Perception

I notice her, from the piano,

kneeling, head bowed, eyes closed,

fingers interlaced with beads,

lips forming the repetitive prayers of the Rosary.

She mouths the last ‘Amen’ after

the last prayer after

the last ‘Glory Be to God’ after

the last decade of the

last Sorrowful Mystery

of this Rosary before mass.

During my pan of the congregation

as I announce a run-through of new music,

her eyes lazer mine.

Her head shakes from side to side, and

her mouth contorts into a No!

I hesitate in my introduction,

smile to myself so I won’t blanch.

I feel taisered.

Five decades, twenty minutes,

erased

in one primal gesture.

Wait—a companion has emerged beside her,

engaged in a quite different conversation,

surely.

Not about me at all, then.

That must be it.

Fatherhood

"I’m not biking any more."  He meant it, too.  Five-year old Daniel was tuckered out. 

"Looks like we’ve found the trail head.  Let’s rest for a while, and then we’ll continue," his father said.

I lifted Daniel’s two-year-old sister from her seat on the back of my bicycle, and we set the bikes down.

"No.  I’m not biking any more," he repeated, as he collapsed on a nearby log.

We had set out from our campsite that morning to bike along a trail that seemed manageable, according to the park map.  Finding the actual trail head, however, had proved a time-consuming challenge, and we had already been biking for more than an hour.  No wonder Daniel was tired.  As we munched on granola bars and Rice Krispie cake,  and passed around the juice boxes, we analyzed our options.  Clearly, we would not be doing the trail today.  The more problematic question was, How were we going to get back to the campsite?  I didn’t like the movie of a long trip back with a recalcitrant rider that was playing in my head .   How far had we come, anyway?

"I could bike back alone, and come back and pick you up with the car," he suggested.  Well, yes you could, but that might be a long wait out here alone with two small children.  We continued to munch and sip.

"Hey, Daniel,"  Elmer said.  "See that post over there?"  The post was maybe ten feet away.

"Yeah."

"Do you think you could bike to the post?"

 

"Oh, sure."   Daniel climbed on his bike, rode to the post, and rested.

"Would you like some more juice, Daniel?"

"No thanks.  I’m done."   In more ways than one, I thought.

"I bet you’re too tired to ride to that tree down the road,"  Elmer ventured.

"Oh, no I’m not,"  Daniel assured him.  "Watch."

Off he went.  Right to the tree.  Elmer followed him.  I strapped little sister back into her seat, and joined them.

Now, we had a strategy, and we leap-frogged back to the campsite, from a tree to a cairn twenty feet away, to a rock thirty feet away, to a sign forty feet away, all the way home.  We sputtered back to the trailer, with the perfume of the pines, the birds’ chatter, and a tail wind for encouragement.

I thought of that summer morning so long ago all day yesterday, Father’s Day, as I reflected on my husband’s fatherhood.   Already thirty-five when Daniel was born, he didn’t know what to do with a baby—the hair pulling, the collic, the spitting up, the diapers.  But give him a child that could walk and talk, and he came into his own.

As soon as the children could talk, he recorded long conversations with them about tea parties, Lego constructions, bath time, and books.  What have come to be known as the "Voices Tapes" now preserve a three-year-old voice reading, "I is for Iguana, impala, ibex, and ibis,"  or  "How many trucks can a tow-truck tow.  One, two, three, four, I don’t know."

He passed on to them his love of gadgets and everything electronic.  They played Birthday Cake and Lemonade Stand on an Apple 2e, and operated VCRs and turntables before they were four. 

He created as many experiences for them as he could.  He registered them in skiing lessons, even though it meant heading out early Sunday morning when he had just returned from playing at a dance a few hours earlier.  He coached baseball and soccer, until we realized that, if we were glad when the games were rained out, maybe baseball and soccer weren’t our collective thing.  He bought a boat and some tubes, and they learned the thrill of water sports and time at the lake with friends.  We traveled.  They learned to play polkas, old-time waltzes, and Latin tunes, and to dance to them, too.

Mostly, though, he respected their ability to make sound decisions, and insisted that they have practice doing that before leaving home.  Serious decisions, not artificial, concocted decisions designed for rehearsal.  Decisions with consequences.  Never a Net nanny in our home.  "They have to deal with the Internet when we won’t be there—they need to start now," he maintained.  Whereas I would have tended toward protection and supervision, he favored discussion and openness. 

