27 July 1964 Thursday
You still haven't heard about the exciting things of the week before
Montreal. Or did I tell you about canoeing with Mike. He asked me to go
sailing, but when he arrived in his rickety-tickety company van, the canoe
was on top. We go out quite often in the van because his car always has
some boating equipment either on or in it! And usually the van is missing
both its back seat and the front passenger seat (to make room for canoes)
so that I sit crosslegged on a sheet of plywood on the floor! And this evening
he said "How would you like to go canoeing?" So we scrambled down
a bank with the canoe, paddles, and a mysterious package. It is very difficult
not to fall over into the water when you are balancing a canoe on your head
while crawling down a seventy degree slope.
We paddled across a bay to Cedar Island, which is a small limestone island
covered with small bushes and large trees, and which is a bit magical-looking
from across the water and actually even more magical-looking when you are
there. Canoeing, especially when there is a small swell that you have to
traverse crosswise, gives you a feeling of actually riding the water, much
more than a flatbottomed float or a motor boat that struggles against the
water rather than riding it, and even more than a sailboat, which is half
an air-craft. A canoe feels every movement of the water and responds to
it.
When we got to the island there was exploring of course. We settled on
a spot eventually that was on the opposite side of the island, looking across
the mouth of the Saint Lawrence through a few of the thousand islands. We
built a fire beside a wall of rock that was covered by minute bits of moss
that traced caveman-drawing patterns on it and felt very sheltered and primitive
(don't worry Mother, not completely primitive). And when the fire had burned
down to coals, Mike got out his knife and cut two green sticks, sharpened
at one end. Then he opened his mysterious package - steak, tomatoes, bacon,
milk. "Cut the steak into chunks" he ordered, so I did. "What
for?" "Have you ever had shish-kebob?" It is a woodsman's
adaptation of an Arabian favorite, I think - the green stick is a spit for
alternating chunks of steak, bits of bacon, and tomato slices. When it is
roasted over the fire and turned slowly, the flavours of the different things
melt together and when it is eaten from the stick or pulled off and eaten
with the fingers, it is juicy and delicious.
Sat around and talked while the fire burned down, for a long time. Then
put the fire out, and raced over the hill to the other side of the island
at about midnight, whistling loudly, different tunes of course. As we were
launching the canoe with many quips and retorts, a voice from a motor launch
docked nearby made some dreadfully disgusted remark, but we shouted a gleeful
"Goodnight, sir" to him and pushed off across the bay again, this
time with moonlight.
28 Friday
Peter is in the sitting room now, watching the moon-shot coverage on
television. A press conference is being shown now, and it appeals to me
for the many faces listening so intently and everyone leaning forward in
their chairs, firing questions into microphones. Moon flights are suddenly
less chimerical, and we can begin to feel the slow apprehension of Change.
But I'll always remember Mrs Kinderwater when I hear of moonshots and new
exploration. Do you remember the afternoon when we were having tea with
her and she said, "I wish I were growing up in this age. It is a wonderful
time, so much happening, so much changing." I hope to feel the same
way when I am an old woman, and I think I will. I think you will too, as
long as the outward looking windows stay open.
I have been sitting and talking to Betsy tonight - I'm becoming very
fond of her because she has an enthusiasm, warmth, humour, joyfulness, that
is rare and valuable. I'm just beginning to realize how important a capacity
for joy is in the people I love. (And I'm sorry that Betsy will be here
for only a month more before she goes back to college in New York.) I think
of Dennis Maxwell, the Windrims, Olivia, Janeen once upon a time, many of
the Stratford kids, Auntie Anne. My best friends are the people to whom
I confide - sometimes my troubles but not necessarily - my joy. It is irritating
to go out with so many perfectly nice boys because they are so flat-toned.
Betsy's mother was a Jew, she told me tonight, and I realized with a
start that she does look a little Jewish - dark skin and dark curly hair
with her black eyes. Perhaps that was why I liked her so much all along.
Her mother died about three years ago and her father remarried, a very pretty
young widow with three children. Betsy herself is not at all religious,
and neither is her father - who writes her long affectionate letters nearly
every day. It seems nice. Betsy spent three years with her family in Paris
in her early teens, and most of her high school years in Washington DC.
A characteristic of Betsy that is rather endearing is her inarticulateness.
She thinks well, but has a great deal of difficulty phrasing her thoughts
consecutively, so that often you have to wait a long time for her to feel
her way through a sentence. There seems something very good about her that
attracts me, but that I don't understand yet. Perhaps her joyousness, perhaps
her freshness and spontaneity, perhaps her involvements. I don't feel any
particular attraction for Vicky for although she is lovely and intelligent,
I can't feel any reality - ie joy, I suppose - in her. Strange.
Judy has not written me again so you will have to send on the one that
you got. I remember how letter-writing lazy berry picking makes you. Summertime
seems bad too, because I've been writing much more erratically. I think
it is the lack of discipline generally; I'm looking forward to academic
discipline again too. The scholarship vouchers have been sent off - $554.00
in fees! $275 to pay back last year's loan. I'll need more money, perhaps
a grant. And I'll be working 72 hours a month next year, at I hope a dollar
an hour - it will be hecticly busy. Fulltime work is 160 hours a month,
so I'll be doing almost half-time. Plus two executive offices. Plus a page
of letter per day. No time for friends? Olivia will be disgruntled and complain
loudly that I'm like a straying husband who is never home. We still don't
have an apartment. We are looking for an unfurnished because Mrs Howell
is thrilled at the thought of helping us furnish.
