Melting

When I was fourteen, we lived for a year in North York, just off Bathurst Street, a little south of Steeles Avenue.  In those days, Steeles Avenue marked the northern edge of Toronto.  I could ride my bike north a few blocks to Steeles and cross from the city into farm fields over the distance of an intersection.  But it wasn't the farmland north of the city that most drew my attention; it was the river valley just a hundred yards to the west.

I didn't know, in those days, that it was the Don River.  To me, it was just a winding, unnamed creek, bordered by tall grass, in a broad empty valley.  We arrived in late summer from Rhode Island, where my father had been posted on exchange with the US Navy.  My brother and I almost immediately identified the river valley as a place where we could ride our bikes.  A network of packed dirt trails crisscrossed the valley, with one steep hill to tempt us.  The grassy slopes hummed with life, and it was there that I first came across a praying mantis, as I lay back one day in the thatch, hidden from the world.

In the autumn, the grass died back, school began and our attention turned to other places.  Through the winter, we visited the valley only occasionally with our sleds.  And then, one Saturday in March, the sun felt warmer, the air smelled moist and rich, and I could hear the sound of running water everywhere:  melting on the roofs and dripping from the eaves. Running in rivulets along the pavement, and trickling into storm sewers.

I walked down to the river valley, along the stub of road where our homes ended and someone else's homes were to be built, across a field and down the muddy trail into the valley.  These days, I suppose, we would tell our children to avoid the creek in the Spring, when the water runs high and fast.  But I found it wondrous.  The winter's snow and ice had pressed the thick grass into dense, reedy waves, like a bad toupee or a old man's comb-over.  Ice and snow still clung to the banks of the creek, where the high, rushing water had carved it into glistening sculptures.  The sound of spring, and the smell of the fecund earth rising from dormancy filled my head.

I visited the valley again on my last trip to Toronto.  I remembered the way -- or thought that I did -- but passed the old trail several times without recognizing it, until I realized that it bore no resemblance to the place that I'd known.  The surrounding neighborhood and homes came as no surprise.  They were under construction when I left.  But the valley itself had been transformed.  Where the dirt track had run through long grass across the open valley to the creek, an asphalt bike trail now ran down into a forest, which hid the creek entirely from view.  I felt as though I'd found a favourite childhood toy lying discarded in the mud.

I shouldn't have been surprised.  As part of my work, I encourage and facilitate the restoration of valleyland and riparian forests.  But I can't believe that spring brings to the new forest the same magic, the same obvious release from winter encasement, displayed by that open landscape under a warm spring sky.

All of which leads me to say that (despite yesterday's snowfall), I've been hearing the same sounds of melting around me the past few days.  I can imagine Bearbrook overflowing its bare, grassy banks east of the City, with the geese gathering in their thousands, and flocks of snow buntings gathering for the migration back north.  I believe that the time has come for a short excursion, if I can find the time this weekend (amidst the packing for our move on the 1st).