Not a very long street, just off a major arterial, it is shaped like a question mark. At the conclusion of the bulge it meanders into another street. One half of the street backs onto a heavily wooded ravine, a neighbourhood treasure, though few of the street's residents quite recognize its value, nor make use of its propinquity. It cleanses the air everyone breathes, it hosts birds and wildlife and presents a treasury of wildflowers throughout the seasons. At one time the street, part of a larger suburban community, shared a small-town address. It has long since been subsumed into the greater national capital of the country, through a wide-ranging amalgamation of communities and even farms. The street and the houses on it were built two and a half decades ago. The domiciles are comprised mostly of single-family, detached dwellings, with a handful of semis verging on the main thoroughfare. Many of the residents are the original home purchasers. They would comprise roughly 50% of the residents of the street. The semis appear to have changed hands far more often than the detached homes. And those homes that have been re-sold have often enjoyed a succession of owners. The original home owners who moved into their houses when their children were small have mostly bid farewell to now-grown children. The street represents an amalgam of family types, and there is a significant percentage at this time, of retired people, singly and in couples who, though their houses are meant for family occupation, still opt to remain in their too-large, but comfortable and familiar and valued homes. It is a very quiet street, with little traffic other than those who live there. The house fronts are diverse, and attractive. Most residents take care of their homes, seeing them as their primary investments. Furnaces have been replaced, and air conditioners, and also windows. Kitchens and bathrooms have been remodelled, and people have added decks and occasionally airy 'summer houses' to the backs of their homes. One-third of the homes boast swimming pools, in-ground and above-ground. Most people take pride in their properties, and feel they must achieve lawns that are weedless and smoothly green. Some painstakingly remove weeds by hand in the spring, others hire lawn-care companies to spread chemicals on their lawns. Invariably, the people who look after their own gardens and lawns have superior gardens and lawns. Each house has a large tree planted in front; maples, ash,crabapples, spruce or pine, fully mature. This is a community that is truly mixed, representing people from around the world, come to Canada as immigrants, settled and making the most of opportunities open to all its citizens in a free and open society noted for its pluralism and dedication to fair representation. There are the extroverts and the introverts, those who prefer not to mingle, others who do. They are herewith loosely sketched:
This is the third part of the anatomy of The Street.
At the top corner of the street, another family of young people, first owners of that house, set on a very nice corner lot, before the hook on the question-mark shape of the street. He, a lawyer, just beginning practise and she happy to be a stay-at-home mom. An attractive couple; she very pretty and tall, while her husband, with his ready smile and easy manner, a head shorter and two heads more intelligent, seemed like the perfect pair, with their infant daughter and soon-to-be-born son. Both of Anglo-Irish heritage.
His practise in family and real estate law was established in the town, later incorporated into the city, and it was a busy practise. Along with his partners in private practise, he became involved in civic matters, and local charities, and the law firm was often to be cited in the small local press for its civic loyalties, which brought them even larger numbers of clients. He and his two partners soon were sufficiently prosperous to build their own stand-alone offices, a nice addition to the business activities on the main street.
He was a punctilious, meticulous personality, tending to become a traditional paterfamilias. Their lawns and gardens were looked after by professional gardeners, and a cleaning staff came in regularly to do the indoor maintenance and cleaning. When their children were very young she was a familiar with the other young mothers on the street with whom she would often pass away afternoon hours, children in tow, having coffee and chatting. She dressed elegantly, and spoke confidently.
She had groomed herself to a degree, and represented herself to the other women as an actor. Mostly she did television commercials, but that in itself was amazing to the other women, that one of their own appeared semi-regularly on television, regardless of the venue. Her children were always clean and well cared for, but she was a reluctant mother in the sense that she never quite felt at ease as a mother, and with her own children who, like most children, sought a certain level of independence.
She chafed at her husband's diktats, for he was clearly the bread-earner and as such the final authority in all matters. Including the type of food the family ate; no short-cuts for them, he disdained pre-prepared foods as unhealthy and unwise. If she on occasion brought into the house such food items high in salt, sugar and cholesterol, he would order them into the garbage, and she resented this. It made her feel inadequate. As though he were the perfect one and her choices intolerable.
As the children grew older she found it increasingly more difficult to cope with their personalities. In fact, their son had their mother's dull intellect, while being a perfectly socially adapted individual, a sunny child, good-humoured and a physical amalgam of both parents. His mother found it frustrating to try to understand what motivated him, how he felt and thought, and the two never agreed on anything.
Their daughter was possessed of a sharp intelligence, and she too had an easy personality and an attractive demeanor to match her emerging beauty and grace. Neither child seemed particularly needful of their mother. It was their father whom they both seemed to appreciate; it was his presence in their lives that gave them a sense of comfort and stability, despite that it was their mother who was most physically present.
The children were excited when their mother decided the family needed the presence of a companion dog to round out their image as a happy family. She chose a purebred Collie, a costly acquisition which her husband did not begrudge her, feeling that might give her a sense of purpose, training the animal, looking to its care. It was a lovely dog, not at all temperamental, but shy. Difficult, however to train, she said, frustrated. The dog hardly listened to her.
And it was her dog, not the children's. She made that clear to them, and they agreed, although they might have been helpful in looking to its care. She walked the dog daily, and it grew into a long-haired, lovely animal, graceful and beautifully proportioned. They made quite the pair, walking together; there is something to be said for that old observation that dogs often resemble their owners; or vice versa. One neighbour observed that the dog seemed brainier than the owner.
But the love affair just didn't last, and the dog was abandoned to the loving care of another eager and appreciative owner.
Nor did the marriage last. It had been steadily crumbling for years. And now that the children were in high school, both parents felt that pretense of a whole, intact family could be dispensed with. He agreed to buy her a house of her own, and there was one available a few streets away. She took a position with an elementary school near her new home, working in the school office, pleased with herself and her new life.
The children spent time living at each of their parents' houses. The girl blooming into a beauty, self-assured and bright. And the boy filled out into a tall, broad young man whose passion was cars and racing up and down the streets in a succession of noisy, burnt-out vehicles, alarming the neighbours on the street with young children. The father was indulgent, encouraging his children to be themselves and become what they would.
His daughter entered law school, his son, after a series of false starts, finally apprenticed himself to a cabinetmaker. The father still lives by himself, rattling around in the now-too-large house. He did begin a relationship with one of the unattached women who worked in the office of the law practise, but it didn't last. Pity, that.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
The Street - A Composite Sketch (2)
Not a very long street, just off a major arterial, it is shaped like a question mark. At the conclusion of the bulge it meanders into another street. One half of the street backs onto a heavily wooded ravine, a neighbourhood treasure, though few of the street's residents quite recognize its value, nor make use of its propinquity. It cleanses the air everyone breathes, it hosts birds and wildlife and presents a treasury of wildflowers throughout the seasons. At one time the street, part of a larger suburban community, shared a small-town address. It has long since been subsumed into the greater national capital of the country, through a wide-ranging amalgamation of communities and even farms. The street and the houses on it were built two and a half decades ago. The domiciles are comprised mostly of single-family, detached dwellings, with a handful of semis verging on the main thoroughfare. Many of the residents are the original home purchasers. They would comprise roughly 50% of the residents of the street. The semis appear to have changed hands far more often than the detached homes. And those homes that have been re-sold have often enjoyed a succession of owners. The original home owners who moved into their houses when their children were small have mostly bid farewell to now-grown children. The street represents an amalgam of family types, and there is a significant percentage at this time, of retired people, singly and in couples who, though their houses are meant for family occupation, still opt to remain in their too-large, but comfortable and familiar and valued homes. It is a very quiet street, with little traffic other than those who live there. The house fronts are diverse, and attractive. Most residents take care of their homes, seeing them as their primary investments. Furnaces have been replaced, and air conditioners, and also windows. Kitchens and bathrooms have been remodelled, and people have added decks and occasionally airy 'summer houses' to the backs of their homes. One-third of the homes boast swimming pools, in-ground and above-ground. Most people take pride in their properties, and feel they must achieve lawns that are weedless and smoothly green. Some painstakingly remove weeds by hand in the spring, others hire lawn-care companies to spread chemicals on their lawns. Invariably, the people who look after their own gardens and lawns have superior gardens and lawns. Each house has a large tree planted in front; maples, ash,crabapples, spruce or pine, fully mature. This is a community that is truly mixed, representing people from around the world, come to Canada as immigrants, settled and making the most of opportunities open to all its citizens in a free and open society noted for its pluralism and dedication to fair representation. There are the extroverts and the introverts, those who prefer not to mingle, others who do. They are herewith loosely sketched:
This is the second part of the anatomy of The Street.
They were approaching middle-age when they moved into their house, next to the hybrid Dutch-French couple. With them were two children who were in their teen years. This was a French-Canadian family. Comfortable in the area which boasted a 30% French-Canadian presence, unlike the west side of the city which was mostly Anglophone. French-Canadians tend to be most comfortable where they are not an absolute minority, and where they can anticipate that they will have service in their mother tongue.
It's an attitude typical of most French-Canadians. Not surprising since for most of their shared history with Anglophones they were meant to feel inferior as Francophones to the English-speaking majority. And they were traditionally discriminated against when it came to jobs. For one thing, if a Francophone was not perfectly bilingual opportunities would not come their way in the wider sphere of workplace opportunities, and that is hardly surprising.
There has always been an undercurrent of resentment between the two language-speakers.
This couple distinguished themselves immediately by commissioning an artist to produce a life-size representation of a bear, from a huge block of wood, a wonderful old pine trunk. Although the bear lacked an obvious pelt under which lay a thick cushion of fat due to the limitations of utilizing a straight pine trunk, regardless of its width, there was no mistaking the intent; more than notional, it was unmistakably an alert bear. And it stood in the centre of the lawn, close to the house, guarding the property and the inhabitants therein.
As the years went by, the once-fresh wood darkened and streaked and long cracks appeared. The bear began to look less menacing, less bear-like, more notional, but it remained what it was meant to be; a stylized bear, faithful to its purpose. The two young boys went through their French high school, and wandered on into university, eventually leaving home and their parents. They seldom returned to visit on the street, but in the summer months they spent time at the rustic family cabin close to the Gatineau Hills in Quebec.
There the entire family also converged at times in the winter where instead of fishing from a small motorized boat on the unproductive lake the cabin stood above, they drove snowmobiles. On one of those dark winter nights when the boys felt recklessly alive - despite parental admonitions for due caution - they disappeared forever into the depths of the lake, with the snowmobile. They were shooting across the lake as they often did. This time the ice was too thin, edging too near to winter's close.
The parents, never integrated into the community of the street, did not speak of their tragedy to any of their neighbours. Who seldom, in any event, ever saw them. These were people who would enter their garage through the house, get into their vehicles, back out and speed off to whatever destination. And on the return journey do the same, seldom appearing on the outside of their house, to greet or speak with neighbours. If and when they did, they were unfailingly polite, smiling, obviously sweet people.
It was an alert neighbour who discovered a small item in the newspaper and put the clues together. Word spread and some people took the initiative to ring the doorbell, to speak briefly with the grieving parents, to render their heartfelt but unconsoling regrets at their unspeakable loss. Others wrote little notes of sympathy, and left them in the mailbox beside the front door. The parents would never have recognized the names of any of their neighbours.
The house was put up for sale. Because the sale of any of the houses on the street was of immediate interest to many of the residents, some who took the trouble to look into the real estate listing ascertained the asking price and they were scandalized. More, far more than anyone else who sold on the street ever realized, and as word spread it was generally agreed that the house would never sell at that asking price. Nor did it. It was a very nice house, but nothing special on a street of very nice houses.
No upgrades had ever been done, aside from once, years earlier, the couple having hired a landscaping company to design a stone walkway at the front and an imaginative curved stone patio resembling a rush of water spiralling down the slanted lawn, beside the tired old bear. Hares from the adjacent ravine were often to be seen hopping about the side of the house, so the naturalist landscaping must have seemed compelling to them, at least.
