Don't you

step on my blue suede shoes!!!   (Elvis's song, and I started hearing it the minute I saw these shoes on A's feet!)

We went to Yellow on Saturday for shoes and my mate fell in love with a green pair.  (Not because it was St. Patrick's Day.   He just liked the color.)  But they didn't have them in his size.  So he chose these blue suede ones instead.  (They come with white shoelaces as well.)

Off we went for an hour's walk yesterday afternoon down Notre-Dame Est past the sanctuary and back along the St. Lawrence river, to try them out.

En route, an old tree,  de-limbed

Little bridge at the sanctuary park

Snow gone from sidewalks & road; not yet from the park

First day warm enough to go without a hat, scarf, coat and gloves.  Everyone in the neighborhood it seemed was outdoors yesterday, on their porches, in their yards, hanging clothes out, riding bikes, fishing down along the pier, soaking in the sun.

Spring has finally come!!!

______________________________________________________________________

Well ...

I'd written the above posting early this morning.  Then went outdoors for a little jaunt, starting at the Pont Duplessis, along the Saint-Maurice river.  The walk itself (depending on how fast you go) takes around 15 to 20 minutes.  Longer for me, because I stop along the way to stand by the water, listen to the birds, watch the egrets, ducks or other river creatures, sit on a rock, take in the quiet, etc., for me the best part of the "walk."    Today I caught sight of a string of Canadian geese returning from the South, a solitary "V" inching its way across the sky. 

As you can see below, Spring has not yet exactly arrived, though the geese coming back is a good sign it's imminent.

Still a bit of melting to be done yet.

This (below)  is near one of my favorite spots.  There's a picnic table and bench nearby, for reading, lunching, or just sitting.  I prefer the rocks, though.  Less people there.

cool waters

Feathery tree limbs noting an ice floe drift by.

This looks like two trees; the bottom one is actually its own shadow on the water.

"Me and My Shadow" - They meet and converse with one another.

[Right click to open in new (enlarged) window.  You can see the shadow much more clearly in full screen mode.  Sometimes I download these as screensavers, for times when I can't actually go to a place.  "Virtual travel." ]

 

The banks and walkway there today were still covered in snow, something I hadn't anticipated (I was still in 'Spring mode' from yesterday, wearing only a light jacket and sneakers ), and while the part closest to the river (damp earth and brown grass) was walkable, I suddenly found myself mired, struggling to navigate large patches of solid, very wide, slippery ice overlays to get to the softer snow, where I could just step into a previous walker's footsteps leading out to the road again.  

To walk on ice without slipping is not so much a matter of what type footwear you're wearing but how you place the foot down for each intended step.  (Think "march" style, as opposed to the more casual automatic "swing" walk-step style.)  This works well when the iced surface is flat and continuous.  Not so when it's sporadic, uneven, and full of mini hiddden pocket-bumps like those I encountered this morning.   I'd crossed onto such an ice patch, misjudging the distance to the next most feasible stepping point, only to find myself stuck there, unable to go forward or backward without slipping.  I ended up stooping down and crawling forward two slow, short movements to where it was again walkable.  (Bringing along a pair of gloves would have helped.)  I thought of our walk yesterday, the sun beating down, people out in T-shirts saying "Ah, about time!!" and then today the blue sky switched to gray, the warmth receded, and there's all that snow still around, taking its own sweet time to evaporate.  It is not for nothing the Quebeckers refer to their province as "mon pays, c'est hiver", ha ha.    A place "where winter is embraced, not merely borne."  Well, not a few Quebecois would disagree with that, given the number who flee to Florida to escape it every year.  That said, everyone nonetheless pretty much deals with it, it's no big deal.  But boy is everyone eager for Spring!

Today, March 19, people here traditionally start their indoor planting prepping for their summer garden, as in certain regions planting their potatoes--and in Southern France, their haricot beans, according to the Olives-and-Artichokes blog on whose site I happened today, whose photos and descriptions of culinary examples in the Lanquedoc region has me salivating at the imagined taste.

