Unamusing musings

Tomorrow, birthday season drifts to a close at our house, with younger daughter's birthday.

As I carefully put final preparations into place, it occurs to me that, among the cards I received for my own birthday this year, not a single one was humorous.  

Everyone seems to have donned kid gloves for me.  I suppose I should enjoy it while it lasts, though I can hardly take joy in the reason.

And in the middle of the celebrations

I had a landmark birthday recently. 

At least Double Leo Sister thought so.

My first inkling that I was in trouble came about six weeks beforehand, when I got a series of texts.  Double Leo Sister rarely texts, and when she does, she sends one after the other.  Usually about three or four come in, while I'm struggling to compose a tactful reply to the first one.

My sister is what you might call an impulsive person.  She probably pronounces it "spontaneous".  You can imagine how alarmed I was to be receiving a series of texts from my impulsive/spontaneous and frankly, volatile sibling a full six weeks ahead of my birthday, a birthday that, up until that second, I had regarded as being not particularly significant. 

She and her husband, the Jolly Not-So-Green Giant, wanted to visit for my "Birthday" this year.  Did I have plans?

I desperately wanted to say that yes, I would be out of the country.  However, DLS knows I'm visiting Demeter three times daily to facilitate meals and other homely things.  Swallowing panic, I texted tactfully but truthfully, that I'd expected they would be dropping by for Mother's Day, which roughly coincides with younger daughter's birthday.  (Younger daughter adores her aunt and uncle.)  Couldn't we celebrate my birthday in conjunction with those special days?

DLS responded:  "We can probably do both."  Following immediately with "Gonna do your birthday this year." It's true that they haven't "done" my birthday since long before we went to Ottawa.  I've grown to depend on it.

With a sinking heart, I forwarded the texts to elder daughter in Britain, who also adores her aunt and uncle, but knows the reasons behind my trepidation and despair.  

I mulled over this in some misery for a day or so.  I like my birthday.  It's my day, and way too often over the years, it's been hijacked by the proximity of both daughters' birthdays.  It's a day which, in a best-case scenario, is a quiet one, spent doing things I like to do - not picking my way across the emotional minefield of my sister's feelings.

I tried, once again, to get this across to my sister by text (leaving out the bit about emotional minefields).  I had to try, at least.  Once again, I suggested a joint birthday celebration that could take in younger daughter's birthday, and pointed out that there were few days around my own birthday that weren't booked by the Resident Fan Boy for his church stuff.

I suppose I could have predicted the response, which arrived while the RFB and I were Skyping with elder daughter in London.  The gist of the text was DLS's impression that she and her family were only welcome at younger daughter's birthday.

Unfortunately, this was rather true, but it wouldn't do to admit it.  The RFB and elder daughter coached me through a response, and I recalled the advice of the late American linguist Suzette Haden Elgin, who wrote a series entitled The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense - in particular, a key tip:  "Ignore the bait."  (I.E., the imbedded statement:  "We are not welcome.")

With no apology, I simply texted back with a choice of two dates - after consulting both the calendar and The Resident Fan Boy.

This worked, after a fashion, and I didn't hear from DLS for several weeks, which begged the question:  Why was my "spontaneous" sister planning this visit so far ahead?  Most unlike her.

Demeter had an answer.  DLS and JN-S-GG had found a "special" gift for my "special" birthday, and they were, apparently, very excited about it.

I wasn't.  My sister is a fan of grand gestures, many of which have meaning only to her, but she expects a rapturous and grateful response.  If I don't deliver, things get ugly.

After over a month of apprehension - although I did get my quiet birthday - their van drew up, and they got out bearing a large, flat, rectangular box, decorated with layers of coloured tissue paper.

I thought it might be one of my sister's stained-glass creations, difficult to find a place for, but doable, and rather pretty.  With some effort, I opened the box with appropriate ceremony, casting surreptitious and pleading glances at the Resident Fan Boy, who cleverly avoided them.

And then I summoned all my powers of feigning enthusiasm for -- whatever it was.  It defied description, but I'll try: 

Big. Rectangular.  Very dark brown.  It looks like a trophy, with photos sealed behind a sort of plexiglass skin.  The largest of the photos is the famous shot of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road.  Below are two small snaps of the Beatles waiting to cross Abbey Road.  At the bottom, is a small silver plaque or sticker bearing the songs that make up the Abbey Road album.

Well, it certainly was a surprise.

