When we go to our church on a Sunday
We hear stories of welcoming strangers
Extending of warm hospitality
And trusting the world will be better.
We welcome the welcoming stories.
We like to think we are inclusive.
We feel good on days when we offer.
We generally strive to do more.
But somebody gave out our address
And did it without our permission.
It happened in early September,
The time when cold weather is looming.
Before we could think what was happening
We were hosting a party for thousands
Who’d gathered out on the veranda
To find a warm spot for the winter.
In panic we called the authorities.
They said this was not an emergency.
Since we weren’t being burgled or bitten
And no genuine harm was occurring.
The word on the web says they’re harmless
That they just want to stay for the winter
In a warm comfy place until springtime
And how can we blame them for that?
They won’t eat our food or our houseplants
They won’t lay their eggs on our property.
They’ll die if they stay until summer,
How could we turn them away?
So if you are the kind who gives welcome
To strangers in need of a shelter
Just send us your addressed permission
And we’ll send you …
Absolutely free …
Without checking your references …
With no strings attached …
And no payment required on your part …
Thousands and thousands of Box Elder Bugs.
Don’t worry!
They won’t hurt you!
Honest!
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
ON THE JOY OF FACILITATING A HOPE GROUP
When you run a hope group
As I have had occasion to do,
For people who are struggling
With issues beyond our imagining
You witness a miracle of making hope explicit.
You unveil the mysteries of humankind,
You find the light buried deep beneath the fog,
You reveal the talent lying unnoticed beyond the chaos,
You see the resourcefulness flare light the last spark in a burned-out campfire,
You see people grow taller, stronger, braver as they reach out to help each other,
You feel the ground settle neath the firmness of their stand.
This is why, amid the horror,
It is such a joy
To run a hope group
For people who are struggling
With issues beyond our imagining.
As I have had occasion to do,
For people who are struggling
With issues beyond our imagining
You witness a miracle of making hope explicit.
You unveil the mysteries of humankind,
You find the light buried deep beneath the fog,
You reveal the talent lying unnoticed beyond the chaos,
You see the resourcefulness flare light the last spark in a burned-out campfire,
You see people grow taller, stronger, braver as they reach out to help each other,
You feel the ground settle neath the firmness of their stand.
This is why, amid the horror,
It is such a joy
To run a hope group
For people who are struggling
With issues beyond our imagining.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
DISTRACTED BY HOPE
I had intended to write an essay
On despair and its relationship to computers
With reference the way my scanning program crashes
And the fact that my emails to my sister are rejected.
But then I was sidetracked with writing instead
A poem about my writers community
A community I hoped for but never had
Until I started keeping a blog
And reading the healing stories list serve.
A happy ending in many respects
Since hope is better than despair
And poems are shorter than essays.
On despair and its relationship to computers
With reference the way my scanning program crashes
And the fact that my emails to my sister are rejected.
But then I was sidetracked with writing instead
A poem about my writers community
A community I hoped for but never had
Until I started keeping a blog
And reading the healing stories list serve.
A happy ending in many respects
Since hope is better than despair
And poems are shorter than essays.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
TO EASE THEIR BURDEN
Kate Macdonald Butler is the daughter of Stuart Macdonald, who was the youngest son of L.M. Montgomery, author of Anne Of Green Gables. She writes: I hope that by writing about my grandmother now there might be less secrecy and more awareness that will ease the unnecessary suffering so many people experience as a result of such depressions. You can read her essay on her grandmother’s suicide at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080919.wmhmontgomery0920/BNStory/mentalhealth
I think of Montgomery, and Robert Fulghum, and so many others, and I wonder how it comes to pass that depression enables artists to present the world so hopefully to the rest of us yet still leaves them struggling under depression’s oppressive weight. What, beyond buying their creations, can we do to ease their burden?
Though we like to think of mental health work as a science, I think it is as much an art as a science. And though artistic expression alone may not cure depression, it is amazing how many people find comfort in it.
I think of Montgomery, and Robert Fulghum, and so many others, and I wonder how it comes to pass that depression enables artists to present the world so hopefully to the rest of us yet still leaves them struggling under depression’s oppressive weight. What, beyond buying their creations, can we do to ease their burden?
Though we like to think of mental health work as a science, I think it is as much an art as a science. And though artistic expression alone may not cure depression, it is amazing how many people find comfort in it.
Monday, September 22, 2008
THE WORDS THE CAT TOOK
Harry is one of those people who has inspired my hope as well as my writing. Fond as he was of universities, I suspect he would have been pleased to know that McMaster University Press has published a story about him as part of an anthology from the Writing Down Our Years Series. The book is:
This Little Light of Mine: Stories and Poetry from Family Caregivers
Kathleen M. Banchoff, Editor
Illustrated with the photography of Richard and Eleanore Kosydar.
The book can be purchased for $15.00 online from McMaster http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:qQLLPJy9GTEJ:www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/gerontology/emplibrary/1-Writing08%2520Years%2520Series%2520Order%2520Form.pdf+this+little+light+of+mine+mcmaster&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ca
My contribution, one of many in the book, appears here in its entirety, my tribute to Harry’s courage and persistence.
THE WORDS THE CAT TOOK
By
Wendy Edey
It is a good thing old age comes so late in life. It gives you the time to develop the resources to deal with it. There is a lot of noise in Harry’s room—too much noise really—given that this is a hospital and the official beginning of visiting hours is still an hour away. There is a lot of noise, but not quite enough to cover the sound of the too-loud voices coming from the hallway.
It is the morning after the stroke, the morning after the big one, the whopper, the cataclysmic stroke of all strokes, the stroke that stilled his good right arm and turned his leg to jelly. It is the morning after the cat got Harry’s tongue.
Harry’s room is a double room shared with a stranger. Harry would like to share the bathroom. For the moment that is out of the question because he is trapped in his bed. But Harry is not a man to be trifled with, and already he is having an influence, holding court from a horizontal perspective, using every muscle that moves, conducting the family through a modified game of charades.
“Bed pan,” cries a son. Bedpan is, on that morning, a guess of enormous importance, a guess you would want to make in case there wasn’t much time.
“No!” shouts Harry. It is a firm no, a definite no, the kind of no a three-year-old shouts when you try to put his shoes on. But it is music to the ears of the family. Maybe the cat that got his tongue has left some important words for Harry.
“Water jug!” cries a granddaughter. Thirst might be the problem.
“No!” shouts Harry.
More guesses. “Close these curtains!”
“No!”
“A tissue for your nose?”
“No!” And then Harry says, “There!” A sigh from the family. Another word left by the cat.
He says it again. “There!”
But where? We try again. “Pull up the blanket?”
“No!”
“Crank up the bed?”
“No!. A breath. “No! No! No! No!” And then, a flash of anger hot as fire, ”Damn it all!”
Shocked silence from the family. Can Harry really have said that? The cat who took the words must have a sense of humour. Harry has never been a man to swear. But then, communication has never been so difficult before, so promising and so daunting at the same time.
We pause to collect our thoughts. But silence will not do. It is noise we need now, noise. Make more noise! If we make more noise it might be impossible for Harry to hear, for us to hear the too-loud voice of the young doctor echoing in the hallway just beyond Harry’s door. Only a moment ago that man came right into the room and said, “If Harry’s wife is here I would like to speak to her about a do-not-resuscitate order. We don’t have one on the chart.”
Not a word did he speak to Harry. Presumably he was in a hurry. He wanted to get a do-not-resuscitate order on the chart. In his hand was a clipboard, and he would likely have had the full conversation then and there had one of Harry’s sons not risen to guide his mother to the door. There might have been a quiet room in soft pastels where Harry’s wife might have sat to discuss this difficult issue. But just outside the door the doctor stopped abruptly, turning back to continue the conversation, addressing himself to Harry’s wife.
Harry’s wife was tired, but she was not a woman to be trifled with. “Harry made a living will,” she said, getting the upper hand. “We brought it with us last night when we came in the ambulance. Maybe they still have it down in Emergency. He didn’t want to be a vegetable.”
The doctor was unimpressed. The word ‘vegetable’ was not on any of his forms. But that was the word Harry had used. What did he mean by that anyway? He meant he did not want to be passive, so passive he could be thrown into a pot and boiled up, so passive that others would have to tend him, keep his basic systems going. He wanted to be active, interactive, involved in the rhythm of daily life like a human being would be involved.
