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 Dylan's notice show a man with pale skin laced with fine lines, and eyes rather large for his face, little resemblance to the preteen and the adolescent I remember. The obituaries are, of course, glowing testaments to his work. Again, no traces of 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..."

Dale and Dylan are 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.

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.

Summer and smoke

This morning, for the first time this year, I hesitate, and decide not to crack open the windows.  There is a growing wildfire near Sooke, a community west of here, and while the city is bright with summer sunshine, I feel the dryness in my mouth that signals the presence of smoke, something that has become sadly seasonal here.

My mind drifts back, like smoke, to the two summers when my mother was a "hostel parent".  These were the summers when I was 7 and 8; Demeter had discovered that an affordable and comfortable summer holiday could be had, if she took over, for a few weeks, the running of one of the smaller and more remote international hostels in the great Albertan parks of Jasper and Banff.

I have about half a dozen memories of the hostels and enough time has passed that I can't readily distinguish which memories are of Jasper, and which of Banff.  I remember an early morning breakfast and seeing my mother drop the corpse of a mouse into the wood burning stove.  

There was a creek running by one of the hostels, where Double Leo Sister and I would play and paddle in the afternoons.  We were equipped with emergency whistles and told to blow on them if we needed help.  At the shrilling of them, Demeter would come running, banging a pot, to scare off bears, only to hear:  "Wasses, Mummy!!"  (We were terrified of being stung.)  By the end of the summer, we had become the girls who cried "Wasses", and Demeter decided the bears could have us.  (I've told this story before, haven't I?)

Demeter, questioned this summer, can only remember "Coral Creek".  There is a Coral Creek Canyon, quite far to the southeast of Jasper - and Demeter believes the hostel was in the southern part of Jasper National Park.  However, there is also a Corral Creek to the east of Jasper, past Hinton, Alberta, and another Corral Creek, nearly at Banff and less than five kilometres south of Lake Louise. Perhaps this other Corral Creek was the location of the Banff hostel where Demeter was a hostel parent.  None of these places appear to have hostels now.

Nothing left but distant memories.  I'm pretty sure that the Jasper hostel was where we were the summer I was seven, because my father came to see us there, and he left the family the summer I was eight, although I was never told.  

The second hostel was, I believe, near a railway track, because a family with girls roughly my age came to stay, and we children were at the railway track when a train came roaring through.  Our rather feather-brained dog, a poodle/Scottish-terrier cross, stood still on the tracks, gazing at the oncoming train, as it blasted its horn.  Too terrified to try to retrieve her, I tried to run in the other direction to avoid seeing her crushed, while the other girls, held on to me.  The dog sprang to safety with seconds to spare.

Demeter was called a "hostel parent" because of the youth of the visitors coming through, often in cycling groups.  A largish contingent came from New York City; they were loud and lively.  I was furious to be banished to bed.  For years, I remember a song they'd sing after dinner:  Hey, jig-a-jig, kiss a little pig, follow the band . . . . My husband's a baker . . . is he/ All day he bakes bread, he bakes bread, he bakes bread, and at night he comes home and (expectant pause) drinks tea!!

The implications of the pause zoomed right over my eight-year-old head.  I didn't know that the song is at least 300 years old, and was far filthier.  The cleaner version I remember turns up in the 1976 television movie Sybil, which starred Sally Field and Joanne Woodward.

 Toward the end of this second hostel summer (I'm pretty sure), Demeter had the bright idea of taking six-year old Double Leo Sister, and eight-year-old me on a spiralling hike up and around a mountain. The gravel road climbed in an ever-upward curve, as the sun beat down, and we wore out.  I've seen the pictures Demeter took that afternoon.  We looked weary.  We never found what Demeter sought: the fire look-out station at the top.

This week, Jasper National Park and the town of Jasper itself is aflame. I probably visited the town at some point, but my only memory of it was passing through it by train, when Demeter, Double Leo Sister and I moved to British Columbia. I was in my bunk half asleep when the conductor passed, calling for everyone to set their watches back an hour for Pacific Time. I may have thought of the hostels before drifting off, like smoke.

The empty seat

Cartoon by Morten Morland, a Norwegian cartoonist based in the UK

 This cartoon is being shared a lot; it appeared in today's Times. 

 I think it strikes a chord on many levels (which is actually what a chord is, isn't it?).

