Leaving

I’m writing this late at night. It’s almost midnight. I’ve been writing with the theme of moving house and emotions about home, the home I’ve made here the last decade, the home I have been seeking for myself and my son, the home we’ve now found and will be moving into in just over two weeks.

Today comprised the first of two walk-throughs of my new property I negotiated in my offer. It’s standard to request two walk-throughs of the property you’re purchasing outside of the actual home inspection.

It had been pretty much one month since the week I purchased our new home and over the last few weeks, whenever I was in the area, I would drive by with my son secured in the back seat and begin a narrative for him. About how this would soon be his neighbourhood. How he would begin to know these trees. These sidewalks. That’s the school you’ll go to, I would say. This is how close we are to mommy’s work. And there…that pretty place…is gonna be home.

I’ve only been in the house twice. The first time I saw it August 26 and the date of the home inspection, September 1st. It was funny walking in today because I’d forgotten just exactly what the rooms looked like. And today felt like the home was beginning to transition itself to welcome me. I felt its own change. The current owners had emptied it of a lot of clutter and such in preparation for their own upcoming move. And I began to feel a slight shift as I walked through the door. Where the home began to acknowledge me and my son. As a new but legitimate presence within the walls. It felt really great.

going walkabout

Two things happened that made this day moving versus about moving.

As I was finished the walk-through, during which one of the current owners, the mother, was present with her two children, I knocked on the front door to let her know that we were done (myself, my real estate agent and my contractor) and I told her I just wanted to thank her again and how excited we were to be moving into this lovely home. I also wanted to wish her and her family a safe trip out West.

Her eyes welled up as I said all this. And I gave her a hug and whispered to her that if she were ever back in Ontario that, of course, she would always be welcome to drop in and visit. It’s so odd that the emotions she was going through about leaving never really occurred to me and they should have before now. They’ve lived in that house for 12 years. I’ve been so caught up in my own feelings about how I’ll miss the home I’ve lived in for 10 years but to see her become so emotional when I was wishing her a safe journey really made it hit home that, of course, it’s just as emotional a journey for her to be moving on with her family, the house her children were born to and grew all their years in. It was nice to have an opportunity to hug her and to feel her hugging back. It’s weird to feel that I would have really loved this woman as a neighbour of mine. But that she won’t be that for me. I’m taking her place in the neighbourhood. Her spot, anyhow. I can tell just how much she will be missed by those surrounding her. I hope to make up somehow for the loss it will clearly be to that street she now lives on.

After the walk-through, I took my son to the local Chapters to play while I followed him around the kids section with my latté. I was thinking about this couple and their two kids moving to B.C. and I was forgetting how late it was becoming. I had to interrupt my son’s playtime after 20 minutes and get over to the grocery store before heading home. We picked up some food and headed out to the rural backroads.

As I was driving home, though, I passed an elderly man walking at a brisk pace at the side of the road. I wasn’t exactly sure, but something felt wrong when I passed him. For one thing, I felt like I was almost going to hit him and I noticed something else. He wasn’t wearing a rainjacket. It had been coming down in sheets on and off all day and I thought to myself this wasn’t someone just having an after-dinner hike. I went through the lights and pulled over. All around me were farm fields and I was trying to see him in my rearview mirror. I called 911 and was eventually put through to the local police department. I explained that I wasn’t even sure it was an emergency but that I’d passed an elderly gentleman on the side of the road and that he could have been out for an evening hike, but I had just had a strange vibe when I passed him that that wasn’t the case. I explained that he didn’t seem dressed appropriately for the weather. While I was on the phone with the woman taking the call, he came into view at the lights and I saw him turn then to head towards one of the small towns.

I explained to the call attendant he had come into view and that I had my son with me in the car and it was getting late. She said they would send a vehicle and if I left that would not be a problem. When I hung up, I continued to watch him in my rearview mirror move up the road. I turned around and then turned right at the lights to follow him.