Inside Harry’s room there is no sign of vegetablehood right now. Harry is definitely not passive, not even close. He is, in fact, the centre of attention. It isn’t even visiting hours yet, and there are already a lot of people in Harry’s room, two patients, seven visitors. In the who-can-have-the-most-visitors competition, Harry has a definite lead, five visitors for him, two for the other guy. It is a difficult situation in some ways. Hospitals never quite know what to do about visitors. Visitors are good for the patients, but too many visitors can be too much of a good thing. Visiting hours keep things organized, but patients need their families in times of crisis. If the cat’s got your tongue your family can speak for you—sort of.
The too-loud conversation in the hahll is very short, as impromptu standing-up conversations among strangers tend to be. A granddaughter rises to make a chair available to Harry’s wife as she comes back in. One way to control the number of visitors is to control the number of chairs. Harry’s room has only four chairs, but we don’t mind standing. Things are pretty active anyway, what with Harry trying to give us a message we can’t understand, and all the guessing going on.
There is a better chance of solving the puzzle now that Harry’s wife is in the game. She ought to be exhausted, having spent last evening and most of the night in the emergency ward. This does not seem like a good time to discuss the too-loud hallway conversation, so we ask instead for her help with the game. We have exhausted all possibilities, made a hundred guesses. We have surveyed the ceiling, surveyed the floor, and still Harry persists. Whatever it is he wants to say, it must be very important.
“There!” he cries in agitation, the way an ignored messenger of war might cry when bringing news of an impending attack. “There!”
Harry’s wife has been his wife for 55 years. She knows him pretty well, well enough to predict that he will not give up until we have finally understood whatever it is that he wants to communicate. He has never been a man to give up. Anyone who knows him will tell you that. This is the man who insisted on finishing high school at a time when farm boys were not offered a full education. This is the man who went to war, cleaned guns, fell in love with a Welsh nurse, sacrificed his wedding day for D. Day in France and later married her in his army boots because he had no other shoes.
“He is looking at your chair,” she says to a daughter. It is not twelve hours since the cat got his tongue and already she is developing a skill in telepathy. “He is looking at your chair. Stand up will you?”
This is definitely going to be a challenge. Yesterday he could marshal 60,000 words. Today he is limited to five, including no, there and damn it all. It’s quite a loss when you consider it, 59,995 words wiped away in a single night, gone, but not forgotten. He has not forgotten them. She can see it in his eyes, know it from his history. Once they lost a daughter, a happy, laughing, bouncing daughter. One moment she was swimming in the river and the next moment she was gone. And there was nothing left to do but pull her lifeless body from the weeds where it was tangled. There was grieving, unfathomable grieving. There was heartbreak so deep that tears could still pour out forty years later. What is the loss of 59,995 words and a good right side compared with the loss of a daughter? Can a mere stroke be expected to vanquish a man who has lost a daughter and still not given up?
He has not given up on whatever it is he is after. Now, if his wife is guessing correctly, he is deeply concerned about a chair, the chair where another daughter is sitting. At her mother’s command she stands, and he smiles. They are making progress. But he is not finished yet.
This is a farm boy who started university at 43, survived a major heart attack at 58, studied French at 75. He taught math to bank tellers, computer science to students of business. This is a man who crossed the U.S.S.R., cruised the Amazon. He is a historian, a genealogist. His thoughts are not always simple.
His daughter is standing and he is smiling and still the puzzle is not solved. Is it something about her? No, it seems to be something about the chair. No, not about the chair, but about the bed next to his. No, not about the bed next to his, something about the visitors to the man in the bed next to his. What can it be?
And then suddenly the puzzle is solved. It is the chair. The visitors of the other patient only have one chair, and we have three. We have their other chair. We took their other chair and we need to give it back to them. So we give it back to them. Now both of his visitors have a chair. Two chairs for them and two for us. It is the thing Harry would have told us to do in the days when he had the words. We are cheering now, cheering the way we would be cheering if one of us had won ten thousand dollars on a TV game show.
Harry is not a vegetable. He is involved. We do not know it yet, but in the face of his new life, Harry will be more resolute, more resilient, more resourceful than we ever imagined he could be. We do not know it on this morning, but he has six more years, six more years of laughing at family parties, winning at cards and crying occasionally for his lost daughter. More words will be reconnected, names of people, names of objects. He will proudly display newspaper articles and army medals. He will give to charity, attend church, go to the bank, sign his name with his left hand, walk, fall and walk again.
On this difficult morning, when he knows there are still some things he can do, he chooses to hope there will be more things he can do as time goes on. He has always been a learner. Just this morning he began learning how it feels to be disregarded, as if he were invisible, invisible because he does not speak a language that can be understood by people in a hurry. And so he begins to take charge, to rally his family and friends. To us he will not be invisible. It will take more people to solve a problem. It will take longer than it used to. But we will do the best we can. This is not the only game of charades we will play. It is the first of a thousand enactments, enactments leading to guesses, guesses to fill the spaces, millions of spaces left by the thousands of words the cat took.
This Little Light of Mine: Stories and Poetry from Family Caregivers
Kathleen M. Banchoff, Editor
Illustrated with the photography of Richard and Eleanore Kosydar.
The book can be purchased for $15.00 online from McMaster http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:qQLLPJy9GTEJ:www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/gerontology/emplibrary/1-Writing08%2520Years%2520Series%2520Order%2520Form.pdf+this+little+light+of+mine+mcmaster&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ca
My contribution, one of many in the book, appears here in its entirety, my tribute to Harry’s courage and persistence.
THE WORDS THE CAT TOOK
By
Wendy Edey
It is a good thing old age comes so late in life. It gives you the time to develop the resources to deal with it. There is a lot of noise in Harry’s room—too much noise really—given that this is a hospital and the official beginning of visiting hours is still an hour away. There is a lot of noise, but not quite enough to cover the sound of the too-loud voices coming from the hallway.
It is the morning after the stroke, the morning after the big one, the whopper, the cataclysmic stroke of all strokes, the stroke that stilled his good right arm and turned his leg to jelly. It is the morning after the cat got Harry’s tongue.
Harry’s room is a double room shared with a stranger. Harry would like to share the bathroom. For the moment that is out of the question because he is trapped in his bed. But Harry is not a man to be trifled with, and already he is having an influence, holding court from a horizontal perspective, using every muscle that moves, conducting the family through a modified game of charades.
“Bed pan,” cries a son. Bedpan is, on that morning, a guess of enormous importance, a guess you would want to make in case there wasn’t much time.
“No!” shouts Harry. It is a firm no, a definite no, the kind of no a three-year-old shouts when you try to put his shoes on. But it is music to the ears of the family. Maybe the cat that got his tongue has left some important words for Harry.
“Water jug!” cries a granddaughter. Thirst might be the problem.
“No!” shouts Harry.
More guesses. “Close these curtains!”
“No!”
“A tissue for your nose?”
“No!” And then Harry says, “There!” A sigh from the family. Another word left by the cat.
He says it again. “There!”
But where? We try again. “Pull up the blanket?”
“No!”
“Crank up the bed?”
“No!. A breath. “No! No! No! No!” And then, a flash of anger hot as fire, ”Damn it all!”
Shocked silence from the family. Can Harry really have said that? The cat who took the words must have a sense of humour. Harry has never been a man to swear. But then, communication has never been so difficult before, so promising and so daunting at the same time.
We pause to collect our thoughts. But silence will not do. It is noise we need now, noise. Make more noise! If we make more noise it might be impossible for Harry to hear, for us to hear the too-loud voice of the young doctor echoing in the hallway just beyond Harry’s door. Only a moment ago that man came right into the room and said, “If Harry’s wife is here I would like to speak to her about a do-not-resuscitate order. We don’t have one on the chart.”
Not a word did he speak to Harry. Presumably he was in a hurry. He wanted to get a do-not-resuscitate order on the chart. In his hand was a clipboard, and he would likely have had the full conversation then and there had one of Harry’s sons not risen to guide his mother to the door. There might have been a quiet room in soft pastels where Harry’s wife might have sat to discuss this difficult issue. But just outside the door the doctor stopped abruptly, turning back to continue the conversation, addressing himself to Harry’s wife.
Harry’s wife was tired, but she was not a woman to be trifled with. “Harry made a living will,” she said, getting the upper hand. “We brought it with us last night when we came in the ambulance. Maybe they still have it down in Emergency. He didn’t want to be a vegetable.”
