a change is as good as a holiday
I have always enjoyed simplicity -- whether that be found in nature, music, or solutions to problems. I enjoy clean lines, open spaces, a few colours or few notes splashed together. So, in celebration of a simpler approach to life, I have now simplified the site. It might stay. It might change. It may become even more simple.
31 May 2003, 15:05
Canadian idle
Since Sunday evening they have been everywhere: walking along the waterfront, hanging about in the underground pathways, lining up at the fast-food counters in great gobs. Usually they are laughing, and almost always they are singing. Teenagers. Thousands of them. All of them wanna-be pop stars. All of them wandering about with numbered license plate-sized signs attached to their chests, waiting for their turn to audition before four judges. All of them hoping to find out on Friday that they have managed to secure one of the 100 spots in Canada's first-ever Canadian Idol (our polite little Canuck version of the wildly-popular and recently-concluded American Idol and an off-shoot of the UK's Pop Idol).
All week we have been falling over them as they sprawl on benches, aimlessly wander the shops, and clog up the Tim Hortons morning line-up. Singing.
I don't know if the Idol series can work in Canada. I don't know if people will want to watch a group of young hopefuls weeded out week after week until a few carefully-groomed, coached, and cookie-cuttered remain. And it also begs the question: is Canada capable of producing a pop-star? Worse yet, is anyone inside (or outside) our soft-spoken and near-invisible little country going to care?
28 May 2003, 19:05
a paddling
Looking down from our lunch, we couldn't figure out what it was at first. It looked much like a little wind-up toy bobbing and motoring through the water, determinedly. But upon closer inspection we realized that it was a yellow and brown fuzzy duckling paddling furiously through the oddly-calm waves. He (or she) travelled west along the shoreline and back, obviously in search of his missing family. A few minutes later a mother and a paddling of fresh little fluffballs sped along the side the lake, probably in search of the missing mini-fowl. I can only hope that the afternoon's drama ended with a joyous reunion.
26 May 2003, 23:05
making judy smile
No one should have to spend three hours in a dentist's chair whilst three people stare into the cavity of one's (initially) tooth-filled and then semi-toothless mouth in between bouts of ear-splitting drilling and the application of various hues of goo. No one should be required to see four plaster molds of one's mouth, have fourteen impressions taken of one's bite, and have ten pictures of one's forced grin. No one should ever have to walk out of a marathon appointment dazed, flash-blinded, goo-splattered, and confused and be slapped with a $1900 invoice. Especially when one becomes aware that this is only half the bill.
When everything is said and done a week from Monday, I had better have the sparkliest and sexiest smile this side of the 401.
22 May 2003, 23:05
tremors
In response to recent whining about not spending enough time reading, I promised Trevor and myself to make better attempts at using my free time for good instead of evil. So, today at lunch, leftover chili and litmags and poetry book in hand, I found a reasonably quiet spot on a bench under a willow tree and dove into Joan McBreen headfirst.
Within minutes a teenaged boy sauntered over to my bench (all of the other benches were free) and plunked himself down. Feeling a bit wary, I collected my far-flung belongings and placed them at my feet. A few minutes went by. And then it began.
Shaking. The bench was shaking. And all because this boy was bouncing his leg up and down to some inaudible beat. Bouncing, bouncing. My hands tremored, the words wavered, my lunch rattled. Damnit. And then suddenly he got up and walked to the water. But, of course, just as I began turning pages, he re-appeared, plopping himself back down and bouncing that leg even more. Jittery bugger.
In one of my better melodramatic moments, I stood up abruptly, hastily stuffed everything in my bag, and stomped off to another bench. Even the clamour of the yardworkers beside my new location was better than trying to read in a bloody earthquake.
21 May 2003, 18:05
two suits
As I walked into the elevator, two businessmen stepped in behind me, chatting about a meeting they were going to attend together. Now, don't worry about wearing your jacket, one exec said to the other. The only time I wear a tie is when I'm laying people off. And when they both chuckled, I fiercely fought the urge to bang their heads together repeatedly until their bodies rattled right down to their $400 shoes.
