Most cities have a village or two. They are the places that seemed out of synch with the world during our childhoods but by the time we have reached adulthood have changed into something else. They are a kind of urban sundial tracking the days until it is time to settle down or leave.
Mine was in Victoria.
At first the village is a run-down collection of knitting shops and shabby grocery stores. There is a used book store that is always empty and a china shop that carries Royal Albert. My Aunt is proud of the pieces of Royal Albert China she owns and seeing this makes me cringe. The saloon-spitoon shape of their teacups combined with the matron’s-nightgown floral motifs communicate a kind of ignorant yearning for beautiful things that I wish my Aunt did not possess. Even as a child, I looked for ways to show her better things but thankfully, I could never be as blunt as the task required. She loved cheap beauty until she died, polyester flowers, grocery store cakes, mass produced “art prints” and factory-made furniture; and why not? Her husband was able to provide all of these things in abundance without ever compromising their security, all of her children grew up well fed and cared for and every aspect of her life gave her joy.
Nevertheless, it sometimes makes me sad to think she died without ever really knowing how much finer a china cup could be.
When I was ten, the village was also home to a pharmacy that carried absolutely nothing of interest and very few recognizable items to me. All of the shops catered to the needs of the elderly ladies who populated South Fairfield. To me it seemed like the most boring place on earth.
I never considered those ladies much. They were the legions of loggers’ widows, ex-wives of military officers, teachers, milkmen and civil servants. Their children grew into doctors, lawyers or sometimes real estate agents, some became teachers, like their fathers, nearly all moved away to the suburbs or out of town altogether.
There was a small nursery with a chain-link front and back wall and clapboard sides. It had a dirt floor and carried an array of dubious looking vegetables in the summer, Christmas trees in December. There was a dimly lit bakery with long oak and glass cabinets. The bakery specialized in the kinds of thing I did not like to eat but would later crave from time to time; sticky buns, covered in a glass-like caramel glaze and studded with candied cherries and pecans, cupcakes adrift in butter cream frosting, pink pillowy confections of cake, icing, coconut and jam and of course, lofty white bread square on the bottom and mushrooming out on the top in paper bags dotted with grease spots.
There was a shoe repair shop. I remember it clearly.
One day when I was walking to the beach with my best friend, we passed by the shoe repair. Someone was waving at the side door near the back, we paused to look and saw an old man with a round, taut belly, chest tufted with grey hair and baggy, wrinkled knees, stepped out onto the path that ran alongside the shop. He stood on the cracked paving stones, flanked by a cedar hedge and he called to us. I don’t remember what he said but I remember the image clearly. He was wearing a green crocheted tam-o-shanter, it looked like one of the tea cosies my grandmother liked to knit and send, I could almost feel the acrylic yarn, thick and smooth. He gestured for us to come closer and when we just stood there looking at him, he took his penis in his hand and waved it at us, nodding it up and down like it was bait.
We resumed our walk. Neither one of us said a word.
Later, our parents refused to believe us. Nevertheless, we were forbidden to explore the village alone from that day on. I felt as though they thought we would make up terrible things and stir up trouble. In retrospect, I think it is more likely they wanted to protect their children without having to endure a confrontation. Such is the Canadian way.
Gradually, the village changed.
The grocery stores cleaned up. The tea room became fashionable. The bakery and the shoe repair closed.
The elderly ladies died or were moved to convalescent homes and their married children moved into their houses or fixed them up for sale. Apartment houses were aired out and refurbished. The deserted entrance to the park, once known as a dangerous place where gay lovers or prostitutes sometimes met for rough sex and drug dealers arranged transactions was cleaned up. The underbrush was cleared away along with the condoms and needles. It was noted that a family of eagles made their nest in the cottonwoods above the park sign. Eventually there would be a webcam there.
A Starbucks opened.
I moved into a one-bedroom apartment two blocks from the beach and chose a lover based on his potential as a long-term mate and not on my attraction to him, which was largely absent. When we kissed, he seemed to have no muscle tone in his lips. They lay there flaccid on my face. He placed them there and seemed proud of his initiative in doing so but they felt like two banana slugs carefully laid over my mouth. It was repellent. I told myself I would get used to it. The relationship lasted for eight years. I never got used to it. He never noticed.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Signs and Omens: 2
The second time it happened was at night. This was well before the transit strike, on an ordinary Wednesday. I had just finished talking to someone who is still in my life so I suppose that's enough about that. The discussion had been fairly intense and it should be said that there are circumstances that seemed impossible to resolve one way or the other.
I was not unhappy but felt at an impasse.
The moment I saw the computer screen go dark there was a loud peal of thunder directly over my building, the sky flashed white with lightening and the TV (where one of the digital music channels had been playing in the background) and all of the lights winked out.
I went to the window and looked out. Half of the street was dark. The first snow of the season had laid a thin white gloss over everything.
It felt as though a window of possibility was suddenly open. I realized I could go out into the neighborhood and walk in the dark and nobody could stop me, nobody would know.
I stood at the window and considered it for a long time, looking into the street and seeing the world as a blank page upon which I might write almost anything. Going to bed felt like surrender. For a long time I thought about it, finally I went to bed.
I was not unhappy but felt at an impasse.
The moment I saw the computer screen go dark there was a loud peal of thunder directly over my building, the sky flashed white with lightening and the TV (where one of the digital music channels had been playing in the background) and all of the lights winked out.
I went to the window and looked out. Half of the street was dark. The first snow of the season had laid a thin white gloss over everything.
It felt as though a window of possibility was suddenly open. I realized I could go out into the neighborhood and walk in the dark and nobody could stop me, nobody would know.
I stood at the window and considered it for a long time, looking into the street and seeing the world as a blank page upon which I might write almost anything. Going to bed felt like surrender. For a long time I thought about it, finally I went to bed.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Contradictions
Recently, whenever I take a bath, I find myself thinking about something a former boyfiend said to me when we met. We were talking the way people dating do when I mentioned how much I enjoy reading in the bath.
"I don't take baths." he said, "I haven't had a bath since I was a kid." He seemed a little put off by the very idea of having a bath so I, like any other reckless dater, pressed him. "Why not?" I asked, "Maybe taking a bath could help you loosen up the muscles in your neck - you know, the one you're always saying are to tight? Baths are very relaxing"
"I can't stand the idea of soaking in my own filth" was his answer. I felt smacked. The way he said it made it clear that he thought baths were disgusting, as though the detritus of walking through his daily life was so revolting the thought of touching it was enough to make him sick.
Later in the relationship this same person refused to clean the shower. His reason? Since he used the shower to get clean and since he was basically clean and only used soap and water in the shower, the shower could not be dirty.
At the time, I let it go. Despite my natural inclination to point out weaknesses in people's arguments I do try very hard to allow people to hang on to the ideas that seem to trigger their strongest responses. It is only by accident that I end up hitting them so hard and so often.
Now I take a bath and sit there while whatever it was that was most recently clinging to my skin, presumably swirls around me and I think that kind of contradictory belief may be central to how many of us move through the world.
The boyfriend in question suffered from severe kidney disease. His horror of his own waste was, I suppose, quite natural for him as was his belief that an external force could carry that waste away leaving no trace at all.
We all have these central metaphors that we live, I think. The trick is to find a way to see our own so that we can understand our own motivations and learn to stop navigating blind.
"I don't take baths." he said, "I haven't had a bath since I was a kid." He seemed a little put off by the very idea of having a bath so I, like any other reckless dater, pressed him. "Why not?" I asked, "Maybe taking a bath could help you loosen up the muscles in your neck - you know, the one you're always saying are to tight? Baths are very relaxing"
"I can't stand the idea of soaking in my own filth" was his answer. I felt smacked. The way he said it made it clear that he thought baths were disgusting, as though the detritus of walking through his daily life was so revolting the thought of touching it was enough to make him sick.
Later in the relationship this same person refused to clean the shower. His reason? Since he used the shower to get clean and since he was basically clean and only used soap and water in the shower, the shower could not be dirty.
At the time, I let it go. Despite my natural inclination to point out weaknesses in people's arguments I do try very hard to allow people to hang on to the ideas that seem to trigger their strongest responses. It is only by accident that I end up hitting them so hard and so often.
Now I take a bath and sit there while whatever it was that was most recently clinging to my skin, presumably swirls around me and I think that kind of contradictory belief may be central to how many of us move through the world.
The boyfriend in question suffered from severe kidney disease. His horror of his own waste was, I suppose, quite natural for him as was his belief that an external force could carry that waste away leaving no trace at all.
We all have these central metaphors that we live, I think. The trick is to find a way to see our own so that we can understand our own motivations and learn to stop navigating blind.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Signs and Omens
This is an excerpt from a work in progress:
If it happens once more, I will have to go.
Sometimes signs are easy, everyday things remind you to pay attention to the larger events happening around you.
Sometimes they are hard, despite everything we work very hard at seeing things the way they are most comfortably digested. When they become so broad and heavy that we can no longer overlook them, we kick ourselves for refusing to pause and consider their meaning. And we endure the consequences.
At other times, I think we see indicators and skip the step where we think about what they mean. Instead we go directly to the action. I think there is a kind of grace in that.
Three days before they announced the bus strike I felt compelled to do everything I would normally do in a month by bus over the span of three days or rather, three evenings, after work.
I bought heavy things, went to distant stores, stocked up on flour, potatoes, things that come in bottles or cans; dill pickles, liquor, tomato sauce. I filled the freezer with meat and frozen vegetables, went to the bank machine, bought long distance phone cards, laundry soap, tinfoil, batteries and boots.
It was exhausting; every day I would remember things that, it seemed, I needed urgently. I felt pressed. Objectively there was no reason to think this way; the bus is something one assumes will simply carry on more or less uninterrupted forever. I suppose, as a person who routinely takes the bus to work, I must have noticed the signs of it coming despite the news story about how rarely transit strikes occur and how, with a seven per cent raise already on the table, neither side anticipated any cause for concern. Negotiations would be routine and swift.
In retrospect, as impatient as I was with myself, I am grateful for the impulse. More than once, I have noticed that what people declare turns out to be exactly the opposite of what turns out to be true. Maybe it’s karma teaching us all lessons, maybe it’s human nature to cling most tightly to the things we know we do not really have – either way, I think it is always a good idea to question any claim volunteered with such offhanded vehemence.
It still seems impossible for me to believe there are things within my community that have been rendered out of reach for the duration of the strike. The National Gallery is now a day trip, I usually walk one way and take the bus the other. With no bus, that means a solid two hours of walking in the snow. Added to the time spend walking around the gallery itself, it is simply too much. I have had to plan for my monthly cycle and lay in a stock of supplies since, unless I am going into the office my particular brand of tampons are out. They are widely available downtown but living, as I do, on Ottawa’s ethnic fringe, brand names tend to be a little less familiar to me. However, I will not want for Chinese, Italian, Indian, Malaysian or African food or supplies and that has its own appeal.
Friday night I walked home from work.It was a long and difficult walk and although I had done all the heavy shopping I could, I could not lay in a store of everything and needed milk. This meant a stop at the grocery store near downtown which made the walk even longer. I remembered my mother suggesting I stop for coffee or a rest somewhere along the way if the walk home was too cold or difficult and dismissed it. No need to be weak.
It was snowing and the sky was completely white – no moon or stars at all and the wind was getting fierce. Although I did not need anything more, I remembered my mother’s advice and thought a stop at the Chinese grocer could qualify as a little break even though it is very close to my apartment. When I arrived at the door, I just stepped inside. Once there, I bought a few things, limes, green onions, pepper, noodles. It was reassuring to see the fresh vegetables, the butcher’s counter, the fish section, well stocked and prepared. It was reassuring to see the crowd bustling and shopping as though nothing could ever happen to really disrupt their weekly routine.
At the checkout counter I scanned the pastry display. There were the usual assortment of things that might or might not go well with coffee. I chose a small package of ornately detailed moon cakes. They are always available and there are other pastries I like more but it seemed like the right thing to do – it seemed unavoidable. When I feel a particular urge to eat sweets I buy the ones that are not my favourites as a means of portion control – silly, but it seems to work.
Later that night my mother called again. She asked if I could see the moon. I told her the snow was falling thick and fast and at this time of year I do not count on seeing the moon for a week at a time. It seemed like this was going to be one of those weeks.
She told me that was really a shame since the full moon was at perigee and would not be this close again for 15 years. Somehow, without knowing, the animal side of me must have known that. My stepmother is Chinese and I try to offer a nod of respect to Chinese traditions whenever I think of it.
In a typical symbolic reversal, mooncakes are traditionally eaten to remind us of reunion. They are made to be eaten during the autumn moon festival but, like fruitcake, are available year-round. I have never heard the stories associated with them but because it was such a strange coincidence that I would seek out these particular cakes on this particular day, I decided to look it up.
On Wikipedia, I found this story:
"A long, long time ago, a terrible drought plagued the earth. Ten suns burned fiercely in the sky like smoldering volcanoes. The trees and grass were scorched. The land was cracked and parched, and rivers were dried. Many people died of hunger and thirst.