The doctor was unimpressed. The word ‘vegetable’ was not on any of his forms. But that was the word Harry had used. What did he mean by that anyway? He meant he did not want to be passive, so passive he could be thrown into a pot and boiled up, so passive that others would have to tend him, keep his basic systems going. He wanted to be active, interactive, involved in the rhythm of daily life like a human being would be involved.
Inside Harry’s room there is no sign of vegetablehood right now. Harry is definitely not passive, not even close. He is, in fact, the centre of attention. It isn’t even visiting hours yet, and there are already a lot of people in Harry’s room, two patients, seven visitors. In the who-can-have-the-most-visitors competition, Harry has a definite lead, five visitors for him, two for the other guy. It is a difficult situation in some ways. Hospitals never quite know what to do about visitors. Visitors are good for the patients, but too many visitors can be too much of a good thing. Visiting hours keep things organized, but patients need their families in times of crisis. If the cat’s got your tongue your family can speak for you—sort of.
The too-loud conversation in the hahll is very short, as impromptu standing-up conversations among strangers tend to be. A granddaughter rises to make a chair available to Harry’s wife as she comes back in. One way to control the number of visitors is to control the number of chairs. Harry’s room has only four chairs, but we don’t mind standing. Things are pretty active anyway, what with Harry trying to give us a message we can’t understand, and all the guessing going on.
There is a better chance of solving the puzzle now that Harry’s wife is in the game. She ought to be exhausted, having spent last evening and most of the night in the emergency ward. This does not seem like a good time to discuss the too-loud hallway conversation, so we ask instead for her help with the game. We have exhausted all possibilities, made a hundred guesses. We have surveyed the ceiling, surveyed the floor, and still Harry persists. Whatever it is he wants to say, it must be very important.
“There!” he cries in agitation, the way an ignored messenger of war might cry when bringing news of an impending attack. “There!”
Harry’s wife has been his wife for 55 years. She knows him pretty well, well enough to predict that he will not give up until we have finally understood whatever it is that he wants to communicate. He has never been a man to give up. Anyone who knows him will tell you that. This is the man who insisted on finishing high school at a time when farm boys were not offered a full education. This is the man who went to war, cleaned guns, fell in love with a Welsh nurse, sacrificed his wedding day for D. Day in France and later married her in his army boots because he had no other shoes.
“He is looking at your chair,” she says to a daughter. It is not twelve hours since the cat got his tongue and already she is developing a skill in telepathy. “He is looking at your chair. Stand up will you?”
This is definitely going to be a challenge. Yesterday he could marshal 60,000 words. Today he is limited to five, including no, there and damn it all. It’s quite a loss when you consider it, 59,995 words wiped away in a single night, gone, but not forgotten. He has not forgotten them. She can see it in his eyes, know it from his history. Once they lost a daughter, a happy, laughing, bouncing daughter. One moment she was swimming in the river and the next moment she was gone. And there was nothing left to do but pull her lifeless body from the weeds where it was tangled. There was grieving, unfathomable grieving. There was heartbreak so deep that tears could still pour out forty years later. What is the loss of 59,995 words and a good right side compared with the loss of a daughter? Can a mere stroke be expected to vanquish a man who has lost a daughter and still not given up?
He has not given up on whatever it is he is after. Now, if his wife is guessing correctly, he is deeply concerned about a chair, the chair where another daughter is sitting. At her mother’s command she stands, and he smiles. They are making progress. But he is not finished yet.
This is a farm boy who started university at 43, survived a major heart attack at 58, studied French at 75. He taught math to bank tellers, computer science to students of business. This is a man who crossed the U.S.S.R., cruised the Amazon. He is a historian, a genealogist. His thoughts are not always simple.
His daughter is standing and he is smiling and still the puzzle is not solved. Is it something about her? No, it seems to be something about the chair. No, not about the chair, but about the bed next to his. No, not about the bed next to his, something about the visitors to the man in the bed next to his. What can it be?
And then suddenly the puzzle is solved. It is the chair. The visitors of the other patient only have one chair, and we have three. We have their other chair. We took their other chair and we need to give it back to them. So we give it back to them. Now both of his visitors have a chair. Two chairs for them and two for us. It is the thing Harry would have told us to do in the days when he had the words. We are cheering now, cheering the way we would be cheering if one of us had won ten thousand dollars on a TV game show.
Harry is not a vegetable. He is involved. We do not know it yet, but in the face of his new life, Harry will be more resolute, more resilient, more resourceful than we ever imagined he could be. We do not know it on this morning, but he has six more years, six more years of laughing at family parties, winning at cards and crying occasionally for his lost daughter. More words will be reconnected, names of people, names of objects. He will proudly display newspaper articles and army medals. He will give to charity, attend church, go to the bank, sign his name with his left hand, walk, fall and walk again.
On this difficult morning, when he knows there are still some things he can do, he chooses to hope there will be more things he can do as time goes on. He has always been a learner. Just this morning he began learning how it feels to be disregarded, as if he were invisible, invisible because he does not speak a language that can be understood by people in a hurry. And so he begins to take charge, to rally his family and friends. To us he will not be invisible. It will take more people to solve a problem. It will take longer than it used to. But we will do the best we can. This is not the only game of charades we will play. It is the first of a thousand enactments, enactments leading to guesses, guesses to fill the spaces, millions of spaces left by the thousands of words the cat took.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
FOLLOWING THE HOPE TRAIL
I followed a hope trail early today
Over to Ed South 221
Where the university class on hope
Has been taught in winter on Tuesday evenings
Sustained for three years running.
And even though a hundred other classes have been taught there
Day after day, year upon year,
The bulletin board at the back of the room
Stands resplendent with cheery cartoons,
Serious poetry, powerful sayings,
Mobiles depicting theoretical models
Of hope from an academic perspective.
How has it happened that this hopeful display
Accumulated over three years of classes
By students depicting their passion for hope
Persists unassaulted by cleaners or vandals
To welcome this year’s hope class?
Over to Ed South 221
Where the university class on hope
Has been taught in winter on Tuesday evenings
Sustained for three years running.
And even though a hundred other classes have been taught there
Day after day, year upon year,
The bulletin board at the back of the room
Stands resplendent with cheery cartoons,
Serious poetry, powerful sayings,
Mobiles depicting theoretical models
Of hope from an academic perspective.
How has it happened that this hopeful display
Accumulated over three years of classes
By students depicting their passion for hope
Persists unassaulted by cleaners or vandals
To welcome this year’s hope class?
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
THE PLAGUE OF FACTS AND NUMBERS
Oh the plague of facts and numbers! With what I’ve been through this week, I find it a wonder that any history ever gets recorded accurately, or maybe it doesn’t.
First, there was the matter of the river floods on the North Saskatchewan. When I set out to develop a story about the floods, I thought I’d just get the numbers for the dozen or so high-water years. Not so simple though. Take 1915, for example. Did the water rise 14M as quoted by the Edmonton Public Library, or 12M as quoted in the City of Edmonton Disaster Plan, or 45.2 FT as recorded in the history books (No, 45.2 feet doesn’t equal either 12 or 14 meters. I already thought of that.) And then there is the catastrophic flood of 1899, which we are somewhat certain happened in 1899, though the 1915 Edmonton Bulletin newspaper refers to it often as the flood of 1898. Only 16 years passed between those two floods, and already they were getting it wrong.
With all this confusion going on, I wanted to drop the story, not wishing to be responsible for spreading inaccurate information. But I had already promised the story for a program, provided advertising details and taken up the time of the Provincial Archives staff doing the research, so quitting was out of the question. Alas, I have settled for the relative certainty that the 1986 flood was almost as big as the 1899 flood, which was almost as big as the 1915 flood. And I am not even going to mention the 1 in 100 year flood projection, which doesn’t mean that a flood will happen once every 100 years. In fact, the 1 in 100 year flood could theoretically happen every year, though it doesn’t seem to, especially since they installed the big dams up river, the dams which are supposed to prevent all serious floods, which they seem to do, except they didn’t in 1986. Nobody knows whether they prevented a serious flood in 2005, when we all prepared for a flood that didn’t turn out to be much of a flood, just a flood scare at 8.8M according to the Edmonton Public library.
