Note to self: be careful what you wish for

It snowed! It's minus thirteen degrees! I look out my window to see that it is actually somehow snowing up.

'Bade ui'... to California.*

* see September 3 post

Mittens go last

It's not as cold as advertised, so far. On Saturday my soccer training was held outdoors. I attended, with trepidation, survived, and even removed my down coat after the first 15 minutes. In fact it was kind of fun. It's possible I'll make it to the spring equinox intact.

My children, however, are disappointed. We read of snow and school closures in England, but here we've had one day of light feathery white covering the land and it made no difference whatsoever to routine activities. The kids made the most of it, forming snowballs and so forth. But these non-natives are getting restless, and somehow we're going to have to get them to snow. We promised them a skiing/sledding weekend as a Chanuka present; I'm just wondering how far we'll have to travel to get it.

Meanwhile, volunteering my time at the younger children's school, I now spend Wednesday mornings with kindergarteners (age 5 or thereabouts), and I find that I myself have learned new lessons. After their session in the library, where I was working this week, the 'SK's (senior kindergarteners) prepared to go home at noon. I eavesdropped as the teacher guided them through the process. 'Take your shoes off before you put on your snow pants. Put your snow boots on, then your coat. What will you do next? That's right! Zip up your coat! If your mittens are already on, how can you zip your coat? Mittens go last.' Of course they do. But would it occur to me to teach that as a lesson? No, I think not. It's not something they taught us, growing up in California, nor was it a skill I felt my own offspring had to memorize. One final point the teacher added: 'Help your friends if they have trouble, but be sure to get yourself ready first.' Where had I heard that? Oh yes: 'In case of a change in cabin pressure, adjust your own oxygen mask before helping others.' Life lessons indeed.

I like the Canadian ecumenical approach to the holidays. At our school's winter concert, the choir sang, to the tune of 'The 12 Days of Christmas': 'On the first day of the holidays, my angel gave to me... 4 homemade latkes, 3 cups of eggnog, 2 figure skates, and a great big evergreen tree'. (Etc.) A menorah figures too.

In other wintry news, we have had a lot of school-based bake sales. My repertoire, corn bread and brownies, is tapped out. When will it be spring, and time for salads? Oh goodness will you look at the calendar: we're not even at winter solstice yet. Brrr.

Back to the future

Moving from England to Canada involved travel in a number of directions, I'm finding: back to North America, forward in time. Recently I had a reunion with an ex-boyfriend and, I hope, non-ex-friend, who is Canadian and lives in Montreal. He was passing through Toronto and suggested we meet for lunch. Our relationship took place about two decades ago, in Berkeley, long before I met my current--and future--husband (who, joining us over coffee, quite liked the ex). While we have moved forward in time and I westward in space, our reunion took me backward in life, to a time when my path was still unknown and forming day by day, a time when I enjoyed freedom and self-indulgence above the San Francisco Bay, in spite of being penniless (but never poor, my mother would remind me) and untethered, and the future had so much possibility that it was effectively empty; that infamous blank canvas. The present was a riot of fun and frolic, but the view forward was of a question mark, and as such, somewhat frightening. In fact, a lot frightening.

Earlier today I was reading from Bill Bryson's edited volume Icons of England. Kate Adie wrote a nostalgic piece for the book about the deer at Raby Castle, in Staindrop, Co. Durham. Instantly came to my mind a lovely outing that husband, children and I made to the same place, when our youngest was in a pram that needed to be pushed over uneven paths through the woods. We ended in the village tea shop eating cakes, just as proper English outings are meant to end. Ah, those long ago days, my eyes grow misty and my heart soft, et cetera, et cetera. And then I pulled myself up short and remembered that I am meant to be pining for Sussex, for the homestead in Hove, the friends in Brighton, for Lewes on Bonfire Night, for a different past, or at least for a different chapter of the past.

And suddenly my life flashes before my eyes as I realize how many chapters my past has. Here I am in my own future. I've made so much history! None of it's earth-shattering, children won't be reading about it in textbooks, but from my perspective the view backward is rich, varied, and full of detail. It's so heavy, anchoring me. Moving to Toronto feels like a kind of watershed, the event that makes me realize that my frightening future has turned into my satisfying past. Okay, maybe the joints are creaking, the skin is wrinkling, and the kids teach me how to work the television; it means I'm old. But the future is no longer a vast and empty cavern. The mists are clearing.

Bell hell

After hours on the phone trying to convince Bell Canada to allow us to pay them, husband has come closer to violence than I've seen in some time. First they informed us that we had too many digits in our account number to be allowed to pay for all our services (phone, internet, cable TV) by direct debit. However we are permitted to pay one of them that way. Then they decided they would only talk to me, as my name is the main one on the account (not sure why). Finally they agreed to speak to husband, and also to allocate us a 9-digit account number, the lucky holders of which may make payments directly via their bank, but they warned us it would take some time to shave the requisite digits off our present identifying number. We will be informed by post of our new account, after which we must contact them personally to ask to be allowed to pay our monthly bill automatically.

