Letters to the Editor

The sun always comes up in the morning

July 24, 2026   ·   0 Comments

by CONSTANCE SCRAFIELD

Optimism is a funny thing – it keeps us sane and lets us face any troubles we may have with a steadier hand. There are signs all around us to encourage optimism, universal truths to reassure us, like the trusty sun that comes up every morning – you can set your watch to it.

Although the other day, when the air was orange and a bit thick with the smell of smoke, I happened to look up and saw what must have been the sun, and I wonder if any of you saw it too; it was so peculiar. It was an absolutely round ball in the sky of a solid, unchanging, dull orange. 

It took me a moment to really realize – “that’s the sun,” I told myself, but I was ready to argue.

We all know you can’t look directly at the sun without doing some harm to your vision. Yet there I was, looking right at it, and it was in such a funk that it didn’t seem to care. Of course, there were reasons, but no point calling it a “rational explanation.”

There was so much ash and smoke in the air, even for only a couple of days here, that solar colours were blotted by what the wind and fire were delivering.

It made me wonder what animals were making of it. I didn’t see any birds flying. I wasn’t walking through the woods around on Island Lake to listen for animal noises to make a note of on other walks.

It is likely we are in for many other unexpected occurrences, as there appear to be changes to the natural order of things. Patricia and I have lost two of our annual Scottish festivals due to extraordinary weather.

We were chased out of Embro at barely the end. There were still the Mass Bands to come. Together at any Scottish festival, all the bands that attend the event gather together on the main field to play Amazing Grace and other traditional tunes, being played as the same moving ceremony every year for decades here in Canada and centuries in the British Isles, especially Scotland itself.

Back to Embro. Along with the music, there are awards to hand out for the best band, best something else and the other. As the young man, Simon, assisting me that day, and I were well into packing up our site, the winds around us started to boil, so it seemed that the announcer in the main field began to try and hurry up his part until he finally released the company with a “quick march.”

The pipers, notwithstanding the seemingly oncoming storm, managed a few more notes on their pipes in clear defiance of the wind that had just ripped our tent from Simon’s hands after I shouted to him, “Let it go!”

The following weekend, the same sort of Scottish festival was due in Orillia, and the organizers simply cancelled it, once other tornado warnings were serious.

We have yet to come to the Glengarry Scottish Festival and Highland Games and the one in Fergus (hope to see you all there) to attend, and we are keeping our hopes up, sending messages to the weather gods and crossing our fingers, I can tell you.

Yet, it is good to be optimistic. There have been times when everyone with even a basic basement stocked it with canned goods, water and other essentials, lest the catch and toss that governments on either side of the ocean were playing led to something really sour. 

People still lived in optimism. They still travelled and played golf on the weekends or maybe on the men’s night at the club once a week – a round of golf – dinner at the club restaurant, a drink and gossip about their slice of the world.

So far, that bad news has not really happened, but for whatever sake, sabres continue to rattle and some basements, no doubt, are well stocked.

There has been way too much talk lately, in my opinion, about how very different one generation is from the others, establishing catalogues of us all by slicing up the years or decades, naming the crowds born and labelled by which is their decade. I fight it off, sure that I can have a conversation of more than small talk – a chat and just as importantly or maybe more hopefully – a laugh – with anyone.

It is a very weird way of dividing us. 

Perhaps, we should bother ourselves about how and why these broad and useless divisions began to actually matter. As long as there is respect between any number of people, be it two or many, what matters is that we do keep talking to each other, remembering that basic needs remain the same: nutrition, shelter, a sense of safety, of being useful and needed.

And loved.

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