FINDING HOPE HAIKU IN THE TIME OF COVID

Reading with children Facetime is the next best thing When snuggling is out. Walking with Kathy To be outside where life is So spectacular. People delighted By an unexpected call I happened to make. Call from a cousin Who lives in Ontario Remembering me. Grateful for wellness And grocery delivery A home that I love. Making up stories Wednesdays are the send-out days Getting letters back. Balcony pansies Pandemic insensitive Blooming like crazy Media searching For good news to give us hope And give them hope too. Choosing not to clean Because I know there will be Time for it later. Choosing to clean now Because I know I will be Glad I did later. Thinking of places I’m glad not to be in now And those I still love. Sweet whiff of supper Slow cooking tantalizing While I watch Frasier Counting on science Admiring the leadership Of our officials Dreaming a future When this time will be the past That made us all wiser.

GRANNY AT THE ZOO

“Granny, I need an adult to play red panda with me,” says Ben, age seven. It is late afternoon on a hot sunny vacation day. We are three generations, sharing a two-storey hotel room. Kids and Granny sleep on the lower floor. Parents sleep directly above. Ben’s parents, pleased to see Granny taking over, are headed for the shower. “Okay Ben, I say with more confidence than I feel. “What do I have to do?” “It’s easy,” says Ben. “I am a red panda in a zoo. You are giving tours.” Our hotel room is ideally arranged for this endeavor. The zoo is a top bunk that doubles as Ben’s bed. The staircase runs up alongside the bunks. Near the top of the stairs there’s a hole in the wall that affords climbers a good view of the bunk. Ben heads for his habitat. I head for the stairs, examining my credentials as I go. . I am suspecting that my knowledge and experience have not adequately prepared me for this job. On the plus side, I was once seven years old and I have presented myself to others as an animal. I was fairly convincing as a pig perhaps, or a dog, possibly a chicken and occasionally a turkey. My expertise came organically. These were the inhabitants in the farm yards of my youth and my knowledge of them was acquired without the enhancement of formal study. I knew where they slept and what they ate. I could have given an impromptu tour of a farm yard to impress any grandchild. As for the red panda, I’ve never been near one. How much do I know about the species? Absolutely nothing. In a desperate bid to buy myself some time, I kneel on the stairs and assemble a crowd of imaginary children, accompanied by imaginary parents. “Notice the panda’s red coat,” I declare, hoping that the red panda has been named descriptively. Later I will ask myself why I didn’t decline this job opportunity at the outset. But I know the answer. The parents needed a shower. With unwarranted optimism I summon my creative powers. Suddenly I remember that I am a tour guide with duties that extend beyond animal description. The safety of the animals and the visitors is my utmost concern. “Please keep your children well back from the fence,” I admonish the parents who have come to the zoo, pointing an accusing finger at one imaginary mother who has allowed a toddler to cross the line. “And don’t even consider feeding Red Panda,” I scold. “That peanut in your hand could choke this precious creature.” To reinforce the point, I pause in my speech and glare at the assembled crowd. “Tell them more,” says Ben. “Tell them about me.” Later I will ask myself why I didn’t volunteer to be the red panda and invite Ben to be the tour guide. Now, grasping at straws, I turn to the imaginary children, a question in my voice. “Can you tell me,” I say, “what is the difference between the red panda and other pandas?” I am hoping there is more than one kind of panda. Perhaps pandas are like bears. Maybe there are brown pandas and black pandas. The imaginary children have been silenced by my previous scolding. They wait for me to answer, and I wonder another thing. How long does it take for the average Canadian parent to have a shower? I keep that question to myself. Suddenly I remember that Ben and I are not alone. I seize the opportunity to extend my reach. “Are there any children not on this tour who can tell me about the different kinds of pandas?” As I say this, I am appealing directly to Ben’s five-year-old brother Evan. He has observed my performance in uncharacteristic silence, but now he comes to my rescue. “There are red pandas and giant pandas,” he tells me and the imaginary audience. “The giant pandas are bears. The red pandas are cats.” “Well done,” I enthuse. “What else can you tell us about the red panda?” “Granny,” says Ben, “Evan is not a human. He is a cloud leopard in the cage next to mine. I want you to tell them what I eat.” I want to tell them this also, and I would tell them, if I knew. Another inspiration hits me. “Hello red panda,’ I say cloyingly, keeping my hands well back from the cage. “You are certainly a hungry fellow. Tell these tourists what you are eating right now.” “Bamboo,” says my red panda. “They have planted it especially for me. Now tell them where I live.” Hmmm. Where does the red panda live? I’m pretty sure I won’t get away with asking Ben to tell the audience where he lives. So I check my mental library. I’ve never been to Africa Asia or Australia so they might be there. I’ve never heard mention of red pandas in south America, and I’m pretty sure there aren’t any in Edmonton. I decide to take a chance. “We find red pandas in Asia,” I say, “In China.” “Mostly in Nepal,” says the cloud leopard in the cage next to Ben. I think of Nepal, everything I know about Nepal. Isn’t that where Everest is? “Look for red pandas in the mountains,” I say, “on the upper slopes.” This seems to satisfy Ben. “Now tell them about me,” says Evan the cloud leopard. Unfortunately, I know as much about the cloud leopard as I knew about the red panda. Still I forge ahead. While I give the speech about the dangers of feeding the cloud leopard, and scold the imaginary parents for letting their children come too close to the cage, I reflect on how times have changed. When I was Seven I came home from school and turned on the television. There I learned about history and nature. The Flintstones taught me about life in the Stone Age and the Beverly Hillbillies educated me about life in Tennessee. Bugs Bunny taught me everything I needed to know about rabbits. Much of the time was spent watching commercials and preparing my Christmas list. In contrast, Ben and Evan know nothing about commercials because their parents don’t pay for cable television. Mommy downloads nature videos and podcasts. When Christmas comes near she says, “Granny, why don’t you get them a subscription to Kids Geographic?” This selective exposure has led to a limited education. They have taught me that the red-crested cardinal is a tanager not a cardinal, and the pine marten is a mammal while the purple martin is a bird. So far they’ve shown little interest in learning about Fred and Wilma Flintstone. And here is a problem. The parents are enjoying their shower. What is a granny to do? Suddenly I have a great idea. It is time to swallow my pride. “Evan,” I say, “Before I conduct the tour, I need a little education. Would you please tell me a few things about the cloud leopard?”

