APRÈS ANAÏS NIN

Today, I have been cleaning my files, shredding what's unnecessary or duplicated.

Somewhere along the way I've forgotten my love of words and writing. I have been waylaid by my parents' deaths and self-imposed responsibilities and the feeling that I'm losing it.

Among my files, I found a quote by Goethe:

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too."

I also came across a file of my writing and found a short prose piece that I had entered into a literary contest and won - second place (but one of the judges said it should have been first).

This short piece rolled from my pen. I imagined that I was Nin having a private conversation with Henry Valentine Miller:

"In a miniscule hotel room in Montmartre, I light candles and incense, sit with pen in hand gazing into space.  Have I ever told you, dear Henry, that my fingers are the most sensual part of my body?  They love the feel of a fountain pen, nib posed on an expanse of virginal white.   When I begin, I write slowly not knowing what to say or where to go.  But my fingers know.  They move by instinct, without calculation, playing with words, with phrases, even clichés—a kind of foreplay you might say.  The quiet strokes of my pen are an aphrodisiac willing me to go on and on, write faster and faster, until I reach the climax.  I want my brow to drip, my palms to sweat, my heart to beat faster.  Yours too.

The heater hisses.  I remove my clothes and imagine myself creating, in your words, a “literary fuck feast”.  Read me naked, if you dare.  As I explore myself on the page and you me, the juices start flowing.  I want to touch you in forbidden places.  Part of the pleasure of writing is going where I’m not supposed to go, saying what I’m not supposed to say.  I am allowed to be carnal, if I dare.  I dare.

With my fingers, I caress the page, a single leaf in the body of a notebook, delighting in its smoothness and the scent of paper and ink.  My nipples harden.  I spread my legs and expose a Georgia O’Keeffe flower in full bloom.  I love the colour of language, the taste of a well-chosen metaphor, and a whiff of indiscretion.  I am an adulteress.  The page is my lover. It lies before me awaiting my touch, loving the way I play and tease words onto paper.  I fill one line and then another, one page and then another, until I am panting and know, without a doubt, that I have found my true love.  This is where I belong.  This is what I should be doing.  I write faster and faster, faster and faster.  Where am I going?  I don’t care.  I am letting go of thought, moving for the sake of movement.  I can’t stop myself.  I am filled with desire.  I want to explode on the page.  I want… I want… I want... the climax.  My body dissolves.

Later, when I am refreshed, I look at this page and read what I have written and see that I have gone further than I intended to go.  “You are good,” I whisper to my love.  'You are so damn good.'  I know that tomorrow I will doubt my lust, my words.  My husband, my censor, who demands monogamy, will walk in, without knocking, and tear me apart limb by limb, sentence by sentence, word by word.  I don’t care at the moment.  I am in love."

One of the judges wrote: "This short piece of writing is extremely sensual, particularly the Georgia O'Keefe flower in full bloom. Good metaphor. The comparison with the page (body) of writing to the human body is well done. Then the protagonist's writing, which includes the "colour of language", etc. (and rises to an incredible climax) leaves everyone (reader and writer) satisfied and in love.

I liked this very much. Congratulations."

I was so proud of myself. 

Today I Dressed Up just for the Hell of it

I wrote this yesterday:

Some days I only dress in the afternoon. Other days I only dress early evening before I go on my allowed hour walk around the village.

Some days, I'm happy having time on my hands. Other days, I'm blue: I wonder how long it will be before I can hug, play, share a meal with family and friends. I am grateful that I had Paris, Vancouver, and London before the coronavirus really spread like wildfire and airports closed.

Now Rob and I "play" alone or quietly together, a little afraid of the Chronopost man who delivers parcels with gloved hands and we receive with bare hands (and immediately go to the sink and scrub).

When I awoke this morning and took my latte to the terrace still in my bathrobe, I thought it might be fun to dress up for a change - just for the hell of it. So I showered, dried my hair, applied a little rouge and lipstick, and chose one of my favourite dresses and sweaters - both from one of my favourite Parisian designer, Manuelle Guibal.

I wonder what Rob thinks of me. Does it matter to him if I'm wearing rags or riches? He never says so I dress for myself.

Feeling pretty, I signed my Attestation stating date and time, Rob signed his and we set off for a walk through the deserted town streets, down a hill, and stopped at a glorious stone wall for a glass of rose. (I had opened the bottle before leaving home, corked it, and put it in a sac with a couple of glasses just in case we felt like a libation in our liberated hour.)

I asked Rob to take a picture for the store. I worry about how it is going to survive with a full stock of spring and summer wear and the necessity of ordering for fall and paying the required 50% deposit.

I worry about all the designers including my beloved Manuelle Guibal and her large wonderful family. Does anyone want to buy beautiful clothes when, for the most part, their customers spend most of their time at home? Both LeslieJane and Manuelle Guibal have on-line stores but how willing are women to buy clothes without trying them on? Do they worry about the clothes being infected either by staff, packers, delivery people? (I have done a fair bit of reading about this and with a few precautions, it is safe.)

I know I am lucky. Rob too. We have few expenses. We have easy access to food and wine. We have computers with which we can see and talk to those we love, keep up with the news, watch movies, and listen to music. Rob is even taking an on-line French course.

Yes, we are lucky. The sun is shining and we live in one of the most beautiful villages in France and, as far as I know - and I say this in a whisper because I don't want to jinx it - we have no COVID-19 cases.

Birthday Morning

Last year I was wearing a kimono and wandering around the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest in Kyoto with Rob, Brendan, Jane, Seb and Helen. It was the best birthday I ever had, a dream come true.

This year I am in self-imposed isolation in my house in France - after a trip to Paris, Vancouver, and London - though thank the heavens Rob is with me. I have not left the house in ten days and after four more days I am allowed outside for one hour a day as long as I do not go one kilometre from my front door. I must also carry an "Attestation" noting what time I left my house and the purpose of my excursion.

As of today, the Coronavirus has attacked 664, 621 people of which 142,368 have recovered. Sadly, 30, 891 have died.

