Steep My Senses In Forgetfulness...

In The Third Sleep
Kay Sage
1944

Yesterday was probably the most horrible day of my life -- well, if not the most horrible, it was right up there with the worst of them. Not to be too indelicate, I was physically ill to my stomach by the time I got home, due to the stress and tension.  I was exhausted. I decided the best remedy would be to curl up with my New Yorker magazine, decompress and sleep. After what I had hoped would be a fun-filled, light-hearted day, actually turned into a nightmare, I was certain my dreams would be filled with fire-breathing dragons and screaming banshees.  Strangely, it was quite the opposite.

Dreams of Venus
Salvador Dali
1939

My dreams were full of vivid images, but I found myself laughing.  In one dream, I entered a contest and won an antique waffle iron.  I haven't thought about waffle irons since God was a baby, so what on earth made me dream of winning a waffle iron?  In another dream, I was jay-walking across a busy street, and a police car went past me, and the police waved their fingers at me, as if to say, "You shouldn't be jay-walking..."  But they didn't stop and give me a ticket, but instead drove on past me.

Sleep
Salvador Dali
1937

In The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, the artist described sleep as a heavy monster that was "held up by the crutches of reality".  That is as good as description as any.  Sleep is the thing that heals us from the negative damage done to our psyches.  It is not an escape from the day, but rather a means of processing and cleaning out the flotsam and jetsam that the brain has collected and does not need. Sleep is the cleaning lady of our brain.

O sleep!  O gentle sleep!
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

~~ Wm. Shakespeare; 2 Henry IV

I am grateful for my absurd and silly dreams last night -- my newly-won waffle iron and my scolding policemen.  They made me forget the horror of the day that preceded them.  Today I think I will do some retail therapy and buy myself a waffle iron, just to remind myself that everything ultimately, no matter how painful, can be kept in its proper perspective.

Whiskers on Kittens ... Bah, Humbug

Hello, everyone, I'm still here -- I think. Let me check -- yes, I'm still here. I haven't been blogging lately, because my boring little blog has bored even me. I have always told my friend Russell that I don't ever want to start blogging about "whiskers on kittens and snowflakes on mittens". All of that cute stuff it not me. I am opinionated, and unfortunately when I have an opinion, people know it. I grew up in a family where discussions and debates about politics, religion, philosophy and current events was encouraged. The louder the discussion, the better. My parents were both extremely well-read and intellectual, and they taught all of us to think for ourselves. It's not easy sometimes. I am probably one of the least politically correct people I know. Just ask anyone who knows me. And I detest the politically correctness that has evolved here in the beginning of the 21st Century. Just look up "newspeak" from George Orwell's 1984. The book was published in 1949, and now some of a lot of it is coming true.

The Oceanian province of Airstrip One is a world of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, and public mind control, dictated by a political system euphemistically named English Socialism (Ingsoc) under the control of a privileged Inner Party elite that persecutes all individualism and independent thinking as thoughtcrimes. Their tyranny is headed by Big Brother, the quasi-divine Party leader who enjoys an intense cult of personality, but who may not even exist. Big Brother and the Party justify their rule in the name of a supposed greater good. The protagonist of the novel, Winston Smith, is a member of the Outer Party who works for the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue), which is responsible for propaganda and historical revisionism. His job is to re-write past newspaper articles so that the historical record always supports the current party line. Smith is a diligent and skilful worker, but he secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion against Big Brother. The slogan of Ingsoc was "War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is truth". 

Does that sound at all familiar?

There have been some very interesting things going on in the world lately, as I'm sure many of you have noticed, and the responses to them have been neutral and wishy-washy at best, and politically correct at worst. And I'm chomping at the bit to do some blog posts about them. Whether folks agree with my viewpoints or not, I have some very strong opinions and ideas.

Watch this space. No more whiskers on kittens.

