Monday, July 26
[journal]
Frank came tonight, in his baggy, strong work clothes and small beautifully
made leather boots, his face sharp, hair curled all over his head. He sat
on the table leaning his head against the sharp edge of the open window,
swinging one foot from the knee and bracing the other against a chair rung.
Hands loose but strong on his knees. In contrast was George with his red
face and the roll of fat around his chin, lethargic and tedious, slumped
in the chair. "I don't try to think into the future. Things change
too fast, things happen to you." "You have at least fifty percent
control over what happens to you" I said, thinking of Frank. And Frank,
getting up to leave, with no excuses, stopping at the door, said "Will
is like a flame. It keeps burning faster."
I had felt as though there was a substance, thin threads, connecting
my outline crosslegged on the bed to his on the table - points connecting
like a shadow stretched taut but elastic. I wanted to hold him. I felt myself
and still feel myself glowing toward him. He is honest and tough and strong.
I want his type of honesty and his warmth, meaningfulness, sharp lingering
flavor. If he ever marries I will feel cheated of something I have a primary
emotional claim to; and yet my relief that we are still real to each other,
and my many-sided attraction to him, content me now. Almost.
"You are a paradox, though: austere in most directions, but very
warm in a few." I envy Sharon the loyalty of his loving. I would like
to learn some of his emotional concentration. His confidence in choosing
whom he will love and not love is one of the most attractive things about
him, and very valuable to those he loves.
I wonder who I love: fairly confidently Frank, with a near imbalance
at moments. Rasheed for his joy. Peter for his Weltschmertz ("An aging
man is but a paltry thing, old coat upon a stick, unless soul clap its hands
and sing and louder sing").
Rasheed. Conflict, anger, joy, distrust and vacillating confidence, physical
honesty with emotional deception, but again vacillating confidence. "I
don't cherish people the way you do. Only a few. Your mother."
Sudbury: at the hotel desk, shaking my head and murmuring polyglot syllables
meant to be Spanish, shaking my hoop earrings like a shy immigrant bride.
Excitement of the days hitchhiking from Toronto, memory of the childish
joy of the entire day (sun in Rosedale, beer and apple pie beside the road,
knees brushing in the front seat of cars, the black landscape of Sudbury).
The room at the end of the hall, opening the door with the old fun of ownership
for a day, a leap onto the bed, possessive and wifely tidying, the small
question simmering slowly in my mind. A bath, the question answered in the
mirror with a maybe. The brown shirt and panties wrapped round with a trailing
bedspread, unexpected reflection of the night staff's faces in a hall mirror.
Rasheed getting into bed nervously. The fun of my own timidity (very carefully
concealed!) at unwrapping the bedspread and sliding into bed.
Poignancy of the space between us, joy in remembering the day, spontaneity
of Rasheed's vehement push ("Go away! You smell like a woman.")
Dark and the neon flashing through a window, red and blue, washed out on
the plaster; cool air from the window.
Happiness finally combining confidence with desire and "I'm happy.
I want to make love to you. I only have one rule." Naturalness, excitement,
curiosity, tenderness. The sensation of watching with infinite care. The
natural and joyful turning. Pain.
Rasheed was very careful, very slow, very warm and I felt none of the
hostility of the seduced, only tenderness for the seducer. (I remember Mike
and thank God for Rasheed!)
The main impressions of pain and relief mixed with wonder at the lovely
intimacy of sex. I cherished the austerity of his profile, darker and more
Arabic than it had ever seemed, older and calmer, detached as he smoked
a cigarette and stared at the ceiling. His hand was silhoetted over the
edge of the bed, holding the cigarette, wrist thin and steady. I cherished
it as well. We lay in silence and companionship, the question answered.
Late at night we both woke miraculously. When I stirred he touched my
hip and I turned. When I said, in the day-after dreaminess of next afternoon,
"It was funny the way we both woke last night," he said "We
both knew what we wanted." I am excited by the mutual desiring and
mutual action, the one-to-one concentration of sex, the beautiful privacy.
Rasheed is easy to love physically because he is earthy, natural, ardent,
and honest. I became as earthy, natural and ardent, and began to learn honesty.
I loved him for what he gave me. And because he was beautiful, very thin
and sinewy, dark-skinned with his long legs, large feet, round buttocks,
long torso, delicate wrists. Without his glasses his eyes are tangle-lashed,
dark, childlike. His mouth is perfectly shaped and finely outlined, he has
a scar on his lower cheek. I am excited by seeing his features tactually
and by the freedom to touch him.
Morning and breakfast, happiness and dreaminess vigorous under breakfast
talk and hitchhiking chatter. "I made love to you last night, you were
beautiful and I am glad."
After that, desire becoming more and more spontaneous, wantonness, learning,
tenderness. Femininity of Auntie's duster and slip (pale green and pale
blue), waking horny and waking Rasheed with music.
Arriving in Edmonton at night and staggering through the dark railroad
yard, streets, with our bags, happy as children but, unlike children, anticipating
a room in a hotel - humor of getting the room I stayed in over Varsity Guest
Weekend. Half-humor and half-seriousness of nakedness. Irrational tears
at the humiliation of being too slow, laughter at my sudden sexuality, at
the traditional feminine illogic brought out in the disciple of logic!
Waking horny after a good screw, energetic and proud of our sexuality.
Cherries bought for lunch and eaten on the floor - "Let's neck a little."