Historical remembrance:  On this day, in 2003, the U.S. and its allies went to war in Iraq, on account of an erroneous belief that a gigantic "mushroom cloud" of destruction might be launched by Saddam Hussein toward America.  It has been nine years, no such weapons of mass destruction were found,  Saddam's been eliminated, regime change effected, the largest embassy in the world (costing $750 million, requiring a staff of 15,000) was built by and for the U.S. there.  "Mission accomplished."  This year is the eleventh year of the war in Afghanistan against Taliban insurgents.  Mission unable to be accomplished.  Maybe in four more years. Keep doing a thing until you get it right, or so they say. If after 14 years there's still no progress - maybe time to go back to the drawing board, one would think.  But I'm not an expert in these matters.  They have databases that attempt to tabulate the estimated collateral damage (i.e., count the carnage). But none that shows where exactly all that money went.  Chilling thoughts on a still too-chilly day. 

Tree Hugger

I’ve been called a tree hugger.   It’s true.  I once hugged a tree. It's not what you think.  It was not out of love but desperation.  Something happened that I'd had a hard time, at the time, dealing with.  I'd run out into the night, and there was this tree -  I put my arms around it.  It seemed to hear me.

That memory tumbled out this morning after reading Paul Martin’s wonderful post of two days ago on trees.  He writes some of the best stories and essays!!! - and his reflections and ruminations never fail to delight and inspire me. Or jog a memory in resonance.

Paul describes a scene where he felt as if the trees were whispering to him, calling his name, "telling me . . . maybe I needed to break away.    Maybe I needed to be elsewhere, to go off and be bold and courageous."

He seems to have had a whole chorus of them calling out to (and looking out for) him.  The way 'my' tree did for me.

How the trees speak to us - and we to them.

Afraid to go to Canada

Dick "The Torturer" Cheney, who is a tireless champion of war despite having evaded service in the military during the Vietnam war (through five deferments), apparently has more roar than bite in him.

Cheney rescinded an April speaking engagement in Toronto because, apparently, he fears protesters might greet him in Canada.  [1]

Article referred to: Former U.S. VP Dick Cheney Deems Canada Too Dangerous for Speaking Visit

Knock knock, change your clock

 Attention: 

United States and Canada   Daylight Saving Time 2012 Begins March 11 - set your clock(s) forward one hour at 2:00 AM on the second Sunday in March. It Ends on November 4, and the clocks will need to go back an hour.  [it says]

fall back
spring forward

that hour they gave you last year -
you have to give it back

We normally go to bed around 11:00 p.m.  Last fall, when we turned our clocks back one hour (meaning the old 11:00 o'clock would now  be midnight), we started going to bed an hour earlier because staying up till midnight would throw our internal rhythms off.   Of course the "fall back" part of it meant the old 6:00 a.m.  (the time we normally get up), was now 7:00 a.m. (which seemed kind of late to be still lying in bed).  Plus the fact it started getting dark at 4:00 p.m. meant that extra hour could be spent enjoying light instead of  behind closed eyelids.

So -- Daylight Saving Time rolls around again, and it's spring forward (we lose an hour).  Since we're now going to bed at 10:00 p.m. (which has reverted back to the old 11:00 p.m.), it won't make much difference, internal rhythm wise.  Come summer it'll stay light out all evening, practically.  Never mind you lose an hour--the day will get longer!!

Except the cats are on their own crazy schedule, dictated to by their stomachs. I have to write all this down, make a chart.  It's so confusing.  It's already yesterday in some parts of the world, tomorrow in others, depending on where on the planet you reside.   California's 3 hours ahead of us regardless - when it's 8:00 a.m. here, it's only 5:00 a.m. there.   So if you're being interviewed  "live" in California for a  news program in the East at 7:00 a.m., you'd have to be up, all ready, awake and lively,  at 4:00 a.m. Not something a lot of people can do without effort.

I wonder why the measurement of a "day" is locked in at 24 hours, or a "month" at mostly 31 (give or take).  I wonder who made morning people morning people and night people night people and why they march to such different energies, completely unable to function in in each other's shoes.

fall back
spring forward
gain an hour
lose an hour

It's five o'clock already, but it only feels like four.

