Confession Of A Torch Singer

Kim hasn't budged from the terrace all morning.  He is wearing his uniform, faded blue jeans and a white T shirt.  He is short and still very thin.  But for a bit of a scraggly van dyke his face is clean-shaven. His hair as always is just past his ears and worn swept back.  It is just beginning to show grey at the temples and it is also becoming thin at the hairline.  He hasn't worn a dress or makeup in four years. It is nearly the end of the rainy season and the morning has  been sunnier and clearer than usual today with occasional drizzle and a generous offering of rainbows.  In November at the end of the rainy season there are rainbows every day.  Although he has lived here for almost a year he has only recently discovered this elegant hideaway in the jungle and almost regrets having invited the Canadian journalist to meet him here.  This will be his first interview in years.  He expects it will also be his last.  She arrives just as he is starting on his second Americano.  She is a study in understated stylishness with her khaki shirt and black jeans.  Already cloud and mist are rolling in from thie distant ocean, its tendrils like sinister grey fingers clawing at the trees of the legendary forest.

 

"I'm afraid we're about to lose our spectacular view", he says.

 

"Yes, isn't that a pity," she says as she removes her sunglasses and sets them on the table. The half-dozen or so gold and silver bangles on her arm make a vaguely musical jingling sound.  She seems young and pretty at first though he is sure that she isn't much younger than he is (fifty next month.)  Her hair is shoulder length with blonde streaks.  Her nails appear to have been recently done at a spa, with shining acrylic tips of turquoise festooned with gold.  She seems like a famous actress playing the role of a famous journalist in a movie, perhaps Candice Bergen as Margaret Bourke-White in "Gandhi."

 

"Do you mind if I tape the entire conversation?"

 

"Well, this is an interview, I suppose".  He looks her over casually, as though to be reassured that she is a real person, a solid Canadian woman seated across from him at the table here in far away Central America. Her pale blue eyes have a calculating coolness that he finds nearly as off-putting as the needy "Like me! Like me!" tone of her voice.  He almost asks her where she got her nails done, whether here or in Canada.  The magazine she represents is new to Kim.  He has never heard of it before.  The Google search he did last night indicates a glossy pictorial publication with a large national readership.  There are travel articles with big bright pictures of palm trees, all-inclusive resorts and flawlessly beautiful couples, young women and men half-naked and sublimely photo-shopped. There are articles on local and international celebrities, recipes and urban themes centred on home-decor and dining out.  The readership is made up primarily of bored retired women with wealthy husbands and tons of disposable income, his primary audience when he was a famous torch singer. "What would you like, anyway, I can get Yolanda's attention from here."

 

A regular latte would be lovely."

 

"Yolanda!" he says in impressive Spanish.  "Por favor nos llevas un cafe con leche. (Please bring us a latte.)

 

"How long have you lived here?"

 

"Almost a year."

 

"How do you like it so far?"

 

"Its great."

 

"Yes this country is beautiful.  You know this is only my first time here?"

 

"Up here or in the entire country?"

 

"The entire country."

 

"Remember our agreement.  None of your readers are to know what country I am in.  This has to be agreed upon if we are to proceed with the interview."

 

"Agreed."  He finds that she has a rather beautiful mouth, with coral pink lips.  He wonders how this shade of libstick would look on him.  It has been more than four years since he wore make up.

 

"Do you ever sing here?"

 

"Only at church on Sundays, but in a quiet voice, so no one can tell it's me."

 

"Tell me a little about this church."

 

"It's a small Quaker fellowship made up mostly of American ex-pats.  No one has a clue of who I am, or should I say, of who I was."  Quakers or other religious and socially concerned folk likely would never have attended one of Kim's concerts, nor even heard of her, or cared that she existed.  He has chosen the perfect country for his metamorphosis.

 

"And you're perfectly comfortable living as a male now."

 

"Well, they say I was born that way.  It was only when I was twelve that I began to show, should we say, secondary characteristics.  I grew a lovely set of breasts even though I peed standing up.  Then in my later teens I began growing whiskers, not many, and don't let the van dyke fool you, because this is the only kind of beard I'm still able to grow and even this is pretty thin and scraggly.  The boobs are gone, as you can see.  It just took a little surgery."  Irene has rather lovely breasts, he can see, if a  bit smallish.  The natural line and the shadow of nipple behind the khaki shirt suggest that she is not wearing a bra.  He suddenly finds this incredibly sexy.

 

"You had it done here?"

 

"I had it done here, two years ago before taking up permanent residency."

 

"How did that go?"

 

"Money in this country speaks in a very loud voice.  It has not been difficult buying the hospital's silence."  The waitress stops by with a glass mug full of beige coloured coffee and milk for Irene, the visiting journalist.  Yolanda is young and very pretty, her caramel coloured hair wound in a loose knot and her face and posture suggesting a Parisian model though she likely has never stepped outside of her own country.  Many of the people here are poor, too poor to travel the world, too poor to even leave their own tiny country, city or village.  The waitress smiles perfunctorily as Irene offers her a gushy Canadian "Thank you", then retreats with silent elegance as though along a fashion catwalk.  In faded blue jeans, and a black T shirt she is ravishing.  Kim suddenly would like to get his nails done with identical turquoise and gold extensions as Irene's.

 

"This is a lovely cafe", she says.

 

"It's a well-kept secret."

 

"Do locals come here as well?"

 

"Never.  This place is for tourists and ex-pats,  The locals all have their own sodas, taverns, bars and cafes where they congregate. I think the fact that it occupies the local bat museum also helps keep it hidden."

 

"They're live bats, aren't they?"

 

"Oh yes.  But that isn't why I come here.  They are not my favourites among things that fly."

 

"The birds here are lovely."

 

"As are the butterflies.  Have you seen the Morphos since coming here?"

 

"Those are the big blue ones, right?"

 

"Have you noticed that they fly kind of funny?"

 

"Why is that?"

 

"They're notorious lushes.  They feed only on rotten fruit, which produces alcohol.  So, they're always a bit shit-faced.  I learned this at the local bug museum.

 

"Could you tell me please what else you do with your days?"

 

"I do a lot of volunteer work.  I assist in guided tours in the Cloud Forest, but my duties are limited to research, since the government is very picky about foreigners not taking jobs from the citizenry.  I also teach English in the Institute down the highway."

 

"Do you do anything related to music?"

 

"Nada.  Absolutely nothing."

 

"This doesn't feel to you like a loss?"

 

"I still sing every day, but only when I'm sure no one can hear me.  I have free access to all the local cloud forest reserves and in the rainy season when no one's around.  That's when I go hiking and that is when I sing, as loud as I want."

 

"Tell me about your last concert."

 

"Oh my, that was my finest hour, I think.  I was just winding up a tour that finished in Mexico City."

 

"That was headlined as the 'Fairwell Tour of the Last of the Torch-Singers.'"

 

"Well, I would like to think that other than a certain skinny French Canadian woman whom I won't name, that I could be called the last of a famous tradition, in line with such as Dusty Springfield, Julie London, Vicki Carr, Shirley Bassie, to name a few.

 

"What inspired you to give it all up?"

 

"It no longer felt real.  It never did actually, but for my voice."

 

"But for your voice."

 

"My voice never completely broke during puberty, but it gained power so that I sounded like one of the Castrati in Baroque Venice,.  I had to be taken out of school because I was being victimized by chronic bullying, so my parents got the brilliant idea of enrolling me in a music academy."

 

"At that time you still identified as female."

 

"Correct.  I was only twenty when I started performing Baroque opera."

 

"You created quite a stir."

 

"It was my voice as well as my youth.  As I said it never broke but it simply ripened into one of the most powerful contraltos known in our times.  They couldn't categorize me, really.  Had I gone on identifying as a male they would have said, 'Oh, a counter-tenor,'  Another girly-man voice on the stage.  But this is a voice, as I mentioned, such as should have died with the last Castrato."

 

"Was it hard, living as a female?"

 

"No, not really.  I'm intersex, you know.  When I was a boy growing up I felt a bit like a girl but also a bit like a boy.  When I grew breasts and started wearing bras and skirts I still felt a bit like a boy and a bit like a girl, but something other, as well, something I can't really describe."

 

"As though the whole is greater than the sum of the parts?"

 

"Why be both when you can be neither?  I've always felt more human than male or female.  I know, for the majority of people their humanity, their sense of human identity, their personal identity gets channelled through their gender identity, but this has never been my personal experience."

 

"Do you still think of yourself as transgender?"

 

"I never did."

 

"What made you switch back to a male identity?"

 

"I wanted to simplify my life.  When I retired from singing five years ago.  I mentioned that my performance in Mexico City was my last.  I felt I'd been running against a wall.  That living as a woman had come to stifle my creativity.  I thought of returning to classical and baroque but I no longer had the heart for it.  There was nothing left for me to do.  I could not reinvent myself again as a singer.  So, I opted to reinvent my gender."

