By Lucy

I only slept a couple of hours before I had to get up.

I didn’t want to sleep in too much – it would make it harder to switch off midnights – but I also had an appointment at the local float tank place.

First – to unpack my car. I’d fallen asleep in the clothes I drove home in. I made myself a quick breakfast from the leftovers from the hotel fridge.

Two people have moved out since I left a couple of weeks ago. The one room is next to the bathroom, and as I walked by I glanced in and noticed the desk in this room is much bigger than mine currently is. I wondered if I could hear the toilet through the wall, if I switched.

My landlord was outside, and he was pleased as punch that I was back. He’s going to be inconsolable when I move out. I asked him about a room swap and he said he hadn’t had it sterilized yet, but I was more than welcome to try it out and let him know. He was also concerned about the mattress cover, but I could probably just swap mattresses. They’re all the same sized bed. I’ll have to get someone to check sound-proofness with me. He also offered that I could check out the other room upstairs.

I’m a big fan of hydrotherapy. I roll my eyes at a lot of woo, but I think this is harmless; just spending a little extra on a fancy bath to pamper myself. I am still annoyed that the city with the largest population of Finnish people outside Finland has no Nordic spas, but they do have a float tank and that’s alright.

Broadly, a float tank is a tank filled with a foot or less of water, hyper saturated with Epsom salts. There’s lots of interest in its ability to treat anxiety, but I actually find it provokes anxiety in me. I’m pretty good at meditating, and the enforced meditation of the tank makes me anxious. The tanks at the place in Barrie were proper sensory deprivation tanks; a steel vault with a door that sealed shut and felt like you were being buried alive. The place here has these fancy little clamshell tanks that don’t quite block out all light and sound, but I don’t care for the sensory deprivation aspect so that’s alright with me! The increased buoyancy of the water means you don’t need to flex any muscles and the Epsom salts draw lactate out of your body – like a bath, but turned up to eleven. It doesn’t matter how sore I’ve been from work, an hour in a float tank always leaves me feeling like a million bucks.

The lady at the desk recognized me despite the seven months since I’ve been there and the hair changes, which was interesting.

After I’d finished my session, I went to K’s house to grab my new birth certificate and certificate of name change!

I’m Lucy. For real. It happened!

Cue dancing!

The first place I went was the union hall. I bet the clerk was gonna have a million questions about why I changed my name, the name I picked, and the couple of weeks in Dryden, and talking with her is fun!

There was a bunch of trucks in the parking lot when I got there. Must be some training classes going on. Some of the guys gave me odd looks – lil’ old me with my lil’ old car.

As I walked into the door, my heart dropped into my stomach.

Guess who was standing at the counter?

Her eyes flicked over to me, signaling to him that someone was behind him and coming up to the counter. He turned to look at me, half-smiling, no doubt guessed it was me because who else walks that quietly?

“Hey, Lucy.”

“Lucy?” The clerk said, confused.

Surely, I am cursed. What are the odds we’d be here at the same time?

“Yeah, umm… I changed my name.” I unfolded the certificate and handed it across the counter to her.

“Wow, did you ever!” She said, noting that I changed all three of my names. “I’m going to go photocopy this, I’ll be back!”

Something about this felt wrong. What should have been a triumphant declaration of my new identity was now tainted by him, leaning on the counter, staring at me with his coal-black eyes. He engaged me in small talk and I felt I had no choice but to chat back, barely able to glance in his direction.

I fled as soon as the paperwork was done, without trying to chat with the clerk.

My next stop was ServiceOntario. The poor clerk’s eyes popped out of her head (all three names!), and it was several forms of paperwork. When she told me I had to sign my new name and it would appear on my new driver’s license that way, it hit me again. I had reached the point of unintelligible signature scribble that most adults seem to have, with my old name, and now I would be starting anew. She also had me take a new photo, which was excellent when my hair was wet and uncombed from the float tank, and I was sporting raccoon eyes from the almost 24 hours I had been awake. Oh well.

I went home and had some lunch and took a brain break from all the running around doing paperwork. Actually, I just gave up for the day. Around 7 I went to sleep.

