It came just the same

Early this morning, I headed down to the coffee shop under branches of cherry and plum blossoms now past their prime. The petals have descended overnight leaving a ring across the grass and pavement resembling heavenly bodies hurled outward from a celestial big bang.

Spring has nearly finished arriving.  The lilacs are blooming on the corner of our street.  The plane trees, always a bit behind, are finally leafing out.  Outside our window, an ancient tree, that looks for all the world like a profile of a lady's head with upswept hair, has attracted the local urban deer.  I watched a doe, black nose upturned in anticipation, balance on her hind legs to nip off the blossoms.  This week, the fallen flowers carpet the ground, where the fawns can feast on four legs.

Returning from a recent reluctant shopping foray, I strode down the hill on Linden Avenue, and remembered I hadn't bothered to search out the magnolias.  Across the street, two blooms still clung on for dear life.

In so many ways, I almost missed spring this year.  A small part of me believed it might not come.  How can spring come, now that Demeter is no more?

But I don't, despite all appearances, exist within a Greek myth.  

Not even a Greek tragedy.

More like a human comedy.

Make that a tragicomedy.

The mourning after

Stella is the proprietor of my favourite coffee house, a gentle lady, glowing warmly at the regulars.  She could be anywhere between 35 and 60.

She's busy at the sink in the back corner, as I drop off my coffee cup and plates, along with those of elder daughter, who is reading her Kindle back at our table, awaiting my return from the washroom.

"You'll miss her," says Stella over her shoulder.

"I will," I reply.

"It's so nice she was able to have a long visit."  The penny drops.

"Oh.  You mean my daughter."

I then have to explain that my daughter hasn't remained in Victoria since mid-December.  She flew back to London, as scheduled, on Twelfth Night.

Demeter fell, catastrophically, four days later.  We spent that day and the next in Emergency.  Double-Leo Sister came down with her husband and her younger son, who texted his cousin during the "night watch" from the private room set up for palliative care.  "End-of-life care," he told elder daughter, who phoned me at midnight.

I'd been deeply asleep, exhausted.  She told me her cousin had said to come.  "Is it all right if I come?"

"Darling," I mumbled drowsily.  "You must do what's best for you."

She arrived the following evening, having thrown her things in a suitcase, still jet-lagged from her previous flight from a few days before.

I didn't tell Stella all this, of course.  But she was chagrinned.  I assured her that it hadn't been written across my chest; she was not to know.  

While I was in the washroom, Stella sought out elder daughter to apologise. Earlier, Stella had called out cheerily to elder daughter, placing her order with the barista, saying how nice it was that she had been able to stay so long.

Elder daughter hadn't wanted to call out, across the coffee shop, that her grandmother had died.  That she had been the one alone at the bedside, when Demeter drew her last breath.

Maybe we should bring back the custom of black armbands.

Good night, sweet wince

 Maybe you were saddened by the news of the recent death of Ozzy Osborne.  I wasn't gladdened by the news, but it was my sister playing "Paranoid" at ear-splitting levels when we were kids -- and that was mainly because Black Sabbath was what her friends were into at the time.  

Without their actually embracing devil worship of course.  

I think.

Anyway, I'm genuinely entering a period of mourning today, because I learned that Tom Lehrer has died.  He's figured in this blog more than once.

I have pretty much every song he ever recorded - even the three songs he wrote and sang for the children's programme Electric Company - and so many of them have been floating through my head with their witty and acerbic (sometimes a tad disturbing) lyrics:  "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park", "The Masochism Tango", among so many others, even though, relatively speaking, his output was quite small.

I have a soft spot for this one, which one might describe as a deep cut: 

And here's the man himself, performing in Copenhagen nearly sixty years ago:  

I would say we need his brand of satire all the more - and maybe we do - but sadly, quite a few of his songs are still pretty pertinent.

As Lehrer himself once said:  "If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while." 

He was joking.

I think.

Who will believe thee, Isabel?

So, I follow Munro's Books on Instagram. 