 

"Hence, the mastectomies."

 

"Hence, the mastectomies."

 

"Do you feel like a man, now?"

 

"No more than I feel like a woman."

 

"How does this feel?"

 

"Well, I had to make some kind of choice, not to get over my own feelings of ambiguity, because I've never suffered from ambiguity.  You see, only the breasts marked me as a woman.  I have no ovaries, no uterus, no fallopian tubes.  No vagina.  But to live here, where people tend to be a little more conservative, I didn't want to draw attention to myself.  It was also for me a matter of accepting trade-offs.  For me, to be a woman, is to have the ability, the biological capacity of giving birth, of becoming pregnant, carrying a child to term, bearing the child, nursing it with my own breasts.  Aside from the breasts I've never had any of that.  Physically I'm male with female secondary characteristics.  But, as I was saying, I don't want to draw attention to myself here, and this country, for all it's social and economic progress is still very conservative in a lot of ways."

 

"Do they treat you differently here?"

 

"It's hard to say.  The people here are usually friendly and welcoming to visitors, but it's superficial.  They remain a closed entity I think to all outsiders.  There isn't here the kind of open and inclusive immigration policy we take for granted in Canada.  Only by marrying into the culture do you ever become part of it, and this is something I'm not prepared to do.  I mean, this has nothing to do with sexual preference, since I have enjoyed having partners of all genders, but because now I'm pretty much asexual, and you know I think I always was, really."

 

"How do you get on with the locals now?"

 

"It's live and let live. There's one fellow I see a couple of times a week.  He has a cafe at the entrance to the Cloud Forest Reserve.  We talk a lot of Spanglish.  It turns out he wants to keep his English up and he is also very accommodating with my Spanish.   So, in the cafe when it isn't busy we visit quite a bit and often his wife and baby are there so we can all visit.  I've had them over to my place several times for dinner, for drinks.  They never reciprocate, but it isn't expected.  The people here are only friends with their immediate family and people they grew up with.  All the rest are outsiders.  Most of my friends are other ex-pats, most of whom I know at the institute.  But one English teacher there is married to one of the local women and they have three beautiful children, so this has kind of opened that door a bit.  But for the most part we inhabit different worlds.  It's a bit ironic you know because one of my reasons for moving here in the first place was to find a sense of belonging, which is there for me but it exists only on it's own terms."

 

"Fame and stardom must have been quite a lonely experience for you."

 

"Well, I wasn't exactly living a lie, but it was isolating.  In my late twenties I began my crossover into pop and jazz, beginning with the songs of Jacque Brel.  Then I went off the charts, "If We Only Have Love", became my signature piece and my fame was an acknowledged fact.  But I was very lonely.  My audiences adored me of course.  I had no friends, only admirers.  This is where fame becomes a very cruel mistress.  On top of this I was living a very well-concealed lie concerning my gender.  There was a little bit of suspicion in some quarters, because, frankly, no woman singer had been knwon to deliver with such power.  But they had nothing to catch me with and I was of course very selective about whom I would undress for.  It is my good fortune that none of my few paramours has ever given me away." 

 

The interview is drawing to a close.  The red hummingbird feeder dangling nearby has not been visited, not since Irene arrived.  There were hummingbirds earlier, a small swarm fighting in midair over tepid sugar syrup.  An American tourist couple is standing at the rail to the left of the bird feeder, observing a small troop of white face monkeys in the trees nearby.  From the branches they watch them curiously, with naked pale human looking faces, slightly wizened ancient crone and wise old man faces.  The clouds have rolled in creating a viscous grey fog that obscures everything.  He almost mentions the only time he has heard one of these monkeys scream, a few months ago, outside his cabin in the jungle, where a small troop used to visit for handouts of fruit and lettuce.  One monkey, startled by his own reflection in the window, began to shriek in confused distress.  He thinks of saying something to Irene about this but instead just offers her another latte that she politely declines.  She has done her work for the day and now she must go.  She effusively says goodbye and trudges toward the exit, her canvas carry-all hanging from her shoulder like a burden of shame and embarrassment.

 

Kim tries to think of all the things he might have said to her and perhaps should have since this after all will be his final interview.  She leaves the cafe and he orders a chocolate brownie slathered in fudge sauce and ice cream.  The ice cream is made locally, a short walk from his small cabin in the forest.  Every day he sees the cows that produce the milk and cream that make the ice cream, yogurt and cheese that Kim delights to eat here.  He has remained steadfastly thin and he still never worries about his weight.  He left his laptop at home and suddenly wants to send his son an e-mail.  No one knows that he is a father, or that he only learned about his son's existence just before deciding to have his breasts removed.  And not until this little magazine article is published are they even going to know that the legendary Kim Salinger now lives as a man in this famous international cloud forest.  He could never tell this pretty journalist the whole truth.  He knows this about interviews with glamorous journalists, to give

them just a little bit less than what they want to hear and even less than to what they feel entitled.  His son Joel is coming here in two months to see his father.  He remembers fondly the mother of his son, Lena, his former manager.  Joel doesn't know that his father used to be a woman, a famous singer, the Great Kim Salinger.  He has probably never even heard of her.  He is twenty-five now and in university studying to be a pharmacist.  He mentioned in his most recent e-mail that he has a particular interest in hormonal treatments for gender reassignment.  Kim doesn't know what he is going to say to his son.  Briefly the sun breaks through, casting its magical incandescence on the surrounding trees.  A shining purple hummingbird, known as a Violet Sabre Wing, appears at the feeder nearby, the first to appear since Irene's visit.  The hummingbird hovers, then darts, then comes another, slightly smaller, shining green with magenta throat and azure head, then drab and grey looking as he changes his angle and dodges the querulous thrust of his rival's bill.  The sun disappears as suddenly as it had appeared and in the drab light arrive more hummingbirds, squabbling, hovering, darting and competing for their little sip of artificial nectar.  Kim fills his face with more brownie and ice cream and feels secretely satisfied that the hummingbirds, the best part of his visit here, did not appear till after Irene the glamorous Canadian journalist finished the interview and left.  He does want them to be here for Joel when he arrives here in two months.  He savours the last bite of brownie, the final mouthful of ice cream, then orders from the beautiful Yolanda his third and final cafe Americano.

 

There is a change in the music.  Usually they play Mozart and Vivaldi in the mornings.  But this is different.  It isn't classical and suddenly he knows.  There is no mistaking, neither the lyrics or the voice.  The last song she ever sang in public, her shining satin ivory gown trailing around her like the glory of God in Mexico City:

 

 If we only have love
Then tomorrow will dawn
And the days of our years
Will rise on that morn
If we only have love
To embrace without fears
We will kiss with our eyes
We will sleep without tears

 

He has forgotten how good he sounded, not having heard his own recordings in two or three years.  He shivers as though a cold wind has just blown in from the distant Pacific.

If we only have love
With our arms open wide
Then the young and the old
Will stand at our side
If we only have love
Love that's falling like rain
Then the parched desert earth
Will grow green again

He begins singing with himself, his live voice deeper, more resonant, a little more masculine than his recorded echo, and he knows this is the live recording of his final performance in Mexico City.  How did they get this recording?  But how couldn't they?  Have they guessed?  Has he blown his cover?

 

If we only have love
For the hymn that we shout
For the song that we sing
Then we'll have a way out
If we only have love
We can reach those in pain
We can heal all our wounds
We can use our own names

 

He forgets where he is, his voice rising as though of it's own volition and the spirit of song possesses him, playing him like a violin or a cello.

If we only have love
We can melt all the guns
And then give the new world
To our daughters and sons
If we only have love
Then Jerusalem stands
And then death has no shadow
There are no foreign lands
If we only have love
We will never bow down
We'll be tall as the pines
Neither heroes nor clowns
If we only have love
Then we'll only be men
And we'll drink from the Grail
To be born once again
Then with nothing at all
But the little we are
We'll have conquered all time
All space, the sun, and the stars.

 

Kim is the only customer present.  Yolanda who has been standing staring stupidly at him is the only server, her reserve and elegance swallowed alive in this thrall of rapture and wonder.

"Don Kim, usted canta muy bonito," (Kim, sir, you sing beautifully) she whispers in awe, then looks over at the violet sabre wing hummingbird that has returned to the feeder.  She stands watching the bird for a while, then, removing his soiled plate from his table gives Kim a brief, sly sideways glance and returns silently into the cafe.  The sun disappears again and the wind blows more clouds and mist against the solid green mountain he is living on.

 

A Visit From Mother Teresa

Well, she was here in spirit.  This all happened this morning.  I had the morning off and needed a little nap time.  Shortly after getting up I was getting to work on my online university course when I heard several women chattering in the hallway.  Curious and a little annoyed by the racket I looked out the door to see what was going on when two small women wearing bed sheet saris and with the loveliest and friendliest faces approached me and asked if they could stop in to chat.  At first I declined but I recognized their habit, the uniform of the Missionaries of Charity, the order founded by Mother Teresa in the slums of Calcutta.  I invited them in.