Then there was the matter of Fanny Crosby. I started out knowing that she was a blind woman who lived to the age of 95 and wrote a few hymns, so I thought I’d do a little research and tell my music buddies about her. But it wasn’t more than ten minutes before I was mired in confusion. Did she write approximately 8000 hymns, or roughly 9000 hymns? There are only four in our hymnbook, though it is possible there are more, because the stories say that many of her hymns were published under other names, it not being appropriate for publishers to publish so many under one name. One story says that Fanny would occasionally hear a song by an unknown author and, finding it pleasing, would remark upon it, only to discover that it had actually been written by her. Well, that could be true. Surely nobody could actually remember 8000, let alone 9000 hymns. Fanny, born 1820, published three books in her lifetime—not books of hymns. At one time she had a publisher’s contract to write three hymns a week for the Sunday school—no problem for one who sometimes wrote seven hymns a day. She married but had no children—all the more time for writing. A minister said she told him she would have chosen to be blind so that she might praise her savior. This may have happened, but to me, a pragmatist jaded by the real life limitations of blindness, it sounds like the kind of story ministers really like to hear, and guilty congregations like to repeat with possible embellishment. And did I mention that Fanny also taught history at the New York Institute?
In the end I settled for one basic truth. Fanny Crosby was still a remarkable woman, even if she only wrote 8000 hymns. And one other truth, the North Saskatchewan River caused a lot of consternation with its flooding.
First, there was the matter of the river floods on the North Saskatchewan. When I set out to develop a story about the floods, I thought I’d just get the numbers for the dozen or so high-water years. Not so simple though. Take 1915, for example. Did the water rise 14M as quoted by the Edmonton Public Library, or 12M as quoted in the City of Edmonton Disaster Plan, or 45.2 FT as recorded in the history books (No, 45.2 feet doesn’t equal either 12 or 14 meters. I already thought of that.) And then there is the catastrophic flood of 1899, which we are somewhat certain happened in 1899, though the 1915 Edmonton Bulletin newspaper refers to it often as the flood of 1898. Only 16 years passed between those two floods, and already they were getting it wrong.
With all this confusion going on, I wanted to drop the story, not wishing to be responsible for spreading inaccurate information. But I had already promised the story for a program, provided advertising details and taken up the time of the Provincial Archives staff doing the research, so quitting was out of the question. Alas, I have settled for the relative certainty that the 1986 flood was almost as big as the 1899 flood, which was almost as big as the 1915 flood. And I am not even going to mention the 1 in 100 year flood projection, which doesn’t mean that a flood will happen once every 100 years. In fact, the 1 in 100 year flood could theoretically happen every year, though it doesn’t seem to, especially since they installed the big dams up river, the dams which are supposed to prevent all serious floods, which they seem to do, except they didn’t in 1986. Nobody knows whether they prevented a serious flood in 2005, when we all prepared for a flood that didn’t turn out to be much of a flood, just a flood scare at 8.8M according to the Edmonton Public library.
Then there was the matter of Fanny Crosby. I started out knowing that she was a blind woman who lived to the age of 95 and wrote a few hymns, so I thought I’d do a little research and tell my music buddies about her. But it wasn’t more than ten minutes before I was mired in confusion. Did she write approximately 8000 hymns, or roughly 9000 hymns? There are only four in our hymnbook, though it is possible there are more, because the stories say that many of her hymns were published under other names, it not being appropriate for publishers to publish so many under one name. One story says that Fanny would occasionally hear a song by an unknown author and, finding it pleasing, would remark upon it, only to discover that it had actually been written by her. Well, that could be true. Surely nobody could actually remember 8000, let alone 9000 hymns. Fanny, born 1820, published three books in her lifetime—not books of hymns. At one time she had a publisher’s contract to write three hymns a week for the Sunday school—no problem for one who sometimes wrote seven hymns a day. She married but had no children—all the more time for writing. A minister said she told him she would have chosen to be blind so that she might praise her savior. This may have happened, but to me, a pragmatist jaded by the real life limitations of blindness, it sounds like the kind of story ministers really like to hear, and guilty congregations like to repeat with possible embellishment. And did I mention that Fanny also taught history at the New York Institute?
In the end I settled for one basic truth. Fanny Crosby was still a remarkable woman, even if she only wrote 8000 hymns. And one other truth, the North Saskatchewan River caused a lot of consternation with its flooding.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
A BLIND PERSON CELEBRATES CROSSING THE STREET
Many thanks to the City of Edmonton for installing an audible traffic signal on Rowland Road at 89 Street. This retrofit to the visual signal makes a huge difference to me. For the first time ever, I now feel confident that I am crossing to my bus stop at the appropriate time. I also want other blind people to know that this new signal is there so they can use it when they pass by, though I haven’t yet figured out how to communicate it to them.
Although many Edmontonians believe that these signals are installed wherever they are needed, this is not the case. Audible signal installation has received minimal attention compared, for example, to curb ramps. I am told that the current plan calls for installation of only three per year, and since new lights are not equipped when they are installed, the possibility of making all walk signals accessible to blind people gets further out of reach each year.
Though budget limitations are a contributing factor, the responses I got when requesting the signal show how the situation is made worse by the persistence of myths about blind people. Officials use these myths to defend policies when blind people ask for signals. In turn, we blind people are silenced by these myths. Having spent so much time trying to gain acceptance by proving ourselves, it is difficult for us to change gears and admit to our needs.
When I asked for the audible signal, I was told that the CNIB could solve my problem. This is a myth, though the official who told me this believed absolutely that it was true. Contrary to popular belief, the excellent training provided by the CNIB does not take the place of knowing when the signal changes. Like sighted people, blind people need a signal that tells them when to walk. The CNIB trainers are sighted. They teach blind people how to guess when the signal has changed. They watch the walk signal, and they pull you back if the traffic conditions don’t allow you to guess accurately. After they leave you, you’re on your own.
When I insisted that the CNIB could not solve my problem, I was told that blind people have a sixth sense which they use to cross Edmonton streets. Unfortunately this is not true in my case. I only have four senses, the number that sighted people have when they cover their eyes. If you think blindness gives you a sixth sense, try guessing at walk signals with your eyes closed several days in a row. You will still be able to peak to make sure you got it right.
When I confessed to having only four senses, I was told that the street I live on would never be a priority because it makes sense to spend limited resources on putting signals in central locations. In fact, signals are needed in central places, but these are usually the places where you can get help from other pedestrians. It is near your own home, where traffic is irregular and the streets are empty of pedestrians that you generally cross unaided on a daily basis.
When I argued that it would be difficult for me to reach a central location without leaving home, I was told that the neighbours complain about the noise when audible signals are installed. No numbers were produced to show the extent of the complaining, but I took their word for it and offered to reduce the chances by doing some P.R. work in my neighbourhood. No response was made to this offer.
I will admit that I was discouraged. I thought it would be impossible to influence a system that seemed so disinterested. I likely would have given up had it not been for the unwavering support of some people who love me.
The good news is that the City installed an audible signal that doesn’t make any noise unless you keep it pressed for about five seconds. . I am absolutely delighted with the 89th Street signal, though I don’t understand why this quiet version is automatically de-activated between 11:00 PM and 7:00 AM. Still, I hold out the hope that policy changes can be achieved, another reason for writing this piece. We have organizations that could be taking an active role, using information to shape policy change—the City’s advisory committee on disability services, and the CNIB, to mention two. The city’s advisory committee has begun to show an interest kin the past year. And though it takes both work and courage to make even a small change amid the apathy and ignorance that holds things back, individuals do have the ability to make a difference.
Today I joyfully crossed the street after getting off at my local bus stop. Had it not been for the audible signal, I would not have known that the light had changed. There wasn’t anyone there to help me, and there wasn’t quite enough straight through traffic, and two cars were turning in different directions. But I knew I could go because the signal told me so. I found myself hoping that audible signals will some day be considered a given, rather than a gift, that, like ramped curbs, they will be automatically installed. I am hoping that visually impaired people will step forward and ask for the signals they need, that they will challenge the policies with facts, and that they won’t feel ashamed of admitting that they have difficulty knowing when to cross. Any person asking for a signal should remember that sighted people also find it difficult, and that the problem is addressed by giving them visual walk signals.
Although many Edmontonians believe that these signals are installed wherever they are needed, this is not the case. Audible signal installation has received minimal attention compared, for example, to curb ramps. I am told that the current plan calls for installation of only three per year, and since new lights are not equipped when they are installed, the possibility of making all walk signals accessible to blind people gets further out of reach each year.
Though budget limitations are a contributing factor, the responses I got when requesting the signal show how the situation is made worse by the persistence of myths about blind people. Officials use these myths to defend policies when blind people ask for signals. In turn, we blind people are silenced by these myths. Having spent so much time trying to gain acceptance by proving ourselves, it is difficult for us to change gears and admit to our needs.