In England you don't even have to talk to a human being in order to offload your money. Husband is now saying that given the old-fashioned nature of monetary transactions here in Canada, he plans to pay the company in groats. Or, perhaps, he will drive a herd of sheep into their office and find out how many heads of beast are worth a month of Premier League football coverage.

And I haven't even told him yet about the bill I received from Rogers, Bell Canada's competition, with whom we do not now and never have held an account. Luckily, the amount owed is $0.00. I shall send a cheque immediately.

holiday cheer

Okay, things got better. Husband came home. The evening after Halloween, we joined in the Harbord Pumpkin Festival. It's a great idea, actually: bring your jack o'lanterns to the local shopping street, where the organizers provided tea lights and matches, and people wandered up and down to admire the artistic, or otherwise, efforts of their neighbours. (At the end of the night, the business association politically-correctly arranged for all pumpkins to be collected and composted.) There were some amazing carvings, especially those outside Dessert Trends, where huge flowers, shadowy owls, and scenes reminiscent of Dutch delftware were displayed. Dessert Trends also handed out adorable little decorated cupcakes (carob, natch) to passing children. Across the street, the Boulevard Cafe offered samples of delicious pumpkin soup. And further east, the Toronto Women's Bookstore stayed open to dispense free coffee and book-browsing.

I meant to write something positive about Halloween and seem to have been sidetracked into food. H'm. Re-reading, this also looks like an advertising bulletin for our local shops but let me say that no sponsorship money has changed hands. Yet.

Tithing

Halloween took over the weekend. I forgot what a big deal it is this side of the Atlantic! Ah, childhood memories. But it's different too. I suppose it always is, in a Proustian kind of way. (No, I haven't read it either, but I think that's what I mean.) The kids had parties, dances, and parades at school on the Friday, attended a neighbourhood pumpkin-carving gathering (with treats) at a local park, scooped out and designed jack-o'lanterns at home, went to a friend's house for a party on Sunday and then at long last embarked on the main event, trick-or-treating. That was where it got disappointing, for me at least. Back in England, in Brighton, the pickings were fewer, much further between, and necessitated more walking, but we did it en masse. I had friends, we brought each other flasks of tea, or soup, phoned each other to meet up with yet more parents and children, and the kids marauded happily through well-known streets. Here it was just me and my three, finding our way. Yes, we stopped in at houses of people we knew, got tips about the best route, and we met schoolfriends on the streets, but we were not part of a gang. Our gang's in England, still. That's the thing about holidays; they show up the gaps. I was lonely last night.

On the plus side the children garnered many, many candies (the eldest two counted 147 and 135 pieces, respectively). Not as many as I remember getting, but I don't have documentary evidence. I do know that when I was young, my mother used to let us eat a few of our sweets on Halloween evening, and then, horror of horrors, she took our sacks away for 'safekeeping'. This safekeeping always resulted in a severe diminution of the booty when next we looked on Candy Day, which occurred every Saturday, the only day on which we were allowed to eat sweets. Last night I decided, in rebellious response, to go for the open and above-board approach: I tithed. The kids had to give me 10% of their sweets, which I must say they did without complaint. Luckily they are not fans of Reese's peanut butter cups. nor of 'rockets' (aka 'smarties', in my day) or Coffee Crisps, so I'm pretty happy with my haul. The children will face no shortage when the weekend rolls around and they get to indulge again-- on Sweet Saturday, the only day of the week they are allowed to eat candy. (Sometimes Mom is right.)

Happiness is...

...friends coming to see us from home. England, that is. It means so much to us have you here, and your little daughters too (to misquote the Wicked Witch). It's challenging but fun to play tour guide, and showing off Toronto makes it feel more my own. I'm learning so much! For instance, there is no Terminal 2 at Pearson Airport. One, yes, three, yes, but two, no. Is it northern math?

Home, they say, is where the heart is. Well, they don't know what the hell they are talking about, because I would have to break my heart into pieces and stash them here, and there and there, if that were true. Maybe that's what has happened to it. Hmm. And here's me thinking it was just indigestion.

See the photos 22 October 2010:

http://anandaferlauto.blogspot.com/2010/10/toronto.html

Leslie walks for Terry Fox

I accompanied my children's school on the annual Terry Fox walk. Poor Terry Fox. First he died horribly and bravely of cancer. Then he became our household bogeyman.

