Out of Quarantine

I was a week into my two weeks of mandatory quarantine, checking in with the Nova Scotia government everyday, verifying that I hadn't left my property or come in contact with anyone, since entering the province.

By the time I finished painting the living room, I was itching to see the water. I moved to this glorious, coastal province (over 13,300 km of coastline, don't cha know), for the very fact that there are beautiful beaches aplenty. And I hadn't yet seen one! Frank, my elderly neighbour told me, "No one will care if you take a drive to the bottom of the road to see the beach at Baccaro." (pronounced “backrow”). So one morning, I snuck out of my house, got in my car with the glaringly obvious Ontario plates, and drove down to the bottom of my road past wooded areas, and tiny communities, with just a few houses and a church or two. All the way down the road on my left I could see glimpses of the Clyde River as it got wider and stretched itself out into the ocean.

At the bottom of the road I reached a sandy point. After heading toward the lighthouse, I turned around, parked at the side of the dirt road and climbed the dunes that separated me from the water. This was now my backyard. I would ride my bike down here in the summer and share it with friends who came to visit. I would come to know this place as though I'd known it forever. In the meantime though, I was a little overwhelmed. The permanence of being here was too much to take in. I got in the car and drove back up the road. I had to get used to the idea that I didn't have to move again, so I could invest myself fully and attach to a place.

My studio was next to tackle. The wallpaper was removed, where it was feasible, down to the plaster. Where it wasn't, it was taken as far as it could go without causing more repair than necessary. Cracks were sealed, holes were filled and sanded and the walls were painted a peaceful green called, “Back to Nature”.

The dining room went relatively quickly as well. The walls were painted a warm, light grey, the same as the living room. It's sort of unlike me to not have some colour on the wall. When I was younger, I liked a lot of colour. I had an apartment on Jarvis Street in Toronto for a while, my first apartment by myself. It was a studio on the ground floor, in a building that was right in the heart of prostitute central. The apartment itself had a cockroach problem, as do most rental buildings in most big cities, and I've lived in my fair share of them. By far the worst was in Montreal, the second time I moved there, in my early twenties. I guess that apartment was really my first solo place, but I don't count it since I was only there for a short period of time. It was a beautiful old building, probably quite majestic in its day, on Sherbrooke West, near the Vendome metro. Cheap and roomy.

I would climb the palace-like, curved marble staircase to my second floor apartment and take my shoes off outside the door. With a shoe in each hand, I opened the door, flipped on the light and smacked as many cockroaches on the walls as I could before they scurried away into the cracks under the baseboard. I lined the edges of the entire apartment with diatomaceous earth. I had them spray three times in the four months I lived there, until my clothes consistently smelled of pesticide and I carried the smell with me everywhere I went. The place drove me a little nutty and while I created some interesting art while there, it ended up in a midnight move escape back to Toronto, which ruined my credit for a while, but saved my sanity.

As for colour, the place on Jarvis Street in Toronto was probably one of the most colourful. Walls of deep blues and greens and the kitchen counter painted with a red, yellow and blue diamond pattern and sealed. It was pretty cool.

I got a call then, from the movers, saying that my furniture would arrive the next morning. They were a couple of days early! Thank God the living room, studio and dining room were done. Everything would fit in there for the time being, until I finished the rest of the rooms. I swept out and cleaned the biggest bedroom upstairs, at the front of the house, and moved Kitten's and my bed into there.

The movers came and put everything where I asked them to. They damaged my big, old oak desk, but that's what happens when your furniture is either homemade, or looks like it just came out of the garbage, which is where the desk came from. On my way back from getting groceries, in my neighbourhood in Calgary, it was sitting by the sidewalk, with a big FREE sign on it. It was a beautiful old oak desk, the perfect drawing table, with drawers on either side and a large surface. There was no way I could move it by myself. I had to take it apart. I needed to get home and get back with tools before someone else took it. I did the only thing I could think to do and pulled out all the drawers and put them in the back seat of my Corolla. No one would want a desk with no drawers. I came back with tools and spent the next 30 minutes lying under the desk, removing the screws that held the top on and the two side parts together. Finally, I had to enlist a passerby to help me heave the heavy desk top onto the roof of my car.

I have a few antique pieces that need refinishing. At this point, I may know their worth, not looking their best, but movers do not. Do you remember me saying you have to pack differently for cross-country moves? Remember that boxes need to be packed with no airspace to ensure items don't get crushed? Those long-haul moving trucks are packed so tightly in order to fit as many people's belongings in them as possible. I watched as the movers climbed my boxes to get to the ones at the top. I knew that many of those boxes contained glassware and dishes. They contained bones and fragile pieces of wax art. They contained sewing machines, a serger, and electronics, all being climbed on and scrambled around. I prayed my packing job was sufficient. I did noticed that I sure have a lot of books and art supplies...

I asked the movers to take the heavy desk from the dining room outside, so the garbage men could take it away. It barely fit through the front door. They left me with a full house. I sat down on my hand-me-down plaid couch from the 80's and surveyed my stuff. Now I was home.

