Illustration by Alex Siklos
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I walk into the Home Hardware for the first time and I’m struck by something as I pass the shovels and bags of salt laying in the entrance. Not because of the reminder of winter’s onset – I can handle that – it’s something else.
I move past the tool section and, though it’s not quite the same as walking down the church aisle, I realize I’m on the verge of making a commitment that will last a lifetime. I will be in this store many times in the years ahead, tracing this very path. I’ll come to know the manager by name and the exact shelf holding the bin with the two-inch, flathead, square-drive, coarse-thread, plain wood screws. So, as I ask the salesperson about the snowblowers out front, and as he gives me his full-throttle attention, happy to detail the precise nature of the snowfall in this part of the province, and even happier to drive the machine over to my place and walk me through its operation, I do my best to contain my thoughts.
I head back down Main Street, appreciating the fact that I’ve never lived in a town with a Main Street. I step into a coffee shop. Someone says hello as I walk in the door. It’s a customer, not the barista. Weird. I order a date square that seems larger than any Toronto pastry. It goes without saying the date square is the finest I’ve had outside of what my mother made. And it won’t be the last one I order here in the weeks and years ahead. As I pay, and tip a bit too generously, I want to say to the kindly person behind the counter, “You know exactly who baked this date square, don’t you? And the oats, they’re grown on a field nearby, am I right?”
Of course, I understand the risk of sounding like a “cid-iot” – and worse, that this behaviour would hardly make a good first impression.
This is what it’s like, moving to a new place. These are my streets now. My slice of Georgian Bay, just two-and-a-half hours northwest of Toronto. My restaurants and shops. That cozy-looking place across the street? I’ll be spending more than a few hours inside over the coming seasons. There won’t literally be a seat with my name on it, but still, there will be a seat with my name on it. I pass the smartly designed public library on the corner. I’m not a library person, but still, I feel a nascent pride. Because it’s my library.
I finally decided to learn home cooking, inspired by my memories of grandma’s dishes
I’m not the first person in the world to move away from a place I called home for years. Perhaps everyone who does so has similar thoughts whack them over the head as they explore their new area code. Perhaps they, too, walk into their new supermarket for the first time and say, “This is my new produce section, my new dairy section. I’ll be navigating these aisles for years to come.” Perhaps they, too, gas up at the Petro-Canada and wonder, “How many winters down the road will I be buying windshield wiper fluid here and struggling to open the cap in the wind and the cold?”
Every left turn down this street and right turn down that one represents a first. And what do you even call yourself now that you live in Meaford? A Meafordite? Meafordonian? A Meef? The region is Grey County. Odd for a place bordered by the intoxicating blues of Georgian Bay, the greens of the escarpment and the dazzling whites of snow that won’t turn brown in city grime.
I wander into the lobby of Meaford Hall and check out coming attractions. All kinds of tribute shows are heading this way. Floydium: A Pink Floyd Tribute, Hells Bells: Celebrating the music of AC/DC, Always ABBA, Symply Syknyrd and so on. I’ve left the original bands back in the city and that’s part of the bargain.
I drive back to my new place and there it is, sitting like the car in Stephen King’s Christine. A 1953 Massey Harris Massey Ferguson TEA-20 tractor. Vintage, if you want to be kind about it. It’s been staring at me since I moved in, daring me to turn its engine over. I know as much about tractors as I do about cars, which isn’t saying much. But I need to figure it out, because there is something called a bush hog attached to it and there will be acres of grass to cut come spring. Life out here was rumoured to be simpler, but at every turn, there’s a new this and a new that. Even when the “new that” is a 1953 tractor.
But then, I remember the lack of traffic on Main Street. The “hello” in the coffee shop. The unhurried conversation about a snowblower. And while it’s clear the process of turning into a local will take a while, I’ve got time. And date squares.
Brian Howlett is newly arrived in Meaford, Ont.