Overheard

Little old lady: So, what exactly is the universe?

Handsome middle-aged man: Exactly?

LOL: Like, is it at the end of imagination?

HMM: Well, the universe we talk about is all that was created by the big bang.

LOL: So it’s bigger than the milky way.

HMM: The milky way is just one galaxy. There are millions of them in the universe.. There’s also a theory of multiverses, that there are other universes. But since there is no communication between them, there’s really no way of knowing.

Long silence

LOL: I’m going to die in great ignorance.

HMM: So are we all.

LOL: But I will die more ignorant than you.

HMM: (Chuckles) Well I don’t know about that. You know more about other things.

LOL:  Hmmm....yes, I guess there’s such a thing as relevant ignorance. I don’t really care if I die not know anything about the universe. But I do care that I'll die never having learned Chinese. And when I’m dead, I don’t suppose I’ll care even about that.

One Fucking Onion

You know how it is in supermarkets. You have only an armful of items, but the quick lane (1-8 items) has a line-up that would go around a block. So you look for a shorter line. And there it is! The customer’s cart is empty and she’s down to her last few items of food. So I scurried over, elbowing my way past the woman with a mountain of produce in her cart going in the same direction. Smugly I lay down my four carrots, my bag of onions and 3 bags of milk.  The woman ahead of me is down to her last onion. So, naturally I congratulate myself for being so fortunate. 

One single onion. She is explaining to the cashier in precise detail in which bin she found it and what the assigned price had been. The cashier’s name tag says “Mandy”. Mandy needs to know which button to push after she has weighed it. She scans the little roller with the codes and prices.

“It’s not a Spanish onion,” she says, as she squints down on the pathetic little onion.

“No,” it was in a separate bin, and it said 39 cents a pound.”

Mandy punched in under ‘yellow onion’ and the price showed 55 cents a pound.

“No, that’s not the right price,” the customer said.

Mandy tried under ‘Vidalia’ but the price was even higher.

“I don’t know what else to try,” Mandy said. “We’ll send someone over to check out the bin.”  She called out for a price-check over the loudspeaker. A woman named Samantha came over, examined the onion, listened to the lady who gave her detailed instructions on where to find its source. Samantha did not jog to her destination. Nor did she exactly crawl. Perhaps ‘sauntered’ would express her approximate speed.

“Patience,” I told myself. A skilled meditator could meditate on a crowded subway, I reminded myself. I meditated for maybe six seconds when an undeniable feeling of irritation came over me. “Patience,” I repeated.

In the eight or so minutes that followed, Mandy was careful not to make eye contact with me. I was dying to roll my eyes to express a tolerant, so far, exasperation,  but she looked straight ahead, motionless as if she were a part of an installation in a museum. Supermarkets in the Anthropocene ?

At long last Samantha returned and gave Mandy the code number she should use. Mandy punched it in and once again the price came out as 55 cents a pound.  The customer became animated, trying to communicate with her hands and elbows how she had found this one onion and how it had been clearly marked at 39 cents a pound.

It was at this point that I noticed that she was a rather short, stout woman, perhaps in her mid-thirties. I also noticed that her husband was standing at the other end of the counter looking bored. All the other items were clearly packed and ready to go. It was then, also, that I noticed the woman seemed to be enjoying herself. She actually looked happy, commanding Samantha and Mandy. She was urging Samantha to go back and look more carefully. The minutes were ticking by. Samantha hesitated, looked to Mandy and I could sense an argument brewing.  Somehow it was suggested that the customer herself should….  That was when something snapped inside me.

“Oh for God’s sake!” I said loudly, and brusquely gathered up my carrots, onions and milk in my arms.

I could actually feel the electricity as the customer snapped her attention to me. “Oh my!” she said loudly. “Aren’t we the impatient one! ”

“All this for one fucking onion!” I almost shouted.

“Well, the pennies might not mean much to you, but they do to me,” she said, yes, proudly.

Ah! She was playing the poverty card. My milk and carrots were not exactly luxury items. But, perhaps she had noticed that I was buying a whole bag of onions whereas she could afford only one. Who knows. I probably had more money than her, but then I was not that Kardashian woman either. (Or are there many of them?)