Summer came and went, then autumn, and winter arrived. The house was empty, the couple having left for their usual months-long sojourn in Florida to avoid the rigours of another winter where they lived. And another summer, another autumn, yet another winter came and went, and with them a variety of real estate agents, all of them eager to sell the house, but even in a seller's market, which it was, no one was willing to pay the exorbitant price they wanted.
The house is still for sale. But the sign there now is that of a "Grapevine" realtor; themselves. They post 'open houses' hoping that if people are interested in living in that superior street in their very nice house, they will come and look and be so impressed they will make that offer. The woman once told a neighbour who was canvassing door-to-door for a charity that they were in no hurry, were prepared to wait until they got their price.
They're waiting still.
This is the second part of the anatomy of The Street.
They were approaching middle-age when they moved into their house, next to the hybrid Dutch-French couple. With them were two children who were in their teen years. This was a French-Canadian family. Comfortable in the area which boasted a 30% French-Canadian presence, unlike the west side of the city which was mostly Anglophone. French-Canadians tend to be most comfortable where they are not an absolute minority, and where they can anticipate that they will have service in their mother tongue.
It's an attitude typical of most French-Canadians. Not surprising since for most of their shared history with Anglophones they were meant to feel inferior as Francophones to the English-speaking majority. And they were traditionally discriminated against when it came to jobs. For one thing, if a Francophone was not perfectly bilingual opportunities would not come their way in the wider sphere of workplace opportunities, and that is hardly surprising.
There has always been an undercurrent of resentment between the two language-speakers.
This couple distinguished themselves immediately by commissioning an artist to produce a life-size representation of a bear, from a huge block of wood, a wonderful old pine trunk. Although the bear lacked an obvious pelt under which lay a thick cushion of fat due to the limitations of utilizing a straight pine trunk, regardless of its width, there was no mistaking the intent; more than notional, it was unmistakably an alert bear. And it stood in the centre of the lawn, close to the house, guarding the property and the inhabitants therein.
As the years went by, the once-fresh wood darkened and streaked and long cracks appeared. The bear began to look less menacing, less bear-like, more notional, but it remained what it was meant to be; a stylized bear, faithful to its purpose. The two young boys went through their French high school, and wandered on into university, eventually leaving home and their parents. They seldom returned to visit on the street, but in the summer months they spent time at the rustic family cabin close to the Gatineau Hills in Quebec.
There the entire family also converged at times in the winter where instead of fishing from a small motorized boat on the unproductive lake the cabin stood above, they drove snowmobiles. On one of those dark winter nights when the boys felt recklessly alive - despite parental admonitions for due caution - they disappeared forever into the depths of the lake, with the snowmobile. They were shooting across the lake as they often did. This time the ice was too thin, edging too near to winter's close.
The parents, never integrated into the community of the street, did not speak of their tragedy to any of their neighbours. Who seldom, in any event, ever saw them. These were people who would enter their garage through the house, get into their vehicles, back out and speed off to whatever destination. And on the return journey do the same, seldom appearing on the outside of their house, to greet or speak with neighbours. If and when they did, they were unfailingly polite, smiling, obviously sweet people.
It was an alert neighbour who discovered a small item in the newspaper and put the clues together. Word spread and some people took the initiative to ring the doorbell, to speak briefly with the grieving parents, to render their heartfelt but unconsoling regrets at their unspeakable loss. Others wrote little notes of sympathy, and left them in the mailbox beside the front door. The parents would never have recognized the names of any of their neighbours.
The house was put up for sale. Because the sale of any of the houses on the street was of immediate interest to many of the residents, some who took the trouble to look into the real estate listing ascertained the asking price and they were scandalized. More, far more than anyone else who sold on the street ever realized, and as word spread it was generally agreed that the house would never sell at that asking price. Nor did it. It was a very nice house, but nothing special on a street of very nice houses.
No upgrades had ever been done, aside from once, years earlier, the couple having hired a landscaping company to design a stone walkway at the front and an imaginative curved stone patio resembling a rush of water spiralling down the slanted lawn, beside the tired old bear. Hares from the adjacent ravine were often to be seen hopping about the side of the house, so the naturalist landscaping must have seemed compelling to them, at least.
Summer came and went, then autumn, and winter arrived. The house was empty, the couple having left for their usual months-long sojourn in Florida to avoid the rigours of another winter where they lived. And another summer, another autumn, yet another winter came and went, and with them a variety of real estate agents, all of them eager to sell the house, but even in a seller's market, which it was, no one was willing to pay the exorbitant price they wanted.
The house is still for sale. But the sign there now is that of a "Grapevine" realtor; themselves. They post 'open houses' hoping that if people are interested in living in that superior street in their very nice house, they will come and look and be so impressed they will make that offer. The woman once told a neighbour who was canvassing door-to-door for a charity that they were in no hurry, were prepared to wait until they got their price.
They're waiting still.
The Street - A Composite Sketch (1)
Not a very long street, just off a major arterial, it is shaped like a question mark. At the conclusion of the bulge it meanders into another street. One half of the street backs onto a heavily wooded ravine, a neighbourhood treasure, though few of the street's residents quite recognize its value, nor make use of its propinquity. It cleanses the air everyone breathes, it hosts birds and wildlife and presents a treasury of wildflowers throughout the seasons. At one time the street, part of a larger suburban community, shared a small-town address. It has long since been subsumed into the greater national capital of the country, through a wide-ranging amalgamation of communities and even farms. The street and the houses on it were built two and a half decades ago. The domiciles are comprised mostly of single-family, detached dwellings, with a handful of semis verging on the main thoroughfare. Many of the residents are the original home purchasers. They would comprise roughly 50% of the residents of the street. The semis appear to have changed hands far more often than the detached homes. And those homes that have been re-sold have often enjoyed a succession of owners. The original home owners who moved into their houses when their children were small have mostly bid farewell to now-grown children. The street represents an amalgam of family types, and there is a significant percentage at this time, of retired people, singly and in couples who, though their houses are meant for family occupation, still opt to remain in their too-large, but comfortable and familiar and valued homes. It is a very quiet street, with little traffic other than those who live there. The house fronts are diverse, and attractive. Most residents take care of their homes, seeing them as their primary investments. Furnaces have been replaced, and air conditioners, and also windows. Kitchens and bathrooms have been remodelled, and people have added decks and occasionally airy 'summer houses' to the backs of their homes. One-third of the homes boast swimming pools, in-ground and above-ground. Most people take pride in their properties, and feel they must achieve lawns that are weedless and smoothly green. Some painstakingly remove weeds by hand in the spring, others hire lawn-care companies to spread chemicals on their lawns. Invariably, the people who look after their own gardens and lawns have superior gardens and lawns. Each house has a large tree planted in front; maples, ash,crabapples, spruce or pine, fully mature. This is a community that is truly mixed, representing people from around the world, come to Canada as immigrants, settled and making the most of opportunities open to all its citizens in a free and open society noted for its pluralism and dedication to fair representation. There are the extroverts and the introverts, those who prefer not to mingle, others who do. They are herewith loosely sketched:
They were among the first of the young couples to move into a new house on the new street.
At the top of the street, the hook of the question mark. Backing onto the ravine. Into one of two houses facing the rest of the street. He was of Dutch origin, tall, lanky to the point of vanishing, easy to smile, but not comfortable within himself. She of French-Canadian stock, daintily-built, blond, exceptionally pretty, hushed-voiced. Both chiropractors, they set their professional lives on the main street of the town.
They planted tulips, lots of them, and daffodils, for spring beauty in a flowerbed on their front lawn, a nod to his heritage. He was a committed runner, at odd times of the day his long, lean figure could be seen leaning into the landscape, determinedly running, regardless of the weather. His skinny legs ropey in shorts, feet encased in expensive running shoes. Over time they had three daughters, spaced roughly four years apart. As children the little girls were cheeky. They became grave but friendly personalities as they grew.
The girls were fluently bilingual. Their mother spoke only French to them at home. And they all attended French-language schools, although their English too was impeccable, the language their father spoke to them. These were bright, curious, biddable children. Unlike many sisters they felt emotionally bonded, and rarely quarrelled, the older two quietly and naturally assuming responsibility for their younger sibling.
Once, when an enterprising entrepreneur bought land at the end-loop verging on the ravine of the next street, the father was personally incensed. He felt the privacy of their family would be invaded, by the contiguous lots, despite that theirs was deep, and the cedar hedges they had planted over twenty years earlier had matured and earned them reliable privacy. He wrote up a petition, girded himself to overstep his shy personality, and rang doorbells up and down the street for signatures.
The people to whom he explained his reasons for challenging the purchase of the land and the intent of the owner to sell off four parcels for additional houses on the next street, nodded sympathetically, but objected that it hardly mattered, did it? This was private property, the owner could, under the law, do as he wished. And it was the next street over in any event, was it not? He prevailed upon them to sign nonetheless and many did.
It availed him nothing practical, the plans proceeded because the municipal council awarded the new property owner the right to sell his parcelled lots and for homes to be built on them. Those homes would have the distinction of being custom-built, not tract housing, like most of the houses on both streets. He fumed and fulminated, but the building of the houses proceeded. And in the event, his privacy was not unduly disturbed, once construction was completed.
The youngest girl is now twelve, her siblings 16 and 20. The oldest girl gives piano lessons at the house. They are all singularly talented. Although their father speaks not a word of Dutch, the youngest girl has become interested in that aspect of her heritage, and she insists she wants to learn how to speak Dutch, and wants to visit the Netherlands. Her older sister has been on student exchanges to Spain. A Spanish student came to live with them for months, in exchange.
These are reserved people, polite and social when they are expected to be. But quiet, and they prefer to keep to themselves; insular. Good and decent people, but involved with their own lives. Still, willing to a degree to support their community, so they respond generously to community events, and charitable enterprises. Because it matters to them how they are perceived by others. They are driven not by an inbred sense of altruism, but by the stealthy thought that if they do not accede agreeably to community needs, they will be ill-thought of.
The girls will continue to make their parents proud of their abilities. Unlike their parents they are naturally affable beings, willing to notice and stop to speak with anyone who lives on the street with whom they have had a long albeit personally distantacquaintanceship . To see one is to recognize familiar features in all the girls; as though each was cloned from the other, and except for size and maturity each reflects the other.
Their mother is still young and graceful looking, fresh and pretty. Their father is still committed to running. Their lawn is perfectly mowed and tended. They are in the process of changing over all the windows of the house. Which happens when windows are not painted on a regular basis over the years, to keep the wood from rotting. The new windows will be vinyl. They will not in any event, require painting. Business is good, and they live enviable lives of comfort. Far more comforting, their familial intimacy.
The middle girl stops, on her way home from school, whenever one or another of the neighbours is out puttering about their own place, with their pets on their property. Although they have no companion pets of their own, all the girls are fond of stopping, making a fuss over neighbours' cats or dogs. But the middle girl in particular. She hesitates to move on once conversation wears thin. They're not averse to chatting with anyone who wants to speak with them.
They have wide, confident smiles and beautiful faces set atop tall, nicely proportioned bodies. They are a credit to their parents, to their communities, to the society in which they are poised to become independent members of. One does not imagine faults in the clay of this fairly ordinary family in a street of other ordinary Canadian families. That they are present is of no moment; what can be discerned is more than satisfactory.
This is the first part of the anatomy of The Street.
They were among the first of the young couples to move into a new house on the new street.
At the top of the street, the hook of the question mark. Backing onto the ravine. Into one of two houses facing the rest of the street. He was of Dutch origin, tall, lanky to the point of vanishing, easy to smile, but not comfortable within himself. She of French-Canadian stock, daintily-built, blond, exceptionally pretty, hushed-voiced. Both chiropractors, they set their professional lives on the main street of the town.
They planted tulips, lots of them, and daffodils, for spring beauty in a flowerbed on their front lawn, a nod to his heritage. He was a committed runner, at odd times of the day his long, lean figure could be seen leaning into the landscape, determinedly running, regardless of the weather. His skinny legs ropey in shorts, feet encased in expensive running shoes. Over time they had three daughters, spaced roughly four years apart. As children the little girls were cheeky. They became grave but friendly personalities as they grew.
The girls were fluently bilingual. Their mother spoke only French to them at home. And they all attended French-language schools, although their English too was impeccable, the language their father spoke to them. These were bright, curious, biddable children. Unlike many sisters they felt emotionally bonded, and rarely quarrelled, the older two quietly and naturally assuming responsibility for their younger sibling.
Once, when an enterprising entrepreneur bought land at the end-loop verging on the ravine of the next street, the father was personally incensed. He felt the privacy of their family would be invaded, by the contiguous lots, despite that theirs was deep, and the cedar hedges they had planted over twenty years earlier had matured and earned them reliable privacy. He wrote up a petition, girded himself to overstep his shy personality, and rang doorbells up and down the street for signatures.
The people to whom he explained his reasons for challenging the purchase of the land and the intent of the owner to sell off four parcels for additional houses on the next street, nodded sympathetically, but objected that it hardly mattered, did it? This was private property, the owner could, under the law, do as he wished. And it was the next street over in any event, was it not? He prevailed upon them to sign nonetheless and many did.
It availed him nothing practical, the plans proceeded because the municipal council awarded the new property owner the right to sell his parcelled lots and for homes to be built on them. Those homes would have the distinction of being custom-built, not tract housing, like most of the houses on both streets. He fumed and fulminated, but the building of the houses proceeded. And in the event, his privacy was not unduly disturbed, once construction was completed.
The youngest girl is now twelve, her siblings 16 and 20. The oldest girl gives piano lessons at the house. They are all singularly talented. Although their father speaks not a word of Dutch, the youngest girl has become interested in that aspect of her heritage, and she insists she wants to learn how to speak Dutch, and wants to visit the Netherlands. Her older sister has been on student exchanges to Spain. A Spanish student came to live with them for months, in exchange.
These are reserved people, polite and social when they are expected to be. But quiet, and they prefer to keep to themselves; insular. Good and decent people, but involved with their own lives. Still, willing to a degree to support their community, so they respond generously to community events, and charitable enterprises. Because it matters to them how they are perceived by others. They are driven not by an inbred sense of altruism, but by the stealthy thought that if they do not accede agreeably to community needs, they will be ill-thought of.
The girls will continue to make their parents proud of their abilities. Unlike their parents they are naturally affable beings, willing to notice and stop to speak with anyone who lives on the street with whom they have had a long albeit personally distantacquaintanceship . To see one is to recognize familiar features in all the girls; as though each was cloned from the other, and except for size and maturity each reflects the other.
Their mother is still young and graceful looking, fresh and pretty. Their father is still committed to running. Their lawn is perfectly mowed and tended. They are in the process of changing over all the windows of the house. Which happens when windows are not painted on a regular basis over the years, to keep the wood from rotting. The new windows will be vinyl. They will not in any event, require painting. Business is good, and they live enviable lives of comfort. Far more comforting, their familial intimacy.
The middle girl stops, on her way home from school, whenever one or another of the neighbours is out puttering about their own place, with their pets on their property. Although they have no companion pets of their own, all the girls are fond of stopping, making a fuss over neighbours' cats or dogs. But the middle girl in particular. She hesitates to move on once conversation wears thin. They're not averse to chatting with anyone who wants to speak with them.
They have wide, confident smiles and beautiful faces set atop tall, nicely proportioned bodies. They are a credit to their parents, to their communities, to the society in which they are poised to become independent members of. One does not imagine faults in the clay of this fairly ordinary family in a street of other ordinary Canadian families. That they are present is of no moment; what can be discerned is more than satisfactory.
This is the first part of the anatomy of The Street.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Byward Market
Photo: Rita Rosenfeld
Photograph downloaded from Flickr by the Ottawa Tourism Association. Taken Fall of 2008 during a ramble through the Byward Market.
Photograph downloaded from Flickr by the Ottawa Tourism Association. Taken Fall of 2008 during a ramble through the Byward Market.
Markets
Ottawa Guide
Places
Ottawa
Showing 2 of 2 placesshow all
MapSatelliteHybrid
Photo: Rita Rosenfeld
Byward Market
55 ByWard Market Square
Ottawa, ON K1N 9C3
Tel: +1 613 562 3325 / +1 613 244 4410
Located between Sussex Drive and Dalhousie Street, the Byward Market is a re-created farmer's market that will bring any visitor back to the 19th century. Antiquers can spend hours searching through Afghan Antiques & Jewellery, and Justina McCaffrey Haute Couture is just one of the many high-class fashion outlets. In addition to the excellent shopping, the Market is home to many galleries. Dining is the hardest decision, with dozens of bistros and cafes, including the elegant Courtyard Restaurant, to choose from.Matched Pair
Much they have in commonc. 2009 Rita Rosenfeld
met when both fourteen
married fifty-four years
- to one another.
Still share identical age
somewhat agreeing on
life's outlook though
interpretations vary resulting
in frequent discussions verging on
disagreement, less trenchant
as the years progress
opinions almost merging
to quiescent acceptance
still subject to sudden flares
of dissonance though
nothing serious,
merely idiosyncratic.
They share matched memories
almost, with some variations
in tenor if not in details
and a proclivity to hug and to kiss
and to proclaim sensitivity
to one another's point of view
sharing values, experiences
children and priorities.
Their dependence on one the other
absolute, a requirement for
utter comfort, satisfaction in life's
uncertainties, knowing no
uncertain element in that,
their devotion to morning rituals
afternoon circumstances
and evening's practise
for that long and dim sleep.
In the meanwhile
take pleasure in the company
each knows so intimately
although not to the extent
that one is capable of
capturing the other's every thought
and therein lies the mystique
of the familiar unfamiliar
that piques every day with the
question of what's next?
For there is no sameness to the
progress of the days
the weeks, the years gone by
each steeped in the mystery
and beauty of a shared life.
Reassuring love gestures
none too casual
to convey meaning
a smile like none other
a passing caress
a gentle word
a lifetime of assurance
and tender grace.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
The Creaky Cerebellum
Clever is as clever does
memory favours
us both and we share no
difficulties in routine
matters both still
working in overdrive
through long familiarity
and comfort with
each other's presence.
Yesterday morning
meaning to warm the teapot
I instead flushed boiling water
into his waiting coffee pot
full of fresh-ground
freshly-roasted coffee beans
then absently swilled
the lot into the sink
teapot still there, undisturbed.
He laughed, assured me
nothing wrong with the brain
just full of other concerns
then re-ground another batch
for that perfect morning coffee
he so enjoys
and I my morning tea.
This morning his coffee
plunged oddly, tasted lacking.
I discovered on removing
the plunger the assembly in
incorrect sequence. He'd dried
the dishes as I washed
and it was he assembled the plunger
I archly pointed out.
Made your day? asked he
slurring the query into
Major Day, as I responded
No, General Havoc
but all the synapses are firing
on cue. We're still capable
and cerebrally functioning
up to expectations; have
another three decades
to mature, gracefully.
c. 2009 Rita Rosenfeld
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Weep Unfulfilled Lives
We seek out intimacyc. 2009 Rita Rosenfeld
assurances of personal
validation to give
direction, purpose
and meaning to our
fragmented, disorderly
helpless lives
tangentially torn by desires
beyond our capacity
or will of purpose
to discipline
succumbing like
helpless children
to the tantrums
of self availment.
Then mourn, alone
and inconsolable
at the meanness of nature
fating failure as though
free will is
forever hostage
to our inability to rise
above emotion
instinct, self-destruction.
Liberated from the
discordant bonds
of commitment
a temporary relief;
freedom, spontaneity
regained, only to succumb
to boredom, insecurity
isolation, fear and
loneliness. The adoption
of a kitten becomes
a temporary salvation;
company, intimacy
responsibility re-met.
The oppressive singularity
of life alone vanquished
for a moment of anguished
relief, adrift on a sea of self-doubt.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Entertainment
Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....
There's sublime irony
in the North American
television public selecting
both Holocaust and
All in the Family as their
hands-down favourites.
The lovable bigot
is our Everyman,
a symbol whose rantings
all deplore, are amused by
recognize in the other guy.
The Holocaust horror
is the fairy-tale in reverse;
fascinating, repellent,
bearing no relation whatever
to Everyman's foibles.
The one elevated to
delightful eccentricity
the other to a muted aberration,
a fallible error
in human behaviour -
all relating to 'them'.
We're just innocent
spectators in this game
of hunters and hunted;
entertained by it all.
c. 1980 Rita Rosenfeld
Monday, May 25, 2009
Moving Out
Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....
My boys say I should move into an apartment. They tell me the house, small as it is, is too much for me to look after, now that May is gone.
Sometimes I find myself looking around, trying to remember how she used to do everything. I hear echoes of her voice in the rooms. I walk in, half expecting to see her.
Maybe I should move.
Not because looking after the place is too hard, though. And not even because May haunts each and every room. I can get used to that. But because every damn night the girl across the street comes home at some ungodly hour and her boyfriend's souped-up car wakes me.
My bedroom is right over the road. I could move into the other one, the boys' old room, but I won't. Habit.
Last week it was at twelve that they woke me. Usually I turn over, pound the pillow and try to get back to sleep. At my age you can't turn sleep off and on too easily, though. It's hard to come by, once you're wakened.
Anyway, something sounded not right out there. when I got up to look out the window I saw them out in front of her house, the girl sitting in the car. A warm night, the windows open, I could hear her giggling. The boyfriend was rolling on the roadway in front of the car.
I was ready to go back to bed. I felt disgusted. A new kind of game they were playing. Then I noticed his flashlight illuminating the road in a broad beam. The car hood was up.
I pulled on a pair of trousers, a shirt, and went downstairs. When I called from the doorway, "something wrong?" she replied, "No, everything is fine." He was still on the ground, rolled in a ball, his arms cradling his head.
When he heard me call, he crawled over to his car, got into the driver's seat sideways and sat there, hands across his face. She stood beside the car at this point, still doing nothing. Just standing there. I walked across to the car.
"Let me have a look", I said. After a moment he took his hands away so I could see his face. Swelling, the skin an angry red colour. He'd twisted the radiator cap, she chittered in my ear. "The thing just blew up, stupid thing", she said. I turned from him to face her, a pretty blond thing, and said "call your mother. She's a nurse, isn't she?" "Can't", she whispered, "she's sleeping".
Whispering, after all that noise.
I could have left them there.
I went into the house, wrapped ice cubes in a towel and took it out, told him to hold the towel against his face. To reduce the swelling, alleviate the pain, I told him. I felt that was the right thing to do, temporarily. I'd once taken a St.John Ambulance course. When our boys were small, and I was a scout leader. Then I told them to get into my car. I'd drive them to the Emergency of the Civic Hospital.
I'm not usually out that late on the highway and I was surprised at all the traffic. In the back seat, he was moaning in a tight-sounding way as though he wanted to hold it back but couldn't help himself. The sound unnerved me, made me drive faster than I wanted to, but then I wanted to get him to the hospital, fast.
As we helped him out of the car he murmured, "call my mother". Through his swollen lips the words came out slurred. I could hardly understand at first what he meant, but once it penetrated I told her. She looked at him with a puzzled expression. Throughout the drive she had said nothing, had chosen to sit in the front seat rather than with him.
When I explained the situation at the front desk the receptionist buzzed for a nurse. We waited a short while near the desk. The girl gave the receptionist the information she wanted about the boy's name, address, next of kin.
He stood there, trembling. He refused to sit down. He shuffled his feet in a strange dance of pain, then stamped one foot with a bang on the floor, like a child throwing a tantrum. A muffled expletive made its way through the towel he still held against his face.
