THIS MUST BE THE PLACE
What if I drew every home I ever lived in? A New Year’s Day thought in the middle of a pandemic. I’d been learning to draw as something to do other than scroll endlessly through social media. And in my cramped apartment, I’d been thinking a lot about home, space and place. So I spent the first two weeks of 2021 drawing the twelve homes I've lived in from birth to the present, as an exploration of how our memories of the physical places we once inhabited inform our ideas of what home means to us now.
Home. The place many of us have spent 90% of the pandemic. Our small world, our safe haven. Home is also a tent in a city park, or a room where you have to sleep with one eye open. Home seems small now, with too many people in it. Or not enough people, which makes home seem bigger. You watch the dust as it accumulates. Home is the place no one visits anymore. It used to be a place you dropped off your bags and stored your things in, between living your best busy life. Now home is every day, all day.
Home is you. You are home. This must be the place.
HOME 1 | 1974 - 85 . Malton
From birth to age 10, I lived here, in Malton, Ontario (they're all Ontario). Malton is the tiny town right beside Toronto Pearson International Airport. In 1974, the same year I was born, Mississauga became a city and absorbed the village of Malton, even though they don't border each other at all. My memories of this home are wonderful blurry images of childhood—playing tag with all the neighbourhood kids, picking chamomile flowers in the field behind our house, climbing school roofs to get tennis balls, and drinking from the hose on the side of anyone's house if you were thirsty.
This drawing is of my mom holding me in the spring of 1975, sitting on the front steps with the rusted old shaky banisters and her gorgeous red hair and the airplanes flying overhead. I used a photo taken by my dad as a reference, but I didn't draw that other kid because I don't even know who that is!
HOME 2 | 1985 - 90 . L-section, Bramalea
When I was in Grade 5, my parents bought this model home in the L-Section* of Bramalea, which is about a 30 minute drive from Malton. It was 1985, so that meant I lost contact with all of my friends and had to start fresh in a new city and new school. This home was as suburban as suburban homes get. So much beige. My mom decorated every space including our bedrooms. I wasn't allowed to put any posters on my walls or anything. Just the framed artwork she chose and the matchy-matchy lacquered furniture. This is also the place we lived when my parents split up. Needless to say, I hated this house. This drawing depicts me at age 12, on my way to play soccer, based on a photo my dad took of me. In the photo my 10-speed bike is lying there on the driveway, but I couldn't figure out how to draw it properly and just gave up. Most of my memories are of riding away from this house on that bike, just to get away.
*Bramalea was created as Canada's first "new town" or planned satellite (of the City of Brampton). It was designed in a series of sections, where all the streets would begin with the same letter. Sounds cool, but all it did was highlight socio-economic differences. "Where do you live?" was a loaded question growing up there, because depending on the letter you answered, people would have an exact idea of the size and kind of housing and neighbourhood you came from.
HOME 3 | 1990 - 93 . H-section, Bramalea
When my parents separated, my mom, sister and I moved into a little 2-bedroom apartment in a building in the H-Section. My mom took one room and my sister selflessly gave me the other, while she slept on the pull-out couch in the middle of the apartment every night. Her desk was also out there, and she would do all her university studies there while my mom watched TV and I got to be a broody teenager in my room, staring out the window at Highway 7 below. Probably more than any other home situation, I think of this one the most.
This drawing depicts me at age 15, and is based on a photo my dad took when he came by to see me one day. I'm wearing my summer "uniform" at that age: long cut off jean shorts, my 10x too big Smiths shirt, and black Oxfords with no socks. Plus a black wooden bracelet that had my name painted on it in the Jamaican colours, that my boyfriend at the time, Dave, gave to me. It broke (or I broke It?) when we broke up two years later, but I still have it in a shoebox labeled "Dave" somewhere in my storage locker.
HOME 4 | 1993 - 94 . P-section/Professors Lake, Bramalea
My mom was so excited to move to this house, but I hated it. I couldn't wait to get out. While living here I was in first year at Ryerson University and commuting to Toronto and back each day sucked up 4+ hours of my life and spirit. All I wanted was to be in my own place downtown, because to me, the eclectic streets of Toronto were the antithesis of suburbia's beige symmetry.
This drawing is based on a Google Street View image of the house and a photo of me on the front lawn but facing the other way, taken by an old friend of mine, Christina. I'm 18 here and wearing the blue overalls I wore basically every day of my life for like, the next 3 years. They were so soft. Around my neck is a necklace given to me by my kindred spirit, best friend, and boyfriend at the time, Matt. The pendant is a hand, carved out of bone or bone-approximate. I still have the necklace, because I still have almost everything.
