nine years

so ruth and david have started to show my apartment. ruth thinks it is likely it will sell within a month – which means i would be evicted for october 1st since it unlikely i will get an eviction notice until the end of july at this point – but i have decided i want my move date to be the first week of september because then i could give short notice for the 5th of the month or something like that and avoid moving on the same day as everyone else in the building. that means i need to find a place to live for september 1st.

pretty much every renter, whether they are in the suites owned by bc housing or those owned by individuals, are being evicted right now which makes me sad because i’ve known a lot of the people in my building for years and it has been good to have such eclectic neighbours who are also musicians and artists and whatnot. i was talking with a fellow musician in the building last night about how much the neighbourhood is changing – the slow creep of gentrification has turned into an overwhelming rush as the west-enders purchase up all available real estate, jack the rents, and move out the heart of what made the neighbourhood good – the low-rent musicians, artists and activists….

so september 1st will be nine years in the neighbourhood and the other night i was talking to a friend who made a comment that lead me to reflect on what nine years has been. he said “i guess your priorities really change as you move through life” in reference to how much my relationship to urban living has changed in the past couple of years. and i thought back to being 22 and moving into a house on kitchener street with two strangers as roomates (i answered a roomate-wanted ad), getting reading to start my university degree, and flush with the prospects of living in a big city – right in the heart of the coolest neighbourhood of that big city.

and since then i married and divorced, coupled again and then separated. i have had beautiful lovers in between. i started and finished a university degree, a technical diploma and a myriad of other small courses. i learned to drive. i started a career. i started and still play in a locally-popular folk band. friends have come and gone, passed on, and stuck around. i have lived in two different dwellings – one house and one apartment, had a beautiful garden and built a greenouse at one, made window boxes at the other. i have marched and protested and organized as an activist, an anarchist and unionist – fought with the police and spent countless hours in courtrooms (and visited many friends in jail). i have gained and lost weight, broken my ankle and healed with $2500 of titanium forever planted in my leg. i have worked and played and hiked and taught and grown and loved and grieved and healed and mostly just did what i wanted to do.

and strangely enough i realized as i thought further on it – that nine years has been book-ended by the man who sexually assaulted me at 19 and who is soon getting out of prison. when i first moved to the neighbourhood, within 6 months of coming to the city i returned to victoria to attend court in his case – and he will be released from prison the same month i am leaving the city. nine years he has been in prison and nine years i have had a lifetime of my own – a life of events to continue in the new home i am choosing.

in nine years i have lived a lifetime of interactions and moments infuriating, elating, gratifying and painful. and on it goes – reminded as i am sorting and packing my things in preparation for moving.