Thursday 31 October 1963
Four-thirty, and nearly dark. A restless grey afternoon, a rather exciting
one. Exciting because, after dinner, I walked down to the lakeshore in the
wind. The waves were running, the gulls half-frantic. It was cold and
wet. The Lake Ontario gulls are huge things, stark white and black, with
flashing underwings and black bills. On land they are clumsy, blunt funny-looking
birds. One of them today looked like Mrs Gliege. But when they fly they
are graceful: they seem to float on the wind, going up and down very lightly
as tho on waves. Some of them did brave the water in spite of its roughness
today, and floated easily enough until the peak of a wave shaped itself
underneath them. Then they had to flap very anxiously to keep their balance
suddenly between air and water.
What was exciting was to stand on a rock very near the water - one that
was high enough to be splashed only once in a while - and wait for the waves
to come in. Terrific suspense! Sometimes a large wave would approach, only
to break early and not reach the rock at all, and sometimes a small one
would dart up unexpectedly. Very cold. Ladylike French kid gloves and a
freckle-faced ten-year-old's enjoyment - nice to be eighteen.
Then there was a strange tree on the way back to campus, a plain bare
tree except for the clusters of huge cherry-like berries hanging all over
it. I brought a branch and have it in my bookshelf.
And my Spanish guitar player is up on the wall! We aren't allowed to
pin things up on our walls at all, but there is a long strip of wallboard
just above the bed that is to be used to tack everything on.
[sketch of dorm room]
1st November, Friday evening
This morning it was raining. It was good to go out and walk in it. One
thing about rain is that it reverses people's roles: the smooth-haired sophisticated
doll-girls are all scrambling and pushing to save their dignity (thereby
leaving it in a trail behind them on the lawn!) while the easy-dressing
natural girls are walking slowly with their faces in it, enjoying the wet
and the wind, with more dignity than milady ever has even in her highest
fashion. And with her curly hair frizzed and her straight hair draggled
-
When Olivia and I discovered that the archery class was cancelled Olivia
wanted a cup of coffee, so we went to the Union for it. Who should be there
but my friends Ghazali and Norm, the first a hyperintelligent Moslem from
Trinidad and the second an ord'nary Canadian whom I know from philosophy
class. They suggested that we sit with them - we did, and had a magnificent
discussion for half an hour until I had to run away for a music class. I
like Olivia more all the time. She has all sorts of comfortable faults:
rather immature emotionally, preoccupation with her own problems too often,
tendencies to disregard other people. But she is a vital, aware person of
high intelligence and conversations with her do not sag into the limp patterns
of "What is your major? Why did you come to Queen's? How are your exams
coming?" The first night we were here she rushed into our getting-acquainted
floor meeting and was panting for half of the meeting, still gasping a bit
in her Welsh-accented way even at the end. That was typical of Olivia. She
is always a little breathless, always profoundly depressed or effervescent.
Either declaring that she "has had absolutely all she can take
from that man," and that she is "just not going to go on like
this!", or declaring that she adores him. Both declarations can take
place in the same half hour too, in either order. Perhaps it is significant
that she is the youngest girl on the floor, while most of them are nineteen,
and perhaps significant that her entire childhood has been very transitory.
But anyway, a real and unaffected person whose compliments and insults are
always valid and deserved.
The personalities of the other girls are beginning to show through more
clearly too. Janet has trouble with complaining, unthoughtfulness about
other people in study hours, ungraciousness. Sue, it turns out, is the university's
champion swimmer! Karen plays drums in the Scottish pipe band. Karen K's
feeble humour is an attempt to cover inferior feelings about her overweight.
So on.
Auntie Lucy wrote, I'll enclose that letter too - I was in rather a bad
temper because of what she said about Frank - she never did give him a chance,
grrr!
Saturday 2
[this is from the thin journal volume]
November first - 3 am of the next morning
An evening of coffee and orange juice, Vavaldi and Mozart, psychology
and Bertrand Russell's "Marriage and Morals." A small living room
with lean, bright livingroom furnature, a smoky fireplace, latticed bookcase
windows. "The Four Seasons;" "Te Deum" by Lully; "Requiem
Mass" of Mozart; Chopin "Minute Waltz" and "Etude #3";
Italian Baroque - Palestrina, motets and masses; "Moonlight Sonata."
Too much coffee to let me sleep now.
A letter from Mother, anxious about my religious state (a state of total
nebulae and intellectual but not emotional agnosticism).
"Queen's girls are independent" I said to Mr Becker when he
took me home.
Dear Frank: I want to tell you about university. Don't be afraid of it
Frank. You and I are not the type of cartilege that will shape itself into
the pattern of Arts '67. There are things to remember and be careful of.
1. Studying is important, challenging. Purpose is vital. Knowledge flows
and eddies in the campus streets. Minds are notched to interlock with minds.
2. It is not important to be someone. It is important to be at peace,
to be receptive, to be warm.
3. Aloneness is vital - separateness and loneliness add the sharp edge
that slices so keenly through experience. Expression is lost in social satiatity.
4. Sacrifice is good. Giving is good.
5. Ordnung of environment, of purpose, of living detail is necessary.
Slowly the practical philosophy evolves. Slowly the mind is shaken from
confusion into patterns similar to - but not exactly like - old patterns.
There is fluctuating desire. Frustration at times. It is important to
escape from chatter and listlessness. Rules are necessary. Love is necessary.
Independence is necessary. What then are my doctrines for the Queen's girl?
- 1. Experience widely and aesthetically.
- 2. Avoid social nicities.
- 3. Cultivate loneliness.
