Generational Profiles

Insistently, the telephone rings.
A frenzied cacophony of excited
communication loops from the
child's mouth to her grandmother's ear
in a blur of bubbling confidence:
"I'm laughing so hard my stomach hurts."

Tumbling word after giddy word.
Grandmother stifling that impulse
to commiserate, enquire whether
child has had her daily movement,
signifying overall good health,
though it might likely appeal.

Out tumbles the diffused
incoherence of jollity, the nexus
a shared hypothesis of "what-ifs" with
another giddy friend, both
collapsing in convulsions of
appreciation at their cleverness.

Deference to their wit and wisdom
a testament to the tentative
uncertainties of approaching, yet
elusive maturity in adolescents,
as yet devoted to light-headed
affirmations of self, alternating
with morose defences of same.

Condensed as "not my fault!"
that declaration of being hard done by,
misunderstood, and treated unfairly.
A sad lament to which grandmother
is treated during these quotidian dialogues.
The decrepit and the delighted, the frail
and the robust, one hard of hearing,
the other strong on cheering.

These conversations, initiated
by turn with petulant growls, bemoaning
oneself as victim; on the other hand as
brilliant over-achiever, in modest self
recognition. Take your pick; it's either
the piercing lilt of delight in the absurd
or the miserable pathos of self-pity

in the absence of justice as in "it's not fair!"
Naught but extremes, no median.
The language, syntax and imperatives
spoken by each remains forever foreign,
one to the other. Confidence restored
by the closing argument: "Love you!"
Loving forbearance, above all.

So? Xmas Lights!

It is only November. The third week, to be more precise, of that moodily morose month. Inflicted again. Aesthetically afflicted once more; the tedious annual ritual imposed upon me by neighbourly congruity with a stranger. True, stranger neighbours could exist, but these two happen to irritate me beyond belief.

No sooner has Halloween twinkled by, then out come the coloured lights, the orange ones festooning their house and grounds hastily collected and put away for another year. The Halloween decorations, strings of orange blinkers, ghostly figures that sway in the breeze, skeletons, headstones, and a recorded eerie scream that resonates across the lawn when an intrepid, costumed child approaches, have had their three weeks of display. They've been dismantled in favour of an obviously-anticipated, more seasonal arrival.

And not just strings of lights twirled over their greenery, from shrubs to tall, spindly firs and spruces, but others outlining the house. Some, in fact, are never removed and remain hanging there, from the house eaves, throughout summer. Giving the house an unfortunate aspect of a perpetual snot-dripping roofline. A profusion of execrable waste and taste. Perfectly in synch with these peoples' values. The square of their lot strewn with lit-up cut-outs of Rudolph, Mother Goose, Santa, a gift-laden sled, and a creche.

These are not religious, church-attending people; they are barbarians. Witless dolts.

Living alongside them for the better part of fifteen years, we've exchanged those socially-obligatory surface greetings of casual acknowledgement, never anything deeper. Evidence, if any were needed, that they are incapable of conceiving meaningful thought and expression.

Between them, I'm finally convinced, they couldn't form a lucid, thoughtful observation betraying a glimmer of intelligence. They're born to consume. Nothing more, nothing less notable about them. They consume, therefore they exist.

Pathetic mummers in the theatre of life. Perfect fodder for the trite political promises sending the apathetic public to the polls.

Unfailingly, they conclude each of their declarations with an upward, affirmative-seeking thrust. Then scurry back into their comforting burrow.

Government employees, they work what was once quaintly termed 'bankers' hours'. He's a technician of some sort, she's a clerk. When they roll into their driveway their van radio thunders, the air around and about seems to descend into a moist despair.

How fanciful this all is, this wryly ironic descriptive of my neighbours. Look at me, turning into a seasonal grouch.

What's up, Steve? You could have worse neighbours. So yours grunt and mind their business. Think of the possibility of living beside raving psychopaths, or just plain anti-social thugs? These are law-abiding, simple-minded, unpolitical zombies, with no ideological axe to grind. They're irritating, it's true, but what harm do they do you? Don't like their public displays of seasonal enthusiasm, close your eyes!

Can't. They've covered all avenues of visual escape. The backyard too has been transformed by their juvenile yearnings for a living, incandescent fairyland all their very own. Front and back. I'm situated higher, so I look down - no pun, really, none at all intended - on them; impossible to escape those lights! Lights twinkling everywhere, front and back. If it's an early twilight, fog settling in at half-past three, say, on come those throbbing lights, puncturing the dim ambiance, the peaceful progress of descending night. Blighted by three solid months of artificial jollity. They won't come off until three weeks after the New Year has introduced itself.

Hippobottomous and her clueless mate think that's cool.

