My Ontario Summer

Hello lovely blog people.  I am in a strange mixture of moods today.  On the one hand, I am absolutely giddy with the knowledge that in a week's time, I will be on a plane to Ontario for two weeks holidays at my Aunt and Uncle's Cottage on Kosh Lake.  On the other, I am in an intense amount of physical pain, as the wicked sunburn I so idiotically procured on Monday has turned into a super sensitive minefield of aching and agony.  OW!  Its so bad that I had to call in sunburnt to work today.  Its like its penetrated into my muscles.  BUT THAT'S OK BECAUSE I'M GOING TO THE COTTAGE IN A WEEK!

Which brings me to the subject of today's blog!  Last Christmas, I gave my aunt and uncle a collection of literature that reminds me of the cottage.  I wrote it all out on pretty paper and bound it with ribbon, and it probably made me more happy making it then anybody gets reading it.  But hey, I'm a lit-nerd, and thats what happens.  I thought that in preparation for my annual cottage trip, I'd share some of those selections here!

Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

I first came across this lovely story sequence in my Engl 222 course, Canadian Literature.  We studied "The Marine Excursion of the Knights of Pythias" and I adored it to no end.  Leacock's entire work is centred on the fictional town of Mariposa, that is loosely based on his home town in Northern Ontario, and also incredibly alike to the small town feel at Lake Kasshbog.  So I obviously love it.  This particular short story that we read in class is about one of those New Orleans style boats- you know, the ones with the windmill type thing on the back?  Anyways, they take one of those out on the lake, practically the whole town is on board, and they get stuck out in the middle and have to paddle themselves to safety, singing the Canadian National Anthem all the way.  Its adorable.  And AMAZINGLY the whole thing is available online for free!!!

A.J.M. Smith's "The Lonely Land"

Yet again a find from my Canadian Lit class, this poem is straight-up Canadian landscape and has the word 'spume' in it.  In one of the epic scrabble showdowns that grace the shores of Kosh Lake every summer, my Aunt Marci played this word, and nobody believed her that it was real.  I can't remember if it cost her a win or not,  but a large deal was made of it.  So when I came across the word the following September, we all felt pretty bad.  The closing line of the poem is also quite wonderful: 

This is the beauty

of strength

broken by strength

and still strong.

 Loves it!

William Butler Yeats' "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"

Choir kids, you'll love this one!  Mr. Horning associates this poem with hitchhiking, and I think that is dumb.  I mean, I guess that technically everyone is welcome to interpret poetry as they see fit, but I think he tends to forget that the "While I stand on the roadway or on the pavements gray" line, is preceded by "...for always night and day/ I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore/" and is followed by "I hear it in the deep heart's core" (Beautiful, by the way, WB my man).  So when I sing this line, I think of the way that I constantly have the cottage on my mind, wherever I am, and that I can't wait to get back there.  Once you've heard lake water lapping, you can't go back. 

There are more, but my back is on fire, and I have to go put a facecloth soaked in peppermint tea on it and lie still for a while.

Next up, I believe, will be another Seamus Heaney poem, that will be perfect for the 38 degree weather I'll be heading into next week (SUCKAAAAAAAAAS!)

Weird things happened to the font/font size of this blog.  Oh well.

See you soon Kosh!