November Snow

The sky a brooding bowl of
whipped cream slopping frostily
over the landscape newly
preparing itself for the season.

Limning shrubs, tree branches
with an exquisitely delicate
etching of snow blooming
in the gloom of another
onset of urgent winter.

A lacy tapestry of puffed fluff
weighting branches, laid over
trails, muting sound though
there are no birds anywhere.

They are suddenly absent,
the forest a hushed
huddling of small, furred creatures
seeking winter refuge.

Stumpy

She had always had a pragmatic outlook on life; never given to the useless entrapment of sentimentality. It had served her well. When her husband left her with a small child, she sturdily picked up the pieces of her minimally-shattered life, took a position with a charitable organization as their general accounts manager, and got on with things. Raising her daughter on her own, just as so many other women did their children, and somehow managing to do it right.

Carol encouraged her to get out of the house when her grandchildren were away at school. It was enough, her daughter said, that she was there, when they returned on the school bus, waiting for them at the corner to walk them home, see they had their snacks, gave them the oversight they needed, while their mother was at work. They were fatherless, in essence, just as their mother had been. But their father had left their joint bank account intact, had signed the necessary papers to have her the sole signer. Nor had he demanded they sell their house, so he could begin anew with half the proceeds. He did the honourable thing. In part, he did; he did not pay child support and since he had chosen to live halfway across the world, there was no legal way to insist he do that.

Edith thought her daughter’s advice was practical and useful, and she began taking the family’s little Pomeranian out for daily walks. She always had, but just around the neighbouring streets, not far from the house she now shared with her daughter. She wondered whether the little dog, weighing a bare five pounds, could walk further. And discovered it could, and so could she. So she began ambulating a little further day by day, discovering a network of area parks and recreation paths that began to fascinate her.

Above all, an area set well distant from the park-like façade, where children’s play equipment - different types in all of the park - had been established, and which she occasionally had taken the youngest grandchild to, before he too began attending school full-time. This other area was rough, no municipal crews ventured there to tidy things up, because they couldn’t. It was a ravine setting, a series of hills and valleys, where the municipality had set up a storm-sewage system, and where a wide creek ran constantly with muddy water, a quite unlovely natural creek. But the setting around it compensated, heavily forested with large old pines, spruces, firs, and great old willows down by the meandering creek.

She had seen a plenitude of small wildlife up above, in the other, manicured park areas, particularly in the fall when squirrels and chipmunks began frenetically preparing for winter. But down there, in the ravine, where she and Milly wandered, the little dog taken off its leash to sniff about randomly, it was a different world. The squirrels were varied and numerous, black, grey, red and quarrelsome, chattering angrily from tree branches at one another. Or were they reserving their ire for her presence and that of the little dog?

She rarely saw other people walking along in there. When Carol was casually informed one day about her mother’s new insights into suburban wildlife and the pleasure of wandering in an isolated area, she was a little upset. What if her mother was accosted by some sociopath, she asked her mother, who snorted, who would bother with an old woman like her? Not the point, her daughter said, it was possible, it could happen, and who would be there to witness it, to come to her aid? Not to worry, her mother quipped, Millicent was a dependable watchdog. Her daughter sighed, shrugged her shoulders and said her mother was old enough to know better. To which her mother responded she was old enough to be trusted to make intelligent decisions for herself. Fear of the unknown and the dim potential was not going to dominate her life.

Someone she once knew, who was committed to the humane rehabilitation of wild and feral animals used to entertain her with stories of his exploits and experiences. Her own sister, whom she considered the wrong side of eccentric, took to adopting feral cats, at the great physical expense inherent in trapping, thus rescuing them from their own frail devices; prowling about, fending for themselves, bearing countless litters; living freely but mangy, half-starved lives. Oh, and the expense involved in neutering them, then allowing them their freedom, sans reproductive capacity.

That old acquaintance would ignore his desk covered with urgent tasks, corner her at her own, usually when she was marching against a deadline, to extol his volunteer ventures. She, too polite to protest, would sit there, captured by his need to detain he, and listened resentfully, at once fascinated yet annoyed to be held back from her work. A victim of her own civility.

In any event, she heard from him on one occasion of the rescue of a nested litter of baby squirrels. Unable to exit their home, to clamber down from the tree, held fast as prisoners of their knotted, intertwined tails. He described how difficult it had been, and frustrating, to work on the frightened little creatures, to free them from their braided tails. Some might be successfully entangled, left with tails intact, others sadly and by necessity had their tails snipped off.