“”Yeah?” I snapped back. “ Well then, if I were in your shoes, I’d rather leave the onion out of the recipe than make someone wait for ten minutes!” I stomped off in a huff, and fortunately found another cashier who was not too busy.

God that felt good! I smiled all the way back to the car. There were so many worries waiting for me when I got home, so many chores to do. Lentil soup to cook, studio to clear out, dogs to walk, weeds to pull, emails to send…… And then there was the tricky feud with a prickly neighbour that had to be straightened out. But the venom in me had been spent....  resolving the argument would be a piece of cake. Shining love opened up before me.

Who Has Good Taste?

The problem with good taste is that it’s so predictable…. sometimes even boring. BUT, good taste speaks for itself, right? It has no need to defend itself. In questions of morality, we might ask “What would Jesus do?”  In questions of taste, there is no Jesus, though there are many who have offered themselves as guides and have profited from it by building up reputations as arbiters between good and bad. They create magazines, run columns and blogs. They become a part of the machinery whose job is to produce anxiety. Can you risk having bad taste? Who wants to stand out on the red carpet as the one whose frills don’t compliment their funk?

The problem with good taste is that it’s so predictable. Oh, I already said that. Yes. I started to think about this recently when I had to choose a colour for my new living room. The style of the room could go in many directions.  I have downsized to a small country cottage of about 880 square feet. It feels very compact after 25 years of floundering in a spacious 3,000 square feet. A third of this new space is a living room with a 14 foot cathedral ceiling, quaint windows on three sides overlooking a forest, a distant lake, and a neighbour’s house. What to do!  What to do!

So I went to the experts. I bought an armload of magazines to help me solve storage and function problems. Four of the magazines were devoted to good taste. I must have leafed through hundreds of photos of the living spaces of multi-millionaires.  I’ve taught my daughters that when shopping for ideas, start at the top….see what the current Rolls Royce is all about and then move down to your personal financial comfort zone. In clothing, for example, one current model of good taste is the Dutchess of Cambridge, the Jackie Kennedy of today. Check out to see what she’s wearing and let the vision inform your next purchase should you need a new purse or dress or fascinator. You can’t go wrong.

But here is my point: the aforementioned homes were, for sure, exquisite, but, if you simply flip through each magazine, you can’t miss the preponderance of off-white, creams, beiges, soft greys…. predictable, no? Sure, they are Cashmere coulours you’d love to wrap around yourself.  My two dogs and three cats would love it!  But....predictable. I had to search hard to find a living room somewhere in Italy that dared to venture… into a middle green, no less. The green was made mysterious by soft lighting and an ultramarine ceiling dotted with stars. I love fairy tales. I love the Thousand and One Nights. I love colour. This was the only idea that actually excited me: to make my living space into a rich, evocative fantasy world.

So I tore out the page and took it with me to Home Depot. I am experienced, I thought. I know the trickery of green in all its shades. This particular green was neither dark nor light. It did not veer off into the olive or lemon zone. It did not suggest blue, but I realized it had to contain a fair amount blue to overcome the yellow. And a bit of black to tone it down. In the photograph, the top corner of the room was a murky green and a spotlighted area in a bottom corner was practically white. But the two extremes shaded into the central area  where, with some guess work, I could average out the predominant colour. With the right sort of lighting, the full complexity of shading could be duplicated. Right?

I will skip over the hour spent in colour comparisons and floundering among the paint chips. When I finally finished painting my wall, I stood back to have a look at the naked unembellished truth: a rather plain green wall. But I was not disheartened because my vision for a room of mystery was still intact. It would take time and….

Hmmm…Did I mention money? As I stood there I began to calculate what it would take to create the mystery of that room somewhere in Italy. An ultramarine vaulted ceiling?  Hidden lighting? An artificial tree? A Persian carpet? Reupholstering of my old couch? Nothing was impossible. In time. With patience. With money.