They seemed fascinated by all my art on the walls and one of them, who seemed clearly the spokesperson of the duo asked me a lot of questions about what I do.  I told them honestly that I'm ordinarily at work Monday mornings and that I was also working on my university course.  We talked about travel in Latin America and I learned that the spokes sister was fluent in Spanish, having spent several years in Venezuela so we chatted for a while in Spanish which I interpreted for her companion sister who is from the Philippines.  Spokes Sister is from India.

Following our chat we prayed together and they gave me a little card with Mother Teresa's face on one side and a prayer in Spanish on the other.  I have absolutely no regret about receiving both sisters into my home and I would do this again.  It was like being visited by Christ himself and I said this to them as the were leaving.  I am not a Catholic and I do harbour my share of cynicism towards the  Roman Institution.  Whether pedophile priests or their barmy prolife dogma and their objectionable anti gay and anti women stances and the centuries of bloodshed, corruption and abuse of power that this institution has under its white skirts it simply amazes me that there are still people who would dare defend the Roman Catholic Church as being God's only true representative.  By their fruits you shall know them.  And Mother Teresa defended and upheld the whole rotten kit and caboodle.

She was a woman who lived her faith, one of thousands, perhaps millions of faithful Catholics, who regardless of the rot and corruption of the institution they represent have accurately, faithfully and lovingly lived in their own times the life of Christ.  I have a friend who spent six weeks with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, I believe in 1983.  She returned glowing.

I understand that Mother Teresa went through years of spiritual, moral and emotional agony about her own loss of faith.  She went through a prolonged dark night of the soul while never flinching once on her faithfulness towards the God she doubted and the poor to whose care and wellbeing she had dedicated herself.  I also have absolutely no time for the spurious and slanderous nonsense written by Christopher Hitchens about Mother Teresa in his famous screed "Missionary Position."  Himself a bitter atheist why would he find anything good in the life of someone who professed to love a God he not only did not believe in but would spare no effort to discredit?

To this day Mother Teresa, along with two other prominent Catholics, Jean Vanier, the founder of L'Arche and Henri Nouwen, Catholic priest and writer, has had probably the strongest influence on the way I live and follow Christ, along with Simone Weil, Ghandi, Dietrich Bonheoffer and Martin Luther King.  What has remained constant about this legacy I have inherited from these ones is in the importance of following Christ through loving others, that really our love of God and our love of our fellow human being are absolutely inseparable.  For me it is attempting to reach out to others in a spirit of love and reconciliation that helps keep Christ alive and resurrected for me and to this I owe these people's example and influence.

I especially remember the joy and the humility and the good humour of the two sisters who visited to me and I hope that together we will find and enjoy fellowship in the hereafter, and I would also gladly invite them again to chat and pray with me here in my little subsidized apartment.

Watch Yourself

That is advice that you should never give to a narcissist.  Chances are he already is watching himself.  But this post isn't specifically about narcissists, but more in reference to something I heard this morning on the radio.  I was stranded a bit later than usual this morning because I was doing my laundry, as I usually do on Sunday mornings (afternoons if I've slept too late) and the machine malfunctioned.  Long story short I had to put my wet clothes through an extra dry cycle making me substantially late for church this morning.

Spending extra time at home this morning also came with benefits.  I had time to work on a painting.  I also listened to more of "The Sunday Edition" than I otherwise would have.  This is a very interesting and erudite current affairs program broadcast Sunday mornings on CBC Radio One from nine to eleven.  So, I got to hear about the big retrospective exhibit at the National Gallery in Ottawa of the paintings of Christopher Pratt an iconic Canadian artist who recently died. 

This post isn't specifically about Christopher Pratt and if you'd like to know what his art was like all you have to do is ask Uncle Google.  I was more concerned by something he was alleged to have said and only wished I could somehow respond to it, but really it was one of those things that one needs time to digest before regurgitating.

This is his claim, according to the narrator: that humans are inherently evil and dogs are inherently good.  Uh-huh.  Now, I don't have anything against dogs.  I am not huge on dogs, and I am not what you would call a dog-person.  But I still, nonetheless, like dogs.  Well, I like some dogs.  I like nice friendly dogs that wag their tails and like to be petted and won't threaten, or bite or bark at me.  So really it depends on the dog.

Today while walking in the forest of Pacific Spirit Park near UBC I came across a lovely friendly dog, I think one of those obscure Australian breeds, maybe an Australian shepherd, with a huge tree branch in his mouth and he came over for a pat or three, often just narrowly avoiding knocking me over with his branch.  He was a lovely dog, a bit smelly but that's part of being a dog.  Three years ago in the same forest I had to fight off a huge vicious dog with a big tree branch because he clearly wanted to do some very unkind things to be.  Don't try to tell me that all dogs are basically good.

And don't tell me that we humans are inherently evil.  We have, of course, a huge capacity for evil (Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, to name a few.)  We have also a huge capacity for good (Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jane Goodall, to name a few.)

I have encountered human beings who appeared to be downright evil.  I have encountered dogs that appear to be downright evil.  So then, why, do you ask, why do humans do so many bad things to each other, to other creatures and to the planet that dogs don't.  Stupid, stupid question if one has ever been asked.  Humans have certain attributes that dogs lack: extremely high intelligence and hands with opposable thumbs, to begin with.  Bad dogs can't do a lot of harm because they do not have the resources, but try and put six badly trained pit bulls in a pack and let them run loose in a suburban neighbourhood and then try to convince me that dogs are inherently good.  They are dogs.  They are not inherently good or evil.  We are humans.  We are not inherently good or evil.  But we are greatly capable of doing very good and very evil things and these same things, good and evil, often come out of the same people.

Christopher Pratt did a lengthy gig as a war artist during the Second World War.  I have seen some of his drawings of the cadavers of Auschwitz victims being unearthed.  Heart rending and stomach churning and not suitable talk for the dinner table.  After months and years of seeing and visually recording these and other horrors is it any wonder that Mr. Pratt would take such a fatuous and such a sweepingly black and white view both of humans and canines?

The Swiss Protestant religious reformer John Calvin believed firmly in the absolute depravity of man (sic), that apart from divine intervention in our lives that we were all lost and condemned to hell, ourselves being incurably and unredeemably evil.  As an Anglican I do not subscribe to this way of thinking.  I see us as being flawed and broken and in need of redemption and healing but I also believe that humans are basically capable equally of good and evil and so much depends on how and what we choose to do with our lives.  I did spend two  years in a fundamentalist American Presbyterian church, but here in Vancouver, and eventually left after ultimately choking on their extreme narrow views.  Shortly before leaving I was having a coffee conversation with a member of said church and she mentioned that we were all of course unconditionally depraved.  I replied by mentioning a passage in the Book of Acts.  St. Paul and all his companions were shipwrecked by a storm and washed onto the shores of the island of Malta.  The inhabitants showed them every kindness, taking them into their homes, binding their wounds, warming and feeding them.  One other thing.  Paul and some of his companions were Christians.  None of the islanders taking care of them were.

These Boots Are Made For Walkin'

Anyone remember that song, made famous by Frank Sinatra's daughter, Nancy Sinatra?  Nancy WHO?  Anyway she sang about boots back in the sixties.  Footwear.  I remember when power boots made a comeback maybe ten years ago.  Suddenly young women everywhere were strutting around in them.  Not that I care.  I only really began to notice one day when I was walking downtown--I think I had just left the library--and I heard what sounded distinctly like a team of Clydesdale horses trotting on cobblestones.  Only the ground was starting to shake.  I turned around and there was a very pretty Japanese girl, perhaps all of nineteen years old, likely an international student, and dressed and made up to the nines.  She could have passed for a pop singer or a high class tart but everything about her was China-doll perfect except for one little detail.  Those boots.  That's what was making the ground shake.  I never would have imagined that such a tiny person, perhaps weighing just slightly over one hundred pounds could make such a frightening racket while walking.

Those boots were soon everywhere.  It became an acoustic terror venturing outside even in the daytime.  The boots are no longer the trend they once were.  In fact, I'll bet you doughnuts to pesos that no self-respecting fashion victim (how's that for an oxymoron?)  would be caught dead wearing boots like that, which always seemed to go over the knees, like she was going fly-fishing.  Somehow shoe technology has mastered the art of concentrating the ear-shattering racket into small wooden heels.  You know the kind.  They do professional Flamenco dancers proud.  And none of these women wearing these ridiculous noise-makers on the back of their feet seem to have a clue nor the remotest trace of self-consciousness or embarrassment about the industrial racket they are with each footstep making.  I think for some there is even a sick sense of power they are feeling.  I am woman, hear me stomp.