I follow three or four bookstores which have figured in my life, and if you've grown up in Victoria, your life will have intersected with Munro's at some point. (At several points for me.) 

This morning, I was startled and baffled by this Instagram post in my feed.  You can click on the image to enlarge it.

My first reaction - after the startled bafflement -  was dread.  "The late Jim Munro?"  Oh no...  You can't have grown up in Victoria without running into Jim Munro.  He and both his wives had connections with our church, and my daughters remember his Dumbledore costume on the release day of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

My confusion deepened as I wondered why this woman's sexual abuse as a child would affect Alice Munro's legacy.

Then I googled Andrea Robin Skinner, whose name I did not recognise, and the story actually got a bit worse.

Skinner is Alice and Jim Munro's youngest daughter.  Jim didn't molest her; Alice Munro's second husband did.  After denying it, and describing his step-daughter as a nine-year-old "home-wrecker", in search of "sexual adventure" (oh gawd), he was eventually convicted in 2005, when Andrea was 38, serving two years' probation.  The stepfather died in 2013; Alice Munro stayed with him to the end, estranged from her youngest child.  The rest of the family seemed to deal with it by not mentioning it, even though, after the initial attack in 1976, the little girl told her father and stepmother what had happened when she returned home.  A lot of damage was done.

Alice Munro died about six weeks ago, after living with dementia for about a decade.  I had set aside articles in the Globe and Mail, with the intention of taking them over to Demeter, but somehow, had never done so.  Shaken, I re-read them, in a new and disturbing light.  

The three-page obituary in the first section of the May 15th edition quoted a letter Munro wrote to a friend, after getting together with her second husband:  "My life has gone rosy, again.  This time it's real. . . . He's 50 and free, a good man if I ever saw one, tough and gentle like the old tire ads."

In a lengthy analysis for the weekend edition on May 18th, Sandra Martin wrote about a 1993 Munro short story entitled Vandals, about ". . . Bea Doud . . . who moves in with Ladner, a taxidermist with perverted sexual proclivities.  Doud befriends the two children who live next door to Ladner's rural property while ignoring the sadistic way her lover sexually assaults them."

I dropped the papers on the couch, clobbered by hindsight.

And if you saw him now

It's not like I didn't see this coming.

But on this spring evening, after stumbling across the news, I head towards bed sadly, remembering so many songs.  Many will have their own favourites.  

This one happens to be mine.

 

The old man has come home from the forest.

Quo vadis

I feel slapped.  

The day was going well, and I left younger daughter happily listening to Michael Bublé Christmas music while preparing macaroni and cheese, went over to Demeter's, bearing Wednesday's lunch, courtesy of the local Japanese eatery.

Demeter looked up from her book.  "Did you know that Mary Helen died on November 13th?"

I froze, gaping at her.  

Mary Helen was diagnosed with ovarian cancer something like five years ago.  Immunotherapy, a relatively new break-through in cancer treatment, brought her a fair whack of quality living, reducing her pain and boosting her energy for a couple of years.  The final descent began a few months ago, while visiting friends and family in another province.  A "Go-Fund-Me" was set up to pay for the astronomical cost of bringing her back to Victoria via air ambulance.  (Demeter and I sent modest donations.)

The last report I'd heard, via Demeter's church, indicated that she was doing well in hospital and regaining some independence.

Then I had eye surgery.

Then I fell.

And there I was, reeling at this expected and unexpected news, realising that I hadn't checked Demeter's emails for more than six weeks, which is why neither Demeter nor I had heard.  Holding back tears, I set up email reminders for me to check every other day.  

Demeter herself seemed relatively unmoved.  She's at that stage of life, when letting people go has become a necessity.  It's a necessity for me, too, I guess, but I'm still pretty bad at it.

Mary Helen was one of the most centred people I've known. She was one of those highly organised, capable women, who did not use her capabilities and organisation to bludgeon those less so.  She used those gifts for good, finding time to help and support, even when illness clouded her final years and sapped her energy.

If I wish to truly honour her memory, I need to attempt to emulate her.  I'd never fully succeed, but I'd be a far, far better person.