Is it any wonder that I am thinking of death? When I arrived home, not knowing if I had caught the virus en route - two planes, two trains, a taxi and an Uber - I kept thinking that I should treat the two weeks of isolation as if they were my last and only do things that made me feel good and ignore the cobwebs and kitchen floor. So what have I been doing? Amongst other things, vacuuming up cobwebs and scrubbing the kitchen floor.

I feel frozen, scared and curious. How is the Covid-19 going to play out?

I have also been reading a lot of trashy novels and one good book - "Turn: The Journal of an Artist" by Anne Truitt in which she explores her day to day life as a woman, artist, and mother while at the same time recognizing that she is aging and that her life is approaching an end.

I wish I had noted more passages that hit me in the gut and perhaps I'll re-read it but for now I am caught up in her relationship with her children and grandchildren.

"The most painful fact that I have to grasp is that parental protection is an impossibility. It is also counterproductive. I cannot in honesty wish to deprive my children of the particular knowledge they can garner only from making their own decisions, and their own mistakes. No matter how much I love my children, I can merely continue to keep them company in their lives. And we all occasionally feel the chill breath of our inevitable separation by way of death."

"Come now myself to the late autumn of my life, I too am hung with its history. Certain parts of my personality remain intractable. I do not see them changing by way of any effort I can make. And when I come to die, I will die with the detritus of my history: the decay of mistakes made, of promises unfulfilled. I see this fact clearly, but with a profound, contented acceptance that in a mysterious way harmoniously contains it."

I am not sure that I have reached this point of acceptance but, from time to time, I feel a loosening of my own expectations to be something other than I am.

Some Mother's Daughter

(This is a story I wrote about my mother 18 years ago. It was short-listed for the Canadian Literary Awards. I told my mother this and also that if she read it, she'd kill me. She laughed and that was it: she never asked to see it. The title is taken from the film "Some Mother's Son" in which a mother, a pacifist learns of her son's involvement in the IRA.)

I continued to reflect that she was dangerous...she
prevented me from liking myself. I, who was so naturally
meant for happiness and gaiety, had been forced into
a world of self-criticism and guilty conscience... 
              

                                                              Françoise Sagan

On my dining room wall is a picture of my mother holding a bouquet of roses on her wedding day, July 9, 1947. She is eighteen years old. Under the long pale green gown, her belly is beginning to swell. She looks happy enough, while my father, leaning on her arm as if to steady himself, appears glum and frail. My mother’s parents, to the left of the newly weds, stand rigidly, arms at their sides, like the couple in Grant Wood’s painting, “American Gothic”. My grandmother could not have been pleased with the marriage. She was embarrassed about the ways of the flesh and never spoke to her eldest daughter about menstruation, copulation, or conception. How then did my mother tell her she was pregnant when she hadn’t been given words with which to approach the subject? She recalls only that my father asked hers for her hand in marriage and that my grandfather replied: “Can you keep her?”

My father lied. Although he was six years older than my mother and had worked several years as an insurance agent, he had squandered his wages and hadn’t saved a farthing. He wasn’t looking for a wife, let alone a child, when he first spoke to my mother in the office building where she worked as a secretary. Just as he entered the foyer, my mother recognized the young man she’d been eyeing for months and, startled, she dropped her lunch. He rushed over, bent down, and returned it to her. Without thinking, she denied it was hers because slabs of cheese were falling from the sandwich. She did not want the dark-haired stranger to know she ate such common food. My mother hates anything common. When we were children, she forbade us to wear kerchiefs, to chew gum in public, or to say the word “sweat”.

My father was so enchanted by the fair-haired maiden looking him straight in the eye and lying, that he asked her to the pictures. Before long, they were playing games in the hayloft of my grandfather’s barn while my mother chanted, “Stop it, I like it. If you don’t do it again, I’ll go home.” (Only in recent years has my mother been able to tell me about her youthful sexual self.) Once, when she was sick in bed, my father was allowed to visit her room and the brash young man, under her parent’s roof, hopped into her bed—but not before he had slipped off his trousers, folded them along the crease, and laid them on a chair. Years later, as my mother stood ironing my father’s underwear, she said, “Your dad has always been a fussy man. His mother warned me if I married ‘Sir Edward’ he would take the lining from my best coat to shine his shoes.”

Despite the warning, she married her knight and six months later gave birth to a daughter. Almost immediately, the pair set themselves the task of making another baby: in post-war Northern Ireland, only couples with two children could apply for a rental home. Fifteen months later, I was born and my family moved into a small three-bedroom bungalow a short distance from my grandparents’ home. Unlike my older sister who had been colicky and demanding, I was an easy baby who would lie in a pram for hours without making a sound. My mother dressed her two girls like dolls and visited daily with her mother and sisters, until another fateful incident put an ocean between her and her family.

One lunch hour my father accompanied a pal who wanted to immigrate to Canada, to the Canadian Embassy. For lack of anything better to do, my father also filled in an application. His friend’s was refused; my father’s was accepted. Still he had no intention of moving to Canada until he told his father-in-law. My grandfather laughed until the tears flowed. “Far-off fields look green,” he tittered. “You’ll go to Canada on a boat called The Never Budge.” At that moment my father, who hated being laughed at, decided to emigrate.

Within six months, he left to find work in Canada. Two months later, he wired for his family. Leaving her own distraught mother behind, my mother bundled up the poor woman’s only grandchildren and set sail to join her husband.  Seasick for most of the journey, she did not think about the family she had left behind, until the boat docked off the shores of Newfoundland. After embracing my father, she began to cry and she continued to cry for the next six months. When I told this to a therapist, she shook her head and quietly asked: “How could your mother love you and give you the attention you needed when she, herself, was consumed with grief?”

“My mother loves babies,” I responded.

“That doesn’t mean she loved you.”

As a child, I was careful not to upset my mother. When monsters crept into my bedroom at night, I hid under the covers. When they slipped under the blankets with me, I squeezed my eyes tight. When they slid under my eyelids, I woke up my older sister who led me to the washroom and stood guard, bleary eyed, while I sat on the toilet. I never understood why this sister who teased and tormented me during the day, was so kind to me at night.

