songs of innocence/experience

remind me of me

2007-03-04T21:29:00.000-07:00

My most striking visual memory of attending a birthday as a child is formed from a photograph stowed safely in the large burgundy album stowed away in the bottom drawer of my mother’s dresser. In the photo I wear a baby blue and white sweat pant suit and sit atop a fiberglass ankleosaurus. Also riding the ankleosaurus are Keith, Lisa and Joy. At the time Keith was my best friend and I had secretly decided that I would marry him. Lisa, with her blonde ringlets and considerable novelty (Keith spent a great deal more time with me burying ladybugs in dirt piles, and wrestling his cat, Missy, out of his second story window) was my chief competitor. Joy, Lisa’s little sister, was a relatively unimportant part of the social hierarchy. We are not all smiling. Someone looks away distractedly. Another frowns because of an earlier event, or perhaps because they are sliding off of the dinosaur. My memory is not sure which expression should be assigned to which face. But I believe myself to be smiling. I can’t remember anything about this party. I can’t even begin to guess where the event was held.

This image popped into my head when I attended my cousin Jesse’s belated fourth birthday party on Saturday. I decided, yesterday, that children’s birthday parties are terrible. Preschool children don’t care about the cake, the food, each other or even the gifts. The party is for the parents who sit around distractedly talking to each other about the children they watch weaving in and out of the molded plastic play gyms.

do not merely listen, a dialogue

2007-01-19T22:13:00.000-07:00

I once was told that the Hebrew verb 'to listen' implied far more than a quiet admiration and a drinking in of words. To listen was to obey. If no action followed from the gentle stream of words falling on the tiniest bones of the body there was no listen.

"Do not merely listen to the word, and so decieve yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word and does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediatly forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it - he will be blessed in what he does."

I have looked:

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ."

But I forget. I don't even intend to listen if all of this (see above) is required, if I must relinquish my desires. Shit.

I immediately forget the one who knows every mark of my body. I hold an epistolary of love every morning and sometimes spill my cereal on it, its goldleaf powders away I read its words so often. But I forget that I am beloved.

Then I catch a glimpse of you as I stand in the bus park at the LRT station. The woman on the bench quakes beside her grocery bags. The streetlights have just come on and the sky at the horizon is the brilliant blue of a half dark evening, a hue that fades to as black as the leafless trees that reach towards the overhead curve of the atmposphere in the shadows of the streetlights. This is beauty.

I have forgotten (how) to be beautiful. I listen just a little less these days it seems, only to forget my face just a little more.

still a little bit of your song in my ear, still a little bit of your words I long to hear

2006-12-14T22:26:00.000-07:00

A moment of truly alive crept into my day - today I managed to be so distracted by cheerful daydreams and first-rate music that I missed two LRT stations (one where I can catch a bus that will deliver me approximately one street light and twenty-seven steps from my front door and a second a fifteen minute walk from my back gate, past the newly flooded ice at Churchill Square and a fabulous smelling bakery in Chinatown).

You may wonder why I do not consider this event bothersome, why I am touting missed train stops as the most life-affirming event in my recent recollection. But is it not reassuring to realize that you can become distracted, that the timely completion of tasks is not the totality of your being, that a handsome smile and just the right piece of music can lift you out of your carefully orchestrated day?

the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these

2006-09-21T16:31:00.000-06:00

After descending the stilled side of the escalator closed for preventative maintainance, I seated myself on one of the seafoam green tiled cubes in the Univerity LRT station. I glanced over to see a girl of about seven - dressed, herself, in a seafoam turtleneck, her dark hair curled slightly from the rain and pulled back with a orange hair barette - lifting the reciever of the pay phone, dialing numbers, waiting.

I watched as, after a moment of contemplation, a student waiting for the train removed her headphones from her ears, walked over to the payphone oppisite the seafoam clad child and picked up the reciever.

"hello, did you call for me?"

the small girl giggled. the larger girl asked if the smaller girl had had a nice day.

"yes"

after a few moments and a short conversation the student took a few steps away from the phone. The little girl dialed again. The less little girl returned to the phone engaging with the child once again. The child walked away from the phone to whisper to her grandfather, pointing at the student. The child then darted across the platform to the student showing her her tiny hand.

"see my nail is ripped"

"who painted your nails for you?"

"my mommy. see it's ripped"

she then darted back to her grandfather. the clairview train arrived. both girls boarded the train, but in separate cars.

i'm going to write a story

2006-09-14T18:34:00.000-06:00

"aiming at beauty produces, at best, the attractive" northrop frye

post script

2006-06-12T08:22:00.000-06:00

We love. Will we stop? I doubt it. Unconditional love seems to be an impulse. The strongest loves seem to be out of our control. Love, of course I will love. I will often love in spite of my better judgment, without a sensible basis.