So many will miss her.  Surely, that's a great way to go out, with family and friends sad to see you go, but letting you go, wherever it is we have to go.

Now all that's left

Earlier today, I was waiting to Skype with elder daughter in London, when the CBC flashed up in my newsfeed. Christine McVie, the other (and original) female vocalist and pianist in Fleetwood Mac, has died.

One of the perks of babysitting in my misspent youth was access to the music collections of others. 

This song, written, played, and sung by Christine McVie, became one of my lifelines in troubled times. Not because of the lyrics, which are your standard "longing from a distance" kind (perfect for adolescence), but for the soaring melody and full-bodied setting. 

If we can't hold on to the artist, thank goodness we can hold on to the music.  

I'm dancing to the music 

Of a simple melody 

And I wonder are you thinking 

Of a single memory

And I know when I see them swaying 

I can hear myself saying:  

Come a little bit closer 

Because I remember the time 

When you held me in your arms  

And you wanted to be mine 

Everything good, everything gold 

Now all that's left is a sweet memory 

If you love me, let me know 

Why don't you show me which way to go? 

Please don't leave me all alone 

Because I can't make it on my own 

And I know when I see them swaying 

I can hear myself saying:  

Come a little bit closer  

Because I remember the time 

When you held me in your arms  

And you wanted to be mine 

I may be wrong, but that's where I belong 

Why are you just a sweet memory?

Hagrid bows out

And another piece of my children's childhoods falls away. 

To them, Robbie Coltrane is forever Hagrid, from the Harry Potter movies - although younger daughter is also re-watching a 1999 version of Alice in Wonderland in his memory. 

I remember him for a string of character roles, long before he played the half-giant at Hogwarts, and for two memorable turns in Blackadder. Here's one of them, as Samuel Johnson in Blackadder 3:

Throw some seeds of your own

Sometimes when I'm not crazy about the playlist at the coffee shop, as was the case this morning, I retreat into my earbuds until the music gets better. 

I first heard this song while watching the 2020 documentary series The Comedy Store. The song comes up  over footage of the mourners, all famous stand-up comedians, leaving the 1977 funeral of Freddie Prinz.  All these people, who lived for laughter,  in floods of tears.  

Jackson Browne wrote the song in the early seventies. A friend, a dancer and figure skater whom Browne doesn't name, died in a house fire. 

It's a song about loss, of course, but the words turn towards hope of redeeming a life, even in the face of extinction.  With the headlines full of death, disaster, and downright foolishness, it was a song I needed to hear this morning.

Maybe you do, too.

A dream of organising my ignorance

Yesterday morning, disturbing dreams propelled me out of the sleep into the news that Hilary Mantel had died.

My first reaction was a self-involved gut reaction:  Oh no!  No more books!

Social media was full of tributes, including this one on Twitter:

Evidence is always partial.  Facts are not truth, though they are part of it -- information is not knowledge.  And history is not the past -- it is the method we have evolved of organising our ignorance of the past.  It's the record of what's left on the record.  It's the plan of the positions taken, when we stop the dance to note them down.  It's what's left in the sieve when the centuries have run through it -- a few stones, scraps of writing, scraps of cloth.  It is no more "the past" than a birth certificate is a birth, or a script is a performance, or a map is a journey.  It's the multiplication of the evidence of fallible and biased witnesses, combined with incomplete accounts of actions not fully understood by the people who performed them.  It's no more than the best we can do, and often it falls short of that.

It was followed by "RIP Hilary Mantel".

Of course, no provenance given, and by the next morning, the person posting the tweet had, for whatever reason, removed the tweet. However I'm a family historian and this quote called to me as such, plus, my family history research has made me reasonably good at ferreting things out.

It's from Mantel's first BBC Reith Lecture.  It's long (because it's a lecture), but really worth following the link to read.

Mantel was discussing the historical novel versus "legitimate history".  She's been criticized (usually by male historians) of not being accurate, which is a strange charge to level at a novelist.  I don't recall Robert Graves being raked over the coals for I Claudius, nor Arthur Miller for The Crucible, nor Lin Manuel Miranda for Hamilton.  All three works take liberties with what is felt to have actually happened - and have won awards, despite this.