I Live in a Vodka Commercial

For the past couple of weeks, Vancouver has been enjoying spectacular summer weather. There is no place like Vancouver in the summertime, it’s exactly like Waikiki -- simply beautiful. But, I, however, have been living in a horror show a Smirnoff vodka commercial. See these guys? They live right next door, and they and 50 or so of their closest friends have been enjoying the warm summer evenings, ten feet away from my windows. A friend of mine offered to lend me his B-B gun. I just might take him up on it. When I moved here 14 years ago, I did my research first. I work in a noisy office, and the most important thing for me when I get home is quiet. Peace and quiet. Blissful quiet. When I moved here 14 years ago, these guys next door were only ten years old. How could I have known that over the past 14 years they have been growing and percolating into 24 year-old men boys men who have just invented alcohol?

*sigh*

(Actual photo taken from my bedroom window...)
Friday evening after work, just as more festivities were about to break out next door, I strolled over to visit them, and chatted with them a bit. I explained that I had had the week from hell, and would just like to relax on my terrace and listen to the birds. ‘But it’s a beautiful summer evening,” one of them said. To which I replied, “Yes, but it’s also a beautiful summer evening for all of your neighbours too, and we have to go inside and close our windows and doors in order to keep out your noise.”

“Ohhhhhhh, yes, I never thought of that,” one of them replied, as the light bulb went off over his head. Then they invited me to stay and have a beer with them.

There was an interesting article I read recently about how adolescence no longer ends at age 21, but carries on until at least 35 or 40. Adultesence, is the new term for it. There is no incentive for them to be adults, so they don’t bother to grow up. It’s too much fun just carrying on – having fun. These fellows next door have some games set up in their back yard that at one time most 12 year-old kids would have put aside as being childish. And they whoop and holler all evening long, and well into the "wee hours of the morning" as they drain the beer and the vodka bottles, and get progressively more inebriated.  Have you ever heard a bunch of drunks people preppies playing badminton or croquet at 2:00 in the morning?  There's nothing like a drunk badminton player, except perhaps a drunk croquet player.  They’re not bad kids, quite decent actually. They’re all business majors in the Faculty of Commerce at UBC, but it’s like living next door to a fraternity house. About nine of them live there, and they all have friends. Lots of friends. And being twenty-somethings, they are all convinced they are the centre of the universe.

Does anyone have a quiet cabin in the woods, next to a lake, I can borrow until the rains start again?

 

Finally...!

After what seemed like an eternity, summer is finally here. That's me, down there on the beach.  I'll be back soon...!

What's Going On...?

While the rest of North America is sweltering under 100 degree temperatures, this is our summer. This is it. Every day. I feel as if I have gone into hibernation. As soon as the sun comes out, I'll be back. In the meantime, enjoy your summer, everyone, and please send some of your sunshine our way.

Roseman Bridge of Madison County

This lovely photo is the Roseman Bridge in Iowa, and the picture was taken a few days ago by my friend Russell. The bridge is featured in a movie called “The Bridges of Madison County" starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep. Everyone who has read the book or seen the movie is familiar with the story. It is the story of Francesca Johnson, a well-educated Italian woman with a love of music and the arts, who is married to a farmer in Madison County, Iowa, in the 1960s. She has two children, and the main purpose of her life is to be wife and mother, but her husband and children do not see her. She is stuck in her kitchen, listening to country and western music, when she longs to listen to classical music. She is unfulfilled and has accepted her life.  She has shut down.

One weekend, Francesca’s husband and children go away to the Illinois State Fair, and Francesca by happenstance meets Robert Kincaid, a photographer for National Geographic Magazine, who is in Madison County on assignment to photograph the bridges. She leaves a note at the bridge, inviting him for dinner, and he and Francesca become friends and then lovers. Robert Kincaid sees Francesca as a beautiful sensuous woman, rather than a plain housewife, and he has brought her to life again. It is wonderful to see Francesca blossoming in her new-found love affair with Robert. She slowly unfolds from being an uptight housewife to being warm, affectionate, sexual woman.  Sadly, at their end of their four-day love affair they part and Francesca remains devoted to her family, but she and Robert remain spiritually connected forever. When she dies, she requests to be cremated and have her ashes sprinkled from the Roseman Bridge.

It’s a wonderful story, and I have always felt an affinity for Francesca. I think most women can. Women make compromises all the time, and often have to invent who they are in order to please the other people in their lives. Even now, in the 21st century, that still happens. For Francesca, those four days of being herself were enough to last a lifetime.