Then the task of nurturing the frantic animals, quieting them down, giving them food and comfort and a sense of security. No hope of ever re-uniting them with the mother that bore them. She had, in any event, likely abandoned them, unable to grasp why her litter failed to fly the coop, as it were. Abandoned, left on their own, to starve. Their piteous mewling obviously failing to move compassion in the heart of their departing mother.

She wondered, as she wandered in the ravine, watching the squirrels cavort in the spring, nest in the summer, and gather in the fall, how often that kind of anomalous small-animal tragedy occurred. Who would ever know, apart from someone so dedicated as her colleague had been, searching out these little lapses in nature’s plan?

The squirrels she saw looked healthy and saucy; intrepidly, carelessly, it seemed to her, hurling themselves from branch to branch, speedily making their way to some obviously important destination. They needed no human intervention; more than capable of themselves completing their normal life-cycle.

And then, one day as she was strolling about, the little dog busy with its own antics, endlessly sniffing, stopping occasionally to relieve itself, she noticed a small black squirrel heading directly toward her. It was unmistakable, that squirrel seemed resolved to confront her. She stopped walking, stood there on the gravelled trail, and waited. The squirrel came to a stop directly in front of her. Millie made a short, sharp dart toward the squirrel. She often indulged in such responses, but never ran after them for very long; they invariably left her far behind, leaping onto tree trunks, and into densely-leafed branches.

Edith heard a quick “no!” issue from her mouth, and Millie ran back to her side. And the squirrel, who had run off just a bit, as though sensing that this ridiculous little dog, hardly larger than it was, posed no risk, advanced again. And then stopped, directly in front of Edith. What, Edith wondered, what did it want? She pushed one of her hands into the pocket of her jacket, found a few sticks of chewing gum, elastics, a rubber eraser, and a wrapped coconut cookie, which she withdrew, pulled from its wrapping, and broke up, letting pieces drop to the ground. The squirrel darted forward, picked up a piece of the cookie, turned it a few times in its clever paws, then ran off, stopping not far away, to sit there and eat its prize. Edith stood, watching the creature, amazed. And was even more amazed when the squirrel returned and picked up another piece of cookie, removed itself briefly for another feast, and repeated its clever trick once more, before running off.

Next time Edith was shopping she picked up a large bag of unshelled peanuts. Next time she took Millie out for their daily walk she stuffed her pockets with peanuts. And began to leave them in places along the trails she took. In the crooks of branches, on top of snagged tree trunks, inserting them into holes in the bark of trees. Invariably, on her quotidian return, the peanuts were gone. And she restored them to the previous cache places. Before long she began to notice squirrels, black, grey, red, waiting at those designated places, or scrambling up to them, to see if anything had been left.

And she also recognized the first little black squirrel that had originally accosted her, he was the only one among all those she regularly saw who boldly confronted her, then sat quietly until she retrieved a peanut from her pocket and tossed it to him. No mistaking this little fellow. Where all the others had long bushy tails they often flicked contemptuously at Millie, daring her to rush them, he never ever did that. He had no tail to speak of. He had a little brush, a stump of a tail, its end pure white.

She named him Stumpy. When she told her grandchildren about her special squirrel, they winced, said that wasn’t at all polite, and surely the squirrel would be insulted. Couldn’t she name him something nice? Stumpy he remained. Their relationship grew, she became accustomed to seeing him every day, greeted him by exclaiming Stumpy! And he appeared to recognize her voice, that she was calling him.

This was, of course, sheer anthropomorphism, she knew that. He had his smarts, but he was a squirrel. Although sometimes he looked, with his back to her, turning one of her offerings around in his paws, more like a rabbit. Rabbits were also seen down there, in the ravine, but infrequently.

She also saw Stumpy raiding some of the caches she left along the trail, and this reassured her. For there were days when she might miss seeing him, and she’d worry, wonder whether his lack of tail put him at a disadvantage. She visualized to herself all manner of difficulties he might encounter; his stump of a tail would require a different sense of balance, surely it impaired him for leaping as normal squirrels did, from branch to tree branch. Once, she missed seeing him for an entire week and was convinced he had met his end.

And then he turned up. Nonchalantly advanced toward her as he always did, Millie dashing toward him. Sometimes Stumpy held firm, refused to give ground for Millie, and Millie invariably went so far, and no further, before resuming her place at Edith’s feet. And that made Edith worry that Stumpy was too trusting, too courageous, and that would surely result in catastrophe, should he attempt this approach with others along the trails with their dogs.

And had she ever seen anyone else in there, much less someone with a dog, other than herself and Millie? Rarely. Once a truly cantankerous elderly man walking a regal-looking standard poodle. The way the man ignored her greeting, and prodded his dog along, when it evinced curiosity about her and Millie offended her greatly. She reasoned that doddering old gaffer wouldn’t venture far, before turning back to exit the ravine network. And she was right; she never saw him or his dog again.