A knock on the door brought me back to reality. There stood my sister. She dropped by on her way to No Frills to see how I was doing. There was nothing to do but to invite her in and winess the result of all my labour.  Now, my sister has good taste. Her middle name could be Onassis. As we stood there in the middle of the room viewing my masterpiece, I have to give her credit for keeping her mouth shut. I was plainly caught standing on the red carpet in an under-sized dress that accentuated the ten pounds at the waist that I needed to lose!

Yes, I know all about good taste. It’s not as difficult as it may sound. If you don’t have money, put your trust in IKEA. If quickly flipping through a magazine while squinting, there is not much difference between an IKEA kitchen and a million dollar one. You will see a haze of off-whites and crisp lines. Beautiful. There is no sarcasm intended. Good bones, simplicity, lack of pretension. Lack of adventure.

In my calculations I realized it would take ten years or so to bring my vision to fruition. In the meantime, I needed a place to relax in, to bring friends and guests to. The green wall still stands today, but the vision has shifted.  The south-facing wall is now jet black ---just on the edge of good taste--- and the other wall is a soft silver. Definitely in good taste. Everything I own fits in without a clash. Any accent looks good against the gray and spectacular against the black..

When I told my sister over the phone that I was no longer sure about the green wall, there was a brief silence at her end. “Hah!” she finally said. “You said it, not me,”

Stiletto Heels and Pigeon-toes

April 28, 2012

Blog, interrupted. It’s been a long time since I wrote anything. Decisions have been made. We are now thinking of renting out our house and guest house instead of selling the property. I have started a new career as a counselor/therapist . (Not entirely new --- I’ve done it on and off for years.) Rod’s chemo finished a couple of months ago. It was very tricky, very hard on his body and we are still waiting for his blood chemistry to recover. But at least it’s over.

A sign of my emotional recovery is that I’m beginning to think about silly things again. For instance, if you’ve seen Jennifer Hudson’s ad for WeightWatchers, have you noticed the stance of this beautiful, confident, successful woman?  Because the ad shows her new body from top to bottom, the legs and feet are very prominent. It struck me as strange that she should choose to stand pigeon-toed, in a deliberately awkward manner.

In fact, if you thumb through any fashion magazine, the super-thin models, when looking fashionably sexy, all have that same pose, looking slightly pigeon-toed. This seems to be the “look” today, and I realize that I too, when self-consciously posing for a photo, unconsciously turn my toes inward.

This made me think of my mother’s generation. In every photo of that era, the women, if seated, hold their ankles lightly crossed with their knees firmly together. Or the legs are slightly slanted, together and perfectly parallel. If they are standing, they have one foot behind the other, and the front foot turns slightly outward, as if they had studied ballet. Very fetching, even if a bit stilted to the modern eye.

So what does it all mean? The inward look is no more natural than the outward one. Both look self-conscious. Both are sending a message. The outward look is easy --- it says I am a proper lady. I am well-bred. I am cultured and have studied the graceful arts. I confess I’m old enough to have posed in that manner myself, and old enough to have been judgmental of women in photos whose knees were apart while their ankles were crossed. They were suspected of being loose.

But the inward look? When did it start? And why? My first guess at the message conveyed by this body language is this:  I may be drop-dead gorgeous, I may appear super-cofident and strong, but underneath I am vulnerable. At heart I am just a little girl.  Yes, that is the way little girls stand. So, my guess is that the style-conscious modern woman is unconsciously undercutting her power so as to be more approachable, to make herself less threatening. To test this hypothesis, can anyone imagine Hillary Clinton or Angela Merkel standing pigeon-toed while addressing the nation? Perhaps at a cocktail party when chatting with someone she finds attractive.

Not only vulnerable, the stance is also a defensive one. You place your foot like that when you’re trying to ward off a ball rolling straight at you. A feminist could have a hay day analyzing the meaning behind this body language. There are two things a woman is bombarded with every day. One: the critical eye of other women. Two: the ever-present "male gaze". In the light of this, the pigeon-toed little girl stance is brilliant. To women it says, Don't judge me; I'm not a threat. Let's have coffee. To men it says: I may make more money than you, but at heart I'm just the shy girl next door to you. Let's have fun.

There is, of course, a simpler explanation for the modern posture. In stiletto heels, it just might be more stabilizing, more comfortable. Whatever. It's good to have my silly thoughts back.

