5 to 6 am

Crystaline grass
silver shopping cart (inexplicably left on my front lawn)
a hobbling skunk

no one hears the bang and clank
of coffee and dish

raging
alone

there is no one to wake
but eyes everywhere
especially mine
framed by orange lace
over dishes
steam rising and softening
my edged gaze

Couples come, confer, approach and pause, enter . . .

I image swinging sex or
church confessions
come late to my role
of gossip and snoop

moved

my daughter marches and stomps
"Why I can jump mommy? Why I can?"

she lays down later on the grass
hugging it

we run round and round
monsters creaking at our backs

One of my fav Ottawa blog finds . . .

This blog has been inspiring me through my post-purchase haze. I love scrolling through images of beautiful homes and imagining mine could be so lovely . . . if only I had the money . . .

Housing m(ar/rac)ket

I was reading yesterday's Ottawa Citizen Homes section at my local Starbucks this morning. They featured three types of recent buyers in their spread: an investor, downsizers, and first-time buyers. Their intro anticpated that March would be a busy time for homebuyers in Ottawa with mortgage rates still low and demand still high because of the relatively stable economy.

As I sit in my new home, enjoying the view of my yard (must plant something), the quiet of my space (no centretown truck traffic), I hope that I have made the right choice to buy. Bills have started pouring in (water, hydro, property taxes) and I do feel somewhat overwhelmed. Meanwhile, my hoped-for upgrades are also costly (floors, electrical, roof). Can I afford this? I'm trying to keep expenses down. I'm leaving the thermostat at 20. I've decided not to buy new furniture. I haven't gone out in I don't know how long (moving week pizza and coffee excepted). I suppose my challenge will be how to transition to a more modest budget after living a year of post-thesis material therapy. I've never been extravagant, you can't afford to be as a grad student, but I've also never had to spend any large amount of money. Can I just coast along in this little cottage and not upgrade it? Will its property value rise without necessary changes? Not sure. I planned to do a lot, prior to moving in. I guess things change once you realize how much it all costs.

Still, just having privacy, the yard, the basement, the laundry, the walk-in tub (which, as it turns out, doesn't leak if shut properly, so I keep it shut and A and I climb in and out of it with the help of a stool), the extra bedroom, and faux fireplace - all these extras feel like they are worth how much more we are paying. Now, I don't have the granite counters and molding and dishwasher and who-knows-what of Barrhaven buyers, but I'm walking distance to downtown (it took me a mere 40 minutes to get from my old apartment to here on Monday morning, and it was a pleasant walk).

So, here I am, trying to decide . . . have I just responded to cues from the media and launched myself into something risky, or am I making a sound personal investment?

In

I am writing on a slope, my new leather office chair is edging into the middle of the room from the side of my desk. I don't think there is any fixing this. I've moved now and my mind has shifted its focus from how to get everything in to how to make everything work. However, a house on a slight slant is just something I'll have to live with.

Why must everything work? No reason. It can't. Impossible to do after a huge move, unless you are my friend B, who makes perfection her mission and whose home was immaculate mere days after her belongings arrived. This place in a work in progress, like everything else in my life.

The joy of here, already, is the space around me, even if it is mostly filled with boxes. The beauty of a basement is that it holds boxes out of sight. Ditto for the garage. Imagine, a garage! I never, ever imagined I would take such pleasure in such a place, but now I enjoy the smell of oil and the old tools hanging on nails, and the rakes and baby food jars filled with odd screws and nails, and the pails and shelves and tarps and everything unrecognizable to a former apartment dweller.

Chaos

There are boxes stacked precariously on every surface in my apartment. Some are full and some and waiting to be filled. Books, DVDS, dolls, cups, combs, paper, shoes, scarves, magazines, baskets, crayons, stickers, recepts, hangers, balls, ornaments, pencils, pillows, blankets, and clothes spill out everywhere. How do I get through this? How do I pack everything up for my friends to help me move tomorrow? Am I ready for this move? I'm ambivalent, as usual.

However,

the good news is that my new floors are stunning. Well, they aren't exactly new. They are 60+ years old, but have been covered with plywood and vinyl and stain for who knows how long. Who does that? Oh, my dad's generation. For them, plastic floors were a luxury. Easy to clean! Soft on the sole! I'm just happy that the floors were relatively stain free. There was a big urine stain near the door. Some poor pet had been kept in to overflowing. Whose pet? When? Do we ever know the histories of the houses we inhabit? I know the previous owner was a little old man who seemed to like dogs (decorative dog plates and calendars were left behind, also a beautiful antique wardrobe and dresser, gardening implements, wooden benches, rubber boots, a knife and paper towel rack, a collection of end tables). I will live in this little house with my little girl and it will become an entirely different space. A new chapter in a continuing history. I like that idea.

I'd head over this morning to move things, but the floors are still smelly with urethane. I had a terrible headache after my last visit. And, it's snowing. I hate driving in the snow.

But I want to be there, to wander through and imagine what could be, to try to visualize how to deal with all the design challenges that come from buying an older man's home: the fireplace with the added on slate hearth that clashes, the pink-press-on-tiles that cover three of the four walls in the teeniest bathroom ever, the dingy-grey paint and panelling everywhere else. Why did I take this on? Because I saw the potential in this little urban cottage and I wanted a home.

I just have to get beyond that mess and my current chaos.

Comparable Misery

I'm reading this lovely book, Split: A Memoir of Divorce, by Suzanne Finnamore. As painful as it is to revisit what I thought was my own personal torment, seeing that someone else has endured and survived, in the author's own words, "It should be noted that my son and I are well and happy . . . , " is also quite helpful.

For my sake, my daughter is well-enough and mostly happy, and I am too, and . . . that is hopeful. It means one can recover from one's own delusions and, despite being torn apart by grief and disbelief, go on to greater self-awareness and growth. Thank God for that. 3 years after everything fell apart for me (the whole house of cards) I'm creating a real home and putting my life back together in a way that is far more reflective of who I am and what I really want. That's promising.

Moving on . . .

I have lived in this lovely downtown apartment with a fabulous view for almost 2-and-a-half years. Strangely enough, after selling the house I bought with my now ex-husband, I applied to this building and the only available apartment was the 7th floor bachelor that I'd been living in when I first met my ex. I took it, moved in with my baby and 30 boxes of books, and waited for this lovely one-bedroom to come up. Those initial months were strange. I woke up wondering if I'd dreamed the whole of the 2-minute courtship and 5-minute marriage; then I would gaze at the beautiful child who was the outcome and be grateful, despite the searing pain in my heart. I can finally say that the pain has lessened now and changed from the anguish of loss for my fantasy of family unity and love into the ache I still feel for my young daughter, caught in the middle of a conflict that I still don't understand.

The other day at drop-off, for instance, which takes place in a neutral, public location, my sweet three-year-old put her small hand over my mouth and commanded, "Don't talk, Mama."

Then, when her father waltzed in (and believe me, this man does swing), she began to repeat, in a loud, unwavering voice, "I don't have two mommys. I don't have two mommys."

My heart seized. My ex has been telling my daughter that his new partner is her mommy, and every time I hear that I seethe. She sees this. She obviously sees this.