Then there's this squeaky shoe trend for toddlers.  The first time I heard them I was at work in the community with a client.  We were sitting in a poor excuse for a coffee shop in a community centre where I heard what at first sounded like an obsessive compulsive (convulsive?) child carrying around a squeaky toy that he had to show off for all to hear.  I looked a bit closer and said child, probably all of two years old or less (I understand that kids at that age have the IQ of a Chihuahua) looking up at me with the sweetest wondering eyes and all I could do was smile and say wow you're mom is always going to know where you are with those little shoes.  I forgot to add that she might have better luck with an electronic monitoring bracelet.  Squeaky shoes on little kids ought to be banned.  They are maddening.  Be a responsible parent and just keep an eye on your goddam child if you don't want her getting lost.  Or put him on a leash.

My final invective award goes to one of the most unfortunate trends in sports footwear.  The neon green running shoe.  Come on you guys, who would really be caught dead wearing anything so ugly and ridiculous.  But young guys are wearing them.  They're everywhere!  The first time I saw someone wearing them maybe last year or almost two years ago I wanted to lay a consoling hand on his shoulder and say "may your shoes wear out long before the fashion does."  I understand the excuse for this ugly footwear is so car drivers can see you at night.  Or maybe you could quit running in traffic and stay on the sidewalk.  But that's where pedestrians belong and some of us do not take kindly to being nearly run over by joggers, especially people with disabilities or elderly people walking with a cane or a walker.

Full disclosure here: I cannot remember the last time I bought shoes.  I have been gradually trying to wear out what I already have before I make any new purchases and I have to admit that my first colour choice is black, even for runners, except for a pair of out of fashion white joggers that still have a lot of life left in them.  Anyway I don't expect people to look at my feet, but rather my face and when we are talking to each other, especially in the eye.

A Peek At My Webpage And It Really Is For The Birds

Hey everybody:

Today's post is brought to you by some of my favourite birds: peacocks and pheasants as interpreted in some of my paintings.  Peacocks, by the way are pheasants.  They're just particularly well-dressed pheasants. You didn't know I'm an artist?  Well, now you do.  I am unfortunately not prepared to internationally market my paintings but should any of you my dear readers be living in or near Vancouver, Canada, and would like to consider my art as part of your home or work space please let me know.  Simply leave your contact information on the comments section and we'll see what we can arrange.  Or you could look at my website which also has on the last page my contact info: http://www.thesearepaintings.googlepages.com

or if the link doesn't work just cut and paste thesearepaintings.googlepages.com
on the url bar upstairs :-)

 

 

1.   2001-2006

"Peacock in Arabesque"

acrylic,  48"x36"

 

 Shining in the night

guarding eternal portals

where we must enter

 

 

 

2.   2005-2006

"White Peacock"

acrylic,   48"x36

SOLD

 

 The glory of white

speaks in distinct metaphor

of our soul's longing 

 

 

 

 

3.   2006

"Pavo real (Royal Turkey)"

acrylic, 18"x24"

 

Peacock a cliche

of proud arrogant splendour

a royal turkey 

  

William Blake said in his Proverbs of Hell that the "Pride of the Peacock is the Glory of God."  This brings to mind how often we project our own human characterisitics onto other living things.

Instead of seeing the unmatched beauty of these gorgeous birds our vision is often eclipsed by conferring onto them  our own flaws and weaknesses of pride, vainglory and vanity. 

Here is another take on the peacock that I enjoy: they have historically been regarded as symbols of the resurrection of Christ and as symbols of healing, purity and eternal life.

Peacocks for me beg to be painted.  I have never tackled a subject so challenging nor from which in each painting I've learned something new about colour, composition and light.

I don't see the peacock as a proud bird and I am sure that they never look at mirrors.  Perhaps they can serve as a mirror for us to look into.

 

4.   2004

"Javanese Green Peacock"

 Peacock, Dragon Bird

you bronze and golden armour

has blinded tigers

 

 

The Green Peafowl is not widely known in the west.  There are three sub-species ranging from Indonesia in the east to Burma in the west.  They are slightly larger than their blue cousins, with longer neck and legs.  Their plumage is also more brilliant and more iridescent.  They are more difficult to keep in captivity because they are delicate and also because the males are particularly savage.  They will fight each other to the death, attack other birds and other animals and will even go after people.

 

 

 

 5.   2007

"Blood Orange"

acrylic,   36"x24"

 

 Sacrificial fires

will not refuse offerings

made in faith and love

 

 

 

6.   2005

"Enigma"

acrylic, 48"x36"

 

The peacock watches

and the raven desires the

red pomegranate 

 

 

 

7.   2003

"Vigil"

acrylic,   48"x36"

 

They watch together,

peacock, candle flame and

their dark offspring shadow

 

 

 

8.   2000-2002

"Perigrinaje"

acrylic,   36"x24"

 

Their colours shining

in this steep mountain ascent

above, eagles soar

 

 

 

9.   2003

"Golden Pheasants on the Manicured Lawn of Heaven"

acrylic, 48"x36"

 

On eternal lawns

they shine in endless daylight

without fear or dread

 

 

 

10.   2005

"Cardinal Points"

acrylic, 48"x36"

 

                                        They rule us unseen
                                   dancing across fiery lawn

that ordain our lives

 

 

 

11.   2008

 "El pavo real que haya perdido el camino a Alajuela"

acrylic,   30"X20"

 

 

  12.   2008

                           "Dragon Bird with Orchids"                             

                                         acrylic,   30"x30"

 

         

 

13.   2008

"Himalayan Monal"

      acrilic, 22" x 28"     

Essay on Urbanization In Latin America

This is the essay I wrote last night for an online university course I am taking through Coursera.  It is about Latin American culture.  This is an interesting course but the pages are dreadfully designed, easy to get lost on and the links often do not work.  There have been many complaints from students about this.  For me it is not a huge issue because I do not need the university credits, being now well into my fifties and not really interested in graduating in anything.  A client I had coffee with today perspicaciously put it when he said that instead of wanting to devote a lot of time and expense to an uncertain course in university I would rather enjoy my remaining good health and travel.  On the other hand I might morph into a super senior and still be trekking in exotic wilderness while studying Hispanic Literature in forty years (when I am ninety-eight).

 

Urbanization has helped Latin American countries develop in certain directions, especially economically.  Mexico City has been rapidly growing since after the Second World War and more quickly in the past twenty years as campesinos and small town dwellers have been moving to the Distrito Federal in search of better employment and education options and a better quality of life.  This dynamic has particularly increased since the ratification of NAFTA in 1994.  Other major cities in Mexico and elsewhere have been undergoing the same kind of migration: Monterrey and Guadalajara in the case of Mexico, Lima in the case of Peru, Santiago in the case of Chile.  Particularly Mexico has been undergoing a sizeable emerging middle class because of this new prosperity and there is a flourishing of business and commerce in the city with a near explosion of shops, boutiques, restaurants and chain stores and elsewhere, for example in Puebla with the Volkswagen plant.

However the economic blessing has not been evenly distributed and there remain sizable populations and social classes in Mexico City that are not feeling the love.  Although Mexico may boast of a cradle to grave welfare state it is not strongly enforced and there remains a significant lack of infrastructure.  Neoliberal economics have made quality health care the province of the moneyed and privileged classes while the poor have to settle for health care of a substandard quality in community health clinics and hospitals.  Mental health care is particularly absent in Mexico City.  There are institutions and mental health care workers but the tendency is to lock mental health sufferers in institutions and keep them isolated from society.

I have noticed in my travels in Mexico, especially in my visits to Mexico City, Puebla and San Cristobal de las Casas a large population of child, mother and child, family and grandmother beggars.  In the case of the grandmother beggars they have usually been physically abused by their children and or abandoned by their own families--in many cases  their sons and grandsons have had to emigrate to the US and Canada as economic migrants and the existing social infrastructure has not been sufficiently strong or enforced to be able to help them and they have to fend for themselves begging on the streets.  I have often encountered child beggars on the streets and child vendors on the subway as well as mothers with children and entire families begging or vending on the sidewalks.  It is very clear that the new prosperity has left them untouched.

I do find it difficult when Venezuela, Ecuador and Cuba are widely condemned for leftist and anti-trade policies while seeking to improve the quality of life for their own people in terms of housing, education and health care, but these reforms often occur at the expense of economic development and trade inversion.  There is also the question of a lack of basic rights and freedoms in some of these countries, notably in Cuba.

What needs to be grasped is there is more to development than a prosperous economy.  The wealth needs to be fairly and justly redistributed to guarantee that no citizen is left behind.  Even though equal opportunity is good and laudable room also needs to be made for less unequal outcomes, otherwise crime and social deterioration will fester and the general quality of life index for the country is going to lower considerably.

Urbanization has been great for generating income and creating business but does virtually nothing to improve the general quality of life for all citizens.  For this to happen it is essential to develop a strong state with strong institutions that guarantee the protection and wellbeing of all citizens and the rule of law.