Home-Staging / I am the Walrus / Safari Man

My Real Estate Agent
 

My first mistake was to tell her that I thought my house was special and that I wanted top dollar for it. Her first mistake was to tell me that everybody thought their house was special and wanted top dollar. As if I didn’t know that. What I really needed to tell her was that my house was my home and I didn’t want to leave it at all. In fact, I was feeling quite tender and maybe, at that moment, a bit hard-done-by. And what she should have done was to look around my home in astonishment and offer me a million dollars. No harm in that. 

 

I was wary of barracudas sniffing out my soft spots, my resolve, the urgency of my situation. In fairness, she was not a barracuda. But not a rainbow trout either.  She came highly recommended as the top seller in my area, and I could see why. She was a professional. Honest, thorough and tough. But what I needed at that moment was a soft mother.

Being a professional, she saw my home through the eyes of a prospective buyer. I was seeing it through the eyes of a creative person who saw potential, had a vision, wanted challenges. I was still seeing my property in the way Rod and I first saw it, as though we had just fallen through the rabbit hole and entered Wonderland. 

 

It was 23 years ago that we stumbled onto this place. The real estate market had been super hot. We were desperate to move out of the city, but we entered the game late, and there were few properties left on the market. In fact, Jack, our agent at the time, didn’t even want to show us this property. It had been on the market for ages, and the price had come down considerably (a good thing, but telling). Also, there was the threat of a dump being built just downhill from it. But what the heck, so far we’d seen the best 3 properties in our price range, and none of them appealed to us. Jack took us in his car, drove past unpromising fields backing on to HWY 401, then turned south on an unpromising little side road, and parked in front of a sort of shack next to a cedar hedge. Was this all that was left in our price range? No wonder he’d been hesitant to show it to us. But then! It was when we first stepped through the opening in the cedar hedge that we fell in love. A long golden field led to the edge of the hill, and in the distance was the lake. On both sides of the field there were mature trees.

The house itself? Jack was right, no one in their right mind would want to live in this old farmhouse. The stucco had crumbled ages ago and it was hard to tell what colour it had once been. It was still inhabited by, for lack of a better word, young hippies, who sat on the floor with their legs sprawled out. Furniture was scarce. We had to step over their legs, as they did not acknowledge us and did not budge. But neither were they hostile. They just lived in their own world and felt no need to ingratiate themselves. That was fine by me. The little house was basically a shoebox with a few gingerbread trimmings suggesting a divide between two spaces, er, rooms. The windows were charming, made up of small square panes. The kitchen was like an afterthought, narrow as a hallway, but with a window overlooking the edge of the woods. The shack in the parking lot, it turned out, was now a work space, having once housed horses and, I suppose, a tractor.
 

Maybe we weren’t in our right minds. We thought the place was wonderful. Soon after buying it, quietly one day, the value of the property went up considerably when the threatened dump was not to be, at least, not in our back-yard. And now, 23 years and two major renovations later, people ask us how ever did we find this magical place tucked away behind an unassuming cedar hedge. Yes, I know, everyone has a story to tell when asked how ever did they find such a special house. 

The truth is, I wasn’t in my right mind when I met with Marilyn, the real estate agent. She brought out an “attitude” in me, when she implied that my home left much to be desired. It didn’t get any better when she pointed out that my artist’s touches would not be appreciated by the average buyer – in fact, they could be intimidating or off-putting. What? The average person couldn’t see beyond the paintings on the walls and the sculptures placed here and there? They couldn’t see beyond my chosen colours, pale apricot with silver-mauve trim? They couldn’t see beyond the rather old-fashioned kitchen that does not have a granite counter-top? Beyond my “tired” bathroom?

