Author: mckillop_vfr@yahoo.ca

March 25: I have a disease. It’s recurring, relapsing and sometimes fatal, although not usually. I’m a gearhead. Since public school, I have daydreamed, doodled, and schemed about things mechanical: cars mostly, motorcycles often and even planes from time to time.

I see the similarly-afflicted everywhere: the recent-vintage Camaro parked in the driveway next to a tarp-covered 1965 T-bird; the bright red Golf in front of the garage that opens to reveal a mint Porsche 911; the spotlessly clean Audi moving through the worst snow storm of the winter.

My first experience with this addiction was a Yamaha 100 cc motorcycle I bought when I was 16. Since then, there has been a parade of cars: a Mini Cooper S, a pair of Alfa Romeo GTVs, a couple of Mercedes, an Alfa Spyder and, of course, the current fixation – a 2001 BMW convertible. They were all mostly impractical, and bought precisely because there was an emotional connection.

This 1997 Plymouth was a different beast. Bought for $2400 as the Winter Beater while my BMW was stored away, I just wanted something reliable with 4 wheels and a good heater. Basic transportation. The ultimate practical car. She did it mostly without complaint, and few problems, for a car with more than 205,000 kms on her. In a way, it was a relief to be driving a car that didn’t provoke a strong emotion because I cared less about whether she got banged up or rusted out some more. But last month problems started to accumulate. In total, she needed almost $4000 to fix brakes, tie rods, ball joints and power steering. It was the automotive equivalent of breaking your hip when you’re 85 years old. So she had to go.

She was sold for scrap in return for a charitable tax deduction. Taken away by strangers, it left me feeling a bit like having an old friend put down. It certainly felt wasteful – disposing of something that I no longer needed rather than putting it to good use. In the end, it surprised me to feel a loss as she was taken away – a testament perhaps to the strength of the addiction that even this most lowly and practical of cars finds a place in my heart. So I will have a kind thought for her whenever I see a Plymouth / Dodge of a certain vintage. The Black Beauty lives on, in memory at least…..

March 8:  When I had the house, there were 3 bird feeders in the back yard: one for sunflower seeds, one for Niger seeds, and one for suet. During the winter there were flocks of Sparrows, Jays, Finches and Chickadees going for the sunflower seed. The Goldfinches ate Niger seed almost exclusively, and the Nuthatches and Downey Woodpeckers went for suet. There were Cardinals who would commandeer the sunflower feeder first thing in the morning and eat their fill. If it was low on seed, they would perch on the railing outside the back door and call until I appeared and topped it up.

I’m not really a bird-geek, but I found it moving to think that no matter the weather, no matter how cold or snowy it was, these little beings were out there making a living and finding food. The concept of a “good day” came down to food and shelter. They symbolized hopefulness and reminded me that nature is not sentimental and that time doesn’t stand still. A Hawk picked off one of the Cardinals last autumn and had a meal in the Maple tree, red feathers fluttering to the ground while I raked leaves.

Every year around the first week of March I would begin listening for the Red-wing Blackbirds. And sure enough, almost to the day they would return. To me, they symbolized the end of winter. I thought of them as the first returning migratory birds, although, in truth, there may be others. Here they were looking for nesting sites in the snowy reeds and rushes along the lakeshore, their distinctive conkeree call a harbinger of warmer weather. Soon the Goldfinches will be changing out of their olive drab winter camouflage into the bright yellow plumage of summer. The Hummingbirds will be back.

In my new home, there are no feeders. So I have to content myself with an occasional Robin wandering on the lawn, and the pairs of Cardinals whistling from the treetops. I miss my birds.

Hope is the Robin that sings before dawn.

January 22: The movers arrived at precisely 9:00AM and were finished by noon. Everything I own in the entire world (OK that’s a stretch – I left a lot for Marisa to sort out) moved from one end of the City to the other in 3 hours flat. Having spent almost 25 years in the house, I am surprised at how it feels to leave it behind so quickly. I had expected it to be more emotional and difficult, but in reality, it felt like simply turning a page. Making a welcome change.

The process of sorting through rooms of stuff forced me to confront the uncomfortable fact that the keepsakes that are so meaningful to me, are essentially junk to someone else. The souvenirs, the talismans and ephemera are all pretty much meaningless to anyone but me.  Yet I kept them.

The other process, just beginning, is figuring out this new place to live ….

This is a bit of a vanity project that started in 2015. I’m sharing things as they happen in the hope that they will enlighten, entertain, or just let you know where I am. A diary of sorts, but not a day-to-day blow-by-blow account of events. I hope it will also be about the significance of the events, rather than just the events themselves. We shall see. So happy reading.

And happy 2024.

There is no shortcut to life. To the end of our days, life is a lesson imperfectly learned.

 Harrison E. Salisbury