THE MINDFUL LIFE
Love at first sight. Love at first touch, at first sound, at first everything. Just like giving birth to my children, it was a love at first everything.
Life is really skilled at creating a domino effect of wonderments; ever since I was a little girl, I had taken delight into designing, imagining, drawing, furnishing my dream house in my head. So here it is. I had stopped hoping for its appearance, in transit in my own life for over two years, with as much mental clutter as lost baggage, having survived three moves during that period after a 15-year marriage ended with horrific splatters.
A little over two months ago, drifting into a scary unknown while I was hoping to extend my lease until the whole divorce process was over, I received a notice of non-renewal in an envelope at my door, angst and heaviness sealed as if I were served once again. The owners wanted to sell. They had decided that way before the envelope arrived, their intent was that the management company would give me a reasonable notice... but no. They stuck to the rigid, stressful 60-day notice (in my native Quebec, the minimum is six months!).
After a transient incredulity, I ignited my action mode. I oscillated between finding a new rental (the third since 2021) and a home to be my own (the exponential attorney's fees in an atrocious and endless divorce process had left me in a non-enviable financial posture). A few days later, quite unexpectedly, I obtained the check for my equity of our previous house, the one I had finally let go not without a mixture of painful emotions, this house sheltering childhood memories of my three sons, and that we had moved into while I was pregnant with Kristof, my youngest. But thirsty for freedom, since I had no desire to be a renter again nor having to move again 12 months later (or less), I decided to go on a search for a house to adopt, for good.
Between my dedication as a mother and my full-time job as a physician educator, I sometimes had an itinerary including six houses to visit. After a little more than two weeks, I came to the difficult realization that each house explored was either too much of this or too little of that: too beige, not bright enough, too similar to others, smelling too much like cigarettes, not big enough, too neglected... I was taking my daily walk in various neighborhoods, on the lookout for messages that only the passionate about houses seeks and can detect. I was paying attention to each house, for sale or not, wondering if there was one somewhere that existed and was ready to love me, just like I would love it back.
On a Friday evening, to conclude my week, I told my agents to add one to the itinerary even though it was above my price range, if only to confirm the style I am looking for or what I do not like. Until that point, the experience had been illuminating by allowing me to better define and put into words what I desired. And from the pictures on the website, this house appeared splendid and impeccable. The architecture was different from my usual conceptualization for a house, though. For me, ever since I was a child, a house had to look like a human face: door for nose, windows on each side for the eyes seeking the light, and a solid roof for the hair.
I didn't have a hard time opening my mind in front of the more trigonometric than anthropomorphic aspect of its facade. I fell under the spell of its windows in the shapes of trapezoids, angle protractors, even a round one. And a special nook near the dining room window, with pillows, like a reading paradise. A childhood dream. And the pool, also a childhood dream!
This tour was a pilgrimage of enchantments... I can still see myself, in a corner of the kitchen with the south fireplace. I still feel, deeply moved, all my silent exaltation as I told myself: "This house chose me... as much as I chose it!"
This house chose me as much as I chose it!
The next day, I made an offer. I was convinced that it would be a race to get this gem. My offer was accepted the next day. Since then, I started to believe in my dreams again.
Shortly before my separation, I had wished to start a blog. Every year, I was reconnecting with the idea, but never venturing beyond a house diary (la maison jaune, The Yellow House, was my first place, then la maison verte, The Green House, but I didn't take the time to dedicate a journal for the latter). While working on other projects and with a renewed outlook, this intention to create a blog became more consolidated. I wanted to call it The Enchanting House because my reflections will unfold in a house that is even more than enchanted, but also enchanting. It enchants. But my internet search led me to a novel with this title, so I came up with Âme Sweet Âme, to imply the soulish aspect of home (âme is the French word for soul).
This home-soul is already filled with poetry, whether it is on the silvery dotted line running in circles and signaling the ambivalence of a snail or the small bridge over a river of stones with crystals (which inspired my friend Tonya to do a "stone ceremony" on summer solstice, the day before my mom flew back to Canada after helping me move), or its circumferential window from a bedroom I decided to name "Full Moon.” I love its curtain of beads and shells that creates small rainbows at the end of each day, and I have a deep gratitude for the lemon tree and some gardening space for my boys if they wish to expand their botanical skills.
In the House of Enchantments are welcome all those who do not seek to accomplish nor be anything but who yearn to discover each other in an atmosphere that facilitates a "soul to soul" connection between human beings through divine values such as compassion, altruism, humor, creativity and gratitude.
On the day I launched my blog, with entries both in my native French and in English, I was half-way through a year before a milestone birthday. This year, I offered myself and my beloved sons this memorable gift. For them, I prepare this haven with as much passion and dedication as I would do for deities.
And I also redecorated my name... I tackled the issue of my middle name, which had always made me feel a bit defective or incomplete every time I have had to leave this section blank in the countless forms I filled out in my life. I never really had any other given name beyond the traditional Marie given to all girls from my generation born Catholic in Quebec (boys had "Joseph" on their birth certificate, the tradition was too ancient to even consider the notion of binary gender). After having reconnected with that anagram of aimer (which means "to love” in French) about a year ago, I incorporated it more officially in my identity and adapted it so it includes the first initial of each one of my sons (Mariekya). This blog is the poetic extension and the literary representation of my house, so to speak, and I want my sons to feel at home as much in my words as in the pool or the reading nook, evolving with enchantment, all together soul to soul. Âme Sweet Âme.