Canada has an obsession with this man. Some 30 years ago, suffering from cancer, minus a leg, he embarked on a cross-country run (literally, he aimed to cross the country). He didn't make it. Now schools all over the country run or walk for Terry Fox( https://www.terryfox.org/) . Unfortunately for us, at our younger children's school, the build-up to the walk included a vivid, highly graphic presentation by a cancer survivor who also lost a leg, and now demonstrates to children the nature of her tumor, the surgical scar accompanying its treatment, and the workings of the prosthetic leg she now owns.

My youngest child freaked out. She began worrying about dying, about getting cancer, about her parents and grandparents dying. She asked how to prevent cancer and of course we reassured her that her varied diet and healthy lifestyle meant that she was well protected. 'But I don't eat healthy food,' she sobbed. 'I used to sneak into my brothers' room and eat their sweets.' Her brothers hid sweets in their room? What does it say for my house-keeping skills that I never knew this?

Soon she began having panic attacks, complaining that she couldn't breathe properly. The school rang me on Friday and the vice-principal informed me tensely that my daughter was having trouble breathing and did she have any allergies. No, I replied, this is emotional. The vice-principal responded beautifully and kept my daughter calm while I cycled up to the school, bearing a cough drop that has come to serve as the magic placebo. She settled, and allowed me to take her back to class.

Of course I don't entirely blame Terry Fox. We are the ones who dragged her from her home, her school, her friends, her safe and secure world. She was so happy. She has made friends here and even said the other day, 'It is really starting to feel like home!' I asked her why and she said, 'Well, we have nice friends, and we have a car, and we have plenty of food.' I see what she means. It did take us awhile to sort out the grocery situation and the fridge looked strangely bare for some time. But making new friends, having a new car, having a fridge full of Canadian food, while wonderful, while progress, also highlight the absence of our friends in England, our old car, and our Sainsbury's-own-brand foodstuffs.

On the plus side, the walk itself was lovely. Hundreds of children walked about 5 km, chanting 'Our school walks for Terry Fox!' The nice Canadian drivers (so unlike their US and UK counterparts) looked on, stationery yet smiling, as the police blocked off intersections for us safely to cross. Hey, I found a hill in Toronto! We even walked passed a castle (Casa Loma). We traversed a bucolic, wooded ravine where the trees are beginning to turns shades of red and gold. The children complained not a jot, cheerfully completing the circuit, laughing and joyful. What a memorial to the unfortunate Terry Fox.

stars and stripes

When I lived in Berkeley, raccoons were a bane of my existence. They crept through the cat flap at night and ransacked the breadbin. They terrorised our pets. They crossed the road unpredictably, eyes shining like stars in the headlight beam. Nonetheless, when I moved to England, I missed their striped cheekiness. They are pests here in Toronto ('Raccoon problems? Call 416-______'). But when I saw my first Canadian one the other night, a shaggy fellow who zigzagged unexpectedly in front of my car, I felt a sense of homecoming. Silly of me. True, though.

going in circles

I love that where we live is a small neighbourhood even though it's in a big city. Already we're meeting people who turn out to know the people we already met. The children my children have invited round to play all turn out to be connected, mainly through the university. I guess it's the campus connection-- something I missed while we were living in Sussex, but forgot I'd been missing.

So I'm not all doom and gloom. Today was lovely. I went to Leslieville, the neighbourhood they named in my honour when I arrived. Not really. I tagged along with a friend to collect an antique cabinet thingy in my massive automobile. There was so much space left that I decided to buy an antique(ish) chair in which to sit and type this post. Much more comfortable than the plastic Ikea stool. It's nice to sit comfortably. I guess I'll stay awhile.

rainy day blues

Still doldrums. Feeling sorry for myself. Months ago, when contemplating the transatlantic travails to come, today is exactly the way I pictured the future. And lo! It has come to pass. There is rain of biblical proportions, with thunder on the right, and gloom as far as the eye can see, which is not very far (especially compared to the lovely rain-soaked view of the South Downs I had in days of yore, from my office in Falmer...)

Husband is at the office, the children are at school. 'Er indoors, aka moi, has been unpacking and doing laundry all morning. It doesn't seem to have made a dent in the stacks of boxes, even though I'm now flattening the empties, as ordered by Conan the Barbarian, who works for the university housing service and comes round to perform various tasks. Last time he was here, Conan chided me for my poor housekeeping and for having too many children and visitors. I keep rehearsing retorts I should have uttered at the time, but of course did not. Suggestions welcome for the next time he invades the house (he has a key).

