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Coming Home to Strangers: An Open Letter to Lorna Crozier’s The Book of Marvels
“It was around this time that two rather magical women had entered my life. The first would become my wife, a woman who lived in San Diego with her two teenaged sons. This was a shocking and ultimately alienating transition. Second, Lorna Crozier, author of The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things (Greystone Books). The jacket copy referred to Crozier as a “literary detective,” bringing her rapt attention to everyday things, each text operating as a prose meditation on the mysteries to be derived from…well, stuff. I read it, amused. I read it, alert. I read it as someone who is, too, prone to sleuthing.”
I opted to survive a stand-up shower in what was actually once a closet. To use the toilet, you had to back in. I prepared guests by setting the stage: “You’re on a plane and feel the urge. Begin scene.”
Oh, yes, the centrepiece. The chaise lounge. It’s a borrowed item from a friend who moved into one of those downtown condos that can barely contain the thought of excrement, let alone a toilet. She offered to lend out her furniture and I’ve since spent many a day, afternoon and evening on it reading, when not trying to keep my cat from gutting it to the core. From the “shez” you’ll see the washroom. In the last apartment, I made the mistake of accepting a full basement in substitution for a proper washroom. In place of a tub, I opted to survive a stand-up shower in what was actually once a closet. To use the toilet, you had to back in. I prepared guests by setting the stage: “You’re on a plane and feel the urge. Begin scene.”Back through the living area and into the master bedroom. Just the bed and that small chest of drawers, painted over and over. If you were to scrape through to the first layer of paint, you’d find me at four-years-old in my bedroom, playing at a chalkboard, feeling the first twinges of something we would first categorize as being too sensitive, then a deep empathy, onward to the creative tendencies of a writer, and now, only recently on the hinge of a dark depression, the highly functioning, low end spectrum of behaviors associated with one who often experiences things intensely and a radical need to secure identity and a sense of home. While objects have never addressed me directly, I’ve anthropomorphized for as long as I can remember. Which is why the second bedroom in this apartment acted as storage, stuffed baseboard to baseboard, and floor to what would have been ceiling if my landlords hadn’t insisted a need to reach the fuse box.To the piece de resistance. A leather recliner from before the time I was born. I dragged it to the curb on moving day. Took a picture of it on my phone, alone, exposed, vulnerable. It rained. The last time I’d put a cherished item curbside it was taken within the hour. The next day, I encountered the item curbside in front of another house. Perhaps free culture isn’t always so generous; sometimes we just want something for the sake of having it. I don’t want to know how slowly or quickly the recliner went, or to whom. *** It was around this time that two rather magical women had entered my life. The first would become my wife, a woman who lived in San Diego with her two teenaged sons. This was a shocking and ultimately alienating transition. Second, Lorna Crozier, author of The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things (Greystone Books). The jacket copy referred to Crozier as a “literary detective,” bringing her rapt attention to everyday things, each text operating as a prose meditation on the mysteries to be derived from…well, stuff. I read it, amused. I read it, alert. I read it as someone who is, too, prone to sleuthing.As I prepared for my move to the United States, I thought packing would be easy. Not surprisingly, it was hardest to part with my books. At the top of my street was a used bookstore, owned by an intense and intensely well-read woman. I pulled up in a borrowed car, twice, and unloaded what amounted to over $300 in credit. I brokered a deal, that she identify a regular patron who comes in, peruses the shelves, yet never buys. “When you’ve found that person, gift them my credit. I would like to buy them a library.” Every one of my homes has been filled with items that carry stories I may never fully know, with books as the exception. Books were never meant for anything other than to be known, to be consumed and shared, repeatedly. Books need us as much as we need them. As for the rest of my belongings, I contacted an association that accepts most household donations and prepared them to come with an empty truck. I lined my driveway with rows of bins, enough to outfit an apartment.Settling in San Diego, I awaited the arrival of The 16 Remaining Bins of Me, anything that made the cut and couldn’t fit into the two suitcases I carted across the border. Basements aren’t big in San Diego, and the attic is really just where the scaffolding lives, so anything I moved here had to be functional or really, really important.- Squash balls: one and two yellow dots.
- The TTC transfer I used after my farewell party, bearing the time stamp “11:11.”
- A years long “500” score tally between my grandmother and her longtime partner.
- Above-mentioned beautiful pots.
- Exquisite cast iron pan. Paging exquisite cast iron… Really? Tsk, you’re going to regret that choice.
- Various unframed art pieces.
- Six bins of books, to include The Book of Marvels.
- One cat.
It was around this time that I sought the services of experts who gave me workbooks and returned to The Book of Marvels, and Lorna Crozier, who was waiting with the tools. Book as tonic. I carried it room to room, waving it like a bundle of sage, reading aloud from every page.
During this initial exposure period to a 15-year institutional family history, I indelicately hammered industrial nails into the bedroom wall onto which I affixed a generations-old wooden squash racquet and pictures of my parents: Mom holding out a glass of champagne to just-sworn-in Prime Minister Trudeau, and my father, at sixteen years of age, accepting a plaque for track and field. Walls were unclaimed real estate on which I squatted.One day, I spend the better part of an afternoon rocking a large wardrobe out of the bedroom until it was pinched into a corner at the end of the hallway – no moving around it – the product of one the most emblematic gestures I’ve wedged into in this marriage, that it’s not until you remove an object that you see it’s ghostly potential. That and that no one should face large obstacles alone.It was around this time that I sought the services of experts who gave me workbooks and returned to The Book of Marvels, and Lorna Crozier, who was waiting with the tools. Book as tonic. I carried it room to room, waving it like a bundle of sage, reading aloud from every page.“Dear Lorna: Show me a bowl.” I read “Bowl.”“Dear Lorna: Express a flashlight.” I read “Flashlight.”“Dear Lorna: I’m circling the drain. How may I be useful?” I read “Kitchen Sink.” It plainly refuses to be anything but what it is: the place where water comes from and where it disappears when you’re done with it. Is there anything more crucial?Of course. *** My grandmother’s bowl is the one item I packed with true intention. It appeared during the cancer, on the table top during holiday meals when everything was creamed for ease. My wife’s boys, bless them, have identified it as The Special Bowl; it’s not from here and doesn’t match the others. Is it dishwasher safe? Under what circumstances are they allowed to use The Special Bowl? Would it be okay if they just didn’t use it? Throw out the damn bowl, I thought. Better yet, break it, en route from the table to the sink. Just please don’t ever break it simply to make a point.(Update: I’m thrilled to report that with repeated exposure to The Special Bowl, we’ve all graduated to Just Another Bowl.) *** This piece feels now as if it should have been introduced as a tale of an expat stepmother who’s working with some stuff, and so it is. I moved country and home and will likely meditate on themes of identity and well-being for most of my writing career. In a twist of great fate, the group work I do here gives me space in which to bear witness to others who feel – like me – so much, all the time, and to break this perspective down into manageable senses – sounds, sights, tastes, smells, touch – to see ourselves behind the behaviour, as something other than objects.To Lorna Crozier: Thank you for looking closely, and beyond. Sincerely,Julie***Tagged: