Morbid curiosity

I did an odd thing the other day. It had strange repercussions. 

Having navigated the treacherous waters of adolescence before the advent of social media, most of my misdeeds, failed experiments, and plain awkwardness went blessedly unrecorded, except for those things that I foolishly put in my journals at the time.  This is probably the reason I don't go back to read those entries, so I don't recall if I wrote much about Dale.

Dale was my first kiss.

Oh, there was little that was romantic about it, apart from the thrill of its being my first kiss.  I barely knew Dale, who was a grade ahead of me.  We were both in band; he was in the brass section, and I was in the woodwinds.  I have no idea why he singled me out on a school bus returning from a band performance at a civic function on a distant New Year's Eve.  It was a French kiss, and wildly un-erotic, but I was thrilled at the concept, which seemed to bode well for the new year.

This proved to be the case -- kind of.  I was the girl Dale necked with at parties, although he barely spoke to me at school. On rare occasions, he'd hold my hand or put his arm around my shoulder while walking home.  He'd point out the make and year of every car that passed, something that didn't interest me in the slightest, but I was thrilled at the attention.  He changed schools at the end of the term, and I never saw him again.

Years later, at the annual pre-Christmas Holiday presentation at younger daughter's school, a young man did a rather peculiar presentation on biblical themes.  (It was not a religious institution.) I didn't recognise him, because he was a few grades ahead of younger daughter, but I recognised his unusual surname, and asked him afterwards if he had a relative named Dale.  He said vaguely that there might be someone in the family named Dale, but he had died "a long time ago".

I went home, did a search, but could only find the obituary for Dale's father.  It said that Dale had predeceased him.  The list of living relatives revealed that the vague young man was, in fact, Dale's nephew, so I guessed that Dale had died before he was born.

Family history research has taught me to return to searches after time has passed.  For some reason, it occurred to me to search for Dale this week.  Once again, I ran up against his father's obituary, but tried a few more times, using different keywords.

And there Dale was, in an obit published in The Ottawa Citizen. He died there in an unnamed hospital, some years before we moved to Hades.  One of the few things I knew about him, when we were teenagers, was that he had some sort of heart condition, which would turn his lips blue.  I remember a parent staying with him, when he became faint during a bikeathon to raise money for a band trip, so although I felt sadness, it was hardly a shock.

I did have a shock earlier this year, but the greater trauma of Demeter's death pushed it from my mind.  I have just remembered it while thinking of Dale.

About a week before my mother's final fall, the Resident Fan Boy and I had a couple of friends to dinner, one of whom had attended last year's high school reunion, which I had been delighted to skip.

"Don't blame you," laughed my friend, easily.  "It was great being able to chat with some people, of course, but it was a bit rough seeing that big memorial poster with the names of everyone who's died, particularly Dylan. He committed suicide, you know."

Thunk.  

I knew Dylan way better than Dale.  We were in the same grade, and often the same classes, between Grades Six and Twelve.  I've written about him in this blog before.  We were not friends. Nevertheless, I was shocked, and found myself wrestling with unpleasant memories, and imagining the impact on his children, his wife, and his siblings -- until my mother died less than a fortnight later, and I had a whole new raft of unpleasant memories with which to wrestle.

Four months on, after examining what little I knew of Dale's death, I looked into that of Dylan, wondering if by "suicide", the high school alumni meant "MAID".

I somehow doubt it.  There are three or four obituaries online for Dylan, who was  reasonably prominent.  They are circumspect about the cause of death:  "sudden".  Generally, when MAID has been used, as it increasingly is, the wording is usually something like "on his own terms" or "at the time of her choosing".  The pictures accompanying his notice show a man with pale skin laced with fine lines, and eyes rather large for his face, little resemblance of the preteen and the adolescent I remember. The obituaries are, of course, glowing testaments to his work. Again, not much like the calculated cruelty I, and others, experienced in school.

Some years ago, at a gathering of university pals who had also attended our high school, a good friend mentioned Dylan, because he briefly lived in her community. I couldn't help myself, and blurted:  "Is he a nice person yet?"  One of the women bellowed in laughter, but my friend knew the question was genuine, and paused thoughtfully before musing: "I'm not sure..."

They're both gone, and, for the time being, I'm still here, and I'm not sure I'm a nice person yet.  Letting them both go is probably the kinder thing.

Remember me to Leicester Fields

In the continuing War of the Algorithms, I've really been needing palate-cleansers. 

This latest war is with YouTube. It's creepy enough when ads for something I've recently ordered online stalk me throughout a video I'm watching. 

However, in the past few months, it seems that the content I'm sent is narrowing alarmingly.  Even accidental pauses while scrolling though suggestions count as indications I might be interested, when I'm really not.

 

Last week, I encountered a time-lapse video, which picked a Paris intersection, and ran through possible sights seen from this vantage point from Before the Common Era to the present. Foolishly I decided to suppress my distaste for AI, and watch. It was fairly interesting, although I suspect a factor in my enjoyment might have been my not-so-detailed grasp of French history. 

I counted it as a guilty pleasure. 

Predictably, a couple of days ago, a similar video appeared in my "recommended" list -- this one showing a time-lapse view of London from someone hovering a bit back from the south bank of the Thames, looking towards Westminster starting just before the Roman occupation, and gradually, the palace of Westminster appeared (some time in the eleventh century), followed by the other familiar landmarks.

Just before the Westminster bridge began spanning the Thames in the mid-1700s, my first flash of irritation came, when the creator of this thing decided that the Great Fire of London of 1666 was not nearly interesting enough, and set Lambeth ablaze as well.

During the glimpse of the Blitz in the 1940, a bomber crashed nose-down on Westminster Bridge, something I'm reasonably sure didn't happen, as devastating as the Blitz was.