Why worry whether we will be what we want. How could we forget. Forget what we know.

I’d rather be working for a paycheck than waiting to win the lottery.

2006-06-11T22:14:00.000-06:00

A talented songwriter once said “we know who we should love, but we’re never certain how.” Sometimes it seems that I have forgotten how to love. Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend as I was driving her home. She said that she didn’t know if she had it in her to love romantically again; she thinks that she can love as a friend, even love unconditionally, but somehow romance has lost its appeal and become an impossibility. When she said that she could love unconditionally I didn’t believe her.

We pulled up to her house. It barely stands and is on the slate for demolition. But my friend and her room mate, both painters by trade, have been using Bejamin Moore’s off-tints to spruce the place up. The have painted the kitchen avacado and gold (Ralph Lauren), the bathroom purple. The job is far from perfect and permanent objects are shadowed by white. As I sat on the bed they talked about what to paint next, who owed what for paint and groceries, when they had a break in schedules (an appointment was scrawled on the bathroom mirror).

This friend is probably the person unrelated to me I have loved the longest. I have known her since her sister was in a stroller. We built forts and bathed worms together. I don’t love her well enough. But as I saw her interact with her roommate I saw that she loves very well and I want to learn from her.

Tonight I was uncertain how to love. But some part of me remembered a pattern. Not the part that wishes to be loved in return. Not the part that considers consequences. Not the part that will sometimes dangle a hand by my side hoping that it will be held. I have learned love without knowing how.

working title: favorites

2006-04-24T21:31:00.000-06:00

Maggie - "What are you going to be?"
Ruth _ "I'm going to have a degree in English Literature?"
Maggie - "So what will you do?"
Ruth - "The trouble is I've never really know what I wanted to do for a job. What do you want to be?"
Maggie (firmly and with conviction) - "A doctor."
Ruth - "A surgeon or a family doctor?"
Olivia - " I could never be a surgeon. It would be too gross."
Ruth - "Do you know what you want to be Olivia?"
Olivia (also firmly and with conviction) - "A veterinarian."
Ruth - "I think you're going to have a hard time being a veterinarian without doing surgery."

***

In the LRT station a brother and a sister (perhaps twins, they seemed the same age) raced eachother up and down the escalatory - both running up the down, one running up the down while the other ascened stationary on the up. They laughed. Their mother stood with her back to me. She was laughing. I was laughing. In the train they sat in the pair of seats across from me. They were giggling, trying to make their mom giggle. Eventually after many crossed eyes and induced laughter she broke out in giggles. The girl sitting across from me smiled at me.

Mad Skills

2006-04-21T15:13:00.000-06:00

I have accepted a postion at for July at a camp called Esperanza - Ferrier point. I am "assistant director." Ferrier point is located on Nootka Island (not pronounced newt-ka or but rather more like nutka. I was informed of my erroneous pronunciation at church on Sunday and though this infomation I hope to save you copious future humiliation) on the North West coast of Vancouver Island. The camp is small. Sixteen campers who are practically adults. Camp is a month long.

Before I embark on new and exciting adventures I often spend a great deal of time imagining my experience. I base my current imaginings on the list below, one visit to Point no Point when I was five, a trip to Uclulet two falls ago, going to White Rock, and taking the ferry to the Sunshine Coast. Needless to say, my visions for the month of July are, necessarily, somewhat skewed. I imagine no running water (I think I'm correct on this point at least because we're supposed to bring biodegradable shampoo and soap), catching a salmon as long as my arm, being thrown into the ocean repeatedly (this based on many years of being thrown into one very icy lake), not getting enough fresh vegetables, being often and severly sunburned, campers who are all taller than me, being often soaked with rain, collecting shells, sleeping by the ocean. I think It will be beautiful place to be and allot of fun. I'm trying to imagine Halima and the girls I will share a tent with.

It is interesting to me that I have gotten this position. Take a moment to peruse the list of responsibilities below:

"Assist with all areas of the program.
You will be directing the teen girls and Halima O'Brian will assist you.
Camp set-up (tents/tarps/general living area etc.)
You will be reponsible for taking an active part in the dailey [sic] running of the camp.
Assist in directing dailey [sic] devotionals/prayer/campfire.
*Kitchen duty(cooking/cleaning/arranging cooking schedules, possibly travelling to
Campbell River to purchase groceries etc)
**Food gathering (fishing/crabbing/etc.)
***Assist in directing work projects.(projects yet to be determined)
Assist in directing hiking excurtions(includes food prep/gear/safety/leading/etc.).
Assist in camp discipline.
****Assist in directing the sea canoe journey(prep/camp set-up/paddling /leading/etc.).
Assisting with First Aid and caring for the general health/hygene of the camp.
*****Some general maintenance on quad/boats/motors and operating the mentioned equipment.
I understand that you have a background in canoeing...I may ask you to do the canoe
orientation...from paddling to safety."