Long, deep, good kisses learned quickly with unexpected skill; direct honest
warm kisses I am excited to remember (kisses before were always duds) and
long like an adolescent to repeat. The wonder of being a very sexy woman
after all and the goodness of this man turning his length toward me and
leaning his head on my shoulder. I remember odd moments of honesty that
still touch me, and moments of dishonesty that still anger me. But there
was enough honesty and enough generosity in both of us so that we loved
each other a little from the first day (and when I spat out my "I love
you" to him at home, a month later, I loved him enough to give him
that much at least. Love is so large a percentage power play, but have we
won or lost when we give up a little power? And was Rasheed my opponent,
or was I myself the opponent in a completely introverted struggle. I know
very well that both are true, "love is 'in a way'". Yet, he is
real, his body is sweet and he is himself both victor and loser in the three-way
struggle for power. How much can I give? Do I give because I love you or
because I want to be a giving person. You do not want to win this battle
and yet you must, or I shall lose as well. Is love always so counterbalanced
a struggle, and did we fight because we tried even in deception to love
honestly?
Early, "You must be careful. A woman is different after she has
slept with a man. Don't get hurt." "I'm different. I'm an exception."
The last night, "Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart,
sweetheart" in the anger of our conflicts and the generosity of our
closeness and the fear of our parting. Under the raftered room of a new
curling rink in Princeton, high above the town, with the lights below and
the mountains far across.
The long letter he sent me on his arrival in the East again, unexpectedly
desolate, almost frantic with loneliness and reckless with alcohol. And
his last letter, coolly talking about the teacher with the blue MG who is
"quite attractive (tho old - 28) and fairly intelligent - but sometimes
boring as hell. Shit!" My first lover was a child-man of complete originality,
scheming and childishly open, sensual and cunning, emotional and careful,
self-centred and tender, generous and grasping. Beautiful physically, original,
energetic intellectually, naïve emotionally. His eyes, when he removes
his glasses, are huge, vulnerable, incredibly deep and luxurious, like fur
under glass, and his mouth has the same finely-outlined sensuality. But
his body is as narrow and stringy as an adolescent's, graceful, tightly
coordinated especially in dancing, with no muscle unconnected. He moves
with compulsive vigor, thinks with the same continuous, feverish concentration,
feels every moment with intensity and seldom allows this thinking to pass
between himself and his emotion. Walking rapidly through the frozen stubble
of our pasture fields at night, he is angry that I do not understand him.
And when I helplessly rail at him, then, for not caring that he does not
understand me, he is baffled and frustrated: I am trying to confuse
his emotion. Yet, days later, he is again angry that I do not understand
that he is trying to be what I have told him he should be - confusion, quarrel,
bitterness, but always tenderness, misunderstood and turned aside, but sometimes
returned - for once, a good moment. Lying on the floor, after a day of strain
and silence on the Peace River outing, we try to explain ourselves and we
are warring to save face. But we make up. He is lying on the couch, and
I am on the floor. Silence. "Come, then," and the relief of lying
beside him with an arm around him and his arms around me.
The nights on the floor in the living room with stars or a storm, or
some late, dramatic sunset just ending, outside the front window and the
Siberian tapestry with its wine-red sky hanging above us. Books on the sleeping
bag in the kitchen floor beside the stove. Sneaking up into the hay loft
one night, "I just want to hold you a little. What's wrong with that?"
(This became a fight too!) Waking him at eleven on a perfect May morning
with the kids all at school and Mother outside, kissing him to test his
just awaking stuffy smell and see him stumble out of the sleeping bag in
his shorts and teeshirt with his hair curly and his eyelashes disheveled.
Dancing with him sometimes to feel the tautness of his movements. Kissing
him goodnight and going to bed confusedly happy. Small details like his
fine-boned wrists, square thin hands, his large feet, his comic terror of
Sieburts' horse, his galloping runs with Rudy in search of duck eggs, his
argumentative "You're right there, Mistah Ehpp, but ..." bobbing
up to the surface of every table conversation. His moods, melancholic and
manic. (The irreverent grace he said before Peter at Judy's birthday.) His
delight at Rudy's gift of beebee pellets, his near-tears embarrassment at
having his first birthday cake, his delight and confusion at Mother and
Father's present of a shiny silver cigarette lighter. The stories that spill
from him one after another about Trinidad, his father and mother ("They
are always gossiping"), Affie, Sheraz, Feroz, his boyfriends, his girlfriends,
fishing under water off the north coast, the prostitute whose services he
arranged for his school underlings (he was head boy) for 25¢ a throw,
who repulsed him after he saw her calmly eating a lunch sandwich while a
schoolboy laboured over her. The peeing contests in dark alleys. The bad
days when he started school, too old, barefoot, and unable to speak English.
(I can see him little changed, as dark and serious and as beautiful and
as bitter). His father driving a taxi, quoting Shakespeare to his tourist
customers; his tall graceful mother who, although unable to understand more
than a little English, insisted that the boys speak English to learn it.
Evenings when Cyril would come home and go to bed and gossip with his wife.
("I didn't understand why he would get up and wash his hands in the
middle of the night, when I was younger.") Seduction by an older relative
when he was fourteen. The girl he took sitting down in a concert hall broom
closet, another taken standing up in the washroom of a girl's school. Songs
in Spanish and Italian - Volare and Guantanamera. Obscenity
and profanity in several languages, the singing polyglot of patois,
the childishness of his self-concern and need to impress, the beauty of
his flamenco. Stories of dancing in the nightclub for twenty dollars a night,
behind his mother's back, drinking in the well-cut suit furnished by the
club, of five dollar bills left under a pillow by a tourist woman. Suddenly,
scholarship, affluence, fame, and the strange Canadian society. The room
under Shurtleffs' slanting roof, the corner window over Barrie Street, two
houses down from ours, the December roll in the park with Olivia - the "bitter,
bitter, bitter" of so much money and so little happiness. Basil, International
House, Olivia, Art, Ed, Inez, and me.
- Waking at Hinton, he saw the Rockies for the first time. Doukhobour
houses, rain with Murray, Jean and the old black Cadillac, and the nips
of apricot brandy. The CP depot in Vancouver, careful casualness of all
we said, the crowds around the departure gate.
