Standing on the edge of the new year and fighting the sense of vertigo, I wonder about my sanity.
Am I the only person, for instance, who peruses the headlines about Omicron and hears Paul Simon singing in their head?
"Omicro-o-n/ Makes me mask like a mummer/ Brings lock-down into a third summer/ Make me think all the world is falling ill/ Oh yeah/ I'll get a Pfi-i-izer booster...."
My daughters think I'm deranged.
It won't go away.
The victims weren't my students -- but they could have been.
The students weren't my relatives -- but they could have been.
Mike Downie is the film-making brother of the late Gordon Downie, lead singer of the Tragically Hip.
This is a song about the identification process.
She used to like lavender pantsuits/ Long black velvet gloves/ Smiles across crowded rooms/ To the only boy she ever loved
Don't you worry/ Her mama's gonna make her look good
Didn't like leopard coats/ Or tall thin millionaires/ Kissing everybody on New Year's Eve/ Or sending them to electric chairs
Won't you give me the chance/ The chance to explain/ Ah, well -- explain away/ The snow is so merciless/ Poor old Montreal/ In spite of everything that's happened/ Yeah, in spite of it all
Don't you worry/ Her mama's gonna make her look good
Because a coward won't die alone.
This year is the year for me.
This morning, I was searching in vain for door #3, and I fell to perusing and enjoying the loopy titles, and rather wishing they were actual books.
So far, my favourite is The Red Nose of Courage. My least favourite is the extremely unappetising Green Egg Nog and Ham.
(Door Number 3 turned out to be on the spine of Les Mistletoe.)
November 2nd is All Souls' Day, and in Mexico, it's the final Day of the Dead, so perhaps it's not inappropriate that the Hallowe'en decorations in our neighbourhood have not yet been taken down.
Ghost stories are not limited to the end of October, however.
I follow BBC Four on Facebook, and on Hallowe'en, my attention was caught by a multi-part radio programme entitled The Battersea Poltergeist, which was first broadcast at the beginning of this year. As it happens, I have familial connections to Battersea, so I tuned in.
The haunting took place over about a dozen years at 63 Wycliffe Road. The house is long gone, as is the part of the street it occupied, but I brought up Google Maps and entered the address. I was astonished, and rather alarmed, to be directed to an area about a nine-minute walk from elder daughter's flat --- in South Wimbledon.
Fortunately, along with the half-hour episodes, there are three "case updates" to accommodate just a few of the listeners' hundreds of questions and comments. One of the discussions involved the proximity of railway lines, so I learned that Clapham Junction Railway Station is about a mile to the west of where the house stood, that part of what was Wycliffe Road is now Ashbury Road, and that Lavender Hill is just to the south. That narrows the area to somewhere around the Greek Orthodox Church of St Nectarios, about five miles north of elder daughter's flat, and one mile south-east of where one branch of my ancestors were living in the second half of the nineteenth century, near the west edge of Battersea Park.
Nicely oriented, I settled in, listening (in daylight, of course) to nine episodes over Hallowe'en, All Saints' Day, and All Souls' Day. It's a twisty-turny, rollercoaster sort of tale, veering from inexplicable to explicable, from other-worldly to mundane, and from belief to disbelief-- and back again. It's a mixture of dramatization - the cast is led by none other than Toby Jones - and interviews, including several with Shirley, the original tormented girl, who is now eighty. (At least she was in early 2021.) All in all, we have a fascinating examination of the paranormal, and our differing perceptions of what is plausible. Follow the above link, and give it a listen.
I'm a little perplexed by the illustration of the series.
One of the things I do on Hallowe'en is listen to the Spotify playlist I pulled together. It's got my favourites: "Werewolves of London" (Warren Zevon), "Time Warp"(Rocky Horror Picture Show), "Skeleton" (Fionn) "Ghost" (Indigo Girls)....
All in all, about two hours of spooky music.
Of course, I have "Monster Mash", but that's only because Spotify doesn't have Bobby "Boris" Pickett's ghoulish (and rather more grammatically correct) take on a 1947 ditty penned by Merle Travis and Tex Williams: "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke That Cigarette"
Well, thank goodness for YouTube.