HOME 5 | 1994 - 95 . Dundas and Jarvis, Toronto
I left suburbia for good when I was 19 and moved into this old Victorian house near Ryerson U with five other students. I didn't know any of them really, but two of them have remained life-long friends and I drew them in the window (hello Ducky and Dan!) We were always at that window watching the wildness of life go by on the street. Two guys we didn't know lived in the basement of the house, and when they played loud annoying music Dan would pour a jug of water through the floorboards to get them to shut up. Friday nights were for The X-Files. Ducky's room was for pot smoking. I cut everyone’s hair in my room. The banister had a marking that looked like a skull. For a while we had a pet fiddler crab named Filmore (after the strip club next door) who lived in the bidet. All my memories are of the three of us having the best time there, while the other three roommates are like ghosts in the background.
I've drawn myself here at age 19, based on a photo of me on the balcony off of my room at the top of the house, taken by my boyfriend at the time (The Musician in Alone: A Love Story). I'm wearing a Rheostatics "Introducing Happiness" tee underneath the flannel green plaid jacket I wore religiously. I'm also still wearing the hand necklace given to me by Matt.
HOME 6 | 1995 - 98 . Chinatown, Toronto
I left the student house of good times and moved in with The Musician. The apartment was up a steep flight of stairs above a store on Spadina with a rad little balcony that looked onto Cecil Street. It was pretty great there, except for the extreme and never-ending amount of cockroaches.
This place is extra-special to me because it was really my first "home" home. We bought a brand new futon on Bloor for a couch (fancy!) and had a wall of CDs and friends over all the time and every day we'd pick up whatever we needed for dinner that night, in the many little stalls and shops in Kensington Market. The lead singer of the 80s punk band Teenage Head lived across the hall from us for a time and was the nicest guy. Above us was a single mom with two teenage girls that screamed and fought only as much as they dance-partied. I started working at CBC in 1996 while living here and would walk through Chinatown and along Queen West every single day and it was always a great adventure. I only have good memories of this home and this time in my life.
I've drawn the two of us out in front of the place, holding groceries. I'm age 21 with my cropped bright red hair and that shapeless dress I always wore (based on this photo of me on the little balcony that he took.) He's got his whole goatee/shaved head/vintage shirt combo going on. You can't see it, but we're both wearing combat boots and have matching tattoos. Because 90s.
HOME 7 | 1998 - 2000 . Bloor & Ossington, Toronto
When The Musician and I grew tired of the cockroaches in our Spadina place, we rented the main floor of this house. He built a beautiful inset bookshelf and an amazing closet out of pipes (it was so cool, really) and I found two big glass heads in the crawl space under the stairs when we moved in (!) so of course we incorporated them into the place. Without realizing it when we rented the place, it turns out we lived attached to the house my mother grew up in and that whole side of my family had lived for 30 years! We lived there for almost two years before we broke up at the very end of 1999, on the precipice of Y2K.
I'm depicted here at age 23, my hair dyed back to its natural colour, and wearing my glasses and the most boring baggy top, based on a photo he took of me. I've also drawn a bit of the porch of my mom's childhood home next door, and our cat, Frida, looking out from our front door. She was a good cat.
HOME 8 | 2000 - 02 . Bloor and Bathurst, Toronto
Y2K happened (and nothing happened). The day after, on Jan 1, 2000, I moved out of my life with The Musician and into a tiny bachelor apartment above a store at 758 Bathurst. Rather than use the Bathurst entrance, I mostly went up the fire escape in Honest Ed's Alley that led me across the rooftop to my teeny tiny apartment.
Today, this entire city block has been knocked down, Honest Ed's and all, EXCEPT for 758 Bathurst! Isn't that wild? The owner refuses to sell it, so Alternative Thinking remains standing if you need crystals for your chakras or you've run out of patchouli. I love that even though glass towers and hipster coffee shops will fill this entire block, the place I lived in will remain the one hippie holdout. I still miss Honest Ed's... I was always in there and could make it through the labyrinth of its crowded floors and sloped ceilings without getting lost or hitting a dead end. It was an unpolished, unapologetic place and I fucking loved it.
I've drawn myself here at age 25, based on a photo my new-at-the-time boyfriend The Scientist (then Husband, then Ex-husband) took on the rooftop that same year, my hair bright red again, longer and tied into two messy buns.
