under the lilacs

stuff

2010-08-15T01:19:00.005-04:00

Photo by: Cocoen daily

Sorting stuff. Saving stuff. Discarding stuff.

It shouldn't be this hard to move from one place to another.

I want to travel light -- not just on the road, but through my life.

Less is more and more is less.

Less than a month until I'm on a plane to Cardiff. Trying to stay sane and not pack up my mind in one of these boxes.

an exotic man

2010-06-25T20:42:00.004-04:00

Photo by: MaryFaith

I have almost been derailed from my epic Wales adventure. Love will do that to you.

I received my visa in early June, only three working days after I submitted all my documents. It was a shock to get it so early. The same time this was happening, I was beginning to have feelings for a coworker to whom I had been giving rides home. Also, at the same time, this man went on vacation for two weeks and upon his return our employer moved offices -- thus there was no longer a need for rides home.

So, for the last few weeks I have been on quite the emotional rollercoaster.

I've never fallen in love this way before -- so easily -- and so unexpectedly. Ironically, one of the things I found fascinating about him was his ease with travel -- and how much of it he has done.

I'm not certain of his feelings, but we have restarted the rides home and the conversations. Part of me believes he has been having the same confusion. Part of me thinks I can imagine anything I want.

It is a different kind of light that shines when you feel this way. It makes the idea of moving to the other side of the world seem very ridiculous and staying very simple.

I don't have to give my two month's notice to my workplace until the first week in July (in order to get a year's leave of absence.) I need to give my notice for my apartment July 1st or sooner. I have been mulling not going at all, mulling delaying the move until the spring. Much of this confusion was only muddled more because this handsome Somali-Canadian and I had temporarily lost our channel of communication.

But things are sorting out, getting clearer. His long-range plan is to move to Brazil, one of the many countries he has visited. He is an accomplished, self-taught, exquisite travel photographer.

I can come back in a year if I fall on my face in Wales and my job (or something similar to it) will be here. This connection has even shone a clearer light on this city of Toronto.

Webster's New World Dictionary defines 'exotic' as 1. foreign; 2. strangely beautiful, enticing -- derived from the Greek exo -- outside. A good word, as is 'enticing.'

Exhilarating, exquisite, exemplary, exotic.

A man in flipflops can be very sexy.

'the new normal'

2010-05-23T23:22:00.005-04:00

Photo by: bradlauster

During my recent health checkup, a blood test revealed that my sugar and cholesterol readings were on the high side. Not enough to be overly concerned, but enough to try and correct the situation before it got out of hand.

To my surprise and total delight, my doctor recommended me to a naturopath, to get things on track with dietary changes rather than just writing me a prescription, to which I would be quite opposed.

Unfortunately, the naturopath is not covered by OHIP or any work benefits, and is therefore costly. Fortunately, she (the naturopath) believes we can get things back on track within two months, possibly only one.

I have been eating fairly healthily for awhile now, but this is the first time I've been to a naturopath, and have found out the error of my ways. I have been a big milk drinker my entire life, and have moved from whole fat to skim gradually over the years. BUT, apparently even skim milk is quite high in sugar, as are bananas, of which I was eating three a day.

The new regimen began about two weeks ago, and basically is a low-glycemic diet consisting of NO dairy, NO sugar and NO gluten, along with supplements to aid my liver in its cholesterol fight, supplements to aid my body in processing glucose and a mega-vitamin I have to drink.

I can fill up on most vegetables and most fruit, but my proteins and grains are limited to portions the size of a deck of cards. Example: A sandwich is made up of only one piece of bread.

As crazy as all this sounds, it really isn't that bad. I've always been creative and adventurous with food, so at this point it's kind of a fun challenge. And I'm extremely thankful I can eat eggs. They are my favourite food, and originally the doctor said NO eggs; however, the naturopath says only 20% of the cholesterol in our bodies comes from food -- and there's too much good stuff in eggs to drop them. (My sentiments exactly!)

The first few days the pounds seemed to be melting away, but after the first week, my weight seems to be about the same as when I began, which is too bad, as I do need to lose a few pounds.

I wasn't feeling any symptoms before I received the blood test results, so I can't say anything definite has or hasn't happened (other than feeling hungry most of the time). But -- and this is hard to explain -- I do feel lighter in my energy, as if my mind and body are better connected and not running into inner roadblocks.

I certainly hopes this works. As a very good friend -- who was quoting another good friend --said to me, regarding necessary dietary changes: It's 'the new normal.'

taking the leap

2010-05-23T22:50:00.003-04:00

Photo by: sadashotit

Ah, the forward momentum has taken hold and it is leading me to Wales.

May be one of the craziest things I've ever done -- may be one of the smartest.

I have filled out my visa application online and am currently waiting for my passport to be renewed for another five years. It should be ready during the first week in June, at which time I have just to take my application copy, along with my passport, supporting documents and multiple photocopies, and get my fingerprints scanned and photo taken at an office downtown. Then my application is on its way to the decision makers in the U.K., who, according to their website, could have a decision made in no longer than a month's time.

If all is confirmed by mid-July, the journey is on track for me to be in Cardiff by mid-September, in time for a three-day job fair.

The online application was surprisingly easy to fill out. And it is a great benefit to me to be in Toronto and working a nightshift. If I were working in another city I would have to travel here to get my fingers scanned -- if I were working a day shift, I would have to take time off work for the scheduled appointment during regular business hours. There are decided advantages to working evenings.

And now that this step is almost complete, the moving and packing and selling aspect of emptying my apartment doesn't seem so formidable. I think I can keep it that way by doing little bits all the time. I'll bring things in my car that my brothers may want as I visit them this summer, sell and give away the rest, put a few things in storage.

The momentum is there now and I know it will carry me along.

questions

2010-03-20T23:46:00.007-04:00

Photo by: *Hairbear

It has been almost four months since I've blogged and it's definitely well past the time for me to do an update.

I've been making preparations to move to Wales, and caught up in the midst of work, which for some reason, has become overwhelming.

I haven't filled out a visa application yet, but expect to do so in April. I found out in December that the U.K. has tightened up their borders since the economy took a global nosedive in 2008. After adding up my 'points'on their website, I came to the disappointing realization that they are only taking people who have Phds and make $60,000 a year (neither category of which I am anywhere near fitting into). Also, that particular visa has dropped from being good for three years down to two, a fact which would make it madness for me to pursue at this stage in my life -- not being independently wealthy.

But, in this case, there is another door, to which I do have a key.

I can apply for a visa based on U.K. ancestry (proof of a parent or grandparent being born in the U.K.), and that visa is actually good for five years, and from the sounds of it, much easier to renew if desired, after that time frame is up.

My dad's mother was born in England. Thankfully my stepmother was able to give me some much-needed birth information. The Ontario Archives helped me track down the date of my grandmother's marriage. It was frustrating finding and getting all the information and more frustrating applying for certified certificates through the Ontario government website, but by early February I had ordered the needed certificates.

I need five: my birth certificate, my dad's birth certificate, my parents' and grandparents' marriage certificates and my grandmother's birth certificate. I have received all of them now except my dad's birth certificate, which should be here by the end of March at the latest. His was slowed down as I needed to get proof of his death (which, again, my stepmother was able to send me), and because I don't think the Ontario government has the records before 1930 computerized, and my dad was born in 1929.

It's been fascinating and frustrating.

Also, I'm getting work on my teeth done and have found a doctor (and, thankfully, one who seems to know what he is doing) and am in the process of making sure I am healthy enough to consider what I am considering.

Sad to say, but true, I have avoided dentists and doctors since I have been in Toronto. The main reason, I guess, is that I have been healthy enough to do so. But another strong reason is that after the deaths of my parents in 2004 and 2005, I haven't had a lot of faith in the medical profession, nor wanted to be anywhere near a medical office. A lot of this was simply based on painful memories it was time to put aside or deal with, as I know, in my head, that doctors saved both my parents more than once.

I can't figure out why work has gone from bad to worse. I am exhausted from it often -- sleeping 10 to 12 hours on the weekends and barely able to make my mind work. The rush after Christmas never died down -- or, rather, it simply morphed into one situation after another -- and promises to continue to do so with a big office move in June and a layout makeover the same month. And I may be stressing myself out with the realization of all I need to do to make this move a reality. Ouch.

And, of course, I question the wisdom of the move. Is it not possible for me to be happy here in Toronto? I bring myself and my insecurities with me when I move. It's possible a new job in Cardiff would drive me round the bend, too. Then it scares me to think I'm considering staying in this city, because I think it's a slow death here.

I haven't had much time to play with the dreamy aspect of the move, not any actually -- and I think that is what I am missing. I want the move but am frustrated with how work just drains me and I'm not able to conjure up the fun of it.

Paul Harris, my former guide to Wales, invited me to his wedding in June!! This was in early February, and just a fantastic surprise and great news. Of course, I can't be there in June, as I'm still planning on being landed there in September, but it was good to hear he's getting married, wonderful to be invited, and nice to feel I'll have friends on the ground when I get there. But, I'm also sad that I haven't had time to get on Facebook and follow their wedding preparations, haven't had time to blog. This plan of mine should not be so wrapped in brown paper, as it seems -- yet, I kind of feel I'm wrapping it in this cloak myself.

I sought some psychic advice today. I haven't been to a proper psychic in a very long time, and accidently came across a notice yesterday of a major show today, and off I went. Spent too much money getting two readings, but I did need them. Of course, the readings were contradictory, which is still fine. I take what I want from them, and sometimes the contradictions help you realize what you want to hear.

The first reading was by a friendly older woman, who read cards and picked up rather quickly that my love life was nonexistent and has been for quite some time. She said that in mid-September I would start to live the life I was meant to live -- a fulfilling, happy life. However, she doesn't see me moving out of the country, or even out of Toronto. She sees me meeting the man of my dreams in May or June (in a park while he's walking his dog), and that I would be moving, but probably in with him. (If I were to meet anyone in Toronto, this would be a scenario that makes sense. The parks are where I go to revive a sense of self.) Unbelievably, she thinks I am up for a promotion at work (management jobs there are actually worse -- so not a good prediction.)

The second reading was a numerology reading, which I've never had done before. The reader was a gregarious Scotsman, decked out in a kilt, who was a natural showman and huckster, but whose energy I liked. He also picked out mid-September as a turning point in my life, but he said a move to Wales was in tune with my soul's purpose, and that eventually I would be working for myself as a writer.

These readings did help confirm my own feelings. I love the idea of having a man to share life with, but the thought of staying in Toronto depressed me. It is possible though that it could change everything. The confirmation of my own feelings about Wales and my sense of possibility there, did give me a renewed sense of hope -- which is what I was looking for.

This entry has gone on a long time. I've almost forgotten how to write, it's been so long. I don't imagine I'll be able to write often in the next few months. I already have the idea of changing my blog's name when (if) I get to Wales and calling it: A Canadian in Cardiff.

I'm heading off to Florida in mid-April for a week's stay with my stepmother, and am looking forward to the warm, floral-scented breezes.

Adieu.

Whoville

2009-11-28T01:21:00.005-05:00

Photo by: mirandaceleste

When I think of the Welsh and Wales, I think of the Whos of Dr. Seuss' Whoville in the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Specifically, those in the 1960s animated television show. The Grinch has taken everything away, all the tinsel and trappings, yet the Whos don't skip a beat, they don't even notice, and they gather together in the centre of town, hold hands, and sing -- and their singing floats up and up to the sky.

In Cardiff, people walk down the streets laughing, relaxed, shop cheerfully in drugstores, young fathers proudly push their children in strollers. Down at Mermaid Quay, the captain of a tour boat jokes over his mic to a quiet midday Cardiff Bay that his boat can't be missed -- it's the one with the handsome captain.

A businessman walks through Sophia Gardens and stops to pick up a discarded pop can. There is a sense that if a child were in trouble, fifty people would drop everything and run to that child's rescue. Every time I pull out my map on my circuitous bike trips, someone stops to make sure I can find my way.

The Whos melted the icy heartless Grinch, so it's no wonder that depth of sentiment leaves me in a sense of awe.

The very funny travel writer Bill Bryson wrote in Notes From A Small Island -- about a much too short visit to Wales as part of his travels through Great Britain -- that he was endeared, on watching a soap opera in the Welsh language, that the Welsh had no words for 'dirty weekend' and had to revert to English to describe the illicit liaison.

In a well-observed piece for the TimesOnline last year, Hugo Rifkind pondered 'Why Wales Is Suddenly Cool,' and one of the reasons he came up with was that the country hearkens back in a consciously-retro way to simpler times and values.

Jim Byers, travel editor for The Toronto Star, simply says "This place is seriously undersold."

Amen.

journalism

2009-11-08T02:23:00.002-05:00

At the end of October, our editor-in-chief of 18 months was guided out the door.

The situation at work has been so dour and restricted and manic during that tenure that those of us who are still there are feeling a little blinded and stunned at the daylight streaming in.

Celebrations and therapeutic dart games have ensued.

Still, the distaste for all that can be bad and wrong about this industry, on top of the disintegration of the industry itself as any of us know it, is leading many of us planning 'exit strategies.'

tenby, little town of the fishes

2009-11-08T02:04:00.008-05:00

Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales

Top to bottom:
1. S. Beach, low tide
2-4. N. Beach
5. S. Beach, high tide

rhythm of life

2009-11-08T00:37:00.004-05:00

My recent stay in Cardiff has set my mind on moving there.

So much to do now, it is mind-boggling. I am hoping I can be there by next September. This trip was very helpful in making me feel I can do it -- one small step at a time.

The place feels like home in every way, and I feel I can get work there. It doesn't have to be in the media (newspaper journalism is crumbling worldwide). I look forward to just living and working and being part of a community. On the side, if it presents itself, BBC Wales is there as something to play at.

It won't cost me more to live there than here, and most places there come furnished, so I 'simply' need to get myself down to basics, basics and throw things out, give things away, sell things, and put the rest in storage.

All of this has to be finetuned, of course -- but the sense of forward motion is good.

When I was in Cardiff, I followed the advice of Paul Harris, my trusty guide for all things Welsh, and went to sit in on a practice of the Cardiff Arms Club Male Choir. They practice on Mondays and Thursday nights, and because I was there for almost two weeks I went to two of their Monday night practices. So, so amazing.

The first night they were recording a 30 second radio jingle with the BBC for the opening of the John Lewis Cardiff department store in late September. Fascinating to watch that process (fascinating for me -- very repetitive for them).

The second Monday was a regular practice and a group of 20 other Canadians showed up to watch, so the choir put on a bit of a show for us. This group of about 70 men, mostly middleaged and older, unspectacular in many ways, opened their mouths and filled the air with life. The sun outside the large picture windows was setting and silhouetting the empty, dark stadium and light clouds, and inside these voices swung high and low and interplayed.

Since my return to Toronto, I've attended a performance of the Toronto-Welsh Male Voice Choir, who I also heard last March. I didn't think they were very good then. Maybe it was the venue, because this time they sounded good indeed. And they performed Rhythm of Life -- a song I heard in Cardiff for the first time and loved immediately. This performance by last year's runners-up in the BBC's Last Choir Standing -- the Welsh Ysgol Glanaethwy -- is remarkable (they would have had my vote.)

Apparently the song is originally from Sweet Charity, and its lyrics probably more adult and cynical than the tune suggests. But the tune, and the listening to it, is full of joy and sure sets one dancing.

Caerdydd -- September 2009

2009-11-07T22:39:00.011-05:00

Top to bottom:

People Like Us: sculptor John Clinch

Mermaid Quay, Cardiff Bay

Cardiff Market

Y Mochyn Du, local pub

Millennium Stadium on River Taff

Cardiff Bay from Penarth

From Pit to Port: John Clinch, Jon Buck

Countdown to Cardiff

2009-08-02T21:51:00.003-04:00

Photo: Gordonplant

In mid-September I will be heading to Wales and Cardiff for 12 days. That will be three times longer than any of my last two previous stays of around 4 days.

I'm booked to fly out of Hamilton into Dublin, and then an hour flight from Dublin into Cardiff. On my return I'll be spending a day in Dublin (I've never been to one of my ancestral homes, Ireland) and should also be able to visit with a former Metro co-worker who moved there at the beginning of the year.

