Red Cedar

Yesterday we met with the packing company for a quote, today it’s the moving company. We’ve got time, it’s true, but I prefer to get the arranging done up front so I can focus on the work of sorting and organizing.

I have the distinct feeling that we are slipping through a narrow window, one that will close as quickly as it opened – but that’s probably not the case at all. Just the sensation of impending change is upon me and I can’t unlatch the shutters to leave quickly enough.

In shifting my attention island-ward I realize how many resources – people and places – are there for us. Family all over the place, an old family friend who owns a mid-island bike shop, union compatriots, co-workers with whom I have long and strong relationships, and dear friends who will now be only a couple of hours away. Even though we are not quite going to the place of my childhood, I have the strong sense of returning – in that I am orienting towards the island of my birth, even if not making home directly on it.  Though – in some ways, Gabriola Island is very much like the Saanich I grew up in – rural, agrarian, and close to the sea at all turns.

In this I’m not romanticizing so much as remembering – with our move being in June I think of the driest summers of sharp brown grasses, and the swimmable ocean at Cadboro Bay where we had our class picnic every year before school let out – and I am glad for the time of year we are making this transition (farmers markets, summer swimming, bicycle rides to the marina for late afternoon beers!). While winters won’t be quite so pretty, I’m plotting my new studio as a place to hibernate (amongst creative material and small inspirations).

And as I start to unwind my life in Vancouver, I realize that I was half-turned away from it already. Probably years ago when I told myself that eventually I would leave, as soon as work wasn’t keeping me here anymore. Some small part of me must have known it would be this year, when I choose my key words for 2016 (back in December) – proclaiming “move, mobilize, and motivate” as my theme.

So curious.

So. It’s done. Or very close to being so:

This is our new house on Gabriola Island (if all goes well with the inspections that is). Our offer was accepted yesterday and we are scheduled to remove subjects by the end of the month. (!!!)

The Urban Crow Bungalow has now been sold to a lovely family who will take possession in June.

I have many things to sort out, not the least of which is where I will be working come move-in time. I could stay working in the city part-time/part-time from home – but my preference is to work from Nanaimo full time and I’m crossing my fingers that this will be possible. (It’s very possible since I do all my work online, but there has to be the will to allow it and that’s not always present around here).

The photo above was taken two-minutes walk from the house, as it’s very close to the beach. It doesn’t have a view, but the beach is endlessly available – plus there is a two floor studio for textiles and music-making! And while a view would have been nice, this home was by far my favourite that we looked at in terms of how it feels and has been kept up. (Here is the full listing if you are so inclined to peruse it).

Our move is June 10th, though we’ll probably pack up our place on the 7th or 8th and store things for a couple of days to facilitate cleaning and organizing our house for handover. We have a very tight turn-around on things on that end – but I’m sure it can be managed (right?).

I can’t really believe that this happening so quickly – and at the same time, it can’t happen fast enough now that the decision has been made. We’re pretty excited about the whole thing (as you can imagine) and ready for the change!

Subsequent to my post last week, we are really doing this thing – and I’m feeling excited about it, after a weekend of looking at houses, and driving around the little island of Gabriola.

Up until this point I have been a bit ambivalent about the move, I have to admit. While the practicalities of the plan spoke volumes to me (get out of debt, live in a quieter place, be closer to family) – the reality of moving, leaving people behind, and having to pack and clean up our life in Vancouver was leaving me a bit torn in two. But after looking around homes, walking on beaches, and really connecting with Brian over the last few days about hopes/dreams/goals – I have come to a place of equanimity with the idea of moving, and true excitement about a new house and community to explore.

It doesn’t hurt that I came into work and received some good news about a new project that I might be tasked to for the next few years – one that would allow me to work from anywhere which means I won’t face having to work out of the Vancouver office for a good long time to come. That piece is still very much up in the air – but it looks like it will land firmly in my favour because I am so specialized for the proposal being made (and in some way have inspired it through my work – more on that in future post if it comes to fruition). Short story is, things are lining up in a way that makes this feel more possible than it did even four days ago.

There are two houses which we have in our sights at the moment, neither of which I am linking to here at the moment. The properties are both comparable in terms of house quality – with one having an incredible view, and the other being steps to the beach – with a large price difference between them. (Views are apparently more expensive than I thought they would be, and waterfront is downright unattainable). What we decide to do will depend on a number of factors, not the least of which is how much we sell our house for – and that we will likely know tomorrow night.

But what all of it – the selling and buying of real estate brings to mind – is how much it is purely psychological drama and nothing else which drives the prices on such choices. Or in other words – we find ourselves asking, how many tens of thousands (or hundred of thousands) extra is a view, or waterfront, or a super-fancy bathroom worth? And that question is only answered emotionally, because the practical *need* of housing (a place to sleep and cook) is served by far less than what is on offer in either place.

As both seller and buyer, I am aware of the heightened emotion that real estate purchases bring on. I remember buying our house on William Street almost seven years ago to the day – and how desperately I felt that I needed that house, the terrible emotional welling that occurred when it appeared that someone might outbid us, and how convinced I became that there was no other possible way forward than to get that, exact house. Likewise, when I sold my home on the Sunshine Coast, I dug my heels in over $5000 in the closing price and felt all sorts of terrible things towards the people who were trying to push the price down to something that would create more ease for them. There is nothing like the power we vest in land ownership to remind one of how in thrall we can be to our emotional states.

I might be speaking for myself only, but I find the energy around real estate to be hyper-charged, and unlike anything else I am aware of (except perhaps sex). And I wonder about that. I have felt more pride at “owning” a piece of land than almost anything else I have done in my life even though I rationally (and spiritually) know that there is no such thing as ownership when it comes to land and its living beings. One could say that its a symbol of hard work, and that’s what causes the frisson of ownership, but to that I would call bullshit also because there has been no hard work (for me) involved in things like the real estate market in Vancouver doubling in value, nor in the fact that I can get a loan from the bank. And while it is true that I have gone to work diligently my whole adult life, I recognize too that being born into the middle class and subsequently being university educated – is also a fluke, not the sign that I am more deserving than other people.

And so it is, that owning property is charged because in our culture we have allowed it to be so – to be somehow defining of adulthood and success – even though it is more likely an accident of where one is born and who they are born to, than anything else.

Back in November I had a very strong feeling during meditation retreat – which I can only describe as an overwhelming desire for merger with the natural world. The image that came to me over and over was the feeling of diving into a summer lake and the momentary sensation of being taken in by that body, fully enveloped by it, and losing the sense of the separation between one body and another. This drive for merger spoke to me of the artificial nature of the separation that we experience. My desire for merger was/is really just a desire for awakening to the true nature of being which is non-separation or wholeness – and the felt-experience on retreat was a glimmer, an inkling of that being state.

And so these feelings around the ownership of property, of land and beings – I have started to wonder if they have such power, because they replace our desire for merger and deep belonging. That is, many peoples of the world have lived easily without the need to *own* land, and with a sense of being a part of the land and its many creatures (that is, a sense of oneness) – is the loss of this oneness then replaced by another strong set of symbols which reside in power through control over/ownership of? Or to be simpler about it, are we so disconnected from the world that we no longer to be a part of it except through possession?

I will say that although I am aware of the feelings, the emotionalism, being present in this round of selling and buying – I am not as taken by them (at the moment) as I have been in the past. But I’m not immune by a long shot! And so I am working at remembering day by day – this desire for merger, and the delusion of ownership – in an effort to better understand and diminish the unpleasant roller-coaster of pride and anger and hope and frustration that arise in the process.