Halfway

Halfway through, there is a small door in the wall.

You have to be willing to get down on your hands and knees, but

You can take it if you want.

You can go back to the places that you screwed up previously

And you can try them again.

You can go back there,

Perhaps with gloves this time or with a new set of sturdy shoes.

But my guess is that not much will change.

Or,

You can go with an envelope containing a message

Of forgiveness for that old you.

The one who made the mistakes,

The one that somehow got stuck there, milling around those tight places.

And do you know what?  When you get the message, you are free to go!

Great big paths, surrounded by evergreens and poplars and shimmery grasses and a green lake too,

Will open up around you

And your legs will be strong enough to walk them, run them even!

And your eyes will fill up on all the things you missed the first time.

The air will feel clean and full of scent.

There will always be new things to forgive

And you can.  Just make it to the halfway point and look for the small door.

Old Photographs

Memories are distorted by old photographs and family stories around the dinner table.  I know I learned how to ski on our sloping front yard.  But there’s a coveted photo of me doing just that at age three.  I remember Dad stopping the car at a railway crossing so we could see one of those new-fangled diesel locomotives come rushing past (as my son would say with mock incredulity ‘You lived in the era of steam?’) Yes, when I was five years old and we were on a family vacation in southern Ontario and then me getting my finger mashed in the car door and watching the nail peel off in the coming in the following weeks.  But how much is it MY memory and how much family stories in the ensuing months and years.

Nonetheless I have two distinctly mine-only memories of those early years in Rossland, both involving watching heavy equipment.  I can’t tell if that commonality meant anything or if it’s simply a fascination of all boys.  One was the Barber-Green snow remover.  In many ways old Rossland was well ahead of its time.  Columbia Avenue where it ran through downtown was and still has as wide as any city street I’ve ever seen.  Angle parking on both sides and still room for wide travel lanes in both directions.  The snowplows first ran along the parking lanes and then the middle lanes and piled snow up in a huge bank running down the middle of the road.  Then the Barber Green came into play chewing into that bank, a screw churning up the snow and funneling it onto a conveyor belt where it poured into the back of a dump truck that had backed into position below the belt.  As this green machine ate up the snow and moved slowly forward, the truck in reverse followed until its box was full.  Then a brief pause while that truck left and the next one in line backed in under the conveyor belt for it’s turn.

I was transfixed, watching this big green monster devouring the snowbank as it slowly trundled up the street.  Nothing in my four tender years on this planet had had prepared me for anything like this.  I don’t remember wanting to grow up to be a snow-removal man so much as just the raw awe that such a thing existed.  I suspect I was even a little bit afraid of it.

The second event was the first time I really hated my mother. As Columbia street tilted downhill in front of the Miners Hall the pavement ended and it was a dirt road the rest of the way out of town.  Until the day it was paved.  I think I was 3 1/2 and as the paving equipment and crew were approaching our house, as coincidence would have it, it was time for my afternoon nap.

Off to bed behind drawn curtains, but the window was cruelly left open for fresh air on the hot summer afternoon.  Outside the paving equipment ripped and roared and rumbled and hissed unseen by the wide awake angry young boy.  By the time nap time was over, the equipment had already moved further down the street beyond the out-of-sight-of-the-house boundary set by anxious parents.  We tend to have a short memory for illness and physical painful times, but for some reason we haven’t evolved enough where we forget injustices.  “That’s not fair!”  is countered by the snide comment, “No one ever said life was fair.”  The ancient Greeks understood this right from the beginning with their dismissal of hardship as “The gods jest” – the idea being that the gods are so bored with immortality one of their few distractions is to make life miserable for us poor suffering mortals.

In contrast to heavy equipment, the octopus in the basement was more fearful than fascinating.  Each morning through the long winter Dad would trundle down the steep stairway to the basement grab his enormous shovel and scoop coal into the open maw of the furnace, then rack the grates and dump yesterday’s ashes into a large galvanized bucket to be used for traction on the snowy front and back pathways.  The massive beast had one main grate in the central corridor of the house – the one I stood shivering over while pulling on my pants on cold winter mornings, and where Mom set up a drying rack on wash days.  The various arms of the octopus down below fed heat to other rooms, but I don’t recall they produced heat anything like the big grate in the hallway directly above the furnace.  It was noisy and creaked and groaned and my terror of cellars lasted well into my boyhood and truth be told, sometimes still give me the heebie-jeebies.