In Cardiff I'm all set for a B&B in the town centre and will rent a bike and just explore all there is to see on land and water.

Cardiff, here I come.

Goin' to the chapel

2009-08-02T21:35:00.002-04:00

A week from today and my 24-year-old niece Kate and her fiance Neil will be wife and husband.

I am so looking forward to the joyous occasion. I am sure I will cry when my brother Kelly walks her down the aisle (and I would be surprised if he didn't cry, too.)

She is the first in her generation in our family to wed and they are a ready, solid couple.

The celebration will be at my brother and sister-in-law's home on a lake in Michigan, under a tent under the August moon, with anywhere from 200 to 300 in attendance.

There will be dancing outside to a Beatles' cover band. All night long.

My younger niece and nephew, Sarah and Shawn -- 7 (going on 8) and 6 -- will be flower girl and ring bearer respectively.

And I will be a very proud and happy aunt and sister.

Toronto the Strange

2009-08-02T04:50:00.007-04:00

Top photo: gbalogh Bottom photo: FuzzyRixard

When I first moved to Toronto, I would see painted moose in a few locations. I actually thought at one point it was an Asian symbol I was totally unaware of, as I only saw them outside of Asian businesses (obviously, not painted as those above). How naive. I have since learned it was a brainstorm of former mayor Mel Lastman to put Toronto on somebody's map. Fortunately -- in my opinion anyway -- there are only a few of these creations left, out of an original 326. A few is OK. The Ronald McDonald moose directly above graces the headquarters next door to my place of work.

Toronto local TV is graced with more than its share of outrageous pitchmen. The aforementioned former mayor Mel Lastman has passed his furniture business on to his son as well as his Bad Boy sense of the grab-their-attention sell.

Check out Idomo Furniture's fuzzy flowerchild gone grey on YouTube. (There must be something about the furniture business.)

But the worst (and more original) offender is Russell Oliver of Oliver Jewellery. This guy is just kind of creepy (and he has a whole slew of commercials -- playing fairly often). The sadly defunct Royal Canadian Air Farce pegged him more than 10 years ago.

And, for now, last but not least, are the multitude of raccoons in this city. Coming home at 2:30 a.m. I generally can see them every other night -- but especially the night before garbage pickups. Very healthy, fat, lumbering raccoons, often with three or four little ones waddling in their humpbacked manner across the streets. I've even seen one in broad daylight, flattening itself through an opening into the attic of a three-storey home. It is a mystery to me why the new Porter Airlines picked a raccoon -- Mr. Porter -- as its symbol.

Toronto, the Not so Good

2009-08-02T03:31:00.003-04:00

Also, just a sampling:

The lack of a true centre in the city
Yonge and Dundas Square -- more concrete surrounded by sky-high advertising in an attempt to imitate Times Square. This could have been the city centre, but feels like the inside of a pinball game.
The displaced and homeless -- In a fifteen-minute walk I can easily come across at least three people talking to themselves, and then several more in no condition to talk to anyone, not even themselves. It is very sad, especially the number who seem to have primarily mental disorders.
The lack of true space for children to play. The schoolyard behind me (all asphalt) has its gates locked and basketball courts off limits when school ends.
The lack of truly good breakfast places (in the downtown anyway)
Surprising lack of good, medium-priced restaurants downtown.
The way the media (and Torontonians) complain about the weather.
The way traffic gets snarled as soon as anything precipitates, rain or snow -- even if it is just a drizzle.
The scary-looking tranny sex workers on my street in the wee hours of the morning.

Toronto the Good

2009-08-02T00:09:00.009-04:00

Photo: K-Billz

Certainly not a comprehensive list, but here are some of my favourite things about Toronto:

The Toronto Islands
Summers in the city -- any weekend, from downtown, I can walk in any direction and probably find a festival I don't even know about
Taste of the Danforth (the annual, primarily Greek, street festival)
Riverview Farm and the Necropolis Cemetery
Broadview Park -- across the Don Valley from Riverview with a sunset view of downtown
Cherry Beach
The CN Tower with its LED lights -- I can watch them change from the couch in my livingroom
The view from my apartment of downtown on the right, treetops on the left, and the lake straight ahead in the distance behind The Islands
The scarves, head-coverings and robes of women from India, Africa and the Mideast -- so feminine and flowing, always flattering, so graceful, and such beautiful colours
Film festivals
TVO
Rick Mercer (I know he's a Maritimer, but his show is based here)
The city's mayor, David Miller -- an intelligent man with vision
The George Street Diner (after searching for almost six years, I have found the perfect diner)
The ravines and the way they weave throughout the city
The most amazing bookstores, used and new
Street jewellery
The Philosopher's Walk, U of T

Global Soul

2009-07-26T01:33:00.005-04:00

Photo by: PhotoGrandma

I have just finished reading Pico Iyer's 2000 book The Global Soul. I was interested in it because he tackles the subject of globalization and rootlessness and also has a central chapter on Toronto.

This is not a book review. Just some thoughts and observations. I've found some of Iyer's ideas intriquing, others less so. His writing style can be circuitous at times, and though he has not become a favourite writer, he is thought-provoking. This book was written almost 10 years ago as well -- before 9/11 -- so if anything, globalism has continued to spin even further into a new reality.

He is quite fond of Toronto and its multiculturalism, at one point calling Canada the 'Empire of the future.' In a sense I feel that. He seems to think Toronto had it all together in 2000, but still I think of Toronto as a city that will SOME DAY be great. I don't think it knows itself. Yet he has travelled far more extensively than I ever will, so his perspective is, again, that of a worldly outsider.

Unfortunately, much of the Toronto I see and feel at times is more similar to the Atlanta, Georgia, he can't quite feel comfortable in.

The last two chapters of his book -- on his birthplace Britain and his adopted home Japan -- are the best and most involving, and maybe the book should have been re-arranged to have these chapters up front, as the chapters are essentially strung-together essays.

I have sensed this globalism strongly since coming to Toronto. Much of it is from living in the city, and much of it is due to my work at a newspaper. Windsor, where I was born and, for the most part, raised, was a multicultural border town. The multiculturalism there felt different. The city was built on subsequent waves of immigrants: French, English, Irish, then after World War II Italian, Ukrainian, East European. Later Chinese, Vietnamese, Middle Eastern and East European again. Yet though many of these groups would congregate in neighbourhoods, to me there was always a sense of everyone being an integral part of the city of Windsor. Windsor first, as a framework, and then, Canada, united them in a sense of community.

Of course, Windsor is about one-tenth the size of Toronto and Toronto is a little less than half of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The latest census in 2006 showed that half of the people in Toronto were born outside of Canada. So it is not an exaggeration when I say that if I walk downtown at any time of any day, if I see ten people, those ten people are most likely from ten different countries.

I have come to absorb a sense of the vibration that exists from this actuality. Everyone is very connected to another part of the globe -- not in a distant manner, but especially because of the Internet and mass communication and travel, in an everyday intimate manner. There is not a great sense of having left the homeland far behind. There is a sense of everyone trying to make sense of it -- and, I think -- for the most part doing a very good job.

I never considered myself 'provincial' living in Windsor, across the border from Detroit. I think, in a border town, and a port town, there is always a sense of 'the other' and travel, and other worlds.

However, since coming to Toronto, I definitely find myself in another realm. I have co-workers from Iran, India and Somalia who have come to Canada, not as refugees or with their parents, but for a job, in a life that has seen them hopscotch purposely around the globe. I am in awe at the level of sophistication and travel that most of the people new to this country possess.

Pico Iyer writes in The Global Soul, "increasingly nowadays, a sense of home or neighbourhood can emerge only from within." There is truth in that, especially if the sense of home or neighbourhood is constantly shifting.

I want to read John Ralston Saul's book A Fair Country, which brings forth the premise that Canada is different from any other country because it was founded, not really on European dogma, but on Aboriginal philosophies. I saw him on a TVO interview and the premise sounds brilliant.

Belonging

2009-03-29T02:19:00.006-04:00

Photo: Gardinergirl

This past week TVO has had an exceptional weeklong package of stories on belonging -- Belong or Bust: Where Do I Fit In?

I videotaped much of it and watched it in the early hours of the morning after work. Most of it concerned stories of immigration, preceded by Canadian hosts who all had individual stories to tell of being different. The photo above is from Ireland Park in downtown Toronto, a park I have not yet seen.

I have always been fascinated by people who come from 'somewhere else.' Canada and the United States wouldn't exist (as they are now) without people coming from 'somewhere else.'

And now I am considering becoming an immigrant myself to the U.K. -- even if for a short time -- if economic circumstances allow.

I found the programming and some of the ideas related fascinating. Several of the hosts remarked on how they resented being asked "Where are you from?" when, though they looked 'foreign', were born and raised in Canada. I find this resentment a little strange. I'm often asked where I'm from -- even in my hometown of Windsor -- and I'm your typical Caucasian. I've never resented it. Rather I thought it interesting. So, I'm not sold on that being a negative or condescending question.

TVO often has shows from Britain, and their quality is high. Meet The Immigrants, a documentary, covered several immigrants, taking varying paths into the U.K. A drama, White Girl, presented the story of an English family moving into an all Muslim neighbourhood in England --finding themselves a minority in their own country.

Thought-provoking. In the Immigrants, it amazed me that Britain goes to Romania to import taxi drivers. In all the stories, the U.K. is a beacon of hope. Surprising to me (though it shouldn't be) is how knowledgeable many are of the hardships they may face, yet they are so eager and thankful for the opportunity. Particularly touching was a young man from the Middle East who had lived in Birmingham for awhile and was trying to get back illegally through Calais, France. He spoke of Birmingham with unabashed tenderness and respect. He did get back in and was trying to get asylum through the proper channels.

Steve Paikin on The Agenda presented a panel of ex-patriates who had lived or were raised abroad and had returned to Canada. They presented varying views on adjusting -- to other cultures, and to your 'own'.

The series ends today, but could go on and on -- so many perspectives and stories.

Rice Lake

2009-03-28T23:48:00.007-04:00

Photos: John Charlton

A weekend getaway a few weeks back. Mine was under a full moon. Beauty matchless.

Tkaronto

2009-03-28T22:17:00.005-04:00

Photo: Tkaronto

In my desire to leave this city, I have been reaching out to come to terms with it. From the beginning there have always been pleasant surprises mixed in with the frustrations and 'je ne sais quoi'.

Recently the city celebrated its 175th birthday and I attended some celebrations at the City Hall, which included a screening of the film Tkaronto. The film, which had premiered the fall before at the ImagiNATIVE Film festival (an excellent film festival), followed an aboriginal woman and a Metis man who shared several days together in the city. The film is about identity in all of its forms. The film's name comes from a Mohawk word, from which Toronto's name evolved.

One of the remarks that resonated with me was made by an elder to the woman who was interviewing him. He remarked how there was nothing in the city that reflected back to aboriginals who they were or where they came from. And that is true. Beyond several missions dedicated to helping down-and-out aboriginals downtown, there is nothing.

However, I am not aboriginal, and I can't say I feel reflected here either. I only feel reflected when I have more of a sense of nature and my place in it.

Last week, on PBS, the film Toronto: 175 premiered, and it did a nice job of giving this city a sense of history, of grounding, which to me it has always lacked. It is nice to know that every neighbourhood is not merely a tourist attraction of some sort.

In exploring for this post, I accidently came across, in an online thread, the best description of the city I have ever seen. One I wish I had been able to put into words. Birdonmyshoulder wrote in 2000:

I've decided that Toronto is a city with a hole in the centre. Sometimes people fall in. Sometimes they hover around the edge, loving the feeling of almost jumping, almost being sucked into it. And sometimes, you can see a lucky few being tossed into the air above the giant hole in the centre, lifted by the air from below. If you know where to look you can find these people, and you might even get lifted up yourself.

Happy Birthday, Mom

2009-03-28T21:53:00.003-04:00

That's it. I need to acknowledge that today is my late Mom's birthday.

Happy birthday, feisty (in the best sense of the word) Arian -- Joan Alice Ann Baillargeon O'Brien.

Wai Lana yoga

2009-03-28T18:42:00.005-04:00

Photo: Wai Lana

It has taken me a long time to find yoga dvds that do the trick: help me enjoy the movements (asanas), and make me look forward to doing them. The Wai Lana series accomplishes this, and in relaxing, beautiful natural settings and brilliant colours.

I first caught a glimpse of this unusual woman with the slow, pedantic, heavily-accented, voice on very early PBS TV (5 a.m.), as I was heading to bed. Instead of a bare-boned yoga studio, she was performing asanas in breathtaking locations where you could see the wind from the ocean blowing her hair and almost smell the salt air. She was dressed in elaborate, colourful, loose-fitting costumes with flowers in her hair and at her wrists and feet -- a strange amalgamation of Chinese, Polynesian, and Indian cultures.

After seeing her videos at a local healthfood store, I bought one, then all three of the beginner series. Her unusual voice, which I was afraid would grate on me, does not. The scenery inspires, as do her outfits (I want to bring colour back into my life!), and the asanas do the trick, simply.

The beginner series is full of simple exercises that are done slowly. I am not, never have been, and never will be flexible, yet these asanas are gentle as pilates is gentle. And I'm well aware pilates is based on yoga. I can feel how they strengthen my core and release tension. Several new asanas (for me), have been a great help in easing shoulder and neck issues brought about by too many hours at a computer.

The woman herself is quite an enigma. For all her success, there is little about her on the Internet beyond product placement. I would love to read an in-depth profile on how she has created this expansive career, apparently with a mystery husband and three children. Though if I were more of a writer than I currently am, I would think she would be a great story pitch.

Her package for little kids looks excellent.

'So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night'

2008-12-31T16:10:00.004-05:00

Photo by: ammon!

Au revoir, 2008! Goodbye, and as the local Toronto Sun tabloid says in its headline: Good riddance!

No love lost here for a year that was just plain bad on most fronts.

I can count my blessings -- for my year was not personally bad or tragic -- but, I also know when it's best to cut loose and start anew.

Thank God for new years.

Work has evened out -- and I still have a job -- after a roller coaster year that never really let up until the last few weeks of the year. Work is a far cry from the dream job I enjoyed last year. Signs of settlement are appearing, though that may be optimistic thinking at this point. Among those who quit this year -- the sports editor, the entertainment editor and night production manager (the latter two being management.) Among those let go weeks before Christmas -- the publisher and managing editor of the Ottawa paper.

On the edges of my family's lives, two people lost their lives quickly and violently -- a long-time family friend in a freak highway accident, and a young soldier on his second tour in Afghanistan.

On a personal level, I have spent much of the past year trying to feel at home here in Toronto -- and for the most part, failing. I have found places and things to hang on too, and have a much better sense of what I need.

Family -- my brothers and their families, my stepmother -- is crucial.

In spite of, or because of, all the craziness in the past year, I am feeling stronger and have a clearer vision of what I want my future to be like. This idea of emigrating to Wales gets stronger and more defined. It was a tremendous boost to find that our departing entertainment editor is moving to Ireland to start afresh. An amazing boost. She should be on her way there now.

We were able to meet up for coffee before she left work and she told me interesting and useful information regarding passports and employment. 2009 will be a year of preparation for me. Depending on what God has in store for me, I may very well be on my way to Wales in early 2010.

I plan on spending two weeks' vacation there in September and will scout employment possibilities and Cardiff in general. Wales BBC is in Cardiff. Perhaps I can get in there -- they do exceptional work. I have seen some of it here on the CBC. It would be nice to work in research on documentaries. They also have unpaid job internships from a few days to months, so perhaps I can do something for a few days while on vacation.

There will be much to do.

And my niece, Kate, is getting married in August!

I looked upon 2008 as a year of promise, and it stumbled and fell out of the gates. The economists all predict things will get worse before they get better -- and I believe, indeed, we are a long, long way from seeing things work properly again. I'm not an economist -- but things seem very broken, and like Humpty Dumpty, the king's men don't know how to put it together again.

On a high note, Barack Obama is president-elect of the United States. He's got his work cut out for him, but the full impact of his election has not hit me yet. I wanted to savour his victory. Its sweetness was palpable to minorities everywhere, and the globe, I think, gave a collective sigh of gratitude. I pray he may be able to live and work out his time in office.