It became clear very quickly that he was disoriented. He was now walking ON the road. I pulled up slowly behind him and he turned and thought I was offering him a ride. I lowered the window only slightly and I asked him if he was alright. He said he was and the first thing he said was, “do you have a smoke?” I didn’t, of course. But I lowered the window a tad more and slid out the orange juice I had bought at the starbucks and hadn’t opened yet. He asked me if I’d drive him to the next small town. To the church there. I told him I was sorry I couldn’t give him a ride, but that I’d called for help for him. I didn’t want to say, “I’ve called the cops.” I honestly didn’t know how he’d react to that. He was very polite. He had a long sweater on and his corduroy pants were soaked from the rain. I wanted to invite him to sit in my car, but I couldn’t do that. Especially not with my son in the back seat. I felt unsure. So I sat with my car off to the side of the road waiting for the police car to show up. He kept coming to my window and asking me for a cigarette. I gave him one of my son’s mozzarella sticks. He was clearly homeless but he never once asked me for money. I was afraid he was going to be hit by a car so I stayed there with him. He paced back and forth in front of my car and then he’d come talk to me at my driver window. I asked him his name and he said, “Dave”. I asked him if he had family and he replied, ‘Back in Australia.” He looked in his late 60s. I had no idea how long he’d been walking and how far, where he’d been walking from. I asked him where he was trying to get and he said he had friends “up North”.

As I sat there, it occurred to me the cops were taking their time and I called 911 again and got on the line with the same woman who took my first call. I explained to her that I was unwilling to leave this man because he was walking onto the road and it was not safe. And also that I had a 16 month old who needed his diaper changed and could she upgrade the request for help. The diaper, I knew, was okay and could wait, but I wanted to put pressure on her because I felt they were not making this guy a priority for the night. And I understand that there are true life/death emergencies out there that need urgent response. But I was truly afraid this guy was going to get killed by a car. He was not really navigating the road safely. Cars kept whizzing by us and a few of them felt the need to honk at him as they passed.

As I waited, a truck slowed down on the other side of the road and backed up a bit and asked me if everything was okay. I explained what was happening. This guy offered to let Dave sit in his truck to wait for the cops. I felt relieved about that because it had begun to drizzle again and I felt badly I hadn’t been willing to open my doors to him. So we both waited. Dave got into the truck with this guy and two cruisers finally showed up after another half hour of waiting in the dusk and then, the dark. I got out and explained that he’d been very polite. That he was clearly disoriented in terms of not realizing he was walking on the road. He did not appear drunk. He had not asked for cash. He wanted to get to the church in the next small town. When I left, Dave had gotten out of the truck and the cops were talking to him.

I drove away and I am still wondering what has happened with him. Where did they take him for the night? Was it just going to be one night’s solution and he’d be back on the road again tomorrow?

What was difficult was that, while we were all waiting for the cops to show up, the guy in the truck said he could drive him to the small town himself to the Church. I felt concerned about two things. I didn’t know who the guy was who’d pulled over and even though I wanted to trust that he would help this man and I felt sure he was sincere, a small part of me felt that I wasn’t entirely sure Dave would be safe. I didn’t like feeling that because I’m sure this guy was truly sincere and had stopped to help. The second thing that concerned me was that Dave was not dressed for the weather and he was talking of “going up North” and he had been walking on and off the road even while he paced in front of my car, he kept going onto the road. I didn’t feel he was safe in terms of his ability to judge what he was doing.