My mother never knew about my nightmares or my sister’s good deeds. She continued throughout our childhood to call her the difficult child and me, the easy one. Never thinking that the labels she gave us were harmful, she eventually gave all five of her daughters labels.  Four years after my birth, the smart one was born, then the pretty one, and finally the baby. Recently, when all five of us met in a crowded restaurant—together for the first time since we left home—my older sister said that she wishes she’d been less difficult as a child. I spoke of the panic I feel when I am being difficult. The smart sister said that she becomes angry when we assume that all comes easily to her. The pretty one told us that she is still trying to prove to herself that she has a brain in her head. The baby was the only one without regrets.

“I’ve always felt that I was a good mother,” my mother once told us. “I guess that’s for you kids to judge. I did the best I could with what I had. We were brought up to always be well dressed, well spoken, and to be seen and not heard. So I tried to do that with you.”

She succeeded. As a child, I knew I must be dressed for the occasion and speak only when spoken to. I learned, whether consciously or not, that this would win her love and approval. As an adult, remnants of this remain. I am often uneasy in social situations. I worry that I have dressed inappropriately or, more significantly, that I have spoken out of turn or said something unacceptable. More times than not, my mother-in-me rises to the surface to question and taunt me.

My mother would be surprised at my anger and pain. She doesn’t question the child-rearing practices of her parents. Even now, over seventy years later, with a wealth of new literature on the subject, she continues to boast about her heritage. Given an opening, she’ll talk about her grandfather, the first man in Northern Ireland to own a car, or she’ll speak at length about her father as if he were still alive and running his hundred-acre dairy farm. She’ll sing praises to her mother who, with the help of two servants, maintained an eight-bedroom house and raised seven children to be hard-working and clean-living. All my aunts and uncles received a public school education, attended the local Quaker Church twice every Sunday, and drove a tractor before their tenth birthday. According to my grandmother’s belief that females should have at least one social grace, her four girls were privileged with piano lessons.

My mother insists that her childhood was idyllic, her parents, kind and loving. “Mother really didn’t have too many vices, really and truly. She was always soft-spoken.” “Didn’t she ever yell or scream at you?” I ask. “She would if we did something that she disliked,” my mother replies, contradicting herself. “She’d come over and give us a smack. She’d smack us practically every day, whereas Dad just spanked us if we really needed it.” She remembers being beaten only once by her father and even though she doesn’t remember what she did. “Obviously it was very bad because there were welts on my legs and yet Daddy loved us so much.”

Raised according to what Jungian analyst, Erich Neumann, calls the “old ethic” in which negative feelings and behavior are suppressed, where the needs of the individual for self-expression are less important than the needs of the group, my mother doesn’t question her parents’ discipline although, in her teens, she resented the restrictions placed on her. Amongst other things, she was not allowed to wear lipstick, paint her nails, or go to dances. “That didn’t mean that I didn’t do these things but they didn’t know I did.” When she married, she continued to do as she pleased and, if she thought her husband would not approve, she hid the evidence from him. My father wasn’t a tyrant but he was exacting and many of my parents’ fights began because he caught my mother in a lie. He rarely spoke of his parents but I gather from my mother that he adored his mother, a tiny wisp of a woman, who was twenty-five years younger than her husband and who would have starved herself rather than see her children go out in public poorly dressed.

If my father thought that all women were as self-sacrificing as his mother, his wife taught him otherwise. She kept up the image of perfect wife and mother in Northern Ireland but after her move to Canada, she was too depressed. Nothing my father said or did could stop the flow of tears. Finally, against his principles, he borrowed money and shipped her and the children back to her mother. We arrived in time to attend one of her sister’s weddings.
My mother, who remembers all events by the clothes she or her daughters wore, said that my sister and I stole the show in matching lilac organdy dresses trimmed with white lace and white straw hats banded with lilac satin. She loved being a visitor in her parent’s home: her sisters cared for her children and she came and went as she pleased.

Yet five months after the wedding my mother telephoned my father and asked for the fare back to Canada. Although my father says that she’d worn out her welcome, the truth is simpler. She knew her place was beside her husband. Having always lived by society’s rules, she could not have stood the stigma that separation or divorce carried in the fifties. Even today, she views every marriage breakdown as a failure and, most often, blames the woman. When she saw the film, Shirley Valentine, her only comment was: “What woman would leave her husband to become a waitress?”

My father, who has prayed on his knees every night, for as long as I can remember, lived as a monk while his family was in Ireland. When we returned, he gave his daughters a box of Laura Secord lollipops and his wife enough warmth to create their smart daughter, born within a year of our return. Four months after this birth, my mother was pregnant again, this time with the pretty one.  After her birth, we moved to a slightly larger house—as had become my parents’ custom with the arrival of each baby—in a small town thirty miles from the city where my father worked long hours. Here, much to his delight, my mother delivered their only son.

After my brother’s birth, my mother joined the Conservative Party, the Canadian equivalent of her parent’s political organization and found, within its committee rooms, the recognition and applause she had not received as an unpaid laborer in her home.  “I gave it everything I had,” my mother recalls, “and even though I know at times my family came second to it, I always had to prove to myself that I was completely dedicated. I loved it.” In a matter of years, she rose from seventh vice-president to president of the provincial party—the only woman to date who has earned that distinction.

During those years, I did not celebrate my mother’s victories. I was angry with her, not for the endless hours she spent in committee rooms, but because my older sister and I had to baby-sit our younger siblings and lie to our father about her whereabouts. Once she invited me to accompany her to help at an out-of-town leadership convention. In my mind’s eye, I see her standing at a podium, addressing a large crowd who listened hard and applauded wholeheartedly. I remember my confusion. How could I reconcile that vibrant outspoken woman with the wife at home who cowered at her husband’s bark? I failed to see that, away from my father, outside the patriarchy, my mother was in her element and had her own unique voice.

At fourteen, when my fourth sister was born, I realized for the first time what my mother must have done to make this baby. I was disgusted. A woman of thirty-six, I thought, should have been above such nonsense. A year or two after this birth, I became even more offended by her behavior. I had started dating a boy several years older than myself and she, an avid reader of Harlequin romances, took an over-active interest in my romance. At the urging of a younger liberated friend—this was the sixties—my mother supplied my boyfriend with a dozen condoms. Her liberalism died however whenever I displeased her. She was not above name-calling and more than once stung me with “slut.” I was her first daughter—my older sister began dating after me—to remind her, I now assume, of her own short-lived venture into the world of love and lust. “These are the best years of your life,” she kept telling me. “Enjoy yourself.” I hated those years nearly as much as I hated her living vicariously through me. The more she tried to involve herself in my life, the less I shared with her.