HOME 9 | 2002 - 2003 . Bloor and Bathurst, Toronto
The Scientist and I moved in together, in a basement apartment around the corner from Honest Ed's . I talk a lot about it in Alone: A Love Story, so I’ll just excerpt some here:
We're in the basement of an old house so everything slopes. The ceilings are only 6'3 and The Husband is 6'2. He has to bend his head down to walk around. It's freezing cold in there all winter long, and sometimes it gets so bad that we turn the oven on and keep the door open so I can sit directly in front of it. At night he fills plastic bottles with hot water and puts them in our bed so that by the time I'm ready to sleep it is toasty between the sheets. He's gold in this way, The Husband. These little things. There are all kinds of crazy little insects and spiders in all kinds of nooks and crannies, and when the people who live upstairs walk around it sounds like thunder. We are so happy. We hang out all the time. He watches TV and I read, both of us on the couch with our legs wound together. We play cards and talk and talk and talk. During hockey season, we walk down the street to our local bar to watch the game and eat plates of macaroni and cheese. They know our drinks, so we never have to order. - Excerpt from Chapter 2 of Alone: A Love Story
I've drawn myself here at age 27, my hair dyed back to natural colour (again) because I was about to get married and that's what you do I guess. There are hardly any photos of me in this apartment, so I based it on a photo of me down at Harbourfront where I'm wearing my fave t-shirt with a silver eagle on it. In the drawing I drew the wide-leg khaki pants I wore all the time then.
HOME 10 | 2003 - 2006 . Richmond and Spadina, Toronto
After a year in the basement apartment on Markham Street, we'd saved enough money for a down payment on a one-bedroom condo. We had three fun years here, with tons of parties and life was breezy being married without children. A highlight of this time was the Great Blackout of 2004. We grabbed my transistor radio and some flashlights from the camping gear in our storage locker (in pitch darkness) and helped neighbours get to their apartments. Neighbours gathered around my transistor radio (no smart phones yet, so this was our only source of information!) to figure out what was happening and people shared food and beer. The streets were lively and filled with camaraderie. When night fell we stood out on our balcony, which overlooked Graffiti Alley, and there in the sky hung the Big Dipper, just gigantic among a million stars, hanging over Queen West like no big deal. It was an absolute magical night.
I drew myself here at age 30, with my super-cute bangs, based on a photo The Husband took of me inside the condo. This was a good home with good memories and I've always wished we'd stayed there longer.
HOME 11 | 2007 - 2012 . Dufferin and Rogers, Toronto
We moved here when I was six months pregnant. It was an old house surrounded by giant trees and it needed a lot of work. Like the bathroom having wall-to-wall carpeting which we of course ripped up, only to reveal a layer of 50-year-old carpet glue stuck to the art deco tiles. I spent 20 minutes a day for a month scraping each tile individually with a razor blade to remove the glue (what? isn't that what you did when you were pregnant?)
This is where I lived when my one and only child was born. This is where I felt most isolated. This is where I had my first MS attack. This was where we noticed the first signs of my mom's Dementia. This is where life as I understood it blew up when our marriage ended with a surprise.
So, obviously this house is tainted for me, even though I know there were good memories there. Mostly it's just a reminder of how reality is subjective, and that sometimes under the surface, there's a complicated web of lies stuck to every part of your life, like carpet-glue on tiles.
I drew myself as a first time mom in front of the door The Husband painted for me because I always wanted a house with a red door. I loved that red door. This drawing is a mirror to Home 1, which had my mom holding me as a baby on our front steps. There are no photos of me and the Bird in front of our red door though, so I based this drawing on a photo of us in the backyard in the summer of 2007, just a few years before The Bomb.
HOME 12 | 2012 - 2021 . Fort York, Toronto
My final drawing (and accompanying photo collage) is a bit more conceptual, or possibly ultra-narcissistic, I dunno. But, I have lived here now for almost 9 years since my first marriage ended and in that time, I've lived as many lives. So I've drawn one me for every year in this home, in various stages of hitting rock bottom and climbing back up.
Moving right to left, here's me in 2012, skinny but drunk and despondent. Here's me posing in a cute dress after I just met a dream man in a white shirt. Here's me smiling yet heartbroken about the less-than-dream-man man in the white shirt. Here's me looking hot but treating myself like shit. Here's me in favourite shark shirt. Hair short. Heartbroken. Hair long. Still heartbroken. Here I am wearing a sweater that says LOVE, texting the farm boy who ran the nearby coffee shop in 2017, not knowing we'd be getting married in 2021 (cameo appearance of him in the drawing!). Here's 2018 jean-jacket me, close to signing a book deal. Here's me heavy again but happy, making a home with my farm boy in 2019. Here's pandemic me. Grey hair me. Red hair and rounded right out 2021 me, wearing a mask I made out of tiny drunk 2012 me's favourite skirt.
Here's me trying and failing, trying and failing, trying and failing.
Like we all do. To hold it together. To love after loss, to navigate the unfamiliar. To go to work each morning. Make dinner each evening. To be a good parent, friend, lover, relative, co-worker, and to fail at all of those roles a bunch of times, and to surprise ourselves in those same roles the rest of the time.
Most of all, here's me, like you, changing while staying the same. Adapting, adjusting, making sense out of the mess. Finding small joys in the rubble, hoping and fighting and finding home wherever it is. Making home.
This must be the place.
