Final Days in Toronto

 

 

One last blog post before we launch into the world (Asia, Japan, Osaka)! Woo-hoo! Aghhh! Yikes. We’re leaving my foo dogs behind to guard the castle, along with a new human servant to feed and pet them as they so desire.

 

I recently asked the kids what they remembered from our last trip to Taiwan, and what they were looking forward to. Among other things, Caleb, our monkey king, remembered “sweating a lot.” Get ready for more sweating, kids.

 

Things continue apace here in Toronto still, and I am spiralling with indecision and the thrill of deadlines swooshing right past me. Early registration for swimming! Swoosh! Library holds to be picked up! Swoosh! Who needs Book 5 and 8? Are you even a reader if you can’t extrapolate some major plot holes?

 

Of note:

 

• Had another conversation with another very capable and competent adult (lawyer this time) talking about how AI has transformed his practice and how his children’s future relies on their ability to use it.
• Explained to the new cat sitter about all the neurotic tendencies of the cats/myself/the-cat-human-relationship and the more I tried to roll it back into normalcy, the more unhinged I became.
• I cut Caleb’s hair with no guard on the buzzer and he now is sporting a very short and patchy hair style.
• The laundry situation is totally out of hand, and the piles have grown into swamp monsters about to subsume me into their goopy fug, like the horrible beast from out of a ditch. I am the witch on the broom, dropping things everywhere.
• The brickwork at the shop is under construction, and the scaffolding is centred to block people from coming into the shop, along with brick crumbling onto the ground below, which is just perfect for welcoming customers, really lovely and definitely going to get us a 5-star google review after a chunk of brick lands on someone.
• The big old beautiful tree in our neighbour’s backyard is going to be cut down by the time I return from Taiwan. Jon says I’m too emotionally invested in a tree that doesn’t belong to us, and is preventing me from doing more serious things, such as packing for the trip, telling the kids’ teachers we’re leaving, picking up Tuna’s medicine, etc. Even the squirrels are sad.

 

But the world does not stop spinning even when trees are getting chopped down into chips and mulch, and even as I worry I’m not doing justice to the tremendous and full and enormous year the kids have had, wrapping it up early and missing out on some of the final festivities, there is enough to worry about as is, so I am marching forward, with suspiciously ambitious plans to clean out the refrigerator, to wash all the sheets on all the beds one final time before we go, to tidy up my office/closet. Each task less realistic than the last.

 

I’m staring at the open luggage, wondering how to Tetris in more library books without triggering extra overweight luggage fees, contemplating airplane snacks, and mostly just wondering at how fast life moves. Another year! Brickwork crumbling around our feet, trees an insurance liability issue for landlords, kids making snarky jokes at their parents’ expense that are too smart for everyone’s good, no one doing their math homework.

 

And yet each year burgeoning and expanding and pruning and swelling with so much, more and more and more with each passing year—learning and adventures and hard lessons and new discoveries and trips to the library and sleepovers and squirrels stealing food and cats purring in laps and one wild and disorganized mama trying to figure out how to make decisions for these tiny humans in her care. I’m staring at tiny, shards of beauty everywhere, so sharp I know I’m not imagining it.

 

Another school year over, and we are heading off on another big adventure. What a dream it is to be here.