The guy in the truck said he’d maybe take him home for a meal. My heart nearly broke when he said that. What I thought most when I drove away was that if I’d been a man, a man who didn’t have a 16 month old in my back seat, I probably would have risked offering this guy a ride. I might have even risked taking him home and cooking him something myself. I would have taken him to a store first to buy him a whole pack of smokes. I might have put him up for the night. I might have tried calling his friends if he’d remembered their number. I might have even driven him as far North as I could get him safely to meet up with them. I might have done all these things but I didn’t even feel quite safe enough to roll my window down further than the width it would allow me to slide a measly bottle of orange juice out to him. One measly stick of cheese. I felt helpless. I felt frustrated knowing that my gender, my situation, prevented me from being of more help to this man. More the kind of help he was actually seeking. I’m sure the last thing he wanted was to be taken away in a cop car. It was kind of the last thing I wanted for this man myself, but I truly didn’t know what else to do and felt powerless. No. Not powerless. That’s wrong. I was in the power position. Rather, I felt, I had to put my own safety above his. That’s the way of the world, isn’t it? I wouldn’t let him get dry sitting in my car with me and my son. I could only do what I could do. I wouldn’t give him a ride. I wouldn’t take him home for a meal or a warm bed to sleep in even though I have a guest room with a bed that is rarely ever used by anyone.

I know I needn’t have ever stopped in the first place and sure, I’m glad I did. But I have no idea if I helped or hindered this man tonight.

What I do know though, is, he was homeless and trying to find his friends. Trying to find maybe what “home” meant for him being as far from his real home as he was.

It really put things into perspective for me. Lately I’ve felt so stressed with all the stuff on my plate in terms of prepping for this upcoming move. Just what the fuck do I have to be stressed about really? I have a home. A roof over my head. A damn nice tin roof. And I am moving to another lovely home very soon. And this man was walking around the backroads in the rain just wanting a cigarette. I couldn’t even give him that small request. Such a simple one. A small one.

I know that this man was either suffering from some sort of dementia or mental illness in the way he kept walking onto the road and forgetting that he’d already asked me for a cigarette that I didn’t have. I know I did the “right” thing. But I wish I could have done a million different things a million different ways than what happened tonight.

I didn’t know this day would end this way. The owner’s raw emotion over leaving her home and this man trying to find a home or just anywhere out of the cold where he could sit and have a cigarette. I am lying in bed typing this and I feel so damn blessed. And I don’t even know why or how I get to deserve the luck that I have in my life. I don’t feel I’ve earned it. At all.

But, I guess. I guess I hope to. Someday…

Dead Irish Writers

As aforementioned, lately I've been working my way through seasons of The West Wing on my laptop, once I put Sonshine to bed each night .

Tonight, a cozy fire crackles away as I snuggle under a blanket and watch parts of the third season. Episode 16 is entitled Dead Irish Writers and encompasses the First Lady's birthday party, the dream of a dying, eminent physicist, Donna becoming Canadian (briefly), and the request by the British government, via their Ambassador to the United States, that the White House not allow the leader of Sinn Féin to visit the President for a talk. Joyce is quoted as having written, "history is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake" and Eugene O'Neill as having penned, "there is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again, now."

I feed another log to the fire and dwell upon my dwelling, this farmhouse, again. My home. My heart sighs.

When I was 24, I spent six weeks in Ireland prior to attending a course on 'Yeats and Irish Poets After Him' at St. Catherine's College, Cambridge University toward my degree back in Canada. I had applied for Summer Studies in English Literature and felt truly excited to study Yeats, whom I worshipped. He was my mother's favourite poet and she introduced him to me long before I would study him or any other Irish poet/writer. Growing up, our home had hung on its walls a painting of the Sacred Heart and, alongside it, a framed poem entitled, The Lake Isle of Innisfree. Naturally, there was confusion on my part as to which held the higher footing.

In 2000, my former spouse and I decide to leave Toronto for greener pastures, literally and figuratively. The day I walk into this farmhouse I know I will live here. It isn't that the house is older than Canada itself. Nor that its picturesque views from the back deck over rolling fields remind me somewhat of Ireland. The reason I know I will live in this house is because, upon entering the kitchen, I discover pages of Yeats' poetry have been glued to the wall. The owner had torn the pages from a book in her father-in-law's collection and pasted them for wallpaper. I remember standing open-mouthed, unable to speak, my heart rising into my throat, tears forming near my lashes. Apparently, what helps our bid is that the owner, a poet herself, is pleased as punch to learn we have zero intention of removing the pages of poetry once she sells the place. Ten years later, the pages have yellowed but still hang above the island where guests chop vegetables, sip wine and become enamoured of Yeats' exquisite verse.

