WE LIVE OUT our lives, most of us, in other people’s houses. We had no say in their shapes, took no part in their construction. Perhaps the house in which you live was standing before you were. Most likely it will outlive you. People have lived there before you, others will live there after you. A woman, not yet born, is about to enter the room in which you’re sitting. Crossing the room, she places a vase of violets on a small mahogany table located exactly where your television stands now. Her furniture and her tastes make it her room. But the exterior of the house will say no more about the new owner than it says now about you. Apart from maybe choosing the new colour to paint the guttering, it was none of her doing.

The long car trips to visit my grandmother were accompanied by singalongs. Among the family’s small repertoire was a ditty we would chirp over and over, as repetitive as the white road posts flashing by the car windows.