21 May 2003, 12:05
too good to be true
As I have a tendency to do, I have romanticized the idea beyond reason: a little limstone cottage in the town where Trevor and I grew up, complete with hardwood floors, a loft, and a yard with a deck, a garden, and a tree. Yes, a tree (try living right downtown in a major metropolitan area for four years; you'll quickly realize how much you miss those big green leafy things). And everything about the little stone cottage adds up to the perfect place, the perfect price, and the perfect solution to our frustrations with living in the city. Ever since we stood in front of it two weeks ago and drank in it lovely stone-cottageness, I have been picturing us eating at the dining room table, barbequing on the deck, planting flowers in the spring, watching TV in the tiny living room with paint on the walls that is finally not flat white.
So, what are we waiting for?
20 May 2003, 20:05
a weekend of walking
Finally, the wind and rain cleared from the air, and Trevor and I decided to take full advantage by spending yesterday and today (Queen Victoria's birthday being a holiday) walking. Sunday was soaked in sunshine, so we took the short ferry to Toronto Island -- not an island to itself, but a cluster of small connected islands -- and walked for hours.
An equally beautiful day today, we turned our attention to the city, spending hours walking residential streets, fresh-leaved, windswept, and radiant.
19 May 2003, 22:05
shots and soliloquies
I was sure that it was a gunshot. After midnight, a short pop shook the silence, echoed in the courtyard below our window. And then nothing. We went to the window, looking below anxiously, not entirely sure whether we should be in the window. A few minutes later, just when we were about to give up on identifying the sound, another pop. And then silence. A man on the bridge who, until then, seemed only curious, suddenly started running. People gathered at windows, looking down.
About ten minutes later the police arrived, but nobody seemed to be in any kind of hurry. Below our window we watched them flipping through a notebook, talking to a couple and jotting down notes. Nonchalant. Unhurried. So, assuming that no foul play had taken place, we ventured outside to find that the drycleaner's glass door had been shattered. Shards glittered everywhere.
Suddenly inspired with a civic duty to offer the police our eyewitness (or earwitness, in this case) account of the evening, I walked up to the door of the police cruiser and met with a grey-headed, stern-looking cop. I just wanted to let you know that we live above the drycleaner and we heard the sounds. We didn't come down right away because we thought we heard gunshots.
He looked at me with a tired, part-bored, part-annoyed, part "there there, dear", part "just go back to your Dawson's Creek finale" gaze and told me that there was no gunshot. The door had just been smashed. That's all. Don't worry your pretty little head.
Soon afterward, a handcuffed man was being eased into a patrol car. After a while the alarm stopped ringing out into the night. And this morning the door had already been replaced. No glass glinted from the sidewalk. It was as if nothing had happened. It would have been a much bigger deal in Capeside.
17 May 2003, 23:05
longfellows
Last night at the magazine launch, when I stood listening to poets recite their precious words to a half-distracted audience, I felt some empathy for them; however, I must admit that I also felt somewhat distracted myself.
Amongst the din of the voices and the clank of pint glasses, I confess that I started thinking about my very first poem accepted for publication in a literary journal. How thrilled I was. Instantly, I was in love with the idea of being a poet. I think that I sometimes still am. When I actually bother to write poems, of course.
Being there last night -- albeit a lurker among the other contributors -- it made me realize again how much I enjoy the process of writing: the creation, the waiting for acceptance, the rejections, the sight of my words printed on a white page. I love all of it.
For nostalgia's sake (indulge me), here is 'the first one':
Richmond Street
To sit by the window in my apartment
above the shops. Screenless. Curtained with gauzy
white sheets smudged with smoke and car exhaust. My feet
rest on the window ledge, one toe eased into damp
windowbox-soil. Searches out old geranium petals, still-soft
against skin. The room is hot; heavy breath blows curtains,
lifts my skirt to cool the back of clammy knees. Sweat-trickles
tickle the flesh between breasts and shoulder-blades
Suddenly I wish that I hadn't finished yesterday's wine.
