Space Shifting

I am in a new space. Seven hundred and fifty light-filled square-feet containing only my things and myself; there are high ceilings and hardwood floors and possibilities. I like the quiet of living alone again.

After a decade of residing in East Vancouver, the West End feels beautiful and weird and far from everything familiar. This neighbourhood is a thrift storefind, the almost-perfect t-shirt bought with the promise that I’ll alter it, maybe crop it a little to make it into the perfect thing I want it to be (I never do). It doesn’t feel like home, but there are birds that sing every morning, and in my first week here the magnolias show just the slightest hints of pink.

I begin a new routine of long evening walks with my camera to shake off, or process, the alienation and loneliness of this space and time. Once, I pass a man with a parrot the size of his chest; its bright reds and greens against his tight white t-shirt are alarming. He stands there talking with a neighbour or friend, casual, framed by the entrance to the gold-lettered lobby with its plastic plants and pink carpeting. I want to take his photo, composed and coloured just so, to preserve this moment of surprise and hopefulness, but I keep walking with a hand resting for comfort on my camera’s lens.

Passing the busiest streets, the light turns into something intense and hallucinogenic, a lava lamp purple-blue. I find myself, unexpectedly, in Stanley Park. I didn’t even know it was there, just beyond the apartments. The trees have labels; up above me there are dozens of blue heron nests. I wonder if I’ll still be here in this neighbourhood when the babies are born or if I’ll have given up by then and gone back home to East Van, dragging with me once again my couch and bed, my plates and mugs, and the many plants I bought this year, one for each time I felt sad (I live in a little forest of green).

At the convenience store on Denman I am drawn to all the colours of tulips, especially the yellows and oranges. There is an odd feeling in my gut, an absence and a presence. Something is shifting. Walking towards home, a tall older man on the corner yells, “Nice flowers!” His friendliness seems crooked and stumbling, but I edit my judgements and stop to respond. He is gentle, cheerful, and we talk for a minute or two before moving on. I forgive myself for the hesitation: I am only in a new place, after all. I am not a new person.

There are buildings everywhere that are old and crumbling, and there are buildings that are modern and tall. There are one or two charming houses with big porches, barely visible between the towering high-rises. Inside, through large windows, I can see that some of the walls are covered in books. Maybe people I understand could be somewhere here? It’s hard for me to know yet because there are an overwhelming number of apartments and people inside of them, and so many dogs, too (the dogs and the old people are the best part).

The weather gets warmer. My runs on the seawall become more frenetic, less direct. There are people everywhere now to navigate, but fewer people who seem to be paying real attention to this place. The loneliness recedes in step with the grey skies, and for the most part I stop spending all of my savings on plants. It’s been a very long winter; I am glad it’s over. Unexpectedly, I find someone I understand here in this neighbourhood where I thought I was alone; it is a surprise bright like a parrot. The alley between our houses is a hallway and I’ve learned it by heart. Things feel quiet lately. There are fewer long and lonely walks, and fewer surprises here, but I keep paying attention to all the things that are not quite home.

“If we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place.”

words & photography by kerria gray