Congradulations, Judy, your marks are as boring as ever. [ie all H's]
Have you heard anything about Janeen? Peter says he heard rumours that
she was studying French, summer school, somewhere in eastern Canada.
August 2, Sunday morning
A muggy Sunday morning with church bells.
Did I tell you about my little rock? Tony gave it to me - it is crusted
with some sort of sandy, lava-like material, but someone broke a piece out
of it and inside are white crystals of quartz. It is quite wonderful. I
have it on my desk.
Have you heard of a book called The prophet by Kahlil Gibran?
It is a very gentle book, philosophy I suppose, with the short talks given
by a departing prophet to the people he is leaving, about twenty six chapters
on things from love to houses to friendship, to talking, time, religion,
death. The prophet seems to say many of the things I'd already half-decided
for myself, and he says them very clearly and almost biblical-ly without
the confusing allegoires.
Norm came for the weekend yesterday - Ottawa is only an hour and a half
away - and we went to a movie, then sat in the sitting room French doors
reading The prophet. Of course Brian had to stumble in on this because
he is always teasing me about reading poetry with boyfriends.
We are going on a picnic today, after my stint at CFRC this afternoon.
And then - you will be envious - we are going to hear the National Youth
Orchestra in Grant Hall!
It is August. What does Judy plan for after the raspberries - beans or
cannery?
I went bowling with Tony yesterday afternoon - he beat me scandalously,
then raced me home on the bikes and was soon half a block ahead of me, then
bragged about both triumphs as only insecure twelve year olds can. Do you
know about Tony? He is a very handsome boy - twinkling blue eyes, tan, a
very boy body. And he has the highest IQ in Sunnyside as well. Bright personality.
And a delinquent bent - he hasn't stopped running away, stealing, lying,
or bullying since he came about three years ago. He has parents now: Tom
and Pat are university students. Pat is very young and very shy, but Tom
is older, confident, and verry, verrrry, big. I think I've told you about
them. They are willing to tackle Tony. There are good chances that he will
give them a great deal of trouble - taking him is a risk, but if it turns
out well he will turn out very well.
I must go to the radio station now, see youse later.
3 August Monday
The picnic was at a place in someone's pasture that we found weeks ago
on our drive through the thunderstorm. It is a very large outcropping of
pink rock, worn into smooth curves, that just appears out of the ground.
We found firewood from somewhere and built a fire in a hollow on top of
the rock, then had shish-kebob (very black and rare in the middle). Then
lazed. And we inevitably read Hopkins - Norm's favorite poet and one of
mine - he is difficult to read aloud but Norm is good at it.
Then we packed up and went to the concert. Our seats were in row A, the
front row, right under the feet of the orchestra. And beside the cello section!
They spent a great deal of time sawing and tuning up. Then a curly haired
artistic looking young man walked in - everyone else applauded so I did
too. The concert master, he turned out to be - the first violinist (called
the 'principal violinist' I think) or the orchestra leader next to the conductor.
In Europe a long time ago, the first violinist led the orchestra and there
was no conductor.
Then the conductor. More applause. A large man in a white jacket, a very
homely face. Then, the overture to the Marriage of Figaro. Mozart. Boys
in dark suits, girls in white blouses and dark skirts. We were so close
that we could see a few performers well and the rest not at all - I thought
it was a wonderful seat, because, even with choirs, don't you find yourself
having to watch a few of the many faces?
The faces that now ARE the Youth Orchestra to me were: Angel -
a young blond girl, about fifteen, with very smooth blond hair caught back
in some very old-new fashioned style around her dreaming and completely
expressionless face: she was wearing a plain and soft white blouse with
long sleeves that just showed her slim fingers on the cello strings - she
was so pale-gold in both coloring and expression that she seemed very much
an angel. Mark - thin young boy of about fourteen, with very large
ears, long dark hair, dark intent face that reminds me of Paul's a little,
rapt posture, balanced on the edge of his chair with his spine very straight,
complete involvement in his music. Pigtail - a rather plump and very
European-looking girl, very young, very pink-faced with one long braid down
her back, flat black shoes, completely unselfconscious clothes, fat little
hands that slid up and down the strings amazingly and almost desperately.
Susan Mustard - a thin jerky girl with unruly grey-brown hair, a
shiny red nose, a long agonized face, old-fashioned white high heeled shoes,
old black satin skirt and a low necked white cotton blouse that exposed
nothing but taut muscles and skimpy bones, really beautiful arms moving
almost passionately with her music and the leaping expressions on her face.
Laverne - an older girl of perhaps twenty two, wearing sophisticated
Montreal clothes, a ruffled Paris blouse and an A-skirt, carefully arranged
hair and precise makeup, an air of abstraction even before she began to
play - once, between selections, I saw Pigtail turn around to look at her,
and she smiled reassuringly at her, so that I think Laverne is probably
a good person.