Stand Up for Tibet Today

Last week - 32-year old Richen, widowed mother of 4 from Ngaba
 set herself on fire in front of a Chinese police surveillance station
at the gates of Kirti monastery.

Tsering Kyi, young female student from the Tibetan middle school in Machu,
set herself ablaze at the vegetable market in Tro Kho Menma Shang village in Machu.
Chinese vendors at the Machu vegetable market threw stones at her burning body.

Dorje, 18, set himself ablaze in a nomadic area of Ngaba, the third immolation in three days.
He is the 26th Tibetan to have self-immolated since February 2009 in protests against Beijing's rule in Tibetan-populated areas.  [1]

These are the acts of a desperate, deeply troubled people.   A different picture is painted from the Chinese goverrnment's point of view:  In Tibet, "the people are happy," it claims, with the changes brought under Chinese rule.

The people say different.

"Soldiers are ... everywhere."
"You can't have a picture of the Dalai Lama. You would be arrested."
"You can't speak out. You would be beaten. Taken away. Disappeared.
"You can't leave the country.  Reporters can't get in.  News is difficult to get out."*
 “Communities and monasteries in these areas are undergoing patriotic re-education.”
“Tibetans have been warned that they can be shot if they protest against Chinese government rule.”

"Happy" is not a word I would use to describe a population forced to live under such conditions.

Studying the history of any nation, one is struck, in general, by mankind's seemingly incessant desire for possession of territory throughout the ages -- and the Power wielded by those able to claim and assert control over the territories they manage to acquire.

Tibet has now been claimed by China and named the Tibet Autonomous Region.
An autonomous region is an area of a country that has a degree of autonomy, or freedom from an external authority.


au·ton·o·mous   adj: According to my dictionary, means "not
controlled by others.  Independent.  Self-governing."  Which doesn't seem to be the case, however, in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

This posting is not about who owns what parcel of land;who is or is not in control; or even what words one uses to describe one's acquisitions.  My concern here today is about the violation of the rights of a particular group of human beings who want to keep their own language, beliefs and culture, and not be afraid every waking day of their lives.  

This is not about refusal to assimilate.  People willingly adopt a new language, religion, culture or way of life every day.  But if who you are and what you think, believe, say, write, or choose as a way of life constitutes grounds for you to be monitored, arrested, punished, "re-educated", disappeared or killed  ... that's bullying gone viral.  Societies claiming to be civilized that routinely permit, or engage in, this sort of "governance" should not then be surprised when others call them to task for this hypocrisy.

civ·i·lized .adj. :
1.  showing evidence of moral and intellectual advancement; humane, ethical, and reasonable;
2.  cultured, polite.

Intolerance, cruelty and revenge are not compatible with civilized society.

Such practices, unfortunately, are rampant throughout history.   Some group arrives that wishes to occupy the space another group inhabits. Or territories are won or lost as a result of war between nations.   I can't help seeing a parallel, though, between what happened to the original North American Native Indian population and what's happening today to the Tibetans vis-a-vis the slow, steady eradication, through subversion/conversion/dispersion, of a culture struggling to maintain its existence in the wake of drastic and unstoppable change. As with the Native Americans, the Tibetans are being forced to assimilate, not use their own language, accept subjugation and refrain from resistance.  I am not the only one who wonders if in another 40 years' time everything one normally associates with the words "Tibet" or "Tibetan" will be but a memory. 

Such were the thoughts that came to me when I heard recently from friends about what's happening today in Tibet.

"They install spies in monasteries to monitor us and demand that all monks be "re-educated."
"Our Tibetan native language is not allowed to be taught in the schools."
"All international phone calls are monitored. You have to watch what you say."

("Re-educated:  as in "Wipe the mind clean, insert only officially sanctioned material".)
 
I tried to visit a well-known, widely read Tibetan online news site today and a big red WARNING box suddenly appeared on my screen telling me not to go there, that doing so would infect my computer with malicious trojans ("This site is listed as suspicious. Visiting it may harm your computer.  Third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which cause a warning notice", it explained.)

Tibetan news sites or blogs in support of Tibet are routinely hacked, so this is not surprising, given that today is the anniversary of a Tibetan uprising.  Clearly, certain entities do not appear to want what's currently happening in Tibet to be known, much less talked about.

