| still at home volume 3 part 5 - 1961 march-june | work & days: a lifetime journal project |
March 19 This was a golden day. I did things I wanted to do and nothing I had to do. The sun was shining. (to be prosaic about it) In my last Reiner letter I described today, altho' it hadn't happened then. I said, "I just got home, all wind-blown and giddy When I went for the mail, the sun was shining wildly and everything - the splashy puddles, the drippy, swishy sounds, the intoxicating smell of new sawdust, the glint of sun on the sloshy snow - was shouting "Spring! Spring! Spring!" I sketched Honey when she was lying on a cushion in the sun, I ate cake with jelly on it and lots of chicken, I wore socks to church instead of nylons and wouldn't talk to Verna, I said "Happy birthday Mr Weins" to the dear old man and loved him a lot, feeling strange and abstract when I was staring at the stubby white bristles under his lip and holding his hand and he said "I'm seventy years old. I am an old man." I made him a little happy. I'm glad I did. We were home alone after the rest went to Weinses for dinner - Judy, Paul and I. I wanted to get a book from Voth's - a Pearl S. Buck book. I wanted to walk too, in the outside and the Spring with my coat sliding off my shoulders and my summer petticoat swelling my shadow on the ground into a balloon silhoette. I walked down the roads to Voths; the heat of the sun on my back was a pleasant sensuous pressure and I was light as air. The sky was polished and crystal. At that place by the bush there is a dead tree with bare branches and a magpie sitting in them. The branches etched into the sky were Japanese art in blacks and greys - detailed and intense and simple. I'll remember that picture. I got there, not quickly. The road was companionable and I had company all the way. I talked to Reiner mentally, not anything deep, etc, just company and happiness and discussion. And I talked to myself and flirted with my shadow. Their house is very nice. I walked towards it past the chickens and they all took a step towards me, raising their voices. When I got to the steps I took off my boot before I climbed them because they were so clean. She asked me in of course, into her radiant house and her glowing kitchen. I asked for the book and I sat on the floor in front of her bookshelf and we talked books. She wasn't as comfortable on the floor as I was I talked to her about a lot of things. She knows more about me than I do about her, tho' because I forget to stop talking about myself. Bad. From Books to dreams isn't far. I told her about the hospital and my houseplans and the Banff School of Fine Art Contest and Arizona and haunted houses and things a bit friend to friend. There was a new feeling in the contact of our two solitudes - envy. I could feel and be happy in my youth and hopefulness and expectancy. She would look at my youth, run her fingers over it, fondle it, and withdraw her hand. I felt blessed, royally fortunate, altho' I have only what many people have. But something she does not have. And even in her glowing house with her books and flowers and music she doesn't have youthfulness. And I think I'd rather have my youth. - Zum Beishpiel - I showed her my locket and told her for what and from whom. She said, "It's something to stay alive for ..." And I said "I don't think I really need anything to stay alive for yet, but it will be nice to remember. When I'm seventy." But she is right. Love is the best reason for living. I am pleased tho', that she assumed that it was love - because most people would not. If she did not acknowledge it to be love she would not have attached much importance to it. After a long time I decided to go, and she walked to the corner with me. She gave me a glass of cold water and we walked to the road togeather. Outside there was more freedom to laugh. There were fewer ghosts and old dreams to choke back frivolity. She was less restrained outside. I hope I took her mind off her husband and I hope she was happy for a while. I wish she could be young again and revive her dreams and make a few of them come true. I wish something could happen to make her young at heart again. Something should happen. These lives of people are so tangled. Everyone is a cord with so many strands, all different colored, that unravel and tangle with the strands and solitudes of other people. All these things are there for me to find and follow and roll up onto story-spools. I'm glad I'm alive and I'm glad I'm young. March 24 Choir practice was very good - we're learning "Betende Hende" and some other new songs. March 24 Some regular Ellie-peculiarities to report. I'm curious about their whys. Yesterday after school and at breakfast this morning too, Daddy and I had one of our little fights. It was a one sided fight actually because he attacked angrily and I parried only, but with a half-hid wink to Judy and Paul. Then afterwards we laugh about it and our little crust of resentment is melted by our laugher and runs away in little rivulets to the past. The fight was as usual: he was "belly-aching" about something, I'm vague about what. And I was disagreeing mildly, and with that infuriating chuckle of mine. (hee hee) He was bothered and steamed up his mental windshield. This morning I happened to be defending my favorite brother. Pop looked at Paul, and growled, Germanish, "It's pitiful." "What is?" sez I. "If you can't see that yourself, you're pitiful." "Okay. Then I'm pitiful." I was quite happy about it. Something made him angry then. So he berated. I never get mad any more. It's too funny. But I left quite soon, and had to wait a very long time for the bus. Just deserts. When I got home today Mom "took me to - ahem! - task" about this honour-thy-father deal. We had a beautifully emotional argument in which my tears trickled like wine in France, and German beer before Lent. So I had to clean up my boots and was about to wipe up a muddle puddle with a Sunday School Paper, as is my way of doing. Mom hopped up nimbly and swatted my seat lustily. I burst into tears, with huge hysterical sobs that were compulsive and frightening because I don't know why they "became existant". Mom doesn't understand. It was some kind of reaction. Perhaps -
