Full Moon On The Winter Solstice: Why It Took So Long To Make This Album, Part Five

Oh, how enchanted I was when I first saw the house. Mike called me at the end of a music lesson and said, I think they might sell us their house. Come and see it. So I wrapped the baby in one of those carriers that keeps her snuggled to my chest, and off I went.

I couldn’t believe this house. It was so big, so lovely, and it just went on and on. Four floors - basement, main level, upstairs, and attic. An attic you can walk right up to. It looked like a Sherlock Holmes lair. And a basement with full height ceilings, where Mike wouldn’t be constantly banging his head. A perfect place for a studio. And four bedrooms - we could have two more kids, and everyone would still get their own room.

Even though the house was just down the street from our old apartment, we still had to put everything in a box. Mike was working full-time at CBC and I had to pack up our entire, nightmarishly-cluttered apartment with a six-month-old baby. It took weeks and was the most spiritually draining experience of my life. Everything was chaotic, everything was missing, and Adeila twice had mysterious vomiting spells that were terrifying (who knew how much vomit could be inside such a little person?!).

Believe it or not, this room is 3/4 empty compared to how much was somehow in it before.

December was our month of overlap - we got the keys to the house on the 3rd, and had rent paid at our apartment until the end of the month. We had called in some favours to help make some quick cosmetic upgrades to the house, so we couldn’t get in there while the plaster walls were being re-skimmed (so dusty, so messy) and the kitchen floor was being ripped up and laid with tile. Every morning before Mike’s shift began at 5am, he somehow found time and energy to go to the house and check on progress.

The day we finally moved, it was the winter solstice and a full moon, an occurrence that happens so rarely, it won’t come around again until 2094. (My husband actually wrote a song about it, ”The Winter Solstice”.)

We’d slowly been carting boxes over to the house and finally, after the sun set that day, I decided Adeila and I would “move”. Mike had escorted a truck of furniture over to the house and then I’m not sure exactly where he went. I put the last remaining basic essentials in the bottom of our buggy, and walked the 180 metres to our new home.

I opened the front door to find the foyer completely filled with furniture and boxes - the recent truckload had clearly been dumped right inside the front door - so that I could barely get the buggy inside, and once I did, I couldn’t figure out how to lock the house’s ancient deadbolt behind me. I remember cursing and crying and slamming the metal frame around the bolt with the heel of my palm. Not the most ceremonious way to enter one’s new home. I (sort of) calmed down reassembling the baby’s crib (but not without some good, old-fashioned cursing) and putting fresh sheets on my bed, which was thankfully not in the foyer.

Our house quickly came together with help from our family. The second day, the house was so full of people, I didn’t get much time to practice for my holiday concert that night. But I remember singing a couple songs around the Christmas tree - miraculously, it was put up and lit, although not yet decorated - with Adeila in her swing, and Mike harmonizing. I remember how lovely the bathroom tile floor looked beneath my stockinged feet as I quietly did my makeup after putting the baby to bed. And to my great relief, the show was wonderful and I was so relaxed and present, knowing my little girl was peacefully sleeping in her own bedroom for the first time while I sang to a room full of listening people.

Performing at Glass Monkey Studios on December 21, 2018. Photo by Dan Boshart.

Through all these chaotic weeks, we did absolutely no work on my album, and I felt like there was a cloud following me, the guilt of doing nothing. We had only barely gotten started. It wouldn’t be impossible to just drop it. I started to wonder if maybe I was done making releases. But it was such a heartbreaking thought.