Trapped in amber

Some news events are like amber; what we were doing on a particular day is trapped and preserved by the golden sticky resin of a catastrophe.  

I'm hardly the first person to make this comparison, but when the setting sun of late August/early September throws amber light, divided by lengthening shadows, it comes to mind.

I was thinking about it this evening, although the particular memories stalking me through the streets in our neighbourhood are actually from August 30th, not August 31st, 1997, because here in Victoria, we're nine hours behind Paris, and eight hours behind London.

It was a particularly early Labour Day long weekend, because September 1st fell on a Monday that year, and elder daughter, then aged five, would be going to school for the first time on the Tuesday.

After dinner, I made my way down to the local shops, on an evening much like this one, albeit slightly warmer.  I can't remember why.  Perhaps to pick up ice cream for dessert?  We were forever running out of things, with two young daughters.  The news reports about an accident in a tunnel in Paris were just starting to filter through.  They were vague, suggesting that Diana, Princess of Wales, had broken her leg.  

As I walked through the alternating light and shadows, I mused that this had been a close call:  Just imagine how awkward it would be for the Royal Family if the difficult Diana actually died.  

By my daughters' bedtime, the reports were becoming grimmer.  I was braiding elder daughter's hair when the confirming newsflash came through.

And yes, it was a shock.  She was so damn famous, so omnipresent.  As the United Kingdom awoke to the bulletin, we went wondering to bed.  I arose the next morning, thinking I might have dreamt it and slipped downstairs, so as not disturb my sleeping family, turning on CBC, and seeing the coffin being unloaded off a private plane, draped in the royal standard.

During the surreal week that followed, we settled into the brand-new rhythm of a school year, watching in snatches scenes that were sometimes touching, sometimes maudlin, and often way over the top.  

I found the sardonic words of the opening song of Evita playing, unbidden, in my mind:  "Falling over ourselves to get all of the misery right . . . quite a sunset, and good for the country in a roundabout way/We've made the front pages of all the world's papers today . . . . why all this howling, hysterical sorrow?  What kind of goddess has lived amongst us?  How will we ever get by without her?"

I wasn't unmoved by the tragedy, you must understand.  However, four people had been in that car, and the one person who had survived had also been the one person wearing a seatbelt, and he'd been in the front passenger seat, apparently the worst place to be.

Yet, the questions kept repeating:  "How could this have happened?  What will we do in honour of her?"

I don't think it's facetious to suggest a suitable gesture would be to wear your seatbelt.  It would be fitting, in every sense.

Moving through the amber, I find myself returning, not to the old house on the street with no west exit, but to our condo.  I pass chalk drawings on the sidewalks.  The neighbourhood children have been busy this summer.  And because I'm feeling 1997 so keenly, each rainbow stroke drags on my heart.

It's been twenty-five years.  So much has gone.

But I have still have loved ones, so I check before crossing the street.

(Wear your seatbelt.)

A soft target

This cartoon by Kate Curtis appeared in the New Yorker

When I went to sleep, we'd heard about shootings in northern Nova Scotia. Details were vague: "multiple victims" - no word about injuries or deaths. Something about a guy dressed up as an RCMP officer and driving a car made to look like an RCMP vehicle. By dinnertime, we knew an RCMP officer (a real one) had been killed, leaving her husband and two children to grieve. When I woke up this morning, the number of dead had risen to eighteen, worse than École Polytechnique shooting of December 1989. It's now the worst shooting in Canadian history.

The RCMP in Nova Scotia says the number is likely to rise.

Elder daughter, who trained in journalism in Halifax, has the surreal experience of recognizing the names of the people reporting on this bleak story. She spent four years in Nova Scotia, amid people known for their friendliness and willingness to help. The people shot in cold blood were no exception.

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.

Carpe diem

I'm nipping into a supermarket for a quick purchase, so I slip down the side corridor, which ends behind the cash registers.

I'm listening to a podcast, earbuds in, so am momentarily confused as a lady wearing the store's worktop backs into me. Beyond her I glimpse a splayed arm.

I yank my earbuds out, and step to the side. A man is stretched out on his side, eyes unfocussed, limbs jerking in a seizure. An older man in some sort of uniform kneels by his head, supporting him and restraining him. I can't tell if the elder man is a paramedic or a security guard; I don't want to just stand and stare. I glance discreetly (I hope) over my shoulder as I make my way to the shelves, doing my best to get out of the way. The kneeling man seems to be consulting with a semi-circle of three supermarket employees.