I don't know. I'll do some researching tho'. Stuff about motivations and cause and effect. I played a singles game of table tennis with Gerald at noon. The score was 21-16 for me. And he's a good player. I played better than I ever had. And he very chivalrously gave me most of those by some wild hits. When I protested, he just shrugged, grinned knowingly at Ray about the dumbness of females, and said "I'm trying my damndest." Nitwit. But nice. March 28 I have been listening to Beethoven. Know something? I'm long-hair. I loved it. It was a 10:30 radio broadcast. A chinook is billowing outside, whipping the draggled edges of spring. There is a fire in the heater, just a small one, but it throws crooked flickers onto the ceiling and into that dark place where the stove pipes go into the attic. The lamp is in the bedroom and the door is half open. It is on the dresser and reflects into the room. Mom stands in front of the half open door, silhoetted. Dad leans against the wall with his back to the fire and me. He listens and looks at Mom outlined against the light. I am lying on the big chair. I can see my legs stretched up to meet the wall. They look long. They look like summer. I am on my back across the chair. Between the pyjama pants, full like venitian gentlemens pants, and the nylon half-slip I am wearing over my breasts like a tight strapless, my waist feels slim because it is stretched over the arm rest, and my body is warm. I am holding a cushion close to it. it is a rough petit point cushion. Rough, like tweed. It is a very masculine cushion. Behind me is the radio. It is on only very softly. "Sonata in C minor" is what I think the man said. It begins very shyly; gentle, trembling piano chords. The violin rushes in and the music builds up subtily until it breaks into chords that sound solid, final. And then there is silence. Even more quietly than before the piano begins again. This is Beethoven. I love it. April 2 - Easter Sunday Blocks were here for dinner. Then they had mittagschlaff in Mom and Dad's bedroom while I splashed up an abstract painting for Reiner (gold background, an agonized red tree with a distorted blue shadow, a dark doorway.) and then Mr. Block walked out and said "I guess we could have a look at your story now." So we sat in the living room on the couch and talked. I like talking to him. He said a few nice things - "I like your title" ("Go Barefoot in Summer") - "I was pleased by it" - "This is your style. This is you." - "You probably won't get anything for it but it will be an introduction. It will be a start for you." - "You have a fabulous vocabulary" (I have a fabulous thesaurus) I have been having qualms about it. On Thursday when he gave it back I walked home alone for a stretch and sat down on the road to read it over. I was so discouraged I could have cried and did squeeze out a little precipitation. I told him why today. - "if I hadn't written it, I'd say it was silly." - "It doesn't have the impact it was supposed to have. It fell by the wayside somewhere." - "It's not suitable." But he's helped and I'm sleepy and the pen scratches. April 1 Sat - Typed and cleaned up with a pretty good all-day feelin' - cleaning up for Easter Sunday tomorrow. It is thawing beautifully, road is bone-dry. April 4 Had a showdown with Judy about my bossiness. Don't blame her for being mad. I would be too. Story is a big job. April 5 I have to polish Go Barefoot in Summer until it shines. April 9 Sunday - a little bit of reading for the first time all week luxury. Finished typing the 2nd last ms. of Go Barefoot. April 11 I've been The Boss for a week - Mom was hobbenobbing in Clearbrooke. It was nice - poor papa's porriage was like concrete and his tea 4 times too strong. He never said he liked anything I made, it was hard on the morale. I just now had a terse little conversation with Mom - "Daddy is rally very honest" I said. "Oh?" "Yesterday I told him I'd baked some cookies and told him to eat one so he could tell me how good they were. So he had one. But he didn't say a word. He's very honest." I looked out the window and there were tears in my eyes. Silly tears, of course. But it does hurt. Mom came home today at 2:15 in the morning. We knew she'd come between yesterday and today. And daddy stayed up late. I caught myself looking out of the window and quickly pretended it was the weather I was looking at. A bit funny. Then I heard her @ night and was happy to see her again. She brought me "War and Peace" by Tolstoy. High-brow stuff. I'll tackle it tho'. And some socks. I was wrapping up an abstract art picture for Reiner last night. One with purple and green and greys with an orange circle and a yellow centre of hot color. I called it "The Riddle" and sent a corny descriptive folder, typed in my best style, describing the artist - one bohemian Zarazi Majgda, living on a houseboat on the pond in Central Park and painting, quote "a haunting black-and-white of a pork and beans tin, and a scintillating oil portrait of an old inner-tube" I tied it up with red yarn, addressed it to "Mister Koblotsky, and wrote "Do Not Open Until" on the back. Touché. Wonder what his is like? April 13 I'm going to hand Go Barefoot in to Mr. Block tomorrow nite after choir practice. (Later - we walked to it - 2 miles.) April 13 Thursday after writing 5 page to Reiner and being scolded for eating, quote "over three quarters of that new box of mixed peel". All in a days work. But what wasn't in a days work was in a night's work - (pun - tee hee) a technicolor cinemescope - in-color, etc, dramatization. For the most part it was slapstick comedy and pathos - Reiner was here in a long low multi-colored car, etc. There was only one part that was different - it was a bit of "dialogue directly from the for-very-mature-adults-only kind of film: ie, what they call "earthy". Blush. But the first half-ways sexy dream I've had. Reiner was in the living room with me, in the corner by the radio and the big chair. I'd only seen him for a minute (music fades to a tense sweep) I leaned my head against his chest. He was behind me. A tender moment. And then, (up! creshendo! Creshendo!) he threw his arms around me violently. I was arched against him, my back against his chest. And his hands were pressed against my chest, over my breasts. "Ellie, Ellie," he moaned. "I've desired you so long!" (the peak of frenzy, then a heavy throbbing beat and an ominous creeping lower of pitch) I turned to him with my wild eyes and wispered hoarsely, "Reiner, lets go for a ride." To be alone. With what? Passion I guess. Then it changed to ominous comedy again. I was so rattled I tipped all my clothes onto the floor and couldn't decide what to wear. I curled my eyelashes backwards, got lipstick all over my face, and after he had waited three hours in his car on the fence line (I know the spot exactly) between Leilands and us, I ran down the muddy lane awkwardly, he drove to the corner. I had been always telling myself how I must be carefull, how something would probably happen. But in the car, Daddy was driving. There were already four in the back seat. I sat on one side, he sat on the other. (Music fades, wavers, squeeks out) Curtain falls. Was this act one or the end? April 14 Last day a dream movie - today a real one. The L.G.H.S. presentation of "Titanic." I walked into the hall after paying my quarter to Henry with a smile. I wanted someone to sit beside but there wasn't a soul I knew except John Jentink. I smiled a small up-corners smile at him, and looked away quickly just when he was beginning to smile back. I turned back when I couldn't see anyone, and in the second last row I did see them. And they were all With. Marlene Sandboe with Alfred. Pat Ranch with Donna. Bernice with (ugh) Bryce. So I stayed away from them and went to sit alone in the front. But I felt peculiar there - thinking about the couples in the back, feeling so very alone and in a strange place with the children all around me. I looked back, feeling conspicuous