- 4. Reciprocate love and offer warmth.
- 5. Follow moderation.
- 6. Sacrifice for a Purpose.
- 7. Keep in mind the end of education - functioning self.
- 8. Be careful to keep joy.
- 9. Test, question.
- 10. Be careful of external self-image.
- 11. Organize.
-
[back to letters]
What a morning! Last night was the Science Formal, the Event of the Prestige
World at Queen's. This dance is planned for two months ahead, the decoration
is fantastic. Men wear tuxedos, top hats, gloves, canes. Girls wear their
floor-length formals. The freshettes, or even older girls, who are asked
to the Science Formal have socially Arrived at the top of the Queen's social
pyramid. The evening, all counted, costs a fellow about seventy-five dollars,
so mostly only the rich and graduates can manage it. A big name orchestra
- Glenn Miller this year - plays and there is lots of liquor. I think it
sounds revolting!
This might be a time to talk to you about your cryptic little "Sabbath
day" note, Mother. I really don't think you need to be worried about
these little excursions into the forbidden, because after only one month
I've discovered that:
- a. alcohol tastes dreadful, and I certainly don't need it anyway -
spirits high enough without it
- b. social dancing bores me and I'm clumsy at it
And as I'm never in the least tempted to smoke or to neck as social recreation
I'm clear of all the vices (too poor to gamble) right from the beginning
and won't have to waste any time wondering what I'm missing. I think actual
dislike is a better and surer basis for avoiding something than having been
told by someone that it was wrong, don't you?
I babysat for the Beckers last night when they went to the Formal. Kingston
people treat baby-sitters like visiting celebrities: the coffee-maker plugged
in, fresh-baked gingerbread to eat and instructions about where to find
the apples and milk, children in bed, lavish thanks for my 'trouble' (ha!),
overpay.
Thank you for the two dollars, Mother - the fund is rising very nicely:
fourteen baby-sitting dollars, your two, and an expected five this afternoon,
which leaves only eight or nine to go - and nearly two months to collect
it in. Christmas holidays this year are from December 20 to January 6, a
little over two weeks free.
It is after dinner and I can hear the band practicing somewhere down
the street. There is a huge football game between Western and Queen's. If
we win this one, we are the Ontario collegiate champions this year, having
won every game in the series. Everyone gets very excited about these things,
very drunk too usually - my spirit is evidently nil: still haven't been
to a game yet and do not intend to go.
But it is impossible to study with the bands and the loudspeakers blaring
all over campus: I'll baby-sit instead, and study psychology in the relatively
quiet quiet of a faculty house (residence on Saturday afternoons is impossible,
and so is the library).
Monday 4
Yesterday was an all-day cram for the psychology class, so no letter.
But no more cramming - from now on I'm going to stay caught up.
-
An important thing today, an Appointment with the Dean. When one wanders
into the dean's office to chat about something one combs one's hair and
is very careful about one's makeup and brushes all the lint off one's clothes.
Actually, she is not at all formidible, and people feel at ease walking
in at any time to talk about whatever is bothering them. She is honestly
interested in us as individuals, or makes us feel that way which is the
important thing, and talks to us as people rather than the jellified little
freshettes we are.
She had asked me to talk to her about Christmas, what they are going
to do with me when the residence closes. No definite conclusions yet. Even
if I do go to New York, I can't stay there the whole two weeks. I would
really like to get a job in the hospital, psychiatric ward preferably,
for the two weeks, possibly as a replacer, and stay in the hospital residence.
Mrs Bryce suggests that the Sloanes would be good people to question about
that.
But Mrs Bryce didn't begin by talking about that - one must first chat
about a few amenities, then proceed to business, then 'chat' for a while
again to leave the interview with a pleasant social finish.
[from the journal]
November 5 - morning
Who would trade serenity for passion? I am not sure that I would not.
This morning my room has been cold; I have been studying wrapped in a
blanket.
And I read Donne's
- I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I
- Did, till we lov'd? Were we not wean'd till then?
-
- If ever any beauty I did see
- Which I desir'd, and got, t'was but a dream of thee.
I feel a great impatience for passion. I have never loved anyone passionately
- pleasantly, yes, wistfully. But never with fire. Flowers only: no fire.
Am I capable of Fire? Will I someday suddenly burst into flame? Or will
I pick flowers pleasantly in a pretty meadow until the glieg lights dim;
smiling?
Perhaps I would smile; perhaps flowers are all I want.
[back to letters]
Tuesday 5
A woman who works in the Ban Righ office downstairs has semi-adopted
me - why? Because she used to live in Edmonton! She is very nice, a widow,
well read, friendly. It is such a pleasant thing to have a few friends who
are not nineteen.
The exams are all over, now it is possible to get back into some sort
of schedule.
Something peculiar about residence life that is noticeable after a while
is the passionlessness of it all - rising, feeding, studying, feeding, classes,
feeding, studying, sleeping. We wash our faces. Iron things. Brush our teeth
five times a day; really! Other things are all done for us, food gathering,
floor washing, all the grubby bits of living fade away until we may begin
to feel that living is merely a state of aquiescence. The EXAMS are telling
us differently though, and so do exciting things like trees and the lake
and art gallery and the children we babysit.
In English we are studying Donne's poetry, written about 1600. He also
wrote essays and sermons on interesting things: "Why Puritains Make
Long Sermons" (they feel that it is their duty to preach until their
listeners wake), "Why We Allow Women to Have Souls," "Virginity
is a Vertue" (spinsterhood, he says is vice), "In Defense of Inconstancy
in a Woman." ("The word inconstancy ought to be changed to variety
for the which the world is so delightful, and a Woman for that is the most
delightful thing in this world". Thank you for the good word, Mr Donne.)