A family historian also wrestles with what Mantel calls our desperation "for the truth, and sometimes for a comforting illusion" - particularly with family members who, I often find, are only interested if the work I do confirms a family myth, and quickly drop the subject if it disproves it.

Mantel also speaks of coming from "a long line of nobodies" (something I've never believed of anyone). In the next few paragraphs, she demonstrates exactly the opposite, as she pieces together the life of one of her great grandmothers.  "Even nobodies can do this," she says self-deprecatingly with a strong whiff of disingenuousness.

So, no more books.  Or intriguing lectures.  If she had not written stuff down, we wouldn't have even that.

 

I'm determined to seek out more of what she left behind.

Quick update:  This morning, someone put the same quote up on Twitter, and someone else provided the audio link to the original lecture, which includes Mantel's other Reith lectures!  I may be a bit occupied this afternoon...

Times like these

It was a long weekend like this one, except that it was in the spring. I was heavily pregnant.   I lay across our bed, watching the televised footage of the memorial concert for Freddie Mercury being held at Wembley Stadium.

I didn't know it at the time, but elder daughter would be born five days later.

Today, I wondered if she could hear all those Queen tunes from the womb, because, three decades later, she was at Wembley with a cousin and a room-mate, sitting up in the gods, attending the Tribute Concert for Taylor Hawkins, the Foo Fighters drummer, who died suddenly last March.

And technology being what it is, I was alerted that the concert had begun, by an Instagram picture posted by the cousin and tagging elder daughter.  Sitting with my early morning coffee at Moka House, I soon discovered that I could stream the concert on my laptop via the MTV YouTube channel -- with the sound muted, of course.  My iPhone earbuds are incompatible with my Mac.  (Gee, thanks, Apple.) When I had to leave to set up Demeter's breakfast, I followed the line-up via blog updates, until I could hurry home mid-morning.

I'm not a true-blue fan of the Foo Fighters, but elder daughter has been enthusiastic about them for the past five years, and so I'm reasonably conversant with about half a dozen of their better-known songs and familiar with a lot of their biographical details, having been exposed to documentaries about them during each of elder daughter's visits.

The real thrill for me was watching this Wembley show, knowing elder daughter was there -- much like her visit to three Court One games at Wimbledon, when the summer began.  I know a little about the Foo Fighters and far far less about tennis, but I knew she was in the crowd and excited beyond belief to be there.

The show had a bit of everything.  Hawkins' connections were everywhere in the rock/pop scene. When I got home, I was confronted with the very early-Seventies-style of interminable guitar solo, supplied by the James Gang, reunited after decades for this concert only.  (Not a criticism, I rather like "Closet Queen" with its variations on Ravel's Bolero, and Guaraldi's "Cast Your Fate to the Wind".)  

While getting Demeter's breakfast, I had missed the legendary Chrissie Hynde (totally in control at 70) and the Pretenders, Liam Gallagher, and Niles Rodgers, to name a few.  I caught what I'd missed later, before the lawyers hauled the YouTube video down, as I knew they would.

There was a seam of bereavement running through the performances, as well.  Wolfgang Van Halen played songs by his late father Eddie;  AC/DC lost Malcolm Young some time ago. Rush has lost Neil Peart, and tonight were playing to a politely bewildered crowd of Brits born in the nineties and "naughties".  I'm not unsympathetic - Rush has bewildered me for years.  Taylor Hawkins was a fan, though.

And then there was Queen - what's left of them.  And elder daughter now saw them in the flesh, from her seat up below the rim of the Wembley. Dancing with vicarious glee in the living room, I shared the moment with her - via texts, of course, this being the 21st century.

After a long parade of well-known musicians playing some of Hawkins' favourite music, the Foo Fighters took over.