Wild Flower

When I arrived in that country, the first evening I slept on the floor. A knocking awakened me - at the door stood the man in reflector sunglasses. This was before reflector sunglasses were a thing.

We strapped a borrowed canoe to his white Japanese pickup, stern in the box and bow on the hood. Below the bridge over the Wheaton, we were swept into the river’s flying mane. 

Pretty soon we nearly lost everything.

All day on the river. All night in the tent. 

In the morning at the river’s mouth, both of us expecting the lake to be the easy part, we rose to a cold wind off the glacier. Rollers. Whitecaps. We left the canoe turned over in buckbrush and began the long walk out. 

Cobblestones. Gravel. Grassland and dunes. Harsh beauty. No footprints. 

Late afternoon, we glimpsed log cabins in the distance. I looked back to the hills above the lake, muted in purple and green. He bent to pick a wild forget-me-not from the sand, and he gave it to me. His eyes were the colour of the river. I turned, and he was gone. 

I got back to the road at dusk, to discover five years had gone by.

Horizontal

She spends much more time on the horizontal these days

Watching me 

for signs of movement

Signs that she can somehow be involved

In the things we do

Worrying when the door opens up.

Sighing and sitting when the leash does not come out of its hiding spot.

My neighbours got a puppy

All floppy ears and tangled limbs

Leaping up the stairs, chasing bees

I remember those days.

Now that I watch her slow descent

Into the quiet of our lives, I wonder...

Does she know that she ushered us through the most important years of our lives?

Does she know that she taught me about friendship more than anyone I’ve ever known? 

Good girl. Good good girl. 

Embracing Eighty

            Too often, people in my demographic bemoan an approaching birthday as further evidence that we are 'over the hill'. I know I am an annoyingly cheerful optimist, but really? Isn't each additional year something to celebrate, proof we are still here, still witness to the fascinating drama of existence?

            I have long passed the seventy-year milestone, which many people view as the tipping point into frail old age. Too often, the news commentator assumes a soft, patronizing tone to describe an elderly person who has had some mishap. Then the report reveals that the person is seventy-two years old. What! I think, seventy two isn't elderly. Well, it better not be, since I am now seventy-eight!

            Last year, I began a project called Embracing Eighty. I promised to sample eighty new activities outside my comfort zone before reaching that venerable age. I had a few items in mind, but I did not have a prescribed list. I left my options open to physical, intellectual or psychological challenges. I figured opportunities would arise and my goal, publicly announced on Facebook, would motivate me to embrace them.

            Steering a stand-up paddleboard was an early undertaking. My son-in-law, Sean, offered a lesson on a sheltered lake near Victoria. How hard can it be? It's just a flat plank sitting on calm water. I was so confident, I ignored his instructions. I climbed aboard and started to paddle. Whoa! It felt so tippy, I tensed every muscle to keep balanced, including core muscles I didn't know I had.

            Over-confidence subdued, I followed Sean across Thetis Lake to a secluded nook aglow with water lilies. It was smooth sailing while I kept my eyes rivetted to the tip of the board. At our destination I glanced at the glorious lilies. In a heartbeat, I found myself deep underwater. When Sean turned to speak to me, he saw the board and the paddle but no Nanna. In the watery depths he spied a turquoise circle slowly rising—my sunhat. Under it I was giggling as hard as I could without access to oxygen. Luckily, Thetis Lake is very warm in June. I clambered aboard with no damage done, except to my dignity. I learned not to prejudge the ease of a new activity.

            Fast forward past many experiences: scrambling through the caves at Horne Lake Provincial Park, sitting inside a Triceratops skull, learning several methods of firing glass, riding a dogsled through northern tundra, etc. My family cheered me on and I was having fun.

            When the pandemic closed attractions I was planning to try, my twelve-year-old grandson stepped up to keep the Embracing Eighty momentum alive. He offered to use his guest pass to lead me through the adventure courses at WildPlay, which had never been on my list of potential activities. Located in a forest, it was still open.

            “It's really easy, Nanna, and I'll help you!”   

