Extreme Local

Lately, the names of other countries seem to be appearing on things all around me. This pen says Germany. Italy, this notebook. They might be imaginary places.

On the weekend, I drove to visit my parents. Two hours each way, with a visit (they on their porch, I on the front walk) in the middle. I felt energetic right until I pulled back into my own front drive. Suddenly, all I wanted was to face-plant onto my couch.

How could a drive along Ontario’s 400 series highways seem a grand excursion? Didn’t I used to fly? Stop in multiple airports? Drive thousands of kilometres across the country? It felt like I’d been gone for days.

Today in Ontario, we’ve been issued another Stay at Home order. Which means that a drive like the one I made on the weekend would—technically—be illegal. For me, it doesn’t change much.

Since March 2020, like many of us, I’ve been living a very local life. And over the months, “local” has shrunk.

Some weeks I’ve ventured no further than a block.

But I haven’t felt confined. What I can see via Zoom is a country. A continent. Friends and family all over North America are now as close—closer than—the people next store. And my computer screen offers it all in familiar packaging. A rectangle, in Speaker or Gallery view.

My office window also provides a frame on the world. Through it, I’ve seen and heard all manner of new and shifting things.

So much of what might previously have gone on indoors, now happens outside.

I’ve heard snippets of phone calls—all of them intended to be private, and some quite obviously confidential. Mothers snatching their only moments away from their families, itemizing to some unseen listener troubles with children or in their marriages, as they speed-walk around the block. I’ve heard leaders of organizations discussing money and management. Doctors doing talk therapy, the patient unaware there’s an audience. Do the speakers think themselves unheard? Perhaps the answer’s only that they have no other choice.

I guess, if you have to spill a secret, you might as well do it here, where the audience is limited. The houses on this street are relatively large—but with few people in them—and also fairly far apart. People are more likely to gather in back yards, than in front ones. We’re surrounded by city on one side, ravines on another. Round the corner, and you’ll hit the empty university campus.

I feel the students’ absence. With the classes online now, one of the neighbourhood flavours has been lost. Then again, from my step, or out my window, I see that young adults who usually only come home at Christmas, have moved back in with their parents. Sometimes they’ve brought a partner.

I can’t help but notice.

With nowhere else to go, even the neighbourhood regulars spark my interest. Like two skateboarding siblings who have convinced their parents to join them. The father is obviously regaining an old skill. The mother, trying to learn for the first time. When I call out that she’s the coolest mom on the street, the woman grimaces. She has no interest in being watched, as she navigates the speed bumps in the after-dinner light.

The neighbourhood dogs don’t seem to mind the attention. Three of them are new to their owners. A retired greyhound from Florida with a sweet disposition and a thick blanket to keep him warm through the winter. A little black and white fluff ball, spirited across the border in a time of travel restrictions. A huge white Russian wolfhound—by far the most exotic looking of the new neighbours, whose provenance turns out to be…Ottawa?

Hey, why not? Ottawa might as well be the moon.

I wonder if the dogs are interesting, precisely because they’ve travelled, when we have not.

My own dog is content to go nowhere. She hates any excursion that doesn’t happen on foot. She likes the steady company. The predictable routine. And also the quiet.

At night, the street falls silent even before dark. Pre-pandemic, the dog would often snap awake several times after midnight, barking at another bunch of young people calling out in drunken, post-party voices. Now, the loudest sound in the dark is the thunk of the newspapers hitting the porches.

The nighttime silence feels haunting. It’s easier than ever to lose track of the hours passing.

The other night, it was after 1 a.m. when I woke the dog to let her out one last time before I went to bed.

As soon I opened the front door, she started growling. Something was dashing out of our yard. I watched it run into the road, and then it stopped under the street light and turned back

A coyote! I waited to see it run toward the ravine.

But it didn’t go anywhere. It stood there. Just watching.