The Shifting Sands of Wasaga Beach
"Unable are the Loved to die for Love is Immortality" ~ Emily Dickinson.
Just before I delve into my recent glorious experience at Wasaga Beach, there is an exciting new review to share for my book Death Kindly Stopped For Me. It is from Ivy Schweitzer, Professor emerita of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College and editor of Poet to Poet series, Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin:
There is no dearth of poetry inspired by Dickinson, but I was particularly struck by the poetry of Corey Elizabeth Jackson, who is inspired by Dickinson’s poetry of Death and finds an unusual solace and even cheerfulness in it. Seems appropriate at this historical moment as we are immersed in senseless death around the world and yet a politics of joy and futurism has emerged on our national scene. Jackson brings us a Canadian perspective, as a retired schoolteacher who lives with her photographer husband in Aurora, Ontario. Her poetry has appeared in Blue Unicorn, WestWard Quarterly and Spacesports & Spidersilk. It has also been featured on The Society of Classical Poets website and won Honorable Mention in their 2023 International Poetry Competition. In 2024, she won First Prize and two Honorable Mentions in the Ontario Poetry Society’s national High Spirits Poetry Competition. Her book of poetry inspired by Dickinson will appear in Fall 2024 but you can get wonderful previews of it and the fascinating contexts of its composition (from Barbra Streisand, to Barbie and Oppenheimer and the symbolism of horses) with illustrations on her blog Soulscape Poetry at https://soulscapepoetry.substack.com/.
With her generous and invaluable advice, Ivy has played a pivotal role in supporting my poetic journey. Thank you so much, Ivy!
Earlier this summer, I wrote of the Magnetawan River, flowing slowly by my family’s rented cottage near Burk’s Falls to the far distant reaches of eastern Georgian Bay. Now, my friend Marianne and I were on a three-day jaunt last month to her old haunt at Wasaga Beach, a town sandwiched directly between the Nottawasaga River and southeastern Georgian Bay.
The contrast between my experience this summer by these two rivers is interesting. At Wasaga Beach, the Nottawasaga River flows just a stone’s throw from its Georgian Bay destination. It courses with an urgency beyond the gentle currents of the Magnetawan River, which, just west of Burk’s Falls, is still so far from its mouth in Georgian Bay. At Wasaga Beach, Marianne and I had an ideal inn room with a west window view of Georgian Bay and an east window view of the Nottawasaga River.
The beachfront at Wasaga was a bit of a tempest! For the duration of our visit, the vestigial winds of the latest prevailing wind storm whipped the shoreline.
They stirred its shifting sands into aeolian herringbone shaped dunes on all three large parking lots surrounding our lodgings. Each morning, workers briskly shoveled away these wayward sand fish to prepare the parking lots suitably for beachgoers’ cars. The sun shone in sublime abandon every day of our visit. On our second afternoon, we installed ourselves with our books and our snacks on an outside staircase of the inn. There we shielded by the north inn wall from the wind, and were still able to glory in the sight of Wasaga’s crashing waves, stretching away as far as the eye could see.
The next day, we descended the treelined Nottawasaga riverbank opposite the inn. We picnicked blissfully by the warm windless buffer in companionable proximity to two inquisitive gulls and a family of friendly mallard ducks. Marianne affectionately called both of the gulls “Jonathan.”
We lingered and snacked and gazed mesmerized at the underlying urgency of the hurrying Nottawasaga, so close to its Georgian Bay destination just down the way, a stone’s throw beyond the trees from where we sat.
That evening, we donned extra sweaters and braved the dauntless winds to saunter along the Wasaga Beach strip. The strip is a tiny slice of the city, with its thriving shops and stalls and restaurants, vibrant and thrumming. Immaculate, colorful antique convertibles and gunning, flashy motorbikes passed directly in front of us on the main strip road. We nibbled on French fries as the sun descended, and watched hardy bathers still jumping into the oncoming and darkening waves. A young couple stood basking in stillness, glorying in the rich apricot sunset.
One energetic group of youths had scalloped an astonishingly deep and flat enclosure into the sand. They now rested meditatively within it, their backs against the sandy wall as they gazed raptly at the dramatic horizon. Time passed and the setting sun before us morphed into its full glory. Its apricot glow became offset by fleecy, smoky gray clouds, billowing against the teal blue and blackening sky above them. This was the highlight of our trip! Marianne has happy childhood memories of visiting Wasaga Beach with her father and siblings. Her dream is to retire and live in a cottage close to its shores. Her main stipulation is that the cottage must be close enough to this majestic Georgian Bay shoreline, so that she can walk there with her morning coffee, and be at peace with the presence of the lapping waves at the beginning of each new day.
We make plans to return next year to our same cozy Georgian Inn, nestled so comfortably betwixt river and bay. We hope once again to be drawn into this wonder of mercurial nature, and to come a little bit closer to a soul setting that recharges our beings. Once again, we look forward to experiencing Wasaga Beach, an eclectic combination of cityscape and soulscape . . . enigmatic, compelling and totally superb.
My Soul Leaves Body Floats from Home
My soul leaves body floats from home
Into cedars above,
Hovers momentarily
Absorbed in sentient grove.
Surrounded by sweet glowing night,
It tingles in suspense,
Slips past sleeping kin, takes flight,
Departs from ego tense.
Great undulating lake it skirts
Then soars into the skies,
Corporeal form left far behind
In roistering woodland sighs.
Intrepid astral soul leaps clear
Beyond wood, lake and land,
Stops poised aloft our planet dear
To spread in cosmos grand,
To bask in stillness soft among
Our primal common clan,
Who thrills my soul has gladly come
To universal span.
Corey Elizabeth Jackson