Now, I'm a fellow with a heart of gold
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| One of several jump-starters on Linden Avenue |
It was the toppled tall planter that first caught my eye.
I was walking into Cook Street Village, and passing a pizza shop, which does steady business most evenings, despite the fact that their food is rather awful, which is not relevant.
It was quite early in the morning, and the shop was shut. As I strode by, I caught sight of the planter lying on its side, the soil spilling out, and the plant flat against the pavement. It took a split second for my eye to register that someone was beside the plant, seated on the edge of the patio.
He appeared to be asleep. Clad in a camouflage hoodie, he was bent double across his knees, like a jackknife. There was a golden retriever lying next to him, alert and calm.
Although slightly taken aback, I thought little of it, until I retraced my steps about an hour later -- and the man was still there, in the exact same position. The dog apparently hadn't moved either, paws folded, he or she gazed off into the middle distance, paying no attention to me, as I paused uncertainly.
I had an unsettling experience trying to intervene for benevolent reasons, about ten years ago. I started walking again, recalling the incident, and wondering if any action should be taken here. The dog was a consideration. If something were wrong (aside from a man sleeping in a jackknife position on the street first thing in the morning), wouldn't the dog be agitated or distressed? Whom would I call? Would they take the dog?
I continued up the hill, unsettled, on my way to give Demeter her breakfast. The day, as it does, swept me away.
Later, I passed the pizza shop, and there was no sign of him. The planter was righted, the patio swept clean.
The neighbourhood started oozing Hallowe'en decorations before Thanksgiving. I think everyone is eager to have a real Hallowe'en, although you hear of scaredy-cats who don't want to shell out this year either.
Much as "Boxing Day" has been highjacked into "Boxing Week", or even "Boxing Month" by the merchants, I've been hearing the phrase "Hallowe'en Week".
Well, I'm prepping the pumpkins today, so I might as well get into the mood. I didn't hear this 1992 Hallowe'en tune by Richard Shindell until a couple of years ago. It combines the bitterness of a busted up love affair with dreamlike and nightmarish aspects of All Hallows Eve.
It's a toe-tapper.
I'm working at the computer when I hear an unfamiliar familiar sound.
It's the strange dropping swoop of a Facebook Messenger notification. Years ago, I read on a internet security blog that it's unwise to have a Facebook Messenger app, due to the fact that you have to allow it an alarming amount of access to your personal information.
This means I can only access Facebook Messenger from my computer or laptop. It also means that if I'm being contacted this way, it's usually someone who doesn't know me well enough to have my email address or my phone number.
Glancing at the name, my heart sinks just a little. It's someone from my high school, who only gets in touch when a) she's planning a high school reunion; or b) she's lost track of someone she really wants to talk to -- I have a reputation for knowing where people are.
It's a bit of both. I supply her with an address, and she politely expresses the hope I'll be able to come. I am courteously noncommittal.
"I don't know if you know," she texts, "but Buck Rogan died."
I did, of course. As I've mentioned, I know where people are. Buck is, presumably, in heaven.
I've cudgelled my brain, but I have no memories of him, although I remember him. He was one of the jocks, and I don't recall his saying a word to me.
That's okay. His obituary has a reasonably long list on online tributes, as is usual with one who dies before his time. Clearly those who mattered to him, and to whom he mattered, are grieving.
I've kept in touch with those who matter to me. I trust I matter to them as well -- although I may be mistaken.
This is the reason I don't go to high school reunions anymore. I don't tell my correspondent that, because it might sound as if I don't care. I wish I didn't -- which is also why I won't be going.
Today, it is the fourth anniversary of our flight from Hades. Three time zones away, elder daughter, having attended a thrice-postponed wedding, is leaving Ottawa herself, returning to her new life in London.
As is my practice, when I find myself masked, distanced, and at the head of the line at the coffee shop, I turn to ask the person behind me if I might slip in, drop my packsack on a table, and resume my place.
This morning, it's a rather dapper gentleman.
