A Sense of Home
I split my time between an apartment in the city and a house in the country, fulfilling separate needs that have solidified over many years. Going back and forth is always like stepping between two worlds.
Gliding across the country with the car windows closed and the music on is like being in my own private escape pod. As I get further away from the city, I start to really breathe again after long months of forced exile, away from friends and family. I turn gently onto the exit ramp, where country roads greet me. Southwestern Ontario lays out like a grand grid of farms and truncated forests bisected by transmission lines on towering pylons. The multicoloured fields, trimmed and planted, are filled with the fruits of an imminent harvest, with scents of hay, tobacco, sweet corn and dill.
After weeks and months of burden, I settle into the drive, decompressing and navigating on instinct as I follow the twists and turns of the rural road. The late 18th century surveyors who laid out these roads did not hesitate to adjust their plans, 100 yards this way or that, as long as their overall design intent was maintained. Long straight stretches were not a high priority.
When my loyalist forebears came to this land of open opportunity in 1795, they settled in the Fairfield Plain, southwest of Brantford, Ontario, and built a life that has nourished generations, on a remarkable land of rich soil and plentiful water. The terminus of my journey lies further south, but I take comfort passing through this countryside with long-gone names etched on stones of memory.
The rhythm of driving on the county roads is hypnotic, but I will not be distracted from my quest. As the asphalt gives way to graded gravel punctuated by potholes, the jerk and sway of the car as I negotiate the ruts awakens my senses. Then, a crisp trimmed driveway siphons me off the gravel, and the branches of trees intersecting above me create a grand arbour. The shade embraces me. After a rise in the grade and a turn to the left, across a bridge into a clearing, I get a glimpse of the house, but then I’m plunged back into the shade.
At the end of the long driveway, I pivot out of the car and am immediately enveloped by the heat, humidity, relieved by the song of a bird proudly perch on a distant branch, with brilliant plumage like a lord of the garden. As I walk around the car to gather the bags and parcels, stones crunch below my feet. Passing through the woody-sweet cedar hedge, I am at last presented with the brick façade of my house.
Stepping up onto the stoop, I exhale and feel my tension slip away, as the melodious buzz and chirp of insects fills the air. Passing through the oak door, I am struck by the dark cool of the interior. A red-brown drum of a wall squeezes the entry slightly on the left, before the space opens up to expose the stair, brightened by filtered sunlight from above. I ascend to the bedroom to shed my city clothes and change into comfort clothes: shorts and a light shirt. Back at the bottom of the stairs, I catch the rich aroma of home-brewed coffee drifting from the kitchen. Jan must be home.
Now, I step into the main room – tall, spacious and brilliantly lit. At a storey-and-a-half, it always lifts me up. Through wide sliding doors, a view of the countryside fills the opposite wall. A statue of an owl hanging high in one window traces the seasons by casting a different shadow on the walls at different times of the year. A circadian shadow progression occurs and recurs each day. Well-chosen paintings on the remaining walls are a reminder of trips to far-off lands.
I ease into the porch through a discreet doorway at one corner of the room. The fragrance of flowers acts like a balm to my aches left over from my apartment in the city. I slip into a chair, lay my head back, close my eyes and relax – just for a moment.
When I wake up, the sun has just set. I step out onto the patio, where the warm redwood fibres caress my bare feet and toes. I close the umbrella so I can see the horizon unobstructed. The line between sky and earth is made by the rolling round tops of trees – birch, maple and oak, punctuated by the periodic jagged shape of a pine. My eyes start to adjust to an evening sky filling with stars A hush falls as if space is filled by the shadow of the Gods. Dominion is complete.
Striding down the stairs to the dock. The hush is displaced by the lapping of gentle waves against the shore, the creak of boards as the dock gently sways, and the dull thump of the boat knocking softly against it. I turn around and look up at the house. The lights have been turned on and the view is soft but reassuring. The eternal sigh of contentment is complete in an environment of one’s own creation.
I hear a sound from the patio. Jan has stepped outside. I respond to the sound, “I have arrived.” At last, my journey is complete. I have stepped from one world to another, and my real home is here, all around me, nestled within this ideal garden.