The King of Heaven sent Hou Yi down to the earth to help. When Hou Yi arrived, he took out his red bow and white arrows and shot down nine suns one after another. The weather immediately turned cooler. Heavy rains filled the rivers with fresh water and the grass and trees turned green. Life was restored and humanity was saved.
One day, a charming young woman Chang'er made her way home from a stream, holding a bamboo container. A young man came forward, asking for a drink. When she saw the red bow and white arrows hanging round his belt, Chang'er realized that he was their savior, Hou Yi. Inviting him to drink, Chang'er plucked a beautiful flower and gave it to him as a token of respect. Hou Yi, in turn, selected a beautiful silver fox fur as his gift for her. This meeting kindled the spark of their love. And soon after that, they got married.
A mortal's life is limited, of course. So in order to enjoy his happy life with Chang'er forever, Hou Yi decided to look for an elixir of life. He went to the Kunlun Mountains where the Western Queen Mother lived.
Out of respect for the good deeds he had done, the Western Queen Mother rewarded Hou Yi with the elixir, a fine powder made from kernels of fruit which grew on the tree of eternity. At the same time, she told him that if he and his wife shared the elixir, they would both enjoy eternal life; but if only one of them took it, that one would ascend to Heaven and become immortal.
Hou Yi returned home and told his wife all that had happened and they decided to drink the elixir together on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month when the moon was full and bright.
A wicked and merciless man named Feng Meng overheard their plan. He wished Hou Yi an early death so that he could drink the elixir himself and become immortal. His opportunity finally arrived. One day, when the full moon is rising, Hou Yi was on his way home from hunting. Feng Meng killed him. The murderer then ran to Hou Yi's home and forced Chang'er to give him the elixir. Without hesitating, Chang'er picked up the elixir and drunk it all.
Overcome with grief, Chang'er rushed to her dead husband's side, weeping bitterly. Soon the elixir began to have its effect and Chang'er felt herself being lifted towards Heaven.
Chang'er decided to live on the moon because it was the nearest to the earth. There she lived a simple and contented life. Even though she was in Heaven, her heart remained in the world of mortals. Never did she forget the deep love she had for Hou Yi and the love she felt for the people who had shared their sadness and happiness."
There is more symbolic resonance for me in this story than I can possibly relate.
History is full of examples of people taking signs and omens from the world around them. We congratulate ourselves that we would never be so superstitious as to act on the little stories nature and circumstance tell us every day but I wonder if instead of telling ourselves and our intimates about these stories, about our interpretations and about the action we plan to carry out in order to fulfill our part in the greater story being told - if we haven’t simply buried them so deeply that now we act on them without even realizing what we are doing.
We move under the same ancient sky, within the cup of the same seasons, buffeted by the same disasters and kissed by the same blessings as anyone who came before us ever did. I think it is a mark of the all-too-human tendency to think we are always getting better than our ancestors to assume we are prompted to act in a way that is somehow more effective by merit of being more rational. Everybody thinks they are rational. If they thought otherwise, they would act otherwise and thus return to at least an internal sense of reason. And if that sense of reason could not find a place and a way to function with the consent of others in the world, those people would live in institutions or on the street. nevertheless, they would still consider themselves to be reasonable.
Crazy people don’t know they’re crazy. Likewise, people who are influenced never understand the root of it or the influence wouldn’t work. The people who lived before us thought they had reached the apex of civilization, sense and reason and they were right.
Now we think the same. We are right too and we are at the same time, absolutely wrong just as the people who thought the earth was supported by four dragons were right and wrong – just as the people who come after us will look back and find us silly for seeing cause and effect where they know none exists.
To see the world as being flat and dangerous at the edges is not such an irrational thing in a society where travel by ship is the only means of covering great distances and perishable food cannot be adequately preserved. Death by malnutrition or thirst must be a very fearsome dragon to face. Maybe death was the dragon at the edge of the world – maybe it still is. We speak the language we know. How can anyone do otherwise?
I am trying to wake up, trying to see. Nevertheless, I am aware that my ability to do so is limited by my small and specific perspective as one human being trapped within the amber of time.
Still – if it happens once more, I think I will have to go.
If it happens once more, I will have to go.
Sometimes signs are easy, everyday things remind you to pay attention to the larger events happening around you.
Sometimes they are hard, despite everything we work very hard at seeing things the way they are most comfortably digested. When they become so broad and heavy that we can no longer overlook them, we kick ourselves for refusing to pause and consider their meaning. And we endure the consequences.
At other times, I think we see indicators and skip the step where we think about what they mean. Instead we go directly to the action. I think there is a kind of grace in that.
Three days before they announced the bus strike I felt compelled to do everything I would normally do in a month by bus over the span of three days or rather, three evenings, after work.
I bought heavy things, went to distant stores, stocked up on flour, potatoes, things that come in bottles or cans; dill pickles, liquor, tomato sauce. I filled the freezer with meat and frozen vegetables, went to the bank machine, bought long distance phone cards, laundry soap, tinfoil, batteries and boots.
It was exhausting; every day I would remember things that, it seemed, I needed urgently. I felt pressed. Objectively there was no reason to think this way; the bus is something one assumes will simply carry on more or less uninterrupted forever. I suppose, as a person who routinely takes the bus to work, I must have noticed the signs of it coming despite the news story about how rarely transit strikes occur and how, with a seven per cent raise already on the table, neither side anticipated any cause for concern. Negotiations would be routine and swift.
In retrospect, as impatient as I was with myself, I am grateful for the impulse. More than once, I have noticed that what people declare turns out to be exactly the opposite of what turns out to be true. Maybe it’s karma teaching us all lessons, maybe it’s human nature to cling most tightly to the things we know we do not really have – either way, I think it is always a good idea to question any claim volunteered with such offhanded vehemence.
It still seems impossible for me to believe there are things within my community that have been rendered out of reach for the duration of the strike. The National Gallery is now a day trip, I usually walk one way and take the bus the other. With no bus, that means a solid two hours of walking in the snow. Added to the time spend walking around the gallery itself, it is simply too much. I have had to plan for my monthly cycle and lay in a stock of supplies since, unless I am going into the office my particular brand of tampons are out. They are widely available downtown but living, as I do, on Ottawa’s ethnic fringe, brand names tend to be a little less familiar to me. However, I will not want for Chinese, Italian, Indian, Malaysian or African food or supplies and that has its own appeal.
Friday night I walked home from work.It was a long and difficult walk and although I had done all the heavy shopping I could, I could not lay in a store of everything and needed milk. This meant a stop at the grocery store near downtown which made the walk even longer. I remembered my mother suggesting I stop for coffee or a rest somewhere along the way if the walk home was too cold or difficult and dismissed it. No need to be weak.
It was snowing and the sky was completely white – no moon or stars at all and the wind was getting fierce. Although I did not need anything more, I remembered my mother’s advice and thought a stop at the Chinese grocer could qualify as a little break even though it is very close to my apartment. When I arrived at the door, I just stepped inside. Once there, I bought a few things, limes, green onions, pepper, noodles. It was reassuring to see the fresh vegetables, the butcher’s counter, the fish section, well stocked and prepared. It was reassuring to see the crowd bustling and shopping as though nothing could ever happen to really disrupt their weekly routine.
At the checkout counter I scanned the pastry display. There were the usual assortment of things that might or might not go well with coffee. I chose a small package of ornately detailed moon cakes. They are always available and there are other pastries I like more but it seemed like the right thing to do – it seemed unavoidable. When I feel a particular urge to eat sweets I buy the ones that are not my favourites as a means of portion control – silly, but it seems to work.
Later that night my mother called again. She asked if I could see the moon. I told her the snow was falling thick and fast and at this time of year I do not count on seeing the moon for a week at a time. It seemed like this was going to be one of those weeks.
She told me that was really a shame since the full moon was at perigee and would not be this close again for 15 years. Somehow, without knowing, the animal side of me must have known that. My stepmother is Chinese and I try to offer a nod of respect to Chinese traditions whenever I think of it.
In a typical symbolic reversal, mooncakes are traditionally eaten to remind us of reunion. They are made to be eaten during the autumn moon festival but, like fruitcake, are available year-round. I have never heard the stories associated with them but because it was such a strange coincidence that I would seek out these particular cakes on this particular day, I decided to look it up.
On Wikipedia, I found this story:
"A long, long time ago, a terrible drought plagued the earth. Ten suns burned fiercely in the sky like smoldering volcanoes. The trees and grass were scorched. The land was cracked and parched, and rivers were dried. Many people died of hunger and thirst.
The King of Heaven sent Hou Yi down to the earth to help. When Hou Yi arrived, he took out his red bow and white arrows and shot down nine suns one after another. The weather immediately turned cooler. Heavy rains filled the rivers with fresh water and the grass and trees turned green. Life was restored and humanity was saved.
One day, a charming young woman Chang'er made her way home from a stream, holding a bamboo container. A young man came forward, asking for a drink. When she saw the red bow and white arrows hanging round his belt, Chang'er realized that he was their savior, Hou Yi. Inviting him to drink, Chang'er plucked a beautiful flower and gave it to him as a token of respect. Hou Yi, in turn, selected a beautiful silver fox fur as his gift for her. This meeting kindled the spark of their love. And soon after that, they got married.
A mortal's life is limited, of course. So in order to enjoy his happy life with Chang'er forever, Hou Yi decided to look for an elixir of life. He went to the Kunlun Mountains where the Western Queen Mother lived.
Out of respect for the good deeds he had done, the Western Queen Mother rewarded Hou Yi with the elixir, a fine powder made from kernels of fruit which grew on the tree of eternity. At the same time, she told him that if he and his wife shared the elixir, they would both enjoy eternal life; but if only one of them took it, that one would ascend to Heaven and become immortal.
Hou Yi returned home and told his wife all that had happened and they decided to drink the elixir together on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month when the moon was full and bright.
A wicked and merciless man named Feng Meng overheard their plan. He wished Hou Yi an early death so that he could drink the elixir himself and become immortal. His opportunity finally arrived. One day, when the full moon is rising, Hou Yi was on his way home from hunting. Feng Meng killed him. The murderer then ran to Hou Yi's home and forced Chang'er to give him the elixir. Without hesitating, Chang'er picked up the elixir and drunk it all.
Overcome with grief, Chang'er rushed to her dead husband's side, weeping bitterly. Soon the elixir began to have its effect and Chang'er felt herself being lifted towards Heaven.
Chang'er decided to live on the moon because it was the nearest to the earth. There she lived a simple and contented life. Even though she was in Heaven, her heart remained in the world of mortals. Never did she forget the deep love she had for Hou Yi and the love she felt for the people who had shared their sadness and happiness."
There is more symbolic resonance for me in this story than I can possibly relate.
History is full of examples of people taking signs and omens from the world around them. We congratulate ourselves that we would never be so superstitious as to act on the little stories nature and circumstance tell us every day but I wonder if instead of telling ourselves and our intimates about these stories, about our interpretations and about the action we plan to carry out in order to fulfill our part in the greater story being told - if we haven’t simply buried them so deeply that now we act on them without even realizing what we are doing.
We move under the same ancient sky, within the cup of the same seasons, buffeted by the same disasters and kissed by the same blessings as anyone who came before us ever did. I think it is a mark of the all-too-human tendency to think we are always getting better than our ancestors to assume we are prompted to act in a way that is somehow more effective by merit of being more rational. Everybody thinks they are rational. If they thought otherwise, they would act otherwise and thus return to at least an internal sense of reason. And if that sense of reason could not find a place and a way to function with the consent of others in the world, those people would live in institutions or on the street. nevertheless, they would still consider themselves to be reasonable.
Crazy people don’t know they’re crazy. Likewise, people who are influenced never understand the root of it or the influence wouldn’t work. The people who lived before us thought they had reached the apex of civilization, sense and reason and they were right.
Now we think the same. We are right too and we are at the same time, absolutely wrong just as the people who thought the earth was supported by four dragons were right and wrong – just as the people who come after us will look back and find us silly for seeing cause and effect where they know none exists.
To see the world as being flat and dangerous at the edges is not such an irrational thing in a society where travel by ship is the only means of covering great distances and perishable food cannot be adequately preserved. Death by malnutrition or thirst must be a very fearsome dragon to face. Maybe death was the dragon at the edge of the world – maybe it still is. We speak the language we know. How can anyone do otherwise?
I am trying to wake up, trying to see. Nevertheless, I am aware that my ability to do so is limited by my small and specific perspective as one human being trapped within the amber of time.
Still – if it happens once more, I think I will have to go.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Orlando's Ottawa
Winter has arrived in a way that reminds me of the opening scenes of Virgina Woolf's "Orlando."
Ottawa is frozen over. We received about 25 cms of snow last night and a nice hard candy shell of ice rain as well. We are firmly into the season.
To add to the anachronistic atmosphere, last night Ottawa's mass transit workers went on strike. The city has lost one of its main traffic arteries, a bridge that links Quebec and Ontario just west of Parliament Hill. The act of moving from one part of the city to another has gone from being something you do without giving it much thought to being a deliberate, complex act of will. It is very quiet on the streets without the busses - the lazy part of me might miss them but the better part is glad they're gone.