At this moment, it became crystal clear that, for all of the variety of songs and musicians preceding this moment, it was a Foo Fighters crowd, come for a Foo Fighters concert. The singing had, up until this moment, not been as loud and cohesive. The thousands in the stadium now knew every word. 

And then Paul McCartney showed up. 

I thought he might, since he's a close friend of Dave Grohl's, but I still leapt to my feet in shock, texting an expletive to my daughter at Wembley, while  swaying eight times zones away.

The Foo Fighters were backed by a series of notable drummers, including 12-year-old Nandi Bushell, and Taylor Hawkins' 16-year-old-son Shane, in a frenetic and emotional performance that stood out among a day of many such moments.

I know just enough about the Foo Fighters to guess that the concert, which had last nearly six hours, was drawing to a close, when Grohl, standing alone on the stage, with half a dozen empty drum kits behind him, accompanied himself on guitar, while the vast crowd sang along to the quintessential FF song "Everlong".

I felt rather jet-lagged afterwards.

Maybe it was the stimulation of so much music.

Maybe it was because a piece of my heart is residing in London.  She got home long after midnight.

A part of the main?

An October sunset in Fairfield

 I am diminished. 

A cousin in Wales contacted me through Facebook to tell me that a mutual cousin - his first, my second - has died, seemingly suddenly, not far from me, leaving her husband, her aged mother, and her sister. I'm not sure of her age, except that she was younger than me. 

While checking around for more information, I stumbled across the recent obituary of a Friend (she was a lifelong Quaker) who slipped away a couple of weeks ago. I haven't seen her in years, and have just learned that she lived a matter of blocks away.

I may not be an island, but the circumstances of the past few years certainly have succeeded in isolating me.

Turning a wonderful season like Christmas into a problem

Last night, I made what seemed to be an obvious decision.  

Hermann's Jazz Club is featuring live-streamed concerts, and last night featured three local musicians (two of them UVic professors) interpreting the music of "A Charlie Brown Christmas", which the pianist insisting on calling "the movie".  (I suspect he doesn't watch the television special much.)

I tuned in, poured myself a modest cup of brandy and egg nog, and settled in front of the computer with the Resident Fan Boy. To my horror, instead of the quiet glow I usually feel, listening to Vince Guaraldi's music played by jazz musicians,  I felt an increasing weight of sadness as the hour went by.

The trio, a pianist, bassist, and drummer were masked in the nearly empty club, the only other people present being the camera crew and a handful of Hermann's servers.  The pianist spent part of the time between numbers asking for donations for the club, the livestream, and the servers.

It was so bleak and joyless.  I fought to enjoy the music, but eventually turned off the computer in defeat.

At this time of the month of December, we've usually put up the tree, and put on Vince Guaraldi.  This is because it's usually around December 17th to 20th, that elder daughter flies in to join us.  She's not coming this year; she's living in a flat in South Wimbledon.  

I knew she wasn't coming, but I think, last night, it really hit me.  This is our first Christmas without her.

It had to come some time, but it's extra tough in a year when so many holiday joys are being stripped away.

I really can't blame the musicians; they were doing their best.

I'm better today.  We'll put up the tree tomorrow.  Younger daughter is with us, and much is at stake.

Because I knew you

I sent the Christmas cards early this year, and felt that now annual pang, editing the list, sometimes removing a name, sometimes reducing the names from two to one. 

I met Caitlin in university, through a mutual friend.  She had a thoughtful energy that fitted her in well with our circle, which, up until then, had been mostly made up from those of us who had attended the same high school. She was slightly older, but looked younger.

As we drew closer, she had a front-row seat to the very beginning of my relationship with the Resident Fan Boy.  On the day I married him, she drove me to the church, because I didn't want a fancy car, just a sensible, kind, and dependable friend.

She moved miles away, up to the northern coast of British Columbia.  She married a younger fella, and I was delighted to attend her wedding in Victoria.  They set about building a home in the small community where she taught, and having two carefully-spaced children, as blond as her husband and herself.  I saw her every couple of years, as long as she had family in our area.

After I moved to Hades, I saw her once, when she accompanied her son on a school field trip to the Nation's Capital.  I had lived there less than a year, and was still in culture shock.

