An Icy Blue Valentine in the 363
There’s an icy blue sky here in Vancouver on February 14th. The sun barely heats up, or maybe it doesn’t, but I want to believe it. Perhaps it’s just a sad placebo. It has nothing to do with the southern sun. It's Valentine's Day, and I'm discussing the cold and the ice. Maybe I'm low on vitamin D. That's for sure, now that I live in a garage. It's my cave, and it's better than any room in the basement of house 363.
​
The housing crisis in Canada's big cities, especially Toronto and Vancouver, makes it almost impossible to buy a home. They are all expensive, terribly overpriced, prohibitive, ruinous, and non-negotiable, so the vast majority of the population pays monthly rent in high percentage to the Chinese who acquired them without any objections generations ago. It’s they who have adapted those houses for rent.
​
Residences like mine have bedrooms in every corner. Basements generally have more rooms than the upper floors, and they are usually rented to students, migrants, or anyone who doesn’t have enough money to pay for an apartment. I like the main floors; I need light, nature, and vitamin D.
​
House 363 offers an appealing alternative: it is cheap and well located (in a prestigious neighbourhood close to a magnificent park and near downtown); it’s comfortable (the kitchen’s huge, and the two washrooms offer a hot and vigorous shower). In addition, it has received some maintenance and a beautiful garden.
​
When I arrived in 2021, I rented a small room (one of the cheapest, CAD 750) on the main floor. The light enters magnificently through the window. I have sublet that room for a few months, and, for the moment, I live in the garage in my cave.
​
A friend of the house manager adapted this space. The manager is a Hindu whom no one has seen. The acquaintance is a skilled Moroccan carpenter who partially insulated it from the weather, not totally, but enough to make it livable. The floor needs to be covered and coated from the cold. It's freezing this February 14th.
​
I like living here. It is the “B side” of the house and the only private place because it is far away, and you cannot hear anything, and no one can hear you. It has its character and an Asian identity now blended with Latin America. A poster of Ganesh, a blanket from Otavalo. A kitchenette, a kettle, a stove, a refrigerator. A sink with a water intake adapted from the garden. It smells a bit like curry and cinnamon.
​
House 363 accommodates twelve people—five on the top floor, six on the basement, and me on side B. I'm not sure that renting it out is legal because it doesn't have a washroom, but it's something that we keep between ourselves, the tenants of 363. Despite being a multitudinous, multilingual, multicultural house (sometimes those differences become a nightmare), and not all of us get along, a code of conduct governs the group. The same arrangement makes the hidden visitors we sneak into our bedrooms feel welcome. Guests sometimes hang around like parasites, living here for several days, even weeks, until the smiles turn to grimaces and descend into pity or shame or some low feeling, cold like the floor of my garage. But no one reports them.
​
The code says that we are migrants, that family and friends come first, and that everyone is welcome. The protocol also prevents reporting the occupancy of the garage. And even though there are crowds and sometimes we must wait our turn to shower or dump, we do it patiently. Communal living is possible because we have different schedules—some study or work in the morning, others in the afternoon or night. On weekends, most of us converge at some point in the kitchen.
​
It was one of those Sundays when I met Oliver. My magnesium and vitamin D levels must have been high because it was summer, and the sun was intense even at 9 p.m. We were all edgy that summer of 2021. Oliver certainly was, and I was feeling receptive. It was a time of confinement, and in this crowded house, we were paranoid of each other—but not Oliver.
​
I was coming out of the shower, and he approached me, losing his distance, to smell my hair. This daring Brazilian boy, ten years younger than me, "who does he think he is", I thought. He laughed playfully at my reaction. Soon, as time passed, the shock was gone. I’d let him smell me, following his game. His well-built torso got tanned under the hot sun. He would walk his bare muscles around the house, showing himself vainly, as he knew Da Vinci would have loved to draw his perfect body.
​
The boy got closer, losing his fear, respect, and prudence. I didn't get carried away, and when he finally got tired of insisting I get in his bed, Oliver brought a girlfriend who filled the house with her screaming. Sometime later, they rented an apartment and left.
​
House 363’s days are numbered. My neighbourhood, like the whole city, is urgently transforming. Every few weeks, these picturesque residences get torn down and replaced by massive, monumental housing projects that increase the scarce supply in this insatiable city.
​
Where will this house’s stories end, the lives spent between these false walls, the cold floors, the broken glasses, the undone beds, the washing machine, the three fridges, the accumulated garbage? Where will each of us go? Will we find a B-side in any of these buildings? I doubt it. Better hurry the payments, get the permanent residency and pay our debts.
Perhaps in summer 2021, more than Vitamin D, my bilirubin levels were high up to the air. Today, February 14th, I long for the summer in this icy blue sky.