"I think you better go now."
"All right, but ..."
"Are you trying to lust here?"
"Bastard."
The red Queen's jacket backing toward the glass doors as I stand to look
after him. The crowd moving away, funneling through the door past the trainman
(concern for correct procedure always - "Which ticket, which car, which
seat?") and drawing him with them, already gone when he was out of
sight. Both of us rigidly controlled now with me running off to cry at the
wire railing and he sitting down to write that first letter as soon as we
were out of sight of each other.
Tuesday August 3
Frank was here on Saturday night, lay on the ground beside me as we watched
the sky darken; after Valerie had gone inside, leaving her empty tea cup
with ours, we were self-consciously close physically and gropingly close
intellectually. I was aware of his compact body, as I always am, and I wanted
to move toward him. But "loved I not honour more" and unsureness
prevent it. I wonder if my vulnerability to Frank is nothing more than the
impetus of memory toward return - or is it the fatal, cyclical, romantic
impetus of personal chemistry? Will I long for Frank as an impossible ideal
relationship which was safely, mercifully, impossible?
August 4
[letter]
Haben euren lieben Brief Freitag erhalten, als wir bei die Grosseltern
auf Besuch waren. We dropped in after an evening trip to Abbotsford for
library books, browsing through fashion magazines with the sort of see-who-gets
daydream enthusiasm you'll remember, at last getting the five dollar money
order for my passport application. Hitchhiked back, first to Grandma's for
zwiebak and mail, then to the cabins where Judy had to get ready for a date
with Rad. At Grandma's we were all four set down at the table. (We had the
mistake first of telling her that we'd had supper already, but when she
crestfallenly told us that she had boiled some wieners because she expected
us, we were very quick to assure her that our supper had been small and
we would be delighted. So she fed us hot dogs and floury overripe watermelon
and buns as we read her your letter and got the happy news of Auntie Anne's
baby boy Isaac Alexander John! I'll bet you were surprised - did you even
know she was pregnant? I didn't until I saw her here, and even both sets
of grandparents had been kept in the dark until the Dycks arrived in Vancouver.
Grandma was interested in the marks of course, and scandalized by my
letter from Miss Royce - "das ist ja eine Schande."
(Thank you for the money, which I am returning because I don't really
need it. And besides if your crop is good and my earnings inadequate I may
have to borrow some from you, long-term, later. I'd like to keep my credit
good.) I can't use any awards I get this year anyway, and the fine is quite
big, so I may not pay it at all.
We saw the Wienses on Friday night when they dropped in to see the grandparents.
Mr Wiens looks very well and is jolly. Mrs has gained a great deal of weight
and a pot belly, and her face is oddly puffy. She does not look well, but
seems to be. Both pick raspberries at Yarrow nearly every day. Grandma rather
cattily tells us that they have a reputation in Clearbrook for being inveterate
too-often-and-stay-too-long visitors, but Grandfather says it is not "so
schlimm."
Yes Frank's pile is being made in raspberries. We had a day off on Saturday
and picked for him. Dave is a card puncher and Mrs Siemens and Leona are
supervisors. Mrs Siemens was friendly enough, but drowned in troubles and
went through long recitals of her two varicose vein operations, her children's
and Leona's baby's illnesses, Mr's diabetes and heart attack, and ended
up telling us how bravely she is going on and how the Lord is "keeping
her up." She is wallowing in self-interest to the point of having no
interest in anyone else; this was my impression anyway, as well as Judy's
and Paul's.
I got a letter from Peter last week - he seemed sad, lonely, bored. Even
his letter lacks the usual Peteresque effervescence. I hope France cures
him.
There seems so much to tell you that I feel disorganized. Our last letter
wasn't mailed earlier because of the mail strike and it seems a long time
since we've written. In the meantime picking has been good and we've had
no more rain - last week was extremely hot, with berry patch temperatures
of up to 120 degrees between the rows at Doerksen's, and nineties in the
shade. On Friday we picked from 6 a.m. straight through to 2 p.m. rather
than pick in the 2-5 swelter, then went to Abbotsford, but even there nearly
suffocated. At Frank's on Saturday we also picked 6-3 p.m. for our eight
dollars worth. Thursday, as we were trickling and steaming in the patch
in the afternoon Grandfather dropped in with our mail (a letter for Paul
from Ontario and for me from Norman) and Grandmother grinning wisely gave
us a large brown paper bag with a jar of chicken soup and another of mousse,
bless her, warm still and I suspect made especially for us! They were looking
for drying apples in the area of Mr Lehman Road and so they decided to come
to see us. Sue, Judy and Paul and I were overjoyed. Before they left, she
looked at me crosswise and said, "Du musst aber nich nackt herum laufen."
And I looked down at my damp toe-to-wrist jeans and shirt modesty, "Aber
ich bin nicht ..." But she said "Oh but I talked to a lady who
hoed in the beans with you" (I had hoed in the bathing suit to get
a tan and escape the swelter), and then, Grandma fashion, she grinned.
Many things have been beautiful here - heavy scent of evergreen oil in
the sun when the trees are clipped, color intensified by the brilliance
of the sun. Sunsets in purple and slashes of pink. Vast bright skies when
we sleep outside. Green apples on the Transparent tree in the orchard. The
evening when, still hot and sticky, the picker kids sat around on their
pallets outside behind the cabins in the shade and we listened to music,
read, looked at Baker, then became so energetic that we played leapfrog
violently, climbed the high spruce trees in swarms, had a tug-o-war, boy
against girls, and went through a mock-pagan rite in the honor of Mount
Baker that had Valerie and even the plump Brazilian mother rolling with
laughter. Paul, Judy, Sue and I initiated most of the action. Leapfrogged
with the four Brazilian boys and a couple of others, managed to break the
rope when hefty Louisa and her equally hefty little sister joined us on
the girls' side of the rope.