Those of us who watched the State Funeral today (and we couldn't resist) had an opportunity: to see beyond the pageantry, symbolism, and sentiment.

We feel a loss, but it's more than a seemingly omnipresent and immortal Queen.  It's a way of life, and a way of seeing things, which, however myopic, was something taken for granted.

Many of us looked over to a chair, and realised, probably not for the first time, that a flawed, maddening, but beloved person no longer was sitting there.  Perhaps we thought:  Oh s/he would have loved/hated this.

I was lucky today.  I escorted Demeter from her apartment to watch bits and pieces of the ceremonies.  We drank tea, of course. Afterwards, we discussed which members of the Royal Family we'd seen over the years.  (They come to Canada quite a bit.)

And I realised that my very British mother actually only lived in England for about a decade, if you include her first year of life, and home furloughs from Kenya.

Then I escorted her home, and went for a walk in the sunset.

It seemed appropriate.

There's a demon and an angel in my belly

A few weeks ago, I dropped by the Marble Slab Ice Cream Store, because I was running errands and running out of steam. There was a knot of people ahead of me, and I realised, because of the tee-shirt of a statuesque women taking a leadership role amongst them, that they were ESL students from the University of Victoria, under the guidance of what we used to call "monitors", then euphemised to "cultural assistants".  I have tremendous respect for the work they did - except those that slept with the students (a minority, I believe).

I have fond memories of the English language programmes at UVic, particularly the summer programme, where the majority of the students were Québécois - not I ever played favourites, of course.

Last week, I heard this song at the coffee shop, and, although this song is recent, it brings back the feel of those summers, and the endearingly insular young men and women in my classes.

 

September is the schoolest month

 The light is misleading these mornings.  

Through most of the summer, I can tell if it's a sunny morning when I rise at my usual time, between 6:30 and 7.  Now the light is pre-dawn grey; the summer is slipping away.

Today, I get out of bed, and for the first time in weeks, reach for my cozy robe against the chill.

First day of school in most of Canada; it was yesterday in the UK, where they don't observe the Labour Day holiday.  My social media feed is full of children and adolescents, offspring of younger relatives, friends and acquaintances, lined up in their front halls, or in front of their houses.  The English students are in school uniforms; the Canadian ones in brand-new ensembles.

My former neighbour in Hades posts a photo of her boy, born after our retreat from Ottawa. With a shock, I recognize the school in the background.  It's my daughters' elementary school, towards which I made the daily climb, about a kilometre up the hill, twice a day for the better part of eight years:  the four years elder daughter attended it, and the four years younger daughter haunted it.

Well, I knew my neighbour's son would wind up there eventually.  It's just that in the pre-dawn shadows three time zones away, I find myself re-living memories - most of which I don't treasure.  The years of volunteerism scoured away any rosy notions about school days that had survived my own less-than-stellar experiences. I briskly remind myself that I don't have to do that, nor go there.

The sun is bright and high, when I emerge, on the way to setting up Demeter's breakfast.  A phantom appears at the corner of the block which separates my home from Demeter's.  It's a mother, escorting a young pupil, while pushing younger sibling in a stroller.  They're bound for elder daughter's former elementary here in Victoria.

 I spent three years on that trek, twice a day, with another young scholar and sibling in a stroller. The confronting vision and the accompanying memories are poignant, but palatable.

I cast a brief thought to the excited little boy pictured by his mum outside of that other school in Hades.  It's all I can afford, but I do wish him well.

Music for Hades

I was carefully stretching this morning, in order to stroll down to the coffee shop as smoothly as possible. I was a little late, because Tempo, the morning classical music programme on CBC Radio, was on, and my goal is to be out the door before it starts. (This would involve rising before 8 am.)

As I gently pulled my leg past 90 degrees, an unnamed Offenbach composition began, and as it played, and I stretched, a band arrangement, performed slightly off-key and a bit slow, ran through my head.

The piece was the Overture to La Belle Hélène, one of the 96 (96!!) operettas that Jaques Offenbach composed, but I'm pretty sure that our junior high band selection was entitled "Offenbach in Hades", and featured three or four well-known tunes, including, of course, the "Can-Can" from Orpheus in Hades.

I hadn't thought of this in years, but knew, as I listened, which musical phrase would follow, because I had played it (badly) when I was fourteen or fifteen.

