Perhaps.

A posted sign announcing changes proposed to a site

The Apartment Hunt

In Monday night’s mindfulness class, we started off the New Year with Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth. I read it in bed, before dawn, my favourite. There was the now familiar story of the farmer who has something seemingly bad happen to him, only to have that turn into something good, only to have that turn into something bad, and so on. The neighbors are there like a chorus, alternating between "Oh, that's great!” and "Oh, how horrible". The wise farmer stays the course and with each chirp from the chorus he simply says, "Perhaps". He knows that from where we stand in any given moment, it's impossible to know whether any event is truly good or bad.

Of course, we take ourselves on an exhausting rollercoaster ride by judging life's events in the moment, rather than just getting on with the next step without a fuss.

Just in case I thought I knew the lesson from reading about it, the universe conspired to give me a real-life example, and yet another opportunity to practice. I wasn't nearly as wise as the farmer.

Our next-door neighbours, with whom we share a wall, put a sign on the lawn informing everyone in the community of their upcoming renovations.  They are going to gut the house and build 2 storeys up. We love our apartment, our neighborhood, and planned to stay for many more years. But we thought about how long we would be living in noise and mess and, after dragging our heels in protest, we decided to move out.  We started looking for a new apartment in November. Weeks went by. Nothing. By New Year’s we were bitter - about the hours spent online scouring through listings, trying to get people to book us an appointment, and how lackluster and expensive most of the apartments were. Ripped blinds and cupboard doors hanging from the frame, places with no living room, bedrooms that were accessed by crossing a public hall. None of them were even remotely as nice as our current space. Ugh. This sucked.

Getting into the car to go see another apartment late one January afternoon, we noticed the pink, sunset sky, and woke up. We reminded each other that it’s not what you do, but how you do it that matters. We’d forgotten to treat this ‘little diversion in the plan’ like a game.

We got a little lighter in our mood while searching and Pauli agreed to raise the budget.

Then we saw more expensive, but equally bad places. I was so over it.

We started looking further afield, even though it would mean moving further from friends, changing gyms and longer commutes to workspaces.

Then one Friday afternoon I saw a posting for a really nice place, about 20 minutes away, that looked like it might be too good to be true. We went to see it and pinch me, was for real. Bigger and just a little more money than our current place. A tub AND a closet! Freshly cleaned and painted. Stained glass, storage. I could even see a small patch of Lake Ontario from out front! Hurray!

The lovely owners, who live upstairs, came down to chat. We realized they were very invested in choosing the right tenant. They were concerned about noise, community; they want someone who will share in snow removal and lawn care. I pulled Pauli into the bathroom. “We have to tell them we’re going to sublet when we go to Nova Scotia.” Pauli shook their head. “Not now.”

Other people were waiting in the hall to see the apartment so we had to leave, but we told the landlords how much we loved it and asked for an application.

They didn’t send us an application!

I spiral — they saw people without a dog, they want younger tenants who can shovel snow for decades. I can hardly stand it.

The application arrived late that night.  We filled it out immediately and sent it back. Phew!

Pauli sent me an early morning email before heading to the pool – “You’re right about the sublet– we do need to tell them.”

We both know we are not going to get this apartment. I was so bummed.

Pauli came home from swimming with an idea. “We want this place. And since it’s cheaper, and because we’re exhausted at the thought of subletting after all this - let’s not sublet. Let’s just shut the door and head east.” I thought about it and eventually felt, relieved.

Our references glowed and they offered us the apartment! We were so happy! Omg! Hurray!

The next day, the new landlords asked us to sign a longer lease - and there were items on the lease that contradicted things they said verbally. Our current landlord had issues with us giving notice.

As I left a meeting to take a call from our upstairs neighbor — water was flooding the basement from our apartment — I had to laugh. Seriously. You can't take all this too seriously or you'll have a heart attack.

The next day the new landlords agreed to a year lease and their verbal commitments. Our current landlord came around. The water was not coming from our apartment but a pipe in the basement ceiling and the plumber was coming. We signed and sent the deposit. We were done! We got a beautiful place, a little further out, but we’ll enjoy the adventure of a new neighbourhood.

A few days later, we took Juno over to the dog park across the street. We turned around and both saw a big “For Rent” sign on a lovely house, four doors down.

We laugh. The universe is playing with us and finally, we get it.