Throughout my teens my parents fought and, for some reason that I still cannot fathom, they singled me out from all their children and woke me to witness battles that were cruel, abusive, and often sexual. The thought of these still churns my stomach. When I finally left home, I was free of them. Or so I thought. I went to university—an action my parents neither encouraged nor hindered. “When you were growing up you always had to be nicely dressed,” my mother informs me. “There wasn’t a great deal of money around. We were trying to buy our house. There was no such thing as saving for an education.”

My mother believes a house is the barometer of success. She and my father bought and sold five houses during my childhood, each one more luxurious than its predecessor. I am “woman enough” as Erica Jong writes in her poem of that name, to appreciate my mother’s need for a nice home: “I sit at my typewriter/ remembering my grandmother/ & all my mothers,/ & all the minutes they lost/ loving houses better than themselves.”
 
Recently, I learned that both my great-grandmothers were illiterate. I am the only woman in my grandmother’s, and mother’s family to hold a university degree. Save for an education? The thought would never have crossed my mother’s mind. In my arrogant youth however, I was angry at this lack of forethought. Why didn’t she insist that her daughters pursue an education and career, I questioned, when she herself had suffered all her life from a lack of financial independence? All her comings and goings and material needs were based on the weekly allowance her husband gave her. When she needed more, she begged or borrowed. I swore that I would never be that dependent on a man. I swore that I would not live like her yet, time and time again, I find myself living an adapted version of her life. When I telephoned, for instance, half-drunk from a night of celebrating, to tell her that I was getting married, I thought she would applaud my conventional behavior. Instead, she exploded and told me not to be ridiculous. When I visited the next day, at her request, to discuss her objections, not one word was said about the wedding. At the time, I assumed she knew that nothing she could say would make a difference. I assumed that she wasn’t pleased about this union. My chosen was not a man she could write home about. His mother was a waitress. His father, a florist’s assistant, had never owned a car. I now wonder if I underestimated her. Perhaps, she was remembering her own young marriage. I do not know.

Several years after my wedding, my partner and I moved across the country and only as I write this do I realize that this is roughly the same distance my mother traveled from her mother when she left Northern Ireland. Unlike my mother, I didn’t cry. I was happy to miss the obligatory Sunday meal at my parents’ home and their inevitable quarrels. I thought that in moving so far, I was beyond their sphere of influence but, at the beginning of my third pregnancy, I realized I was still dependent on my mother’s good will. There had been serious complications with my second delivery and my mother had blamed me; according to her, I was too old to be having babies. Instead of telephoning when my pregnancy was confirmed, I wrote her a letter and asked her to fake enthusiasm if my news did not please her. “The child in me still wants your approval.” She telephoned laughing and congratulated me.

Six months later, I gave birth to my only daughter.

On my dining room wall, below the picture of my mother on her wedding day, is a recent photograph of my mother, my fifteen-year-old daughter, and me, at a local beach. My mother stands at attention in black sweater and trousers, gold shining around her neck, wrist, and fingers. Born in the British Empire in the 1920’s where class, in Doris Lessing’s words, was a straitjacket, an imperative, a crippler, where sentiment was more important than truth, where clothes were more important than the needs of the body they covered, my mother unwittingly adopted the life of her mother with its outward symbols of success. My daughter and I, with my mother’s fair hair and green eyes, look like poor relatives—me, in sloppy t-shirt and jeans; my daughter, in snug tank top with belly button exposed and short skirt. All three of us, I realize from the photograph, are as much products of our respective times as we are products of each other. I was born in the era where women were burning their bras and questioning the traditional roles of wife and mother. Spurred on by such mentors as Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Doris Lessing, and Adrienne Rich, I assumed that my life would be richer than my mother’s simply because I willed it. I did not expect the angst, the visceral pain a woman experiences as she differs and distances herself from her first love. Only now, in middle age, do I see that for two women, albeit mother and daughter, to differ is natural, but for a daughter to distance herself from her mother is arrogant. “The liberation of women cannot be won as a liberation from other women,” Suzanna Danuta Walters wrote in her book about mothers and daughters, “but only as a reaching toward everyone of us.”

I study the picture of my mother on her wedding day again and this time I see a teenage bride who left her beloved family to follow a man across an ocean because he hated being laughed at. Although she missed her family desperately, her emotional well-being was less important than maintaining the social order. She spent her youth bearing and raising six children to be clean-living and hard working like her mother before her and felt guilty about the time she stole for her love of politics. Her husband was a good provider, a faithful spouse, but he demanded much from her and gave little in the way of support beyond an allowance that was never adequate. My father would be shocked at my words. He sees himself as a good and generous man who loves his wife and family. My mother would support this view and then whisper an aside that it has never been easy living with a man who thinks he is perfect.

I understand now, after writing about my mother, that lives are shaped by the historical moment and by chance happenings—if my mother hadn’t dropped her cheese sandwich, would I be alive today? I have also changed with the telling: I have stopped being my mother’s easy child. Before, I was often frustrated talking to her. If she complained about some person’s lack of protocol or belittled someone’s unconventional dress or behavior, I seethed but, like an obedient child, did not contradict her. Slowly, over time, and not without fear, I have forced myself to say what I think. Surprisingly, this has never earned her wrath. Recently she told me that she finds it easier to talk to me than any of my sisters. “In my innocence, or call it by its true name, stupid willfulness,” Marilyn French writes, “ I imagined I could . . . break the chain of mothers, could free myself from the clinging fingers of a ghostly fate . . . What I wanted to escape from was not the past, but the pain.”

I cannot escape the past or the pain. I was born of a woman who was born of a woman who could not speak about menstruation, copulation, or conception. In not favoring their blood, their bodies, and their feminine nature with honorable mention, they inadvertently taught their daughters that the ways of the flesh are an embarrassment. I could not, with consciousness, pass on this legacy to my daughter. I found, through reading and writing, the courage to speak to her about menstruation and sex. Admittedly, I had to force the words from my throat and when they finally spilled forth, they were neither clever nor worldly, but I found my voice.