Strange times. Are we entering a new time of revolution, like the '60's? We may be -- but on a global scale (though change was global in the '60's, too.) The power of the West is diminishing, the power of China is rising, the power of S. America may be rising. Financial structures have almost collapsed. The climate is said to be on the point of collapse. We seem to be at a tipping point. Unfortunately, we humans often take the easiest, short-term solution rather than the more difficult long-term course of action.

So, as you can see, it is time for a fresh start. We need it, safe to say.

God bless us all, in 2009!

Wales -- Cymru

2008-09-26T20:36:00.006-04:00

Rhossili Bay on the Golden Gower peninsula

I have been back from my week's stay in Wales for two weeks now. I've been trying to stay in that vacation frame of mind and the Wales experience is so powerful, it hasn't been too hard.

I don't know what it is about the country, the people, the language -- the whole package -- that reaches down and puts my heart and soul in a bear hug. But it is powerful, and this time I did not want to leave at all.

I spent four solid days touring with my stepmother, and she was glad she came.

Four day tours with Welshman and tour proprietor extraordinaire Paul Harris in his SeeWales minivan.

They were coming off a month of rain in August, and our week was mostly rainy, too, but we never got poured on and the sun came in and out.

We saw so much. I didn't take many photos, due to weather conditions, but I saw such beautiful scenes. I saw beautiful countryside last year when my work sent me to Wales on a travel junket. This trip never disappointed and continued to produce one awesome and inspiring view after another.

Some observations:

Cardiff is cool. Just my size of a city (around 300,000) -- with people on the streets, good restaurants, waterfront, parks

Cardiff -- everyone is sports crazy. Men, women, children out in the evenings connecting with each other

Street traffic -- somehow louder. Maybe the water in the air. Cars weren't noisier, but the tires all whished and echoed

Tropical plants -- everywhere in south Wales (where our tours took place) -- growing in people's yards. So, obviously, the winters cannot be very cold

Dandelions and hydrangeas -- plants from all of our seasons, growing at once -- and some, of course that you only see in greenhouses here. The dandelions had delicate, rippled leaves that actually looked as if they would be delicious in a salad, not bitter and thick as dandelions here

Parks -- lovely, but several areas downtown lock up after 7 p.m. Literally lock up the parks, at the most lovely time of the evening for a walk. I -- and others -- jumped the one fence at Bute Park -- and jumped it again later to get out. I haven't been able to find a specific reason for this: maybe there are several. Controlling drifters, drugs and alcohol may be one reason (insight gained from my experiences here in Toronto)

Sheep, cattle, horses have range over exquisite countryside -- the horses, especially -- of which there are an inordinate number of white ones -- seem to know they have it pretty good. One view from our bus was that of a black stallion frisking close to the narrow road behind a stone wall, his mane rising and blowing in the fresh air

The freshest of air --

Real estate prices -- shockingly high. Definite reality check on any ideas I had for a B&B. Seemed to be equal to Toronto prices, and this when realty worldwide is crashing

A country of breakfast lovers! Local restaurants I passed served breakfast all day, and I saw several people chowing down in mid-afternoon

Food at tourism stops -- mixed. A lot of creamed dishes, which makes sense with all the sheep and cows, but I'm a vinaigrette girl

I am fairly certain I need to spend lengthy time in Wales. I may move there for at least a solid year. A lot to think about and study and learn to take this step.

eggs, anyone?

2008-07-20T00:14:00.005-04:00

Photo by: Fairway Kev

O.K. Maybe I've lost it. But my latest idea -- life plan -- is that maybe I should move to Wales and run -- or help run -- a B&B.

On many levels the crazy plot makes sense. I like the sense of community this would give me: a sense of family and connection, but with an everchanging cast of people coming and going -- a connection to travel, which I have always loved.

Wales is a good jumping off point for Europe, as well, if I would ever be allowed to leave the B&B. (Haven't worked out all these details yet about working 7 days a week, 12 months a year.)

I would like to find something, perhaps, that would enable me to live there half the year, and in Canada for half the year, as I don't want to be cut off from my brothers and their families.

I would have to learn to cook eggs more ways than sunny-side up or scrambled.

After viewing pictures of Welsh breakfasts on flickr, I'm not sure I could handle the fact that they seem to eat baked beans, mushrooms, and blood pudding and laver bread first thing in the morning. (Laver bread is something I heard about but didn't see last year in Wales. I know it is made from seaweed, but was expecting it to still look like bread. I'm afraid it may look like black mush. Black food is hard to take at any time.) In the above photo, the cook has also included cockles.

Whatever the hard realities that may nip this idea, at this point I am gobbling up all things related to the possibility, and immersing myself in the complexities involved.

I discovered the American travel writer-turned-Brit Bill Bryson and am laughing my way through his books. I found an excellent source for the business end of running a B&B on the visitbritain site, though I haven't tackled that yet.

Lots to play with.

I never intended on living in Toronto. The original plan was to go to school for a couple of years so that I could spend the next 10 years or so looking after my Mom, find a job doing anything, and play with writing on the side.

Now I'm a copy editor in the big T.O. and it's not what I want to do for a long time. I need to be connected to the land and community much more than I can ever be here. I like the idea of doing something that incorporates many talents, and even found myself singing the song from The Sound Of Music, Climb Every Mountain:

Climb every mountain, ford every stream
Follow every rainbow, till you find your dream
A dream that will need, all the love you can give
Everyday of your life, for as long as you live.

There is a lot about this idea that is appealing. My week's vacation in Wales in September will either bring me down to earth or set this dream alight.

of cabbages and carp (and violets)

2008-05-18T01:22:00.004-04:00

photo by: truszphoto

For almost a month now I have been beginning my workdays -- remember, I work the 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift -- with an early afternoon stroll through the beautiful, restored Victorian rowhouses of Cabbagetown. They are only a 15-minute walk away, and once I pass Parliament Street I am taken into another world, away from the city, into neighbourhoods of genteel quiet and tiny gardens and ornate stained glass.

It is doing me more than a world of good. It is a connection to the land, to the seasons. Every day the gardens are a little different, the work and quiet bustle around the homes more obvious.

I change my path on whimsy, one day this street -- into a tiny alleyway with a street sign and more homes -- another day, another direction. My main direction is toward the Riverdale Farm, but I can get there any number of ways.

We are having a beautiful spring. It is mid-May and the weather has not become hot yet, so the flowers are enjoying their time. The early crocuses and daffodils and tulips are giving way to small rhodendrons. Tiny purple violets cover front lawns or gardens, fragrant lavender or white lilacs blossom near flowering fruit trees, and the winds blow gentle and fresh and very sweet.

At Riverdale Farm the hills are planted with red and yellow tulips and I stroll by the barns and barnyards with the chickens and sheep. The Farm is built on the edge of the Don Valley, so its paths go down into it, through shady, still woods and by a small pond system. You can hear the cars on the Don Valley Expressway here, but the trees muffle the sound, and the birds chirp louder.

Every day, on my walk, I check the ponds and the turtles sunning themselves. For a pond that never looked particularly healthy, I am struck by how much life is there. I have come across a raccoon in midday, a muskrat, schools of hundreds of baby carp.

This walk is my salvation. It connects me to the earth and the seasons and the changes in nature.

on the road

2008-05-18T00:43:00.002-04:00

Photo by: pancakeman157

My niece, her boyfriend, and a friend set off from Vancouver on April 28 to cycle across Canada. This is a brazen promo for their blog. For fascinating details and great pictures, see the link The Bike Trip on this blog, or go to: http://cycleacrosscanada.blogspot.com/

Happy biking!

not a warrior anymore

2008-04-27T14:29:00.007-04:00

photo by: aswirly

Tomorrow, at approximately 10:30 p.m., I will be celebrating my birthday -- the big 55.

I treated myself to a psychic reading today, so I am going to get all metaphysical ... which, actually, I do a lot anyway.

Jesse the channeler read my cards and I did like his reading. He told me my number was 10 (never been told a number before) -- the number of someone who looks out at the world through an observational eye -- someone on a soul quest. (Just realized my new age adds up to 10, as does my birthdate, the 28th.)

I have been a warrior in many past lives he said, and have just recently put this sense of power-in-play behind me. I've maintained a centre through strong changes. Recently, the shift to this centring has come from a childlike, rather than a warrior, position.

He says it may be why I chose Canada for this life -- to get away from battling. (I do believe in reincarnation and will probably be writing more about this.) I asked him if he thought I might move to Europe. He pulled out a card and said I had been intentionally breaking away from my moorings, and mixing things up.

Right now, I am facing a clean slate, and it is not clear where I am heading, but to be open to it with the playfulness of a child. I have been disciplined all my life, even as a child, and I have begun to face -- even serious matters -- in a more lighthearted manner. (Ignoring my last post, I guess.

Though I have almost given up on the romantic idea of finding a life partner, the cards, he says, tell me not to give up on that idea yet. At the same time, pointing to a card with a bamboo tree, on it, he says I have begun to stop comparing my life to that of other women, or other people. (In other words, releasing the romantic notion of husband, children, grandchildren -- and realizing that my often solo path is as valid in worth.) And to totally mix metaphors -- an oak doesn't even think of being a bamboo, or vice versa.

However, I don't think of myself as a bamboo tree, or perhaps any kind of tree. I suppose, if anything, I have associated myself with the chrysanthemum flower, which blooms vividly in the fall after the flowers of summer have gone -- a salutation in rhythm with the changing colours of the trees.

I have been packing things up, he says, getting ready for the next stage.

Not a bad way, at all, to start a new year.

nimby

2008-04-05T23:17:00.008-04:00

Photo by: Tampen

... not in my backyard ...

or, more accurately, in my backyard, in my building, in my neighbourhood ...

This neighbourhood was sketchy when I moved here almost five years ago to go to Ryerson. (Hard to believe it has been that long.)

But lately, its dark side has been weighing heavily on my mind.

The transvestites that come out late at night on the short block of Homewood have, over the years, been getting scarier and scarier. In fact, when I first moved here they were dressed to the nines and passed easily for 'ladies' of the night.

Now, assuming they are different people -- but perhaps not -- they are emaciated and desperate-looking. I know this because I return home from work around 2:30 a.m. and drive by them every night to get into my building.

I have a particular image in my mind I can't shake. Weeks ago, on a particularly bitterly cold and windy winter night, I turned a corner and a man stepped out in front of my car, his thin long coat held open to reveal a thinness barely covered by a bikini.

Last weekend, while walking down my building's stairwell as a form of exercise, I made it half way down when I came across someone sleeping on a landing.

There are condos going up in the neighbourhood, but in contrariness, the street people seem worse off. Recently, police arrested almost 300 in a sweep of Cabbagetown. In the process, they seem to have swept up the local beggars, too.

More and more I find myself wanting to get out of the city. That's sad. I feel guilt about it, too -- as if I'm closing my eyes and taking the easy way out.

I don't know where I'm heading to either at this point, though I feel like Toronto is a transition to somewhere. Somewhere green and idyllic and romantic? Is such idealism even socially responsible? It all nags at me and I don't have any neat answers for how cruel life can be for many people.

On another note, however, friends called on Friday and we spent a lovely afternoon and evening yesterday -- went to the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art and then to the cinema to see Run, Fat Boy, Run -- a very funny movie that made me laugh out loud. Priceless things I really needed -- friendship and laughter -- still in this backyard.

I need to keep the friendship and laughter but will probably have to get a new backyard.

tardy 2008 entries

2008-03-15T23:53:00.002-04:00

I certainly haven't been blogging much, especially since I've been working.

Need to find a happy median here. I miss the blogging and the little writing it entails.

My dream job took a tumble into the darkness in the new year when four of six top managers were unceremoniously discarded. The least said about that scenario the better. The best that can be said is that we seem to be heading back towards some light -- and that I'm not in management.

On the brighter side, I have been taking salsa classes since the new year and am beginning to feel as if I can actually fake a dance. It's fun and I've signed up for another five weeks.

And, this week, after many tours of furniture stores, I will be ordering a fine Italian bed -- with storage! It will take two months from time of ordering, but is worth the wait and long overdue.

I put in for an extra day off for this upcoming Easter weekend and will be heading to the Windsor/Detroit area to see my brothers and their families. I haven't seen most of them since Christmas, so it is an anticipated trip.

And even though I actually love all the snow we've had this winter (and can't get over the way Toronto is so anti-snow) -- spring's time is due and fidgeting in the wings.

St. Pat's in Motown

2008-03-15T22:44:00.009-04:00

Photo by: detroitirish

I'm feelin' downright nostalgic for the cold-weather parades I occasionally attended in Detroit city with my dad. He had a warehouse on Michigan Ave. about a block from the now-empty Tiger Stadium -- which is still standing, but who knows for how much longer.

The area is part of the historical district of Corktown, but for the most part Michigan Ave. is wide and empty and derelict with small pockets of activity. The neighbourhood, however, still has some bustling Irish pubs and sports bars.

The best part of the parades of mostly Irish folk -- or folks pretending to be Irish -- were the school bands from Detroit. Usually the weather was frigid, unlike last year as can be seen in the photo.

We would line the streets bundled against the cold, keeping warm with coffee and hot chocolate, and the Detroit school bands would strut by with major attitude in their summer marching uniforms.

Proud and smart and funky, they were the best marching bands I've ever seen.

I'm going to head to Toronto's St. Pat's Day parade tomorrow. I need a pick-me-up and the weather promises to be sunny.

But, I'll miss that Motown beat.

'dewy field'

2007-12-30T16:59:00.000-05:00

Gliffaes Country House Hotel in Brecon Beacons, Wales.

My favourite place, from differing views.

(literally) putting together the pieces

2007-12-30T14:48:00.001-05:00

Photo by: hadsie

It has been more than four months since I've blogged. So long in fact, that I'd forgotten my passwords to Flickr and Blogger -- even with my so-called 'system' of passwords.

But it's the end of 2007 and the start of 2008 is only a day away, so here is my little wrap-up.

2007 has been a year of endings, beginnings, consolidations. With the passing of my mom's dog Peaches last January and with my November visit to Florida to visit my stepmother, I found endings to the grievings of my parents' deaths in 2004 and 2005 respectively. Of course, I don't mean I don't think of them all the time and miss them often. But somehow something has shifted and their absence is part of my life and I feel okay. I feel a sense of moving forward with them, not without them.

I have over a year with Metro News under my belt, and it has been very good. I was sent on a travel junket to Manchester, England and Wales and wrote two pieces which were well-received. VisitBritain, which sponsored the trip, nominated my Manchester piece for a travel journalism award. I am ecstatic and proud and humbled all at once.

Dabbled with trying to get my body back into shape with mixed, erratic results. Some bellydancing, a good month's start at the 'Y' which fizzled away into 'not-finding-the-time.' A month's sickness starting in mid-November that wasn't bad enough to make me miss work, but just enough to make me feel old and decrepit.

I have had the week off between Christmas and New Year's and go back to work New Year's Day. Had a lovely holidays with my brothers and their families, and good parties with friends and co-workers before the holidays. I've spent the holidays doing jigsaw puzzles. One 1,000-piece challenger and now a 500-piece deceptively difficult Tuscany vineyard. If my mind, or soul, is muddled and confused, I find jigsaws literally put the pieces into focus and some kind of sense emerges. Great therapy.

So I have a sense of where I want the philosophical construction of the year 2008 to take me. For quite a few years I've needed to have a gentle hand on the tiller, open to new surroundings and beginnings. I have a sense of arrival now.

I want to get myself in the best possible shape this 54-to-55-year-old woman can get in. Not in a fanatical sense, but in a lasting sense where I can feel a certain strength. For more fun and hopefully a male touch in my life, I have signed up for some salsa classes starting in a few weeks.

Professionally and from the deepest part of my soul, I will study travel writing and travel writers and hopefully do more writing in that vein. I have bought A Sense of Place written by Michael Shapiro who was last year's grand prize winner of the VisitBritain travel journalism award. He wrote a beautiful, lyrical piece on Wales for National Geographic Traveler. In A Sense of Place, Shapiro has interviewed 18 of the world's finest travel writers, and the book is beckoning me.

And last, and hopefully not least, I endeavour to get my worldly belongings in shape -- to throw out the useless and take care of the rest in an ongoing regularity. This is the part for which I need the most help!