because I was so alone. Janeen and Karen and Gail were in the back, selling things. The boys were too, because of the bee and flower deal? I walked back and into the room. There were stacks of pop bottles. Boxes of chocolate bars. Spilled pop-corn in greasy bags. Smells. Janeen and Gail. Light from the "naked bulb." I popped corn. Shook corn over the fire. Mixed butter into it. Piled it into the greasy bags. Sneaked glimpses of the cartoon but didn't know what it was about. Felt In. Happy. The film began with blurry dialogue and baskets of fruit and flowers at the pier. Four boys were singing. Handsome and dark with a big "P" on their sweaters. Young boy smile. I was with Janeen, we gabbed and fellowshipped and shared melty chocolate bars with warm pop. We sighed together over the love scenes, gasped softly when the ice-berg struck, and in the end sang "Nearer my God to Thee" with the film, together. But I missed something. I wanted a hand to hold and a shoulder to turn my face to. That's more than good fellowship. Maybe it's love. Of course you know I'm thinking of Reiner. But he wasn't in this evening, not tangibly. Gerald was, and other fellows. He and I felt a kind of rapport tonight like we sometimes do. He's a nice guy when he wants to be. And he looks very good in his red jacket. And there was one more boy - in the film. He and a beautiful brunette with starry eyes and a lovely chin got together. There were some love scenes, and their kisses reminded me .... And once somebody said "What's troubling you?" I got nostalgic over that phrase - one night on the deck But, Ellie, be good. It was a beautiful movie. Pathos and tears and laughter and a staunch bravery. There was a priest who was kicked out of Rome because he was a drunkard, who wrote a telegram that was never sent. It said, "Please forgive." And then he died trying to save some other men. There was a friendly man; friendly to everyone but his wife. They got together at last. And kissed violently. He sank, he and his son together. A very old man and old woman sank together, singing. The captain went down. But the young man fell into the water and was pulled out. I was so glad he was saved. He stayed with the girl. The end was brutal but bittersweet; the ship tipped up and sank, gliding down end first like a cigar blazing with lights. I felt awed by this big emotion - by the men who were men. They discovered a man disquized as a woman. Gerald said to me, "that's some man," and he said it with contempt. I'm glad he said so. And tho't so. I would like to have cried at the end. I wish I could cry slowly and appealingly without getting sniffles and red eyes. Just big tears rolling slowly down my face, silently and dramaticly. Tears are so feminine. But I was overwhelmed. I covered my face. It was very convincing. And real. I want to remember it and the faces of the people on the deck. I want them to become a part of me. I loved it. April 15 Saturday. I was in the tub with dripping hair when daddy said he was taking me to a cantata directed by Pete. April 15th Reluctantly, I like Peter again. Peter Dyck. He conducted the glee club in a cantata tonight. There were patterns - White shirts and blouses with bow ties. Black pants and skirts. And in the precise middle, a tall tapered black shape, not like a shadow, solid and energetic. Mr. Dyck. Peter. This time, for once, his hair got a little rumpled. There was a deep shadow in the back of his neck, and it moved with him as his head and his elbows jerked, beating the music and the pattern of it out into the air. And then he turned, with a little bit of that red hair coming down his forehead, and said, "I could eat and drink and sleep music." I guess I like him again. April 17 Today - Monday and a day of wild wind and abandonment among trees, and roarings and rattling of the tin on the roof at 5 a.m. - was Career Day. We took the bus to Hythe, and the road was a long one and a slow one. I sat with Bernice. Neither of us found much in the other. We didn't talk much. I felt conspicuous by being so taciturn in the midst of the roaring and shrieking and tumult. As tho' I was a misfit. Maybe I am, in general too. I don't really mind any more though because being a misfit among the ordinary makes you either superior or inferior. And? Besides, being a misfit and so serene about it makes me feel gloriously and exceptionally mature. Okay. Maybe I am. There were scads of kids in the high school at Hythe. I didn't notice even one boy who appealed to me .... We were shy groups of outsiders standing in the hall until we took our coats off. Then we were girls, chatting in the hall - some pretty, some frouzy. Except you never really notice the frousy ones. We sat in the front row of the auditorium, almost near enough to the paralell row of speakers to rub noses but never presuming to even smile. I noticed something - all of the men were a little self conscious. They looked at the ceiling or the back wall and drummed their finger. They would not look at you directly enough so you could smile @ them. I know if I'd been in their place I would have stared at every single face in the entire audience and made friends with a few of them. That's why I don't understand those saintly up-turned gazes. I had a Social Worker Lecture first. The girls came in - there were only seven of them - then Mr. Block and Mr. Ray and Mr. Andruski as well as a woman with an appallingly drab hat covered with faded red flowers. (She smiled tho') There was one girl I noticed right from the beginning She was terribly petite - much less than 5 feet tall, was in grade twelve, had the strangely old face of a woman, a beautiful and charming woman. Her hair was red-blonde, short, and casual. Her eyebrows were penciled; her eyes were huge and blue; Her mouth was perfect - with an orangy-coral lipstick; (absolutely faultless) a perfect and flawless complexion, a tinkly, gracious, and utterly feminine voice; a totally gracious and intelligent manner. Our profs were all impressed by her. Mr. Gue (not Goo) was our prof. One of the girls afterwards described him as radiant. He was perfectly at ease, friendly, charming, and a great guy. I liked him - wish he was my teach instead of some head of some department of Rehabilitation Services. He made Social Work interesting - I'm seriously considering it instead of nursing. It might be fun. And not only that; it would be stimulating and challenging and gratifying too, to work with people and their minds and their problems. Besides, where could I get a better background for writing? We sat around him in a semicircle, he sat in one too. I was across from the exquisite Faye Bolt, and could observe the way in which she listened, asked questions, and smiled. It made me feel gauche, but when I sat in the auditorium I thought "of all the grade 10's here, I'm the smartest." That really helped! So I could ask intelligent questions and make intelligent comments and Faye Bolt didn't bother me too much. There were two other girls besides her that I liked. One was a tall, slender thing with shiny black hair, slanted black eyes, and a beautiful wide mouth. She had lovely legs, and was alive. There was another - earnest eyes, brown complexion, chin in her thin hands, serious questions. I talked to her afterwards in the can. She's nice! There were some I didn't think much of - a stupid-looking Norwegen with legs that tapered from enormous ankles to her knees. And a spit-and-polished-grooming girl with a pointy bust-line who said "huh?" when I talked to her. Nuts. A University lecture was after that. Mr. Fair was gangling, intelligent, and a joker. A fruit. A nut. He wandered all over the circle he was talking in and didn't say much. It wasn't a wide circle. But I'd love to go to University. My ambition is to attend McGills in Montreal. P.Q. It's a new ambition but it's there. Maybe I'll do it. Let's see - what new horizons have I bumped into today?