The Brazilian family, the Martens, are especially alive, real people.
The mother is very large, red-faced and cheerful. Her husband stays home
on the farm while she takes the three girls and two boys and varying numbers
of boy cousins to the patch with her. They work hard, go to bed early, keep
the kitchen spotless, eat more loaves of home-baked bread than I've ever
seen at one time. They're friendly, always singing and laughing, extremely
happy and well-behaved kids. I especially like Louisa who, at fourteen,
has an enormous round torso and a red face like the Campbell Soup Kids.
No vanity. Much wit and good sense and good humor. She seems boiling with
creative energy, and her one means of expression is through housekeeping,
which she does violently and ruthlessly, by herself, until the tacky cabin
kitchen is gleaming. She speaks some Portuguese and English but her comfortable
language is Plautdeetch and in Plattdeutch her expression is very succinct
and humorous. I wish I could reproduce some of it for you. In the patch,
she sings busily while she picks and although her voice has NO finesse,
it is strong and tuneful, and she chooses beautiful songs. The whole family
knows many songs in both German and Portuguese, and many of them are non-religious
folk songs. For instance, while picking next to Mrs Martens one morning
I asked her if she knew the rest of the words to "Dich mein stilles
Tal, grüss ich tausend Mal" and she sang them all off with no
trouble. When I started to sing what fragments I knew of "Es waren
zwei König's Kinder," she picked up where I finished and her kids
joined her. They knew all the verses! They are generous people too, and
often bring us a cabbage or some carrots from their farm.
By now Uncle Walter has visited you? And told you of his visit here.
We'll give you our side of the story! He drove up in his white convertible,
stepped out in his immaculate summer suit, shiny shoes, Vitalis hair and
movie-star dark glasses; shook hands; made gracious conversation. Then he
and Paul went for some pop while we asked for our remaining two hours of
the afternoon off and cleaned up. We sat on the lawn and made some more
gracious conversation. (He sat on a piece of cardboard to prevent grass
stains.) But Susy and Judy were already curious but firm, and Paul and I
were snoopy too, so that the conversation turned into a more-or-less subtle
interview to see what we could find out about this handsome, worldly, sophisticated,
deliberately-enigmatic uncle. Afterwards we discussed him thoroughly. He
enjoys nightclubs and a few sophisticated singers. He's sportsy. World Series
baseball, football are his spectator sports. He loves horse races. He swims,
plays tennis, skis. He has a great deal of poise and good taste, but seemingly
little originality and no spirit. This was our impression. He seems shallow,
guarded, cut off from his past and unwilling (perhaps unable) to make contact
with present reality. He is intelligent but not intellectual, social but
not warm. The old Epp characteristic of coldness and detachment seem as
highly focused in him as they are, differently expressed, in every one of
his brothers. I don't know about Aunt Lily, is she different?
This was a very quick appraisal, and perhaps it is unfair. However, we
are all very interested in Uncle Walter because he seems sort of midway
between Father's world and ours. Uncle seems to have a superficial emancipation
but it seems to have left him a rather joyless (therefore energyless) personality.
Judy, Paul and I already have his emancipation into a self-chosen way of
life, or will have, but I think we will make a much deeper change of it.
Fortunately, we aren't joyless! (Even Uncle Walter said, "I'm glad
to see you're a bit gayer than the generation of Epps before you.")
Am I lapsing into documentary again Mother? Nevermind - I am writing
with you in mind.
You ask about Frank. I'm glad to go into detail! He came over last Monday
night in his baggy work clothes and leather boots - sharp faced, thinner,
very brown and healthy looking. He has a girl and I met her on Saturday
because she is picking on his patch. Dave told me about her and while Frank
has told me a little about her, he doesn't know that I know who she is.
And she doesn't know who I am, so there wasn't any awkwardness. She is eighteen,
her name is Sharon. My impression of her was mixed: she is not at all pretty,
but she has a rather poignant face and direct brown eyes with a boyish short
hairstyle. She isn't vivacious, but seems very sweet and quiet. Her voice
is soft and pretty. She doesn't give the impression of above average intelligence
but she is athletic. Sue used to collect stamps with her and knows her well.
Her last name is Hubbard, so she's English or something. Dave likes her
very much. She seems to adore Frank. Dave tells me that it is quite likely
that Frank will marry her in the fairly near future. She'd be very good
to him.
On Saturday night, or late evening, Frank came over, bareback and still
in work clothes. Valerie was on a mat outside with her radio, too, and took
a great motherly interest in him - gave him a blanket, insisted I get him
a pillow, and had a cup of tea with us as she told us war stories. By the
time she went in, it was dark and clear, so we had another cup of tea and
lay on our backs looking at the sky, talking. Much later, a taxi slunk onto
the yard and who should appear but Norman McLeod who'd come to spend the
weekend with me. Judy was off at Grandpa's but Paul was home so after we'd
all had another cup of tea and some raw carrots and talked for a long time
Frank went home and Norman got Judy's sleeping bag. Sunday morning, good
sun and good talk and dinner at Grandmother's afterward. I think Judy'll
tell you about all that.
Paul is seemingly happy. Judy of course.
August 8
[letter]
Sunday
afternoon again, Grandmother's house, all warmth and civilization. Judy
and I were talking yesterday about the unrealized centuries of science and
even philosophy behind all the details of this one house and its comfort.
