Chandlerville.  I first imagined converting my garage to a laneway house two years ago. In short order, while conscious, I thought of little else. Asleep, it was more intense - the backside of my eyelids showed a night-long reel of my imagined new house. 

Friends, concerned that reality might fall short of fantasy, would remind me if it didn’t work out, other plans could emerge to simplify my life. Some even gently said if I didn’t like living small, I could move back to the main house and rent out Chandlerville instead. Each time I’d respond that it would work out (because I’d make it so) and that I would like small living.  

It’s got me thinking though - has an idea ever outshone the reality?

The National Geographic. Yes, I think I’ve maybe been wrong about it. 

Most Huron County farmhouses in the 70s had TVs; not ours. National Geographics provided visuals about the bigger world, supplementary to CBC radio news. Nat Geo was the only periodical we received other than the Wingham Advanced-Times, the local weekly. Yellow spines, in chronological order and unsullied by scissors, pens, or dirty fingers, lined our shelves. Beyond the initial read-through, they were rarely consulted, but they occupied the coveted spot beside the complete works of Shakespeare and under every book Dickens ever wrote. 

Why the reverence? My mother’s family hadn’t the money for her to attend anything other the state-run secondary school in her village in northeast England. But her cleverness got her a scholarship at age 11 to a school with a more academic focus called a grammar school. War breaking out in Europe guaranteed that her only immediate opportunity to have her eyes opened to a bigger world was through the 50 year old American monthly glossy journal devoted to stories and pictures of geography, history, nature, science, and world culture that was the National Geographic. The grammar school subscribed and she remembers being captivated by it; 30 years later, she achieved the luxury of having it mailed monthly to her own home. 

When, in 1972, one of my sisters got married, Mom and Dad decided to give the young-marrieds a subscription to the coveted NG as a Christmas gift. Over time, they started to get individual gifts as well, but their subscription continued. As my other siblings left home, it seemed likely they too would be eligible: no home should be without the ribbon of yellow signifying middle-class-dom. But no, it was only granted to the married one. 

In 1980, a second sister wed and immediately achieved the marital bonus, as I began to call it, keen to point out inequity even as a young teen. Although they had all the other trappings of adulthood including their own homes, my two unmarried siblings were forced to catch up on back issues when they came for Christmas or while sitting on the toilet at friends’ houses. My own access to it was a privilege of living at home akin to having someone else do your laundry or having aged cheddar in the fridge. 

When I moved out, pointing out the inequity of this was no longer enough; I turned my attention to stamping out inequity. 

“Are you afraid we will see nude pictures?” I would joke, recalling how, as a child, pictures of people with different social norms around clothing fascinated me.  Mom and Dad, not known for changing their minds, ignored me and sunk further into their resolve.

About 20 years ago, my brother briefly lived with someone. I held my breath - would cohabiting be enough? But no, the subscription list didn’t expand. Marriage was apparently the only ticket into this coveted club.

So I got married.* 

Jack LOVED the National Geographic, tearing the brown paper off and descending to his bathroom as soon as it arrived. I would occasionally get brought an article he thought I might enjoy.  And he was right; the articles are often interesting. 

When Jack died, to avoid me revisiting the whole marital-bonus issue, or perhaps because she thought I’d been through enough, Mom kept me on her subscription list. But the truth is, I don’t read it. I want to. I really do. Each month, I place it reverentially on my to-be-read pile, but it doesn’t hold the allure of a good novel, or Facebook, or Toronto Life or (and here’s an embarrassing admission) my friend’s back issues of Hello. The yellow stack grows until I find someone prepared to take them off my hands, often completely unread. 

Recently when Mom mentioned she was giving up her subscription and asked if I still wanted it, I joined my two married sisters in agreeing it had run its course.  

You see, it is possible for me to want something so badly and then, once its attained, find out it’s not as great as I’d imagined.  

But Chandlerville? I wanted it, I got it, and I still want it. The right decision. For sure.

* In truth, Jack so charmed my mother that she started our subscription when we moved in together even before we formalized it with rings at City Hall.

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