If anyone is still reading this very long post -- God bless you and keep you and yours in the new year!

steps

2007-08-11T21:10:00.001-04:00

Photo by: goodpie

My employer rotates travel junkets among the editors and writers of our publication. The junkets have been increasing to the rate of one or two a month.

A few weeks ago I was asked if I was interested in taking one. Interested? Ecstatic and in heaven, is more like it.

I love travelling. The opportunity to combine travel and writing, as the opportunity to combine eating and writing, has always been one of those dreams I kept for an imaginery life. A dream that doesn't actually happen in the real world.

Many journalists scoff at travel and food writing as light, unimportant. Perhaps it is. It is not likely to change the course of history. But both can enlighten and expand minds, and that's not such a bad thing.

As Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, many years ago:

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel
for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints.

I travel when I open a book; I travel when I walk through my neighbourhood; I travel when I go to the cinema or watch TV. I travel when I listen to a person's story. Sometimes I travel in the same places through different seasons with the same people, themselves travelling, too.

And, in about a week and a half, I will be going on a junket to Manchester, England and Wales.

Pinch me!

ada blackjack

2007-08-09T13:58:00.001-04:00

Photo by: okta'lonli

This past long -- and hot -- weekend I settled in my lawn chair on my 15th floor balcony and finished reading about an Inuit woman who was the sole human survivor of an Arctic expedition to Wrangel Island in the 1920's -- Ada Blackjack.

I say 'sole human', because the expedition's cat Vic, also lived.

Because of her heritage, this might not seem such an unusual event, but Blackjack went on the four-man expedition as a seamstress and was raised in the city of Nome with no experience in living off the land.

The author, Jennifer Niven, has painstakingly crafted a fine recreation of events, based on diaries, correspondence and documentation of the time.

Blackjack's story of survival on a piece of frozen tundra is remarkable. She was left alone with one of the men who was sick with scurvy as the other three men set off across the ice in search of aid after a promised relief ship never made it through the ice-packed waters.

She spent almost five months fending for herself and a dying man (and a slow, agonizing death from scurvy is about as hard as it gets.) She spent another two months alone, except for the cat, before a rescue ship appeared out of the icy fog.

A quiet, unremarkable woman in many ways, her story is fraught with underlying racism and sexism. She, and the four young men who lost their lives on the trip, were caught up in the ill-planning and self-promoting of a famed Arctic explorer. Her life after Wrangel Island was hard too, and mostly undocumented and sketchy, but the author found resources in Blackjack's surviving son. Blackjack emerges as a woman who kept going against all of the odds.

After her rescue she was vilified and taken advantage of by men -- and women -- seeking to make their name and fortune. The follow-up to her rescue is just as frightening and sobering as the time spent on the island -- in a different way. The dangers afterward lie in human manipulations.

Yet Blackjack, even if only out of rightful fear, survived their clutches as she had earlier survived being a hungry polar bear's next meal -- and always returned to her sons.

A story well told and worth telling.

day tripper, yeah*

2007-08-08T13:18:00.000-04:00

Photo by: birdfreak.com

* (on a much less carnal track -- sigh -- than the Beatle's muse)

Went trippin' in my car again last Saturday through Durham County. It was the Civic Holiday weekend, so my empty roads were not empty.

But the fields and ditches and sides of the road were filled with Queen Anne's Lace nodding and swaying. Small yellow flowers and clover in bloom patched among the grasses. I wanted to get out of the car, find a field and lie down in the lacy fields, smelling the pungent, carrotlike ferns, as I did often as a child. Scents, even through the car windows, brought back childhood freedoms as children today often never know. Sitting, lying in fields, still, watching the sky and clouds above, the grasshopper on a nearby blade, a ladybug on another, and the earth at the height of its summer heat buzzing before the shift to autumn.

I drove a little too much this time and didn't get out of the car enough. Still haven't found a wild place to call my own.

The grain, two weeks ago at its height, had been harvested and baled in rectangles and rolls, across hills. I picked up some fresh corn and broccoli, but, it doesn't compare in sweetness to corn in Essex County.

On Scugog Island, found there are many, many roads to explore. The summer homes and water access are hidden there, away from the main road through working farms.

Another trip, another day ... yeah!

soul food

2007-07-22T13:16:00.000-04:00

Photo by: catznbirdz

Often on a Sunday my mother and I would do a 'circle-tour' around Essex County. It would take hours and while away an afternoon. Starting in Windsor we would head inland passing farmers' fields in whatever stage of dress the season bore, head to Leamington for the long version of the tour, or cut down to the lake at Kingsville, for the shorter version.

Then we would travel the Lake Erie shore through the small towns, pass the greenhouses, by the cottages, breathing in the fresh lake air.

Eventually we would hit old, historic Amherstburg where Lake Erie began, widening out from the currents of the Detroit River further upstream. It was our ice cream stop. Further along, heading back to Windsor, if the season allowed, we would stop at the old farmers' stands in LaSalle.

Then, back in Windsor, following the shores of the Detroit River until time to turn inland.

I miss those rides and the way it connected us to the land -- and to each other.

So, yesterday I went out in search of somewhere -- anywhere -- away from the city of Toronto, where I could feel 'away', yet connect to the earth.

My intention was to find a spot by a lake or a stream and hike and read.

Instead, I wandered by a Highlands Games in Uxbridge, paid my entry and listened to the drums and pipes fill the summer air. I watched the highland dancers, saw Scottish cattle and dogs, and the big men throwing weights. I could have stayed for the Rankin Sisters, but drove on and up the road saw the manse where Lucy Maud Montgomery lived with her minister husband after leaving P.E.I.

Drove on to Scugog Lake and Port Perry. Had an ice cream cone and took deep breathes of the cool, wide, dark lake. Got back in the car and came across a Powwow on Scugog Island. It was just finishing, but I was able to walk around the booths and grounds, and the drums played off a recording.

I went as far as Lindsay and came back along another route, through golden fields of wheat, shoulder-high corn, small towns where Toronto was not in the equation.

I found my circle-tour. Only a half hour on the Don Valley Expressway, and then hinterlands varying with horse farms, baseball and soccer and sunflower fields, lakes and streams, and many places to explore in the future.

night magic

2007-07-01T02:07:00.000-04:00

Photo: Sean Galbraith

My apartment faces south to Lake Ontario and to the right, the downtown Toronto skyline, alit at night. Over the last several weeks I've been privy to fantastical light displays as the city tested the new LED lights for the CN Tower.

I usually get home from work shortly after 2 a.m. and the Tower, previously blacked out with only airplane signals, would be red, then green, then purple. The colours shifted into each other, disappeared, were there all at once. They pulsed up and down the elevator shafts.

It was silent music, not very unlike the northern lights, a dance of shimmering, waving colours.

I sat on my couch and the show would go on until 3 a.m.

I missed the official launch a few days ago. And apparently the awesome displays I saw regularly for a week are not going to be the standard, but only for special occasions. Too bad. I miss the quiet shifting rainbow already.

But even when the colours stay stable and don't shimmy or glide, they are a lovely touch, and it's hard to believe the Tower was dark for so long.

Y, oh, Y!

2007-07-01T00:41:00.000-04:00

Photo: Steven Evans

I am in love with a building. I've fallen in love with a city before on first sight -- that being Edinburgh, Scotland, with its castle rising above green parks, and sweeping me into the 18th century.
And certainly I've been enamoured and impressed with buildings and architecture in the past.

But rarely have I seen a structure so well-designed and suited to its purpose than the Metro Central YMCA.

I joined the 'Y' last weekend to help my middleaged, rusting body try to regain a sense of form and life. I can't say it was love at first sight, though its pool beckoned through glass as I walked in the doors. No, it was a gradual awareness and appreciation over my first week that everything about the place has been thought-out, is amazingly functional, and aesthetically pleasing.
And it's a gym!

It's a gym that inspires, from its airy pools to its centrepiece of stairs that climbs like Mayan steps, challenging and beckoning.

I think it's going to become a second home -- to which my body will say thank you.

grounded on high

2007-05-26T23:56:00.000-04:00

I planted my balcony this week, and it's the first full planting I've done since I moved here in 2003. My balcony faces south, so there's lots of sun. The flowers and plants and herbs move quietly, gently as they are touched by breezes coming from Lake Ontario. The lake air floats over building tops and dances with my flowers.

When I first moved to this city I missed the sense of connecting to the earth. I felt Torontonians weren't connected to the earth.

Simple things connect.

cats of mirikitani

2007-05-26T23:10:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I saw the documentary film The Cats of Mirikitani on PBS' Independent Lens. The story, of an octogenarian Japanese-American artist living on the streets of New York, was touching and inspiring and heartwarming. There is a 20-minute longer director's cut which has won several film festival awards and will be available for sale in December of this year. I think I will buy it as a Christmas present to myself.

The film is remarkable for the man whose life was altered by internment at U.S. camps during (and after) World War II, the bombing of Hiroshima, the attack on 9/11 and his friendship with the film's maker.

It is remarkable for the artist, who used crayons, pens and markers to barely support himself, but also to be a witness to life around him and because the art is in him and must come out.

It is remarkable because of the humanity behind the camera which changed his life and brings a wonderful blossoming and healing to an old man's twilight years, making them dance and celebrate.

And it is remarkable and good to learn that Mirikitani -- several years after the filming of the movie -- is still going strong and living so well.

gimli, manitoba

2007-04-14T21:01:00.000-04:00

Photo by: AgentMagenta

I believe the first time I became aware of the existence of a place named Gimli, Manitoba was in first-year j-school when it appeared on a copy editing test.

And besides its existence in the vastness of this country, and its unusual name and spelling, I knew no more of it until last week when the town and some of its inhabitants made a guest appearance on The Great Canadian Food Show.

Now, I feel like a want to make a cross-country trip to see this community.

The show filmed there on one of those glorious, crisp autumn days and Lake Winnipeg whipped against harbour walls. The community is descended from Icelanders. The people all look Nordic, have Icelandic names, and carry on the language and culinary traditions of their ancestors. One man, a breadmaker, stood tall and fit, with a beer in hand, at the active age of 90.

I still find this amazing -- that on the edge of the great prairie people from a tiny, frozen near-Arctic island made a new home. The southwest area of Lake Winnipeg was actually the independent state of New Iceland for 12 years before becoming part of the Dominion of Canada.

And you can see Gimli's port on webcam 24-7.

Oh, and the distillery there is the sole distillery making Crown Royal Whisky.

the holding room

2007-04-10T13:05:00.000-04:00

There is a block of decrepit, crumbling brownstones about a block from where I live that face Wellesley St. E. and the Food Basics at the base of the St. James Town towers.

Some are private residences, there is a hair salon, and a doctor's office. Since last fall, the first floor apartment in one of the brownstones is alight with mystery.

There is a protruding cornered window on the face of it. There are no curtains, so the window, when lit, reveals a bare room, except for a desk or table at the window. A single lamp on the table.

In a neighbourhood where people are poor, but hardworking, where people come from all corners of the world and try to make first, tentative steps in Canada, it is a question mark.

One night last fall I passed it and the previously dark building was starkly lit and a young black man sat staring out the window into the darkness outside. He looked with unseeing eyes, expressionless, straight ahead and unmoving, and apparently totally oblivious that all passersby could see directly in. It was troubling. Besides the lamp on the desk, there was a single picture frame that faced him. I thought, perhaps he is mentally ill, but how can he live like that. He didn't seem equipped to function.

He was there for several days. Whenever I passed, his look was unchanging, passive and unnerving. Perhaps he is listening to something?

Then he was gone, and another black man was there. Still no curtains, but this man stood in the middle of the room and was similarly caught up in his own world. The room was unheated, for he, like the first man, wore outdoor clothing. One time I passed and he was standing at the westward window. Perhaps he is praying? But Mecca is east, is it not?

A few days later, I saw that window had been cracked, as if someone threw a rock at it from outside. Since then, the men stay away from the windows, and are more often on a chair along a corner wall.

Since the fall, there always seems to be a black man, alone, in the room. They seem to be from their 20s to mid-40s. They appear to be poor. Shortly after the first man, a cheap tape recorder appeared on the table. Then, a book. Now there are several books on the table, a picture frame with its back to the street that holds several photos.

Even when I come home from work at 2 a.m. the light is on and a man sits inside, lost in his thoughts.

A religious retreat? A terrorist training camp? Who are they? Now, my guess is they are men who have gone through terrors as refugees, and this is a religious, healing retreat. It is my guess, only.

Some day they will get curtains, and it will all be hidden from view.

seasonal transitions

2007-03-31T23:58:00.001-04:00

Photo by: wearpants

Photo by: katierin*

gainfully employed

2007-03-31T20:43:00.000-04:00

In mid-February I was hired to work full-time as a copy/layout editor for Metro News. No contracts. Permanent full-time with benefits and three weeks of vacation.

It's been a long haul, and it's taken me awhile to fully absorb the good news. 'Security' and a steady income (instead of a steady outgo) make their presence felt in small ways. Small things like splurging on that maple syrup and not having to be aware of every penny's whereabouts gradually become a larger easing.

I have worked in good and bad jobs, but often I have worked at good jobs in badly managed organizations. And that can turn a good job sour quickly.

One of the things I treasure about Metro News -- and treasure is not too strong a word -- is management. I have often worked in technical jobs (pre-press production in printing firms) where management came from a sales background and had no real understanding of the actual work process. (And I know this is not true of sales in general.) At Metro I am working under people whose knowledge of processes is real and who undertake the reality of their positions with actual, real responsibility.

It is rather amazing to me.

A few months ago I read an article that touched on organizational culture and said that, according to Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, there were four kinds: academy, baseball team, club, and fortress. It wasn't hard to see the fortress mentality that I came from, where management lied as a matter of course and everyone's job was always on the line. (At one point I was the last surviving 'union' member in a union-broken shop -- another story, another time.)

And I recognized that I seemed to be in a real 'baseball team' culture at Metro: with individuals respected and appreciated for their individual strengths, yet as part of a larger game where the efforts merged. And with managers -- 'coaches' -- who have played the game from every position, love the game, and know how to get the best from every player.

It makes work fun, and how rare is that?

koolsla

2007-03-11T15:32:00.000-04:00

A friend forwarded haikus on the subject of cole slaw from the maisonneuve magazine site.

As mentioned by a commentator on the site, I am a member of the cole slaw anti-defamation league.

(Note: KFC's green mushy dye is not cole slaw.)

And here's my little laud:

Tart and crunchy,
Vinegar kisses my throat,
unappreciated

Defenders of the slaw, I challenge you.

not the rideau canal ...

2007-02-03T18:27:00.000-05:00

and not the Vikingarännet, but ...

sometimes it takes the thought that you might never experience snow again, to appreciate the winters we grew up knowing.

When the snow and cold did appear here in January, after an unseasonably warm Christmas, I know I embraced it. Determined to get out and breathe fresh, cold air into my lungs, three weeks ago I began checking out Toronto's outdoor ice rinks.

I began with Harbourfront, bypassing an overcrowded Nathan Phillips Square and City Hall. Harbourfront is a wonderful rink, situated on Lake Ontario, but my criteria for ice rinks is to be within walking distance. Or, if driving, within a twenty minute drive with no parking fees. In other words -- free skating without a major time investment.

As much as I enjoyed Harbourfront, it took me an hour to walk each way; three hours in the cold is a bit much, especially if walking through downtown streets. It might be okay if it was a walk through nature -- once in a while.

The next week I checked out the rink at the Beaches. I go inline skating there in the summertime, and it is an easy 20-minute car ride. This is a nice rink, with a great location on the lake. Not good, if the wind is coming off the lake, but the week I went it wasn't, and this one I will go back to on a regular basis.

Last week I walked up to a rink in Rosedale. Probably a 30-40 minute walk, but a good rink at Ramsden Park, across from the Rosedale subway station. This one will be good for meeting friends at, as it is a good central location, and they have separate rinks for general skating and shinny. Shinny (or pick-up hockey) is big here in Toronto (never heard of it in warmer Windsor), and most rinks have it heavily represented in their schedules.

And this week -- this week, it is damned cold outside with bitter winds, so I am chickening out. Instead I have gathered together ingredients for a fine ham soup. I'll make the broth tonight, and before work tomorrow I'll cook up the soup for a week's worth of warming meals.