I'm fond of the Beatles, but Abbey Road isn't even my favourite Beatles album.  (That would be Rubber Soul, but I don't want a commemorative plaque of that, either.)

And my sister and her husband merrily hung this thing on my living room wall, exclaiming over it, while I did my level best to not betray how baffled I was.  We made it through the weekend, then the RFB and I put a heavy-duty hook on our bedroom wall (the thing would yank most hooks out of the wall), and every time they come to town, we pull the plaque out of its hiding place and hang it up.

We discovered afterwards that they got this in a charity auction.  (There was a receipt in the decorated box.) They paid $521.81 for it.

On the days I have to look at it; I comfort myself by thinking of all that money that went to a hospital.  Then I go and look at other things, until my bewilderment abates.

Staid and skittish

Continuing on the birthday theme, my birthday, and that of elder daughter, have prevented me from watching the National Theatre's 2017 production of Twelfth Night, one of the productions made available for free each week as long as there's a lockdown in the UK, I guess.


Orsino is played by the impossibly good-looking Oliver Chris, who was posh and funny in the National Theatre's One Man Two Guvnors in 2011 (which was also shown for free three weeks ago, although I saw it in a cinema last November - when you could do that).

I have until Thursday morning to see Twelfth Night, and intend to see it this weekend, as I address birthday cards for my fellow Taureans, and prepare for younger daughter's birthday in early May.

Hey, it's my birthday - which means I've got chores

Talk to you tomorrow. (Oh wait. That's elder daughter's birthday...)

The magic dress

I'm not an enthusiastic shopper.

As a result, I've learned to tackle Christmas and Birthday Season - the latter being the thirty-day run between the period before I must post my parcel to elder daughter in Hades to Mother's Day - in manageable purchasing bursts, none more than ninety minutes.

I found younger daughter's birthday approaching rapidly, but despite my careful planning and plotting, had failed to find an item of pretty clothing to join the gifts of movies, music, and makeup.  Usually, I wander into a likely shop and something will call to me.  Although I'd heard elder daughter's name floating out at me in April, nothing whispered about younger daughter.

With two days to go, I wandered into a shop in Cook Street, mentioned the specifications to the employee there - something feminine for a petite stature with a generous bosom, as younger daughter takes after one of her paternal great-grandmothers.  (She certainly didn't get it from my side of the family...)

I spotted it a split second before the clerk did, a simple sundress, reminiscent of the late Fifties, early Sixties.  Flower print, modest boat neck, slightly pleated skirt, and defined waist. Sort of Sandra Dee without the sly overtones.

She showed me several others, but I kept saying, "That one's calling me."

I presented it to younger daughter on her birthday, and she wore it the very next day for her part in a fundraising concert.

It was like magic.  The dress, which fit perfectly, seemed to endow her with extra social grace and confidence.  She maintained poise as garden tours strolled past her and planes droned overhead.  I was delighted (and careful not to say so) when she excused herself at lunch - a new thing in itself - to reapply her makeup in the washroom instead of at the table.

Natural shocks (that flesh is heir to)

Another birthday season is drawing to a close at our house, with the birthday of younger daughter, which is near the end of a rather long line of family and friendly birthdays - complicated by Easter this year, and Mother's Day every damn year.

As I do annually, I think back to a distant May day, not nearly as warm as today is, and the shell-shock of bringing another person into this world.

Perhaps the biggest shock is how different it is every time.

We are all so very shocking, in our very different ways.

It's not your birthday, baby

My birthday, and that of eldest daughter, find themselves on a collision course with Easter every few years. Sometimes it's a direct hit; my birthday has fallen on Easter Sunday three times during my lifetime thus far. Elder daughter had her eighth birthday on Easter Sunday and won't have it again until she's 87. I'll only get another Easter Sunday birthday if I manage to become a centenarian.

However, my birthday this year fell on Easter Monday. The last time it did that was on the day I was born. That made it rather special, and I had a lovely time, thank you very much.

It's not my birthday today, which is one of the reasons I like this song, which has been playing rather a lot on weekday mornings on CBC Radio. When I first encountered it, I heard: "You're gonna hurt yourself; it's not your birthday, baby. If there is nothing wrong, why am I gone so long?"

The correct lyrics are supplied in the following video, and frankly, I don't think they make much more sense. However, I do like the song and the singer - especially the fact that she has a gently self-deprecatory air, which tells me, without checking, that she's Canadian.

If you do check, you'll find she's from Winnipeg.

