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27 October 1978 Valhalla
Notes, a sort of refining. Firemaking, fixing. Cold stare of the fields,
wind. Careless ambitious pictures of field. [red leaves] [the meeting] Creek, on heels, quiet long enough to be moved
by flocks of fish under ice passing bits of twig.
28
Stopping in the woods with ax, saw and dog, hang black coat on a tree,
feel the house woods of childhood. Notice between logs a red light on the
top of the trees and very intense pink on the fields.
The ring choc of logs striking each other.
After supper Inferno run through looking for my own sins and finding
him an immoral writer with some very pretty lines. Irritated.
one who has followed truthfully the hardships
of learning
without rushing or faltering gone as far as
she can
You have to be strong and your life has to be
truthful.
29 Sunday
Frost, very cold, blue long shadows on the stubble. [airplane]
30
At midnight driving through cold black, car sliding on gravel. Home head
out window looking at Orion, Sirius, Procyon and a brilliant blue one I
don't know.
-
- the elements' cores, their energy and quality
- the symbol that reveals their quality
-
- was it mourning years of it
- what they disturbed was my trust in the particular compass I had, love
given to quality
- its opposite is shame
-
- watching trying to see which are the real sins
- everybody's instructions
- being preoccupied with instructions is being lost
-
- whether civilization flatters some ability
- not getting the information I need
- if self is felt as the early one, then later persons with their skills
and cultivated interests don't feel like home
- self importance of religion and soul
- the freedom of a life
the year to come into the year
the slighter seasons
31
Passing fires on the way home from Hythe, smoke blowing up off acres
of red willow. Strong wind seizing car door, getting out again and again
to make or try a picture. [cultivated high] [cultivated low]
Found in Plato, all good poets are possessed and inspired and have no
art, call these men divine who are often right in what they do and say,
but have no sense while they do it. Had a sense today of learning a subtlety
for any frame - the little parts - wanted to live here 5 years making pictures
and demonstrating freedom in a schoolhouse with constructions and garden.
- he believed he had a divine mission to test
all statements, and that a voice guided him in all his acts
- your soul dances and you have plenty to say
this is what I still, even now, go about searching
and investigating in the god's way
and showing what is in me in my usual way to
any one of you I may meet
to offer yourselves readily to be made as good
as you can be
-
Fire fills the log.
2 November
2
He [my dad] was complaining about Nick Siebert an old story and the voice
of self righteousness.
"Did you notice, Jam has a little scar on her neck?" Addressed
to him.
He: "No, I didn't notice that."
M: "But Jam certainly isn't fat."
I: "Well, she is plump."
He: "She has quite a masculine build."
I: "She doesn't have a masculine build, she has a masculine stance."
M: "Yes, the way she walks, she looks strong, determined."
I: "Anyway, what's masculine about that?"
He: "It's not feminine, it wouldn't make the boys notice her."
I: "She's not interested in boys," over a tremour, shocked.
He: "I know that."
M: changes subject, "Have you heard from Jam?"
I to him: "You noticed her."
He: "Yes, because she's interesting."
I cut through and say "When I was a little girl you used to ...,
you're attracted to a certain kind of woman and it's been a curse in my
life! ... No but my father wanted me to be a certain way and it made it
as if half of me was divided against me. I was born out of you and I'm telling
you my pain and grief and you won't listen. I'm giving you a chance to be
a father and you won't take it."
He: walking toward the door, "It does no good to talk like this,
no good at all."
I: "That's because you won't open yourself to it."
5
Woke in pain about time/life/losses etc. Can't remember how old I am
or what year it is!
Crying howling but pink cheeks.
Joseph Olson. Wrote. Sleepless. But it seemed to be over, the worst.
-
A house back in the trees, tin roof, a little brown house. Look at the
track, does anyone drive here? Rarely, nothing recent. Nice old log barn
with straw rotted on it. Hayrick broken down in the grass. Tractor. A long
drive. Plank bridge nicely made over a ditch. There's fresh wood - is that
fresh wood? An orderly pile. But no smoke? No curtains. Paths? Ezra's at
the door. I see air wavering above the chimney. Ezra, whispered shout,
and turn to go.
"Come in if you're not" - doorway, old man, his face in a circle
of hair and beard quite beautiful - "... afraid."
Coming back, "I'm not afraid but I thought nobody was here."
On the doorstep looking at each other.
"Should she stay outside or can she come in?"
"Bring her in."
Dark, small. Woodstove giving off a lot of heat. He moves a pot off the
fire. "I'm baking bread, pretty good for an old man, eh?"
He's opening the oven. I get up to look. He takes out a scorched newspaper
and under it 4 loaves in one pan, black at the top.