            What could I say with that eager, freckled face smiling at me. “Uhhh...I'm scared of zip lines...okay...I'll try the easiest level.” 

            I completed the beginner circuit with flying colours. On to intermediate, where the challenges moved higher in the trees. My daughter's video recorded my grandson demonstrating each step while Nanna expended every ounce of strength to traverse the rope bridges between platforms. Turns out the zip lines were the easiest part of the course.

            I reached the end of intermediate level, out of breath, but still...it counted. The employee supervising our safety confided that his mother, twenty years younger than me, had needed a rescue halfway through intermediate. My Embracing Eighty project impressed him. “This is number thirty,” I boasted.

            Fueled with over-confidence, I climbed behind my grandson to the highest scaffold. The swinging and balancing acts between platforms became more demanding. Midway through the difficult course, my legs started wobbling, no strength left.

            “I don't like this!” I cried.

            “Do you want to be rescued?” shouted the supervisor from forty feet below.

            “No, I'll tough it out.” My grandson was calling encouragement from the landing ahead and  I didn't want to fail in full view of a twelve-year-old. A few rubbery steps further, my arms gave out and I collapsed miserably on the thin bar beneath my feet.

            “I want to be rescued.”

            The young man scooted up the ladder, across the cable and buckled me into a harness. “Consider this number thirty one,” he chuckled as he lowered me to the ground. With his blessing I experienced the rescue itself as another adventure.

            In retrospect I realize I did not fail the WildPlay challenge. I pushed myself to my limit, which was a feat to celebrate. The comments on Facebook proved I challenged expectations for my age group: “OMG, you're going to kill yourself!” and “The video was too scary to watch.” In fact it was totally safe. Each participant is tethered to a cable above. You may lose your footing but you will never fall. I temporarily forgot this safety feature when I faced my next WildPlay adventure.

            I was wondering what to do for number forty [the half-way point] when I got a telephone invitation from WildPlay: a free bungee jump 150 feet into the Nanaimo River canyon. My astonished mind raced. Absolutely not! Only crazy people launch themselves into an abyss upside down...on the other hand, it's free. After some discussion I agreed to the Primal Swing⸺basically a bungee jump where you and a partner sit upright, harnessed together. My daughter, equally afraid of heights, agreed to share the ride.

            With the doomsday date set, I did some research on their website. The free-fall looked terrifying with speeds of 140 kph. I lost a night's sleep to nightmares. My rational brain reframed a more positive outlook, so that on the drive to Nanaimo I was breathing normally. The admissions desk expected me—an old lady doing eighty new things.

             I trudged up the stairs to the narrow footbridge. Squeezing past the shirtless, tattooed young men waiting to bungee jump, I felt really old. That thought immediately morphed to: What am I doing here? Am I out of my mind? My daughter and I huddled together.

            Two cheerful employees spread harnesses for us to step into. My body went into high alert,  muscles tense, heart drumming, Then they said, “Wriggle forward and let your legs dangle over the edge.” I stopped breathing. The video showed my mouth open in a silent scream, but it was too late.

            We were in free-fall, rushing through air. My brain was too numb to feel fear. In the next instant our rope fully extended and we began a graceful pendulum swing deep within the canyon walls. I breathed again; in fact I laughed. My daughter and I congratulated ourselves. Easy-peasy! Lots of fun!

            Now I know there is nothing remotely dangerous about the Primal Swing—no opportunity to strain, stretch, or wrench any body parts. My friends still applaud my courage, swearing they could never do that. Really, it didn't require courage; it required embracing new assumptions on appropriate activities for my age.

            I think I'll go again and share the ride with my grandson. 

Snippet

Impossible to bite into with grace - I need all my fingers to manage this thick rectangle whose name I can’t pronounce until I realize it’s French. Not milly-foil but meal-fwah, a mouthful of collapsing flakiness squirting sweet pale yellow vanilla pastry cream.

Fetch

My life is the dog who

wanders in at the end of Summer.

Smelling of Fir trees, high clouds, and spearmint.

Oh look, it’s the dog, say the owners,

stay off the furniture.

Obedience school was on a hill

it took so long,

besides, there was sun

and dragon fly wings.