Next week: there are a still a few small rinks downtown -- Barbara Scott at Carlu, Riverdale, and Ryerson -- I may check out. Adventures in Torontoland.

the dog who came to stay

2007-01-26T21:41:00.001-05:00

Photo: VanVliet

This picture is not of my dog (my mother's dog -- Peaches). But, after scouring boxes of photos, I realized I didn't have a single photo of her, and this photo, from Flickr, looks like her.

A week ago I had to put Peaches down. She was 17 years old, blind, almost totally deaf, and without much sense of smell left, either. She still loved to eat, but her concerns were increasingly problematic and without solution, and she was increasingly disoriented.

So, I had to take that step I'd long been dreading. When I called my vet, I couldn't believe that the minimum price for euthanasia and group cremation, was almost $400. So much for poor people having pets. I phoned around and that seemed to be the going price here in Toronto -- though the City of Toronto will do it for $37.10 (not vet assisted). I didn't have the nerve to ask how they did it, but I had visions of a club.

After scouring the Internet I found a pet hospital in Peterborough, only an hour-and-a-half drive from Toronto, which performed the necessities for a third of my vet's price. I also liked the idea of making a special trip for the act. It gave it more dignity and made it harder for me to change my mind.

Peaches had been my mother's dog, and a wonderful companion to her. When my mother passed away two years ago, I brought Peaches back to Toronto with me. Not because I necessarily wanted her, but because between my two brothers and I, my situation was the one most practical to her presence. I was attending school, and never felt the need for a pet.

But Peaches was family, and she was a connection to my mother. She adapted to her retirement home in a Toronto highrise with surprising ease. She didn't have to navigate stairs anymore! And as her eyesight worsened, she adapted and still found her way around with relative ease. It was amazing to see how she adapted.

But we are kinder to our animals than to people. We don't make them suffer to the last breath.

I am so glad I took her to Peterborough. The pet hospital had a little hospice room with wingback chairs and boxes and boxes of Kleenex tissue. The vet explained how he would give her a tranquilizing shot, like valium, that would put her to sleep. He would leave for 10 minutes and come back to give the shot that would stop her heart.

She was a small dog, hardly weighing 15 pounds at her advanced age, so the first tranquilizing shot worked quickly. She sat in my lap and I could feel her start to go limp from the drug. It didn't take long at all. The vet left us alone for 10 minutes and came back with an assistant. They placed Peaches on the towel-covered examination table, shaved off a patch of fur on her right front leg, and the doctor gave her the final shot. I had my hand placed on her, as I thought I would be able to feel her stop breathing, but the tranquilizer had slowed things down so much, I couldn't tell when she was gone. The doctor had the stethoscope, then tapped her eye, and said she was gone. The doctor's fingernails were dirty -- a detail I couldn't understand, and which still snaps back into my mind's eye as incongruous.

I was impressed with their kindness and impressed with how gentle the process had been. Peaches lay on the towel looking as if she were taking a nap. It also made me realize how easily one can kill with drugs.

I left Peaches at the hospital where she was to be part of a mass cremation at some point, and then taken by the hospital to a pet cemetery in Ancaster, near Hamilton. According to a website, a nice, apparently haunted, cemetery.

Peterborough had a foot of fresh, beautiful snow on the ground. I drove down to Riverview Park in the late light of day and trudged through snow to the river. It was cold and comforting and warming as silence and nature can be. Cedars draped and bent to the water, icy and clear, picnic tables barely visible content in circles. I cried and cried some more, and was very glad I had made the trip a special one.

I stayed the night in Peterborough as the weather threatened white-out conditions, and, because I wasn't in a hurry to get back to Toronto and my empty apartment.

I've never been a 'pet' person. I often thought people put too much trouble into them, attention better spent on another person, rather than an animal.

I knew I would miss Peaches. She ate on the floor, by my side, at meals, and was just there --as dogs are. But, I miss her more than I thought. The hardest part is coming home from work, or anywhere -- the grocery store --, and forgetting for a moment that she's not there.

Except, I've learned, that she is here. That dog came to stay, and has.

Happy New Year! 2007

2006-12-31T18:25:00.001-05:00

Photograph: PuffinArt

And politics can't have the last say in 2006.

Happy New Year! Bonne Annee!

And all the best to everyone in 2007. May your wishes come true and the road you walk be fair.

And, as Charles Dickens said, through Tiny Tim, "God bless us, every one."

Saddam and Iraq

2006-12-31T16:46:00.001-05:00

Photo by: Triborough

I don't know quite what to say about the execution of Saddam Hussein. As the politics are deep and convoluted, I am not an expert. But, my gut feeling, upon seeing the news in the papers and hearing about it on television, is one of regret, that somehow this is a grave and sad mistake, for the accusers.

I do not doubt his cruelty as a dictator. But his defiance to the end (perhaps tinged with madness -- when does consistent defiance become madness?), makes him a possibly admirable martyr, and weakens the hypocrisies of those labelling him as the scapegoat for the Iraq war.

His trials seemed a charade (and he was in the middle of a genocide trial when he was hung), and his execution bizarrely rushed.

On a related note, the recent January edition of Vanity Fair magazine has a mind-boggling article about the neo-conservatives whose pro-Iraq war agenda encouraged the U.S.-Bush path there. The knives come out as they deny any responsibility and lay George W. Bush, Caesar-like, dead on the Senate floor.

Hopefully 2007 will give us cause to be proud to be members of the human race.

sportacus

2006-12-28T23:48:00.000-05:00

I was introduced to a new superhero over the Christmas holidays. And so were my five-year-old niece and smitten three-year-old nephew.

One of our hosts -- a five-year-old boy -- appeared after dinner wearing a short, lopsided blue jacket that looked homemade with what appeared to be a pair of blue gym shorts, pinned in a triangle on the top of his head.

While the rest of us were eyeing chocolate for dessert, he told his mother that he would prefer an apple or a banana instead. Thus, we were introduced to "sports candy" and the world of Sportacus.

For those of you not in the know, but dying to be, Sportacus is the brainchild of an Icelander named Magnus Scheving and, though his Lazytown franchise has been a hit in Iceland since the 1990s, it has only been in North America a couple of years. The way it has captured the imagination of the two little boys I was with during the Christmas holidays, as well as my own imagination, I think we'll all be hearing more from Sportacus in the future.

As an adult viewing its DVD, it comes across as a strange hybrid. It reminded me of a children's version of the Rocky Horror Picture Show with shades of Pee Wee Herman. Only upon finding out its Icelandic origins did its unusual originality and quirkiness make more sense. It appears to come from another world -- and, well, it's difficult to be more unique than Iceland.

Anyway, it's a children's show I can watch in fascination. Except for videos though (and costumes available at WalMart), I'm not sure where in the Saturday morning lineup you would find it.

But ask a five-year-old. They probably know.

resurrecting the blog

2006-12-28T22:17:00.000-05:00

Oh, it's been a long, long time.

I'm back, and I've missed blogging terribly, and I've missed reading my favourite blogs.

Why, you may or may not, ask?

Because, finally, after 10 long and adventurous months, I have a job. (A JOB!!!!!) A JOB -- in journalism -- copy and layout editing -- my dream job.

In mid-November I was offered -- and after considering it for about 10 seconds -- accepted, a three-month contract at Metro News, where I did my Ryerson internship at this time last year. I have been told the offer is likely to extend beyond the three months.

So, I've been getting used to 40-hour weeks again. (When one has been out of the daily work force for awhile, it's easy to forget how much time a full work schedule actually fills.) I've been adjusting, or trying to adjust, to rock-star hours working the 5 p.m. until 1 a.m. shift. Sleeping until noon can seem deliciously sinful, but sleeping the day away is not fun.

And just lots of adjustments and challenges, but all wanted and desired, and full of promise.

I'm back now, blogging, because I have this week between Christmas and the New Year off. And, it is play, and we all need to play.

'tiger, tiger burning bright'

2006-10-31T15:20:00.000-05:00

Photo by: bob.lenz

I had planned on sitting in front of the television this past weekend to watch the Detroit Tigers beat the St. Louis Cardinals and win the World Series.

Sadly, the Tigers succumbed too early and it was over by Game 5.

But this rematch brought back warm memories of the '68 World Series when the Tigers beat the Cards and reclaimed the spirit of Detroit.

My brothers and I lived in Windsor with our mother, but our father lived outside of Detroit, and as border city inhabitants Detroit was our home town, too. The summer before, in 1967, our dad had driven us back to Windsor across the Ambassador Bridge as smoke curled up into the sky and Detroit burned in race riots.

The summer and fall of 1968 saved Detroit.

I've had to read playbacks to remember the Series' details, but I remember the feelings of that Series well. I was fifteen that fall, and my brothers thirteen and eight. I remember Mickey Lolich as the unlikeliest of pitchers -- overweight with a small pot belly, seemingly lackadaisical -- a pitcher who could hit! Everything about the '68 Tigers recharged and helped to heal a city down on itself and its future.

So, yeah Tigers!!!! Yeah, Ernie Harwell (still around!) Yeah, Detroit!

and well -- next year, the ROAR will be greater!

timmy, say it ain't so

2006-10-24T19:52:00.000-04:00

Photo by:
Kenneth Moyle

In their September 25-October 8 issue Canadian Business magazine ran a blind test on four corporate coffees: McDonalds, the new Coke, Tim Hortons and Starbucks.

Guess who won? Mickey D's.

Any coffee I had ever had to buy from the Golden Arches had tasted either like dishsoap or street tar. I wouldn't have dreamt of buying one from there again.

Guess what? The Canadian version (don't know about the millions sold in the States) had been upgraded in 2003.

And guess what? the taste test was right.

'don't cry for me, argentina'

2006-10-24T15:20:00.000-04:00

Photo by: hep

Overheard on a Toronto street:

"She adopted a baby from Chile."

"No, Malawi."

"Oh, yeah, well -- somewhere like that."

film fe(a)sting

2006-09-16T19:55:00.000-04:00

The Toronto International Film Festival 2006 is officially over.

This was my first year partaking of it, and I only barely scratched the surface.

I love film, and I've discovered this city is enamoured of it, too. I don't mean the movie star glamour and sightings, which are numerous, but film and cinema itself. Just while standing in lines, I overheard people, ordinary people, plotting out their viewing strategies. I was surprised by how many attacked the festival with a vengeance.

Today, an older man in front of me in a line bemoaned the fact to his friends that he was only seeing one to two films a day, half of his usual fare. Last week a woman spoke to others, who equalled her enthusiasm, about her preference for foreign films over the big-name blockbusters, which she would see later, anyway.

I only saw three films this year, over the last two weeks. And I saw them with my free vouchers from volunteering for TIFFG since January. This festival works on so many levels. Big things that work always fascinate me. Because to make something big work well, with ease, is incredibly difficult. Their volunteer base runs like a marathoner on an adrenalin high.

Too many options, too many films, too many ways to be a part of the festival. But good stuff. Last week I saw Paris: Je t'aime on rush seating, and tried to read sub-titles from a neck-breaking angle in the third row. A film about love and Paris, it was constructed of 18 vignettes created by different directors. It worked for me, especially the closing segment directed by Sideways' Alexander Payne (mighty cute, too when he appeared in the Q&A). My second film last week was a German film Summer 04, which was well done, but about which I'm neutral.

Today I saw Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, which was also four hours long, and concerns Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans. Memorable and important and agonizing and touching. One memorable quote, from one of the many people who speak on screen, was that President Bush 'gave all 'C' students the world over a bad name.'

The jazz musician Wynton Marsalis says in the film that Katrina was like an unflattering image in a mirror, an exact and true reflection of a reality in America, that previously was unseen or denied. Katrina stripped the facade away until the truth was in plain view.

It is a devastating story. I remember the media uproar about how whites 'borrow' to survive, and blacks 'loot', but I wasn't aware of how Rev. Sharpton objected to the American press and specifically requested that they desist from referring to Katrina victims as 'refugees'.

Very thought-provoking. I'm not sure wealthy people from West Palm Beach would be considered 'refugees' in the same situation.

The spring before Katrina, I happened to be in the area north of West Palm Beach that had been hit hard by a hurricane the season before. Along the ocean sand spit populated by mansions and luxury hotels, you could see the government's (which government's?) money put to use dredging up sand from the ocean's bottom to rebuild the beaches. After seeing the care taken to rebuild that strip of Florida beach, it was personally sobering to watch the lack of aid to New Orleans months later, and then again, as it turns out, a year later.

I didn't have the opportunity to see Sarah Polley's film Away From Her, based on a short story by the inimitable Alice Munro, but when I realized I had the story The Bear Came Over the Mountain, unread, I opened the book and read it.

Looking forward to enjoying this feast for years to come.

pilgrimage

2006-09-15T16:27:00.000-04:00

This Sunday I am driving up to Muskoka to visit the lodge my mother and I vacationed at for six summers.

I wanted to do this in July, and now it is pulling me, so I must go.

A week from today is the second anniversary of my mother's passing (and today, the anniversary of her mother's passing), and memories slip up and catch me unaware. Sad memories of her illness and last days, but also, more often now, good memories of laughter and friendship.

There is so much I cannot go back to. Her house has been sold, and is another's family home. This Muskoka lodge is still there, and according to a recent talk with the receptionist, still the same.

Some places are magic, or hold a magic place in your life. Patterson-Kaye is magical, to me. I first came upon it in my early 30s. During the Olympic summer of the Ben Johnson scandal, I had gone on a backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail in the eastern U.S., with Willard's Expeditions, an adventure group led by a former car dealership owner from Barrie, Ontario. My tent partner was a doctor from Bracebridge, who happened to have recently been dating Johnson's coach, Charlie Francis. I was sure Johnson's tests had been rigged, when a look from her told me otherwise. (A true scoop, when I had no -- professional -- interest in scoops.)

Every fall, Willard hosted a reunion for people who had made his trips. He opened up his home in Barrie. Since the good doctor lived nearby in Bracebridge, she invited me to stay at her place when I came up for the reunion.

Her place happened to be Patterson-Kaye Lodge. She rented one of the suites with a kitchenette, as it was the off-season. Her 'apartment' was mere metres from a mirrored creek that wrapped around the front and side of the one-storey building. From the large window one looked onto this grey, liquid glass, and beyond, to a small wooden footbridge separating the creek from the lake. All of it in an autumnal stillness.

I don't recall ever having seen a more peaceful, beautiful spot.

More than a decade later, when my mother and I were looking into spending a summer in Muskoka, I remembered this place, but had no hope of finding it, because I never knew its name. And then, I saw a photo of a seaplane in an advertisement, placid near a dock, and I recognized it as that place I had seen years earlier.

And once we stayed there, we knew we had to come back. And we did, every summer for one week, for six years.

Recently, I discovered that P-K had been sold and was concerned about how that had come about, as the Miller family who owned it often spoke of keeping it for their four growing children. But, one of the comforts of the lodge -- that things remain constant and unchanging, like the wind and the rocks and the pines -- still remains. The Millers sold the resort to a niece, and kept it in the family, and the tradition continues. Not an easy thing to do, necessarily, when so many resorts have been bought by international interests. The Millers too, had been approached by Japanese interests offering them millions for their operation and land.

The town of Bracebridge encroaches, the cottages encroach, but still P-K remains a lovely respite and a haven.

So, on Sunday I will drive up and walk around its grounds, and breathe the air in deep.

how deep does this pool go?

2006-09-15T16:04:00.000-04:00

Judgement is still out on the health of the copy editing pool in which I have begun to wade.

It may only be a shallow, cloudy and murky pond, overheating and suffocating with overgrowth.

Or, it may yet prove to have a deeper source and life.

At any rate, after one month, I have moved from one day in three weeks, to one day a week. And it is nice to have a little money coming in, instead of just going out.

Looking, however, for that sweet relief of a deep dive.

rainy september

2006-09-12T20:53:00.000-04:00

Photo by: moko

treading into tabloid territory

2006-09-03T17:43:00.000-04:00

Photo by Beesquare

Photo by Chaim Zvi

My vote for the unlikeliest couple: John Mayer and Jessica Simpson.

So strange (if true) that it may actually work out - maybe, maybe (?) . . .

Note: the above photo of Ms. Simpson is a wax figure, and not human.

taste of the danforth

2006-08-13T21:35:00.000-04:00

Photo by Toronto Paul

My favourite summer festival in Toronto -- the 'Taste of the Danforth'.