One more bit of essay that Mother can read to Father is "That Women
Ought to Paint." Part of what he says is this: "What thou lovest
in her face is color, and painting gives that, but thou hatest it, not because
it is but because thou knowest it. Fool, whom ignorance makes happy, the
Stars, the Sun, the Skye whom thou admirest, alas, have no color but are
fair because they seem coloured ... Love her who shews her great love to
thee in taking this pain to seem lovely to thee."
Wednesday 6
Will Kingston never decide whether it is summer or winter? The town thought
it was July this morning.
You haven't heard yet about the polyglot attendance at my music class?
There are so many oddities: Mr Wintering, a Dutch orchestral flutist who
is working on his degree in psychology - he is a pert brown-eyed intelligent
man with two small children who speaks German to me all the time. Smokey
the Bear: a strange, rather plump, pink-faced boy with a curly red beard
and rather matted brown hair. He knows a great deal about music, thinks
Mr George doesn't, and grumbles to himself pettishly. Blondie: the very
essence of femaleness, creamy haired, blue-eyed, curvy-mouthed, slim, pink-fingernailed,
dressed in soft tweeds and undertoned colors and sleek high heels always.
Clayton: stocky, terribly energetic, depressingly cheerful always and always.
Paul: a very attractive, leggy, Jewish boy in medicine, extremely intelligent.
Daisy: a skinny effeminate boy with long curly hair, limpid gooey brown
eyes, little else in his face other than cheekbones and hollows, a passion
for philosophy, and a definite antisocial external policy. I like him. Mrs-we-hope
M: an amiable rather pretty blond girl whose baby will probably arrive before
the end of the term. She is very pleasant - and I admire her courage in
not seeming to mind that she is the only coed at Queen's in a smock. Bob:
another effeminate creature whose fingers are long, white and damp, and
whose long fingernails are always carefully groomed - I shudder every time
I look at them! He also has acne and a squeeky voice. Rather like him too.
One or two other boys, about a dozen girls. We are really STRUGGLING over
key changes and structuring of pieces. Music is the toughest course I'm
taking, isn't that odd?
Baby sitting at Sloanes, last time, I heard their record of Schumann's
Concerto in A Minor - OUR record! It felt so distinctly, unmistakably home
that I could almost see the living room and feel the strange too-many-cookies
feeling of last winter's weekend evenings.
Thursday 7
A glorious night, rain and wind, cold, exhilerating. Also exhilerating
in a very real way was the evening's session of hard work at the library.
Have I told you about the Sloane children's new club? It is the "Anti-Father
Club," directed at Dr Sloane. It involves fiery speeches, tribal cheers,
lapel buttons declaring "We hate fathers," yells of "Anti-father,
anti-father, anti-father, yay!"
Dr Sloane is sporting signs on his back too, "I Hate Children. Join
the Anti-Children League."
-
The letter was interrupted by a most interesting telephone call from
Norman of the philosophy class. We have several conversational topics 'in
the fire' and the seven minutes in philosophy class seem to resolve nothing,
so we decided to sit in the Morris Hall (men's residence) common room with
some of his long-hair records and chew these contentious conversational
bones some evening next week.
One of the things he is interested in is SIN. All raised eyebrows come
down again, please. SIN is a campus political party whose gimicky name is
an attention-getter only and whose letters stand for Society for Individual
Nonconformism. He has a keen mind and is a good conversationalist so next
Thursday night promises to be interesting.
Anyway, that is why it is now after 11 and I can't type this so must
smear it onto paper instead.
New York fund stands at $25.90.
I'm getting back exam papers with marks that are not excellent but good:
and they are encouraging because the period of studying and preparation
was so completely disorganized - no clue what to study. Perhaps with more
of a clue of how to go about all this I can get straight A's anyway. Well,
I'm determined to. And the hopeless, hopeless, French 2, a 71% It doesn't
sound very good, but for French 2 ...
But NEXT time - as you can see, the fighting spirit is back - no more
question of whether to study all-out or not.
Saturday 9, Calvin Park
Here I am in the suburbs - there are chocolate chip cookies in the oven,
a chicken in the refrigerator to be roasted with sage dressing for tomorrow,
remnants of the 'sloppy Joes' I made for dinner, plans of pizza with sausage
for tonight's supper, a dirty apron. And I slept under an electric blanket
in a brand-new house last night, with a dog and a cat and ...
Nope, I've not run away with one of my professors. I'm on a semi-working
holiday keeping house for Mrs Brown (the dean's very attractive red-headed
secretary) while she is in Montreal. She just wanted someone to look after
the house for her two children and take care of meals and things.
Tom is a dark-haired ten year old who is sometimes shy, sometimes effervescent,
interested in airplanes, intelligent, keen-humoured, eager-to-please. Bevan
is twelve, plump, good-natured, also intelligent, rather domestic, amiable.
Both kids are delightful because they are so polite and so high-spirited
at the same time. Their knowledge and interests are enormous as is their
ingenuity - no suburb boredom in these kids! Bevan's idea of a law that
should be passed is this: cars should be abolished and entirely replace
by bicycles. At twelve, an anti-automationist! And this is how she explains
the difference between boyfriends and boys who are friends: "Boyfriends
are um people you like because of something they are, you know, generous
or thoughtful or something. The other boys you like are those you like even
if they're awful."
