When I had a Daughter

I wrote this years and years ago when my niece was in 6th grade. I thought of it this Mother’s Day morning.

 

When I had a daughter,

I only had her for four days.

She wasn’t really mine, just “on loan” from my sister.

We went on a trip, her and I

and laughed

and talked

and walked arm in arm down streets that weren’t our own.

And even though she wasn’t “mine”,

while I had her I pretended she was my own.

Now I’ve never had a strong urge to procreate, admittedly for purely selfish reasons. I found the potential mess,

and the unavoidable cost

and the *gulp* ultimate responsibility overwhelming to consider

and throughout the years being an “auntie” created just the right amount of opportunity to satisfy whatever minuscule amount of motherly instinct

existing in my cells.

But

this week when people asked, “how old is your daughter?” I didn’t correct them,

and I felt a wonderful warm flutter in my heart that they had made the mistake.

My niece is tall and beautiful and smart and I was honoured that someone had thought

I

was responsible for her existence.

And it made me a little sad when we returned home and I had to return her to her mother,

and go back to my home

without

that extra heartbeat that had been keeping me company all week.

The Heart and Other Monsters

The Heart and Other Monsters by Rose Anderson

In this non-fiction piece, Rose Anderson writes of the death of her younger sister due to a drug overdose. Her sister’s death serves as the focus of this memoir, and around it, Anderson shares her own personal history. The memoir seems to serve as a means of healing for the author. It is a very heart wrenching read as we hear of Anderson’s struggle with dealing with her grief and her attempt to understand why her sister lived such a tragic life.

I read this book in one evening. It was impossible to put down. It is raw and real and very very heart wrenching but at times possessive of poetic language and imagery.

Read it.
It is amazing.

Thank you Netgalley and Bloomsbury for the free ARC

The Transaction

“The Transaction” 

By Guglielmo D’Izzia

This novel makes me want to visit Italy. This novel also makes me NOT want to visit Italy. There are numerous dichotomous images and events in this novel that leave the reader unsettled.

Our protagonist is a man by the name of De Angelis. De Angelis is tasked with visiting a small town in Sicily to broker a real estate deal. Sounds simple? Nope. Whatever could go wrong does. The trip itself is filled with catastrophe with everything from a broken down train where the passengers have to walk in the scorching heat to the nearest town, to being attacked by feral dogs. All of this happens BEFORE De Angelis meets up with the people who have hired him. Not that it matters because these people have been murdered by the mafia on their way to meeting him at the train station. Of course, this crime leads the authorities to suspect our protagonist’s arrival in their town. 

On this journey, De Angelis meets with all sorts of people of questionable moral character. De Angelis often struggles with doing “what is right”. 

Although at times this novel is humorous, especially in the way our protagonist views the events he experienced, I couldn’ help but feel a sense of dread while I was reading. 

This isn’t a long read and it moves at a fast pace. If you like suspenseful and atmospheric novels you will enjoy this one.

 

Talking to Stranger by Malcolm Gladwell

     Talking to Strangers is one of the most important books of the year. In a time where mass communication, often leads to conflict, it is essential to understand why we often misinterpret another’s behaviour, their words and intentions leading us to judge their character and alter our own actions to respond unjustly.

Malcolm Gladwell is always effective in illustrating his point. In this book he vividly uses five infamous examples to do so: a case of espionage during the cold war, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, the conviction of Amanda Knox and the Suicide of Sylvia Path. He also bookends his thesis discussing how heartbreakingly needless the unjust conviction of Sandra Bland.

I would want my high school students to read this book. It easily supports curriculums in Religious Studies, Ethics, Social Studies and Social Sciences and would inspire in-depth discussion in the classroom.

Talking to Strangers comes out September 10, 2019.

 

One of those Rare Smiles

“It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life.  It faced – or seemed to face – the whole external world for a moment then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour.  It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you, at your best, you wanted to convey.”    Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby

I long for such a smile.  I would find it difficult not to fall in love with someone who smiled at me this way,

someone who has taken everyone and everything in the world into account and

focuses on me with “an irresistible prejudice”.

Because, if truth be told, I often want it to be all about me.

With one look you know, deep within the recesses of your existence, that you’ve been understood and accepted even with all your flaws, and shortcomings and ugliness that once in a while rears its ugly head.

That someone thoroughly believes in you more than you can ever believe in yourself – all without condescension or impatience or obligation.

Imagine being looked at with the assurance that you are presenting yourself at your best and that best is pretty spectacular.

I am going to practice this smile.  The most difficult thing will be its authenticity.  Not to merely procure and manifest such a smile but to do so with sincerity.  To smile at someone with absolute pure delight where a switch has been flipped and joy has been released.

I bet you can remember a time you’ve been given such a look, the gift of such a smile. The first time you met your spouse?  Your baby’s first smile?  And I bet you’ve stored the wonderful feeling it created in your memory.  But do you remember giving such a look?

To whom did you bestow such a gift and why?

In Honour of Father’s Day

In honour of Father’s Day I thought I’d share some little things my father used to do that made my sisters and I feel loved:

1. He would sharpen our pencil crayons with his jack-knife.

2. When my sisters and I would come home off the school bus he’d leave us a little note on the counter telling us where he was working on the farm. He’d always include a little stick drawing of himself and the cat.

3. Every morning he’d wake us up for school and keep us company while we ate breakfast. He’d be the one to dollop porridge in our bowls.

4. He’d find where the mother cat had her kittens, or where the dog had her puppies and would crawl in prickly, cramped, claustrophobic places to pluck out the babies so we could hold them…even it if was only for a minute or two.