Today there will be demonstrations, candlelight vigils, marches, and protests worldwide, from thousands of people in a wave of support from activists, friends and sympathisers in solidarity with the Tibetans, standing up to say, unanimously, that the brutality and killings must stop.


I sense their desperation, these repressed  Tibetans who are resorting to self immolation as the only way out of a devastating situation. The last defiant act, the final plea, to the world at large, to please help.



I realize with a small shudder that if I  now lived in China or Tibet, this blog post would likely never be allowed, and that if I persisted in expressing my opinion or sharing such news about Tibet that unfortunate things might begin to happen to me.

(Just ask Cheng Jianping, who got sent for a year of hard labor to be patriotically "re-educated" for posting a sarcastic remark on Twitter.  Ask Liu Xiaobo, professor, writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner, whose long,  non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China and calls for the Chinese government to become more "democratic" earned him a lengthy, ongoing prison term.)

So many uprisings, so much civil discontent, worldwide.  So many wars, so many violations by humans against other humans, so much death and suffering .... so little one can do.

Hang onto your freedoms while you still have them, those that can.  The bullies of the world will always exist, pouncing to control what you do, limit where  you go, decide who you're allowed to talk to, what you read; monitor what you say, judge you by what you believe.  And if you object, you will be dealt with.

We are all humans sharing the same planet.  Some just have more Power than others.  It is those powerless others with whom we must stand as brothers.  Born into a different earthspace  ... we could be them.

A single image, whether captured by camera or painted by words, is worth a thousand reminders.  What kind of world are we living in where one's response to another's desperate act of suicide by fire -- is  to hurl stones at her burning body?  As a species, we seem not to have evolved all that much in the Human Compassion Department these millions of years we've been inhabiting this planet.

Tibetans in Tibet are risking everything to ensure their message is heard and acted upon by the outside world.  *Last year, 54 percent of all messages sent to the Sina Weibo blogging site from Tibet had been deleted by the Chinese government.[2]

Please.  Stand up for Tibet today.  Enough of these needless deaths!!!

Home again

                                                       catching up on reading

                                                       after 3-week hiatus* -
                                                       avalanche!

Pépé, warming garden bench in today's new snow

*hi at  (then bye to)  US.

Reflections in a Smoking Mirror

                               Reflections in a Smoking Mirror

                                                         From the first

                                                             Moctezuma feared it

                                                         and took such precautions as he could

                                                               against the end

                                                           of his world

                                                                           Crazy Horse

                                                                        perceived

                                                               they'd all die singing or fighting

                                                                    or ambushed

                                                                        in their sleep

                                                         Only the Peace Chiefs

                                                              among the Crow

                                                                  Cheyenne and Blackfoot decided to

                                                                            stand the slaughter

                                                                         unresisting

                                                                             in the belief

                                                                       that even the annihilation

                                                                  of their race

                                                           couldn't reduce the Great Spirit

                                                                    and might serve as a lesson

                                                                         for the minds

                                                                              of men

~ ~ Paul Pines

Paul Pines' newest book, Reflections in a Smoking Mirror: Poems of Mexico & Belize, arrived at a time when I was bombarded with work and so I put it aside to read when I got the chance.  Its true impact didn't manifest, however, until after I'd read the book in its entirety - and then gone back and read it again.

The power of words on a page, to tease or repel--or to invite to return for a deeper look.  The words drew me back, whispering there's more to this than one might imagine.

I'd only very recently discovered the work of Paul Pines and found that certain of his poems instantly resonated with me.  His latest publication, Reflections in a Smoking Mirror,  especially piqued my interest.

This book appealed to me on two levels:  one was its creative (almost experimental) format, i.e., you're reading a group of reflective poems about myth and conquest and journeys retraced; then  mid-book find yourself gently speed-bumped back in time.  The poet-voyager with whom you've been traveling recedes into the background and another, centuries' older voice emerges.  Presented with the translation of an ancient manuscript, you pause to examine its contents -- suddenly you're living a piece of history.  Then blip! - you're taken  back to the 21st century to rejoin the poet in Belize, with poems that accentuate the mesh of change and continuity.  New meanings emerge, the fog clears ...  you begin to really see.