Sets the pan on his wood box. Goes into the back room. I sit down on
the bench again. He brings a pile of brown paper bags, flattens one on top
of the other, puts them down on the table and knocks the bread out onto
them. Into the back room again, brings out a yellow lard pail, opens it.
That's a little rectangle of leather - pigskin? With it scrapes out the
bottom of the pail. Spreads lard on the bread, one scrape for each loaf.
"Some use butter but I think lard softens it more."
Closes the lard pail, takes it into the back room.
"What's your name?" behind me.
"Epp."
"Speak higher, I can't hear you," left ear at my mouth. Beard
very close to me.
"EPP."
"Nep?"
"EPP."
"Not so high, lower."
"EPP."
"It doesn't matter, I'll know you."
"What's your name? What's yours?"
"Joseph Olson."
"In a while we'll have some coffee, do you drink coffee?"
Nod.
He's too close, chucks my chin.
"You think I'm cute, do you?"
"I think you're kind of cute" he says. "You're a girl
aren't you?"
Shake.
"Boy?"
Shake.
"Married woman?"
Shake.
"What are you then?"
"I'm an ARTIST."
"You paint pictures?"
Shake. "I make movies, MOVIES."
He doesn't get it. That's when he goes for the box of pictures.
He sets a box on the table in front of me. "I'll show you these,
maybe you'll know some of them."
I'm sitting with my right shoulder to the light, his black clothes close
to my left shoulder. He holds the photos and passes me one at a time.
"This is a real old time, over at Ronning's."
"This is my niece."
"Can you guess who this is? I had a trapline. There I am,"
pointing to a part of the picture where no one is. "Twisting bannock."
The photo is of a man standing next to snowshoes.
"Bannock?"
We go through them fast. My shoulder aches from holding it bent with
him.
"This is Gust Olson and his wife." A tall man in glasses and
suspenders, a short woman with her arm around his waist, standing between
the square pillars of my house. "Not his first wife, it's his second
wife, Rhonda I think he called her."
"This is the café up at ."
"This is Mrs Stickney." A woman with a round hip holding a
kitten to her face. Dewey's mom? I think so.
"This was my partner on the trapline."
"This is , at the homestead." He means this place. A young
man standing with his feet apart on the doorstep with a broader shadow on
the logs next to him.
"This is the four oldest boys."
"This is Angus MacFarlane up at . Did you know him?"
Shake.
"Nearly everybody did. This is the school I went to in Minnesota."
Postcard, Ana, Minnesota, a big brick building.
"This is Angus MacFarlane up at . Did you know him?"
"This was my outfit." Six horses.
"This was my driving team."
"This is the one where I'm twisting bannock." He's on his heels
in the part of the picture he pointed to before.
"A woman I used to mess around with."
"What was her name?"
"That I won't tell. I never tell ladies' names."
At the window there's a fine grey light but his black clothes and the
smoked walls behind him darken the room. What is it about his face in his
young pictures, with his brothers, the stupid vain blond young men. He still
has the harmlessness but he shines, he's healthy and immoral.
Now it's time for coffee. A tobacco tin. He fumbles in the dark corner
of the table for a spoon. Measures four teaspoons of coffee into the pot.
At the stove takes a cup, rinses it, measures - measures? he's never learned
to do it by eye? - four brimming cups of water. Lifts an iron circle off
the stovetop so he can set the pot onto direct flame.
I glance into the front room. A south window and the end of an iron bedstead.
Framed pictures. Blue and white linoleum, very old.
Oilcloth on the table. He's set a cup in front of me.
Goes into the back room, gets plastic bags, dirty. Spreads one over the
bread. Changes his mind. Takes another, spreads it to cover all the loaves,
then pats the other bags down over and around it. Goes again into the back
room. A solid body, throwing himself unevenly. Black clothes and braces
with Worldwide on them. Brings four small boards, weighs down the
plastic with them. Takes the breadpan from the woodpile and goes into the
back room with it. He's lifting it. Hangs it on a nail? Next to the window.
It crashes down. Something has fallen with it. He's black in a dark space
and his face holds the light.
Lifts the lid, looks at the coffee.
Pours me some. Where's his cup, does he have no more cups? He seems to
be looking around. I get up and look in his wooden box, an apple box nailed
above the table. Many cups.
He goes into the back room, brings back half a loaf of white bread and
a bread board. Looks closely at the bread board, holding it up. Cuts three
slices, piles them and cuts through them. Takes the rest of the bread back.
Sets out two plates. Throws spoons next to them. Brings the pan from the
stove. Sits down. "Do you have milk in your coffee?"
"Yes."
Goes into the back room, opens the trap door in the floor, kneeling.
Reaches down, brings up a tin.
