Su casa es mi casa
Stone houses are probably one of the first good ideas that human beings ever had as a species. They always appear to be so effortlessly permanent and ancestral. Arguably, stone houses (and bunkers) are the only appropriate structures for the apocalyptic future or the questionably violent historical past. In the present, they are simply neigbourhood eye candy but can be rapidly converted into a bomb shelter while still looking fabulous. Either way, living in a stone house is doing it right. Which is why I felt like we had won the immigrant’s lottery when my parents recently bought a historic stone house built in 1777. As a wide-eyed 3 year old Polish immigrant in her itchy hand-knit-by-grandma sweater with her name emblazoned on her chest, never in my wildest dreams did I think we would have anything more than a generic cell in a generic high-rise on the someteenth floor in Don Mills, Ontario. Although my parents soon traded in apartment for townhome for little house to medium house, we knew that the stone houses were reserved for the Canadian OG’s. Those things were passed down from generation to generation. You needed to have ancestors and people to get one of those puppies, and we no longer had any ancestral currency in Canada. We were people-less. Just three Polish trying to blend in, eating their cheese, pickle and kielbasa sandwiches at their respective desks at school or work, trying to figure out when you add an article to a sentence.
My parents told me my ancestors were farmers, in towns so small they were named after baby goats. On my father’s side, they were mountain trolls who brewed beer on the sides of mountains but somehow became disoriented and wound up in the city where my dad and his brothers would make home-made parachutes and jump from war ruins. My immediate family unit of my mother and father hailed from a communist apartment block. One bedroom, one television, one car. Our immediate pre and post-immigration living situation was fairly unchanged actually.
Then came the stone house. Built before Canada was even a thing. At that point, real-estate just meant explorers, starving and scurvy-ridden, stumbling across a piece of land that had that 18th century Hygge vibe going on. I think my parent’s house was one of the first in the area. It’s technically an island actually, named after a shitty opportunist, Captain Perrot. It’s right on the St. Lawrence river and you get a distant view of Montreal and its skyline. In the foreground, people water ski or icefish, depending on the season. Then, it must just have been just big ships and the smoke stacks of the first poutine factories, only with the same fat, orange moon floating in the horizon. Perhaps even the same ice fishers. One of the stone window sills of the house is the old dry sink from the previous kitchen. The floor planks are wide and creaky and you can see down into the basement from the cracks. The attic is appropriately haunted of course. The rain drops on the tin roof should probably get a record deal already. The land around is still rugged and reminiscent of the first settlers. There is only farmland behind and river ahead. My children spend most of their time there finding caterpillars, picking wild flowers and raspberries hot from the sun, or catching pretend fish with pretend fishing rods at the river’s edge. But also just fucking up the house with bullshit plastic toys or watching Paw Patrol, just to be clear.
I do not quite know who the ancestors who owned the house before my parents were, although there is a photo book that is passed from owner to owner. But I do know that they became our ancestors as soon as the house was bought. Or at least that’s how I feel about it. We are now part of that strange loop of stone house ownership. We have inherited a piece of insignificant but lovely Canadian history and this is woven into our ancestry, from now until any apocalypse. And even then, we will be hiding inside the stone house, ready with our sharpened gardening tools for whatever zombies, aliens or pandemics that may come.
So here it is. The decor of the house is not particularly Swedish or “design” in its design, but it is cozy and it is the house itself that I love so much and want to share with you. Followed by stone house inspiration, to satisfy your inner settler. A little song to keep you company. And a playlist if you want some more.
My communist ancestry.
Some stoney inspy:
