Journal 1961: Fraser Valley BC June-September, La Glace
Alberta September-October
The summer of 1961 I'm sixteen and have come from our
farm in Alberta to earn money in the Fraser Valley in BC. I begin with
picking strawberries, then later pick raspberries and beans and for the
last month am at York Farms Cannery in Sardis. At first I stay with my
mom's parents on Clearbrook Road near Abbotsford, and later twenty miles
up Highway 1 in Yarrow, with friends of my Konrad grandparents and then
with my dad's parents on Stuart Road. When I go back home for school in
September, Frank drives up to Alberta to see me.
These are extracts. The full text is in Still at home
vol 4.
Clearbrook, Sunday, June 25
For one small berry patch, the man situation is quite good. The one I
like is Frank. He is twenty one and very attractive in an unconventional
way. He wears a wool touque out there in the sun, over his piquant face.
It is a European face with high cheek bones, thick lashes, blue eyes, and
what they call a faintly mocking smile. He isn't tall.
His technique is very intriguing. I wandered in with a flat to get checked
off. "Moccasins are sure comfortable, aren't they" he remarked
conversationally. "I wear them on Sundays when I want to loaf around."
That was a mild beginning.
I liked to catch his eye and half-smile because I like him. The next
time he said, unexpectedly, as he punched my ticket, "Hey, what makes
you tick anyway? You must like to smile or something." Fascinated,
I said, "Just a naturally happy personality I guess." "Oh,"
he said, "one of those." He stacked the baskets from our carriers.
We looked into each other's eyes. "Brown eyes and all" he said
meditatively.
He told me later about the dream he has about getting an Angus ranch
"up country" (cute expression). I was interested, and not sham-ly.
He's something I haven't met yet. There is a touch of the physical too.
He's too attractive to avoid it. I was sitting on the ground with my legs
crossed while the rest stampeded into the back of the truck. He walked up
to me. All I could see was his blue-jeaned legs. I felt shy and I didn't
look up.
"Hi," he said softly.
"Hi," I said, not looking up.
He bent down, curved his brown fingers around one of my crossed arms,
and lifted me onto my feet. He lifted quickly and impulsively, I think,
and my arm hurt for a while where his fingers had been.
"Why don't you sit in the front? Keep me company," he said.
"Should I? Do you want me to?" I asked. I don't remember what
he said or if he said anything. But someone else was there so I sat in the
back and stared at the profile of the side of his face; a sharp cheek-line
and a hard chin. I think he would kiss very well.
I want to know him better. I want to talk to him all day. I want to say
as slowly and meditatively as he did, "What makes you tick, Frank?"
and I want him to tell me and I want him to like me. I think he does, but
I want him to like me the same way I like him, with curiosity and wonder
and admiration and a little bit of wistfulness. Maybe I'll put him into
a story. Part of it, conversation and all, is scribbled into this story.
Frank Doerksen Junior.
I have to make six and a half flats tomorrow.
June 26
I don't know if I'll ever get back to writing about the bus trip. It
was all Frank today. I came to the corner when the truck was already there.
Janet was in the front and I was just a little jealous. As I told Frank
slyly, I'm in the doghouse with Janet today because I wore pink gloves with
a mauve coat and wear weeds (pretty yellow flowers and daisies) in my buttonhole
when I'm picking.
Intermission - as I'm writing this I'm sitting on a half decayed and
blasted stump, knobby with moss. Mount Baker is serene among the clouds.
The birds are chirping, "come here, come here."
Back to Frank - there was nothing spectacular all morning. I yakked with
the boys, Milt and Bill and Barry, flirting around - I am a flirt, it's
in my nature, isn't that a fabulous find? - we giggled a lot, and that kinda'
stuff. And then, at dinner, I sat among them while the girls ate in the
truck's cab. I had an old "tuche" that Grandma sent along for
a table cloth and I took a swig off everybody's pop. Frank sat a ways away
as he had been all morning and didn't say much. He's not as light hearted
as the others, he's an adult and apart. I'm both - the light hearted and
the adult. So we yakked back and forth and I looked at Frank out of the
corner of my eye. Sometimes he looked back. Bill is coming around. He moved
over so he could sit next to me and we smiled at each other. Milt, at the
moment, is a little too sensible. But there are days and days left.