In a way I feel sort of a connection to the Roseman Bridge, and it holds a special meaning for me. Not only did my friend Russell take this lovely photograph of the bridge, he also at one time met the author of the book, Robert James Waller. And on the day I found out that my daughter was expecting Phinnaeus, I decided to celebrate by treating myself to a movie.  The movie I went to see was “The Bridges of Madison County”. It was a beautiful warm summer evening in 1995, and I was very happy. Phinnaeus was born a few months later in February 1996.

And now, to come full circle, I have started to do a little watercolour pencil drawing of the bridge. I am hoping to visit it one day.

All Summer in a Day

Sunset, Wheatfield Near Arles
Vincent Van Gogh, 1888

One of my favourite short stories by Ray Bradbury is "All Summer in a Day". It is the story about a little girl named Margot, who has recently moved to the planet Venus, where the sun is only visible for two hours, every seven years. She is the only one in her class to remember sunshine, and the other children don't believe her when she describes the sun as a "penny" or like a "fire in a stove". The other children call her a liar and lock her in a closet, just before the sun is due to come out. As the sun appears, the children all go outside to frolic in the sunshine, and they forget that Margot is locked in the closet. As the rain starts again, they remember Margot and run back inside to free Margot from her prison, and they are ashamed of what they had done.

The Wheat Field, Sunrise
Vincent Van Gogh, 1890

Living where I do, I sometimes feel like Margot.  We have so much rain, clouds, mist, dampness, gloominess, I almost forget what the sun looks and feels like.  Until today, when it is shining in all its golden glory.  I, however, am locked inside an office, and my only access to the sunshine -- one little window off in the distance -- has been blocked by closed Venetian blinds.  Venus, Venetian -- how appropriate?  Today is the longest day of the year -- the summer solstice -- the point where the sun reaches the farthest distance from the equator.  For a moment, the sun will appear to stop.  And then it will begin to move south again.

For me, it will be all summer in a day...  Let me out of this closet...!

Happy Father's Day to ... Me

At The Beach
Edward Henry Potthast

The other day my daughter was lamenting the fact that her father died when she was four years-old, and she grew up without a father. And yes, that was an awful thing. It was unfortunate for her, because in a perfect world every child should have both a father and a mother. But it's not always a perfect world. Unforeseeable things happen. To be honest, when I was younger, I had not signed on to be a single parent, either. And here I was at the age of 24, and my mother-in-law, bless her heart, stole the insurance money that would have provided a better life for my daughter while she was growing up.  I had to land on my feet very quickly, and that was not easy to do, in a world that was not kind to single mothers.

Dancers in Pink
Edgar Degas

When my daughter was growing up, I made sure she had all the things I did not have when I was growing up -- ballet lessons, piano lessons, horseback riding lessons. I made sure she went to the best schools, and had the best academic foundation. She ultimately did go to university and earned a Master's degree.  My daughter also lamented that she did not have a father to teach her how to ride a bike.  I taught her how to ice skate, roller skate, and yes how to ride a bike.  The first time she ever rode a bike, she rode completely around the Stanley Park Seawall without once falling off the bicycle.  I also stressed the importance of an academic education along with knowledge of the arts, literature, culture - we went to all the children's concerts at the Orpheum Theatre, and she always received good books as gifts.  I was the person who helped her with her homework at night, and met with the teachers on parents' night at school.  I was the person who made sure she had good medical care and dental care.  I was born with a slight scoliosis of the spine, and every year I took my daughter to the scoliosis clinic at Vancouver General Hospital to make sure she wasn't developing  it as well.  I was the person who stayed home from work when she was too ill with measles or mumps to go to school.  And I was the person who stayed up late at night and worried when she first started dating as a teenager.

Young Woman and Child at the Well
Camille Pissaro

It's always easy to put someone on a pedestal when they're dead.  People do it all the time.  The dead become larger than life heroic figures that they were not really when they were alive.  When my daughter was born, I said to my husband, "Let's start an education fund so she can go to university."  His reply to me was, "What for?  I never went to university, and she doesn't have to go to university either."  I still feel angry when I think of it.  Years later, when my daughter was married and had her own children, she did inherit some money from her paternal grandmother, and her uncle proceeded to steal that from her as well, but I went to a lawyer and got it back for her.  Sometimes the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree.

