The Birds, the Couple, and My Doppelgänger in Reverse

It was cold and moody like any other winter day when I heard the girl contemplating a laneway house, which sounded to me like a new living arrangement. I was dismayed. In my short two years of life, I had moved from suburban Ontario to a basement suite in Ottawa, then found myself stowed under an airplane seat embarking on a cross-country odyssey. I thought about how I had just started scent-marking my new 2,500 square foot territory—the girl’s childhood home, a quaint-looking, stucco-ed Vancouver Special she referred to as “the pink house.” Without consulting me, it seemed like a decision had already been made.

I knew the move had something to do with my other parental figure, the bespectacled boy. The girl declared that the time had come for her to shed the abode of her youth, as she peeled off posters from her bedroom walls. The two mulled over the possibilities of building their first home in the backyard if the girl’s parents were amenable to sacrificing their garage.

Downsizing into a 700 square foot container seemed like animal cruelty. To my further annoyance, I was told the persimmon tree and the birds sleeping in it were going to disappear with the garage. The thought that I would cease role-playing The Hunger Games with my feathery friends (me being Katniss Everdeen) got me very emotional. Not even a whole jar of Churu could entice me towards the idea.

The girl had a longtime friend draw up plans for the new dwelling. But her friend lived in New York. By way of their mutual friend (whose father was a retiring architect), she was finally introduced to an architect based in Vancouver who, fate it seems, has the same name as me except spelled backward. The girl introduced us on another clammy day in Spring 2020: “Imu meets Umi. Umi meets Imu.” Despite the rumor that he is an alleged cat person, I made sure the architect knew his boundaries with a warning swipe of my claws. I decided to adopt a wait-and-see approach, as I watched, with my innate feline patience, how the whole enterprise unfolded.

Unbeknownst to others, the girl had been embarking on a journey of soul searching since the shovel went into the ground. In front of her friends, she was mirthful and high-spirited. With me, she would be withdrawn, at times even melancholic. The fact that her parents were also planning their return to Vancouver from Taiwan after a long departure gave her Millennial heart much to ponder. At this junction of her life when old and new memories collided, she questioned herself and what this project meant for all of us. Her global outlook and entrepreneurial spirit also seemed to be at odds with the fact that she would be, in a sense, putting down roots so close to the childhood home she felt she’d long outgrown.

She started documenting the project religiously. Since construction began in Summer 2021, she had been taking more photos of the emerging structure than she did of me. I caught her inspecting the raw concrete foundation, wood studs, and plywood frame as if consecrating a Shinto shrine. When the Tyvek wrap went up, she sported a Tyvek T-shirt in camouflage style and snapped another selfie. One day, while attending a virtual meeting at her desk, she doodled “memories are the architecture of our identity” on a scrap piece of paper. I squinted at the long “A” word as I eavesdropped her and the bespectacled boy deliberating over excruciating details such as the color of grout and the shape of the door pull.

The boy is an engineering physicist and his rational mind helped give structure to the girl’s thoughts, funneling her free-flowing spirit toward practical outcomes. Slowly and surely, the project became an extension of their identities and personal narratives, part of a journey of growth for two people committing to a shared roof. As the head of the household, I did my part guiding them on a righteous path—the most important thing were large windows with wide ledges for me to perch and look out of. I couldn’t help perking up when I overheard that they were replanting some trees.

Meanwhile, the architect hovered above the project with winged enthusiasm. It was at the height of the pandemic and the human race was apparently doomed, so gloomy that they locked themselves at home and stared at the screen with glassy eyes, every five minutes lotioning their hands with something that stung my nose. Despite the dystopian outlook, the architect visited frequently and spent much time talking with the couple. At times the girl would pull him into the discussion when needing spiritual support and encouragement. He listened as if he knew the girl already had the answers and was merely seeking affirmation from another daydreamer. The girl tried to bring me along whenever I was in the mood. “See who’s here?” she would start, “Your doppelgänger in reverse!” I tried to be nice.

When the design progressed further, they would discuss questions like, “Where would Umi sleep?” or “What about her litter box?” in my presence. True to his cat-loving reputation, the architect would conjure up view windows in accordance with my bird-watching ritual, or a nook and a passage enabling direct access from the upper floor (where I sleep) to the kitchen (the food source). With another wayward glance towards me he added, “Let’s also add a dash of color in the house... I’m seeing a protein-rich egg yolk yellow. I think that’d help Umi’s appetite.” It took him a while, but the architect was finally speaking my language.

In an eye-blink, three years had passed, and in the last week of May 2023, I supervised the couple as they planted new trees facing the lane. Watching the young trees settle into the soil and imagining they’ll soon take root and grow strong, I suddenly became emotional again, this time for different reasons. Observing the laneway home grow from an elusive idea to a tangible, habitable structure had brought me into adulthood—yet instead of the cramped downsizing I feared, the place before me appeared to be spacious, comfortable, and filled with light. The laneway house did not feel so dismal an idea any longer, especially if the birds were to return.

The architect still fumbles when petting me, but I have since retracted my claws and accepted that there is a bit of him in the house that I am moving into. Needless to say, there is a bigger bit of me in the house. And an even bigger bit of the girl and the boy, who are going to fill it with their unbounded love. I plan on surveilling them closely from my nook, adjacent to the eggy yellow banister that gets me slightly cat-nippy when treading up and down the stairs.

Project details

Laneway House
East Vancouver, BC, Canada
Completed in 2023
Designed by Imu Chan Architecture
Graphics by Nathanaëlle Boniol