 Its second appeal was the insight it imparted.  Merely stating that the book proved "insightful" doesn't do justice to the unexpected expansion of consciousness that results from reflecting on these parallel journeys--the poet's as narrator/ one's own as reader, "mirroring".  The poems themselves become the vehicle that awakens (or enlarges) this consciousness.  Granted, I'm relating a very personal, subjective response here, but I am not alone in noting that this book contains more than just--as its title suggests--a compilation of poetry and reflections.

The story of how this book came about is itself quite interesting.   Imagine you're wandering by a bookstall in Mexico City in 1962 and happen upon a copy of an account by a sixteenth-century cacique (provincial governor) whose  name translated into English sounds like your own - and five years later you inadvertently find yourself in what's left of his "once proud city, now just a few huts, reading his words" and that because of these seeming coincidences you embark on a decades' long journey that will open worlds of perception you never thought possible.

As the book opens, we find Pines at the Restaurant Villa Hermosa as he orders scrambled eggs, fried tortillas and Nescafé.  He observes "La Duena/ a beauty gone to seed".  She "sits by the register in a blue dress/ features flickering/ with the memory/ of loveliness/ as she pins back her hair":
                                                                                                

                            she knows that feelings become extinct

                            when we cease to use them,

                            how we change as creatures

                            once they are gone.

In Section One, Pines reflects on the Configurations of Conquest.  I especially liked the poem,
entitled  "Timepiece" :

Gucumatz, the Quiché Maya serpent god. 

                          What the Maya knew
                          was that every twenty years

                                               their calendars

                                               failed to mesh

                          as if the sun and moon

                          were gears disengaged

                                              on the cusp

                                              of life and death

                          where even the gods

                          fear a force beyond which

                          there is no force

                                             a vector

                                             nothing accounts for . . .

Lady Xoc.  Photo by  Dayna Bateman

                          what else can explain

                          the concept of zero

                                             in a jungle

                                             where orchids spill

                                             in flaming abundance

                                             from giant mahogany

                         as if to say

                         here

                        we cannot speak

                        of absence

In Section Two:  "Synchronicity,"  Pines lets the ancestors themselves speak.  It is only at the end of his journey, he writes in the preface, that their voices have reached him "in ways that have not always been apparent, except for the blood-smoke on these pages."

Through Pines' translation we get to meet his alter-ego, Nakuk Pech (baptismal name, "Pablo") , descendant of the first Conquistadors of Maxtunil, as Pech relates how they--he and his father--joined forces with the Spanish conquerors. A conquest by conversion, in Pablo's case; he watches the power of power, to subjugate, render powerless.

We went drunk on 'pinole' because everything seemed bitter and they ordered us about like masters of the earth.  For six months they rode and we followed on foot.  Many witnessed these events.  I am writing down for my children and those to come until death takes this land for its own.  Until then ...  I do not pay tribute--nor will my sons and daughters. 

Pech records the events as they happened.  "I place them here like heart beats,"   he says.

Just as Pablo Pech invites readers centuries later to understand what it was like to share his particular experience, so his contemporary alter-ego, author/poet Paul Pines, invites readers to join his journey of discovery and share his reflections connecting the past and the present, what has been preserved and what forgotten.

In the third and final section of the book, we are back in the 21st century again, this time in Belize, continuing our voyage along with Pines, in a  mirror travel where "half-way down the coast/ the Coxscomb Mts bleed into the sea".

                                                      

                                                                  I know the integuments

                                                                  of the soul are spun

                                                                  from images the eye

                                                                  records and nourishes

                                                                  to weave us back

                                                                  into the world ...

[Excerpt from the poem "Coastwise on the Fury"]

The impact of the fading threads of memory in the face of change is keenly felt, by participants and observer alike, echoed here in the poem "Dangriga":
   

                                                    The Maya of Santa Rosa

                                                    Wear long faces

                                                    come to town

                                                    still suffering from

                                                    a shock

                                                                      only half

                                                                      remembered

                                                   while Carib girls pace

                                                   the streets

                                                                     coal black

                                                                     in tight slacks

                                                                     hair in corn-rows

                                                  smile at me

                                                  by the River Front Hotel

                                                  where I wait for the truck

                                                  to Mango Creek,

                                                                     smile back

                                                                     and reconsider

                                                                     the conquest

                                                                     of the New World.