Around us, business as usual. People are maneuvering their carts around the trembling, sprawled man -- there is just enough room to pass.

It feels callous to make my small purchase and leave, but I have no help to offer. It is clear that they are waiting for medical assistance.

I decide to depart by way of the main store, figuring a gurney or stretcher will need a clear way in through the corridor. I emerge into the street to find a young woman bearing down on me on her bicycle. As I sidle out of her way, I notice she's clad in a yellow visibility vest. She's a police officer, a vanguard of the approaching ambulance, which I don't hear for several long minutes. I'm at the bus stop when I spot it several blocks away, zigzagging its way through stubbornly oblivious motorists and pedestrians. It finally pulls up outside the supermarket, and after what seems to be a long pause, the paramedics climb out, set up the gurney and wait by the door where I was nearly bowled over.

My bus takes me away from this man's altered day. Gazing out at the passing buildings, I imagine his morning: sunny, with no hints of the sudden bend in the road.

Unbeknownst to me, a friend of mine is being driven down the Pat Bay Highway outside Victoria by her husband, who suddenly suffers a major stroke. In the confusion and panic, she grabs the wheel, ending up in a ditch with her neck broken. She will spend the next week visiting her speechless husband while hobbled by a body brace.

Last night, I learned of his death.

Every now and then, we are confronted with the unpredictability and fragility of our situation. As with the shaking man on the supermarket floor, I have no help to offer beyond prayer and an inadequately worded note.

Nothing to do but seize what handhold I can find and hang on for dear life.

On this strange and mournful day

I had been imagining what this morning was going to be like.  That was my first mistake.

Elder daughter returned from Victoria this morning after four stressful months of disappointing job-hunting.  I rose, and checked bus schedules, envisioning a reunion at the airport amongst all the other people happily clasping their relatives to their respective bosoms in pre-holiday rejoicing.

The Resident Fan Boy had a meeting, so I had to wait for younger daughter's lift to arrive before launching myself toward the bus stop.  I caught the bus by the skin of my teeth and congratulating myself, checked my phone, only to discover that elder daughter was already at the airport, having arrived just after eight.  The Resident Fan Boy had informed me she would be landing at about 9 am. I hadn't even made the connection to the Transitway yet.  While my over-tired daughter wept and over-reacted to my texts, thinking I was blaming her for this predicament, we forced a quick decision before I had to make the transfer.  She took a cab home, while I cooled my heels for twenty minutes at Hurdman Station for the returning bus.

I banished rueful thoughts from my head, blasting myself with favourite tunes through my earbuds.  Later, when elder daughter was welcomed and tucked up in her bed, I sat at the computer and dazedly scanned the headlines:  the aftermath of the hostage-taking in Sydney, Australia; a man who had systematically murdered his wife, her sister and her family, her mother, and grandmother and was still on the loose; the grieving parents outside a school in Peshawar, Pakistan where over 130 of their children had been slaughtered.

I thought about my lost scenario of joyful reunion, and about how my daughter had arrived safely, even evading the forecast freezing rain.

 I headed off in the afternoon to fetch younger daughter from her school far across the city.  We are joined by a raucous gang of Muslim students on the return journey every afternoon.  They're just as obnoxious as non-Muslim teenagers talking loudly in an enclosed space -- except they don't swear.  I remembered how they vanished from the bus for the days following the shootings in Ottawa last October; it took a few days for their high spirits to return.  Were they targets of anti-Muslim slurs, I wondered.  Had their parents kept them home? I thought of the #iwillridewithyou campaign in Australia after this café shooting, and of an upsetting article at the BBC website about the backlash against the campaign.

I took younger daughter to her favourite Second Cup and thought some more.  I considered the fact that I had two daughters returning safely home today, and that so many parents and other loved ones will not have that privilege ever again, because those they loved went to school, or stopped in for a coffee.

Then I remembered I was sitting in a coffee shop, and took younger daughter home to see her sister.

Lights shining in the uncomprehending dark

The Resident Fan Boy likes to hang the outdoor lights on St Nicholas Day.  Younger daughter came down the stairs for dinner, and gasped when she caught a glimpse of the bright colours shining against the December darkness, pressing her body against the front door as she stood on tip-toe to get a good look.

I too have come to appreciate this moment, the brightness in contrast to the uncomprehending dark.  Five years ago, I wrote about what December 6th has come to mean for Canadians, and this year is the twenty-fifth anniversary made all the more piercing by the recent revelations about a certain CBC host which has started up a very intense and often very unpleasant debate about why women don't report violence.  All that, of course, had followed closely on the heels on what happened here in Ottawa on October 22nd.

