We drove yesterday to the eastern shore of Lake Huron, to a town called Goderich, said to be the prettiest in Ontario.   Yes.  The highway enters from a high cliff, we drove down through forests of maple & pine, which are of course the reasons I returned.  We went first to the edge of the lake, which is unutterably beautiful, an ultramarine one can scarcely dream, surrounded by pale gold sand.  Translucent waves broke at my feet.

It could be the ocean, there is no visible shore.  Something about wind over water, the way it breathes you.  I think I've been there before, or to Kincardine, a bit further north.  I think there was a cottage when I was very young.  Probably with Ruth, the cousin who lives in London, whom I visited on the summer days of my childhood, who was kind of a second mother.  Whatever I know about how children are loved I learned from her.

The sun drops into a watery horizon, & they say you can see it set twice, once from the shore, & if you are quick, from a lookout on a hill.  We'd arrived at suppertime, the sun poised in the western sky, dazzling the lake so I had to shade my eyes.  I'd forgotten the smell of a large body of water, the way it calls you home.  We sat at a picnic table by a beach restaurant & I ate fresh-caught pickerel as though I were starving.  A ship called 'Manitou' was docked in the harbour. Manitoulin is the island in this lake where my son was born.

The town centre is anchored by a large hexagonal park with streets radiating out like the spokes of a wheel, & of course I made Mike stop at the closed shop of a realtor & peered through the glass at properties for sale.  Mike reminding me that Goderich is a tourist town in the middle of nowhere.  I reminded him that our house is on Water Street & our Golden is named 'Rain'.  And that, once upon a time, we crawled out of the sea.

Best,