When I was fifteen, I met a young man who played cello in the Portland Youth Philharmonic. I haven't thought of him in years either.

The tune that summoned back memories this morning begins at the 1 minute, 20 seconds mark.

Memories coming around like comets

Since the demise of Launchcast about ten years ago, I have longed for something similar, and tried three or four different platforms, including Spotify.  None of them quite took.

However, elder daughter has been honing her Spotify for some time now, and this week,  I decided to give it another try.

My hope is, like Launchcast, it will lead me to new (to me) music, but of course, this involves programming it with stuff I already know.  A pleasant side-effect is the stumbling on to songs I'd forgotten, such as this Mary Chapin Carpenter composition, which was a favourite when my little girls were little girls.


Another side effect is the pleasant at-home feeling that familiar music gives this new (to me) home.

As for new (to me) music, I've already made half-a-dozen or so promising discoveries, which I may share here - should I find myself short of time, which is likely.

Begone, dull care

My Facebook feed featured an article from the Ottawa Citizen (actually by Sharon Kirkey of the National Post) about a therapy designed to blunt unpleasant memories - in this case, betrayals and painful break-ups. 

Of course, this was the focus of the rather surreal 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but fifteen years have passed, and I guess we're oozing into reality.

The issues remain the same.  How far can it be taken?  (Probably too far.) How ethical is it, and most important, what damage is possible, if we modify memory, even if painful and traumatic?

Of course, we all modify our own memories constantly - could we trust someone else with the task?

I didn't have that many break-ups and betrayals.  The one romantic break-up I experienced was gently done -- although I was devastated at the time.  After all, "A heart without a hurt is hollow," as the song from The Fantasticks goes.

That said, it's not like I haven't been wounded.  What would really tempt me is the possibility of dulling memories of people I dislike - usually those who have hurt me.  It troubles me - early and often - that I can't shake the replaying of past slights, outrages, and injuries.

And frankly, I would not miss these people or my memories of them.

It's beguiling.

However, I'm reminded of a quote that appeared, years ago, in the Victoria Hospice volunteer sign-in book, attributed to Kahlil Gibran (but did he say or write it, really?):  "I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind, yet, strange, I was ungrateful to those teachers."

And yet, Persephone, have you learned anything?  

No, don't mess with my memories; they may be the only things I have left -- if I'm lucky.

Father's day

Nearly every Sunday morning, for the three years he was at law school, the Resident Fan Boy would pack the week's laundry into a duffle bag and ride the Bloor-Danforth line west, where he would join the Sears Man for church, Sunday lunch, and Sunday dinner.  Everything about the meals was Sunday.

Every Sunday evening, the RFB would return to his student digs, and groan the evening away after ingesting rich foods in several courses.

The Sears Man was an enthusiastic cook, and a generous host.  He and his family made their home ours when we visited Toronto with elder daughter and younger daughter when they were still quite small.  It was the Sears Man who rescued us when my daughters and I found ourselves stranded at Pearson International Airport during the big blackout of the summer of 2003.

It's another Sunday evening, and we've just learned that the Sears Man left the planet today.

On a Sunday morning.

On Father's Day.

It fits.

On the conveyor belt

Yesterday, I took my first bus ride into Esquimalt in several years.

Esquimalt, the community beyond Vic West across the Johnson Street Bridge, is the municipality where I spent my adolescence and my first years as a young married.

I used to take the #23 bus to trundle down the length of Esquimalt Road, but now it's the #15 Express, which, in the opposite direction, can take you all the way to the University of Victoria. I sure could have used that when I was a student.

The Resident Fan Boy and I rode past divider islands that run down the centre of the road, planted with flowers and trees. Those certainly weren't around when we lived there.

Some of the stretches are depressingly the same; other stretches have been condo-ized and still others shopified, so bits of Esquimalt look like the busier bits of Shelbourne.

However, the sorts of people clambering on and off the bus are much as I remember - elderly and clearly struggling (in every sense), young and gritty (also in every sense).

So many memories - interrupted by the astonishment of unfamiliar buildings, fronted by mature trees, reminding us how very long we've been away.

We were on our way to a so-called Celebration of Life, so-called because the gentleman in question died a month ago, and this post-funeral/memorial-service gathering accommodated his far-flung family.