I woke up at 10:30 and glanced out the window of the vacated room.

Holy cow! The northern lights!

For people who need it explained in small words, the sun goes through a cycle. I’ve read that it’s a eleven year cycle, but they also say the last time this happened was 2005, so isn’t that a twenty year cycle? Eleven from nadir to peak, 22 from peak to peak? In any case, the sun’s cycle is coming up to the height of its strength, called the solar maximum. The sun is throwing more particles at us than it usually does, which causes interactions with the earth magnetic field powerful enough to increase the range they cover. This results in more than just pretty lights – coronal mass ejection events can also cause the internet to go down and the power grid to fail.

I’ve seen it in pictures, and I know I’m almost far enough north to see them regularly. I’d read online that it was supposed to be visible over most of Canada and the US Friday and Saturday night, but I wasn’t going to wake up for them. It was projected to be cloudy and I was exhausted. But there they were, bands of green and pink dancing across the northern horizon!

I texted K and he texted me back an hour later, as I finally gave up watching them disappear behind the clouds and flopped back into bed. He wanted to chase them down, so he drove to my place and picked me up, and we headed north.

The first place we stopped was Silver Harbour. It is north of the city, past the light pollution, and has a clear view of the sky, but all we could see was clouds. K wasn’t ready to give up, however, so we kept driving north along Lakeshore until we reached Highway 17, and he had to concede we wouldn’t outrace the clouds.

We went back along Highway 17 and on a whim, pulled into the Terry Fox Memorial.

By this point it was past midnight and peak aurora time, but there they were, clearly dancing against an inexplicably cloudless sky. Turns out, the clearing for the memorial faces north and is an excellent spot to see the northern lights! We watched them for a bit.

I’ve found pictures and videos of the lights that night, but they don’t compare to watching the washes of colour ebb and flow across the great inky bowl of the sky. Like something otherworldly, more entrancing than lightening. Washes of green and pink, like a giant watercolour brush across stars you can really only see this far from civilization. They’re real? They are!

It was amazing.

It was magical.

It was…

It was…

Words fail me.

We stood there, staring up at the sky, the infinite universe with all its mysteries and secrets and things too beautiful to believe in, and we were lost in it.

Eventually we had to go in to bed, because I was falling asleep on my feet, but we promised to go out earlier the next day and catch them in their full glory.

I woke up with a sore throat. I’d been burning the candle at both ends, for far too long, and it was time to pay the piper.

First order of business – to Timmies for breakfast, then to Shoppers for self care. I bought some Buckleys and some Ricola. I prefer original Buckley’s syrup over the gelcaps. I don’t think they work as well as the syrup, and they certainly don’t feel the same on your throat. I also dislike the addition of Tylenol to everything.

After breakfast, I took my poor car in to the Great Canadian Oil Change and got the oil changed. There was no one there so I got in right away, and I was pleased with the service I got. They didn’t comment on the oil, so presumably I didn’t delay the oil change long enough to be exceptional. Since I had gotten in and out so quick, I ran to the laundromat to do laundry quickly.

At ten I went to pick up Hanuman and we went to Kakabeka for a walk. There was a second, longer trail we didn’t get to hike last time we were there, and I was looking for something a little more challenging than a walk around the block, but not our usual hike.

Boy, was I mistaken.

Overexertion aside, it was a delight to hang out with him again. Not that Dryden is a city by any definition of the term, but I have spent two straight weeks locked in the giant metal monster that is the mill, and it was nice to be amongst the trees again in a real way. He was very distressed by some personal issues and we talked about them in the car ride, but once we were back to stumbling over rocks and roots, all of our anxieties melted away. Just the two of us, nerding out over weird plants we found, so far out in the woods cell service couldn’t reach us.

Hanuman really is the perfect antidote to the machismo I’ve been marinating in for the better part of a month. He never swears, and tries to avoid harsh language, and is always gently encouraging. When I turned up the Lizzo song in the car before apologizing for enjoying some silly little pop song, he assured me I didn’t need to feel bad about it and it’s exactly what I needed to hear.