I was working at the home computer at 10 am on a rather beautiful autumn morning, when the leaves were past their peak, but there were still plenty of colours under a slight cloud cover with the sun shining through.

This being a modern tragedy, in a city where the vast majority of homes had computers when we arrived fourteen years ago, the first inkling I had that the day was not ordinary came through "breaking news" on the CBC web site and posts from Facebook.  Word came, not long after 10 am,  that one of the honorary guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the National War Memorial had been shot.

I did what I usually do when a something momentous happens; I switched to the Twitter feed and checked the various new agencies.  These told me that the gunman had proceeded to the Parliament Buildings which are just around the corner.  I texted the Resident Fan Boy, whose office faces Major Hill Park with a view of the Parliament Buildings across the Rideau Canal. He had not heard anything, but soon received a worried phone call from elder daughter in Victoria who had woken up to the news.  I turned on the CBC news and listened from my computer while updating friends and relatives in British Columbia and in Britain.

The Resident Fan Boy was moved to the other side of the building with his co-workers as his building went into lockdown while the rumours flew.  There were reports of another shooter, that snipers had been stationed atop the National Gallery, that gunshots had been heard at the Chateau Laurier and the Rideau Centre.  I just wanted my husband and younger daughter home.

The star marks the location of the RFB's office building.

And they did come home -- eventually. The buses had been detoured away from the lockdown zone and were crawling in endless bumper to bumper convoys along the Transitway.

Thankfully, we were able to arrange a lift home for younger daughter via the Queensway, which bypasses the city altogether. The Resident Fan Boy remained locked down in his building on the edge of danger zone until late afternoon. As it slowly became evident that there was only one gunman and that he had been killed in the corridor leading to the Parliamentary Library that morning, the RFB signed a release form and came home at much the same time he would have on an ordinary day.

But it hadn't been an ordinary day. It turned into an extraordinary week filled with small sharp shocks: my terror at seeing police cars parked in front of my house the next morning (a cyclist had been knocked down -- he was okay); the sight of police tape ringing the war memorial and no traffic anywhere near it -- the buses continued to be detoured for one more day; the great front gates locked in front of Parliament with security guards and police posted at every entrance; the military and police escorting the body of the murdered young soldier back across the lower edge of the province of Ontario to his home in Guelph.

I took the Accent Snob for a walk by the Rideau River on the still beautiful but endless day after the safe return of my husband. I felt shaken and worn out. The neighbourhood looked the same but a bit more subdued than usual for the hour before supper.

I looked out over the river and saw the traffic on the bridge was still sluggish, a domino effect from all those closed off streets downtown.

I walked along, thinking about the woman who helped us adopt the Accent Snob exactly three years ago this evening. She was on her way to the Main Post Office that morning in October, which is a couple of minutes' walk from the War Memorial. She achieved her fifteen minutes of fame for being among a small knot of people working frantically to save the young soldier's life. Her picture appeared in papers and news sites nation-wide, and she was interviewed on the radio and television. She was hailed as a saint on social media by at least a couple of my Facebook pals and thousands of others who also don't know her, because she was quoted as telling the dying man that he was loved. The Resident Fan Boy, who knows her very well, says this wasn't the remarkable thing. The remarkable thing was that she heard the shots, knew exactly what they were (being ex-military), and her immediate instinct was to run back to the War Memorial when everyone else was setting personal bests for running in the opposite direction.

It's been six weeks and emotions are finally dying down a bit. This evening, I rode home and leaned forward eagerly to drink in the thousands of Christmas lights stretching from Confederation Park and Major Hill Park to Wellington Street, to the Rideau Centre, to Slater Street.  Right across, in fact, from the former lockdown zone.

Boy, are we ready for Christmas this year. Especially the light.

Loopy

Canada has been rather more interesting than usual for the past ten days, for all the wrong reasons.  We're showing up in other countries' news channels and websites, when  On top of that, tonight is Hallowe'en and it's also a Friday, never a great combination for the police or those of us who prefer that boring old "peace, order, and good government".

Seeing as things have been a decidedly un-Canadian kind of loopy lately, I offer two good kinds of loopy.  First, I adore this.  This is Patrick Godfrey, a second-year music student at Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.  Anyone who was in school band knows that the French horn is not easy to play. Just listen to what he does:


Second,  absolutely nothing Canadian about this.  But it is loopy, in the best sense of the word.

