In the Wee Small Hours: Relay for Life 2009.

Sitting here with my tea, (mmm), drying out (?), casting my mind back over last evening (into morning) and the highlights of Relay 2009.

Here goes, in no particular order…

As Sally headed to her car for home, I yelled out, “Ya know, it was above and beyond - your coming at all.”

Sally’s answer:

“Oh, Shut Up!” (It might have been the pain talking.)

Leslie, stifling gales of laughter, telling me the hood of my stunning two piece rain suit (circa 1918) gave me an “interesting shaped head.” When I glimpsed myself after in the bathroom mirror (and regaled in horror) I can only ask that everyone who critiques me is as forgiving as she.

In the wee hours my asking the teammies assembled in the tent in the wee hours “Who would like a song?” This question was followed by, oh, roughly 14 minutes of unadulterated silence (in fact it’s the first time I’ve heard crickets in the pouring rain), only broken by the sound of Donna asking, uneasily, from under her Shetland wool parka, sounding a trifle less than thrilled, “Are you gonna sing?”

In my sleep-deprived stupor did I actually shout out “That’s bullshit” to the tent behind us when they complained about our making noise?

Just checking...

He had us at Sundown.

Textbook weather for Gordon’s concert this evening: rain-slicked streets, brisk winds, typical moody November’s eve.

His band was minimalist, as is his wont. To wit, lead guitar, bass, drummer, keyboards, and himself. All in their 60’s, minimum. I’ve seen a couple of them before.

Gord struts out – on the stroke of 8, of course -- to thunderous applause, seeming still a little shy and embarrassed by it all, amazingly. (He even joked about the night before how, because of the city’s subway breakdown he’d had to start eight minutes later. Eight whole minutes. Oh the horror, he said. And we all knew he was only half kidding.

Opened with Did She Mention My Name? Closed with Blackberry Wine. In between, everything from If You Could Read My Mind to A Painter Passing Through.

The crowd was quiet (save for the one requisite (by now) shout of “We love you, Gord!”), very attentive (dare I say, Canadian?), reflective, appreciative, almost conspiratorial, you know that feeling Gord (and Gord alone) inspires in hometown crowds? It was so obvious everyone there was delighted to see him back onstage for another go.

Yes, he is frail, ravaged, bone thin, and easily looks his age (71). Actually, he looks like any of a dozen down on their luck guys who used to hang around (seemingly in rotation) outside the Wellington Hotel when I was a child living downtown above Robinson’s Hardware store. His voice wavers and falters from time to time and he whispers when he should shout, but no matter. His spirit is fully intact. His delivery is so evocative, so exquisite, he reminds you with each outing that he is the one who wrote the stuff – that no one gets it like he does -- and no one, of any age or stage, will ever do it better. Michael Buble, take a seat. And be quiet.

Yes, we did hear a few pins drop, especially during Song for a Winter’s Night. (He never does that and it was transcendent.) His rendition of Step Back (one of my top five of his) was rollicking, what a great tune that is, (but watch the southern Ontario males not move to it!) and then he headed into Early Morning Rain. Ahhhh.

Let it go,/ Let it happen like it happened once before… from the song Shadows. Another special moment. This one in particular brought to mind Dylan’s comment about him: “Whenever I hear a Gordon Lightfoot song, I hope it never ends.”

His banter with the crowd was so relaxed, so unscripted, he charmed the boots off all of us. (Maybe even those males?) Riffed about writing songs on airplanes, the perfect place he says, the juxtaposition of stars above, cities below... getting his “shoulders lowered” as a boy at the town barber shop in Orillia, and his joy at being “home” and playing for us again.

A gentleman, pure and simple. And a poet non pareil. By the end, he even makes you believe those lustrous words:

“Everything will be fine by and by.”


"The fire is dying now, my lamp is growing dim
The shades of night are liftin'
The morning light steals across my windowpane
Where webs of snow are driftin'
If I could only have you near
To breathe a sigh or two
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
Upon this winter night with you.”

Going Off the Grid.

I was asked the other day if I had ever considered “going off the grid.”

I am still laughing. Granted, it’s a hysterical laugh because the mere thought of moving off the grid leaves me shaken.

The person asking me this is what the current culture would term a survivor – ie. a survivor in the outdoor, who needs pesky running water, I can start a fire inside a sleeping bag in a rainstorm kind of a person. And indeed she has been completely off the grid for longer than I have been wearing nail tips.

Propane factors heavily in her life as do multiple layers of clothing in winter and hypothermia. I told her that not only had I never considered going off the grid but that I may even be considered married to the grid in some cultures. I know it’s a close call as to which I value more, my husband’s affection or an indoor toilet. Just don’t make me choose.

She said there were two types of people and when she said this I knew it wasn’t going to be flattering to me. Don’t ask how I knew that: I just did. She said the first type could be dropped off naked in the forest and feel comfortable. The other type, well, the other type wouldn’t. Feel comfortable, I mean.

I clarified for her that not only would I feel uncomfortable but that even entertaining the concept was causing me to take short, gasping breaths. I told her that I didn’t feel comfortable naked in my own shower at home, but I don’t think she believed me.

She said we have too many possessions and that we are plastic people. I had several reactions to that, all unspoken. The expression plastic people is so 1979 I can’t even begin. And yes, of course we have too many possessions. Blah, blah. Just stay away from my itemized, alphabetized shoe closet.

She said I had to be prepared to do without, that the time is coming when we’ll all be forced to live by our wits and eat berries and wash our hair with lichen.

I asked her what lichen was and then assured her that if we go apocalyptic, she’d be the first person I’d call.