A Ghost Town

 The trip to Niagara on Sunday felt like a trip through time. The escarpment was full of different trails, many of which involved and slippery terrain. There were times when I experienced a kind of vertigo as I approached the running water of the Niagara River, and even times when I felt that human beings are incredibly tiny compared with the rest of the planet as a whole. If anyone ever wants to feel an accurate size perspective of humans compared to the natural world, they could perhaps do no better than to go to the Adam Welbeck power station and look down at the power facilities below as well as the hydroelectric dam. There is such a feeling of being overwhelmed and yet also seeing a realistic view of how people compare with the planet they live in.
  All of this reminds me of the idea that Francis Cook mentions in his book Jewel Net of Indra that European portraiture often evokes closeness, whereas Eastern landscape paintings tend to position people as smaller elements in a much larger whole, which stretches back through eons of geologic and cosmological time. Those who are most accustomed to reading "human stories" close-up might feel disheartened when faced with the size of humans compared to the tallest mountains or the deepest escarpments. On the other hand, there is a kind of cathartic feeling that comes with not taking the human world so close up, and contextualizing human quarrels and woes in the context of a greater landscape. Going to places which illustrate the geological periods of history can often contextualize human life as a brief pinpoint compared to the greater dramas that have taken place over millions of years. It somehow makes me realize that my life (and life in general) is a precious miracle, not to be squandered on small worries and obsessions.
   As if to reinforce this last point, I had the opportunity to visit the stores at Niagara on a Monday morning, only to find so few people living there and shopping compared to what I have seen in Toronto. I also noticed that many of the store fronts reflected businesses that were closing or recently relocated.  I wondered if the town was doing okay in the economy we live in today. The only life I could find, perhaps, was that of a dog who was chained to a post in front of what looked to be the only public library. When I touched the dog, I could see that it was shivering, and had such a look of forlorn on its face. That look remained with me throughout the day. I think it stands for the universal sense that all living beings are bound by a slender and fragile thread of community. Even in the most thinly populated places, people long for community, and that longing keeps people together in spite of time's march.