During My Free Time I'm A Douchebag So Get Over It!

Yes, working with the public.  And having a life.  In the same community.  Boundaries can be tricky.  If you happen to be a barista or waiter who is quite popular with customers and if some of these same patrons are likely to run into you during your time off what is one supposed to do?  Being a frequent user of cafes, less now than when I was younger, I have often encountered workers off duty.  Our form of interaction could run the full range, one might say.  Some are definitely friendly.  They don't only like you for tipping well and not leaving a mess to clean up, they really do like you and they are absolutely great people.  This hasn't happened often, but it has happened and I have been pleasantly surprised with some fine new friends I've made because of this.

Many don't even know who I am.  I am one of hundreds with whom they have to interact every day and get paid an unliveable wage for it.  I don't expect them to like me or recognize me.  I don't try to greet them, I let them walk by and continue living their lives and enjoying their limited free time.  And why should they have to be nice to me when they are not being paid for it?

On two occasions only was I greeted with outright hostility.  And I do have to admit that I already put my foot in it so really in a way I deserved it.  The first time was with a young woman, a waitress who seemed to hate almost everyone.  I was a regular in a very popular eastside café where she worked.  I was also well-liked by staff, some of whom were also personal friends of mine.  One evening I wandered inside said café and it turned out that she was occupying, with a friend, the next table.  Just as I was taking my seat I smiled her way and said hi and how are you.  She glared up at me like she was just about to start hurling feces at me and shouted, "I am your waitress.  I get paid to be nice to you.  I'm not working right now so leave me alone."

I moved across the room.  The waitress in the section wanted to know why I moved and if there was anything bothering me.  I told her what happened and she told me that she would take care of it.  I asked her please not to make an issue of it with her and she simply replied "You are one of our best customers and she's gotten away with way too much around here.  Let me take care of it."

She was fired and I never saw her again, at least not for many years.  Then one day, three years ago, just after work I was enjoying a summer walk along a street full of trees.  I was talking on the phone with one of my supervisors who was updating me about one of my clients.  A woman on a bike stopped to talk with me, just when I was in the middle of talking about some personal details about said client.  I didn't have a clue who this person was.  Perhaps she was a tourist and wanted directions.  It seemed quite important to her that we talk so I asked my supervisor to excuse me for a moment.  The woman identified herself and apologized for how she treated me that evening seventeen years ago and then I knew her.  I gave her a big wide smile and accepted her apology and thanked her from the bottom of my heart for stopping to talk with me.  It was rather interesting telling my supervisor what had just occurred.

I also work with the public in my capacity as a mental health peer support worker.  I sometimes run into my clients and former clients out in the community.  Some even live in my apartment building.  I have to be friendly, well, nice, okay, let's say civil.  Today I saw one in the local No Frills supermarket (affectionately known as Cheap Thrills), a tall young man in front of me at the check out with his mother.  We had a brief nice kind of chat and he seemed appreciative of the support I gave him while he was a patient at one of the psychiatric of facilities that employ me.  I was also struggling to be gracious under pressure.  I was kept late in my previous gig as my site supervisor and I had a lot of unexpected work to take care of and I had to get over to another part of town to meet my next client.

I am writing this because today I was thinking of an interview I had for a position at a social services agency for street youth.  One of the questions  I was asked was how I would respond if I was walking by a local coffee shop and one of my clients ran over to me, on my free time, and insisted she had to talk to me right away about something.  I replied that I would still have given her about five minutes to find out what was happening, then I would tell her which co-worker to talk to or I would even phone that co-worker for her, then reassure her that everything would be taken care of and get on with my day.  I did not get the job.  I still think it was a good answer.

People who work out in the public are particularly vulnerable and are entitled to their privacy and should not be expected to make like your best friend forever while they are off duty. 

When the public interact with you at work they are often going to be affected and impacted by you negatively or positively.  If you project a particularly warm persona and have gained the trust and affection of your clients then you should expect them to be treated with civility if you should happen to stumble across them in the Laundromat.  You don't have to go out for a dish of poutine with them but don't mess with their heads by suddenly ignoring them or telling them to please go away and leave you in your misery.
But please be kind.  And patrons, please be respectful.

Waste Of Ink

I don't think I have written about this yet on my blog.  This is about tattoos.  That's right: tramp stamps, as they used to be called on women.  Or three dimensional tags.  I see tattoos as graffiti.  But graffiti can be easily washed off or painted over.  The process of getting rid of a tattoo is expensive, difficult and not very pleasant. 

Am I generally against tattoos?  Yes.  Do I think people should stop getting them?  I would be delighted. Am I going to do anything to stop them?  Waste of time.  They're going to do it anyway and there is no cure for stupidity, especially in the young and immature.

I must sound like quite the grumpy old fart.  Except for one thing.  I have never liked or been in favour of tattoos.  To me human skin is already beautiful.  It is not canvas.  It is there to protect our bodies.  If you need to tag your beautiful young skin with ink graffiti because you don't have a personality, don't know who you are, or simply want to emulate your favourite bad ass rock star then I would say you have a lot of growing to do.

The medium is the message.  A design that would look beautiful on paper or canvas suddenly becomes sinister, gross and ugly on human skin.  It is a way of defacing yourself.  To me, if you are wearing a tattoo then you are telling me that you hate yourself.  If you are wearing a whole sleeve of tattoos on one arm you should seek professional help.  If you have both arms covered in sleeve tattoos, just stay out of Belgium because you might be so far gone that you would perfectly qualify for their voluntary euthanasia laws.  Or maybe Belgium is just where you ought to be and don't forget to have a mouthful of chocolate before you die.

Tattoos really came into vogue in the late eighties and early nineties.  Before that they were as I previously mentioned tramp stamps.  Symbols of jailhouse, army and street crime.  They were not considered nice or beautiful.  A tattoo was called the devil's mark, a permanent indication that you hate society, that you will do what ever the F-You-See-K you want and the hell with everyone else.

But bad ass has gone mainstream.  It went mainstream a long time ago, which is to say that it is no longer bad ass, just as cool is no longer cool because everyone now is cool.  I should add that I have met some very fine people who also happen to wear tattoos.  I still think they're idiots.  But despite being idiots they are also lovely people.  But such is our human nature.  I am also considered by many (well, okay, by some...  A few?  One or two, maybe.  Okay, my mom, she thinks I'm nice when she's not pissed off at me, but she's been dead for a while and you can read more about her and my dad in yesterday's post)  to be a lovely person despite my tendency of making snarky remarks and writing biting posts about human foibles.

But you know the worst thing about tattoos?  They age horribly. As you get old and your skin gets old your lovely bad ass ink is going to age with you and it is not going to look pretty.  It is going to lose its colour, its form and by the time you are seventy (if you have survived your youthful overindulgences) they will be ugly black and gray smears on your skin.  I have guessed that with twenty-five percent of people younger than forty-five getting themselves inked, in another fifty years or so our nursing homes are not going to be a pretty site.

My Awful Parents

Well, they weren't really that awful.  I think they did their very best if you factor in a few details:

1. My father was an alcoholic.
2. My mother was already five months gone with my older brother when they tied the knot.  This was in 1952 when abortion was not that available.  On the other hand, I learned after her death from an aunt of mine that Mom had an abortion I think in 1950 or so and it might not be the only one.
3. They were both really young for marriage, Dad was twenty-four and Mom was twenty-one.
They were not well-educated.  Dad dropped out at grade nine, Mom at grade eleven.
4. My mother had an incredibly short fuse.  My father was passive aggressive.  Made for each other.

My parents met in May, 1952, I think in a beer parlour and before they knew it Mom was pregnant with my brother and five months later they were married.  I wondered as a child why there were no photos on display in the house of my parents' wedding, and why my maternal grandparents didn't come out from Saskatchewan to attend.  It turns out the official excuse was, being farmers, and the fact that my parents were married September 17, they would have been in the middle of the wheat harvest.  Of course.  There was no wedding in white.  My mother did where a dress suit for the day, "off-white" as she called it and the one photo I saw featured both my parents standing on a stage with supportive siblings at their side.  I never once heard of their celebrating or even acknowledging their anniversary.  This was simply an aberration we had learned about on TV shows.

Until I was about eight years old we all seemed rather happy.  My father was an auto mechanic and my mother was a home maker, though she also worked part time in stores and supermarkets as a product demonstrator.

We lived for seven years in a two bedroom bungalow on an acre of land.  My brother and I shared a bedroom.  I was nine when we moved to a larger, split-level house on a small corner lot in a spanking new subdivision.  We had three bedrooms and my brother and I each had our own room.  My brother was approaching puberty and became frequently and very violent towards me.  My mother had always hit us both, often, and her punishments were often whirlwinds of fury.  She was truly frightening.  My father wasn't often one to hit, except occasionally across the face.  Twice he severely beat my brother, once for chopping down the young pear tree belonging to our neighbours and once for stealing.  My father also was in the habit of sometimes molesting me, usually in the mornings while I was getting dressed.  Their marriage was tanking.  He was being unfaithful.  He gave my mother crabs.

