The Street - A Composite Sketch (1)

Not a very long street, just off a major arterial, it is shaped like a question mark. At the conclusion of the bulge it meanders into another street. One half of the street backs onto a heavily wooded ravine, a neighbourhood treasure, though few of the street's residents quite recognize its value, nor make use of its propinquity. It cleanses the air everyone breathes, it hosts birds and wildlife and presents a treasury of wildflowers throughout the seasons. At one time the street, part of a larger suburban community, shared a small-town address. It has long since been subsumed into the greater national capital of the country, through a wide-ranging amalgamation of communities and even farms. The street and the houses on it were built two and a half decades ago. The domiciles are comprised mostly of single-family, detached dwellings, with a handful of semis verging on the main thoroughfare. Many of the residents are the original home purchasers. They would comprise roughly 50% of the residents of the street. The semis appear to have changed hands far more often than the detached homes. And those homes that have been re-sold have often enjoyed a succession of owners. The original home owners who moved into their houses when their children were small have mostly bid farewell to now-grown children. The street represents an amalgam of family types, and there is a significant percentage at this time, of retired people, singly and in couples who, though their houses are meant for family occupation, still opt to remain in their too-large, but comfortable and familiar and valued homes. It is a very quiet street, with little traffic other than those who live there. The house fronts are diverse, and attractive. Most residents take care of their homes, seeing them as their primary investments. Furnaces have been replaced, and air conditioners, and also windows. Kitchens and bathrooms have been remodelled, and people have added decks and occasionally airy 'summer houses' to the backs of their homes. One-third of the homes boast swimming pools, in-ground and above-ground. Most people take pride in their properties, and feel they must achieve lawns that are weedless and smoothly green. Some painstakingly remove weeds by hand in the spring, others hire lawn-care companies to spread chemicals on their lawns. Invariably, the people who look after their own gardens and lawns have superior gardens and lawns. Each house has a large tree planted in front; maples, ash,crabapples, spruce or pine, fully mature. This is a community that is truly mixed, representing people from around the world, come to Canada as immigrants, settled and making the most of opportunities open to all its citizens in a free and open society noted for its pluralism and dedication to fair representation. There are the extroverts and the introverts, those who prefer not to mingle, others who do. They are herewith loosely sketched:

They were among the first of the young couples to move into a new house on the new street.
At the top of the street, the hook of the question mark. Backing onto the ravine. Into one of two houses facing the rest of the street. He was of Dutch origin, tall, lanky to the point of vanishing, easy to smile, but not comfortable within himself. She of French-Canadian stock, daintily-built, blond, exceptionally pretty, hushed-voiced. Both chiropractors, they set their professional lives on the main street of the town.

They planted tulips, lots of them, and daffodils, for spring beauty in a flowerbed on their front lawn, a nod to his heritage. He was a committed runner, at odd times of the day his long, lean figure could be seen leaning into the landscape, determinedly running, regardless of the weather. His skinny legs ropey in shorts, feet encased in expensive running shoes. Over time they had three daughters, spaced roughly four years apart. As children the little girls were cheeky. They became grave but friendly personalities as they grew.

The girls were fluently bilingual. Their mother spoke only French to them at home. And they all attended French-language schools, although their English too was impeccable, the language their father spoke to them. These were bright, curious, biddable children. Unlike many sisters they felt emotionally bonded, and rarely quarrelled, the older two quietly and naturally assuming responsibility for their younger sibling.

Once, when an enterprising entrepreneur bought land at the end-loop verging on the ravine of the next street, the father was personally incensed. He felt the privacy of their family would be invaded, by the contiguous lots, despite that theirs was deep, and the cedar hedges they had planted over twenty years earlier had matured and earned them reliable privacy. He wrote up a petition, girded himself to overstep his shy personality, and rang doorbells up and down the street for signatures.

The people to whom he explained his reasons for challenging the purchase of the land and the intent of the owner to sell off four parcels for additional houses on the next street, nodded sympathetically, but objected that it hardly mattered, did it? This was private property, the owner could, under the law, do as he wished. And it was the next street over in any event, was it not? He prevailed upon them to sign nonetheless and many did.

It availed him nothing practical, the plans proceeded because the municipal council awarded the new property owner the right to sell his parcelled lots and for homes to be built on them. Those homes would have the distinction of being custom-built, not tract housing, like most of the houses on both streets. He fumed and fulminated, but the building of the houses proceeded. And in the event, his privacy was not unduly disturbed, once construction was completed.

The youngest girl is now twelve, her siblings 16 and 20. The oldest girl gives piano lessons at the house. They are all singularly talented. Although their father speaks not a word of Dutch, the youngest girl has become interested in that aspect of her heritage, and she insists she wants to learn how to speak Dutch, and wants to visit the Netherlands. Her older sister has been on student exchanges to Spain. A Spanish student came to live with them for months, in exchange.

These are reserved people, polite and social when they are expected to be. But quiet, and they prefer to keep to themselves; insular. Good and decent people, but involved with their own lives. Still, willing to a degree to support their community, so they respond generously to community events, and charitable enterprises. Because it matters to them how they are perceived by others. They are driven not by an inbred sense of altruism, but by the stealthy thought that if they do not accede agreeably to community needs, they will be ill-thought of.

The girls will continue to make their parents proud of their abilities. Unlike their parents they are naturally affable beings, willing to notice and stop to speak with anyone who lives on the street with whom they have had a long albeit personally distantacquaintanceship . To see one is to recognize familiar features in all the girls; as though each was cloned from the other, and except for size and maturity each reflects the other.

Their mother is still young and graceful looking, fresh and pretty. Their father is still committed to running. Their lawn is perfectly mowed and tended. They are in the process of changing over all the windows of the house. Which happens when windows are not painted on a regular basis over the years, to keep the wood from rotting. The new windows will be vinyl. They will not in any event, require painting. Business is good, and they live enviable lives of comfort. Far more comforting, their familial intimacy.

The middle girl stops, on her way home from school, whenever one or another of the neighbours is out puttering about their own place, with their pets on their property. Although they have no companion pets of their own, all the girls are fond of stopping, making a fuss over neighbours' cats or dogs. But the middle girl in particular. She hesitates to move on once conversation wears thin. They're not averse to chatting with anyone who wants to speak with them.

They have wide, confident smiles and beautiful faces set atop tall, nicely proportioned bodies. They are a credit to their parents, to their communities, to the society in which they are poised to become independent members of. One does not imagine faults in the clay of this fairly ordinary family in a street of other ordinary Canadian families. That they are present is of no moment; what can be discerned is more than satisfactory.

This is the first part of the anatomy of The Street.