I’m not remarkable to the population at large, but I am really into genealogy, knowing where people came from and how their lives overlaid current events. I’m fascinated by the fact that my people went from other countries to Canada, and in most cases, never went back. When my oldest daughter turned 16, I thought about my grandmother coming to Montreal at 16 from Poland, to live with a brother she didn’t remember, to work in a country whose language she didn’t speak, to send money back home to her parents. Perhaps that’s a collective family legacy, that if it weren’t known, I couldn’t encourage my daughters to go out and seek new places.
I do one thing that no one knows about (until now.) Our house will be 100 years old next year. It’s an Arts and Crafts bungalow with the original wainscotting in the dining room. On one wall, at the top, is a gap between the plaster wall and the wood. Over the last 28 years we’ve lived here, I’ve dropped things down into the space between the wall and wood. If anyone ever takes the wainscotting off, they’ll find pictures of us at various ages, notes about things that have happened, newspaper articles, baseball cards, pictures of pop stars, all sorts of random things.