I did not know then that I would not see her again.  Not long after her trip east, she developed ovarian cancer.  She'd caught it early and fought it off.  A few years later, it returned, and once again, she prevailed, taking advantage of early detection and good medical advice.

About two years ago -- dammit -- it came back.  My heart sank, but hers didn't.

She set up a blind e-mail for those of us who wanted updates, always written with cheerful and realistic optimism, detailing the latest treatments and giving family news.

Finally, the message I'd been dreading:  her physician was discontinuing her medication because it wasn't adding to the quality of her life, nor to the length of it.  Even then her quiet buoyancy tempered the news.  The cancer was slow-growing and although the prognosis was a couple of months, she had hopes of making it to her daughter's wedding in the spring.

She was gone within three weeks.

I found out in that twenty-first century way; I opened up Facebook one evening, and saw a beautiful recent portrait of her, then realized it had been posted by her family.

A friendship is, by its very nature, symbiotic, though I can't say what my contribution to it was.  Steadfastness?  Loyalty?  I'm pretty good at those.

Caitlin was a model for me, of grace, good manners, and patience.  I bought an SLR camera when I saw her pictures of northern BC.  She guided me to a counselling centre, when I had the crushing realization that I was not what my future in-laws had in mind for their precious son, and there, I learned, at least intellectually, that this didn't matter.  Caitlin's acceptance helped enormously.

I listen to the words of "For Good" from the 2003 Broadway musical Wicked, written and composed by Stephan Schwartz (responsible for, among other things, Godspell), and based on Gregory Maguire's "origin" novel.  It's not a perfect fit; the characters of Elphaba and Glinda, the late-adolescent/young-adult versions of the Wicked Witch of the West, and the Good Witch of the North, are "frenemies".  Caitlin was my friend, period.

However, much of this song rings true. And I should have told her, while she was still on the planet.

In this version, Idina Menzal and Kristin Chenoweth, who created the characters on Broadway, are singing about a dozen years later.

Fade to black

When I began my days in Hades, there were three cinemas remaining in downtown Ottawa: the rather drafty and smelly triplex in the Rideau Centre, the cluster of screens of varying sizes at the World Exchange Centre, and the Bytowne Cinema, the local seat of art films, which was housed in an old-fashion movie house which had blinked on Rideau Street for well over half a century.

After a decade of seemingly endless Ottawa winters, the downtown cinemas disappeared, chilled out by Netflix, I guess.  I've never seen the appeal of Netflix, and I rather like my films on a large screen, hearing the reactions of those around me.  The big-box cinemas were an eighty-to-ninety-minute round-trip by bus, so I purchased the yearly membership to Bytowne, which was a thirty-minute walk from my house, and near two bus-routes, if I didn't feel like the hike.

It offered a wide range of films:  Canadian, foreign-language, animation, classics.  It also featured a rather eccentric clientele at times, but a seat in the large darkened auditorium was a trip back in time.

It was one of my lifelines in a city that never became home to me.  Yesterday, they announced it was closing down.  The second COVID lockdown was the final straw.  A particular pity, since, as far as I can see, cinemas are not a source of spreading, super or otherwise.

Even though I don't have to live in Hades anymore, and have absolutely no reason to return, my heart is breaking.  Surely I wasn't the only person clinging on to the Bytowne for dear life.

Let the world turn without you

 In an up-Island hospital, Double Leo Sister was ministering to her best friend in all the world, smoothing the cracked skin of her hands and feet with lotion, while singing softly from Jesus Christ Superstar:  

Try not to get worried/ Try not to turn on to problems that upset you/ Don't you know everything's alright, yes, everything's fine?/ And we want you to sleep well tonight/ Let the world turn without you tonight/  If we try, we'll get by, so forget all about us tonight.

Sleep and I shall soothe you, calm you and anoint you/ Myrrh for your hot forehead/ And you'll feel everything's alright, yes, everything's fine/ And it's cool and the ointment's sweet/ For the fire in your head and feet/ Close your eyes, close your eyes, and relax; think of nothing tonight.