5. He’d make Cheez Whiz toast for us when we were sick, and cut the bread into four equal quarters.

6. He’d shovel off the dugout in the bush so we would have our own little skating rink.

7. He’d make sure the night-light was always lit.

8. Every morning during the school year he’d watch us toddle out to the end of the driveway and cross the road. He’d then patiently wait until we all safely got on the school bus.

9. He would be more gentle than my mother when taking out splinters.

10. He would discover baby mice or partridge eggs or newly hatched ducklings and would always find the time to share his discoveries with us.

Oh, he did all the grandiose fatherly things too like put food on the table, teach us to drive and help pay for our education…

but it’s the little things that stick closest to the heart.

Those Moments where We Stop and Blink

Sometimes there are small quotes from books, another person’s gift of weaving images and metaphors in such a way that sums up exactly what is going on in the readers reality without clinically spelling it out.

One of the most poignant novels I’ve read is The Secret Scripture by Sabastian Barry. It’s the type of novel that must be read slowly, each paragraph sipped and held in your mouth until you really taste and appreciate the significance and intricacies of its style. The novel is filled with beautifully written paragraphs that cause the reader to stop and actually wonder how an author can so eloquently present a truth.

One such paragraph is:

“And the river itself, the Garrovoge, swelling up, the beautiful swans taken by surprise, riding the torrent, being swept down under the bridge and reappearing the other side like unsuccessful suicides, their mysterious eyes shocked and black, their mysterious grace unassailed” (page 125).

How often in life are we like these swans where we’re taken by surprise, and are uncontrollably swept under a bridge of sorts, tumbled and shocked and surprised to have actually made it to the other side? An event, or a circumstance in our life where, while in the midst, we wonder if we ever will make it through without crumbling and shattering to pieces?

But we do.

What I find to be the beauty of the paragraph is the image of the swan at the other side of the bridge. The harrowing tumultuousness of being sucked under, out of control and at the mercy of someone or something else, but yet making it through with an “unassailable” grace.

At the moment there are several people in my life who are being swept under bridges.

But in every case, EVERY case, each person I know will be like the swan and make it through to the other side. They may blink their eyes in surprise, but they will maintain a sense of grace through it all and be all the stronger.

Grace.

Oh to be young again

I teach in a high school.
Where there is a lot of energy. And excitement. And enthusiasm.
You’d think that spending every work day with young people would make me feel young. And most days it does. But quite often being juxtaposed beside such exuberance reminds me

of how old I really am.

When you are young, you approach life with a sense of curiosity and optimism. You have that “shell-shocked”, “deer in a headlight” look

but it is more a look of innocence than one of terror.

When you are young, the idea that you may fail, or come in “second place” tickles around the periphery of you mind but

not enough to scare you into immobility or incapacitation.

No, you are excited at the prospect of learning and growing, and performing, and creating.

But

when you get old, it’s just easier to do what you’ve always done.

Because you know how to do it.

It’s safe. And you know that you will succeed

or that your skill is passable enough to escape criticism.

When you are young, you think you can do anything.

Having no frame of reference is scary. It’s like flying around not knowing

where it is safe to land.

But land you do, and listen to constructive criticism of coaches and teachers and adjudicators then go away

and practice and practice and practice so that next time you improve your odds.

And feel all the more confident when you do so.

I wish I had my the courage some of my students show.

I did once.

When I was young and trying to figure out what I was good at … and what I wasn’t good at. My fear of failure wasn’t incapacitating. Rather it fuelled my intention for being.

Encore: The Wrath of Chubby Chicken

When I was a kid I was chubby.

The kids in my class used to call me “Chubby Chicken”.

The words stung, but they didn’t scar

and I remember crying but not sobbing.

I would lie awake at night because the insult itched but I never allowed myself to scratch it raw…

because I knew the sadness would pass,

all I needed was patience.

I don’t really know where the patience came from. It could have been because I had a family I knew loved me unconditionally.

Maybe it was because I had a few loyal friends and therefore was not utterly alone.

It could be in part because I had stuff to do (chores and homework and piano practice) that kept me busy enough that the insults didn’t weigh on my mind every minute of every hour and only when I lay silent and still in my bed at night.

Was it because I had books and could escape into the lives of others- those characters that faced brutality leagues above my own hurt feelings (Jane Eyre, Ann Frank, the March sisters?) or witness those who caused undue pain on others to suffered the wrath of an unassuming hero, (Hercule Poirot)?

I think it was because I realized that

those spewing their hurtful opinion were people of no significance so their opinion amounted to

nothing but the hot air they used to move the words from their lips.

Indifference was the best revenge.

It pains me to see kids at the school I teach hide behind their hair, or under their hat, and skulk away in fear of being teased.

And I wish they would believe me when I tell them

this too will pass

and that puberty can be purgatory. But it will pass.

It will pass.

And that most of the time the words of others don’t have to be sharp as stings, but rather as unsubstantial as hot air.

To Dance on Canada Day

Today I wanted to dance to “Oh Canada”

But I didn’t,

thinking it would be disrespectful.

So I kept the urge quiet.

Its tune made me happy

Maybe it was because I was exhausted and I found the tune soothing.

Maybe because I was happy it was summer

And any melodious trembling made me want to sway and swirl

But I think it is because I am proud to live where I do

and grateful for what others have done

facing death for an ideal

Just so I could be free to stand

At attention and listen

And dance in my imagination

To the swells of that proud melody