"Do you happen to have a mask?" he inquires. "I seem to have dropped mine somewhere on the way here; I had it when I left home..."
"I keep a spare in my packsack," I say. "Give me a moment."
I plop my packsack on the table, and paw through one of the side pockets, before returning to the door, with the mask dangling by its long strings. It's a double tie design, purchased early in the pandemic.
"Make sure Harry Potter is right-side-up," I advise with an apologetic air. He fastens it cheerfully over his neat moustache. It looks a bit incongruous with his impeccable navy raincoat.
"I like your mask!" I hear one of the baristas greet him. Fortunately, she has the disposable kind on hand, and I think he and I are equally relieved when I reclaim Harry Potter.
After all, I need him for Hallowe'en.
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| That's a streetlight, not the sun |
I'm taking in an extra loop of the neighbourhood, to get in a bit of exercise before going to get Demeter's dinner. A neighbour from down the hall in our building, spots me and scurries across the road to approach me.
"Are you on your way to Roots Cellar?" she inquires eagerly.
Roots Cellar is a local grocer specializing in local produce and "nutritious food and healthy lifestyle choices". It is, as you can imagine, rather upscale and very middle-class, despite its claims for being "dirt cheap". The business is expanding, and has just opened its second store in Victoria, after a long wait of nearly a year. The selling point, in addition to what has already been mentioned, is in supporting local businesses and producers, which is not to be sniffed at.
It's been a long year without a local grocery. The small and even more specialized organic food store appeals to a very narrow (and comfortably off) vegetarian/vegan/gluten-free clientele.
When we lived in Fairfield in the nineties, there were two supermarkets in Cook Street Village, both doing steady business for years. The Country Grocer closed down in the aughts, replaced by (of course) expensive condos. Oxford Foods (named because it was on the corner of Oxford Street) soldiered on in its grungy glory, featuring the kind of items prized by pensioners, of whom there are a lot in our neighbourhood: packaged foods, canned foods, cleaning products... Their produce was serviceable, but not all that fresh, and mostly imported. The owners decided to retire and sell to the younger couple who runs the original Roots Cellar.
As it happened, I told my eager neighbour, I had popped into Roots Cellar early that morning, securing a Bosc pear for Demeter (one of her favourites) and having a quick look around at dazzling stacks of every kind of fruit and vegetable imaginable, up to and including jackfruit and pineapples.
If you're in the market for dairy products (see what I did there?), you're in luck: wide varieties of yoghurts, milks, sour cream, and whipping cream in many forms, to say nothing of a huge selection of cheeses. There's a meat counter and a deli counter, and many options for meat substitutes. A small display of ice creams, a modest bakery and baking section. No boxed cake blends (small bags, though, of more local mixes). Absolutely no paper products, or cleaning aids. If you want cereal, you go to the bulk bins for rolled oats or granola. Very West Coast.
So, no one-stop shopping, but an easily accessible place for staples such as eggs, milk, or fruit. It's been more than nine months since Demeter's fall, and my being able to quickly replace supplies will be a welcome change from making do with what I can find in convenience stores.
Our condo building was positively buzzing with giddiness. Over a grocery store.
The Resident Fan Boy, trying to transport a heavy basket to the laundry rooms upstairs, encountered neighbour after neighbour, unseen for months, using the elevator to get to the sidewalks and join the pilgrimage.
Is this touching or pathetic?
I had my flu shot today. It's a doozy. It's driven me briefly to my bed.
This song by Dawes was released in 2018, deep in the midst of Trump's America, but it's about more than that. A perfect state of grace is difficult to achieve in the best of times.
Or the worst of times.
Filmed in 2018, at the time when she was celebrating her 87th birthday - I should look so good now - we see her preparing to film an episode of the updated Latino version of the 1970s sitcom One Day at a Time. She's breakfasting in her dressing room, watching the Ford/Kavanaugh hearings.
This is pertinent, because Moreno, as a very pretty, very young woman in 1950s Hollywood, experienced more than her share of sexual harassment, even violence. This was, of course, considered a normal way for men to interact with women at the time, so the narrative wasn't a shock so much as a weary recognition.