Knowing what we know now I think even then the child welfare authorities would have apprehended me had the full story come out of the way they were mistreating me.  I accepted it as normal if very upsetting.  I remember following one beating I shut myself in my bedroom and cried for two hours.  Not even my father's threats to give me something to really cry about were enough to silence me.  He didn't touch me.

My family made me ill.  It was on their account that I suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, such symptoms as were manifesting even when I was a kid but became only properly diagnosed when I was in my forties.

In the early nineties I got hold of Susan Forward's book "Toxic Parents."  Reading this helped me make sence of the emotional abuse, especially of how my mother tried to transform me into a small adult to look after her emotional needs after my father left when I was thirteen.

Both my parents are long dead.  I have memories of both that I love and hold dear but I will never forget the abuse.  My body and soul together forbid this, though to the best of my ability I know I have forgiven them.  I only wish I could say that I miss them.  I do not.  For the first time in my life I feel truly safe.

Four Approaches

 Hi Kerry:

It's me again.  I am still noticing people sleeping on the sidewalks here in our dear city of Vancouver.  This morning when I was setting out to go to church (Anglican if you must ask) I noticed a sleeping bag just next to the front door of my building with what appeared to be a human being zipped up inside.  These encounters for me are particularly resonant because as you know I was myself homeless, not street homeless since I had a lot of friends and some family (my father) at the time with whom I could couch surf, but it was still scary enough.

I suffer from survivor guilt.  I might have mentioned that I worked for a brief time, one year, at Lookout Emergency Aid Society in their homeless shelters.  This was for me an interesting, challenging, difficult and ironical transition back into the work force, given that just three years before I was myself homeless.  I couldn't last working there.  The graveyard shifts, lack of security and very difficult and burnt-out coworkers on top of my then emotional fragility as I was still in recovery from post traumatic stress disorder made it impossible for me to stay on.  But I also learned, shall we say, some very useful combat skills that have done me well in finding and establishing myself in other employment (I believe I already mentioned that I have been a mental health peer support worker for the past ten years now.

When I worked at Lookout the human collateral damage was already manifesting from the brutal cutbacks the newly elected BC Liberal Party had wreaked on our social welfare system.  I was happily unaffected because I had the good luck of finding employment and getting off of social assistance before they were able to hurt me further.  But the statistics that I helped compile for turnaways was something frightening and I knew that a secure way of life that I had once taken for granted living in Canada was over and that human life in a social, political and economic climate of global capitalism and neo-liberalism had become something very cheap and worthless.

Various band aids have since been applied to the wound but it is really too deep and cancerous for easy treatment and healing.  Even now, twelve years later, we still have street homelessness in this city.  This was never a problem till the nineties when the neoliberal "reforms" began.

Today I was having coffee with a friend from Mexico.  A street person came inside the café and asked me for a dollar so he could buy a coffee.  I offered instead to buy him a coffee and something to eat.  He declined after making a show of interest in the food selections and left the café with nothing.  Of course it is more than a little likely that he really wanted the money for something else, perhaps street drugs, or cigarettes.

My Mexican friend, who has lived in Canada for the past four years, asked me why the government isn't helping this man.  I explained to him about the cuts in service and many of the other hidden causes of street homelessness and poverty, some of which I suffered from: undiagnosed mental health issues, emotional exhaustion, substance abuse, divorce or other family rejection and breakdown, a disintegration of one's support and social network, sometimes due to circumstances beyond one's control, the incredibly high cost of housing, low wages, chronic underemployment, to name but a few.

It is also unfortunate that both our provincial and federal levels of government have remained intentionally deaf, blind, intransigent and absolutely callous towards the plight of our most vulnerable citizens.  I am deeply saddened and appalled by the lack of political will and the lack of action to remedy what has become a human rights debacle in this country and an international embarrassment.

The neoliberal reforms have really hurt us.  They have not only traumatized those too weak or incompatible with capitalism and global competition to be able to keep up.  This neo-Darwinist survival of the fittest climate degrades and dehumanizes all of us.  It is simply traumatizing seeing others suffer for the crimes of our governments while many of us are completely powerless to be able to offer a remedy.  This is beyond cruel.  We need government action and before that can happen we need political will.

I am not criticizing you or the civic government by the way.  I think it is completely laudable what you, our mayor Gregor, and City Council have been doing to create housing for our homeless population.  More of course needs to be done and I really wish I could do something besides email you about this as I am sure you must get pretty tired of reading this.

In conclusion here are the kinds of changes I would like to see in the way that social assistance services are delivered in this country:

1.  Housing First.  Canada needs to accept and promote safe and secure housing for all Canadians as an inalienable human right and we need to develop a national housing strategy in this country.

2.  Raise the Rates.  Welfare is not survivable.  It is not even subsistible (new word, I just invented it).

3.  Open and develop new and workable strategies for preparing and training people for employment.  I like the carrot on the stick approach.  Instead of denying people welfare for not looking for work (a human rights violation) pay them a premium of two or three hundred dollars extra a month for seeking employment and enrolling in job training.

4.  Publically subsidize all post-secondary education in this country, or at least for those who live on a modest income.  This includes trades, technical, vocational, and all college and university education up to and including Masters Degrees and Doctorates.  It may be hard to believe but some people have fallen through the cracks because they have the brains, gifts and the inclination towards higher education but no money, and no support and neither are they going to do well in other forms of work. 

All these things are doable and achievable and will only benefit us as a society.

Thank you as always.  If you don't mind I am going to put this letter on my blog.

I know that you are doing the best you can with little to work with.  If sharing this letter with others might help then please pass it on.

all the best

Aaron

The Pollyanna Page

Thanksgiving is coming up in three weeks (where does the time go?) and this weekend summer seems to be getting its last kick at the can before the fall equinox  Monday.  Given that I am feeling mildly wiped out from a cold masking as allergies, or allergies masking as a cold, I began this day searching my mental rolodex for some things to be thankful for.  You know, while out walking today I came up with One Hundred things to be thankful for?  And I feel pretty good now, if a little under the weather.  In therapy and recovery circles where I work and sometimes inhabit there is a tendency these days to encourage people to be thankful, to have gratitude even if they do not believe in God (no matter how we conceive her to be) that it is going to be good for their mental health.  And, sorry to any atheists who might happen to be reading this right now but there is also something about the act of thanksgiving, of having gratitude, that summons God forth from the shadows to which we usually exile him and then he becomes more present and shelters us beneath the shadow of his wings. 

This is a very personal list.  I am not going to try for something generic or proscriptive as that could come across as sanctimonious hectoring and I do that enough already in other parts of this damn blog.  So here goes....

I am thankful for:

1.  being alive
2.  the pleasure of breathing
3.  that I can see
4,  for the pleasure of colour
5.  that I can hear
6.  for the pleasure of music
7.  for the pleasure of birdsong
8.  for the pleasure of the sound of the wind in the leaves
9.  for the sound of the surf
10. for the ability to hear others speak
11. for my voice
12. that I can speak forth my thoughts
13. for the pleasure of singing
14. for the pleasure of laughter
15. for the ability to taste good food and good drink
16. for the sense of smell
17. for the tactile feel through my fingertips
18. for my mind
19. for my imagination
20. for memory
21. for the ability to work things out in a logical rational order
22. for good mental health
23  for the ability to walk
24  for the pleasure of long walks
25  for the easy natural exercise of walking
26  for good robust health
27  for the availability for free and accessible health care
28  for the many technological advances in health care
29  for the huge advances in good mental health care
30  for human rights
31  that I live in a country where almost all the fundamental human rights are respected and upheld
32  for freedom
33  that even though our rights and freedoms can be fragile we are able to work and fight to preserve and improve them
34  for political freedom
35  for religious freedom
36  for freedom of thought and expression
37  for art
38  for my artistic abilities and achievements
39  for the public art and murals in this city
40  for the rich diversity of people, cultures and ethnicities and languages in this city
41  for my ability to speak another language (Spanish) besides English
42  for the ability to learn
43  for the opportunity to learn
44  for the availability of education
45  for free online university education
46  for Coursera
47  that I am already well into my second free university course through Coursera, Latin American Culture.
48  that I successfully finished and passed a university course through Coursera about gender studies given by the Autonomous University of Barcelona
49  that I was able to successfully complete and pass this course which was all in Spanish
50  for our library system and services in Vancouver
51  that the public library is free
52  that it is incredibly full of books and information
53  for the many other resources and services provided by the Vancouver Public Library
54  for the free public internet at the VPL and how much that helped me for almost ten years before I got home internet
55  for home internet
56  for the nice laptop I got for an extra fifteen dollars a month on my Telus bill.
57  that it's been paid for for more than a year
58  that it still works
59  for the owners and staff of Downtown Computer and the reasonably priced services they offered repairing my laptop and their generous help and instructions to prevent me from destroying my computer
60  for the many things that having home internet have opened up for me and enriched my life
61 that through email and Skype I am able to meet people and maintain friendships of quality with people who live all over the world
62  for how easy the internet makes keeping in touch with my friends close to home
63  for the friends I have been blessed with
64  for the blessing of being a friend
65  that I have a job
66  that I enjoy my work
67  that my profession is completely compatible with my personal values
68  that I am always learning new things at work
69  that I am always growing through my profession
70  that my work of offering support to people struggling towards mental health recovery is doing much to teach me how to be a good friend and a better person
71  for my budgeting skills
72  that despite my low income I am able to save money
73  that I am able to afford a decent quality of life
74  that I can afford to go on foreign vacations for a month or longer every year
75  for the way my foreign travels are broadening my mind and my world view
76  that I have a home
77  that I can afford my rent
78  for my landlords, BC Housing
79  for More Than a Roof, the housing society that manages my building, for their support, kindness, professionalism, love and prayers
80  that I am still able to live in Vancouver, my home city and the most expensive city to live in North America
81  that although I live on Granville Street my apartment is quiet
82  that I am centrally located where I live
83  for the natural beauty of Vancouver
84  for the many trees
85  for the many flowers and gardens
86  for the forests
87  for the mountains
88  for the ocean
89  for Stanley Park
90  for Pacific Spirit Park
91  for the many diverse, interesting and beautiful neighbourhoods in this city and the pleasure of taking long walks through them
92  for the big book sale at the library today and yesterday
93  for the great deal I had yesterday and today there, purchasing twelve great Spanish books for all of four dollars and fifty cents.
94  for my personal library at home
95  for my big Spanish library at home
96  for this blog
97  for the readers of this blog
98  for the kindness of strangers
99  for the kindness of staff today at my neighbourhood Shoppers Drug Mart and yesterday of the two bus riders who prevented me from falling when the bus jerked to a sudden stop
100 for the joy of giving thanks.

Oh Hapa Day

I learned a new word today, just fifteen minutes ago.  I also now have a new category on top of many others.  I am a hapa.  I just read about it in the Courier, a free bi-weekly tabloid published here in Vancouver.  It is quite a mainstream run-of-the-mill sort of rag.  Rather conservative with contributions from or about smug home-owners having conniption-fits about stray mushrooms growing in their front lawn and bike helmets.  There are also interesting community articles such as the one I just read about hapa, a Hawaiian word for persons of mixed heritage.  They are going to have a festival sometime later this month but I don't plan to attend.  I simply don't do these events any more, but I'm not going to say why right now as that would be material for a future post and I'm making no promises.

I never thought much nor anything extraordinary about my hapa status.  Indeed I didn't think there was anything special about it at all given that racially I am still more or less Caucasian but even that is up for debate because I seem to have inherited from my German descent mother such enormous cheekbones as must be of Indigenous Canadian heritage, possibly Cree or Blackfoot given that she was born in Saskatchewan.

This for me is where the family plot really thickens, but first let me explain a genetic detail or two.  My late father was born to Scottish immigrant parents in this country in 1928, city of Winnipeg, or Winterpeg when you factor in the brutal winters, or the namesake of Winnie the Pooh, already mentioned in an earlier post, I cannot remember which and I don't feel like looking for it right now so find it yourselves.  It'll give you something to do and maybe even get you to read some of the many fab articles on this blog that you've been previously ignoring.

It was considered kind of a big deal that my father was Scottish descent, making him British, sort of, regardless of the outcome of yesterday's Scottish independence referendum and my late mother was German-Canadian even though no one in her family tree had anything to do with that goddam war.  They married each other in 1952, seven years after the war ended and my mother's new mother-in-law, my Scottish Granny silently and irrevocably hated her.  I never learned anything about this till long after my parent's bitter and ugly divorce.  Even though my mother's grandparents immigrated to Saskatchewan as pioneers from Russia with absolutely no relation to Nazi Germany or either of the World Wars, to Grandma Greenlaw she was unforgivably German.  A Hun.  A mortal enemy.  No one could convince her that our ancestors moved to Russia around 1800 at the bequest of Catherine the Great. 

In the sixties this of course made me exotic since there weren't a lot of visible minorities living in Canada then.  Even the very idea of "miscegenation" or racial intermarriage was considered unthinkable.  The idea intrigued me of course and while Mom tried to get my brother and I to promise her that we would never marry black women, or Asian or any other race or colour, I couldn't help but entertain the idea.  And even Mom more than once mentioned that children of mixed unions are often better looking and more intellectually endowed than either of their parents given that Ma Nature always tries to bring the best out of our genes.

I still feel Scottish in that I did follow carefully yesterday's referendum but I also feel a bit relieved that Scotland didn't secede from the United Kingdom.  I don't think I can really rationally back up my position since it is kind of intuitive and gut-level.  I somewhat regret that some may still consider me too white to qualify as a full-fledged hapa, though it seems that race here is not an issue, simply mixed ethnic heritage.

And I do suspect that I might be part Cree or Blackfoot.  My mother's paternal grandmother was something of an anomaly, an apparently very angry, disturbed and frightening woman.  I wonder what must have happened to her to make her that way, because her son my grandfather has the cheekbones not of a German but of a North American Indian.  I will probably never know.  As a Scottish-German by way of Russia Canadian with possible native genes and fluency in Spanish as a second language what can I say but Oh Hapa Day.

Poor White Smoker Trash

Today I was waiting on the corner of Broadway and Commercial Drive in my dear city of Vancouver for one of my clients.  It seemed I was constantly dodging having to inhale second hand smoke.  Everywhere I looked there was someone pulling on a cigarette.  They weren't all white.  Some looked aboriginal or perhaps Latino or Filipino.  They all looked poor, even the ones decently dressed wore proudly their budget threads purchased brand new from Wall Mart or second hand from Value Village.

Now before any of you start yelling "classist" or "elitist" or other flattering and carefully thought out titles please consider this.  I am also poor.  And I buy my clothes at Value Village.  I would not be caught dead in a Wall Mart and instead of telling you why here let's just save that theme for a future post.  No promises.

Speaking of Commercial Drive, the intersection with Broadway at the Broadway Station for the Skytrain has nothing to do with the hip, radical, sexy, anarchist, and rapidly gentrifying 'hood just a few blocks to the north, also known as "The Drive."  The Broadway end of Commercial Drive, perhaps more accurately, the South End of the Drive, is just that.  I call it the Trailer Park end of the Drive.  A poor hardscrabble neighbourhood with very little character and quite a few gang members and street people.  Most of them are, or appear to be, smokers.

I just did a little Google search and while there is a bit of a consensus that people with lower education levels and who live on low incomes are more likely to smoke than others in Canada it is difficult to verify this and the findings do not appear to be consistent in the articles I have glanced at and one page was absolutely indecipherable.  Also it appears that young people in their twenties and thirties are still the largest demographic for cigarette smoking regardless their income or education level which simply reinforces the truism about the reckless and self-destructive stupidity of young people.

What I find puzzling and sad is that so many poor people still smoke.  If you are subsisting on minimum wage, or welfare or a disability pension and you have a pack a day habit this is going to set you back by nearly $400 a month.  If you are eking out an existence on between $610 and $1500 a month then this is going to be problematic.

I often notice panhandlers (beggars) smoking on the sidewalk.  On principal I never give money to them, operating on the assumption that my hard earned money (I earn a whopping twelve bucks an hour myself!) should not go directly into somebody's lungs. 

Despite one's lack of resources having an addiction makes one incredibly resourceful when it comes to getting a fix.  The poorest people on the street simply scavenge cigarette butts from the pavement and if they are still smouldering some think nothing of getting the last two or three blissful drags from someone else's cigarette, even if it has just been sitting in dog shit.  Or they bum or scam smokes off of strangers, lend them or sell them to each other, buy illegal cigarettes at a huge discount...

It is often impossible to engage a lot of these people, especially if they are older and have long standing mental health challenges, to quit smoking.  This is their way of coping.  If you have been poor all your life and have had to dedicate all your energy to simple basic survival because of a lack of education, decent employment, opportunities and connections, you are not going to readily abandon your single source of comfort.  And if you are under constant stress to survive or if you smoke to self-medicate because of psychosis that little compulsive nicotine rush is going to be your one and only mother lode of comfort.

I would love to see everyone quit smoking.  I would love to see Big Tobacco reduced to the gutter.  I am also waiting for the manifestation of the New Jerusalem.

