Amazing and unexpected things

Sometimes amazing and unexpected things happen. Today was one of those days. A friend who moved recently asked me to return an item she had borrowed for her. Procrastinator that I am, I have put this errand on my ‘to do’ list for weeks.  The destination is fairly close to where we live and today I decided that, while it wasn’t raining, we should take a walk and cross that point off the list.  We had a lovely walk through neighbourhoods where the smell of lilacs still hung in the air. The door to the office was locked and as I took out my phone to call, someone noticed me and came to the door.  We were both masked and I handed over the bag. She thanked me and Richard and I headed home.

            We walked down a different avenue than on the way there and when we got to the corner of the block where I grew up, I asked Richard if he wanted to take a walk by the old homestead. He said he would follow me, so we walked up the familiar street that has become less familiar with many in-fills replacing the 1950’s bungalows. I counted the original houses on the street and noticed the ones that had been taken down since the last time I walked there. As we approached ‘Mum’s house,’ I noticed a car in the driveway. The doors were open and so was the bottom door to the house. As we drew level with the car, we saw a young woman beside it. We said hello and explained why we were interested in the house.

            She said she had occupied the bottom suite with a girlfriend and then when she and her husband were married, they decided to move back into the suite. Her husband and newborn daughter were in the car. She and her husband were in the process of cleaning the suite because they had bought a house of their own. The suite was empty. I pointed out the ‘mail’ sign and the numbers on the upper part of the house that I had made. She invited us to have a look inside. I’m pretty much a rule-follower and we’ve been very careful about our exposure to others while Covid is on the loose. In this case, I didn’t hesitate. I have had hundreds of dreams in which I entered the house and had a chance to see the changes made since I lived there..

            We took off our shoes at the door and walked through the house explaining what the basement used to be like. Here was my dad’s his first bench with a 2X4 that pulled out like a drawer so he could rest his foot on it to shine his shoes.  Here were the stairs that led to the kitchen with a landing near the top where we fed the cats. The furnace was there. Those steps led from the garage into Dad’s shop. That bulkhead had a piece of inner tube tacked onto the bare heating race because Dad was 6’3” and he kept bashing his head on it when he came into the garage. My study was here where there are now two rooms. There were two bathrooms and in one, the fixtures were in exactly the same place they were when Dad added it in the basement. I talked about how, when my parents built the house, both sets of their parents wanted to know why they had bought a place ‘half-way out to Banff.’ All of us laughed. I related how the streetcar line stopped just behind my parents’ property and how the First Nations folks tied their horses out the back of the property it they wanted to take the streetcar into town. I was too young to remember this but my mother told me the story many times.

            All the while the young woman, whose name I neglected to get, listened with interest and asked questions. Richard mentioned that he had proposed to me in my study 34 years ago. The young woman then suggested if we had a phone, she would take a picture of us in that spot. She assured us that she was symptom free and we assured her we were the same. We walked back into what is now one of the bedrooms, found what we figured was the right spot and Richard got down on one knee. I took his hand and she took three photos. She handed the phone back to Richard with a huge smile and said, ‘That is a sacred spot.’

            The three of us walked to the door, put our shoes back on and waved goodbye. I thanked her and assured her that she had made our day. She said we also had made hers. She said, “It’s always good to celebrate lasting love.” I am so grateful that we took that walk today, that our paths crossed, and that a young woman took 10 minutes out of her busy life, while her husband and newborn daughter waited in the car.  Thank you, Young Woman whose name I didn't think ask for 10 minutes of pure magic.

Escape in the time of Covid

            Having and active imagination can be a blessing and a curse. I think by the time we get to be adults most of us have given up our imaginary friends, but I know I haven’t given up my imaginary scenarios. At this moment in the Covid 19 pandemic when we’d all just like things to go back to the way they once were, I find myself escaping into my imaginary worlds more and more. Don’t worry, I know they are imaginary and I choose to go there and come back. Recently my preferred portal has been YouTube or Google search. What I’ve been doing is looking at stuff.

For a couple of days, the stuff was vinyl plank flooring. Our 30+ year-old sheet vinyl in the kitchen finally got a hole in it large enough so that when I walked over it in my bulky shop-socks I created an additional tear about 4” long. Now, we are the people who lived with a bare lightbulb in our dining room for the first 15 years we were married just because it gave us enough light and what it looked like wasn’t all that important; however, even we have our aesthetic standards. We draw the line when it comes to living for more than a week or so with an ugly duct-tape patch right in front of the kitchen sink. I looked at a number of products and companies and then called one of the local, family-owned companies to get a quotation. The guy brought over some samples and we’re going to take them back early in the week and see about the quotation.