One morning, a few Thanksgivings ago, I awake early to start the turkey. It is 6 a.m. when I sit myself at the table with a pot on my lap and a bag of potatoes and begin to peel. This simple act: the dipping of potato in water, the knife smoothly scraping back the skin, poking out the eyes, cutting them in halves, then quarters. A spud in the hand, the dirt of earth still clinging to it, is so decent and firm a thing. I recall taking a deep breath of satisfaction over this humble domestic duty. It occurs to me it is something my mother has done herself many a morning in the wee hours; something my grandmother has done and her mother before her. And hers. Talk about a 'root' vegetable. I feel their wizened hands guiding mine as the skins fall in strips into the compost bucket. Did you know that the ASL sign for Ireland is a potato? And this home was built a mere 15 years after the Great Famine began back 'home', in Eire. Just to think on that...

On my kitchen island hang three pieces of slate salvaged from the roofs of derelict cottages in Ireland, once the homes to past generations of Irish people, now dead and gone. Slate roofs replace the thatched cottages of an even older generation; the kind of cottage my mother's Uncle Jim would bicycle the countryside to photograph in the early 1900s, one of which hangs in my dining room. Shellacked to the slate are images of three dead Irish writers: James Joyce, Sean O'Casey and William Butler Yeats. My aunt sent them across the pond to me as a housewarming gift since she knows my love of Irish history and Celtic mythology, something each of these writers were well versed in themselves, no pun intended. And warm my house, they do, indeed.

I am thinking ahead to the spring when I must leave this farmhouse I love. I wonder what connection I will have to my next home. What will draw me to it? What will speak to me when I wander through its rooms, gaze out its windows? What might grab my heart? Evoke tears? I've no idea yet what will be the deciding factor for me.

But one thing I do know: as soon as I am settled, I intend to rise early one morning in that house and peel some potatoes. To feel grounded. To give a nod to my own roots. I know then I'll feel at home, again.

(Plus, I have a book or two of Yeats' poetry under my arm for wallpapering.)

This one goes out to my wee Irish mother and all the mothers before her; for my father's mother whom I never knew, who died when he was only 9 years of age. And for my wee Irish son who, somewhat miraculously, made an Irish mother out of me. For the homes we've each evolved from over generations. For the homes we and our children and our children's children will make. All the potatoes yet to be peeled. The Innisfrees yet to manifest in our deep heart's core:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

~William Butler Yeats~

Music: Troy, Sinéad O'Connor

Be It Resolved

I haven't thought about New Year's resolutions for quite a few years, actually. But this year, I felt the need to sit down and put some real consideration into them. So many things are new at the beginning of this year, so much change. I need me some focus and I've made a list, finally.

Naturally, one is my intent to write more, and more often. One involves hoping to publish something I've written. A whole bunch of them have to do with my son and with mothering. And of course, losing weight/getting fit/toned so I can return to pre-prego condition (still working on this). A few women told me it's nearly impossible to lose weight while breastfeeding. No harm working on it, though, with a healthy approach!

A few in particular have to do with reorganizing my life in prep for The Big Move come spring. Forgive the phrasing, but basically I need to get all Buddhist on my ass. Try to create a zen existence in place of this chaos, more in keeping with my son's monk-like temperament. And I'll take a zen approach - not one room at a time, but one box at a time. One bag at a time. One little drawer at a time. Small steps to clear my life of the clutter and cobwebs this old farmhouse has accumulated.  In the spring, I will hold a garage sale. What I don't sell will be donated or dumped. A slow catharsis. The shedding of many years (along with the prego weight).

In the past few years, I've heard girlfriends talk about their "one word" of the year. Yesterday, I discovered the woman whose idea this is: Ali Edwards. (Thanks, Sara!) I love the concept of choosing one word to focus upon as a throughline for your entire year; a thread binding the many patches of your life into one garment with which to cloak yourself.