I am so grateful for the life lessons taught through the actions more than the words of a good father.  Grateful, too, for the lessons the children have not yet mastered; they still don’t track important events by the make of car they were driving at the time.

Voices

Not a murmur, not a peep, not even a whisper.  Just silence.  Where was my inner voice as I pressed the off button on my computer despite the screen advisory.   Please do not shut down your computer, it warned.   Installing update 1 of 12. 

Great, I thought.   The computer picks this very moment to install updates.  Doesn’t it know that I have a meeting five minutes away in eight minutes?  I can’t wait for updates.  I pressed the off button, slid the laptop into my bag, and left, the little voice still mute.

Not until the blue screen appeared fifteen minutes later as I tried to boot up in preparation for the meeting did I have any idea something might be wrong.  Once I’d followed the prompts in a fruitless cycle of non-repair, I knew I had to bite the bullet.   The little voice chose that moment to awaken.   "Confess your sin to iT," it advised.

Like just about all tech support people I have ever consulted, our iT guys communicated factual information without judgment.  They told me interrupting update installments wasn’t a good thing to do.  That much I had now figured out.   

"How much will I lose?"  I asked, thinking of the documents I have started saving on the desktop to make working from home easier.  I wasn’t worried about the stuff on the office server.

"Hard to say," they answered.  "Maybe nothing."  Really?  In my mind’s eye, I had been matching the critical desktop files to copies I had elsewhere.  I thought I was probably good except for two hours’ worth of work the day before.

"This won’t be a quick fix," they continued.  No doubt.  For the first time, I cringed. A couple of weeks?

"Define a quick fix."

"Well, it will be longer than ten minutes."  I would be happy with any fix, really, no matter how long.  So, this was no surprise.

'It might take two hours."  Just two hours?  Good news, in my world.

"Oh, that’s nothing," I said, relieved.

"You must have a lot of confidence in us," they concluded.  Yep.  If anyone could bail me out of this one, they could.

They picked up the computer, and, later in the afternoon, they had recovered all my files.  A-l-l my files, including the one I was sure was a goner.

"That was two hours of our afternoon, Yvette."

"Two hours of both your afternoons?"

I heard the little voice this time.  "Feel badly, Yvette."

I did and I didn’t.  I felt very badly that they lost time because of my indiscretion.   They have enough on their plates without rescuing someone whose little voice went to sleep.  On the other hand, I was quite proud of myself.   My other little voice—the self-deprecating, belittling, and chastising voice, remained silent, too.  I didn’t feel any particular dread; I didn’t panic.  No cold sweat.  No lead ball in the stomach.  No preoccupation that precluded work.  I just followed the steps, ready to manage whatever would happen. 

This is my older self reacting, diametrically opposed to my young and younger self.  It was philosophical; it envisioned Solitary Me; it remained balanced.  Instead of creating rants, it wrote poetry in the style of William Carlos Williams:

so much depends

upon

two iT guys

restoring

a laptop complaining

about update interruption

so much depends

upon

calm

trust

philosophy

in the face of

a laptop’s revenge

after update interruption

My little voice piped up again.  "Those guys invested a good part of their afternoon for you, Yvette.  Don’t just say thank you.  Show thank you."

Believe me,  I listened.

Linchpins

Over the weekend, I read An Abundance of Katherines and The Fault In Our Stars by John Green, two books perched atop my reading list since February when I finished Looking For Alaska.  Neither disappointed.

In The Fault In Our Stars, Green’s heroine, Hazel, cites the American poet William Carlos Williams:

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens

Hazel tries her hand at a few imitations.  I thought I would try mine, too.  The best of my attempts:

so much depends

upon

a Yes!

with details to

come later

so much depends

upon

participants

thrown into the deep end

being able to swim

so much depends

upon

a text message

that reads,

"Home"

so much depends

upon

openness

to ideas in heaven and earth

not dreamt of in

our philosophy

so much depends

upon

egos

shed at the door

like winter clothes

Grandfathers

How long did he live with the knot in his stomach?

Did he fret, preparing his tools,

half an hour before starting to build the crates?

Did dread mestastasize each day,

as he aligned the nail heads so he could work faster?

Did he have a premonition that his son, my grandfather, would never return

when he left to visit his cousin in Saskatchewan?

Where in the world was Saskatchewan?