Frank - I'd like to call him Dirk - Dirk said to me, "the guys all
seem to go for you." And when he said it, they weren't important any
more. But it won't hurt him to see me flirting with them. Not at all. I
am quite a popular girl out on that berry patch, you know. Much more than
Janet or Marge or Marlene.
After noon I went out earlier to start picking. Frank came out too. We
stood by the shack, me with my arms full of carriers, and Dirk just looking
at me. I asked him why he wears the touque and when he explained a little
defensively assured him that I like people who like to be different. So
we began to talk absorbedly and before we went out everyone else had gone
out.
"Say, you pick on one side of my row for a while and I'll help you
with yours after a while, okay?" he said. We walked out together and
we came back together and went out together again. I walked beside him and
picked across from him and he filled up my baskets when his were full so
that we'd be done at the same time. And we talked. I got a tight, frightened
feeling in my stomach and I felt his actual physical nearness with an intensity
that surprized me. It was real communication, real fellowship of minds and
the other thing that is called personality. Sometimes I felt as though I
wanted to cry. He would say something, and I would look at him, and my heart
would flop over onto its side.
It is electricity. His face has such strong lines, and his chin is like
clefted marble. Solid, smooth, curved. His lashes are thick and perfectly
straight and lighter at the ends. His face is kind of tanned and his hair
is dark - what I see of it is. His blue touque hides it. Maybe I'll see
it someday. But the electricity is in his eyes. When I look at him, or I
look up when he is looking at me, our eyes just seem to pull at each other
and lock. His eyes are unexpectedly blue, almost a solid pastel blue in
his dark face. I can't tear my eyes away. It is as though a spark jumps
and then my heart thrashes against my ribs again. I always escape those
eyes after a while. I flee from them and bend my head into the strawberry
plants to look blindly and fumble for the warm red globes under the leaves.
"This morning you were laughing and talking away," Dirk said,
"but you're so different now. Why?" Why? Because, you, Dirk, have
me so churned and confused, wonderfully and ecstatically confused, that
I can't laugh all the time.
He's marvelous. The way he talks and the way he thinks. Suddenly, while
unloading my strawberries, he said, "Gee you have little feet. What
kind of soap do you use?" "Co-op detergent, why?" "Well,
because when you're upwind from me I get a whiff of something that smells
so nice and fresh." (Oops! I thought, that's Aunty's eau de cologne.)
"Let's go mountain climbing next Sunday." "You'd just about
have to pack me up on your back." "I wouldn't do that, but I would
take your hand ...," and all I could think of to say was "m-m-m."
We talked about being happy. He told me matter-of-factly that he isn't
happy, not ever, and that his main motivation is the search for happiness
and a peace.
"I love the land," he said. "My father can't understand
that. Sometimes on Sunday I like to go out and just feel it." "Rub
it between your fingers?" "No, just to feel it. There have been
wars and people have been born and died but the land is always there and
it gets better if you treat it right." "So do people." "People
don't. No matter how you treat them they always come back for another hand-out."
"If you had an ideal environment everyone would be an ideal person
... The land is so permanent. Is that why you like it?" "I guess
so. It's the most permanent thing there is."
"Know something? You're nice to talk to. You talk like an adult."
"This will sound flat because you just complimented me, but you are
exceptionally good company."
"I get a fiendish pleasure out of it" I said about something.
"Fiendish? You don't hear that word very often any more. I use it myself."
"Do you like words? Just to juggle them around?" "Sometimes
if I repeat a word to myself for a while it becomes meaningless." I
thought it over. "And then you wonder how such a strange sound ever
came to mean anything," I suggested. "Yeah! You wonder how it
ever got a meaning."