The names I've given these people are either those invented by Norm and
me during the programme or those we decided belonged to them after studying
the list of cello players. Norm is really a very good person to go to concerts
with because we always especially like the same passages in the music and
the same people in the orchestra or audience. And we seem to think the same
things at the same time. Some people are those you attend a concert
with, and some are those you experience a concert with. As for the
attendees you might just as well have gone by yourself, except that then
you would have to buy your own ticket - she said callously.
First, the overture, which was I suppose good but I thought it was quite
unextraordinary. Then something contemporary called Le Rite du Soleil
Noir - the rite of the black sun. It was very smashing and eerie, and
it seemed incongruous to see such very young faces crashing through so much
dark, old, passion. What do they understand of it and what do they learn
from it? I'm sure that they can't play it untouched. Then the Mendelssohn
Symphony that seemed much more suitable to them but which they played with
much less energy or participation. My favorite of the concert was next:
Night on a Bare Mountain, by Moussorgsky, who is quite recent and
very exciting. The music was partly pictorial, showing a dark night with
fear, enchantment, storm, isolation and a kind of frightened joy fluctuating
through it, always over a throbbing cello darkness. Then a lightness - dawn,
violin, a wind. Last, something called The Young Person's Guide to the
Orchestra, by Benjamin Britten, who is so contemporary that (I think)
Dr George met him. It is particularly good for this orchestra because it
showed off about thirteen kinds of percussion and every other instrument
brilliantly in solo parts, and because it was bursting with what one of
the radio operator calls 'potboiler' fireworks.
At the end of the concert, the usually slow and dubious Kingston audience
was on its feet in a standing ovation that went on and on until I was sure
I could not clap any longer (but could), with some man in a white dinner
jacket shouting "More! More!" The conductor, whose face had led
the orchestra through peace to war and back to peace through anger, laughter,
ridiculousness (Norm said, "It is wonderful and grotesque to see so
much in such a common face"), shook hands with the concert master three
times, and shook BOTH his hands, then hugged him. The concert master kept
bowing and bowing. And Angel looked at Susan Mustard and smiled a hugely
delighted smile.
5 Wednesday
I'm enclosing Dr George's review of the concert - it is a good review
and even seems to agree with mine in spots! His personality comes through
- intelligent, enthusiastic, articulate, humourous, disrespectful.
Summer seems to have come to a standstill: the flowers have stopped blooming,
cold days alternate with hot ones, the leaves aren't yellow exactly, but
seem to be less green. Incidentally, do you still have leaves or did the
caterpillars get them? I find that I am excited about visiting you. If I
leave on Sept 1, that will be arriving Sept 3 or 4? And I have to be back
at work for the 14th, 15th, and 16th when school starts. We are still apartment
hunting.
I told you about my cut-off bluejeans didn't I? They come to about three
inches above my knees so they are bona fide shorts. They are so comfortable
that I only change out of them to go out - they even go shopping downtown.
The reason that I'm relating this mundane detail is that it is not really
mundane at all; it is quite a victory. Mother will probably have grasped
that already - remember the girl who used to refuse to get the mail from
La Glace without socks on? I think I'm all through wincing; and it is good.
August 6, Hiroshima Day
A new staff worker here is Bill Carlett: just recently graduated with
his B.Sw. from McGills, twenty nine, short and balding, fat, quiet. He has
lived alone with his parents until now, and the racket at Sunnyside is nearly
his finish. He has small eyes and a small mouth, all nearly lost in his
soft round face. He is probably very nice. I wonder if he will ever learn
to hollar at children. At the moment he is moving very slowly and cautiously,
so different from Peter Hagedorn's lightning, half-fun and half-serious
bam-bam handling. Maybe he will be good for extroverted children.
One of our daycare children is Harold, who is eight I think, but retarded
- he is blond, blue-eyed, pink-skinned, very silent except for flashes of
temper in which he jumps up and down and gibbers indistinguishably. His
speech defect blurs his speech so that children and even his parents can
usually not understand him. His family is a family of good minds and liveliness
- they can't stand him. He is very sweet and it is very sad.
Another of our daycare kids is very much the opposite - David Mead is
ten, a 130-plus IQ, freckled, inventive, flashingly green-eyed and red-headed,
a troublemaker. The school and the neighbourhood watch him from the corner
of their eyes - he's an accomplished liar, thief, cheat. But there is so
much fundamentally terrific about him (Miss Detweiler's phrasing) - our
first problem here is to make him understand that we know he is intelligent
- that we are intelligent too - and that we usually know what he
is up to. And that he can succeed and manage without his old tricks - at
home, his wealthy but penny-pinching parents (his father is a physicist)
and his three other siblings can't understand or stand him. He is beginning
to trust Sunnyside. I wish we could salvage David because he is potentially
so much.
And I'll see you soon. I'll bring some records. Am I welcome?
-
There is a plum tree growing beside one of the Sunnyside walls, leaning
over what was once the stables and is now the school. The children have
been throwing stones and sticks up to knock down the half-ripe plums all
day. Tonight, now that they are safely asleep, I climbed the tree myself
to pick a handful. Do you know about my nightgown? Blue checked with lace
and long sleeves, very good-girl. It caught a bit in the tree, but the bark
was rough and good for footholds. Picking fruit in the dark is like receiving
gifts. Judy will remember last year, picking cherries in the rainy dark
at Mr Dyck's. You put out your hand to brace yourself, and the tree puts
a plum in your hand. Tonight the cat, Tinker, climbed up with me but refused
to have any part of this mad and night-gowned plum picking.
Now it is several minutes after midnight, and I'm afraid that I am having
one of my orgies. How I hate to go to bed. There are too many books, records,
things to think out. Could we not perhaps change things so that the day
started at noon and ended at three a.m.? But oh! Oh! No! I refuse to give
up my mornings. How long can one live on three hours of sleep. And poor
Mother is already worried about me on accounts
Mama, Mama, I knew you would fly out with all sorts of anxieties when
I told you that I'd done weekending with Peter. You seem to have read things
in lilac ink between the lines: some of them may even be true, but not nearly
as dramatically violet colored true as your romantic heart will timorously
like to think. Unfortunately! Explosive, I'm afraid, it is not. Who will
explode? Me? I've found very disappointingly that I have not a single passionate
inch of tissue or bone or brain. The only things I can get passionate about
are nonanimates like plum trees and waves. It is a great shortcoming. And
if you knew Peter a little better you would know that he is not in danger
of exploding either: he is very security-minded and that includes emotions
too. And besides, I'm overweight! How does he feel about me? Affection,
attraction perhaps, gemütlichkeit, friendness. And who cares about
the particulars of it? I hope that you are not terribly relieved or
disappointed at the absence of grande amour Mother. Maybe another time.
You asked some questions Mother. Yes, a whole lot of kids are waiting
for new homes: Carol, for one, and Cathy, Helen, Marlene and Sherry; none
of the boys beside Tony seem ready, and our new people have been mainly
boys. Now we are handling seventeen kids and three day care kids in a setting
designed for twelve!
I often think how captivated you would be by Simon, who is one of the
least disturbed kids I've ever seen by the way. Some of the other married
staff would adopt him on the spot and make wonderful parents for him, but
there is one hitch: he is a Catholic child and must be adopted by a Catholic
family. What a tragedy that most Catholic homes are over-full and he needs
parents now before he does become disturbed.
Frankie can't stay on at Sunnyside because Mrs Lord has almost recovered
from her operation and will want her job back.
I've asked Miss Detweiler too, about whether Carol will be hurt when
I go back to school, and she advised that near the end, I should ease things
off a bit. She also knows that you can't avoid good relationships because
of the possibility of hurt because they are so necessary for personality
formation. And besides that, I'll be hardly deserting her when I'm working
72 hours per month even while going to school!
It is interesting to hear about things like Mrs Siebert changing her
hairstyle. I thought she never would, I've always liked her.
I bought my ticket today: leaving Toronto on the first and leaving Edmonton
on the way back sometime on the 10th. That would hardly be long enough,
but even this two-week holiday is a special favour and Sunnyside will be
hard pressed for workers during that period especially.
Bob Carlett told me tonight that "after thinking about it a great
deal," he has decided not to stay on at Sunnyside. He began by saying
that his decision was made because he discovered that Sunnyside was too
unstructured and not clinical enough to make use of his years of training,
but during some friendly probing, admitted that there were personality factors
involved: ie he is much too timid and retiring and afraid of noises and
not nearly rambunctious enough to handle our seventeen hoods; and his plump
soul recoils at the clamour. I think it would be good for him to stay here
and develop some grit, poor pillowy man, the kids could be so good for him.
Sunnyside Centre for Putting Iron into the Backbone of Child Care Workers!
John, Betsy's brainy boyfriend, sent her a letter here (airmail from
downtown!) addressed to the Sunnyside Centre for Lost Souls.
7 August Friday
I took David Mead and Teddy fishing this afternoon, and it happened that
the brigantine was in dock, just back from New York, so that we spent the
time fishing off the dock beside the ship and staring (or smiling!) at the
cadets climbing the riggings and polishing brass. Several motor launches
were docked nearby, and from one of them, a most interesting man appeared
to sit on the dock with us and talk. He is a bachelor-farmer-photographer-ski
instructor-painter-Unitarian rolling stone with greying hair, a pipe, and
a very casual manner. We had a good talk - he comes to Kingston on his boat
every Thursday to see the psychiatrist! This time he brought three nephews
who shared our lunch and our fishing worms.
Perhaps you noticed the 'Hiroshima Day' notation at the top of the page:
it is an anniversary of the first bomb that CUCND celebrates as a grim reminder.
Peter D is in town, stowing himself away in a motel, and will be here
in a minute - he has a ride with a friend and they are leaving for Stratford
tomorrow morning. So we are going to tour Queen's in the blue lightning
tonight until perhaps 4 a.m.: not so late if we get bored. I'm getting kids
up tomorrow morning at 7:30.
9 Sunday
How was Peter? Tired from a week of exam cramming, but rather high spirited.
The high spiritedness is a usual characteristic of PAD though and can be
taken for granted when it isn't replaced by low spiritedness. Anyway, beginning
about eleven p.m. on Friday we set out on a walking tour of Kingston: campus,
lakefront, and park. The lakefront performed beautifully: crashing waves,
whitecaps, and blue-yellow lightning. Campus was very quiet, very leafy,
very scholarly-serene. The park was eerily lit to almost daylight brightness
by blue-ish streetlamps. The tiers of leaves on the lower branches were
transparent to the light and so seemed to be light themselves.