To move around Ottawa you have two choices; walk or take a car. Since I no longer own a car I chose to call a taxi this morning and will walk home this afternoon. The taxi took over 2 hours to arrive. I am, however, looking forward to the walk. It is sunny and -7 C outside (21 F ). At the moment the snow is drifting down lightly through the sunshine - it is all very lovely.
Even if I did still have a car, it really wouldn't matter much. Regardless of how you choose to proceed from point A to point B you will not be doing so at a rate of more than 10 K an hour in Ottawa, especially between the hours of 7 - 10 a.m. and 4 - 6 p.m. a lot like Elizabethan England.
In this kind of situation your world becomes smaller and more fully detailed. Like looking at a painting, from a distance you may get a better sense of the composition but all the details are up close.
I am meeting my neighbors, learning more about the people in my neighborhood. Talking to the shopkeepers, making more eye contact with people - in this weather we must look out for each other. Perhaps best of all, I am aware of the degree of my self-sufficiency. The money I make goes directly into my neighborhood now. As I walk home I have the choice of stopping at the neighborhood Western European grocer, the South American grocer, most of the city's Asian grocers, the Italian grocer or, a little further along, the Quebecois bargain basement. I realize I am blessed. Shopping by flyers, deciding to take a bus to get the best price on something - those actions are a thing of the past. Really, those behaviors were adopted by me under peer pressure. I'm happier without them
Today I will walk home. I will time my walk to coincide with the sunset. My apartment is due west of the downtown core. I will buy some provisions on the way and carry them home myself gaining a bit of very welcome exercise in the process. It might cost me $5 more - the benefits are more than worth it.
The white snow will sparkle in the setting sun. The sky will go from blue and white to rose and indigo. The snow will crunch and slide a little under my feet but I won't slip. It will feel good to carry the things I need home under my own steam. And it will feel very good to know that the old cliche is true: as long as I have my health, I am fully capable of taking care of the rest myself.
Ottawa is frozen now. In a few months we will have winterlude to celebrate that fact and until the thaw my feet will not touch the ground. Everything hovers. Everything is light.
Ottawa is frozen over. We received about 25 cms of snow last night and a nice hard candy shell of ice rain as well. We are firmly into the season.
To add to the anachronistic atmosphere, last night Ottawa's mass transit workers went on strike. The city has lost one of its main traffic arteries, a bridge that links Quebec and Ontario just west of Parliament Hill. The act of moving from one part of the city to another has gone from being something you do without giving it much thought to being a deliberate, complex act of will. It is very quiet on the streets without the busses - the lazy part of me might miss them but the better part is glad they're gone.
To move around Ottawa you have two choices; walk or take a car. Since I no longer own a car I chose to call a taxi this morning and will walk home this afternoon. The taxi took over 2 hours to arrive. I am, however, looking forward to the walk. It is sunny and -7 C outside (21 F ). At the moment the snow is drifting down lightly through the sunshine - it is all very lovely.
Even if I did still have a car, it really wouldn't matter much. Regardless of how you choose to proceed from point A to point B you will not be doing so at a rate of more than 10 K an hour in Ottawa, especially between the hours of 7 - 10 a.m. and 4 - 6 p.m. a lot like Elizabethan England.
In this kind of situation your world becomes smaller and more fully detailed. Like looking at a painting, from a distance you may get a better sense of the composition but all the details are up close.
I am meeting my neighbors, learning more about the people in my neighborhood. Talking to the shopkeepers, making more eye contact with people - in this weather we must look out for each other. Perhaps best of all, I am aware of the degree of my self-sufficiency. The money I make goes directly into my neighborhood now. As I walk home I have the choice of stopping at the neighborhood Western European grocer, the South American grocer, most of the city's Asian grocers, the Italian grocer or, a little further along, the Quebecois bargain basement. I realize I am blessed. Shopping by flyers, deciding to take a bus to get the best price on something - those actions are a thing of the past. Really, those behaviors were adopted by me under peer pressure. I'm happier without them
Today I will walk home. I will time my walk to coincide with the sunset. My apartment is due west of the downtown core. I will buy some provisions on the way and carry them home myself gaining a bit of very welcome exercise in the process. It might cost me $5 more - the benefits are more than worth it.
The white snow will sparkle in the setting sun. The sky will go from blue and white to rose and indigo. The snow will crunch and slide a little under my feet but I won't slip. It will feel good to carry the things I need home under my own steam. And it will feel very good to know that the old cliche is true: as long as I have my health, I am fully capable of taking care of the rest myself.
Ottawa is frozen now. In a few months we will have winterlude to celebrate that fact and until the thaw my feet will not touch the ground. Everything hovers. Everything is light.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Seasoning
As I've already written, we are in the early part of winter where I live. Snow falls almost daily now and the temperature hovers around the freezing mark. Everything has a thin white coat laid down over it and chances are fairly good that it will stay that way, with a few exceptional days here and there, until April.
It's an uneven part of the year. A week or two ago the pavement would have been either wet or dry. Either way, walking would not be an issue. This week every part of town wrestles with the decision - is it time to salt the roads and sidewalks or not?
Where I live the answer seems to be "not yet" for the sidewalks but a solid yes for the roads. Where I work it's a yes for the sidewalks in the streets leading to Parliament Hill and a no for the Hill itself. Like most things to do with the Hill, there may be some logic involved in that choice somewhere but it is, so far, indiscernible to the uninitiated.
We use a tremendous amount of salt over the course of a winter. I can't help but think of the stories my friend Cezary used to tell me about the salt mines in Poland when I think of it. In Poland there are mines that have statues, even chapels carved into the walls of the salt caverns. He says people lick them sometimes, just to see if they are really made of salt. They are.
On the coast, salt forms like ice over tidal pools that are too high and shallow to be refreshed regularly during the summer. I have tasted those as a child and have even been tempted as an adult but since Victoria dumps its sewage directly into the sea, that's probably not the best idea.
Even though I have spent nearly 10 winters in Ottawa, off and on, I cannot help but think it strange that we dump what I think of as a seasoning onto the streets and sidewalks to make them safe to travel - unseasoned they are not only bland but dangerous. This is a reassuring symbol somehow, since no matter what I may be, I am never bland. I admit I like to associate being bland with being dangerous and, in the case of many people, I do think it is true. After all, we all know what the neighbors will say when they are interviewed about the guy next door with the 35 dead ex-lovers cut into bits and squirrelled away in his kitchen freezer, "he was very quiet, he was a very good neighbor, I never gave him a second thought."
So the roads and sidewalks in winter, in Ottawa, need seasoning so they won't kill us. In the meantime the sidewalks are like sheets of glass coated in a thick layer of half-melted lard, not easy and not much fun. For the last several days I have been slipping and skidding along unsalted sidewalks and feeling a little resentful that, especially in boots with heels, my mobility has come nearly to a standstill. Snow is pretty but living with it is not always romantic.
Coincidentally, we had our first fiscal update from the federal government yesterday and it too needs seasoning. Criticized by many experts for being bland and inexact the most potentially calamitous part of the thing was one of the few things that could be considered an actual decision. No more government funding for political parties.
What this means is, the dollar and change that used to be awarded to every political party for every vote gained in a federal election will be no more. It has the potential to seriously hobble the efforts of the Green party, the Bloc Quebecois and most importantly, the Liberals - in other words, the Official Opposition. The NDP will survive well enough but the NDP is not a contender to govern anywhere except provincially.
Not surprisingly, this is being considered an assault on democracy by those who favor the opposition parties and even by some who don't. In fact, there is a chance that it may result in another federal election being called or, (even better if you are a political observer) an opposition coalition being asked to form a government.
The big problem is, the opposition has no real leader at present, the current leader is resigning and the contenders haven't duked it out yet. The Bloc Quebecois - the party with the next greatest number of seats, has no interest in Canada, they are only concerned with Quebec and the NDP - well, I just don't think that will bird will fly.
Most of the people in a position to govern the country at present are unseasoned.
In a couple of weeks the little snowplows that patrol Ottawa's sidewalks will be a semi-regular part of life. They will smooth out paths in the white, white snow and leave little sprinklings of grey-blue salt in their wake. Walking will be different, the snow will crunch and compress beneath your feet. It will be necessary to become accustomed to the snow-gait, that particular way of walking where you know you are throwing off little bunches of snow behind you with every step -it feels a bit like rocking forward on every step. It will sound like cornstarch under your boots. We will all get used to it and the little tumbles and biggish accidents will slow right down. I'll feel free to walk again. But right now, the city, the country, the streets and the sidewalks are all waiting for it to be cold enough to merit doing something - waiting on a season.
It's an uneven part of the year. A week or two ago the pavement would have been either wet or dry. Either way, walking would not be an issue. This week every part of town wrestles with the decision - is it time to salt the roads and sidewalks or not?
Where I live the answer seems to be "not yet" for the sidewalks but a solid yes for the roads. Where I work it's a yes for the sidewalks in the streets leading to Parliament Hill and a no for the Hill itself. Like most things to do with the Hill, there may be some logic involved in that choice somewhere but it is, so far, indiscernible to the uninitiated.
We use a tremendous amount of salt over the course of a winter. I can't help but think of the stories my friend Cezary used to tell me about the salt mines in Poland when I think of it. In Poland there are mines that have statues, even chapels carved into the walls of the salt caverns. He says people lick them sometimes, just to see if they are really made of salt. They are.
On the coast, salt forms like ice over tidal pools that are too high and shallow to be refreshed regularly during the summer. I have tasted those as a child and have even been tempted as an adult but since Victoria dumps its sewage directly into the sea, that's probably not the best idea.
Even though I have spent nearly 10 winters in Ottawa, off and on, I cannot help but think it strange that we dump what I think of as a seasoning onto the streets and sidewalks to make them safe to travel - unseasoned they are not only bland but dangerous. This is a reassuring symbol somehow, since no matter what I may be, I am never bland. I admit I like to associate being bland with being dangerous and, in the case of many people, I do think it is true. After all, we all know what the neighbors will say when they are interviewed about the guy next door with the 35 dead ex-lovers cut into bits and squirrelled away in his kitchen freezer, "he was very quiet, he was a very good neighbor, I never gave him a second thought."
So the roads and sidewalks in winter, in Ottawa, need seasoning so they won't kill us. In the meantime the sidewalks are like sheets of glass coated in a thick layer of half-melted lard, not easy and not much fun. For the last several days I have been slipping and skidding along unsalted sidewalks and feeling a little resentful that, especially in boots with heels, my mobility has come nearly to a standstill. Snow is pretty but living with it is not always romantic.
Coincidentally, we had our first fiscal update from the federal government yesterday and it too needs seasoning. Criticized by many experts for being bland and inexact the most potentially calamitous part of the thing was one of the few things that could be considered an actual decision. No more government funding for political parties.
What this means is, the dollar and change that used to be awarded to every political party for every vote gained in a federal election will be no more. It has the potential to seriously hobble the efforts of the Green party, the Bloc Quebecois and most importantly, the Liberals - in other words, the Official Opposition. The NDP will survive well enough but the NDP is not a contender to govern anywhere except provincially.
Not surprisingly, this is being considered an assault on democracy by those who favor the opposition parties and even by some who don't. In fact, there is a chance that it may result in another federal election being called or, (even better if you are a political observer) an opposition coalition being asked to form a government.
The big problem is, the opposition has no real leader at present, the current leader is resigning and the contenders haven't duked it out yet. The Bloc Quebecois - the party with the next greatest number of seats, has no interest in Canada, they are only concerned with Quebec and the NDP - well, I just don't think that will bird will fly.
Most of the people in a position to govern the country at present are unseasoned.
In a couple of weeks the little snowplows that patrol Ottawa's sidewalks will be a semi-regular part of life. They will smooth out paths in the white, white snow and leave little sprinklings of grey-blue salt in their wake. Walking will be different, the snow will crunch and compress beneath your feet. It will be necessary to become accustomed to the snow-gait, that particular way of walking where you know you are throwing off little bunches of snow behind you with every step -it feels a bit like rocking forward on every step. It will sound like cornstarch under your boots. We will all get used to it and the little tumbles and biggish accidents will slow right down. I'll feel free to walk again. But right now, the city, the country, the streets and the sidewalks are all waiting for it to be cold enough to merit doing something - waiting on a season.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
more pictures (that last post was really, really long)
first one - me, at Burning Life in Second Life - virtual world, virtual arts festival that is real in terms of being visual art in every way that matters.
second - steel grey sunset, taken from the ferry between Vancouver and Victoria
third - the church near my house, taken from my balcony, loved the light and could not resist that cloud
My last post was really long and probably boring for you so I am posting some pictures.
I would change these but so far, I don't know how. The first one is weeds washed up on a beach in Victoria, next is a pacific ocean sunset, then Ross Bay, where coffins sometimes get washed out to sea (seriously) and then a street shot in Chinatown in Ottawa and finally looking down into my ex's parent's swimming pool - long story, another day.
My Views on Electoral Reform
Sometimes the media reflects our beliefs better than they reflect the truth. That seems to have been the case during the last federal election. We spent over $300 million on voting in a government that is essentially the same as the one we had before the excitement started. The only thing that’s changed is that our Prime Minister now seems to feel reassured that he is the leader Canada wants but two things could change that: 1.) the opposition could grow some freaking stones and 2.) by stripping away party funding, breaking his promise on running a deficit and by showing every indication of making every single vote possible into a confidence motion he might have actually found a way to push things far enough that Canada could end up enduring our second election in the span of six months.
