Ba bye

I think it was in June 5 years ago that we moved here.

An abrupt downsize and shift to the east end that I thought would be a short transition, ended up being a rather long 5 years as the city moved into full on housing crisis.

But our time here has had its moments. The neighbourhood is rough, but also felt fresh and new and needed to be explored.

The local park / ravine became my favourite haunt …

There was happiness in the spring mornings when the robins start at about 4:45 am, the delightful sweet neighbours in the building, the visitors that come by regularly …

It was from here that I seriously got back to working in the visual arts, in photography AND collage AND painting – and I got my first tiny little studio close by at the now defunct Artisans at Work.

And it has been the place from which baby bird has begun to stretch his wings – moving out for a stretch, coming back home for a stretch…

But, since April of this year, since I put in an application to a new living situation, I’ve been saying goodbye – hoping, wishing, willing, while not knowing for sure…

Goodbye to the hood, goodbye to its good, bad and uglies, including some architectural and social disasters zones –

These monstrosities have been the centrifugal point of my goodbyes, determined it was time to stop having to look at them.

And then this week I found out we have indeed been accepted to the new place!

Hallelujah !!!

A couple of days before the news came through I was out on the patio drinking my coffee. A cardinal hopped onto the nearby branch of the tree into a ray of sunshine. A butterfly fluttered and landed on the cat.

This I will miss, I thought.

Where we are going there is no patio, no courtyard, just a wee balcony, a little too close to the highway.

Late to work, I got an Uber pool, and we drove down the DVP alongside the Don River. We passed an egret, startling white against the green of the shores of the Don. A small family of ducks paddled a little further down. Cormorants stretched their wings in the sun.

Hmmmm… maybe connecting with a new set of birds is a thing to think about…   Maybe there is a way to volunteer in the parks… maybe that is part of what the next home will bring….