They're paying the bills, Steve.

I'm living with a tawdry display of gauche sociability.

Their choice in a free society, Steve. Now, what's really bothering you? Why the unease, the trepidation every time the phone rings? Surely you're not concerned about the results of routine medical tests? Be reasonable. Your symptoms, distressing as they are, could be related to a host of conditions, some fairly innocuous, readily treated....

Steve, you're not listening. C'mon, get yourself out of this funk, man.

Damn gut.

The kind of people who, confronted with a book, even a newspaper, would be genuinely puzzled about its purpose. Timid little anti-intellectuals whose sole interest is in public display of useless bought objects testifying that they "get it".

Bloody hell, there's the telephone. Tele-marketers.

The garish pause-timed and choreographed light displays entering my night world in a way that the people who display them would never dream of doing through civil social discourse.

What's that famous line again, "Cough and the world coughs with you, fart and you fart alone". Well, they fancy themselves coughing to a popular beat, but they're really farting in isolation, their reeking emanation smogging my world.

Not helping my chest pains one bit either, as it happens.

Their pernicious embrace of ignorance and rampant consumerism offends me mightily.

Who are you, Steve, to stand in judgement? Each to his own values, no?

No. Well, maybe yes. I'm not ... judging, merely observing. What? Can't I have an opinion!

Have your opinion. But do not condemn so harshly. They quite simply are what they are.

Why, why not? This is, after all, between me ... and you. And you still happen to be me.

Life is complex and disordered enough, Steve. Give it a rest.

Arrest my perceptions, my impulses, my thought-processes, my right to express myself, even to myself? Not bloody likely!

You're just giving yourself needless grief, heartburn.

Get lost, would you? And while you're at it, take that .. whatever it is you're waiting for - test diagnoses - with you. Don't slam the door, please.

Immaculate Conception

You are composed of three parts; body, breath and mind. The first two merely belong to you in the sense that you are responsible for their care; the last alone is truly yours. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

She has a precise, orderly mind. Well tuned to detail. She has her priorities set right. Knows what is of high value. Sets her intent on accomplishing, completing what she begins. A point of pride; discipline, sequence, co-ordination, orderly habit, concise, meticulous, appropriate, meaningful. We must know what it is we set about doing, convince ourselves it is worth doing well, and throw ourselves into the effort. Therein lies pride in accomplishment.

She was convinced she had been born with the pre-ordained instinct of an orderly mind. Deep within her genetic code lay that insistent urge. Her DNA was imprinted with an urge to tidiness. Not that this was her only genetic inheritance of note. She had, she thought, modestly, more than her share of intelligence. And was not the least bit averse to demonstrating it, when called for.

Even as a child she recognized the difference, the vast difference between disorderliness and order. In one lay confusion, the other satisfaction. Her mother’s household, she quickly realized, was of the former variety. Her mother’s slovenly slap-dash approach to housekeeping had offended her even-then impeccable sense of order, when she was so very young. It was a cause of personal shame to her. That entry into her mother’s domain was to be confronted with the mess of a life overwhelmed by detail. The detail of everyday life that some people seem functionally incapable of settling into with the needed measure of complacent order. She little realized at that time, that her mother had surrendered to an exhaustion of the spirit.

Then, she had been convinced that those, like her mother, who readily threw up their hands at any attempt to make order of chaos made the choice - through the sad failure of faint heart - of living with detritus, cobwebs, objects strewn everywhere; a tableau of dysfunction. Stumbling through the course of their days, bewildered by the incessant calls to duty in raising a brood, attending to their needs. Attempting, fruitlessly to pay attention to household duties, to children’s ongoing crises simply overwhelmed them.

She soon discovered, that while she hesitated mightily to ever invite playmates into her mother’s household, her playmates felt no such compunctions about their own homes’ state of dishevelment, for unfailingly, it was also brought to her attention through exposure to the worn and weary atmosphere prevailing in the homes of others that her mother’s failings were shared by legions of others. Everyone seemed to live in a shambles of piled-up laundry, newspaper-littered couches, broken and disdained toys haphazardly thrown in rejection, and never quite discarded. Kitchens humbly, unapologetically strewn with unwashed cutlery and dishes, pots stained and dented, nothing ever placed out of sight into kitchen cupboards where they belonged. Disorder reigned.

Everything limned with weeks’ worth of dust, hallways tracked with the outdoor muck brought heedlessly indoors on unshed shoes. Bedrooms unshamefacedly musty with unwashed linens, the beds themselves never made up neatly for the day; windows never thrown wide to air out the night-time atmosphere of rude and peculiar bodily emanations fogging the air. Poverty, it seemed to her in retrospect, appeared the guiding framework though it took her many years to come to that understanding.