In sum, I found this book unexpectedly compelling, because it goes beyond consideration of what's remembered/what's lost -- it  gets you thinking about the depth of human resilience and spirit, and survival of myth in a  modern world "driven by time, instead of depth".  The author himself best describes, far better than I could, what readers slowly become aware of throughout:  images taking shape in the mind, "as in a polished obsidian mirror--smokey at first, then clear."  [p. 49].  A book worth reading - and then going back and reading again.

Reflections in a Smoking Mirror is available at Dos Madras Press.  To visit Paul Pines' website, click here.

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED 

 One and All

 to Open House again at 

Salamander Cove

 ENTER HERE

Poems by:

          Philip Quinlan (U.K.)
               Larry Sorkin (U.S.)
                    Philip Rowland (Japan)
                         John Levy (U.S.)
                              Bill Knott (U.S.)
                                    Chen-ou Liu (Canada)                                                                            
                                                                        
                                                         J.S.H. Bjerg (Denmark)
                                                              Grant Hackett (U.S.)
                                                                    Bob Arnold (U.S.)
                                                                            Ifigenija Simonovic (Slovenia)
                                                                                 Peter Greene (Canada)
                                                                                       Irina Moga (Canada)
                                                                                            Kiril Kadiiski (Bulgaria/France)                             
                                                                                                                                                    
Artwork by:              

                  Janet Brown-Dwehus (Germany)
                                           Lila Lewis Irving (Canada)


Photography by:         John Levy (U.S.)

Sisyphusal

neighbor's car is stuck in ice
guns the pedal
it won't move

Addapush's all it takes.

Yep.

Games and Stories: A Possible Vignette

He was eight years old, sitting on the living room floor playing a video war game when he heard his grandfather in the kitchen say the word warriors.  Only his grandfather wasn't taking about men at arms, he was remembering the war years, telling the boy's mother how hard it'd been for his parents, they'd nothing to eat, their small farm had been overrun, destroyed.  They had to go into hiding.  And then of course, came winter and for six months all they had to eat were onions saved from the root cellar.  Onion sandwiches, the boy's mom laughed, wincing.  The mother hated onions.

POW! POW!  the boy's digital soldier snipered the enemy into a spectacular red blotch on the screen (which didn't kill him - it took eight more thumb presses to blast the animation to death), while his mother in the kitchen remarked, "Oh that reminds me of that funny cookbook--the one where the author tells you how to cook in war time"; whereupon she straightened her back, cleared her throat, and began reciting in a faux British accent:  "How to Cook a Wolf" ...  and laughed some more but the grandfather just stared at her.  Its author M.F.K. Fisher was not British and the mother had never read the book, had only heard about it.  Perhaps she confused Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher with Julia Child, who wasn't British either but, no matter, the effect was the same: her comical performance made her sound authoritative.  Or so she pretended.

The grandfather's memories were subsiding; very few remained of his parents.  He kept them alive by repeating their stories - stories to which his American-born children and grandchildren could not relate. Nor could they speak or understand the language he'd been brought up in.  He didn't know who to blame for this.

Meanwhile, his electronic army, having now been decimated, the boy became bored, got up and went into the kitchen where he thought he'd heard somebody say something about Irish potatoes or wolf soup, he couldn't be sure.  His mother was painting her nails, his grandfather biting into a hunk of cheese, watching an imaginary sack of onions in the corner. "How'd your game go?" his big brother asked, coming down from upstairs. "Reach the next level yet?"  The boy squirmed, ducked the question, grabbed a cookie, ran outside.

Me, I hate onions, the mom said.   Me too, said the grandfather.  They had that, at least, in common.  The boy, now sprinting towards his friend's house, wondered what it'd be like to reach that highest game level.  One day he'd make it, he'd kill all the enemy and come out on top, be the best.  He wanted more than anything, to be the best at something.