It was a song from their shared late childhood, a song as old as their friendship, begun when they were both twelve, continuing through adolescence, marriages, children.  Four weddings between them, one for each decade.  For each ceremony, one served as the chief attendant for the other.  Their lives were spent mostly in distant communities, the connection unbroken.

The Best Friend, always suspicious of mainstream medicine, finally was drawn to her local hospital by the belief she had COVID.  It turned out to be late-stage lymphoma.  Best Friend quickly deteriorated, as Double Leo Sister drove the 500 miles to be with her.  Well, her husband the Jolly Not-so-green Giant did the driving.  DLS was far too distraught.

DLS stroked on the lotion, singing, and was startled when her best friend burst out, with surprising force and energy (and on-key):

Woman, your fine ointment, brand-new and expensive/ Could have been saved for the poor/ Why has it been wasted? We could have raised maybe three hundred silver pieces or more! /People who are hungry, people who are starving/ Matter more than your feet and hair!

A few weeks later, the world turned without her.

Here's the song, as performed in the 2012 "Arena Tour" revival, by Mel C., Ben Forster, and Tim Minchin:

Sunday on Saturday afternoon

There were hints on the internet before I went to sleep last night. This morning, there was article after article. John Prine had died, possibly the most famous -- so far -- of the virus victims.

This is probably his most famous song.



Or maybe it's this one:



Prine wrote lots of quirky songs. Most of them were heart-breaking.

This is the one that came to mind when I heard the news:


Small town, bright lights, Saturday night
Pinballs and pool halls flashing their lights
Making change behind the counter in a penny arcade
Sat the fat girl daughter of Virginia and Ray

Lydia hid her thoughts like a cat
Behind her small eyes sunk deep in her fat
She read romance magazines up in her room
And felt just like Sunday on Saturday afternoon

But dreaming just comes natural
Like the first breath from a baby
Like sunshine feeding daisies
Like the love hidden deep in your heart

Bunk beds, shaved heads, Saturday night
A warehouse of strangers with sixty watt lights
Staring through the ceiling, just wanting to be
Lay one of too many, a young PFC:

There were spaces between Donald and whatever he said
Strangers had forced him to live in his head
He envisioned the details of romantic scenes
After midnight in the stillness of the barracks latrine

Hot love, cold love, no love at all
A portrait of guilt is hung on the wall
Nothing is wrong, nothing is right
Donald and Lydia made love that night

They made love in the mountains, they made love in the streams
They made love in the valleys, they made love in their dreams
But when they were finished there was nothing to say
Cause mostly they made love from ten miles away

A month ago, a world away

And this long, long month ends.  I look back at the end of last month, at a different time, a different world.  I was aware of the coming pandemic; it's in my journals, but it was still so far away.

I donned my commuter coat on a cold Saturday, because it was the last day of February, and an extra one at that, and it was my very last chance to catch the One Tree Exhibit.

This happens every two years, and I was determined to make my way to the Robert Bateman Centre (which used to be the Royal Wax Museum), because a) I missed the last one in 2018; and b) a gifted wood craftsman, who went to high school with the Resident Fan Boy and who used to be married to the friend who introduced me to the Resident Fan Boy, was listed as one of the participants. You could say he was a classic Victoria connection, the city where everyone is separated by three degrees, rather than six.

The One Tree Project works like this: an ancient tree that has to come down because it’s reached the end of its lifespan is divided amongst 80-100 artists and artisans. The tree for this year’s project was a Big-Leaf Maple, which stood for more than two centuries near Westholme in the Chemainus River Valley, on Halalt First Nation traditional land. It was on the farm of the Barclay family for a very long time.

I arrived at the Bateman Centre, and, being my first visit, went into the Gift Shop to purchase tickets, not knowing tickets were available at the door upstairs. (I was later very glad I did.)

Once upstairs, I moved quickly through the exhibit, using my usual museum strategy – noting stuff that “called” to me, so I could zoom in on them during my second round. Of course, I was mainly looking for the gifted wood craftman's contribution; having owned three of his pieces (made specifically for us), I figured I’d spot them.

