It’s been too long since we took a ride togeth­er. Too long since some­one else was at the wheel and I got to score the pass­ing Canadian fields with my new favourite songs. Too long since I saw the old crew and filmed them land­ing aeri­als on the farm.

We dri­ve through love­ly lit­tle vil­lages I’d nev­er want to live in but always think of vis­it­ing some day. They’re too small for com­ic book stores and decent Chinese food and any pos­si­bil­i­ty of get­ting lost, but big enough to hold the hopes of any­one who ever want­ed to build a life for them­selves in a qui­et com­mu­ni­ty full of old-world charm and decay. The tiny econ­o­my based on tourism from an annu­al coun­try music fes­ti­val or his­toric school will make sure it stays like this for­ev­er.

My dad used to take me fish­ing here. I thought it was five hours away when it was only about an hour and a half; time pass­es at a crawl when you’re a kid in a car, anx­ious to catch more fish than your father. Except we nev­er used rods, we just put half a worm on a hook (from a dozen bought at a bait shack on the way) tied to a spool of fish­ing line, and sit by the edge of Lift Lock 21 on the Trent–Severn Waterway. I still remem­ber their lit­tle bod­ies writhing on the pave­ment in blood and guts and soil as we divid­ed each with a razor.

I was too young to feel any­thing then, and I’m too old to feel any­thing now.

With the big dip­per low in the sky, Tomasini told me that you’re always con­front­ed with love in moments like this. I’d been mean­ing to put that sen­ti­ment into words for weeks now, but I could­n’t fig­ure out how to do it as suc­cinct­ly as this man had done between drags of a cig­a­rette.

Addressing par­ents by their first names does­n’t feel for­eign any­more. I’ve always used Mr. or Mrs. as a sign of respect — a habit one quick­ly grows into in the Chinese cul­ture — but now I see myself as an adult, and respect myself enough to call them Laurie and Lana.

This is mid­dle age. Not when you’re young enough to be a depen­dent, or so old that you need to be tak­en care of. It’s the time in your life when you’re tru­ly respon­si­ble for your actions and you have the great­est sense of con­trol over your life.

I always won­der how peo­ple can pick up their friend­ships where they left off after so much time apart, like they nev­er grew up and moved away and start­ed fam­i­lies, and still had din­ner every Sunday. It’s a rela­tion­ship I’ve nev­er had myself, but when I get to expe­ri­ence it like this, I start to under­stand how the right con­nec­tions are made and nev­er lost.