Lights out!

In a few hours, our lights are going out. I’m looking forward to it. Maybe that’s a perverse sort of anticipation, like chasing fire trucks or attending hangings. Light is usually associated with good, dark with bad.

Or maybe it’s sociological enquiry. How many people really will turn out their lights, or have already, as the earth turns enough to bring eight pm to their doorstep? What will be the effect on our social awareness of this experiment, the second annual Earth Hour?

Or maybe it’s the memory of that summer day, a couple of years ago, when all the lights went out. My partner and I were in Kingston Ontario, getting ready for the long drive home, and trying to order a pair of iced cappuccinos to go. We were disappointed that the machine had just stopped working. Before we could leave the shop, someone stuck their head in to tell the counter workers that the hydro trouble was all the way up the street. Fine, we shrugged, let’s get in the car.

As we made our way out of the small city, we noticed that the streetlights were out — all the way to the 401. So we turned west onto the highway, switched on the radio, and  tuned in to CBC. The power was out on both sides of the Lake.

It was 10 pm by the time we rolled into our own parking space. The streets of the neighbourhood were hot, black, and full of life. People sat on their stoops, steps, and balconies, chatting, drinking, enjoying the night with the glee of children let out of school on a snow day.

Five minutes to go! Turn off computer.

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Cuca and I stayed in while the rest of the family headed outside to observe Earth Hour. I  turned off the hall light after them. The sky was still denim blue; I felt unsettled. I took the cordless phone off its base to quell its annoying green light. I unplugged the microwave. I nearly reached up to take the battery out of the clock — if it was going to be dark, it was bloody well going to be quiet!

But quiet it was not to be, with two planes and a chopper circling the downtown, buzzing by the window every five or ten minutes. I boiled some water and made licorice tisane. With the dog out on the spree, I had the papasan chair to myself. I curled up in it with the warm cup and no book and buzzing surveillance and some fresh unsettling family knowledge that I may write about sometime or maybe not. The meditation gods were definitely against me.

I turned on the stove light long enough to dial the number, then switched it off again. Mum was home, sitting in the dark. I settled back into the papasan, and she told me some family history so I could better understand the family present, and after a while I forgot about the droning aircraft and the ticking clock.

When Fancy is Turning

I read someplace once that February 14 was chosen as a celebratory day for lovers because it was observed that in mid-February, songbirds start exhibiting mating behaviour. And indeed, on February 11 I saw, on one end of the fallen log that lies just inside the fence on the far side of the parkette in front of our building to the north, a bird. A male house sparrow he was, looking pretty small on that log, but proudly shaking his fanned tailfeathers like a peacock on espresso. “Here I am, ladies! Your chick magnet has arrived! Take a number!” I can vouch that in mid-February, the sight of that much cheery sex appeal brought a smile to more than one species.

Six weeks later, the filthy old snow is still ebbing from parks and soccer fields and front yards. The sidewalks are mostly clear, though, and poggles — oops, I mean Cai — and I can go walkies at a good clip now.

Since his leg owie, when he was limping from a pulled ligament, Cai has been learning to walk nicely on leash. That’s because Mummy dislikes pratfalls. So we’ve been going up street and through alley and along river, noting gradual changes as Spring comes to the city.

Some of these changes are happening throughout the province: the Red-winged Blackbirds, for example, are returning to the still-frozen ponds. (And now, thanks to the March 12 and March 24 entries of The Marvellous in Nature, I know what they’re eating!)

Other changes are distinctly urban. We’ve seen people hacking at the ice in their backyards and banishing winter over the fence. The other day, the storm sewers were full, flowing merrily merrily down the street. Bundle-buggies are out again in  full force.

Finally, there are changes  that belong to the Little World — the world of little creatures, or personal significance, or both. For instance, earlier this week, I went out for walkies without needing either mittens or four layers of shirt-and-sweater under my parka. On the way back, Cai and I surprised a female sparrow bathing in a real live puddle. (Maybe she was getting ready for a date with Mr. Espresso Peacock, who knows?) Today, I saw a baby’s mitten placed on a fence picket, resembling a tiny pink cactus, and it looked out of place.

And yesterday, fresh in from walkies, we heard a familiar yipping in the back field. Cai looked up in barklove (thanks for the phrase, Aged Cat!), and I said sure, we’d go out again. It was his best friend, the little Jack Russell from the next building. With the combination of lousy weather and his play restrictions, Cai hadn’t seen her for a few weeks. We went out to say hello, and there was the JR, racing around all nudie, freed at last from her faux-sheepskin jacket.