I could never stand up, in front of a crowd, like my mother, and speak my mind. But I can write my mind. When I ask her how she differed from her mother, she replied: “Mother knit. She knit beautifully and I suppose that’s why I learned to knit. But then I sewed. Mother never sewed.”

I Cannot Sing

There is so much I don't understand about my children. I wonder if my mother felt the same way. My daughter, for instance,  sometimes writes about her unhappy childhood and I am puzzled, even a little hurt. I pause here. This unhappiness could have nothing to do with me. Or it could. I think of her as a happy child.  We had such fun together. My happiest memories of my daughter are from our travels. We once took off just the two of us to meet friends in Italy. They left early and so we decided to have our own adventure. I let her decide on the destination. She wanted to go to Verona and visit Juliet's balcony. I remember her pulling her little suitcase behind, talking laughing sharing meals and beds. 

I think of my middle son as a little boy. He woke one day and told his dad about a dream he'd had. He was in a dark pit and all around him were screens showing the "bad" things he'd done. Rob laughed and asked what were these bad things and he said, "You don't expect me to tell you."

We all keep secrets.

My eldest son was especially reticent unless provoked. Once on a family vacation when we were trying to find activities that all three of our children would enjoy (difficult as they were four years apart), he said, "I do not appreciate your feeble attempts to make me happy."

Being a parent is the hardest job in the world.

I read this poem today by Edward Nathaniel Harleston and it reminded me of my mother and me.

I cannot sing, because when a child,  
   My mother often hushed me.  
The others she allowed to sing,  
   No matter what their melody. 

And since I’ve grown to manhood 
   All music I applaud,  
But have no voice for singing,  
   So I write my songs to God. 

I have ears and know the measures,  
   And I’ll write a song for you,  
But the world must do the singing  
   Of my sonnets old and new. 

Now tell me, world of music,  
   Why I cannot sing one song?  
Is it because my mother hushed me 
   And laughed when I was wrong?

Although I can write music,  
   And tell when harmony’s right,  
I will never sing better than when  
   My song was hushed one night. 

Fond mothers, always be careful;  
   Let the songs be poorly sung.  
To hush the child is cruel;  
   Let it sing while it is young.

I cannot say that I agree with this poem or that I even like it but it did evoke that time in my youth when I blamed my mother for everything. I didn't like her. I began an essay about her with a quote by Françoise Sagan:

"I continued to reflect that she was dangerous...she
prevented me from liking myself. I, who was so naturally
meant for happiness and gaiety, had been forced into
a world of self-criticism and guilty conscience... "

I spent thee years writing that essay about my mother. It was unbelievably painful but in the end, I understood where she was coming from and loved her. This turnabout still astonishes me.



           

Paris Adventure

(This was written for LeslieJane so if it sounds like an advertisement, it is.)

PARIS STRIKES

France has been hit by strikes and protests for the past six weeks, driven by anger over government plans to streamline the country’s complex pension system.

Getting around the city to view the collections for this fall and winter was difficult due to the strikes but thanks to Chris, the talented young photographer who joined the LESLIEJANE team for this adventure, we didn’t miss an appointment. 

Unfortunately our first appointment with Apuntab, was cancelled as their collection had not arrived from Italy so we walked to the “Pret Pour Partir” showroom where Xavier showed us his new urban rainwear. Several styles like the one shown here are made in his new “contrecolle coton jersey” that has an elegant twill finish.

With time to spare, I visited Tatiana at Manuelle Guibal’s Galerie Vivienne store and then caught the metro (one of the few running) to view Barbara Lang’s  fall collection. As elusive as ever, this wonderful designer will not allow pictures on the internet so you’ll have to wait until fall to see what’s new and exciting. 

The next day we had to take an Uber to Porte de Versailles.  Thank the heavens or rather Chris and his Citymapper app for always knowing which metro was working when (or not at all).

At La Fee Parisienne,  Lara the creator and designer of the most beautiful cashmere in the world (in our estimation) told us that she had spend over 1000 euros on taxis since the strike began. 

Soon we forgot our transit issues and were lost in her sumptuous cashmere. I even got Chris to try on one of her new scarves - rich colour on one side and muted on the other. Lara and I then did our usual cheesy shot and we were off to see Epice. 

Every season, this company that designs in Denmark and weaves in India, have a new theme. This falls, they celebrate their 40th anniversary, the circus and some very feminine florals. 

I must admit I have a special affection for Le Beret Francais: Nathalie (in the picture with me) loves to explain that every beret is hand-shaped using old-world methods. They come in an array of colours and are even made pint size for little folk. The company welcomed in the new year with a picture of my sweet grandson, Sebastian. 

Speaking of sweet (and more), Masa of Majestic Filatures was a great help in showing us Majestic’s  cotton cashmere and French terry collection. This company, begun in 1989, took the casual t-shirt and turned it into something extraordinary. Today, they make so much more than tees!

Our final appointment of the day was with Elemente Clemente who I’ve always admired for their great designs and ecological bent. I recently learnt that this German line has aligned itself with Jane Goodall so I spoke to Clemens Dörr, founder of Elemente Clemente about this alliance. He explained that his company has created a capsule collection  dedicated to Goodall’s environmental efforts. 

What can I tell you about the fall/winter collection? It’s a winner with many boiled wools (especially liked by our customers) and some of the colours are strong and vibrant - exactly what we need to brighten dreary winter days.

We finished just before 5:30 and raced for the metro as we knew the last train would depart at any minute. We made it just in time!

The next morning, we had a 8:30 appointment in the Marais so Chris picked me up in an Uber. Paris was quiet, only the street cleaners were about and so we made excellent time. 

We were lucky too in that the showroom was quiet and so we were able to view C.T. Plage, a Japanese knitwear design house without the usual crush. Severine lead us through the collection, more extensive and varied than I’ve ever seen. The artistry is pure Japanese, the construction superb and each unique style somehow works on all body types. 

Campomaggi from Italy is a collection of unique artisan bags with a worn look. It appeals to those who love a kind of beauty that is not standardized and is timeless. Every time I view these, there are surprises! I love the look!