________________

I had an onion/sardine sandwich for lunch today and it reminded me of something my late, former father-in-law once told me about his war years in Europe--that they then mostly lived on nothing but onions.  One day I decided to try an 'onion-only' sandwich.   (It's better if the bread is toasted, a bit of Dijon mustard added.  You can't kiss anyone afterwards, of course, they will run from you).  Onions (and garlic) in winter do wonders to keep you from getting a cold, so I eat them frequently.  Wolf stew, though--I don't think so!  I love wolves too much.  (The book's wolf referred to in the book above is metaphoric.)  If you can still find a copy around anywhere, M.F.K. Fisher's The Art of Eating is a pure delight to read. The title is misleading.  It's not just about food.  The perfect book to curl up with during the long, cold winter, to take your mind off the long, cold winter.  A definite 'keeper'.

I started out to forge a tiny poem about war time food, which slowly morphed into a story about loss, brought on by my reading this morning of some poems written by a Tibetan man in India, registered there as a refugee, who returned to his parents' former home only to be arrested and kicked out.  His poems spoke of confused and lost identity -  he is a citizen of no country, his parental homeland is no longer a country.  This is a recurrent theme in many of Erich Maria Remarque's novels, as I recall - the stateless man: individuals without 'papers', unable to prove who they are.  A generation later, how memories fade, how stories begin to unravel, get 'lost', the language forgotten.

My father-in-law's "we lived on onions" story stayed with me for some reason.  Present that idea to a child today and he will say "Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww", unable to imagine such a thing. A world in which one has only onion sandwiches to look forward to, all day, every day?  No way!!   A world without games, though -- now that's even scarier!  Ironic ... the 'game' is to survive.  But survival is not a game. 

 

This Ever Happen to You?

 In the wee hours of the morning, a brilliant idea

emerges from the netherworld of sleep

into your awakening consciousness

The words tumble forth, try to speak to you:

Hurry Up!!  Catch us!! We're important  ....  Hurry Up!!  Catch us!! We're important ... Hurry Up!!  Catch us!! We're important
  Here we come again.  WRITE. US. DOWN ! ... Here we come again.  WRITE. US. DOWN ! ... Here we come again.  WRITE. US. DOWN ! ...

You reach for your pen

rub the sleep from your eye - 

the perfectly crafted poem

now but fragment and blur

(and why is there no ink in this pen, you

filled it just two days ago!!!)

 Too late, we're gone now  ...   Too late, we're gone now ...   Too late, we're gone now...   Too late, we're gone now

 they mock

    the ink starts flowing again, but

the words have all

left

and you're left with:

 a   gpr   krd  ptuqxs krd  ptuqxs lgnvc mmiu  piyzf iqbxt iskkj mu zzzmmm a   gpr   krd  ptuqxs lgnvc mmiu  piyzf iqbxt iskkj mu zzzm mml gnvc mmiu  piyzf iqbxt iskkj mu zzzmmm  a   gpr   krd  ptuqxs lgnvc mmiu  piyzf iqbxt iskkj mu zzzmmm a   gpr   krd  ptuqxs lgnvc mmiu  piyzf iqbxt iskkj mu zzzmmm    krd  ptuqxs lgnvc mmiu  piyzf iqbxt iskkj mu tw iqbxt iskkj mu zzzmmm  a   gpr   krd  ptuqxs lgnvc mmiu a   gpr   krd  ptuqxs lgnvc mmiu  piyzf iqbxt iskkj mu zzzmm

But it was a brilliant poem. 

Honest. 

If only I could remember it.

Let there be dark

Last evening, around 9 p.m., in the process of finalizing a detailed reply to a fellow researcher, the lights suddenly snapped out, all sound disappeared, and everything went completely black. Neighborhood-wide power outage,  not the first time that's happened and rarely at night.  This one was completely disorienting.

First of all I couldn't see anything, not even my hand or the desk or even the contours of the room.  It was complete and total darkness.  I stumbled my way to the kitchen to the cabinet that houses the candles, then felt my way across to the drawer where we keep a box of matches.  Meanwhile my mate somehow located a mini flashlight, which helped because we'd been knocking things over or stepping on cat tails miscalculating which piece of furniture was exactly where.