She explained to me all about home stagers. As if I didn’t know. But now I feel the needle on my emotional compass is beginning to tremble, not knowing which way to point. Something is amiss. I’ve seen the websites of those home stagers. Most made-over rooms look like IKEA show-rooms: Stick to neutral colours, create focal points, get rid of clutter … and thus you move from “untidy” to “elegant”.  Place a couple of potted plants by your door and transform your entrance from “unappealing” to “welcoming”. And yet, I had to step over some sprawling hippies when I first saw my house! Dust bunnies everywhere. How does that work? Marilyn said that not everyone has the eyes of an artist, like me. Ri-ight. Nevertheless, I can’t argue with reality. “Staged” homes apparently do sell more readily than unstaged ones. What has happened to us? What has happened to human imagination? Now everyone wants a home like the one on T.V. after the make-over crew has come and gone.

O.K. My compass needle has stopped quivering, is settling down in a specific direction. Here is what is bothering me me: We are told that selling a home today is essentially the same as selling a product. And a whole new profession has materialized to make us feel insecure about our own abilities to enhance, or add value to that product. I get it. Why not? As a painter, I know that visualizing space is fun, and why not do it for money for other people? And how can I complain about a whole new niche market having been carved out? People need jobs. I guess what bothers me is that professionals are now inserting themselves beween us and our imaginations. Maybe I should hire someone to help me enhance my visual appearance too, choose my colours, my style, my whole wardrobe … Oh, wait! Didn’t I just see that being done on TV? What next? Someone to arrange my intellectual life? Someone to choose and pre-read the books I ought to read? (NYTimes Literary Review does that.) Choose my friendships for me? Pre-date potential husbands or wives to see if they are good enough for us, save us the trouble of dressing up or being bored? And if I were younger, choose my husband? Oh ... that's already been done too? You see where I'm going with this? There are endless niches that could be carved out by professionals, sparing us the need to think at all. I feel some basic hard-earned freedoms are being given away if we're discouraged from visualizing, from examining our own selves, our personalities — but, this is getting too heady for a small blog. I'm just saying.

Well, Marilyn knows her job and she does it well. Her parting offer was to pay for a home-stager to come and visit me and give me advice. Over my dead body, I thought as I thanked her and demurred. Since she left, I have entered into a frenzy of wall-painting and de-cluttering and re-thinking to my own heart’s content. In any case, down-sizing is inevitable at some point. I don't want my kids to clean up the attic and wonder whether mom would have thrown out those hideous lamps. And what should they do with those old love letters? After all, their dad's name was not Harry.

                                                                                *

I Am The Walrus


Walking around my property, where we have lived for 22 years. The garden has grown according to my energy, my needs, the plants available – a rambling garden, meant for walking through. The wind is fierce. Forty years ago I might have imagined myself at the end of the dock – wind from behind, my skirt billowing romantically. Always someone watching, of course. The big willow and the smaller corkscrew willow by the dock dancing wildly. The male gaze holding me in focus. A reason to live.

Forty years ago, like Scarlet O’Hara, I would have resolved to hold on to this Swallow Hill at any cost. What is there to say when a good thing comes to an end? Then you are left with memories, until, at some point, the memories, too, come to an end.

In the meantime, my husband is in TO at the moment, seeing his oncologist at the Princess Margaret. If his blood chemistry has come up to an acceptable level, he will have round 6 of his chemo cycle this week. There may be 8 rounds in all. So far so good, though there are some glitches. What can I say? The garden is overwhelmingly beautiful even now when the trees are next to bare and the morning sun lights up their trunks.

Last night I was trying to get some depth into my sleep but my husband was snoring, albeit ever so lightly. You know the kind of snoring where each breath that is exhaled sounds like the death of a tiny bubble? But the rhythm of the breathing is oddly compelling — the bubble is easy to visualize and you find yourself rooting for it — maybe this time it won’t burst! I decided to take a closer look to see how it actually worked. I kept the tiny flashlight away from his eyes but let the edge of light fall on my husband’s mouth. To my surprise, there was no bubble. It’s the soft membranes of the lips which barely touch, and then are blown apart by the exhalation. Anyway, I ended up in the spare room, where I still couldn’t sleep, but at least could concentrate on different visuals — the action takes place somewhere in the brain, though it feels like I’m watching Imax.

Sometime before dawn, one of my 5 cats let out a heart-rending yiaaaooowl, and my heart was rended. I felt great pity for her. My cat in trouble? Perhaps being bullied by the other four cats? My cat yawning out of boredom? My cat expressing the joy of living? Why could she not be more specific? It would all sound the same, wouldn’t it? A cat-whisperer I am not.

