Red Cedar

“There are people like Senhor Jose everywhere, who fill their time, or what they believe to be their spare time, by collecting stamps, coins, medals, vases, postcards, matchboxes, books, clocks, sport shirts, autographs, stones, clay figurines, empty beverage cans, little angels, cacti, opera programmes, lighters, pens, owls, music boes, bottles, bonsai trees, paintings, mugs, pipes, glass obelisks, ceramic ducks, old toys, carnival masks, and they probably do so out of something that we might call metaphysical angst, perhaps because they cannot bear the idea of chaos being the one ruler of the universe, which is why, using their limited powers and with no divine help, they attempt to impose some order on the world, and for a short while they manage it, but only as long as they are there to defend their collection, because when the day comes when it must be dispersed, and that day always comes, either with their death or when the collector grows wearing, everything goes back to its beginnings, everything returns to chaos.” Jose Saramago, All the Names

It should come as no surprise to anyone in my life that my least favourite patches of time are those spent in transitional space and liminal (threshold) space. I do extremely well when my life is ordered, patterned, routine; there are buses to catch and jobs to go to; my hair is brushed at the same time every morning right before I sit down to write or eat breakfast; my rent gets paid in the same fashion every month, pulled out of the bank account before I prioritize and pay the bills via my computer; etc. etc. This is definitely where I find the most comfort in my days, and as bland as that might sound, when what’s expected of me is somewhat obvious my mind is much freer to roam and create elsewhere all together. It’s the routine that allows me to explore and create really, I don’t write at all when I’m in chaotic space, I don’t write well when I’m full of questions about other things.

Ever since Brian put his house on the market in December we have felt on the edges of transition, though at the same time static while we waited for the real estate Gods to deliver us a buyer who wouldn’t flail at the last minute or drop the ball on their financing. You know how it goes, “hurry up and wait” while a parade of people tromp through the house every other day and there is always cleaning and animals that need to go in the garage and you wait after every viewing that sounds promising, hoping an offer will come. It’s not even my house – I don’t even live there – and still it has been a stressful and often annoying time due to the fact most people appear nuts to me, and there seems to be a particularly bad strain of them who like to make offers without having their financing arranged in any way beforehand. This is why the first offer we had in December collapsed, and last weekend we finally closed with people who had essentially done the same thing though were in better shape with their down payment. In the end, I am relieved someone bought this place after two and a half months of waiting, but was also annoyed with the buyers for a whole host of reasons including an early possession date which put Brian out of a home within six weeks of the sale.

Of course, this threw us into the all new dilemma of purchasing – something we hadn’t really dreamed we would have trouble with until we realized the paucity of things on the market in East Vancouver these days. It’s either really fancy and very expensive, or really crappy and somewhat expensive. There just isn’t much in the middle, and the odd house that comes up that is only somewhat expensive and pretty good is usually snapped up within 48 hours of going on the market. While most of the city is sitting for months unsold, those rare gems of almost affordable and nicely done don’t have much of a shelf-life. In Grandview-Woodland/Hastings-Sunrise there are some lovely homes if you don’t mind living on 1st, 12th, Broadway, Hastings or Renfrew (all of them highways to “better” neighbourhoods.

So in this context last weekend, feeling pressure to put our hands on something, we offered on a house at 8th and Victoria that we could get for $610,000 and believed needed $30,000 of work or so to be really nice. A bit of a strange location, but a house with lots of space potential and an interesting look about it – we figured we could meet the renovation/landscaping challenge and make a nice home for the three of us. Got the inspection set up, started planning potential renovation ideas with builder friends – nothing official, just setting ourselves up mentally for the tasks that would face us once we moved in. It’s hard not to plan when you think you’ve finally found what you want, and we figured that while the inspection might turn up a few things that would lower our offer, we were nowhere near prepared for the fact that the house had these following (undisclosed) problems: blocked drainage in every part of the house, damaged and clogged gutters, the need to replace all drain tile, rot in the eaves and porches, potential asbestos in the vermiculite insulation, roof tile missing in several areas and a roof that would need taking down to the shims to be redone, knob and tube wiring, probable rot behind two of the bathroom showers, ungrounded outlets, soft walls, and potential foundation damage. No kidding. It was that bad. So bad that we just started to laugh at it part way through – I mean you’ve got to get some enjoyment out of spending $500 on such a dismal venture.

Not only was it disappointing because our desire to purchase the home all but vanished within the first fifteen minutes of the 3 hour inspection, it was also bitter because we felt the seller was well aware of the problems and had wasted both our time and money. The fact that he knew about the vermiculite/asbestos problem came out in a later conversation with the real estate agent, and I expect he just hoped whoever bought it wasn’t going to go for the inspection. I was both stunned and depressed to yet again realize how rotten and dishonest some people can be. (For the reference of Google and y’all, this house is located at 1854 East 8th in Vancouver, BC so don’t be tricked into buying it).

While transitional space gives you room, thresholds are terrible places to get caught. You can see inside the room, or at least envision what is just on the other side of the foyer. But denied entry you are reduced to an angsty wavering, wanting to move one way or the other (to even take a step back seems desirable), unable to “be happy where you are at”. Since December we have had several threshold periods and the rest of it has been transitional without a clear end point. Constant low level and occasional high level anxiety much?

The only good thing about the liminal is it eventually must resolve. Obviously, these are spaces meant to be moved through, and even when the room isn’t quite what you imagined, you will enter it eventually. The dilemma is resolved, the question of what next is answered. There. A door and another threshold awaits.

In the meantime we work to make order out of chaos again and again – at least those like myself who require patterns and habit in order to free intellectually and creatively. I don’t collect matchbooks or stamps, but I do order my life in a way that meets the same need for control over creation (what hubris!) the collectors exhibit. The liminal time has made it impossible lately, has resulted in more psychological angst than I care to admit, which is less about waiting and more about my inability to order and predict my life while I wait.

I once again believe a resolution is coming soon, which is why I can finish this post I started on Monday now. Like everything else important that happens to me, the end to this story will be written and published here and my life re-ordered in transit will slowly reappear.