POINTS OF VIEW

I married a man who had a secret fantasy. He hoped to live in a place with a view. Being a patient man, not to mention thrifty, he moved into the basement suite I was renting. Its large windows looked into the basement windows of other apartments on both sides. The living room commanded a foundational view of the back yard double garage. He did not fret. He knew we would move on.
From our second basement suite—basement suites were cheaper than loftier places—he had a grass roots view of the front lawn and any feet that happened to be passing along the sidewalk. He did not fret about this one either. There was nowhere to go but up.
Our first home with a mortgage stood on a busy Calgary street. Across the wide expanse of service road, median and traffic artery lay the vista from the rear end of a Zeller’s store.
Shopping was oh-so-convenient. Our second house looked across at other houses. I never cared for that house, so moving out of it took little negotiation.
In front of our third house stood three trees on a tiny island that a street architect had inexplicably created. Cars liked to go around it. Friends would stand at the window and say how nice it was not to have to look directly into other houses. That view lasted us for 23 years.
Twenty-three years is a long time—long enough to raise a family of babies, long enough to contemplate the next move, time enough to search for just the right place. This was the point where my husband began to come to terms with the unintended consequences of marrying a blind person. In order to win her heart, a prospective house has to offer more than a view.
If you have a lot of money, the world is your oyster. You can contemplate luxurious castles and executive penthouses overlooking breath-taking panoramic vistas that stretch across the river and the urban skyline all the way to the wheat fields beyond the outer suburban reaches. Less money gives you fewer choices. Guided by his quest for beauty, we journeyed to a house advertised as “stainless industrial non-allergenic interior.” But even as we clattered up the open-backed metal stairs leading from the front door to the living room, with my promises to be openminded still ringing in my ears, I began to pine for “homey, warm and intimate.” He chanced upon a dwelling with its panoramic kitchen so far above the garage that a dumbwaiter had been installed to lift the groceries. But the dumbwaiter was smart enough to make the people walk the stairs. The trip was an exercise in—well—exercise. I thought of all the furniture the dumbwaiter would be smart enough not to carry and persuaded him to keep on looking. He admired the valley from a tall narrow house where the master bedroom closet and most of the living room had been replaced by an elevator. Though I had to admit that the trip to the view in this one was a little less exhausting, I found I had been hoping for a closet and a living room.
On and on went the search until finally, we found a place with carpeted stairs, large closets and a living room thrown in with the bargain. It has what I call a diagonal view. It stands at the bottom of a bank looking up in a westward direction across the slope and the trees to the buildings on the cliff high above. And if the sun sets at our house two hours earlier than it does in other neighbourhoods, which is definitely the case at this time of year, well, even the luckiest people can’t have everything. Some sacrifices have to be made in order to get a view.
And what lies in the future? Well, we might move to a hilltop, or it is just possible that we will some day give up our garden and retire to the 20th floor of a high rise. Perhaps it will be a large, homey, intimate apartment with windows on three or four sides. Possibly it will have several elevators as well as a living room. Or maybe, like our present place, it will be something we cannot yet imagine.
One lesson life has taught us. At the start of any process there are usually more options than we can name.