| still at home volume 4 part 5 - 1962 january-april | work & days: a lifetime journal project |
Impressions XII [For a lot of this stack I copied letters to Frank. In the course of copying them I sometimes dropped into journal writing, and when I did there's an instant change of style. I am mostly not going to transcribe the letters here because their animation rings so false. For this page and the next (4-5 and 4-6) I'll transcribe just the interpolated journal sections, but to give the context will add a line here and there from the letters.] January 1, 1962 Mom borrowed a book from Mrs Siebert for me to read. (Mrs Siebert thinks Alvina is still too young for it) You can imagine what kind it is. January 2 The psychology book, "Introduction to Jung's psychology" is infinitely deep and infinitely enthralling. January 2 A salesman came to supper today, Fuller Brush species. He asked, did we need some shampoo? Mom hemmed and hawed. I was about to say smoothly that we used special stuff and had lots left when Mom blurted the cold truth - "We uh - use detergent." Jan 3 A piano concerto pours, splashes, trickles toward me, and I am moved; I do not know why. I listen. I listen to the strong pattern and the fragile webby notes. Suddenly I know why I am touched. This is music, this is me. My fibre and feeling. My strong fibre, my webby fragile feeling. - While writing the end, I did know why I suddenly felt sad. I was looking ahead to a fork in a road, one branch going to a river valley up-country, the other to the Big City. Away from each other. It is inevitable. Anything else would be irrational. But still I feel sad Frank, thinking of that fork. January 5 It's funny to be in bed in the middle of the day and fun being just barely sick enough to have to stay in bed. Mom thinks it gets me into myscheif - because of the nude work of art I did this morning. She said, "Oh mein zeit!" January 7, Sunday afternoon There was a party after choir last night. Melita Toews threw it. Games. Food. Television. Went home with Alvina and Herold and Bernie, all 4 in the front seat of the station waggon, which shocked Mrs Siebert when she found both back doors locked in the morning. Sketched Judy and Paul and Pop said Very Good. January 8 I was wasting time yesterday by doing pencil portraits of Judy and Paul. Maybe you're right about fierce loyalties here too - because, while doing Paul's profile I caught myself thinking defiantly, hey all you people, you'd better be good to my brother, or else. Paul is the most favorite sybling, dunno' why. He's tempermental but creative and generous. Rudy is dreadfully affectionate, too soft hearted. Judy is more secretive than all of us, almost aloof. She never tells us anything about what she really feels. If she's interested in "boys" she doesn't show it. January 10 I think it's time I planned a story to make some money if and where from Family Herald before I turn Seventeen. January 12 Young peoples argued with Block about movies instead of parroting what I'm supposed to. A very intelligent salesman was here and we argued politics over a tea cup. January 13 Yesterday @ school my blood was typed. Ah! I'm in a rare class of my own - 9% (B type.) January 15 University and lovely things in the future - ah. Rudy is having Emotional troubles and weeps continually; he is secretive and won't say why. January 17 There has been a bit of an uproar in school. Our class has split into two blocs, the co-operating bloc and the non-cooperating bloc. Donna, Gail, and I don't cooperate. Bad? Oh no! Cooperating ain't what it seems. In Anglo-Saxon Canadian American English its c-h-e-a-t-i-n-g. I had a green desk between Gerald and someone else. Who else doesn't matter. Just Gerald, because he was my friend and we had lovely long earnest talks with each other. Mostly he talked and I listened. I never knew Gerald was so - so actually decent and so nice. Sometimes, most times, he is noisy, likeable, yes, but not anyone you would like to or be able to become near to. But we talked. Just lately we discovered how much we like each other. Serious talk about him, about life, about me. He's different. I feel older than he is, wiser, but happy when he talks to me. I never could tell whether he was serious or not. I can now. We talked once, about something different. It was exiting. After that - intimate conversation. "Hey, I like talking to you. It's fun isn't it? We could go out sometime. It'd be fun. I can't talk to anybody else the way I talk to you." I knew he meant it. I liked him. Mr. Schattsie had ideas of his own. (I did too. When this cheating began it crystalized around me in the back of the room. At the front of the room, Donna and Gail worked, oblivious to the noise and diversions of the rooms backside. I'd better get out, I thought. I'd better move. Mr. S's ideas were similar. "Let's face it Gerald," he said, "you're just too congenial." So I moved up behind Donna. Gerald protested I felt queerly about it, happy, but sad to leave Gerald, to lose the closeness we have now. He walked over when Schattsie wasn't looking. "Ellie I wanna' talk to you sometime," he said. "Okay, Gerald." Sometime didn't come until just after the recess bell this morning. When Donna left her desk he edged into it. He asked, right away, "Tell me the real reason you moved Ellie." "I don't know. I felt badly about the cheating, I guess." "Yeah, but you didn't cheat. I didn't get any answers from you." "I know. Honestly Gerald, it didn't have anything to do with you. Really it didn't!" He talked about how he gets along with Bernice. Gail (whom he's going steady with) he says, is jealous and gets ideas just because he talks to Bernice. (lovely today in a mulberry sweater and deep toned skirt) "She didn't mind you talking to me," I said. "No. I guess I know why." "I guess I do too. Why didn't she?" "I don't want to say." "You don't have to. I know." I looked at the floor. "Heck, looks isn't everything. It doesn't make any difference Ellie." I felt warm and sad, and I thought of Frank saying that. "It just isn't the same," he blurted. "I miss you." "... I miss you too," I said sadly. My face was suddenly hot. I felt intense, strange, moved, sad. And this is only Gerald Student. January 19 A lovely evening - tape recordings at Sieberts ("Loveliest of Trees") I sang "Alone" as a solo and sound good on tape. January 22 Monday is yawn day. Gerald spent my Psych period in the staff room telling me his troubles because he's sick and rumpled from hangover. January 23 Alvina invited me along to hockey game. Midgits vs. Valhalla Centre. 9-1 for us. It was fun. There is much snow and a big wind. January 27 A letter came from Frank who is dear always. Judy's dress and shoes (lovely!) made me forget to read it but it was better than ever. January 28 No church because of much snow and much wind. Mom's birthday (38) did too much chemistry and story and essay. January 29 103% return in English test. It is depressing because you have to tell him where he is wrong and this makes him lose face. January 30 Finished "The Gillies of Gilly Wood" to be sent tomorrow. February One We lay in the warm soft bed this morning. Donna was awake, I thought, but she sleeps quietly. I could not tell. Then she said, "It's the first of February." A month of 1962 is gone. Where is it? It has been insignificant. I have only one month of sixteen left and then it will, all of it, be gone; for summer is part of a year and a year ends with an age. You are only sixteen once! something shouts. Keep it! Hold it! Don't let it go youth is too short life is too short happiness is too short keep your happy young lovely sixteen. It is a hidden repressed hysteria that mourns and sing independently of me, of my mind, but perhaps is me, Ellie. I was at Bergs after school. It was a sensual experience and somehow a rich one. It was a visit to a farmhouse in the country with a girl I have known distantly for years. But it was a shining warm friendly clean farmhouse. The floor shone, the table, the cupboard. There was no dirt. Think of our house, the smoky wall, the dirt, the floor, the clutter. It seems a squalor and it makes me act hideously. Perhaps there is a squalor of person that matches a home. Donna matches her home. She is clean and straight and good. She is real and warm. I felt dark and dirty, but I loved that home. I thought, this is a good place to grow up. We have become friends accidentally. I didn't care this year. She has Gail. She has Patrick Henry Ranch. But there was something. We are older. We think more, and we think below the crust of forgrantedness and the flaking crust of youngness. It was good to be with her. I respect her. She is so clean and shining and right. She is domestic. She thinks with delight of a wee home and having a baby and of making her husband happy. I am not like that. I want to stretch and create. But we are friends. I felt it; it was real. She has a lovely body - long slender legs, a straight