Duck And Rabbit

The result is a veritable stuff explosion. By this I mean, like a bomb that goes off in your previously pristine adult abode. Half of this plastic junk is designed for large suburban homes, not narrow urban Victorians – so of course you have to sell the coffee table to make room for the Exersaucer. True story.

In our house, we are not huge fans of stuff. My husband would prefer to live in a monastic cell with only his rice bowl and hessian robes for worldly goods. There are definitely times that I’m right there with him, daydreaming of lighting a match and sending all of our crap up in flames as we march off into the sunset to live like nomads. The thing that I have always loved about long stints of travel is how completely unencumbered you are by things. You’ve got one bag, that’s it, you pack it, you move on, you unpack it, and so on.

I admit I have a split personality when it comes to things. There was a time in my life when I owned very little, and between the ages of 18 and 26 moved house, city and country more than 25 times. With each move, I was bound to let a few things go. All of this moving found my husband and I washing up on Toronto’s shores in 2003 with a few bags but not a stick of furniture between us. Friends supplied us with old IKEA bits and we were off. Stuff accumulation began. Snowballed. Getting married and having a baby are really good ways of collecting things too. We now live in a 2.5-storey house that is packed to the rafters with our own personal flotsam and jetsam.

In my defence, I’m not about to be featured on that show about hoarders. I can still find my bed with ease. Back to the split personality – I keep way more things than I should, mostly because I hate for things to go to waste and I feel almost panicky at the thought of landfill. Horrors like the Pacific Garbage Patch haunt me. So if I’m going to get rid of something, I want to do it responsibly. I want my things to find new life somewhere else, with someone else. Just anywhere but here.

The last couple of years have not seen much purge, for pretty good reasons. After all that has happened with Bean, all by himself he has been on a pretty good roll of stuff collection. The kid has received more gifts and toys than any 4-year-old really should, but I can’t possibly complain about the generosity of our friends, family and perfect strangers who have been so giving to him. He is also a prolific artiste, and brings home reams of paintings and whole galleries of sculpture from his various activities. He is rightfully spoiled rotten. And THIS is where this mama has issues – like a hoarder I’ve become sentimentally attached to his stuff, even if it’s a crappy old sticker book or scribble drawing he did when he was 2.

Today is the first day of spring, but you wouldn’t know it by the swirling snowflakes circling my window. With spring comes spring cleaning, and I’m determined to ruthlessly cull the herd.

The process has begun with a Goodwill clothes drop. I didn’t have much luck selling things on craigslist or Kijiji. Then the light bulb went off: why sell things when I can just give them away? After all, we have been on the receiving end of SO much kindness and generosity, it’s time to pay it forward. And the craigslist people go crazy for free stuff. I have got rid of both a broken vacuum AND an unused sitz bath, amongst other, better quality things.

Now I’d better go tidy the hoarder’s pile office. I’ve got some purging to do.

The ice-cream-eating and jumping-in-lakes of summer are a distant memory now. Fall is Back to School, and beginning new projects, it’s crunchy coloured leaves. It’s shorter days. It’s tweed sweaters and running through an apple orchard with a golden retriever. It’s turkey, pumpkin pie and decorative gourds.

If Fall were an ex-boyfriend he’d be a bookish sort in glasses. He’s got elbow patches on his cardigan and prefers to be known by his proper name, Autumn. Whereas Summer is a tanned surfer dude that’s all like, Whoa. And then he takes off on his jet-ski.

My Australian husband has never really come around to the concept of concrete seasonal lines. He doesn’t get that, after Labour Day weekend, summer is over. It doesn’t matter that it’s still 28 degrees out, it’s time to put away the flip-flops and get out the yard rake. And September is not Back to School for him, that’s February. Now that our son has actually started school, I think the cultural implications of the first “-ber” month are finally sinking in.

Craig comes from Sydney, a city blessed by the gods in many ways. It sprawls around a beautiful harbour, there are palm trees, there are 24-hour bars. Most importantly though, the sun shines. Almost. Every. Day. Your barbecue never gets rained out. You will never spend a picnic or a camping trip huddled under a dripping tarp wearing fleece. On what is supposed to be the hottest day of the year.

All of that sun and lack of wild temperature fluctuations make Sydneysiders (seriously, that’s what they are called) pretty happy folk. This is also the reason half of England lives in Bondi. Australians don’t have to contend with all the seasonal labour we have to put up with here in North America.

They don’t have to haul one wardrobe out of storage while tearfully bidding adieu to one’s summer dresses. “I will see you next year my friends, or perhaps in March. In Cuba.”

They don’t have to suffer post-Victorian guilt over not canning a bunch of organic vegetables grown in the garden.

They don’t have to buy their kids new snow-suits everysingle year. They don’t have to buy them ever.

They don’t have to spend countless hours raking up leaves and bagging them, only to rake up the next lot the very next day. Because no matter how many times you think there simply are not any more leaves on the trees to fall, there are. Until there aren’t. And then it’s winter.

They don’t have to clean out the eaves, fire up the furnace, and put away the patio furniture. They don’t have to figure out the best time to put on the snow tires.

You are probably asking yourself why we live in Toronto and not Sydney, since I find all this work so tiresome. Good question. An especially good question when the temperature is a solid 2° C today and I will be fetching my winter parka down from the loft later on.

Toronto is a comfy kind of city where 3 million people from every country in the world rub shoulders without too much friction. T.O. is flat enough to cycle around with ease, and is laid out on a grid, making getting lost impossible. Whatever you want to eat, from souvlaki to sushi, it’s here somewhere. We’ve got a really high tower, and a huge lake. Crime is low. We’ve got parks. We’ve got trees, and right now, most of those are the colour of flames.

In about two months the pond down the road from us will be frozen over, and you might find us skating there on a Saturday morning. Beat that, Sydney.