Hugs

via Liz Climo

I never thought of myself as much of a hugging person, but oh my I want to hug a lot of people these days.

At least I get to hug him as much as we want.



It's true, you never forget how to ride a bike. But you also lose those muscles, and you forget how much it hurts the bottom and how much effort it takes to go up a hill. I nearly biffed it in a way that terrified my hand. The rental bikes were heavy and clunky, much like the bike I rode most as a kid, a coaster abandoned in the alley that my father scrounged and got a neighbor-mechanic to get in working order for me. I loved getting out of the house on it, but riding for its own sake was never enjoyable.

Still, we got out, and it WAS fun. It's our 28 year living together anniversary, the one we always count. And Canada Day.

The issues at work are a wake up call for me. It really is getting too physically demanding, so I need to get into a different position now. I've been thinking of it for a long time, but not acted. It's time.

Canada

Well, cats from Boston probably came via Canada, from ships that landed in Labrador and Nova Scotia, right?

English

A few years ago, we had access to BBC America. For a short while, we got to see Goodness Gracious Me, Indian comedy in Britain. Ever the lovers of alien comedy, since mainstream American humor is so bland, mean, and obvious, we were hooked. This video of one of their sketches, Going Out for an English has been making the links round. And I have been indulging in many of their bits on the U-tyube. I don't get all the references, but worked with enough residents from Indian, and India via Britain, that it appeals even more than before. Some of it is simply silly enough.

Humor is such an ephemeral human sense, like taste, hard to pin down or explain, impossible to generalize across a population. American humor has been denigrated since the first colonial cartoonist's first dialogue balloon. British writers are always a little shocked that they have a strong, loyal American audience. There is a difference between what a group eats, and what an individual likes, what a crowd will laugh at, and what tickles an individual. When I saw movies in Army theaters, in a crowd of soldiers, I laughed at crap I would roll my eyes at seen alone. I ENJOYED Child's Play, surrounded by a raucous audience out to have a good time. Rather like a joke in a sermon, a priestly jest get laughs in church that would get a groan at any other time, in any other place, told by anybody else. And it's genuinely funny there. Just as a good MRE tastes pretty good when the alternative is a pork patty, or a tray pack. I loved white bread and margarine as a kid, especially squished into a tight wad. Just as I loved the BBC and Granada TV shows on the CBC, even if I didn't get all the subtleties, I caught the wit and intelligence, and it was different. I loved The Kids In the Hall, but that might just be a deeply Canadian sensibilities. Expectation, contrast, availability of choices.

So, Monty Python became the humor equivalent to Americans as curry to British cuisine. Not everyone likes it hot, but there are a lot of takers. A lot of folks don't appreciate having the tables turned on them, but enough do, and have the grace to be amused. The US is not a monolith, and even a small minority, now linked by the internet, can be a huge number. There is a love of the underdog that runs under the arrogance, enough of an underclass, a society of minorities and rebels laughing at the majority. And do we love to mock the smugness. Including the over-comfortable in ourselves.

We went out for Indian last night, and laughed at our own love of the "exotic," bunch of liberal snobs that we are.


It's snowing. Well, starting to rain, now. Moby is curled in his fleecy bed.

Boy (Photo)

We have a Spontaneous Visual Meme going round. I'm tagging all of you who have a difficult subject to photograph. Thanks to
Moira
Herhimnbryn
Jean. (I'll do one next week, already have a theme going there.)

Boy was not my dog, but a neighbor's dog. He seemed much bigger, then. Love all the critters. Cat just fits better in our life as lived. My mother put me in bonnets, because I was bald, and everyone thought I was a boy.

Detroit was one of those border cities, many Canadian families have alternated generations across the river. My parents are both naturalized US citizens, my father's father was born in the states. I spent much of my time over in Windsor, Ontario, and often wished I lived there rather than in a big, dirty, industrial city. My sense of humor, my accent (which I can't hear), and my deeply felt sarcasm are true Canadian.