NORMAL (Nursing Home Life, part 11)

Feeding a pureed supper to David in bed is one of the jobs I’ve taken on here at Laurier House. Given the choice, he would prefer to be chewing his food, feeding himself with a fork and sitting anywhere other than in bed. Butt here he is. I am feeding him because he chose me for the job. Being chosen for this task is one of many surprises in my current life. My previous puree experiences occurred nearly four decades ago when our children were babies. In preparation for parenthood I had read a book that suggested the need for a blind feeder to locate the mouth of the fed-one with one hand and hold the spoon with the other. I tried it on Baby Mark. Mark, at a tender age, had yet to achieve a command of language. Despite this barrier, he was clearly able to communicate. He responded to my first attempt by making a rule for living: Never allow yourself to be spoon fed by a blind person! Here was his reasoning, so far as I could understand it at the time. “A blind person wielding a feeding instrument is a dangerous character. Trapped in your high chair at the mercy of such a person, you could lose an eye, snort peas into your nose, or later find yourself fishing chicken out of an ear. At the very least you might get a sloppy chin. Fortunately for Mark and the siblings who followed him, mothers are known for their ability to understand the wishes of their babies. The situation might have posed a problem were it not for the fact that David was quite willing to feed the children whenever feeding was required. I responded with benign acceptance. Apparently it never occurred to me to assert my competence, or my right to be treated equally as a mother. I did not feel slighted or rejected, and if I felt any regret I have forgotten it. The question of my using cutlery to feed anybody was laid to rest. It rested in peace for nearly four decades. We moved to Laurier House in preparation for the time when I would require significant help in order to meet David’s needs. That said, it would have been difficult to predict in advance which needs would be met by the staff and which would be met by me. Choices have been made at various points along the way. David is a fully-informed adult, definitely not a baby. So when I give him a choice about something, I try to ensure that it is a real choice. I recall the way we used to present choices to our two-year-olds when we were trying to rush out of the door in the mornings, already at risk of being late for work. : “Shall I put your shoes on now, or in fifteen seconds? Shall I start with this shoe or the other shoe?” So perhaps I ought to confess that it was a little disingenuous for me to ask a question when I never doubted what the answer would be. In my mind, there was only one choice. Nonetheless, I asked the question. “Would you rather be fed in bed by me or by the staff?” “You,: he said. “Me?” I said. I thought I must have misunderstood. “You,” he said. I didn’t ask for an explanation. It seemed wise to assume his choice was motivated by love. “Shall I use a spoon or a fork?” I queried, blundering uncertainly through this uncharted territory. “Spoon,’ he said. No doubt about that answer. The man still values his eyes and recognizes that his nose is more vulnerable to a misdirected fork. I see now that there was wisdom in the book I consulted so long ago. If you are a blind person who has been chosen to feed another person you can use one hand to find a mouth and the other to guide a spoon. A bib and a cloth will help you compensate for any errors you might make. This is our latest version of having dinner together at home in this unlikely place. I feed David while we watch the 5:00 news. And where are the children whose mother never fed them from a fork or a spoon? Well, just the other night Mark brought two of our grandchildren to stay with us while he tooke their mother to dinner. He brought food for them. The youngest of Mark’s children is Baby Lewis. Baby Lewis doesn’t talk yet, but his mouth is sporting two beautifully sharp teeth. I positioned his little chair near David’s bed. There he sat, scooping fries into his fists, using his built-in blades to saw them off. While he ate, he watched me use two hands to feed Granddad with a spoon. His sister Carys sat nearby, two-and-a-half years older and a thousand times wiser. The nurse who brought David’s puffer seemed a bit surprised to find us there, but to the four of us, everything seemed quite normal.

AN INTRODUCTION TO MUSIC CLASSES FOR BABIES

Kitty: I’ve been wondering where you go on Saturday mornings. Carys: To music class. Kitty: You don’t say! Music class eh? Are you learning to play the piano, the trumpet, the obo perhaps? Carys: Of course not. I may seem grown up to you, but I’m only six months old. I probably won’t be able to play the obo until I can sit up without support. Kitty: Then what do you do there? Carys: Make noise, mostly. Kitty: Like purring and meowing, you mean? Carys: Sometimes, but only in the animal songs. Kitty: What are your favourite things to do at music class? Carys: Oh, I like to suck on the sticks, and they have rubber drums. Now a rubber drum is a thing you can really sink your teeth into. And I like to get up on my hands and knees and watch the toddlers toddle. Today one of the toddlers toddled right over to Teacher’s guitar and loosened the strings. That must have been fun. Then, and this is really fun, I make big spit puddles on the floor and race to see if I can crawl through them before Mommy notices. Kitty: Oh. Are grown-ups allowed to go to music class. Carys: Sure. Every Saturday Mommy and I pick Granny up on the way and we all go together. Granny hugs me and lets everybody else know that I’m the cutest kid there. Then she dances with me and bounces me up and down until I spit up my breakfast. She says she gets her Saturday morning exercise getting up and down off the floor with me in her arms. Mommy says going to music classes is a good way to spend time with Granny, and Granny says listening to music lights up at least six different areas of your brain if you view it on MRI, which we never do. So I really wonder if it’s actually six, or maybe five or seven. And does it light up more areas when you suck on the sticks? Kitty: Ahhh! So much science in the world, and so little is known.

