Paraphernalia

1. The separate real or personal property of a married woman that she can dispose of by will and sometimes according to common law during her life.  

In my late 20’s it was becoming obvious to me that my life had become a maze of mistakes doubling back upon poor choices. It seemed every turn I made towards daylight or whatever bit of cheese I felt at the time was my true reward led me further into this growing labyrinth of my own construction.

Start with a failed marriage that should never have been and combine with a disastrous rebound relationship that alienated any of my remaining friends. Add 7 years spent drifting in and out of University cobbling together a BA in English — the degree equivalent of a napkin ring on the scholastic table of academic achievements. Sprinkle with several moments of intoxicated indiscretions I’ve spent a few of my years in therapy trying to forget and viola, a pile of what Dorothy Parker would call “fresh hell”.

Somehow I got it into my mind that there was nothing to be done but adopt Alexander the Great’s solution to the Gordian Knot. Lacking a broad sword, I purchased a train ticket toVictoria and made arrangements to stay with my ex-husbands cousin. Actually, she was the ex-wife of my ex-husband’s cousin, which added a certain appealing irony to her offer.

I sold my 1964 Ford Anglia  to one of my few remaining friends for a dollar. A few months later she cancelled her friend status when it turned out the cute car needed a new master cylinder. I offered  to mail her the loonie she paid me; in retrospect I can see that probably was not the gesture of appeasement  I’d intended…

My cats, T’ai and Ruth, settled in with my sister until I had suitable digs inVictoria. Those few household objects I had carried from failed relationship to failed relationship were also left with my sister. Having no emotional baggage tags for her, she welcomed them into her home as payment for doubling her cat kibble and litter costs.

At the Arc deTriomphe: like mother, like daughter...

I divided my books into those I couldn’t live without and those I could bear to be away from for a while. It took 3 tries to reduce the former to one (relatively) small portable box. Clothes went into a suitcase along with a few more books. Having a wardrobe based on practicality not quantity, this required little effort on my behalf.

8 years after scampering away from my parent’s house, I returned with a suitcase, the clothes on my back and a box of books to spend one last night.

It was that deep darkness of winter when I got up. The entire city seemed still asleep when I told the cabbie to take me to the train station. He kept his attention on the slippery road and I watched the fine flakes of November throwing themselves at the windows. Orange hued street lights reflected ghastly shadows from yesterday’s shoveling efforts piled along the curbs. I looked out at the distant sky trying to make a permanent record of that moment. I wondered if these little flakes had already filled in my cab’s tracks on the driveway at home.

This November will be the 29^th anniversary of that decision to leave the first two and a half decades of my life behind me. I have made a life here that presently include a husband, two grown but still resident daughters, a bird, a dog, a cat and a small house. From my front window I can glimpse the ocean I migrated towards and theOlympic Mountains beyond.

True to her word, my sister drugged and crammed my cats into an airline pet carrier as soon as I asked her to send them out. After long lives on the west coast, Ruth is helping a pink rhodo grow and T’ai’s is blue. The books all made it too but, truth be told, most are still in their boxes in the basement waiting for a move to a larger house with room for lots of bookshelves.

Now that I’m ankle deep into the second half of my 50’s I am glad I made the decision to leave it all behind. There are moments, in a fit of weakness or the periodic marital fog of war, when I wonder what life would have been like if I stayed in the City of Champions. That is a question that can never be answered but I’m pretty sure I’ve found the answers to ones I was missing before.