A poetic reflection from Colin...

These poems were written at school this year and give us a glimpse of some of the things Colin is looking forward to. Colin writes, "Poetry is finding something in your heart. It is thinking about how you feel. Poetry is expressing a big feeling. It is when you find a big topic and write about it." Here then are a couple of Colin's "big topics".

Kangaroos

I love the way

that you hop

you bump and jump

like balloons of laughter

your pouch is just like a

basket of goodies

and

little

roo

who seems so

like a bunny

you have floppy ears like a

clumsy elephant

One Australian Year

So excited

flipping fish

waving waves

to surf

on

scuba diving

learning

new

things

maybe learning

a different language

nice house

beside

cemetery

go to zoo

airplane ride

maybe I'll see jumping kangaroos

so excited

so excited

- Colin Darling

How does it feel to be off work?

This is the question of the moment that I am not really sure how to answer yet. It is a strange feeling to work hard for the last 17 years building my career and then quit for a year. I will keep this blog posted on how time is spent and what perspective is gained during this time. Meanwhile, I look forward to some self-reflection and quality time with our family. More later.

Down under or just around the corner...it's all the same in the head of a six year old.

I'll never forget when my parents told me, at the ripe and maybe not so bright age of six, that we were moving from Montreal to a foreign but, at the same time, familiar sounding place called Peterborough. How cool was that going to be I thought to myself. We were moving to a new city, a new province (whatever that was), and we were actually going to live in a place that was named after my father! Ahhhhh, the naive, wonderful, and small-world view of a child!

But come on! It made perfect sense. How would I have known anything different? I was six! If my dad, Peter, told me that were moving to Peterborough then who else would the city be named after!!!?? It didn't matter that I probably didn't know what it meant to move either. And why would my parents even bother to try to sort me out and correct this bold assumption? If I thought we were moving to a place that was named after my dad, then why not, especially if it would in anyway mitigate the culture shock of the move itself. How more safe could you feel than to move to a place where, in your mind, your dad was the king, mayor, and founder all rolled into one?

It is with this memory in mind that I consider our own two sons' impending transition to a life down under. Many, many people have kindly asked about Colin and Alex and whether or not they are excited about the trip. And though they may truly be very excited, or nervous, or freaking out, or sad, or complacent it is very hard to tell or say. Moving to Australia it would seem is little different than going to the park or the corner store. They have their moments of excited banter or sad reflection. But they are fleeting and most often only come after some prompting from an adult. It's almost at the point where they have developed a standard answer to that standard question - not trying to be rude or smart - but just saying what it seems the adults are wanting to hear. 'Yeah, kinda." Colin will say to the question of his excitement level or "Nooooo!" Alex will scream if someone tries to pin him down on his level of anticipation. It is all very natural and nice and normal but I also worry at times if it shouldn't mean more to them and whether or not we have done enough to really prepare them for the shock that inevitably will come.

I am reminded of the time I was driving with a friend to his cottage which was about 30 minutes outside of the city and I remember feeling like it was taking forever - a day at the very minimum. I was 10 or 11 at the time and I really thought that trip was never going to end. Now, as an adult I know exactly how far it is. I know this because I am the one I driving it. I am the one in control. I know the speed, the turns, and I am always in control of how I get there and when I get there. I have done it hundreds of times. I had none of that the first time I travelled to that cottage as a young passenger.

Distance and time therefore would seem to have something to do with one's ability to apply a sense of relative experience and context to the situation.

As a six year-old, we have very little of that sense of context to bring to what we are experiencing or what we might experience in the future - around the corner or around the world. The world is what it is and we only deal with it when our eyes open and the sun or rain invite us to react and live within the here and the now.

Obviously, every day, we get a little older and a little more experienced in terms of figuring out how long, how far, how much, how little, the world has to offer us. We soon figure out that Peterborough is not, in fact, named after our father. We build a consciousness that helps us to figure out exactly what it means to fly to Australia - although I'm not sure I'm there myself! The question for me as a parent, and as the one who is "inflicting" this experience on my children, is that when I can press a button on Google Earth and in 10 seconds fly from Toronto to Melbourne, have we in some indirect way made the world too small for our children? And though seeing where they are going to live online may be good for their six year-old psyche or my own piece of mind a week before departure, I think what I really want for my sons is for them to appreciate the true vastness of the world and its amazing diversity. I do want them to be truly excited when asked about the trip, scared even, wondering when the plane ride will ever end - because then, and only then might it seem that we have left our home, we have gone on a real adventure, far beyond anything a computer could ever show us and that the experience is bigger, further, and better than anything their six year old (or my forty-two year old) brain could ever imagine.

Leather for the Renters!?!

As another installment in our pre-Melbourne preparations, today's entry is about getting our home ready for the renters.

