By Maryanna Gabriel
"I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it in any way except a slow way, leave it in the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. The cloud clears as you enter it. I have learned this, but like everyone, I learned it late."
- Beryl Markham, West Of The Night
Waking out of a sound sleep, I dreamed of returning to a family property, an old cottage. Good decision. Except upon waking, there wasn't one. The dream seemed so real. This home thing was getting to me.
It was then I turned my attention to the familiarity of Victoria, a place where I have lived and worked and also where I have friends. Driving down the Vancouver Island coast is a long and tiring journey that requires concentration through the narrow, winding, Malahat. Despite this, I pursued showing after showing. Working through rental agencies was a dreary excercise I was discovering, one gives intimate personal information, and then, well, it disappears into a void. One apartment reeked of urine, another was strangely laid out and expensive, another in a house without privacy.
One serious nibble got my hopes up. The actual owner of the apartment building was in communication with me. The apartment was as cute as could be with vintage lights and a Betty Crocker kitchen, all freshly painted with eau de fresh rug shampoo in the air. In short, I loved it. With one day to the first month's rent being due, the agency still hadn't let it. I was on pins and needles. Pick me! Then nothing. It was rented to someone else. Something in me broke at that point. What exactly was going on?
This headline crossed my feed. "Asking rents jump 8.6% in December..." What was it with this Canadian economy, anyway?