He turns in circles

 before lying down.

No-one knows why.

Perhaps it’s perspective.

Home

I live now on Vancouver Island – a place the local Chamber of Commerce types think of as “a large body of land entirely surrounded by envy” – but I was born in a different part of British Columbia high in the mountains in the former mining town of Rossland.  Funky, picaresque, stupidly over-priced real estate, lots of snow and great skiing.  It was one of those snowy days in the middle of January my Dad finally took my Mom to the hospital.  I say finally because I was supposed to be a New Year’s baby, but baby, it was cold outside so I had the sense to stay cozy in the womb for another two weeks. That was back in the day when the town had a hospital with the name I’ve always hated, Mater Misericordia. Who wants to go to a hospital named misery.  The hospital in nearby Nelson, which had and still has everything Trail doesn’t, is named Kootenay Lake.  A beautiful name for a beautiful place giving the feeling of peace and tranquility.  Now that’s a name for a hospital.

I was five when we moved down the hill to Trail. Not funky, not picaresque, stupidly under-priced real estate.  “The last place in Canada where you can buy your house with a credit card,” my friend who still lives there said not that long ago.

Rossland memories are fractured, but our house half-way out of town on Columbia Avenue – the main drag -- grey plaster embedded with shards of glass aka “fucko” is still there.  I’m sure it’s been upgraded but on the outside it looks the same as it did the day we left in 1951.  Looking at it triggers memories like the time my big brother and Dad and I were walking home and I decided at age 3 it would be cool if I beat them into the house.  Running up the concrete path to the back door, tripping, launching through the air head-first onto the edge of the concrete step.  Blood everywhere, neighbours help and off we go to Mater Misericordia.  Terrified by all the machines burbling around me wondering how these machines were going to be used on me.  Five stitches.  Excluding my birth, the first of too many hospital visits that have haunted this one precious life.  (see Shitty Bricks).

Walter & Grace

If they thought about him at all, most folks considered Walter a taciturn man. Hard to tell what he was thinking. His mouth rarely shifted from a thin horizontal line. Not grim, but not familiar with the curve of a smile. For a good long while, Walter had ignored his emotions. Like laundry forgotten on the line, they’d become washed out, sun-bleached, colours unrecognizable. He wasn’t unhappy or happy. He just was. He had enough awareness to realize that he ‘should’ get out more. It wasn’t that he cared too much, one way or the other. Only that some part of him, his long-dead mother perhaps, insisted. “Walter, get out there and play with the other kids. Do you want them to think something’s wrong with you?”.

For a long time, Walter had wondered if there was something ‘wrong’ with him. He’d covertly watched his classmates at school. He noted how easily they gathered, like iron filings to a magnet. He supposed something was missing in him, some internal organ perhaps. Walter had had a dog once born with only three legs. He wasn’t crippled in the way you’d expect. He kept up gamely, barely even a hobble. It was reassuring. Walter decided he’d take a lesson from that hound, refuse to submit to inadequacy.

He’s managed his day with routines, he woke early did the myriad chores required of him unbegrudgingly, ate three square meals, and went to bed early. He listened to the radio occasionally and didn’t own a t.v. He couldn’t see the point. None of it was real. He did have a computer, though other than the banking, it too seemed useless.

Walter did go to church though. Something about the horizontal pews was a comfort to him, long benches, plenty of room for anyone. It was a place where a person could just be. Folks would acknowledge him with a slight nod, and he’d nod back. It seems expected, was something he could manage.

One unseasonably warm Sunday in June, Walter stepped into the church, noting the familiar creak of the scuffed floorboards, the mildew smell of windows inadequately sealed against the spring rains, and the compressed smell of bodies, of woman’s lotions and potions. He also noted the gabbling. Usually, before the service started, there was a murmuring not unlike chickens, unalarmed clucking, and fussing. This was different. It was loud, excited. Walter slid into the pew, shifting the flyer giving the rundown of the service. Walter didn’t know why they bothered. Seemed a waste of paper. The sermons were all variations of the same theme. The pastor, while adequate, was hardly a holy roller. Margaret Mackenzie puffed her way down the aisle, squeezing her considerable bulk in beside him. She was an overdone woman, not much older than Walter, maybe fifty though Walter considered her ‘old’. Maybe it was the too-tight polyester dress, straining at the buttons, or the way she wore pantyhose that collected around her ankles like worn-out skin. Or maybe it was the way her blue eye shadow thickly creased on her small brown eyes. Walter thought Margaret flighty, a source of continuous nervous chatter. He hoped the pastor would appear soon to stopper the flow. Margaret turned to him, placing a warm meaty hand on his shoulder. He almost jumped.