What was a shock was the revelation at the end of the film, as Moreno reflects on her forty-eight-year marriage to Leonard Gordon, who died in 2010. We'd just seen a series of images and films that seem to demonstrate the playful nature of their relationship, and heard her daughter and a family friend affectionately recalling their memories of the couple.
Then, the camera rests on Moreno, who pauses, and declares: "No."
It was not a successful marriage, she tells us. He was controlling. I should have ended it sooner. Yes, he was funny. Yes, he loved me. Yes, he gave me my daughter.
She's asked if she felt relief when he died.
Long pause.
"Say 'no'," I found myself inwardly pleading.
The answer is yes.
Afterwards, I wondered why I didn't want her to feel relieved.
I think it's because I have experienced, not often, but more than once, the awkwardness of being a person officially in mourning for someone neither loved nor liked. It is grief, please understand: grief for those I love who do feel the loss, and grief for that which had gone past repair years ago.
And that comfortable/uncomfortable paradox: relief.
I hope my passing is mourned, not incessantly, but sincerely, and I especially hope that no one is relieved. I don't know how realistic that is.
I was speaking yesterday of where my mind wanders while engaged in genealogical gate-keeping. Sometimes I wind up in the company of long-dead great-aunts.
Inexperienced family researchers - I'm not claiming to be an expert genealogist, but I do have some experience - make the mistake of ignoring the "lateral" relatives, ie. aunts and uncles, especially those who, for whatever reason, didn't have children.
I can say to you without reservation, that childless aunts and uncles can be a goldmine to a family researcher. They tend to take in struggling nieces and nephews, and mention them in wills, describing how they're related and who their parents are.
I'd like to tell you a bit about the Resident Fan Boy's great-aunt. Up until a couple a weeks ago, I knew that she was born in Folkestone, Kent in 1878, and died in Montreal in 1948. Brought up in the Church of England, she became the wife of a widowed Methodist minister (also British-born), who went on to become an advocate for prison reform in Canada, and was instrumental in promoting British immigration in Canada after the second World War.
About three years ago, I came across a scrapbook maintained by my late mother-in-law, which, by some miracle, had not been thrown away by the Resident Fan Boy. It contained momentos of her various family members, particularly her aunts and uncles, and included a 1940s news clipping mentioning the great-aunt (in an article about her husband, of course), which mentioned her being a "well-known artist".
So it was, that a couple of weeks ago, my mind wandering, it occurred to me to try Googling. I didn't have high hopes of a hit, but entered her full married name, and the word "artist". To my startlement and absolute delight, a website called worthpoint.com appeared, with a picture of one of her paintings!
It's an "oil on glass", painted in 1943. The website describes the great-aunt as "obscure but listed". (A bit of a comedown from "well-known" but it's been more than seventy years since she died.) The web site does say she exhibited at the Art Association of Montreal in the 1930s, and sold a number of paintings, some for "a rather high price". Do I detect thinly veiled surprise?
Included are notes, apparently from the artist herself: "Kept 'lily' alive for a month in aspirin + water.frogs were in pond. Mr. Quesher, the curator, allowed me to take the lily from pond." (This was apparently at the Montreal Botanical Gardens.)
In a fit of excitement, I posted my findings on Facebook for the delight of the Resident Fan Boy's cousins -- and was met with polite approbation.
"Well, Mum," said elder daughter later, during our weekly Skype visit, "It's not like it was a fabulous painting..."
And she was a long dead great-aunt, who had no kids, but judging from what little was said of her, mostly in relation to her husband, led a useful life of church work and social work, with a notable degree of creativity. The last nibling with any memory of her died in 2013.
So I throw out a kind of lifeline, pulling these almost-forgotten women from the currents of passing time. It's kind of our calling, we genealogists, because family history is not just for the famous, the notorious, and those who had children.
This is a tale of two great-aunts. One is mine; one is the Resident Fan Boy's. I'll tell you the tale of my great-aunt first -- although, in this case, it's more about her husband. Not because he was more important or interesting, but because I'd never thought much about him -- until last week.