Canada

On Canada Day, we walked the Boston Freedom Trail. There was a fork near the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial. There were re-enactors at the Old City Hall, and on the site of the Boston Massacre. There were tourists in rainbow shirts at the Franklin memorial (not his grave, that's in Philly.)

Undercurrent (Photo)

This is one of those photos that says a lot more than it seems to.

Sister-in-law, myself (birthday), Uncle M (father's brother) and his (second wife) Aunt A, Aunt E (mother's sister, standing) and her husband Uncle E(standing). My mom standing, hands on shoulders of her mum. Picture taken by (?) ( I may have cropped out my father and my brother (not the one married to SIL) took the picture. Picture of Last Supper and ubiquitous '70's sunburst clock on wall. White bread stack, potatoes, baked chicken, mayonaise, and ballerina cake on table.

I once made fun of my D's new very suburban and mormon in-laws for serving an entire meal that was orange. I think this kind of meal is why I noticed.

If you just love the kitsch of it all, try the Gallery of Regrettable Food.

Poem

It's only my opinion, it's only my belief/ that a caterpillar giggles as he wriggles across a hairy leaf.

Don't ask me who wrote this. Nash? Perhaps. I like amusing poems. My taste in poetry is remarkably low. I know the good stuff when I read it. I just don't always respond to it. Limericks seem to me perfectly wonderful.

My mother preferred the melodramatic 19th century narrative poems, The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, The Highwayman, Grandfather's Clock. She liked the sentimental and romantic poems, Irish Blessings and Bible verses, Drummond and Longfellow, seafaring yearning. It was, she said, the only part of school she had liked. Memorizing long poems, a real joy for her, what she was good at. She laboriously typed out the text for a children's story book of color poems; "Hailstones and Halibut Bones." She loved it. I remember the next line was "... and some people's telephones." (!?)

Taking poetry apart in school, struck me as a pointless and cruel exercise. Repeatedly analyzing The Road Not Taken - Frost, until I came upon "Satire, that Blasted Art", which took apart all the sentimentalism of the poem and made the convincing argument that it is satire. Aha! Poems as subversive art. That was cool. I learned that poem, and it is in my repertoire. Only due to my understanding, an intellectual satisfaction.

I only had to memorize a few in grade school, one about fairies;
Up the (something) mountain/down the rushy glen I dare not go a' hunting for fear of little men. (Ugh)
When asked to pick one to memorize, I learned High Flight (John Gillespie McGee Jr) by heart because it was the text of an oft run tv ad for the Air Force. Lewis Carroll's mockery of poetry, I can recite Jabberwocky. I do like the poems, I am just not transported as I am with a good prose. Poems seemed too pretty, too short to engage me. Sketch work instead of a complete world with real people. I liked more story, dialogue. Or much less, like the Tao Te Ching.

Obviously, I am also not enamored of squishy Hallmark versification. Birthday cards with sentimental lines, and pretty flowers, - nauseating. My Aunt Evelyn spent a great deal of time finding the one that said just the right thing, and I would pretend to read it and go soft in gratitude. 'Oh, that is just perfect', and a hug. Like soft pop music, I considered it uselessly sweet without substance or flavor, however well meant. I have to accept the phenomenon that such stuff touches hearts. Leaves me quite cold.

So what is with me, that the highest verbal expressions in such a rich language that I love, leaves me shrugging my shoulders? Did I just have the magic sucked out of it in English classes? Distancing myself from my mother? A total lack of sentimentality? Lack of taste or refinement? Or do I just need it set to music for it to come to life? Ah. Mystery partly illuminated, though not at all solved.

One of the poems I memorized was the Wreck of the Julie Plante -Drummond. A funny poem in French Canadian inflected English about a shipwreck. The CBC had an animation, set to music, of the verses, that I saw in my 30s. I cried. This strange, familiar, consciously humorous bit of doggerel, when given a song, and a voice, touched me. Who knew?

So, dear poets who are my friends, sing me thy verses, I seem not to be up to supplying my own melody. That or it's Vogon poetry, only good for sappy greeting cards, and I will never tell.

Please, enjoy this poetical interlude. I will be humming.