When I asked for the audible signal, I was told that the CNIB could solve my problem. This is a myth, though the official who told me this believed absolutely that it was true. Contrary to popular belief, the excellent training provided by the CNIB does not take the place of knowing when the signal changes. Like sighted people, blind people need a signal that tells them when to walk. The CNIB trainers are sighted. They teach blind people how to guess when the signal has changed. They watch the walk signal, and they pull you back if the traffic conditions don’t allow you to guess accurately. After they leave you, you’re on your own.
When I insisted that the CNIB could not solve my problem, I was told that blind people have a sixth sense which they use to cross Edmonton streets. Unfortunately this is not true in my case. I only have four senses, the number that sighted people have when they cover their eyes. If you think blindness gives you a sixth sense, try guessing at walk signals with your eyes closed several days in a row. You will still be able to peak to make sure you got it right.
When I confessed to having only four senses, I was told that the street I live on would never be a priority because it makes sense to spend limited resources on putting signals in central locations. In fact, signals are needed in central places, but these are usually the places where you can get help from other pedestrians. It is near your own home, where traffic is irregular and the streets are empty of pedestrians that you generally cross unaided on a daily basis.
When I argued that it would be difficult for me to reach a central location without leaving home, I was told that the neighbours complain about the noise when audible signals are installed. No numbers were produced to show the extent of the complaining, but I took their word for it and offered to reduce the chances by doing some P.R. work in my neighbourhood. No response was made to this offer.
I will admit that I was discouraged. I thought it would be impossible to influence a system that seemed so disinterested. I likely would have given up had it not been for the unwavering support of some people who love me.
The good news is that the City installed an audible signal that doesn’t make any noise unless you keep it pressed for about five seconds. . I am absolutely delighted with the 89th Street signal, though I don’t understand why this quiet version is automatically de-activated between 11:00 PM and 7:00 AM. Still, I hold out the hope that policy changes can be achieved, another reason for writing this piece. We have organizations that could be taking an active role, using information to shape policy change—the City’s advisory committee on disability services, and the CNIB, to mention two. The city’s advisory committee has begun to show an interest kin the past year. And though it takes both work and courage to make even a small change amid the apathy and ignorance that holds things back, individuals do have the ability to make a difference.
Today I joyfully crossed the street after getting off at my local bus stop. Had it not been for the audible signal, I would not have known that the light had changed. There wasn’t anyone there to help me, and there wasn’t quite enough straight through traffic, and two cars were turning in different directions. But I knew I could go because the signal told me so. I found myself hoping that audible signals will some day be considered a given, rather than a gift, that, like ramped curbs, they will be automatically installed. I am hoping that visually impaired people will step forward and ask for the signals they need, that they will challenge the policies with facts, and that they won’t feel ashamed of admitting that they have difficulty knowing when to cross. Any person asking for a signal should remember that sighted people also find it difficult, and that the problem is addressed by giving them visual walk signals.
Monday, September 08, 2008
STEREOTYPING
And when he said, I’ll just leave now because you walk faster than me and I can get a head start,” it seemed right to us. He is, after all, eighty-two years old.
And when he started the stairs, half a block ahead of us, we wished in worry that he had waited, so we might have directed him up the gentler slope of the hill.
And when he reached the top of the 230 stairs, turning back to say, easiest steps I ever climbed," we were once again reminded of the dangers of stereotyping.
And when he started the stairs, half a block ahead of us, we wished in worry that he had waited, so we might have directed him up the gentler slope of the hill.
And when he reached the top of the 230 stairs, turning back to say, easiest steps I ever climbed," we were once again reminded of the dangers of stereotyping.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
THE DISTRACTED CENTIPEDE
If ever there was a poem to describe how THE BEGINNING OF THE September ROUTINE GETS THE BETTER OF ME, it HAS TO BE this one.
THE DISTRACTED CENTIPEDE
By Edith L. M. King (1871-1962)
A centipede was happy quite,
Until a frog in fun
Said, "Pray, which leg comes after which?"
This raised her mind to such a pitch,
She lay distracted in the ditch
Considering how to run.
BUT DON'T WORRY ABOUT ME!!! The historical perspective predicts that I'll be fine by October.
THE DISTRACTED CENTIPEDE
By Edith L. M. King (1871-1962)
A centipede was happy quite,
Until a frog in fun
Said, "Pray, which leg comes after which?"
This raised her mind to such a pitch,
She lay distracted in the ditch
Considering how to run.
BUT DON'T WORRY ABOUT ME!!! The historical perspective predicts that I'll be fine by October.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
RIVER
When you float down the North Saskatchewan River on a sunny Friday morning, stalling momentarily on sand bars, gliding effortlessly beneath the bridges, dodging ducks, peaking at the holes in the bank where the swallows make their nests--when you float down the North Saskatchewan River on a sunny Friday morning—it is almost impossible to believe that such a peaceful river could have caused so much consternation to so many. But then, rivers are unpredictable. They ebb and flow like life itself, sometimes stalling or going in circles, sometimes racing, other times overwhelming with their flow, picking up the flotsam in their way.
What good are sunny Friday mornings on lazy rivers? Would we not get more exercise if we paddled? Would we not earn more money if we worked? We certainly would get farther and go faster if we hired a jet boat.
Let me take a stand for Friday morning floats, just as I have taken a stand for positive emotions when others have said they are simply a cover-up for the more important serious issues. We need the lazy Friday morning floats, the shining sun, the cooling breeze. We need that perspective to reinforce our resources against the day when we face the floods. So also do we need the positive emotions, love, joy, hope, mirth. They build us up. We need not rush through them, expecting the worst, waiting for the shoe to drop. These positive emotions, along with whatever does not kill us, make us stronger. They give us strength to face whatever is to come.
What good are sunny Friday mornings on lazy rivers? Would we not get more exercise if we paddled? Would we not earn more money if we worked? We certainly would get farther and go faster if we hired a jet boat.
Let me take a stand for Friday morning floats, just as I have taken a stand for positive emotions when others have said they are simply a cover-up for the more important serious issues. We need the lazy Friday morning floats, the shining sun, the cooling breeze. We need that perspective to reinforce our resources against the day when we face the floods. So also do we need the positive emotions, love, joy, hope, mirth. They build us up. We need not rush through them, expecting the worst, waiting for the shoe to drop. These positive emotions, along with whatever does not kill us, make us stronger. They give us strength to face whatever is to come.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
INHERITANCE
Aunty Linda left a legacy
To a group of twenty-somethings.
One bought a car with low kilometres.
One saw the way to a great vacation.
One paid the rent for a year’s university.
And in the end it seemed to me
That this was just the kind of thing
Aunty Linda would have mentioned
When she went with friends to breakfast.
You can live on in a good used car,
Or a beach resort
Or pre-paid rent.
And a million zillion other ways
They can find to remember you fondly.
To a group of twenty-somethings.
One bought a car with low kilometres.
One saw the way to a great vacation.
One paid the rent for a year’s university.
And in the end it seemed to me
That this was just the kind of thing
Aunty Linda would have mentioned
When she went with friends to breakfast.
You can live on in a good used car,
Or a beach resort
Or pre-paid rent.
And a million zillion other ways
They can find to remember you fondly.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
DENSITY
My bones are not as dense as they ought to be—indeed, not as dense as they used to be. Just where that mass has gone I do not know. Possibly it gradually escaped out my mouth while I was talking. But anyway, it seems to have escaped. But the news is good. It can be rebuilt.
Apparently it won’t be all that difficult to rebuild it. All I have to do is take one pill per week, not such a big pill either. The thing is, I’m not to lie down after taking that pill, and it must be taken at least thirty minutes prior to taking anything else, including food, beverage or other medication. As far as I can figure, this is a Monday morning pill, a pill to be taken on a day when everything else is already messed up. All I have to do is get up a little earlier than usual, take the pill, take a shower, doddle in the bathroom, dress slowly, take my other medications, have breakfast, and then arrive for work, possibly a little late, which seems pretty natural for a Monday morning.