Ever since testing Demeter's DNA at Ancestry a little over a year ago, I've been working through hundreds of matches, labeling whether they are paternal or maternal, and, if possible, to which branch they belong.
It's not boring work, but, the smaller the number of centiMorgans shared, the more likely it is that there are few clues to connections. Sometimes my mind wanders.
Last week, as I marked and noted, I found myself thinking about my great-aunt, who was swept away in the final wave of the great influenza pandemic. She died on February 19, 1919 in Wolverhampton, at age 26, struggling to speak to her husband of six months.
It occurred to me that I didn't know when her widower died. All I really knew about him was that he was an army driver during World War One, and that, some time after losing his wife, he asked my grandmother, who was eight years her sister's junior, to marry him. She turned him down. (Obviously.) However, his name remained in her address book for at least the next decade.
I set about trying to find his death registration, but his name wasn't unusual, and there are several registrations for men bearing his name sharing his birth year, or thereabouts.
I found him in the 1891 census and narrowed down his birthdate to late February 1891, as he was noted as being six weeks old when the census was taken on April 5th. He was the only son, with many sisters, raised in Wolverhampton, as my grandmother and her siblings were.
I found a possible second marriage for him. My grandmother's address book, a birthday gift when she turned 19, ten months after her sister's death, has him first in Coventry, Warwickshire, then later in Newcastle-on-Tyne, as a manager for Daimler. The 1939 National Register, taken just after the United Kingdom declared war on Germany, has a fellow born in late February 1891, a manager for a motor company, with his wife -- whose given names match those for a marriage registered in Coventry, a little over a year after my great-aunt's death. The wife would have been almost the exact age of my grandmother.
However, the wife didn't have an unusual name either, so finding a death record was as daunting as locating one for her husband.
Before giving up, it occurred to me to double-check his World War One military record. I don't think I'd given it more than a glance.
As I'd mentioned, he was a driver for the army, signing up shortly after the declaration of war in 1914 -- in Coventry, as it happens. His army documents gave me a date of marriage, and it was different than what I had in my records: 11 July 1918 at St Jude Wolverhampton, my great-grandparents' parish church at the time.
I checked the dates of his postings. He had been given a furlough in order to be married, and returned to France ten days after the wedding, so the wedding date in his military record is the correct one.
He didn't return to Wolverhampton until nearly three months after the war ended. He left France on February 9th, 1919 -- ten days later, his bride died of influenza.
Out of six months of marriage, they had been together barely twenty days. (Oh gawd. Did he bring the contagion with him?)
I'll tell you the tale of the Resident Fan Boy's great-aunt tomorrow.
I've been checking my 2018, 2019, and 2020 journals to see what I was doing in mid-October in various years.
It's been very instructive. For one thing, I realised with a start, that in the past three mid-Octobers, I had already begun addressing Christmas cards. (So I started.)
I also realised that, at this time last year, my cousins caught COVID.
In a cruel twist of irony, elder daughter was exposed because she was in quarantine. She had gone straight from Heathrow to my cousins' home in Wiltshire, where she was isolated in a self-contained bedroom belonging to one of her second cousins, who was miles away, attending university.
Unfortunately, the other second cousin was attending secondary school, and he brought the virus home with him. (This was long before vaccines became available.) First, we heard my cousin's wife had been troubled with migraines. Next, elder daughter reported that her teenaged second cousin had "a cold". Our hearts sank. Nobody was getting colds any more.
The second cousin at university urged his parents and brother to get tested. All three of them had COVID. Five days later, elder daughter FaceTimed me to tell me that her senses of smell and taste had vanished.
We were terrified and helpless, eight time zones away. As it turned out, all four had completely different symptoms, and all four recovered within days, although they were locked down for longer. The secondary school, as you can imagine, was thrown into turmoil, as the younger second cousin's classmates were isolated and quarantined themselves.
We didn't tell anyone but close friends and family. As it was, cousins on both sides of the Atlantic had weighed in with their opinions on elder daughter's move to the UK. The most vocal of the dissenting cousins have no children themselves, and seemed to forget that elder daughter is a fully fledged adult.