A while ago Marg 'phoned - I would like to have had her over for dinner
tomorrow, but the taxi fare would be too much so we regretfully decided
that she couldn't. Afterwards, Tom, who had overheard, said hesitantly,
"I don't mean to intrude, but if your friend would like to come on
Sunday, I have seventy-five cents and Bevan has fifty."
Yesterday was SPLENDID. Why? Because I discovered that my psychology
mark had been an eighty, HIC in a class of about a hundred. Add to that,
a letter from you and a letter from Frank. Very short. Semi-impersonal.
Cynical.
Hallowe'en was surprisingly enough completely quiet here at Queen's -
everybody ignored it. I didn't realize until next morning that it had been
and gone.
Dr Sloane will be leaving Queen's - Yale, no less, has asked him to begin
their psychiatry program - an invitation from Yale is about as high as he
or anyone can go. The conclusion from this is that he must be a really top
man in his field. But I will be really sorry to lose that family.
[journal]
November 10 Sunday
I am thoroughly disgusted by myself.
I'm drifting: I'm acting like an animal. I feed regularly and too much.
I sleep and eat. I study too little and puddle about too much.
I spend too much time in inane conversations.
I am not what I want to be nor what I should be. I make promises to myself
- I resolve and resolve. I do not keep promises I seem to have no ability
whatever to rein in my mind or my desires. My maturity level has fallen
rather than risen here. Discipline and devotion have melted away.
What can I do? How can I prove myself strong? Where shall I find discipline,
dedication, drive? I feel that I must run away to a place alone, escape
social pettiness, feel my way back to reality.
I do not understand the cries of people here, "I am not happy!"
I am happy because I am, not because a transient circumstance gives me dependence
on happiness.
I like to fight. I like things to be sharp, difficult, and lonely. I
feel that I shall win this over myself and become the successful person
and the woman to remember.
But I am not fighting!
Am I fooling myself; and must I become the vapid, purposeless, ineffectual
being that has no honor and no validity?
I will not.
I swear, today, Sunday night of November 10 in 1963, that from this minute
I shall
- 1. work with dedication for an A grade throughout
- 2. babysit not unless I can help it - no more holidays unplanned
- 3. be only rarely social, and then meaningfully
- 4. be moderate in food, sleep, reading - lose 20 pounds slowly
Olivia and I sat talking tonight, with faces hard, voices angry, resentment
even against each other, about our deteriorating selves.
She leaned back in her chair with her legs stretched from under her brief
slip, either knitting or smoking. Face blurred and pinched. Hair nondescript.
Eyes red. Pink fingernails moving - long blue sweater, smoke rising and
fuzzing out in front of her face.
It was in the midst of angry, slow, deliberate statements from our searching
and resentment that I said "... but I do love it." She laughed.
"So do I."
[back to letters]
Sunday night 10
The weekend is over and my fund is at $38.00 for Christmas. Also I am
several pounds heavier, due to the fact that - I am a good cook, that is,
Mother, I haven't yet learned to put enough water in the carrots and they
still burn at the bottom, but at least I remember the salt now.
No, seriously, this weekend with the help of an electric stove and a
mixer, I turned out pancakes "better than Mummy's," a roast chicken
with breadcrumb-onion-sage dressing, cream puffs, cookies: a Sunday dinner
nearly worth the Sunday grace.
For supper, Marg and Olivia came over, and I played hostess. Enjoyable!
But not for too often. But all that cooking and good fun was worth eleven
dollars.
Tuesday 12
Does the week begin with Tuesday and not Monday? Not really, but yesterday
was a completely lost day because of an essay due today.
But this wasn't meant to be a dirge: it was meant to be a jubilus. Because
- my English essay got an A-. Maybe that doesn't sound very worth of jubilation,
but an essay worth more than a B+ is a phenomenon at university. And the
instructor's comment scrawled in a rushing red ink script at the bottom
was "If this is all your own work, well done! Your organization, felicity
of phrase, and insight into the play is refreshing." Yow-eeeee!
I am very, very thankful for this A- and for the A in psychology, for
my other marks were all low seventies except for an ignominious and yet
heroic 62% in music. The reason I am thankful is that I didn't really put
enough time or organized effort into any of the courses, and if I can get
near-A's even in the state of havoc that I was in, I will not be able to
be content with mediocrity for the next set of exams - that is, those two
marks have fired me to some heat of motivation again and from now on there
will be less mish-mashing about.
A funny thing - I am very happy now for whatever hard times we have had.
The girls who have always had everything they want or even that they need
just do not know how to struggle when their parental hand-outs can't do
them any good any longer. I've discovered that I like fighting for
things: and my ideas on child-raising are becoming more and more slanted
to the idea of material deprivation - my "Poverty Theory." And
I'm pleased to be able to put myself through university.
Wednesday 13
Two birthdays today, Marg Allan and Marg Spurgeon are both newly nineteen.
We celebrate all birthdays with cakes, two this time, chocolate and white
with yellow candles. Now the girls are sitting about the telephone. Olivia
is knitting in a fury of apprehension because she is expecting a call from
her Andy. Everybody knits! The big rage is Queen's scarves: long bulky 'blankets'
in broad alternating strips of red, gold and blue with tassels and initials
in the same colors. Some are yards long and have to be wrapped twice around
to keep them from dragging on the ground. Their main use is to wear them
as status symbols to football games: some wear them on cold mornings too.
I can hear the banjo from down the hall: the Ban Righ Three girls are
inventing songs. A few minutes ago it was "Michael" done heart-rendingly
and "Froggy Went A'Courting."
Olivia was just in: it is eleven o'clock and no phone calls pass the
switchboard after eleven. "He always phones on Wednesday night if he
intends to take me out on the weekend. It is eleven. What does it mean?