Like those people who furiously clean their homes the day before the cleaning lady arrives, we have been busy attending to all of the little things that needed to be done in order to make our home look and feel liveable. Many of those little things such as painting the trim or cleaning the walls or replacing bricks on the interlocking brick driveway (yes, I really did that) were actually completed in advance of anyone renting our home. And now that we actually have a family committed to renting our place, I have become even more motivated to fix it up and make it feel like the home we know it is. Linton might say, obsessively so.
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It's actually amazing what you start to notice and decide to fix when someone, whether you know them or not, is going to be living in your house. And it's not like the primping and fluffing you might do in advance of a dinner party or your in laws imminent arrival. This reconnaissance mission of going into the corners - the deep, dark, and sometimes dank places in your very own home - is a serious and yet quite fulfilling exercise.

Take the iron fence posts that have lived behind our tool shed for the past six years and who knows how many years before we came along. I have tripped over them, stored things on top of them, buried them, cursed them, thought about getting rid of them (twice), tripped over them again, cursed them again but never, never have I really had a real reason to act until we rented our home. Then it was a no-brainer. Then they had to go - now. Yesterday. The 1-800-guys-with-the-truck could not get here fast enough. I even helped them throw them into the back of the truck and paid top dollar to send them on their way. And now, I have the satisfaction of knowing that those dirty, metal, good-for-nothing fence posts are no longer a threat to the good people renting our home. Phew! That was a close one! And that's really only the tip of the iceberg.

We ( read I) have fretted over many, many mostly minor touch ups that have only suddenly occured to us in the last few months - what with our renters moving in and all. Now everything appears through a renter-filter. Would they want to lie on the floor in the living room and look into that corner and see that chipped stucco? If they look underneath the banister they will see that we didn't paint it! Do you think we plant the white and pink annuals or will just the white do? If I don't wipe the dust off the top of the picture frames will they back out of the rental agreement? There has not been a day go by in the last few months where I have not thought about how the house would appear - to the renters. And then, of course, there is the case of the green chair!

Our beloved green chair was a wonderful wedding gift that had become a very big part of the family. It had been there in the early days of marriage - helping to nurse Alex and Colin through breast feeding and bottles. It had played host to any number of wild Friday night parties where Lint and I would make some popcorn and crack a beer and then cram ourselves together into that chair to watch some movie during which I would inevitably fall asleep and upon waking would often discover I had spilled my drink all over myself and the green chair. There were tonnes of spit ups, probably some pee-ups(?) and gosh knows what else that little kids can get on their fingers and then wipe onto a piece of furniture. I am convinced there are several Hot wheels, a gallon of popcorn, various Lego pieces, a bit of Playmobil, a library book or two, at least $100 in loose change, and maybe even a decent sized stuffed animal all contained within the belly of that chair.

I had been grousing about getting rid of it for awhile and Lint had been a little less keen. Why get rid of it and spend money on something new only to have the renters wreck it? It was and still is a fairly sound and practical position that I didn't disagree with in principle. And yet, I loathed the green chair. I was embarrassed by it. I spent Saturday mornings cruising The Brick flyers ooohing and ahhing at the various sales trying to sway Lint's opinion. I would slow down in front of The Art Shoppe to point out things that would "go nicely where the green chair is". But still no nibbles. It wasn't until we were strangely alone in IKEA that the green chair's fate was sealed.

We were in the leather section. We were tired and frustrated about price and choice and look and whatever else was giving us purchase paralysis when I casually wandered over to the leather couch section. There it was. Nirvana in real naugahyde. It was perfect. The perfect piece, with accompanying and equally perfect little ottoman. My gas the green chair prayers had been answered. And incredibly Lint was on the same page. We were on the same page. We were going to replace the green chair - regardless of cost. Damn it, we rationalized, who cares if we have renters! We work hard, we deserve this! In point of fact, who's kidding who? We were really buying it for them.

And so the green chair has gone to greener pastures in another home and we are now a leather furniture owning family. I never thought I would be, but so far so good. The furniture works, it looks and smells new, and I am happy. I am happy the green chair is gone. I am happy we have actually purchased something we wanted. And I am happy because Linton and I both wanted to do this. However, mostly I am happy because what I think we have really done has been to say - we like our home, we are proud of home, we like it to look nice AND we hope you will, too.

So we fix up our house and clean the grout and plant flowers and paint the trim and dust the blinds and organize my nail jars and buy a new leather couch because in the end, I believe a loved house will be cared for far better than a neglected one. And that little leather couch sends a lotta love...

1 House, 4 Lives, 365 days...7 bags.

One of the tricks of our trip has been trying to figure out how we take our relatively little, but abundantly jam-packed house and pack it up for our year abroad. Thankfully we have rented it furnished which has saved many hours and dollars of packing and storing. The fine people at Goodwill have graciously accepted a steady stream of "perfectly good stuff". More fine people who graced our "rain date" garage sale also relieved us of some big ticket items (I'm glad I never have to see that green chair again!). And there have been some major drop offs to Peterborough and Balliol Street where the more precious cargo -china, photo albums, my beloved stereo - will lurk for the year.