Stumpy, meanwhile, availed himself of what she left, in active challenge to the other squirrels who on some days almost swamped her with their presence, leaping about everywhere she looked, all of them seemingly concerned to arrive at the peanut depots before their challengers. She watched, bemused, sometimes, as a grey squirrel would manage to stuff two peanuts at once into its little maw, then leave, triumphant. She always felt a compunction to return, re-deposit peanuts for those who arrived late, and she did, then watched at a distance, as each retrieved their trophy.

It became a standing topic of conversation, a jocular one, at the dinner table, with Carol asking her mother how her ravine jaunt had been that day, and the children chirping in after their mother. Good, she always assured them, going on to outline her day’s adventure there. It was an adventure, it gave her such an peculiar sense of pleasure to be there, to observe, to interact as much as she was able to. Nor did she miss the presence of other creatures; occasionally a raccoon up on high branches of an old pine, snugly curled, asleep.

Woodpeckers, from the tiny downy, the larger hairy and still-larger pileated, that drummed on the tree trunks, the latter extracting huge white slivers in its search for insects, littering the ground around the unfortunate tree, left afterward with wide, white-gaping wounds, sap dripping from them.

But it was her anticipated sightings of Stumpy and his bravado, that endowed her with that warm feeling of having made contact with something worthwhile in the world she alone inhabited. Did she, she asked herself, have so little of value in her world, that she expected so much of a small animal that had suffered hard times? What of her relationship with her daughter, her care of her small grandchildren, what of that?

What of that? her other self challenged.

Living Adventurously

If Miharu’s mother had any questions about her young daughter’s friendship with an occidental woman clearly of her own generation, she betrayed no unease as she greeted Elinor in the tight confines of the family’s apartment, above the offices of the family business. Elinor knew they owned the building, a five-story concrete behemoth. It was a successful business, selling high-end second-hand construction machinery abroad. And renting appliances inside the country. But the Japanese, she had learned, shunned ostentation, were discreet about wealth. Above all, they were accustomed to living in close confinement in a country whose geography left little to accommodate its large population. Downstairs, the building held the company offices and showrooms. Other floors were rented out to unrelated businesses.

The family’s wealth could not, clearly, be seen in their domestic circumstances. The concrete floor of the family apartment laid with the same utilitarian indoor-outdoor carpeting as her own little apartment, halfway across the city. The public room she was shown into - the family living room - shabby and sparsely furnished, not all that much room even so, to move about. Typical of urban dwellings, although she had seen stand-alone several-story-tall homes shoe-horned into the slenderest of spaces between commercial buildings. Some homes simply cramped together precariously in crowded urban areas, other truly humble abodes even hung onto the overhead tracks of rail crossings. Most people in Tokyo, though, lived in steep, concrete high-rise apartments, stippling the city’s vast landscape.

There were obvious exceptions. Where famous Japanese couturiers had their custom-built homes in streets backing off Aoami dori, for example. With their postage-stamped, walled gardens where grew plum or persimmon trees, or delicate red-leafed Japanese maples. Not all that far from the Aoami dori cemetery with its orchard-setting of cherry trees, a pink-and-white-blossomed sight to behold in the spring, where the city’s inhabitants spread blankets and had their picnics under the trees, blossoms raining petals in the slightest breeze. Where, also, in various areas of the city were situated those discreet courtyards within which Japanese versions of western-style homes housed the families of foreign diplomats.

Actually, Miharu’s family, because of their business which had introduced them to western culture in a more informal way through business acquaintance, was a little more relaxed about customary treatment of foreigners. Few foreigners, in fact, were welcomed into the homes of Japanese. Entertaining took place outside the home, in restaurants. Not only for business purposes, but social entertainment as well; extended family and friends entertained in the auspices of commercial enterprises set up specifically for that purpose. This was an especial courtesy, an acknowledgement of her relationship with the younger daughter of this prominent business family. Their older daughter lived now in the Philippines with her husband, an area representative for the family firm.

A week later, when Miharu came by Elinor’s apartment she brought with her a surprise. She unwrapped something loosely hidden beneath a canopy of colourful rice paper. It was one of the most lovely miniature gardens she had ever seen. A Ficus Benjamina bonsai, with minuscule lantern and figure, the area beneath the ancient gnarled trunk covered with lush mosses, an urgent bright green that almost lit up the dun colours predominating in her apartment.

For me? She gasped, prepared to insist that she could never accept such a valuable gift. No, Mirahu, had smiled, a loan-presento from her mother, a symbol of her kindly regard, her trust. She almost panicked. She had no idea how to care for such a living treasure. What if her neglect and ignorance killed it? What then?