long back, beautiful breasts. I look at other girls sometimes and I ache for a beautiful body too. It seems natural to grow up, to look in the mirror and see slenderness and curves and the long lines of smooth calves. I feel squat and square and misshapen then. I come home to take my clothes all off. To stare first at my shadow and then at the reflection in the window. I wonder if a man would think I was ugly. And I long for the lines, the light and shadow, and the curves. As it got darker the sky outside the window turned blue, the snow and sky became one color. Donna and I drank coffee in the kitchen alone, cup after cup. It was warm and sweet with sugar, but yet had the faint sour taste of chicory. We talked. The radio was on a Seattle station straining a mixture of sounds through the speaker fabric. We didn't hear it. We heard things that weren't said, things that were. Problems. She and Pat, Frank and I. Pat is Catholic. Frank is a farmer. Both of us know that we must leave what seems so right now. Both of us say in our hearts, will I ever again find anyone as wonderful as he is? Both of us think a word we don't say - love. Donna does say it; she says, "but if you love him ..." I feel old and flat but I do not tell her what I know, that love is not all or forever, as she thinks it is. We went to bed later. In the light there was a pink room, a happy room. A shining clean orderly room. There were white windows with curtains. There was the blue board floor. Downstairs was the reflection of the floor in the refrigerator, colors on misty white. Being part of it was sensual. When the light was off there was the thudding of rain, the feel of the soft clean bed, the dim blue outlines of square window panes. A softness and luxuriousness to lie with a soft fur animal on your face, smelling the perfume on his ear. A luxury to lie and talk of dreams and have a friend. We talked about marriage, even a little of sex. It is something you wonder about - you think of your nightgown and how it will be soft and bare. Then you lie still with the unaccustomed warmth of a knee along your thigh. You wonder how it would be to have a man there - the man has a name in your mind but you do not say it aloud. You wonder what it would be like to have a hard shoulder for your head. Then there is a quietness. Soft sleep beside you. You are warm. You stretch easily and drift. Your pillow is thin, your arms twist around it under your head. You think of someone and possibilities. You are neither sad nor happy. There is content, warm soft content, like a quilt around you. Finally you sleep, but sleeping and waking are one. There is grey light at the window. You move languidly. New morning and a new month. There is breakfast. There is an invitation "come again" and the voice that says "I'd like to." There is a walk in the morning. The air is fresh. The sky is blue, and the trees are a darker feathery blue. Even the snow and the road are dusted with darkness. There is a golden dog who stands near and thumps you with his tail. There is remembering and feeling. There is a friend. * * * "Think of what it would be like to have a baby" - this said with delight. "Wouldn't it be funny to see yourself getting bigger?" a hovering hand over a flat lovely abdomen. "Every man wants to have a child. It makes him feel more important. I think it brings a husband and wife closer together." Talking to Donna gave me just a glimpse of something that I could be, perhaps, and could have been - for me something like what is for her. A shiny house and a calm heritage and a warm happy future with someone who will not hurt you, and whom you will not hurt because you have not learned to hurt. February 1 Our house seems so dirty and everything so sordid. No bright wax or shiny paint, only mess forever more and I am cross, selfish. Food is sad. I want to escape. February 2 Friday - Frank letter. while people were away there was a crying jag. I think I'm going crazy. I don't like myself and Pop's voice gives me hysterics. Something really is wrong. After writing Frank yesterday I burst into tears. Not only salt water trickling either - a salty taste in a sobbing mouth and sounds rising above the radio's song. Strange agonized sounds alien in a quiet evening alone. I'm going crazy I'm going crazy. Then I went to bed, but the pain crept under my cover with me. I, maudlinly, cried myself to sleep. Not for piddly small things like clothes or my parents don't love me. It was fear, shaking me in its teeth until I gasped from the pain of it. Fear of the future, generally. Fear of myself, particularly. Fear of finding that there is no happiness. That there is nothing good and lovely in me. That I have lived too long with evil and dirt. That I will not be able to leave it because it is melted into me. Fused. I told mother this morning. She said trust God. Yet, later today, tho' I had told her absolutely all of it and with tears, she told me harshly that I was a nagger and high handed. I am! But what can I do? Take me away. Perhaps I can escape it yet. Perhaps a philosophy will do it. I have prayed every night, "God, you can have everything. I don't want it. But please take away this selfishness and give me love." Nothing happens! If God won't, I can't. And if Father is already too much a part of me I am doomed. Mother said, "you should be glad. You can have more strength than I. Be glad of your potential." A potential for overwhelming evil is nothing to brag about. Disillusionment is traditionally supposed to come when you see evil in someone you trust. I have found evil, but it has been in me. And with it there is (ringed around it in a feeble nebulous) dispair and knowledge and perhaps, somewhere, hope. Please, please, something, somehow, please - I cleaned two windows. They were grimy. The cracks were full of filth. The sills were smoky. I washed them and scraped and brushed until the wood was light and clean. I sewed new curtains. The window had been awful. I wonder about mother. She is a horrible housekeeper, and dirt seems a natural habitat. What will I be? Perhaps my house will be clean, but perhaps I will be a shrew. Marriage - is it all like this? This isn't a happy marriage. Perhaps I could but I can't if I stay as I am! I must rule my heart with my head. But will my head be right? Please God, take care of me. I'm afraid I'll grow up to be a cynic and a shrew. How can I get rid of selfishness, irritability, "bossyness", and emotional instability? How can I become the person I must become? - Talking to people the way you can when its 2 a.m. and dark brings out an acute realization of other people's problems. It makes you feel very sad, and aware of questions. Maybe it is just part of being almost seventeen and older than that, really. An aimless study period. All other good grade 11's are whacking away at their Remmington-Rands but I took that last year so have to be banished to the staff room for their typing periods. It's very nice here, tho' understandibly a bit stuffy. I've got the door shut and the window open so road sounds and melting-water sounds blow in. We're having a delicious chinook. Last week it snowed and froze and howled but now, suddenly the snow melts and carves baby river beds in the ice. (if you look down at the ground and pretend you are a bird it seems that you are high in the air and there is a small river below) A self-made regulation states that this study period is supposed to be spent doing something creative Is this creative? There are interesting non-creative distractions here, trying on a teachers' hats and their wobbly shoes, reading magazines. Sugar lumps - I conscientiously don't eat them - often. Books "too adult" for our shelves. Har. A letter came from Aunt Lillian. She asks blandly if "Ellie is still enjoying Franks company?" February 4 Sunday - no church again. Made a good cake. Resolved to go to bed earlier. February 5 Mon - a bit of rest again after the exams. We have every day mail delivery now, or did you know? February 6 Tues - oh! A cold weather walk home after staying at school after 4-H. And my first returned article - send back next Oct they say. And Banff School of Fine Arts catalog. Feb 7 This is a sad sort of evening - one of my ex-school friends - same grade - is getting married. Adrienne. Poor girl, she isn't likely to have much of a life from now on. The funniest thing a few days ago - all of us ate something disagreeable and as a result there were shadowy figures flitting through the kitchen steadily all night. Finished Jung, but will need 54 re-readings. Fascinating stuff. Saturday night Feb 10 Funny incident at school today. Helene - the one who jilted Frank because Fred's new glasses were so nice - had stayed somewhere overnight, so had some clothes in a shopping bag in the hall. Classes were going along sleepily when the rascally boys in a back corner started to giggle. They were tossing this "thing" around and it seemed to be causing a pretty big