We hadn't waited too long before a nurse swung through the doors leading off the waiting room, pulling a wheelchair behind her. She had him sit down, adjusted the foot stirrups, then pulled the towel and his hands away from his face. She scrutinized him briefly, then without a word wheeled him away. The girl and I took seats. I reminded her about his request and she went to a pay phone to call his mother.
As it transpired, the mother was out. She called his father's place, which was where the boy lived, and not with his mother as I'd thought from his request. His father was out. Separated, the girl told me, living apart. She called again intermittently all the time we were there. Three hours, altogether. No answer.
I couldn't leave him there without anyone responsible to look after his interests. So I stayed.
We watched a slow but regular flow of people come into the Emergency Department. A fat woman accompanying a man with a cut hand. A harried young couple carrying a screaming child, two others hanging on behind. A jocular trio of young men, one of whom was waiting to hear news of his wife. A first child, they told anyone who might be interested. Few were. We watched them bang the Coke machine. It was stuck and they wanted their money back. One of them, the prospective father, I think it was, lifted a small framed watercolour off the wall and slid it into his jacket. A souvenir of this momentous occasion in his life.
"I found this baby robin like and fed it and everything and used to take it outside to fly around when it got feathers you know and when it got big enough I figured I would let it go for good but it kept coming back" she chattered at me. Harmless enough. Good natured. How can you fault someone who cares enough to try to help a fledgling? How reconcile that with the same person's inability to give succour to a friend?
"And I decided this one day to just nevermind it and let it spend the night out-of-doors 'cause I figured like it had to learn to look after itself. And I never thought it wouldn't. Like all I found in the morning was feathers scattered all over the place. So I figured some cat got it. Dumb bird."
Yes, well.
After several hours of waiting the receptionist motioned to me to come over. She informed me I could go in now and see the patient. I called the girl but she said she'd wait out there. I entered the Emergency Ward where a nurse sitting at a desk beside the door directed me to one of the curtained-off cubicles. When I hesitated, she got up and drew the curtain aside. "Here he is", she said brightly. "We've put an anaesthetizing cream on his face. He's not in as much pain now. Go on", she urged. "He's awake."
She left, to sit back at the desk, and I walked over beside the bed to stand looking down at the boy. His face was puffy, but no longer as red as it had been. The swollen look of his face reminded me of May's when she had been taking large doses of cortisone and her face had swelled like that and she hadn't wanted me to see her. "I look dreadful", she'd wailed and although I thought she did, I told her she looked fine.
There were voices coming from the next cubicle. A doctor interrogating a patient. "Now, ah ... Mr. Leger, is it? What day is this? Year? How old are you? What have you been drinking?" A muffled, unintelligible response.
A fleeting smile drifted across the boy's face. He squinted his eyes open, saw me and closed them again. He looked young and helpless. Made me think of our boys when they were young. Something inside me went out to the boy. I felt I had misjudged him because of that car, his waking me. He was just a victim of circumstances. Didn't know how to behave any better. Like so many other kids of this day. Because he had been neglected. Again he tried to open his eyes and finally regarded me through narrow slits. "Thanks", he slurred. "Thanks a lot."
I'd have to wheel him down to Ophthalmology, the nurse told me. "We've called someone in to have a look at his eyes", she said, pulling his socks back on, handing him his shoes, tying them up. "Where's your shirt?" she asked, looking about. "Oh, I forgot, we threw it out." She turned to me. "Full of grease, filthy! We were afraid if he put it back on, the burn area might become infected."
"Can you get him a hospital shift or something to cover himself with?" I asked. "The corridors are cool, he might catch cold." She shrugged, said she'd look for something for my son. "He's not my son", I shouted after her, but she was gone.
Another wait, this time for the eye doctor. And when a young man came in wearing jeans I didn't expect him to introduce himself as Dr. McPherson. He turned to the boy and asked me, "Is this your son?"
He examined the boy in a darkened room, using all the electronic equipment the small room bristled with. "I just want to satisfy myself that there's no serious damage", the doctor explained. "He's fortunate. The damage appears to be superficial. But I want to see him again in a few days, just to make sure. Can you bring him in on Monday? I'll give you an appointment." Again I explained he was not my son. The doctor made out an appointment card, slipped it in an envelope and gave it to me to temporarily end his part in the matter.
"S' all right", the boy mumbled. "My father'll take me." Before he left, the doctor squeezed another kind of anaesthetizing ointment on the boy's eyelids and his eyes and the boy winced in pain. "That'll help the pain a bit", the doctor said. "But it'll only last a few hours. You won't get much sleep tonight", he observed, almost cheerfully.
Finally, I drove the boy home. He insisted he would be fine. His father would soon be home. Then I drove the girl home. She prattled on about school, how she hated it, punctuating every statement with "Like you know, a drag". At 3:30 a.m. I crawled into bed myself. I should have been sleepy. I felt tired. But it seemed like hours had passed before I finally slept.
Next morning her father, getting his boat and trailer out of his garage woke me at seven.
That afternoon the girl's mother telephoned to say "Thanks very much for looking after my daughter's friend". I said nothing. She asked "Hello, are you there? Did you hear me?"
"I heard you" I said, and hung up.
The car sat there for a week. Some time later I saw him, the boy, looking at his car, fooling around under the hood. I waited inside the front door, knew he could see me through the screen. I thought he might come over, perhaps say something to me. But, no.
I take pride in my place. Always did. May and I have always been particular people.
They've taken to throwing their empty cigarette packages on the lawn. Last night I heard that car turn into the drive, back out and go on down the street, muffler throbbing.
Before I cut the grass today, I'll have to pick up those shattered beer bottles.
Scum.
c. 1979 Rita Rosenfeld
My boys say I should move into an apartment. They tell me the house, small as it is, is too much for me to look after, now that May is gone.
Sometimes I find myself looking around, trying to remember how she used to do everything. I hear echoes of her voice in the rooms. I walk in, half expecting to see her.
Maybe I should move.
Not because looking after the place is too hard, though. And not even because May haunts each and every room. I can get used to that. But because every damn night the girl across the street comes home at some ungodly hour and her boyfriend's souped-up car wakes me.
My bedroom is right over the road. I could move into the other one, the boys' old room, but I won't. Habit.
Last week it was at twelve that they woke me. Usually I turn over, pound the pillow and try to get back to sleep. At my age you can't turn sleep off and on too easily, though. It's hard to come by, once you're wakened.
Anyway, something sounded not right out there. when I got up to look out the window I saw them out in front of her house, the girl sitting in the car. A warm night, the windows open, I could hear her giggling. The boyfriend was rolling on the roadway in front of the car.
I was ready to go back to bed. I felt disgusted. A new kind of game they were playing. Then I noticed his flashlight illuminating the road in a broad beam. The car hood was up.
I pulled on a pair of trousers, a shirt, and went downstairs. When I called from the doorway, "something wrong?" she replied, "No, everything is fine." He was still on the ground, rolled in a ball, his arms cradling his head.
When he heard me call, he crawled over to his car, got into the driver's seat sideways and sat there, hands across his face. She stood beside the car at this point, still doing nothing. Just standing there. I walked across to the car.
"Let me have a look", I said. After a moment he took his hands away so I could see his face. Swelling, the skin an angry red colour. He'd twisted the radiator cap, she chittered in my ear. "The thing just blew up, stupid thing", she said. I turned from him to face her, a pretty blond thing, and said "call your mother. She's a nurse, isn't she?" "Can't", she whispered, "she's sleeping".
Whispering, after all that noise.
I could have left them there.
I went into the house, wrapped ice cubes in a towel and took it out, told him to hold the towel against his face. To reduce the swelling, alleviate the pain, I told him. I felt that was the right thing to do, temporarily. I'd once taken a St.John Ambulance course. When our boys were small, and I was a scout leader. Then I told them to get into my car. I'd drive them to the Emergency of the Civic Hospital.
I'm not usually out that late on the highway and I was surprised at all the traffic. In the back seat, he was moaning in a tight-sounding way as though he wanted to hold it back but couldn't help himself. The sound unnerved me, made me drive faster than I wanted to, but then I wanted to get him to the hospital, fast.
As we helped him out of the car he murmured, "call my mother". Through his swollen lips the words came out slurred. I could hardly understand at first what he meant, but once it penetrated I told her. She looked at him with a puzzled expression. Throughout the drive she had said nothing, had chosen to sit in the front seat rather than with him.
When I explained the situation at the front desk the receptionist buzzed for a nurse. We waited a short while near the desk. The girl gave the receptionist the information she wanted about the boy's name, address, next of kin.
He stood there, trembling. He refused to sit down. He shuffled his feet in a strange dance of pain, then stamped one foot with a bang on the floor, like a child throwing a tantrum. A muffled expletive made its way through the towel he still held against his face.
We hadn't waited too long before a nurse swung through the doors leading off the waiting room, pulling a wheelchair behind her. She had him sit down, adjusted the foot stirrups, then pulled the towel and his hands away from his face. She scrutinized him briefly, then without a word wheeled him away. The girl and I took seats. I reminded her about his request and she went to a pay phone to call his mother.
As it transpired, the mother was out. She called his father's place, which was where the boy lived, and not with his mother as I'd thought from his request. His father was out. Separated, the girl told me, living apart. She called again intermittently all the time we were there. Three hours, altogether. No answer.
I couldn't leave him there without anyone responsible to look after his interests. So I stayed.
We watched a slow but regular flow of people come into the Emergency Department. A fat woman accompanying a man with a cut hand. A harried young couple carrying a screaming child, two others hanging on behind. A jocular trio of young men, one of whom was waiting to hear news of his wife. A first child, they told anyone who might be interested. Few were. We watched them bang the Coke machine. It was stuck and they wanted their money back. One of them, the prospective father, I think it was, lifted a small framed watercolour off the wall and slid it into his jacket. A souvenir of this momentous occasion in his life.
"I found this baby robin like and fed it and everything and used to take it outside to fly around when it got feathers you know and when it got big enough I figured I would let it go for good but it kept coming back" she chattered at me. Harmless enough. Good natured. How can you fault someone who cares enough to try to help a fledgling? How reconcile that with the same person's inability to give succour to a friend?
"And I decided this one day to just nevermind it and let it spend the night out-of-doors 'cause I figured like it had to learn to look after itself. And I never thought it wouldn't. Like all I found in the morning was feathers scattered all over the place. So I figured some cat got it. Dumb bird."
Yes, well.
After several hours of waiting the receptionist motioned to me to come over. She informed me I could go in now and see the patient. I called the girl but she said she'd wait out there. I entered the Emergency Ward where a nurse sitting at a desk beside the door directed me to one of the curtained-off cubicles. When I hesitated, she got up and drew the curtain aside. "Here he is", she said brightly. "We've put an anaesthetizing cream on his face. He's not in as much pain now. Go on", she urged. "He's awake."
She left, to sit back at the desk, and I walked over beside the bed to stand looking down at the boy. His face was puffy, but no longer as red as it had been. The swollen look of his face reminded me of May's when she had been taking large doses of cortisone and her face had swelled like that and she hadn't wanted me to see her. "I look dreadful", she'd wailed and although I thought she did, I told her she looked fine.
There were voices coming from the next cubicle. A doctor interrogating a patient. "Now, ah ... Mr. Leger, is it? What day is this? Year? How old are you? What have you been drinking?" A muffled, unintelligible response.
A fleeting smile drifted across the boy's face. He squinted his eyes open, saw me and closed them again. He looked young and helpless. Made me think of our boys when they were young. Something inside me went out to the boy. I felt I had misjudged him because of that car, his waking me. He was just a victim of circumstances. Didn't know how to behave any better. Like so many other kids of this day. Because he had been neglected. Again he tried to open his eyes and finally regarded me through narrow slits. "Thanks", he slurred. "Thanks a lot."
I'd have to wheel him down to Ophthalmology, the nurse told me. "We've called someone in to have a look at his eyes", she said, pulling his socks back on, handing him his shoes, tying them up. "Where's your shirt?" she asked, looking about. "Oh, I forgot, we threw it out." She turned to me. "Full of grease, filthy! We were afraid if he put it back on, the burn area might become infected."