We eavesdropped on a party across the road upstairs by leaning against
someone's sportscar and staring. We even frisked a bit: Peter stood on his
hands and climbed on a stone park gatepost, chinned himself on a plank beside
the library construction site, even whistled. Does that sound like the egotistic
and sometimes stuffy Mr Dyck?
Then we came back to Sunnyside (at 3 a.m.) and had tea and 'visited'
until the sun came up. Then he took a taxi to his hotel and I went on duty
getting kids up!
It is about eleven thirty a.m. and I am listening to the Haydn Divertimento
that Judy gave me for Christmas.
-
I've wanted to tell you about the masquerade party we had on Saturday
afternoon. This was the afternoon after the no-sleep night.
All of the children had costumes and we had a flurry of tying sashes
and putting on makeup and admiring in our rooms (an invitation to a staff
bedroom is very special): the front verandah was decorated with large purple
and black abstracts (paintings the children had done with their feet earlier
in the afternoon); music was broadcasted onto the front lawn from loudspeakers
in the second floor bedroom windows.
The kids: Brenda, who is naturally a helpless giggly little female, was
glorious and fluttery in a red ballet tutu, diamond earrings and several
necklaces, broches, bracelets, and her plaid bedroom slippers. Carol, in
a short pleated satin skirt and peasant blouse, with a pink satin rose on
top of her head looked half-majorette and half-colt. I gave all of them
exaggerated black eyes, red round cheeks and Scintillatingly Scarlet mouths.
Blond, fragile Sharon wore a wiglet-bun and one of Sushila's old saris.
She hobbled like the little Chinese men classic in Oriental movies, but
she waggled her little flat behind just as seductively as she possibly could.
Peter dressed the boys: blond Stevie was swashbuckling in a flattened-with-age
velvet chevalier hat, wicked pointed black moustache, and sweeping gold
cape. He naturally looks so appealingly naughty that the role was a perfect
fit. Tom was very long and I'm afraid monkey-looking in a soldier suit,
because he has such lengthy bare bones and sunken eyes. Teddy was a wild
Injun. With half-moons painted on his cheeks. Simon tumbled about in a baby-soldier
suit with cape, sword, cap.
When everybody was ready we went out in the front and started the music.
Then we had a Polonaise - an old Polish folk dance. Two by two with Peter
and me raggedly leading (but enthusiastically - hops and skips and confidential
grins when the kids weren't looking) a very shaggy line of couples through
promenades, ducks under our London-Bridge raised hands, circles and turns.
Then we had minuets. One-and-two-three, one-and-two-three, turn and bow.
One-and-two-three Peter's voice with its comical Dutch accent and spontaneous
glee leading mismatched couples who were always two counts behind him and
the music. Walzes - the staff picking up one child each and whirling him
front-wards piggy-back through all sorts of walzing turns and glides. Then
ballet: first, the Nutcracker Suite which the kids know backwards and perform
beautifully; then Peter and the Wolf acted out delightfully with Tom as
a comic Peter, Brenda as a fluttering red-net bird, Marlene as the purring
Negro little cat scooting about on the ground, Carol as a hair-tossing,
snarling, leaping wolf caught to the tree, Teddy as a buckskinned and stalking
hunter, Sherry as the plump waddling little duck. The kids are exciting
actors and they do the play without any selfconsciousness. In the Nutcracker
Suite they are languidly awakening flowers, leaping Russian Trepok-dancers,
flashing twittering Sugarplum Fairies, everything with so much energy that
I found myself joining them in spite of myself. I'd give a great deal to
be able to skate and to dance. There is something very thrilling about creating
and expressing in motion.
These children in many ways are a blessing: they develop the children
in us I think - I know that my affectionally and expressively rigid personality
is loosening just from dealing with them. You become emotionally more spontaneous
and expressively much less self-conscious working with them. And these kids
are absolutely matter-of-fact about my awkwardness in dancing. All they
really care about is that you are in there with them. I'm crazy about lot
of them, and it is so easy to show it. And so necessary. Love is our working
material and personal relationships are our technique. Creative work, and
for me at least, a sort of creative becoming.
Perhaps that is why Peter Hagedorn is such a remarkable person. Aside
from the intelligence, awareness, and creative imagination which he has
enormous amounts of, he has as well a seemingly completely free personality.
He is a cynic in theory, but he lives like a child who loves things and
times and adores himself and the world although and because he knows they
are so ridiculous. His plans for the children - the ball and the masquerade
this time - are always imaginative and he participates with them, as one
of them. He seems to have no self-conscious feelings and not a sliver of
inferiority complex. He is ugly in a way, crooked front tooth, bristling
hair, but we find him very attractive. His body is part of his attractiveness
- very active, running, painting, toe-wiggling, built like a bullfighter's.
