The Garage

Our garage is detached from the house. It is a humble, squat structure, wide enough for a single car and perfectly square. It has an A frame roof, reshingled a few years ago, with black eaves running around it.

When we came back from our roadtrip, the garage smelled a little stale. We had left some food waste in the green bin so when I opened up the lid, an army of fruit flies exploded from the darkness in a cloud of rotten food. Typically the garage smells of fertilizer and gasoline. It smells of cut grass and spilled engine oil. It smells of wood drying in the rafters and old newspaper. In the summer I'll stand on a step ladder to grab a length of copper pipe or an old pressure treated piece of lumber from up high and my face will heat up with the stuffy air trapped under the roof between the old doors that will never get used and scrap wood lying crookedly on top of each other. The previous owners had fastened nails, screws and hooks into every piece of trim you can find. Hanging on the walls are backpacks, sports equipment, a kite, and gardening tools. You find all the typical things you'd expect in our garage. There are golf clubs, strollers, a compressor, a shelf lined with spray bottles and aerosol cans. Bags of salt, firewood, brooms, jars of screws and nails, tarps, tubing and bins overflowing with plastic toys. I have a giant blue gym mat that we pull out for the kids to jump on.

At the back of the garage is an old section of counter top complete with two drawers under the laminate surface. Two cupboards open up beneath the drawers and that's where I keep all my power tools in a big pile. I drilled an 8' long solid wood cabinet that weighs as much as a small car to the back wall above the countertop and removed the cupboard doors to make for more storage. The whole makeshift set up works as a sturdy and functional alternative to a tool bench. On one side of the counter I keep a spare set of tires and the snow blower. On the other side is a chest high cardboard box stuffed with the trunk and limbs of an artificial Christmas tree given to us by Joan and Murray.

It's the kind of garage kids like to root through in search of artifacts to prop up their imagination but the parents have to keep warning them to stay away from anything that might hurt them. It's really a big toy box in and of itself. A man sized jumble of stuff and junk. A repository for things waiting patiently for us to play with them. It is my refuge for all the belongings that don't have a place in the house. The things that are too dirty, noisy, unwieldy, outdoorsy things.

If you pick your way past the bikes, table saws, lawn mower and garbage bins you'll find the camping gear stacked against one of the walls.

I pulled out all the gear to do an inventory and start packing in preparation for our canoe trip in a couple of days.

Later that night:

When Toby woke up after a couple of hours being asleep he asked me to rub his back and sing songs. After a few minutes of humming You are my Sunshine, Kumbaya and other songs I don't know all the words to I made a motion to leave.

"Daddy, pet me," Toby said. "One more song."Read more