If I only had the time

Today, the Resident Fan Boy is celebrating his first birthday in Victoria in 19 years.

Younger daughter has informed me by text that she also wants to light the candles this year, because she is "22 years old!". Pray for us.

While she was meticulously baking and decorating the cake yesterday, I entertained her with this latest Randy Rainbow concoction. I swear the man has the tidiest eyebrows on YouTube.

Perpetual light

On the morning of my nicest birthdays in a long time, I headed down Linden street, which has been in a perpetual state of spring since January.

They've just planted one of these in front of our apartment building and the tag is still on it, so I know that this glorious melding of scarlet leaves and dangling white bells is a japonica ("Mountain Fire" variety, I think).

This has been their week.  The relay of cherry blossomings across the city is coming to an end; pink magnolias are littering the sidewalks now, and the star magnolias are constellating all over the place.

And this birthday morning was perfection.  My kind of perfection.  I perfected it with some happy noodling on my family history timelines, then we strolled out -- the Resident Fan Boy, younger daughter, and I -- to rendezvous with a pal at a deconsecrated church where the Tallis Scholars were appearing in Victoria for the very first time.

As the singers entered, there was a powerful wall of applause -- as if they'd already performed.

An expectant silence, and then -- a creamy blend of ten voices - two in each vocal range - pouring out Josquin, Palastrina, and other choral composers of the 15th to 16th centuries.

I nearly burst into tears.

They didn't sing this, and some of the singers were different, but it will give you an idea.

There were two items from the twentieth century. The first from Arvo Part (famous for his heart-rending Spiegel im Spiegel).  This was called The Woman with the Alabaster Box -- a sort of tone poem based on the gospel story of the woman reproached for "wasting" the expensive oil on anointing Jesus.  (After the concert, I reminded younger daughter of the version of the same story that is part of Jesus Christ Superstar.)

During the intermission, I was reminded, yet again, that I'm in Victoria.  A woman approached me, head cocked to one side, saying my name in a tentative manner.  She apparently remembered me from my hospice volunteer days - of which there were several.  She definitely remember elder daughter, who was something of a hospice mascot as an infant and toddler, so I could place this lady in time, but not quite in face.  I gazed into her eyes and saw vestiges of familiarity, inwardly marveling at her ability to recognize me after all this time and too abashed to ask her last name.

I'd also recognized one of the singers from last summer's ChamberFest in Ottawa.  He'd been one of the members of Cinquecento  - another transporting musical experience.  Elder daughter confirmed that he also sings with the Tallis Scholars, and that he's "very gracious and very British".

With the second half came the second 20th century composition, surrounded by beautiful, more ancient numbers - mostly masses for noble patrons and patronesses who had died five centuries ago, with lots of  "Dies irae" and "Let light perpetual shine upon them".

But this was a song for a young woman who had died in a cycling accident when elder daughter was one year old.  A family friend of the composer, she had loved Shakespeare, poetry, and drama.  It was extraordinary to hear "Song for Athene" by John Tavener sung by only ten voices -- especially given that the bass continuo was performed by one person, who seemed to not pause for breath during the entire seven-minute piece.

I don't have access to a recording of the Tallis Scholars singing this, but here's a very lovely recent rendition:
When the last note died away, the applause rose amid rolling stamping.

And we moved out into the late afternoon, down the cool but sunny streets, to my favourite Italian restaurant, where I ate risotto, and was toasted by my husband, younger daughter, and good friend in the light of the candles and fireplace.  Not perpetual, but few lovely things are.

Ideas are like stars

I've just had a significant birthday.  Or is it an insignificant one?  It leaves me with a zero at the end, anyway.

As an antidote, I pulled together songs that came out in a year that ended in "7".  For 1997, I chose "Ideas Are Like Stars" by Mary Chapin Carpenter, a song that, for me, doesn't belong so much to 1997, as it belongs to 2001, and my first winter in Hades.

I'd just acquired the CD A Place in the World, and younger daughter had just been "identified" as having Special Needs.  This song would come on, and I'd have to dive into the basement to smother my sobbing.

While searching for videos, I came across a new recording Mary Chapin Carpenter has made, with an orchestral score and choir.