No one has called or texted. I even rang myself to check that the phones are working. I probably don't exist anymore.

doldrums

Life felt a bit like normal this afternoon, and I'm so sad. Normal for Toronto looks to be such a far cry from normal in Hove. On a weekday after school in Hove, I'd have come rushing from work to collect younger children at school, probably at least one of them with a friend, and then we'd all walk home to meet eldest who would have walked home on his own or in the company of classmates. The children would play (and squabble; I don't want to romanticize too much) while I snatched a few moments for a cup of tea and the newspaper before gearing up to prepare dinner. Radio 4 would keep me company and keep time. The Archers would herald husband's arrival, and the evening flurry would begin.

Today, in Toronto, I collected the eldest since he is not quite prepared for making his own way through a city of 5.5 million souls. Arriving home I was concerned to find the house dead quiet, as I expected to find husband with 2 younger children. I rang him and asked where he was. 'At home. Upstairs. In bed,' he mumbled, not feeling well. The kids were on an even higher floor. And I had thought the house was empty! It feels empty, hollow, somehow. Not full of memories and imprints of friends: not normal.

There are still so many boxes to unpack and tasks to accomplish (correcting the birthdate on my driving license for example). But when all that's finally done, when the bed is constructed and the pictures hung, we'll reach normal. And this afternoon's whiff of normal makes me want to lay my head down and cry.

day of the demons

After my 5 visits to Service Ontario at Bay and College, in pursuit of an ultimately (or perhaps penultimately) flawed driving license, I was ready to give the place a wide berth. Sigh. The best-laid plans of woman.

With driving license in hand, insurance arrangements made, husband flown off to work in Boston for the day, and grandparents either asleep or off sightseeing, Friday morning was allocated for me finally to acquire the family car. Negotiations with the dealership netted me a lift from Brian the successful salesman and off I went. While being shown the intricacies of our new behemoth of a vehicle (so much more technically demanding than when we last bought a car almost 9 years ago) my phone rang. Elder child's school announced itself on the display. I answered, of course expecting the customary reassurance that all was okay but that I needed to complete some forgotten form.

But no. 'Hi, this is the school, your son's had an accident. The bleeding has mostly stopped but probably he needs a doctor.' Heart lurching I waited to be informed which bit of anatomy suffered the damage: his finger. Thank heaven not his head but fingers are pretty darned important too. Echoes of the game Clue(do): who, how, what, with what? It was grade 7s in the art room with the scissors and duct tape, it seems. I promised to get to my treasured child ASAP and was then forced to listen to the remainder of Brian's instructions before I could drive away. I did so with near zero attention. I handed him a check, a credit card, a debit card, no doubt my library card too-- anything to get me out of there. If not for the plate glass window between my new car and the street, I probably would have just driven away with him in tow.

When I finally escaped I drove to the school and then realized I had no idea how to approach it on wheels. A parking space appeared immediately in front of the building, behind another car, and I hastily fed the meter a 'toonie' or $2 coin and flew into the building. Slightly wild-eyed, I demanded my son's whereabouts from the bemused school secretary, who obviously had no idea why I was there. A teacher emerged from the corridor and led me to my poor child who sat contentedly in the lunch room eating a slice of watermelon and watching television, a raggedy bandage on his ring finger. A sigh of relief from both of us.

Of course I had not yet (still have not) organized a family doctor nor did I know where to find an emergency room. The teacher suggested a walk-in medical clinic at.... Bay and College. Of course. Of course. The school secretary, enlightened as to why I appeared (I guess bleeding children are a common enough phenomenon that their existence is on a need-to-know basis only, but I would have thought that the school office would get a report?), suggested that the hospital behind the school might have an emergency room. Might? Wouldn't you think that's something a school's employees would need to know? Not in Canada, I guess. We could walk to the hospital.

But when we passed the car, a bright yellow parking ticket waved to us on the windscreen. I had managed to park in a school bus loading zone. My first time ever parking that car. What does it all mean? So, having to remove the car anyway, we drove off. Bay and College beckoned.

At the clinic, the receptionist squinted severely at my temporary health card and said 'This is expired. You'll need to pay $100.' How can it be expired, I asked, when I only received it a couple of days ago. 'Oh yes, you're right, it's good till October 30. My mistake.' But too late, I had been on the verge of emotion and out came the tears. Only one or two but enough to alert 12-year-old son, who gently put his arm around my shoulder. My poor little injured boy, now comforting his old mom (old mind you, but 10 years younger than she was when she moved to Toronto). Is this the beginning of the end? The fledgling looks over the edge of the nest...

As we waited, husband phoned from Boston to ask how everything is going and whether I succeeded in buying car. 'Yes, we have a car. Have you had your meeting yet?' I inquire. 'No, I'm about to start,' he replies. 'Then everything's fine. Call me later.' 'Why,' he askes suspiciously, 'have you crashed it already?' At least I could reassure him on that score. So far.