The Wreck of the "Julie Plante": A Legend of Lac St. Pierre
 

On wan dark night on Lac St. Pierre,
De win' she blow, blow, blow,
An' de crew of de wood scow "Julie Plante"
Got scar't an' run below—
For de win' she blow lak hurricane,
Bimeby she blow some more,
An' de scow bus' up on Lac St. Pierre
Wan arpent from de shore.

De captinne walk on de fronte deck,
An' walk de hin' deck too—
He call de crew from up de hole,
He call de cook also.
De cook she 's name was Rosie, She come from Montreal,
Was chambre maid on lumber barge,
On de Grande Lachine Canal.

De win' she blow from nor' -eas' -wes',--
De sout' win' she blow too,
W'en Rosie cry, "Mon cher captinne,
Mon cher, w'at I shall do ?"
Den de captinne t'row de beeg ankerre,
But still de scow she dreef,
De crew he can't pass on de shore,
Becos' he los' hees skeef.

De night was dark lak wan black cat,
De wave run high an' fas',
W'en de captinne tak' de Rosie girl
An' tie her to de mas'.
Den he also tak' de life preserve,
An' jomp off on de lak',
An' say, "Good-bye, ma Rosie dear,
I go drown for your sak'."

Nex' morning very early
'Bout ha'f-pas' two—t'ree—four—
De captinne—scow—an' de poor Rosie
Was corpses on de shore,
For de win' she blow lak hurricane,
Bimeby she blow some more,
An' de scow bus' up on Lac St. Pierre,
Wan arpent from de shore.

MORAL

Now all good wood scow sailor man
Tak' warning by dat storm
An' go an' marry some nice French girl
An' leev on wan beeg farm.
De win' can blow lak hurricane
An' s'pose she blow some more,
You can't get drown on Lac St. Pierre
So long you stay on shore.

William Henry Drummond

Fiction

I read Amy Tan's The Opposite of Fate, in particular her advice to writers, involving compassion and seeing another's point of view, her own issues with her difficult mother, and culture clashes. I have a difficult father, estranged completely for years, we never had any kind of peace or understanding. He is referred to in other essays, as I skirt him as a subject too painful. I try to starve my lifelong anger. I want it to settle and fade. But her words urged me to do more, to tell his story, inasmuch as I can. Let it be fiction, but let it help me understand a rather stupid and emotionally disturbed man who fathered me as well as he probably could. I cannot write his cadences, in his voice, although I hint at it, because I find it is too much like chewing on aspirin. Nor can I write it as a first person narrative, his sexuality is far too personally unsettling for me to handle. Ever. I can let go of my bitterness, but he remains galling. So here it is. Forgive the mess.

There was a farm and the vegetable stand family business, a large house that implied better days. A couple of French Canadian Catholics, of uncertain devotion, nameless now, who had sons. They expected the older boys to raise the younger ones. First Oscar, the eldest, the bully, the favored one, manipulative and powerful, ready with fists. Then loud but gentle Art, who did his best to make peace and protect the younger ones, when he felt like it, but he enjoyed tormenting them with words. Norman, slow and tall, he believed everything he heard and had a deep simple faith, and deep superstitions. Milton, challenged the authority of Oscar, and hated him. Smarter and faster than the rest, he took charge of the youngest brother, René. René was slow, but wanted to make himself better, wanted to be liked, wanted to play a musical instrument. But he was often injured because he was daydreaming, or tormented by his brothers for being dumb. One year younger, the only sister, Madeline. Red haired, doted on by their father, bossy and no brighter than the rest of the boys, she was paired with René for everything. He was held back starting school so she would go with him. The relationship between the two was forced close, unhealthy, twisted. (Take that as you will, I prefer not to speculate further, but I would not be surprized at your guesses.)

So in 1929, brother and younger sister were sent to an English-speaking public school in rural Ontario, where they would learn the language they would speak the rest of their lives outside the home. At home, only French, not educated French- River Canard French, illiterate French. They were sent because that was the law, lip service only. Working the produce stand was more important. None would get through high school, René would get to sixth grade then out. The year his father died.