As parents, we all do our best, whether we are single or married, wealthy or poor, we want the best for our children.  We want their lives to be upwardly mobile from ours, and we do everything we possibly can to make that happen.  We make sacrifices  so our children will have the ability to build a better foundation for themselves and for their children.  But that's all we can do.  We cannot wave a magic wand and change things.  "It is what it is" -- as they say...  If our children want to go through life bemoaning their circumstances, we have to just let it go.  Life was difficult for single parents and the children of single parents at one time.  Laws have changed now, and landlords and employers cannot treat single families unfairly anymore.  As of 2012, in Canada almost 33% of families are single parent families, and 20% of those are headed by men.  That is significant.  And like all parents, they love their children and do the best they can for them.

To all the Dads out there, whether you are in single-parent families, or two-parent families, I wish you a Happy Father's Day.

And Happy Father's Day to me.

Once Upon A Time...

Once upon a time people lived in cities, and everything they needed was at their fingertips -- the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker.  Dwellings were built around the city square, and folks could walk everywhere.  The outlying districts were agricultural or industrial, and all goods and products were transported to the cities where people could purchase them.  Cities were beautiful places with user-friendly architecture, parks, playgrounds and access to rivers, lakes and ocean fronts.  Landscape architects were hired to design beautiful inner-city parks such as Hyde Park in London, and Central Park in New York City.  The parks contained bandstands, lakes for rowing, ice cream parlours, carousels and playgrounds for the children, and on weekends folks took picnic baskets to the park and spent the afternoon there.  In the winter they skated on the frozen ponds.  Living in the city was a lovely way of life.

And then, in the late 1940s after the Second World War, something happened. The first "suburb" was designed. It was called "Levittown" after it's developer William Jaird Levitt and it consisted of 17,544 Cape Cod and ranch houses. It was built to give post-World War II GIs the keys to their American Dream. It was "whites only", and in truth it was the beginning of the end of the American Dream. The amenities of the city were no longer in reach, and people needed cars for transportation. Inner cities began to be razed, and highways, freeways and unsightly parkades began springing up where there had once been shops, businesses and thriving communities. The inner cities were now only for minorities and folks who could not afford the "American Dream home" out there in the suburbs. And people began to rely on their automobiles. In fact, life without an automobile was practically unheard of.  People now lived where there once had been farmland, and they needed their automobiles to drive miles and miles in order to get to the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker.  Life began to evolve around the automobile, and people no longer owned cars, their cars owned them.  The automobile that had once been a luxury had now become a necessity and was the main focus of city development in every country of the world.  City planners developed cities around automobiles, not around people.

Fast forward to 2012. In 1900 there were somewhere between 4,142 and 8,000 passenger cars in the United States (the only country to manufacture cars at that time). It is estimated there are now somewhere around 1.015 billion vehicles in the world, and they burn over 400 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel yearly, and that is a conservative estimate. There are over 250 million vehicles in the United States alone.  And why?  Because development has made it more difficult to get from A to B, and folks need a car to do so.  If you were a visitor from another planet and you witnessed this, what would be your first impression?  Stupid humans to do this to their home?  Yes.  Stupid humans.  And it's going to take a disaster of major proportions to undo it, however, there probably will not be anything like that happening in the foreseeable future. We're stuck with what we have done to our beautiful, fragile, blue planet.  We have blighted our beautiful cities, and we have blighted our beautiful agricultural land.

I'm one of the few people I know who has never owned or driven a car, and I do not possess a driver's license.  I have always found public transit -- buses or trains/subways -- to be a perfectly acceptable means to get from A to B.  And it's cheap.  At one time most cities in the world had street cars, and when automobiles took over, street car lines were ripped up.  Transportation authorities are now realizing that was a mistake, and should never have happened.  Now, in the 21st Century when cars are destroying our planet, we need to find a way to look into the future and find cleaners ways of transportation, perhaps by looking to the past.  Once upon a time, the earth was not controlled by cars.

Congratulations, Lillibet...!

For 60 years you have never put a foot wrong. Congratulations!