The bus took us to the very western edge of Esquimalt. Despite my long history of living in the municipality, I'd never been beyond the south end of Admirals Road, where I'd ridden my bike to junior high, and where the taxi took me when I was in labour with elder daughter.

So we rode deep into "Pongo-land", and alighted by the blue waters of Esquimalt Harbour, making our way up the volcanic rock where the Ward Room sits, with its million-dollar view (well, millions of dollars, these days) out over Juan de Fuca Strait.

The man we'd come to remember and honour had been one of the RFB's very first bosses, and he, along with his business partner, had been a kindly older gentleman of the same vintage as my father - except with honesty and integrity -- are those sour grapes? (Vintage? Grapes? Get it? Oh, never mind.)

The widow seemed truly touched we'd come, and we told it was our pleasure, and meant it.

On our way home, the Resident Fan Boy was contemplative.
"It's just that...they're gone ..."
"...and the conveyor belt rolls on," I finished.

Yep. So many reminders that afternoon of the relentless passage of time.

This isn't going to get any easier.

Before the parade passes by

I've mentioned this before, but I found the Victoria Day weekend in Hades depressing beyond belief. It was a long weekend when those who had cottages left town to open them, and those who didn't finally planted the bedding plants as the weather began to get hot.

Being neither a cottager nor a gardener, that left me with little to do but sweat and look for things for younger daughter to do.

Here, we have the Victoria Day Parade.

Younger daughter decided not to accompany us, but never mind.

The Resident Fan Boy and I headed off into the morning rain, which had tapered off by the time we reached Douglas Street. We found a free edge of pavement near the end of the parade route past Broughton. A fella with a small daughter proudly pointed out his son to us, a large lad, like his dad, beating his drum with the one local school that had enter this year.

My junior high entered every year; our normally affable director turned into a snarling sergeant-type for the week preceding the parade as we stumbled around the school field. We always came in third -- second, if only two local school bands had entered.

The parade hasn't changed much since those far-off days. There are still long lines of vintage fire engines, plus Shriners and Job's Daughters, albeit in much diminished numbers.

There are still racing cars, sponsored by local pubs, with young girls riding the hoods. (I haven't seen a puppy on one before.)

However, Victoria isn't nearly as homogeneous as it once seemed, and the parade has gradually begun to reflect that.

Younger daughter saw these pictures, and told me she'd like to come next year.

I think she liked the puppy.

Mr Woof-woof

There are fleeting things that make a neighbourhood.

When we lived in Fairfield, it was The Whistler, a cheerful 50-something cyclist who became our gauge for how late we were.

After the morning struggle to get elder daughter dressed and breakfasted, I, with younger daughter strapped into the stroller, would stride east, the rising sun blinding all three of us. Out of the glare, the Whistler would emerge, peddling smoothly and swiftly, but we'd hear his steady whistling first, interrupted by a friendly "Good Morning" as he whipped past.

In Hades, I'd watch the platinum-blond trio of sibling neighbours burst from their front door, tumbling down the porch steps, quarreling all the way to the tank their mother was warming up (probably out of self-defense).

I don't know when The Whistler ceased wheeling his way west, because we moved. Gradually, the Battling Blonds across the street grew more independent, setting off separately to different schools with different companions.

In our current neighbourhood, a feature has been Mr Woof-woof. That's not his name. It's what I'd hear as I strolled to or from our apartment.

Woof-woof

Not bossy, not threatening, just deep and carrying. A huge white dog, usually sitting on the steps of his large house, tied to the railing, behind a gate reading "Beware of Dog".

I always felt rather sorry for him; he seemed to spend hours outside on his own. You're not supposed to wave or call out to dogs, according to those online articles - it's supposed to count as teasing - but I couldn't help calling out a soft "Hello, Mr Woof-woof", as I passed on the opposite sidewalk.

Just before Christmas, the Resident Fanboy ran into Mr Woof-woof, walking out one evening with his owner, who did tell him Mr Woof-woof's actual name. She also told the RFB that her dog had cancer.

And one day, I noticed the gate was open.

Years later, when we recall these little everyday details that made up where we lived, we might say, "Oh yes, it was always like that; that went on for years."

But it didn't.

Then I got tired and left

Last November, I made time.

So often, I've looked at the Gorge Waterway from the bus, as it takes the loop en route to Silver City. It was a glorious morning, so I left home a good hour before I had to, and got off the bus, misguidedly, at a hairpin curve on Gorge Road, but made it across unscathed.