Today Joseph is sitting alone, with occasional nods to the waitress
She tops off his cup while she's snapping her gum, making her rounds on the lunch shift
Counting out coins, he leaves them arranged, in neat lines and circles and arcs
She just stares at the tip that spells out her name and ideas are like stars

And yesterday pedaling down 4th Avenue, between the stalls and the bookshops
The sepia tones of a lost afternoon cradled a curio storefront
And inside the air was thick with the past, as the dust settled onto his heart
And here for a moment is every place in the world and ideas are like stars

They fall from the sky, they run round your head
They litter your sleep as they beckon
They'd teach you to fly without wires or thread
They promise if only you'd let them

For the language of longing never had words,
so how did you speak from your heart?
Yet here is a box that swears it has heard that ideas are like stars

Tonight Joseph stood out in the yard, as Debussy played from the kitchen
Celestial companions `til mornings first lark, shone overhead and he listened
And who was that shadow there by the gate, who was that there standing guard
It was only loneliness, and loneliness waits, and ideas are like stars
Ideas are like stars.


I've since learned that the Joseph in the song refers to American artist Joseph Cornell, and have found a video featuring the original 1996 recording, with images of Cornell's artwork.

The awful truth

I used to, thank goodness, keep journals of what the girls said when they were very young; otherwise their childhoods would have slipped away from me completely.

One morning, when elder daughter was three and a bit, she came to talk to me in my bed, as was her habit at the time. When I affectionately called her "baby", she protested: "I a girl!"
That's right, you used to be a baby, but I know you're a girl."

Thoughtful pause.

"Is you growing into a man?"
"No, I'm a woman. I'm grown. You'll grow into a woman too."
Disbelieving laughter.
"No! I a little girl!"
"Yes, but you will grow into a woman."
"No!" More laughter.
"What are you growing into, then?"
"A baby!"
"You've already been a baby, then a girl, then a woman. Daddy started out as a baby, then he was a boy, then he was a man.'

Slight pause.

"I'm going to tell him."

From the bathroom, I heard: "Is you a baby?", followed some time later by "Is you a man?" She got an affirmative answer to the second question.

During her birthday lunch today, we discussed the hurdles of her new job as communications specialist for a small but influential arts group, and told her our own work stories of eventually shedding the embarrassment of not knowing things in the beginning.

And that conversation was about growing up, too.

I'm so glad I wrote things down about the long-vanished little girl, as much as I love the woman she grew into.

Hazed and Confused

This morning, I glimpse rainbow-coloured macintoshes and arty umbrellas from the window as I sit on the bed and stretch. If I'm going to just get older, I might as well try to maintain the use of my trunk and limbs.

Younger daughter's clock radio is blaring vintage rock and pop tunes as she struggles to rise and face another school day. Enter the Resident Fan Boy in mid-rant.

"It's wall-to-wall Prince," he complains. "That's all CBC is playing downstairs and I come up here and it's 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy.'"

I peer at him from over my shoulder. I've never been all that flexible, so this isn't easy.

"Um, 'Purple Haze' isn't Prince."

The RFB doesn't register this, as he has now launched into a lecture on the laughability of eulogizing Prince's desire for privacy.

". . . he made a damn film about it!"

I straighten up from another stretch and try the other shoulder. "Yes, Purple Rain. 'Purple Haze' was Jimi Hendrix."

"What? Well, I never was a Prince fan, so I didn't keep track of his songs...."

"And it's my birthday and you're ranting," I say placidly.

He concedes my birthday and shuffles shamefacedly to the closet to change. I apply my makeup and smile out at the rain -- which isn't purple.

Resistance always has meaning

It's been a strange, blocked sort of week, with sad edgings of loss.

Among other things, one of the Resident Fan Boy's aunts-by-marriage is slipping away.  We received emails and texts over the weekend from her daughter, asking us to send her a "funny card".  Aunt-by-Marriage used to send us sort of care packages at Christmas, filled with bolts of fabric, ties her husband didn't want, and clipped New Yorker cartoons, so I dropped by the local bookstore and picked out two New Yorker cartoon greeting cards and let the RFB choose. He filled it with an innocuous note of recent family doings, not wishing to scribble "Hello, auntie, we hear you're at death's door…."

Remembering how long it's likely to take a card to reach San Diego, I took it to the post office yesterday to see how quickly they could send it and for how much.  The young man shook his head sympathetically.  For fifty bucks, it could be there in a day; for twenty-five, three days.  I opted for the latter, because despite the gravity of the situation, I couldn't countenance fifty dollars to send a greeting card. It isn't that funny.

It was only when I got home that I remembered that the Resident Fan Boy's dearly departed uncle would have had his birthday today and Aunt-by-Marriage could very well time her departure to coincide with this (it wouldn't be the first time, for either side of the family), so maybe I should have splurged.