Refering to the murder of a family in Vancouver, he said "if anybody
ever did that to my sister I'd have just one purpose the rest of my life.
I love my family, especially my sister. If anybody killed her I'd track
him down." "And what would you do when you caught him?" I
was afraid and my question was almost too quiet to hear. "I'd calmly
kill him." "And then what would happen to you?" "I wouldn't
care if they strung me up."
He frightens me, and he worries me and he confuses me. I feel an overwhelming
mother tenderness for him and then I feel a tearing affection for him, and
then he frightens me.
"What would you look like in lipstick? Do you wear lipstick?"
"I had a few smokes over the weekend so now I'm all right for a
long time. Are you shocked?" "No; I don't smoke myself because
I don't think it's practical, but I don't think it will keep anybody from
going to Heaven, if that's what you mean. Did you want me to be shocked?"
"Well, no, I just wanted to be honest."
I ran back from the toilet and the truck was waiting for me. Dirk was
leaning against the door. Barry yelled out "No room back here."
"I guess I'll have to go in the front," I said, with one eye on
Dirk. "Do I have to go in the front, Frank?" I looked at him and
that peculiar feeling flashed between us again. Did he want me to? I was
halfway into the cab when he said, "If you want to." Barry said,
"Hey, we were just kidding, there's lots of room."
"You should wear a hat," Dirk said. "I almost can't control
myself. I want to run my fingers through your hair."
Impulsively, and for just an instant he let go of his footloose and fancy-free
philosophy. I was bending over quite far to get some strawberries when just
for the very barest second he dropped his head so that his cheek was brushing
my forehead. And then he backed away again and I didn't dare look at him.
Once he picked up my hand and moved it when I was picking too many small
ones. His fingers were gentle.
"One of these days when I haven't got anything to do" - my
heart bounded - "I'll comb my hair and put on a white shirt."
It sank back into place. "And I'll come and see you." I was surprised
to move my heart around at all. I wish he would. Im just intensely hoping
he will.
June 27, Tuesday
I made 6 flats today, and two baskets. It was a breathless day - odd
and shining and wonderful. I sat beside Frank in the morning, with Janet
beside me so that I could be closer to him. I didn't look at him then, just
thought of him and felt him near me. I talked about inconsequential things
to Janet.
We picked together again. He let me know, right from the beginning, that
he had been thinking of me last night. I didn't tell him about my thinking
of him, but I mentioned that he was in my diary. It was a breathless day.
I said that before.
We were walking back with our second flat when he said, "You're
limping. Is it too heavy?" The thrashing codfish in my chest stopped
and wilted. "Haven't you noticed anything before?" My voice was
wilted as the poor fish was, and in spite of brave words I was wincing.
I bent over to put the baskets into their flats and my lip was trembling.
I had to tense myself to keep from crying. I stared at the boxes.
"Did you have polio or something?" I doggedly piled my boxes
into the flats. "Yes." "When was that?" "When I
was two." "You could have died on me." "I nearly did.
So they tell me."
My boxes were all stacked. I leaned against a pile of flats and methodically
arranged the berries in their boxes so they were tidy and even. He came
very close to me. So that our elbows touched on the piles. One of my stained
hands was leaned against the carrier handle. He reached out and hooked my
little finger with his, squeezing it. I looked up and there were these incredible
blue eyes looking at me in that incredible face, and I dropped my eyes.
He leaned over and brushed the side of my face with his; his fingers
curled warmly over mine on the handle of the basket. My heart floundered
awkwardly and helplessly. I had a furtive thought about what they would
say in the patch, and I peeked over the top of the flats to see if anyone
was looking. Nobody was. I looked back (choke) into those startling eyes
and the spark jumped. "A mile long and a mile wide," I said. "Can't
I do anything to convince you?" he asked and he grinned and said, "Come
on. You have to get six flats today."
