December 13, 2012

Ten Years Ago

“It was ten years ago today that I met your Daddy,” I said.  “And then you had a baby, right?” said Harriet, eager to get to her favourite part of the story. (Harriet cries if we look at photographs and she’s not in them. The Harriet-less world does not interest her one bit, and sometimes I see her point.) “No, not right away,” I said. “We lived in England for awhile and we were poor and bored, and we slept on an inflatable bed that slowly deflated every night. We were just out of school, barely employable, and we had no idea how we were going to do anything we wanted to do. So we decided to move to Japan, that old last resort. We had an apartment there that was smaller than our kitchen, and one day Daddy bought me a desk so I could write. He carried it home on his bicycle. We decided to get married, so we went back to England to have our wedding.” “And then you had a baby, right?” said Harriet. “Not yet,” I said. “We moved to Toronto, and I went to graduate school. Daddy had to wait a year before he was able to work in Canada, and we had to shop at the Dufferin Mall No-Frills. Our budget was $50 a week. And every month we had $20 to spend on fun, so we went to Riverdale Farm often and we went out a lot for ice cream. And it wasn’t really that bad. I don’t know how we did it, and I couldn’t ever go back, but we learned a lot. Like to how to subsist on chickpeas.” “When do I come?” Harriet asked. I told her not quite yet. But we knew we wanted to have a baby, and so we moved to a new apartment where there would be room for our baby when she came. Our apartment used to feel enormous, but now it is brimful of bookshelves and tiny socks are scattered throughout every room. No amount of picking up the socks ever changes this reality. Harriet gets her sock-discarding affliction from her dad. I tell her, “We had a baby. And we liked you so much, we want to have another one.” She likes the story now. Harriet is looking forward to being a big sister, and what lies in store. And so are we, the great unknown. Which is terrifying, but also wonderful, and who ever could have foretold ten years ago what this extraordinary decade together would hold?