Riding the Peak

Photo: Jon Rieley-Goddard

Those of you who know me, or who share my Outer-Hebridean genes, will know that summer is not even my third-favourite season. In fact, with the exception of certain magical, balmy evenings, usually spent on a twinkly bistro terrace, I pretty much hide under a cool rock till September.

But this year—and maybe it’s just my own advancing years—I’m feeling the need to stop and appreciate summer. Now. Right now.

Because right now is that moment that comes each year, when it’s been hot enough for long enough that it starts to feel dangerous. When our guilt for cranking up the a/c rises along with the temperature. Summer is peaking.

It feels as though we’ve all been captured by one of those theme-park cameras at the apex of the ‘coaster’s highest drop, lifted out of our seats for a breathless instant, poised between “getting here” and “it’s over.” Everything is still. The world stops. However exhilarating the climb and breathtaking the view, it’s a short ride, and it's all downhill from here.

And it really is. Although the true mid-point of the year was a month ago, nobody really paid attention. We weren’t far enough into the summer then; there hadn’t been enough long, hot days to register that the shorter, darker ones were already beginning.

But now that’s about to change. Toronto marks the passage of summer through its festivals, which jam every weekend. The blow-out formerly known as Caribana is next up, and we all know what’s right after that—The Ex.

I haven’t heard any commercials for the CNE yet, and I’m glad. The opening day of the CNE tolls the death-knell for every Toronto summer. On that day, we catch our first glimpse of what’s lurking ahead in the shadows just beyond closing day, what is now inevitable: the aptly named Labour Day, a.k.a., the death of hope, late-evening sunsets, beachwear, and white shoes and belts. When we will all have to exhale, leave our summer bubbles, and get back to the grind. Dark days await us. We’ll need to focus on bringing in the harvest, laying in provisions, checking the weatherstripping for gaps.

But not quite yet. Not today. Today we’re setting records. Today we’re still poised at the peak of the year, at the top of the first drop of this season’s Flyer, and I’m all too aware of the trough just ahead. So I’m taking a breath, feeling the film of moisture on my skin, listening to the buzz-saw cicadas, watching the cats stay very, very still.

I hate summer. But not this year.