We went out to our row. I was hunched across from him, closing my fingers
around the juicy berries and dropping them listlessly into the baskets.
"Does the fact that you had polio ever bother you" he asked,
"or don't you want to talk about it?"
"Does it," I said. Perhaps I sounded bitter.
"Ellie, I just wanted you to know that it doesn't make any difference
to me at all." I bit my lip and concentrated on the berries so that
he wouldn't see that I was almost ready to cry.
"Maybe I should change the subject." "No. I'm glad you
talked about it. Then I won't have to worry about it.
"Sometimes something like that, that makes you feel inferior, the
way I used to feel about my shortness, makes you go places and do things
an ordinary person never could." "I know. Sometimes I'm glad."
June 30
We ate under a tree together. It was a dogwood, and its many stems rose
like curved, glowing poles. The bark was greyish purple and there were lichens
on it that spread lacy green and lavendar patterns. Above us, the whole
body of the branches swayed and the leaves soughed against each other.
We lay on the ground where the grass had been pressed down flat, and
the gangling long-stemmed daisies tripped over each other to nod at us.
Pressed flat against the earth I felt slender and nymphlike. We ate. He
bowed his head and closed his eyes, and with touchingly folded hands said
a quiet grace. And when we were finished eating we just sprawled with our
heads on our arms. Sometimes I'd see his blue eyes questioning me when I
looked up. Then I would bury my head in my arms and feel my warm breath
steaming against my face while I listened to my heart beating.
He reached over and I felt him touch my hair. And then he covered my
fingers with his warm ones. I didn't look up. "You have such little
hands," he said. "No, I guess they aren't so small but they seem
so fragile." I looked up and grinned mockingly at him. I wanted
to move my elbow and touch his arm with my head. I wanted to very badly,
but I didn't. He covered my fingers completely with his. We heard Bill and
Barry go by, hooting and tromping. He held my hand very tightly for a while
and then just warmly. I thought he didn't believe in holding hands. I was
afraid he didn't, I was thinking. But I wasn't disappointed. He looked up
and ferretted out my reluctant eyes with his delving ones. He laughed. "You
know, twelve year old kids do this," he said. "So?" I said.
He laughed again. "So we're twelve year old kids." I slid away
my elbow and leaned my head on his arm. He pressed his head against it for
a while and there was a deep peace, a deep swaying calm like the calm of
the branches above us.
I didn't think, then, of what he had told me before. "Did you have
fun last night, Frank?" Marlene hollared to him. I wish I could remember
what he said. "Do you know what she's talking about?" he asked.
"No, I haven't a clue." "Well, I'd better tell you before
you hear it from somewhere else. I don't think I should, though. I like
you too much to tell you. Let's put it this way ," pause, "I'm
too fond of you." "That sounds awful," I interrupted, "maybe
you shouldn't tell me."
"I think I should. I'll just trust to luck that you'll understand.
No - I can't do that; I'll have to trust you." "Okay." "Well,
it's just this: on Tuesday a week ago I made a phone call and made a date
to go boating. So we went boating, and then we went to a café, and
then we went home. That's all. If it wouldn't be so impolite I'd have called
it off."
"Why?" I didn't look up, and my hands scrounged around the
leaves for the small berries. "Well, for one thing, it wasn't a very
nice evening. I sat around and thought about you." "Did you?"
I looked up, directly into his eyes. "Yes." I didn't say anything
for a while, feeling abstract and wishing I could say something that would
reassure him that I didn't mind, but still did. You know. But I was helpless
so I said nothing.
"Hey have you decided not to ever speak to me again or something?"
he asked. "No," I said, and I laughed and we were alright. He
didn't say anything else to me after that, about It. (Its name is Leona.)
July 1st
The episode of last night was interrupted abruptly. I had been sitting
by the kitchen table, writing and watching my dim reflection in the window.
Also watching the clock because
July 4
I'll never catch up. Just one notation today.
"Das Madchen hat schmutzige Hände and busherische Har' aber
sie ist doch cute." That was dear Frank.