*Campbell River... where's that?
** Once Noelle and I caught a fish. We were in a Canoe. We couldn't take the hook out of its mouth. We couldn't knock it on the head hard enough to kill it, it thrashed in an alarming fashion isolating us in our respective end of the canoe. It took 'Fred' an hour to die. Someone else had to clean him. Fred was just a little pike.
***Ruth's carpentry skills yet to be determined.
****Sea canoeing eh? Never done that before
*****Ruth's "general maintanance skills" questionable. Also operating skills have yet to be determined.

As you can see my plan is to learn allot this summer. Now can you just imagine the skills...

4D 6

2006-04-01T10:53:00.000-07:00

As I walked into the room labeled ‘Bonarchuck, Jesse’ I glanced across the room searching for my aunt and saw, instead, my uncle obscured by the stainless steel bars of the crib. Only his forearms seemed to support his stout body, as he bore his stresses onto the edge of the crib containing his young son. Behind him on the miniature TV played a golf game intended to distract. I greeted my uncle. His speech was a demonstration of love borne in a series of statements of all that is failing. No eardrops. No chest x-ray. No Doctor’s visit. No sleep for his wife last night. How deep a father’s love.

My Auntie Jen enters, and Kevin reluctantly trades their older son’s company for the post beside the bed and the car keys. She has brought chicken fingers for Tyson and places them on the tray at the end of the crib in amidst the multicoloured cups of dated jello, a sipee cup of water, apple juice in Styrofoam with a straw. Tyson is playing super Nintendo in the waiting room.

Jen and I talk.

Jesse coughs. Jen sits him up, supporting his body by holding his chin in her hand. The length of his torso surprises me. At three I still think him a baby, he has just learned to walk. His eyes flutter open but settle on an horizon just obscuring his pupils. His eyes are swollen from the surgery, or perhaps the morphine. His blanket is pulled back and I can see the drainage tube that connects to his urethra, draining half his urine output mixed with blood. Jen changes his diaper as he falls in and out of sleep. She is tired; he has contracted a chest cold and tips his head back when he coughs; he refuses the natural inclination to lean forward; he can’t clear his chest. Jen holds him up as he falls in and out of sleep. She tries to get him to drink (he hasn’t had anything since the surgery). She wets his lips with apple juice, sneaks a spoonful into his mouth when he yawns. Pleads with him to take more. How deep a mother’s love.

Easter Tradition

2006-03-20T23:43:00.000-07:00

“So, are you looking forward to spring break?” I ask Kristen, a ten year old girl who I am walking home from Monday Night Kids. We walk by ourselves, a block ahead of the rest of the group who live on her street: Kristen can’t walk with Alicia because Alicia has been caught smoking.

“No. My musha is coming to take us to Salt Lake. Its so boring there, there’s nothin’ to do der” she says with a voice imbibed with both a hard edge and a child’s speech impediment.

“Is that the reserve?”

“Ya.”

“Do you have family there?”

“Ya. Everyone der is my family. We’re goin’ der for a month to ride horses. My musha is going to get a bus and we’re only allowed to bring one friend each and der are so many people livin’ at our house she might have to rent anotder whole bus”

“So are you missing school?”

“No, that’s in the summer. We go for a month and somewhere else for a month. We’re just goin’ for a week now. Its so borin’ there. Last year my mom didn’t get us much candy for Easter by this year she’s said she’s gonna get us lots.”

“Awesome. Mini eggs are my favorite”

“Mine too. Every year my mom hides eggs all in the house and she hides a joint for the adults. And whoever finds it gets to smoke it, but they only smoke half of it and the other half they leave on my uncle’s grave. She always hides it in a green or purple or blue egg. Last year I found it and gave it to my Aunty. Then we went out to the graves. We always go to the graves. I put an egg on my Uncle’s and Aunt Holly’s grave. I haven’t even ever met half my family cause they’re dead”

“My mom’s brother died when he was fifteen.” I feel my conciliatory statement is a failure.

“I had a brother that died. He was a miscarriage”

Kristen herself was ‘baby girl’ on her birth certificate, not registered by name until her trip to Disney Land last year. Born sick and underweight, They didn’t think she’s pull through. Within her cohort she still falls short of the average size: her iridescent pink quilted coat conceals her slight four-foot frame, her facial features are sharp and thin.

“See you in a couple of weeks. I’m glad I got to walk home with you,” I say as we reach her house.