BEN SAYS GRANNY

Ben’s mother sent me an email. The email came from Ontario. “Ben can now say five words,” she announced. “He can say Eyra—the name of his girlfriend at the babysitter’s, mama, dada, hi and amen.” Just to prove it she sent along a little video. Mama said: “Aaaaamen!” Ben said: “”Aaaaamen!”SThere it was, plain for all to hear. The proof was in the video. Now I was as proud as any respectable grqandperson could be. But I couldn’t help but feel that something was missing. So I did what any self-respecting soul might do. I bought a ticket, jumped on a plane, and headed for Ontario to come to the aid of that baby who needed somebody to teach him how to say: “Granny.” Even as I gave the travel agent number on my MasterCard I knew the job might not be easy. It is true that I am a granny, which means I am also a mother. And it is also true that my three children grew up to be perfectly competent talkers. But I am too old to remember just how they learned certain words. Fortunately, I am old enough to remember how my little brother learned to talk, way back when I was six or seven years old. At the time I figured he was beyond hope. Little brother grew up to be a capable talker, despite some rough beginnings. He made more than a few mistakes in his time. Mom always took his side when I pointed out how dumb he was. I specifically recall one day when he was farming on the kitchen floor, loading grain into a transport vehicle, naming that vehicle over and over again. Perhaps he would have attracted less attention if he had been saying, “Luck, luck, luck; or muck muck muck.” “The f sound,” Mother explained, “is easier for babies than the tr sound.” Like the tr sound, the gr sound is not an easy learn for a pint-size baby-talker. And I only had three days in which to teach the “gr” word to Ben. So wepractised hard right from the beginning, teaching the way any good teacher would teach. I started with the five words he already knew, asking him to repeat each after me. Granny said: “Mama!” Ben said: “Mama!” Granny said: “Dada!” Ben said: “Dada!” Granny said: “Hi!” Ben said: “Hi!” Granny said: “Eyra!” Ben said: “Eyra!” Granny said: “Aaaaaamen!” Ben said: “Aaaaamen!” I am pleased to report that we made tremendous progress in only one long weekend. By the time I left for Alberta, Ben could say “Granny.” It was as plain as day to anybody with a little imagination. Sometimes it sounded like mama, and sometimes like Eyra. Sometimes it sounded like Dada, and every so often, it sounded just a bit like Aaaaaamen!”

PLAYING MUSIC

Ben’s world is filled with music. The grown-ups who love him want it that way. In the future he may play an instrument, and he will undoubtedly download the songs of his choice from the Internet, or play those old-fashioned compact disks the grown-ups used to buy. He will go to concerts. That is in the future. Ben’s world is filled with music. He appears to like it that way. At this point, people sing to him every day. He sings to himself in the moment before sleep. He plays music when he plays with his toys. There is music in his house, waiting for him to choose it. There is an electric piano, books that play music, rattles that play music, a swing that plays music, a jumping mat that plays music, an exercise saucer that plays music and a music table. Granny’s house, though not so blessed with musical toys, has plenty to recommend itself. If he searches for instruments at Granny’s house he will find--with apologies to anything I might have forgotten to mention—a piano, an electronic keyboard, a guitar, an accordion, a rain stick, a box drum, a skin drum, an ocean drum, two tambourines, a kazoo, three small flutes, two harmonicas, approximately one-hundred-and-twenty combs, plus assorted spoons, and sticks. Ben may love all of these. For now, though, Ben makes his own music. The variety is not as great as it could be, but is it likely that anything will ever compare—either at home, at Granny’s, or in the finest concert venue—with the present daily joy he finds while inventorying—on hands and knees--the doorstops? Where will there ever be a more delightful sound than the daily concert played as a twangy, bouncy tune on each?

GRANNY TELLS A STORY

Ben: Granny, pardon me, but I couldn’t help overhearing your talking book—the one by the space guy. Granny: Oh, you mean Chris Hadfield’s Astronaut’s Guide To Life On Earth? It’s very exciting, isn’t it—the idea of flying through space? Ben: Yes, I guess so. But actually, what interested me was his writing about teamwork. Granny: (Isn’t that cute, not even a year old yet and he’s already thinking teamwork.) Teamwork, Ben is a lovely thing. Ben: Could we be a team, granny? Granny: Why, of course we could. Let’s make a tower out of these blocks. Ben: Sure Granny. But first I’d like to discuss the possibility of us forming a partnership that would allow me to access the cereal cupboard next to the fridge. I know that door opens all the way, but for me, it only opens a few centimetres. I feel certain that, by working together, we could solve this problem. Granny: (Your mom will kill me if I let you into that cupboard.) Come on up here, Ben Darling, and Granny will tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a little rabbit who wanted to open the barnyard gate. He pulled and he pulled, but each time he pulled on the gate, it bonked him in the nose. Then one day, a wise owl flew over and the rabbit asked him for advice. “Move to the side of the gate before you pull on it,” said the owl. “Then it won’t hit you in the nose when you open it.” Ben: Granny, what’s a barnyard gate? Granny: (You see, there’s no need for harsh discipline. All you have to do is distract them when you suspect they’re on the verge of getting into trouble.)