He was a good looking young man, black hair and a ready smile, if you didn't notice the strain. He would talk with anyone, glib, if not bright, loud laugh and spoke with his hands a lot, had one song that he could sing, off-key. Dated a lot of girls, once. He had odd jobs, as well as working at his mother's business. He joined the Army in 1949, on the American side- his father was American by birth and he readily got his citizenship. He would have been 18 in 1941 (Was he afraid, or did his parents object? None of the brothers served during the war, they were able bodied, and Canada did have a draft, didn't they? Assume that they had no interest in going, and were not required due to farm deferment.) But perhaps guilt, perhaps not having another path, René joined, safely after the war. The American Army, not in itself all that unusual, his father had been born in the States, and immigrated to Canada. Border towns like Detroit and Windsor are like that, generations weaving back and forth. René obtained his American citizenship and joined the Army, and then, a mystery. He injured his left hand and they had to amputate his left index finger. The story is something he never tells. So what happened?

He hates the Army, hates the order, hates having to do what he is told, taunted for being stupid and inept- which he is. Hates the bullying and being the butt of every joke. He finally has plans for his life, having met a little redhead two months before. They met through his brothers' friends, he was in love with the quiet shy tiny girl. He'd just proposed, and she'd agreed, he is 27 and getting old, finally he is loved and worthwhile! So one night he goes out with a guy who will buy him drinks, maybe one of his brothers, maybe Milton, and he gets plastered. It would not take much, none of the brothers have a head for alcohol. He gets belligerent, and they get into a fight, he passes out. Or they get a bright idea of how to get out of the Army, and a knife or gun is produced. When he wakes up the next morning, his hand is a mess, and he drags himself to the hospital, where they amputate the index finger, and start him into rehab. He is ashamed of himself, but he never tells how it happened, perhaps he does not quite remember. His new fiance visits him in the hospital, flashing the little diamond ring around to keep the nurses from flirting with him. Shame and pride together. She had made him candies, too bad they were wintergreen flavored- she probably didn't know better than poisoning him. But he hadn't had too many, and he threw the rest of them over the bridge into the brook as they walked. She will depend on him, and her religion means she will stay with him.

Mary's family wasn't too thrilled, but she was 25, they could hardly say much about her choice. They married in April 1949. He talked her into having a birthday cake for his sister at the reception, since Madeline's birthday was the next day. He didn't want to make his sister jealous. Mary wouldn't refuse him, she didn't make him mad like everybody else did.

It was a hard first year, but at least he got to live next to his sister. Then he would find work in Detroit, at a copper tubing factory. Hot dirty work, but there were benefits and a union, the guys all called him Frenchy. He found them a small place, with a closet that would be room enough for a crib, his first child would be born in September 1950, a son. Dave would barely survive the first year, with constant infections, bronchitis and whooping cough, rheumatic fever and ear aches. Now if he can just figure out the trick so's he can make enough money, do good in life, keep his family alive. They find a small house and the family loans them money to get started. Three years later, a second son, smiling and happy and healthy, is born. His wife wanted a girl, but there will be more children. She is not as nice to him now, but that is just being pregnant, not getting enough sleep, right? He almost hit her, and she scared him bad, told him if he ever hit her she would not be there for him to hit again. He can't ever hit her, who would he be without her? So he yells until he feels better, and they go on. She's smarter than he is, he needs her to read, and keep his house clean, and make a life with, damn her for all that. He depends on her, and it is good to depend on people, right?