The reason I remembered DDU's birthday is because we have a pile-up of birthdays on February 4th: one of my nephews, a distant cousin, and Demeter.  For the past week, I've been trying to knuckle down and write a letter of acceptable length to enclose in her card.  I know she would prefer that above any other gift.  Somehow, I'm blocked.

There's a book on writing I've always loved entitled Writing on Both Sides of the Brain by Henriette Klauser. One of her banners is "Resistance Always Has Meaning".  As I sat in the study this evening, chatting with Demeter by Skype (which may be why I lack subject matter for letters right there), and listening to younger daughter moan and groan her way through a homework assignment while the Accent Snob cowered behind my knees, I found myself wondering rather bleakly:  "Meaning for whom?"

Poor Demeter.  February is not the greatest month for a birthday.  I wish I could have been in Victoria, taking her out to dinner, giving her a card, not having to write a letter….

Meanwhile, midnight is approaching and there's no word from San Diego.  Maybe Aunt-by-Marriage will stay long enough to get her card.  And decide that it definitely wasn't worth it.

The song of the conduit

The Resident Fan Boy has an ironic favourite saying: "Assume" makes an ass of U and me.
The irony is in the fact that he's the king of assumptions. This has got us into hot water on more than one occasion over the years, the most memorable being on this date nineteen years ago.

It was the Thursday after the Easter weekend that year, and the week had been busy: we had attended our penultimate Labour Preparation class that week, bearing home-made hot cross buns as it had been our turn to provide snacks. There had been a Hospice volunteer workshop that week, although I had finally given up my regular shift. I'd also given up our weekly Scottish Country Dancing lesson, much to the relief of my instructor (something I didn't find out until months later). I was as big as a house, and about three weeks from my due date.

This particular day, I took the ninety-minute round-trip bus ride out to the hospital for yet another ultrasound. The Resident Fan Boy was on the volunteer board of a church community centre and the monthly meeting was right after his work, so we had a brief rendezvous at the downtown bus stop, and I headed home to clean up after the hot-cross buns. I was just about to start on it, when I needed to go to the bathroom. Again.

I'll spare you the details but when I emerged, I added a few more items to my overnight bag before calling the doctor, knowing he would only tell me to head to the hospital. Then, I called the number the Resident Fan Boy had given me and got an answering machine. (This was nineteen years ago, remember?) The answering machine gave me three emergency numbers which led me to three more answering machines. I tried a co-worker of the resident Fan Boy who had offered to drive me to the hospital, but it was the office pub night; no one was there. I dialled the home of the volunteer board chairman and got his fifteen-year-old daughter who was as helpful as...a fifteen-year-old. I phoned my mother and got her answering machine. I think it was at this point that I began to cry. I called a taxi, then my mum rang back, having come home from work to catch the tail-end of my message. She told me she'd meet me at the hospital and leave a message on our answering machine for the Resident Fan Boy. I hung up and my waters broke.

The taxi driver was very nice, one kid and another on the way. He told me to breathe through my contractions and noted nervously that they were three minutes apart. It was at this point that we got stuck behind an elderly couple in a very old, very wide station-wagon. The taxi-driver grabbed his radio mike and called his company: "Listen, I got a pregnant lady here with contractions three minutes apart; call Emergency and tell them to have a wheel-chair waiting!"

The city was in the middle of a hospital work-to-order job action, so my wheel-chair attendant turned out to be a videographer who'd recently produced a how-to video on getting wheelchairs into elevators. It took him three tries to locate the elevator to Maternity, but his elevator entry was impeccable.

Meanwhile, the volunteer board meeting was taking a supper break at the community centre. They were ordering in pizzas. Other members were calling home, but the Resident Fan Boy had just seen me at the bus stop, so assumed he didn't need to check in.

I went into transitional labour minutes after arriving in Labour/Delivery. It was like being hurled into the open ocean in a gale, trying to relax and ride over the ever-increasing waves. Somewhere in another room, I heard the screams of a woman further along than I. I had time for three internal questions, before I switched my mind into self-preservation mode, that is, not daring to think of what lay ahead:
1. What possessed me?
2. What woman in her right mind would go through this more than once?
3. Why does that fixture on the ceiling resemble a cervix?


It was quite a bit later when Resident Fan Boy came home to a darkened apartment with the mess from the hot-cross buns still in the kitchen.
And she's gone out... thought the RFB irritably. Then he noticed my bag was missing from beside the door.