After moving through twice, seeing furniture, sculptures, paper, art, jewelry, anything you could possibly make from a tree, I hadn’t located his work. Finally, I found an interactive exhibit, which showed the tree, as it had stood in the farm. You could choose a section of the tree and see the names of the artists and craftspeople associated with it. I recognized few names on the list, and the one for which I was looking wasn't there. Since he was on the initial list, and participated in 2018 (I think it was an oak tree that time), I think he must have been signed up and for whatever reason, didn’t have a submission. I knew several of the craftspeople involved this year were former students of his – including his current wife, who works with him in their woodworking business up-Island.

Guess whose work called to me? I've failed to find a picture that does it justice. It’s a medium-sized casket/jewelry box, with removable sections and divisions inside. A map embossed on the lid shimmers and undulates. Apparently the craftswoman specializes in something called “marquetry” – creating pictures using different types and colours of wood. I overheard a couple commenting on the high level of craftsmanship, and later, when I returned to the gift shop, the lady told me that particular piece sold on the first day of the exhibit, way back in November for about $1200, and that her skill-level had been the finest many experts had seen.

*Not* the cajóns I saw

Another piece, from another artisan, that intrigued me was a cajón, which is a kind of Peruvian percussion instrument. There was a smaller one in the gift shop, and when I asked about it, the lady was kind enough to find two videos on her phone for me. Apparently the drummer from Tears for Fears, if you please, made a special visit to the exhibit, and with permission, tried the cajón out.

And I hurried home into the morning sun, thinking of what I'd seen, of the beautiful box, of the woman who had made it, and how very much she looks like my friend, the gifted wood craftsman's first wife.

If you can speak German, don't watch this

I woke up this morning to the news that Terry Jones was gone. While not my preferred Python (that would be Michael Palin), Terry Jones was a vital member of the team sometimes referred to as "The Beatles of Comedy" - Monty Python's Flying Circus, so called - I understand - because there is no such person as Monty Python; it isn't a circus; and it doesn't fly.

In addition to writing and acting in the television series and on the albums (where he can be recognized by his inability to pronounce the letter "r"), Jones directed three of the four Python movies: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (with Terry Gillam), The Life of Brian, and The Meaning of Life. He also wrote books and articles, and directed non-Python projects. In fact, it was a BBC series about the Middle Ages, written and hosted by him, that got us in trouble a couple of years ago with our upstairs neighbour. (The show was uncaptioned, so I was playing it too loud after 11 pm; the building manager said it was a first.)

The following is probably one of best-known Python sketches penned by Jones. It doesn't smell of elderberries, and is perfectly safe to watch.

Unless you speak German.

Proximity

A CBC News photo from Gilmour Street

Awaking to two texts from one's daughter in Ottawa, saying she's safe, but shaken, is an effective way to banish sleepiness in a hurry.

She's safe? Wait a minute. She was in danger?

I quickly checked my newsfeeds, and learned there had been a shooting this morning, on Gilmour Street in downtown Ottawa. This is two blocks north of elder daughter's office.

At 7:30 am EST, elder daughter had not yet left her apartment, a ten-minute walk away. Police had cordoned areas off, and her office wasn't fully operational for another couple of hours. In the interim, the now ever-present barrage of fuzzy social media reports: "Multiple victims" "Active shooter" "Suspect at large" Rather like that ghastly October morning five years ago, when no one knew what was happening, and terror froze everything.

It seems to have been at an Airbnb. Four young men, unknown to the surrounding neighbours: one dead, three seriously injured, including a fifteen-year-old. The neighbours suspect a gang incident. The police are describing it as a "targeted attack", which apparently means everyone else is safe. Really?

This is on top of the agonizing ripples of bereavement affecting nearly every sizeable city across Canada, as the identities of the sixty or so Canadians aboard last night's doomed flight out of Iran are revealed.

My daughter told me she was safe this morning. So many families can't say that this evening.