It is 1960, and Mary has had a late miscarriage, and she cries over the loss of her daughter. René is scared, because she makes him mad a lot now, his boys are in a good Catholic school, and they think they are smarter than him. He's got a good job, works eight hours every day, but it's getting harder. He is scared that if Mary has her baby girl, he won't matter to her anymore. But he wants her to be happy, and the next year she is pregnant again. This time it is a girl, born the day after his sons are confirmed. Her family were looking down their noses at him, aggravating him, making him mad, at the party. His sons are growing up and won't need him much longer, Mary sat with her sister Evelyn talking way too long, what were they talking about? They got quiet when he came near. Now he is waiting at the hospital, a blizzard raging outside, February 1962, and the doctor comes out to tell him he has a daughter. He dreams of a frilly sweet daddy's girl, tiny like Dave when he weighed no more than a cat, who would love him more than Mary, fuss over him and crawl on his lap, ask his advice and giggle. The next morning he sat with Mary when they brought in an 8 lb baby to them- how could this be a girl? She nestled into her mother's arms, Mary beaming that she had her girl "at last!" But when he reached out and held her, she screamed. When he shook her like his boys, and she screamed louder. He handed her back, his face flushing red with rage and shame. His wife was already defending the daughter, already excluding him, shutting him out. He swallowed it then, but could not forget. Could not understand.

(The rest of this is my story, and I need to tell it elsewhere. Where I will take responsibility for my own sins. He may be dying right now, and I await the news as a prisoner awaits reprieve. I cannot like the man, still do not want to talk to him, even if that were possible. But when he can no longer hurt me, I can give real forgiveness, freely, with all my heart. It is given, on probation, now. No more hurts. It is not my fault I could not be what he needed or wanted, his jealously and insecurity, his emotional damage are not my responsibility. His sins against me are no less sins for his intellectual and social deficits, but he can plead diminished capacity. I do not wish him in hell, or to whatever drags on his soul. For the sins against me, I will not hold against him past his death. What he holds against himself should he ever look into himself- is up to him. Poor man.)

Polite

I have had a long and difficult relationship with politeness, having lived in three very different areas of the country, plus growing up in a Canadian family. Canadians, well renowned for their politeness, are nevertheless not in perfect agreement with everybody everywhere else (or each other, for that matter.) Individual Canadians are not necessarily up to the Mountie Gold Standard. (Didn't know there was one did you?) Well, and many times Canadians seem polite to strangers who do not realize they are being very sarcastic. Often with each other. So I know polite, but it is not the same flavor in Windsor as in Detroit or Salt Lake City or Boston.

I grew up in Detroit, a rough town at the best of times, but very much influenced by it's northern (in some places where the river bends, actually to the south, but let's not quibble) neighbor. But also the raucous liveliness of both black and middle European shouting and hand talk, added to big city privacy, and the street smarts to brusquely deflect beggars, muggers or hucksters. A polite person would adapt to the requirements of the context, others would wind up offending, or being victimized. Politeness greased the rubbing together of so many people from so many backgrounds and expectations. It was an aloof and cold manner, that could not be described as friendly.

Detroit public politeness (at least when I was growing up there) tended toward the assumption of dishonesty and threat - where quiet avoidance of social interaction, especially on the street, was a safety measure. In Boston generally, on the T(train) especially, silence is the rule, even when giving up one's seat. Unless the individual is clearly out of line, insane or pushy, talking is a clear indicator of a need for assistance, and is usually responded to helpfully. Read any blog from Eastern Urban centers with public transport, and you will see humorous lists of Rules - like "Do not floss on the train... just ... don't." The politeness of most commuters means that they pretend not to notice such lapses, unless it is intrusive on someone else. With near collisions, I might hear an "excuse me." If we actually hit (rare) I will hear a "sorry" as they continue past.

Then there is Utah, Salt Lake City in particular, where people will stand clearly in the only pathway and have conversation, not allowing anyone past. I have been more often jostled or had to force my way through much thinner crowds there than in the densely packed streets here in Boston. In Utah the women can still expect their menfolk to run around the car to open the door for them, and in exchange they are expected to be unbearably sweet and docile. I often found skin deep friendliness to be a mask for appalling and breathtaking rudeness and manipulation. Or for moral weakness excused. Some truly decent people who grew up there struggle to be so outwardly sugary, and still keep their personal boundaries and integrity intact without resorting to becoming angry and resentful themselves. They confuse "niceness" with polite behaviour, and get pushed into accepting what can only be described as evil. They do not call spades spades, because that would not be nice. They prevaricate and squirm, seeing niceness as more important than honesty or standing by their core values. To fight is seen as rude, even in a just cause. Even the ones who succeed in keeping some integrity bear the scars of unbearable niceness.