ruckus. Suddenly it slipped and landed up beside Helene's desk. She took one look, shrieked, threw her book across the room and ran into the hall sobbing. One of the guys was subsequently expelled. The thing? Helene's girdle. [page missing] There was one more thing - first Mr. Grant spoke of planning our lives to become something, our lives and our marriages. Then I came home, and father was there. I sat in the big chair with my book over my face feeling the same misery as I felt hearing him rant when Frank was here. His voice became high and whining as he complained that he needed a handkerchief. I didn't mourn for him or even for mother. I mourned for myself, killing my chickens before they are hatched, mourning my own wedding day and fearing it. Its been raining snow and blowing snow and hailing snow, and the eyebrows of our house are nearly drownd in snow. A high spot last week was a hockey game in La Glace. "Our boys" were playing. Mainly, Gerald was playing. I watched him. He was fast and good and solid. I talked to his mother, I felt the cold wind, I ate potato chips, I watched and listened and smiled. After the game was over and we waited for Herold, Gerald came and sat beside me and talked. February 11 There were miss'nary films at church tonight, Columbia and Nigeria. I think I'd better be a missionary; South America and Caribean are appealing. February 12 A long green box in the mail - full of pussy willows from that dear idiotic Frank. Our grade eleven class is closer now than ever and we talk of love and marriage at noon. February 14 My bad elf musta' been off duty because Gerald bought my eggnog pie and I got to eat with him. We're finally in the gym and basketball is fun. Feb 16 There is a small tempest now I can't tell Frank about - a disappointment more than a tempest, really. I am angry too, and Harold is sitting next to me but my back is toward him. A few minutes ago it was recess; I walked through it with my head tilted back rigidly and my eyes full of tears that never did roll out. I said very little, and my voice was careful when I said "it doesn't really matter", because it does matter, oh, very much. I look at people and my mind thinks I hate them but why should I hate them I'm being childish I don't really hate them I'm just angry it doesn't matter it doesn't matter. I look at Verna too; her face is smooth and her hair sleek. She looks emotionless and bland. She is very neat, very tidy. I feel a loathing, nearly, born out of my hurt. But it is something I do not want. I looked at her just now, thin mouth, pretty hair, lovely skin. What I think of her is not pleasant because I do not like her. I think she is a giggler and superficial. But it hurts even more because of what I think of her. You see, we had Carnival queen nominations. Donna jumped up and said, "I nominate Ellie." Dorothy said, "I move nominations cease." There was no seconder. Ray wrote my name on the blackboard. Then Sharon seconded it. The boys made an uproar. Verna! they muttered. Verna. Ray took a vote on the motion. The girls agreed. "All opposed," he said then. The boys' hands rose and waved, fat grasses in the sun. Loathesome fat hands. They won the vote. Verna's name went on the board. Then there was a secret ballot. Donna and Sharon counted. They came back looking sullen. My name went off the board. I am hurt. My friends were peeved, not, perhaps, too angry. I looked again. Verna's face is pink. She might be happy after all. I wonder why. Was it her pretty legs? Was it her giggle? Is she prettier? I feel angry about Gerald, I think he is probably two-faced. What will I do now? Compensate, I guess. I wonder why, why, and my friends see my hurt. I am smiling now because they are looking at me. I wonder now, if I can be as I feel or if I must be happy and normal. I feel like pouting and being, perhaps, pathetic. I had seen myself in a whirly skirt on the ice, pretty and a princess. Not the queen necessarily. Just there. There is a humiliation too. I am the only one of us who has never been. Bernice and Myrtle are in now. What is wrong with me? I should like to find out. Perhaps I can. Who will tell me. I could say because I'm too smart. I'm too ugly? I'm not friendly? No personality? And yet I have more personality than Verna - Meanwhile, my chin will be up, and I shall be whistling, and yet whistling in the dark. February 17 Town - bought some Italian-weave slims, size 12. Bowling with young peoples. I didn't lose. February 18 Sunday - worked desperately hard on my study article. Mom's at a S.S. conference somewhere. Feb 20 A Mary Stolz book I got for artistic appreciation brought up a new idea about me - It was partly an introspection of a flirty ashe-blonde called Honey. She spoke about being in love with a lot of people often. She was a natural and instinctive flirt; I was reminded of me. You know - I do have flirt instincts and I do feel a necessity to flutter my eyelashes at any appealing man. Like Honey, too, who was becoming alarmed by and aware of this tendency, I begin to wonder. I'm beginning to depress it and I am appalled by it in retrospection. But should I be? It is me - And it's fun! Take today, for an interesting example. I flitted down the hall toward the library, carrying my book with me. There was a man leaning indolently against the wall, eying the people. He was part of the X-Ray Crew, and yet dressed casually. I looked up and saw him. He was attractive. He reminded me of Frank. I looked away and stood waiting while I read my book. I was conscious of myself, my body, my book. I looked up and he was looking at me. I looked away, not quickly but thoughtfully. When I looked back at him he was still looking at me. I don't know whether he was tall. But I do know his face and I remember it. Pale, like Frank's. A hard square chin. A week-old, perhaps, beard. Brown open eyes that were brown and yet not brown. They were eyes with secrets; eyes the color of a red-brown leaf soaked in the warm rain of the Pacific and darkened by it. It was a gripping face, and a very masculine one. I wondered about him. Who he is. What he has come from. If he is married - this does not make a difference, for I will never see him again but yet it does make a difference. Does he like wind and poetry and flowers? I think he does. He makes me think of those garden flowers that are a strawy beautiful color when they dry. When they die. I had my X-ray. I turned, picked up my book. Our eyes met gravely again. I had to walk closely by him on my way out. I wanted to stare at him or to say something. Mostly I wanted to just look. I said hi to Mrs Postman as I slid by him, and then to Mr Postman. I could see the back of his head around the doorpost. When I spoke, it turned toward me, but not quite. I wanted to crane my neck around and look again. I would perhaps have wanted to touch him. I am half glad I shall not know who he is, or what - perhaps I would not like him at all, perhaps his face is a lie, perhaps he has a dead mind and a grubby imagination. But I do not know, you see, so I can be in love with him for a while, until I forget. Until there is someone else. And I do not feel wrong about it, because I am yet in love with Frank underneath and I shall be. My loves are in layers, small one peeling off a long flat surface of love underneath. Some are wider and some are thin, flimsy; they overlap in lovely colors. This is me. Do you remember a poem I wrote when I was 14? It was the first real thing I wrote. Monogram
I still think it is good and the best thing I've written. It is real. And I am beginning to spell out the letter of my monogram. February 21 My suitcase is packed and my purse is, and my lunch bag. Ooooo tomorrow is the day and non too soon. February 22 11:30 bus. Met Joan, Marilyn, Brenda, Donna Love, Chuck Stojan. Singing. Got to Ed. 8:30. room 202 King Edward. [page missing] [Varsity Guest Weekend at U of A Edmonton Feb 22-26 1962] sudden exitement and noses pressed to frosty windows and eyes peering through tiny holes in the ice. We were at the hotel just as suddenly, eagerly crawling out of warm seats, digging out luggage, (Al carried mine to the sidewalk) and rushing into the lobby. It was partially wood paneled and had the silence of wood. There were bird cages all around, and a merry fountain with red lights. The seats were large and leather covered. There was red carpeting all over and up the steps. The one window was made of glass brick and covered by heavy embroidered dusty red velvet. Soon our bags were set all over as we registered. Donna, Marilyn and I were together. We signed, then the bellboy wisked our bags up the elevator. Mr Grey called us in for a huddle, then we scampered up the elevator, found 202 and walked in. It was gentile, stuffy, and style-less but our bags were in it. There was a great rustling as we unpacked preliminarily. The phone rang. Startled I answered. "Hello?" The voice asked, "Is Ellie there?" "Reiner!" I shrieked and