Quite a few. And nice ones. April 20 The first crocus. April 21 Paul and Judy and I practiced ball until I'm creaking stiff. April 24 Woke up with a bright, shiny cold and stayed home in bed with it all day. Read "Hamlet" in the afternoon. April 25 Choir practice. Voths for eggs after. Mr. said something obsene to Mom. April 26 Baseball blues because it seems that by tradition I'm outfield and unneeded there too! April 28 I've got a beautiful new Summer coat in a bright pastel mauve with faint black checks and big buttons, size fourteen, fits perfectly. I love it. April 28th Its almost full moon on a night that is fragile but elastic, and with cold that makes a winter jacket like my favorite one of daddy's, ineffective. Then too, it's a moonlight and roses with sweet music and you night. I wizzed down the driveway on the bike, with the cold air sliding right through me, and masses of light and shadow fading past me on both sides, indistinctly and mysteriously. Because it was so cold I went to sit in the car and listen to the radio. There was a warm spot of light where the radio dial was, many shadows in solid rectangles and distortedly-angular, yet softened, curves. The sky-blue moonlight came through the windshield and glinted in patterns when it passed through the cracks in the glass. And there was a mirror too, a small one - the rear-view. I looked at my face to see if moonlight made me beautiful, but I could only see myself in part, either my eyes, or my mouth, or my nose (I didn't look at that long) I don't think moonlight does - make me beautiful, I mean. I think sunshine does more so. Symbolic? Hope not, because I'd like to be a mystic nocturnal creature, just for the pure glamour of it. I think maybe I am tho', because I have weird ideas about things I'd like to do. Zum beispeil: (oh, corruption of the language of the Reich!) some day I want to walk through a lonely forest by myself when there is a moon like tonight's, and I want to walk with absolutely nothing on like a nymph or a child. And I want to find a young slender tree in the woods, and I will put my arms around it from sheer quixoticy, and kiss it. To kiss a tree and walk naked in the woods - that's not really a clear-as-light ambition. I sat in the car and thought about Reiner. I remember a picture caption I read today that told about a French girl who "kissed all the boys, and then went home and wonderingly, rememberingly, kissed her mirror for practice." So I kissed the mirror, but kept my eyes open to see what a "man" sees when he comes a little closer and bends for the final touch. I don't know if or how Reiner thinks about it, but if he ever kisses me again, and surely he will, sometime, I hope he closes his eyes. It's funny how breathless I can get about imaginary kissing, sometimes more breathless than the real thing. Maybe because the wistful-dreaming kind demand more participation from me? And I fixed the mirror so I could only see my face in it distantly, just bright moonlight patches and shadows, and then, looking into the mirror, I could almost believe that the face I saw was leaned against a sport's jacket, in the bend between one particularly nice arm and the shoulder belonging to it. and when I can almost believe it's all real, I begin to feel peaceful; not as peaceful as I feel when his arm really is around me because my mind is too fidgety under pretend circumstances, but still, quiet and demure. When I really am with Reiner, the demureness and quietude become complete serenity. I wonder why. I'll ask him next time. Perhaps for the deep unconscious reasons of feeling basic warmth and protection. Maybe it all dates back to femininity, the beginning femaleness. I'd like to be in a clover and moonlight patch by our creek with Reiner, and wear a filmy dress with yards of floating skirt and sleeves; and I'd say to him, "listen, do you hear the orchestra Reiner? It's behind the bush, in that deep shadow there do you see it?" And he would, after a while. And then we would move slowly across the clover and perhaps we would dance, to the shy soft music of the orchestra, the flutes and the spanish guitars and the reed pipes of Pan. We would be the prince and the princess, the hero and the heroine. And then we would stop, and under the moon, among the sweet clover clusters with their silver-tipped ends, he would put his arms around me and I would say tremulously after he had kissed me, "Reiner - I've forgotten .... my lines" Maybe, and after all, I am a sexy female underneath. April 29 We had an evening service and a film on Columbia missions which appeals to me. I'd not half mind being a missionary if I was married but my motives are screwy. May 1 Kinderwaters came home, and it began to rain with pleasure - nice smell but the mud is objectionable. Year since Whilms left - they'de like our new church. May 2 Mr Block had one of his "earnest conversations" with me wherein he explained that I really must not read other things in school while we are having lab. May 5 Didn't write R. yesterday so did it in the car listening to the radio. Picked rocks with the red truck. "Ellie had a little truck / And it was painted red. / Everywhere that Ellie went / The cops picked up the dead." May 9 I'm mildly ill - had to convince myself this morning so I could stay home and do homework. Nine and a half hours of it. Science and Social Studies. May 11 I looked at the picture on the back cover of the new Look. there was a girl in a pink formal and her shoes kicked off, leaning back with a blissful La Giaconda smile, and a program in her hand. Then I threw it over my shoulder and said "Nuts!" I went into the bedroom and combed my hair in front of the mirror. And walked into the kitchen. Ate a small sliver of cheeze. Said to Mom, "How do you go about not minding your face?" Leaned my head against the door. Cryed. She was amazingly comforting. The "it-is-not-bad-at-all.-I-think-your-face-is-nothing-to-worry-about-at-all.