This year, I choose the word move.

I want to get moving. I want to keep moving forward. To make my move. To be moved. To move others.

Mobility will be an important theme this year for Sonshine and myself.

Not only are we anticipating moving from this farmhouse back to a semi-urban existence and building a new home together, but he will begin actual movement. Crawling, standing, walking: these will all be actions new to him; to his tiny mind, to his little limbs. His discovery of his wee body's capacities and the ability to stretch himself past limitations, past what he could formerly only regard as boundaries, will be incredibly freeing for him. (For me, not so much. HA!) I do, though, look forward to his exploration of movement within himself, of himself, for himself and by himself. He's becoming a little heavy to transport nowadays. I have biceps on my biceps!

So, move. That's my word for the year.

What's yours?

Wonder if I can choose one word for this new decade? Think I'll stick to small steps, though. And revel in witnessing my little boy make his first ones soon down this road we're traveling.

Some time in the 500s B.C., a Chinese philosopher named Lao Tzu wrote, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

Another cool guy wrote,
"Everything is moving so fast. I am unlimited..."

Small steps can take you so far, I've learned already. And what a journey lies ahead!

Happy 2010, everyone!

Music: Everything is Moving So Fast, Great Lake Swimmers

Taking Flight

Tuesday night I drive from my parents through the winding, rural roads. Back home. And it seems like every bird that ever flew an Ontario sky is heading out during that drive. It was coming on eight o'clock and the sun was beginning to set. Made me weep openly to see them all. He was asleep in the car seat in back. Just turned four months old last Sunday. The drive makes me recall the night my twin sister drove us home from the hospital after the week that seemed like a year in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Home. Migration always makes me wonder: are they going home or leaving home? I like to think that the birds I'm watching take flight are leaving home. That this part of Southwestern Ontario is where they call Home. I take comfort in the knowledge that they'll come back.

I love the way Canadian Geese line up in their own personal arrow formations, their wings in wondrous, dark contrast to the pink that kisses the few, scattered clouds. It makes me turn off the iPod in my Subaru and roll down the window to hear them. Among my favourite sounds. And one of my cherished sights is the way starlings all swoop together as they leave. A group ahead of me takes the shape of a fish and floats over the cornfields that dip off to my right. All in perfect unison. Like synchronized swimmers. Diving and surfacing together. How do they do that? Kind of mesmerizing. Bad for driving.

When I was pregnant with him, I caught this astounding documentary at the Princess Cinema in Waterloo called Winged Migration. It was right around the time I'd begun to feel my own first flutterings of him and pretty breathtaking to witness. Birds seem to have some tie to my little man. Starting with that robin's nest above the side door of my farmhouse to the little mobile of three woolen owls who hover over his crib, representing the spirits of the siblings he might have had, the babies I miscarried in 1998, 2003 and last September, his own fraternal twin. They watch over him. It was an owl's "who-hoo-hoo-hooooo-hooooo" which greeted me my very first night in this farmhouse, just outside my bedroom window. In Celtic mythology, birds are considered messengers. It's very important to listen to what they're trying to tell you. Like that bird who guides the children in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe through the forest to the safety of Mr. Tumnus' home.

The pines behind my home stretch up into the darkening sky and I bring him out onto the back deck. The constant, clamouring chatter of starlings surrounds us. I smile down at him in his seat and his hair captures a glint of sunset as my clap shocks the starlings into flight, halting their song; they simultaneously take wing together, dipping and darting across the back field, leaving my home. And theirs.