There’s just one more little thing. I ought also to be taking calcium, which doesn’t seem to absorb unless it is taken with vitamin D. The doctor has jotted down a formula for the balance between the two. We stare for hours at the pharmacy shelves, only to conclude that No product, either pre-mixed or individually packaged, meets his exact specifications. So we finally settle for the drug company recommendations and ignore the line on the package that tells us to follow these directions unless otherwise specified by a doctor. There’s just one more little thing, though. The calcium should not be taken two hours before or four hours after other medication, which allows me to take the four gigantic pills at bedtime, except if my arthritis flares up again and I have to take a pill for that at bedtime, at which point I will have to skip supper, I think. Or maybe Monday morning breakfast.
The more I think about it, the denser I feel. Could this possibly explain where the bone density has gone?
Apparently it won’t be all that difficult to rebuild it. All I have to do is take one pill per week, not such a big pill either. The thing is, I’m not to lie down after taking that pill, and it must be taken at least thirty minutes prior to taking anything else, including food, beverage or other medication. As far as I can figure, this is a Monday morning pill, a pill to be taken on a day when everything else is already messed up. All I have to do is get up a little earlier than usual, take the pill, take a shower, doddle in the bathroom, dress slowly, take my other medications, have breakfast, and then arrive for work, possibly a little late, which seems pretty natural for a Monday morning.
There’s just one more little thing. I ought also to be taking calcium, which doesn’t seem to absorb unless it is taken with vitamin D. The doctor has jotted down a formula for the balance between the two. We stare for hours at the pharmacy shelves, only to conclude that No product, either pre-mixed or individually packaged, meets his exact specifications. So we finally settle for the drug company recommendations and ignore the line on the package that tells us to follow these directions unless otherwise specified by a doctor. There’s just one more little thing, though. The calcium should not be taken two hours before or four hours after other medication, which allows me to take the four gigantic pills at bedtime, except if my arthritis flares up again and I have to take a pill for that at bedtime, at which point I will have to skip supper, I think. Or maybe Monday morning breakfast.
The more I think about it, the denser I feel. Could this possibly explain where the bone density has gone?
Saturday, August 23, 2008
HOW WE SPENT OUR SUMMER VACATION
And what did we plan for our two-week vacation?
Well, not much, really, except for a wedding.
And what did we do on our two-week vacation?
We went on
An architectural tour of historic buildings in the 104 Street Warehouse District,
A self-guided walking tour of West Oliver and Glenora
A ghost tour of Old Strathcona,
A raft trip down the North Saskatchewan River,
A ramble through a corn maze,
And a visit to the burial grounds on the spot where they’ve decided not to build a new power station.
We attended
Three Fringe plays in the blistering heat
Two Fringe plays in the freezing cold,
A wedding rehearsal
A wedding,
A gift opening,
A funeral
Two Sunday services
And a party to celebrate the 147th birthday of John Walter.
We visited
Four farmers’ markets,
Four City Parks we had not walked in,
The Provincial archives in search of a story,
A casino in search of a win,
A doctor
Five show homes,
Our brand new minister,
Friends in the country
And relatives too numerous to mention.
We ordered a bathtub,
And also bought
Six towels
A low-flush toilet,
Three pairs of casual pants,
Four chrysanthemums,
Some excellent bread
Several cups of coffee
And a lot of fresh vegetables.
We played
Many games of dice.
We ate
Elephant ears,
Buffalo burgers,
Ed’s garden cucumbers
Lunch at Teddy's
Dinner at Rat Pack Louie's
And a free lunch courtesy of the Allen Pharmacy.
We planned to
Watch the Olympics on TV
But we didn't get around to that.
Well, not much, really, except for a wedding.
And what did we do on our two-week vacation?
We went on
An architectural tour of historic buildings in the 104 Street Warehouse District,
A self-guided walking tour of West Oliver and Glenora
A ghost tour of Old Strathcona,
A raft trip down the North Saskatchewan River,
A ramble through a corn maze,
And a visit to the burial grounds on the spot where they’ve decided not to build a new power station.
We attended
Three Fringe plays in the blistering heat
Two Fringe plays in the freezing cold,
A wedding rehearsal
A wedding,
A gift opening,
A funeral
Two Sunday services
And a party to celebrate the 147th birthday of John Walter.
We visited
Four farmers’ markets,
Four City Parks we had not walked in,
The Provincial archives in search of a story,
A casino in search of a win,
A doctor
Five show homes,
Our brand new minister,
Friends in the country
And relatives too numerous to mention.
We ordered a bathtub,
And also bought
Six towels
A low-flush toilet,
Three pairs of casual pants,
Four chrysanthemums,
Some excellent bread
Several cups of coffee
And a lot of fresh vegetables.
We played
Many games of dice.
We ate
Elephant ears,
Buffalo burgers,
Ed’s garden cucumbers
Lunch at Teddy's
Dinner at Rat Pack Louie's
And a free lunch courtesy of the Allen Pharmacy.
We planned to
Watch the Olympics on TV
But we didn't get around to that.
Monday, August 11, 2008
ABSOLUTELY FREE
Here’s hope for you. Yesterday we participated in an absolutely fre activity. It was John Walter’s birthday party at the John Walter museum in Edmonton’s river valley. We had a guided river valley tour, two storytelling sessions under shade trees, a tour of three houses, an intro to the historic logging industry in Edmonton, live music, birthday cake, lemonade, parking, and all of it was free. We passed on the bannick making. The weather was perfect!!!! There were lots of kids activities there also, but we didn’t have any kids with us. We were there three full hours.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
HOW THE AFORE-MENTIONED HERITAGE TOMATO IS DOING
Mike and Anne came to dinner. They brought with them a tomato plant grown from a heritage seed. As soon as I held it I forgot that I’d said we were absolutely
not planting any more tomato plants this year. And even though I have always declared it inefficient to start tomato plants from seed, I could feel myself
sliding into the future, slicing gently into ripe juicy tomatoes to extract the finest seeds for next year’s planting. This, I suppose, is the magical
influence of a heritage seed.
I never gave much thought to what expectations I ought to have of a heritage tomato. It is only now, in early August, that I realize I had expectations, expectations based on stereotypes rather than research. I could have done some research, can’t now figure out why I didn’t. I could have asked Anne how big the plant gets, when it produces fruit and how much water it takes. I did none of these. I simply thanked, her, told her we would be planting it in a pot on the deck, and ignored her response, which was to hesitate, and then say that it would likely need a good stake, or even a cage. What I ignored was the nonverbal message: Don’t plant it in a pot on the deck!
The heritage tomato seemed pleased with its new home. I transplanted it from Anne’s small carrying pot to a good sized deck pot and put it in the sun to do whatever heritage plants do, missing one important fact—heritage plants didn’t grow in pots. I now realize that the word heritage carries with it certain suggestions, visions of a hardy, independent, self-reliant plant, caring for itself and producing misshapen fruits that generate seeds without the benefit of the planned care given to its grower-bred cousins. That said, I decided to give this heritage tomato a little extra care—regular watering, a dash of fertilizer to compensate for nature’s lack of rain and the pot’s limited nutritional potential.
Things have turned out just as a more discerning psychologist might predict they would. That tomato has become dependent. Relieved of the responsibility of self-care, it grew and grew. Fearing that a tomato cage would be inadequate, we bought it a cage big enough for a peony. It grew out over the top. First came the flowers, then the tomatoes—perfectly symmetrical pear-shaped specimens decoratively adorned with rounded ridges stretching at intervals from top to bottom. One day we came home to find that the plant, pot, cage and all had tipped over. There it lay, begging for assistance. We stood it up. Must have been windy here,”” we said.
The next day was calm. Still, the plant tipped over as it had the day before. That’s when we realized that the cage secured the produce, but did not compensate for the heaviness of the tomatoes on one side, throwing off the balance. That’s when we pressed the geranium pots into service, circling them around to guard against tipping—or so we hope.
So now we wait. Every day we water—sometimes twice. That plant is thirstier than a dusty cowboy in a saloon. And every day those tomatoes grow bigger—and bigger. Who knows how big they can get?
And at summer’s end we will face an existential question: If you coddle a plant, giving it every chance to produce the best seeds, thus affecting future generations through the process of unnatural selection, is it still a heritage plant?
not planting any more tomato plants this year. And even though I have always declared it inefficient to start tomato plants from seed, I could feel myself
sliding into the future, slicing gently into ripe juicy tomatoes to extract the finest seeds for next year’s planting. This, I suppose, is the magical
influence of a heritage seed.