-kind of comfort. This is Thursday, and there wasn't a letter. I sat in the bus, bleakly. I thought, if he could be with me now he wouldn't like me any more. I'm not the same. I'm old and tired and ugly. I wish I could go home and cry. I'm sixteen. And that's the way it is with me now. May 11 - later The parties over la, da, da and I am here with me, after writing Reiner an exuberant note ending with "... and be as happy as I am!" !!! Creepers - me, saying that, after the dirge about "old and ugly and dead"??? Oh well. I'm sixteen. Some things have to happen. It's midnight. Go to bed, Ellie. You'll get circles under your eyes. You kidding? I gotta yak and brag a little. Come to the point. We won the debate. Some boys smiled at me. I met some people. I smiled. I got through the speech. The people were terrific. Friends. Edna Weibe and a boy called Dave Leonard, and Karen Petersen. Jake was terrific. A wow of a speech maker. Dynamic! Ray was handsome. I sat between them. My knee was leaning against Rays for a while, but I was so aware of it, and it made me so tremulous (why?) that I had to move to preserve my calm. And for a while I sat beside Dave Leonard. I smiled at him and he responded beautifully .... Even across, we smiled at each other. And there was a mob of Sexsmith boys. Long haired and unkempt. There was a dark one though with a nice smile. He even used it on me. He made a terrible face, and then grinned. I liked that. It made me feel not so ugly, and a little bit better about being sixteen. I got up to make my speech. I didn't dare look at the front row for fear of the face-maker. So it went from "Mr. Chairman; Honourable judges; worthy opponents; ladies and gentlemen. Do Canadians Want Immigration? More important, Does Canada Need immigration?" to "Why then, should Canada's immigration law be relaxed?" The end. And my mouth was powder-dry. That was a phenenome (Spelling, liebes Kinde!!) I stared too much. But we won. Halleluja! (Sp??) Congradulations, people said. Would you like a yearbook? I said. We sold quite a few. Very nice. To nearly everybody there. Just luck. But we made money. More halleluja. Then there is Walter Nagel, reporter and photographer. Mr. Mann caught me in the corner and said something about "newspaper work," "visitor," "Walter Nagel." But I finally squeezed out a bit of sense. Walter Nagel looks for young people who like to write. Mr. Mann said to him, "Been out at La Glace lately?" an' he said, "Why no" and dear Mr. Mann said "Better go." So I might get a visitor. I just hope so beyond hopings. That's much more than a won debate. Gloriously more. After the coffee drinking, around-rushing, yearbook-selling, smiling, smiling, smiling, end, Judy and I went out into the stilly ol' La Glace streets. Dark and silent and so sensible. We turned the radio on, the volume up, and danced in the street on the lumpy rocks. People will say I was drunk. Mebbee so, mebbee so. It's a drunk-getting night. World, I love ya, I love ya, I do. For the meantime. As I said to Raymond, Aren't we terrific? May 12 Sat. Sitting in the car listening to the radio, studying. May 14 I'm an intellectual. I've decided to be stimulated by a scholarly essay on contemporary art and am finding a forest of words. "Aesthetic." May 16 After the long cold weeks it is suddenly warm and lovely. May 17 Momentous day because for the first time in my life I had the courage to wear nylons to school and there was no wincing May 18 Tentatively, a few leaves "popped" and I took some to school. May 19 It is so sad to be too intellectual to be normal and "fit" and not intellectual enough to stop caring. May 22 Uncle B and the Epp clan left after dinner. A lovely hot day I went to study down by the creek and getting a beautiful and patchy tan. May 23 Lorraine Torgerson is 5 months gone and only 17. May 24 I finished reading the book "Exodus" from Uncle Ben yesterday. May 25 Everything is lambent and wildly green. Outside the flowers are beginning to bloom - caragana, saskatoon, violets, buttercups, strawberry. May 29 Reiner requested a song for me over CFGP!! (Marty Robbins "Don't Worry about Me") May 30 Tuesday - mosquito-y 9:30 pm. I got a surprize today. That's why this chapter is going to be called "about reading poetry" or "on a book." The surprise was that one of my long white envelope's promises has been kept. I got the book from the principal's Association. "Complete Works of Robert Frost." It is a thick book, an expensive book. It smells new and clean. It has many inches of white space, waiting and crying to have comments written in it. The cover is green, and it has a signature in green on it. The cover, under the jacket - I don't like book-jackets - is sensuously smooth. A new book, a book of poetry, is always sensuous. I am in awe of poetry books. I page through them restlessly and then I only read the shortest poems. I scurry and flutter through the leaves, looking eagerly for something I seldom find. And when I do find a small part of the mysterious "it", I am still not satisfied and rush hungrily through the rest of it, still looking. The dream of my life is to find a book completely full of this covert intangible. I haven't yet. I find part of it in Amy Lowell and Walter de la Mare and Carl Sandberg and Emily Dickinson, and in paintings. Perhaps I can find it in Robert Frost. June 9, 3:10 a.m. In the "beetle" [1948 Mercury sedan in metal-flake olive green] under a quilt and two blankets. I'm a week late. Things only began to happen last Thursday. There was Thursday - the Sunday - and again on Monday - and yesterday night, this morning. Maybe tonight. Maybe Sunday. But that won't be until after. Last night was our grade eleven grad party. My dress was nice. I thought it was. A glowy blue-green-mauve dress with period ruffled sleeves, a scoopy neckline, a blue nylon overskirt, and a perky bow. 2 crinolines, starched. Nylons - one tan mesh, one reddish mesh. Couldn't find mates. Don't care enough either. My hair was okay. I looked okay. But maybe I was the only one to think so. That would be sad. O.K. say it. You thought you were pretty. In the first place I didn't have a date. I thought for a while Al might ask me but he chickened out. Or maybe he never even intended to. I'll say he did. It's a small comfortish thought. But I didn't have a date. There were some panicy moments because of it. 3:30 a.m. Somebody said, "Girls choose a partner." I blinked. Nobody. I thought of Al, but Sharon got him all grabbed up. Then I got worried and flew down the hall to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror. Choked up a cry. Then I went and helped Gail with the lunch. It was a very good escape. I saw very little of the party after that. But more of Mr. Ray. He was wearing his black suit and looked wonderful. I wish he and I could communicate. He's a misfit too. Too young to be "one of the teachers," but still a teacher, and therefore not one of the kids either. I know how it is. I could get along very well with him. I wish the "barriers" yuk yuk could be smashed. I could get on a K.S. basis with Mr. Ray. Do you think I would call him "Delbert" or "Mr Ray"? But we did have some fun - that is I did - smiling. I rushed down the hall, he rushed down the hall, opposite directions - and in an instant of sort of telepathic thought we both at the same instant side stepped exaggeratedly in all directions. Just playing. I told him when he was pouring our coke that he was doing a lot of work for us. He shrugged. I