Canada did not, by the way, elect a leader. No matter what you think, odds are, you didn’t vote for Stephen Harper because unless you live in Calgary West – you couldn’t vote for Stephen Harper. Our present system doesn’t permit it.
Now that it’s over, we’re talking about electoral reform; we seem to want it but what does it really mean? Proportional representation is complex no matter what model you choose. It would be costly to educate the public and difficult to overhaul a system in order to reflect a multiparty adversarial system under proportional representation. We’re just not set up for it.
Geographically, Canada is so much larger than every other democracy (I’m not counting Russia as a democracy, technically I may be wrong about that but Putin doesn’t strike me as much of a majority-rule kinda guy.) It is easy to see how size can skew results. The east never votes with the west and Quebec – well, we’re uniquely gifted or saddled with Quebec depending on where you sit in the rest of the country. No matter how you see it, Quebec exerts a significant gravitational pull on Canada as a whole and many Canadians who live outside of the central region find this objectionable on the grounds that they seriously do not consider themselves to be part of Canada and have zero interest in the well-being of people outside Quebec’s borders who do.
If the last election had been a leadership race, I am willing to bet that like most Canadians could, I would have been able to tell you how it would shake out before the first advance polls were taken. The hard, cold truth is, people west of Winnipeg could have told you Dion could not win a federal election, period. They could have told yuo that on the same night he was chosen as leader of his party if for no other reason than that he seems utterly divorced from any western, maritime or rural interests and he is, by birth, a francophone. People in the west are tired of francophone PM’s. They feel burned by Quebec as it is and they are tired of straining to understand a francophone accent and even more tired of being represented by a person who sounds, to their ears, like a Canadian cliché.
In Ontario, Canadians like Jack Layton well enough but any Ontarian would have owned up to the fact that he could never lead the country. Layton campaigned on disdain for the economic system that serves as the financial central heating that keeps Canada from freezing and that just cannot work.
Layton is charismatic and he can be articulate but his campaign defied logic – anti-oil production, pro-government intervention during a recession, and pugnaciously so - I am pretty sure Layton scared even the hard line NDP members willing to elect provincial NDP governments West of the Portage and Main line.
Duceppe isn’t even playing, he’s in the game to be the spoiler. He’s said himself he will never be PM so why he’s involved with a national leadership debate in English is anyone’s guess. Still, Duceppe’s honesty played well in the west and if he had been campaigning as a Canadian he might have made a difference.
As for the Greens - anyone who would run against Peter McKay in Central Nova clearly lacks the judgement to effectively sit as a parliamentarian no matter how much homework they do. Pluck alone is not enough, we do not vote for spunk or Mary Tyler Moore would have run for president.
The fact that Elizabeth May says she plans to run in McKay’s riding again next time is telling. I would argue it’s proof positive that she is not fit for a national leadership role in a global political climate. In that context, knowing your strengths and showing common sense are more important than at any other time in our history.
Harper is seen as cold and controlling, just ask anyone who works within 20 blocks of parliament hill, but he does have a degree in economics – he knows the lingo he won’t be confused by the landscape and compared to the other choices. He looked like the best alternative to most Canadians. Many Conservative MP’s can thank him for their seat in Ottawa.
There’s no question, Harper seems secretive and dictatorial to many of us. And the recent news of Transport Canada’s decision to stop answering any and all media questions in order to make Harper’s new transportation minister John Baird, feel comfortable and safe, only underscores that point.
Here’s the article on that – like so many canaries in so many coalmines, it ran virtually unnoticed and in a very Conservative party fashion, it was announced on a day when there is much bigger news to serve as cover. The fiscal update happens today at 4:00 p.m. Eastern.
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=f793e22a-6cc7-4580-af67-f1f1a659124d
Canadians voted in the last election as if they were voting for a leader. That tells me that the first step in electoral reform should be to give Canadians the right they think they already have.
We should start with electoral reform. A first step toward fixing the system would be to give all Canadians the right to vote for their Prime Minister. If that was all we did toward fixing the system it would make a significant positive difference but I think we can go a little further without breaking the bank or baffling the voters.
At the Prime Ministerial level, political party affiliation is a significant factor in determining the broad reach of policy and political philosophy that would be the priority of the leader elected. Parties give us the shorthand to recognize the basic principles each leader stands for which allows them to express the nuances of their vision during the course of a relatively short campaign period.
Prime Ministers need to be able to express their political views in broad strokes because they are dealing in broad national issues, local candidates have a responsibility to represent the particular view of their communities – they don’t need the same kind of shorthand, it is literally too big for them.
With the notable exceptions of Alberta and Quebec, Party affiliation is not working at the local level. Canadians feel compelled to accept whoever happens to garner the favour of the local chapter of their national party, personal popularity and strategic nominations mean that we do not always get candidates who are best suited to the job.
If party affiliations were abandoned at the local level, Members of Parliament would earn their seats by personal strengths and political platforms alone. Eliminating party affiliations for MPs would not appreciably change the system except to shift focus on the actions of representatives and not on professed loyalties – which have been known to shift with a little pressure anyhow.
Step by step, it would work like this: the parties would choose a leader by whatever means they feel best. When an election is called the campaign period would be broken into two shorter segments. In the first period, Candidates for Prime Minister would run their campaigns as they have during our most recent election. Whistle stop tours, speeches and national debates would take place in this period. At the same time, local candidates would be going door to door making the pitch for their nomination as MP candidates.
In order to be put forward as a candidate for MP a local nominee would have to gain the support of 300 members of his or her community or ten per cent – whichever is less. (This number would be subject to tailoring depending on the population of the riding.) A person who signs the nomination petition for one prospective candidate cannot sign for another – there would be no overlap. Lists would be entered into a computer spread-sheet in order to cross reference for duplicates. The use of personal computers would make the task of checking nomination petitions an afternoon’s work – at most.
When the Prime Ministerial segment of the campaign period concluded, Canadians would go to the polls and vote for their national leader. Once the results were in, the local campaigning period would continue for seven days, during which leaders of the national parties would be expected to deal with their organizational issues and would not be allowed to campaign.
Every candidate for leadership would have the option of being on the ballot for their home riding, this way, the losers would still be able to sit in the House of Commons and contribute to the management of the country’s day to day business. They would still be required to meet the same standards as any other candidate – they would need 300 signatures on their nomination form.
At the end of the second campaigning period, Canadians would vote in their MP’s. We would do so in the full knowledge of what kind of candidate we would be electing and what kind of leader they would be working with. In other words – there would be much less rolling the dice and virtually no reason to engage in strategic voting.
An election is not a game and it should not have an element of surprise included. Until now we have responded to the idea of an election in the same way as people watch movies or read mystery novels. Nobody wants to have the surprise ending “spoiled” for them. The narrative of an election held under the present system may make for a dramatic storyline but we are talking about running a country here – our entire lives are on the line. This is not the place to be hoping for a surprise, twist ending.
Once MP’s were elected, the Prime Minister would choose a cabinet. The cabinet would be made up of whomever the PM considered best for the job. This would allow a Prime Minister to do what our present PM has already started – there is nothing in the constitution that says a cabinet must be made up of members of the ruling party. By doing away with the idea of two opposing parties in power we would be embracing the idea of a cooperative government made up of individuals representing different viewpoints from across the country all sitting in the house with the common goal of making the country as safe, healthy and prosperous as possible. (Less fun for political pundits but better for the rest of us.)
Because there would not be party affiliations in the house there would also no longer be a need for the adversarial seating arrangement. MP’s would sit according to geography, increasing the possibility that geographic concerns might benefit from solutions put forward by neighbouring constituencies.
Under this system there would be no time wasted on party caucus meetings, in fact, party meetings would be rare and held to discuss leadership issues – really, apart from labelling the candidates political orientation, eventually we might not need parties at all.
This system would also increase transparency because there would be no reason to try to gain a party advantage. The effectiveness of MP’s would increase because they would have to focus on the concerns of their constituency and learn to think for themselves and we would save money on funding party war chests.
Question period and committee work would proceed in exactly the same way as before except that committees would be formed by geographical representation, personal interest, capacity and professional speciality not by party appointment.
The tasks assigned an MP in parliament would be more in keeping with their having a job – we would have the best qualified candidates not the most politically advantageous. This can only help things run more smoothly since it minimizes the learning curve but maybe more importantly, these are JOBS we are giving to these people. They are quite well-paid jobs too and if a person is not qualified to do the job maybe we shouldn’t be asking them to accept it.
During question period, MP’s would be given the opportunity to question cabinet based once again, on geographical representation. Personal attacks would be considered strictly off-topic and if an issue did not concern your part of the country then you as an MP would not be permitted to speak to the issue.
Attacks on the Prime Minister would not only be counter-productive but also irrelevant since the PM would be able to claim a mandate from the entire country as a whole.
There is no practical reason why an MP from Northern Ontario should have a single word to say for or against measures taken to protect BC’s salmon fisheries – for example. It’s inexcusable that we conscience this kind of meddling. More importantly, it is a waste of time.
It should be the job of government to run the business of the country, not to waste our time and money bickering amongst themselves and jockeying for position in the next election. A country is something like a business or a household writ large. Together we have a certain amount of money, resources, assets, to spend use and protect and we have a certain number of expenses and necessities to meet. A household or a business run by people who actively despise each other is ineffective. It cannot be an efficient or pleasant place for everyone to live and work. We are not at war with each other – we are all just trying to make sure we have the best Canada we can make. It’s time we started acting that way.
Under this new system, every vote in the house would be a free vote. We would, by necessity, stop taking sides and start thinking like a community.
The House would change from being adversarial to being perhaps not harmonious but cooperative. And members would sit according to geography – not by party affiliation and leader’s favour. This system would focus MP’s on the interests of their region and their country. It would create a climate of common interests which, in other words – a nation.
Because Canadians would vote for a leader and then, in the full knowledge of that leader’s policies, choose a representative that would reflect their interests and priorities it would be the role of the candidates to educate their potential constituents on their understanding of the issues and their ideas about how to address them.
The new system would require only minimal change to the infrastructure of the current system. Voter education would be a by-product of the process itself and not something required before an individual could engage in the process.
In the House itself, the number of seats, ridings and committees would all remain the same. However, participation in a federal parliament would require a commitment to a federal agenda on a riding by riding basis.
Provincial MP’s would sit together and presumably work together but they would also sit in regional clusters, just as they do on the land itself. Quebec could benefit by sitting and working next to New Brunswick and Ontario. If only by understanding that they do not exist in isolation from the rest of Canada. The western provinces have already seen the benefits of regional cooperation but being able to express that cooperation within the House of Commons can only strengthen the bonds that already exist.
Ministerial positions would be fixed and could only be altered by a House vote. Leaders would not be able to make up portfolios. Just like in a household, if you’re in charge of doing the dishes, that’s fine, sometimes you might need some help, but the dishes are your job. Your mom is not going to put someone else in charge of making the water soapy, that’s just stupid.
If the family gets a dog then someone has to take on the job of taking care of the dog – so far, Canada does not have a dog so we don’t need any new ministers. It’s time we allowed Canada to function as it is and as we, as Canadians believe it to be. If we are asked to vote for a leader in a federal election then we should be given the right to cast a vote for that leader and if we expect our MP’s to represent our interests in Parliament then we should understand how they intend to do that on a person by person basis because sooner or later, every Canadian counts.
Canada did not, by the way, elect a leader. No matter what you think, odds are, you didn’t vote for Stephen Harper because unless you live in Calgary West – you couldn’t vote for Stephen Harper. Our present system doesn’t permit it.
Now that it’s over, we’re talking about electoral reform; we seem to want it but what does it really mean? Proportional representation is complex no matter what model you choose. It would be costly to educate the public and difficult to overhaul a system in order to reflect a multiparty adversarial system under proportional representation. We’re just not set up for it.
Geographically, Canada is so much larger than every other democracy (I’m not counting Russia as a democracy, technically I may be wrong about that but Putin doesn’t strike me as much of a majority-rule kinda guy.) It is easy to see how size can skew results. The east never votes with the west and Quebec – well, we’re uniquely gifted or saddled with Quebec depending on where you sit in the rest of the country. No matter how you see it, Quebec exerts a significant gravitational pull on Canada as a whole and many Canadians who live outside of the central region find this objectionable on the grounds that they seriously do not consider themselves to be part of Canada and have zero interest in the well-being of people outside Quebec’s borders who do.
If the last election had been a leadership race, I am willing to bet that like most Canadians could, I would have been able to tell you how it would shake out before the first advance polls were taken. The hard, cold truth is, people west of Winnipeg could have told you Dion could not win a federal election, period. They could have told yuo that on the same night he was chosen as leader of his party if for no other reason than that he seems utterly divorced from any western, maritime or rural interests and he is, by birth, a francophone. People in the west are tired of francophone PM’s. They feel burned by Quebec as it is and they are tired of straining to understand a francophone accent and even more tired of being represented by a person who sounds, to their ears, like a Canadian cliché.