I never gave much thought to what expectations I ought to have of a heritage tomato. It is only now, in early August, that I realize I had expectations, expectations based on stereotypes rather than research. I could have done some research, can’t now figure out why I didn’t. I could have asked Anne how big the plant gets, when it produces fruit and how much water it takes. I did none of these. I simply thanked, her, told her we would be planting it in a pot on the deck, and ignored her response, which was to hesitate, and then say that it would likely need a good stake, or even a cage. What I ignored was the nonverbal message: Don’t plant it in a pot on the deck!
The heritage tomato seemed pleased with its new home. I transplanted it from Anne’s small carrying pot to a good sized deck pot and put it in the sun to do whatever heritage plants do, missing one important fact—heritage plants didn’t grow in pots. I now realize that the word heritage carries with it certain suggestions, visions of a hardy, independent, self-reliant plant, caring for itself and producing misshapen fruits that generate seeds without the benefit of the planned care given to its grower-bred cousins. That said, I decided to give this heritage tomato a little extra care—regular watering, a dash of fertilizer to compensate for nature’s lack of rain and the pot’s limited nutritional potential.
Things have turned out just as a more discerning psychologist might predict they would. That tomato has become dependent. Relieved of the responsibility of self-care, it grew and grew. Fearing that a tomato cage would be inadequate, we bought it a cage big enough for a peony. It grew out over the top. First came the flowers, then the tomatoes—perfectly symmetrical pear-shaped specimens decoratively adorned with rounded ridges stretching at intervals from top to bottom. One day we came home to find that the plant, pot, cage and all had tipped over. There it lay, begging for assistance. We stood it up. Must have been windy here,”” we said.
The next day was calm. Still, the plant tipped over as it had the day before. That’s when we realized that the cage secured the produce, but did not compensate for the heaviness of the tomatoes on one side, throwing off the balance. That’s when we pressed the geranium pots into service, circling them around to guard against tipping—or so we hope.
So now we wait. Every day we water—sometimes twice. That plant is thirstier than a dusty cowboy in a saloon. And every day those tomatoes grow bigger—and bigger. Who knows how big they can get?
And at summer’s end we will face an existential question: If you coddle a plant, giving it every chance to produce the best seeds, thus affecting future generations through the process of unnatural selection, is it still a heritage plant?
Sunday, August 03, 2008
UNWRAPPING YOUR CHILDHOOD
Ruth says, “I never knew you guys were rich until I grew up. As a child, I thought we didn’t have much money.”
I am stunned to uncharacteristic silence. What can she possibly mean? Number one, we are hardly rich, in the sense of capital R Rich! Surely she has only to look at the homes of her friends’ parents to see that ours, comfortable and lovely as it is, is not the quality of theirs. And, number two, how could she have thought us to be poor? Did we not take her twice to Disneyland and once to Disney World? “Rich people,” I declare with feeling, “don’t usually drive around in mini-vans.”
But Ruth is unyielding, not persuaded by anything I can say. She says she drew her conclusions not so much from what we did, as from what we said about ourselves. In this she probably has a point. We would hardly have gone about speaking of ourselves as rich, and no doubt we denied her a request or two on the grounds of insufficient funds.
“Of course we could have afforded to buy silver wrapping paper,” I tell her when she raises the subject of gift-wrap. “We just didn’t, because we were trying to help the environment by wrapping birthday gifts in brightly coloured newspaper comics. Weren’t you proud that we were saving the environment?”
“Not especially,” she says. “I was embarrassed.”
“Oh well,” I soothe, “you turned out very nicely anyway.”
Ruth is a generous person. She will gladly give you a ride in her car, but there are a lot of bottles and cans rattling around. She recycles them and uses the money to buy things for her classroom. A big load from our garage will bring her ten dollars, maybe fifteen. And somewhere in the back seat you can find her new cloth shopping bags.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree! And so goes the confusion when you start to sort out the memories of your childhood, what you knew versus what you thought to be true.
I am stunned to uncharacteristic silence. What can she possibly mean? Number one, we are hardly rich, in the sense of capital R Rich! Surely she has only to look at the homes of her friends’ parents to see that ours, comfortable and lovely as it is, is not the quality of theirs. And, number two, how could she have thought us to be poor? Did we not take her twice to Disneyland and once to Disney World? “Rich people,” I declare with feeling, “don’t usually drive around in mini-vans.”
But Ruth is unyielding, not persuaded by anything I can say. She says she drew her conclusions not so much from what we did, as from what we said about ourselves. In this she probably has a point. We would hardly have gone about speaking of ourselves as rich, and no doubt we denied her a request or two on the grounds of insufficient funds.
“Of course we could have afforded to buy silver wrapping paper,” I tell her when she raises the subject of gift-wrap. “We just didn’t, because we were trying to help the environment by wrapping birthday gifts in brightly coloured newspaper comics. Weren’t you proud that we were saving the environment?”
“Not especially,” she says. “I was embarrassed.”
“Oh well,” I soothe, “you turned out very nicely anyway.”
Ruth is a generous person. She will gladly give you a ride in her car, but there are a lot of bottles and cans rattling around. She recycles them and uses the money to buy things for her classroom. A big load from our garage will bring her ten dollars, maybe fifteen. And somewhere in the back seat you can find her new cloth shopping bags.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree! And so goes the confusion when you start to sort out the memories of your childhood, what you knew versus what you thought to be true.
Friday, August 01, 2008
FALSE ALARM
Just when I get to thinking that I’d better be finding my snow boots
Because it’s the first of August
And you can never be too well prepared
Given that the geraniums are full and luscious
The pansies are on the wane
With the lilies on their tail
And the peony blossoms a distant memory,
That’s when I notice that the Acidanthra are opening,
And the gladioli are poking up their buds through the evening scented stocks,
With the roses preparing for a second blooming round,
While the asters perform final stage checks before making their dazzling August entrance.
And then, noticing these things,
I am grateful that I, in many mid-summers past,
Heard the false alarm of snow boots pressure,
And found a way to silence it with flowers.
Because it’s the first of August
And you can never be too well prepared
Given that the geraniums are full and luscious
The pansies are on the wane
With the lilies on their tail
And the peony blossoms a distant memory,
That’s when I notice that the Acidanthra are opening,
And the gladioli are poking up their buds through the evening scented stocks,
With the roses preparing for a second blooming round,
While the asters perform final stage checks before making their dazzling August entrance.
And then, noticing these things,
I am grateful that I, in many mid-summers past,
Heard the false alarm of snow boots pressure,
And found a way to silence it with flowers.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
FOLLOWING A PRESCRIPTION
Bev went out and bought me a huge bag of almonds. She has heard they are good for people who have arthritis and—face it—I’ve been whining quite a bit lately. Her suggestion made sense to me, given my history. When my mother was about my age, she went on a vitamin diet which appeared to help her arthritis. Unfortunately, none of us can remember the name of the diet or the name of anyone associated with it. We only recall the success of it, plus the story she used to tell, a story about how hard it is to find an address in Sherwood Park, where so many of the streets are named for trees.
So I decided to go for almonds. It was a heady prospect, following a prescription to eat something I already love. Unlike every other treatment known to humankind, it would be gentle, pleasurable, even a little classy. I imagined myself saying, I eat almonds. They are very nutritious, you know.
I recall my mother telling me that her doctor prescribed eleven almonds a day. In that memory I remember exactly where she was sitting when she counted them out. She was sitting at the kitchen table. Bev, in contrast, recommended a serving of fifteen which, O took seriously, knowing Bev to be a woman who can be counted upon for wisdom, balance and moderation.
I decided that I would eat thirteen almonds. It was a compromise, a safe compromise. I’ve been working with numbers lately. Last week I gave up coffee because one doctor and one bone density equipment operator told me that excessive caffeine can be hard on the bones. But I didn’t actually give up coffee in the pure sense. I get a headache when I do that. I cut down to two cups a day, sometimes two at home and one at work. I figure that the coffee doesn’t add up so much if you drink it in different places.
I opened Bev’s big bag and counted out thirteen almonds. It was like clicking of the kilometers on a long road trip. I counted and counted and when I got to thirteen ... Do you have any idea what a puny pile you get when you count out thirteen almonds? I could store them in my right ear (don’t worry, I wouldn’t do that unless it was raining.) I could inhale them in a single swallow!
I ate thirteen almonds. I listened to my body, which is what we always suggest to people who are trying to set limits with regard to pain. My body said, “Eat more almonds.” I don’t exactly know how many. It takes a long time to count almonds.