No worry, said Miharu placidly. Just use common sense. She’d had indoor plants before, hadn’t she? Well, yes, but nothing like this. She knew that this was important, this was a family heirloom. Just water it sparely, once a day. Once a day? she almost screamed, surely that’s too often! Miharu was unperturbed at her obvious anxiety, said she should relax, just enjoy having the bonsai for a little while. She’d retrieve it in a month or so …

Elinor, visiting the Happoen down the street, knew how deeply she was affected by any kind of green in this city of bland concrete walls climbing to the skies. How she reacted, in fact, to the carefully tended shrubbery, the rhododendrons in bloom and the azaleas, the colourful flowering cabbages, hibiscus, camellias, tended by municipal workers, the awesome ginkgo trees, the plane trees, maidenhair fern, with their colourful bark, their breadth, width and beauty.

Entering temple gardens, ancient places established all over the city, there was an immediate sense of transformation; a packed metropolis of harried people and vehicles suddenly become an orderly green ambiance of silent devotion to nature where huge silver and gold carp flashed in lotus-sprinkled ponds, and rows of revered, century-old bonsai set on racks were respectfully nurtured by monks experts in their care. Expressing the Zen-Buddhist spirituality that her every breath so aromatically welcomed, strolling those pebbled pathways.

There, and in other temples, she had learned to find peace and solitude on the soul-sanctified salutary grounds of Japanese gardens. Their footpaths leading to one garden-sculpted nook after another in tidy reverence to nature’s diverse offerings. Artfully natural placing of stone and rock to resemble the lofty grandeur of mountain landscapes. Echoing the distant, readily-seen summit of the sacred Mount Fuji, from Tokyo itself.

Where indescribably inviting red-painted (good fortune!) bridges arced over placidly-floating streams, the water silvery, tinkling as it made its way through bamboo structures, all conspiring to bring human sensibilities into harmony with nature. Stepping under the city’s Torii gates made a similar impression on her; their ancient symbolic blessing soothing her sensibilities. Sight of the temple guardians with their fiercely threatening countenances did nothing to dispel the quiet solitude of rest.

The Japanese brought their reverence for nature, it seemed to her, into everything they did. On tight, narrow streets, unnamed, and unnumbered, there was a general respect for anything resembling nature’s creatures. Out from crowded interiors came vestiges of the inhabitants’ most treasured possessions. Tiny oaks and pines, expertly grown in small bonsai dishes, and ceramic-puffed fishbowls, with their single carp swimming serenely around and around. No one ever tampered with any of these private possessions, diffidently placed on public display.

There existed a social pact, it seemed to her, of universal trust. She never ceased to be amazed at the tangle of bicycles, motorcycles and electric bikes left, as though carelessly herded into livestock compounds, none of them locked, all trustingly left there, to be retrieved by their owners who had taken themselves off elsewhere in the city - on the subway line, or a rail train, a bus, or simply to enter nearby buildings where they worked, until the end of the working day, when a mass exodus would commence.

She was herself trepidatious about travelling by subway. She did have a small, bright orange folding bicycle that she had found abandoned at the back of a dark old shop. She’d taken possession of it for a few yen, still usable, and found it fine for short, local shopping trips. She shopped daily for her food, like most of the city‘s residents. Not everyone had refrigeration facilities. Besides, the Japanese were famously fastidious about the freshness of the food they ate. And so was she, now. Now that she had absorbed for herself the Japanese consciousness of nutrition and freshness.

The subway intimidated her even outside rush hours when professional pushers crammed people into already-crowded cars. She was aware of the vaunted efficiency of its magnificent intersecting meshwork of underground trains, its connections to trains, other subway connections, bus services going out of the city. All time-consuming, to learn the requisite knowledge of areas mostly mysteriously unknown to her, and their connections. The shops in the underground system selling foodstuffs and hard goods a constant source of amazement. She could buy pickles on her way home! Though she didn’t care for their limp presence, their unaccustomed taste; it was the convenience, the quaintness of the opportunity that intrigued her.

The helpful signage (hiragana, katakana) should have been of immeasurable help in negotiating her way around the city, but it wasn’t; it defeated her. Her ESL colleagues had no problems, and many of them hadn’t lived here as long as she; must be her level of confidence. She never attained the ease her colleagues did with the transportation system. She preferred buses, more her style. Less efficient, definitely slower lumbering along, their wood-platform floors fascinating her. She used them regularly on her week-end shopping expeditions to Ueno market.