In Ontario, Canadians like Jack Layton well enough but any Ontarian would have owned up to the fact that he could never lead the country. Layton campaigned on disdain for the economic system that serves as the financial central heating that keeps Canada from freezing and that just cannot work.
Layton is charismatic and he can be articulate but his campaign defied logic – anti-oil production, pro-government intervention during a recession, and pugnaciously so - I am pretty sure Layton scared even the hard line NDP members willing to elect provincial NDP governments West of the Portage and Main line.
Duceppe isn’t even playing, he’s in the game to be the spoiler. He’s said himself he will never be PM so why he’s involved with a national leadership debate in English is anyone’s guess. Still, Duceppe’s honesty played well in the west and if he had been campaigning as a Canadian he might have made a difference.
As for the Greens - anyone who would run against Peter McKay in Central Nova clearly lacks the judgement to effectively sit as a parliamentarian no matter how much homework they do. Pluck alone is not enough, we do not vote for spunk or Mary Tyler Moore would have run for president.
The fact that Elizabeth May says she plans to run in McKay’s riding again next time is telling. I would argue it’s proof positive that she is not fit for a national leadership role in a global political climate. In that context, knowing your strengths and showing common sense are more important than at any other time in our history.
Harper is seen as cold and controlling, just ask anyone who works within 20 blocks of parliament hill, but he does have a degree in economics – he knows the lingo he won’t be confused by the landscape and compared to the other choices. He looked like the best alternative to most Canadians. Many Conservative MP’s can thank him for their seat in Ottawa.
There’s no question, Harper seems secretive and dictatorial to many of us. And the recent news of Transport Canada’s decision to stop answering any and all media questions in order to make Harper’s new transportation minister John Baird, feel comfortable and safe, only underscores that point.
Here’s the article on that – like so many canaries in so many coalmines, it ran virtually unnoticed and in a very Conservative party fashion, it was announced on a day when there is much bigger news to serve as cover. The fiscal update happens today at 4:00 p.m. Eastern.
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=f793e22a-6cc7-4580-af67-f1f1a659124d
Canadians voted in the last election as if they were voting for a leader. That tells me that the first step in electoral reform should be to give Canadians the right they think they already have.
We should start with electoral reform. A first step toward fixing the system would be to give all Canadians the right to vote for their Prime Minister. If that was all we did toward fixing the system it would make a significant positive difference but I think we can go a little further without breaking the bank or baffling the voters.
At the Prime Ministerial level, political party affiliation is a significant factor in determining the broad reach of policy and political philosophy that would be the priority of the leader elected. Parties give us the shorthand to recognize the basic principles each leader stands for which allows them to express the nuances of their vision during the course of a relatively short campaign period.
Prime Ministers need to be able to express their political views in broad strokes because they are dealing in broad national issues, local candidates have a responsibility to represent the particular view of their communities – they don’t need the same kind of shorthand, it is literally too big for them.
With the notable exceptions of Alberta and Quebec, Party affiliation is not working at the local level. Canadians feel compelled to accept whoever happens to garner the favour of the local chapter of their national party, personal popularity and strategic nominations mean that we do not always get candidates who are best suited to the job.
If party affiliations were abandoned at the local level, Members of Parliament would earn their seats by personal strengths and political platforms alone. Eliminating party affiliations for MPs would not appreciably change the system except to shift focus on the actions of representatives and not on professed loyalties – which have been known to shift with a little pressure anyhow.
Step by step, it would work like this: the parties would choose a leader by whatever means they feel best. When an election is called the campaign period would be broken into two shorter segments. In the first period, Candidates for Prime Minister would run their campaigns as they have during our most recent election. Whistle stop tours, speeches and national debates would take place in this period. At the same time, local candidates would be going door to door making the pitch for their nomination as MP candidates.
In order to be put forward as a candidate for MP a local nominee would have to gain the support of 300 members of his or her community or ten per cent – whichever is less. (This number would be subject to tailoring depending on the population of the riding.) A person who signs the nomination petition for one prospective candidate cannot sign for another – there would be no overlap. Lists would be entered into a computer spread-sheet in order to cross reference for duplicates. The use of personal computers would make the task of checking nomination petitions an afternoon’s work – at most.
When the Prime Ministerial segment of the campaign period concluded, Canadians would go to the polls and vote for their national leader. Once the results were in, the local campaigning period would continue for seven days, during which leaders of the national parties would be expected to deal with their organizational issues and would not be allowed to campaign.
Every candidate for leadership would have the option of being on the ballot for their home riding, this way, the losers would still be able to sit in the House of Commons and contribute to the management of the country’s day to day business. They would still be required to meet the same standards as any other candidate – they would need 300 signatures on their nomination form.
At the end of the second campaigning period, Canadians would vote in their MP’s. We would do so in the full knowledge of what kind of candidate we would be electing and what kind of leader they would be working with. In other words – there would be much less rolling the dice and virtually no reason to engage in strategic voting.
An election is not a game and it should not have an element of surprise included. Until now we have responded to the idea of an election in the same way as people watch movies or read mystery novels. Nobody wants to have the surprise ending “spoiled” for them. The narrative of an election held under the present system may make for a dramatic storyline but we are talking about running a country here – our entire lives are on the line. This is not the place to be hoping for a surprise, twist ending.
Once MP’s were elected, the Prime Minister would choose a cabinet. The cabinet would be made up of whomever the PM considered best for the job. This would allow a Prime Minister to do what our present PM has already started – there is nothing in the constitution that says a cabinet must be made up of members of the ruling party. By doing away with the idea of two opposing parties in power we would be embracing the idea of a cooperative government made up of individuals representing different viewpoints from across the country all sitting in the house with the common goal of making the country as safe, healthy and prosperous as possible. (Less fun for political pundits but better for the rest of us.)
Because there would not be party affiliations in the house there would also no longer be a need for the adversarial seating arrangement. MP’s would sit according to geography, increasing the possibility that geographic concerns might benefit from solutions put forward by neighbouring constituencies.
Under this system there would be no time wasted on party caucus meetings, in fact, party meetings would be rare and held to discuss leadership issues – really, apart from labelling the candidates political orientation, eventually we might not need parties at all.
This system would also increase transparency because there would be no reason to try to gain a party advantage. The effectiveness of MP’s would increase because they would have to focus on the concerns of their constituency and learn to think for themselves and we would save money on funding party war chests.
Question period and committee work would proceed in exactly the same way as before except that committees would be formed by geographical representation, personal interest, capacity and professional speciality not by party appointment.
The tasks assigned an MP in parliament would be more in keeping with their having a job – we would have the best qualified candidates not the most politically advantageous. This can only help things run more smoothly since it minimizes the learning curve but maybe more importantly, these are JOBS we are giving to these people. They are quite well-paid jobs too and if a person is not qualified to do the job maybe we shouldn’t be asking them to accept it.
During question period, MP’s would be given the opportunity to question cabinet based once again, on geographical representation. Personal attacks would be considered strictly off-topic and if an issue did not concern your part of the country then you as an MP would not be permitted to speak to the issue.
Attacks on the Prime Minister would not only be counter-productive but also irrelevant since the PM would be able to claim a mandate from the entire country as a whole.
There is no practical reason why an MP from Northern Ontario should have a single word to say for or against measures taken to protect BC’s salmon fisheries – for example. It’s inexcusable that we conscience this kind of meddling. More importantly, it is a waste of time.
It should be the job of government to run the business of the country, not to waste our time and money bickering amongst themselves and jockeying for position in the next election. A country is something like a business or a household writ large. Together we have a certain amount of money, resources, assets, to spend use and protect and we have a certain number of expenses and necessities to meet. A household or a business run by people who actively despise each other is ineffective. It cannot be an efficient or pleasant place for everyone to live and work. We are not at war with each other – we are all just trying to make sure we have the best Canada we can make. It’s time we started acting that way.
Under this new system, every vote in the house would be a free vote. We would, by necessity, stop taking sides and start thinking like a community.
The House would change from being adversarial to being perhaps not harmonious but cooperative. And members would sit according to geography – not by party affiliation and leader’s favour. This system would focus MP’s on the interests of their region and their country. It would create a climate of common interests which, in other words – a nation.
Because Canadians would vote for a leader and then, in the full knowledge of that leader’s policies, choose a representative that would reflect their interests and priorities it would be the role of the candidates to educate their potential constituents on their understanding of the issues and their ideas about how to address them.
The new system would require only minimal change to the infrastructure of the current system. Voter education would be a by-product of the process itself and not something required before an individual could engage in the process.
In the House itself, the number of seats, ridings and committees would all remain the same. However, participation in a federal parliament would require a commitment to a federal agenda on a riding by riding basis.
Provincial MP’s would sit together and presumably work together but they would also sit in regional clusters, just as they do on the land itself. Quebec could benefit by sitting and working next to New Brunswick and Ontario. If only by understanding that they do not exist in isolation from the rest of Canada. The western provinces have already seen the benefits of regional cooperation but being able to express that cooperation within the House of Commons can only strengthen the bonds that already exist.
Ministerial positions would be fixed and could only be altered by a House vote. Leaders would not be able to make up portfolios. Just like in a household, if you’re in charge of doing the dishes, that’s fine, sometimes you might need some help, but the dishes are your job. Your mom is not going to put someone else in charge of making the water soapy, that’s just stupid.
If the family gets a dog then someone has to take on the job of taking care of the dog – so far, Canada does not have a dog so we don’t need any new ministers. It’s time we allowed Canada to function as it is and as we, as Canadians believe it to be. If we are asked to vote for a leader in a federal election then we should be given the right to cast a vote for that leader and if we expect our MP’s to represent our interests in Parliament then we should understand how they intend to do that on a person by person basis because sooner or later, every Canadian counts.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
snow plow
Soft sounding words.
Every year I forget the racket that is the reality of that process. It is six a.m. and the first of the snow plowing is being done in the lane behind my house. There is nothing soft or quiet about plowing snow. The metal blade of the plow scrapes pavement and knocks hard against every bump and crack in the road. Tree trunks are scraped, grarges and plow blades collide, it is not at all exacting. It is not really neat although the finished work always does give an impression of neatness.
The snow plow sounds like a series of small car accidents. It sounds like heavy machinery scraping against cement, which is, I suppose, exactly what it is. It lasts for around 20 minutes in most cases.
It sounds alarming.
The tendency, on hearing a snow plow, is to wake up and see what is wrong. It hits at the same anxiety centre as a fire alarm if a little less urgently.
It is one of the few sounds of winter that one never becomes accustomed to and it nearly always occurs before it is time to get up and well after bedtime. I understand this - when else would you do it? There cannot be cars on the road, after all. But the banging, as it smacks into things and the sound of things whamming out of the way, the dragging, the scraping. It is usually well into February before I can return to sleep again on a night after it has started.
Perhaps this is why people from this part of the world find winter so taxing. One of the reasons anyhow.
Not too far from where I live there is a snow dump. Those of us who didn't grow up with this reality seldom think of it but snow has to go somewhere. If it doesn't melt, it can only be pushed aside once or twice before the volume becomes too much.
In Ottawa, as in most northern cities, the snow is heaped into big open trucks as the plow continues on its way. Later, the trucks go to the snow dump and contribute to a huge pile of snow. By January, it looks like a frozen version of Ayre's Rock - same loaf shape and everything.
In the summer, the bus passes by the spot where the snow dump was. It is a large, empty plane, like several football fields. (we get a lot of snow) It reminds me of an Aztec Plaza and you can see spirals of sandbags about six or eight feet in diameter, marking holes in the ground where, I presume, the snow melts and drains. I don't know why they mark in spirals but they do.
We are close to the river, I suppose the melted snow drains into the current. All that salt, the grit, the fresh water snow - all that winter, marked by sandbag spirals like some reference to the movement of the galaxy. It's memorable.
The giant dump seldom melts completely before June. At the end of the season it really does look like rock, there is nothing white or frozen looking about it. Yet, it is still snow, still melting, still a part of winter carried well beyond spring.
Today, real winter begins.
Every year I forget the racket that is the reality of that process. It is six a.m. and the first of the snow plowing is being done in the lane behind my house. There is nothing soft or quiet about plowing snow. The metal blade of the plow scrapes pavement and knocks hard against every bump and crack in the road. Tree trunks are scraped, grarges and plow blades collide, it is not at all exacting. It is not really neat although the finished work always does give an impression of neatness.
The snow plow sounds like a series of small car accidents. It sounds like heavy machinery scraping against cement, which is, I suppose, exactly what it is. It lasts for around 20 minutes in most cases.
It sounds alarming.
The tendency, on hearing a snow plow, is to wake up and see what is wrong. It hits at the same anxiety centre as a fire alarm if a little less urgently.
It is one of the few sounds of winter that one never becomes accustomed to and it nearly always occurs before it is time to get up and well after bedtime. I understand this - when else would you do it? There cannot be cars on the road, after all. But the banging, as it smacks into things and the sound of things whamming out of the way, the dragging, the scraping. It is usually well into February before I can return to sleep again on a night after it has started.
Perhaps this is why people from this part of the world find winter so taxing. One of the reasons anyhow.