“Margaret”, he said by way of acknowledgment and to cover his surprise. “Walter, haven’t you been listening? Next Sunday is a big picnic, several congregations are gathering. Can you imagine? Walter could, though he didn’t want to. Such a fuss.

“They’re bussing them in. It’s going to be quite the shin-ding. I think I’ll make my raspberry tarts.” She leaned in conspiratorially, “I’ve won first place three years running, so that ought to suffice”. Margaret nodded to herself as if he’d spoken praise. All that information in one breathless phrase. Walter was mildly astonished. Margaret paused to shove her smeared glasses back up to the bridge of her nose. She looked like she expected something of him. “You’ll be there then”, she nodded satisfied, though he hadn’t responded. “Good for you Walter, you’ll see, it will be fun”. Margaret was the kind of person you didn’t need to speak to at all to keep up your end of the conversation.

The service passed in a blur of thumbed hymnals, off-key warbling, bible verses intoned and the well-trod admonishment to treat your brother as you would expect to be treated. Walter mused he didn’t expect much, which was a sure way to avoid disappointment and obligation. He figured he could write his own self-help books. Better than the drivel his sister Sarah was always pressing into his hands whenever she and her puffed up husband visited. Uncharacteristically, Walter would bait her whenever they spoke on the phone by pretending to misremember her husband’s name.

“How’s Dirk?” “Walter, heavens, I’ve told you a thousand times, it’s Derek”.

Sarah was well-meaning, but righteous, a combination that was sorely trying. Four years Walter’s junior, you’d think she’d invented parenthood the way she mothered him. Walter wondered why she’d decided not to have kids. He doubted very much it was her idea. He suspected Derek was such a baby he wouldn’t tolerate competition from a real toddler. It wasn’t something they’d ever discussed though.

“Walter, Derek and I have talked about this, and we just think you should get out more. It’s for your own good. How do you expect to ever meet someone when you’re holed up the way you are”. Although Walter was pretty certain Derek never ‘discussed’ him, other than to nod occasionally when Sarah started up, the very idea of her bringing up family business rankled fiercely. Walter could barely tolerate the idea of Derek being part of the family, claiming him as his ‘brother’ as he had done in a drunken, reeling ‘hug’ right after wedding his sister. Right before he puked all over Sarah’s embroidered silk heels. Classy.

Derek was a big guy, everything about him loud, his voice, the way he chewed his food, the way he steamrolled over every dinner conversation Walter had been forced to attend.

“Come on Walter, we’re the only family you’ve got”, Sarah would plead, like it really mattered. Walter reluctantly appeared on time and left as early as politely possible. His jaw would ache from the tension of biting back the words he wished to fling at Derek.

As Walter filed out of the church, still fuming from the imagined conversations he would never have with Derek, Margaret called out. “You hoo, Walter, hold up”.

Walter wondered briefly if he could just keep walking, pretend he hadn’t heard but rejected the idea as too obvious.

“Margaret”, he said it the way most people said goodbye to the dentist.

“Walter, in case you needed more encouragement to attend next Sunday, I was speaking to your sister. I’ve convinced her to come too! It will be such a gathering.”

Walter was taken aback. Sarah? At church? Sarah hadn’t attended church since their father died twenty years ago. His death was awful, coming as it did slowly, torturously. Sarah’s rage was uncompromising. Despite her mother’s appeal, she would not attend the church service, though she did appear at his grave, pale and furious towards a God whose cruelty was unbound. “Margaret. I know you mean well”, although Walter suspected Margaret only cared for the furor it would create. Now he’d have to attend damn it. Margaret looked at him appraisingly.

“Don’t thank me Walter. I did for Sarah”.