"Can you get him a hospital shift or something to cover himself with?" I asked. "The corridors are cool, he might catch cold." She shrugged, said she'd look for something for my son. "He's not my son", I shouted after her, but she was gone.
Another wait, this time for the eye doctor. And when a young man came in wearing jeans I didn't expect him to introduce himself as Dr. McPherson. He turned to the boy and asked me, "Is this your son?"
He examined the boy in a darkened room, using all the electronic equipment the small room bristled with. "I just want to satisfy myself that there's no serious damage", the doctor explained. "He's fortunate. The damage appears to be superficial. But I want to see him again in a few days, just to make sure. Can you bring him in on Monday? I'll give you an appointment." Again I explained he was not my son. The doctor made out an appointment card, slipped it in an envelope and gave it to me to temporarily end his part in the matter.
"S' all right", the boy mumbled. "My father'll take me." Before he left, the doctor squeezed another kind of anaesthetizing ointment on the boy's eyelids and his eyes and the boy winced in pain. "That'll help the pain a bit", the doctor said. "But it'll only last a few hours. You won't get much sleep tonight", he observed, almost cheerfully.
Finally, I drove the boy home. He insisted he would be fine. His father would soon be home. Then I drove the girl home. She prattled on about school, how she hated it, punctuating every statement with "Like you know, a drag". At 3:30 a.m. I crawled into bed myself. I should have been sleepy. I felt tired. But it seemed like hours had passed before I finally slept.
Next morning her father, getting his boat and trailer out of his garage woke me at seven.
That afternoon the girl's mother telephoned to say "Thanks very much for looking after my daughter's friend". I said nothing. She asked "Hello, are you there? Did you hear me?"
"I heard you" I said, and hung up.
The car sat there for a week. Some time later I saw him, the boy, looking at his car, fooling around under the hood. I waited inside the front door, knew he could see me through the screen. I thought he might come over, perhaps say something to me. But, no.
I take pride in my place. Always did. May and I have always been particular people.
They've taken to throwing their empty cigarette packages on the lawn. Last night I heard that car turn into the drive, back out and go on down the street, muffler throbbing.
Before I cut the grass today, I'll have to pick up those shattered beer bottles.
Scum.
c. 1979 Rita Rosenfeld
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Relations
Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....
c. 1980 Rita Rosenfeld
Old enough now to have
experienced the indelibility
of words which,
once spoken
hang on thunderclapped air
and inscribe themselves
forever on the reeling mind
she takes deep breath
and instead
pierces me with the
anger of her eyes,
their deadly shafts
speaking more clearly
than past emotional
incoherences.
And I wonder,
did I ever
hate my mother to that
same transitional degree?
Could my mother
have been the devious
roadblock to happiness
I am presumed to be
or was she always
how I perceive her now;
a simple-minded
and trusting survivor.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Nature's Ethereal Restiveness
In a blaze
of spring entitlement
our fruiting trees
treat us to a display
of pink, magenta, white
blossoms that bees
and hummingbirds
respond to, an
invitation to dine
replendantly as
though winter's
white landscape
was merely preparation
for the glory to come.
All our senses
engaged in the
sensuality of form,
colour and fragrance,
the apple and pear blossoms
and Japanese quince
the flowering peas
(Madonna, we recognize
your delicate fingers
on this offering of piety
and nature's resurgence!)
The crabapple ornaments
the hugely magnificent
magnolias, offering
an image of Eden.
Nothing in this world
is forever, the wind
scatters the aroma of new life
breezing the petals
over the changing landscape.
c. 2009 Rita Rosenfeld
Friday, May 22, 2009
Early Harvest, Gusto Press
Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....
Yesterday's Child
Fiddleheads in the garden
slowly unfurling
lilies-of-the-valley
not yet belling
the Manchu cherry
sprinkling white confetti
on the vibrant green
of urgent grass;
swallows executing
their preying arabesque
while beyond, the sun
a pyromaniac's frantic dream
slips behind the house.
Sitting idly on the swing
spring air filters
through the maple's
tender thrusts
as bees target
straight for home
and the mesmerizing hum
of the neighbour's mower
returns growth to order.
The children
never recall other years
only living in the warmth
of the breeze
pulling stray hairs
beyond the spiralling
loops of the bicycle.
Memory of another child
lingers close behind the
flushed faces of
this spring day's children.
c.1980 Rita Rosenfeld
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Her Mother
Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....She stood beside her mother at the kitchen sink, wiping dinner dishes. Short as she was, she still stood taller than her mother. There was no resemblance in their facial features, still less in their bearing. The older woman moving efficiently, humming a monotone irritating to her daughter's ears. The younger woman wiping clumsily, as though unaccustomed to the chore.
Alexis's mind was busy, all kinds of openings tried on her inner ear and each rejected in turn. When she stood for a moment in her mother's way as the older woman reached for a dirty pot on the stove, there was no 'excuse me', just a brusque shove. Not meant to offend, although it did. It was just her mother's way.
"Ma, I'm moving out", she finally uttered. At first there was no indication that her mother had heard. Arms up to the elbows in the right-hand sink, scrubbing pots, then dipping them into the clear rinse water of the left-hand sink, her mother continued to clean up, her manner mechanical and thorough.
"What?" finally came the response. "What?"
I'm twenty one years old Ma, and I need to be independent." The words tumbled out, independent of her carefully rehearsed calm. "I'm moving, to an apartment of my own." Keep your voice firm. One quaver and she'll know you're testing the waters.
"What kind of crazy nonsense? What are you talking?" her mother asked, voice grating on Alexis's sensibilities, strengthening her determination to see it through. She had to anyway, she'd committed herself to half the rent. Ellen was counting on her, and she was damned anyway if she'd spend any more of her life in this house.
She had to face her mother's incredulous annoyance, writ large on her face, as she wiped her arms on the apron, heard the dishwater gurgling into the drain, her mother standing there, one eyebrow raised in her combative manner, ready for an argument, any argument. Her mother loved their constant battles, of that Alexis was certain. Some people needed tension in their lives, it seemed to render a peculiar kind of satisfaction to feel put-upon, martyred. She, on the other hand, was bloody well sick of it.
"I've rented an apartment, me and Ellen, partners, and we're moving into it in two weeks. Ellen has furniture, she's been living in another place, so I won't need anything really, right away." She forced herself to slow down, the words were running away with her, one piling into the other. Her mother's face still evinced no real comprehension. She might have been saying that the chicken hadn't been tender enough. Her mother had that defensive/offensive look on her face.
"Ellen?" Mrs. Margolies repeated. "Who, Ellen?"
"Ellen Schwartz."
"Schwartz? You mean Ellen from down the street? When did you see her? I thought she was in California, no?"
"No, she's been back in Toronto for a few years."
"That's nice, back in Toronto and she didn't even come to visit, I was such a good friend with her mother, and she was like a daughter, a second daughter by us. Nu", she shrugged philosophically, "what can you do? People are like that! You're helping her to move to a new apartment?"
Alexis inhaled, counted to ten, wondered if her mother was being deliberately obtuse to gain time, work out a strategy for an argument, or whether her mind had been busy somewhere else. Patience, there was no way of avoiding a scene, but at least she could clear something up before she plunged in again.
"She hadn't come by because she didn't think she would be welcome. I just happened to run into her on Yonge Street a few months back." Come now, Alexis, a few months back?
"What is this, not welcome? Tillie's daughter not welcome in my home? Where does she get the idea?" Oh where, Ma, where would she get such an idea...
"Mother, you always claim to have such a good memory for details. Well, I can remember eight years ago when you warned me not to have anything more to do with Ellen."
"Oh. that was just ... her father ... "
"Her father was an embezzler, but what did that have to do with Ellen? Did you know Tillie is dead?"
"What? No! Vay!"
"Yes, she committed suicide."
"I'm sorry to hear, why are you telling me like this, like it was my fault?"
"I'm sorry if that's what it sounds like, I don't mean it to. Not entirely your fault, Ma, but you helped. What Ellen told me is that her mother didn't know whom to go to, all her friends deserted her and she was so ashamed she felt they had to get away, but even so she just kept getting more and more depressed. It hasn't been easy for Ellen, she's had to practically raise herself. She lived with a second-cousin in the States for the first few years after her mother died. Her mother's second cousin, an unmarried school teacher."
"Nu, that's life", her mother said, turned and began to walk out of the kitchen.
"Ma!" Alexis called after her. "I'm moving in with Ellen."
"What am I hearing?" her mother said, turning around, moving back with a heavy tread into the kitchen, her face burdened with innocence. "What do you mean, you're moving away from here, from this house, from us, where you've always lived. We haven't done enough to make you happy? What are you talking? What foolishness!"
"I've been thinking about it for a long time, Ma. It wasn't a decision that came easily. I need independence, I want to have my own life, live the way it suits me to." Let her make an effort to understand this time, Alexis thought, begging someone, she hardly knew who.
"Here you're not independent? Don't you always do what you want whether or no Daddy and me thinks you should? When did you ever ask us for yes or no? Here it doesn't suit you?"
"Ma, you don't understand. Please try to. I'm old enough to be on my own. I feel stifled here."
"Stifled? Who's stifling? I'm doing you something? I love you and want the best for you? Daddy and me we always thought about your future and how it should be good for you, not like it was hard for us, and haven't we always helped you? This is thanks, this moving out? This is how you say to your parents, after all those years of giving and taking, us giving all the time and you taking like it belongs to you, and now when we can begin to do a little taking, you take away?"
"Ma, it's not like that at all. I'm grateful, you know I am. It's not as though I'm going somewhere far away or anything, the apartment's only a fifteen-minute drive from here. Look at it this way: if I were getting married, would it be any different?"
"Difference, sure it's different! If you got married - from my mouth to His ears - it would be a nochas! This is a running away, a saying we haven't done good by you, that you can't live here with us, we're not good enough or something!"
Her mother's voice gradually rose, her eyes began brimming. One hand leaning on the counter, she stood there looking frail and pathetic. Impossible to believe that this little woman had a vicious temper that cowed her husband, son and daughter. To a stranger's eyes she would appear as wronged as she felt herself to be.
All the uproar brought Alexis's father into the kitchen with his "what's wrong? What's wrong here?" Typical. He'd rather not be involved in any disagreement between mother and daughter. It was enough for him to have to contend with those between himself and his wife, but somehow he always came around at the tail end, asked what's wrong, looked accusingly at Alexis, and patted his wife on the shoulder. When his wife screamed at him, however, he was always silent, hunched over into himself, trying to decrease his bulk as though that would grant him protection from her unappeasable ire.
It never failed, his silence, his mute inability to counteract his wife's accusations, to drive her to renewed frenzies of impassioned denunciations. She invariably worked herself into a steam of uncontrolled emotion, garbled words of baseless accusations, went about grumbling for an hour later, finally forgetting everything until the next storm broke. Any matter, however seemingly insignificant could induce another storm without warning, even the most innocuous remark, and for that reason, Mr. Margolies habitually kept his own counsel.
"Moishe", his wife wailed at him, for once an ally. "She's going to leave us. Would you believe?"
*****************************************************************
In the week that followed there was no ploy that her mother left untried. Playing on her sympathies, her guilt. First the accusations, then a day of baleful silence, broken only by her mother's heart-rending sighs. Finally, another confrontation. "What do you want from my life?"
"From your life nothing, Ma. I want to be responsible for my own life, make my own decisions."
"Again decisions! Don't I always ask you, don't I, if it's okay by you when I want you should do something? You're driving me to an early grave with this, you're pulling pieces from mine heart, you're killing me!"
"Oh Ma, it's not so simple. I just want to be responsible for myself, have some freedom!"
"Responsible? Don't I always say you're responsible, you do something wrong?"
"Like all the time", Alexis muttered.
