Back to the Old House

It hasn't changed much over the 30-odd years.

As I walked along the path that connected Gilbey Drive to Leaver Avenue, I noticed that the path had changed slightly, from when I last walked it. The Merivale Market mall had encroached onto the wooded area and trees seemed to fill in the pathway once again.

Only, it didn't seem so ominous. Not in the daytime, anyway.

In my late teens or early 20s, I had walked along that dark pathway, my eyes struggling to adjust to the darkness—I had exceptional eyesight in my youth and needed only a bit of light. I did carry a small but powerful flashlight on me, just in case I needed to see anything.

I felt a presence along the path. My footfall was silent: I often joked, in high school, that I'd make a great assassin, though I justified that statement by saying that I would only kill bad guys, men (or even, women) who deserved their fate.

I switched on the flashlight and had stumbled upon a conference. A secret meeting. And stumbled is the appropriate word, for had I not turned on the flashlight, I would have tripped over a colony of rabbits, seemingly huddled together to whisper out some nefarious plot.

They hesitated for an instant, surprised by the sudden flood of light. It took them another second to realize that a human was holding the source of that light.

They scattered as though they had been caught in a sting operation and were leaving the scene as quickly as possible. One bumped into my leg: another tried to fight as he fled, biting my pant leg, though missing my leg. I felt the tug on the fabric but that was it.

And then I was alone again.

I saw no rabbits on Saturday afternoon, as I wandered my old neighbourhood, killing time before my photo shoot in a nearby studio. A squirrel or two but no rabbits. It was far too early in the day for them to come out.

Past the tunnel for the water reservoir, I saw a path branch off to the right, heading behind the houses that lined Leaver Avenue. With the autumn leaves gone from the trees, I could see that this path was heading toward Beaver Ridge, a large crescent road that ran around the Skyline neighbourhood. As its name suggested, this roadway marked a ridge that led to one of the highest points in Ottawa.

I took the path, wanting to see where it led.

As it turned out, it ran around the sunken ground that was the water reservoir. Some little pathways also branched off and led to the roadway, but I stayed on the main path and looped back to where I had started on this circuit.

Straight ahead, I could see Leaver Avenue. Across the street would be my old house.

To my left, a new house had replaced one that had seemed very small, compared to the rest of the houses on the street, when I had lived in this hood. It seemed cramped, backing onto the Food Basics grocery store that was in the shopping mall. There was a lot of noise coming from the back of the grocers, as trucks idled and emitted a piercing beep as they backed up.

Standing at the trailhead, the neighbourhood sounded much louder.

There it stood, my old house.

It didn't look different. Not much. It had the same basic colour scheme. The stand of cedar trees was still thriving.

It looked like the owners had added an awning, with a couple of pillars, on the front steps. But that was it. I wondered what the backyard looked like, if the wooden deck my folks had built was still there or if the wood had been replaced with something completely different. Was the old, aluminum shed still there?

I stood there, for a few minutes, remembering past years in that house. Remembering the layout, upstairs and down. The completed basement, with a work area/laundry machines, furnace, and storage; the large rec room, where my siblings and I would hang out with our friends; the spare bedroom, where my older sister lived until she moved out and I took over after her.

The large driveway could hold up to six cars, depending on their size, and we often had three or four parked in it. The garage was reserved for my father's Alfa Romeo.

This was the house where I started writing fiction. It was the house where my Scottish character, Roland Axam, was born.

It was the last house in which I lived with my parents (not counting the time, on DW's and my return to Canada, from South Korea, when we spent a few months, as guests, while we looked for our own home).

Another blast from a truck's air brakes, at Food Basics, told me that this wasn't my home anymore. It hadn't been since the early 90s. And though I had lived in it for fewer than 10 years (before, we had homes on Bowhill Avenue, on Chesterton Drive, and in Kirk's Ferry, in the Gatineau Hills) it is the one family home with which I felt the strongest connection.

I turned back into Gilbey drive, never looking back at the old house. I still have my memories. They'll forever live with me.