Sunday 23 March 1986

We went to check out a house. Well, I think we might move.¹

_________________
1.On 1986: When I later went to artschool and was taught about Modernism I never thought I would one day apply to that idea to my life, but I see it now quite clearly as an apt was of summing up 1986. For, in my mind, there is striation of a pre-1986 world, and the post-1986 world, and for years, the post 1986 world was the Modern one. The world of now, the present, the near yesterday. Of course, this is now 20 years later, and I can look back as to why 1986 had a different flavour and immediacy because of the way this day shaped by experience.

We went to check out a house. The folks had been looking to move for a while so we’d been to other houses. I vividly remember the dandelions in Comeauville the day we went to see the house with a turret. That must have been the previous May. On this day, as we walked in the front door, I can still see the boys in the field across the street playing around their little salvaged-plywood fort. We toured the house and went home, and I don’t really remember much about that – the boys in the field is what has stayed with me clearly.

Twenty years later, I was told, I’d be sitting in a dentist’s chair, with a mask over my nose, breathing laughing gas. Twenty years from now, it’ll be a Thursday, whispered, and this is what you’ll see. Pink and yellow and blue. Their faces over you. Reminded of those silly scenes in movies where doctors look down over the camera. The pinch and the flash as the teeth are removed. I didn’t feel a thing. This isn’t a big deal. Wow. Did you get it all out? All of it? All of it, she answers. She’s very pretty, and you keep thinking that’s half the sedation right there – to have such a pretty girl to look at during the procedure. Later the freezing wears off and you’re two teeth short of a full set, but have gone through the initiation rite of our culture, to have some wisdom teeth sacrificed to the gods of good dentistry. The coincidence is a little staggering actually, isn’t it: you sacrifice your wisdom teeth to become a full adult in this culture of stupidity. Or maybe I’m just being cynical. Of course, what does recuperation consists of? Channel surfing. Too distracted by the wounds to try reading, you listen to CBC3 podcasts with the TV on mute, and go round and round and round. Like Sampson’s haircut, your dental procedure has made you vulnerable to celebrity gossip and marketing campaigns.

But twenty years before, it was the prospect of moving, which opened a new chapter into your life.