wonder if he was pleased? But c'est impossible .... We - the "grads" and Helen and me - had to be in the Home and School meeting for a while. Piano pieces, speech - a good one - by Mr. Block - I had to read some prophecies of Jan and Karen - Ray read the boys'. I wrote Charles'. It was the best one too. Har. Then there was a speech - a harangue - by a bald teacher with incredibly skinny legs called Mr. Smith. His speech - his monologue - was a half hour long, and he repeated every thing he said at least three times. And he told us how dreadful Jackie Kennedy is. Janeen was mad then and didn't clap a bit. I only tapped my fingertips togeather distainfully. We thought we'd live in there forever. After a painful time though, he let us out to go back to the party. It was a party atmosphere. The music was just slightly jazzy. There was a beautiful center of streamers, a silver moon and silver stars with the grads' names on it, confetti on the floor, in our hair. Whirly skirts and such like. Suits on the boys. It was a good party too. Everybody thought so. I did too, for a while, in a way. Karen's Dennis and bro. Stanley were there. I liked them both. Karen was so pretty. A dreadfully nice dress, her long blond hair, happy look. Janeen was as always pretty. Her dress wasn't special - pink and pretty. I think I could get along with Karen's guys very well. I got this pen as an award deal for highest again in grade 10. Jan grade 11. Helen grade 9. It's a greenish parker arrow with cartidges and converter. This award and presentation stuff is starting to be a big bore. It's so totally ordinary. Mom tol' me Mr. Block said to her "I'll have to congradulate you again on your daughter." That is sickening. Somebody had to be top, and to be top here is so un. Eight and a half minutes past 4 a.m. We decorated this afternoon, tacking streamers and hanging stars. Gerald was incredibly loud. I said, "If he's like this before, what will he be like when he really is?" Mr Ray was a sympathetic type of radio receiver on that. I remember standing in the center of the hoop with streamers all around me. Deep purple, orchid, mauve, and silver. It made me feel kind of - m..m..m. I was standing in the hall outside the door - Al came out. He looked me up'n'down and in that flattering well-what-have-we-here-way said "hi." It was a glow. And he dusted the confetti out of my hair. Then when I was leaving with my coat and the big cake plate, I said "Al would you open the door for me please?" He shouted, "I'll open both doors for ya" and did, with gusto. Mom and Dad were watching. Then right after, Gerald came up and asked "Didja' get the grade 10 general's or what?" Cute. He didn't even get drunk. We 'ppreciated that. Then There was Monday. It was lovely. I've never had so much fun. It was like really being sixteen. Jentink's car stopped to pick me up for young peoples. Jan and Helene and Marlys and Chris were with John. I wanted to run to the house to comb my hair but just when they turned into the driveway my foot got a cramp in it and I collapsed on the grass. Ridiculous! But I recovered just when they drove up, gave up the studying idea, and went with 'em. Jan admired my dream flowers on the wall. Young peoples was in the dark kitchen of (Janeen's) Aunt Ina's kitchen. Mr Gritter is a very attractive man. I stared at him and he stared back. He's dreadfully much like Reiner. I was sitting beside John J. - there comes the sun - sunrise - he smoked clouds into my eyes but I lived. There was a long discussion. Then we went out to go home and John had put lilacs on the windshield. We went to Nijland's first, I didn't know what for. John drove around in hysterical circles while I shrieked "I'm too young to die!" He lost a hub cap of course, and had to find it. We had a ride on the hot rod - a motor with no body - frame and seats tho'. Chris and I sat beside Fred on the front seat. Fred drove us all over the country - up and down ditches, into trees, through hay stacks, past Postmans .... the hot rod has a lovely horn. It sounds like a diesel train's whistle. We backed into an old barn and yakked. We quipped and laughed and screamed and let our knees show on purpose when the warm exhaust from the engine blew up. We flirted. We teased. We were doing and altogether happy. Reckless. We got a flat fire and had to walk home. John and Phylis were holding hands. I nearly died of shock. Gerry and I agreed that with John, you just gotta' have will power! I do, tho'. No worries. We got back to Nijlands and stood and joked and flirted again. It was a ball. It got later and later. Gerry went in, after giving up her attempts to make us go home. We got into Jentink's car, Chris and I in the back until we took Phyllis home, then in front with me in the middle. (Now it's 17 and a half minutes before 5 a.m.) John drove wildly over the deserted road, hills all the way. The radio was away up. We were singing without scruples. John has a nice voice. "I like peanut butter, creamy peanut butter, chunky peanut butter too," the radio burped. The volume went 'way up again. We all began to yell (musically) "I like peanut butterk, creamy peanut butter, chunky peanut butter too!" while the car turned in our driveway. That's a special song now. We sat a minute in the car arguing about how much fun we'd had before I crawled out John's side. I got in and had to tell Mom all about it (stressing the young people's bit) in order to keep her calm about the time, nearly midnight. It worked very well. - In contrast to that was this morning - last night. I rode home with Mom and Dad. That in itself was sad enough to cry over. So cry I did, In the dark back seat. I went into the kitchen and was cross, and cried a little more. Daddy was mad. He said I always was blue after a party and that I should grow up and that I should learn to be satisfied. I was numbed by this onslaught. I clenched my fists and screwed up my mouth and held back because I felt so rejected and dispised by father. When the door closed after him, I let out the dry gasping choke-sobs (sniff sniff) and Mom said a very surprising thing. She said, "they just can't seem to understand." As a woman to a woman. So we talked, and when Daddy came back in after a long time he was very sweet to me. I guess he loves me, huh? Mom says he wants me to be happy and that is why he is mad when I'm unhappy. I think that must be why. So I went into the car in my party dress to do up my hair and listen to the radio. Then I went to bed. I got the most peculiar cramps in my feet and couldn't sleep so I brought the blankets into the car and listened to the radio until 3 a.m. Then it started to get light so I got this thing. Maybe I can catch up. While I sat in here being miserable in my party dress, It was still dark then, one thought kept coming back. I'm sixteen. I can't be. This isn't the way sixteen is. But I'm sixteen. I'm sixteen. I'm sixteen. I'm sixteen. It was, really, agonizing and it still is. Now I'm still here. I think I'll stay awake all night. And brood, I suppose. But I'm a little proud because I can say now that I went to a big party in a beautiful