MORNING ON JERICHO HILL

“And in my mind I still need a place to go, All my changes were there.” –Neil Young “The next time we go to Vancouver,” I said to David, “I want to go to Jericho Hill School.” “We already went there once,” he said reasonably. There was no denying the truth of it. For him, once had apparently been enough. We did go there once, back in 1974, when I was nearly 21 and the school was almost closed and the principal, smiling and gracious in a manner that seemed totally foreign to my memories of her, sized up david, glanced at my wedding ring and said to me, “Well, it seems that things have turned out rather well for you.” With that cogent summary, she ushered us off the property. Unspoken by David was the question: “Why would we bother going there again?” For this I had no real answer, only that I wanted to go. Our encounter with the principal was my last memory of the school, and this was a thing I regretted. For I had felt like a stranger in her commanding presence, a guest, unwelcome to explore the rooms I had known so well, or to speak unsensored of my experiences. A part of my life was closed off to me. I wanted to go back, to wander in the time before the principal tied my life into a neat bow. In my mind’s ear, Neil Young sang one possible explanation for my wanting: “All my changes were there.” I was a tearful, homesick 11-year-old Alberta farm child when I first went there in the fall of 1965. She was not the principal at that time. Mine had been the world of curling rinks and grain elevators, of chicken coops and hay lofts, of spring seeding and fall harvesting. I’d had never ventured beyond the safe shelter of loving parents. The house I had always known clearly remembered the days of kerosene lighting and outdoor bathrooms. In 1965 it still did not have a telephone. Vancouver BC was an unimaginable place. It might have been Wonderland, or the Land of Oz, for all I knew of cities. But Vancouver had a school for blind children. So that is where I was destined to spend my first few teen-age years. The Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and the Blind was not a single building, but rather a hodgepodge of structures, old and new, terraced and strewn on a steep hill leading up from the ocean at 4100 West 4th Avenue. At the bottom of the hill were the dining hall—half condemned and smelling eternally of cabbage boiled too long with ancient Brussells Sprouts, the office where we collected our allowance on Friday afternoons—three quarters condemned and creaking under every footfall, and the gymn—one ancient freestanding room, not condemned, though possibly soon to be. Part way up the hill stood the bowling alley where I learned to bowl badly, the swimming pool where I learned to swim sort of, and the Braille Building which housed the school for the blind, along with the dormitories for the junior blind girls, the senior blind girrls and the senior deaf girls. Over to the west was the building that housed the infirmary where the nurses soaked my boils, the auditorium where we put on plays, the residence for the junior deaf kids and the junior school for the deaf. Further up the hill were two buildings that housed the senior school for the deaf, and the home economics and industrial arts classrooms for the blind. Up even further stood the dorm for the senior blind boys and deaf boys. In the three years I spent trudging up and down that hill, I never climbed up to that level. The boys’ dorm was strictly off limits for us girls. In 2013 I was determined to go back there, to climb that hill again, even though I had heard that the condemned structures were gone and the Braille Building had been demolished. “I just want to walk on the grounds,” I said to David. So we boarded a bus sporting a sign that said #4 UBC and got off at Jericho Beach Park. The hill I remember has not changed. For some strange reason, no buildings have taken the places of the old. The swimming pool stands where it always stood and the sunken garden that separated it from the Braille Building remains as it was when I first knew it, nearly 50 years ago. I could face north and conjure up the mournful cries of the foghorns that were ever present when I woke on winter mornings. I could face south into the bush that backed our classrooms. David and I could descend the paths I trod in the rain to breakfast, lunch and dinner. We could take the path behind the pool and climb the 70 steps to the home ec room, now used for other purposes. We could even ascend those last two flights to the boys’ dorm. When we got to the top and surveyed the scene below, a gentleman asked if we needed directions—a reminder that this area might still be beyond limits for me. I left that place in the spring of 1968. My condition was much as it had been on the day I left home—tearful, not really wanting to leave. I was the strange inhabitant of two worlds that did not touch, except through me. Each world was separate and complete unto itself. Both of them were home to me, yet I could not dwell simultaneously in both. Three years is an eternity in the life of an 11-year-old. During that three years I had given up my Barbie dolls. I had expanded my body into bras and compressed it in panty gurdles. I had been kissed and learn go-go dancing. I had been confirmed in the Anglican church. I had visited the home of people wealthy enough to have a private swimming pool. I had slept in the same house as a drug addict. I had sold Girl Guide Cookies door-to-door. I had learned to read braille music. I knew jokes I could not tell my family. I had read To Kill A Mockingbird. I had sat upon a rock until my clothes were soaked by a rogue wave of the incoming tide. I had seen the Supremes perform at the Cave. I had eaten octapus at the Seven Seas buffet. I had drunk Shirley Temples. I had learned to iron. I could spell words in sign language. I had been lonely. I had been loved. I had been adopted by the families of friends I still cherish to this day—friends who could not possibly imagine themselves in the life of an alberta farm girl. It did not matter that the buildings were gone. A thousand insignificant details flooded my mind as we wandered up and down the hill. I recalled how the chairs were arranged in the dining hall, the shape of the pitchers that held the morning hot chocolate and the hooks where we hung our dripping coats. My ears heard the music room with its seven pianos, all playing discordantly from their corners during morning practice. My feet approached the library wall and my fingers touched the 144 enormous braille volumes that comprised the World Book Encyclopedia, 1960 Edition. I remembered throwing crooked pots on a pottery wheel and debunking horror stories about how hard it was for blind children to cope in public schools. (I had coped in public schools for the first six grades. That made me an expert.) I could hear Miss Darwood entering each room in the hallway calling: “Good morning girls.” (what she meant was, “Get up girls.”) I could feel the tension of waiting for her to get to our room. I would shut my eyes one second before she arrived and pretend to be asleep. I could hear the thunk of feet kicking the pop machine that stood steadfast at the swimming pool entrance, sometimes stealing money, other times delivering root beer, Coke or orange. The entrance is still there, but the machine is gone. David said he could see the stain on the wall where a machine had once stood. You can visit the past, but you can’t stay there. David and I left the grounds when I had kept him there as long as I dared. The paths through the forest and along the beach were beckoning us. But as we left, I opened the door a crack, lest he should think we would never go back. “I might,” I said, “want to come here some day and sit on the lawn that slopes down from the place where the Braille Building used to be. I might want to sit there and write.”