"What, WHAT?" her mother strained to hear. "Speak up, don't mumble." And then a sly grin slid over her mother's face. "It's the boys, eh? You don't like I should inspect them all the time, they come, no?"
Alexis flushed. "That's not the only kind of freedom I'm talking about, Ma."
A huge shrug. "No, no, what can I do with you. I gave up mine life you should have everything. But everything yet isn't enough."
"I'm grateful, Ma! I know everything you've done, but it's time I lived my own life, and you live yours."
******************************************************************
Another week of tears, and this time her mother warned her that Alexis's children would be as mean and cruel to her as she was to her mother. Wait, she warned, it would come, that time when although she nurtured her children with love and gave them every opportunity to be special, they would one day turn on her, and break her heart, as she was doing to her mother.
"Mean and cruel? Oh Ma, I'm sorry if I'm causing you pain. But everyone, all the girls are leaving home. I'm a hold-over from another era, it's downright anachronistic!"
"Is that dirty talk?" her mother asked. Alexis laughed through her exasperation.
"You're laughing at me?" her mother huffed. "I'm trying to be reasonable, you're laughing at me? AZOI TEET MEN A MUMMA?"
Alexis couldn't restrain herself. She flung her arms about her mother, hugged and kissed her, couldn't recall the last time she had.
"Go away", her mother sniffed, pushing her off, trying to appear hurt, but so obviously pleased by the little demonstration of filial emotion. "Okay, all right, let it be like you want, you'll go. But promise me, Alex, supper every Friday night."
"Of course" her daughter exulted. "Every Friday night, Ma, I wouldn't miss it for anything!"
"Wednesday too, maybe?" her mother ventured.
"Ma, we'll see. first let me adjust. Let yourself become accustomed to it..."
"Oy", her mother fretted, "What'll I tell everyone, mine tochter is living by herself, who knows where, who with..."
"Ellen, remember, Ellen!" Alexis prodded. Then, despite her better judgement Alexis said it: "Ma, don't worry. If I've been able to keep my head intact for all these years living with you, I'll survive anything."
"Dopishe kind", her mother smiled through tears. "Why do you think I brought you up like I did?"
c. 1978 Rita Rosenfeld
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Early Harvest, Gusto Press
Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....
The Tiny Perfect Form
I almost stepped on it
the tiny perfect form
still on the forest path
unlike its normal state
a perpetual motion machine
with voracious appetite
to assuage metabolic hunger
this, nature's dynamo.
Dead. A peace in its
unaccustomed quietude.
The grey fur sleeking its
fat little body, not yet
cold and hard
tiny legs and paws
upsticking, comically
but there is no cause
for humour in this cessation.
Sharp snout pointing
to the dense forest
siding the path
and predator's teeth visible
in its frozen mouth.
Sad to look on it
glad not to have stepped on it
and wonder why no sexton beetle
or carrion-eating bird
has not yet carried it away.
Wonder whether it was merely
old age that did.
c. 1980 Rita Rosenfeld
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Early Harvest, Gusto Press
Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....The Wind
The wind
impatiently
chases leaves
down deserted streets
where they gather
defiantly
in gutters.
The wind
biting nips
of sharp bits
through the fall integuments
of summer-dreaming people
refusing winter.
The wind
churlishly hurls itself
at life still green
on the lilac bush
waving like wan flags
long after the
colourful parade
has passed.
The wind
leonine in its rage
ravages chunks of clouds
scatters them
in tattered dark hues
across the face
of the hard white sun.
The wind
raging its sovereignty
guides summer birds
on homing passages
through the torrential sky
wings beating
the drum
of winter escape.
c. 1980 Rita Rosenfeld
Monday, May 18, 2009
Wild Red Strawberries
Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....Quiet, not to make any sound. Daddy loves his little Marty, but not on week-end mornings. Not when Daddy's stumbled into bed in the misty-dark hours before dawn. It's all right, it's all right for him to wake me up with all his fumbling and his stupid whistling. That's different all right when he wakes me and I can't get back to sleep.
But her sleep, when her Daddy's out at night is fitful and worried anyway, and a delicious calm steals over her when she knows Daddy's back, even if she can't sleep any more. Mom's gone, probably for good this time, but she's Daddy's girl and Daddy won't ever leave her.
Pick on her once in a while, why don't you! Leave the Kid alone!
The Kid's asleep too. Nothing, no amount of noise ever awakens him. He rides his trail bike over the same tired old ground near the cabin, bumpety-bump, every day. Smokes one weed after another, eyes blank, trailing his feet in the water over at the dock. the Kid's on probation. Car-theft. Leaving the scene of an accident. "But", the judge had said, "you come from a good family, I can see that. I can see how concerned your parents are". And gave him a suspended judgement. In the care of his concerned parents. Mom was always concerned, true.
You bloody little bastards, get out of my hair! To be fair, she'd screech that at both of them, ever since Marty could remember. But the Kid was Mom's kid. Always, she hinted Marty was probably a changeling. Someone switched babies in the hospital nursery. Jesus, my own kid couldn't be so stupid.
But Marty had Daddy.
On with her cut-offs, her tee shirt dirty from yesterday but she wouldn't go banging drawers in search of another one. Who cared, anyway? Would a clean tee shirt make the morning better? Decided against sneakers, bare feet would do. And slipped carefully out the screened door. Outside, where the freshness of the morningunfurled from its night's sleep and gently enfolded her, caressed her with the damp and loving fingers of pre-dawn.
She stepped lightly on the wet grass, forcing herself not to think of slimy, slithering snails, mashing them underfoot. A mist rose languorously from the lake. In the trees overhead, the rustle of birds. A scuttering in the underbrush off to the left. She stopped, looked that way nervously. Groundhog?
Finally she untied the gun'l rope of the red canoe, the short one. Shoved it gently, dipped her feet into the cold water, slipping on rocks, gained a footing and made into the canoe. The sun soon to rise over the hills. The moon up there, ghostly, halved. Everything belonged to her, the lake, the sky, the cedars fencing the lake, obscuring the depths of the woods beyond. She breathed the fragrance of the trees, her surroundings; attar of life.
These early morning excursions on the lake suffused her with a gratefulness, a will to experience everything that life placed in her solitary path. She loved the wilderness feel of the lake, the woods, when all the surrounding cottages, hidden by old conifers skirting the shoreline of the lake housed fast-asleep people who could never know the wholeness, thecompletedness of the experiences that were hers alone. Somnambulists all, awake or asleep. Only she felt the earth beating, sighing, was at one with nature.
Her paddle raised slivers of silver from the lake, glimmering in the light of the naked moon. The gentle slap and slush of the water cradling her. The lake her birth-sac and every morning it delivered her newly-born. A dark and sleek shape dove from rocks coasting the shoreline as she spirited the canoe alongside. Muskrat.
A strange, unmistakable silhouette in the water betraying, at this pre-dawn time, no white. The loon, silent and aloof, submerged and she waited, no longer paddling, but dreamily drifting, until it broke the surface of the water. This must be what the primordial earth was like, she convinced herself. A strange grey and silver half-light, aluminescent moon, and vapours rising from the water.
There! That sound? And watched as a long-legged bird strode from a rock to the water, daintily lifting its awkward yet graceful stalks, shifting its long-beaked head forward. The heron half-dove, then raised itself out of the water, resumed its position on the rock, shaking droplets out of its blue-gray wings stretched impossibly wide. Effortlessly, it craned its head forward and rose, its body bulky yetuncumbersome, legs folding underneath, silently floating the ether over Marty, the canoe, the lake and the cedars.
She beached the canoe, slung the rope around an old stump and gingerly hobbled the pebbles of an unfamiliar portion of the shoreline. Ahead, what was it? An old stone foundation. Weeds, brambles overgrowing the stone, the squared timbers, what was left of them. Careful now, where you're walking, Marty. Don't want to step on a rusted nail, hand-forged or not.
Why don't you go on out and drown? Who needs your damn eyes following me around? What do you know about it? You think your mother's a whore and your father's faultless? What the hell do they teach you at that bloody high school anyway? At your age I never condemned my mother, damn you. Damn you! DAMN YOU! GO DROWN!
Sure, this was the place. Wild strawberries grew her, and garlic, and hens 'n chicks, someone's old garden. Once, when she was little, she and Daddy had discovered this place. One carefree and long-gone, hot and misty afternoon. They'd taken the baler from the canoe and lovingly filled it with wild strawberries. Red, luscious and ridiculously runty. The size of blueberries. Your mother'll make jam out of them, Marty. Jam. Wild strawberry jam. She could ignore the horseflies, the deer flies, lighting and biting, even the black flies.
Screw yourself! Think I'm prepared to hover over a hot stove for you two? Want jam, make it yourselves. Bloody well time I said it, I'm through!
What's this? Burnt rocks. Barbecue? Someone had a barbecue here? Lifting feet carefully, regretting the absence of sneakers now. Nothing to see here anyway. Back to the canoe. The lilting, tilting, mesmerizing and faultless water.
And shoving off again, rocking the canoe, settling, paddling.
Something white and lumpy in the water, half submerged.
Soon the sun would rise above the hills. Already a promise in the air of a warm, muggy day. Wonder what plans Daddy had in mind for this day. The Kid would want to stay home, stick around the cabin. Ride his trail bike. Over the same tired old trails, worn thin and hardened over like the shell of a turtle, by that bumpety-bumpety, bump. One smoke after another. Blank face. What did he ever think of? Did he ever think?
Time you did, you know, eighteen. At your age... Daddy censuring, recalling his own long-ago eighteen years. No trail bikes, no cigarettes. At least he said there were none.
Paddle shoving against something soft, yielding.
Wild strawberries, red and ripe. When you cook them on the stove they turn to liquid quickly, with the sugar. Bubble and squeak, cook into a gelatinous mush that smells and tastes like heaven.
Floating off one end of the something soft, dark fronds. Like hair. Hair? Red-on-white? Red streaming from the white-on-dark? Luscious red, like wild strawberries.
Could no one, no one at all in that lonely place, that place where everyone slept and no one knew the joy of the wilderness, could NO ONE hear her screams? Scream, Marty, Scream!
Marty? Marty! MARTY, SHUT UP, DAMN YOU! You're making enough noise to wake the dead.c. 1981 Rita Rosenfeld
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Night
Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond...
Night
Dark pulses warm and moist
on the springtime air
this night. There hangs
a voluptuous moon
luminous and heavy
as woman with child
casting a diluted coruscation
limning leaves
rustling in the slight breeze.
Birds shift in the trees
somnolently ease feathers
beak comforting birdtalk
to one another
their sounds near lost
in the concert of crickets
the creak of the frogs
beating the night
so it shifts and breathes
croaks and trills
like some giant
unknowable beast
like some well-greased
programmed device
a perpetual motion job
turning out generation
after generation of
night revellers
nocturnal emissions
fleeting the darkness
spiralling tree tops
the hunted, the hunters
silent in pursuit or flight
the crickets and frogs
in a rising crescendo
of purpose
drowning the silence
of the chase.
c. 1980 Rita Rosenfeld
published in Early Harvest, Gusto Press
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Early Harvest, Gusto Press
Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....
The River
The St.Lawrence winds
energetic coils
through the landscape
of this spring day
like a great serpent
roused from winter's
sere abeyance and
seagulls coast the wind
screeching for handouts
from people picnicking
on the lush banks
sheltered from the rain
by long swoops of willow.
Rain stipples the river
bounces of its taut skin
and waves lap the shore
twisting bleached logs
against the rocks
piled there and
multifariously shaped
tinctured like some
titan's cast-off playthings.
A robin serenades
in glad anticipation
driven to frenzied compliment
and still the gulls
wheel and swoop
teasing us for handouts.
Far on an island bank
a great blue heron
daintily steps among the reeds
its head outthrust and
primordial; at once risibly clumsy
yet imbued with timeless grace.