This month, I am heavy in preparation for selling this farmhouse. We stayed at my parents the past week so the rooms could be painted with soft, muted colours. Names like Earth Smoke, Smoked Trout, Soft Earth, Manitou, Tent, Tofino. We will be leaving this place. His first real home, and mine. I bite my lip. I've no idea if she will even sell before the snow flies. If not, I'll batten down the hatches and hibernate one more winter here and hope to move come spring. I've been here nine years and maybe it's time now. I admit the care of these 1.3 acres on my own for almost three years has been a bit of a challenge and will only prove moreso as he grows and demands more and more of my time and attention (though he gets pretty much all of it already). He needs, I think, a town versus this remote spot. I hate leaving here. It's one of a number of things breaking my heart right now. But I know a move will be better for him. I hope it will be better for me. Either way, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. What's that saying? A rich child sits in a poor mother's lap. Realistically, I know we will both benefit from moving to an actual neighbourhood. With a shorter driveway. Better resources. With other children. Other families. Other parents. Other single parents, perhaps! I look forward to the idea of bicycling or walking to work. The main country road into town can get a bit dicey come the winter time. Life has brought so many changes since deciding to leave my common-law marriage almost three years ago now. And change is good, I remind myself. He is here with me now. It's a good time for this particular change to come...

But I will miss all these birds taking wing across the farmfields. The robins nesting in my doorway and blue spruce. The killdeer in my driveway. The starlings. Barn swallows. The blue herons flying with their long legs outstretched behind them over the back creek. Their nests on the third line way, high up in the trees. The hummingbirds at my front window and backgarden. That hawk my eyes always seek in one, special tree during my morning and evening commute each winter. The Canadian geese who land each Spring when the back field floods. One year, a few years back, a lone, white swan joined them there. When I was a little girl, I would read and re-read E.B. White's Trumpeter Swan. These days, I am re-savouring his (and Strunk's) The Elements of Style while attempting query letters to various editors of magazines. Another book on birds comes to mind: Too Many Blackbirds by my old American Lit professor, Dr. Ken Ledbetter. He died much too young back in 1993. A favourite memory is of his class the morning he informed everyone how to properly address a ghost upon encountering one. You must first ask politely, "Are you a good ghost or a bad ghost?" This proved helpful advice here in this farmhouse built in 1848. It is not without its own many and varied spirits.

I know the very cherished memories I will hold, from the cedar hedges to the smell of the woodstove, the sight of a 160-year old apple tree in blossom, the witnessing of the Aurora Borealis while standing in my front yard to the shooting stars of the Perseids each August seated on a Muskoka Chair out back: such rich and vibrant images will stay with me all my days once I leave here. That will be some good haunting.

I am writing this in the middle of the night. It's 3:30 a.m.. Stolen moments. Rising from my bed where I've just fed him, his arms are outstretched as though he is flying through his own dreams. I think about migration and about what makes a home. My own parents leaving their home in Ireland and emigrating to Canada. Myself making a new home with him somewhere else. Waterloo-Wellington County has been my home for so damn long, a large part of me wishes we were starting over somewhere farther away. Nunavut. Nova Scotia. New Zealand. There's a whole planet out there yet to discover together. But I know that this is home for me. The mennonite farms. All the local farm markets, small town and music festivals. And my own little sonshine. Whereever he is will define home for me.

For now, I watch the birds rise up to guide my way towards another beginning somewhere new and familiar at the same time. What comes to mind is my eldest sister's beautiful vinyl recording by Judy Collins of that old Sandy Denny song, Who Knows Where the Time Goes? It was composed the year I was born when she was only twenty. Wow. Forty-two years have come and gone. And these last nine years have flown themselves. The last four months especially. Did she ever get those lyrics right! They make me smile and tear up at the same time. But then, the Autumn, as it approaches this coming week, always makes me do that. It's my favourite time of year. And I cling to one, specific lyric that strengthens the journey I'm making and my own resolve: I have no fear of time.

Across the purple sky, all the birds are leaving
But how can they know it's time for them to go?
Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming
I have no thought of time

For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

Sad, deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving
Ah, but then you know it's time for them to go
But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving
I do not count the time

For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

And I am not alone while my love is near me
I know it will be so until it's time to go
So come you storms of winter and then the birds in spring again
I have no fear of time

For who knows how my love grows?
And who knows where the time goes?

Music: Who Knows Where the Time Goes, Sandy Denny