A small life

A few things.

Last night, I spent a few hours strolling around the city with my friend and her six-month old baby. We lazed through Ogilvy’s, stopping for tuna cakes and diet cokes, browsed through the exquisite shops and marveled at the equally extravagant price tags. We popped into the flower shop on the basement floor, sticking our noses deep into lustrous arrangements of calla lilies and roses. Oh! Look! my friend shrieked, holding up an adorable plant pot, crafted of rich, creamy ceramic, with the word ‘plant’ tolled across it. ‘Heath, this would look so sweet in your place!’

She was right. I stuck out my hand for the pot, inhaled as I turned it over, and peered down at the price tag. Exhale. Totally affordable, totally adorable, a total must-have. On my way to the cash register, I additionally picked up a little pot of African Violets, the tiny purple buds housed in a glass cup. I paid my bill, content, already envisioning where I would station my new purchases in my apartment.

When I got home, I threw down my purse, ripped open the plaid bag, tossing aside the reams of lime green tissue paper. (I think half the thrill of making a purchase at Ogilvy’s is the decadent wrapping the shopkeepers enclose your purchase item in). I scoured my living room, trying to decide which plant would have the honour of being plopped into my new, prized pot. I made my selection, rearranged a bit of earth, and finally put my plant holder in its final resting place –a little table with hand-painted flowers on it. (Please note that I only have two tables in my entire apartment, so it wasn’t exactly a mind-bending decision).

Content, I stood back to admire my work. I was pleased. But then, ever the self-doubter, I asked myself why in fact I was pleased.

Had it come down to this? Is my life so small, my wants, needs and desires so limited, so confining, so shallow that buying a cute little plant pot, (admittedly one that is sure to garner lots of attention –yes it really IS that fabulous) fills me with a sense of self-satisfaction and accomplishment?

I made myself a cup of tea and sat down on my couch to ponder this question a little further. I thought back to a few hours ago, the hustle and bustle of Ste. Catherine’s street, Montrealers and tourists elbowing their way through shops, shouting into cell phones, running red lights. All of these people, all these hundreds of thousands of people on their own versions of plant pot quests. It struck me how individual we are, how individual I am, how disconnected we can be.

Shifting courses.

I had a very quiet day. I went to the gym. I did my groceries. I joined my local library and spent an hour sitting on a rock hard chair, drowning myself in Alice Munro’s The Love of a Good Woman. I made filet of sole with mushrooms and tomatoes. And then I decided to go for an evening walk. It’s a chilly evening, but busy-bee west islanders were out full throttle raking up their leaves as though their lives depended on removing every visible trace that their lawns in fact have trees planted on them.

I walked by one house where four, small children were out in a large yard, raking furiously. A middle-aged, portly man pulled into the driveway of the home, hopped out of his Toyota Prius, slamming the door. He had arrived to pick up his two of the four children.

‘Alright guys, time to pack it in! Sally, Ben, in the car guys! Tomorrow it’s our lawn!

‘Awwwww’…the children cried, in unified, staged protest.

‘What time are you two coming over to our place?’ the man asked, turning to the other two kids. ‘Better be bright and early, we’ve got a lot of leaves!’

‘How about 6?!’ one of the boys suggested. The man’s face turned a distinct shade of grey.

‘Well, six is a little early…could we make it just a little bit later’?

‘Ok….how about ten?’ the boy asked, eager to please.

This is what I love about children. That they have no concept of schedules, of timetables, of itineraries and to-do lists. All the errands, running around, cleaning, shopping and raking that could be accomplished in the four hours between 6 and 10 a.m. is of no consequence to a child. And it made me sad to be able to recognize that this trait is confined largely to childhood.

Switching again.

I decided to suck it up and buy myself a ticket to the kick-off session of this year’s Massey Lectures. I went on Wednesday evening. Having had the experience of doing this alone, I have to say, it’s the only way to go. The sheer opportunity for people watching was well-worth the $21.

There were the women with coarse, long grey hair, pulled into long pony tails with rubber bands, decked out in flowing skirts of vibrant colours, Birkenstocks enclosing feet and toes that have never felt the brush of nail polish or exfoliating cream. There were the men dragged there by their golf-club wives, eager to have something to discuss with their friends over tomorrow’s afternoon tea. There were the university kids, burdened by the quintessential North Face school bags, Nalgene water bottles bouncing off the backs of them.

Then there was the guy I wound up sitting next to. The tech writer who just got back from a four-month hiatus to India where he spent 16 weeks shuttered up in a dark room learning the depth and beauty behind the art of yoga. The guy whose family has a house in Halifax, where he ‘reeeealllllly tries to get to every summer –it’s restorative powers are just so intoxicating.’ The guy who leaves and breathes yoga, but you know is probably a lecherous carnivore with a condo in the Plateau and his own art collection.

I couldn’t, and still can’t decide if the lecture itself was all that interesting. Margaret Somerville, medical ethicist, spoke about ‘The Ethical Imagination’ and how to reconcile a shared sense of ethics within a shifting global dynamic. I spent a good deal of the two hours watching the people around me watching the stage. Crossed legs, folded hands, cocked heads. Stifled yawns, stifled coughs, stifled boredom. Sitting on my other side, was a man and his wife. The wife sat attentive, the sleeves of her pink cashmere sweater shoved up to her elbows, exposing three, solid gold bangle bracelets, a shimmering wedding ring and Tissot watch. She cupped her pointy chin in her hand, leaning forward, misty-eyed.

‘We are now engaged in debates about what we may, must not and must do with the extraordinary powers that no other humans before us have ever possessed.’

The wife shook her head in mock amazement. The man snuck a quick glance at his own wristwatch, quickly covering the evidence by pulling his sweater sleeve far down over his wrist. And this one small act of indulgence all of a sudden made him so completely and entirely human I could have leaned over and kissed his balding head.