Eventually treatment is received, free and fair, competent and clean. Son, freshly bandaged finger, my parents (who joined us there) and I wander till we find the car (no ticket!) and wend our way home. There we find in-laws, not up the CN Tower as planned, but in our sitting room, nursing mother-in-law's bruised and bloodied face, as she had tripped over a loose paving stone in front of the tower and is now recovering on our sofa. Father-in-law tried to phone me but of course I was not at home, and in his distress he phoned my old UK mobile number. That's in the kitchen drawer.

Late, I rush off with my mother in tow to retrieve younger children from school. We won't make it in time so I ring a friend and ask her to gather up smallest child who can't be released without an adult. Luckily, they don't seem too picky about which adult it is, and by the time my mom and I arrive, the 7-year-old is happily snacking on friend's cookies.

Home again. Except for younger children, none of us has eaten lunch, and my parents not even breakfast, so we troop across the street to '*$s' as elder son calls the place (aka cappuccinos-r-us). Clustered in a clucking, buzzing huddle (chickens come to mind) we consume quantities of caffeine and pastry, licking our real and spiritual wounds. It must work because behind us, sitting quietly and blamelessly on her own, a young woman spills her entire grande latte over herself, her bag, her book, her leather coat, the floor. Clearly, the demons have left us and begun to torment her.

....In which I grow 10 years younger

Well I finally have an Ontario driver's license. It took 5 visits to the mis-named 'Service Ontario' in the basement of a tall shiny building at Bay and College to obtain it. Visit number one hardly counts; I just popped in on the off-chance that they could help me out then and there. 'No' was the answer, but the woman at the counter helpfully told me their hours: 8 am to 7 pm.

Thus, visit number two, planned with husband, 3 days later, at 6 pm, leaving children in care of grandparents. Again, no luck; the gates of Temple Service Ontario temple were firmly closed, except to cleaning staff glimpsed within. It turns out the extended hours offered me by the nice lady at visit number one only apply certain days. (However, hubby and I did find a pleasant outdoor cafe on campus where we indulged in an impromptu date. Silver linings, etc.)

Visit number three occurred some days later, with children safely in school, many documents in hand, reading matter at the ready, down down down into the basement we marched again, to join a snaking queue for tickets. After answering the receptionist's questions to ascertain that we had everything necessary, we were granted numbered slips of paper and launched into a 2 hour wait. Finally, M24 flashed on the screen and we approached the hallowed counter, only for our hopes to be dashed yet again, as we had not brought the paper 'counterpart' to our UK photo card licenses. This was a calculated risk as husband has not yet located the counterpart to his own license though I knew where mine was. I didn't bring it though out of (misguided?) solidarity and because the intelligence we garnered suggested it wasn't necessary. Ha. Still we indulged in some irate tut-tutting that the receptionist had not specified this in her checklist of necessary items before we waited the two hours.

Visit number four occurred later that day, me on my own, but was again to no avail, as I missed their opening hours. It was a short day. That time, my bad, I own up. At least I was no longer making the trip on foot but by bicycle, so less time was being lost.

Visit number five, again by bike, again on my own, and with only an hour of waiting, I took my place at the altar of a Service Ontario counter. (This visit, by the way, the receptionist took care to ask 'Do you have the two-part license?', before issuing me a numbered ticket, so perhaps the fuss we kicked up at visit number 3 paid off.) Hallelujah! I got a bit worried when the clerk, being helpful as I tried to answer the question 'When did you first get a driving licence?' told me that I had turned 16 in 1985. 'No, in 1975', I replied. 'No, '85,' he insisted. I assured him my authority on this matter was good http://www.blogger.com/and he checked his computer screen carefully for the birthdate he had copied from my passport. 'Oh, yes, you're right,' he told me. Nice to know, and I departed the basement of hell before they began charging me rent, my fistful of official papers in hand.

Only when I got home and conducted a more careful examination of the paperwork issued to me did I discover the awful truth: the dude got my birthdate wrong after all. I'm nine years and 257 days younger than I was, in the eyes of Service Ontario. Which explains why I now write words like 'dude'.

I have a dreadful feeling that visit number six looms in my future.

pop cycle-ology

Well, the rains have come, and the tropical heat has broken. The children loved the warm storm and went out to frolic in it (really, they frolicked, just like the Victorians thought they ought). I recounted for them my own mother's reminiscences of playing outdoors in a bathing suit in the summer rains of Brooklyn. It sounded so exotic and so improbable to me as I grew up in California where 'rainy' means 'cold'.

In spite of the gray weather, narrow rays of light are gleaming through. We found a bike shop down the street with a small espresso bar! How perfect. We also located Kensington Market, a wonderful higgledy-piggledy collection of shops and stalls and restaurants, which incidentally is home to another bike shop called 'Bikes on Wheels'. (Eh?, as they say here. On what else would bikes be?)