Where she could walk in the park, admire the sculptures of whales, dolphins, visit the damp, cool interior of the national museum, amble along into the zoo with its excited crowds of onlookers awaiting the presence of the fabled pandas. And then, she could go to the area streets reserved specifically for housewares, or electronics, or footwear; even motorcycles. Networks of streets devoted to the sale of singular consumer items.

She’d tried, once, to go to Skiiji, but found herself disappointed. She’d have to arrive before dawn to witness the excitement of a city’s devotion to uniqueness, rarity and freshness in all the edibles of the ocean deeps. Wherever she went, though, she knew she would have to carry everything back with her on the bus, and it was a long, long trip. Over time, her arms had strengthened from their daily need to carry heavy bags. But she had also developed a chronic aching-shoulder syndrome that truly bothered her from time to time.

Mostly, she entertained herself endlessly walking in all those places. Miharu had introduced her to Roppongi, and when she’d first walked at night with a giggling Miharu, who pointed out to her which of the women wearing traditional white-face makeup and tripping along on elevated sandals, wearing gorgeous kimono were for hire to accompany men to the various nightclubs, she felt a thrill of romantic adventure suffuse her. She returned often to the area, brightly light with blaring neon signage, like nowhere else on Earth.

Although on her many returns she walked alone, she knew she was safe, since women were rarely harassed, and street crime was virtually absent. But nothing relieved her of her loneliness, it strode alongside her like a mournful shadow, reminding her that she was a middle-aged woman in a foreign country, with few friends, no family, and no obvious opportunities to extend either of those categories.

All her co-workers were young and male. Unattached young men looking for exotic adventure;men from Australia and Germany, for the most part. Living frugally as she did in an expensive environment where the recompense for their days and evening shifts patiently teaching eager Japanese secretaries, academics, businessmen and just plain language hobbyists, the basics of English pronunciation and sentence structure. It wasn’t that her colleagues, such as they were, were unfriendly. They were simply detached, she represented no advantage to them in their search for the rare and the valuable in terms of life experiences. She could offer them nothing, and made no attempt to, believing herself to be just as devoid of interest to them as they took her to be.

Still, living there excited her, filled her with a vast admiration for the society, a pulsating ingathering of humanity, sharing a culture and a restrained religion that appealed immensely to her. Their homogeneity fascinated her; walking among them, a sole westerner, in a sea of gleaming black heads, all hurriedly making their way to some destination of importance in lives so distant from her own. She loved watching young women walking along Aoami dori during the working day, perfectly coiffed, elegantly dressed in designer clothing, as though each had stepped momentarily out of the glossy pages of a fashion magazine.

She wasn’t that ignorant of the country’s past. Knew very well how hated it was by its neighbours, for its brutal occupations, before and during the Second World War. But this Japan, she felt in her very bones, was an entirely different place with a strong sense of having paid too dearly for its past political-social malfeasance. She trusted this Japan, while at the same time, deploring the Japan that was responsible for horrible misdeeds in the not-so-dim past.

Truth was, she wasn’t anxious to return home. Nothing awaited her there. True, nothing seemed to await her either in Tokyo, but at least it represented a never-ending cycle of discovery, as her mind and her soul thrilled to everything she discerned behind the façade of a western-influenced, increasingly cosmopolitan nation that stubbornly held tight to its eastern identity. The western influence was one of convenience, in a practical acknowledgement that there lay progress, while the values of enlightenment remained with tradition.

She hardly knew what she would do when her contract expired. She knew she wasn’t a very good teacher. She enjoyed amicable relations with her clients, but there was that oriental distance she could never breach, and although it didn’t make her uncomfortable, nor did she ever feel at ease, unlike her colleagues. Too sensitive to nuances, they suggested, when she mentioned it to a few with whom she had easy, but not close relations.

The thing was, she wanted to be accepted. She had no complaints; she was respected. But she wanted to be liked. For who she was. And she tried awfully hard to elicit warm feelings between herself and her clients. Some of them might share a laugh with her, over a badly expressed sentence, but this was a matter of grave moment to them also, not quite a laughing matter. They were as intent on succeeding in speaking decipherable, and decently-accented English, as she was in being accepted among them, as one of them. It took her quite a while to finally understand she never would be. There was a social, cultural distance that existed that nothing she could do would bridge.

Except for Miharu. There, with that young woman, who at 28, was the despair of her parents for her constant refusals of marriage proposals, she found solace. Miharu seemed to understand her, was relaxed with her, shared thoughts with her, told her of her disgust at the thought of becoming a typical Japanese housewife. She had received a good education, had a masters in business administration, and had no intention of agreeing to hide herself away in some dreary little apartment, looking after children. She was independent. She worked for her family's firm. She drove her neat little rag-top convertible Volkswagen anywhere she wanted to take herself.