What does it mean?" This Andrew bit is very serious to her,
strangely, because she says it never was before she came to university.
He is feeling a little trapped: and he wants to play the field. Very hard
on Olivia, who is having so much trouble adjusting in the first place. The
whole floor worries about our 'baby'.
Exciting tonight was a textural pattern of light and shadow formed by
tiny reflecting rain puddles in the worn rock of the Ban Righ front steps.
I went out with my camera in the dark to try a long exposure shot, but it
is not likely to turn out. It is things like that that make me ache for
proper equipment - tripods, sensitive film, light meter, photofloods, dark
room apparatus. Someday I would like to become a good photographer.
What is this passion for recording things?
Thursday 14
Today was a half-holiday as all my Thursdays are, but is more holiday
than usual because:
- I. letter this morning
- II. all afternoon downtown shopping
- III. the gabbing date with Norman tonight
You must hear about this afternoon! The afternoon off wasn't a luxury,
but a necessity because it is becoming colder and I desperately needed a
winter coat. I found one - very nice, $60. Money - but the cheap ones all
look it, and thanks to YOU Judy for buying my green one so I could manage
this one. Drawing in the margin. It is a smart-looking soft wool and mohair
in a warm bear-fur brown with brown satin lining. To wear with it, a pair
of long brown gloves. Need a hat, tho.
But the shopping was incidental. Eventures? Of course. Lunch in a delicatessen.
Isn't 'delicatessen' a magical word? It brings up pictures of shabby little
streets and a ricketty small shop with strings of sausages in the window.
This one wasn't ricketty, but it had sausages and rows of red and green
jars of pickles too. There were two rows of very cramped tables, dim lights,
counters full of oozing olives and slabs of cheese, sauerkraut and mysterious
bottles. The chairs were all tangled in the legs of the tables so that you
couldn't sit in them properly at all. I sat sideways. It felt like home!
The other tables were occupied mostly by the city counterpart of Auction
Mart farmers. Behind the counter was a European-seeming man, handsome, with
a flattering side-glance and a little moustache. Someone called him Nick.
"Hey, Nick, would you make me a salami on rye?" Well, Nick, I
would like to probe you for an interesting life story: I'm sure you have
one. I had frankfurters, good fat ones with mustard, and relish and a thick,
hot bun. Had two of them. Couldn't help myself. Nick gave me a Coke in a
tall glass too: the men had to slosh theirs down from the bottle.
We university students are the Kingston pets. We should be: we and the
military school and the penitentiary drag in more money than the whole town
makes. But when you give "Ban Righ Hall" as an address, the salesmen
smile. "You're a Queen's girl, eh?" And all checks are cashed
without identification.
I did some Christmas shopping too ... the series of periods are to stir
up your curiosity.
Friday 15
An A- in my psychology essay! However, there was one A in the class and
it won't do not to be the person who gets it. Forward!
The temperature today is about thirty-two degrees: everybody thinks it
is cold. It is not.
To tell you about the date last night: Norm had a surprise for me when
he came last night: we were going to a political meeting, he said. It was
to be a debate among the parties represented on campus: PC, NDP, Liberal
and SIN. The speaker for SIN had had some mishap so Norm had been called
up to take his place, sans preparation. Wonderful, an eventure. But it turned
out that not enough listeners appeared to hold it, so we went over to Morris
Hall as planned. The common rooms where they can entertain females are much
'nicer' than ours (ours have ATMOSPHERE) and very comfortable. One thing
both Norm and I found hilarious was a picture displayed prominently on one
wall - a large pink-toned Madonna and child, obviously a much better fit
for the girls' residences. It took us a while to catch on.
So we listened to Vavaldi's "The Seasons" and Chopin's nocturnes,
lots of other things. And talked until 11:45. Then walked home in the cold
reciting some strange but exciting poetry. (Hopkins.) Altogether a most
satisfactory date.
What is Norm like? Appearance: fairly short but not exceptionally, curly
haired, and (this is a difficult characteristic to catch in words) somehow
middle-aged looking. Not handsome by any means. Rather like Uncle Harvey.
He was wearing a plaid vest - the McLeod tartan because he is a McLeod,
a Saskatchewan high school teacher for a [grand]father and a Philadelphia
Presbyterian minister's daughter for a mother. Three siblings. Papa is some
head of the Bank of Something in Toronto. The family spent two years in
the Middle East when Papa worked there.
Personality - what I particularly like about him is his keen sense of
challenge. He is aiming for politics, through law, the really Big Stuff.
Because of his dual American-Canadian citizenship the sky really is his
limit in North America at any rate. He is highly intelligent, a little on
the pompous side but fairly receptive and easy to like. He likes to talk
about himself, his theories, his plans, but this is forgiveable in a man
who has theories and plans. His are actually very good. He is widely read,
widely interested, alert. So on. A good sort of friend to have, the most
agreeable boy I've met here, tho by no means The Man.
He envies me, by the way, because I'm putting my own self (what an absolutely
imbecilic phrase!) through school. He is going to support himself through
graduate school however. Harvard.
Saturday evening, 16
The football game being listened to even in the dining room and all down
the halls is the game between our Gaels and the U of A Golden Bears. Queen's
having won the eastern college trophy and U of A the western, the two teams
are having an exhibition match. Alberta is ahead. This complicates matters,
because if we were winning I could follow my bent and cheer for Alberta.
But now I have to make a choice, and if it is Alberta, will I be in the
Ban Righ doghouse!