And there it was. My adolescence.

An uprooted tree, had toppled head down in the Gorge, wasps buzzing around its corpse. Was it there when I cycled along here in Grade Nine? Am I really so old?

There were the same steps, the one leading down into the water. I used to sit here, waiting for the boy I secretly loved - who was in love with my best friend, of course.

I almost wanted to balance along the very edge, as I did as a nine-year-old, when the bricks were being slowly piled. Beyond was the playground, swings still there, but in a slightly different location. No teeter-totters in this litigious age. The clammy change-room for swimmers oblivious to concepts such as fecal counts stands behind, and in front, a bank of vegetation blocks the view of the beach.

I turned up the steep incline leading to the crosswalk. My legs remembered it better than my head. At the intersection, there are now traffic lights, and a push-button walk signal in the direction of my old elementary school.

No more "Stop students! Traffic through!" sung out by a military-inspired student crossing-guard trio, marching down to their corner:  
Left! Left! Left! Left!
I had a good job and I left! I had a good job and I left!
First, they hired me, then they fired me, then I got tired and left!
Left! Left! Left!

Up Admirals Road, where a huge yellow seniors residence has replaced the corner-store, and a couple of houses. I glanced in, and a lady in a dressing gown waved.

I waved back.

On up the hill to the duplex. An older lady was already peering down the drive.

"I never realized there was a house back there."
"It's a duplex. I lived in this one by the street, and the Wardens lived in the back one."

She told me how she and her husband, newly-wed, got together a thousand dollars for a down-payment on a modest house we could see from our standpoint. I thought to myself that a thousand dollars would have been a humongous amount when this lady was a young married. She was telling me her life story as the bus I meant to catch rolled by.

I caught the next one.

Gold and Frankincense

Our second Christmas back in Victoria, and the memories from my daughters' early Christmases (to say nothing of my own) feel closer and spookier.

Elder daughter has once again crossed the continent to join us, despite arriving at Hades airport twenty minutes after the check-in dateline. Badly sleep-deprived, she had underestimated the travel time. She was scolded by the first agent, who passed her on to a kindlier agent when she burst into tears. Second agent passed her a box of tissues, and informed her she could still board -- if she sent her suitcase, laden with Christmas gifts, back to her apartment. More tears which sent him ticky-tacking at his computer, and for $75 dollars more, he rebooked her, with suitcase, on a later flight.

I'm beginning to think that airlines abuse their power, rather.

Demeter has secretly transferred the gold chocolate coins for the stockings to me, and this brought back a memory of elder daughter from twenty years ago. Unfortunately, I checked my blog, and I've told this story not once but twice. However, it's a long time since the last retelling, and I'm reasonably sure no one reads this blog but bots nowadays.

Here, slightly adjusted, is how it appeared in my journal of December 1998:

On the last day of school, I bring a Santa Hat for elder daughter to wear home. The schoolyard is full of kids in Santa hats. Elder daughter is so excited, she dashes into a driveway in front of a car, something she's never done before. After a shrill warning, she runs forward again, but stops carefully at each driveway in a semi-squat, looking several times each way. The pom-pom flips back and forth.

She's rather concerned about a few classmates with Santa agnosticism, but doesn't let this interfere with her own belief. Cookies, eggnog, and cheese are left out for the big guy, and she's thrilled to get the craft kit things she has itemized in her letter to Santa. Half awake, I can hear her enthusing about getting pencil sharpeners. She's mildly put out that some stocking-stuffers are from her aunt and uncle - "I don't get it!" - but is delighted to get "frankincense". (The chocolate coins have republique française inscribed on the tin foil.)

The days when her ball wasn't working

From my journals of 21 years ago:

"Elder daughter (age 5 1/2) talking to herself as she knocks toys around the living room: 'No one knows how she could do the world's greatest hockey goal . . . . Maybe it was because she practised a lot at home . . . . Her sister was always chasing her around . . . . Now she sat on her ball, thinking about the days when her ball wasn't working . . . . Then she hit the ball . . . .'

"This morning, she climbs into the bed and whispers to me, pointing at the ceiling: 'I can see my dream up there . . . . A person is putting out fruit . . . . It's gold, so it must be my dream . . . .There's another of my dreams next to it . . . . Can you see it?'"