Amateur guitar-strumming soothes me. The street musician plays wildly beside the outdoor patio where the thirsty exchange of ideas is whetted by the consumption of ale. Their words ring familiar, form the lyrics to songs I had forgotten, cause me to remember fervid coffeeshopbanter of years past. Nostalgia-warm, I fan my face with a nearby paperback.
Sandaled and blue-skirted girls pass below, necklines and hair billow with warm wind. They cross the car-dotted street, past the stone steps where the black-haired girl sits in late afternoons scribbling into yellow notebooks. I call across to her my voice smothered by car-hum and wind. Invite her to my warm-winded place. To discuss where we had hoped to be at this time in our lives on a day like this. To discuss geraniums.
published in: Grain Magazine, March 1999
15 May 2003, 23:05
holly
Looking out of my office window, I can watch them: blue uniforms scanning the shore, poking sticks into garbage cans, searching for something macabre, something unimaginable. They are looking for a little ten-year-old girl's legs. She went missing on Monday night and yesterday parts of her dismembered body washed ashore on the Island and by the park where Trevor and I walk every week.
This morning, on the walk to work, the harbourfront was lined with police armed with sticks, probing the spaces between boats and shore, swirling through garbage and debris, rummaging in the cold murky water of Lake Ontario. Helicopters and boats have been scouring our neighbourhood for anything they can find. But nothing they dredge from the water across the street from our apartment can do anything to soothe the unbelievable grief felt by a family and community that lost an innocent little girl to a demented predator.
I look down on the parking lot below and wonder, could that he have walked down there between the cars, others oblivious to his gym bag and its horrific contents?
It makes me sick with disgust and sadness.
14 May 2003, 10:05
textual delights
Yesterday I came home from work to a kitchen counter laden with textual delights: a package containing a used novel I had ordered from New York; a book of poems from Ireland eclipsed by layers of bubble wrap; a few extra copies of lichen plucked from the few remaining in the downtown core; and a surprise from my incredibly thoughtful and supportive husband that included a delicious mix of literary mags I have never had the opportunity of buying before (Vallum, The Claremont Review) and the latest issue of P&W. All I want to do is call in sick for the rest of the week and read. And read.
14 May 2003, 07:05
Just wait till tomorrow -- I guess that's what they all say
Sometimes I feel like I am twenty years older than I am. Not in body or spirit -- my energy level has forgotten to leave the previous decade -- but distanced in other ways. Maybe it's just an aged awareness, a distorted perspective gained from so much time spent trying to see all sides of everything all at once, being concerned about feelings and perceptions that cannot be changed, cannot be controlled. It can wear a person out, a lifetime of worrying and overthinking. Its weight presses against the skin, chafes in uncomfortable places, leaves behind the musty smell of regret.
13 May 2003, 22:05
green
We left Toronto in rain and fog -- a semi-transparent grey vapour that limited objects to a defined field of vision: uncoloured road, cars, overhead bridges, and strips of land lining the roadway. Indistinct and bled of hue.
Once we reached the outskirts of the city, when the highway narrowed to three lanes, and the sullen industrial complexes gave way to farmland, colour began to melt though the mist. A little at first, and then as the fog dissipated, the light of it burst from every patch of land. Green. Waving fields of emerald grass, trees unfurling lime-coloured leaves, verdant hills tumbling toward fences: a bright and bottomless green. A Dionysian dance of vegetation, deliciously swaying, chlorophyll-drunk.
12 May 2003, 20:05
pubs
Three poems published in lichen literary journal, 5th anniversary issue. And there's even a launch party -- but, still, I'm not reading.
12 May 2003, 20:05
waiting for warm
Lately, on most days, sunshine is spread thinly across blue sky and billowing clouds. The light warms my skin for just for a minute, lingers long enough to suggest future days of heated wind and shimmering pavement. And then, cold wind from the lake smacks me senseless, steals summer from the air.
09 May 2003, 23:05
in the presence of greatness
The night began in a room where in past years I have sampled veggie food and shopped for gifts created in third world nations. But last night it had been transformed; the walls were draped in black, and candles flickered on round tables facing a small stage.