Last but not least, we visited another showroom in the Marais to finally view Apuntab - or most of its new collection - one box had still not arrived.

As usual, the collection features the most beautiful fabrics in easy-to-wear styles that are flawless and timeless. And if you love colour as I do, this tomato orange is glorious. 

After, we walked and walked and finally caught a taxi to the airport. This trip wasn’t easy but it was rewarding.

Home for the Holidays

This Christmas was rather special. We had two of our three children home for Christmas. I cannot remember the last time this happened. And with Brendan came Jane and Seb, and with Gill came Derek. We did miss Michael, Kenzie and Isaac but for a family of five who choose to live in four different countries, "two out of three ain't bad". (I did have to remind myself that life is not perfect and one should be grateful even joyous with the gifts one is given and not be unhappy for what is missing.)

From the moment Gill and Derek arrived, I felt happy. It felt like a true Christmas. We wandered the Gaillac market buying last minute gifts and a feast for Brendan, Jane, and Seb who would be arriving the next day.

I must say that our little elf added an extra measure of joy. We had a wonderful feast of oysters and salmon when Jane and Brendan arrived with their precious boy and an easy Christmas eve day the next day preparing for yet another feast. Rob was up early to collect the turkey. Seb had several rides on his favourite tractor and a spin in the playground. As is our family's tradition, we watched "A Christmas Carol" in the evening.

Christmas day was pure gluttony. Omelettes and sausages for breakfast, turkey and stuffing, mushy peas, fresh cranberries, mashed potatoes and gravy, and courgettes for dinner, washed down with a glass or two of bubbly and red wine.

Our holiday continued in a similar vein - eating and wining well, a visit to Susan in the hospital, a romp through Albi, puzzle-solving, game-playing, movie-watching, and cavorting with the youngest member of our family.

Oh I forgot to mention that on Boxing Day, all seven of us when into Gaillac for the Christmas market and then onto the Chinese Lantern Festival which was quite spectacular. Sebastian especially was mesmerized by the coloured lights and the larger than life dinosaurs.

We had one more day with Brendan, Jane, and Seb and then they returned to London  too early and the house was very quiet indeed without the pitter-patter of little feet.

After they left, Gill and Derek moved in and these two put Rob and me to shame with their endless activity. One moment Gill is on the second landing doing yoga, the next she is off with Derek for a long country walk and the next, they are cycling down long country roads.

Gill and I even found time to do some proprioceptive writing and in-depth conversations. I loved every moment of my Christmas.

My children are so different and yet each brings me so much joy. All three work hard. All are kind people married to kind people. While I have been worrying about growing old and losing my dignity if not my mind, my beautiful children are struggling with careers, finances, and several with raising children - no small feat. They do not have a lot of time for contemplation and introspection.

My wish for 2020 is this:

I want time to reflect on this past year when I turned 70 and experienced one of my happiest moments and one of my most miserable. Japan and Fanny. How strange that they are tied together with an “and”. I lived a dream and lost one.  “No more deaths,” I cry but this is hopeless, impossible… like the death of our beloved Rosemary. We get old if we are lucky. We die. I wish to live at least another year to sort myself out although I have been attempting this all my life.

The poem “Red Brocade” by Naomi Shihab Nye seems a good place for me to start.

The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he’s come from,
where he’s headed.
That way, he’ll have strength
enough to answer.
Or, by then you’ll be
such good friends
you don’t care.

Let’s go back to that.
Rice? Pine nuts?
Here, take the red brocade pillow.
My child will serve water
to your horse.

No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That’s the armor everyone put on
to pretend they had a purpose
in the world.

I refuse to be claimed.
Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.

The poem speaks to me of being open and kind and non-judgemental even to strangers, of giving the best I have to others like the beautiful red brocade pillow, of listening and not asking questions too soon, of not thinking of chores and inconsequential things when someone lands on my doorstep.

I am no longer young but I no longer have to struggle like my children working and building a financial base. I no longer have the difficult decisions that raising children involve. I am free. In 2020, I want to use my freedom, take lots of time to reflect, and listen more closely, and enjoy the moment.

A Profusion of Happiness and Sadness

All my thoughts are scrambled and will disappear if I don't record them.

Lately, there has been too much sadness. Too many people are dying. Some are people who I loved and some are people who I've never met but are the beloved of people I love. I want to decimate death. I don't want to be deprived of those who have enriched my life but this is selfish. I think of Rosemary who lived a great life but at 91 was wearing down. She did not want to continue. She'd get up every morning and think "damn it, I'm still here." My friend Mary wrote me: "Life is indeed precious. My mantra over the past couple of decades has been 'There’s Life and there’s Death. Everything in between is negotiable.'"

I believe that we have to make a conscious effort to be happy although there are those rare moments when it just drops into our laps. I really don't know how to explain this well so I googled happiness. "Regularly indulging in small pleasures, getting absorbed in challenging activities, setting and meeting goals, maintaining close social ties, and finding purpose beyond oneself all increase life satisfaction. It isn't happiness per se that promotes well-being, it’s the actual pursuit that’s key."

I like the idea of pursuit. I like the idea of indulging so I decided to take four days in Mallorca to escape the weight of sadness in this town but more so to have time with my youngest grandson who is so full of joy that it always bubbles over onto me. His mother and father are magnets too as they love to be on the move pursuing whatever gives them pleasure and most often their taste agrees with mine. And though I might groan and complain about the miles they make me walk to reach a gallery or restaurant, I am seldom disappointed.

If it looks like I had a good time, I did. Spanish tapas are the best and it is absolutely necessary to enjoy them with wine or beer - no complaining allowed. (Does it look like Jane and I are finding  it difficult?)

I am so grateful for my family and the times we share and how the good times roll easily when we are together. I am also grateful for my friends who trust me with missions and suggest things that they would like to do but can't: I find myself going places that I wouldn't usually go and doing things that I wouldn't think of doing.

