This city may praise individuality, but its residents are a herd. When one walks up Seventh Avenue, she is stepping behind one person, in front of another, around a couple holding hands, underneath a window washer, over a heroin addict nodding off, and between two piles of poo. New York offers only a prepositional life. No action exists without a modifier.

–except from I Totally Meant To Do That by Jane Borden

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The House of Fielding has been the House of Hectic lately, and today was no exception. I drove two patients to/from Princess Margaret Hospital this morning, went to The Firm, and at 5pm my friend-of-a-friend on a business trip from Paris arrived and met me at my office today. We brought his stuff to my place, and I continued to Midtown to meet the owner of Valencienne (*website music alert!*), a local wedding gown designer who is donating some dresses to The Brides’ Project.

Did the drop-off with Helen, then came home to tidy up the Almighty Paper Explosion that took over my apartment since the weekend when I finished my rather complicated income tax return (being both employed and self-employed).

Olivier hauled food in his luggage from Montreal (hey, I would, too) and was the bearer of a gift in the form of a large format book of black and white photography shot in the City of Lights. I was chuffed!

The top photo looks like a black and white photograph but you’ll notice the strip of red on the book binder that gives it away… this was shot in my bathroom with the black and white tile flooring, which you might recognize since I do a lot of shooting in there — not for the ambience, but for the lighting. It’s the best lighting in my whole place. Heck, the bathroom is usually the brightest-lit spot in most people’s homes!

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I was listening to a CBC Radio program today where people called in to discuss how they were introduced to books as children and which books got them hooked on reading. In the course of the discussion it struck me that parents reading to children seemed very much a Western, Developed World activity. The first time I’d ever seen this was in a Disney movie or on North American television, because it certainly didn’t happen at home.

All I can remember about reading was that we learned it in school, not from our parents. This isn’t a criticism of my parents, though, I’m old enough now to comprehend the economic realities of immigration and generational differences in raising children. My parents were constantly working — they had multiple jobs when I was growing up and we were mostly latchkey kids. If there was a parent at home we had to tiptoe around the house because that parent was busy sleeping between shifts. It was expected that we would learn how to read and enjoy books regardless of whether we were read to or not, but it became an individual rather than a shared activity.

The three of us read books voraciously (we even competed with each other in speed-reading), but it was mostly because it was a) free (hooray for public libraries!), and b) something we could do on our own. None of us attended camp or were enrolled in any extracurricular learning or sports activities; we just didn’t have the money. I’ve mentioned before that libraries saved our childhoods — they really did! In the summertime we practically lived in the Winnipeg Public Libraries.

I can remember our parents reading out loud from devotionals and the Bible, but casting my mind way back to childhood digs up nothing read for “fun” (read: secular). When I babysat other people’s kids in high school it was assumed that I would read them bedtime stories, and we’ve read books to the five Ms since they were small and they love it, but it’s definitely not something we grew up with.

Was this a typical immigrant-kid-from-Developing-World experience? Maybe the kids getting read to were less of a majority than I perceived. That’s what I’d like to find out, but since most of the readers here are the silent kind I’m going to do it non-scientifically by just asking yes or no and leaving any additional information up to you to comment on.

Do you remember your favourite childhood books? Have you held onto them? (I loved the Heidi stories, they probably influenced my two trips to Switzerland. Asterix and Obelix. Nancy Drew. Sam Campbell’s A Tippy Canoe and Canada Too series. But I don’t have any of them now…)

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Back in May, I hosted a brunch at my place, and there was a German woman there on her way to rural BC who asked to borrow this book. I told her this one was a good read, and quite informative about the people of Canada. I said that she could keep it for as long as she took to read it, then I promptly forgot about it. That is, until I was on my way to New York a week ago and found it had worked its way back to me, accompanied by a letter! (It even travelled to New York and back in the back of my car.)

I bought Timbit Nation for peanuts at a charity book sale at my previous workplace. How fitting that it would travel across the country on its own! With the rare exception such as travel guides, I usually only buy used books because I’m a big fan of the public library system (it was the best part of my childhood) and sharing books rather than collecting them and having them gather dust on the shelf.

When I was constantly travelling, I would get my reading material from book exchanges at hostels: read a book, leave it behind for someone else, pick up a book that someone left behind, et cetera.