It bewilders us, many things do. So Rudy isn't alone with his anxieties
either. Mother, you must remember how the possibility of nuclear war terrified
and obsessed me when I was a bit younger than Rudy is. I remember very well
how omnipresent the thought of bombs was then, every day - but you can tell
Rudy what you told me: that war and peace are in God's hands and that both
are controlled and good if God wills it. Whether it is true or not is something
he can decide when he is older - children shouldn't have to cope with such
horrors. What you told me set me at ease and probably still helps me, although
I question it now. Rudy is in an age of realizing outside world facts very
intensely and he hasn't built any abstract defenses yet.
Money - I have about $225 now, and we anticipate another two weeks of
picking. I can probably borrow $1000 from Canadian Federal Gov't Loan Plan.
No scholarship can be transferred. At the moment my plans are to go railway
to Kingston, then hitchhike to New York with Philip O'Brien who wants a
cheap way home to England, then we can both fly over by Icelandic Airways
whose rates are lower. This is very tentative. It's all beginning to be
real tho' and I'm becoming excited.
We met Mr Postman at the pool a few weeks ago - he says your crops in
the PR Country look excellent. Janeen came to see us one night at the patch,
arriving just as we were dancing down the road after a sunset worship rite
in honour of both Baker and the very gloriously colored sunset. She's very
pretty, very chic, still very charming - after a while she felt natural,
talked about her plans. She is teaching art in a secondary school in New
Jersey, just across the river from New York in Patterson. Next year and
the year after that she wants to be at the Sorbonne in Paris. She may marry
Gary next year. "He's big, looks like James Bond." She says I'm
to write her pep talk lectures to keep her determined on France!
This afternoon Uncle Peter and his family are here. We've just risen
from a large lunch with the usual joking and tall stories. Uncle Peter is
very jolly. He and Alf leave early tomorrow morning for work in Chetwynd
- their holidays have been postponed for later. They won't be coming your
way, but Uncle Jake and so on may come.
Mother, you should have heard me nagging Grandmother into writing to
you! She made all the usual excuses about you hearing everything through
us, but I was very firm, and lo! There she is in the kitchen with an envelope
addressed to you. They don't seem to be selling the farm.
In church this morning (we go to Bakerview) Uncle Harvey's friend Clarence
Baumann spoke. He sat on the platform in a shaggy tweed and dark glasses
with his long hair and blinking sleepy eyes making him look a stereotype
boy genius. He started out brusquely, not clichés and gabbling and
large smile - just "This morning I will not elucidate a text. I will
talk on the subject 'What is the goal and purpose of life?'" Then he
talked about Darwin, Freud and Marx! The first sermon I've listened through
for - no exaggerating - two years, since Mr Block. The choir was excellent,
and afterwards Betty Friesen's father, who was a sort of adopted father
to me the year I was here in grade two, chucked my chin and enthused happily
about my plans for France and so on. When I told him I wanted to be a child
psychologist tho', he said (lit up like a pumpkin), "Oh, you want to
live for others?!" at which I became very righteous and explained that
my motives are completely selfish, but had a good laugh with Judy about
my 'nobility' on the way home.
September 10, Friday afternoon
[journal]
Sue, bent over a row of strawberries, said "Life is so full. It
keeps getting fuller."
Reading Borstal Boy in bed, thinking of the luxury of an O Henry
chocolate bar and drinking coffee from my green stoneware cup. There is
just enough light on the top bunk to read comfortably, the hotplate is glowing
in red concentric circles, the flowers in the milk bottle reflect the reds
and oranges of the painting above them, and the Van Gogh Road with Cypresses
is reflected in the mirror above my row of books. Like Robert Frost, "clearing
a space around me between myself and infinity," I love the order I
create as he loves his poetry.
Beyond this fullness is the independent fullness of other good things
- Susy herself, selfish, curious, garrulous and intent on every molecule
that reaches her. The Schumann A Minor Concerto on our static riddled old
radio. The sun sometimes clear and wide open, sometimes a closed flat pink
disk seen through the smoke, just off center in a tall photograph of the
fence posts disappearing down Boundary Road. The faces of the Hindus on
our broccoli crew, especially of Suarn smiling; of the old man Shif, long
beaked face and emaciated body, the white beard curled under and the new
bluejeans almost flat on his body; Jornel smoking his decrepit cigarette
delicately, through his ragged hand; Farmir squatting on the wagon with
the red sun wild beside his wild face. The unbelievable two-colored shiny
green of each dandelion leaf in the space behind my door. The flat valley
seen from the road just east of Mt Lehman, with evergreen and mountains
rimming it sharply. Fields of brussels sprouts rising in swells all around,
in a fused mosaic of greens and blues, and the pairs of white butterflies
darting across them. The sweat and exhileration of being pushed to what
seems the limit of physical effort topping sprouts. Challenge and exuberance
of striking off silent communication (like sparks) with Eric. The airport
lights scattered and changing in many colors. Elizabeth Ksinan like an arrogant
Italian pageboy, swarthy, slight and strong, dark-eyed. Susy dancing in
edge-of-the-beat tautness, her luxurious skin and sensuous body. Nights
of hard rain, or red moons, or stars, or the satellite moving graciously
and confidently from south to north. "Escaping from metaphysical bombardment
into physical bombardment" by sleeping outside and staring at the constellations
for a long time.
Then Friday night. Frank came and said goodnight. "I have a feeling
I may never see you again." The sadness, all evening, of the distance
between us. ("Tell me - why are you so sad" on Wednesday night,
and my blurted answer, "Loneliness. The old universal." "I
don't know anything. Sometimes it is like a cry in me," he said; "We
can talk, but always I feel this undercurrent of loneliness. My older friends
tell me that when I have blood ties with a child or a woman the sharpness
will go away. But I don't think so.") The surprise of his remark as
I ran around the corner to get his tea: "The back of your neck isn't
very tanned," and my lighthearted answer covering my joy at the knowledge
that he desired me. Sudden embrace by the steps, reluctance becoming abandon,
long long kisses and the sweetness of his arms and shoulders, the side of
his face again. We were cold, and went back to my cabin, stared at each
other, both reached for the light cord at the same time, and lay under the
quilt with the hotplate on next to our heads, naked, committed to recklessness,
happy and confidential. "I'm glad it was you." Near dawn I ran
outside to the toilet and came back, naked, into his arms to say goodbye.