Earlier in the week some kind friends invited us to join them at a park where we swam al fresco (and for free) in a cheerful public swimming pool. Even better, we all hopped on our bikes to get there. Such freedom, such a sense of belonging, just from propelling oneself on two wheels! James Tanner (Fetus Into Man) wrote of the bicycle's benefit to human populations by reducing inbreeding; I've not yet found references to the machine's positive impact on human psychic well-being but I know it's real.

All in all, it's not so bad. I say this prior to our planned visit to Service Ontario this afternoon, where we must obtain Ontario driving licenses in order to buy a car. I popped in there the other day to have a look and was shocked at what I saw: a blend of the old US Consulate in London with an NHS casualty department. Molded plastic chairs, all occupied, the awkward silence borne of resignation and anxiety, people slumped in corners, and a hand-printed sign saying 'estimated wait time: 2 hours'. In a basement, moreover. Not pretty. Not pretty at all. My in-laws are visiting from London, so we have made plans to go out to dinner tonight after it's all over (they will watch the kids, thank heaven). When I booked a table for 7:30, the guy on the phone asked if I could make it earlier but I explained that we had to go first to Service Ontario. He tsked in commisseration, then laughed abd agreed that earlier was not an option. 'I'll have your drinks waiting for you!' he promised. So I don't expect anything good from this encounter (Service Ontario, I mean, not dinner).

Don't sweat the small stuff, I keep repeating to myself, and it's all small stuff. Okay, trite, bland and derivative. And you know, we are in Toronto, in Canada, in North America. It may be difficult at times but it's not, like, Kibera: check out the blog of the amazing Annalise Blum, who is my favorite candidate of this generation to save the world from itself, and is doing so at the moment in, like, Kibera.

http://annaliseblum.blogspot.com

knobs off

Moving to a new country is such a mixture of the surprisingly familiar and the unexpectedly strange. No one uses online grocery shopping! The bathroom doors don't lock! When I asked the property manager of our rented house if we might have some little hook-and-eye catches on the doors to our smallest rooms, for modesty's sake when we have visitors, she queried what had happened to the locks on the doorknobs. 'Oh, there are no locks,' I assured her. She seemed surprised, but I was sure there were none. I had inspected and palpated. But when the caretaker came round several days later, he ushered me into the bathroom and closed the door behind us. No spooky music started up, so I didn't scream. 'Look,' he commanded, and twizzled the doorknob. I tried to twist it. No luck. It was locked! Still no scary music. 'Now,' he demonstrated, and proceeded to show me the simple, clever and perfectly effective locking-- and releasing--mechanism. I'd never seen it and never would have (never did) guess it was there. When I later stopped by the property manager's office with a small offering in thanks for feeding our cat, I apologized for my troublesome request. She brushed it off, laughing, and said, 'I did wonder what was wrong with you!' she chortled. What's wrong with me is that I don't belong here. I am not Canadian, not of this land with the strange locking doorknobs. I'm not English. And it's been almost 17 years since I lived in America. I don't seem to belong anywhere. Neither here nor there, nor there. Sigh.

First impressions

...So important, aren't they? Thus imagine my chagrin when I realised I'd accidentally told the principal of the younger children's new school that I was my husband's paramour. I didn't mean to say it, and I certainly didn't mean to say it to him, but out it slipped, on the phone. He rang up and asked for my husband, who wasn't home at the time. I offered to take a message. 'So, you're his... his... his...' he said, leading me on. 'Yes, I'm the mistress,' I said flippantly. What was I thinking? What is wrong with me? When will I grow up? Then he introduced himself as the principal, graciously accepted my apologies, and when we met today, seemed to hold no grudges. However I would like to get a look at his marginalia. I mean the notes he keeps on his pupils' families.

'Bade ui'

In west Java, Indonesia, tiny children cry 'bade ui' (bah-day oo-ee) when they are worried or tired or scared. It means 'I want to go home!' But the connotation is less that of place than a state of mind, that of being safe and secure; being cuddled is as soothing as returning to the house.

Yesterday I woke up thinking 'bade ui'. Even silently in my head I sounded plaintive. (The odd tear may have run down my cheek; who's to say?) The shipping container arrived on Tuesday, and the boxes and things had clearly courted, mated, and reproduced on their way across the Atlantic as there are 564 of them (yes, they counted, and we counted them off on our 'inventory bingo sheet'). Our lovely bed couldn't be assembled because the moving company in England didn't send along the hardware. A screw, a screw, my kingdom for a screw! This morning towering cardboard piles menaced me from above the flimsy borrowed mattress on the floor. We're drowning in stuff. Bade ui, bade ui...