Missing

The house was kept in perfect order. The gardens behaved themselves. Everything grew where it was planted, and did not expand to encroach on it’s neighbouring plants. The water feature sounded just right, not too forceful, nor too splashy. It was tended by a spry older man. He too was just right, grey hair neatly parted, clothes clean, but with enough earth on the knees to proclaim he wasn’t adverse to work.

He was alone in that house and spent most of his time outside. Every plant was lovingly tended, coaxed, supported. He was not lonely. He chatted with the neighbours, welcomed them into his miraculous yard- pleased but not too proud. He explained how things grew, when to plant and when to prune. He laughingly explained that he learned quickly how important it was to cover the small pond to keep the koi from feeding the racoons. His eyes shone when he described their bright masked faces. When he wasn’t in his garden, he’d be strolling with a neighbour, or out walking a friend’s dog. He was a kind man, soft spoken and unassuming. I never knew his name. Not for certain. Only that it was short, plain, like homemade bread, nourishing but nothing fancy.

And then suddenly he wasn’t around. It was like noticing a missing tooth. The tongue knows something is up, and keeps checking. The man was in his eighties. He’d lived in the same house since he was two. Where did he go?

The sign arrived. For Sale. “What?” , I asked the agent. “Why?”

“A stroke”, she whispered, leaning in confidentially. “He’s in Duncan now. At a home”. A home. No. His home was here, and it was pining for him. You could see it, paint flecking like tears along the door frame. Brazen weeds flaunting themselves, the lawn overgrown. It was in a state. I believe it was mourning.

During the pandemic

We noticed the hot pink shooting stars and lily of the valley, making their way out of the earth, like any other year, only seemingly more ardently. We noticed the birdsong in the mornings, previously confined only to our ringtones, now here, outside our windows. We noticed raccoons becoming brazen in the street. We also noticed that words like, I love you and can I see your face, even if over video,  became less clunky, easier to deliver. We noticed that meditation is a lifeline. We noticed that grievances and feuds, they needed to die with the virus too. We saw our lovers in a new light. We saw our ex lovers in a new light too. Our aspirations started to move - the things we felt were previously dictating our actions were no longer relevant. We noticed how nice it was to dig in the earth. We appreciated the supply chain: the fruit pickers, the truckers, the ones that take care of us and walk us through the narrow passages of our lives. We noticed who showed up. We noticed the sunsets and the quiet. We noticed the sky clearing and the neighbours making room for each other on the sidewalk, in the grocery store. We noticed the elders in their homes. We noticed the bakers, the shop keepers. We noticed the future that our children used to know about had now turned into sand. Will we walk 6 feet apart into the new world? Will we will find our truths and pull them gently to the surface? Will we drink ourselves dry? Will we cry ourselves clean? Will we rinse out the debris that has collected in the corner of our lives? Will we show up for each other in new ways? Will we honour those that passed? Will we shake loose from the masks we used previously to get by? Will we let the thread of love stitch us back together?

The fan

The fan's slow rotation slices the humid air with a screech of protest. It isn't cooling anything. More like smearing the hot around. I am splayed out on a too thin mattress. My skin sticks to the sheets and I suck the  air in small sips like I'm drinking scalding tea. A sheen of sweat slicks me. My limbs are languid and lolling. No energy to explore the city I'd flown half way around the world to see. A cacophony of noise thuds through thin walls, blaring horns, calls to prayer, traffic, a thousand voices all talking at once. Wildly discordant, it vibrates through me. And the smells. Diesel exhaust, food spiced and curried, rotted and flowered, sharp and musty swirled together to create something entirely new, undefinable. 

Beside me he pants. Small white pustules from heat rash blossom on his forehead and cheeks. His hair is slick and sodden. His eyes look dull. A Lonely Planet guide lays open on his chest, edges damp, cover creased.

"We should try to see the palace". 

"We should try to make a snow fort. We could dig in, build a shelf to hold all our snowballs. I like to pile mine in pyramids for easy access.  You know that blue green light that shines through when you're looking up? So beautiful. Don't you love how your breath plumes, like it's gained substance. Or how about  when your woolen mitts get those hard little balls of snow on them. You know how you can kind of nibble them and let them melt on your tongue and then spit out the linty bits? It's even okay when you have to dig the balls of snow that jam in the tops of your boots or blow on your wrists cause your sleeves have ridden up and they're stinging. Even the sound of snow is gorgeous. It makes so many different sounds. I guess it depends on how cold it is, whether it's soft and powdery or hard and full of those crystals".