"Where are you?"
-- "I'm here, where are you?!" 
"Over here."
-- "Where's 'here'?"

ha ha.

Three blocks away I could make out a faint light overhead from a streetlamp over the little baseball field, but apart from the occasional headlights of a passing car there was no light outside Anywhere.  I wondered what'd caused it and how long it would take HydroQuebec to fix it.  We lit a few candles and sat for a while playing a little film trivia game but after an hour it began getting noticeably colder.  No heat, no phone, and if this continued till morning, some stuff in the fridge might have to be thrown out. I put on an extra pair of socks.  We brought an extra blanket out, blew out the candles and decided let's go snuggle up in bed and hope the heat comes back on soon.

It did, eventually, and all was well.  But initially,  more than an hour having passed, the candles having burnt down to half, and nothing having changed, I began thinking how much we take for granted.  That energy can be had and maintained indefinitely (how could it not be?)  Remembering the big ice storm fourteen years ago, when parts of Quebec were without power for as long as a month, people now joke about it, bringing out their "I survived" T-shirts to prove their resilience.

I remember that storm.  It arrived the day I was moving all my belongings, including 25 boxes of books, in a creaky blue van whose driver had a broken foot, from Boston to Vermont.  I especially remember the trees, those beautiful, tall, elegantly simple white birch standing like sentinels along the highway,  encased in ice, horribly twisted and broken.   Every little village in southern Quebec looked like a war zone.  It was devastating.  You can still spot, today, some of those broken trees.

So it occurred to me last night, one of those uninvited little mental what-if's:  What if the national grid should suddenly permanently malfunction, thanks to a Stuxnet attack, and virtually the entire nation--any nation--were, in effect, "shut down".  Hospitals, of course, would have generators.  But imagine, being stuck inside an elevator on the 85th floor in a darkened city somewhere, for days, or without heat in the dead of winter for a week or more,  grocery stores having to throw out tons of spoiled produce, schools/offices/Everything closed, life as we're used to it, come to a standstill.   I think they call this sort of thing Worst Case Scenario:  a possibility, but something we don't think will actually really happen--to us.

It was the sudden, complete disorientation (Darkness. And Silence) that momentarily bolted me out of my complacency, like being zapped into Nothingness, struck momentarily blind and deaf all at once, not knowing where anything IS, every movement  a stumble forward, only to be blocked or thrown off balance.  Pretend this is not temporary.  How would you react?  What would you be thinking of?  It has all the makings of a possible science fiction thriller (or a 2020 survival guide), when we might have already begun running out of water, arable soil, non-polluted  air, sufficient food, available space.

But snap! Just as we're drifting off to sleep wrapped cocoon-like in a layer of blankets, the clock radio starts blinking, forced air begins hissing through the heating vents, a voice from a radio downstairs starts crooning out.  Power!!!!!  We've got Power!!

And today it's all forgotten, a blip in a day's existence.  Except that one little arrested moment that stays lodged in the back of the memory bin:  that tiny little uninvited 'what-if' consideration.  Okay - stock bigger candles. Get a proper flashlight.  Be better prepared  'case  it happens again. You get a whole new appreciation for modern-day conveniences.  I mean, try reading for hours by candle light - that's what our ancestors did.   Squint, squint.  You keep wanting to turn the candle brighter.

Am not saying we should "go back" to those days, just that we maybe get too dependent on certain habits and expectations.  Like that there always will be enough water, food or power at our disposal, etc.

A former acquaintance used to be fond of saying, "Never assume anything", and those words have kind of stuck with me.  Never assume that love will last,  that circumstances can't abruptly change, or that you will find all the answers in the end.  But I tell you, that abrupt jolt into silence and darkness, that sudden loss of real (and perceived) power, brought those thoughts to me again, what we're doing to the earth, how we cope when unexpectedly uprooted, so to speak.

It is snowing.  The weather channel predicts we'll go from zero to -15 C tomorrow.  And then it will snow some more. 

Ah, l'hiver.  :)