All those heady, rich scents of steaming food -- primarily Greek, but also Thai, south Asian, a little Brazilian . . .

wow, one year already

2006-08-13T21:09:00.000-04:00

I just realized my last post marked the first birthday of this fledgling blog.

Happy birthday, blog!

And a pink moon is a better thing than last year's summer of the gun.

pink moon rising

2006-08-08T20:43:00.000-04:00

I can't see the sun set from my apartment. It is around the corner, off to the right of my building. But as it sets, I can see the full moon, off to my left, begin as a faint circle on the horizon of Lake Ontario. Now, only ten minutes from when I began to watch it, it has floated three moons high and is reflecting the pink of the setting sun.

Its moon craters shadow it creating a surprised face, a round 'Scream.' The sky and air darken and the moon floats, floats, floats, up, up, up . . .

the pool

2006-07-22T23:13:00.000-04:00

Finally, at last, it's happened . . .

the offer of paying work.

My two months of interning at a national newspaper, my two years of journalism school, my twenty-something years of prepress production -- and now I can say I'm a copy editor.

Finally. And at the same national newspaper I've been interning at. They hire their copy editors by the day, and pay by the day (which is -- perhaps? -- another reason why newspapers say they always need copy editors). And I'm at the bottom of a pool of 20, but god, it feels good.

Finally, to be doing what I've wanted to do for years -- and what I could have done years ago, without the benefit of j-school. J-school has been a plus, and I wouldn't have been in the internship except for j-school, but all the skills I've used for this job I had beforehand. Sorry to say, but true. If I was reporting, I would give j-school credit, and if I was writing freelance, I would give j-school credit, but for the copy editing and pagination, I had 99% of that going in.

Finally, even if it's only one day a week, I'll have some money coming in, instead of going out. That has been a situation, since January (actually since school began three years ago), that was getting very tired (not to mention worrisome). Finally, finally.

Allelujah!

Diving in on August 3rd.

p-k days

2006-07-16T21:38:00.000-04:00

It's July and it's hot, and I'm in downtown Toronto. Yesterday I began thinking of Patterson-Kaye Lodge. Such a beautiful place and such wonderful memories.

Everyone should have a summer tradition. Whether it's a cottage, or a resort, or the nearest beach -- it becomes weightier and mightier and richer when it becomes ritualized. My mom and I made our own summer ritual with P-K, a resort in Bracebridge, in the Muskokas, run by the Miller family.

One week every summer, for six years, until I returned to school, and she died from cancer. I haven't been there in three years now. Yesterday I was missing it -- and her -- badly.

Every year the weeks were the same, from Sunday to Sunday. Shuffleboard on Monday, baseball on Tuesday, talent night in the Lodge Tuesday night (with the most hilarious homegrown skits put on by the Miller kids and staff -- and any guests brave enough), euchre night, bocce ball, tennis, Santa's Village for the young ones, the Saturday night corn roast. It never rained on Saturday night and the stars, which one never sees in the city, multiplied upon themselves in the black sky.

Water sports and fine, fine meals were included. I kayaked and tried to learn to sail, and swam, yet still seemed to put on five pounds every year. My mom had limited mobility as the result of a stroke in her late 40's, but she was able to paddleboat. Every day we went out in one of the three paddle boats and we would be gone for at least an hour. The P-K paddle boats were surprisingly sea(or lake)worthy and we were able to travel good distances in them. We went around the large island in front of the resort, or we'd head into the Muskoka River and look at the cottages.

I was thinking of P-K meals in the diningroom sunroom, looking out at the lake, still and misty in the morning. So, today I decided to enjoy the summer a little more and went down to the Sunnyside Cafe on the lakefront, and ate alfresco by Lake Ontario. I may make this my summer city ritual.

When I came home, I thought of contacting the Millers via e-mail to have them put me back on their mailing list. It was a shock to see the resort has been sold and is under new management. It had always been expected that it would be passed on to the four Miller children, now in high school and university. I tried unsuccessfully online to find out what had happened. You want the story to have a happy ending.

At least it looks like a private sale (recent), rather than to a giant foreign hotel chain.

Hopefully, things stay as they always have been. I want to go back, and I want it to be the same. Or as close to the same as possible. Rituals and traditions can stabilize us in an unstable world.

'the other final'

2006-07-10T23:04:00.000-04:00

follow the bouncing ball . . .

Four years ago, during the last World Cup, a Dutch advertising executive, with his home team out of the running, ruminated on the 'other' reality of being on the losing side. Johan Kramer looked around and realized most of the 203 teams in FIFA never stood a chance of making it to the World Cup qualifying rounds. Inspired, with FIFA's blessing, he decided to organize and film a 'final' game between the two teams at the bottom of the FIFA list -- Montserrat and Bhutan.

His resulting documentary is humourous and wise and full of delight. Both of these countries, ranked 202 and 203, are poor by western standards and literally, on opposite ends of the earth. The Montserrat team's stadium lies buried in volcanic ash, as does much of their tropical island homeland. The Bhutanese, living in the high Himalayas, have their soccer pitch on a lush mountaintop.

The Montserrat team, with their island anthem "HOT, HOT, HOT!" travelling with them, play airline hopskotch across continents on a journey that takes days and brings them to another world. The Bhutanese monks pray and chant, a white soccer ball at the centre of their temple.

This film will make you smile, and want to become friends with a white ball, and then share that friendship with friends you haven't met yet.

house of lords -- part 2

2006-07-09T22:42:00.000-04:00

I was lying back in the chair, waiting while the conditioner set in my tangled locks.

Next to me, a hairdresser washed a patron's hair. As she did so a man came over, handed her a business card, and then walked away.

"Oh, god," she said to her customer. "That guy, I was cutting his hair, and he says he's a photographer -- from New York. And he wants me to come to New York so he can take photos of me. 'Just like you are', he says, 'chewing the gum -- and more gum, and more gum.'"

Her voice lowered.

"Like that's going to happen."

the world cup

2006-07-09T22:19:00.000-04:00

Aaaaah, it's over. All these weeks of televisions -- in open-air cafes, hardware stores, at work -- showing blissful hours of handsome men sweating, crying, running and running, performing spectacular head shots and brilliant footwork: it's over, for another four years.

It is sad. I miss it already.

Can someone though, explain to me why the Italian team wears blue? Rather ugly, blue uniforms with black markings that look like dirt, when there is no blue in their national flag?

I wasn't particularly partison about the final result, but France's Zidane should be ashamed about his head-butting and consequently letting his team down.

However, a worthy final game.

gordon lightfoot sang leonard cohen in my backyard

2006-06-12T17:12:00.000-04:00

Unbelievable, but true.

Yesterday, late Sunday afternoon, Gordon Lightfoot arrived at the Wellesley Community Centre, on the corners of Sherbourne and Wellesley, in a black Lincoln Town Car with smoked windows. His whitehaired, suited entourage stood guard while Lightfoot headed inside the centre until his stage call.

How the organizers of the St. James Town Summer Festival ever pulled this off, I don't know. If it was meant to draw people to their fundraiser, it was barely advertised. For several weeks, plain pink and blue flyers had been posted around St. James Town, listing the ethnic dancers and local talent, and in the middle, in type not more than a quarter of an inch high: "Special guest -- Gordon Lightfoot".

A lot of people doubted it. Was there another Gordon Lightfoot? Did he live in Cabbagetown? (perhaps he does -- don't know.)

The crowd was not big, mostly families seemingly involved with the festival, and neighbourhood stragglers like myself. The audience primarily consisted of new immigrants of south Asian, Asian, and Caribbean heritage, the primary residents of St. James Town, and a handful of greyhaired native Canadians who had listened to Lightfoot in their formative years.

Did the majority of the audience know who Lightfoot was, or his music? It seemed unlikely. But if not, they knew what he represented. As one of the emcees introduced Lightfoot, after much anticipatory fanfare, she called him the voice of Canada. He was Canada, she said.

I grew up listening to the soft lilt of his voice and the pure poetry of his songwriting. I had forgotten, but I did see him once, in Detroit, at the Masonic Temple. I remember most of the male members of the audience wearing plaid, lumberjack shirts.

This performance, scheduled for 20 minutes, sandwiched between a former Canadian Idol finalist and a Filipino dance troupe, was the highlight of the day, and was free of charge. When Lightfoot arrived on the stage, dressed all in black, the master's age was a reminder of the passing of time, and the fleetingness of art.

He sang four songs. The first an elaborate 'dirge-like' and 'intense' song by Leonard Cohen. He followed it with three of his own, ending with "If You Could Read My Mind". His voice was still effective and recognizable, though thinner, as his age and past ill health have affected it. A man nearby said Lightfoot was lucky to be alive and to be talking, much less singing.

He was alive, and he was singing, and his guitar playing clear and ringing. He winced at the feedback from the not-so-professional sound system. He warmed the crowd and warmed to them. He was gracious and humoured when a young boy, preposterously overly theatrical, presented him with a framed photograph from the community centre in appreciation. It was over too soon, and he left as he came, the black luxury car slipping quietly away.

A lovely gift, come and gone, by a Canadian legend who gave time out of a life still spent primarily on the road.

tony allen-mills [tampen]

2006-05-29T19:26:00.000-04:00

All photos by: Tampen

While searching for just-the-right photo for my last post, I came upon the photographs of Tony Allen-Mills, or Tampen, on Flickr. I don't think I'll have to look beyond his portfolio in the future.

Allen-Mills is a journalist who has taken up photography only recently, but his output is prodigious, and that is a gift to anyone who is touched by his photos.

He seems to have one of those lives that can invite envy, with a lovely family, homes on two continents, a successful career, and talent to spare.

I think his talent for photography is exquisite.

canada and kyoto

2006-05-21T19:59:00.000-04:00

Photo: Katrina by Tampen

Note: this is a partisan post.

I did not vote for Stephen Harper and his Conservative party. His apparent desire to weaken the Kyoto Protocol is a frightening affair, at a time when Canada, as an industrialized nation, should be showing leadership. I'm glad he has a minority government, but can he be kept at bay?

For an excellent article outlining the situation on global warming, see "While Washington Slept" by Mark Hertsgaard, as presented in the green issue of last month's Vanity Fair.

Unfortunately, the sobering photo illustrations by John Blackford of imagined submergings, which accompanied the article, do not seem to be readily available online, although you can see a couple of them here and here, and some other renderings here.

catch-up

2006-05-21T15:17:00.000-04:00

I've been neglecting this site, and don't want to.

I seem to have made myself busy doing other things.

I am still, however, unemployed and looking for a paying job.

I began working this week, Wednesdays through Fridays, for a two-month stint -- in an unpaid position -- for a major newspaper. Everyone keeps saying the industry needs good copy editors. Hopefully, this will get me on the inside track.

I began some serious volunteer time for a budding film festival Commffest, helping to secure submissions and providing some production assistance on their new magazine. Look for it in the St. Lawrence Market area by mid-June.

I began taking a creative non-fiction writing class on Wednesday evenings at Ryerson. Three assignments under my belt, and I love it.

I'm doing my weekly job searches and follow-ups, and any work concerning that.

But, I've been neglecting this blog and a sink full of dishes.

One down, one to go.

house of lords

2006-05-04T21:11:00.000-04:00

Last week I went to my usual hair salon, the unusual, unfailingly manic House of Lords on downtown Yonge Street.

The music pulsates at high volume, the balloons drift in columns outside and in. The walls are covered with framed pictures of 70's longhairs and a sense of self-importance and self-congratulation fills the air.

Everyone is very hip and very happening.

I am getting my hair washed, next to another woman who is getting her hair washed. We lie with our faces up in this vulnerable, rather helpless position.

She begins a conversation with her male hair stylist, asking him about his recent weight loss.

"Oh, yes," he says. "I lost a lot of weight. I went from a size 10 to a size 6. I cannot find any evening gowns that fit now."

My male stylist, who has been mixing colour, returns and joins in the conversation.

"You can have mine," he offers. "I have a whole closet full. I know they'll fit you."

"Thanks, that would be wonderful. I can't find heels either."

"What size do you take?"

"Size 11."

"I have some that will fit you."

As I listen to this conversation, it does occur to me that women have many more socially acceptable fashion choices than men do. I think these men have more dresses than I do. I'm not sure I have an evening gown. These men are dressed in typical male attire now. Women have the social freedom to wear dresses, evening gowns, and slacks.

Still, I'm not ready for the images in my head . . .

. . . later, a young blonde man with carefully casual spikes walks back to the sinks with his hair stylist.

"So, why are you performing at a breast cancer benefit?" his stylist asks, perplexed.

"Because," says the spiked blonde, with a callous, casual pause, "it's the thing to do now."

'le ballon d'or'

2006-04-21T18:18:00.000-04:00

The most recent film I saw at the Goethe-Institut Toronto's Monday night tributes to soccer and film, was Le Ballon d'Or, or The Golden Ball.

The 1993 Guinean film, directed by Cheik Doukoure, tells the story of a young 12-year-old boy, dirt-poor like the majority of his compatriots, who believes he is destined to become a world-class soccer player.

In his thatched village, Bandian and the other children play soccer in the red dirt in their bare feet, with a ball that they have created out of sewn-together rags. Over a transistor radio they hear and exult about the Cameroon team's exploits in the World Cup. They steal chickens to hear the local shaman's predictions that indeed, young Bandian will receive the Golden Ball. In Europe the Golden Ball is given to the European soccer player of the year.

Bandian and his brother sell wood in the town, trying to raise money for a real soccer ball. They go to leathersmiths and other craftsmen, and after getting prices realize they would have to work three years before they could afford a ball not made of rags.

Bandian keeps his money with a sympathetic European doctor from Medecins Sans Frontieres, who one day presents him with an old soccer ball that she has been able to find. He paints it gold, and when he holds the ball to his chest, the gold paint sticks to his shirt. He wears it proudly.

Soon, due to a misunderstanding with his father, Bandian heads for the big city to stay temporarily with his sister. On this adventure he encounters real danger and real friends, and his prowess with the golden ball becomes noticed. Eventually, the shaman's prophecy unfolds to become young Bandian's destiny.

I believe this is the first African film I have seen created by an African. I believe this is the first time I have ever had a sense of seeing a real Africa, or at least a real Guinea, even though French colonialism has left its language with the land. The culture though, of the people, still thrives, evolving, caught between tribalism and modernity.

Doukoure examines this dichotomy and pull between the old and the new throughout his film. Everything has two sides, and life is a journey between the past and the future. Doukoure, with throwaway detail, reveals the spirit and ingenuity of people who live on their wits and humour, often in desperately poor conditions. He presents the remnants of colonialism as not necessarily bad remnants, while also presenting the case for an Africa strong for itself.

The young Bandian hones his skills under the creative coaching of a great African soccer player, played by real-life soccer hero, Salif Keita. Keita's character, though, wants to forge an African team. A local businessman, acting as Bandian's agent, signs the boy to a multi-year training contract in France. Keita's character denounces it and refuses to be a 'slave-trader'.

Yet, even though Keita's character works hard and trains superlative soccer players, there is still the sense that Africa's time is in the future. For now, for youngsters like Bandian, their best hope is to leave their homeland. Even, or especially, the shaman understood that the 'golden ball' was a monetary gold mine for Bandian's community and not just a child's dream of soccer.

But Bandian is still a child, and for him, it is all about the dream. The film has great humour and a belief in making the best of one's chances. Bandian's 'agent' has told the French team that their new talented prodigy is 16 years old. The film ends with a definitely 12-year-old Bandian embarking on another adventure as he lands in France, ready to fulfill the shaman's predictions.

This film will make you more than a little in awe of African soccer players, and give never-before-seen glimpses of the rich, cultural complexities and ingenuity of Guineans.

the 49th parallel universe

2006-04-16T19:46:00.000-04:00

I hitched a ride with my niece, who attends university in Waterloo, and we drove through Sarnia and Port Huron to an early Easter at her parents' home in Michigan.

Her station wagon was filled with both of our belongings and my mother's dog, now my dog, asleep in its travelling case.

On the American side of the border crossing, at Port Huron, a wizened, cheerful customs officer began his round of questions. After the standard few, he asked:

"Is that a cat in there?"