Not too far from where I live there is a snow dump. Those of us who didn't grow up with this reality seldom think of it but snow has to go somewhere. If it doesn't melt, it can only be pushed aside once or twice before the volume becomes too much.
In Ottawa, as in most northern cities, the snow is heaped into big open trucks as the plow continues on its way. Later, the trucks go to the snow dump and contribute to a huge pile of snow. By January, it looks like a frozen version of Ayre's Rock - same loaf shape and everything.
In the summer, the bus passes by the spot where the snow dump was. It is a large, empty plane, like several football fields. (we get a lot of snow) It reminds me of an Aztec Plaza and you can see spirals of sandbags about six or eight feet in diameter, marking holes in the ground where, I presume, the snow melts and drains. I don't know why they mark in spirals but they do.
We are close to the river, I suppose the melted snow drains into the current. All that salt, the grit, the fresh water snow - all that winter, marked by sandbag spirals like some reference to the movement of the galaxy. It's memorable.
The giant dump seldom melts completely before June. At the end of the season it really does look like rock, there is nothing white or frozen looking about it. Yet, it is still snow, still melting, still a part of winter carried well beyond spring.
Today, real winter begins.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
more pictures
In this bunch:
Upper deck on BC ferry between Victoria and Vancouver.
Moss patina detail on carving shed in Thunderbird Park, Victoria BC
Three interior details of the Marine Building, art deco masterpiece in Vancouver BC
Writing
I'm grateful and a little suprised that anyone is reading this. Until a few days ago I didn't notice or know how to look for comments. I knew Simon had been here but thought he was just being kind. Thank you. I'll try to keep it at least a little interesting knowing someone may be plowing through it all.
Of course, like most writers, I almost always have a reader in mind when I sit down to write. When I'm writing about policy, I take advantage of my own limitations and write as simply and directly as possible in order to explain complex concepts to myself. I like pictures, my attention span is relatively short - in explaining policy I find it helpful to see things in metaphors and to keep the language as conversational as possible. I suppose I am talking to myself. That approach has proven to be fairly successful. I think we always assume other people are far more sophisticated than we are and more sophisticated than they are too.
I write to lovers, to friends and when I start getting all self-aware like this I imagine I am writing to preserve something and then I know it is time to stop writing and normal down for a bit. So - thank you, thank you, thank you. I will post a few more pictures and then try to resume saying things that might actually be diverting enough to merit reading.
Of course, like most writers, I almost always have a reader in mind when I sit down to write. When I'm writing about policy, I take advantage of my own limitations and write as simply and directly as possible in order to explain complex concepts to myself. I like pictures, my attention span is relatively short - in explaining policy I find it helpful to see things in metaphors and to keep the language as conversational as possible. I suppose I am talking to myself. That approach has proven to be fairly successful. I think we always assume other people are far more sophisticated than we are and more sophisticated than they are too.
I write to lovers, to friends and when I start getting all self-aware like this I imagine I am writing to preserve something and then I know it is time to stop writing and normal down for a bit. So - thank you, thank you, thank you. I will post a few more pictures and then try to resume saying things that might actually be diverting enough to merit reading.
Time for some pictures.
These are - in order:
Just a wave on the sand
The view of downtown Vancouver from Patsy's (my former Stepmother) guest room window.
One of the paintings I grew up with - also at Patsy's.
Typical Victorian responding, in typical fashion to typical Victorian sign during a typical October storm on the waterfront in Victoria.
Sunset on the breakwater in Victoria avec seagull.
Journalism and Celebrity
I spent what little spare time I had during my undergraduate years working at the student newspaper of my University. Carleton is Canada's most prominent school for journalism so it shouldn't surprise anyone that most of my friends from school are journalists or writers now.
Recently, a Canadian reporter was captured, held hostage and eventually released by either a group of petty criminals or some weak offshoot of the Taliban in Afghanistan. I'm not sure if Melissa Fung went to Carleton or not. She was not at the Charlatan during the time I was there but it did get me thinking first about the friends I do have who work as foreign correspondents and then about the job of the journalist in general and what happens when a writer's safety is put at risk for the content of an article or simply for being a writer.
I do have some personal experience with this, although nothing at all to compare with Melissa Fung's terrible ordeal. Nevertheless, I can remember very clearly how it felt first to be threatened simply for being myself and then to be the subject of media scrutiny for the way I chose to cope with the threat itself.
I decided the best way to deal with the person levelling death threats at my was to "out" him. It worked very well. As it turned out, I wasn't the only woman he was threatening and my first-person piece on the subject prompted his other victims to come forward and ultimately resulted in his arrest. All of that is well and good, it is what journalism, in my opinion, is for. We write as members of the public in order to first serve as the eyes and ears of an event or experience and then to be a voice for those involved. Pretensions of objectivity aside - writers tell their own stories because they are universal stories. That's what makes first-person reporting work.
Previous to writing this piece I had experienced the occasional threat of physical violence and had a stalker or two - none of this is very unusual for an opinionated female journalist. None of it bothered me much. I was glad my piece did its work and hoped to find myself in a situation where I could write a story with a similar impact without it having to involve something so intimate as a threat to my own life. The story was reprinted a few times and that should have been the end of it.
It was not the end of it. Because of this story, I found myself at the centre of a number of events, none of which had anything to do with my writing and all of which had a lot to do with celebrity.
Radio shows wanted a statement, then they wanted me to appear on talk-shows. Carleton gave me an award and my acceptance speech was broadcast. All of that was alright as these things go but when TV networks wanted to do a story on me, I foolishly said yes. Couldn't think of a reason not to and I had at least partly swallowed the idea that publicity is a good thing in and of itself. When I was faced with a cameraman and a surly national TV news reporter saying I had to show my face on camera or he would say I was afraid, something inside me went off.
My "cover" as a reporter was completely blown and I realized I had moved from telling a worthwhile story to being a story that was not very worthwhile at all. And it continued. No matter what I did I could not get away from that story. It meant that I had a position and that position was static in the eyes of editors. I was a "victim's rights advocate" - no longer a journalist. Later that year, I returned to Victoria for the summer and staged an arts event and found, once again, I was positioned squarely at the centre of the story.
I'm not suggesting I was blameless in this but I am saying that we are turning into a society where it is all too easy for dedicated, passionate reporters to become one-note songwriters simply because they do a good job on a particularly noteworthy piece.
Attention is always nice, I suppose but when attention becomes the goal imposed by the culture we live in, the work falters. I stopped writing important pieces after that year, I had to. For one thing I couldn't go anywhere politically questionable or ask any meaningful questions of sources who might have something to hide and might need finessing, without being recognized, for another - I was so disgusted with the personal fallout I experienced as a result of publishing that piece that I just couldn't stomach the idea of going through it again.
Some writers are in their profession in order to be famous - most are not. The assumption that public attention is always welcome is a dangerous one, it strips writers of the tools they need to become better at their craft. It creates a lot of media static. I don't know what was nudged aside on those nights (and it was nights - one of my friends made a joke about having seen the back of my head on TV every night that week) when "my story" ran on the 11 o-clock news but I am reasonably sure it was a hell of a lot more important than talking about how one student journalist managed to deal with one whack-job death threat.
I am worried for my friends' safety when they are travelling through the middle east. I think about friends and colleagues in dangerous parts of the world and even those who are here at home writing about the easy things who may be gay or may have views that put them at risk - all it takes is one editorial, I've received death threats for pointing out something as innocuous as reverse racism. It goes with the job. But as concerned as I am about those things I am more concerned about the way the culture of celebrity strips those of us who want to be the eyes and ears of the public of the means to do so.
Melissa Fung will never be able to "pass" as a regular member of the public again. Her work will suffer for it and we, as a reading public, will suffer for her loss. She is safe and sound, thank God but she is silenced and that can't be right.
As for me, I stopped reporting the hard stuff and moved into communications and now I am rethinking that decision. Maybe it was too easy to be self-righteous and step back to paid-by-the-hour policy analysis. Maybe having every right to make that choice doesn't make it the right choice to make.
We need journalists who care. We need to let them care and for those of us who find ourselves faced with that choice, we need to find a better way around it than choosing to feed the appetite we created for junk journalism or remove ourselves from the news cycle out of disgust. Nobody benefits from a choice like that.
Recently, a Canadian reporter was captured, held hostage and eventually released by either a group of petty criminals or some weak offshoot of the Taliban in Afghanistan. I'm not sure if Melissa Fung went to Carleton or not. She was not at the Charlatan during the time I was there but it did get me thinking first about the friends I do have who work as foreign correspondents and then about the job of the journalist in general and what happens when a writer's safety is put at risk for the content of an article or simply for being a writer.
I do have some personal experience with this, although nothing at all to compare with Melissa Fung's terrible ordeal. Nevertheless, I can remember very clearly how it felt first to be threatened simply for being myself and then to be the subject of media scrutiny for the way I chose to cope with the threat itself.
I decided the best way to deal with the person levelling death threats at my was to "out" him. It worked very well. As it turned out, I wasn't the only woman he was threatening and my first-person piece on the subject prompted his other victims to come forward and ultimately resulted in his arrest. All of that is well and good, it is what journalism, in my opinion, is for. We write as members of the public in order to first serve as the eyes and ears of an event or experience and then to be a voice for those involved. Pretensions of objectivity aside - writers tell their own stories because they are universal stories. That's what makes first-person reporting work.
Previous to writing this piece I had experienced the occasional threat of physical violence and had a stalker or two - none of this is very unusual for an opinionated female journalist. None of it bothered me much. I was glad my piece did its work and hoped to find myself in a situation where I could write a story with a similar impact without it having to involve something so intimate as a threat to my own life. The story was reprinted a few times and that should have been the end of it.
It was not the end of it. Because of this story, I found myself at the centre of a number of events, none of which had anything to do with my writing and all of which had a lot to do with celebrity.
Radio shows wanted a statement, then they wanted me to appear on talk-shows. Carleton gave me an award and my acceptance speech was broadcast. All of that was alright as these things go but when TV networks wanted to do a story on me, I foolishly said yes. Couldn't think of a reason not to and I had at least partly swallowed the idea that publicity is a good thing in and of itself. When I was faced with a cameraman and a surly national TV news reporter saying I had to show my face on camera or he would say I was afraid, something inside me went off.
My "cover" as a reporter was completely blown and I realized I had moved from telling a worthwhile story to being a story that was not very worthwhile at all. And it continued. No matter what I did I could not get away from that story. It meant that I had a position and that position was static in the eyes of editors. I was a "victim's rights advocate" - no longer a journalist. Later that year, I returned to Victoria for the summer and staged an arts event and found, once again, I was positioned squarely at the centre of the story.
I'm not suggesting I was blameless in this but I am saying that we are turning into a society where it is all too easy for dedicated, passionate reporters to become one-note songwriters simply because they do a good job on a particularly noteworthy piece.
Attention is always nice, I suppose but when attention becomes the goal imposed by the culture we live in, the work falters. I stopped writing important pieces after that year, I had to. For one thing I couldn't go anywhere politically questionable or ask any meaningful questions of sources who might have something to hide and might need finessing, without being recognized, for another - I was so disgusted with the personal fallout I experienced as a result of publishing that piece that I just couldn't stomach the idea of going through it again.
Some writers are in their profession in order to be famous - most are not. The assumption that public attention is always welcome is a dangerous one, it strips writers of the tools they need to become better at their craft. It creates a lot of media static. I don't know what was nudged aside on those nights (and it was nights - one of my friends made a joke about having seen the back of my head on TV every night that week) when "my story" ran on the 11 o-clock news but I am reasonably sure it was a hell of a lot more important than talking about how one student journalist managed to deal with one whack-job death threat.
I am worried for my friends' safety when they are travelling through the middle east. I think about friends and colleagues in dangerous parts of the world and even those who are here at home writing about the easy things who may be gay or may have views that put them at risk - all it takes is one editorial, I've received death threats for pointing out something as innocuous as reverse racism. It goes with the job. But as concerned as I am about those things I am more concerned about the way the culture of celebrity strips those of us who want to be the eyes and ears of the public of the means to do so.
Melissa Fung will never be able to "pass" as a regular member of the public again. Her work will suffer for it and we, as a reading public, will suffer for her loss. She is safe and sound, thank God but she is silenced and that can't be right.
As for me, I stopped reporting the hard stuff and moved into communications and now I am rethinking that decision. Maybe it was too easy to be self-righteous and step back to paid-by-the-hour policy analysis. Maybe having every right to make that choice doesn't make it the right choice to make.
We need journalists who care. We need to let them care and for those of us who find ourselves faced with that choice, we need to find a better way around it than choosing to feed the appetite we created for junk journalism or remove ourselves from the news cycle out of disgust. Nobody benefits from a choice like that.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Kitchens
Not too long ago I had a conversation with someone who lives in the deep south. Somehow we got onto the topic of staples - not the little wire things that are supposed to hold sheafs of paper together but the things that are always in your kitchen cupboards even if you never actually eat them.
It occured to me that these things are just as often talismans as food. We keep the things our parents kept because that's what we do. The way you use food, even the food you don't eat, tells a lot about who you are and where you come from.