He loves crazy clothes like plaid ponchos and red-pocketed tight black trousers
or a pair of pale green bamboo-looking skinny pants. He capers, dances,
sings, whistles, hugs and tickles and shouts at children all at exactly
the right moment, drinks rum and listens to Callas, or talks all with the
same tight joyousness. He doesn't give a whit about the opinions of other
people, he doesn't worry about a thing and despises money-worship, he knows
how to enjoy food or art or music or books intensely and critically. If
I didn't have some of the sense of the ridiculous that wears off from him,
I'd probably fall laughingly in love with him, but his insouiciance about
such a giddy myth makes even the idea proposterous. Another reason for enjoying
Sunnyside.
- And Miss Detweiler too. Green querying mocking eyes like a large cat's
over the rim of a rum glass, hair tied back wildly with a white shoelace,
flat shoes and striped pedal-pushers, large mouth and alert but womanless
body, freckles and blond hair on her arms. She has an arrogance about her
too that I like very much. She never says anything nice to or about anyone
else except for a good reason, her humour is half-grin and half-grimace,
biting. She is interested in everything worth being interested in. She refuses
to listen to you unless you are talking about something interesting. But
if you are, she gives you her full green-eyed and dangerously sardonic attention.
You watch yourself or else. She is delightful. She knows it.
I don't seem to be getting any sleep but I seem to be becoming more energetic
and happier if possible with every late night. But then to sleep in in the
morning. How are you all? Please be fine: else I shall feel guilty at being
so coddled by Olympus.
12 Wednesday night
Talking family to Vicky tonight makes me realize again how much I am
looking forward to the trip and visit in September. And I have spent half
the day on an album of photographs and comment on last year at Queen's.
I have some very good and exciting photographs in spite of the camera's
limitations (which do show up in the photos as well as my technical ignorance).
I had thought of sending you the album now, but I'll bring it in September
so I can keep it to show to Olivia next weekend (she is coming this Friday
to househunt again, and Andy won't be here to monopolize this time!), and
to Norm when he comes I think the weekend after, and to Mike when he gets
back from a bothersome business trip. The album is primarily an emotional
rather than factual record and its theme is what I saw from my Ban Righ
window - symbolically, my total emotional outlook on the year.
How to spend the first day off in ten days? A very badly needed one because
work after that long becomes mere policing of children and not at all creative.
I seem to have a good tolerance for noise and confusion but ten days of
nine hours seem to stunt your ability to make yourself or rather let yourself
have fun with the kids.
Oh! Sleep until 1:30 in the morning-afternoon. Making the album, writing
and editing and admiring. Studying every corner and article and advertizement
of a photography magazine. Bicycle riding. All day in bluejeans and shirt
and pigtails and no makeup.
Photography becomes more and more of a dominating interest. I love the
creative possibilities of photographs, but I also love the technicalities
of it as an art. I think this is related to the part of my brain that loves
algebra and philosophical devialities (not in the dictionary: it means deviousness
and complexities and abstractities, so on) and what Frank used to say was
"thinking like a man."
Betsy has done some beautiful work of the kids: I am going to have copies
made and you'll see them as well.
Last night it rained, and the lane, gateway, tree-framing and street
lamp made a wonderful light-shadow-form composition that was so exciting
one had to run into it down the drive through the warm puddles and become
part of the enchantment. Perhaps part of joy is absorbtion into beautiful
things or vigorous things.
Thursday the 19th of August
Here is the timetable from September 1 onward:
- September 1 leave Toronto 5:15 p.m.
- September 3 arrive in Edmonton at 12:25 noon, take the first
bus home to Grande Prairie, arrive sometime after that
- September 10 leave from Edmonton at 2:00 p.m.
- September 12 arrive back at Kingston 7:10 p.m.
I can't possibly tell you what time I will get to GP. Perhaps you could
tell me. Could you inquire for me please: what the time of departure is
for the first bus leaving Edmonton after 12:25 noon on the 3rd, what the
round trip fare is, which busline it is.
So if you would like to meet a bus, please meet the first one that meets
requirements - if for some reason you can't meet it - too busy harvesting
- stuck in the mud - phone a message to the depot in GP and I'll get a way
home on my thumb or something.
Two weeks!
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame. Gerald Manley Hopkins
Norm found this scrap of GMH and sent it on the bottom of one of his
letters. He is coming up this weekend. He is such extremely good company
that it is too bad the chemistry isn't right. I'll send the last letter
just to give you a taste of him.
Olivia did appear for the weekend and we had a much better time than
before, mainly because Andy wasn't here and I wasn't working. She arrived
on Friday night: we immediately both changed into sneakers, Queen's sweatshirts,
cutoffs, and raincoats, and charged off down the street singing Oil Thigh.
At the Tearoom we sat and talked to Olivia's old friend, Jim the Italian
waiter. Then across the campus, to Ban Righ. We managed to wander in just
before the doors were locked, and headed straight up the stairs to Ban Righ
III - all quiet, but new furniture in all the rooms! My room was ruined,
not at all my own anymore: modern and dusty and void of last year. And YELLOW
curtains instead of my beautiful blue ones. Eventually someone stuck her
head out of Janet's room and came to see what we wanted. It happened that
she couldn't sleep, so she invited us in and we sat and reminisced for her
and nibbled Cheezies à la last year until some time after midnight.