"That's funny," said the cab dispatcher. "This is the second maternity call we've had this evening."
"I know!" snapped the Resident Fan Boy.

When he got to the delivery room, he found me writhing on the bed, coaching myself: "Let it go, relax, oh God, let it go..." He dashed to my side, grabbed my hand and as he leaned over to reassure me, I told him not to breathe on me. I could smell the pizza. He has never let me forget this. I think, as a woman in full labour, I was remarkably civil...

After a couple of hours of writhing, breathing, and sounding, as my mother later told me, like a cow in calf, it was decided that intervention was necessary. My husband, who has been known to faint during blood tests, was looking carefully away when he heard a baby crying. Who, he thought in disgust, would be stupid enough to bring a baby in here?

Not quite nineteen years later, yesterday to be exact, I sat enraptured in front of the computer and watched a video that elder daughter had made for my birthday. She mimed to the Great Big Sea's "Consequence Free", dancing and emoting in clever editing cuts, complete with costume changes. And I thought back to the Resident Fan Boy, passing out chocolate cigars in his office the following morning, and taking a phone-call from his now-not-quite-so-shell-shocked wife who breathed, gazing at the infant stranger in her hospital room: "Oh....isn't she beautiful..." I was stunned that anything so lovely could have come from me, which is just how I felt yesterday, watching a bewitching young woman twirl and glide in her tiny dorm in Halifax.

And, really, it hadn't. We don't really make children; they are sent to us on loan, for safe-keeping. If we really had such a hand in their creation, they would be so much more similar, instead they emerge from the womb with their distinctive personalities already bundled, trailing clouds of glory, as Wordsworth put it. We can help a little, but we really have to try to not hinder. We are the conduits.

I really wish I could share my birthday video with you, but that's not possible so here's Great Big Sea's video of "Consequence Free". (My beloved elder daughter knows I love the band. Happy birthday, m'luv.)

Purgatory for fascists

We're entering into what I think of as The Birthday Season at our house. My birthday is in a few days, followed immediately by that of elder daughter, then a host of friends' and family birthdays in early May, including that of younger daughter. Just before that, before we topple into the topography of Taurus, we trip over the hurdle of a troubling birthday which is today. I mean, elder daughter was born on Shakespeare's birthday (or what is assumed to be, based on the day of his christening three days later) which is nifty. I was born on Lenin's birthday which is considerably more ambiguous, but what about someone born today? Today is Hitler's birthday. I suppose you could concentrate on other much nicer people born today, but he's a heck of a person with whom to share your day, isn't he? Actually, one of my favourite songs is about Hitler, but to explain why, I have to back up a bit:

For some years, I was a volunteer at Hospice Victoria. Being a volunteer meant attending a lot of workshops, and we were well versed in the Kübler-Ross Model, otherwise known as the Five Stages (of Dying, of Grief, of Loss, etc.). We learned that the five stages didn't just apply to death and bereavement; you experience the stages every day, sometimes within seconds:
"I can't have lost my keys!" (Disbelief)
"Dammit! Where are the *&$%# keys?" (Anger)
"Please, not today..." (Bargaining)
"Well, this blows everything..." (Depression)
"I'll meet so-and-so from work, get his keys and then figure out what to do." (Acceptance)

I read somewhere a few days ago that Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's model is now losing its hallowed status, as many people apparently recover from loss without the long period of "grief work" that the five stages imply. I don't know; the theory always made sense to me. Kübler-Ross went into a rather odd stage after she became well-known, where she was interested in the afterlife. Not that it's odd to be interested in the after-life, but she seemed to be under the spell of some character named Jay Barham who was one of those people who claimed to channel dead spirits. I remember reading a magazine article (I think it was in Mother Jones) where the interviewer was asking her questions about this and sounded very baffled and bewildered, as Kübler-Ross said how every soul is redeemable. Naturally, the interviewer came up with the old war-horse: "What about Hitler?"

Now, I'm trying to paraphrase this from memory alone, so I'll probably get it wrong, but she answered something like this: that Hitler would be brought to a place where he could see, and come to understand, the consequences of what he had done.

This fuzzily-remembered idea has haunted me for years. At the Resident Fan Boy's church, they used to have a pre-confession prayer. I say "used to", because churches seem to be phasing out confession and saying you're sorry. Anyway, they used to say: "Some sins are plain to us; some escape us; some we cannot face." So, try to imagine being made aware not only of what you've done wrong, but of what you've done wrong that you didn't know was wrong. Is that purgatory? Or is that hell? We all wound others without being aware of it. Oh geez...