Do you have snow? Kingston still isn't really cold: I ran around all
day in just a sweater. But there was a firm off-lake wind that piled up
waves and sent them booming onto the pebble-beach. I had a great day, up
early and out in the deserted Saturday morning campus with just the squirrels.
And a just-me picnic on the beach while wave watching. Some satisfactory
studying.
Even the pancake tree has lost its leaves now. It is a single middle-sized
tree standing in one of the islets of University Avenue, whose leaves are
very large, round, and yellow-coloured. They do look like pancakes. And
the leaves have refused to fall until now.
Have I told you about the Beetle Girl? She is a very odd looking creature
with a perpetually absent look about her, a triangular-shaped head with
straight short hair cut like a little Russian boy's, a stuck-forward neck,
and a gingerbread man body. She seldom speaks to anyone, seems contented
enough, often doesn't answer when spoken to.
Last night Olivia didn't have a date, so after Bonnie and I returned
from studying at the library she brought in her fags and we stood at the
window until two ayem watching the dark quiet park and the soused engineering
undergrads. Sometime between one and two in the morning a sevensome of boys
including Sue Cheshire's boyfriend tumbled out of the shadows in the park,
and to embarrass the boyfriend began to call up at the Ban Righ windows,
"Sue, Susan, Sue, I love you, Susy!" Under the bawling of the
other six we could hear Ed's plaintive voice, "Aw, fellows, shut up,
or she'll never see me again."
Engineers have to work very hard during the week as they have a Herculean
load of classes, and besides that they don't get the best of dates because
their reputation is so dreadful; so they go to a pub on Friday night, then
sleep all Saturday and Sunday.
Game over: 25-9 for Alberta. Why am I pleased?
[journal]
November 17 Sunday
What are you Ellie?
This is the time for thinking and becoming and exerting yourself. I am
a university student - I was going to say a 'co-ed', but no. A co-ed is
a female at university among men. I am a person at university among
persons.
Stillness, solitude - where? Pure dedication, limestone purpose unaware
of fluttering petty ivy - where?
In a day, what is there? Going downstairs for breakfast sometimes with
others and in a pre-breakfast haze of chattering irrelevances. Fluctuating
self-disgust with thought of the weeks of work undone and undoing. Tooth-brushing.
Food.
Solitude, strong spirit - where?
But in the chattering irrelevancies there is sometimes a cool, still,
gong-sound of human communication. Wesley's eyes clear and earnest as he
says "I like to show people that I love them. And I think sex will
be a wonderful experience because it will be my best way of showing my love."
Norman with his young middle-aged face reciting Hopkins in the cold dark
with his breath diagraming in the air the vitality of words.
My picnic alone on the pebbles of the beach yesterday as I huddled along
the lake-walk and the waves smashed into froth on the rocks.
When shall I recognize my pure self so that I will stop doing things
I do not really want to do? When shall I recognize the solitude of myself
and leave the petty socializing that I hate? How shall I find communication
if I withdraw?
What am I finding about myself? More than ever, that I must be self-sufficient
to survive. That my own integrity is indespensible to me, in order that
I may have something on which to rely. That my inviolate and separate self
is what must be most carefully guarded; it is my home, and only from it
can I venture surely into warmth of external relationships.
That I have a capacity for, and an intense desire for, purpose. That
without working for a difficult and important goal, I am dissatisfied.
That my capacity for joy is activated by things I can do by myself: listen
to Bach, sit at the lakeside, walk corridors in the park, read poetry. But
that communication is yet a passion to me: that I look for it in these things
I do alone: in Bach, in Elinor Wylie, in my own intense self-awareness.
That in milling with the 'steaming herd' I lose my love of people, my
love at all, and my awareness. That my reaction is mechanical. Where is
my love? Who do I love here? Is there anyone? No. And I grieve that I do
not love.
But I do not know many things. Is loneliness larger than solitude? Will
my pettynesses corrupt entirely my capacity for purpose? Shall I ever be
able to become the mature person and woman I so badly want to become?
[back to letters]
Sunday 17 November
Mr Crandall for whom I babysat last night had just returned from Edmonton.
He says the lakes are frozen over and that there is snow, and that the temperature
is low-twentyish. Really? How is the house? Have you set up the furnace
downstairs? Kingston has been a rather pretty monochromatic grey, trees,
lake, buildings, sky.
At about ten thirty this morning there was a big battle behind the door
of Ban Righ 49. To struggle out of bed and go to church? Or to succumb and
sleep a little longer. Church won: the chapel service in Grant Hall with
a sermon called "Telling Right from Wrong" by the chaplain. The
'padre' as he is called, is a dignified silver-haired man with Mr Block's
caring handshake and a warm deep voice.
It is rather hysterical, the boy-chaos on this floor I mean. These poor
girls so constantly in agony about some green-eared beardling in tennis
shoes. The crying and hoping and telephone-haunting and rhapsodizing and
supersonic sighing - I feel rather left out because I haven't been able
to work up any such lather. Is something wrong with my glands? Seriously,
it is pleasant to be independent of the lathering. The principle of getting
along in university - and anywhere - seems to be self-reliance.
Kingston downtown stores are decorated for Christmas already. It's a
cheat.
The fireplace in the large common room downstairs was crackling this
afternoon: the entire room looks much as it must have about a hundred years
ago. There are large wooden beams across the ceiling, long velvet curtains
in rust and cream, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves behind glass doors, shining
wooden floors, a huge grand piano, a phonograph ages-old.
November 18, Monday
There is a wonderfully heavy spring-like rain this morning and I've been
mooning out the window letting it drip on my hands with all the enjoyment
of someone who had just discovered rain. Very early this morning we had
our first really violent storm with splashes of lightning and bellows of
thunder and an inevitable high excitement.