And besides, this hadn't been her fault. She had followed protocols to the letter.
Today, elder daughter returned to Canadian soil for the first time in over a year, in order to attend a friend's wedding. The ceremony has been postponed three times.
COVID touches and smears everything.
I may have mentioned that, as I navigated my way around during my seventeen long years in Hades, strangers rarely addressed me.
This was probably due to two factors: 1) Ontarians are a bit on the reserved side; 2) I was female and over forty. I noticed, with some amusement, that, when I was walking somewhere with either daughter, men, particularly fellows of my vintage or older, would approach and ask directions of my daughter, rather like I wasn't there.
As I've also mentioned, people in Victoria do talk to me, even young men, who, on the whole, greet me cordially. It's not deep, but it's pleasant. I feel visible again.
When I go to the coffee shop, I'm still visible, but, because I have journals and pens spread across the table, I'm rarely approached. I'm occasionally asked if I'm a writer, and I issue a brief and (I hope) polite denial, knowing that there are actual writers within hearing.
I arrive fairly early in the morning, when most of the clientele are male. They enjoy calling pleasantries and questions to the baristas. The young women respond warmly, never letting on that most of these fellows are the same age as their fathers and grandfathers. It's harmless.
Over to my left, three Billy Connolly clones are gathered around a table, chatting amiably about tools and rat infestations - a hazard of living in Victoria. None of them have Scottish accents.
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| The real Billy Connolly |
Across the way, a young fellow with a beard is interacting with his laptop, a Bluetooth glowing in his ear, luckily for us -- and him. I think people who watch sports, television programmes, or gawd help us, music videos without earbuds in coffee shops should be strung up. Or do you think I'm being too harsh?
Tight in a corner, a middle-aged guy is talking to a woman. It might be a date, or a meeting. He's describing his career, using words like "passionate" and "balance" which seem to be the early 21's century's versions of "meaningful". She's not saying much. To give him his due, he does ask her the occasional question.
Over to my right, a stranger clad in a woollen poncho greets me cheerily and volubly, somewhat to my confusion. (This never happened in Hades: the greeting from a stranger - especially to a non-youthful non-barista - or the poncho.) He's from Saltspring Island, which I could have guessed. It turns out the reason he's calling over to me if that he thought he heard me tell the staff that I'm from Saltspring.
'I don't think so," I tell him. "Because I'm not!"
He thinks this is funny. Very chatty. Very Saltpringy. He's feeling homesick, he says.
I tell him about my husband's birthday, and he says it makes him happy when older people celebrate birthdays, "because they've worked harder for it". He could take a page from the baristas' diplomatic code, but I take no offence when none is intended.
"It's actually pretty simple," I smile. "You don't die."
He thinks that's pretty funny, too. Give him time.
A couple of months ago, we took a deep breath and booked tickets for a concert next spring.
Barring fresh horrors, Postmodern Jukebox is coming to Victoria, about the time of younger daughter's birthday, so we've splashed out and purchased tickets near the front this time.
Shortly after we did this, PMJ started making videos again. Today, I was intrigued by their latest, in which they reimagine the Pixies' drug-addled "Where Is My Mind" (weren't all Pixie songs a bit spaced out?) as something Roy Orbison might have performed in the early sixties.
Instead of a rather homely and nearsighted unlikely (and rather operatic) rock star, we get a Titian-haired young woman with creamy skin, singing the decidedly odd lyrics to a string quartet and a jazz quartet.
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Gotta get to bed. It's Thanksgiving tomorrow, and there are pies to bake and people to support.
Here's a song I like. Just for a change, it's only about six years old.
It's going to take a few listenings to work out what the lyrics mean -- to me, anyway.
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| An October sunset in Fairfield |
How many cat videos do you suppose there are out there? Millions? Billions?
How many parodies and/or humorous takes on "Bohemian Rhapsody"? Hundreds? Thousands?
I'm taking a chance that there aren't many videos combining the two, but I won't place any bets.
It's pretty accurate. (Although, our cat, being an indoor cat, doesn't hide trophies in the bed.)
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| Fly Fly Fly - Alex Janvier (1981) |
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