Then, instead of stopping with the present-day, the time-line veered into the 2030's and beyond, with a horrific mushroom cloud appearing in the western horizon, followed by the Elizabeth Tower, containing Big Ben, hurtling over the bridge to crush the fleeing pedestrians.

That'll teach me, I guess.

It occurred to me that, as Demeter entered her final descent last summer, I had watched fewer of my favourite YouTube channels, which would have a hand in making my algorithm go a bit awry.  Yesterday, I spent quite a bit of time retrieving a collection of videos giving me quite a bit of pleasure last spring.  They're not flashy, but they're well-crafted, and well-researched.  This one helped me pinpoint the location of an inn that one of my great-great-great-great-great-uncles ran in the early 1790s:

  

This is the work of Scott Hatton, whose Underground Map Project is to record walks between the stations, each video with a helping of local history.  They're rather like watching some of the better presentations of the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa. 

Furthermore, his blog The Underground Map has assisted me in pinpointing other London locations.  It features detailed local history and a rather wonderful layered map, where you can see your chosen location on maps as early as 1700.

All mercifully free of AI slop.  I've subscribed to Hatton's YouTube channel, and bookmarked the blog, which I should have done last spring, before Demeter started fading away. 

I'll be watching my algorithm carefully.

And reading more books.

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.

Shades of pale

Iphis is sleeping in the bedroom that used to be Demeter's, the one he's transforming with his own art and artfully arranged banners. 

He's texted me to let me know he's had a bad night, so, not disturbing him, I stick in my Air Pods, tune into my "Liked Songs" (on shuffle), and quietly tackle the things I'd abandoned when Iphis took up residence ten days ago.

 

I brush out the detritus of dried flowers in an upper cupboard. I don't remember Demeter's being an aficionado of dried flowers, but I keep coming across them. Maybe friends gifted them; Demeter held on to things that reminded her of friends and family. 

I set up a station in the living room with a basket I've designated for recycled paper, and begin ripping up text books, because they're poor candidates for book sales or donations. It's hard work. I tear up two large old biology textbooks from Demeter's night classes at the university. I remember meeting her at the door when she hammered to get in, late one evening.  Her face was white with shock; she looked exactly the same way as she had years earlier, standing on the front steps after returning from work, where she'd received word that her estranged father had died suddenly.

The shock this time was the result of a fall on some ice at one of the more remote bus stops on campus. She'd broken a bone in her hand.  

The books are inscribed with her former surname and our old address. 

I move on to a set of Audubon encyclopedias with grimy taupe covers. They were white when they struck me, one by one, on my shoulders, face and head in my youth. Double Leo Sister, in pre-teen rage, hurled them across the room with furious grunts, like a tennis player lobbing shots at Wimbledon, in response to something I'd blurted out in exasperation, I guess. 

I rarely blurted what I was thinking, for this very reason. A few years later, she beat me about the arms and legs with a map-case. I had red welts from the metal edges for some time. 

I steer my mind to the music I love: Mozart, Mott the Hoople, Josh Ritter. 

 I go home when I'm fed up.

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.

On nodding terms

 

Strange where misery can lead you.

In this case, it led me to the north-east corner of Linden and Oscar, where I never go, normally.

I had barrelled out into the September evening, furious at the Resident Fan Boy, and fleeing my feelings.  I considered heading east on Fairfield Road, currently being stripped and dug for resurfacing, gawd knows when.

However the blurred indigo of the Olympic Mountains drew me to turn my toes south at the last minute, and I started down Linden Avenue on the unaccustomed east side.  And I stopped.

It was a telephone pole, ringed with wooden plaques and pieces of paper, some bearing platitudes, some inscribed with poetry. I revolved around it, reading in the last rays of the sun disappearing behind James Bay.

It was a "Kindness Corner", inviting people to add their own messages, or take a picture.

Among the missives was a quote attributed to the late Joan Didion: "We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be."

The person I used to be? I thought, turning westward.  I think she was nicer, really.  Certainly more clueless.  It's easy to be nice, when you're clueless.

A fawn strolled diagonally across the street, some yards ahead of me.  I turned north, where the early evening light hit the sides of the limbs of the ancient plane trees, and thought:  It's September.  I live here.

Six years ago, we moved into this neighbourhood and reclaimed it.  The younger, clueless, nicer me left here years ago.  I don't think I can reclaim her.  But I can re-read my journals and walk these streets, and nod in her direction.

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.

Sounds like Hades to me...

 

In what seems to be turning into a chilling summer theme, I offer this latest bit of literate humour from Wrong Hands' John Atkinson.

He's from Ottawa, but I don't hold that against him.  

Not much.

Maybe I should just avoid comedians with names starting with "J"...

I know this is a few months old, but I just heard it, and it's been haunting my week. 

 I've set this video by Josh Johnson to begin at the spooky part, but you can watch the whole thing if you'd like the context -- and because it's entertaining.

And quite terrifying, to be frank -- or Josh Johnson -- or John Oliver...  

Pride and prejudice

Iphis texted me earlier this week.  He wanted to drop by our house for a meal.

- Neat! I responded.  - Are you in town for Canada Day or for Pride?

- For Pride! I don't celebrate Canada Day.  What are you up to on Wednesday?

- Younger daughter and the Resident Fan Boy usually hit the library on Tuesdays, but, because of that holiday you don't celebrate (clutching my pearls, which makes it *really* difficult to text), they'll probably do it Wednesday -- unless you have a really exciting suggestion for lunch....

- I know, the scandal!  Not liking nationalism and big crowds of loud strangers!?! I could do dinner Wednesday. 

I agree to the Wednesday dinner, but think to myself:  Nationalism and big crowds of loud strangers?  Isn't that a description of Pride?