In my kitchen cupboards there are usually sardines, custard powder, lentils, molasses, flour, ancient packets of "flu-soup" (liptons dried chicken noodle, which i never eat.) beans, tomato paste, tomato sauce, pasta, cocoa, sage (which never even gets opened) chilli powder (ditto) dried mustard, wasabi powder, (in Ottawa - completely useless), star anise, cumin, coriander and a can of peppers in adobo sauce.
It's a northern kitchen. You can tell from that list, my mother came from the maritimes, (sardines, molasses, custard powder, cocoa, sage,) I came from the west coast, (wasabi powder, star anise, lentils) my father was a cook, (peppers, cumin, coriander, dried mustard) and I am a little insecure (dried pasta and tomato sauce, just in case, flu-soup as a talisman against the stomach flu).
There should also be saltines, (maritimes) summer savory, (Acadian), maple syrup (eastern Canada), oatmeal and dried coconut - maritimes, baking stuff. But those things do get used so they ebb and flow. God - could I be any more boring? Next post will be better, promise.
What's in your pantry?
It occured to me that these things are just as often talismans as food. We keep the things our parents kept because that's what we do. The way you use food, even the food you don't eat, tells a lot about who you are and where you come from.
In my kitchen cupboards there are usually sardines, custard powder, lentils, molasses, flour, ancient packets of "flu-soup" (liptons dried chicken noodle, which i never eat.) beans, tomato paste, tomato sauce, pasta, cocoa, sage (which never even gets opened) chilli powder (ditto) dried mustard, wasabi powder, (in Ottawa - completely useless), star anise, cumin, coriander and a can of peppers in adobo sauce.
It's a northern kitchen. You can tell from that list, my mother came from the maritimes, (sardines, molasses, custard powder, cocoa, sage,) I came from the west coast, (wasabi powder, star anise, lentils) my father was a cook, (peppers, cumin, coriander, dried mustard) and I am a little insecure (dried pasta and tomato sauce, just in case, flu-soup as a talisman against the stomach flu).
There should also be saltines, (maritimes) summer savory, (Acadian), maple syrup (eastern Canada), oatmeal and dried coconut - maritimes, baking stuff. But those things do get used so they ebb and flow. God - could I be any more boring? Next post will be better, promise.
What's in your pantry?
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Victoria
They say the only way to heal from anything is to forgive.
When I was around 10 we moved to Victoria. I hated it.
People will tell you children are resilient, they'll adapt to just about anything. I don't believe it.
By the time you're 10 years old, you are a person and while there may have been any number of places on earth where you could have dropped my 10 year-old self and had me thrive, Victoria was not one of them.
We came from the east, a more antithetical mind-set to the pacific northwest - well, I honestly don't think one exists. Coming from within the country there is the expectation that one still belongs somehow. If I had come from another country, I would have expected to be out of my element. As it was, Victoria made me feel as though I had somehow failed to attain the basic status of functioning human being.
I was a Canadian kid, I knew that for certain. There was no logical reason why I should feel so completely alien to that place, yet I did. I was louder than the Victorian kids, my clothes were weirder, much weirder. My taste in music - dear God, there was no common ground there at all. I was used to sculpture parks, open markets, street musicians and the planetarium - none of these things existed in Victoria. In Montreal we would hang around the steps of the porch on hot summer nights watching the thunderstorms and pretending to colour while we listened to our mothers gossip and tell stories about their youth.
We would sneak tubes of lipstick from their dressers and play at being rock stars in the alley behind our attached houses. We built snow forts. We would sneak off to the bedrooms of older siblings and listen to comedians or dance to their 45s on their record players - the kids in
Victoria did none of these things.
The kids in Victoria had easy-bake ovens and they played in playgrounds well away from their parents. They liked to look "sporty." What this meant was the girls wore jeans and little tee-shirts or shorts and little tee-shirts and no make up. They liked to be cute. I liked to be pretty. I still liked to race the boys and I certainly liked to win but I liked to do so while looking like a girl. The little girls I knew in Victoria liked to lose to the boys while looking rather too much like them for my tastes. To say I appeared to be contrary would be a significant understatement.
My parents were divorcing but that wasn't it. The kids, from the first morning I spent at school, made me despair of ever finding a friend. They seemed completely free of emotion. Compared to my Montreal friends they had no idea what was going on in the world and in the entire school there was not one black kid. This struck me as sinister.
These whiter than white children, interested mostly in sports and in the brand names of the things they acquired - they scared me. They never spilled anything, never skinned a knee or lost their tempers, from the outside, they felt cold and superior. I was an alien, an outsider and the more time passed, the more I tried to bury it, the more acutely I felt it.
The landscape is stunning, the ocean mesmerizing, even miraculous; the weather - actually, I am indifferent to Victoria's weather. It is always cool and breezy, always perfect. Summer is a nudge warmer than autumn which is a nudge warmer than spring was, which is only a nudge warmer than winter. It is placid, unmoving, still. It demands nothing. However, it is always windy and so I am always at least mildly annoyed with it.
When I visit, I take hundreds of pictures of the place. I think I am trying to imprint a kind of love of it on my own psyche - it just never sticks.
In Victoria, I developed a taste for solitary exploration. The few children who did become my friends were mostly other migrant kids, other outsiders, the daughters of Army officers or families who came to try their luck on the west coast and eventually left, in high school it was the gay kids, the artist kids, the unpopular kids and looking back, I have to say, I still love every one of those kids in my memory. I still wish them every blessing. I'm sure they are all successful adults now, they all still tug at my heart.
I remember two girls in particular today, one was so tough, it seemed as though nothing could hurt her. Her hair was cut short and the other kids made fun of her for it. She was quiet, nearly silent all the time and while the other kids whispered that her short short hair - really a brush cut, was the result of a particularly stubborn case of lice the truth was much stranger. She just preferred it that way.
The other was tall, overweight and painfully shy. Her clothes, because of her size, were the clothes of a matron, not a middle-school girl and this only made matters worse. I was president of the drama club and as such could produce my own play. I cast the big girl in a leading role and she was spectacular. Just spectacular. Years later I saw her working at the cosmetics counter of a local department store and it made me smile.
I was weird but I was pretty and even then, somewhere inside me I knew I could offer these kids some protection by being their friend. The gawky gay boy who hung around with me had a place that several of the more typically attractive boys envied, the big, awkward girl had an edge that the pretty, popular girls did not - she went on stage and people applauded.
My feelings of being completely wrong for the place meant that I was ready to stand up for the other kids who were left out of popular society and when I did, finally become popular myself in high school, I tried not to forget it - sure, I was a jerk in a hundred other ways but I think I remembered how it felt to be excluded.
In my early 20's I threw myself into a social life, dancing, attending openings, going to restaurants - didn't matter. Nothing could shake the feeling that I was trapped in the wrong place far from the person I was somehow waiting to meet - none of it made any sense then and it doesn't, I suppose, make much more now but this blog entry is an attempt to let it go and to forgive the place for being such a huge vacume in my life. I don't want to regret it.
I suppose this is how it feels to be gender dysphoric - you have every outward reason to accept the definition society places on you and yet there is no denying what you know to be true. You are what you are and only what you know you are is the truth.
Hard to think anything that took up so much time and space in one life could be something to regret but I think it is better to see it, regret it and move into the life I live now, the one I don't regret - without giving that one negative aspect even more of myself.
I wanted to fall in love with Victoria, wanted to fall in love in Victoria and I had two or three relationships in an effort to convince myself it was happening but I owe those people real apologies because honestly, it never was. When I think of the damage done just in trying to attach to the unattachable, trying to pretend to live, it makes me want to cry.
I expect this blog will return to Victoria stories with some regularity and I don't expect that to make sense. We are all such a mass of contradictions. The first person I am letting off the hook for all of that is me now. Then Victoria and as for everyone else - they never needed forgiving. I don't blame a soul for the life they had to live. Everybody's gotta learn sometime.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIVh8Mu1a4Q
At the top of this post (because I don't know how else to put them in) are some pictures from my most recent visit to the city most people would call my home town.
At the top of this post (because I don't know how else to put them in) are some pictures from my most recent visit to the city most people would call my home town.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Right and Wrong
According to most of the advice I've read or heard about blogging, I am going about this all wrong. There is no coherant thread - you can't rely on me to talk about steam trains or restaurants or TV or even the things I actually am passionately interested in, there are just too many. Also, I forget to add keywords. And I ramble.
I write in fragments, think outloud, do not save my posts to examine, edit and fine tune before posting - I probably should have called this blog something else whatever it is, it's wrong and raw.
Thinking about that as I did a little shopping this evening brought home another truth. It takes much longer to reclaim yourself after a relationship than people expect. Not to imply it is not a pleasurable experience, it is, but it's been a year since I first definitively left Jesse and pieces of me are still finding their way home.
Thinking about that as I did a little shopping this evening brought home another truth. It takes much longer to reclaim yourself after a relationship than people expect. Not to imply it is not a pleasurable experience, it is, but it's been a year since I first definitively left Jesse and pieces of me are still finding their way home.
People change us, they don't mean to but they do. All those people who tell say "you can't change a person" those people are dead wrong. We change people all the time, we just don't change them the way we intend.
I bought extra-virgin olive oil today, a decent bottle, not the economy size. I bought Italian coffee, artisanal bread, pancetta and a hefty chunk of parmesan - the good stuff. When I was with Jesse he would have found the best deals and we would have ended up with a gallon of olive oil and six bricks of coffee and who knows what else. I would have felt stressed and anxious and worried about how and what I bought, did I do it right? Did I get the best deal? And I would have felt small and grubby and very unsure of myself.
It was never his intention to do these things to me but people do, we can't help ourselves, our needs seem to reach out and hook into people sometimes and we just can't help it. I think it comes from forgetting to respect the person in favour of trying to get closer. And of course we deny it - and that makes it worse. There are better ways to be, I know there are but those ways require courage, they're not easy to take.
In most relationships the pressures we unconsciously apply to each other create divots and grooves even welts sometimes. We carve channels into the lives and hearts of the people we love. Whether we choose to is immaterial - we just do. Sometimes they are beautiful of course but anything that greedy, that unrestrained eventually pushes everything out of balance.
Maybe the best we can hope for is to find someone who wants what we are and doesn't feel the need to improve upon it. I know it sounds vain but I am thinner, prettier, more graceful and happier than I was with Jesse. I'm not blaming him and I don't doubt that he loved me and wanted me to be the way I am, the way I was when we met - confident, happy and relatively graceful. He just pressed so hard on me that I couldn't help be bruised by it. He was so bent on improving everything I did that he froze or helped me to break most of it. It's nice to have some of it back.
Ottawa is lovely tonight, cool and damp and clean. There is a kind of soft and sparkling mist in the air, it is refreshing, even sweet. The pavement shines under the streetlights and the lights themselves have their own coronas. The market was not crowded, the people who were walking in the streets were happy, many of them eating beaver tails. (It's that time already, the ice cream and maple sugar treats are gone, now it is all beaver tails and hot coffee.)
Ottawa is lovely tonight, cool and damp and clean. There is a kind of soft and sparkling mist in the air, it is refreshing, even sweet. The pavement shines under the streetlights and the lights themselves have their own coronas. The market was not crowded, the people who were walking in the streets were happy, many of them eating beaver tails. (It's that time already, the ice cream and maple sugar treats are gone, now it is all beaver tails and hot coffee.)
The huts on the canal are already in place even though it will be months before there is ice enough to skate on. We are right on the very rim of winter. Tonight I will have an Italian cabbage and white bean soup I made along with some very good bread and parmesan curls. There are perfectly ripe pears or maybe a cannolli for dessert, there is the view from my balcony, hand milled soap in the bathroom, clean and scented sheets on the bed and I don't have to justify any of it.
For the moment, that's enough for me.
Here (or rather at the top of this page) are some pictures of Victoria - to attach, sort of, to my last post. I'm still getting the hang of this and clearly I'm still getting it wrong but for me, that's alright. If you're reading this, I hope it's alright for you too.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Remembrance part 2
Rod was gay. I knew it before I even met him. He was best friends with my across-the-hall neighbor, Therese. One summer evening I was on my way home from work and I saw this man walking toward my apartment building. He looked like a young Jeremy Irons and he moved with undeniable grace.
I have always had a thing for graceful men. My first crush in grade school was on the most effiminate boy in class, a dancer who was, if anything, more feminine than I was. I suppose this made Rod and I inevitable but we never notice these patterns in our youth and I was very young.
It was a perfect August day and something about this young man made me want to meet him. He was well dressed and looked happy somehow - there were no shadows around him and that was unusual for anyone of my acquaintence at the time. I picked up the pace and rounded the corner, tripped up the steps and made it into the hallway just in time to see him disappear into Therese's apartment.
I changed my clothes and contrived some reason to knock on the door and that's where it started.
Rod and I hit it off immediately. We laughed and talked as though we had always known each other. Soon the three of us were inseperable. The fact of his sexual preference didn't prevent us from becoming a kind of a couple. We went to gallery openings together, he met my parents. We went dancing and to parties and within months people just assumed we were on track to a permanent committment.
He was dark-haired, slender and elegant but beyond that he was funny and he saw me as something more than a girl he might be able to get into bed. We waded in the legislature fountain at midnight, took long walks on the beach, drove to the country in his erratic pick-up truck that would only reliably start for me - I named it Hank - end eventually we got an apartment together and became roomates but never lovers.