Fish lunge, leaping for mayflies
those myriad airborne sprites
celebrating spring. In the
distance great lakers skim
the river like great
sea behemoths. The
river teems with purpose
responding to needs;
uncoils its sinuous length;
hosts, transports and feeds.
c. 1980 Rita Rosenfeld
Friday, May 15, 2009
Casualty
Herewith, the latest selection from dusted-off published poetry and short fiction, circa 1970s vintage and beyond....
She looked around expectantly, coming down the stairs. That's what he'd said wasn't it, that someone was there, should he ask her in? You're always so curious about what these itinerants are hawking, here's your chance. But the foyer was empty. She walked to the front door, saw a slight figure standing to one side in the gloom, opened the glass door and there stood a shivering girl of no more, she guessed, than seventeen. Tatty jeans, not even a sweater worn against the night chill.
"I'm sorry" she said, "I thought my husband asked you in."
"It's all right, he did tell me to come in, I thought I'd better wait out here."
"Well, come on in then and you can show me what you've got." And what exactly did she expect to see? There was very little room left on the walls to hang anything. Their taste ran to old prints and oils. Highly unlikely they'd consider a contemporary piece of art ... why was she bothering? Vaguely uncomfortable with herself.
In the living room the girl looked cautiously about, as though appraising the interior, deciding for herself that what she had would strike a discordant note. Sat tentatively on the edge of the sofa, placed the portfolio she'd held under her arm beside her.
"I see you've got lots of pictures already; a dull observation.
"I've got a thing about paintings. I really love them ... old landscapes."
"I don't know if you'd like any of mine, they're not like those at all", leaning earnestly toward her.
"Now you see why my husband told you we wouldn't be interested." He hadn't, he said, been able to turn her away. She insisted, said she wanted to see the lady of the house. So I thought, why not? he'd said, watching her rinse her hair, then wrap her head with a towel before going back to the garage.
The girl slowly unwound the string holding her case closed. Absorbed, her long hair swept filaments of burnished brown across her lean face. She withdrew a few small oil paintings on canvas, a few watercolours, an assortment of pen-and-ink drawings. Carefully she lifted them by the edges, silently exhibiting them for Marcy who punctuated the offerings with wan little acknowledgements. Evident to both the display was unimpressive. Finally, lifting the last one, the girl carefully shuffled the pile together and placed them back into the folder.
"I guess you don't really like them", tonelessly, readying herself to leave.
"To be honest I wouldn't want to own any of them, but that doesn't mean they don't have artistic value - it's just my taste." She glanced around at her room, visualizing the incongruity of that schlock hanging over her commodes, her armoires. "Are any of them your own work?"
"No-no, like, I don't paint. some of my friends do, but we get this stuff from a group of artists. Art students, I think. We go out like this sometimes to make some bread."
"Well", Marcy searched for some way to extricate herself. "Can I offer you anything, something to drink?"
"Oh, no ... that's okay, I wouldn't want to put you to any trouble."
"It's no trouble."
"Well, a glass of milk? If you don't mind, please."
She asked if the girl had eaten dinner. They hadn't had time to get anything before leaving. "Shit, that's not true, we didn't have any food, how 'bout that, nothing to eat, stupid, eh?"
Marcy winced. "You don't live at home?"
"With my parents? No. I've got my own pad. I mean, I crash with friends."
"Don't you miss your parents? What about school? What do you do with yourself?" The girl sat there, without weight, lacking energy to move, not minding the questions, willing enough to respond, content to be sitting there.
"Yeah, I miss my mom sometimes, not my dad. You don't know what it was like. Nothing but hassles. And I couldn't care less about school."
"That's too bad. It must be tough, you're so young. I couldn't imagine any of my kids living away from home. I'd be terrified for them."
"Yeah, well. Maybe you treat your kids different. I had to do everything my old man said. He never listened to me. He never liked my friends. Used to slap me around. I could tell you things... One day I just took off. Only thing", voice strained, Marcy leaned toward her: "I hated to leave my little sister. Now I'm gone things are rough for her. I'll help her leave when she gets a little older."
Silence enveloped them; not uncomfortable, but quiet, slightly brooding. "Do you work?" Unable to still her curiosity. "I mean aside from this?"
"No. I don't want to work straight. I mean like, I wouldn't want to work nine-to-five, be someone's Joeboy. this way I can do what I feel like, whenever I want to. Wish I could collect unemployment insurance. Or Welfare. They ask too many questions. I'm under-age, they'd get the Children's Aid after me, or something."
"Sounds really great", mentally comparing her own children's sheltered lives, shivering. But they were so much younger. And what, she asked herself, what could I do about it if they ever conceived a hostility toward us as this girl has done her parents?
"Oh yeah, it's not so bad, just sounds crappy. Sometimes we run out of food is all, then we go out and make some bread. The guy I live with - it's not like you think; there's three of us, me'n another girl and this guy. Well, this guy works sometimes pretty steady. Oh, he works mostly, just happened this time we ran out."
"Are you really happier living with your friends?" Why she was pursuing this, questioning her, what compelled her to?
"Sure, sure I am. No one breathing down my neck all the time. I feel a little bad for my mom maybe, but I wouldn't go back, not for anything. Look, I gotta go. I'm taking up your time, you want to curl your hair before it dries."
"No, I don't." A few moments earlier she'd wanted the girl to leave, now for some reason she couldn't fathom she felt she had to make some kind of intimate contact, persuade her ... of what...? "I mean it's naturally curly. I try to uncurl it, not the other way around". She laughed nervously, wondering what was wrong with her.
"Hey, you're lucky. Wish I had curly hair", flicking hers off her back, arm crooked, falling back to her side as her hair cascaded back around her shoulders.
"It's in style to have long straight hair", babbling inanely, knowing how she sounded to herself, wondering how she appeared to this lost child. "Just like you've got ... why would you want it to be different", as though admiringly, as though her intent was to prop up the girl's self-esteem.
"Oh, I don't know; it would be nice for a change, you know."
"Isn't that strange, people with straight hair want it curly, people with curly hair would rather have straight. There's just no pleasing anyone". Lame, flushing, an old chestnut repeated, embarrassing her with its vacuity.
Still the girl made no move to go. Exhausted looking, lavender shadows deepening the craters of her green-flecked eyes; a spectral impression. How could a teen-age girl look so, what was the right word - burnt-out? Languidly turning her head, the girl looked about the room. "This is a nice room, feels comfortable. I like it", she said dreamily.
"Thank you", responded the perfect hostess. "My husband collects the pine furniture, I'm the one likes the paintings", as though she hadn't already made that abundantly clear, as though it would have any meaning to the girl. "Some of them", she expounded, "are Flemish and Scottish. The paintings, I mean. That one over there, a fragment of a larger Spanish painting. They don't really cost much more than contemporary art. Good art, I mean", she said artlessly. "You have to look around, get to know some dealers. It's more expensive to buy things in the city, so we go to small dealers in towns on the periphery of Toronto. It's really lots of fun, looking around, collecting. But we didn't get this stuff overnight. We've been married for ten years."
"Yeah? You sure don't look it. Ten years! How can you stand it?"
"It's been beautiful!" Defensive, taken aback. "It sounds banal, but it's true!"
"There was nothing happy about my parents. They're always screaming, mad, blaming one another, nasty, miserable. And us, always picking on us, easy targets. And I don't know anyone who's married and likes it. All you hear is about people fighting, hating each other. Love is a load of crap, a bad trip."
"It isn't! You've had bad experiences. Almost everyone has, one time or another. I know what you mean, it was like that when I was a kid too, my parents didn't get along either. I couldn't wait to leave the house."
"Then how'd it come out different for you?"
"I don't honestly know, it just did."
"I wouldn't like it", the girl said with finality.
"Just because of your family?"
"Not just. You gotta do everything the guy wants. Whatever he says, that's it."
"Not if you have a relationship based on mutual respect", trying to impress the girl with her own triumph; imbue her with hope, but reality for her, was hopeless, futile ... glad, so glad you didn't have those experiences, aren't you, Marcy? "Anyway, I thought things were supposed to be different for your generation."
"Yeah, well, maybe. If you don't mind, could I have more milk?"
"What kind of food do you eat...at your pad?" Watching her gulp the milk.
"Mostly health food, when we've got the bread. Sometimes we get fruit and vegetables behind chain stores, like when they throw stuff out."
"Ugh, sounds pretty crummy to me. But then I'm not used to that kind of spontaneous lifestyle. I guess it'd be all right if it's really what you want."
"It's not bad. I'm trying to move out anyway, get my own place. Like I mean, I like them but ... I mean, what do you do when thus guy wants to ball and you don't feel like it? He's nice and all that but he doesn't really turn me on."
"You mean he forces himself on you?"
"It's not that bad", soothingly, the girl feeling badly for the sensibilities of the adult, the mother of children, the married woman. Trying to spare her feelings, her sheltered idea of protecting the young. "He's a good guy, he doesn't force me. He's really my friend's boyfriend, but sometimes he feels like fooling around and if I say no, he kinda kids and says I'm frigid or hung-up or something like that."
"What kind of hassle-free living is that? You've gone from one rotten environment to another. what've you gained? Call that freedom?" A bad dream Marcy, good thing it's someone else's dream.
"Well look, it's not that bad. It just sounds bad to you. It gets me down sometimes, sure, but it's okay."
"Any way you cut it", shrilly now, can't you discipline yourself a llittle better than that? "you're being forced to do something you don't want to. He's manipulating you. That's independence?"
"Yeah, yeah, you're right. Well, like I said, I'll be moving out soon." Guess it kind of bothers you to hear me talk - about things?"
"Of course not. Liar, liar. I'm asking, aren't I? People should talk to each other." Hypocrite. "I'm glad you feel enough at ease to talk like this." Are you now, Marcy? "Are you sure you wouldn't rather go back to your mother?"
"I might, but never with my father there. Like I said, it was a real bad scene."
"Look, I'm really sorry about the paintings. There's just no way I would have any of them. They're not my kind of expression." Marcy, the art critic, Marcy the elitist, Marcy the privileged middle-class wife and mother of such well-adjusted children...
"Oh, that's okay, don't feel bad. I don't expect you to like them." Looking away from one another. Aware that they are strangers, despite a momentary intimacy. Marcy wanting somehow to make a difference, to make it up somehow to this child that life had abandoned. Hapless, Marcy, nothing you can do for her, she'll find her own way.
"Guess I better go. My friend would be mad if he knew I was sitting here. I'm supposed to be out flogging this stuff. He'll be going down the street soon. I'm supposed to meet them at the corner."
"I feel bad about this, I wish I could do something for you, give you something. Would you accept some food?"
"Yeah, sure, why not? Oh hell, look you don't have to feel bad. Never mind about the food."
"No", she insisted. "I want to give you something. I want to. We've always got plenty of canned food around."
The girl following her docilely into the kitchen. Gleaming tortoise-shell counters, pale green appliances, banks of cupboard space; a housewife's delight. Marcy pulled out two large paper bags, stuffing one into the other, bent and opened cupboard doors where she began inspecting labels, placing tins in the bag. Arose, lifted the bag for weight. "It's heavy. Will you be able to carry it?"
"Sure I will. When I get to the corner my friend will help me. That's really nice of you."
"That's all right. It's to make me feel better, really. I wish I could do something for you. Look, why don't you re-think this, get in touch with your mother? I'm sure she loves you."
"It's okay. Maybe I will. Don't let it bother you."
Shoving the portfolio helpfully under the girl's elbow. "Sure all that isn't too heavy?"
"No, no, it's fine. Christ! Gotta go! I'll get shit if everyone's waiting for me. Look, thanks. Thanks a lot. It's been nice, really."
For a moment she stood watching until the darkness swallowed the slight figure, swaying to one side, balancing the weight of the bag of groceries. Then she was aware of the sound of voices raised in nighttime games, from the back of the house. Excited voices, children playing, happy in their childhood. Thought of the heaviness of the girl's voice, childhood muffled in a resented past, living in a soiled world she hoped never to know more about.