While in northern Australia I shared a tent for a while with a French guy from Brittany who could barely speak English. He’d given up entirely on the John Irving book A Prayer For Owen Meany, which he turned over to me and I completely devoured. Upon finishing, I made an attempt at translating the plot for him but my French was wholly inadequate for the bizarreness of Irving’s storytelling. We had a good laugh over it, anyway. When I remember the book I can’t help but think of Bruno and his mop of curly brown hair, big smile, and teeth that would only excite a dentist. I have lots of stories like this locked up in my memory vault — stories of books and people and the intersection of both. The only thing better than having your imagination stirred is to stir someone else’s!

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August 30, 2007: On Patriotism and Being Canadian

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My LANDS, I have an electronic mound of terrific photos from the weekend but — at the risk of sounding boringly repetitive — there is little time for the workflow process to get them online. So I leave you with two of my favourites, featuring my favourite upstate New York munchkins, the super-cute kidlets of Toyfoto. Read her entry here.

And I must point you to several photos she took [1 2 3] which I absolutely adore: me reading a book called “Tub-Boo-Boo” that requires a solid pair of lungs and a BFA in Theatre. You don’t read this book, you perform it!

* A rhetorical question, because the answer would be really sad.

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My plan for this evening was to process last weekend’s photos, but alas, I had to face the fact that I don’t live in a self-cleaning apartment and my clothes aren’t of the self-laundering variety (when will the scientists get around to inventing these???). Oh well, there goes another evening, but at least it was productive.

I thought I would share a couple of passages from the book I mentioned recently, Timbit Nation, which I finished the other day. (I highly recommend this book, whether you’re Canadian or not, at the very least as an entertaining travelogue.)

Having watched some of Chalk River’s best scientists head south, the question of leaving Canada remained a sore point for Kyle. He had grown up in Canada and gone to a Canadian university. He did not want to abandon his country or be seen to be abandoning his country. Yet he had a more continental view than his parents’ generation, a more global view, really. In his mind, he could be as Canadian living in Dallas as in Deep River.

“Most of my friends are patriotic,” he explained. “Patriotism doesn’t mean having to give up something or give up opportunities.”

I had not heard this before. Kyle viewed Canada as an ethnic group as much as a nation, a land that did more than receive people. It originated them. This did not follow the most commonly accepted definition of ethnicity, based on a common heritage, distinct language, original culture and occasionally a shared physical trait. None of these could be claimed by Canada. But ethnicities also come with their own state of mind — their own values, world views, customs and traditions — and Canadians had plenty of those. Kyle felt he could go anywhere in the world, for any length of time, and would remain Canadian: a Canadian-Texan, a Canadian-Briton, a Canadian-Singaporean. Even if he were a citizen of the world, his Canadian blood would flow through him. It was an intriguing thought, for a nation of immigrants and aboriginals.

– Timbit Nation, a Hitchhiker’s View of Canada, by John Stackhouse (p. 167-168)

Patriotism isn’t something you necessarily feel strongly about until you leave the country, at least for me. Or, you feel patriotic but that patriotism hasn’t been challenged in a direct way. Sometimes it may even start out to be nothing more than a vague notion of cultural identity, the difference between what is familiar and what is not — until some other country (or countries) begins to feel familiar, and then patriotism takes on a different form or strength. Now the familiar isn’t always more comfortable, or practical, or even desired. It’s interesting to me how expatriation can make you learn about yourself, your country, and how the world views your country; suddenly your beliefs and value systems are examined more closely because foreigners become an item of curiosity.

I’ve been a longer-term expat in three countries, and had vastly different experiences in each of them. I’m not planning to head off again in the short-term, but my expat days are definitely not over. There’s lots of learning to do.

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I scanned this first page of the 1992 Aussie road trip journal recently to email to Lachlan, and because my book is completely falling apart at the seams. I’ve been keeping it in a box because there are bits glued and taped in, and the adhesive isn’t working anymore! I flipped through the book for the first time in a very long time a couple of weeks ago and it made me laugh and cry, as these sorts of memory lane-ish activities tend to do.

This first page is actually the least interesting part of the road trip journal — I wrote long entries, doodled and pasted things on the following pages — but I wanted to show the post-it note glued into the book. Isn’t that how all modern-day road trips with strangers begin? With little square notes stuck or tacked to bulletin boards? I’m really glad I kept this one, though, it’s how I ended up in Scotland (and some other countries) in the first place.