dress when I was sixteen and came home and cried my silly head off, and stayed up all night after it. * * And then there was Sunday. I went to church with Postman's in the afternoon. We sat in the back pew. I was beside Martin Nijland. It was a novelty to sing out of the same songbook as a boy, especially when you don't know any of the songs! The service was different. I liked it. Afterwards we went driving in John's car. Janeen was between me and him. She was beautiful. Her dress was a short, sleeveless, collarless, sheath that made her look slender and curvaceous. She was wearing green eyeshadow and mascara and pink lipstick and rhinestone earrings and white little-heels. John drives like a cyclo-maniac. (not a psycho-maniac. I do know what I'm talking about) We nearly rolled around a corner and skidded wildly. (I f'rgot to tell you. John showed me how to "back off your pipe" and blew up his muffler!) Then we went around all the bases in a school ball-diamond and drove over all the stakes. * * There was last Thursday - not yesterday - too. Janeen and I celebrated Karens May 9 birthday: - walked home from school with ice cream and chocolate bars and water from Fasts for fortification. - threw pebbles into the creek to hit sunken tires - discussed kissing and unmentionables - got home and had yum Norweigen food on the lawn (K's little bro. plowed into Jan's food on the lawn - feet first) - listened to radio music coming through the window - "I told Ev'ry Little Star Just How Wonderful You Are" - flitted around in the bush minus blouses - I took some embarrassin' pictures (twenty-two and a half past 5 a.m. CFUN) - went to choir practice at Norden with Janeen. Played the organ. Talked to Mr. Grant and so many ladies who giggled about unfunny things - sang alto in the choir - as a struggle. Perhaps I can go to the Dawson Creek Festival on Sunday, but I don't know the songs. It'll be a mass choir anyway. - went home to Gundersen's, ate pink ice-cream - trudged into the bush for a weiner roast. Was blissfully lonely. - when it got late and the kids all went home, we got closer to the fire. When you poked a stick into the fire and it got ember-y, and you whirled it in the air it made sparky red circles and lines in the dark. - we got blue, and all declared we could cry with no more provocation. We talked about Duane and Dennis and Reiner and about whether we're fat or not. - I was the only one who actually managed to cry, pressed against the damp earth near the fire, Because I was so lonely and felt so far from being sixteen, perhaps. Because I felt cheated when Karen told about her plans and ideas with Dennis, perhaps. - we went to bed and I giggled, half asleep, thinking about little Kenneth stepping into Janeen's food - to school next morning - then!! * * then!! There was Friday. I didn't get on "our" bus, and ride home with it down the hill. Home wasn't there. the House was planted forlornly on mover's skids on a sidehill across the road from Nick Seiburt's, a small house in the bare, endless, tufty grass. No trees by the window. I trudged across the grass, climbed in and grumbled, crying while I grumbled. I looked it over and was numb and homesick and thought poetically of roots and trees and memories and was grumpy and sentimental. But I switched furniture around feverishly to make everything different and now everything Is different. It all started a week ago yesterday. Fourteen and a half to 6 a.m. June 10 No studying all weekend and 2 tests next week, finals. I'm beginning to give up and have fun which is bad. Saturday, June 10, p.m. It stormed yesterday - the wind torrented around our house like around a rock in a rapids. The wind blew down, not fell. I tho't we'd never have our weiner roast. But I put Judy's shirt on and her cord'roy running shoes anyway and sat by the window to "study" while I watched the road. I looked up just when John's pink car turned in and whooped while I ripped my fat rollers out of my hair, rolled a comb through likewise, grabbed a sweater and a jacket and my purse, and rushed out with Christine. At Nijland's we sat on a chesterfield, watched Mr. Gritter furtively while he said grace, chatted, looked through their fabulous yearbook - (it really is fabulous - modern art with poignant photography and rows of picture of pretty girls and interestingly intellectual boys and abstract pictures and everything written with no capital letters.) John and Chris and me outtalked all the people who didn't want to go. We went - I sat in the front seat between John and Henry, partly by accident too even if you don't believe me. It was so much - I won't say fun - so much giggle-and-gab-and-wide-eyes. John drove 95 for a ways. Allen H., the clod, nearly slammed into us and we were ready to hit the ditch, but he turned back just in time. Janeen "collapsed weakly" in the back seat. John, as I've been telling Judy, is a good guy for a pal. He's fun to flirt with - never never be serious about or with, but for fun. We can sing together, look at each other and grin, talk understandingly about moods, and josh endlessly. We look at each other, smile, throw in a funny word (punny word) and just have a great ol' time. He's a driving fool - loves to take fast corners and flap his wings while going down a hill, and he likes to do something risky. Zum Beispeil, he drove about five miles, including Hyken's Hill, without his headlights on coming home last night. When we got to the Hill, he said nonchalontly, "those two white spots are the bridge rails. We go between them." So we did, at about eighty m.p.h. I never got really scared tho' I should. It is scary. But I've got too much daring-do-anything in my blood. And when he let me off at home he drove, edged rather, cautiously up to the door between the wall and a bike and a washing machine. He's attractive all right. I always feel a sort of reluctant physical attraction to him. But he's not good looking. He has the hard, flint-eyed, black wiskered face of a television bad-guy in the westerns, but he has a nice voice and he's even remotely K.S. along some lines. But he's an acknowledged wolf. I told him that yesterday, and he said, "I know I am. I like to flirt." But he at least doesn't pretend to be serious. We were talking about kissing. He said "I don't see why you shouldn't kiss on first date." I said I didn't think you should, and under some circumstances not even on the second. (Bewhiles I tho't of Reiner!) "I don't see the difference, first or second," John said. "If you don't like him you won't go with him the second time." Well, touché, but I'll keep my ideals, John. Marlys and I were talking about kissing too while we stood on the floating pier with the waves slooshing under us. she giggled at the thought of talking earnestly about kissing on a pier with the water splashing around. "Let's put it this way," I said, "It's a warming subject." We played a game after the lunch. Mr Gritter explained that it was going to be a running game. I sneaked over behind the stovepipe. "Oh come on," Henry said, "It doesn't make any difference." So I played and John chose