“You don’t know, Elinor, the woman is sacrificed to the family, to raising children, making a home for her hard-working husband who puts in extra work hours, goes out tippling after work, and returns home drunk, never seeing his own children.”

“It can’t be that bad. Surely things are changing”, she responded to an obviously-upset Miharu, who’d presented herself, unannounced, after one of her arguments with her parents. Miharu hated to upset her mother. She didn’t that much care about how angry her father would be, with his pinched, furious face, with his patriarchal view of a woman’s place. It was her mother’s unexpressed pain at her younger daughter’s defiance of tradition that bothered her.

“It’s bad”, she said. “Once a Japanese woman gets married her life is as good as over. Unless she marries a foreigner, and goes to live with him outside of Japan. And then another aspect of her life is over. Once she leaves Japan she can never return as a Japanese. She becomes a foreigner and that foreignness always hangs over her. Anyway”, she sighed “my parents would never forgive me”.

Miharu told her excitedly about a group she had just joined. Friends of the Earth, in Japan. They went regularly on trips outside Tokyo, to adjacent towns, where hiking trails led up into the mountains. They could see monkeys in the trees on some of those trails. Some of the forests were comprised solely of bamboo. There were temples atop some of the summits, and ancient ginkgo trees, some reputed to be two thousand years old. There was also a temple dedicated to the Buddha who had walked from India to Japan (Isn’t Japan a series of islands? No matter) and his immense sandals can be seen there, outside the temple. Some of the hikes would take them to formal tea houses, and they could take part in a tea ceremony.

She was sold. She was still in pretty good shape for 54. They’d had to rise very early on week-end mornings. To grab a series of subway trains, buses, rail trains, and again buses, to finally get them out of Tokyo, where, on the perimeter, the final bus would finally stop outside villages and towns close to where these trailheads began. It was all so bucolic, so infused with good fellowship and adventure. There was a mixture of Japanese, Australians, Germans, and her, the sole Canadian. Mostly men, a sprinkling of women. The Japanese always wore lederhosen, their version of how mountain climbers, trail trekkers, should look. And they didn’t miss an opportunity to try out their command of English on the foreign element that made up their group, sometimes with hilarious results.

Elinor hung back, with Miharu, on the first several of what turned out to be many such outings. Miharu might be furiously verbose in her denial of taking her customary place as a traditional Japanese woman, but tradition was steeped deep within her, and she was shy and quiet, and self-disparaging, particularly in the presence of men, most markedly in the presence of foreign men.

It was on their eighth climbing adventure that Elinor decided she would exert herself a little more vigorously, demonstrate just how robust she was for her age, decidedly more advanced than any of the group. She forged ahead, clambering up the rubble-strewn trails, very well aware of how surprised everyone else was, in her wake. She heard, behind her, people speaking to one another, marvelling at the physical resources she was exhibiting, striding seemingly without effort, before everyone else. Whenever they passed a group proceeding in the opposite direction she would gasp the obligatory "konichiwa", and forge on, determinedly.

Gradually, the effort began to tax her, and she felt truly alarmed at the increasingly leaden feeling in her limbs, her stifling, pounding chest. Still, she strode confidently ahead, the others straggling behind. She felt proud of herself, glowing in the reflection of the others’ awe at her progress.

Then they stopped as usual, for a break. Everyone searched in their backpacks for refreshments. Muffins, cookies, trail mix, and water to wash it down. Elinor had sprawled on the ground, her back resting on a Paulownia trunk. Miharu seated beside her, was eating crackers and dried fish. Suddenly, Miharu lifted her head, and closely regarded her friend. Who was not eating, not having anything to replenish her exhausted resources, but sitting there, dully, breathing heavily. “Something wrong?” Miharu asked, quietly.

“No”, said Elinor. “I just suddenly feel awfully tired. I don’t know, Miharu, if I can repeat what I’ve just done. I don’t seem to have any more energy”. This admission depressed her horribly. Made her feel ashamed of her previous bravado, her obvious audacity, her showing-off, like a kid looking for compliments and admiration. What, did she think one of the men would view her differently, decide he would like to become more intimately involved with this decidedly unusual woman whose energy belied her years?

When, finally, it was time to tuck everything back into backpacks and resume the hike, everyone did so enthusiastically, and slowly everyone in their group trickled off. There were some surprised faces, looking back at Elinor and Miharu, still sitting there, making no effort to rise and join them. Elinor felt a deep blush of shame paint her face. Miharu patted her friend’s hand, whispered to her that she should rest, take her time, they would catch up. Eventually.