This happened when I mentioned to David Reid that I was going to Mallorca. "Would you take a branch of my bay tree and leave it on Robert Graves' grave?" he asked. "Would you read a poem?" he further requested. So I set off for the island with a sprig of David's bay tree at the bottom of my suitcase. Brendan and Jane thought it a fine idea to have a mission so we took off my last day on an old fashioned train to Soller. The town was pretty enough but being Sunday and off-season there was very little open. Brendan asked if I'd mind a half hour walk to a restaurant that served suckling pig. And so we trudged along narrow scary roads with too much traffic for more than half an hour, not knowing what we'd find at the end of the road. It was perfect - a gracious family restaurant that served good food and wine in pleasant surroundings. After we had sated ourselves and inhaled two bottles of wine, we caught a taxi to Deia and found the cemetery.

We then wandered into the town centre - so beautiful - and lo and behold, we found a terrace tavern where we took refuge as Seb was asleep and if we moved him out of his stroller, he would have woken. We sat and had more wine and beer - for the boy's sake really.

The finale to our perfect day was a taxi ride back to our apartment in Palma along the coastline with its breathtakingly beautiful scenery.

I left early the next morning to spend a day travelling, arriving home at 7 in the evening. The next day Rob was to have his second and hopefully final operation.

Although I hate hospitals, I am happy that we left at 6:30 a.m. to drive (or rather to be driven by two very kind friends) to the hospital in Toulouse. Rob was tense. I was scared. After a very long day, we arrived home at 8 p.m. without the biggest blob of Rob's cancer. He underwent an operation called HIFU performed by Professor Pascal Rischmann who has been doing the procedure since 2006. This is modern medicine at its finest. No chemotherapy or radiation. No ugly side affects and although Professor Rischmann spoke to the FDA in the States noting that the treatment is safe and effective, that it preserves erectile function in more than 90% of patients through nerve sparing, and that it is cost- effective, FDA officials maintained that the benefit of HIFU is unclear and that the risk is substantial. Curious.

So happiness may be a little elusive at the moment but I have experienced a number of highs in the last week and am happy that we are here, where quality of life appears more important than the almighty buck (Rob's operation would have cost around 30,000 in Canada or the US. Here it is free.) I am happy too that I can escape to exotic places on whim and meet up with the British contingent of our family. I am not so happy that two of my children live so far away but Gill and Derek are coming for Christmas and we will fly to Vancouver in January to be with Michael, Kenzie and Isaac.

My Sweet Boy

This boy steals my heart every chance he gets. I just have to think of him and I grin. I will write about him at length soon, in true grandmother fashion, telling the world how great he is but for now all I want to do is introduce him to the blogging world where I can say whatever my heart desires and no comments are allowed. 

Oh just one more thing, he calls me "Lola" (Filipino for grandmother) to differentiate me from "Nanna" Jane's mother. I love it!

I still miss her

Death has been hitting me hard on the head the last half of this year and I struggle to understand it. Fanny's mother died a couple of weeks ago at the ripe old age of 91 years and I am sad that I will not sit at her table with her ever again, sipping red wine from a box, often smoking a cigarette and hearing her stories. She was an incredible woman but it's her youngest daughter who died June 3rd on her husband's birthday, in a restaurant choking on a piece of meat that fills me with despair.

Fanny was 62 years old and so full of life and plans for her new house. Like her mother, she was bossy and opinionated but she also had a tender heart and if someone needed her help - she was an expert seamstress, cook, and computer-savvy - she'd lend a hand even to those that she wasn't particularly fond of.

When Fanny hugged me, she'd squeeze me so tight that I'd have to catch my breath: I always felt cherished. The saddest thing about death is the void that person leaves and, selfishly speaking,  "losing" Fanny means that there is one person less in the world who loves me.

Tribute to Fanny  (read at her funeral)

She was my confidant and partner in crime.

Over the ten or so years that I’ve known her, she taught me a lot but her last lesson was the toughest. Life is fragile. She would be angry at the way she made her exit. She would hate the grief she is causing all of us but especially to her beloved Dave, Rosemary, and Judy. She had one of the biggest hearts in the universe.

She loved this village and the surrounding countryside. She adored her women’s quilting group. She participated in French/English meetings and attended every musical event and feast that happened when she was in town. When I think of her ceaseless energy, curious nature, and quick wit, I am so happy that “we’ll always have Paris”. [a line from Casablanca]

In Paris, Fanny was able to set aside her concerns and responsibilities for a few days and breathe freely. (She knew she had Sue, her good friend and neighbour in the UK to look out for Dave.) She loved Paris Fashion Week and our long walks and metro rides to the Porte de Versailles and Carousel de Louvre. She was an extraordinary assistant because of her skill with a camera and her extensive knowledge of fabrics and dressmaking. She had an eye for beauty. We laughed. We cried. We agreed that what we said in Paris stayed in Paris.

She would force me to walk for hours for the best croissant or a superior steak and frites. She had a refined palate and Paris with Fanny often cost me more than I made.

The last meal that Fanny prepared for Rob and me, in her new home (of which she was so proud and had great plans for) ended with a chili cheesecake. I was a little hesitant about
trying it but of course it was heavenly. She always cooked and served gastronomic delights.

On one of her birthdays, I made all of her favourite dishes ending with a zesty lemon cake. She stole the half that remained much to Dave’s chagrin and my delight. What a compliment!

I cannot condense this intelligent woman’s life into a few vignettes. She was too rich, too complex, and too lovely for words.

The Gauntlet

I am wondering if I can return here and begin posting again. Nearly nine years of my life is missing. I am not sure, at this moment, if this is whim or reality but I think I'd like to pick up the gauntlet again. I hope I am of solid mind and body.

Isaac is Born

A New Man in My Life

Posted on 29 August 2014 | Comments Off

I have avoided writing a blog for over a month because I simply didn’t know how to tell about this new man in my life. I don’t understand how I fell in love so quickly, so sweetly, so purely. This is not like me. I struggle with love and relationships but in this one there is no struggle I expect nothing from him. My love is unconditional.

I do not understand the depth of my feelings. I have never been a baby person. I don’t turn to mush when a baby enters the room – until Isaac. I suppose it has something to do with this fellow being the son of my son. I am only responsible for his being in that I am half responsible for his father being alive.