Margaret Spurgeon and Karen K returned from a high weekend on the three
ayem train. They posted a sign on the door: "For goodness sake will
somebody please get us up at eight - we are dead but it was great."
Result? You can guess. After the cleaning lady, anyone else up before eight,
and I had banged on their door for a while, they demanded that someone "take
that bloody wake-up sign down" and are still deep under their covers.
Will be until about three this afternoon, if I'm not underestimating.
Ah, dinner.
Wednesday 20
Your letter time yesterday (and a little more, I confess) was usurped
by the composition of a diatribe to PAD [Peter Dyck], who is a newly-fledged
B.Ed.
Your letter on a Wednesday WAS a pleasant surprise. It is nearly impossible
to believe that you are snowed under; it is still warm enough here to go
to classes without a coat. Snow sometimes doesn't come until Christmas,
sometimes not then.
Yesterday was an exceptionally good day because
- i. it was Tuesday (isn't that a good enough reason?)
- ii. I was reading an exceptionally stimulating book called Atlas
Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- iii. I ran around the block in the dark alone
These three things containing a high percentage of [metaphoric] alcohol,
mild intoxication was the result. But no hangovers other than a small sleepiness
due to a.m. reading.
There is a sharp, clear afternoon outside the window, a very orderly
cloudless sky with only bare etchings of unleafed branches and a chalk-swipe
of jet vapour-trail. A walk uptown to get shoes from the shoemaker's will
be adventurous.
You are right about classmates: there are enough so that the insignificant
ones can be ignored. BUT I am becoming very irritated with Janet Mikitko,
because she has a perpetually squeaky semi-hysterical tone in her voice
which only becomes worse and louder in study periods, and because she seems
totally inconsiderate. Now you can't say that I never criticize!
Today was election day, with the four campus parties contesting leadership
of the mock parliament to be held sometime soon. I voted Liberal, mainly
because of the obnoxious elements in the platforms of the other parties.
Them's my leanings anyway, however. Thomas Hathaway remarked derisively
that the whole lot disgusted him and he wasn't going to vote at all.
Thursday 21
It does look as though December holidays will be spelled New York. There
does not seem to be much possibility of finding a holiday job, and it is
difficult to find a place to stay. Now to write Auntie Anne and see if I
am invited or not. A friend of mine is from New York (her mother is with
Colombia too) and perhaps we can arrange to go together.
You must hear about this Marion from New York. She is Dutch-American,
going to Queen's because her father is with the UN and she gets some sort
of financial assistance if she goes to a foreign university. Her mother
is a social worker. She herself is an eye-catcher. She has a beaming very
Dutch face, a broom of strawy blond hair pushed up into an unkempt upsweep,
brown skin, a bumptious self-assertive personality that combines intellectuality
with naivety in the same pleasantly rat's-nest way that she puts up her
hair. I thoroughly like her, and she has invited me to visit her in NY.
Doesn't the very idea of New York City for Christmas send zigzags up your
vertebrae?
Warm rain today. The thought that you have snow, real winter, is incredible.
Has the cattle situation ameliorated itself yet? Barns ready, with electricity?
How is your calf, Paul?
Incredibly many people grumble about this rain. They don't realize what
sort of winter you have to wade through.
And speaking of rain, do you know what one of the most wonderful things
about residence is? You can probably guess - showers. So endlessly much
water. (And no piling wood into a round little stove, Judy, although that
was rather fun - are you looking forward already to next summer in the valley?
Whenever I browse through that shredding poetry book - lines like "I
do not approve, and I am not resigned" and "But none has merited
my fear / and none has quite escaped my smile" - I am reminded of the
summer. It was really very good.)
Had a 90 on my last philosophy quiz - to balance the 60 at the year's
beginning. I am seriously considering shifting one of my minors from French
to philosophy, although everything is so appealing. Three more lives to
simultaneously live, all of them going to university -
Saturday 23
Propped up on the typewriter is a large cardboard sign giving the dates
of all my Christmas examinations. It is supposed to be a reminder to study
before they arrive beginning December 14 and lasting until December
19.
The whole past week is what's called Susie-Q Week where dating and social
patterns are reversed and the girls make and finance dates, open doors,
take all initiative. This is supposed to be an opportunity to express latent
female aggressiveness or something, but the men complain mostly that les
girls aren't aggressive enough. Most are embarrassed. I didn't bother -
neither the courage, interest, or money. And Thomas Hathaway would be death-frightened
by any advances anyway.
The largest event of the week was the "Ties and Taffeta" ball
last night, girls escorting boys. Each girl was to make a large and ridiculous
tie for her date, with a prize going for the best. Most girl-invited dates,
though, have been modest invitations to coffee. Everybody seems to be at
the bottom of her allowance.
Yesterday's shocking news about the assassination of the president had
surprising repercussions all over campus. The first to be noticed was a
clumping effect. Little groups of people left their radios to go to classes
just after the news came, and on all the street corners they met others
- "Have you heard?" "I don't believe it." The reaction
immediately following disbelief was one of fright. Kennedy was a figurehead
and a hero: heroes aren't supposed to be vulnerable. And "Why, why?"
"How? It can't happen to someone like him."
My friend Marion from New York was particularly hard-hit. "The United
States never meant anything to me before he was president, but he was a
real man, and he personified the country to me," she said. I think
this is the root-reason for the daze that it put everyone here into.
