March 5, 2008
Collecting Pieces
The three of us kept these scrapbooks back in high school, called “Nothing Books” or “Anything Books”— an indication of their contents’ specificity. I was partial to transcribing copy from sportswear ads into mine, penning bubble letters in rainbow hues: “Seek the Goal” or “Run Fast in the Direction of Your Dream” which I thought was inspirational and I wasn’t even athletic.
Pop lyrics were prized like they were poetry— excerpts from “You Gotta Be” by Des’ree (“Listen as your day unfolds/ Challenge what the future holds”), the entirety of “Forever Young” by Alphaville. We preferred our illuminations encapsulated, entirely divorced from their contexts: lines from novels we’d not yet read by Virginia Woolf and Oscar Wilde. We had a thing for speeches by Kennedys, and Martin Luther King Jr. I had a quote by Sappho on the side of one page, and a lyric by Bob Geldof on the other.
And amongst all these wise words were pasted photographs of ourselves, and pictures cut from magazines of the dreams we hoped to one day embody, the kind of people we hoped we’d become. Also, ticket stubs from movies, plays and concerts. Shiny labels peeled off juice bottles. We’d make lists with such headings as “Things I Like” and “Future Children’s Names”.
We were partial to a premature nostalgia, this furious attempt to contain the present exactly as it was. Entirely self-absorbed, perhaps, but I would argue our scrapbooks were more about the world around us. Assembled more in homage to the future than to the present or the past.
Because in high school, although the world was just beginning to show its face, it certainly didn’t belong to us yet. There we were, as grown as we’d ever be (or so we figured), both capable of and yearning for real life, but with most of it still out of reach.
So in lieu of our lives and in lieu of the world, we turned to collecting the pieces instead. Life’s rule was chaos, as we were beginning to understand, but if we could write down its maxims, perhaps we might tame it. Imagine various butterflies, pinned by their wings, encased under glass, and such were our pieces of the world, these scraps and clippings— our desperate need to contain in order for understanding. But imagine scotch tape instead of the pins.
The truth was that apart from these sloppy collections of stuff, the three of us had nothing. Oh, of course there were the usual teenage trappings; we’d been born lucky, each of us blessed with bicycles and bedrooms. But so little of it was actually our own, things we’d chosen ourselves as reflections of our tastes. Usual trappings were all well and good, but we were after something more essential.
For we didn’t even have our selves yet, and perhaps we knew that. That in so many ways we were still in utero, and how terrifying it must have been to be alive and unsure of who we’d ever grow to be. Exciting too, but it made for constant insecurity, this explaining such lists as “Things I Like”. We had spent our whole lives ever-changing; our very souls only ephemeral, fluid, impossible. So it was no wonder that we self-defined in bits and pieces, down on paper in point form. When you’re sixteen years-old in the world, you see, you take what you can get.
Though of course over time we would get much more. Teenagedness was an affliction to be cured of, finally, as life started offering us three-dimensions. Bringing with it actual things, experiences, and none of it cut from magazines. So we could be living the life un-tape-downable, learning new lessons that couldn’t be contained on a page.
And though we are still not so old now, these days we’re old enough that it’s remarkable we’ve been friends for half our lives. Remarkable too, for it seems that between the three of us, somehow, we’ve acquired the trappings of adulthood. We have husbands and fiancés, a beautiful house, two cars, a dog, a couple of successful careers, six degrees and we’ve traveled to 20 countries. We’ve made a wealth of new friends, good memories, smart decisions, proud mistakes with lessons learned and stupider ones with stories.
Though none of this is entirely essential either; of course we know that. All these things we hold now— whether literal or figurative in their three dimensions— they might one day appear as insubstantial as our scrapbooks. We know that we’re probably still assembling our pieces.
But this makes them no less a creation, these lives of ours. Like the treasures our books were— how we’d marvel that we’d made them. Like the treasures the books still are, and how far they show we’ve come. So we can keep marveling at the world’s knack of making wholes out of pieces, and at friendship as the very foundation.
February 29, 2008
Home
The first house that was ours had been “mine” previously, and we shared it with a roommate. It was a two-up-two-down terrace house in the Midlands, with hideous wallpaper and a carpet that melted when you sat a cup of tea upon it. The door blew open with the wind. And the situation was only meant to be temporary, so we slept on an inflatable mattress, but then temporary turned into six months, the mattress exploded, we had to buy another, and that one had a hole so we were always on the floor by morning. We didn’t even own a kettle and we boiled water for tea in a pot.
Our next house was company accommodation in Japan, barely furnished, but big enough and beautiful. Our bedroom had tatami floors and sliding walls, and still there were no beds for us because we slept on futons. We had a gorgeous balcony with a cherry blossom view, and we could see the mountains and we lived on top of a sushi shop, but then we had to move because the rent was extortionate.