One one particular night we were listening to music and the sexual tension in the air did begin to mount. I can remember looking at him and noticing his breathing was becoming heavy, his cheeks flushing - and so were mine. At the very moment something might have happened, the buzzer for the door rang. It was Therese, it was karma.
Rod eventually moved to England with my father and his partner. I was supposed to go but somehow everything went wrong at the last minute. He came back years later but I don't think he ever forgave me. I realize now that I did love him, I realize now that sexual orientation is not fixed on one side of the divide or the other. I realize a lot of things now but I never did then and I suppose I did make a mess of things between us.
I will always remember one other summer afternoon. Rod and I were living together and we were very happy. He was meeting me for dinner at a restaurant after work. I came out of the dress shop where I worked in time to see him striding down the street toward me. He was wearing a white shirt I had stolen from my Grandfather's closet shortly after his death. It fit him perfectly. His shoulders were back and he walked with a long, relaxed stride that made him look like a movie star. As he saw me, he smiled and opened his arms, I went to him and he held me very close. In that embrace, my lips pressed against his arm. The imprint of my lips stained the shirt for months and he wore it until it finally faded.
I understand Rod works in the health field now - I always saw him as an artist, in every way that matters I'm sure he still is. I saw a reference to him sitting on a panel on intersexuality. doesn't surprise me a bit.
In my heart Rod is captured in that sunny afternoon, on the cusp of an embrace with not a shadow in sight.
I have always had a thing for graceful men. My first crush in grade school was on the most effiminate boy in class, a dancer who was, if anything, more feminine than I was. I suppose this made Rod and I inevitable but we never notice these patterns in our youth and I was very young.
It was a perfect August day and something about this young man made me want to meet him. He was well dressed and looked happy somehow - there were no shadows around him and that was unusual for anyone of my acquaintence at the time. I picked up the pace and rounded the corner, tripped up the steps and made it into the hallway just in time to see him disappear into Therese's apartment.
I changed my clothes and contrived some reason to knock on the door and that's where it started.
Rod and I hit it off immediately. We laughed and talked as though we had always known each other. Soon the three of us were inseperable. The fact of his sexual preference didn't prevent us from becoming a kind of a couple. We went to gallery openings together, he met my parents. We went dancing and to parties and within months people just assumed we were on track to a permanent committment.
He was dark-haired, slender and elegant but beyond that he was funny and he saw me as something more than a girl he might be able to get into bed. We waded in the legislature fountain at midnight, took long walks on the beach, drove to the country in his erratic pick-up truck that would only reliably start for me - I named it Hank - end eventually we got an apartment together and became roomates but never lovers.
One one particular night we were listening to music and the sexual tension in the air did begin to mount. I can remember looking at him and noticing his breathing was becoming heavy, his cheeks flushing - and so were mine. At the very moment something might have happened, the buzzer for the door rang. It was Therese, it was karma.
Rod eventually moved to England with my father and his partner. I was supposed to go but somehow everything went wrong at the last minute. He came back years later but I don't think he ever forgave me. I realize now that I did love him, I realize now that sexual orientation is not fixed on one side of the divide or the other. I realize a lot of things now but I never did then and I suppose I did make a mess of things between us.
I will always remember one other summer afternoon. Rod and I were living together and we were very happy. He was meeting me for dinner at a restaurant after work. I came out of the dress shop where I worked in time to see him striding down the street toward me. He was wearing a white shirt I had stolen from my Grandfather's closet shortly after his death. It fit him perfectly. His shoulders were back and he walked with a long, relaxed stride that made him look like a movie star. As he saw me, he smiled and opened his arms, I went to him and he held me very close. In that embrace, my lips pressed against his arm. The imprint of my lips stained the shirt for months and he wore it until it finally faded.
I understand Rod works in the health field now - I always saw him as an artist, in every way that matters I'm sure he still is. I saw a reference to him sitting on a panel on intersexuality. doesn't surprise me a bit.
In my heart Rod is captured in that sunny afternoon, on the cusp of an embrace with not a shadow in sight.
Remembrance
Today is Remembrance Day and the sky is properly cloudy. Now and then a little sun pokes through, a little blue begins to assert itself through a lighter grey patch but for the most part it is exactly the kind of day it should be - grey, damp and cold.
I think of Texas on days like this. It is raining there today I hear but still I wonder what it is like to observe holidays like this one in a climate where the sky is usually blue, the sun almost always shining and the temperature rarely dips below 60 F. I think it must be difficult to believe anything could ever go irrevocably wrong in such a place.
The idea of memory is shifty. There isn't a person alive who can claim to remember their lives objectively - well, there are loads who make the claim, the important thing is, they are all wrong. This means that all memory is, to one degree or another, fiction which makes all fiction a kind of truth. I say this because it seems to me that fiction trims away the hyperpersonal to speak a kind of universally meaningful truth to an audience of readers who are, as we all are, looking for themselves in the things they read, see or hear.
Of course, this makes my little life as meaningful as any other provided I can tell it without dwelling on the nuances of my feelings in every single situation that strikes me as being poignent.
After having touched on Kathleen and Bill's part in my life it occurs to me that I would like to chronicle the process of getting from there to here - from being a flighty, oversexed bimbo in a small and pretentious Canadian city to being the first woman in my family to attain a university education and write - in however mundane a fashion - for a living.
Just like every other self-obsessed teenager, I kept diaries. My life at that time seemed important enough to me to write it down. It was dramatic, that much is true but even in its drama it was all fairly trivial.
My parents were a mess. They divorced when I was 13 and each one embarked on their own self-destructive path through bad relationships and business decisions. My father was a dilletante, he never stayed in any job for more than a few years. He bored easily and this was reflected in his habit of collecting women. My mother was smarter when it came to work and investments but her self-confidence was so worn down by a life with my father that her judgement when it came to men was abysmally bad.
I moved out in my final year of high school. It wasn't really a decision, I accepted an offer of housesitting to gain a little freedom and some peace from all the fighting and I just never went back.
I think of Texas on days like this. It is raining there today I hear but still I wonder what it is like to observe holidays like this one in a climate where the sky is usually blue, the sun almost always shining and the temperature rarely dips below 60 F. I think it must be difficult to believe anything could ever go irrevocably wrong in such a place.
The idea of memory is shifty. There isn't a person alive who can claim to remember their lives objectively - well, there are loads who make the claim, the important thing is, they are all wrong. This means that all memory is, to one degree or another, fiction which makes all fiction a kind of truth. I say this because it seems to me that fiction trims away the hyperpersonal to speak a kind of universally meaningful truth to an audience of readers who are, as we all are, looking for themselves in the things they read, see or hear.
Of course, this makes my little life as meaningful as any other provided I can tell it without dwelling on the nuances of my feelings in every single situation that strikes me as being poignent.
After having touched on Kathleen and Bill's part in my life it occurs to me that I would like to chronicle the process of getting from there to here - from being a flighty, oversexed bimbo in a small and pretentious Canadian city to being the first woman in my family to attain a university education and write - in however mundane a fashion - for a living.
Just like every other self-obsessed teenager, I kept diaries. My life at that time seemed important enough to me to write it down. It was dramatic, that much is true but even in its drama it was all fairly trivial.
My parents were a mess. They divorced when I was 13 and each one embarked on their own self-destructive path through bad relationships and business decisions. My father was a dilletante, he never stayed in any job for more than a few years. He bored easily and this was reflected in his habit of collecting women. My mother was smarter when it came to work and investments but her self-confidence was so worn down by a life with my father that her judgement when it came to men was abysmally bad.
I moved out in my final year of high school. It wasn't really a decision, I accepted an offer of housesitting to gain a little freedom and some peace from all the fighting and I just never went back.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Then Again
When I was in my mid-twenties I thought I would live in Victoria forever. As far as I knew I was too undisciplined and whimsical ever to go to university. I had a boyfriend whom, I assumed, was serious but my working life was in disarray. I set about putting it right.
My first attempt at a career had been working as a preschool teacher. It never occured to me to ask my community college instructors if they thought I had it in me to go further with my education. I wanted to write and the life of a daycare supervisor/preschool teacher was, to be honest, tedious at best.
I loved the kids and I used that to keep me interested in the profession as a whole. Many times I had the pleasure of seeing a little soul wake up to the world, learn to read sometimes or just discover something new. These were wonderful moments but on the whole, as I quickly discovered, working with small children means seemingly endless days of wiping noses, supervising bathroom visits, tying shoes, encouraging eating, mediating disputes, ignoring tantrums and standing near the playground equipment hoping nobody topples off anything. (not to mention dealing with parents, many of whom were dealing with their own guilt at being absent and were anything but pleasant or reasonable)
When one of my little charges died of a ruptured appendix, that was it. I started looking in earnest for something new and, not coincidentally, went into therapy for the depression the child's death triggered.
When I came up for air, I landed a job as a circulation manager for a small local newspaper. It was one of these papers whose editorial content is really only an excuse to carry advertising but it did have some local content and the more interested members of the community - all eight of them - actually paid to subscribe to the thing despite it being delivered free to anyone who would take it.
I was happy to be working in the newspaper business and looked up to the editorial staff, secretly wishing I could be one of them. However, my job consisted primarily of taking complaints, picking up bundles of dumped papers and browbeating the carriers who dumped them. It had a few advantages, chief among them the expectation that I would frequently be out of the office tracking down sodden bundles of dumped papers in the parks around Saanich (a suburb of Victoria) and occasionally delivering papers to subscribers whose carriers had decided to give them a miss.
One of these subscribers was a Mrs. Tidy. Week after week, everyone in her neighborhood would receive their paper while she and her husband Bill did not. It got to the point where I expected to hear from her every Thursday afternoon so I got into the habit of delivering the thing myself.
When Kathleen Tidy started calling the office of the Saanich News she was an uncomfortable reminder of how bad I really was at my job. Within six months I had been fired from the position but the one thing of value I gained from the experience is something that changed my life - the friendship of Bill and Kathleen Tidy.
At first they were just a charming old couple who frequently invited me for tea. Feeling guilty about the inconvenience my employer had caused them and assuming they were probably lonely, I accepted. Tea turned into lunch and eventually Bill and Kathleen, (who were anything but lonely) became like grandparents to me.
They had started their life together in England, met in the shadow of the great pyramid of Giza, (literally) and married at the Croyden registry office while Bill was on leave during World War Two.
After the war Bill was too overcome with grief to return to his old life. He suggested they emigrate to Canada or Australia. They chose Canada and, after a series of adventures, including a stay in Prince George where Kathleen founded the public library, they settled in Victoria.
The Tidys took up sailing in their 50's, they dabbled in archaeology, geology, lived on a commune, had one wonderful daughter, grew oak trees and did calligraphy. Bill took a keen interest in photography and Kathleen took up papermaking. They were extraordinary people in many ordinary ways and as I grew to know them I came to love them dearly.
Bill and Kathleen never once told me they thought I was undisciplined or flighty, to the contrary, they challenged me and engaged my interest at every turn. Kathleen collected rare books and spotting my enthusiasm for her collection she started leading me deeper and deeper into learning. The day she took me to the UVic library, where she had spent the majority of her working life, changed me.
In the library I saw row upon row of books about artists and art, books I never dreamed existed - whole floors dedicated to literature and the study of literature. And Kathleen wondered aloud why I never considered getting a degree.
Their gentle encouragement, their absolute belief in my abilities and in my goodness changed my life. When Bill died of cancer and Parkinson's disease I thought my heart would have a hole in it forever. I told Kathleen I could not take another death, people I loved were forbidden to die until after I was gone, after that, they were free to choose but not before - I hoped she enjoyed the prospect of living to 130 or so because I had no intention of dying young.
After Bill's death, I took greater care not to neglect Kathleen and I also looked harder at the possibility of going to school. Despite my resolute denial, Kathleen was getting older, nearing 80, and the passage of time began to cause me to look into the face of my own life. Jenny, their daughter, lived in Vancouver, together we helped Kathleen pack up the house and move into a retirement community. I knew then that my own life could not go on forever. I knew I had to change.
There were a lot of other things that spurred me to go back to school. And I know this entry smacks of hallmark sentimentality but with the Tidy's gone and Remembrance Day coming up this week, I wanted to say I remember them.
I remember Bill and his stories of riding his BMW motorcycle through the battlefields as a courier but I also remember Kathleen waiting at home. Kathleen with her baby daughter being told she could not go into the stacks of the library at Cambridge. Kathleen punting on the Thames and dreaming of a higher education. Kathleen raising Jenny to believe in books and what they could do for her, Jenny's daughter getting her Masters in History and me - able to grasp the impossible, in part because I met this remarkable couple who opened themselves to the world and opened their home to a stray girl lost in the suburbs of a rainy town.
When Bill died, our choir was working on this piece. I used to walk on the breakwater and sing it the psalm to myself and cry. It still chokes me up. Requiem - John Rutter "Out of the Deep."
When Bill died, our choir was working on this piece. I used to walk on the breakwater and sing it the psalm to myself and cry. It still chokes me up. Requiem - John Rutter "Out of the Deep."
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