She aspired, even while she despaired over the state of her mother’s house, even while, if she complained, her mother set her to washing floors, scrubbing bathtubs, wiping down kitchen cupboards, cleaning the grime-bespattered stove - none of which really helped, since this was never a regular routine, merely a convenient, sly punishment - to a different kind of everyday home life for herself. She would be proud of her home, and make her home proud of her determination to ensure it was a hygienic, comfortable atmosphere for everyone who lived there, even if she would be the only one to be aware of it. She had also noted that most people felt comfortable enough in their homes, whether or not measures were taken to instill an environment of cleanliness and order, through someone’s dedication to achieving that distinction.

All of this was important to her, but this was all background to her life. Her insistence to herself on achieving an orderly, neat and tidy life, internal and external in all its manifestations was merely a hovering shadow upon which all else rested; it represented a scaffold upon which a satisfying life could be built. It was not an absolute requirement for happiness and fulfilment, merely the appetizer that would welcome all invitations life might offer her, over courses she would avail herself of throughout the length of her life.

The course of her life encompassed a fairly normal passage to maturity, and that included a youthful marriage, and a growing family. She was never, ever a martinet. Quite content, for the most part, to live with her husband who had the in-gathering instincts of a crazed magpie. Unlike her, he was genetically driven to collect. He had fine instincts, a marvellous sense of curiosity, an aesthetic appreciation of fine things, and a burning need to learn how to proceed with anything that took his interest. His sense of comedic timing, his finely-honed and often sardonic sense of humour never failed to amuse her. His wide-ranging interests in history, geography, science, fine art and literature astonished and impressed her.

His one failing remained his unalterable dedication to gathering objects around him. Books, magazines, broken appliances, picture frames sans pictures, light fixtures, plumbing pieces, electrical bits, odd pieces of porcelain tiles; in short anything that he felt might have value at some point in the future. Nothing should be heedlessly discarded. He too came to maturity in a household lacking material comfort. He remained suspended, the young boy who acquired and accumulated all manner of potentially needful items, a boy whose pockets always brimmed with elastic bands, string, emptied pill-boxes, electrical discards. On the theory, become habit, that you never quite knew when something might come in handy. He had acquired the habit of scalping an object of its parts, to be used for the repair of other objects. The-then incomplete object would be carefully stored in the basement for possible future use. Over time, the accumulated debris constituted a mountain of reproachful trash, insulting to her sensibilities.

Once, when they were young, only their first child yet born, living in their first little house, she thought she would surprise him. While he was at work, she laboured to clear the pile of objects from the basement floor, under the stairs, and hauled the things out to the curb, to be picked up by the garbage collectors. After she had completed her task, and thought with satisfaction how grateful he would be that she had done that, she answered a knock at the front door. A man, well dressed, asking if it would be all right if he took the large elaborate frame on the pile she had tossed out to the curb. Garbage, it was garbage, of course she didn’t mind; help yourself, she said graciously.

Little did she then realize how stricken her husband would be when she informed him loftily of what she had accomplished on his behalf. He rushed down to the basement, stood there, aghast at the clean open space under the stairs. Her alter ego’s lust for collection, included an eye for recognizing items of value that might be used at some later date. The frame in question was hand-made, laboriously and beautifully carved, mid-19th Century. She never, ever repeated that indiscretion. It became a standing joke between them. Over the years he might, on occasion, point out another that resembled the one she had thrown out (she never recognized any similarity, hardly took notice of the original; to her it was just junk to be got rid of), lamenting its uniqueness and loss. But he had never really held it against her.

They worked out a system that had the value of reasonable accommodation to them. She would be in charge of everything in the living quarters of the house, and the basement was his precinct, to do with as he wished. Of course, over the years, they had owned a succession of homes. In each of which, over time, he ended up finishing the basement; dividing portions of it into additional useful living spaces, and keeping part of it unfinished, for his workshop, and in his workshop he would collect discards. Until they began, inexorably, spilling over into the finished spaces. As with books and magazines whose ownership could not be defended in the numbers he lusted after, but their allure for him could also not be denied.

As for her, she reigned supreme in the upper stories of their homes. The two floors, ground and second, were always immaculate. She dusted, mopped, washed, wiped, scrubbed, and polished. She developed her routine so perfectly well that even though she spent far more time than most women doing all these things, they did not, after all, take all that long; she was inordinately efficient. She took short-cuts when she began working outside the house once the children reached their semi-adult, secondary-school stages of life. But no one would have noticed a lessening in her determination to ensure their home was clean, neat and well-presented.