"You know, the Inuit have thousands of different names for snow".

"No they don't idiot. I'm sure it's not thousands...maybe twenty though".

"Do you think the people that live here have as many names for heat"?

I let my arm drop over the side of the bed and swing my hand against the tile, seeing if perhaps it's cooler on the floor. It isn't.

"There's only one name for heat like this".

"Yah, what's that"?

"Hellish".

"That fits. Definitely fits". 

"But I thought you said we were flying to paradise".

With a groan he rolls into a sitting position. 

"Well, I think there was some confusion then. It happens. Sometimes people who are sure they're going to heaven end up somewhere else entirely".

"And you think that's what happened with us? That we only thought we lived a good life"?

"Maybe. I don't know. I can barely think. My head feels stuffed with hot cotton rags".

"How do you know"?

"Know what"?

"What hot cotton rags would even feel like".

"Shit, you're talk is tiring me out. Even sitting tires me out. Christ". 

"Okay. Lets do something. Isn't there a mall somewhere with air conditioning?"

"A mall. Right. In your dreams".

I sat up too. My thighs were they touched one another pooled sweat. 

"I bet I stink. Did you know people here think foreigners smell like spoiled milk? No one drinks it here, so we've all got this spit-up smell. Isn't that gross"?

"Gross for them. Should we get on a bus and subject them to our stench to pay them back for the lack of air conditioning"?

"Okay. Lets go to the palace. They've probably got marble benches. That might be cooler. We could get naked on the marble benches and fan ourselves with guide books."

"I wonder how many westerners get arrested for doing that"?

"I don't know. It's something the guide book never mentions".

We stand, jam our feet into our flip flops, place our still soggy money belts against our bellies and stomp down the stairs. I feel clumsy. Too big for my body. Too big for this place. The women here are tiny. Miniature perfect. Golden skin and silky black hair. They don't smell like sour milk. They wear saris, bright colours fitted to smooth bodies. They move like water. Here I am clunky, awkward. I move like my feet weigh me down, like I'm flattened by the heat.

Leslie Soles

Oct 10

Friends who write together...

concoct a silence charged and containing, excluding the extraneous; in intimate apartness we write. I hear your palm slide and stop, your pen slip and linger. You shift in your chair, put one hand - fingers pinched - to your mouth and stare into an invisible landscape. When your ankle turns is your story turning too? The faint thunder of a turning page. Our silence quivers and abides. Four pens. Eight slippers. One pot of tea.

Susan Ellenton is a Victoria BC based writer, musician, artist and jewelry maker.  She can be reached here or at her own site, here.

Spelling, Grammar and Usage, with a little punctuation tossed in.

As we polish our writing and prepare to send a piece off to an editor somewhere out there in the scary world of publishing, we accept we are in competition with other writers.  We hope our writing is good enough to catch the editor's eye.  But the editor will never have a chance to be moved by the magic of our words if he or she stumbles over your spelling and grammar.

Nothing signals amateur louder and clearer than a mistake-filled manuscript.  Over-worked editors have to make quick decisions, and no matter how brilliant the writing, your messy ms almost certainly will be tossed onto the reject pile.  

Spell-check is helpful, but be cautious about relying on it too much – it won't help you with it, its or it's, nor with there, their or they're, or when to use affect vs. effect, etc.   

If you're not completely confident with your knowledge of these details to know you are submitting at polished ms, here are a few ideas.

• have a grammar-nerd friend go over it with you
• spend a few (worthwhile) dollars to have a professional editor have a look.  Be aware there are two types of editing – line-by-line and content.  Line-by-line looks at grammar, spelling, usage and punctuation.  Content is self-explanatory.  If you like your story the way it is, make sure your editor knows you are just seeking line-by-line editing assistance.
• research online.  E.g. ask Google, When do I use there, their or they're? And you'll get about 500 million hits.  Really!
• take an online grammar course.  Again, just Google it.
• buy an English language usage book.  Strunk and White's Elements of Style is short, simple and an old stand-by.  The funnest way to learn punctuation is Lynn Truss' Eats, Shoots and Leaves.  Popular today, largely because of the catchy title is Kiss my Asterisk by Jenny Baranick. It is self-described as being “like a bikini – fun, flirty and covers only the most important bits”.  As it turns out that is partly true, but is so full of grammatical errors in doing so, I hesitate to recommend it.
• if you want to get really serious, have a look at the Chicago Manual of Style – this is the English language editor's bible.