Ridiculous, might he have said, to comfort himself? 

To reassure himself? 

To convince himself?

After all, here, in Holyoke, in 1918, they had

running water,

electricity,

sewage,

a big house, 

where they all lived together.

Did he notice the messenger stride up the walk, telegram in hand?

Did he peer over my grandmother’s shoulder as she read it?

Or did he give her some space, knowing she would confide in him?

What?  Impossible!

Sell everything, and move out West? 

What is he thinking?

Did they even ask him if he wanted to go along? 

Would he even have considered it, at 67?

How could he live without the grandkids? 

How long before the eyes dried, after they left?

Did he accompany them to the train station?

Or did they say good-bye at the house,

suspecting they would never see each other again,

my grandmother heartbroken to leave,

the grandkids wrenched from their home,

great-grandfather loathe to see them go?

What did he do to mute the silence?

He died.  

At 68.

Another telegram, another town.

Same regret, same sorrow.

Hervé

I got the call from the care home at 11 am on Thursday, June 2, 2011, just after period 2.   My father was not doing well, and I needed to come.

Papa and I at his 100th birthday celebration.

I knew it was the end.  That’s how Murphy works.   For one thing, I had decided not to drop in on him that morning, before going to work.  I had seen him three times the day before, the last at about 9 pm.  True, his mouth had looked a little contorted, but I had chalked that up to a deep sleep.   I would see him after work, and I could use the extra minutes.  For another,  I didn’t have a vehicle.  Elmer had business in the city, and we had gone in together.   For probably the only time during the six months since Papa had been hospitalized, I didn’t even think of what I would do if I needed to go home, a half-hour drive away.

I told the office I was heading home.  But I couldn’t get Elmer on the cell.  I scribbled out a few instructions for a sub who would cover the rest of the day, shoved my computer and some books into my bag, said good-bye to the students getting ready for period 3.  Still no phone contact with Elmer.  Panicked, I asked the principal if someone could drive me home.  He gave me the keys to his car.  Bless him.

Papa had just left when I got there.   The chaplain and a nurse were with him.  He was so serene lying there on the bed, still warm, looking dapper in a gray checkered shirt and burgundy sweater.   Even in death, he didn’t look 100 years old.  Death presses out the wrinkles, softens the skin to a delicate translucence,  pushes age back.  La mort rajeunit.

How could I not have been there when he died?  I collapsed on the chair beside him, took his hand, and sobbed my regret.  The nurses were so good.  "He just didn’t want you there, for his own reasons.  We see it all the time.  Families keep a vigil for weeks, 24/7, and then someone goes to the bathroom, and the loved one leaves," they comforted.   He had gotten dressed in the morning, they said, even gone to the neighborhood dining room for breakfast.   A few hours later, he told the nurse, "I’m dying."   I wanted so much to be there for him, always expected I would be, the last thing I could do for a man who had devoted his entire life to taking care of other people. 

The women left, and we were alone, Papa and I, for the last time.  His spirit filled the room, and I had time to remind him yet again of how much I loved him, and of the legacy we would carry with us forever.

Respect the power of nature.  (Hail and tornadoes means business).

Give up your dreams for those you love.  (Even if it means you won’t be a pilot).

Be innovative.  (No matter what your friends or neighbors might say.)

Read.  (like National Geographic, Popular Science, books from Catholic and science book clubs).

Take classes.  (Correspondence course assignments written out on the kitchen table, if you have to.)

Do crossword puzzles, and play cards.  (Keep French and English dictionaries on the kitchen cupboard for reference, and play cribbage and bridge at every opportunity.)

Take the time to yuck it up with friends over coffee and spirits.  (In the shop, in the field, in the kithcen, no matter.)

Savor good food and good wine and good company.  Linger over meals.   (Memories are made around the dinner table).

Eat slowly.    (Especially leaning against the wheel of the combine, in the field during harvest.)

Find out how things work.  (An internal combustion engine,  a manual transmission.)

Go to church.  (Even when it’s a beautiful harvest day, and you have acres in swaths.)

Drive a manual transmission.  (And parallel park, too, and start after being stopped on an incline.)

Do what it takes.  (Get up at 4 am, come home at midnight, fall asleep at the kitchen table, stirring your coffee with your finger, go to bed, and do it all over again, for weeks on end.)

