Firsts, with some Second Glances
12/01/2004 04:37 p.m.
The first day of December and a day of firsts - the first real snowfall of the season, decorating the branches in my backyard and the drabness of yesterday’s backyard now icing sugared.... my first cold of the season coming in the same morning, and caught on my birthday from a dinner guest who didn’t realize she was coming down with one...the first day Canada and the world is facing without one of our most renowned authors, Pierre Berton, and now probably the first year we can’t expect another book (usually history pieces of our country)to appear from him, though the uniqueness of a writing career is that one sometimes publishes post-mortem, as Carol Shields did, and the movies of the books still continue to be made, so we can’t say that for sure)...oh, yes, also it's the end of President Bush's first official visit to Ottawa. His flight out was delayed twenty minutes due to the snow. I won't say much about this visit right now.

This Christmas, for the first time in years we won’t be at my mother-in-law’s table for Christmas which isn’t making her too happy, right now, as our sister-in-law and their brood can't make it either, but there will still be several other family members round the table, and I’m sure she’ll understand. She’s a kind soul, and we’ll see that family in the morning and at dessert Christmas Evening. It’ll be the first supper in years that we’ll share with my Mom and the Matley clan on Christmas day. We usually squeeze in our get-togethers on the off-days, though Mom always comes over here for gift-sharing that morning or Christmas eve. If we could have clones of ourselves of course we wouldn’t miss either meal, and if we could eat like that!

Speaking of eating, on my latest weigh-in yesterday, I discovered I’ve reached my weight goal. I set out on this plan, after discussing it with my beloved late friend, Tom, who when I told him what I wanted to do, in the summer of 2003, while visiting him at the nursing home, said calmly with a smile "well then, you'd better get started." If he knows my results, he's seen them from Heaven. It was for my health and energy and agility, more than anything else, I wanted to do this, and to enjoy my clothes more. As of July ’03, I’ve lost 31 pounds (and now just want to maintain and tone) via yoga, more careful but not stringent, eating choices, and walking. The bike got fixed up but I didn’t use it much, this fall, since I had my hand operation and my palm wasn’t ready for biking pressure of handlebars, but next year. But I’ve added workouts on my daughter’s Ellipsis machine in the basement family room, now that we’ve loaned Jack, our ill brother-in-law and uncle, the reclining chair that was down there, and have more room. We also have the new exercise bike I bought my husband last year and he still hasn’t tried, but promises he will, once he gets the rabbit ears on the tv and we get the channels coming in. Then he and my daughter will use the exercise equipment too (well Ernie wouldn’t use the Ellipsis, as he’s a little too disabled for that one). They want to watch tv while they work out. I will prefer it too.
I need the arm and aerobic movements of that, or something like it, plus small weights, as my doctor is concerned about a dramatic loss of muscle mass I’ve experienced. I don’t mind doing that, but am a little short for the platform of our Ellipsis and so the stretch makes me a little sore in the hips and back afterward. Always something, right? I don’t want to solve one problem, ie preventing osteoporosis, and gain sciatica!

It was fun the other day looking back in my journals, from the year l999, when I was recovering from cancer and writing with a fresh vengeance. Boy, did I fill of my hardcover workbook companion to Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, which I used as a journal mostly. Morning Pages she’d call them. It’s almost exhausting following the entries now, I was trying to do so much and grasp so much, produce and create greedily. I know I was making up for lost time but also excited, in the Maslow-described kind of reaction after a close call or spiritual awakening in and to life again. I was devouring A Simple Path by M. Teresa as well. I'd borrowed it, so took notes on my favorite parts and entered them in my journal.

It was also the period when I returned to Sasquatch Reading Series, and performing poetry, and sharing with fellow poets there. That was when I met my dear C.S, (funnily enough, in some ways much like C.S. Lewis, he seemed to me) and I see looking back in the notes, (fortunately all documented) the treasure and spice he added to my revival.
And often, the sanity. Sometimes in our friendship we’ve acted less sanely, as most close relationships have their sparks, and some of ours were pretty bad, but there were many more moments more positive and contributory to joy, growth, hope and strength in this friendship when I so needed it, and this is evident in the journal as a vital page in my life, and my recovery. And development as an artist.

And it’s so amusing to read of my first meeting with him. Our director Juan was making the rather gullible me nervous, when he set up my first meeting with Chris, a fine writer, he said, who’d happened to volunteer (or were you drafted, Chris?) for publicity, coincidentally the same area of work for the Reading Series at the University of Ottawa campus pub where we have live readings, as I had chosen. I was also joining the Board of Directors for the first time I’d ever be on a Board, and Juan had told me he’d have to put us through our initiation, the two new board members and I wondered what, pray God, would that entail?
One of the first things I did when meeting Chris was to ask him what we might have to endure, with initiation, and he laughed and said "I think Juan's just kidding us" and I felt better. Looking back, I was still pretty naive, even at 46 years old!)
It was the same day I’d been celebrating my birthday at my brother’s, I’d had only a half-glass of white wine there knowing I had a meeting afterward, and pulled out of learning Euchre with the family (Jack was a patient partner, teaching me) to go downtown to the Oak for the first session with Chris and Juan.