Back in the days when I still had LaunchCast, I was sent a song by John Wesley Harding (who was born Wesley Stapes), called "Hitler's Tears". I've tried to find a way of embedding or linking the actual song here (it appears in Why We Fight, and in a slower more acoustic form in The Garden of Eden), but the best I can do is an Amazon sample that gives you thirty seconds. (Update:  someone has posted it on YouTube -- but for how long?) 

I don't know if I understand the song at all, but whenever I hear it, I think of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who moved into the afterlife about seven years ago, standing with her hand on the shoulder of Hitler as he's made to look beyond the veil of unknowing that protects us all. And he's sobbing. I also wonder if you looked into the heart of every dictator, would you find the face of a broken-hearted little boy?

Hitler's Tears

One man's tears stain the pillow
Where he used to lay his head
She's left him for another man
So how come they're both sleeping in his bed?
He can hardly sleep for misery
You can hear him catch his breath
He grinds his teeth into the night
And God says "Hey, Adolf, are you all right?"

One boy's tears stain the paper
Where he writes his Christmas list
And he inks in broken German
"Send me the skill of a fine artist."
Then he wipes out half a continent
With a flick of his wrist
He's so lonely, so misunderstanding
As he pulls his blanket across the landing

You can hear them falling every day (Hitler's tears)
Just open up the newspaper (Hitler's tears)
You can hide, there's no escape from Hitler's tears--
Just what makes the Führer blue?
He's crying for you

One man's tears--he was fascist
Before it was cool
'Cause now it's so expected
Just accept it that power is cruel
So he'll apply for reinstatement
Using new reincarnation rules
'Cause he's the only man, most certainly
Who could claim to have learned from history

Hitler cries himself to sleep, alone in Brazil, no one calls
How must it feel to be the biggest loser of them all?

One man's tears--salt water salutes the final trip
A thousand naughty Nazis
A fraülein with a bullwhip
A lullaby of Über Alles
A shaking upper lip
It's all become a Whitehall farce
That's how we tear our fears apart
But you shouldn't take it straight to heart
So the rest of us can get some sleep tonight
-John Wesley Harding (Wesley Stace)

Burying Birthdays

The Resident Fan Boy's birthday is tomorrow. This is most inconvenient. It always is. Having a birthday in early September is almost as bad as having a birthday near Christmas. In most parts of Canada, school begins the Tuesday after Labour Day, so nearly every year the RFB's celebrations get eclipsed, and in some cases, damn near forgotten in the insanity of the beginning of the school year.

Take the year that elder daughter seemed to disappear one evening. She had arranged to meet the RFB at the Rideau Centre to purchase those delightful last-minute school supplies that teachers decide are necessary after the June purchase lists have been circulated. ("Oh yes, and this year you'll also be needing...") The Resident Fan Boy thought they were meeting at the stationer's; elder daughter had set up camp in a book store. In the panic that ensued when the RFB came home asking where elder daughter was and I didn't know, all else got blotted out. It wasn't until the next morning, when the RFB paused at the door before heading out to work, looking expectant, bewildered and slightly hurt, that I remembered. That had been a landmark birthday too, one of the ones ending in a zero. Elder daughter, of course, uses this incident in her continuing campaign to get a cell phone. We say, fine, if she can figure out where she's going to get the money to pay the fees...

This year shouldn't have been a problem because the Ottawa-Carlton school board, in its wisdom, decided to open the schools September 1st, the Tuesday before Labour Day. However, younger daughter is starting at an independent school this year which is opening tomorrow. We decided to side-step the issue and celebrate the Resident Fan Boy's birthday today, but all this means is that in addition to doing extra cooking, I'm labeling gym clothes, looking up bus schedules, and wondering what to pack for younger daughter's lunch. Oh well. We gave him a deluxe lawn chair, complete with canopy and cup-holder, and he's been happily reading the paper on the deck this beautiful temperate morning. We're taking him out to dinner, and once I've posted this to NaBloPoMo, I'm banishing myself to the kitchen to prepare a steak-and-kidney pie from scratch, something I've been attempting to do since Friday.

The Resident Fan Boy got his best present of all yesterday morning when younger daughter managed to thrust her PDD-NOS taciturnity aside and announce during church service that it was her daddy's birthday on Tuesday. This was a first for her and entirely without prompting. Whoever was carrying the microphone mischievously asked her how old RFB was. Younger daughter turned to her father and said in a stage whisper: "How old are you?" When they told me about it upon arriving home, I congratulated her. With a huge smile, she said: "Initiative, initiative, initiative!"