And when I went downtown later in the evening, everyone was talking about
it. "A terrible thing" said the bus driver. "I think this
will touch off a lot more assassinations," said the grocer. A woman
in the store was crying. A bland sheep-like face on the television set mumbled
clichés, comments from the local ministers of all faiths. And the
papers today are lurid with such headlines as "Mrs Kennedy places a
last kiss on the lips of her dead husband."
On the television set earlier in the afternoon, just after Kennedy's
death had been confirmed, the commentator had merely stood and said "The
president is dead. The president is dead," with tears running down
his face.
I've never told you, I don't think, about our Little Ladies. They are
the desk-sitters at the residence doors who watch all comings and goings
away, make sure everybody signs out in the late leave book, and read romantic
novels with their feet in prim black shoes up on small green hassocks in
between. As soon as dusk falls they wander about shutting curtains and turning
on lamps. They all look remarkably alike, tiny, whitehaired, fragile, completely
uninvolved in the boisterous life bounding past their desks in shapely co-ed
bodies all day long. Uninvolved is exactly the right word, for they seem
to smile a very slightly benevolent smile that is completely without focus
or feeling. Their conversation is dusty, without spark or shinyness or real
warmth, just a kind of fuzz. These Lavendar Ladies (they look as though
any other scent on them would be ridiculous and vulgar) are almost an institution.
Nobody sees them when passing those tidy desks. Those who say hello say
it as to a fixture. What are the Ladies, why are they working here, what
do they think in their wise old minds when they see us rushing toward classes
- toward life - with such impetuosity? What do they know that we don't?
I woke this morning to a great windsound - we had a glorious wind storm.
I had a rendezvous with the lake of course, and broke a date with the books
to keep it. The waves were larger than I've ever seen them, breaking up
into foam even before reaching shore. There was no one else near it, but
later a boy carrying a big alpenstock strode by with his hair blowing. He
had an adventure-sharing smile.
A thrill today was picking up the French-Canadian issue of Chatelaine
Magazine and reading it through from cover to cover with no difficulty.
This half-term of French has taught me more than the whole other three years.
And it is exciting to know that one is making progress. The learning-excitement
of being here, the scattered awarenesses of knowing so much more about a
field in which one had known virtually nothing, is particularly keen in
philosophy and psychology and music. The people here for reasons other than
learning may be having a good time, but I think they are missing the main
thrill. She said smugly!
The Liberal Party won the last week's elections, with PCs next, then
SIN and NDP last.
Sunday 24
The lake becomes more and more a haven from frustration and ennui; a
walk to the end of University Avenue, a run across the chem. building's
lawn and down half a sloping street edged by decrepit old houses and a country-like
grocery store, and across another street, voilà. An expanse of water
to the horizon with a line of trees emerging just at the world's end. The
trees are growing on the beanpole twelve-mile-long Wolfe Island. Each wave
appears from nowhere just before striking shore, curving up and magnifying
the lake bottom for just one mysterious moment before tipping over and crumbling.
I'm continually amazed that there are not more people walking along it,
for usually I am there alone.
Thank you for lending the clipping (herewith returned) - the last sentence
("She can open any door she wishes from here on") is a rather
moving one: it makes me feel desperately responsible to these people who
seem to believe in me. I mustn't do anything or let anything happen to stop
doors from opening, especially not to betray that kind of faith in youth.
But it is a rather heavy responsibility, depressing and elating at the same
time. And it is also frightening to know that one is in the most acutely
formative years (although any age is a formative age, in many ways) and
that every character slip and every bit of laziness is carving unpretty
notches in the adult-to-be. But how to find the sort of determination and
resiliency to prevent those notches? How to root out wishywashyness?
On this is very depressing (but not by any means depressed!) note, au
revoir. Oh, incidentally, whenever Karen K goes anywhere her standard goodbye
is a hideous corruption of the French - "au reservoir"! The first
time is funny - subsequent times make one bar one's teeth.
Monday 25
The television room today was full of girls, with delivery men stopping
by occasionally. Everyone was watching President Kennedy's funeral, and
very impressive it was. The long procession of marching men, horses, and
black limosines moving very slowly through the Washington streets toward
the cathedral; the chason or horse-drawn 'buggy' in jet black, drawn
by seven white horses and carrying the flag-draped coffin; the spirited
black riderless horse straining at its lead behind the president's flag,
symbolizing the unspent energy that America has lost with Kennedy - a magnificent
horse; Mrs Kennedy with a black veil around her face and a child on each
hand, stumbling up the steps to the cathedral; the visiting dignitaries
marching behind her in no particular file, anonymous in effect. It was valuable
to be able to look up from the television screen and see all the intent,
much alive faces of the girls all around.
Thump, thump, Sue is at it around the phone corner, for it was Barb's
birthday - she is twenty, the first of us to defect from teenage! - and
the crumbs of two cakes are being ground into the carpet.
We have a peach of a cleaning lady (this subject does follow rather naturally
from crumbs) whose name is Mrs Cox. She's a big, meaty Irishwoman, but mighty
sweet. Comes puffing up the stairs, "Good mornin', and it is a lovely
mornin' isn't it." Once she brought a huge box of fudge, set it up
on the hall table with a sign saying "Help yourself," and needless
to say basked in popularity. While we are down at breakfast, wastepaper
cans are emptied, everything dusted off, the rug straightened, and the floor
whisked clean. On Wednesday mornings she sneaks a clean sheet and pillow
case under our pillows. This is done with a conspiratorial glance up and
down the hall: it is illegal, because we are not to get them before Thursday,
but if she gives them to us early we don't need to wait for her before making
our beds next morning, and this is very convenient.
part 4
- raw forming volume 1: september 1963 - april 1964
- work & days: a lifetime journal project
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