In 2017, my partner and I drove to Prince Edward Island to lead a late-summer writing and yoga retreat. During our visit, a dear friend—then recently divorced—was looking at real estate. She had viewed a charming country home perched alongside a slow-moving river. It wasn’t a good fit for her young family, but she thought it was ideal for us.
We had full lives back in Toronto and weren’t looking to buy property. But we fell in love with the light-filled rooms and tangled gardens and the wide-open sense of possibility rural life represented. Suddenly we were dreaming of growing garlic, falling asleep listening to the sound of frogs, and biking to the beach at sunset. As self-employed Torontonians (I’m a writer, Joshua a psychotherapist), we knew it would be a stretch to afford property in the Toronto area. So, despite the fact that we were then in the process of moving into our first apartment there as a couple, we put in an offer on the PEI house.