Don from the funeral home arrived to take care of Papa.    It was still only early afternoon.   Elmer and I drove the principal’s car back to school.  I began the phone calls that marked the beginning of life without Papa.

Ledger

Life is a balance sheet.  With every decision, we  end up in the black or in the red.  Of course, we aim for the black, weighing the pros and the cons in concert with the information we have at the time, and hope for the best.   Our decisions, however, exend way beyond ordinary financial matters, like buying a house, or a car, or accepting or rejecting a position.

Everything has a price.  We pay up, whether we realize we are paying or not, and in currency much more valuable than money.   How would I reconcile the needs of my children with my need for a career, for example?  I decided to resign my position to stay home with my children full-time for a few years;  later, I returned to work only part-time.     Today, I look at my three capable adults, and at my career path, and I can say, Okay, I’m in the black.  When I decided to return to work full-time, the decision affected our younger son, who was four at the time, the most.  Today, I look at him, and think, Okay, I’m in the black.  (Hopefully, he feels the same way!!)  When the nature of a new position breached the scope of what I perceived as my expertise, and I worried about ending up in the red,  I rejected an extension of a secondment in favour of a return to my school division.  I’m still in the black.

The ink is red on some of my other balance sheets, though.  I don’t compost or plant a large garden, and I know that puts me in the red.  I’ve had frank discussions with people that have left me in the red.  Who knows what the balance sheet shows today with respect to community involvement?  The volunteer positions that leeched so many hours when the children were still at home have become obsolete, now that they are gone.  Add to that scaling back my musical obligations, and I’m probably not doing my share.

Living in Canada has its price, too.  Taxes.   As my husband and I travel, both at home and abroad, non-Canadians we meet often ask us how we feel about what they see as the tax burden in Canada.  People are surprised at our response, I think.  You see, we have always perceived taxes as a responsibility rather than a burden.  Let’s be clear—we don’t go out of our way to pay as much tax as possible.  Yet we know that, beyond providing for the health care we enjoy, the education system, employment insurance, and the infrastructure of our country,  taxes enable us to fulfill our responsibility to our fellow citizens who struggle, for whatever reason.  Hardly ever do we find people heartily endorsing that position.

Until the other day.  Listening to CBC’s The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti, on the way to work, I heard one of her guests articulate the view with the simplicity and eloquence that could make anyone wonder how any other perspective could make sense.  First, some background on the report.  Tremonti was discussing online home rental sites like Airbnb, that provide accommodation outside the scope of regulation and the tax bureau.  Tremonti calls it, "the law clash[ing] with the ‘share economy.’"  Her guests included Alan Ganev, an apartment owner who rents accommodations to travelers online, and Rob Ross, co-owner of La Loggia, a bed and breakfast in Montréal that operates within established regulation and tax systems.  This second interview is the jewel.

My sense is that Tremonti would have expected Ross to express dismay, at the very least, that Ganev and others are operating without being sanctioned.  But that’s not what happened.  In fact, Ross doesn’t feel threatened at all.  He and his partner have an established clientele, upscale, by his own admission, that chooses his establishment for a worry-free vacation.  He goes on to say that, as wealthy people become even wealthier,  people left stagnating in the middle will find ways to access the same opportunities as the rich. 

Even more surprising to some, Ross see taxes as his responsibility. "We live in an incredible social democracy," he says, "and, for that to continue, we all have to pay for it in a certain way, if we want our chldren and our nieces and nephews to inherit this kind of social democracy. . . . We pay a huge amount of taxes . . . we pay $5 000 to the government every year for each room, essentially . . . We’re happy to remit those taxes because it helps to contribute to the social democracy we have in the province, things like education, daycare, all those good things."  Wow.  Such conviction expressed in a calm, reasoned, voice.

To me, Ross is an example of living from the point of view of abundance (cf the May 1 post).   Airbnb is no threat to him.  No need to worry—both his establishment and Airbnb can share the market.  Targeting different clienteles and offering different levels of service and security, each business has a niche.  Furthermore, Ross is happy to pay his taxes, knowing that he is doing his part to preserve the society he cherishes for future generations.  Whether others are doing the same doesn’t matter.  He will have followed his principles.

 What an inspiration.  Ross is happy to pay the price; he knows he is in the black, and others coming after him will be too, because of his actions. 

The entire interview is well worth your time.  Check out  The Current: Airbnb: When the law clashes with the 'share economy'"