the under 65 set. Until then, I can keep throwing C.C. under the bus.

Perhaps that’s why I finally did go to Bancroft — to be reminded of the necessity for humility in my life.

I have been feeling sensitive about my upcoming birthday. Sensitive and somewhat leary. I have always loved my birthday. Always celebrated every age with gusto. But 60 sounds so much older than anything I’ve been before — and it is. It’s a brand new decade and obviously, as I discovered yesterday, a brand new opportunity to experience ‘senior’s moments.’ But, I have been pushing back against the fact my birthday is one of those ‘marker events’ this year. Pushing back against the inevitable — and obviously visible — pull of time to draw me foward into another decade.

Time to let my resistance go. Time to celebrate that this age isn’t about getting older, it’s about celebrating all that I’ve experienced, and learned, upon this journey. It’s about acknowledging that with age comes wisdom, and in my wisdom, I am blessed to know life isn’t about what happened in the past, or even how much past there is to remember (or forget). It’s all about making the most of what is happening now and cherishing what is.

What is true for me today is that I have an amazing life. How blessed am I!

I am loved. I love. Deeply. Passionately. Completely. I have family and friends whom I cherish and who cherish me. I have work that fulfills me, that calls to my heart, mind and soul. I have the freedom to express myself creatively, however I choose because I live in a country in which freedom is a way of life. A country in which freedom of the individual to speak, act, do and be is at the foundation of what it means to be Canadian.

I am free.

I went to Bancroft yesterday. It wasn’t a red letter day or even by any stretch of the imagination. But it was fun. I got to spend it with the man I love, experiencing time for just the two of us to connect, to enjoy, to cherish each other.

And it was a day to remember — I’m only as old as I think.

Which means, I get to re-think turning sixty. I think I’ll make it, turning wisety — old enough to know, wisdom doesn’t grow on trees, it grows through age. And I’ve got the years to prove it!

And in the meantime, until that day in December when I can officially say, “I’m wisety”, I’ll just keep throwing C.C. under the bus. He won’t mind. He loves me!

“I was already searching,” Viva, our guide of the Madonna House, tells us when asked what made her choose to join the Apostolate community in Combermere. It was 1985. Guessing her to be in her late 60’s, I wonder what drew a 40-something woman to the monastic life. The same thing that calls people today, she later tells me. God.

It is what she finds most appealing, satisfying, nourishing about living such a communal lifestyle — knowing she is living God’s purpose for her amidst 100+ others walking the same path.

It is no small decision to live this way. It takes a period of discernment, For Viva, 9 years. You begin as a trainee and then, after two years, commit to the promise of — Poverty. Chastity. Obedience. — at which time you become a novitiate. Throughout the following years, there are many chances to commit to the promises, and to have your faith challenged, until you know, throughout your entire being, that this is the life God has called you to live.

Poverty. Chastity. Obedience.

These are the three commitments at the foundation of the Madonna House Apostolate. Founded in 1947 by Catherine de Hueck Doherty, who came to the Combermere area with her husband to retire, the Madonna House Apostolate are a community of

‘lay men, lay women, and priests, united in Christ to form a community of Gospel love and expressing this love in the works of the Apostolate.
Living the Gospel. Evangelizing through our everyday lives. Serving in hospitality and availability.
We are pilgrims…traveling in poverty to find security only in Christ… journeying in chastity to love and serve Christ in every person… living in obedience to be concerned only with God’s will… belonging too the Catholic Church and faithful to its teachings.” (from the Madonna House Apostolate brochure.)

For an hour Viva leads Ursula, Tamara, Renata and I through the beautiful grounds and orchards of the community, sharing its history and its present day, her gentle sweet voice as melodic as the birdsong that emanates from on high in the mighty pines that stand sentinel in the forest. We cross a wooden slat bridge, ‘that Catherine walked every day’ Viva tells us, through a swampy bog where a bullfrog croaks and dragonflies flit with abandon. The sweet, succulent smell of honeysuckle and pine embraces us, the warm moist air tickles our skin.

It is peaceful. Calm. Meditative.

We walk through the forest at the edge of the water into a clearing where two tiny cabins sit, surrounded by towering pines, one at each side of the clearing. The smaller cabin was where Catherine lived when illness began to steal her away from the daily happenings of the community. Eventually, it became her spiritual advisor’s abode when she moved into the larger, one room cabin on the other side of the clearing. It is here that she spent her final years. It is here she wrote and read and prayed. It is here she died on December 14, 1985 after a long illness. It is here her spirit was reunited with her God, the God to whom she had devoted her life, and her life’s work, to celebrate and honour with every breath she took.