A Process of Elimination

Deaf she may be, but my angry face hanging so close to her puzzled one, my gaping mouth out of which springs furious sounds she cannot hear, delivers the message. She turns, slips mournfully upstairs. Accomplished? Nothing remotely useful, other than chagrin and regret on my part. She is incapable, now, of ingesting that message.

Small and delicate-boned as she is, her inconsiderable weight landing on the rug from her place on our bed, alerted me. She is dark-haired, but the white nightshirt we dress her in at night casts a soft glow, picking up the quiet light from the bedside clock that reads 3:30 a.m. The shirt a concession to the season, the cool night-time temperature we maintain in our bedroom, and her venerable age.

I watched, with half-cocked eye as she silently padded to the door, her nails faintly clicking when she reached the rug perimeter, crossed the hardwood floor. I reminded myself, still in a fog of sleep, that she needed her nails clipped. No easy task, these days. She shies away from being handled in those ways. Her hair is too long, it’s unruly, and needs a good trim. She won’t permit that, either. She always had her own mind, never was particularly biddable, but now, in her dotage, she’s positively impossible.

I waited, not quite yet willing to hoist myself out of my comfort. Sometimes she does that, rouses herself, jumps off the bed, stands quietly for a while halfway between the bedroom door and the adjoining hall, and just remains there. Then, as though somehow satisfied with the little exercise, or whatever it portends as of a silent voice speaking inside her head, she turns back, leaps effortlessly to the bed and settles back to sleep again.

Not this time. She stood in the doorway of our bedroom for what seemed like an interminable intermission. She finally began moving forward, and I got out of bed, reached for my dressing gown. Which was when she turned back, to see if I was there. Not having heard me, nothing like that, just exercising, it seems, the kind of intuition that she seems capable of. I followed her down the hallway, down the stairs, across the foyer, into the family room, and finally stood beside her, at the sliding doors leading to the deck. She waited, and I obliged, sliding open the door for her to exit.

Sometimes that happens. She will forget, when she is put out after eleven and we’re preparing for bed, why she’s gone outside. Spending her time leisurely sniffing about. Picking up scents; squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, raccoons, cats. We’ve seen them all in the backyard. The raccoons not so much now that we’ve tightened the lid on our compost bins with bungees. Busy out there, reconnoitring, interested in the evening breeze and the emanations it wafts over from other yards. And she forgets to pee.

So now, when I’ve let her out, she’s likely doing just that. Or evacuating, who knows? I don’t exactly feel like going out with her. The temperature has dropped below freezing. Peering out the sliding glass door, over the rails of the deck, I can just make out her little white nightie-ghostlike presence moving about, and then she’s out of my sight. My fingers begin to rap, as of their own devices, on the glass door. And, miraculously, she appears, and I admit her.

Why was I angry with her? Well, we’d bought a new kibble for her, thinking that would help to tempt her appetite toward a little more enthusiasm. We’ve spoiled her badly. Too many ‘treats’. It’s not the biscuits she usually gets after her meals as extras, but the other ‘extras’, the chicken, the cheese, the heaping little salads of chopped bell peppers, green peas, kernel corn, cauliflower she is so fond of. She would happily ignore the kibble, even with those extras, and dine exclusively off the salads, if it were up to her. It isn’t. We still want to ensure her good health.

She’s lost a lot of teeth, the last few years. She’ll have reached her seventeenth birthday next month. As it is, I’ve got to help her by wetting her kibble before presenting it. I keep a small jar of chicken soup in the refrigerator for that purpose, then quickly heat it all up in the microwave for a few seconds. Sometimes she eats, sometimes she doesn’t. This morning? Well, it depends so often whether or not, when we’ve come down first thing in the morning and let her out, if she’s managed to evacuate successfully. No evacuation, no appetite. And then, no telling when we’ll be surprised.

It’s peculiar, but she will never have a urination accident in the house, never. At least not yet. But the other? On occasion. Where once she was accustomed to letting us know, verbally, by a low growl, a light bark, when she wanted to be let out, alerting us to her need, she no longer communicates with us. She will stand at the door, silently, waiting to be noticed. We’ve got to keep attuned to her needs. Else be stuck with the results.

Usually, one of us does a quick check in the backyard at her usual deposit sites, to determine whether we’re in the clear, can expect her to eat, then settle down while we have our own breakfast. Oh, and that’s another thing. We’ve managed to spoil her there, too. She knows if we’re having eggs, and waits for her portion to be served up. It’s become an unfortunate little routine. Ditto if we’re cooking bacon, or sausages. Bagels, she also loves those. I used to bake a lot more than I now do, and regularly baked croissants, even bagels, and the fragrance of the fresh-baked goods wafting through the house would drive her to distraction. Then, while she still had her hearing, she would verbalize, let us know she was there and she needed to share those delicacies with us.

