Building It Up / Knocking It Down

A friend sent me this lovely, evocative photo. Most times when I’ve gone past (the house is on Earl St and you should buy it!) that bike has been lying on its side; I’ve stood it up more than once. It has felt disreputable somehow, slovenly. I’ve been annoyed with it, as if it’s letting me down intentionally. I’ve probably muttered under my breath. Here, though, the kickstand is engaged and polished, the seat protected from the elements, and it all feels very prim and proper, like a kid dressed up for a visit from the grandparents.

In general, the way things fall apart is more interesting to me than the way they pull themselves together. Touring century-old farms I love most intensely the way sunlight will slice up an exhausted barn or, in cottage country how a perilous dock slumps wholly rotten into lily-rich shallows.

I’m not sure what this says about me. More than I should admit, probably, if the goal is to sell some more houses. On its face it suggests that decrepitude trumps renovation and rebirth. And that’s not it, not at all. I am excited in all the regular ways by spring, the sight of a tulip’s lime leaf nosing through last fall’s leaf litter, by bracing architecture, a chef hassling pans expertly over a hissing grill. Creation is everything. But it is sometimes less clear whether something is being built or destroyed - when a curlicue of perfect wave tears itself to aerated shreds on slate coastline, for example - and at those moments I am both entirely lost and thrillingly alive.

35 MANITOU CRESCENT EAST - NEW PRICE

My dad’s house. A big old Amherstview side split with the best garden I’ve seen in that part of the world.

I only lived here for a few months. We’d been in Canada less than a year, and the Mississauga job that got us through Immigration didn’t work out. Dad took something new near Kingston, and he and my mum bought 35 Manitou sometime between lunch and dinner on a Saturday afternoon. I spent long evenings that winter either alone or in Dale McKergow’s basement just around the corner, drinking warm Molson Export and listening to Talking Heads: “And you may ask yourself, ‘Well, how did I get here?’” Truth is, I think I’m still working on the answer to that question and, well, if you buy the place maybe I can finally move on.

We started at 659,000 out here and I thought that was about right, that we’d sell fast for 650. I’m not sure if it was simply a lack of objectivity, but it didn’t work out at that price, and now I’m relisting it at $595,000. If math still made sense to my dad he’d be horrified, and likely would dis-own me (again).

58 EARL ST

58 Earl St is something special. Walkable in minutes to the downtown core and to the water, the hospitals, City Park and the University, the location feels as perfect as a front-row seat. With large principal rooms and high ceilings, excellent natural light and grown-up perennial gardens front and back, it’s a winning ticket, a dream made from perfect angles in double-brick and immaculate plaster.

1049 HWY 2 EAST - REDUCED TO $895,000

It’s gorgeous! And reduced now from the original.listing price of $935,000. I really didn’t think that would be necessary, but these are odd times in the real estate market. To me, it feels like a steal, but what do I know?

A BIT OF HISTORY (not a word of it true):

I remember this picture being taken. The photographer was just passing by on the road, on his way to the Islands. That’s my mum behind us kids, and dad’s off to my right. The man with the pipe and the stiff wide chaps is Godwin, and he supervised the building of the house. Horrible man. Regularly, mum would call us in from the orchard behind the house and the kitchen would smell richly of Godwin’s apple tobacco. The man himself would make like he was testing the fresh boards in the living room, those long planks being nailed down just a month back and still bending whenever the fire burned. Watching him it was like he was walking a pine tightrope, performing some modern dance. Mum always looked part petrified and part as angry as she did when the startled horse clattered over one of the barn cats mid-summer, killing it outright, its brain like jam on the flagstones. Dad always knew when Godwin had been through the house too. When he arrived home he’d sniff at the air like a hunting dog. But he was a timid man, always weighing good against bad, conclusion against consequence (mostly as a way of stalling any action, I think) and he worked at figuring out that balance until his arms were so tired he was no good for anything, not bringing in eggs, not even strangling one of the too many ducks.

RECENTLY SOLD

MUSINGS