My sadness at my cat’s plight kept growing. Who of us has never cried out in the wilderness? Who of us has never experienced the fear of being misunderstood? Finally I had to scold myself. It’s not cool to have one’s heart rended so easily. If we all went around weeping, stopping at street corners to blow our noses whenever we felt misunderstood, this country would come to a halt.

 Ah, tenderness, you are so under-appreciated! Living with nature as I do, I’m already helping lady bugs off their backs and onto their tiny feet. I gently lift them onto a leaf of a house plant, thinking that if there are any aphids, that’s where they’d be hanging out. At the same time, I vacuum up the the hoards of ladybugs that accumulate in corners of windows or in the track of my patio door. But tenderly. I do weep as they rattle down the vacuum hose. I am the Walrus.

                                                                         *

Safari Man

I met a man once who took white men on safaris. This was perhaps thirty years ago. He had friends among the tall lion hunters with spears, that is, the Maasai. He had feasted with them and sang songs with them by camp fires. Taking white men on safaris was his way of making a living so that he could travel. What was he doing at a Rosedale party mingling with women who shopped at Holt Renfrew and hired nannies to look after their children? Well, he was drumming up business. He showed slides of his beloved Africa, and of white people on safaris enjoying the sighting of elephants, giraffes, lions, rhinos, and so on. After he was finished with his presentation, we all went outside into the garden. There Safari Man became the outsider. Obviously not at ease in the enclosed Rosedale backyard, he stood to the side, his back against the trunk of a copper beech tree.

People living in the margins eventually bump into each other, so we did. He had many stories to tell me. Perhaps he thought I had money and was pitching to me, but I think he was in love with Africa, and lovers love to talk about the beloved. Anyway he was not a good salesman because he said nothing about sharing his beloved.

He told me something I have often thought about. That the people of the Masai tribe had no existential problems. They were at the center of the world. They never doubted that. They would not understand questions about identity, or existential angst. O lucky men! Could this be so, or is this western fantasy? I believed him, of course. I'd like to believe that someone somewhere has never asked the question: Is the self an illusion?

They never doubted that all cows belonged to them, even if they were kept behind white men’s fences. They did not understand property laws. It was soon discovered that to sentence a Maasai warrior to spend a few weeks in the confinement of prison was the equivalent of a death sentence. To a Western mind this might seem like a romantic gesture of defiance: give me liberty or give me death! But, inside those prison walls, what was happening inside the warrior’s head? What caused him to die? Death by grief? By the unraveling of identity, of the mind, of meaning itself?

My western mind wondered whether wrestling with a bit of existential angst might not have made him more emotionally resilient? It seems almost an obscene question because the romantic notion of the warrior is so beautiful and pure. It’s a bit like saying that innocence should be corrupted in order to give it a better chance to survive. But it doesn’t work like that. Once you go down the path of knowledge, once you are introduced to the bogeyman, there is no turning back.

Sometimes I can almost see my own desire to survive as obscene. Me with all my contradictions, a product of fragmented cultures. A Maasai might well wonder what I have to live for. Occasionally I have done so myself. As a student I never envied the simplicity of the cultures I studied in anthropology. I saw them as prisons. And now? Well, once you go down the path of fragmentation… In other words, it's too late for me to imagine the sort of wholeness that once existed for the Maasai.

All that happened thirty years ago. So much has changed. I wonder if Safari Man still sits around a campfire with his Maasai friends.  Is there anything left on this planet, which has not had to adapt to the modern world?

From Wikipedia: 

Cold Calls

I don’t like telephones and avoid making or taking calls until absolutely necessary. But my husband is mindful and decent, answers all calls, even the 1- 800 ones. He’s been Canadian all his life, which may account for his moral diligence.

I’m talking about 8 o’clock last night. The phone rang. I could tell by the sound of my husband’s voice that the call was for me and someone was going to ask me for money. He handed me the phone with an uncharacteristically sly smile. Deal with it. I sighed my ill humour but took it.