Our next house was a small box. A galley kitchen held a bar fridge and a hot plate, we had one cupboard and a washing machine in the corner. The bathroom had a sliding door and was about the size of a bathroom on an airplane. The main room was sunny, about seven feet wide and five feet long. We had a view of a pachinko parlour The ceiling was high, which was fortunate because we slept on a wood platform just below it. To reach our bed every night we had to climb up a ladder. We were lucky we could sit up on our futons and read without bumping our heads.
We’ve lived in our current apartment since we moved to Canada in 2005. We were attracted to its straight angles, neutral colours, to its gorgeous touches and its lack of quirks. I was coveting drawers and storage closets. It was clean, bright, beautiful, and we didn’t even have to look for it as I’d inherited it from my cousin. It was home, because we’d never really had a home before. We were able to unpack things that had been packed up for years. To live in a place with the intention of staying awhile, to live through multiple sets of seasons, to know our neighbours, grow food in the garden, to become best friends with the guy downstairs, to learn to cook, to write a novel, to have dinner parties and tea parties, watch the struggling tree outside the window hold onto itself for dear life.
But it’s time to go– we’ve known it for a while. The house seems to expand to accommodate each new piece of furniture we stuff inside, but we fear that it may reach capacity sometime soon. And so just a few days ago we set off on a hunt for a new home, which we spotted as soon as it was in sight. The only place we looked at, in truth, but then we also knew exactly what we wanted. We found it, and tonight we learned it’s to be ours come April 1st. A wonderful, weird and beautiful place, the top two floors of a house in the Annex, with two balconies, built in shelves, a second bedroom/office, gorgeous light, and in-house laundry– the latter I’ve not had the pleasure of since I lived with my mom and dad. The apartment has charm, beauty, and seems ready to hold us and our abundance of stuff. And I think we’ve been waiting for each other.
February 6, 2008
Spiced Up
It was almost as exciting as when Backstreet was back, except it was the Spice Girls, who we used to go to high school parties dressed as in 1997, refusing to break from our Spice personas. There is also a lingering memory of dancing on cafeteria tables, but we turn away from that. I was Ginger, and last night Baby and I attended the Spice Girls’ second sold out show in Toronto. Scary would have come, but she thought she’d be on a business trip to the Cayman Islands, but it turned out she was only home with a throat plague. We missed her, and we also missed Posh (who I haven’t actually seen for ten years) and Sporty (who is currently working at the South Pole).
And it was fun– we were on our feet dancing and singing for the show’s entirety, I’m hoarse today. “Wannabe” was the encore, and that one would have to get with our friends in order to be our lovers is as true as it ever was– just ask our lovers. Arms waving at “Viva Forever” and “Goodbye”– “look for the rainbow in every storm.” “Mama” brought tears to my eyes– how much additional meaning the years have brought it. The Spice Girls in real life, and they can really sing. Interestingly, though, they are about as good as I am at dancing. All a wee bit perfunctory, but what did one expect?
The downside was the absence of our Spice comrades (friendship never ending, and all), and that everybody there was fifteen. Then I got upset because all the fifteen year olds were way prettier than me, and had perfectly straight hair, and Baby and I were both cranky, and tired after all day at the office, and I was wearing winter boots, and we had headaches, and kept yawning, and even though she holds the group together, why doesn’t Mel C. get the credit she deserves? I also couldn’t stop thinking about Eddie Murphy, and that I am way too lame to go out on weeknights.
January 29, 2008
Grateful
Here at Pickle Me This we celebrate twenty years and one day of Canadian women owning their own bodies, a right so many within our circles (for whom this was not just a matter of principle) will be forever grateful for. More from Heather Mallick, activist Jessica Yee, Antonia Zerbisias, and Judy Rebick most bookishly. And of course this guy doesn’t like abortion, but I suppose he’ll never have to have one.
January 21, 2008
This Little Golden Book belongs to…
I read a review today of a wonderful-sounding book called Golden Legacy. Which set me awash in nostalgia; my favourite Little Golden Book remains We Help Mommy, for reasons which probably have more to do with said nostalgia than literary merit (or the lessons it imparted, which seem to have been minimal). Though there is literary merit, and the illustrations are beautiful. All of this led me to the Little Golden Books website, which tells their story. They were treasures of my childhood, these books. I remember spending ages studying the characters populating the little train on the back of the book, lining up the shiny spines, and the “This Little Golden Book belongs to:” label on the inside cover: here was a book and it was mine!
January 19, 2008
Love is a walkman
I have a soft spot for objects that last. My favourite umbrella (which is semi-retired now). Jeans that will turn four this year, my blue corduroy bag which is five, my always reliable ipod-shuffle, which is three. I so respect solidity, and staying power. That when I spend a few extra bucks, I can be amply rewarded.