I’m currently reading Timbit Nation, a book written by a Globe and Mail journalist who decided to hitchhike across Canada to experience his own country through the eyes of the locals — the locals who pick up hitchhikers, anyway. I’m thoroughly fascinated by this book, not just for the hitchhiking stories that bring back memories of my own crazy times spent with my thumb out on lonely roads in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia, but the political and cultural background information the author incorporates into his documented journey. It’s like a crash course in Canadian history mixed with travel journalism. Some parts are absolutely hilarious to me, because I can relate to some of the frustrations the author expresses about hitchhiking and some of the, erm, unusual characters he meets along the way.

Maybe one day I’ll think more seriously about putting some stories together — with a little more than weak tape and glue — but for now I’ll start with some here and there on my website before I get senile and not remember a thing… like about writing that bit from Day 4 of the road trip in Canberra: “…lost a treasured pair of yellow knickers…. where???” What??

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From David’s aviation library:

How the World Goes Away

And now a strange thing happens. It is so delicate and ephemeral that even to recognize it and allow it to enter our consciousness may destroy it. It is that, while flying, the rest of the world disappears. We suddenly have no past or future. Our lives have been erased from our minds. We have only our flight. We are existing completely in the here and now. By increasing our concentration, through the paradox of not concentrating, the mind is empty of everything but the immediate moment of experience; it is open, clear, and fully alert, and at the same time free of everything but the present.

- Harry Bauer, The Flying Mystique

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I had a pretty good day today, all things considered. This afternoon I even made some plans that I would normally anticipate; it’s the first time in ages when I’ve had something to look forward to. So why were there tears streaming down my cheeks on the way home, threatening to blind me?

In grief we often have a deep well of different emotions occurring at the same time, which is what makes grief confusing. We don’t have to choose which emotion is right or wrong. We can feel each emotion as it occurs and understand that relief is not disloyalty but rather a sign of deep love. Even as you are an unwilling character in your loss, you know that your loss will be easier for you to bear than the suffering was for your loved one. That is real love.

Relief plays out in many ways: it may occur for you when you finally get all the medical equipment out of the house. But while you transform the room from a makeshift hospital room to a bedroom once again, the subsequent emptiness will create a new pain. The day you go back to work may feel like a guilty pleasure, as you feel the relief of returning to your work life as you knew it before the tragedy. But then 4:30pm hits and you realize you will be going home to an empty house. Even when you are happy to see your friends again and laugh at their jokes, the relief is mixed with sadness and, maybe, guilt.

– Kübler-Ross/Kessler, On Grief and Grieving

I confuse myself, with my reactions to things: events, statements, opinions, lyrics, sights, sounds, ideas, et cetera.

I plan something exciting, and my first instinct is to tell David. It makes me upset that I can’t, and he can’t enjoy it with me. I’m no longer happy about my plans. I feel guilty about making them, which erodes the joy.

Intellectually, I know it’s important that I make plans, to think of the future, but emotionally I keep rewinding to David’s enthusiasm when I came up with an idea and we’d execute it together. Whenever I decided to do something on my own, he was always visibly disappointed, and it cut me to the core. As it seems to be doing now.

Two steps forward, one step back. One step forward, two steps back. Two steps forward… you get the idea. I feel very lost sometimes — this is new territory, with no roadmap — but I get the feeling I’m going generally in the right direction. I just keep plodding along, hoping I’ll get somewhere.

Technorati tags: Kubler-Ross, Kessler, literature, quote, grieving, bereavement, film photography, Pentax K-1000

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My friend Steve Savage is off to Russia in two weeks, and is desperately trying to raise some funds by selling off his remaining stock of his recently published book. In a bit of an experiment, he has listed a couple of copies of “Everywhere but Missouri, mate!” on eBay. To find them, just log onto eBay, and search for the book by title, or just with the words ‘Missouri’ and ‘mate’. It’s your chance to pick up a last minute Christmas present for as little as ten bucks. If the books start attracting a few bids, he will list more copies so if you’re outbid on one, you stand a chance on the next one.

I hosted Stephen Savage when he began his most recent ’round-the-world tour in July 2003, and despite his crass Aussie humour* is an incredibly likeable bloke with an amazing work ethic and a gift for storytelling… tall tales**… For more about the book, Steve himself, or his remarkable journeys, check out his Book Preview Page:

Everything but Missouri, Mate! – The Savage Files Book

I bought a stack of copies meself, so if you’re a friend of mine, this is probably what’s under your tree, from me.

*Steve, are you reading this?
**Steve, are you still reading? Send me some horchata and I’ll lay off the jabs!

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