Good evening, Miss…is it Lou-gas? Already I knew it was my Alma Mater calling. I had not honoured my last pledge, due to financial difficulties, so I braced myself for some very artful guilt-tripping. (Were you ever helped by a bursary, or scholarship, Miss Lou-gas?) Instead, the young man started to tell me all about the wonders of the Robarts Library. You must be familiar with it, Miss Lou-gas.

Well, actually I had never stepped inside it, but I felt much relieved that we were not going to dance around the subject of dishonoured pledges. I told him that I had watched the library being built when I was a graduate student. His vocal cords did a strange little bird call, not wanting to call me old, exactly, but needing to indicate that he understood what I had just revealed. And then I told him to hold on while I turned the radio down. That’s when I realized that I didn’t mind talking to strangers, especially the young – just didn’t like the abrupt surprises that come with answering the phone.

Don’t know why I had to tell him I’d been listening to a CBC account of the continued repression that was happening in Syria. Surely to impress on him that though I was old, I was still engaged with events of our times. Also, let it be said that he had a strong accent, and I guessed that he, too, was keenly interested in world events, the thrust for independence despite cruel reprisals. In fact, I think that’s what I was after— I wanted to hear a young voice express concern and consternation for what was happening on our planet. By his response I could tell that clearly someone had passed him the baton, and he had taken it. It was good to know. I liked him.

It’s odd what bonds are possible between strangers. Outside the constraints of any social boundaries, we established a sort of trust. I sensed he was far away from home, and perhaps was susceptible to a voice that carried no agenda, made no demands and told no lies.

As the older person in a discourse, one might be aware of the opportunity to impart some wisdom. I don’t remember recognizing wisdom when I was in my twenties. Practical advice, yes, such as: take care of your kidneys and wear woollies when it’s cold. Wisdom came from the strangest sources, and often went unrecognized until some specific predicament arose. Easier then to let the young man in on what the terrain looks like, way out here in his future. Hey, we’re still having fun; we’re still rocking, as amusing as that may sound. Most of all, we have great perspective on who he is, how wonderful he is simply because he is young, starting out on his long, exciting, frightening, mysterious journey. We can tell him that all young people are beautiful and that pricks along the road can be detoured. The world is large, but wherever you go, there you are! (I love that one. Thank you Jon Kabat-Zinn.) We wish them a long fruitful life, and, towards that end, before they put the phone down we can be excused for reminding them about the woollies.

 Next, of course, he had to tell me about the various services and functions that Robarts provided, and how much it cost to continue the excellence of it’s programs.

In my mind I was already calculating what sort of donation I could make to his cause. I didn’t want his efforts to go unrewarded. Maybe a smaller pledge. And then, in a flash I saw the truth of this whole situation — what he was required to do — what was to be achieved — and at whose expense.

I said to him: I know this is your job, but the person you are talking to is an artist, and artists are not doing very well under the current economic circumstances. Wouldn’t it make more sense for you to talk to corporations, or to those who are profiting?

Ah, you are an artist! His game changed instantly. He then proceeded to tell me about his own aspirations in architecture and design, &c. As for corporations, he had, in fact, approached several, and mostly they were very rude. Most often, the person at the other end simply picked up the phone and hung up.

I sympathized and told him that I could never in a hundred years do what he was doing. Cold calls. Absolutely true. But that is another story.

Now he was making different bird sounds, soft cooing ones. Then he thanked me for our conversation and wished me a good night. And that was that. He let me off the hook. No pledge. No guilt. 

                                                                     *

That phone call from a stranger reminds me of another one, so, so different, many years ago…as many as 40! I was in my early 20’s, married, reading a book in the evening with my first born daughter fast asleep in the adjacent room. My husband was working late. The phone rang, and the second I said hello, I knew there was a heavy-breather at the other end.

What are you doing? a voice asked in a hoarse whisper.

I played dumb. I’m reading a book. How does this work? I was wondering. This was something I’d read about, and I knew that I was supposed to accuse him of perversion and slam down the receiver. But I was curious to know more.

What are you wearing? he asked.

Sweater and sweatpants. Um…how does this work? What are you doing? Are you, like, looking at a centerfold or something?

