Op-Ed

 

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Suburban

Campin’ at the Zarm

Dawn-Louise McLeod
OP Columnist

We suburbanites with our empty,
unfulfilled lives have a driving urge to
keep everything around us clean and
organized. We believe that if somehow
we manage in getting and keeping
everything spotless, our dull chaotic
lives will have purpose. So we spend
countless hours, for example, sorting
the contents of kids’ closets in readi-
ness for their owners to mess them up
in ten seconds flat. These activities
consume all available time so that
there is no room for creative activities,
such as actually playing with the kids,
or writing. I aspire to ultimate order,
but know my life is messy and compli-
cated and beyond all hope of being
clean and organized. Orderliness is a
full-time job. It is also an unpaid,
thankless, and dead-end job. No one is
going to be promoted to the CEO of
Cleanliness.

Yet everything is relative. This sum-
mer my kids and I visited a friend who
had bought and moved to an acreage
in Lumby, BC, and whod invited us to
drop by for a few days. But she wasn’t
ready for visitors. Her house, one of
those prefab trailers, was in the process
of being renovated, and full almost to
the ceiling with boxes. Because the
movers could not tell the difference
between the house and the barn, they
had complicated matters by putting
everything labelled “barn” in the house

 

and vice versa. So during our three-
day visit we camped in our tent trailer
on my friend’s front lawn, which was
really an extension of the adjacent
farmer's field.

Nevertheless, my friend Bobbi was
pleased with her new home, and
proudly showed me the backyard
pond (adorned with floating green
goo), chicken coop, and barnyard with
horse and at least a couple of dozen
wild rabbits. She called her place a
“zarm,” a cross between a zoo and a
farm; adding to the disarray in the
house was a canary, two cockatoos,
two dogs, six hedgehogs, thirteen
guinea pigs, and a couple of kids (the
two-legged kind). Yet Bobbi’s biggest
worry, despite the piles of boxes, laun-
dry and living creatures to be cared for
and fed, was that she couldn’t go on
the internet because her computer
wasnt working properly. Nor did
Bobbi’s mother, who is living with dis-
ability and spends most of her time in
her bedroom, seem distressed by the
ruckus.

When we arrived, Bobbi was paint-
ing boards for the new back deck. She
took me on a tour of her property, and
we left the kids playing Nintendo
while we went for a dip, not in the
pond, but in the nearby creek. Sure, it
was algae-infested, but on a hot day it
felt refreshing. We made plans—

Graffiti

together we'd paint the deck, move
boxes into the barn, unpack, take her
mom out for lunch, and go on a pic-
nic with the kids. To heck with the
internet. We'd get that zarm of hers
clean and organized in no time.

And what did we end up doing dur-
ing those three days? You guessed it,
nothing.

Let me tell you, there is a fine line
between suburban and rural living,
and its called inertia. Inertia is your
best friend. I soon realized that plans
and organizing were things to talk
about but not actually do. In the three
days that we were there, I didn’t see
Meghan, one of her kids, in anything
but the same pair of pajamas. Indeed,
there was no reason to change cloth-
ing, since we didn’t go anywhere or do
much except prepare and clean up
after meals. There wasn’t a kitchen
table, so we ate wherever there hap-
pened to be a space not occupied by a
box or a pet.

The message was clear: make plans,
but don’t get too attached to actually
following through with them. If the
farrier doesn’t arrive at 10a.m. to shoe
the horse, don’t get uptight. Living
oblivious to the clock and to the rigor-
ous demands imposed by order, organ-
ization, and cleanliness will make your
life that much easier, because in the
long run, worrying is about as effective

september 25, 2002

as trying to surf the net when your sys-
tem keeps crashing.

The sole computer repair technician
in Lumby must have been operating
on the same casual principle regarding
plans, because on Friday the computer
was still in the shop. On Friday night
as I was washing dishes, Bobbi’s friend
Rick arrived, a six-pack in his arms, a
smoke on his lips. “Sorry I’m late,” he
told Bobbi. ”Had to stop in Salmon
Arm to buy some weinerschlider.” The
prospect of a night of love, however,
didn’t ease his upset when he learned
that the computer was absent.
Meanwhile, one of the guinea pigs was
having babies. “Mom, can we keep
one?” asked my kids. Sure, if you want
our Cat to eat it.

When at last we left on Sunday after-
noon, things were looking up—the
computer was back and Rick was
working on it, at least one box had
been unpacked because we had to find
the vodka, and Megan was wearing a
different pair of pajamas.

And guess what? We now have a
furry souvenir—and the cat is scared
shitless of it.

What did you do on your summer
vacation?

Let us know! Email us at:
iconoclastcom@yahoo.ca

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