Like the faith that held her up, the room is sparse, simple, modest. It is not a faith of gold and gilt and ornamentation. It is a faith from deep within her soul. A faith that continues to inspire her community of Apostolates to give up their worldly goods and walk amongst us serving however they can to ensure the poor of the world receive the care they need.

I took a walk in the woods yesterday. I wandered the orchards and gardens of a place where God speaks softly and sweetly through the hearts of those who have made the commitment to follow His path through their commitment to Poverty. Chastity. Obedience.

I was moved. Touched. Inspired.

I felt my heart widen. I felt my breath deepen. I felt Love embrace me with every step I took deeper into the mystery and beauty of this place that transcended the every day happenings of my world and transported me to a time and place where God lives in the hearts of all.

I am sitting in the screened in porch, looking out over the lake. It is raining today, a soft sultry rain that lays moist against the earth. A gentle breeze whispers to the leaves stories of the places its been, the things its seen through its travels. I watch the raindrops spit against the surface of the lake, the birds become quiet in the rain.

I am peaceful.

Yesterday, I went swimming. I was surprised.

Normally, C.C. and I journey here in October. It is usually one of our friends last weeks at the lake house before returning to Calgary in time for the winter season. Usually, the lake is ice cold and I am the only one braving (the locals call it ‘crazy’) its waters. Usually, I leap in, gasp and scream and curse the frigidness of the water and flail about for a few brief strokes before racing for the ladder at the end of the dock. It is exhilarating. Refreshing. Renewing. And it is cold. It makes me laugh and scream and dance about. It makes me feel alive.

From the frigid waters to the house is a hundred feet and I cross it fast to find comfort in the steam room which I’ve ensured is nice and hot before I enter the waters.

It is my ritual every day we are here in the autumn and while I pretend it is excruciatingly cold, I love it.

Yesterday, the waters were welcoming. Not hot. Not cold. Welcoming. Silky smooth against my skin, they felt like butter melting on warm cinnamon toast, buoying me up with their velvety arms as I swam out from shore towards the middle of the lake.

It was relaxing, refreshing, renewing.

And when I climbed up the ladder to the dock, I lay against the warm wooden slats and let the sun soak into my skin, the air caress my legs as the conversation of C.C. and Renate and Tamara (our hosts two grown daughters) wafted around me. There was no place to get to. No need to be. Nowhere to go. There was only there, in that place where I was in the moment of experiencing the beauty and wonder all around me.

Later, after dinner, we wandered down to the dock and sat in the evening light. Pink gauzy clouds floated above, their reflection drifting lazily across the water’s surface. Two loons bobbed in the bay, a turtle slid across a rock and splashed into the water.

We laughed and joked and Tamara and Renata shared stories of the people on the lake, this lake where they have spent their childhoods and grown roots and run along the shore and swam in the waters and water-skiied and bbq’ed and snuck a kiss with a boy behind the barn and stared up into the star-filled sky late into the night. This lake that has witnessed the years pass from childhood delights to grown-up angsts and joys and moments to remember. This lake that has been a silent witness to the seasons passing. This lake that has, as Renata called it, ‘the taste of home’.

Eventually, the evening bugs began to thicken and the others walked back up to the house. Unwilling to let a moment slip away without my tasting of its treasures, I sat alone upon the dock and watched the sky turn from cerulean to indigo. A lone star peeked out from night’s blanket until I finally had to accede to the critters flitting all around. Bidding the night adieu, I let go of savouring the night and slowly walked back up towards the house.

Another day was done beside the lake, and my soul is soaking up the joy of having to be nowhere but exactly where I am, luxuriating in summertime at the edge of the water.

And I wonder. What if… I could carry the luxury of my soul into the city? What if amidst the concrete and the traffic noise, I let myself fall into the waters calling me to take a breath, to sit quietly at the end of the day and simply be present? What if, I expand my senses to embrace the memory of that moment, sitting at the edge of the water, feeling the night settling around me to allow myself to simply become, present where ever I am?

What if all I need to feel myself present to the world around me already is within me?

What if, I never need to go away to find myself where I’m at?

(ps — my little device that let’s me transfer photos from my iphone to ipad is not working. I’m going to work on getting photos posted so you too can savour the beauty of the moment with me)