So too with their meals. Always an emphasis on fresh fruits and vegetables, comprising a large part of their diet. Well-prepared and -presented meals, wholesome and appetizing. No short cuts there. No pre-prepared or take-outs, thanks a bunch. She had assembled a nice collection of cookbooks. Favouring especially those dedicated to delicate baked goods. When the children were small they were often consulted. When they were small, they were sometimes permitted to ‘help’ their mother bake cookies made colourful with candy sprinkles. They were allowed to knead bread dough and shape them into fanciful objects that could be baked. Grey from too much handling, of course, and inedible, but a lark for the children. Over time, although she retained her cookbooks, particularly one her husband had bought in self-defence when they first married and her initial attempts at cooking had been lamentably pathetic. But she no longer really needed to consult them. Recipes, or her interpretation of them, had been consigned to the orderly files of her mind. She remembered the ingredients required, their sequence and baking time perfectly. Not merely a few favourite family recipes, but an impressively large number of various recipes for breads, fruit pies, cookies, savoury pies, salads and puddings, main course-dishes and everything in between. Solidly, confidently placed in orderly fashion in her memory files.

She also became a good and enthusiastic gardener, by default. That default being watching her then-grown daughter with her own home and garden, effortlessly and with knowledge in hand, working in her garden. The same daughter who had inherited her mother’s passion for neatness, but who had outdone her mother in method sans madness. Whose professional expertise in architectural design and project management seemed an outgrowth of her own fascination with order. Her daughter, however, utterly ruthless in her decided determination to rid herself of all items extraneous to her current need.

Their sons, on the other hand, inherited more of their father’s compelling and fascinated sense of creativity. Expressed through their own choices in biology, woodworking, pottery, astronomy, history, musical performance. Their children surpassed all their expectations. Amend that: they held no insistent expectations, were mostly content to expose their children to the world as best they could, certain that inspiration for their futures would compel them to follow their own road less travelled, complemented by their parents’ well-imbibed values.

An immaculate mind, she has, this now-elderly woman. She would be horrified to know how her grandchildren laugh fondly between themselves about Grandma ‘losing her marbles’, confusing their names, never remembering, it seemed clear enough to them, from one visit to another, what they had last talked of, and repeating, endlessly repeating the same observations they had heard so many yawningly times before.

Observe, she said to herself, she had become skilled at circumvention, circumlocution, smoothly talking over lapses in memory, slyly forestalling questions she felt incapable of responding to, confident that no one had noticed. No one but herself, for example, would know how some of those mind-garnered gardening files had begun to dissolve. The names of flowers eluding her, their habits and needs becoming confused with those of others. No, not during the growing season, not then. But as summer faded and blended into fall, then winter, those files became distorted, began to fade, were difficult to call up. But then, be reasonable, she chided herself, what need might there possibly be to keep those particular files accessible during the months that gardening became a dim memory itself? No need to be concerned. And actually, truth was, there was no need to be concerned, for as soon as spring asserted itself to be followed by summer, those names seemed to pop back into neat rows of botanical nomenclature, readily available for use. What a clever brain, what a methodical and efficient filing system…. Firing perfectly on all synapses. Or, rather, they did, fairly reliably.

Yet, and yet. There have been lapses, entirely too many. Puzzling how they seemed to accumulate. No, not recalling and speaking of the names of peonies, roses, phlox, pansies or rhododendrons. The names of everyday objects, like the little seeds she ground for daily use to be sprinkled over breakfast toast - what on Earth were they called, now? She could hardly recall the name of her daughter’s penultimate boyfriend, could only remember the current one by association. A slight pause in conversation, then a quick dredging down into the recesses of her mind, where odd name-associations were stored, to come up with “Mutt and Jeff”. How’s … Jeff? She would casually ask.

She is certain she has caught a strange whiff, from time to time, elusive, ephemeral - as though she has momentarily captured the essence of her brain’s slow journey into decay. Now, how absurdly fanciful, ghoulish, in fact, is that? Yet, she mused, one molecule after another could, for all she knew, be gradually succumbing.

But why, it’s far too soon! This is inordinately wrong, unfair. Why her, with her immaculate obsession with order? This speaks loudly of disorder, a gross violation of the meet and the just!

She has tended her life carefully, marshalled intelligence, ordered memory into neat rows of prominence, priorities and values. And the years yet before her promise ample manoeuvrability and capture of those neat files. She is, quite simply, not prepared to submit to chaos, not yet. Not ever! Her anguished being cries out to her external awareness. She will ensure this sinister awareness of the breakdown of her mental faculties remains her secret. She is, it is clear enough to herself, entirely too sensitive, imagining what is not there. What she interprets as portents of a moving fog of loss leading to a dark abyss reflects her own heightened sense of the imagination, a surreal nightmare of sub-existence.