plonked into the seat with my feet on the bed opposite. The gist of a light conversation was that he'd like to see me, that immediately was not too soon. We were going to go bowling - Ruthie, Marilyn, and I so I tol' him so and he said we'd be back by ten wouldn't we? I looked at my exotic slims, at Marilyn changing, said, oh, I guessed so. We bowled, ran back in the cold wind, came in feeling sparkly, (after peering around the door to see if he was there) and ran upstairs to comb our hair. Then we came down the elevator. There was the back of a dark head. "Hi Reiner." We went to the Blue Willow for cherry pie with ice cream and coke. He held my hand, grabbed it awkwardly, and retreived it when I grabbed my purse with it. The Blue Willow was as always. I enjoyed chewing the ice in my coke. And looking. But there wasn't any companionship. The conversation was forced and the silences were uncomfortable. I took the chance to look him over. He hasn't been improved by varsity. No savoir faire yet, and almost complete ignorance of extra-curricular things. I though perhaps he could wear a three-quarters coat and skinny-leg spider pants but he didn't, and didn't look a bit freshman engineering either. When he held my hand he moved his fingers constantly. I was annoyed. But goodness! It's something I taught him! Still, nothing in me responded. I felt my hand numb and my body was silent while my mind nagged him. As we walked back he stopped to tell me where Walking Street was. It was cold and I watched wonderingly while he actually shook. I left him with a bare "see you" and trotted up to the elevator happily. It was nice to be back in our room. Marylin was home. She made some light remark. "Oh, all he did was hold my hand in spite of all my efforts to resist" I said cattily. And when Brenda asked about this good looking guy I was with I said "I liked him when I was fourteen but I think I've outgrown him." Which is true. The rest of the night was riotous, talking, running back and forth, giggles, chewing apples, I wandered down all the corridors and looked at the fire escapes. It was a pretty silent place. But not floor #2! The managers called up to ask us to quieten down a little. The man down the hall yelled to please shut up. The lobby man came up to ask us to shut the transoms and turn down the radio. We had a folding bed, mine, which actually folded. Some of the boys got upstairs somehow. The night watchman came up, knocked, and said "Was that boy in your room." We said "No, I don't think he was in any of them." We met a couple'a gals from next door - Marion Compagne and Grace Meyers, two lively wits and wacky personalities. Then we went to bed, a hot night, tossing and wriggling, about half an hour of sleep. It was no use just lying there. At 5:30 am we were up, had a deep warm bath. I crawled into the pink skirt and brown blouse and combed my hair for ages before it was right.Then we put on coats and walked out. The man at the desk smiled, told us it was 14 below. We walked down to Walking Street. Then we were cold. The McDonald was right close. We walked through the posh lobby, past the doorman, past displays, past stairways. There was the cafeteria. We got bananas, I got a dish of pineapple, and we had coffee from a bored looking young man who yawned "cawfees ma'am?" to us all. We took off our coats and ate. We left a dime each under the plates, and stared. It was a huge happy room. There were tables full of intellectuals and business men, not much else. It was an Eventure. Back at the hotel we only had a while to comb out and clean up and wander around. When the bus came we were off and away. There was the administration building, the phys. ed building, the ice rink and a girl whose skirts were so short tho' she was a perfect doll in appearance. There was the students union building, swarming with pretty co-eds and tall fellas in spider pants, three-quarter coats, and brush cuts. In the lounge one of the guys was stretched out fast asleep. (We were amused.) In trying to find the S.U. building we came to a door and were about to open it when it flew open itself and the handsomest tallest skinniest guy in a black turtle-neck nearly bumped into us. Outside was the ice-sculptured figure of a diving boy, and sun on the snow. It shone through the windows of our bus and through the frost. We opened our windows as we rolled toward the Ed building for dinner and I caught my first glimpse of the University Hospital. The Jubilee auditorium was carpet from end to end, glittering with chandeliers, sparking with shocks like the countless electrical shocks we got at the hotel. There was a busload of us, and we swarmed in, registered in the guestbook. (Al wrote "better than the Royal George" under remarks) A tremendously well-built janitor (with a wee accent) showed us around, upstairs, downstairs, backstage, the green room, the kitchen, the costume shop, lounges. I saw from a distance a display of sculpture and wandered away to look at it. "Alexander Archipenko" it said on the wall. Some of it I liked, a big blue one called "dancing girl" I would have liked to take home, and many colored paintings, and a "floating torso." It was abstract but the lines were good. I liked most of it. One thing about the auditorium was the millions of baby living rooms scattered all over - enough for 15 housing developments! The auditorium itself was vast; we looked at it from the back and there were artistic rows of symetry - red seats with white, patterns. The odd-looking fellow named Ken had been talking to me as we drew up - vivaciously and steadily we had compared notes on Vancouver, on "traveling" in general. I was surprized because he had seemed taciturn. The Ed building was crumbly - we came in the back and shuffled through the cafeteria. Sophisticated looking older people eyed us briefly, went back to their salad. We felt green and conspicuous. Finally Ruthie and I found a seat beside the bus driver, and settled in. Reynold passed at a little distance - Reynold Bentrud, from L.G.! Reynold - hi! I called. He came over, talked to me for a while - and reaffirmed my idea that we looked greenish. Then he wandered away, we finished our lunch speedily and dashed out to look at the art exhibit and other things. A long time later we were back with the bunch and went to the Leg[islative] buildings. Oh, forgot - the Point Four, a lively tall and short quartet who sang like the Kingston Trio, patting the bongos, stringing along the guitar. Saturday morning I shut off the 5:30 alarm and woke at 6:30 for bath, and another cold walk. The street-cleaners waved and were friendly. The windows were full of shoes and pretty clothes. I went to the Royal George to ask if Bernice and Gail were there, then had breakfast - an omelet and grapefruit juice and milk. While eating, two of the boys came in. Tom Ingledew dropped across the table from me and said "aren't you up kinda early?" and told about having played poker until 5 a.m. The Wawaneta morning coffee party was fun! I felt sophisticated and elegant in the pretty lounge in my blue suit with all the other elegant people sipping coffee, chatting easily with motherly Mrs Sparling, Dean of Women, and Sonia, next years President of Pan-Hellenic. After the coffee party we went through Pembina women's residence with Mrs. Grey and a lovely little blonde who protested that dorm life really wasn't what you tried to get away from at home. The main cafeteria was where we had lunch - mostly to look at people and think. Then we wandered around the med building - saw pickled babies and how they make pills and suppositories, and sat whenever I could. My feet hurt. But we trailed away to the nurses residence with Pat Ranch, scurried through the tunnel to the hospital, sneaked through Physio and hydrotherapy section, up into the new part, and home. It was icy all the way back. We giggled. Then whoosh! I slipped. Pat hauled me up and Joan and I hung onto each other after that. Then - ping! my garter on the ground - I showed it to the girls and there was a wild giggle only Pat and Donna missed. Often Pat - who is very nice - would turn around and ask in a falsetto, "Are you still with us, girruls?" We reassembled to wait for old Deif - he came, I saw, my feet conquered and I went to sit down. I saw him from an upstairs window. His hair is very white - does he bleach it? We went back to the hotel - there was a note with my key and another in the door that said "Call number - GE 3-5065" I flopped into our chair, asked for the number, waited. "Hello?" "Could I speak to Reiner, please?" "You are. Didn't you recognize my voice?" "You sound different." "So do you." "I'm tired." He wanted to know if I'd have supper with him. Of course I would, and would be ready at 7 pm. Then I crawled into the swish of Judy's dress again, and the heels and an upsweep hairdo. The last item was the worst and I dashed up to one of the gals frenetically asking, please did anyone have something