Irving has decided to haul me, kicking and screaming, back to New Hampshire for another week of hiking forest trails in the White Mountain National Forest, forcing me to enjoy myself with him and Jackie and Jillie, exploring those long-familiar trails that always delight us with their seasonal changes. I knew it was coming, he has the soul of a restless adventurer. When we were a young family, he always had trips planned for us. Guess we were just born 'outdoor people'.

Some of my earliest memories as a child were of feeling right at home in green spaces, and though I wouldn't as an infant know them as city parks, something within always drew me to them. Not entirely unusual for any child. When Irving and I were just into our teens, our idea of enjoying a perfect day together would be to wander through a park. At that time, the park of our choice was the distance to travel to Toronto's High Park.

Smaller, neighbourhood parks would do in a pinch. And when we became parents to a brood of three young children, no weekend would be complete without venturing off to the then-newly established nature preserves that Toronto inherited when it bought out surrounding farmland, transforming them into what was then called conservation areas. Often, bringing the children there for an afternoon of sun and picnics, we'd be the only people there.

Well, that was then, this is now, 60 years and a lifetime later. Now, we have the great good fortune to have a comfortable home in another city that values its green spaces. And even more fortunate to be able to leave our house, walk up the street of a populous city suburb and enter a forested ravine where we have easy access to miles of hiking trails running through the larger community.

There too, we enjoy the fascination of witnessing seasonal changes in the forest. There's much to be said for exploring different places with some basic similarities, but a different terrain. Even Jackie and Jillie respond to such changes, becoming more energetic and curious and anxious to look around at new, unfamiliar places offering the same kind of green comfort they look forward to being treated to on a daily basis closer to home.

 

Being close to and within nature for periods of time is an enriching experience, personally valuable as a temporary reprieve from the pressures and sameness of urban life. We know this because Jackie and Jillie have patiently explained it to us time and again; our two little mentors in quality living.

Irving was busy again this morning, tending once again to the physically taxing job of clearing away detritus that has gathered over the years and vegetation that has grown in close proximity to the fence and behind the two garden sheds in our backyard. So for him it was relief to break off and leave more of the same for another day, and get ourselves off into the ravine.

It's a kind of social event, in some ways, encountering others in the same mindframe, seeking serenity in nature, treating their companion dogs to the carefree opportunity to wander about the woods, take a cooling dip into the creek, indulge in a temporary absence when discovering the Cookie Man's presence, and racing over to quietly await the ritual of fumbling for the cookie bag and doling out the cookies.