He's fumbling, cutlery sounds, in the dark corner. "There's an opener
in here somewhere." I get up, see the tray, pull it off the table.
Knives, forks, teaspoons. A spoon worn halfway through. Feels for it. "Yes."
Opens the tin.
Now he brings a cup for himself and pours coffee. "Have some sauce."
Dried apples cooked with water and brown sugar. Butter in a jar. The bread's
good.
"Do you sell any of your pictures?"
Nod.
"Get a good price for them?"
Nod.
"Keeps you going?"
Nod.
"Did you ever do any trapping?"
Shake.
"There should be some weasels up at the creek, used to get a dollar
for them, don't know what they go for now."
He reaches for the milk, knocks it over.
"Oh when a lady comes to see me I get nervous. But I'm seventy-nine
so it isn't much to worry about." Laughs.
"Did you ever do any trapping?"
Shake.
"There'll be some martin at the creek, two fifty a skin. I guess
a person could study up on ."
"Chickens, it's the oyster shells, they used to send them up from
the States, said they were oyster shells but the chickens wouldn't eat them."
"I had catarrh one time, I think it was the poisons in the grain,
you know it's real poison. I went to Edmonton to see the doctor. He told
me come back on Monday. I went back on Monday. They took a little blood
from every part of me, then they said there was nothing wrong with me. They
didn't have to tell me I wasn't sick, I knew I was sick, but they couldn't
dutect it."
"And I thought I had ulcers too, because every morning I woke up
with a raw stomach, but then somebody told me to drink four cups of hot
water when I got up, and nothing with my meal, and four cups again after
it, and that cured it. I mean I wasn't cured but I was better."
"The chickens eat their eggs and they lay without shells. The ducks
aren't like that, back there every spring eight or nine eggs, and they hatch
out every one of them."
A Depression story, he was up on the roof building the hall.
I give Ezra a bit of bread. He reaches me another slice, "Give her
some more." I give her a bit of it then offer the rest to him, sign
him to give it to her. He does. He looks at me smiling appreciatively but
he's faking it, I set him up for it.
It's getting dark. I stand up. "Have another coffee? Well old Joe'll
have one." Pours it. "But I'll show you out." Puts on his
hat, goes out ahead of me to his old tractor. Shows the jar with orange
stuff in it that he drained out of the engine. "I cranked her up for
about half a day." Goes to the cutter box, takes out an orange rag
with a stick.
He's on the way back to his house, on his narrow path between small trees.
I have to walk among them. I stop him and put out my hand. He opens into
a big smile, shakes my hand firmly and many time. "You come again if
you want to."
Ezra and I go back up the lane in the dark. The fine little bridge. The
road.
A farmyard on the corner with trucks aligned. A windbreak, nine rows
of trees, every row a different kind.
A dog comes from the house. Ezra wags.
There's a fire near the road, small wild fire moving through ditch grass.
Other side of the road, horses moving.
I hear ducks, then see them overhead. They're honking. Necks turning.
When they've passed over, the wings' sound is a squeaking. They break west,
sounding alarmed.
I like the fire. Bend over, scrape up some gravel to send the farm dog
home.
This isn't the turning yet.
A light ahead, stationary, rosy, reflected, fanning onto a surface from
a light inside a trailer.
The corner. Walk fast but now often disappear into thoughts. Come back
when a car light shows, to call Ezra off the road. A grey track Ezra vanishes
on.
What do I smell. Not much. Why not. Dead poplar leaves earlier.
Headlights again. Call Ezra off, stand still as they pass. A car stops
beyond us. The car thinks to reverse but I keep walking and it goes on.
The drill rig's light a long way off. Headlights moving east on the Wells'
drive.
A solid place in the grey, my house. Ezra has gone ahead. Here's my car.
Try to start it. It whirs out. Go in and make a fire.
6
The writing. Only a little but it might be possible.
-
We walked a mile and a half from the school bus on the highway. The bridge
over the creek was half-way home, the hyphen of the walk. This halfway spot
was where we located the fairies or gods.
On the far side of the bridge, the home side, we'd set down our lunch
pails and drop our jackets to slide under the barbed wire and follow cowpaths
into the slough.
The border of this zone was a row of black poplars - or water, or Russian,
or balsam poplars - along the fenceline, where they liked the wetness of
the ditch. At snow melt in April, when the ditches reflected sheets of sky
and we were walking home on gumbo newly dry, the poplar buds gave out a
scent that came around us smelling of snow water, intelligent and goldy-green.
At the center of the slough, touched into by paths only from the north
and west, was a small space of open water, knee deep. It was near the road
but invisible in a ring of pasture willow standing thick in wet ground with
paths deep-bitten between them and nettles in the underbrush. When I had
my first camera at fifteen what I wanted to take a picture of was my sister
wading there. The intuition was of a strong slim
goddess whose sanctuary it must have been.