to keep my hair up? Her date looked me over, chuckled, said sorry he couldn't help me. But finally Marylin fixed it and I went down - no Reiner - I went up again, Marylin was inside with her Ronnie, who was very nice too, but forlorn. And then down again - no Reiner. He did come tho' and we went out into the cold, walked to the Blue Willow. He didn't grab my hand at all. We had Chinese food, expensive stuff, $2.25 a plate. We talked lightly, as always. I mentioned falling off Red last fall "when Frank was up" and added casually, "he was up for Christmas too." Reiner said as casually "is Frank a nice guy?" I said "oh yes" and changed the subject. Frank would have been amused. We ate "Goo" something - vegetable and deep fried chicken, and went out into the cold again. I still have chuckles about Reiner. He'd never had Chinese food before so I suggested it and he said Ok. Well, he told the waiter what he wanted. The waiter said "one or two?" He said "two" in a voice that suggested "what do you think I am, flat broke or stupid?" When the plates came back, he looked twice too and admitted he could see what the waiter had meant. When I was finished I asked to be excused to pin up a few scraggly hair. So I did, for quite a while. Then we walked down the street - I hadn't a clue where we were going but the wind rose and it was desperately cold. Then Reiner stopped. So I did too, numbly. He said, "which do you think it is?" I looked around stupidly - oh, three cars - I knew which was theirs, the oldest. He opened the door and I crawled in to huddle in my cold corner. He turned on the radio. I felt flat and very cold, that was all. So we drove in the cold. To the hospital first, and parked. We walked around to the side door "For interns only" and through to the basement, from there up to fourth to look around a while. I saw someone in my bed in a big rig. There was a man Reiner was talking to. He was going up to 6th to do some visiting. I asked could we come along? He said sure so we did, to sixth, down to Station 67 down the north coridor to the room where Adele used to be - and there was a grinning man looking strangely familiar. "Haven't I seen you before - didn't you use to live in the 67 sunroom? And isn't your name Sandy?" It was - he was. And there was Clayton in the iron lung, and Henry around the corner looking sullen in a new black mustache. Clayton remembered me and grinned in his mirror. I like him! Henry was taciturn; I was unsure of him. But Clayton - the dear! Then we went up to the deck, which was locked. I turned on the lights, looked out over the lights and leaned against the cold glass. We talked just a little more seriously there - then we went down on elevator #8 - I didn't tell Reiner that I thought of my 1st kiss in that elevator 2 years before. We drove to Reiners place. He opened the picket gate for me and as we came in, there was Mrs Koblotsky shaking my hand and saying hello Ell-llie in a way I liked. And I met Mr. We had coffee in their tidy old-fashioned house. I even took off my shoes! There was the cat - huge "with kitten" and furry and aloof. I looked at his pictures - one I liked, me sitting in the grass in a blue dress behind some grasses looking sylph-ish. I asked him for a print of it - hope he remembers. I was ready to go home when I wandered into the kitchen to say goodbye and there were bottles on the table, quite a few and quite big. We each got a glass of wine. Reiner and I toasted Mrs. Koblotsky's birthday. The wine was glowy, and a deep warm gold color, but it didn't taste particularly good. Mrs Koblotsky, like a motherly old soul, gave me 4 big oranges and a large piece of cake to take along for lunch on the way home. I like her very much, and Mr. too with his wry face. We went out and sat in the car. It was cold in the car. Reiner ran the motor for a while in silence. Then he said, "you know, Ellie, I'm still aw'flly fond of you." My reaction to that was a blank "how nice" but I didn't say anything. So on to the hotel. He stopped the car. I don't remember any of the songs on the radio. Monday 25 Feb Father was just telling me about his riding days - bareback and bridleless, galloping, guiding the horse by its mane and a shifting body. He could reach over and pick a cup from the ground at a gallop. February 27 Got back "The Gillies" with my first form letter of rejection. Judy won 1st prize in the 4-H speaking contest! February 28 Snowed under by homework, Helen's Ingenue, a new Seventeen, a study article for F.H. (?) sigh - and the usual maintenance - March 3 Dreadfully cold so the Carnival was postponed. Frank says it is spring in B.C. And lo, is this a new freckle I see before me in the mirror? March 4 To Fort St. John in Dreiger's new dreamboat to have a choir sing. Thought of Frank and how nice it would be to sit beside him all night on a Greyhound. March 5 Baby sat for Sniders $2.00, got a pretty silvery blue scarf and a card from R, note from Frank, just a short one. Sang Nett-nett to sleep, felt maternal. March 6 $1.00 from Gram, panties and $1.00 from Mom, but best of all a long long distance call from Frank in Siebert's dark kitchen with the furnace and my heartbeat. March 7 What did we talk about, that cool voice (sometimes wistful, sometimes gay) and I? We bantered and sighed and had a very good time. His voice was quieter when he said "Happy Birthday" and "I'm glad I met you last summer." I told him I wouldn't say anything but all my heart said "I'm glad too." We talked of inconsequential things, gay things. it was good to hear his voice, like being blind but stretching out my little finger to touch his little finger. I said, "what are you wearing?" He said "a faded blue shirt about the color of my jeans, and your letter is on the floor beside me where I can see the number." I could see him standing in the hall alone in the light. I clutched the receiver in the dark kitchen. It was dark, and the darkness was good because it made Frank more real and near. I couldn't see that he wasn't there. I really talked to him. I really talked to him. March 8 Thurs. A blizzard, maybe the last one? There is a dreary odor to March. March 10 Carnival, which I didn't go to did homework instead. In choir practice - I have to sing one verse solo at the music festival in Sexsmith on Friday. March 11 Sunday - lovely sunny day I got out crinolines and the blue ruffly dress for fun and wore it all afternoon. The program in the evening - we sang - awful. March 12 I'm reading Shirer's "Berlin Diary" about the 2nd World War. It's very interesting and more. Spent a tooth ache-y night with aspirin. March 17, Saturday night This afternoon was lovely and glinting warm. I wore my blue scarf and Judy's pink lipstick and felt vibrato in the green coat. I got the mail - nothing. A letter from grandpa and grandma [Epp] tho'. Mom read it aloud. It was mainly one topic - that Ellie, - please, cannot stay with them this summer - reason being: her health cannot stand it; Ellie is too young and inexperienced (at this Mother's hoot was loud); if Ellie is going to have yungens visiting her they don't want to be responsible, (once, two years ago, there was a case where one of the girls and eine "armes" yung ...) Ooo it burns me up slowly! Only I am more sorry than angry. It hurt me to know they neither like or approve of me, because I do like Grandpa. Reimers said too, that they don't want any pickers who go out nights. Meaning, so plainly, me! "Das beschtüret die nacht zu zier." Oh, ruts and grooves, and dead sympathy cells! I understand some "dear Anne Landers" letters about parents better because of my grandparents. What if Mom and Dad were like them? I can see easily how I could become a "wild one", or how anyone could. Old people will I be like them, too grooved to slide on any tracks but the those I've been worn by? Will some sweet kid cry bitterly about the dead compassion of old age - I don't want to. I cryed this afternoon. Mom told Daddy "we got a letter from your Mom that made us laugh and made Ellie cry." Both of them were on my side; I was glad and touched. I was surprized too, as I spasmodically am, by Father's loyalty to me against other people, even his own parents. Perhaps because I am bone of their bone? I dreamed about Frank last night (Was meeting him this summer worth it? Perhaps they would have approved of me, perhaps they would have liked me. If I had gone to a different berry patch, there would have been less tearful nights, less disturbed relatives, no tearful scene for Aunt Lill, no tears now, no doubts about my friend. No friend - no wonderful Christmas. No 4 am Vancouver - no comarade - no really good friend at all. A very lone life. Perhaps a sell out I didn't mean to Reiner, just because I was hungry for assurances, reassurances. My sixteenth summer would have been a sixtieth summer, lonely and miserable. But I don't know. Perhaps another berry field would have been better. I think not.) But I dreamed about him. Gerald