Instead of wasting the time I’d saved by not counting the almonds, I looked up the calorie content of almonds. It looks to me like a cup of almonds contains about 543 calories. The kind of cup they usually mean in these lists isn’t very big, not nearly as big as a cup of coffee, good thing I didn’t start with chocolate-coated almonds. That was my plan, changed at the last moment by Bev’s quick intervention.
All this happened yesterday. This morning I was up bright and early, excited to see if the pain was gone. I listened to my body. It said, “Not quite gone. Maybe you ate too many almonds.”
It was hard to argue with that theory. How often do I tell people, “You have to take your prescriptions according to directions?” Today at lunch I counted out thirteen almonds. I tried to remember the calories, but I wanted one right away. So I didn’t put them in a pile. I ate one, then took the other twelve down to the lunch table and arranged them neatly, with spaces between. My buddies agreed with me that it looked like a reasonable serving of almonds. But I didn’t stop there. I put other psychological measures in place. Instead of considering the almonds as one whole group, I asked each almond to stand proudly on its own. I had a pattern, two bites of lunch, one almond. Sometimes I took three bites, or even four. And it worked! At the end of lunch, I still had two almonds to eat. And when I got back to my office, I only had five more. Maybe six. And I don’t feel too terribly guilty. After all, authorities don’t agree on the exact number.
So I decided to go for almonds. It was a heady prospect, following a prescription to eat something I already love. Unlike every other treatment known to humankind, it would be gentle, pleasurable, even a little classy. I imagined myself saying, I eat almonds. They are very nutritious, you know.
I recall my mother telling me that her doctor prescribed eleven almonds a day. In that memory I remember exactly where she was sitting when she counted them out. She was sitting at the kitchen table. Bev, in contrast, recommended a serving of fifteen which, O took seriously, knowing Bev to be a woman who can be counted upon for wisdom, balance and moderation.
I decided that I would eat thirteen almonds. It was a compromise, a safe compromise. I’ve been working with numbers lately. Last week I gave up coffee because one doctor and one bone density equipment operator told me that excessive caffeine can be hard on the bones. But I didn’t actually give up coffee in the pure sense. I get a headache when I do that. I cut down to two cups a day, sometimes two at home and one at work. I figure that the coffee doesn’t add up so much if you drink it in different places.
I opened Bev’s big bag and counted out thirteen almonds. It was like clicking of the kilometers on a long road trip. I counted and counted and when I got to thirteen ... Do you have any idea what a puny pile you get when you count out thirteen almonds? I could store them in my right ear (don’t worry, I wouldn’t do that unless it was raining.) I could inhale them in a single swallow!
I ate thirteen almonds. I listened to my body, which is what we always suggest to people who are trying to set limits with regard to pain. My body said, “Eat more almonds.” I don’t exactly know how many. It takes a long time to count almonds.
Instead of wasting the time I’d saved by not counting the almonds, I looked up the calorie content of almonds. It looks to me like a cup of almonds contains about 543 calories. The kind of cup they usually mean in these lists isn’t very big, not nearly as big as a cup of coffee, good thing I didn’t start with chocolate-coated almonds. That was my plan, changed at the last moment by Bev’s quick intervention.
All this happened yesterday. This morning I was up bright and early, excited to see if the pain was gone. I listened to my body. It said, “Not quite gone. Maybe you ate too many almonds.”
It was hard to argue with that theory. How often do I tell people, “You have to take your prescriptions according to directions?” Today at lunch I counted out thirteen almonds. I tried to remember the calories, but I wanted one right away. So I didn’t put them in a pile. I ate one, then took the other twelve down to the lunch table and arranged them neatly, with spaces between. My buddies agreed with me that it looked like a reasonable serving of almonds. But I didn’t stop there. I put other psychological measures in place. Instead of considering the almonds as one whole group, I asked each almond to stand proudly on its own. I had a pattern, two bites of lunch, one almond. Sometimes I took three bites, or even four. And it worked! At the end of lunch, I still had two almonds to eat. And when I got back to my office, I only had five more. Maybe six. And I don’t feel too terribly guilty. After all, authorities don’t agree on the exact number.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
RELATIONAL CHEMISTRY
When it comes to human chemistry, I think of my mother and her sisters. Any gathering that combined them would inevitably give off a high voltage energy. It was the mixing that did it.
I wouldn’t say they were close. In reality they might go for months, maybe even years without making contact. I can’t say they were similar in characteristics beyond appearance, though each was most likely the bookkeeper in her own world. It is certain that their choice of husbands emphasized what must have been genuine differences between them. I don’t even know if the sisters had much in common. There were five of them originally. One of them I did not know because she died when I was a child. Of the remaining four, two of them were farmers, one ran a thriving hardware business. The other was a justice of the peace. I never knew about it if they ever sought one another in search of advice.
So what was it that generated the chemistry? It wasn’t the past that brought them together. They rarely, if ever, reminisced about the old days. It probably wasn’t mutual agreement on current issues. Stubborn, strong-willed and boisterous by nature, it would have been plausible for them to burst into raucous argument.
We know, through observation, that chemistry happens. But we don’t usually know what actually causes it. The nature of elements remains a secret of the universe. Different and determined though the sisters were, they did not argue when they got together. Their gatherings were invariably loud and hilarious. They would pass the time in lengthy description of whatever was interesting to them at present, wich might be anything at all, what you could get at $1.49 day, or the process by which a prospective bride chose the style of her wedding cake. Smart women without much formal education, they shared an affinity for detail in any project that captured their attention. The longer they were together, the funnier they got. As a child, as an adult with children of my own, I was drawn to accept invitations to any event that would bring them together. There were weddings and funerals and birthday parties and baptisms. There was a family reunion with dogs and grandchildren and fireworks and enough food for an army.
One other characteristic they definitely shared. Their health was fragile, an odd thing for women so robust in other ways. Of five who grew to adulthood, to motherhood, not one made it to the average lifespan of Canadian women. Oldest of the pack, my mother was the last to go, and though my sides still ache recalling how their gatherings convulsed me into laughter, my heart breaks with the memory of hearing my mother sob, “All my sisters are gone!”
It is this confusion of joy and sadness, the intimate experience of a unique and irreplaceable chemistry that comes to my mind when strangers call to inquire if I do grief counselling. And though I still hear myself asking, “Were you close to the one you lost?” I hesitate to interpret too much from the answer, knowing how the chemistry can be more complicated than that.
I wouldn’t say they were close. In reality they might go for months, maybe even years without making contact. I can’t say they were similar in characteristics beyond appearance, though each was most likely the bookkeeper in her own world. It is certain that their choice of husbands emphasized what must have been genuine differences between them. I don’t even know if the sisters had much in common. There were five of them originally. One of them I did not know because she died when I was a child. Of the remaining four, two of them were farmers, one ran a thriving hardware business. The other was a justice of the peace. I never knew about it if they ever sought one another in search of advice.
So what was it that generated the chemistry? It wasn’t the past that brought them together. They rarely, if ever, reminisced about the old days. It probably wasn’t mutual agreement on current issues. Stubborn, strong-willed and boisterous by nature, it would have been plausible for them to burst into raucous argument.
We know, through observation, that chemistry happens. But we don’t usually know what actually causes it. The nature of elements remains a secret of the universe. Different and determined though the sisters were, they did not argue when they got together. Their gatherings were invariably loud and hilarious. They would pass the time in lengthy description of whatever was interesting to them at present, wich might be anything at all, what you could get at $1.49 day, or the process by which a prospective bride chose the style of her wedding cake. Smart women without much formal education, they shared an affinity for detail in any project that captured their attention. The longer they were together, the funnier they got. As a child, as an adult with children of my own, I was drawn to accept invitations to any event that would bring them together. There were weddings and funerals and birthday parties and baptisms. There was a family reunion with dogs and grandchildren and fireworks and enough food for an army.
One other characteristic they definitely shared. Their health was fragile, an odd thing for women so robust in other ways. Of five who grew to adulthood, to motherhood, not one made it to the average lifespan of Canadian women. Oldest of the pack, my mother was the last to go, and though my sides still ache recalling how their gatherings convulsed me into laughter, my heart breaks with the memory of hearing my mother sob, “All my sisters are gone!”
It is this confusion of joy and sadness, the intimate experience of a unique and irreplaceable chemistry that comes to my mind when strangers call to inquire if I do grief counselling. And though I still hear myself asking, “Were you close to the one you lost?” I hesitate to interpret too much from the answer, knowing how the chemistry can be more complicated than that.
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