Fall extended into November in Nova Scotia and the weather was beautiful. Most of the leaves were already on the ground. The aim was to start some garden beds now, in the fall, so they would have time to compost down to good soil by spring. Straw and manure would have been a good addition, but I didn't have access to any at the time. I was a little concerned that the weather would soon change and it would be too late to start anything at all. I chose what I thought would be a good location, given that I didn't know how the sun would move around the property in the the spring and summer. Whatever. I could always move the newly made soil into a different area if necessary.

Have you ever raked 1/2 acre of leaves? I missed the wide plastic rake we had in Calgary. What I brought with me in the car was my narrow red metal rake. Nice and lightweight, but not ideal for raking large areas. I bought it in Squamish, along with my shovel and pick-axe, from a little second hand store on the main drag, downtown. It was across from the Chieftain Hotel, a bar which I had never gone into. Why would I need to? I was amazed that there were prostitutes in Squamish, though I shouldn't have been, as there was also a homeless problem and drug issues. How big can a town get before these issues crop up? At the time, Squamish was 16,000 people. Big enough, I guess.

I raked all the leaves from the property and gathered them into five long piles , about 3'x10', in what I thought would be the sunniest part of the yard, and not over the septic field. I gathered as much deadfall as I could, broke it up and spread it over the piles to hold it all down. In the front yard, I looked across the street to the wooded area, where I'd been eager to explore.

So, I set out, following a path left by the deer. Through woods hung with lichen, and across ground covered with cranberry, bearberry, and colourful mosses, I came across not one indication of humans. The woods welcomed me. The path kept going, but I had just put in hours of raking and I wasn't supposed to leave my property yet. I headed back, knowing this would be another spot I would come to know intimately, wandering farther each time.

A few days later, I was out of quarantine. I woke up early, all set to go adventuring. The first place I wanted to go was to Halifax to the art supply store to get canvas for a slipcover for the couch and love seat. It felt strange to be driving back up the road I had taken two weeks earlier, in awe of my new home. I noticed all the things I'd noticed before; the expanses of woods, the rivers flowing out to the ocean which was just to my right, beyond the yellow larches, and the exits to coastal communities, like Lockeport, and Liverpool. After Bridgewater, the highway starts to feel a little bit more occupied, with well-known tourist towns like Lunenburg and Peggy's Cove beckoning from the exits on the right.

I had my route all planned out and drove through Halifax like a champ. After driving through so many cities, no matter where you are, they all sort of feel the same. There are the outlying “rural” areas. Then you get into the suburbs with their cookie-cutter houses and strip malls, after which there tends to be an industrial area, before reaching the core of the city with its multi-use buildings and established neighbourhoods. Halifax was no different. Condensed maybe, as it is not a big city by any means. Smaller by 150,000 than Hamilton with its 580 (or so) thousand people.

It was a dreary day and I didn't have my girl with me to explore, so the sights of the city sort of fell flat on me. I did my business, hit all the thrift stores, and left. Didn't get my canvas, as apparently there is a shortage of Indian cotton right now. This pandemic has affected everything. I couldn't take in the feel of the neighbourhoods at a coffee shop, sipping and eavesdropping on nearby conversations.

My daughter has told me that I sometimes stare at people, not realizing I'm doing so. My grandmother was the same. She would often stare outright at people, watching what they were doing, listen to what they were saying and then comment about them. Her observations were usually about how they looked, what they were wearing and whether or not it was appropriate or flattering. My staring is more about figuring out who the person is by the visual clues they give. If I could hear them, all the better. If they were with someone, I try to figure out their relationship, and whether it is friendly, romantic, healthy or not. I love watching people!

It's a long trek to Halifax from my house. 2 1/2 hours and a lot of gas. I don't think I'll be needing to go there for many reasons. Certainly not on a regular basis.

I finished the small bedroom upstairs in just a couple of days. Other than the tediousness that is painting trim and a door, it went really quickly. The floors got a sanding and an application of olive oil. I'm happy with the result.

I thought I'd check out the next biggest “city” closest to my house. Yarmouth, with 6500 people, is about 50 minutes away, heading in the other direction. The downtown is quaint and I can see that in times of no social restrictions, it's probably a bustling, friendly little place. There, I found canvas drop cloths at the Canadian Tire and picked up three of them for my couch and love seat slipcovers. Way cheaper than artist's canvas and works just as well for upholstering purposes.

Then, to the library to get a card. Yarmouth is one of 10 libraries in the Western Counties Regional Library District, stretching from Digby to Shelburne. That's over 200 kms. I now hold a library card in four provinces and one state. My library friends will agree that libraries are amazing. Where else can you go to find any book you can imagine? Yeah, the internet is great and I'm definitely hooked on Google, which is perfect for answering obscure questions quickly. Instant gratification. But nothing beats the sense of discovery one gets from opening a book and organically delving more deeply into subjects. The feel of pages, the look and layout of the type on the paper. It is a kind of exploration.

Back home with a stack of books on home repair and plants of the east coast, I started a fire in the stove. Sinking into my old sofa, I read all about plumbing and pitcher plants.