On the north edge of this internal pond were spruce, the tallest
of local trees, standing with sheltered dry ground under the sloped
roofs of their branches. When we were back on the road after the summer,
putting down our lunch pails and dropping our jackets to slide under the
wire, there would be the spruce black as ever, the willows dropping yellow
new moons on the black mud of the cow paths.
In September the spruce room with its porch opening to the water would
be warmed by the lower angle of sun, ceiling lit by fiery reflections off
the water. A reading room. Gone in a book, with my back against the creaking
trunk. East o' the sun and west o' the moon.
A branch crackles. A steer with his ears up, shaking a dirty red hide,
has come for water, startled.
Inside this room, at the roots of the trees, were squirrel or mouse burrows,
elf doors where we left gifts. A mushroom in a coat of jam wax given for
a table. A bit of writing. Little stones. Small flowers, maybe one floret
of fireweed. A bit of wood with a knothole.
One winter our father had a fantasy of moving our house to a ridge on
the grain field east of the slough, and bulldozing into the water, lining
it with sand for a swimming pool. I took on this fantasy secretly and imagined
building on that spot my own house, one small wooden room.
When I was pregnant in my mid-twenties I came from another country to
show the man this place among others. We were lying in a damp minty spot
by the slough when he said he first tasted milk from my breasts.
When I was in my country again, much later, that bush by the creekside,
because it had no cattle pastured in it now, had become impenetrable with
nettle and mosquito, rank.
The year after that I wintered in a farmhouse that had a room over the
kitchen sealed off from the stairwell by a skin of brown paper. I slit the
paper and went into the room, which was empty.
When it began to be cold I brought from outside and set up in this dark
brown peak-roofed unlined room, a circle of field stones I'd earlier made
in the grass. I intended to sit in the circle but seeing the stones there
scared me so much I stayed away, and when I moved in spring I left them
where they were.
When Charlie Rheaume came back from Ponoka he lived alone in the house
where he'd earlier lived with his wife and children. He'd go out with his
shotgun and fire at the enemy airplanes that were interfering with his mind.
One evening after a rain my brother Rudy took me out to see Rheaume's
place in a part of the country I didn't know. We had to leave the motorbike
at the road and push in through to the house. Mosquitoes came up in swarms
out of the wet grass.
Windows gone, door ajar, not much to see. Two rooms sunk in grass. Soaked
magazines, cookstove rusted with the oven door ripped off. Numbers written
on the wall. In the other room an iron bed frame, cardboard boxes flattened
on the springs. Around it on the floor, field rocks in the grey light, to
be there standing around him lying in his thin long johns, there while he
slept or lay awake.
8
- She [my mom] said he's been "terribly depressed," it's rebellion
that worries him. Re-bellare to fight back, bellum war.
She said she's leaving it to the holy spirit. We ended laughing: it's
his thing, it's what he's working on at the moment, at least he has some
information now he didn't have before.
Proud. Loyal. Prow forward, valiant. Prowess.
But the fright of damnation is still there.
9
[Fly to Vancouver]
Lying aching, turning, waiting for time to pass. The cold outside. Fevered
practical thought. Will the car start. Will it be icy. Is Ezra too cold.
Air ice. It starts, loaded warming. Taking the backroad in case there's
ice. Seeing far across the country, the La Glace lights. M in the bathroom
washing her face in a housecoat.
She was thin black and white, glamorous, strange and I said "I must
say I'm very glad to be rid of you."
10
[Visited UBC anthropologist Robin Riddington to ask about his work with
the Beaver people in my country]
With Riddington. He eagerly told and gave.
danger of becoming too strong is held back by
personal taboos
'if I know something I know it helps lots to
know something but you have to watch all the time. People are scared of
you'
You don't make claims for your medicine until
you've demonstrated ability to hunt, live past middle age
a medicine fight
misfortune and fortune and their explanations
culture shock, feelings of incompetence, disorientation
and unreality
At all time the space around a person with recognized
medicine actively represents the quality of his/her knowledge.
When man and animal do meet it is a moment of
transformation like the moment of meeting in the vision quest, when the
child enters the animal's world of experience and is devoured by another
realm of consciousness.
-
- "With you sometimes, I feel like I'm right on the border between
the present and the future."
- Sits forward. "Yes."
8 December
Tarot from Esther.
-
Went to Daphne and by beginning was able to speak in long complex sentences
that gathered the fragments and so has seemed to dispose of them. Once when
she looked at me the sensation of her brightness, light, moving wide life
was so strong and so enlivening I wondered about the deadness of J's surround.
part 5
- up north volume 1: 1978-1979 june-january
- work & days: a lifetime journal project
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