“Ya, ok.” She reaches out and I hand her the triangular prayer box with a square base and no lid that she had constructed this evening, and assigned me the task of carrying. The white glue had partially cemented the structure to my mitten. She walks through the chain-link gate, and onto the cluttered porch. After a moment she disappears through the door. I stand in the sidewalk waiting for Thea, Alicia, and Levi to catch up, as people pour out of the Mustard Seed around me, the threads of their conversation drifting past.

It is spring. That is to say, it is approaching THE BEGINNING.

2006-03-18T15:12:00.000-07:00

This week has been full of more than its share of wonderful things.

I read a book that made me want to stay up all night to read it. The first in a long time. The best part is that reading good writing makes me dream about writing. I love the thought of having stories to write. Too bad narrative isn’t my strong suit.

The second thing I really liked was my Wednesday. It doesn’t, in my mind, seem the sort of day that I should enjoy. I was required to give a seminar in my mycology class and spent the morning at the sugar bowl putting the finishing touches on the presentation: finding previously unknown (to me) links between Amanita muscaria, Keats, Shelley, and Emily Dickinson. Then I headed over to the good ol’ biosci building to put my presentation onto the computer that was hooked up to the projector. It didn’t work at all, and thus ensued two hours of dashing about the convoluted corridors of botany and zoology trying to find a mac projector, adaptor, a computer that could read the image files that I had somehow managed not to insert as jpegs. Who knew that computers were ridiculous? This process took me through the seminar previous to mine and at the very last second there was my presentation converted into an acrobat file ready to go, unrehearsed, and barely proofread. It went surprisingly well, and apparently my audience thought fungi’s connection with fiction interesting. I think this whole ordeal was pleasant because it was exhilarating. Only I recognize how unprepared I was, and how, by some unexplainable bout of fortitude, I was still able to confidently present an argument that would never have flown over in humanities.

Wednesday and Thursday’s suppers were a treat. I was the privileged host of two very pleasant guests, with whom I prepared lovely meals. Cooking is a great deal more satisfying when you don’t do it alone, eating more pleasant when accompanied by friends. And all that with avocado… what could be better.

And the last of my long list: making a mixed cd. I used to really enjoy making mixed tapes, (which I still believe to be a better demonstration of affection and effort than cds), and until now haven’t had a computer that was capable of creating cds (or anything for that matter). Anyway, even making the cd was a very pleasant experience. It’s nice to be able to invest thought and time in something with a pleasing end. Making the cd case was an especially agreeable task. It was constructed out of a cheerios box, with a typewritten insert and red yarn to hold it together. I am very pleased with it, as, I hope, was the recipient.

The Namesake

2006-03-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

“Hi, I’m Ruth,” she says recognizing him in that same vague way.
The Namesake.

I have made my second appearance in fiction in the last couple of months, and this time I am evidenced as more than just an echo of circumstance.

The first time I was presented in a short story read to me by David. I was (in)extricably linked with (ma)rth(a) carried as a packet of letters, along with clean socks, AK47s, malaria tablets and mine detectors, written to an overseas soldier. She, like myself, was an English major participating in the nationalistic act of maintaining morale on the front.

Today I overtook a sentence where I appeared by name. Never growing up having a last initial attached to my name to distinguish myself from my cohorts, being named after everyone’s gramma or aunt’s second name, I am taken aback when my name appears in print, typeset, reproduced. My name does not appear on my driver’s license, student identification or passport. But today I appeared, called by my pet name in Jhumpa Lahiri’s terms and words, on a train to Maine several years before my birth with slim small hands, no make-up, and a brown suede coat. I am there and now a student of English. I am there and now Ruth. I am linked with Lahiri’s words to a boy who is not: created and called by his good name. I read myself with intense interest, hoping I will pull through as an honest reflection of myself. I imagine this character’s world to be mine, but I have almost completed university. I will never be a sophomore again.

Like this novel’s lead my name has always been troublesome. I have often sought to identify myself with my biblical namesake, but though I, as a young child, reveled in possessing the name of a leading biblical character, her story was never mine. I can transmute my person to be Lahiri’s Ruth but not the scriptures’: the life of a constant widow, wife and mother has eluded me. I was given my name pet name on a whim. The lady in the bed next to my mother, who had not yet given birth to her first child, said I should be named Rose. My parents had preselected Rebeccah, Micah, and Brynn. I was settled as Catherine, carrying the burden of family heritage, the continuation of a pattern. I was called Ruth because Catherine shouldn’t be shortened. My good name is to appear in public, my pet name to be uttered and remembered. I am included inadvertently as an example of the Bengali dichotomy for naming, unknown to me until my second appearance in fiction.