and I had been somewhere. We came back; there was Frank, I was pleased and thought how nice it would be to be out with two guys again (Frank and George - fun!) But Frank was angry and began to walk away. I forgot Gerald. I threw my arms around Frank's neck. For a minute he just stood there. Then he squeezed me into his arms. I couldn't breathe and didn't have to. I was flattened completely against his body. He walked slowly; I seemed melted against him. There was a real physical throbbing. Thinking of Frank has made me forget my bitterness for a while. I will not cry again tonight. March 18 Here March is nearly through and I haven't done any important writing at all. No time. No time. Sociability at Sieberts, singing tenor in a trio tonight. Tricky. March 19 Got suddenly thirsty for knowledge - think I'll be an egghead. A new wall decoration - large photos of clothes I especially like. March 21 near mid o'night A sociable evening, the basketball game between Sexsmith and Wembley was at our gym at seven o'clock. Girls teams, boys teams. Old Varsity Guest Weekend friends, yay team, yay! I liked it: the cheering and stomping and yelling; having Edna and Ruthie for company; the young beautiful alive bodies hurtling through space; seeing people and watching people and liking them; talking deeply to Mr. Dyck in the hall with young curious eyes all around; running around with coffee to talk here and talk there. Edna and Ruthie and I got embroiled in some deep conversations so that we missed some of the game: we discussed Al, discussed the different people, we discussed flirts. Dear Ruthie is afraid she's a flirt - could anyone be less a flirt than earnest freckled pig-tailed innocent Ruthie? We discussed "what is a flirt?" We wondered am I a flirt? I don't know. I do dearly love boys and I do dearly love girls. I just dearly love people! And somehow I love bodies; not only boys' bodies; girls' too. Young shapely bodies. The girls were in red and gold, shorts and shirts for the Sexsmith team, blue for the Wembley girls. Marion Campaingon played for Wembley; I never thought her pretty but she is, long lovely legs, and soft hair, and her slim pretty body. Allison Grassik was there, blond and pretty, Janeen, another pretty one I'd like to know. Joan Lozerone. And boys too; Don Lozerone is tall and bony, his face as bony as his legs, and triangular with long dark hair and commanding blue eyes. I liked him. He shot beautiful baskets. His nose is slightly hooked. He looks masculine and aristocratic but he isn't handsome a bit. He's even a bit friendly too. Chuck Stojan was sensational; flamboyant, happy go lucky and quite spectacular. He leaps five feet above the floor, kicks like a frog, and hovers leisurely while shooting. There was another boy too, blond, lean, young. His hair curled along his neck when it was wet. He was very appealing. Owly Jim Willsey was there too, bony and white-legged in a suit that looked like a girls' 20's bathing suit. A clown. Grace I knew, she was leading cheers. I ran up on stage to say hi, she fell on my neck, nearly, and we had a good yak too. Oh I like a lot of people. My conversation with Mr Dyck was about Fred, talking about the why's of his problems. We wrinkled foreheads at each other and argued. "He needs to be wanted." And Mr Dyck said, "Let's go eat" so I remembered I had to go serve and did, passing coffee. While about to go home he walked and talked some more. I like him still. March 23 Extraordinary elation, near joy, for no reason except thinking about books and ? March 24 I didn't think it would be so easy. I said to Pop "get the mail?" just before he went out. In ten minutes he was back, shoved the groceries onto the table and disappeared. I wandered across the shabby floor. Judy was rifling through the mail. "Anything for the mail?" "Nope - an ad. For you." She handed me an ordinary white envelope. The little address "Miss Ellie Epp, La Glace, Alberta" was typed in black on a patterned green paper under the peep hole. It hadn't been pasted shut very well, and opened easily. The return address said, "The Montreal Star, 241-245 St. James St. W, Montreal, Canada. Montreal Star? - hm-m. But Montreal Inside was just a plain check, green and bland looking. A check with $30 & 00 cts stamped on in dusty red. The attached voucher declared laconically "'Exams' Family Herald 30.00" But what a story it tells - about a story that sold, an article, rather. And when I wrote it I was sixteen! That was a goal, a success for sixteen. I'm glad it came for sixteen - what would "they" think, they who write checks, if they knew "by Ellie Epp" referred to a sixteen-year-old school girl? But I am, and it is a triumph for dear brash little Sixteen - "sixteen" has been used so often in this one measly paragraph! Mom said "what is it?" I said "a check." She was more exited than I. She fluttered and babbled. I stood back and watched. When father came in I handed it to him. He took it absently between two greasy fingers and continued to scold Mom for not getting ready. He looked casually. (Mom said, "But look at it") and said, "it's a cheque? Well, it isn't the last. Why don't you go get ready? We have a sick steer on our hands." I am wondering what a Mother and Father feel like when their daughter sells an article to a national magazine for thirty dollars, an amount Mother never owns and Father works hard for? I wonder how they feel about me, period. It must be puzzling because sometimes I am years older than they, I know about things they know, cynicism and suspecian, and yet things they don't know - rapture, and some form and some poise and some success that stuns them. March 25, Sunday I rushed into the house this noon after church, white shoes with no boots, flaring young coat. There was a white car on the drive, wings tucked up but ready to flit away in a moment. it mystified us until we saw the two books in its front dash - English grammer, La Grammaire Française ... Who else but Pete? He was all Father's until after dinner. I sat at the table to study H.G.Wells' "Outline of History" for impression's sake. He came in with Daddy from the cows - and draped himself over a chair. He looked - alive. Red and gold jacket, red-gold hair in the sun. He is not at all handsome. But he is long and lean and casual, very intelligent; fun. I wouldn't trust him with my daughter if I had one, but I like his company. We talked all afternoon, drank coffee. One of the things he said was "what are you like when you're not intellectual? Are you ever silly?" This was a change of subject - I wanted to probe. We talked of women vs. men. of men and women. We spoofed but were friends and laughed at the same things. He laughs nicely, and has a nice voice. Seimens will tell Larry and Leona - who will tell Frank. What fun! Mom thinks my glee unholy. She had to whisper to Mrs. Voth this morning about my check. (They looked very pleased - I showed it to Mrs. Voth too, she squealed "that's wonderful!" Oo, isn't it tho'?) She told Mr Dyck too. I left it on the table while taking off my coat and "fixing". She said "I'm tempted" I said "go ahead". So she did. He said "I can guess what it is without looking." March 27 Mom and Dad disgusted me greatly last night by coming home from a "curiosity" visit to a phony sale at the Hall and coming home fleeced - a demagog type speaker invoked a crowd hysteria type of reaction and they bought useless stuff. March 28 It is muddy, sunny, gladsome, dribbly rivulets in the ice. March 30 - Friday A good day began at 6:00 by lying awake and thinking dreamily of Frank. I had dreamed about him again and I continued the dream while awake. (I watched my hands patting a dog but was aware of Frank beside me. He said "don't you think I need comforting too?" And his hand moved into vision beside mine. Mine rushed out to meet it and then my face too, toward his shoulder. It was very real and warm, just a natural small scene.) I was conscious of sun outside, and there was even a bird who chirrupped once or twice, and a crow too. Then at school Mom came to take me off to town. Fun! I tried on a dress in the Bay, an orange-red-yellow tiger stripe like a chemise with a tie. Outside I heard a salesgirls voice say "she's taking a long time." When I stepped out her frost-bitten face moved enough to say "how was the dress?" Lovely, but too tight across the back. Sometimes these saleswomen do make me feel a bit frost-bitten just like them, and cowed to death. There were a few fellas who looked twice - it made me feel quite bouyant tho Mom and I "jested" about the red faced round eyed farm oogler in the café. I went to the train station in Sexsmith to ask about fares, and later to the Greyhound bus depot. As the window is quite tall at the wicket I had to stand on tip toe to talk to the grinning young agent. "Coold you tell me, pleeze, how much ees the fare round-trip to Banff" I asked him with the round eyes and pout that appeared naturally with my