One final word.  Although a bit of a purist, I try not to be grammatical policeman.  That can be as irritating as someone who tells the same bad joke over and again.  However, if I hear one more sportscaster say “Between you and I...” I'm gonna head down to the station and strangle someone.

As my parting shot, let me explain the rule.  But before we go there we have to understand the difference between “subjective” and “objective” for those who slept through English classes.  “I” and “We” are subjective pronouns.  “Me” and “Us” are objective pronouns. “I am hungry”.  “I” is the subject of the sentence.  “Please feed me.”  “me” is the object of the sentence.  OK,got that?

Now, an inviolate grammatical rule is that only the objective form of a pronoun can follow a preposition.  Prepositions as we all know begin a phrase that is critical to adding information to a sentence.   Common prepositions include:  at, by, for, from, in, into, on, to, with, as well as (drum roll please) BETWEEN.   Examples:  Hand the book to me.  He is waiting for us.  She wants to buy one for him and me.   Always, always, always the objective pronoun.   And therefore, correct phrase is Between you and me.  

Here's a tip.  Even if you don't want to delve into subjective vs. objective, all you have to do it think about what sounds right when you put it into the plural.  You would never say “There is very little difference between we.”  Obviously we say “There is very little difference between us.”  Why oh why oh why then, is it so popular to say “Between you and I”?   It is just so wrong. 

And if all this is just too tedious, just memorize this one phrase and I will be happy.   BETWEEN YOU AND ME.   

Paul Nicholson is a former journalist, communications consultant, English language usage nerd and writer.   He would be happy to answer any questions related to grammar or usage.  He can be reached here

Movement

Whether I'm painting, singing or cooking, I like to improvise. Improvisation is essential to my writing practice too, so I'm all ears when someone offers insight into how to 'get into the flow'. I recently attended Vocali, a music camp that invited us to "Put your music where your mouth is." One outstanding facilitator, vocal percussionist Sam Rogers, asked us what we thought the most essential element of improvisation might be. We considered Listening, Commitment and Risk. All good answers, Sam said, and then he added that Bobbi McFerrin (brilliant vocal improvisor) has declared it's Movement. He's not the only one to say so, of course. Here's Mozart: "I really can say no more on this subject than the following, for I myself know no more about it and cannot account for it. When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer - say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal ... it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly." I know the truth of this from experience. So it's got me thinking - how can I use movement to free up my writing? Can I write and walk at the same time? Move and speak and record it all for later transcription? Dance in my writing chair?

Susan Ellenton is a Victoria BC based writer, musician, artist and jewelry maker.  She can be reached here or at her own site, here.

Emotional Landscapes

Although I now live in Victoria, I still write stories about the prairies, where I made my home for forty-five years. Recently I flew to Saskatchewan for a writing retreat.

            I was surprised by emotion as the plane began its long descent into Saskatoon and the features of the prairie landscape became clearly defined. Countless sloughs shining like irregularly shaped buttons. A patchwork quilt of tawny-brown or grey-green fields. The long blue ribbon of the North Saskatchewan snaking out of sight in both directions. Excitement bubbled up uncontrollably as I pressed my nose to the plane window. This landscape is my emotional home!

            My character, Dodie, felt the same emotional connection to the open spaces and immense sky. Raised in a large, smog-filled city in Victorian England, Dodie felt the same joy fill her spirit when she stepped from the train onto the expansive prairie of 1903. We all have a landscape where we feel embraced and we recognize this emotional fit, from the first time our senses experience it.

            To understand the pull of the prairies read my children's novels, Full Steam to Canada and Through Flood and Fire, published by Coteau Books.

Anne Patton is a Victoria BC based writer.  She can be reached here

Writers Salon

Gather round a fire pit and tell some stories.  Truth optional.