BABY TALK

Pirate: I am one lucky dog! Kitty: oh yeah? Pirate: Yes. Want to know why I say I’m a lucky dog? Kitty: I suppose. Pirate: Well, you know that baby we’ve been seeing—the one that changed Wendy’s name to granny? Kitty: Yeah. Pirate: and you know how you told me that he would be chasing me around the house, pulling my TAIL, eating my food, and getting me scolded for growling at him? Kitty: yeah. Pirate: Well, I’ve seen him three times now kitty, and I’m thinking you’re wrong. Kitty: I suppose it could happen. Pirate: The first time he came to my house it was March. I guarded my food, I stayed far away from him and I curled my tail as tight as I could. He just laid around on various laps. All my effort was wasted. Kitty: and? Pirate: The second time he came it was July. I guarded my food, I stayed far away from him and I kept my tail curled tightly. He just laid on the floor blowing bubbles. All my effort was wasted. Kitty: And? Pirate: the third time he came it was September. I didn’t bother guarding my food. In fact, I didn’t even need so much of my food because of the yummy stuff he dropped on the floor for me when he sat in his high chair. When he finished feeding me, he’d sit on the floor and roll onto his tummy. Then he would raise himself on all fours, almost as if he were a dog. He looked right at my tail, gave me the most beautiful smile and said, “ehh! ehh!” I thought “Now I’d better be careful.” I’d look straight at him and curl my tail tightly. Then he’d push with his hand until he crept backwards. Every time he pushed he got fartheraway from me. He’s harmless kitty. I tell you. You ought to be more optimistic. Kitty: And what will you do when he learns to creep forwards? Pirate: Oh, I’ve got it all worked out. Every day now I put my tail behind me and practice walking backwards. Kitty: you can lead a dog to enlightenment, but can you make him think?

PANIC

It was August 26 when Panic hit me—knocked out my breath and set my knees to trembling. Somehow I had managed to keep her at bay with soothing words, with promises. “Don’t panic,” I had said to myself. “You know you never miss a deadline. There is still time.” And with those simple words, with the promise of time, Panic had been persuaded to hide backstage, waiting for the right moment to strike. Even in the summers that aren’t so great, summer is a marvellous time to let yourself lose sight of deadlines. Time stretches out in a summer, stretches out and flies away. Go on holidays and you soon get to wondering if it’s Tuesday or Thursday. Time gets distorted in the summer. But the ultimate, inescapable problem with time, in the context of a deadline, is that there gets to be less and less of it. Every unused day before a deadline is a day you never, ever get back. All through the spring and summer I had been looking forward to the pleasure of losing myself in whatever stories I would develop for the T.A.L.E.S Fort Edmonton Festival on the Labour Day weekend. Storytelling, after all, is a hobby, a pleasure. I had been promising it as a reward to myself, since I had not been writing THE HOPE LADY Blog, and writing always helps. But more to the point—in relation to the panic—I had also promised one 15-minute concert story and one 50-minute story performance to my hard-working, ever-faithful colleagues at T.A.L.E.S. The concert story would be about light. I had promised it for August 31—a story to pick up the threads from a beautiful song to be performed by The Once, a folk group from Newfoundland. The 50-minute performance, a montage of folk tales and personal reflections about mirrors, was promised for September 1. It was April when I first made the promises. None of the folk tales about mirrors had been located. None of the personal stories had been written. But it was all highly possible, back in April. It was May when I signed the contracts. May was followed by June and July and 25 days of August when I did absolutely nothing to move the project forward—nothing except for thinking occasionally about it, then shooing Panic back into the wings. At a certain point, when I was no longer certain that the project was possible, I turned to Hope. In fact, it was a hope statement that caused the panic. I woke up on the morning of August 26 and said to myself, “Don’t worry about the future. Why, just think, a week from today your stories will have already been told.” When Panic heard this, she rushed forward and knocked the wind out of me. “Worry, you idiot!” she shrieked. “You have left this so late, you’ll need a miracle. I have heard too many excuses about having writer’s block, and being on holidays, and spending time with little Ben, and dealing with all the issues in your life! This time you have pushed me too far!” Then she shook me so hard I saw stars. And so it was that, in Ontario, on the road between Long Sault and Gananaque on the morning of August 26, while sitting in the very back seat of a rental van, I took out Mona the iPhone and launched an Internet search for folk tales about mirrors. This is how it all ended. A concert story was performed in Edmonton on August 31, and a 50-minute set was performed on September 1. I have the recordings to prove it. I did the hard work of preparation. I did the suffering. But Panic is taking all the credit. These days Panic is feeling pretty smug—pretty proud of herself. “Bow for the applause,” she sneers, “but let me just say that you couldn’t have done it without me.” And, reluctantly, I have to admit that she is probably right.

