—an excerpt—
The frost has knocked down the last of my verbena. Only the hardy chrysanthemums still stand, their yellow and bronze blooms tilted, counting down their last days on this earth. I look out through the skeleton of the apple tree and beyond to the gnarled willow at the bottom of the garden, where the ground is always wet. The rusty wire fence has grown into its bark, forming rows of parallel scars. Below, empty train cars await refilling with grain, lumber, or other commodities. At night, they bang together, shuffled and reassembled by engineers working late shifts under the glare of sodium lights.
I found a little spring in the garden a few weeks after moving here, where water rose to the surface in a tangled thicket—an ancient well or a lost stream. I was young and beginning my career in film. My first shorts were well-received, screening in film festivals and attracting notice locally. Doors opened for me: building props, working as a production assistant, and finally becoming a second unit director. The money flowed in as my creative impulses ebbed. I lost interest in the material offered to me: dull suburban dramas, low-budget action movies, holiday-themed dreck, staples of Hollywood North. My star sank as I transitioned to work exclusively in set decoration, retreating from the noise and chaos, protective of my private world and my time alone. I spend much of my day prowling junk shops and estate sales now, eyes peeled for a particular vintage, colour, or style of object. One week, I sniff out 1950s pink and yellow kitchenware, a perky wall clock in turquoise, and the battered implements of a Depression-era farm. The next week, a plaid blanket for a shipboard romance and an ugly floral painting to highlight the dusty apartment of an aging dowager in a mystery. I read the scripts, some better than others, to conjure the visual spark that grows into a reality in my mind. I am good at what I do. Producers and directors seek me out and overlook my faults and my less-than-collegial attitude.
In some early phase of land development, this residential parcel fell between the rail yards and a large tract of industrial land, cut off from the leafy hill dotted with parks and homes in Fairview, the closest real neighbourhood. The lights there twinkle alluringly at night like a mirage of perfect domesticity. New security measures have closed the crossing so that it is now unreachable by direct route. Local businesses, landlocked on this side, have withered and closed. Only one corner store remains, barely able to survive. Now I must drive to an overpass miles away to access the abundant shopping options in the suburban sprawl to the south. I’ve lived here for twenty-one years and will probably stay on, aging in place, as they say. It wasn’t my original plan. I had the idea that the purchase of this property would be the first of many, that I would scale up to nicer houses, in better places, or live abroad—Berlin or Hong Kong or some outpost far from this cluster of ramshackle houses, too small to call a neighbourhood. I never made it to those places, but I’ve encountered wonders closer to home.