"No," I replied. "Just a very old dog."

"Does she have dog food?"

"Yes."

"Is it in its packaging? If it's made in Canada, I can't let it in."

The customs officer and I met at the back of the car, and I opened the bag containing the dog food. I asked him if this had something to do with mad cow disease, and he nodded in the affirmative.

First bag -- made in Canada. Confiscated. Gone. Sheesh, I thought.

Second bag -- both he and I examined the small print, and it was safe, made in the U.S. of A.

Third bag -- seeking the small print again; safe again, made in the U.S.

The last was a Tupperware-type container, filled with the primary dog food.

"I don't know," I said, "whether this is from Canada or the U.S."

"Oh," he said, quickly.

"That's from the U.S."

sweet illusion

2006-04-14T11:54:00.000-04:00

Well, I did not get the proofreading job at Harlequin -- though I was in the finals. They gave it to someone with more experience in 'book publishing', and will keep my resume on hand for six months, and maybe 'our paths will cross again.'

I should be more upset about this -- I found out on Tuesday -- but, after my delirious celebration of making it to the final stage, I prepared myself for this news. So, I am believing at this point, that this means there is a better job out there for me (rather, than say -- no job -- can't believe that).

And I'm surprised I hadn't posted this month yet. Time does fly. I'm always thinking of posting in my head, and unfortunately, that's where some of my best posts seem to remain.

Anyway, I came back from an early Easter with my brothers and their families last weekend with a mighty piece of burn in my throat, which subsequently laid me out flat on Wednesday. It is now a thudding sinus cold, which suits this rainy Good Friday. (As a Catholic, you know it is supposed to rain on Good Friday).

It's all put a bit of a damper on my renewed job-hunting optimism, but life makes its own pauses.

Wednesday was also the first anniversary of my dad's death. Today I walked to Our Lady of Lourdes parish nearby to light a candle, but all the candles were gone. The holders were there, empty. I had never noticed this being done before because of the Passion. I'm assuming they will reappear on Easter Sunday. I wonder if they extinguished them all first, before moving them, considering I had just lit one for my mother a few weeks ago.

I bought myself an Easter lily yesterday, with seven possible blossoms on it. And tulips earlier in the week -- the only cut flower I know of that continues to grow after it's been cut.

Yesterday I was able to walk down to the video store and get a fresh supply of rentals for my semi-sick status. Brought home Brokeback Mountain, Crash and Scorsese's film on Bob Dylan, No Direction Home. I watched Brokeback yesterday and was expecting to be disappointed since the film has become such a running joke, but it is a good film and was very moving. I'll probably watch Crash tonight, as it and Brokeback are due back tomorrow. I have a week for the double-disc on Dylan.

And, I may watch Jesus Christ Superstar again, as it is an Easter ritual of mine. There are not a lot of movies I can watch more than a few times, but this film by Norman Jewison fascinates me. Every time I watch it, I am intrigued by choices made in the filming. And the acting and performing are pitch-perfect on every account. It says something to me, every time.

Time to wander off this post . . .

from boring to brilliant

2006-03-31T12:48:00.000-05:00

On Monday night I attended the second 'soccer Monday' at the Goethe-Institut Toronto and saw Football as Never Before, or Fussball Wie Noch Nie, by Hellmuth Costard.

This was a very strange film. Costard, an experimental German filmmaker in the 70's followed footballer George Best in a league match between Manchester United and Coventry. Literally, he followed George Best and no-one else during the whole match, shooting the film in real time.

As a result you see George Best standing, you see George Best pacing, you see close-ups of Best's backside and of his knees and of his socks. You see his number 11 and the back of his head, his pitch-black hair contrasting vividly with the bright red of his jersey. And during the first half of the game, this is all you see. If there is a football in play, you hear the crowd, but you don't see the play, because George is nowhere near the action. It's like going to a game and standing outside at the concession stand, knowing something is going on somewhere but not seeing it. Or, like being an infatuated schoolgirl who never sees the game because her eyes are only following her favourite player.

And sometimes, after too many shots of Best's shorts, this film feels a little uncomfortable, like gay porn. Then, when you think it can't get stranger, at the quartermark of the period, the filmmaker replaces the crowd sounds with funky, bad 70's music to open back into the crowd sounds again after a few bewildering minutes.

You notice that Best shows no emotion on his face, no reaction to anything going on in the game. There is no field banter, by anyone it seems. He follows the ball and walks around a lot.

The half-time break is bizarre. You have to keep reminding yourself that this is the 70's. The filmmaker follows Best out of the manager's office into a back room. It obviously is not even the same day as Best is supporting a full black beard, and not just his awesomely dark sideburns. He stands, facing the camera, which doesn't move for many minutes, just still on Best's face, as he glares and smolders into the camera. He stares and occasionally licks his lips, and he stares some more, looks down once in awhile, looks back into the camera and stares some more and licks his lips again. Then it's time for the second half.

Shortly after the start of the rest of the game, a couple of people decided they'd seen it all and left the theatre. You really couldn't blame them. I knew nothing of George Best except that he was supposed to be a football great and had recently died after a lifetime of fighting the demon of drink. I could see where the darkness in his character could come into play, but I wasn't seeing any football.

And then it began happening. There had been no score in the first half. Best was walking around again, with more shots of him walking, and then, like a black panther springing from nowhere, he was faster than anyone. With a killer's precision he was in and out on one of the most spectacular goals I have ever seen. And it continued this way. He let himself smile once in awhile, he was getting winded, would walk to ease up, and would attack again. He assisted on Manchester's second goal, which true to the filmmaker's vision, we didn't see -- but we saw Best's assist.

There is probably lots of film coverage of Best out there that a person could watch and see his brilliance instantly. This film is not great filmmaking, but it is cult filmmaking and a kind of performance art. The unexpected brilliance after the querying boredom is unforgettable.

st. jamestown

2006-03-30T18:31:00.000-05:00

I live in the St. Jamestown area of Toronto. It is an old part of the city and parts of it have definitely seen better days.

The St. Jamestown complex just north of Wellesley E. and Sherbourne is home to many immigrant families living in highrises looming like forbidding towers in the sky. Violence threatens lives there and here and everywhere in Toronto these days. But for the most part, what I feel and see when I walk by and through this area are families. Not destitute families -- just families, making their way in a new world.

I think they are brave. I know how difficult it has been for me sometimes, and I am Canadian-born, and only a four hours' drive from my hometown. I think they are very brave.

On Tuesday, the day of my deceased mother's birthday, I felt a strong need to go to church. I was raised Catholic and lived Catholic, rather devoutly, until my late 20's. So, I am what may be called a 'lapsed Catholic'.

Though today my faith is undefined -- not non-existent -- just undefined, the rituals of Catholicism that I grew up with are a part of my past and self I cannot deny. I know any Catholic, especially one raised when the Church was still rich with Latin and archaics, knows what I mean. You step back into a church and everything comes back -- the smells, the deep echoes, the aura of quiet expectation, a sense of hope and a sense of refuge.

I wandered over to a church only a block away from where I live. It is a strange old church, looking like a pastiche of a small St. Paul's and an ancient Greek hall. It is easy to pass it by as it recedes from the sidewalk and the dirt of a scrappy Sherbourne Street. There are expensive condominiums being built next to it. Right now it is surrounded by construction and more dirt, but one day in the future it will be dwarfed even further by a soaring tower of glass, metal and stone.

Many churches are dying, but Our Lady of Lourdes on Sherbourne is very healthy indeed. Most churches lock their doors except for services, and many, because of the fear of fire, stopped having real candles years ago. As I open one of the heavy wood doors in the late morning, there is a man inside wiping down the brown tiled floor with a mop and water. Inside the church there are probably more than 10 people meditating and in prayer. Most of the people I see are south and southeast Asian -- the St. Jamestown 'demographic'. They have brought their deep faith with them to Canada and I realize it is the foundation of this community.

This church is alive like no other I have been in since my childhood. There are several altars in different corners and they are surrounded by lit candles. I find a large, new one in a blue stained glass and light it for my mother. Across the room, at another altar, a woman in a sari prostrates herself on the ground as she moves forward in prayer. It is also the Lenten season, the time of the Passion and of the Resurrection and the promise of new life.

I return later in the afternoon for a mass. Our Lady of Lourdes has three masses each day and up to seven on Sundays. Everything about the church and the service touches my soul and my heart in a way I find difficult to express. Several of the people around me are afflicted physically. Old women, probably alone, with walkers and wheelchairs sit near young and middleaged mothers seeking a spiritual strength between their work day and their return home to family. Young men participate, holding on to this lifeline that is keeping them from the street or the bottle. God is alive here.

Because spring is arriving and the weather welcoming, the streets are full of people moving about with pleasure and purpose. In the school fields of Jarvis Collegiate a pick-up cricket game is being played. It is played every day now since the weather has turned nice.

I don't understand cricket, nor why boys or anyone find it fun. It seems an interminable amount of standing around. In my hometown of Windsor, if you went to a specific park you could sometimes see the Caribbean teams in their dress-whites playing the game. Even more confusing is this habit of dressing all in white, which seems against all definitions of 'play' and 'fun'. The boys here are not dressed in white, and they are having fun playing cricket.

Confusion and mysteries (even small mysteries like cricket) are what life, and spring, are founded on. Thank the essence that is god.

'good news'

2006-03-29T17:13:00.000-05:00

Well, I received a phone call from Harlequin yesterday around 4 p.m. and the human resources coordinator said it was 'good news, we've decided to go ahead.' They just needed an e-mail from me to give their outside company permission to check my references.

I've been celebrating and very, very happy to think I have the job!

But, she didn't actually say that, nor give me a starting date. She asked me if I was still interested -- "Yes!"; she told me more wonderful things about working at Harlequin (they have 'summer hours' starting at the end of May, wherein you work a little extra each day and get to leave at noon on Fridays), but she didn't actually say I was hired.

I am 99.9 per cent sure I am. I'm hoping that .1 per cent doesn't come back to bite me. I'm not an axe murderer nor did I make up phony references, so I'm thinking that part should be fine.

Anyway, I am celebrating. It feels good. I knew I had reached the point, after two months of job-searching, where the fun and exciting part of it was draining away. The thought of being useful and part of something bigger, of having a regular schedule and getting on with other parts of my life, is soothing and relaxing.

And, yesterday when she called, was my late mother's birthday. It's only the second birthday of hers for which she is no longer here. So, it was especially gratifying that it wasn't 'bad news'.

the interviewing process

2006-03-24T13:42:00.000-05:00

I went for an interview this morning at Harlequin Enterprises Limited. It is for a proofreading position that sounded interesting and could possibly be a stepping stone for future possibilities. After my morning visit, I've learned it is even more interesting and full of possibility than I originally thought.

And I'm wandering around wondering if I blew the interview. I'll know, one way or the other, possibly by the end of next week. They are still interviewing two to three others, and then they will check references. This is such a long process. The job was originally posted February 27. I'm learning this is not unusual in the big world of publishing and the media.

Anyone involved in this aspect of job searching realizes that an interview in of itself is a rare bird. I was ecstatic to have it, and it went very well with the proofreading supervisor. And, green as I am, I thought I had the job when she brought me up to Human Resources. Fool me -- the very professional (and nice) human resources coordinator began to ask me questions which I soon realized were still part of the interview process.

I was okay until we got on the topic of old bosses. This is such a sore point with me -- still, after many years. I've had some very bad, sexist, bullying bosses in the past. I've had a few good ones, and believe me, I appreciate them. So, the topic unnerves me in ways that probably are not the best for an interview. And she directly asked me about 'good' and 'bad' bosses.

All I can say is I hope the fact that I've had them (bad bosses), and dealt with the situations the best I knew how, does not reflect badly on me. It can so easily smack of sour grapes or whining.

I'm hoping for the best. The job seems pretty idyllic: a six-month contract that can then be extended by three months -- after which time a full-time offer may be made -- in a company that appears to be pleasantly and intelligently managed and is actually prospering, a 40-hour week with flexible start and finish times, an in-house gym, and a supervisor who beams with positive energy.

Stay tuned . . .

monday night 'fussball'

2006-03-23T14:11:00.000-05:00

If you love soccer and are eagerly awaiting the World Cup this June, to take place in Germany, you can placate those fussball yearnings right here in Toronto.

Every Monday night, right up to the start of the World Cup, at the sparkling, glass-lined Goethe-Institut on King West you can sit in their intimate theatre and watch soccer films. Hey, wear your colours and bring your flags!

Last week there were only four of us in the theatre, not counting a piano player and the projectionist and his girlfriend. The piano player was there to play for the 1927 German silent film The Eleven Devils (a story about how women can just mess up a guy's game). The film this upcoming Monday is a 1970 two-hour documentary silent film featuring George Best.

This is just fun!

mud puppy

2006-03-13T19:47:00.000-05:00

Photo by: Euronion

mud, mud, mud, mud, mud . . .

I'm not really a sky person. I grew up with the freedom of open fields and woods, in a time when neighbourhood yards were unfenced and children and adults knew fears resided elsewhere.

In the spring, the empty field a block away (really a large, unused industrial lot with a single, grand chestnut tree at its centre) would flood in inches of water. The water seemed to stay a long time. My brothers and I would go to the field with our glass containers and water buckets and catch tadpoles, bring them home and watch them grow legs. I don't remember if any of them lived long enough to become toads -- but there were plenty of toads.

On Sunday I wandered north through the lovely, sedate mansions of Rosedale seeking the Brickworks in the Don Valley. I finally found access to the valley, but none of the way was paved. With the spring thaw and recent rains, the grass squished. The dirt roads and paths took one's utmost concentration in the pursuit of dry, forward progress.

Mud on children in galoshes, mud on tepid daytrippers, mud splashed up on the backs of kicking runners, mud on prepared birdwatchers, mud on filmmakers guised as camouflaged snipers, mud being deliciously cleaned away by large dogs wading in waist-high muddy water.

mud, mud, mud, mud, mud . . .

on this lovely springlike day

2006-03-11T18:36:00.000-05:00

just thinking of some of my favourite beginnings and endings:

the opening paragraph to Richard Llewellyn's How Green was my Valley --

"I am going to pack my two shirts with my other socks and my best suit in the little blue cloth my mother used to tie around her hair when she did the house, and I am going from the Valley."

and the closing to Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird --

"He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning."

good fit

2006-03-09T19:19:00.000-05:00

I've been to the meeting for Sprockets volunteers, and did my first short volunteer shift for the Toronto International Film Festival Group (hereafter known as TIFFG). I'm going to like this. I do like it. Every week I can volunteer for something different. New people, new activities, all concerned or interested in something that has always fascinated me: film.

I love being part of a group, getting lost in the crowd. There is a freedom in it, when the responsibilities don't fall on your own individual shoulders. It's fun.

lung cancer claims dana reeve

2006-03-07T13:05:00.000-05:00

This is just sad. Cruel turn after cruel turn. I cannot fathom how their 13-year-old son goes on. Thank God for extended family.

foray into film

2006-03-05T13:21:00.000-05:00

Today is the day of the 78th Annual Academy Awards presentation. The Oscars! in all their hyped, magnificent, overwrought glory.

Over a week ago, I made my own little trip into the aura of the cinematic by volunteering at the Canadian Film Centre's annual fundraising gala. All I had to do was show up wearing basic black and comfortable shoes, and sell raffle tickets for a couple of hours to the powerbrokers and their affiliates, as they sat in their $400 seats dining on fine food prepared by master Cuban chefs.

There was even a red carpet -- and a photographer. The tables, lit by candles hanging from centrepiece palms, dazzled. The men, in their dress tuxedos, were urbane. There did not seem to be as many women as men, and they did not shine as much as their male counterparts, sure with their Cuban cigars and credit cards at the ready.

Hundreds of items at the silent auction, with bids ranging from the low hundreds to the thousands and thousands of dollars. At the live auction, bids of $10,500 for a shopping spree at Holt Renfrew, $18,000 for a trip for two to Paris, $250 for a magnum of champagne. The raffle tickets were a good deal at $40 a piece or three for $100, on three chances for custom-made jewellery.

The end result of cinema I understand; the finances behind it, making it possible are more difficult to comprehend. Not only the finances behind cinema, but the finances that make our society and economy prosper, are a foreign world to me. Seeing such apparent financial freedom is a culture shock, yet surely it is how the world turns.