phoney French accent. When he had it figured out I shook my head at him and said "cheepr to gooo by train !" He looked extremely bemused. Fun! And it came almost naturally. But this is me again. March 31 A piano! Today. April 1 J and I went for a walk, played catch on Siebert's lawn - I am a mean person. April 2 Ice water is slinking across the road some places, roaring over others. Our basement is flooded. Working on another F.H. article. April 3 We're pumping water out of the basement and working on the floor of the house. April 5 Tonight was debate night: it was Mr Dyck and Dennis Maxwell, it was elation and depression, it was living for real. What I wore and how I looked was minor - namely, it wasn't so hot! But Ruthie was quite normal too. Ray looked stuffy and polished, Dennis natural and alive. I vastly prefer Dennis - he's short, dark-haired, and has a strange gorilla walk. (As he walks down the hall he mutters to himself; he smiles easily) His eyebrows are straight and black. He has freckles and an impish appealing face. I like him - his way of saying things like "do you know Tschycoskies first composition? - its real pretty for the first two minutes, all the way through, really." "Who was the most noble Roman" - we argued that point for half an hour. Was it Anthony or Brutus? Mr. Dyck breezed in, gay as ever. Raised his fist, said "hello, Champs", handed me a book and said "hello to you, champ". It was "Catcher in the Rye" by Salinger - I've wanted it for a long time. It was nice of him! He is always bouyant and young - I wonder about him - what is he really. He'd be marvellous at cocktail parties, he has such an affinity for good conversations at the drop of a "hi". I asked him please not to call me Elfreda - he said why? "Because 'Elfreda' is internationally known to be a vastly unattractive creature with fat blonde braids and round blue eyes" shudder. "You know," he said, "you remind me of Anne of Green Gables - a fantastic imagination. What was it she wanted to be called - Cornelia?" We five - the debators and Peter - were in the library with its bare floor and cool lighting - there was a piano which both Peter and Ruthie used for positive happy music that colored the situation: Dennis pondering with one bare ankle showing, Ray sitting silently with nothing in his mind. I wandered. It was good. We were friends and discussors. I saw faces - the thin long face of Mrs McNaughton; the folding dark face of Mr Perry with its wondering old expression, his floating white hair; Judy grinning from the front row; father; Mr Dyck enjoying everything. My voice went on saying "Be yourself Canada," "and even the farmer who grow the wheat for the bread in the coffee break sandwich," "cut the textbook apronstring," "nations in the bassinette stage," "Kennedie's children " Ray was weak. I lost a page of notes. I began to feel depressed, stayed that way through the judging, wagged my tongue at Mr Toews when he spoke of "Ellie's excellent work, writing ability, Governor General's award." The dejection was deep. I could have cried when they announced that we'd won by 5 points. Impossible! The judges were drugged. I'm disappointed. I wish they had won. Isn't everything funny? April 7 I was going to study 4 hours of Chem. But only managed to scrub the walls ceiling floor of our room before collapsing. April 9 Mon - it is difficult to study chemistry feverishly when father is picking out 2-finger tunes jerkily on the piano. April 10 I'm going to write an application letter to the Dept of Education for the expense-paid Stratford Shakespearian trip. How ambitious can Ellie E get? April 14 Sewing up summer clothes and sleeping with the window wide open. It is good to be near spring again and so much to do, read, think, feel, know. April 15 1. I think it will be good to know the seventy-seven "I thinks"s of me. In a sense this is to be a philosophy of life, but not one in an echoing glorious cliché that says every thing in one arrogant shout. It is to be an aggregation, a conglomeration, of smaller-scale things I resolve and decide and believe. Perhaps after a while, and if I ever reach number seventy-seven, I will be able to look at the whole and find the pattern that I am, the warp and woof of me. Perhaps the pattern will become stranger and stronger through its being fingered by my curiosity. I want the "seventy-seven" to be my filing cabinet of things I decide are right and true. I can look at it to see what I am, and I can be a better self through knowing. Amen! * * * 2. I think that I want a helping life. Living selfishly seems more futile than anything I know. We saw a film in church tonight about the refugees of Israel and Hong Kong. It was a constant shifting of faces and eyes. I was most certainly moved. What can be more important than these people who are capable of joy, but starved of it? I looked at the faces and I wanted to love them all. Then on the way home father said "life is such a fret." - I thought, there is the secret: Father, you are so important to yourself that every little bother is a fret. If you were less important, the botherations would be less important, and the frets would be insignificant enough to ignore. Then life would be not a personal fret, but a chance to dissolve some of the fret of those dear starving children. 3. I think it is not supremely important to be happy. It isn't necessary. Whether I am happy or not, does it matter? How many people care? One - me. and suppose I cared more about the rest of the world being happy - to how many people does it matter? In Canada alone, about eighteen million! I'm outnumbered by a huge majority. (By the way, there are a few other people who do care whether I am happy or not, two, at least.) Suppose I try to be happy: I could clamber to the top of the writing field, or at least to a place where there is a view of the top; I could marry a sweet boy and have my troup of 10 little boys and two girls; I could develop a philosophy of what will be, will be, and live enthusiastically or try to. But the view of the top, even the top itself, might be shovy and sweaty. There might be claustrophobia and terror of the Jones' dust. The sweet boy could turn out to be someone I could not even like, much less respect. The children could hate me. I could be a screaming fisty altogether unlovely witch of a wife. I could get old and tired and sick and passive. Maybe beginnings of happiness are doomed to sour. Maybe selfishness sours everything it touches. Suppose, tho', that I wrote for a cause and to tell what I know; suppose I say no to the sweet boy and face loneliness willingly; suppose I forget the thuds of my own heart and magnify the feeble thuds of someone else's. Suppose I trample my ego until it is dead. What is there to sour? Nothing. If there is no souring, sweet things will stay sweet, and the bittersweet, a sweet bittersweet. Suppose I am unhappy? So what. Remember the odds? One to several billion. My ego has no fighting chance. But I believe this so far without action. 3. I think a good career would be writing-photography-social work. I have been thinking today that it could be an ideal combination. Writing and photography for the sake of seeing and telling and feeling. Social work for the sake of loving and doing. It would be a full life - seeing and feeling and telling and loving and doing. I want to create. I want to love. That is what I want most. Maybe it will work out. April 16 Monday 4. I think the most important thing in anyone's life is loving. Please, I don't mean Johnnie-loves-Mary type thing. I mean Johnny loves things and emotions and living. Johnny loves people and children, their faces and their hearts. April 19 I was stopped short. Reading "Gentleman's Agreement" was more absorbing than I had expected. Mom had called me to wipe dishes several times but my conscious shrugged it off. Then she was in front of me looking stern and chilly with her hands on her hips. She told me again. Unconsciously I kept on reading. I looked up. The chilliness had warmed to anger. She began to tell me. Something inside me, a nasty hard sophisticated part of me, laughed silently, brittly. "You look like the great stone face" I said condescendingly, cooly. "Why do you always talk down to everybody as if you were so superior to them?" she said. "Everyone?" It was the word my mind speared. Everyone? People at school? Mr. Schattsneider? Uncle Willie? Father? And Judy said too, "Sure they do, not just Mom." I forgot the dishes again. This was a new thought, am I vain, conceited, superior, condescending? Now think impersonally, Ellie, do they feel that you are - Alvina, Donna, Leona, Verna? People you like and people you want to like, and people you are afraid to like? Do I feel superior? Am I a nasty conceited little ass? Do I let my mean eyes slither down the length of my big nose at the little people? Do I feel that way? And I an ugly hard snip? Truly, am I becoming hard and splintery, cold and