Putting Away the Flour Tin

So, I bought this flour tin in a junk shop on Denman Street in Vancouver in 1984.  It has been full and visible in every home for the last 31 years - Vancouver, Montreal, Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Chelsea and Wakefield. Today, I emptied, washed and boxed it up.

It may seem trivial, but it has triggered melancholy for all of the good-byes we've been saying for the past few months as we pack up our life, go on a dream-come-true trip, and return to move cities. Everything we own is currently stored in an 8x20 storage locker in Hull, Quebec. We are doing this willingly, and with excitement!, Marc and I are blessed to have this option in our lives. 

As of Sunday, we will be homeless & living out of 1 suitcase each for the next 5½ months.

We moved here on our 6th wedding anniversary in 1995, and 20 years almost to the day, we are moving on. We will depart separately, as has been fitting for our time here.  When we arrived, Marc was thrilled that there was no rugby being played in the region and envisioned SABRFC.v2. With the help of hundreds of other volunteers and players over the last 15 years, he leaves on the team bus, with his CEGEP team playing a semi-final game in Montreal. Its his 3rd coaching gig this season.

Musie Loop, Chelsea

We've both had awesome jobs, a lovely life!, a beautiful home, dear friends, rich childrens' lives, contributing to our community and its youth, owned lots and lots of stuff. But it has been increasingly a hamster wheel, working long hours, intense hours just to keep up.  We owned 3 cars, spent our free time on house maintenance, money in / money out to support this life. We began to feel the balance was off.  

Kathy & Sophie, camping

In the spring of 2013, my eldest sister Kathy became quite ill, a second, deathly-fast cancer appeared after she had beaten breast cancer. It knocked the wind out of all of us. Her role in my family's life was one of turkey-cooker, celebration-hoster, niece and nephew-spoiler, someone who shared everything she had. Rally 'round her we did in what has become known as the Strickland way. Months and months of driving to and fro, heroic support from my other 3 siblings and our partners. Her death came so fast 9 months later, age 63, we are all still somewhat in disbelief. We eased her passing as best we could and miss her every day.

We all returned to our normal lives, a little broken, and for me, panic set in. It was time to get moving - carpe diem. I had been clearing out the clutter of our lives for a good 3 years already, and returned home with a vengeance - all that stuff to church sales, for sales, women's shelters, community drop boxes & school donations. In tears that Mother's Day, I brought home a "House For Sale" sign, plunked it on the kitchen table and called a family meeting. It was time to reduce our life, become a bit more agile, move on to the next phase, which means a smaller home, car-shares, a goal of 35% less stuff, a much smaller footprint and travel. We ended our jobs, but still full of giving at 55 and 57, we will work and volunteer again after this - our gap year - on what will be more manageable terms.

Tofino

For the last 18 months, the 4 of us have worked hard together to follow through on a plan that slowly coalesced.  Our time in Chelsea was at an end, and in June we sold our Chelsea home. It has been a beautiful place to raise our children and the people they've become are a reflection of all whom they've met and this forest life. We are grateful. And grateful to my children for rising to this challenge and finding their silver linings. Change can be done, and they are doing it.

Biology!

Spending our last 4 months in Wakefield, beside the Gatineau River, has been a beautifully soft landing, a village we've always wanted to be a part of. It will remind us of the kind of place we want to be next:  kind, giving, inclusive, creative. And it represents the last block of time we were together as a family for the next little while. We have Michael forging his path at Dalhousie, questioning his way as all good scientists do, but grounded in the way that 21 year olds become. At 24, Sophie has made heroic decisions that are getting her closer to the life she wants to live. Marc has worked all-out for others and for me, and is ready for a rest. The amount of logistics he has undertaken to get us to today, to ensure that we, our children and the wider rugby community are solid, I couldn't ask for a better life-partner.

If you find a small pine tree atop Vorlage Ski Hill, encircled by river stones, growing strongly while sheltered from the wind, know that it is Michael's tree, earned at John Abbott College and planted here, with his dearest friend in tow, on behalf of the 4 of us and our time here. 

We will return to our storage locker in late-March, having spent a few nights gathering our wits, and look for a rental property in the Kawartha Lakes region, closer to my siblings. I left Toronto at 18, and now nearly 40 years later, its time to be able to see them for a cup of tea. Marc has already checked out the possibility of University coaching gigs close by.

Thank you to everyone who has been a part of our lives here, you have challenged it, enriched it, loved us, made it full, fulfilled Marc's rugby dreams, helped us be who we are, helped us raise our kids. We are on to our next adventure, and the flour tin is packed away.

So many sidelines together!

October 14, 2015:

So, we've dreamed of this time in our life, and this trip, for most of our (un)+married life. The fun stage of planning is upon us - 30 days. Our imaginations kick in!, familiar now with each other's landscape of geography and wishes, paperwork almost done. Now, its all about the journey.

Kids are settled, storage locker is filling, selling the last bits of big, clothes whittling down, our lease here ends in 2.5 weeks. Then visits in Montreal and Toronto. The 4 for 4 Packing Challenge: 4 countries in 4 months, 2 climates.

We've got some great experiences coming up: a loooong plunk in Florence, Christmas with the Catholics, Vespas, an olive farm on Crete, the Nile and all its sphinxs, spring hiking in the UK, with all that glorious art and history savoured slowly in between. We are really, really blessed to be able to do this.

Imagine it - your turn will come!

In the many novels I've read where someone embarks, I envision the lovely, young thing on the left. A century later (perhaps?), there I am on the right. Oh for the days of transatlantic travel where you could take trunks of stuff! With a helper!!



August 2015
So, I've had this magnet for-ever, discreetly visible in each home. As a family, we've started down a path that can be at times, very unsettling for each of us in our own way. 

 

Today marks one of those next-steps kind of days - where its all good and we're very blessed!, if a little overwhelmed. Sophie moves back in before she embarks on her leap-of-faith move to Toronto, we take Michael back to Halifax early next week, Marc & I continue to piece together a 4-month footloose travel plan.

As of now, Michael is the only one who can answer the question of "where do you live" with any modicum of certainty! It will be 2016 before we sit at the same table again.

Forge on Team Wolvin!

August 2015

If tables could talk...over the last 25 years...about our teas, celebrations, respite, family meetings, pacts, life decisions, sortings, games, changing diapers, reunions, comforting, both epic and bare-bone meals, debates, welcomes, goodbyes, homework, art. This table has supported us all. Goes in to storage today until the next phase of our lives settles in to place. Till then, dear friend!