"The human body is a beautiful thing. And skin." I was bursting
with joy because I had given myself to Frank at last and because of his
wonder at being made a lover for the first time. The light was red on the
outlines of my body, and we held each other in a vacillation between passion
and incredulity. How beautiful he is.
Sunday night we had each other for the first time, again and again, slowly
and joyfully, with all our motions slowed and tightened to almost a dance,
lovemaking smoothed off by the force of how much we loved each other. Even
remembering, my stomach tightens.
Tuesday night, his knock and the reflex-quick happiness at seeing each
other.
Saturday, September 11
[family letter]
I've a free afternoon to write in. Yeah, Judy, finked off on Eric today
when I looked at the cold wet foggy dew this morning. This is one
day I won't sell my soul to Mammon. Susy stayed in bed with Mila 18
and some plum sauce.
Please fetch me from Grande Prairie bus depot Monday the 20th at 7:10
a.m. or whenever the Edmonton bus arrives there. I'm leaving for Edmonton,
CNR, on Saturday after work. If you can't make it, phone a message to the
station agent and I'll hitchhike or something. I'll have to leave for Edmonton
again on the Wednesday night bus, and from there to Kingston, New York,
and on Tuesday 10 p.m., to Luxembourg where I'll arrive 3:00 p.m. Wednesday
for a short train ride to Strasbourg. No steamer trunk, Mother, for my few
worldly goods.
Grandmother has been nagging me to stop work and go home now, and begad!
how sick I am of broccoli. But the truth I haven't told Grandma is that
there's still one week of Frank to be stretched out. Judy told you how our
lovely emotional control lasted so well and rigidly all summer and then
exploded at the thought of summer's passing? In the debris (some of it beautiful)
of that explosion is another agonizing parting in a long honorable lineage
of honorable agonizing partings. If I were not so stubborn I would throw
up my hands, stop defying woman's fate, marry him in a moment. He's a difficult
man to forget. Strasbourg will be a consolation.
The news from Frank is that he is planning to sell his farm. Success
- worked for and concentrated on for two years - came too soon. "It
can't happen. I'm too young," he says. But it did happen and because
it was too easy it has left him, at twenty five, needing a new ambition.
If the aptitude tests he is taking are favorable, university and dentistry
or chemistry may be next. In spite of being newly directionless at twenty
five, he is serene, very confident in himself if not in life, as idealistic
as ever, stronger, and even handsomer!
I've discovered that I can't get any of my loan money until actually
registered in the Université de Strasbourg. The upshot - I'll be
desperately short of funds until nearly a month after I'm in France. If
things are tight, Father, and I can't borrow two hundred from you for that
month and possibly longer, would the bank in Sexsmith lend it to me? I'd
appreciate it very much if you could see about that for me. I have enough
to get to France but am afraid I'm not intellectual enough yet to survive
without food and a garret roof over my material head. And a candle for late
reading of the French dictionary of course.
Is Peter gone? He must be. Norman has left for Europe.
Uncle Herman is supposed to arrive here any time, but until now he hasn't
and Grandma is skittering about displaying his photograph prominently and
baking stuff, certain that he'll come soon.
Clearbrook Road, 12 Sept Sunday
Disturbed last night by a telephone call and visit from Frank. When he
left at 10:30, there sat Grandfather in his spectacles with his finger ready
to point. "Jetzt sag' mir mal, was für eine Verbindung hapt ihr
beide?" As I was stammering in ungrammatic circles and Grandfather
was going on to tell me that, if we didn't have marriage in prospect, what-the-heck
were we up to, and if we did, we'd better forget it because "ihr
passt nicht zuzammen," Grandmother, to my delight, sprang up in my
defense with her evening pigtail on end, diverting Grandpa by bringing the
conversation back to him, side-tracking him with irrelevancies, teasing
him, laughing at him, running mischievous circles around his earnest little
warning. And besides, "Na, ich weiss nicht. Der Frankie gefällt
mir." I loved her! Grandpa didn't have much of a chance so I wrapped
up my argument very humbly with a Grandpa-ism, "Na, Grosspa, die Sache
ist die: wir haben ihnen vom Schlafen gehalten, und dafür bin ich sehr
sorry." And when I'd gone to bed I heard him, in the bedroom,
reproaching her for interfering. "Aber Papa, du fingst so böse
an." Schluss and gute Nacht. Then they said their prayers.
This morning Grandpa said good morning a bit anxiously, wondering if
I was beleidicht and not speaking, and when I wasn't he was so relieved
he made up another Kartoffeln joke: like elephant jokes, his jokes about
my legendary love of potatoes are mostly a bit wacky, but he makes up three
or four a day, whenever he wants to be friendly to me.
Grandma has been telling me about all the foster children she has had
in the past years - first Lillian's friends, then Ben's, strawberry pickers,
and now us and foster grandchildren like Susy. (Poor Norman was a reject:
she didn't like his beard.)
Am looking forward to seeing the [Kingston Poverty] Project people two
weeks from yesterday. The SUPA newssheet you sent has articles by dear old
owly-brained Tugwell and irreverent references to Peggy Morton, and Philip
O'Brien sent a postcard giving his Scotland address. And I'll see Rasheed!
A typical Clearbrook-beautiful Sunday.