But there is one object in particular, revered above all others. Which is my Sony Sports Walkman (1990-2001). In vivid yellow, from Bush to Bush, from the Cold War to the War on Terror, from elementary school to university, and every single time I mowed the lawn. It was dropped, manhandled, made to be play mix-tapes with Air Supply and Peter Cetera, survived the Abba Gold craze, my Beatles obsession, songs taped off the radio, and the theme from Titanic.
Rewinding killed the batteries so I would flick the button to play the other side of the tape, and I got to know the exact second to flick back over when the obsessional-song-du-jour would start up on the other side. A gift from my parents for a school trip to Ottawa, it finally died one day while I was riding the subway East on the Danforth Line, listening to Summer Mix 2001 which contained songs by Sloan, Debbie Gibson, Sophie B. Hawkins and Robbie Williams. (Currency was never my strong suit). The motor went kaput altogether, not surprisingly as for months before songs had been playing too slow.
I kept it for awhile, playing the radio; after eleven years, it was hard to let go. When I replaced it, it was with a Panasonic walkman that I dropped from a six foot height never to listen to again, replaced by another Panasonic that died for no discernible reason (and was hideous), and then a cheap mini-disc player, followed by not-cheap mini-disc player (what a folly, I know!). And then my beloved Ipod shuffle, whose three-year-so-far life span I now know not to take for granted. Dare I hope for a similar reliability to the personal music player I once knew? But ah, few people get so lucky twice in a lifetime.
This all brought on by an interview with Rob Sheffield at BGB. (I was reading his book just one year ago.) Sheffield remains a mix-tape devotee: “This summer I got pulled out of the security line at LaGuardia because I had a Walkman in my bag. The guy was like, “What the hell is this?” They asked, Why do you have an ipod AND a cassette player? I started to explain I just like listening to “Beggars Banquet” and “Let It Bleed” on tape better than on mp3—but fortunately they let me through.”
January 4, 2008
Where to go
Do you dare to use a one-sentence paragraph? Crooked House on “the ‘we’ point of view and E. Nesbit” (“We were the Bastables”). Heather Mallick’s year that was. CBC.ca/art’s 2007 in pop culture. And did Unity Mitford have Hitler’s baby? (I’m inclined to say no– though imagine finding out you were Hitler’s baby?). Check out “the manliest cookbook of all time”. Headline of the day is “Circus School Seeks Students”. Marchand’s year that was: on “grace” as the ultimate gift of Divisidero, “Some readers would have been satisfied with a good novel.”
I recently found reference in a book to pudding finger-painting, which has relieved me of a nagging fear that I’d been a paint-eating child. And though I’m despairing about returning to work on Monday, we’ve got planned in the meantime an afternoon tea at the Four Seasons as consolation.
December 31, 2007
2007 I liked you
And not just because you were the year in which we drove across a European country with the top down.
Happy New Year and all the best for 2008.
December 31, 2007
Year-End Reading Recap
I do my best not to be a passive reader. To select what I read carefully, to engage with what I’m reading through my blog, to read carefully and critically, but also joyfully, and to keep track of what I’m reading. I’ve been reading most actively during the last two years, since I started my list “Books Read Since 2006”. The list from which I was able to discern last year that I read hardly any books by men and/or writers not from three certain countries whose names start with A, B and C. And that though a book or two had been written pre-1900, you’d be hard-pressed to notice from my list.
At the beginning of 2007 I resolved to read more slowly, and to read a “classic” monthly. I was sort of untriumphant on both counts, though the first one I couldn’t really help. I tried. The second, I ended up reading about six classics, falling in love with Middlemarch and Huckleberry Finn in particular. I never did get to Anna Karenina and maybe I never will, but once again I intend to (and will that eventually cease to mean something?). Though I got around to Guns Germs and Steel so anything is possible.
I am also sorry to have not yet read Rachel Cusk’s Arlington Park, which I read described as “If Virginia Woolf were alive in 2007…what she would be writing”. Did you know that I nearly bought it in the Southport Waterstones, but bought a hat down the road instead? And they didn’t have it at the airport bookstore, and back in Canada it could hardly be found at all, and I wanted the paperback, but I think I might spring for the hardback now. If I’ve wanted something for six months, it must be worthwhile.
Regrets aside, it’s been an awfully good year though. Before we go out to dinner this evening, I’ll have finished reading Kate Sutherland’s utterly enjoyable story collection All In Together Girls, which will be #339 on my grand list. (Though I will not enter it until the book is done– the one thing in the world about which I’m superstitious). Which means I’ve read 166 books this year, not bad since I spent 7 months of this year working full time. Not bad in particular since so many of the books I read were brilliant.
This year my reading resolution is quite simple– to read with a pencil. For notes, to underline new words, to deface my books and make them mine. An active reader would do that. Oh there are so many fine books just ahead. And I will start the new year just like I started the old one, with Francine Prose’s wonderful Reading Like a Writer.
Oh and also– not only is my novel entitled What Comes Down, but it is finished.