The isle is full of noises

With the coming of September, we get odd cloud formations, catching strange shadows. I look out the window and see green and grey, with splashes of gold, which are either patches of sunlight, or the first of the yellow leaves. I think back to the earlier part of the summer, when I was locked out of this blog, but free to walk out. Two beautiful outdoor art experiences come to mind.

One is from a rare rainy evening in early July, before St Swithin swept the showers away. We watched The Tempest on the grounds of Camosun College, under a mushroom cap of grey clouds, as the Garry Oaks swayed and rustled, giving atmosphere to Prospera's (yes, a woman playing a woman) spells, and to the tempest itself, which opens Shakespeare's play.

Caliban crawled across the ground, a cross between a jackal and a spider, then racoon-like, bellied under the low platformed stage and didst painfully remain there for a good ten to fifteen minutes.

A young deer wandered across the lawn behind the actors, and clambered up the volcanic rock into the brush.

I felt six raindrops, but no more. As the sun, visible only on the edges of the mushroom cap, sank in the north-west, a handkerchief chunk of broad rainbow hung on the southern horizon at intermission.

The next day, we headed down to the Cameron Bandshell in Beacon Hill Park to hear Dixie jazz -- but got The Choir and The Chorus instead, two non-auditioned singing groups under the same director. They sang Sarah Harmer, Radiohead, and a host of Indie Rock songs -- adapted for choir -- including one of my favourites, "Walking on Broken Glass" by Annie Lennox.

As the music hummed and soared, a shower of tiny golden leaves drifted over the audience. I looked down and saw two in the crooks of my arms, so took them in my fingers and made wishes for my daughters.

Above our heads, dragonflies zoomed like tiny Sopwith Camels.

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.

Hello, I must be going

I hurried up Vancouver Street on one of my last evenings of this year's Victoria visit. It was an achingly beautiful August evening, full of golden light and memories.  I was, after all, passing through my old neighbourhood.  When I last lived in it, my children were tiny.

I was on my way to the Blue Bridge Theatre's production of Animal Crackers: a) because Blue Bridge does pretty damn good theatre - many of the actors have impressive CVs - and b) because I've adored the Marx Brothers since I was seventeen.  Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and (sometimes) Zeppo helped me survive high school.

During my final nightmarish spring of secondary education, I was staying in the dorms at the University of Victoria for a brief, province-wide drama workshop.

Our teacher had summoned us to a late-night reading of the riot act about drugs and alcohol at the conference.  (This was rich; said teacher was a notorious party animal.)  I had decided that, having partaken of neither, I was too damn tired to sit through a hypocritical harangue after a day of workshops and performances.  I was one of the few without a room-mate, so I was drifting off to the soundtrack of Duck Soup, when someone came hammering on my door.

It was Arty, a diminutive redhead in my sister's grade, whose voice had not yet changed.

"What is it?" I called out crossly.
"Mr Carr says you gotta come to the meeting."
"I've gone to bed, Arty.  I don't drink."

Pause.  The Marx Brothers were warbling "All God's Children Got Guns".

Bang-bang-bang.
"Are you coming?"
"No, Arty."

Pause. Oh hidey-hidey-hidey-hidey-hidey-hidey-ho....

"Please?  He says you gotta...."
"F*#& off, Arty!"

People told me afterwards that Arty was seen forlornly drifting into the meeting, muttering:  ". . . and she told me to f*#& off. . . ."

(About ten years later, Arty was killed in a freak accident involving something like a wood chipper.  I used to know the details, but frankly, I've preferred not to think about it.  Poor Arty.)

I shook off the past and entered into the past offered by The Blue Bridge Theatre's production of Animal Crackers - a version of the 1920s where there was swing-dancing.  Odd.

As in common in these days of little funds for the arts, most of the actors doubled up on roles with the exception of those playing Groucho (RJ Peters) and Harpo (Britt Small).  Wes Borg, playing Chico, also appeared briefly as a bum.  Like Harpo, the ingenue male lead was played by a woman, presumably for her dancing skills.  But you know, it's not like anything in the Marx Brothers' universe made a helluva lotta sense to begin with.