How else explain that her husband, he of the steel-clad memory sometimes grasps to recall an errant, elusive word? Try, he tells her gently - so obviously attempting to allay her fears - try to use word-association a little more often. Sometimes it works, she knows - more often, for her, it fails. How can it work, if her memory bank is slowly depleting? Where are those words evaporating to? Wispily whisking, floating dreamily, the letters dislocated, the words bereft of their meaning, off into the ether?

She’d always loved the challenge of cross-word puzzles, with their subtle hints to a mind’s orderly files of language. Now they try her patience, pain her, and she thrusts them away from her. She thinks, from time to time, she should resume working out the answers, as she had always done, and in that way exercise her mind, extract those elusive words from their orderly files, anticipate, expect the words to be approachable. But no.

Since she began experiencing lapses in the neat array of her memory files, she has become wary and worried. Words simply got mislaid. Oh, not arcane, little-used words, but ordinary, oft-spoken parts of her vocabulary. Which had always been proudly extensive. She began to feel as though the sturdy fibre of her mind’s filing cabinets had begun to corrode. As though by some odd quirk of the flesh an excess of moist, unpleasant forgetfulness had assaulted her hitherto spotlessly-reliable summons on her memory bank. Atrophy. Her mind, after all, is who she is. What is the mind but a lifetime of memories? Slowly, a quiet terror had overtaken and suffused her sweaty night-time dreams.

She hears that old familiar refrain, spoken internally to herself: “A place for everything and everything in its place”, and she gasps with disbelief. Am I mocking myself? Having chiding little interior conversations? Unable to stop herself, she wails aloud, to an empty room: But I have put everything neatly away, where they belong, all those words that express the experience of my life. I always have. It’s just that I appear to have mislaid words. They’re not where they should be, readily extractable for daily use. They’re not where I left them. They tease and elude me. I’ve always been good to them, used them well, appreciated their power, their meaning, their indispensability to human contact. I’ve stored them diligently, tidily.

Why is this happening to me? I have always venerated words, the language of our womb-tutored tongues. How else to communicate but by forming words, those exquisite conveyances of understanding, emotion, contact, need? Now they lie shattered, meaning trivialized, the wholeness of retrieval eviscerated. I stumble in my every breath to recall, invoke them. To no avail.

Fix your thought closely on what is being said, and let your mind enter fully into what is being done, and into what is doing it. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Perchance To Dream

The garden has settled comfortably
into its long seasonal sleep.
A rest well earned, after long, languid
months of unstinting devotion
to pleasuring itself in the grace
of brilliant beauty, dedicated bounty.
Of blooms and fruits; the structure
of the seasons of growth and production.

But there is no full lapse
during sleep. For the spirit
of the garden goes forth to impress
upon the slumbering that this is
but their intermission, before
resuming their splendidly vibrant,
fecund destiny. Nature’s design.

In time, they will rouse themselves
recall that infinite routine
practise to raise themselves
from the cold, dank ground
and proudly present in bold colours
and pastel hues, shaming the
bland grey of late winter, reluctant
to depart the scene of frozen dominance.

First the bulbs will thrust tentative
green shoots, suddenly transformed
to blazing colour, shapes, sizes.
Perennials then, those robust garden
stalwarts, will recall themselves to
riotous duty, sending up preparatory
greens, then rocketing into fragrant,
colourful and orderly ranks, spring
to summer, to mid-fall.

Senior members of the cast will
finally, reluctantly recall their repertory
of late-fall presence and allow themselves
to blaze forth in the primary tints of
the rainbow, reminding songbirds they
too must prepare to launch themselves
into that same old familiar routine.

Minor and major players dream
of those moments when their presence
echoes the season, their bright costumes
lavish displays; perfumed presence
delighting themselves and awing the
creatures of the Earth. Those dreams
so real they can imagine the urgency
to perform. And then, they do.

Evolution

A delicate creature she was
bones like a bird
little beak of a nose
voice trilling her welcomes.
If bird she was, a cardinal.
Flaming plumage she had,
her burnished fly-away hair
trailing her exquisite face.

Her body small and neat,
in its way sturdy enough
to take her to motherhood.
She’d also two dogs large
as she was not; golden retrievers
whose haircoats echoed hers.
Her constant companions
roaming through woodlands.

These creatures revolving about
her as though in an orbit
about their nurturing star.

Gone now, her companions
even as her children have
fled the coop she devised for them.
The children entering their futures,
the animals overtaken by their
finite life spans into oblivion.

While her future lies yet
yawning before her. She has become
as the sun, an orb of substantial
proportions, her hair still
flinging bright rays into the
atmosphere. Her petite features,
half hidden now beneath her
evolved gaseous rotundity.