This week I signed on to volunteer with the Toronto International Film Festival Group. I've never attended any of the TIFF festivities in the past as I've been busy with school. Now, I can get involved with them from the inside.

First on the agenda, the children's film festival in April, called Sprockets. Tonight, sitting down to watch the Hollywood glamour of the marketing of the stories told in celluloid.

And, my predominant impression of the gala? Unfortunately, that of swollen, sore feet from not taking the 'comfortable shoes' memo to heart.

sky person

2006-03-03T12:34:00.000-05:00

One of my sisters-in-law calls me a 'sky person' because I live high up in the sky. My apartment on the 15th floor of a downtown highrise faces south to the sun and Lake Ontario. From my desk I can see the dark blueness of the lake rule a straight, infinite horizon against the paler blueness of the air.

The sun shines and reflects hard off shoreline ice as the Toronto Islands lie still, the trees in winter brown. To my right is a spectacular view of the Toronto skyline, more spectacular at night when it glistens and glows. To my centre and left, I am higher than the other buildings, and everything leads to the water.

When I moved here from Windsor to attend Ryerson, I had two days to find a place within walking distance to school. When I found this place, I knew I had a balcony, but was not even aware of which direction I faced. I was happy it was clean, and no more expensive than residence, and that the building appeared secure. The view was an unexpected gift.

Today I awoke to the sound of children laughing. An empty hole south of my building has become an elementary school, after two years of dusty, cacophonous construction. The harsh, endless sirens of downtown life are muted and lost, and the laughter carries up and across, softening the cold, winter edges and urging spring.

Being a sky person is akin to sitting in a favourite tree while young, being rooted to the earth but so close to flight.

'to go where no man has gone before'

2006-02-28T19:14:00.000-05:00

(just when you think you've seen it all . . .)

I'm looking for a job in Toronto. However, this is tempting: the Vulcan Advocate is searching for an intrepid, enterprising reporter/photographer.

Yeah, Canada!

'hurrying hard'

2006-02-26T19:35:00.000-05:00

The only time I have been on a curling rink was at a learn-to-curl initiation at the city-owned rink in my hometown of Windsor. I liked it; the air was fresh and cool, invigourating. My grandfather and his friends curled every winter up in Bruce County. This wasn't so bad, and it wasn't boring.

Then half way through the game, I was helping to sweep a stone, 'hurrying hard'. A split second later with all my weight on my broom, my broom flew out and I followed, falling from my full height, feet slipping out and up, and landing on my head with an ominous, loud thud. I was surprised I was conscious and surprised I was able to get up. Within minutes I had a golfball-sized lump only half an inch from my right temple.

I retrieved crushed ice and a pack, and applied it to my head. I was shaken, but okay. I watched my friends finish the game. But I was stunned. Who ever heard of curling accidents? I hadn't. This was the game my grandfather played. I was glad I only hit the ice and not one of the granite rocks.

I had a beauty of a shiner for a week or so to show for my foray into the world of curling. I kind of cringe when I hear all the jokes about the game, because I haven't gotten on the ice for it again -- though, I suppose I should. And I'd like to. . . (but I've never seen anyone wear a helmet for the game).

Lest you think I'm a total 'fraidy-cat, I skate (ice and land), cycle, have three years of a martial art, and have been in a whitewater rafting accident (another story). So, curlers, stand proud! That's a gutsy game you're playing!

My congratulations to Canada's finest and their gold and bronze Olympic medals.

swan lake

2006-02-19T14:30:00.000-05:00

Photo: Darren C.

Late Friday afternoon I received a phone call from a friend who had complimentary tickets to that evening's performance of Swan Lake by the National Ballet of Canada. Did I want to go?

Of course, of course. Time enough to shower and time enough to get to the Hummingbird Centre for 7:30 p.m. curtain time.

Just time, as we settled into our seats only minutes before the house lights went down. It had been years since I had attended a ballet production, usually seen in Windsor (where the ballet companies toured, often with their second-stringers), and I had seen acts of Swan Lake, but never the complete ballet. As a young girl, I would get so excited after watching a live performance that I would dance in the street on my way home from the bus stop, and try to stand on my toes at home in front of the mirror. Twice I sprained toes badly, not learning until years later in an adult ballet class that real ballerinas use steel-toed pointe shoes.

The magic of the theatre has always captivated me. When it is at the high level of the National Ballet of Canada, it is sorcery. So impractical to spend hours and hours, one's life, to perfect and create illusion, but so necessary to our souls.

And because of the calibre of the musicians, the dancers, the set, costume and lighting designers, not a false note, nor a false step -- only mystery and magic, grace and wonder. The royal purple velvets of the court, thick with luxury, the intricacies of the corps de ballet preening and fluttering, the darkness of the music as the story descends into tragedy, all contributing to a seamless illusion.

Because we arrived too late to read the story synopsis, and were too busy talking during intermission, we were both surprised when the Swan did not die a long, lingering death. We had each seen the Swan die many times in other productions. Apparently there are several versions with several diverse endings. In this one, the Prince fell over after a struggle with the dark ruler of the swan kingdom. Only when the curtain began to come down, did I realize the ballet was over. The Swan did not even have time to grieve.

The magic ended abruptly, not unlike some European films, when one is left wondering what the story is saying. And maybe one is not satisfied with the denouement, perhaps even piqued with it, but the ride and journey are remembered as art at its best.

If you ever get the chance, and have not seen it, find an old film called The Red Shoes. It is full of the frenzy and obsession of dance and the ballet world.

silver sky

2006-02-15T13:02:00.000-05:00

Torino test run in 2005. Photo: Zioluc

Of all the amazing feats at the Olympics, I am always in awe of those effected by the sky flyers of the ski jump and nordic combined.

frontline

2006-02-08T18:26:00.000-05:00

Last night I watched Sex Slaves on PBS' Frontline. If you have the opportunity, it is on again Thursday, at 12 a.m. I'm assuming that is Thursday night, not Wednesday, but I may be wrong.

This is a very important piece of investigative work and very difficult to watch. It concerns the sex trade in the Ukraine, some other former Russian states, and Turkey. Many of the women are tricked and lured with the promise of regular jobs, often by known acquaintances.

Sometimes, with so much misery and hardship in the world, it makes you wonder if you have any right to be happy. Of course we do, but it's good to appreciate our good fortune.

who were you in 1905?

2006-02-07T18:47:00.000-05:00

I enjoy (some) reality TV, documentaries, non-fiction. 'Survivor' has been a favourite since its beginning, but I won't write about it -- enough is written about it.

As usual, I'm writing about a show that was completed two years ago, and whose last episode of its recent revival is this Sunday. I only 'discovered' it on its reshowing on PBS. It's called Manor House and presents all the glorious snobbery and stratifications of life in Edwardian England, circa 1905. The show takes us 'upstairs' among the genteel aristocracy and 'downstairs' among the overworked, servant class.

The participants lived by Edwardian rules for three months, and the research done for the show is impressive. Both upstairs and downstairs find the social stratification can be stifling and lonely, especially compared to today's standards.

Check out the website. There is a snob-o-meter to rate your snobbery level, and you can find out where you would have placed on the societal scale.

Alas, I would have been helping to keep a lodging house, living in a cramped dorm, and rarely seeing daylight. Oh, yes, and I'm one-third snob.

in the congo

2006-02-07T15:45:00.000-05:00

Check out this amazing site, which I have been introduced to through Mike Armitage. The photography is amazing. The tired, old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words is, as tired, old sayings often are, only too true.

san francisco zen

2006-02-07T14:15:00.000-05:00

At Christmas I bought myself the Blockbuster Coupon set, a great savings on their overpriced rentals. After only one month, I am already saving myself money, so it was $20 well-spent.

I can get three rentals for the price of two, which I love because sometimes it's nice to have your own film festival.

I have never been to San Francisco, and I have never seen it filmed as beautifully as in the documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. This is a charming film, finely and intelligently edited. It is about wild parrots in San Francisco, but it is more about the ordinary man, Mark Bittner, who takes it upon himself to care for them, and how that naturally progresses to something more encompassing.

I don't own a lot of films, but am thinking of buying a copy of this, because its beauty and honesty linger.

Near the beginning of this film is a revelatory bit of music sung by Jack Kerouac. I never knew he sang, and if there's more out there by him, I don't know why it hasn't been released. (And to answer my own question).

If you rent it, watch the extra features, as they give even more background and follow-up.

'everybody gotta have a dream'

2006-02-03T13:49:00.000-05:00

This film is about second and third chances, the power of dreaming and the need to express yourself. With music that comes up from the sweaty streets of Memphis, and populated by people who surprise and keep you guessing, this is a movie worth seeing and one to remember.

And now that it is on DVD, watch the features, because they present a story as fascinating as the film. It is a story of guts and perseverance that seems to have been a cinderella tale for all involved.

This Terrence Howard is going to get men wearing undershirts again, like Clark Gable got them to take them off in the classic It Happened One Night. That's a good-lookin' look.

did Ben get his dad this gig?

2006-02-02T18:48:00.000-05:00

Does anyone else think that, gee, maybe we should find something else for the former leaders of our country to do?

Lots of good monetary prizes behind this contest from Belinda's dad, Magna's Frank Stronach. Anyone have doubts about his little girl's ambition?

february

2006-02-01T17:42:00.000-05:00

Don't ask me why, but for some reason, I have never been so happy to see January leave and a new month begin. But I am -- happy it is the first of February.

Could be because I found myself blindsided by hard and deep emotions last month (blindsided explaining too well their unexpected onslaught). Could be because I was so tired of seeing all of those January 31st deadlines for summer internships.

But, hey, the beginning of February, usually the greyest and most dismal of months, feels like the first day of spring, and the start of a belated new year.

silver foxes

2006-01-27T19:06:00.000-05:00

At some time I had bought my mother a Richard Simmon's tape -- Richard Simmons and the Silver Foxes. She never used it and I think scoffed at me when I originally purchased it for her, an exercise video for seniors.

During her last months I would go out and inline skate whenever I was able to, a necessary release to keep stress at bay and an attempt to gain positive momentum. During her last weeks I could not leave her alone, and feeling the need to destress even more, I pulled out the Silver Foxes video.

I had managed to keep my legs and cardio in shape, but my upper body and arms were, and are, pathetic. The Silver Foxes circa 1986 were the parents of famous celebrities; they included Sal Pacino (you can see where Al got a lot of his charisma from), Harry Hoffman -- father of Dustin, Jacqueline Stallone -- mother to Rocky, Pauline Fawcett -- mother to Farrah, and Richard's mother Shirley. Richard Simmons is pretty funny at any time.

Though my mother had never shown any interest in this video before, she found it quite humourous now. I'm not sure if it was the Silver Foxes in their pastel workout suits, the women with their hands covered in rings, their hair lacquered to a sheen; the men, especially Sal, lookin' kinda good, and Richard of course being Richard -- or if it was me, finding these very basic, low-impact routines a strettttccccchhhhhh.

It seemed to be a combination of all of the above. She was quite taken with the whole routine, and thought I should do it every day. Well, I didn't do it every day.

But, I did it today. I've been sitting at a computer too much, sitting reading too much, and have been feeling my body wither around me. Who better than the Silver Foxes to gently awaken my non-existent shoulder muscles?

Have to build up slowly so I can attempt "Sweatin' to the Oldies - 2."

dying at home

2006-01-24T11:47:00.000-05:00

I realize my last post may have been difficult to read. I apologize if this topic is one people don't want to read about. But, writing about it is a way of putting it in perspective for me.

Taking care of a person, being there for them when they are near death, is hard. Especially if it is someone you love. It is hard to see them in pain, hard to accept that they will not recover from the next progression of the disease. It is relentless.

But I want to make it clear that my mother's death from advanced colon cancer, except for a cruel last week and a half, was monitored and eased with exquisite professional care. Doctors are for the most part too pre-occupied to deal compassionately with patients anymore. Well, at least that has been a predominant experience of mine. But I have nothing but the highest respect for the home-care nurses and the hospice staff, both doctors and nurses.

Coming in and out of the home, checking on emotional needs as well as physical, being there and caring long after their shifts had ended: hospice nurses, home-care nurses, therapists, social workers. Sometimes a day would be a constant rotation of people coming in and out, each staying for an hour, providing a wonderful continuity of care from day to day and week to week.

People would rotate, probably as a professional sanity precaution, I suppose. But their records and communications were always top-notch, and they often laughed and put us at ease.

Pain medication has come a long way. Though my mother had a cancer that should have caused her great pain, the hospice doctors were expert at providing her with a thoughtful combination of drugs that enabled her to have a quality of life none of us had thought was possible. For three months she was able to get out and about. With awe, we would wonder "where has the pain gone?", but not want to know and just very, very thankful for its absence, always aware of the darkness lurking.

She was not bedbound until the last two weeks. Those last weeks were simply horrible. Things fell apart and pain control got lost, not fully settled again until her last two days. And those were the times we wondered if she would be better in a hospital. She wondered too. But we also heard first-hand horror stories of people suffering unattended, even in hospice in the hospital.

When she died, it was after midnight, in her home, and my brothers and I had been with her all day, and were going to be there the next day. It was the second night we had an overnight nurse provided to us, after a weekend on my own where I had slept little, if at all.

It was late September, and the weather was lovely. I often thought it was good that she was dying in the summer and not the winter. She was able to get outside. We were able to bring the outdoors in. There was fresh fruit and raspberries, her favourite. She could sit on the couch and look out her front window. When the bed was brought in, it was set up in the livingroom. Life's small moments: birds warbling outside, her dog paddling around on the floor, the grandchildren singing her a song.

She lived well, up until her death, and she died at home.

plate tectonics

2006-01-21T17:22:00.000-05:00

geology 101:
PLATE TECTONICS -- a theory in geology: the lithosphere of the earth is divided into a small number of plates which float on and travel independently over the mantle and much of the earth's seismic activity occurs at the boundaries of these plates -- compare CONTINENTAL DRIFT

This post is not about the federal election taking place on Monday, though it could be. It is about the shifts that have occurred in my life.

Yesterday I handed in my last assignment regarding my internship, and well, that means I have completed my journalism degree at Ryerson University.

When I began this journey over two years ago, my plan was to do this for myself and then return home to Windsor to care for my mother in her senior years. She had been struck with a cerebral aneurysm when she was 47 and I was 24. Over the years I had helped her as she moved forward and overcame many of the obstacles in front of her. But though she was in a good place in her early 70s, I knew her capabilities would begin to decline with advancing age. So school was something I was doing for myself. My plan was to return to Windsor and hopefully use my new skills in a community newspaper.

But during the first months of school, doctors diagnosed my mother with colon cancer. After surgery, the diagnosis was positive and optimistic. In May of the following year they told us it had spread to her liver.

So I returned home and helped her die. Dying at home is what she wanted, and what we (my brothers and I), wanted for her. But caretakers take heed; it is a hard, hard thing of which to be a part. I was basically living in a hospital and expected to administer medications and make decisions I was not trained to make. The home nurses were sent from God, administering the care and medical attention that we had long ago stopped receiving from doctors. But they were only there a few times during the week, preparing the medication for the caretaker to administer.

I returned to school the following January, after taking three months following my mother's death to close up her house and prepare it for sale. In April, my father went into hospice in Florida and two weeks later passed away. He had been sick and in pain for almost a decade, but he fought like mad not to go. He involved my stepmother and me in bizarre plans to escape. Eventually he gave in to the medicated relief from pain.

Then I was back in Toronto, now looking like my permanent home. It is strange to go back to my hometown in Windsor and not have my childhood home in the family. Even as an adult, one is set adrift. My father's home too, outside of Detroit is being sold. Things that were always, and are no longer.

Now I am done school, and I face a future full of possibilities. So many plausible and implausible scenarios, that I have to sort and speculate as to where I am and where I am going. Everything has shifted, connections fractured and lost. But it feels like the shifting is done, the ground has stopped moving, and I can see the lay of the land.

I hope to stay in Toronto for a few years if I can. I like the city and see it as full of opportunity. But there is also a part of me that feels the world beckoning. It is a world given to me by all the love and support I have had in my life, and I think, it will be a strong world. Even the earth moves.