In that particular case there was a practical purpose for looking at stuff. I’ve not only been looking at flooring, however; I’ve been looking at how to install a patio using pavers. We’ve been sitting outside under the Manitoba maple tree this year having tea or dinner in an attempt to do something that is a little special and, more importantly, a little different. What would it take to put in a patio? And off I go into escape land. By looking at how to build a patio I become immersed in the world of possibilities. I imagine digging up the grass, putting down gravel, sand and then pavers. I imagine what it would be like to sit out in the shade in the morning watching the birds. I also imagine how nice it would be to rid of the mud pit that is our front ‘flower bed.’ The only flower in it for the last 30 years has been a very determined clematis that, despite our neglect, survived until this year. I watched several videos on YouTube about building with pavers and was quite encouraged until they got to the part where you had to run a compactor over the pavers that were set in the sand and then, once they were compacted and you had filled the cracks with more sand, you had to do it again. We could rent a compactor or whatever it’s called, but that’s the point at which I abandoned the paver universe for the real one. We will probably continue to sit out on the grass. We need to redo that front steps eventually so maybe we’ll just wait until we have the energy to get that done and get a low wooden deck put on at that time.

Another escape I’ve been on is camper vans.  We have one. It’s perfectly serviceable but there are some things it would be nice to have, so down that rabbit hole I went. Wouldn’t it be amazing to have a shorter van with a back-up camera and heated seats? And what about one powered entirely by diesel with solar panels on the roof? Wow. I envision us going down the road ensconced in comfort. The ride is quiet. We set the adaptive cruise. There is no slop in the steering, and we can back up and park with the help of the cameras. Then it’s a rainy day and we’re in a campground, the site surrounded by trees. We sit inside and read books, drink tea and look out at the rain. We have no need to go outside. Or, the day is overcast so we lock up the van and go for a hike up through the forest and to a mountain meadow covered in flowers. We look out over the mountains while sitting on a stump eating our lunch. It is cool enough to be comfortable while we walk, and warm enough to sit and have lunch if we put on a light sweater. The sun isn’t blazing down which I particularly appreciate. We come back to the camper van, heat up our dinner on the induction cooktop then move outside under the awning. Richard drinks wine and I drink kombucha both of which are just the right temperature thanks to the fridge. We chop wood, then sit beside the fire as the light fades. When it is dark, we douse the fire and convert the sofa to a bed with the touch of a button. We dim the lights so I can sleep, and Richard can read. We get up in the morning to quiet, broken by the calls of whiskey jacks, squirrels and children laughing a couple of campsites over. Then I look at the screen in front of me and at the price tag on the camper van. I close the laptop and go load the dishwasher.

This morning and for a chunk of the afternoon, I’ve been looking at cameras (again). I really like my two-year-old Olympus mirrorless camera. It is relatively light, has great image stabilization, and I find it pretty easy to use. This week news came out that Olympus imaging division is in the process of being sold to Japan Industrial Partners. The publicity says that the new line of lenses that are in development will be launched on schedule. With my interest in photographing birds I have been eagerly awaiting a kick-ass telephoto that is lighter than the comparable Canon and Nikon lenses. Mind you, it’s not any cheaper and I could probably buy a second-hand car for the price of the lens. Then I’m off in my mind with the new lens, waiting for the red-winged blackbird to settle on the cat tail so I can get the catch light in his eye.  I look up, see pelicans overhead, catch a series of shots in rapid succession and all of them are tack-sharp with one where the pelicans have their wings spread and are positioned diagonally across the shot.  I get the photo of the white-faced ibis that I missed with my current gear. Then I look at the anticipated price of the lens and start to ask myself how much of my desire for it is because of what it will allow me to do and how much of it is just gear acquisition syndrome. Is there another solution that will suit me better?

That leads me to look at bridge cameras. I had one a few years ago and traded it in when I bought my mirrorless. What do I really want to be able to do with a camera and might something other than an interchangeable lens model do what I want? So I’m off comparing specs and brands for that spot in the market. I know there are disadvantages, so I vow to think carefully about what kind of photos I want to make and what weight of equipment I’m willing to carry in order to get those. I learned a valuable lesson when I lost the card with all my photos on it down the seat on the trip back from Australia and New Zealand. I now have half a dozen metal prints of that trip hanging around the house. All of them were taken with my phone and the quality is just fine for the size of print I had made. Perhaps a kick-ass telephoto lens is not the answer.

It’s now later in the afternoon and I have spent my time in the land of imagination and of possibilities. I seem to need a fairly large dose of that these days. It isn’t the stuff: it’s the possibilities that surround the stuff that attract me time and again. I realize I don’t need any of it, that I am tremendously privileged to go on flights of fancy about patios, campers, and cameras rather than worrying about where my next meal is coming from or whether I’ll be able to make my next rent payment.  Still, I get irritable and annoyed at the way my life has changed in the last few months. Maybe spending time in the land of possibilities is a relatively inexpensive way to chase away the grumpiness and maybe tomorrow I’ll actually get something done.

 A side note: I'm posting this without any photos. It seems that Google and Blogger are 'improving' their interface so I can no longer align photos to the left or right and have the text to the side as I'm used to doing. Many folks are frustrated with this so I hope that by the next time I post there will be an easy fix. Stay tuned.