The play featured the elements that Animal Crackers is known for:  "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" with "Hello, I Must Be Going"; the "strange interlude" sequence -- and several elements that aren't from Animal Crackers:  "Everybody Says I Love You", which featured in the Marx Brothers movie Horsefeathers and "Three Little Words", which didn't, but like the other ditties, was a Kalmer and Ruby composition.

During the first act, I was grateful to not be seated in the front row, as they became Groucho fodder.  However, I was seated alone in the second row (it was a preview night), and as the lights went down at the end of the intermission, and a romantic duet began, Groucho plopped into the seat next to me.
Oh gawd, I thought.
"He's not bad, is he?  Sounds just like Michael Bublé." (This was a running gag.)
I nodded agreeably and wished he would go away.

At this point, Chico came hawking popcorn down the aisle, and shot a bag at Groucho.  I noted that not a single kernel had spilt, and gingerly pulled one loose when Groucho obligingly held out the bag to me.  I ditched it after he loped back on to the stage.

The extravaganza ended with a dizzying pastiche of parodies from recent Broadway blockbusters -- after the first curtain call.  Groucho appeared at centre-stage and declared:  "One of the advantages of being dead for the last forty years is that I haven't had to see any of these!"

I wished, once again, that younger daughter could have seen this.  She would have loved the singing, the dancing, the costumes, and the physical humour.

I managed to catch the 10:30 Quadra and set off at a race-walk from Pandora.  This had been a golden fifteen-to-twenty-minute stroll at 6:30, but now Victoria had turned into a spooky ghost-town, no one on the streets but the homeless trying to sleep against shop-fronts, and an occasional dark figure that seemed to be trailing me by half a block.  I made it back through the shadows to Demeter's in ten minutes.

I am telling you, I must be going.

Iron lady

It seems that every time I come out to Victoria for my summer visit to Demeter, I am confronted by another ghost in the obituaries.

They called Margaret Thatcher "The Iron Lady".  They never met Mrs Dupree.

She was our iron-willed, iron-tongued, and iron-lunged PE teacher. She also taught Social Studies (now there's irony), but I escaped getting her for "Soash", instead spending my English classes trying not to listen to her bellowing at the Grade Eights next door.  The other teachers, no doubt inured by years of this, ignored the enraged yells emanating through the wall.

Having Mrs Dupree for PE was terrifying enough, especially as I possessed no abilities in sports apart from, to her utter mystification, endurance running.  I rode my bike to school and played clarinet, resulting in increased lung capacity, I guess.

When I was in Grade Nine, she came up with the idea of rotating volley-ball skill exams.  The "spiking" test took place on the gymnasium stage.  Cowed, and with little hope of passing, I blindly spiked the volleyball straight up -- and it descended with the entire metal-encased florescent ceiling lamp, missing Mrs Dupree and me by inches.

As the glass tubes shattered and scattered, the stage was plunged into semi-darkness.

That wasn't the scary part.

Frozen in horror, I gazed as Mrs Dupree shook like a volcano about to explode.  She finally let forth a howl of laughter.

"You should see your face!"  she roared.

Whew.

Room 63 on the 42nd floor

I stumbled across an obituary yesterday. I realize that the older I get, the more likely this is to happen. This one opened the floodgates of some rather unpleasant August memories from several years ago.

We had recently made a move from the Gorge area of Victoria to the municipality of View Royal. I remember being busy in the basement - I may have been hanging laundry - and listening to my father singing the same song over and over: My wife was two-timing, fickle as can be/ With a man named Smith, she was double-crossing me/ So one night, I followed them to even up the score to Room 63 on the 42nd floor . . .

This was during that agonizing summer of waiting for my father to leave. He clearly wished to convey to me that my mother was dating the man in the obituary.

I can only recall going on one outing with the man along with his large family, including one daughter my age. I didn't particularly like him; I found him supercilious and brusque. I have no idea whether my mother was actually involved with him; it seems an uncharacteristic thing for her to do while my father was still living with us (not to mention when she would have found the time), but if my father thought this man was the chief factor in the final deterioration of their marriage, he was overlooking his own drinking, the resulting accidents, and the mountain of debts - which he was soon to leave behind. To say nothing of his own numerous infidelities. My chief sense of the summer was my dawning realization, at age eleven, of how flawed and foolish grown-ups could be.

The obituary describes the man - whose name was not Smith - as a "pure light" and declares that "to know him was to love him, and that was his effect on everyone".

It was a long time ago. Maybe he changed.