As well, we have rented space in one of the local self-storage depots which has proven to be both worthwhile and, dare I say, fun. While the space ain't cheap, it is quite close and has allowed us the freedom of carting things over in little trips between groceries and the beer store. And while our first container was a tad small - the new one, I hope, has provided us with enough space to store everything we think we will still want in a year - though I think there is still stuff in there that Goodwill or the garage sale could have had!

The fun part relates to the kids. Part of the challenge of this trip has been to get the kids excited without freaking them out too much. How do you try to purge half your sons' toys, their bed, shelves and bicycle and in the same time sell them on the joy of the Australian outback? There was a moment last week where Alex was pleading with us to pack a certain toy shelf in our backpacks - as opposed to leaving it all alone in the darkness of the storage unit. Broke my heart.
So the trips to the storage container have become a little therapeutic. We get to ride on the trolley, open the combination lock, help dad choose the best places for the toys to be stored, watch the automatic door, etc. Small things, but when you're experiencing these moments through the eyes of a fairly perceptive 5 year-old, every trolley ride counts!

Another challenge that does not need full public disclosure has been the negotiation between the Purger and the Pack Rat. Now don't get me wrong. I am right into "the great purge of 2008" and feel liberated by the lack of stuff in my life. However, there have been moments, classic male vs. female moments, where it took me awhile to come around to wanting to get rid of that old leather jacket or the 1993 MOMA Impressionist Art Exhibit Poster - purchased, mounted, and stored in the basement by yours truly for the past 15 years. These are tough decisions and depending on one's mood -they can seem to be life or death. Though I have had a few small victories, Linton has won the lion's share of these negotiations, largely due to her ability to think on her feet, hit me with five good reasons to every one of mine, and to play the practical card which seems to trump my sentimental one every time. So be it. Like so much of this process, ultimately this adventure is all about how to get our "big" lives crammed into seven little bags.

So, finally, that is where I will end today. Seven little bags. After consulting airline baggage rules for oversized and overweight baggage we have given up figuring out whether we will meet their archaic, complex, and recently more expensive restrictions - and so we're just "going for it". Having had little success figuring out the real timing and cost to shipping a package - Canada Post has been completely useless in this regard - we are going to simply pay the extra costs of bringing it all on the plane with us. After all, what I continue to say to anyone who asks is - what do we really need? Clothes, a passport, computer, money, and then....what? Our place in Melbourne is fully furnished, we have a little extra cabbage to buy the boys a thing or two for their rooms, and so, we continue to ask ourselves - what can't we live without for a year?

The answer is quite simple - nothing. Anything that has not been sold, stored, given away, or thrown out - is what will go into our seven little bags. And all we will need after that is what Australia will provide.

Then, just maybe, we will buy an eighth bag Down Under. And we will fill that bag with the memories we will all want to store - the Purger and the Pack Rat alike - for a lifetime.

Girls going away party June 2nd hosted by my good friend Sarah Eyton!!

Neighbours Going Away Party! May 31/08

Neighbours Going Away Party! May 31/08

Just a few more weeks now...

I am not really sure what a blog is but we thought we would start one to chronicle our year and all of its trials and tribulations. First of all, I know this sounds cliche but everyone we know has been so supportive and truly thrilled for our family adventure. We have had some wonderful going away parties and will really miss all our incredible family and friends here in T.O. (pictures will follow).

It has been a long journey getting here. We wouldn't be going if it wasn't for a few key individuals:
- our wise financial advisor, Sheelah McNeill from Investor's Group. She has been with us executing the "balls to the wall" financial plan for the last 3-4 years now and did very well to pull us out of the market in December/08.
- my generous and always supportive in-laws Jane and Peter Darling for continuing to support James' continuing education
- my parents/property managers - Suzanne Hughes & Tim Carter, Pat & Bill Davidson who will be ensuring our renters are happy in our house here in Toronto
- Paula Roberts, my boss at SickKids Foundation, who knew my plan for a few years now and still brought me into a new role and mentored me
- Alex Macinnis - my old friend who has been our link to Melbourne and checked out our rental for us
- Kelly & Mike Latimer - who found our renters, Lisa and Jeremy for us
- Daphne & Paul Webster - who hosted a fantastic farwell evening for us
- Sarah Eyton who organized a great girls farewell evening for Linton
- Joe Milstone - our incredible notary who was available at a moment notice to certify documents for us
- the Darlings and my dad and Suzanne who are helping us with storage of our personal belongings (and our CAR)
and the list goes on to include many administrators here and in Australia who have assisted us with our immigration, education and VISA paperwork.

The to-do list keeps getting shorter but it feels like a bit of a marathon. Only four more days of work for both James and I....It feels real now. The kids are figuring out which toys to take...More later.