Language Introspection

Examine Language; what, if you except some few primitive elements (of natural sound) what is it all but Metaphors, recognized as such, or no longer recognized? Carlyle.

All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry. G. K. Chesterton.

I hate to hunt down a tired metaphor. Byron.

Language is the archives of history. Emerson.

Language - human language - after all is but little better than the croak and cackle of fowls, and other utterances of brute nature - sometimes not so adequate. Hawthorne.

Every language is a temple, in which the soul of those who speak it is enshrined. O.W. Holmes.

Languages are the pedigrees of nations. Samuel Johnson.

It is quite simply not so, that old conceit that a picture is worth a thousand words. We convey more meaning by the language we use and the way in which we use it than a picture possibly could. If words are not intrinsically vital to who and what we are, why then do we flagellate ourselves over our failures, when we had the opportunity, to express our deep emotional attachment in words that matter, to those we cherish?

The written word is solid, not ephemeral, like an image, fleeting and of the moment. That may or may not be recalled; certainly never in the fine detail that meticulous and loving description can describe through the use of language, words.

Words convey the robustness of keen observation, the delicacy of fine thought, and every variation of each. Words are the expressive heart of our collective souls. Their meaning can present as gossamer-light, tickling sensibilities, or bracingly emphatic, moving us to alert response.

All living things have their expressions of being, their language known to themselves; from whales to crickets, robins to elephants. Unlike humankind they cannot share the exquisite pleasure of reading their history, recalling their predecessors, sharing creative imagination. We have been especially gifted. We homo sapiens sapiens, modern humankind.

Pity the persons - and they are legion - illiterate, incapable of deep expression of drawing deeply from the peerless draught of world knowledge. To them remains the irrelevancies of mutely peering at moving pictures. Can they realize the full thinking potential that is a human life?

Think of descriptives, how they limn the individual by the nomenclature human verbal ingenuity has evolved to describe individuality: repugnant, resourceful, comical, tempestuous, covert, beguiling, benign, brilliant, avuncular, mystical, iconic, solicitous, evanescent, fragile, contemptuous, grovelling, malleable, mesmerizing, compelling, bestial, autocratic, miserable, mischievous, creative, bumptious, fearful, tragic, snivelling, riotous, joyful, youthful, grim, aged, beautiful, serene, contemplative, scornful, tendentious, manipulative, scheming, loving, overbearing, intrepid, wise, lethargic, buoyant, uncompromising, tender, wistful.

Any one of these words, or in combination with one another paint an instantly recognizable personality, type, shape, appearance. In the mind of the reader, or the recipient of the verbal description, there is clear and cogent recognition of type and stereotype. Can a picture adequately portray those idiosyncrasies of temperament and behaviour?

Abrasive, sardonic, surly, repressed, calm, assertive, dominating, obsessive, obsequious, dismissive, genial, all descriptive nomenclature identifying and delineating human character, instantly conjuring opinion and observation at a remove; introducing personality. Sweeping the reader into a state of personal presence, through the charmed recognition of the nature of language.

Language challenges us in other ways, as well, as instruments to offend, to hurt, to bully. Belligerent and violent it can most certainly be, adversarial in the extreme, leading the listener or the reader to profound conclusions and encouraging them to match those words in self-defence, meeting offence. The antidote for that kind of language is expressed as compassion, patience, acceptance and understanding. Language has led to war and it has led to peace. It can confound and it can clarify. Invite or reject, bring anger or solace.

It speaks of our common interests yet often fails to ignite a necessary passion among antagonists to surmount differences. But if carefully and honestly constructed it has the capacity to close wounds and narrow great chasms of mistrust.

Language and how we use or abuse it, is a reflection of who we are, our desires and aspirations; our humanity, failed or triumphant. It is our responsibility to value its potential and to use it well; creatively, carefully, reflectively and honourably with conviction and respect.

And to value its capacity to elevate the human spirit, imbue us with hope. Transport us to a better place inside our minds, very often outside our immediate experiences.

Language is the memory of the human race. It is as a thread or nerve of life running through all the ages, connecting them into one common, prolonged and advancing existence. William Smith.

Language is the amber in which a thousand precious and subtle thoughts have been safely embedded and preserved. R. C. Trench.

Language is the expression of ideas, and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas they cannot retain an identity of language. Noah Webster.

The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Edward Gibbon.

Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language while in fact language remains the master of man. Martin Heidegger.