Then we walked downstairs, and who should be guarding the door but
Olivia's old enemy, the skinny little woman who made her lose her late leave
last spring and was so totally gleeful about it! I could feel Oliver turn
gleeful at this opportunity for revenge. So when Mrs X said "Where
are you going?", Olivia said "Out" just as maliciously as
possible. Mrs X of course said "But you can't do that." And Olivia:
"But WE don't LIVE here." And the dear dragon had to let us out
without another word, although she rattled her keys in frustrated indignation.
Then we went home and watched the late show with Peter and his rum, and
the three dogs. Then we went to bed and talked. Then we became hungry, went
downstairs to the kitchen and made an omelette. Slept until noon on Saturday
morning, then we went house hunting.
First of all we went to Ban Righ to see Mrs Bryce and get a housing list
from her. She looked wonderful, as ever: sculptured grey hair, smart red
clothes and shiny shoes. And when she saw us she got rid of her visitors,
came forward to take our hands and led us into her office. Graciousness.
And Olivia is a special pet of hers.
Spent the afternoon bumming around on bicycles, getting "Sorry but
we've just rented" from all our prospects. Met Bonny and Barb just
at the Ban Righ side door - they're looking for houses too.
Then we got a lead. A beautiful apartment with three large bright rooms,
a view of the park, a balcony that you could climb onto through the window,
and yards of closets. Seventy a month, exactly right. So we took it. And
the red-faced, gabby man who owned the house spent the rest of the afternoon
being hospitable: telling unbelievably dirty stories (but funny!) and offering
us beer. The beer was horrible and Olivia had to drink mine before we could
leave. The whiskey was easier - I poured it down the sink while pretending
to add water.
The apartment found, we went back to the Tearoom for Cokes and to report
our success to Jim. Then came upstairs and talked for several hours to catch
up on everything because we're such poor correspondents.
On Sunday morning I left Olivia fast asleep while I got up at seven to
take Musical Panorama, the 8-12 Sunday morning classics show with operator
Bruce Robinson who is delightful company, as well as the music. Began with
Bach and ended with twentieth century stuff, quite 'hairy' and potboiler.
Sunday afternoon Olivia and I went back to the studio because CBC TV
was filming a series on Queen's, there, and we wanted to see the crew in
action. We did - carrying the big cameras in piece by piece, milling about
talking to the people who were to appear on the show. Finally we gathered
the courage to talk to a tiny man in a powder blue suit who seemed to be
in charge and who was pacing back and forth across a black line on the floor.
He turned out to be the Studio Director, a radiant man with an obviously
keen intellect and a delightful face. He must be something like 4'6".
Wonder how he feels.
The afternoon's filming is part of a series of eleven half-hours that
will talk about university life, illustrated by interviews with campus people,
pan shots of the campus, and sketches of activities. Good for Queen's.
Olivia went back on Sunday night. On Monday night our landlord informed
us that without his knowledge but by previous permission the upstairs tenant
had rented the apartment to someone else the Friday before. I phoned Olivia
to tell her we were again homeless. Then I went out looking. Phoned her
back to tell her we again had a home. The apartment we have now if nothing
disasterous happens before September, is the third floor of an old brick
house. The downstairs and hallway is very shabby and smells of countless
suppertimes, but the third floor is airy, clean and all ours - bedroom,
living room, kitchen, and a shared bathroom. Olivia will have the bedroom
and I'll sleep on the couch in the living room because she is much too untidy
for me anyway and will be sleeping later when I have to get up at six thirty
to go to work. More about it later. The landlord is Hawaiian, a very hearty
warm sort of person I think, and his wife is untidy and probably stupid,
but friendly. The family is quite large, going down from a fifteen year
old girl to two babies. Several other students live there. It is near the
cathedral, a grocery shop, a drugstore, and five blocks from University.
Near downtown too. We'll never get over the apartment we almost had tho.
This one is sixty five a month which is very cheap I suppose.
21 Friday
Mother, you will think this is cupboard love in demonstration, but I
have been thinking of how much I am going to enjoy some of your cooking
- notably: a-hem! stew with fresh vegetables! Bran muffins with many raisins!
Warm biscuits! Fresh bread both brown and white! Onion rolls! Buns (zwiebak?)!
Jam! Oh this is ridiculous, I'm rattling these off with as much excitement
as if I hadn't eaten in a year. I'm excited - that's good? I have my ticket.
The Toronto Globe and Mail - we get a daily copy - has been running several
columns on the Mennonite Youth Convention in Kitchener - the press seems
quite interested and the columns are both interesting and rather favorable.
This letter is short and scrappy because of Olivia's visit over the weekend,
and an I-don't-want-to-do-anything flu bug that hit the kids first and then
me. We had a polio scare here in Kingston, and Tony had to come straight
home from camp because one of the campers was suspected of having it, but
nothing more has come of that. Thank goodness for Sabin.
This is most unsatisfactory - have to mail it anyway. Please phone for
the bus information.
August 25, Tuesday morning
During the weekend with Norm here there were two adventures you will
want to hear about. Saturday night we did nothing but walk miles and miles
in the pouring rain until our shoes squished at every step: we waited carefully
at every traffic light and did not cross until it turned red. Then we had
egg rolls and Chinese tea that tastes like perfume in a little restaurant,
and then we walked home while it poured still harder. My raincape is not
entirely waterproof.