We found one tiny little purple iris blooming, a sure sign of spring!

We also found a pile of baby garter snakes, either dopey from having just woken up, or unafraid of humans yet. They fled back into the plants as we walked up, but when we stood still, they came back out for the warm sun on the path. They slid over the tops of our shoes and gave our fingers snakey kisses and it was hard to tear ourselves away to continue the walk! It’s such a rare thing, to see wild animals so inquisitive and unafraid.

There was also a couple of baby red squirrels, again unafraid of humans for whatever reason, who stopped within touching distance.

Finally we got to the eponymous “Little Falls”. It was more beautiful than I was expecting, like a postcard! Instead of a deep pool, there was this wide shallow stream. I doubt it would have even reached my ankles at the deepest point, but I wasn’t testing that. I asked Hanuman if it was ok to walk in the pool, but I wouldn’t recommend a casual hiker do it. The rocks are super slick with algae – I cannot emphasis that enough. I’m used to it – it’s the same as the rocks on the coast in Nova Scotia. They tell you to stay off the dark rocks because they are moist enough that they are always slick. I slipped a few times and Hanuman walked with me when he wasn’t taking pictures, ready to jump in if I fell.

The trail does a lazy loop by the river, before ending in a steep climb back up to the top! I would recommend taking the steep path down. Hanuman said he noticed it but decided to leave it to last. I pointed out that at least if you fall going downhill, you’re already heading in the correct direction! With four weeks of work behind me and the lurgy gurgling in my lungs, I had to stop three times before I could make the top of the hill!

We also found this section, when we jokingly took pictures of each other “stuck in a rut”, even though I can confidently say this is the least like a rut my life has ever been!

Also, with the rusty red river restored to its former glory and churning up foam, we were discussing whether it most resembles ale or a latte. What do you think? Answer in the comments below!

Alas, all good things must come to an end. I drove him home and went back to my place for the afternoon.

There’s this ice cream place in town everyone goes to in the summer, Merla Mae‘s. They had a sign out front that they were open ’til 11, and the aurora was supposed to be out again, so at ten I grabbed K, Hanuman, and Emily (who also works at the hostel and doesn’t currently have a car) and went out to get ice cream! I paid for everyone, which was apparently shocking even though it was only 25 bucks for the 4 of us. I got a Pina Colada milkshake because I hate ice cream and wished I had alcohol, K got a cappuccino milkshake, Hanuman got mango ice cream and Emily got some purple ice cream (blueberry maybe? I forget).

We didn’t end up seeing the aurora that night. It was too cloudy. So we just walked around the Terry Fox monument and talked and ate our ice cream. It was fun to be out late at night, eating ice cream, like a bunch of teenagers pretending we didn’t have school in the morning.

It was interesting that Emily didn’t recognize me when I invited her out, until I reminded her that I used to have red hair. Some people see me right away, some don’t. I haven’t decided why; I know some people are just biologically better at recognizing faces, like some people just have better memory or sense of direction, but I’m not entirely sure that’s it.

I was dying Sunday morning. I’d finally developed what doctors call a productive cough. I laid in bed for a long time. When I finally left my room, it was to grab something from Pho Umami, because they’re the only place that sells soup to-go (so far as I know) and my stomach was officially tired of my bullshit.

My period was also MIA, which was nerve-wracking when it’s been early for months on end, but it had an easy explanation. I’ve lost so much weight in the last month it stopped for a bit. Yes, boys, that really happens. I was slightly annoyed, because I was hoping it would start on Friday and be done before I had to deal with it at work.

It was hazy out. Weirdly hazy. Not even Barrie is this hazy on an August day. I checked the weather channel – wildfire smoke. The wildfires that burned underground during the winter had finally broken free and were tearing a path across northern BC and Manitoba again. That probably explains part of the problem with my throat.

I looked around my messy room and decided I’d rather clean it by moving, than clean it, move, and then organize again. So I emailed my landlord to let him know about my name change and my desire to move rooms.

Within half an hour he burst in the door like Kramer.