Gee, kid, keep this up and this may actually be a very good school year! Oh yeah, and many happy returns, birthday boy. (Not that you'll ever read this.)

Tales from Demeter

For those of you who need a Greek mythology refresher: When Hades, Lord of the Underworld, abducted Persephone, her mother Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest, was so distraught that the growing season came to an abrupt halt and life on earth was in peril. Zeus, the head honcho Greek god, ordered Hades to return Persephone, but she had eaten six pomegranate seeds while in Hades, so now she returns to Demeter for only half the year and we get winter for the other half (sometimes even longer in Ottawa).

It seems appropriate somehow that my mother's birthday is just past the middle of winter, the "cross-quarter day" of Candlemas, halfway between the winter solstice and spring equinox. Wiarton Willie, our official Ontario groundhog, has decreed that winter will last another six weeks, but the school crossing guard pointed out that that was going to happen anyway, besides, the snow often hangs around well into April. On the other side of the continent, Demeter will start making plans for our annual summer visit to Victoria, where, since mid-January, the snowdrops are out, and the first cherry blossoms will soon be glowing along certain streets.

Here in Hades, I look out at the flash-frozen streets and think of Africa. My mother was born in Wolverhampton, but her sister and brother were born in Kenya. My grandfather was studying the tsetse fly at the East Africa Trypanosomiasis Research Organization, and moved his family out to Kabete, just outside of Nairobi when my mum was two. Her stories of growing up in Kenya were a bedtime staple for my sister and me: "Ragbags" the houseboy (the children couldn't pronounce his real name), who would sneak meals up to my mother when she had been sent to bed without supper; a pet giraffe, clearing out of the house to let the ants march through (an effective cleaning, as it turns out), and one of my favourites, the story of Galoomph.

Galoomph was the nickname of one of my mother's high school teachers. She wasn't called that to her face, of course. She had very large feet (galoomph, galoomph, galoomph...). Every now and then, in the middle of a lesson, she would stop dead, staring off unseeing into the distance. Her face would go very white and her eyes seemed to go black as her pupils dilated. The students simply sat quietly until she returned to herself.

Galoomph had been living in Singapore when the Japanese invaded. She was on one of the evacuation ships, but boats were being torpedoed all around. Galoomph had been a champion swimmer, and in she dove, again and again, trying to rescue the people struggling in the water. Finally, they had to tie her to a bed to save her from her own desperation and exhaustion.

There were less bleak stories too. We always asked to hear about how the girls in the science laboratory would deliberately mix chemicals to drive the students out in a cloud of stench. The teacher would calmly herd them to a lawn outside and read to them from a textbook, while selected girls would wriggle off on their bellies to raid the pomegranate tree. How many pomegranate seeds did Demeter eat, I wonder? Were the seeds of our separation sown even then?

In which the blogger bravely runs away

Bloody hell (or Hades). I was actually having rather a nice day. My friend-with-whom-I-go-for-coffee took me out to a pre-birthday breakfast at The French Baker near the Byward Market. Since she is a member of The Sisterhood (that is, a fellow "special needs mum"), I gave her a blow-by-blow of the latest crisis (the beginning of which is in the previous entry), and afterwards, we strolled through the Market and found perfect (we hope) blouses for two of our respective daughters (both the eldest), before picking up what looks like the ideal book on puberty for younger daughter.

And...and... Damn. I just don't feel like going into how the day ended. Suffice it to say that the crisis at younger daughter's school continues, and if I get brave enough, I'll blog about it later in the week. but it's my birthday tomorrow, dammit. I want to turn up the Beatles full-blast. I want to rejoice in the one day I can say belongs to me. And right now, I want to hide in another Doctor Who fan-vid. Because that's how grown-up I am.

Today, I'll choose a fan-vid from another prolific YouTube poster "Maggi137". I believe Maggi is German and maybe it's her European sensibilities that govern her choice of songs and clips. It's not always to my taste, but it never fails to be interesting. What follows is one of my personal favourites which I think captures Maggi at her quirky best:

Happy Birthday to me. Thank God the new Doctor Who is being regularly posted by guerilla uploaders, otherwise I really think I'd be going mad. If anyone out there is given to lighting candles, light one for younger daughter and me, willya?