She may be small, but she has a powerful personality.

Funny that. It’s almost as though she lost her language when she lost her hearing. Ever since we became aware of her inability to hear - a slow progression to be sure - we also became aware that she had fallen silent. So, if we aren’t aware of her need to go out to evacuate, on the assumption she’d already done so when she was let out first thing, we can be in for the occasional surprise.

That’s what I meant. This morning when I set down her bowl with that great lamb-rice kibble (complete with glucosamine for ancient joints) she was so interested in - replacing the chicken-rice kibble she was so bored with - she just began doing that ritual, as though she was burying it. She does that often, too. Acts out the burying routine. But this morning there was no burying routine. I just looked around for one second, busy sectioning our breakfast grapefruit halves, and there, sitting alongside her untouched bowl, was a steaming pile.

And that, my friend, is why I screamed at her. Even though it’s happened before and I’ve told myself her memory is lapsing, she’s forgetting what she’s always known, and simply responding to her body’s instructions. We love her, and cannot imagine how devastated we will be when she has finally reached the end of her life. Amend that, we can imagine how miserable we will be, and that’s what makes us apprehensive now, about her.

It’s not that she’s suddenly lost her energy, become lethargic, disinterested in everything. That’s not so, at all. Far from it. She does sleep quite a lot during the day that’s true, but most dogs do once they’re beyond puppy-hood. She gets taken out for a hour, hour-and-a-half vigorous woodland walk each and every day, regardless of the weather. She thrives on it, forges ahead, interested in everything, all the calling cards left by other dogs ambling through the woods. She no longer leaps forward and runs like the wind when there’s squirrels nearby, but she does a respectable little sprint. And sometimes she runs like a whirling dervish in a small circuit, speedy as the wind, in an exuberance of love of life.

She no longer allows her teeth to be brushed, something we’ve done regularly over the years. So we don’t press the matter. She will biddably - actually, looks forward to it - approach me when I seat myself on the floor after her dinner, preparatory to giving her an evening brush-down. She lays herself down before me, thrusts her head into my lap, and digs it in, one side, then the other, in an excess of lavish rubbing. She will emit a low moan of pleasure when I rub behind her ears, and massage her body, before brushing her hair.

Her large and beautiful, darkly-moist eyes look occluded. People, seeing her, cry out: poor thing, she’s blind! She is not. Her peripheral vision is slightly impaired.

And her magisterial entitlement remains undisturbed. She is offended, in the winter, when we put boots over her slender paws. Else, if the temperature is low enough, the snow underfoot freezes her feet and she can’t go on. First time in the season we put them on her, she walks in an exaggerated movement like one of those Lippizaner horses on pompous display.

And now that she’s elderly she no longer minds the indignity of a winter garment sheltering her from the excess of winter cold. In fact, she seems to downright appreciate it. Helpfully lifting one paw after another to be inserted into one of those sherpa-like coats of hers.

Losing her hearing isn’t all bad. When someone comes to the door she no longer barks, because she’s unaware. The sound of the vacuum cleaner no longer disturbs her. Nor do loud sharp sounds, which used to. She’s always been skittish that way. That too, only manifests itself occasionally, say for example, if something porcelain falls on the ceramic tile floor in the kitchen and shatters. She can hear that. And hustles herself out of the direct vicinity.

So, it’s clear she’s earned a certain latitude. Unpleasant in the extreme it may be, her occasional lapses, evacuating in the house. I keep telling myself we’ve got to be more aware, more attuned to her needs, scout out the premises more rigorously to ensure we know she’s already done her business. At least first-thing-in-the-morning business. There’s another evacuation that follows like clockwork, in early afternoon. Which is when we’re usually out walking. Which is why one of us carries her up to the entrance to the wooded ravine near where we live.

She has been known to suddenly squat right on the road the last year, if she’s on the leash walking up to the ravine alongside us. We try to eliminate all those embarrassing possibilities.

Generational Profiles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So? Xmas Lights!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hippobottomous and her clueless mate think that's cool.

They're paying the bills, Steve.

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

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

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

Damn gut.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You're just giving yourself needless grief, heartburn.

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

Immaculate Conception

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perchance To Dream

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

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

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

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

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

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

Evolution

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

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

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

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

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

Language Introspection

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

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

I hate to hunt down a tired metaphor. Byron.

Language is the archives of history. Emerson.

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

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

Languages are the pedigrees of nations. Samuel Johnson.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Entitled

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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