me. "Choose, Martin," Mr. Gritter had said, "It isn't a declaration of love." So we played. I didn't run too often. I made two points, one because Fred wasn't watching, the other because I was running against Janeen and she let me have it. I felt a little sad about it - her having to let me get home out of sheer niceness, but I guess it really isn't important enough to get all steamed up about. I'm glad I don't know what I look like when I run. It must be grotesque. But most people are used to it. I am. I'm growing up by milestones. One of these was a few Saturdays ago when I went to La Glace in Judy's shoes and no socks on, and before that when I wore nylons to school for the first time. Sunday 1:45 pm. Graveyard Hill beside the big rock on a windy, semi, sunny, semi, day. I didn't finish yesterday because it got so dark that I had to quit. Wish I wasn't writing now either because this is Sunday afternoon, remember? And I was s'pposed to be in Dawson Creek with the choir. Mom and Dad had other plans so they said I could go home with Sieberts. It was hours before Seiberts left they talked and I wriggled. But when they did finally drop me off at my gate I ran to the house, unzipping as I went, and found a piece of brown paper in the crack of the door. Dear Ellie, Could you please come to our place at about 12:15? Janeen It was ten past one. I slid into my black skirt and white blouse, just in case. Then ran to Sieberts to phone (not so cool-headedly as this sounds tho'.) The line was busy when I called. Long distance. It was busy the next time too and five times after that. So I'm here now with my journal, a writing pad, and my Robert Frost, and Mike. Monday As an incidental P.S. to yesterday's dirge, I should add that I got restless, went home, "made" myself a pair of bermuda shorts, put them on, went biking, found Henry O and little Johnny Nijland boating on the dug-out, went down and had a ride for a long time with him, talked to Fred Nijland while perching on the bridge (he asks about Reiner a lot and is very sympathetic. Quote: F. "How does it feel to never see your boyfriend." E. (gloomily) "awful" F. "Why don't you get a boyfriend closer then?" E. (speculatively) "you can't just snap your fingers and there he is!" F. "But there's a lot of boys around here, in school " E. "Yeah, but either I don't like them or they don't like me. You know how it is." F. "M-m-m. Yeah. I guess you can't just make love." E. (with a shriek) "Who wants to make love right away?" F. (scratches his head, grins) "Oh - I guess you could take that more than one way!" More shrieks. Fade-out. What I called this meeting for tho' was to tell about a valuable literary find I just made - about 12 assorted pages of description, story, diagram and dress designing by Ellie Epp when she was somewhere around grade 4 or 5 or even 3. I remember once, sitting in a chair in the corner, seized with literary fervor and inspiration, scribbling a story into the back of old Christmas cards with a scratchy and splottery old black pen [dip straight pen]. I didn't even stop to eat meals. I'd give a lot to find that story. I'll bet it was good - about a trip to and kingdom on, the planet Venus, renamed the "Rositan", of Ellie, Edith J, Ken Drediger (who now has a beautiful baby daughter) and Bobby D. I remember a lot of fabulous clothes, perfume bottles, rituals, and "nights of love" with some extra-imaginative adventuring. I musta' been quite the kid. June 13 Mrs Nepstad told Mom she had a beautiful daughter, meaning me! I wore a french twist. Everyone thinks I was out with John J on Friday, har. June 14 Seems Mr Dyck has a shiny new Pontiac - white, so it won't clash with his hair. June 15 At school I got sick - with only 6 day left - and when I was lying on the cot Mr Block said "Are you not feeling well or just restin?" June 16 Only three days left of school now, next week, and I'm looking out for a ride to B.C. June 18 Pop has been making it a habit to have a few Satanic tantrums every day. Had a lovely one for me today. We're dreadfully poor these days - subsisting on bread, "spuds", turnips, and rubarb. June 18, Sunday He stepped closer, his eyes dilating wildly, his unshaven cheeks working as he screamed. There were demons in his eyes, and shrieking in his voice. He was inhuman; Satanic. This was my father. He was angry, although his anger was more like something an old fashioned minister would call demon-possession. The reason was some lurking thing in his mind, but he acted as though it was the fact that I hadn't been at the table for breakfast and then stopped to eat a piece of platz as I passed. It wasn't "ordung." Then he became violent, and when he began he couldn't seem to stop, he just became louder all the time and I hardly knew whether he would ever stop. "You come to the table, you hear?" he howled. Then he stepped closer again staring into my stony eyes. (I wasn't afraid or awed at all - only like a statue - solid) It was as though he was driven. "Do you understand?" he roared, and his face came closer, desheveled and wild, not in a physical way but in a mental way. "Or do I have to say it again?" "I heard you", I muttered, and kept on rubbing the cupboard with my cleaning cloth. He strode across the room like a personification of Insanity. "I can lick you," he bellowed. "I can lick you yet. I can lick you and I can nail all the doors shut so you'll have to forage for yourself. I can lick you." And in that raging I could see fear and a kind of desperation. He isn't sure anymore that he really can lick me. He knows I wouldn't care if he did beat me up and that my contempt for his lack of bigness at a time like this will "lick" him more than any physical thing he could ever do to me would lick me. Maybe he heard what I was saying in my mind. "You can't lick me. You never will. I have what you could call spirit; I know I have. And it is that part of me that you can't ever lick. I'm a rebel. I'm tough. You've done this before and I'm still here and I'm stronger now than I ever have been. I'll stay on my feet, Daddy, and I'll keep a smile on my face, and now lets just see you lick me." He kept on. He'd be quiet for a moment and then the evilness would rise up and stifle him and the demons would shriek together again. "I've been fighting you for years," they said. "I don't want to fight with you any more." Their voices rose again and my father, the father I have rapport with, looked up at them anguishedly. This idea of mine about some outside force acting on him may be just a blind, a defence I have built up for myself. I don't want to believe that my father is that kind of a madman. I want to believe that he really is a "cher papa" whom I love and who thinks I am a little bit special, as the man called "Daddy" sometimes does. If I can believe that it is devils tormenting him and doing it against his will, that way I can still believe in him. June 19 Two more finals. I wish I could go to B.C. on Thursday. All I need is a loan of $25.00 - that's no problem I'm telling you! June 21 Packing and chasing around.
Still at home vol 4
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