Thirteen Crucifixions, 47

            Randall and Barbara were gone for the night, leaving Glen in charge.  They had taken their daughter, April, with them.  He had already given Gavin his bath and put him to bed.  They paid him well for his ministrations, and their second child, though severely afflicted with cerebral palsy, was not that difficult to care for.  Cheerful and cooperative, actually. They had done well, considering.  Barbara seemed to be finally done with blaming herself.  She was already forty-seven and unexpectedly pregnant again.  She was again a faithful Catholic and this ruled out ruled out abortion.  The marriage survived this time.  They were previously married to each other in the late seventies, divorcing after two years together.  They were old and faithful friends, who had actually badgered Glen to stay with them when he was suddenly homeless.  He still couldn't figure out why he had never considered their offer.

            Their lives had finally stabilized.  Randall was now teaching social work at a local college, and Barbara was running an antiquarian book store.  They had bought a house in Strathcona, small, late Victorian vintage.  Two stories with a turret.  Glen had his own room here.  They were after him again to come live with them.  The offer was tempting.  He knew from his experience of their having roomed together in the mid-eighties that Randall would be easy to live with.  He wasn’t so certain about Barbara, whom shortly after he had nurtured through a major personal crisis.  A casualty of satanic cult abuse, she was again being stalked by the demonic Rafael.  Barbara, for a while, was very emotionally dependent upon Glen.  He wasn’t sure that he wanted to occupy a full-time, live-in position of being care-giver to their son, for he was well aware that that was how things would turn out, and that that was likely in the back of their minds when they’d invited him.  He was as well concerned that he didn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize the stability that their lives had finally acquired.  He didn’t wish to be targeted by either of their emotional neediness.  They had also become for his taste rather bourgeois.  Glen was allergic to bourgeois complacency.  He didn’t wish to be seduced.

            Having enjoyed on their TV an episode of the Simpsons, it was clear to Glen that he really didn’t want to live this way.  He wasn’t what was needed in this situation.  He felt needed at Sheila’s.  Glen needed to be needed? Selectively, perhaps.  Randall and Barbara seemed to need him, or thought they did.  But it was time for them to both grow out of this emotional dependency on Glen that he had inadvertently cultivated in them.  To his surprise and chagrin, marriage had done little to dull this for them.  But this is how Glen had always connected with people.  Sheila would not have otherwise asked him to live in her house, much as Glen needed a place to stay.  He could have come here to Randall and Barbara, but they only needed him two days a week for their afflicted child.  Otherwise, they were a contained unit.  He respected this.  Michael, Sheila’s son, reaching out so savagely in friendship to the point of almost flashing Glen last night, who left his room just as the towel was coming off from around his waist.  He did not need to see Michael naked.  Not now, and probably not ever.  He might ask him to model for him—no, impossible.  Others had also so offered Glen their nakedness for the sake of his artistic advancement.  His answer was always a categorical no.  He knew why.

            Glen had determined a long time ago that he would never again allow power to become an issue in any relationship that he was involved in.  Someone standing naked in front of him for him to paint, that could only imply a whole scenario of power.  He would not have anyone making themselves this vulnerable to him, for any reason at all.  He knew why.   When he was in Costa Rica, in the mountains, he met Manuel, who worked maintaining the trails in an International Cloud Forest.  He was a thoroughly engaging young Mexican émigré, who took a fancy towards Glen.  Glen wouldn’t permit him to consummate his attraction.  Still he felt that he had been if not raped, then still severely violated.  In a forest clearing he sat on a log, listening to the peculiar song of a small flock of quetzals nearby while viewing a small plant bearing three fruits resembling large strawberries.  Manuel had attempted to make food of him.  He looked up at the quetzals.  The males had shed their beautiful long tail feathers, but still looked resplendent in their iridescent green plumage.  In the presence of Almighty God Glen vowed that never again would he enter any kind of situation where he and another might make food of each other.  From this moment on he would eschew the use of such power.

            On the wall opposite the TV hung a portrait he’d done of Barbara last year.  In her early fifties she was still a beautiful woman.  The signs of age were becoming less than mistakable, but Barbara was one who could not be said to be aging.  Perhaps ripening?  She had been pleased with the result as had Randall, but Glen was less than satisfied.  He had hardly adequately caught the lurking passion behind her calm eyes.  Though something else had come forward.  A kind of complacency, a smug self-satisfaction just  eclipsed by sudden, unexpected terror.  He had been careful not to make her particularly beautiful.  The camera lens of Rafael and various other fashion photographers had done more than their share of homage to Barbara’s variety of inextinguishable beauty.  She had thanked Glen for abolishing the trend, crediting him as being the first of her image-makers to actually humanize her.  He supposed there was something to what she was saying.  The face on the canvas was of a strong-featured matron with radiant skin and a stubborn will underscored by fault-lines of insecurity.  But that was still Barbara, all the way.  He always seemed to capture what was really there in a sitter’s face, whether he wanted to or not.  Every portrait he painted, for Glen, was like a picture of Dorian Grey.

            He wanted to paint Michael’s portrait.  Not just because of his bone structure, which was exquisite.  It was that strange mingling of single-focussed passion with eye-lash batting modesty in Michael’s face that he wanted to explore.  But he did not want to see him naked.  Besides which, one could not become more naked than the human face.  He thought that he might soon be ready to do another self-portrait.  Like Van Gogh, Glen was often painting himself.  Which he had done over the winter, turning out a dozen self-portraits, some of which he thought to be quite good. He started with a very light colour field, infused with yellow, mauve and pale blue.  Then he began working in solid primary colour fields: blue against yellow, yellow against blue; blue against red, red against blue; yellow against red, red against yellow.  Then they became steadily darker, until in the last painting one had to look carefully to distinguish his face from an even darker background.  Every time he painted himself, the result looked somehow haunted, spooked like some mysterious and frightening door had been just opened for him.

            Glen began painting again when his community had disintegrated.  Everyone was fatigued.  They had long ago lost count of how many people had died under their care.  It was the public scandal that Persimmon Carlyle, Media Bitch of the CBC, had launched against them that exhausted everyone  They had all run out of their emotional resources.  They would turn to one another in need and turn on one another in despair creating for themselves a Boschian purgatory in miniature.  In a household that espoused chastity, suddenly three conjugal couples were formed; followed by break-ups and side-taking.  Glen himself had very nearly gotten wrapped up with a particularly needy young man who began to sap his remaining strength, when Pamela intervened and gave him airfare for a two month holiday in Europe. He had intended to stay in London for a year, but things had gotten progressively worse for everyone at home.  There had been episodes of theft, vandalization and violence.  Police were involved.  Glen felt entirely responsible for the very existence of this community.  He returned from Europe, surprising everyone by his quick return, by the degree of temper and resolution he was suddenly displaying, by his unexpected capacity for taking control of a situation that had long ago lost its bearings, and by almost bodily expelling such persons as had been creating problems for everybody else.

            He had been grieving as much as the others: for their home—actually Pamela’s thirty room mansion—had become an unofficial, and unlicensed hospice, hence the media attention.  Never had anyone suggested to any of the AIDS sufferers who made their home there that they might cut back on their medications.  They simply did.  Even people in the earliest stages of the illness who with proper medication and nutritional attention could still prolong their lives by a decade, would suddenly dismiss all exterior intervention: they wanted to die sooner, they wanted to meet God.  Glen, Pamela and Margery had combined their voices in a common plea for common sense.  They were outnumbered, and opposed—not only by the patients themselves, but nearly every one of their colleagues.  It was like a collective blindness from a self-flagellating madness.  Margery, already locally famous as the "Death Watch Lady”, was particularly disappointed.  All of her experience in administering palliative care had been squandered.  Like Glen and Pamela she took Stephen Bloom’s death especially hard, and began to crack before anyone else.  After a week of prolonged weeping and tantrums Pamela offered to send Margery to Europe with Glen.  She instead moved to Toronto with Pamela’s daughter.  No one had heard of her since.  Pamela and the Reverend Michael Bailley were still together, enjoying the vast empty solitude of her mansion and the still impeccably kept grounds.  He had yet to contact them now that he was back. 

            He was feeling tired.  Gavin never woke at night.  Barbara’s face stared with an anxious acrylic serenity from the portrait on the wall.  He really ought to get his own place, as soon as he could afford to.  He was already comfortable at Sheila’s, though her son made him nervous.  Perhaps Glen was resisting falling in love with Michael?  Glen fell in love with no one, though he might as well be in a perpetual state of love with all people.  Glen was in love, though he couldn’t single out any single recipients.  He was himself a presence of love, for he reverenced the God in everyone.  He never spoke of his faith to others, preferring rather to speak to God Himself.

            He had forgotten this evening to listen for the robins.  He tried every evening to remember to hear them, till they ceased altogether from their singing in July.  He turned off the TV.  Gavin lay asleep in his bed, and Glen only wanted to stare into the dim twilight.  He had not troubled to turn any lights on.  This was when he was most comfortable, the most at rest.  Sitting quietly in the dark.  He wondered what he should do with his life, now that he was back in Vancouver.  Then he yawned and fell asleep.