Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
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It's much less of a jumble now. I'm not sure why, but things are settling down. I don't feel like I'm waking up in a hotel suite any more. Definitely feels like my own bed again. Normalized would be a better word. Yes, things seem normalized (although I still don't feel the need to look at my naked image in three mirrors every time I step into the bathroom). I've accepted the fact that I am now living in a small community of 44,000, not a metropolis of several million. My friends hid their amazement well when we told them we were upsizing, not downsizing, as that seemed the thing to do for oldsters like us.
How are you spending your time, they asked. What kind of question was that? Well, we clean, move boxes around, look for – well at least, talk about looking for – furniture. And you know, the grandchildren are only a block away. The location is perfect. We take them to the petting zoo. Play with alphabet letters, step dance with the little one to music from the little plastic farmhouse stuck to the fridge with a magnet. Of course we make use of the gorgeous nature trails. There are umpteen of them. Yes, we go for walks. Cycle to the wineries. And … the usual. You know. We read, write … we play the piano … and … and ... Why was I defending my new life?
I did not mention the long commutes, the extra hours of travelling. The big city had the theatres, galleries and museums, and myriad cosmopolitan restaurants. I missed the dense ethnic neighbourhoods, hot cobs of corn, pistachio gelatos, jerk chicken. I'd been listing trade-offs in my mind. Finally some uninterrupted time to read, maybe meditate or even catch a few winks while the bus sailed along the endless sprawl of suburbia. My friends had called it that. Suburbia.
Were things not supposed to be more peaceful in a smaller town? More convenient? Niggling self-revelatory truths continued to surface. I was a person who needed everything to happen at once. I constantly bitched about what was not or what should be. I was used to cozy, close and small and easy. In the little house we'd left behind, I could wipe up a floor in a matter of minutes. From the kitchen I'd twirl on one foot and be in the bathroom. The old-fashioned mop did the job in the bedrooms adjacent. The established garden almost took care of itself. Well, with the help of my husband.
There were lists now. Endless lists. Revisions. Check marks beside tasks accomplished. At least beside the ones that were straightforward: get detergent for front loaders, green beans for neighbourhood potluck. Other tasks would take longer: clean the gas fireplace, figure it out (get someone in?), find classy drapes, or blinds, or valances for all those windows … I'd need a decorator. I wasn't sleeping well and had gone into my stash of sleep aids, a collection gathered with the help of other restless buddies of mine. I'd been waking up to the thumping fast-paced rhythm of my own heartbeat. Changing sweaty night shirts. And in the course of my fitful sleep, made trips to the fridge (all the way downstairs) in search of a tryptophan concoction.
It was as if now, for the first time in my little life, I'd joined the hordes, become one of the many, scouring the aisles in Wally Mart, Crappy Tire and Home Depot (Dee Pot as my husband called it) for grout cleaner, ceiling primer, sponges and tarps, hair catchers for the shower drain, microfibre cleaning cloths to shine endless lengths of hardwood flooring, night lights, higher wattage bulbs. There were dingy cupboards to brighten, rooms to paint, windows to shine and cover with pretty country curtains and old salt to scoop from the depths of our water softener. Use true coarse salt only, they'd warned us at the one and only appliance store in town. Pellets are not pure. Do you want to create more sludge? What was she talking about? In the mornings I was sure I could taste the salt in my coffee. Don't worry, the perky woman had said. There's not enough salt in there to harm you. It's equal only to three slices of white bread in a pail this size. She'd held her hands a foot apart to demonstrate.
I realize that we are in a new chapter of our lives. Not to mention which chapter, according to how the youngsters see us. We try not to measure out the years in how old we'll be when the grandchildren hit 10 or when the other grandmothers will be 70, the new 45 – or maybe even the new 40 by then. Maybe 80 will be the new 60.
What I do know for certain is that this daring venture in upsizing is making me more patient, giving me perspective, teaching me skills I never knew I had and, above all, is endowing me with newly acquired Zen attributes. I am trying to live in the present moment. How successful will I be? Ask me a year from now. I may receive a sign once my five upstairs bedrooms are filled. Or not.
Mary Ann McKenzie lives in Stouffville, Ont.