How will we ever know now?

I wasn't particularly a fan of Whitney Houston's music, but it is clear that she was a very talented lady. Pretty, vivacious, with golden vocal chords and killer connections (her mum Cissy Houston and her cousin Dionne Warwick, among others), she was a gifted and powerful singer. Unfortunately, she spiraled down into addiction.

I did always like this song tremendously, a lighthearted, innocent ditty about awakening love that really is pop at its best. It also includes a little nod to Whitney's real-life godmother Aretha Franklin.

Update: a gentleman named Jake Fogelnest posted an amazing track of Whitney's vocals for "How Will I Know?" It's every bit as listenable as the song with full instrumentation and illustrates how very, very good she was.

A soupçon of perspective

A footnote to the events of last week which have curtailed my blogging somewhat: When the Resident Fan Boy finally was admitted to the Neurology Ward after 24 hours in Emergency, he had a room-mate who had recently been transferred from Intensive Care. He was a young man, late teens or early twenties, who had been thrashed at a Hallowe'en party. I never actually saw him, as the curtains were drawn around his bed. All I could see and hear were his family's and his pregnant girlfriend's family's comings and goings, plus the occasional expletives. The girlfriend's mum came out to apologize, and I assured her I'd heard worse. When the family left for a dinner break, the RFB and and I continued to chat. Every few minutes, the young man would ask us to be quiet. He wasn't rude, but it was smack in the middle of visiting hours, and I'm afraid I flipped a bird in the direction of the curtains. It wasn't until later that I realized that the young man had no idea of what time it was, and that for all he knew, the Resident Fan Boy and I were gabbing late into the night.

For the remainder of his brief stay, my husband had quite a few exchanges with his neighbour, usually en route to the washroom:
"Did my family come to see me last night?"
"Yes, they did."
(Fifteen minutes later.)
"Did my family come to see me last night?"
"Yes, they were all here."
"Did they speak to me?"

When the Resident Fan Boy was safely home in the bosom of his own family, we often spoke of this and shook our heads at how bad it could have been for us, and wondered what the future held for a father-to-be whose short-term memory had been beaten out of him. We mulled over this until last Thursday. That's when his obituary appeared.

Another cheerful January entry...

The still-beautiful corpse of our Christmas tree remains outside awaiting her date with the chipper. This morning's high winds have brought indignity: sometimes I look out to see the tree lolling on the sidewalk, or in the gutter, or in the street, or on the front walk... My hands are sticky with sap. I've brought out my dead; where are the City lads that should have done the pickup three days ago?

At least the wind may dry the pavements before the next cold snap. The past 3 days have been almost balmy. I actually walked down to the coffee shop this morning in street shoes and a fleece jacket. A couple of evenings ago, I sniffed the night air and smelled the unmistakable aroma of a Victoria winter, all dampness and decay. (No sea breezes, though. Sigh.) However, the expedition up the hill to younger daughter's school requires my waterproof winter boots. And double socks, because walking your socks off is no fun. You cling to the inner edge of the sidewalk as you venture into SUV and minivan territory, apparently necessary for Upper Suburbia. Some drivers do slow down and try to avoid the gutter pools of filthy water, but others sail through, leaving an ice-water curtain and a wake. After a splattering yesterday, I glared at the retreating tank-like vehicle and saw the woman (why is she always blond?) gazing into the rear view mirror. She fluffed out her mane with her doubtless manicured fingertips and vanished into the mist.

Elder daughter called from school this morning to say she'd be late coming home. I hung up and realized with a start that she'd been speaking in my sister's voice. A family tragedy has cast its shadow over elder daughter's high school and younger daughter's elementary school. A few years back, one of the local families lost its father, leaving 3 children under twelve. I had assumed at the time, not knowing the family, that this had been a stroke or heart attack. It turns out that the cause is a disease affecting the male members, and yesterday the eldest son, age 17, was buried. The youngest son is a grade ahead of younger daughter, and yesterday the Grade Six teacher, who team-teaches with younger daughter's Grade Five teacher, was absent while attending the funeral. What can be said (that isn't trite, inadequate, pietistic, or presumptuous) to address the heartache and loss, of the mum, middle child (a daughter), and this younger son who is seeing two possible visions of his future?
True, none of us have guarantees, whenever we say goodbye to one another, that this is not the last time. But to have this....certainty? almost-certainty? hanging over you. Dear God...