Niagara Fallen

What can one say? We've fallen for Niagara Falls. After 2 wonderful and healing days visiting friends in a little town on the shores of Lake Erie, we stopped by one of the seven wonders of the world. (Okay, maybe it's one of the hundred wonders of the world.) It is indeed wonderful. Also the kids are enchanted with lake swimming-- no salt!

minimal bliss

The house echoes now. Nothing's here. Well, that's not true: we have everything we need, and then some. But our numerous possessions, currently squashed like a third-trimester fetus in an oblong metal womb, have yet to arrive from across the ocean. It's a mystery to me. How is it that we can function perfectly well with none of our stuff, and yet a massive shipment is going to reach us (early next week, they threaten) and we will have to accommodate it all.

For the last few days housework has been a sheer pleasure, like playing house as a child; trivial, optional, insignificant, amusing. There's virtually nothing to clean! Little to launder! Back in Hove, I never saw the bottom of the laundry hampers as I could only manage to scoop off the top layers, wash, dry, and fold the clothes, then deliver them to appropriate bedrooms before soiled stuff spilled over again. Eight laundry baskets were in constant use. Just prior to our move, I spent over £100 having all the washing done, by someone else. I really truly don't get it. Why did we need all that stuff there, but not here?

I admit I have fantasized about the container ship sinking into the Atlantic and our possessions disappearing, only to be recovered centuries hence by treasure-seekers. Those hypothetical future finders would appreciate all our detritus so much more than I do now. One woman's meat...

hummingbears

Hello, blog. I've abandoned you for quite some time. It's therapeutic having a space to write but it can also feel like a burden. I write when I'm anxious, I realize. That's going to color my output.

At the moment the anxiety centers around my departure tomorrow from the family homestead in Los Angeles. The children and I are flying back to Toronto, our quote-mark 'home', to rejoin husband and cat. The middle child said, in a spurt of positive thinking, that Toronto already feels like home. I meanwhile woke to the BBC World Service news, on a local public radio station, and for a few moments believed I was lying in bed at home (no quotes) in Brighton, listening to Radio 4. I feel simply dislocated.

I sit at my computer, at my parents' dining table, watching hummingbirds flit around the feeders that I put up for them each time I visit, and which my parents allow to run dry when I go. Poor little avians, feast and then famine. I read that there are hummingbirds in Toronto, in the summer, but I haven't yet discovered any. False advertising or insufficient patience?

Hummingbirds in summer. What visits in winter? Polar bears? I fear February.

talk talk

Everyone here sounds like me. So strange after almost 17 years of speaking with a 'foreign' accent when I'm at home. I am still a foreigner but have lost my vocal indicator system. Now you can only tell me apart from the locals when I try to spend change, and do it incompetently.

key free

The keyring is empty. No car, no house, no office. All gone. Loss, or maybe freedom. I can almost see myself wrapping my belongings in a bandana tied to a stick, hopping on the next freight train, and riding the rails. Oh yes, the husband and children and cat. Also no harmonica. So, maybe not.

Meanwhile, we are staying with Y and D, their children and their adorable dog (not the the children aren't also adorable) in Brighton and having a wonderful time. It feels like a holiday. Why didn't we do this before? Who needs vacations abroad? It's so much fun just to share a house with friends. Though the friends are probably quite ready to have their house back. We told them their generous hospitality would ensure they don't miss us too much; by the time we depart tomorrow morning, they will quite welcome our absence.

I lie. We are going to miss each other tremendously. My friend A and I agree we won't say goodbye, just hello, and see you later.

Tonight we'll dine on fish and chips. Tomorrow, Toronto ho.

Ho? Ha! Boo hoo.

boxing clever

Our moving company's logo turns out to be a black cat in profile, so the children, cat lovers all, are happier about their belongings going into the boxes than they might have been otherwise. The movers are lovely men, which is a mercy, as otherwise I would be inclined to hate them. They've transformed our home into a warehouse. It's industrial, and processed, and alienating. (Alienating us, but preparing to welcome its new inhabitants. Damn them.) Everything is 'lasts': last dinner, last sleepover guest, last bath, last night. Tomorrow we leave. Funny, but now that our possessions are just a series of boxes, I don't really want them any more. I know that suggests a lack of object permanence in my psychological make-up but it's true: I don't care what's inside the cardboard.

heat and dust

...AKA, life in my loft (also, a great book and film by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. I saw the film at the British Council library in Bandung, Indonesia, so many years ago it was another life). The attic has enough dust and heat to give India a run for its money. Where did it all come from? Where did all those boxes and bags and suitcases come from? They are ours, of course, but why did we keep them if only to let their contents deteriorate, victims of mice and mites and motes of dust, above our heads? I won't do that next time. Really. But I must say it was awfully nice to find those beige sandals.