Entitled

It is an appealing picture, on a pleasant day. A solitary figure, an elderly man seen from a distance, walking along briskly enough, slightly hunched into himself, traffic on the busy thoroughfare steady, but he seemingly absorbed in private thoughts. As the onlooker strides closer, it can be seen that the man has a shock of white hair, reaching to his shoulders, but neat, very nice looking. He also has a white moustache, a neatly-trimmed beard, bearing still a touch of his dark colour when he was a younger man. Closer still, and it becomes obvious this is not an old man, simply one in his late-middle years whose hair has been prematurely cleansed of colour. When he reaches a street forking off the main street, he turns abruptly, as though shaking himself out of a reverie, looks around him, smiles to himself and proceeds up the street.

This, he feels, is the best part of his daily routine. He used to walk a little further, over to where they had first lived when they came to Canada. A far more modest home, in a different neighbourhood. It’s been two decades since they sold that one, and bought up, to a four-bedroom, two-story with a double-height great room. As he ambles up the street he lives on, familiar with every house on the street, the semis, the singles, the larger houses mounting up the street close to his own, he indulges in his daily scrutiny. Anxious to discover any alterations in his familiar landscape. Comparing, always comparing his property to those of others, and never finding his wanting in any way.

He still holds a grudge close to his familial considerations for his cousin, the pharmacist, who had badgered him into opting for surgery. This doctor, this specialist he knew personally and would personally vouch for, was capable of operating on his shoulder. He’d make it as good as new. He’d been a pipe-fitter, and injured himself on the job. Workers’ Compensation had been reluctant at first to acknowledge that it was a workplace injury, but how else could he have injured himself like that? (Even if it hadn’t occurred when he was at work, not exactly.) The operation had been partially successful, but hadn’t restored him to full use of his arm. His right arm. Still, he looked around, took a part-time job with the new Home Depot that opened nearby. He could still drive, still do physical things.

Such things happen; he re-injured the arm. Little wonder, those racist bastards made him work back in the warehouse, slinging heavy boxes around. His old injury, that shoulder that had never really healed, was now more painful, he was unable to do anything, even drive. Again, his cousin implored him to submit to another operation; the surgeon, his friend, would this time solve the problem. His own fault for succumbing, and the succeeding operation really put him out of sorts, constant low-grade pain. Now he had less use of that arm, affixed to that accursed shoulder, than ever before. Why did he listen to cousin? His own fault, for believing, for trusting family. He’d be more careful in future.

Meanwhile, work was out of the question. He was now permanently retired. Dependent on his wife, who went out to work every day. Good thing she had a responsible, well-remunerated professional position with the federal government. Good thing she didn’t really mind. Good thing she felt responsible for his well-being, was stricken by the fact she could do little to alleviate his frequent descents into depression.

Unlike his brothers he never had worn a turban, living in Canada. He’d lived on this street for two decades and none of his neighbours had ever seen him like that, wearing a turban. His wife occasionally wore a sari, but not in public, only ceremonially, for special occasions. She was as modern and forward-looking as he. They attended a local gudwara, but only for special events. Family occasions. When there would be a sudden influx of family members from all over Canada, the United States, and India, and their house would be filled to overflowing. Of course his brother’s house, and his cousin’s too, was expanded to warmly welcome their relatives, also. Neighbours in their pluralist-inhabited street had become familiar with the fragrant, attention-demanding odours redolent primarily of onions and spices, wafting over the area. That’s one thing his cousin was good for, to help with the cooking.

In any event, they were now Canadians. Their adopted country has been good to them. And they have reciprocated. They pay taxes. They have the same values as all those around them in the greater society. His son plays hockey, he plays soccer, he’s in house leagues. Their daughter - well, her wedding was a traditional one. Costly. Their family, their guests expected no less. Extravagant, but that’s how Sikh weddings are.

Nor had they neglected their obligations to their heritage, had taken the children with them twice, back to the Punjab, to see family. Second time around, when he went alone, himself with Deepak, wasn’t so good. As though family ties had weakened, somehow the respect he always felt entitled to, was absent. Everyone too busy. It was deplorable, he said later, to one of his favourite neighbours, how materialism had overtaken good manners. His favourite sister’s son too busy to come and visit, to see his uncle, come so far, from Canada to India. Couldn’t get away from work, had important deals to conclude.

He was a gregarious figure, happy to ingratiate himself with his neighbours. Didn’t matter who, though he had his favourites. French, Black, Chinese, Egyptian, Jewish, Christian and run-of-the-mill Canadian-born, he liked to stand around and talk. He enjoyed his good relations with his neighbours. With one exception, the little dark Bangladeshi fellow who lived around the corner and who would stand off any time he saw his Indian Sikh neighbour holding forth. He could sense the fear and suspicion emanating from his Muslim neighbour, and he strangely relished it. It felt empowering in a way he couldn’t quite finger. Even though, when Luvaleen married, the Bangladeshi neighbour’s wife sent a very courteous note of congratulations.