He was perfectly ok with me moving rooms and thought my name change was the most darling thing. He’s started calling me princess Lucy and says it suits me, and I can’t find it in my heart to argue with him.

So, dying from the plague, I started wiping down the room to move.

First problem with moving rooms while dying of the plague; dust. Not even two weeks since the other guy left and I was kicking up dust. I propped the window open for some fresh – smoky – air. The throaty growl of every passing motorcycle made my heart ache.

The cupboard is full of cleaning supplies… bathroom cleaning supplies. I decided Pinesol was acceptable for wiping down everything else. I’m not even really sure what to be concerned about – what disease is still communicable on surfaces 10 days later that isn’t communicable when you pass by each other in the hallway?

Stopping to cough every ten seconds, I began carrying my stuff down the hall. This room has a bigger closet, and more space under the bed, so quite a bit of my stuff was just shoved under there, to be dealt with at a later date. What I was really interesting in was the larger desk! It even had a spot for my tower… which was possibly a mistake.

I mean, who needs airflow?

The side of my tower are plexiglass anyway!

It took me about three hours to transfer and unpack the contents of my tiny room, stopping to cough, blow my nose, chug Buckley’s, or pop a cough drop, but I finally did it! Then I wiped own my old room and vacuumed the floor. I then noticed the mattress cover was torn.

Torn? Why? Was it that cheap and flimsy, or do I thrash that much in my sleep, or both? I wonder if he will charge me for it.

At four I finally made myself stop. K was right about me not pushing myself tomorrow, for different reasons. He couldn’t know I was going to get sick. But also… he absolutely could have guessed I’d be sick. He showed up and took me out for dinner. We went to Sushi-7.

Their food is fine. Sakana’s is better, but I left Barrie so I don’t get Sakana anymore. The restaurant was packed for Mother’s Day and one point they misplaced the paper slip with our orders. Overall I’d say it’s worth going. K made me try this ridiculous dessert sushi with banana and mango. I hate to say that it wasn’t bad. It’s not proper sushi!

After dinner, we decided to go for a walk. How long has it been since I went for a simple walk around Boulevard Lake? The ice is gone and the grass is green.

The wildfire smoke hung thick in the distance. You couldn’t even see the Sleeping Giant through it, and the sun burned orange. My lungs and my throat did not thank me, but I needed to stay out just a bit longer.

We passed a herd of deer going to dinner, a second herd of deer going to the lake, and there was a beaver nonchalantly chewing away in a nearby pond. Some guy walking by said confidently that it was a two-year-old beaver, which made me want to chase him down and question why he thinks he knows that.

Monday morning I felt better, so I went off to finish another round of paperwork, and apply for my M1!

I did not ace the test. There were some questions from the regular G test in the mix, for whatever reason. Those should be easy – not like I’ve been driving for ten years or anything – but there was a few questions I don’t think anyone could be expected to know the answers to! Do you know how long you lose your license for with your first criminal conviction? I don’t! And I’m pretty sure the only people who do know are cops and people who’ve lost their license to a criminal conviction! With only 4 fails allowed, I got 5 wrong and had to pay to retake it, which fortunately I could do right away.

I aced the actual about-motorcycles portion of the test, for your information!

So the second try I got my motorcycle license.

Yay! Now I can go buy a throaty Harley and roar up and down the streets by myself!

I went home, had a bite to eat, sent some emails. Had a nap, packed my bags, and headed out for Dryden again.

It seems remiss to ignore Mother’s Day entirely, but I’m not sure there’s anything I should say. Obviously I made no attempt to contact my blood relatives.

I’ve seen some things on Facebook about using Mother’s Day to mourn your own losses, so I looked up tattoos for losing a child. I’ve settled on “I still carry you”, and Vincent’s name and the date I lost him. I was thinking of getting it on my belly, above the ostomy scar, but maybe not. If I wear a top that show my belly, obviously for sex appeal, having the tattoo for the loss of my son seems like a weird emphasis. Or maybe not. It’s a work in progress.

Guess I did have something to say.

XoXo Vincent, I’ll miss you always </3