I want to like the matching hand towels. I should like them. They're plush and new and very few things here have ever matched before.
But their sudden appearance is a lead weight in my stomach. No doubt about it, upgrades have a nasty habit of bringing me down.
The half-century-old Kawarthas cottage that my parents built has been gradually improved, modernized and dressed up over the past few years. Problem is, with each tiny change and each short trip to the dump, a little part of me goes too.
The world is a whirlwind, you see. A frenzied anthill where change is constant and we're constantly flummoxed. But for me, the cottage was ever the antidote. A knotty-pine happy place where time froze. Where toys and games offered up a dusty, familiar welcome. Where Mad magazines, Archie comics and James Bond paperbacks yellowed and mellowed. Where the 1952 stove and the faded bird prints and the saws hanging on the bathroom wall could all be counted on to still be there as the balmy breath of Victoria Day melted away the long city winter at last.
Yes, saws on the bathroom wall. Long ago, before sheds and bunkies and add-ons, that was the spot Dad designated for his saws; the nails are still there, minus the weathered handsaws and the biggest, toothiest tree saw you ever, well, saw. At some point - most likely when guests were coming - the saws vanished. And with them, a morsel of personality.
I spent many a contented moment staring at those saws, perched on the bathroom throne. Come to think of it, there's another thing that's long gone. The original septic tank sat out back, necessarily resting on top of our little piece of Canadian Shield. And to get things into the ground-level tank outside, my folks had to rely on good old gravity inside: They constructed a platform for the toilet, two steps up (woe to the besotted guests at Dad's annual stag weekends!). A foot pedal released your business, which flowed down and out, when it worked.
Demonstrating the idiosyncrasies of the throne was always a highlight of welcoming new visitors. Now, in its place, after a massive construction project and the installation of a modern septic system, there's a proper shower and tub with a new shower curtain that naturally matches the new hand towels. And a proper flush toilet, sans foot pedal. No more idiosyncrasies to explain. No more quirky charm.
We even kept the old toilet out back for a few years. Now it's gone too. An eyesore, or so it was said (I always felt we should have planted something in it).
And bye-bye old bath towels. The nearly threadbare, unmatched ones. The motley stack waiting patiently to envelop you after a brisk morning dip. They weren't proud, they just did the job with character and grace. Like a grandma does the job of a grandma. One by one they've been mysteriously retired.
There are holdouts, thank goodness. The kitchen cupboards are chock full of mismatched dishes, two of this plate pattern, three of that, and all manner of mugs and glasses. A full new set of dishes was purchased about a decade ago, but it's never fully caught on.
Over in the buffet - light wood with red trim and perpetually sticky drawers - small coloured shot glasses cozy up against a bevy of wine goblets, some glass, some plastic. And the games cupboard sits over in the far corner, its back legs inexplicably removed, like a lame dog that's been in the family forever. These things are silent warriors, stubborn and strong, standing guard against the threat of the new, and I love them all. They're a testament to the organic evolution of this wonderful place, which began early on, free from the chill of a big-box master plan.
Now don't get me wrong - I understand that broken things need to be fixed, and that truly worn-out things don't deserve another chance. And I also realize that a certain degree of change is as inevitable as lake algae in August. Dad's left us now, after all, and my brother and I are grown up and sharing the cottage with our families and Mom.
But I guess I'm not convinced that new is, by definition, better. Or that anything out of a home-improvement magazine could ever have the soul of a tried-and-true relic.
Surely an old cottage is a place where things don't need to match, where we're released from the shackles of keep-up-edness, where quirk and clutter are perfectly good. A place where things only change when they absolutely have to. A place where we can land, curled up with a book we may well have read in summers past, while the mercurial world beyond our lake swirls away from us.
Paul Ackerley lives in Toronto.
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