DISCOVERY

“Babies are meant to lie on their backs,” Ben’s great-grandmother would have said. “they develop faster when they can see the world.” Ben’s great-grandmother had experience with babies. “babies must be placed on their stomachs,” his Granny said to her mother, when she was raising his mom. “all the experts tell us it’s safer for them. On their backs they can’t so easily choke.” “Babies must be placed on their backs,” his mother says with conviction. “Studies show they will be at reduced risk for crib death.” So much conflicting information. How is a fellow to know whom he ought to trust? So ben has taken matters into his own hands. After five-and-a-half months of listening to the opinions of experts, he has developed a system for flipping himself from stomach to back, back to stomach. No more staring at that boring ceiling! no more flattening the nose against the mattress! It’s the new freedom, the final proof that babies know best, the revolutionary discovery that changes everything! Perhaps ben will take out a patent some day, sell the knowledge to other babies. He’ll call his discovery ‘The turn-Right system’. With so many babies out there wondering whom to believe, he’ll be rich in no time. But all the work of that will have to wait. For Ben is, at this very moment, hatching and testing the validity of a new theory. If babies can turn themselves, he reasons, might they not also be able to move from family room to kitchen by placing hands just ahead of the shoulders and then bending the knees up under the torso, thus advancing the body forward, a little at a time?

SMELLING LIKE BEN

Ron MacLean: “I sometimes feel that without children to sort of rein me in and give me responsibility, I’ve never really grown up. I’ve been able to play hockey, go out with my buddies and be obsessive about work. I’m selfish in a way that children don’t allow you to be.” (Cornered, P102) I came across this quote when I was flying home from my most recent Granny visit to baby Ben. I smiled because I had, only that day, posed the question: “Why do we want kids anyway?” At the time when I asked that question, I was smelling a lot like Ben, a nose-wrinkling kind of smell that reminds you of last week’s milk. That same smell was on every blouse in my suitcase, except for one last shirt buried under the pile, waiting for me to put it on after the last kiss good-bye. Ben’s mother came running at the sound of the question. Perhaps she was wondering if I really doubt the worth of children. She was clearly ready to defend Ben against any suggestion of an emotion less extreme than delight. She need not have worried. This was not the first time I smelled that way. Baby Ben is remarkably like his mother was at that age. First we eat, then we spit up. “It all changes,” I promise her. “Look how well you turned out in the end!” Ron MacLean had intended to be a father, but fate had other things in mind. He was sad. Still, he embraced a grand career worthy of an autobiography. He basks now in the late-night freedom of a forever teen-ager. It’s possible that he never smelled like baby Ben. Smelling better now that I am back home in Edmonton, too far away to simply reach over to pick Ben up at the first possible opportunity, I say: “Poor Ron! Poor, poor Ron!”

IF I WERE BEING BULLIED, WHAT WOULD GIVE ME HOPE?

With so much attention focused on bullying these days, I’ve been wondering what kind of talk would give me hope if I were being bullied. Of course, if I were being bullied, the bullying would probably have been going on for some time, and I would likely have already tried a number of things. I might have tried telling the bullies to stop, or ignoring them, or telling somebody about it. I might even have tried moving away. And having tried these things and found them to be ineffective would definitely have sucked out a lot of my hope. I might even be feeling that I should give up because the situation is hopeless. Now all of us know that hope is power. People who have hope are active. They look for options. If there’s one thing all bullying victims lack, it is certainly power. So if I were being bullied, and I told you about it, what could you say to me that would give me hope? You could say, “I believe that what they are doing to you is absolutely wrong!” You might not say that because you’d think I already know you believe it’s wrong. But if I were being bullied, I’d probably think it was my fault, and I’d be wondering if the bullies were right. I’d need to hear what you believe. I’d need to hear it more than once. You could say, “The human race hasn’t figured out how to stop bullying yet, so we have to work hard at finding solutions.” If you said that, you’d be hinting that the human race might just solve this problem some day. Even if I didn’t think you could solve my problem right now, the idea that you had a vision of solving it could give me hope. You could say, “I know you feel terrible now, but your life will be a lot happier when they stop bullying you.” That would give me hope, because it would show me that you can see a time when they will stop. If I were being bullied, I wouldn’t be able to see that time on my own. Most important of all, you could say, “I will help you deal with this. I will stick by you even if it goes on for a while before we find a solution. I will be your friend. I will not give up. You can count on me.” If I were being bullied, and you talked this kind of language to me, I might just keep on hoping. I might just keep on trying. Both of us would be stronger, more committed to getting something done. Both of us would have more hope. Both of us would have more power. If there’s one thing that scares off a bully, it’s knowing that other people have power. (This article was first published in the Edmonton Examiner, 24/10/2012)

