“Hey, is this lady a senior?” His words bounced off the magazine rack, down the chip aisle, past the toothbrushes, and over the vitamins to its intended recipient across the store. It was as ear-splitting and unwelcome as gunfire and with the same potential to kill. Not literally of course - we all know “sticks and stones” - but it bored a hole through my confidence and annihilated my sense of youth.

Now there’s a word - unfiltered - that seems like it could be a good thing. It conjures up being unshackled or uncensored, freedoms we value in some contexts. However, as we all operate in our own echo chambers of social media and curated streaming services, we are lulled into a false sense of security that everyone is going to unfilter their messages in a way that makes sense to us. At least I did. But, as I recently discovered, being unfiltered isn’t always desirable.

I pull my backpack from the compartment above the very last row of the Boeing 777. Standing now is pointless since I’ll be stalled here for some time with my fellow steerage passengers but I’m anxious to begin the bleary-eyed shuffle to the exit 40 rows ahead. The flight from Seoul was only two hours, but it’s the third in a journey that started a long time ago: yesterday? the day before? tomorrow? to be honest, I have no idea but I do know I’m exhausted and I feel like hell. My colleagues, Jeb and Agnès, crane their heads back to exchange an eye-roll with me. I chose to sit apart because we’ll have plenty of togetherness in meetings over the next six days. Waiting to deplane from a multi-leg economy class trip is old hat to them, given their work with cities on environmental initiatives. It will be two decades before Greta Thunberg will point out the irony of flying around to save the world from greenhouse gas emissions. But we don’t yet have the tech to make remote meeting easy. And let’s face it, despite our current discomfort, we love these trips.

If you know what “three on the tree” means, you’re no kid. And when you were one, there’s a good chance you lived on a farm.

There was never any question about whether I’d learn to drive. I’d lived my 16 years on the farm, 15 miles from town where I was bussed to school and even further from many of my closest friends. I was as desperate for the independence of a licence as my parents were to be rid of the obligation to transport me to all extracurricular activities.

Ours was a long laneway and as a 15 year old, with supervision, I’d driven the car a handful of times to the mailbox at the road. Otherwise my driving had been strictly limited to tractors. I was itching to get licensed as quickly as possible. The Ministry testing office in Wingham was open on Tuesday mornings. Only Tuesday mornings. (You urban folk have no idea the hardships.) I turned 16 on a Saturday and waited an excruciating three days before I could write the multiple choice question to get my ‘beginners,’ so I drive but only with a licensed driver.

Just a year ago, three sets of eyes followed me throughout my day - Jasmine, my feline workmate by day and bedmate by night; Bid who conveyed her boundless love through her piercing yet soulful blue eyes and who provided the last connection to the little family Jack and I had; and sweet Molly who joined us during Jack’s illness as a fully grown dog and who observed the world with an Eeyore lens, balancing out the Bidi’s Tigger-like qualities. I’ve blogged about the difficult decisions I made in April and again in September to help Jasmine and Bidi to die humanely.

Removing the roof, framing the side building for the utilities, and constructing internal ground level walls entertained me through January. Things really picked up speed in February when I could see second floor take shape, one wall emerging at a time, showcasing the enormous windows. Chandlerville will be the most sunlit place I’ve ever lived! Because the second story hasn’t the square footage of the ground level, its roofline is asymmetrical, lining up with the ground floor roof, a design feature that seemed great on paper but is even better in real life, as you’ll see in the photos.

Last year, I eagerly planned a break following my full-time law practice which ended on Dec 31. When Jan 2, 2023 dawned though, the staycation stretching out in front of me seemed like an eternity and I was scared I couldn’t fill it. I’m at the other side of it now, and can report it was the best thing I could have done.

At least this trip does. I’m two hours into a five hour ride to Montreal, and I’m already in that booze-induced state that makes laughter and tears flow readily. They keep you hydrated on VIA1 although I haven’t yet had a drop of water: they seem to favour vodka and white wine here, libations that allow the free-flowing laughter and tears from the book I’m reading, Lessons in Chemistry.*

This trip is my first re-emergence from Ontario, post-pandemic. I say post-pandemic, but of course, we’re all deluding ourselves into thinking it’s over. But even I’ve gotten to the stage where I’ve weighed my own mental health vs risk to physical health and often found in favour of the former. So here I am, off to visit my friend, Greg, who has job training in Montreal and has a hotel room with a pull-out couch. I can’t count the number of cities I’ve visited Greg in during our 40+ year friendship, but this is the first time we’ve been in Montreal together.

It’s a rare thing when a novel hits all the right notes - Bonnie Garmus’ debut, Lessons in Chemistry, does just that for me.* 

Like many of you, I suspect, I have a big stack of books in my bedroom, so ready to be read that sometimes I think the word ready was invented simply to describe this situation. I have a bad habit of allowing more to climb onto the pile than get moved onto my lap. Lately, though, I’ve tried to limit their online purchase - something I justified during the height of COVID as a way for me to pass time while keeping my local bookstore in business - and spend less time rifling through the Little Libraries that have found their way into Weston. My biggest source of reading material though are friends who pass their finds onto me. I find it hard to say no to these but with the limited space of Chandlerville on the near horizon, I am redoubling my efforts.