I had hesitated a few times before deciding to go to the reading, not being sure if I would like it. But, since it was three members from this year's Granta Best of Young British Novelists -- a list that contains some of my favourite authors (Nicola Barker, AL Kennedy) -- I knew that it couldn't possibly be a disappointment.
It wasn't.
When Andrew O'Hagan opened the book and began to read, I was immediately engaged. His soft-edged, pebbly voice washed over the crowd, carrying everyone downstream into the story. We travelled with him on every word. My, how a Scottish accent can make one swoon. It was lovely.
Sarah Waters followed with a reading from Fingersmith, a Dickensian dabble that was less palatable to me, but the audience was appreciative. Alan Warner (of Morvern Callar fame) chose to cancel his reading because of SARS. Sad. But at least he was deliciously replaced by Ian Jack, Granta editor extraordinaire.
An evening well spent in the presence of literary greatness and lush accents.
07 May 2003, 19:05
for fun
The next time it's on (because it's always on somewhere in syndication limbo), try watching an episode of The Simpsons with your eyes closed, and listen to the narrative supplied for the visually impaired. Not only is the experience educational (i.e. frequently reminding the listener of the names of the secondary characters), but the lightning-fast description of scene changes and the hurried, barely-inflected narrative of events adds a whole new hilarious dimension to the show. Really. Try it.
05 May 2003, 22:05
louise devlin and me
For months I have been receiving email from her on a daily basis. The notes have never been personalized, but always bear a double-gift of the Yaha virus. And since the first note arrived over six months ago, the sender is still a mystery, but I have received more email from her than from my closest friends.
A few months ago, I wrote a note to Louise Devlin (who turns out not to be Louise Devlin at all, but a carpenter in the UK whom I've never met) and kindly requested that he please perform a virus check on his computer or find some way to stop the virus-laden emails landing daily into my inbox. My unanswered request then fell upon the blind eyes of BTopenworld. Only then did I receive a response -- not from BT, but from the "technical friend" of the carpenter, promising that he would look into the matter promptly.
But still, Louise Devlin writes.
However, for some reason, it's no longer a daily event. Sometimes I even forget about her, but then on cue my Norton AntiVirus pops up with an alert to a doubly-infected message, and I see her name appear in the sender list. It's almost become a comfort now.
04 May 2003, 23:05
inside the shell
Saturday was "dump day" at our house. On Saturday mornings, my dad would gather up all of the garbage bags and boxes fulls of unwanted material, cram them into the car, and we would take off the dump, a few miles out of town.
I loved going to the dump. It was a place of wonder. Huge flocks of seagulls circled and dove into the undulating hills of cardboard, cans, and plastic -- as if it were the beach. And I was fascinated by all the things that people threw away, the curious objects that rolled away from bulldozers and birds.
One day when we had parked on the road and were dragging bags to the dump's entrance, I saw something on the road. Something terrible. And although at first I wasn't sure exactly what it was, I knew that it (they) had been alive at some point.
Amongst the smashed bits of shell and dried sticky liquid glinting from the asphalt, tiny little red beaked bodies were flattened into the road. I'm not sure even now if the chicks were half-formed or just squashed by tires -- it was hard to tell. All that I knew in my seven-year-old head was that they were dead, that they would not be able to grow into birds.
Dad tried to console me with sometimes these things happen (especially with us living in a rural community) but it didn't help. I don't remember wanting to go to the dump much after that. And still, sometimes when I crack open an egg, I'm afraid of what I'll find.
03 May 2003, 18:05
ribbon
Walking home with a headache, looking forward to my head connecting with a pillow, I suddenly noticed movement out in the middle of the harbour. At first it looked like a steady stream of smoke trailing close to the surface of the water, east to west. But, no, it was a single line of birds, rippling just above the waves as one continuous avian ribbon. It lasted for minutes.
I moved closer to the water's edge in hopes of a better vantage point, headache temporarily forgotten. But by then, the parade of birds had slowed to a last few stragglers, dipping wings into water as they slowly landed into the lake, joining the thousands of tiny black bodies bobbing on the water, unravelled over the waves.
01 May 2003, 16:05