Did Grandpa ever tell you the story about the good Mennonite boy in Russia
who told God that, as a sign of God's will, he would take the girl who poured
him exactly the half cup of coffee he asked for? Months later, as
he was visiting, a nice young thing poured him exactly half a cup. He talked
it over with her father. Her father talked it over with her, and they were
engaged. After the wedding he decided to tell her, one night, how he had
outwitted chance and been sure she was The Girl. She immediately went off
into girlish giggles - "It's a good thing for you that the kettle ran
out when it did!" It's fun to hear him tell these stories because Grandma
has heard them all before and races to get to the end before he does. Then
she tells the one about the girl who told God that she'd marry whichever
one of her two suitors asked her first - Peter Matties or Jakob Letkemann
- and take what she got as God's will. But after she thought about it for
a while she rushed to her knees again with a PS - "But please let it
be Jakob Letkemann."
September 13
[journal]
Last night his knock woke me from a quilt-wrapped sleep over my Spanish
book. There he is on the doorstep in his green work clothes, with night
around him in the doorway; smiling, with a bag of grapes to split with Susy.
"We have always been at home with ourselves, with each other,"
I said and felt his nod rather than saw it. "It doesn't happen with
very many." "I don't expect it to ever happen again," he
said. "Isn't that a bit bleak?" "The gods aren't generous
twice." Today the thought of never-twice, for me and for him, is not
softened by his presence; and life without him - what seems years of trying
to return to what he is and what I have with him - has a very sharp edge.
(His absence like a long scratch on the surface of my life?)
There is no malice, no distrust, in this love relationship with Frank.
I am twenty now, and he is twenty-five, but we meet with the same wonder
and tenderness we had when we were sixteen and twenty-one. He is stronger,
and I am freer, only good has happened. Can there be no return? I think
desperately of marriage, but my sensibility cancels my faith and I know
better, but without being sure, for is there anything that isn't hollow
without Frank?
My sensitivity has grown in the last month: I think of Grandmother being
old, I think of Mother becoming old, I think of the never-twices I will
always long for, and I'm afraid. I see the shaking of the poplar tree above
the cabin roof (turning gold) and I'm frightened. The sudden realization
of far distant past, of "thought's the slave of life and life time's
fool" (all from reading about the persistance of the Old Spanish "y"
in the modern "hay"!) frightens me. The thought of Frank
changed, me changed, and of all the time and good beautiful things and
painful things that we won't be able to tell each other about, frightens
me.
I am happy that we've slept together these two weeks; it is a debt paid,
a declaration for the present, something definite to look back on.
"But in spite of my butchered reputation, you do know that this
with you isn't light, for me? That is very important to me." He was
quiet so long that I touched his face to question him. "Just stay in
my arms for a while."
After a while we lay on our backs together and ate all the grapes in
the bag. I spit my seeds onto the floor beside the bed and he swallowed
his. We were giddy. Then he talked about the children he'll have, the tall
sons. "What are you laughing at, my tall sons?" "And my daughter's
pretty legs." "She will have pretty legs, I'm sure she will, she
is sure to," he said very seriously. I cried. He gave me his hanky.
I soon stopped, but the giddiness was gone and we were forced to think of
Saturday.
He laughs wonderfully, at me and at himself, quietly and warmly, with
his face and his body focused into the laugh. His body - strongly muscled
but rounded-off, shoulders and arms, sinewy forearms, delicate hipbone,
soft genitals, rounded-square buttocks, soft warm skin. I take an inventory.
He lit a match to find his tee-shirt, and his face and bare chest, with
his hands around the match, are a picture I'll remember. With it I'll remember
his picture of me lying in bed watching him dress.
Tuesday, Sept 14
"Do you remember that night you came to see me with George? I felt
very close to you that night."
"I felt as though we were on the inside and he on the outside."
Thursday September 16
This morning was bright, very cold, and very windy. Mount Baker is covered
with fresh snow and it, with the other mountains, glistens as it never has
all summer. This afternoon while I was driving tractor on the broccoli field,
a long trail of smoke came from Harrison Lake, between the mountains, and
spread west toward the coast shutting off the sun and giving the light an
odd yellow look.
Last night the moon was frozen in a hoary pale sky and it was so cold
that when I ran out to the toilet naked I was chilled through. Frank warmed
me quickly by wrapping me around in his arms. When we were hungry we ate
the two bananas he brought. We talked about the different levels of our
life, and of the one level of fear and uncertainty that few speak of and
how many? experience. His sensitivity is painful; his uncertainty, agony.
He needs a "point of life" as I do not need one yet. He is tortured
even physically by his own purposelessness. Yet he is strong, serene, uncompromising,
unwilling to pick up a cheap "point" that would give him peace.
"I don't think I'll ever need one that badly." ("She shall
not kiss that harried man to peace.") His pain isolates him even from
me. I understand the horror of questions swirled in echoes through the mind
at night and the need to escape the smothering confusion of words into the
explosion of mind into infinite starry space. I understand the stabbing
need for a reason. But I cannot invent one for him, nor can I create peace
in that last level of his mind as I do in others.
[undated journal]
The same ghost continuing through my life - the other, embodied, shaped,
colored, moving. My continuing shyness, sometimes fear, sometimes loneliness.
Bodies which are large, ugly, soft, blunt, make me fearful and disdainful.
I fear them because they're a large dominant class to which I may belong.
Bodies which are sharp, graceful, hard, which cut a definite dominating
shape in my space cow me because they make me seem at once indefinite and
definite but grotesque. What to be done with bodies and being intimidated
by bodies, clothes, shoes; expressions and gestures; talk, opinions, wit,
argument; smiles, tones of voice. Self-rejection in rejection of ugliness.
Bodies with their lines, colors of clothes, materials moving of themselves,
speaking and laughing, ironically self-possessed or persuasive or drawn
up asserting themselves against me although not looking at me or speaking
to me. (Even more because in speaking to me a hard body sometimes grows
less resistent - and I feel triumph or hope, but distain.)