Isaac reminds me of Michael when he was a baby. I remember holding Michael as I now hold Isaac. I listen to Michael and Kenzie talk about their sleepless nights and I smile… I vaguely remember the lack of sleep but I no longer feel it in my bones.

This is the pleasure of being a grandparent and not a parent. I can cuddle the baby, change a diaper, feed him a bottle but if he becomes fussy, I can hand him back to his parents. I don’t have to make difficult decisions about his development or worry about spoiling him. Unlike his parents, I don’t have to multitask and work, pay bills or do the laundry while also trying to spend quality time with him. I like this grandmother role but I must admit, I don’t like being called grandma by anyone but my grandson… and it will take a little time before he is able to use this title.

I hated saying goodbye a couple of days ago because I will miss most of his first year, the year when he will grow from newborn to active toddler. He won’t know me the next time I visit. I remember when Michael was a baby and I left him with Rob’s sister for a week to visit Rob on a film set in Mexico. When I returned my sweet boy didn’t remember me (though it didn’t take long to re-establish our relationship.) Hopefully it will be the same with Isaac.

Before leaving Vancouver, we had a farewell family dinner at the White Spot and several older women (around my age) coo-ed at Isaac and said I am lucky to have a grandson. Rob’s mother used to sigh and say “I guess I’ll never be a grandmother” – before all her children obliged and collectively gave her nine. I have never thought about it, let alone longed for another baby in my life but now that the time has arrived, I am full of smiles and oh dear, I do subject my friends to many pictures of my adorable grandson.

I have done a little research in trying to understand the unadulterated joy I feel at holding Isaac in my arms and although a few women felt old when the title was bestowed on them, the majority feel the same joy as I do. I have learned also that the pleasure grows with time.

One women writes that she learns about being present to the moment from her grandchildren and that she aspires to be role model for them  ”of ethical wisdom, emotional intelligence, generosity and kindness, respect for the environment, acceptance of life’s inevitable imperfections and challenges. Being one step removed from the front lines of child rearing, we grandparents have a precious opportunity to transmit the values we hold dear, with less risk of backlash. We also won’t be the target of teenage rebellion — another big plus.”

She also notes that being older, she knows what’s important: ”I don’t really care whether my grandchildren get into the Harvard of preschools — or the Harvard of Harvard, for that matter. Yes, I value education, but more than anything, I want the girls to be happy, healthy and live productive, richly satisfying lives. The addition of the prefix “grand” to “parenthood” means fewer expectations and agendas — as well the tensions that often go along with all those expectations and agendas.”

I especially like her idea that being a grandmother gives her “a free pass to act like an imbecile”. She can sing off-key, do any silly thing to show her grandchildren a good time, and they love her for it.

This new addition to our family’s life is a shared pleasure. Rob feels the same way I do. When Gill, Kenzie, and I wanted to go for a manicure, Rob was more than happy to babysit his grandson. (I haven’t seen the tender look he gives Isaac since our children were babies.) He wasn’t keen on returning to Vancouver until our grandson was born and now he wants to return as often as possible. We’re already planning a Christmas reunion. To hell with the expense. We will cut corners somewhere else.

Michael and Kenzie remind me of Rob and me when Brendan entered the world. We were so madly in love with our new son that every whimper had us running to his cradle. And although I think we were responsible people, we became even more so with the baby. Human beings are so helpless when they enter the world, and being responsible for his very existence made us more responsible about our own. When Michael recently told me that he is having crazy thoughts – about life insurance and college funds – I laughed. Is this my wild creative son who usually shuns such conservative things?

I watch Kenzie and him around Isaac and I am happy to report that my precious grand baby is in good hands. As my friend Helen reported to me before I arrived in Vancouver “ [Your grandson is] perfectly sublime and the parents are patient and in love. Isaac is blessed.

Our Dear Kenzie

She can’t stop kissing him

Posted on 11 November 2014 | Comments Off

How can my heart not leap when my daughter-in-law can’t stop kissing her son, my grandson. How can I not love a young woman who thinks her husband, my son, is as handsome as a movie star, as great a chef as Joël Robuchon, and the kindest man alive? How can I not love this dark-haired beauty who is extravagant with her affection, thankful for every gift, and out-spoken when she feels she or anyone else has been wronged? She loves mammals – took Isaac to the PNE before he was a month old and to the aquarium a month later.

Mackenzie is an intelligent, big-hearted woman,  who is sometimes insecure and doesn’t realize her own worth. How can she not? (Okay, I understand… but I have learned if someone you trust says something wonderful about your person more than once, you begin to believe. So I shall tell her how unique and lovely she is until she understands.)

My son recently wrote: Happy Birthday my beautiful! You’ve enriched my life more than I could have ever imagined possible. I’m madly, deeply in love with your beauty, wit, levelheadedness, recklessness, and everything in between.

My daughter wrote: I always wanted a sister. Lucky for me, Michael Young fell in love with a beautiful, strong, intelligent and loving woman who quickly became a part of our family. Mackenzie I am so grateful to call you my sister. You make my brother happy, you are already an incredible mother, and we’re all lucky to have you in our lives.

And Rob would say that she is his daughter. She has been in our lives so long, he can’t imagine life without her. He also loves how she kisses and cares for his beloved grandson while, at the same time, complaining of lack of sleep.

Sorry Kenzie, this is a little late for your birthday but I want you to know that you were not forgotten – even when I’m too busy to write – and that you are very much loved by our crazy family.

And a little birthday advice. Don’t forget to dance – another art you’ve perfected – even if it’s in your living room with Isaac in your arms.

“In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: “When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence?” – Gabrielle Roth

Hello my old friend

I am really angry at myself. I let the hosting of my new blog go (on GoDaddy) and just to make sure, I googled myself and found my old blog site, last entry 2010.  Six years of my life are missing.

I shall have to decide whether I want to resurrect this one or not.

Lost

It looks like my new website may be lost forever though I hoping, probably beyond hope, that it can be found as so much work went into creating it.

Michael just found it. Yeah.

So if you haven't gone there already, my new (not so new now) site is yvonneyoung.ca

Change of Address

Please note that I am moving my blog to an expanded website at yvonneyoung.ca. It is still developing and will become more comprehensive (hopefully) as time goes by.

Merci