THANKSGIVING FOR FAMILY

Last week I attended a conference where more than half the participants were First Nations. It was jointly sponsored by Aboriginal Health Services and Alberta Health Services. It got me thinking again about the role of family. There were more children at this conference than you would usually find at such a thing. People were sharing responsibility for them, carrying them around, planting them on willing laps. There were more generations of families than you normally see at conferences. That is because so many of the participants came from First Nations families. I was there without relatives, a normal conference condition for me, unless I’ve recruited a relative to drive me. Family support looks different in different cultures. Early in our marriage I recall thinking that it would be good to be far away from family. We could do our own thing, carve out a life for ourselves. I knew that if we were near family, they would influence how we lived. Those were the days before social networking, before you could be close to loved-ones, hearing their voices, seeing their picture while you spoke to them, calling as often as you liked. It turned out that long distance separation for us was not to be. Some parents were ten minutes away. Others were two hours away. And so, on this Thanksgiving, I have the great gift of being thankful for incredible family support, both given and received, the way that family support makes you grateful. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that one of our conference speakers said that everyone has a role in families. In aboriginal cultures, the role of elders is to be wise, to be cared for. The role of younger people is to care for them and learn. In our culture, things are a bit different. We think more passively of elders, don’t rely on them as teachers so much. But the rules of mutual caring still apply. . I will be sharing Thanksgiving dinner with my father and my mother-in-law. It is likely that both of them will give me at least one piece of advice. I’ll remember that advice, even if I don’t want to. I know this because it has often happened. I am going to be a grandmother soon, or is it a Granny, or a Gran? We’re not sure exactly what I shall be called. The object of my grandmotherhood, still being on the inside has no name at the moment so I call him Little Bun. Little Bun will be growing up a few thousand miles away from me. Still, I truly hope to be part of Little Bun’s life. I’ve been making lists lately of all the things my elders have taught me about raising children, of all the things my elders have done to help me raise my children. The list is long and impressive. And so, on this Thanksgiving weekend, I am especially thankful for family support. I am particularly willing to hold on through the ups and downs, to believe that it is a good thing to be with family.

SUBSTITUTES

My friend Scott has been sending me childhood stories lately. What a pleasure it is to read them! Short, vivid and descriptive, they are gentle invitations to a by-gone day. Reading them you can almost believe you are growing up with Scott in the 1950’s.
He’s got me interested in my own memories, few and undescribed as they may be. Still, the older I get, the more of them I seem to have. Go figure! So I am finding memories back there, and I’ve started to notice a few things about them.
There are a couple of kinds of memories, the ones I actually have, and the ones I wish I had. The memories of my real childhood tend to be dull, devoid of the intrigue and adventure craved by a reading world. The memories I wish I had are diverse in nature. In fact, they are quite subject to variation, depending on the context of the present day. On the days when I’m feeling light and cheerful, I wish I’d had a more adventurous childhood—one you could sink your teeth into. Why are there no stories about Wendy breaking an arm in a fall while trying to retrieve a robin’s nest from a sky-high poplar? Where are the tales of a teen-ager sneaking out of the house for romance after the folks had gone to bed? What is the potential entertainment value of a childhood lived out in relative obedience?
On other days, today for example, I wish I had more memories—any memories actually--of me in the role of a compassionate child, a kind child, a supportive child. There are kids like that, you know, and I really want to grow down to be like them.
There’s one such child attending elementary school in Guelph Ontario. I heard the story from my daughter, a substitute teacher—correction—an emergency substitute teacher. In Ontario, you see, they have two kinds of substitute teachers. Substitute teachers have their names on a list and when somebody is unable to teach they get called in. Emergency substitute teachers lurk on shadowy lists that are more mysterious. They are called in when the notice is so short, or the conditions so difficult that no substitute teacher can fill the gap. When it’s time for the second bell, and the teacher is lying delirious on the floor waiting for an ambulance, that’s when you need an emergency sub—one who will take charge with no preparation, no orientation and no lesson plans.
I don’t know if we had emergency substitute teachers when I was a kid. Maybe I’ll recall that later. For now I can only say that I disliked subs of all kinds. My list of complaints against them was lengthy indeed. They failed to follow our established routines. They seldom knew what to do. They didn’t learn our names. They had trouble controlling the class. Sometimes they were idiots and I had the facts to prove it! Once, when we were studying the theories of Freud in a high school psychology class, a sub came in and called him Frude. How outrageous! I fumed at the very idea of paying a salary to such an incompetent!
But time changes perspective. For my daughter, who is now a sub, I have nothing but respect. Imagine getting up in the morning and racing off to teach a class of self-righteous little Wendys. I brace myself to hear the tales she will tell.
Here’s today’s tale. Every classroom has its own features. Her Edmonton room had a telephone for direct calls and an intercom for messages intended for the entire school. Having made a rushed entry into an unfamiliar class, she had not noticed the absence of a telephone when a voice came over the intercom. “Excuse me,” it said. She hushed the children and there they sat, waiting quietly for an announcement to be made. Finally, a child whispered, “You’re supposed to say Hello.”
“Good thing Grade ones and twos are kind,” she writes to her mother.
Her mother says, “Good thing you didn’t have to emergency substitute teach your mother.”

AND SO IT GOES

One of this blog's most loyal helpers has come out of the shadows with a blog of her own. It is a little commentary on moments that make a teacher's job worth doing.
And so it goes  

HOW HOPE HAS MADE A DIFFERENCE

I've been watching in awe for the past few months as a program for hope and kids developed. It is truly an inspiring program, the brilliant work of my colleague Lenora LeMay, executed with the help of many others. My congratulations go out to everyone who has worked on it. I had intended to write about it, but I give you three links to the work of a better journalist. All three articles cover different content and are well worth reading.