So I need to offer my definition of polite behaviour for one of those so scarred. Every culture has a series of rules and expectations, which individuals can either use to ease interpersonal friction, or to manipulate people. I will take, for instance, as a silly example, the Canadian, and Northern Mid-Western Rule of Three of Hospitality. It goes a bit like this...

Offer#1 "Would you like some tea?"
Refusal #1 "No, thanks, I'm fine."
Offer #2 "I just got the kettle on, are you sure?"
Refusal #2 "Oh, I really don't want to put you to any trouble."
OR
Offer Withdrawal #1 "I really do have to get going, see you later then, eh?" (Conversation ends)

Offer #3 "No trouble at all, I was going to have a cup myself."
Refusal #3 "No, I really have to get going, but thanks." (interchange ends)
OR
Acceptance "Well, that would be very nice, if you are sure you don't mind."

This is the ideal, the host and guest and both get what they want. When it gets manipulative is when the host only offers once. Twice is fine, if the host would really be put out, only had enough for one, was an a hurry, whatever. Four offers is badgering. A guest who says yes at once better be crawling out of the desert, s/he must allow that the first offer is merely for form. A guest who says no after three should not be put out if not offered again. It is an arbitrary number, but accepted in this culture. A polite host will be aware of someone from elsewhere, and either explain the rule or pick up on other clues and respond accordingly. A rude one will apply the rule to their own benefit, and make allowances for no one, while breaking it for themselves when it is convenient.

But there are more important examples. My Aunt Evelyn volunteered for Birthright, a pro adoption anti-abortion group, that posed as a neutral pregnancy help service. She was devoutly Catholic and lost several pregnancies, and an adopted child (taken back by her birth mother). I am unabashedly pro-abortion, any woman who does not want a child should under no circumstances be forced, coerced, to have one. If my mother asked me if I would have had her abort me, I would say- yes. I'm here, and have made myself a good life, but if I could erase my childhood, I would, no question. I would never have made a point of telling my aunt this, out of deep respect for her life, and her kindly and deeply held beliefs. She had every right to make her own choices, and I mine. She would not have tried to pin me down on the issue. If she had, I would have asked to be allowed my privacy. I did not need her to agree with me in order to think her polite. She would not have forced me to overtly agree with her in order to be seen as polite.

The heart of this is to be gracious, and make others feel acknowledged and wanted, even if it is inconvenient. To allow for friendly refusal and a limitation on both unwanted hospitality and imposition. It allows for both communication and an OUT. It is perfectly polite to deflect impolite requests, even to outright refuse them. At the lowest level is sarcasm- which is to say funny- responses when one person is not playing fairly. Because if we can laugh at the error, it is simply an error, not meanness. Even if it was meanness.

If necessary, brusqueness is the next step, implying a more serious error of interchange, in terms of pushing too hard or prying or being inconsiderate of context or time constraints. The implication is that the other person was being thoughtless or stupid, rather than mean or dishonest, even if they are being mean or dishonest.

Outright rudeness is perfectly acceptable when the other person is clearly dishonest or mean, a sidewalk hustler, abusive beggar, forcing their obviously different from your viewpoint, or any solicitation to illegal, unethical or grossly inappropriate services. At this point it is perfectly acceptable to indicate that what you are being asked is unethical, illegal or coercive. If you absolutely have to be nice, a "teaching" tone would be acceptable. "Have you thought of taking an ethics class, going to the police, asking me how I feel?" Because being considerate does not mean being a doormat, it means considering the other person's point of view. If they are not considering me, it is fair to ask them to. If they do not, I are under no further obligation to comply.

So let us be fair, and honest, fight for what is right, treat each other decently, and stand firm, with all due respect for the toes of our fellow travelers. But say please and thank you, and sorry, and don't push or yell. Because politeness really is not dependent on how many times I do or do not offer tea, or how many times you refuse. But I have just put the kettle on......really, no trouble at all.