The breathing normalized. Yeah. Sometimes I get so…so…you know…and I just dial a number and work it off. Or something like that.

So you just dial at random?

From the phone book. Sometimes the wrong person answers the phone but you sounded nice.

Really, I laughed. Just the way I said Hello? You sound pretty young. Are you a student or something? I sensed I was talking to someone roughly my own age, a bit younger.

Second year at U. of T. He perked up, sounded almost proud telling me this.

Really! So you must be pretty smart. What are you taking?

Mostly interested in psychology…might switch to pre-med. Don’t really know.

I took some psychology too. In fact, maybe you know my husband. He teaches—

CLICK

Later, I told a girlfriend about the call. At age twenty-four I had thought it was pretty funny, especially the speed at which he hung up.

My friend looked at me with incredulity. Of all the things she knew I had done, this was the dumbest, she said.

It was my turn to look incredulous. She was a coke-snorter, for heaven’s sake! At her parties there was always a special “powder room”. At the time I had been so naïve I hadn’t even known what it meant, and had entered in thinking to fix my lipstick! It was a strange room, full of mirrors, but no one was looking into them. Instead, several heads were bent over a table.

As for the ‘pervert’, maybe he learned a lesson. In any case, his first serious girlfriend would sort him out. Or not. Once a pervert….?  I really don’t know. Sex perverts have nowhere to go in this world. Once they’re discovered, it’s over. They are the social lepers of today. No one wants even a “safe house” near them. Has anyone thought of “pervert colonies”? I understand that in the middle ages, people with red hair were thought to be agents of the devil and, so, were cast out. They formed their own little colonies and survived the best they could. In the case of “sex perverts”, it would be interesting to see what moral codes they would work out amongst themselves. Would they calibrate the degrees of “perversion”? How many? How severe? Mother Theresa, where are you?

My Pushy Cat

Crazy ideas you get when you’re feeling overwhelmed. This is the time when plants could be divided and transplanted. This is also the time to get my house ready for the summer market if we should decide to sell it, which, at the moment looks like a wise idea. And this is the time I should be drumming up business for portraits and other paintings.

On my way to sleep last night, I was mentally sorting through my priorities for the next day, when, there was Tippy glaring at me in the forefront of my brain. Tippy is our jet black cat with yellow eyes and a white tip at the end of her tail. She’s also our pushy cat. I try to love all my 5 cats equally, but Tippy is a problem: she thinks outside the box. Every morning I must hunt down the little present she has left me before I step in it. And I leave an old towel around for her to pee on. With five cats I struggle with odours as well, so I’ve been thinking of giving away the two youngest who are the best behaved, most loving. Both of them just walked in the door one day, and never left. They have doubled in size, since.

But I can’t think why anyone would want Tippy if they knew her habits. So, I've been thinking of letting her escape outside where the foxes and coyotes are. We keep the cats inside now since we have lost 4 to coyotes over the years. And then I think of all the terrible things people do to people and I can’t allow my pushy cat to be carried to a lair and be ripped apart. But what if she were drugged, fast asleep and not aware of what was about to happen? Could I find it in my heart to do that? What do I have in my medicine cabinet that could knock out twelve pounds? What about accidental poisoning? I have something growing in my garden which is supposed to be lethal. Aconite. I believe there was a play or opera in which a young nun took her own life by drinking some potion containing aconite --- also known as Monk’s Hood. But I have heard it’s a terribly painful way to go. Can’t bear the sight of Tippy writhing in pain. I think of farmers who have no trouble disposing of unwanted animals – drowning kittens by the bagfuls, or killing the excess piglet or the unwanted male calf in a dairy farm. Not to mention what they do to chickens. How hard would it be to slit Tippy’s throat or pound in her skull with a hammer? Or put her in a bag and drown her? 

What am I thinking? This is me, the person who fell on her knees to beg forgiveness after slicing a toad with a spade by accident.

So, that’s that. Tippy is my darling pushy cat, my bully cat, my half-moon-eyed cat. What’s a box, anyway?

p.s. Since posting this, we've built an out-door compound for the cats. No more odours!