Finally, the screen door clattered to a close and she shut the house door behind her. She walked through the house to the back door. To call her children in for their bed-time ritual.
c. 1976 Rita Rosenfeld
She looked around expectantly, coming down the stairs. That's what he'd said wasn't it, that someone was there, should he ask her in? You're always so curious about what these itinerants are hawking, here's your chance. But the foyer was empty. She walked to the front door, saw a slight figure standing to one side in the gloom, opened the glass door and there stood a shivering girl of no more, she guessed, than seventeen. Tatty jeans, not even a sweater worn against the night chill.
"I'm sorry" she said, "I thought my husband asked you in."
"It's all right, he did tell me to come in, I thought I'd better wait out here."
"Well, come on in then and you can show me what you've got." And what exactly did she expect to see? There was very little room left on the walls to hang anything. Their taste ran to old prints and oils. Highly unlikely they'd consider a contemporary piece of art ... why was she bothering? Vaguely uncomfortable with herself.
In the living room the girl looked cautiously about, as though appraising the interior, deciding for herself that what she had would strike a discordant note. Sat tentatively on the edge of the sofa, placed the portfolio she'd held under her arm beside her.
"I see you've got lots of pictures already; a dull observation.
"I've got a thing about paintings. I really love them ... old landscapes."
"I don't know if you'd like any of mine, they're not like those at all", leaning earnestly toward her.
"Now you see why my husband told you we wouldn't be interested." He hadn't, he said, been able to turn her away. She insisted, said she wanted to see the lady of the house. So I thought, why not? he'd said, watching her rinse her hair, then wrap her head with a towel before going back to the garage.
The girl slowly unwound the string holding her case closed. Absorbed, her long hair swept filaments of burnished brown across her lean face. She withdrew a few small oil paintings on canvas, a few watercolours, an assortment of pen-and-ink drawings. Carefully she lifted them by the edges, silently exhibiting them for Marcy who punctuated the offerings with wan little acknowledgements. Evident to both the display was unimpressive. Finally, lifting the last one, the girl carefully shuffled the pile together and placed them back into the folder.
"I guess you don't really like them", tonelessly, readying herself to leave.
"To be honest I wouldn't want to own any of them, but that doesn't mean they don't have artistic value - it's just my taste." She glanced around at her room, visualizing the incongruity of that schlock hanging over her commodes, her armoires. "Are any of them your own work?"
"No-no, like, I don't paint. some of my friends do, but we get this stuff from a group of artists. Art students, I think. We go out like this sometimes to make some bread."
"Well", Marcy searched for some way to extricate herself. "Can I offer you anything, something to drink?"
"Oh, no ... that's okay, I wouldn't want to put you to any trouble."
"It's no trouble."
"Well, a glass of milk? If you don't mind, please."
She asked if the girl had eaten dinner. They hadn't had time to get anything before leaving. "Shit, that's not true, we didn't have any food, how 'bout that, nothing to eat, stupid, eh?"
Marcy winced. "You don't live at home?"
"With my parents? No. I've got my own pad. I mean, I crash with friends."
"Don't you miss your parents? What about school? What do you do with yourself?" The girl sat there, without weight, lacking energy to move, not minding the questions, willing enough to respond, content to be sitting there.
"Yeah, I miss my mom sometimes, not my dad. You don't know what it was like. Nothing but hassles. And I couldn't care less about school."
"That's too bad. It must be tough, you're so young. I couldn't imagine any of my kids living away from home. I'd be terrified for them."
"Yeah, well. Maybe you treat your kids different. I had to do everything my old man said. He never listened to me. He never liked my friends. Used to slap me around. I could tell you things... One day I just took off. Only thing", voice strained, Marcy leaned toward her: "I hated to leave my little sister. Now I'm gone things are rough for her. I'll help her leave when she gets a little older."
Silence enveloped them; not uncomfortable, but quiet, slightly brooding. "Do you work?" Unable to still her curiosity. "I mean aside from this?"
"No. I don't want to work straight. I mean like, I wouldn't want to work nine-to-five, be someone's Joeboy. this way I can do what I feel like, whenever I want to. Wish I could collect unemployment insurance. Or Welfare. They ask too many questions. I'm under-age, they'd get the Children's Aid after me, or something."
"Sounds really great", mentally comparing her own children's sheltered lives, shivering. But they were so much younger. And what, she asked herself, what could I do about it if they ever conceived a hostility toward us as this girl has done her parents?
"Oh yeah, it's not so bad, just sounds crappy. Sometimes we run out of food is all, then we go out and make some bread. The guy I live with - it's not like you think; there's three of us, me'n another girl and this guy. Well, this guy works sometimes pretty steady. Oh, he works mostly, just happened this time we ran out."
"Are you really happier living with your friends?" Why she was pursuing this, questioning her, what compelled her to?
"Sure, sure I am. No one breathing down my neck all the time. I feel a little bad for my mom maybe, but I wouldn't go back, not for anything. Look, I gotta go. I'm taking up your time, you want to curl your hair before it dries."
"No, I don't." A few moments earlier she'd wanted the girl to leave, now for some reason she couldn't fathom she felt she had to make some kind of intimate contact, persuade her ... of what...? "I mean it's naturally curly. I try to uncurl it, not the other way around". She laughed nervously, wondering what was wrong with her.
"Hey, you're lucky. Wish I had curly hair", flicking hers off her back, arm crooked, falling back to her side as her hair cascaded back around her shoulders.
"It's in style to have long straight hair", babbling inanely, knowing how she sounded to herself, wondering how she appeared to this lost child. "Just like you've got ... why would you want it to be different", as though admiringly, as though her intent was to prop up the girl's self-esteem.
"Oh, I don't know; it would be nice for a change, you know."
"Isn't that strange, people with straight hair want it curly, people with curly hair would rather have straight. There's just no pleasing anyone". Lame, flushing, an old chestnut repeated, embarrassing her with its vacuity.
Still the girl made no move to go. Exhausted looking, lavender shadows deepening the craters of her green-flecked eyes; a spectral impression. How could a teen-age girl look so, what was the right word - burnt-out? Languidly turning her head, the girl looked about the room. "This is a nice room, feels comfortable. I like it", she said dreamily.
"Thank you", responded the perfect hostess. "My husband collects the pine furniture, I'm the one likes the paintings", as though she hadn't already made that abundantly clear, as though it would have any meaning to the girl. "Some of them", she expounded, "are Flemish and Scottish. The paintings, I mean. That one over there, a fragment of a larger Spanish painting. They don't really cost much more than contemporary art. Good art, I mean", she said artlessly. "You have to look around, get to know some dealers. It's more expensive to buy things in the city, so we go to small dealers in towns on the periphery of Toronto. It's really lots of fun, looking around, collecting. But we didn't get this stuff overnight. We've been married for ten years."
"Yeah? You sure don't look it. Ten years! How can you stand it?"
"It's been beautiful!" Defensive, taken aback. "It sounds banal, but it's true!"
"There was nothing happy about my parents. They're always screaming, mad, blaming one another, nasty, miserable. And us, always picking on us, easy targets. And I don't know anyone who's married and likes it. All you hear is about people fighting, hating each other. Love is a load of crap, a bad trip."
"It isn't! You've had bad experiences. Almost everyone has, one time or another. I know what you mean, it was like that when I was a kid too, my parents didn't get along either. I couldn't wait to leave the house."
"Then how'd it come out different for you?"
"I don't honestly know, it just did."
"I wouldn't like it", the girl said with finality.
"Just because of your family?"
"Not just. You gotta do everything the guy wants. Whatever he says, that's it."
"Not if you have a relationship based on mutual respect", trying to impress the girl with her own triumph; imbue her with hope, but reality for her, was hopeless, futile ... glad, so glad you didn't have those experiences, aren't you, Marcy? "Anyway, I thought things were supposed to be different for your generation."
"Yeah, well, maybe. If you don't mind, could I have more milk?"
"What kind of food do you eat...at your pad?" Watching her gulp the milk.
"Mostly health food, when we've got the bread. Sometimes we get fruit and vegetables behind chain stores, like when they throw stuff out."
"Ugh, sounds pretty crummy to me. But then I'm not used to that kind of spontaneous lifestyle. I guess it'd be all right if it's really what you want."
"It's not bad. I'm trying to move out anyway, get my own place. Like I mean, I like them but ... I mean, what do you do when thus guy wants to ball and you don't feel like it? He's nice and all that but he doesn't really turn me on."
"You mean he forces himself on you?"
"It's not that bad", soothingly, the girl feeling badly for the sensibilities of the adult, the mother of children, the married woman. Trying to spare her feelings, her sheltered idea of protecting the young. "He's a good guy, he doesn't force me. He's really my friend's boyfriend, but sometimes he feels like fooling around and if I say no, he kinda kids and says I'm frigid or hung-up or something like that."
"What kind of hassle-free living is that? You've gone from one rotten environment to another. what've you gained? Call that freedom?" A bad dream Marcy, good thing it's someone else's dream.
"Well look, it's not that bad. It just sounds bad to you. It gets me down sometimes, sure, but it's okay."
"Any way you cut it", shrilly now, can't you discipline yourself a llittle better than that? "you're being forced to do something you don't want to. He's manipulating you. That's independence?"
"Yeah, yeah, you're right. Well, like I said, I'll be moving out soon." Guess it kind of bothers you to hear me talk - about things?"
"Of course not. Liar, liar. I'm asking, aren't I? People should talk to each other." Hypocrite. "I'm glad you feel enough at ease to talk like this." Are you now, Marcy? "Are you sure you wouldn't rather go back to your mother?"
"I might, but never with my father there. Like I said, it was a real bad scene."
"Look, I'm really sorry about the paintings. There's just no way I would have any of them. They're not my kind of expression." Marcy, the art critic, Marcy the elitist, Marcy the privileged middle-class wife and mother of such well-adjusted children...
"Oh, that's okay, don't feel bad. I don't expect you to like them." Looking away from one another. Aware that they are strangers, despite a momentary intimacy. Marcy wanting somehow to make a difference, to make it up somehow to this child that life had abandoned. Hapless, Marcy, nothing you can do for her, she'll find her own way.
"Guess I better go. My friend would be mad if he knew I was sitting here. I'm supposed to be out flogging this stuff. He'll be going down the street soon. I'm supposed to meet them at the corner."
"I feel bad about this, I wish I could do something for you, give you something. Would you accept some food?"
"Yeah, sure, why not? Oh hell, look you don't have to feel bad. Never mind about the food."
"No", she insisted. "I want to give you something. I want to. We've always got plenty of canned food around."
The girl following her docilely into the kitchen. Gleaming tortoise-shell counters, pale green appliances, banks of cupboard space; a housewife's delight. Marcy pulled out two large paper bags, stuffing one into the other, bent and opened cupboard doors where she began inspecting labels, placing tins in the bag. Arose, lifted the bag for weight. "It's heavy. Will you be able to carry it?"
"Sure I will. When I get to the corner my friend will help me. That's really nice of you."
"That's all right. It's to make me feel better, really. I wish I could do something for you. Look, why don't you re-think this, get in touch with your mother? I'm sure she loves you."
"It's okay. Maybe I will. Don't let it bother you."
Shoving the portfolio helpfully under the girl's elbow. "Sure all that isn't too heavy?"
"No, no, it's fine. Christ! Gotta go! I'll get shit if everyone's waiting for me. Look, thanks. Thanks a lot. It's been nice, really."
For a moment she stood watching until the darkness swallowed the slight figure, swaying to one side, balancing the weight of the bag of groceries. Then she was aware of the sound of voices raised in nighttime games, from the back of the house. Excited voices, children playing, happy in their childhood. Thought of the heaviness of the girl's voice, childhood muffled in a resented past, living in a soiled world she hoped never to know more about.
Finally, the screen door clattered to a close and she shut the house door behind her. She walked through the house to the back door. To call her children in for their bed-time ritual.
c. 1976 Rita Rosenfeld
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)