artificial? Do I really like people, or is it the shining polished inside me who pretends to like them because it is the thing? I talked it over with Mom in phrases like "defense mechanism" and "just an adolescent way of waving the independence flag." But is it true? Or am I really a very unpleasant person and does everyone loathe me? Frank? No. I read his letters, I come to a warm place that makes me feel warm too, and I know surely, "he like me. He loves me." Why? I can't tell. I think to myself, would he still like me if he knew how I am truly, how petty and mean I am? The geiger counter of loving is putting his happiness before mine. Do I? How, exactly, do I feel about Frank? I read his letters and I think, the dear, the dear. Affection, is it? It is not acute terribly urgent. Warm, yes, friendly. I would like to have him for a girlfriend - a friend, tho' a boy, is hard to keep as a friend period. There is the touching that steals in, and then warmth is crowded out by intensity, and talk by long silences. The two kinds of love - it is nice to have men for plain friends like Gerald and Peter Dyck. I like men. But I like the touching too, and its something I need. Frank is too nice tho', and I miss him when the wrong kind of love come between the friendliness. Frank. I couldn't marry him. I couldn't make endless meals for him and be a housewife. And I couldn't hang around his neck for a lifetime of me nagging him and scolding and eating his pride with my acid superiority. That's what I do to my father. Pop does things to me. Or perhaps he is merely an excuse for ugly things in me to come up. When he scolds there is a certain whine in his voice that drives me into a frenzy. One night he muttered and whined in the kitchen. I, on the piano bench, felt my face twist and I sobbed insanely. That's how it is. I feel no affection for him. I don't like him. I don't respect him. I don't honor him. I don't even try to be decent about it. Its a sin, but what can I do? Certainly, I don't love him. Sometimes I think it is hate. I hope not. I am afraid of hate. I try to hurt him. I say things, accusing things, that I know will hurt him. Why? Is it because I know I will (God, help me!) be like him, or because I am afraid I will live as he does, joylessly and bitterly, when I am older? Does he threaten me subconsciously? To a certain point I was afraid of him. Then the rebellion. And the loathing. First it was fear. That went. What is it now? Fear is gone. He's my father. I should love him. - Yesterday we went to town. It was a good day. I felt pretty, purple coat flying clicking white shoes. There were men who looked after me. (What is it that makes a man look after a girl - I think, perhaps, it's a jauntiness, an angle of the chin, an alive face. Someone who looks happy. Happy? Who is? I am. And yet I am not a nice person. April 20 First crocus. Good Friday seemed like Sunday. Uncle Ben came in his new station waggon. April 22nd It has been a windy sunny day when it is easy to feel like a gypsy. What I did was rattle erratically down the road on Paul's bike in a swelling red skirt with Reiner' blue scarf tied around my hair. I hoped I looked like a gypsy, and wore pink lipstick brighter than usual. But the mirror disappointed me. I liked the sounds from the ponds beside the road - frogs and things. I climbed into the deserted old house where Nijlands used to live. It was littered, dusty, but upstairs were shelves of books. They were all Dutch or Dutch translations, ("De Citadel", A.J.Cronin) but touching books is exiting alone, even without reading them. When I got home I curled on the bed with paper for a letter, but I thought of Frank, and the sun was too much I don't miss him often. Usually I am too busy, and when he enters my mind there's time only for a brief smile that I know him. When his letters come I laugh and I brood. I don't write him often. Yet he is still Frank and I am still Ellie, and we like each other. When I read, sometimes I think I love him. Actually I do always love him affectionately, but only flickeringly with the darling! darling! sort of emotion. I remember things we did, I resolve not to be quite so touchable "next time", (but don't wait much for this next time) I think of his shoulder just before I go to sleep, I wonder what it would be like to be married to him. To be trite, I do love him, but I'm not in love with him. It's probably my protective subconscious keeping me from danger. I become drousy thinking about him, but in the drowsiness was another kind of missing him, the "sharp edge of love." Sex. Borderline sex, rather. Not the real desire, but a wistful wanting to be held and cherished and touched. Borderline sex. I often want part of it, but I wouldn't want it all, except for curiosity. Like this morning. The sun was hot on our bed, and instead of dressing I curled up carefully where it was warmest in my panties, and slip over my breasts, with my hair spread out. Judy said it looked like cheesecake. I felt like cheesecake. Sometimes I do, as tho I could be really quite sexy. Thinking about it, even when I feel sexy I'm still not thinking promiscuous thoughts - I bring Frank into it, I wonder what his body would be like in the dark, I wonder if he thinks about me at night and wants me, I wonder if he would think I was beautiful as I did this morning - but it's more curiosity and wistfulness than passion. Do you suppose I could be passionate? I've never had a chance to know. I can be intense, I can be tender, I can be silent. But passion? Being married could be fun in some ways. I'd want seductive night gowns and I think I'd like to be pouty and bare-chested and teasing. I think "whoever I marry" may be surprised at what he has latched himself onto - but if that was all of marriage! To be Mrs or not to be Mrs., that will be the question. I'm glad I'm sixteen and don't have to. - Uncle Bernie and Judy and Alvina and I drove to Sexsmith. While there I sat beside Evangeline McNaughton. She made me wonder. I looked sideways more than once. She is lean and not a bit pretty or girlish or alluring. But she has a husky alto voice, and you get the feeling that she loves you. Ahead by two rows was a smooth familiar looking head. It's Al, I thought with sudden warmth. I like Al. I was surprised how pleased I was to see him. We said a few unsatisfactory words after the service. He was talking to Edna. They seem to like each other. Janeen said, "boy, he really likes her." Strange I should have felt such a stab when she said it. We drove home slowly. It was one of the nights I would have given much to curl up with Frank behind a steering wheel and drive through the nights with only the swath of light ahead of us, plaintive radio ballads for night listening, and his warm presence. I forgot him, tho', when Uncle and I began to talk. We got home early. As we were about to turn in uncle said, "here we are." "I wish we weren't" I said lightly. I said lightly, but I thought so - and when he didn't turn off, I was delighted. We stopped to let Judy in the front seat, and then we drove off, talking dreamily. The moon came up in a gory cloud looking like a squashed blood orange. It was fearsome. But we were warm and we talked of warm things. Our light moved slowly through the night. We were back at Sexsmith, drove past the Catholic church and the dim streets. It was late when we got home. It had been almost like a date. [page missing] There was a tall man on a street corner, a blond man, from a distance he looked like friend George of the berry patch. He looked at me, and looked. I was afraid to meet his eye, a shiftiness about me? Sometimes I just don't care. But then he walked across the street. I saw a list, just a small list, in his walk. Then I was interested - this tall handsome man with the interested eyes, the lean hips, the list in his walk. A girl was in the Bay, casualling through lp records. I walked over, just so I could look at her. I wanted to remember. Short hair, straight. Mascara. Blue suede strap shoes "made in Italy" written all over them. Slim ankles, pretty legs, a margin of blue green stripe under her faded pink corderoy coat. Blue gloves. Style! I looked, and then faded back. She was in my mind now. I had stared enough. There was another girl too. She was a tiny Chinese waitress from the Bamboo Gardens, strolling in her apron. Unashamedly she pressed against the window of the Chantilly shop looking at the dresses. A portly business man strode by. He spoke to her, joshed. She wandered back to the café doorway, a lightness about her. I smiled when she looked at me. She grinned, and there was a surprising little giggle. I want to remember it. Chris said to me this afternoon, "You're so interesting to talk to." Maybe I don't talk down to her. But Dorothy said, "I don't want to talk to Ellie. I always do all the talking, and then I feel as tho' she thinks I'm a real scatterbrain." No?
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