July 5
It rained this morning. We were on the patch and it dripped continuously
out of a sodden sky. I had on a big jacket and the water dribbled over the
edge of my sun hat. (That's irony. I never wear my sun hat in the sun.)
I picked a flat, then we decided to head for shelter. The shed was crowded
and damp. We steamed a little. Marge looked out with her so pretty eyes
from under her flat sunhat, Janet shook the water from her hair after taking
off Brian's cap, Brian ran his fingers through his wet hair, Frank looked
at me with his smiling eyes and hair curling from his touque. He smiles
at me warmly. We're crazy about each other. It's nice. We ate under a different
tree yesterday because Janet and Marge were under ours. So we found a skinny
little maple beside a big stump. And after we ate we sprawled at queer angles
with our heads at the vertex, holding hands. Sometimes we hold hands tightly.
It was never like this before. We don't just limply touch palms. It's more
friendly. It says, "I like you a lot."
This reminds me of something else he said. I had just "calmly"
informed him that he isn't very emotional.
"I'm not?" he said. "No." "I'll show you sometime.
Just before you go home to Alberta. Well maybe not just before you
go. The last good chance I get." "You will?" "I will.
For about five seconds. No, two seconds." I can hardly wait, that's
the unrespectable part of it. I suppose he'll kiss me. But I don't think
he will until then. That's all right. I don't want him to until then. It
will be special. He said, "I don't think you should kiss all kinds
of girls " " All kinds of times," I put in. "Yeah, all
kinds of times. I think it should be something special, only for special
occasions. You know, Ellie, if you kiss all kinds of girls all kinds of
times, it just doesn't mean anything anymore."
- I fell into a back-tracking here. I think I left us smiling at each
other in the shack. Frank finally relented and decided to take us home.
OOPS! He just called me and we talked for - oh, a long time - all about
all sorts of things. That was nice. I knew he was going to, and when the
phone finally rang I jumped 2 feet into the air and dashed for it. His voice
sounds young and eager on the phone. We talk endlessly about anything.
Yarrow, July 9
"No dates, no flirting. Be good," said Grandma. I didn't say
anything. That's what you think, I told myself determinedly.
I left with a light heart. Clearbrook was becoming oppressive. Grandma
was becoming unbearable. The tidyness was stifling. Frank and the lovely
carefree berry patch were havens. Im so glad to be gone.
The room I'm in is a cell, completely white and austere. There are tall
trees outside. The house is old and clean but not waxed and polished.
Frank came. I had just washed my face; my nose was shiny and my hair
bedraggled. I was looking around for a chance to escape Mrs Willie who is
gabby and giggly. The door rattled as someone knocked on it. I skipped gleefully
into my room while she went to see who was there.
"Does a picker named Ellie Epp live here?" It was his voice.
I dashed into my room, dashed out again. I was in my socks. I skidded to
the door. Down the steps at the porch door his face smiled around the door
corner. "Hi!" I said. There was a paper bag in Mrs Willie's hand.
She gave it to me. I took it automatically and went down the stairs past
her to him, in my socks (there was a hole in the heel) and bedraggled. There
were cherries in the bag.
Yesterday was a sad day and a dizzying day and a frightening day. But
a lovely day. Lovely because it was so poignant, so full of so much feeling.
We picked for a while at the Czak's patch, and then left to go to Doerksen's
patch and finish there. At dinner Dirk and I ate under a very tall spruce.
Then Bill and Barry appeared with their guilty raspberry-filled hands behind
their backs and chased Dirk all over. He got through unscathed but I got
a face wash. He helped me clean up and held the mirror while I combed my
hair. The sun was bright. We picked among the raspberries later, all of
us on one row, helping Marge.
Dirk dropped me off at the corner beside Czak's. I rambled along the
trail to the back with my shoes off. I tied my blouse up more. I rolled
my pants. I picked and picked. Frank cleaned up. When he came over to talk
to me he touched the only bare toe I'd let him see. I think he understood.