love-in

Almost a hundred people struggled through roadworks and traffic to come to our 'leaving do' picnic at Stanmer Park, just outside of Brighton. It was a gorgeous sunny afternoon. Grown-ups lolled on the grass, chatting, eating, drinking, and laughing. Children gambolled - no, really, they gambolled-- climbing trees, hiding in the shrubbery, flying kites, playing football (and firing Nerf guns at each other. Well, what can you do). We meandered amongst knots of friends, greeting, hugging, kissing, crying. We knew everyone but not everyone knew everyone else, so we had the cosy sense of being at the centre of a web. It was like our wedding but without the rabbi and the ceremony. As I surveyed the untidy array of blankets and baskets spreading across the lawn, I fell in love: a visible, tangible representation of communities created over the last six years here in Sussex. One friend perspicaciously asked me whether my anxiety about moving stemmed from fear of the new, or sadness about leaving the old, and I realize that it's very much the latter. I am not unduly worried about the nuts and bolts of starting again(I may soon look back and sneer at my foolhardy self), but I wonder what we were thinking when we chose to head for pastures new and cold. If we'd had to fill in a balance sheet, assessing the value of our friends, our community, the network that cossets us here, against the wonders that are said to await us Over There, what would we have chosen to do? Maybe it will be, as I'm told again and again, a mere trifle to make friends and build networks in Toronto. At the moment, I don't care. At the moment, I don't want new friends or new community. I want the ones I've got.

the sisterhood

Why do we stay where we are or go somewhere new? By free will, for those of us who are lucky, or by force, for too many others. So really, I'm lucky. I'm moving to Toronto because it's a wonderful opportunity for my husband and most likely for my children. For myself, the draws are the altruistic ones of seeing my loved ones benefit (in the long term, that is; the kids would argue about any positives accruing to them at the moment) and greater proximity to my extended, natal family. I'll be closer to my parents and my sisters, but not all that close which is frustrating. On the other hand, you have to be careful what you wish for. Maybe not too near is best.

What goes around comes around

Tonight, what came around was a piece of my past, a charming piece: a little girl I used to look after in Berkeley when she was small and I was young is now a college graduate and globetrotter who came to us for dinner. Annalise is absolutely wonderful, articulate, bright, beautiful and out to save the world, one drop of water at a time. I think she just might succeed, too. It's funny to reminisce about the past with someone who was a mere infant during that past; you get to have all the memories your own way.

At the same dinner during which I was renewing my relationship with Annalise, I was continuing on the path of abrogating friendships with our other guests. Okay, maybe 'abrogating' is too harsh. Saying farewell to wonderful Peter and Eva and their little sons, though, I feel guilty. By moving far away, we are abandoning so much and so many. With too little consideration? Inadequate foresight? I hope they will come around to see us in Toronto.

Could do worse

Well, the trip to the US Embassy went smoothly, much to my surprise, and we finished at the consulate in under 2 hours. Our lack of a confirmation letter was met with a practically Gallic shrug (rather than a Yankee shove). In fact we did much better than the couple behind us in the security queue, whom we befriended: they had all their paperwork but forgot to bring their baby. Luckily for them home was not far away and baby was quickly retrievable via taxi. Ironically those parents were a lawyer and a banker. If two anthropologists can out-organise them, there is hope for academia in spite of these troubled economic times. To celebrate afterward (I mean celebrate our success at renewing younger son's passport, not at besting the global financial market) we breakfasted at a charming Mayfair cafe and visited Selfridge's food hall, where the children were given, rather bizarrely, their own live clams. In shells.

sleepless in Stanmore

I can't sleep. I'm too busy trying to kick myself. Why didn't I apply for a British passport when I still could? I never thought I'd covet one of those maroon booklets; never thought my 'indefinite leave to remain' stamp could expire. But it does. If I cease to reside in this green and pleasant land, then 'indefinite' becomes, in fact, quite definite: after two years, I'm no longer welcomed with open arms. I feel cheated and betrayed. Who would have thunk it? I learned to do the crossword puzzles and to laugh at the jokes; doesn't that give me any rights?

What on earth am I doing?

Here I am, happy and content in a lovely home by the sea on England's south coast. I was gainfully and pleasantly employed, despite the recession. Children under control- mainly. Husband same. But the easy life does not suit us, it seems. So off we go to pastures new-- and snow-covered. Toronto ho.

separation anxiety

I want to sell our electrical goods online, via Gumtree, because they're no good (well, not much good) in Canada. But there's some weird forcefield that is stopping me. I have listed the items, photographed them, made my peace with their departure, but somehow don't seem able to actually put them out there for strangers to buy. The hardest to sell will be the answerphone, which has an adorable message recorded by all three children several years ago. Everyone comments on that message. The children have changed but the message is the same.