My notes in the journal afterward describe Chris S, who I soon referred to most often as tomcat in the journals, as seeming “quite savvy” about things, had been a Director of Tree Reading Series before this comeback after a few years away from running a live performance series, and "savvy" ( I seemed to like that word, for him)especially also about electronics etc. which was good, because I was quite new at the world of e-mails and faxing, which we’d be taking turns doing for the media releases, etc. and promos to regulars. I was also in the adjustments to what I realized later but never was told by doctors about, the side-effect of chemo fog, so concentration, memory and focus were very demanding for me. I found an article in the paper later that explained my experiences with all that. But I worked very hard and the exercise of publicity was useful, and hopefully, I was of good service - I kind of over e-mailed tomcat a lot at first, and even Juan, (accidentally sending out one message six times to Juan before I was officially on board, so he had full warning) but I learned so much, and a lot was from Chris who was very patient and never seemed to notice. I didn’t like to say I was learning everything still.

Soon he was exposing me to non-Sasquatch work benefits of his awareness, in particular, the world of internet poetry. He had so much on the net of himself I didn’t imagine I’d have such confidence in risking putting up personal poems for the world, nor the worry of my poems being stolen, (even though looking back they probably weren’t in many cases in much danger, not ready to be stolen, even).

He welcomed me soon into the Jury Room, and in many ways became innocuously my mentor, (and in some instances, in various ways, I like to think, I also mentored him?)though I’d been in critique groups before, never a poetry one, and that began years of this process. And he introduced me to his friends Julie (a poet and musician) and Don, (a sometimes poet, naturalist, athletic-type, outdoorsman, and her life partner ) for which I’m always going to feel very blessed, as well as Heather Ferguson, Sharon Liu (who was on poesie.com too and in our Jury Room, etc.) and many others. I gradually introduced him to other writers I knew in the area, that he hadn't yet met.

The story of Chris and I (my first working partner in an endeavour such as this, let alone one of my first really close male friends) would be too long to divulge here and isn’t finished anyway, still a work/project/pleasure-in-progress, for sure. But its role especially in the Nov. l999-and 2000 year (yes, we faced and survived Y2K year together) and especially that first winter into spring, (interestingly enough in the short period since we met, the world endured several key turning points and crises too with huge impact)is always going to be a turning point and precious marker in my life, personally and as a writer and artist. As we quickly overcame initial shynesses (well, I was not too shy by then) I enjoyed working with him or sharing readings, and welcoming artists and open setters at the venue, and soon delving into his poems on the net, growing in my art and friendship experience, and then putting myself out bit by bit with new friends worldwide on poesie, many of whom I still know on here and love, and many I miss from the past.
One of Chris' poems, among so many I’d earmarked as favorites in my journal book, was "A Heart’s Desire". It opened up more of him, and inspired me a great deal with its excited positivism and compassion. It’s recently posted on here now.

On a totally different topic, I thought today after reading Carl Walker’s Journal yesterday about dealing with difficult people, in the example he gives, in the church committees, I think he means, when I’d been thinking of reprinting this portion of my journals soon anyway, I’d share something I found precious at that time. I was reading a great deal in recovery, particularly inspiring writers like Cameron, Maslow, and Mother Teresa, and found this. It was a year of some very high family tensions, mixed in with the blessings of hope in health, some real tests for all of us in our own growth and health here, and temperaments in readjustment. I was in many ways a much-changed on the surface person. More outspoken, more demanding of a better world on the large front and at home, but also full of idealism and love and yes, need to verbalize, orally and on paper. Many of my masks were gone, and I was so open I was kind of raw, I think my family found.

Anyway, here’s my portion from A Simple Path, by M. Teresa, that I found and still found, very helpful especially when I’m dealing with the many aspects of others’ personalities, and with my own failings or quirks as they deal with them. Mother Teresa included in her book a poem by a recent(at the time) Aids Patient in San Francisco in which he has the lines:

“The hymn to beauty, written on his face....
your friend is your
needs answered” *
Page l80

And from a sign on the wall of Shishu Bhavan, (I hope I’m reading my own handwriting correctly) - the children’s home in Calcutta
she includes this piece Carl Walker’s entry reminded me, of called

“Anyway”

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered,
Love then Anyway

If you do good, people will accuse you of
selfish, ulterior motives,
Do Good Anyway

If you are successful
you win false friends and true enemies

Succeed anyway

The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow,
Do good anyway

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable,
be honest and frank Anyway

What you spent years building may be
destroyed overnight,
Build Anyway

People really need help
but may attack you if you help them,
Help people Anyway

Give the world the best you have
and you’ll get kicked in the teeth,
Give the world the best you’ve got
Anyway

Of course I’ve experienced errors, disappointments and missteps even since then, of my own and others I’ve loved, in different ways, and struggled to learn new lessons about people and getting along, as I do practically daily. I’ve settled somewhat (though not that happily about it) on my seeming extreme enthusiasm to correct and make a better world almost instantly, (my Poem To Change the World reflected this passion) but still working humbly at my efforts to contribute to this and encouraging everyone to come on board. I couldn’t keep my mouth quiet over any injustice shown no matter by whom, and I’m glad of that spirit in me, though it got me into some conflicts and raised a few eyebrows, it’s something I always had and became more openly adamant about post-illness. But I’ve learned to temper with empathy and understanding and hope and faith that people do move with you more if you’re not seeming to be preaching at them or seeming sanctimonious, holier-than-thou (which I never felt I was) or pretentious even in your altruistic and moral goals. And that silence and listening are as viable a tool sometimes as verbalization.

In my fifty-first year, just begun, with the fresh first snowfall, I look forward always to finding news ways to try things and to learn, and new words to acquire and share.


*Page l80 A Simple Path, by M. Teresa
I am currently Cheerful
I am listening to Seasonal songs on the radio