After a long time I got my flat and two baskets. Frank finished the same
time. We went to sit under the dogwood tree and eat my half pineapple. I
asked him to carve my initials on the tree in the lovely pattern of bark
and fungi. I took the knife then and wanted to begin to carve his beside
them but he said, "Hey, what are you doing?" and put his arms
around me and squeezed. The knife slid out of my fingers. He squeezed. He
never holds me gently, he crushes. I could see his face close to mine: a
little pale, stubbly, his touque had fallen off and his eyes were solemn.
"Ellie," he said. His voice was low and tremorous. It sounded
odd. "M-m-m?" I said. He was quiet for a long time. Then he said
it quickly and almost brokenly. "Ellie I just want to tell you I love
you." I felt sad and old and I wanted to say to him, "Why Frank?
Why do you love me? What does it feel like? How do you love me?" "I
don't understand how I ever met you; I don't know why." He said it
still in that funny way. It sounded as though he might cry, as though he
was on the edge of crying. I could have cried too.
"Can I carve my initials beside yours?" "Sure." My
voice sounded faltery too. He hugged me again. "Later," he said.
He carved out FD above the EE. He didn't put in any "and" sign.
I didn't suggest it.
I picked up a tiny rectangle of wood for a souvenir. He looked up, squawked.
There were the cows, bony and big-eyed varmints. They had been looking over
my shoulder when I had my face against his shoulder. I had put my fingers
on the stubbly sides of his face. "I won't kiss you," he said,
"I like you too much for that." It's an odd idea.
The cows fled with their tails penduluming. Half my berries were eaten,
the others tilted into the grass. I laughed hysterically while Dirk glared
after the cows. "She laughs!" he exclaimed. "But it's so
silly," I said between shouts. Subdued shouts.
We walked to the gate to pick more berries.
"Those initials will be there a long time," he said, "I
wonder how long." "By next summer you'll have taken an axe and
chopped them out," I interrupted. "Why?" "Oh you'll
find out something really horrible about me." "It'll probably
be the other way around." "But I've already heard some horrible
things about you and so far I've only said, so what." "No Ellie,
I won't chop them out. You're special. You're one in a million." He
stopped and put his arms around me again. "And you're only sixteen.
You've got two years left of high school and three years of university "
I'll never marry you, Frank, I thought.
Under the tree he had mumbled something into my shoulder as I moved with
his chest and deep breaths. "Pardon?" I said prosaically. "I
won't let you forget me," he said. He sounded fierce. "I'm not
going to forget you," I said.
July 13
This morning I said, He is a very, very good friend of mine. We get along
beautiful. We never have frightened silences. Even our silences are communication.
He is just a friend though. This is not love.
And I remember how I could feel myself emotionally moving away and out
of myself when he climaxed our tete-a-tete on Saturday. It was a remoteness,
a watching and not participating. I felt calm, and yet my voice shook. I
felt cool and empty.
But on Tuesday night I did feel snuggly, just a little. I remember that
there was a breeze coming through the window and I was cold. He wrapped
his jacket around me solicitously and was very dear. Once I sat up dignifiedly
and moved my head from his shoulder. "Leave it there," he said.
I had been uncertain but he had reassured. I said, "Maybe I should
curl up in my little corner now?" He just laughed and hugged me joyously
as he always does when I say something silly.
He looks different on a date. I am always surprized. It is almost as
though he were a stranger, someone unfamiliar. But we still speak the same
language.
I like him very much. Love? I don't know. Once, the first day I knew
him, I felt such an electric attraction and such an intensity of feeling
that I steadied my wobbling heart and said sternly to it, You can't fall
in love with him. He's smooth and he's practiced and he has a line a mile
long.
But he doesn't. I know he does mean it all. He's not practiced and smooth.
His voice trembled and he held me very tightly I wonder now if I would feel
different if I had not been so stern with my heart.
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