Cordial relations with his neighbours are important. Just as frequent trips to Toronto are, to visit with all their relatives there. It’s where Luvaleen completed her education; York University, pharmacy. It’s where she met her future husband, same university, specializing in nephrology. It’s where Luvaleen and Imran now live, where they’ve bought a nice house. And Luvaleen is expecting a baby. About time: she’s almost 29. Who ever heard of an Indian girl waiting so long to start a family?

Well, he may be unable to work any longer, but he knows his way around. They’re not short of money, and when he decides to get something done, he knows how to do his homework. Calling in the trades, getting estimates, bargaining. Finding out from others if they’ve been satisfied with the work they had done. Getting in touch with that place … what’s it called? Yes, to see if there have been any complaints about workmanship, after-service. He knows how to beat down the prices. If they’re too low, what he offers, then the trades people always have the option of bowing out. They never do, he smiles to himself. Feeling pretty good about his bargaining prowess. Which doesn’t stop him from later complaining over perceived inadequacies in workmanship. He lets them know, the owners, how he feels about their workers’ lack of diligence to the job at hand. Refuses to hand over the last cheque until they come themselves to his house to hear his litany of complaints, and shows them what he considers to be sub-standard work. Up to standard, they claim, thanking him for his business, for the long-awaited cheque now grasped tightly in hand. And they leave, beaming; another customer satisfied.

He found his match in buying a new car, though. Trading in the old van, that General Motors piece of junk that began to fall apart in no time flat, although they don’t drive all that much. Well, regular trips to Toronto, that’s all. And that bright green little Toyota that was such a fuel-efficient vehicle, but a colour his wife hated, and his son complained it had no air conditioning. He’d bought it second-hand, got it at a really good price. He consulted with some of his neighbours. The fellow right next door works for a car leasing company. He’s young, with a family of kids all under six, eager to make a deal. But no deal, don’t like the vehicles he has. Because they’re leased, they’ve got all kinds of fancy, useless gadgets and luxurious details, and who needs them. They bring the price up too high.

Discussed cars with the neighbour whose wisdom, as an elder, he most respects in the neighbourhood. Recommended Honda. Toyota a good second. So what’d he decide on? Hyundai. A lot of car for the money. He thought. Didn’t take long before all kinds of little irritants popped up. Went back to the dealer who offered him a rebate. Offered to take the car back, but it would cost him. Found his match in their sly, unacceptable solutions to the problems that ground away at his good nature. Never again would he buy such a vehicle; lousy service, poor mechanical performance.

He prided himself on giving sage advice. He listened politely, even solicited the advice of those few he liked and respected - well, he liked everyone, just withheld respect from a few. There are those whose opinions he valued. Yet he always came to his own conclusions, largely based on the bargain principle. Then, of course, groused unendingly with dissatisfaction afterward, that black and bleak temper descending, convinced he had been hoodwinked. Lack of diligence to his personal code of consumer triumph. A code he saw foolishly rejected when a neighbour to whom he had referred a roofing contractor had deigned to follow his advice and bargain down the man’s calculated cost estimate. That neighbour had sunk in his estimation.

People, he concluded, are their own worst enemies. When they could save a few hard-earned dollars, they just forge ahead and carelessly spend more than they should. And it’s not just money, it’s convenience and certain entitlements as well. After all, they’re all taxpayers, aren’t they? We’ve all got standards and there’s a social contract that speaks of an egalitarian social contract, isn’t there?

And just yesterday he came across that elderly couple out for their daily constitutional. Carrying their two little dogs, instead of walking them on leashes. They’re dogs, not infants, after all. But they don’t like their dogs walking on the street. They rove up to the greenbelt and then set the animals down, free to roam in a natural setting.

Get your flu shot yet? Talk of the pandemic and the long line-ups of people in the ranks of those deemed to require inoculation before the general public was everywhere, on the radio, television, in the newspapers. Fodder for conversation. He asked, beaming at them, got your shot yet? It’s like a game, one-upsmanship. No, they hadn’t, they shrugged unconcernedly. After all, the clinics are administering the vaccines only to high-risk groups.

They’re older than him by fifteen years, but hale, hearty. They can wait, no hurry for them, they said. Did get their annual seasonal shot, though.

Had my H1N1 shot, he says proudly. No one at the clinic asked anything. Whether he was in the critical category. Despite all the news about long line-ups and disgruntled people having to wait interminably to get their shots, his was quick. No line-up, no waiting, well, just a short wait. Smiling at their surprised countenances, he averred he hadn’t been feeling at all well that day.