[journal from the train - scraps]
Edmonton
"Just go to bed now. Quickly. Quickly and slowly."
My second Coke float in the train station, now; the man across the counter
smiled a sudden blue-eyed smile - all quickly and slowly.
September 24, Friday afternoon
[letter]
In Edmonton yesterday I stopped at a small shop among the pawnshops on
101st, and sat in the display window and talked to the black-haired young
man until at 1:20 he came rushing in to ask "Is your train gone?"
His shop is shabby, small - a cubby hole full of Japanese junk, children's
paintings, some good pottery, a wonderful London poster, a few old books,
and Tim's guitar on a wooden packing case with ragged sheets of music. Tim
himself is a narrow tall young Londoner in often patched but sharply creased
trousers, an orange and black striped corduroy jacket and orange sweater,
wild hair ruffled up in the back, narrow and lively eyes. He sat in the
display window with me, ran for two coffees from next door while I encouraged
customers, played the ten dollar guitar with his long cold fingers - beautifully.
Talked on and on, was instantly lyrical about Strasbourg and its architecture
("The most beautiful city in Europe!"). He hopes to have an art
gallery in Edmonton someday - I'll go back and see him.
Got back to the train just before it left; boarded, elegant (psychologically,
in the suit jacket which Tim Lander admired lengthily) and new yellow stockings
from Eatons (and Judy, a black and green French bra!).
A flirty blue-eyed working girl who works 6 months then travels the other
6. A French-Canadian logger on whom I practiced my French - couldn't understand
his flat French. Lots of sleep. A berth, upper, the second night. Winnipeg
too early to phone anyone. Gold leafed trees coming down to the [pages lost]
[undated letter, New York]
I'll be in New York for a while longer because the French Consulate here
says Strasbourg's university doesn't start until October 15 registration.
I can't really afford to live there so long before being able to get some
money from the loan.
New York October 7
I'm leaving for France on Sunday night, the 10th.
[Globe and Mail clipping for
September 15 1965]
- Two Children's Centre Officials Suffocate in Fire near
Kingston
- KINGSTON - Two female officials
of the Sunnyside Children's Centre suffocated when fire broke out in their
home about eight miles from Kingston on Saturday, but the screams of one
of them saved the life of a male guest in the home.
New York, Tuesday
[journal]
Loneliness and apathy at the thought of going to Europe. The continuing
need to dig down into my life and catch it at the roots (like grass, the
leaves above the surface sway). Rasheed in Kingston, Frank in Aldergrove,
Don and Olivia. The sadness of Judy's deception [it turned out she slept
with Rasheed] and of Joyce Detweiler's death are sharper than joy, and yet
not sharp enough. Auntie and Uncle are kind but lack the warmth to touch
me - and I to touch them. Maria, and the gnome Elizabeth whom I love most,
and Alexander the anonymous baby who reminds me of the possible-baby of
Frank are warmer than we are.
This morning when I was sitting on boxes at the Penn Street Station 33rd
Street ramp, a Negro taxi driver first swore at another driver, then grinned,
laughed and waved as he saw me laughing at him. The long stare of the patchy
woman on the bench next to me when she noticed my green-stockinged shoeless
feet. Jokes of construction men. Grumpy voice of a wrong number. Riverside
Church tower lit among the bus lights and trains and apartments, a jet's
one strong light blinking rapidly past it, thrilling. Mozart and the baby
in the dark room, with the lights.
New York Thursday.
Much happier and less lonely today because of the graciousness of Al
Lallier, father of a sixteen year old daughter and professor of economics
at Loyola. Mr Lallier came to dinner last night as an old friend of Uncle
Harvey's, brought a box of chocolates; talked confidently, eruditely, and
a great deal; said always the perfectly right thing; and kissed Auntie's
hand as he left. He is handsome, gay, serious and completely charming. European.
The hair he has left is well cared for and very black. His nose has a curve
toward the thin end, his eyes are very quick and humorous and flirtatious
and his mouth has a long quick curve. A beautiful man who made me feel very
Woman. I tried to undress him in my mind - for he is slim and lithe - but
he was too well dressed and I've no experience with men his age.
Before he left he invited me to see St Paul the Divine with him this
afternoon at three. I pretended it was a date and dressed for it - he was
all courtesy and thoughtfulness: the touch on the elbow crossing a street,
the well-caught teasing answers to teasing questions, the hand touched in
pouring a cup of coffee, the youthful absorption of the beautiful Gothic
church with its sloping aisles, dark roof, red and blue mosaic windows.
He loves mountains but he loves human creations better. He wants to understand
the church, not name it.
I will like to remember his lively face and my attraction to him: and
I begin to understand the value of both charm and flirtation. Perhaps this
year I can learn a little. I am full of the excitement of knowing I will
learn this year. (I may be pregnant. That would be learning.)
He understands the value of the right compliment. He told me, truly or
not, that he asked me along this afternoon because my face is alive and
because ("This is my third reason. I did not tell you before")
I have wise and beautiful eyes.
And - woman is a "long daydream" of God, realized after ages
of meditation on his own deficiency.
New York, Friday night
I am happy tonight for scattered reasons - freedom from Sartre's dreary
Age de Raison; baby Alexander; being in New York; the fragile soprano of
Mozart's Coronation Mass. My period is several days late; I am happy
for that too. Once this afternoon I thought "My God, I can't do it"
but I can; and if it is true, I will have a beautiful and very special unlegal
baby whose father is a beautiful, good man. I would be very excited and
proud, and very arrogant.
Monday noon
And intermittently sad to think of concluding my youth in that youth
is freedom, when I am twenty one.
I've been walking today, down Broadway to 75th and [pages missing]
Volume 5
- raw forming volume 4: 1965 april - september
- work & days: a lifetime journal project
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