Teens Go to Trade School

McCauley Teens Wipe Out Graffiti

McCauley Students Speak Up

brain changes

The elevator is going up. Inside it are two teen-agers and me. Says one teen-ager to the other, “These pants are so ugly, but they sure are warm!”
Says the other, ”Well, it doesn’t matter what they look like, as long as they are warm.”
I leave the elevator in a state of confusion. Something is wrong with this conversation. If I had a hearing aid, I would definitely check it for evidence of tampering by aliens. If these were the olden days, I would expect a smiling TV host to jump aboard and shout, ”Wendy edey, you’re on Candid Camera!”
But I don’t have a hearing aid, and this is 2009, and these really are teen-agers. And then it comes to me. This overheard conversation is clear undisputable evidence that brain changes can result from prolonged periods of almost freezing to death in March when spring ought to be coming!

THE CART IN THE RIVER

So here’s a story about how a seemingly impossible thing can get done if you keep your mind on it, and here also is a story about the difference that getting that thing done can make.
Kevin Jones is the guest speaker in my hope class. He is telling the eager students about his hope study and service projects with kids. The kids were learning about hope, focusing their attention on things that could make the world better. They talked about a shopping cart in the river. They wanted to get it out of there. They didn’t know how to make that happen. The hope project is supported by a local Rotary Club and the Rotarians were invited to breakfast with the kids. One of the kids told some Rotarians about the cart in the river. The Rotarians got a boat and extracted it on that very day. This is really a great story. The class loves it. We think it is finished.
And then one of the students says, “I used to look down at that cart in the river and wonder how it could be taken out. Then one day it was gone. Now I know how it happened.”

DRAWING HOPE IN A CLASSROOM

What fun it is to go to a classroom where the kids have been making hope art. If you haven’t had a chance to do it, you have missed an amazing experience.

Last Thursday I visited a very active classroom. Most of the children were either 6 or 7 years old. All had met the requirements for assignment to the category known as ‘behavior disorder’. They were lively and bouncing by the time I got there, but their teacher said they had had a very peaceful morning. Why had they had such a quiet morning? Well, it seems they had been doing their hope art, giving it their full and undivided attention. It was so unusually tranquil that their teacher called the principal in to witness this uncharacteristic peace.

A memory, clear and sharp, came to me as the children introduced themselves, telling me about their hope creations. The memory was of a conversation I had a couple of years ago, when the hope art project was still an idea in its infancy. The conversation was with a teacher.

Her: “I just don’t think this project can work.”.

Me: “Why not?”.

”I know it’s a good idea and all,” she said thoughtfully, “giving the kids the challenge to think about hope and draw something. But I am thinking about some little people I have known, little people with no support from home, maybe not too smart, been through unspeakable things that you and I cannot even imagine. I think about me asking them to draw about hope, and these kids sitting there, failing again. It would be cruel to expect them to draw hope!”

I don’t recall what I said. I wanted to persuade her, so I imagine I told her that I believed it would be okay. I believed it because I have met hundreds of adults who have been through unspeakable things. Some of them are seriously considering suicide. Some of them are not too bright. And yet I would be willing to risk asking any and all of them to reflect on hope and draw something. If they seemed unable, I would help them a tiny bit.

I don’t recall exactly what she said in response, but I do recall that she wasn’t convinced by what I had said. She was thinking that it’s different for adults than for these little people. She was thinking that classrooms are different from counselling sessions. She was thinking that I probably didn’t understand what teachers face in their classrooms. I wouldn’t have disagreed with any of this.

I know a number of teachers who have struggled with the idea of making hope explicit in their classrooms. Many years ago I had another conversation with a teacher. He told me that a teacher wouldn’t be wise to ask kids to draw hope because they would all draw pictures of the latest toys in the department store. Since those toys would be unavailable to some of the children, he said it would be unfair to start such a process. At that time I had much less experience. What he said made sense to me, given the materialistic attitude of our society.

On the other hand, I have known teachers who embraced the idea of doing hope projects. They did them purposefully, anxious to see what would happen, suspending any fears they might have had about the worst possible outcomes. One of these was in command last Thursday, in the classroom where I was meeting little people who were proudly displaying pictures of rainbows and animals and such. There was no mention of toys, even though Christmas is coming. I couldn’t keep myself from thinking about the conditions that disrupt children’s behavior so badly as to render them unmanageable in a regular classroom by the age of 6 or 7. We know they are more likely to be in a behavior disorder classroom if they have been abused, neglected, or have parents with mental illness or addiction issues. Some were damaged by drugs or alcohol before they were born. We know that poverty is common in their ranks.

It was an exciting day in that classroom. They had a guest—me. The had art to show. But there was more. One of the children was proudly displaying a chicken puppet. It was on loan from the principal. It was his reward for the marvelous behavior he had shown during the peaceful art time that morning. The whole class was bursting with chickenly pride.

Many lessons were evident during my hour in that classroom. It was abundantly clear that you don’t have to be smart to understand what hope is. You don’t have to be rich, or clean, or popular, or happy. You don’t have to be an artist to draw hope. What is it about hope art that leads children to that reflective place deep into their centre core? From where does it draw the power to create a quiet lull in a behavior blizzard?

Hope art projects create many benefits. They give children the space and quiet time to think about hope, to feel hope, to do an act of hope, and then to see the mirrored image of their own hope when they show their work to others. Some of the children in this busy classroom found time to make two or three drawings. Some of the drawings will be exhibited in the children’s hope art show. Others will be displayed in their school.

Though the art can stand on its own, and sometimes it has to, there is no doubt that the best way to experience a hope art project is to see the children and the art in the same room. You get more out of it when you see what went into it. That’s when you feel the hope. That’s when you experience the separate, private and individual meaning of each and every rainbow that found its way onto a page. That’s when you know that the process of considering hope is every bit as significant as the outcome. I wish you had been there with me. If you have never visited a classroom where the children have been making hope art, you have missed an amazing experience.