When we got home at midnight-plus we lit candles in the TV room and set
them on the floor for warming fire, had hot chocolate and watched the late
show while Peter H and Miss Detweiler got higher and higher in the sitting
room; when they get really high, after four or five rum-and-Cokes, they
begin to tease the dogs. The two puppies have a ball, and horrible Johann
(the hideous daschund yaps at all my boyfriends whenever they come to the
door and I detest him), goes into a howling frenzy of jealousy. Miss Detweiler
doesn't become noisy, but she does begin to giggle most appealingly. Peter
just becomes terribly witty (he thinks) and wonderfully silly (I think).
After the late show we had one side of Corelli and the candles.
Sunday morning we went to church - you'll never guess where! We went
to a Friend's Meeting in a small green house, and spent an hour and a half
in silence that was broken only when, at widely spaced times, three different
people spoke briefly. We were met at the door by a very attractive, very
alive young woman with huge brown eyes and a wide smiling mouth, who took
charge of us and told us a little about the Meeting, introduced us around.
One of the other visitors was an Indian friend of mine, Vishu from Delhi.
Seated beside me was a plump woman in a pink-flowered dress, whose hair
was orange at the ends and grey at the roots and who wiped most of her face
off when she rubbed a kleenex over it. Then, going around the room, there
was Vishu, Beth Rogers (the attractive woman), her husband Doug Roberts
(a very attractive, very articulate professor at Queen's), a monochromatic
little old grey lady, her monochromatic little old brown husband who is
a physiologist at Queen's, a European-looking young physiologist just come
from Australia with his blond and watery-blue-eyed Dresden young wife, a
plump white larva-looking thirteen year old named Philip who is the orange-haired
lady's son, and then the orange-haired lady's elderly husband who is a teacher
at the pennitentary here.
When the meeting began, complete silence settled. Everyone bowed their
head and closed their eyes. According to the pamphlet they gave us to read,
a Friend thinks about God or about his past week or about some bit of scripture
read during the week. Or prays. They forget about time and about noises
in the street. The house is quiet. Time passes very quickly. Then the pink-flowered
lady spoke, in an accent I didn't recognize: "I think it is so nic-ice
that we lo-ove each other. Although some of us in this room come from strange
lands, we know that we have this in common: that we love each other."
Silence again.
La Glace September 8
[journal]
The Brothers Karamazov and the red sky-ed tapestry on the wall.
Ivan speaking his anger and his disbelief tersely to Alyosha in a Russian
café. I shouting my anger against the God my mother believes in,
and I shouting anger against Mother's hard work, Father's blind heart, Rudy's
bent thin shoulders, Peter - against the realization of his energy and anger.
Strangeness.
I love this energy and anger of him. We had supper together here, went
driving, stopped at Saskatoon Lake to watch black reeds moving in the textured
water; spun and swerved through a sort of nothingness on the merry-go-round,
clumped and tilting close in the centre. Holding hands in the car and stopping
at the corner in La Glace for just one moment. Sluffing through grass to
the small house [where the Dycks used to live].
Rain on the porch, wet dripping from the roof, hair wet, cold water on
my back and a strange thorough kiss. Gentle and stirring rather than sharp,
as a cat-kiss would be. Opulent. Fleet. Reluctant?
Elusive, afraid of commitment, vital, THERE. I value him! But why must
he be afraid of me? And we speak so much in riddles, preferring it, riddles
and puzzles, valuable to us. A kind of dancing and darting, near and away,
touch and fly. Has he a poor self-concept - does he dispise those who value
him?
But I do and shall, value, cherish and question.
At Sexsmith today, brooding from the office window, over the wet grass,
the small roofs shining, the blue shack and the footbridge. The pebbles
on the gymnasium roof still and calm-colored under the racing rings of light-drops
on the water. Anger at goodbyes and the desire to look at Peter and shout
Damn! Finally a wordless exit.
I hate to say goodbye and yet I love the ceremony of Lasts. I love Sexsmith,
I love Mr Mann and Peter and Wayne Lock and the corridors and corners. Why
not say long words to bridge having and not having them? But the uselessness
and the dissatisfaction of it.
Masks? Mrs Bellamy - and the impulse is always to say "Bless her"
- said "Oh, we could talk for years. It is so seldom that you meet
someone you can talk to. Masks. Everybody." She hugged me when I came,
and again when I left. She bubbles joy and warmth - small, sturdy, many-colored
bubbles like champagne and like soap. Small, round Mrs Bellamy with her
open face, her girlish hair around her face, her long goodbyes and her eager
questions. She is innocence and youthfulness - wistfulness. Briskness and
gentleness. "See my beautiful children: look, etherial, almost."
And she introduced them to me one by one, her really beautiful grade one
children. "Compassion is the word I remember" and "You must
read The Agony and the Ecstasy, Michaelangelo. It made me think of
you. Fury, or dedication. It makes me think of Peter Dyck too. Taking the
hammer and the Pieta!"
Gerald Student, Pat Ranch, Raymond Olson, the boys I valued last year,
Wayne not changed at all. I did love that place! Mother suggested that it
might be because there [page missing]
Volume 3
- raw forming volume 2: september 1963 - april 1964
- work & days: a lifetime journal project
-
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