My son the charmer

And on the theme of 'kids say the darndest things': a few days ago, while I was cleaning up the living room, my son came up to me, handed me some dusty crayons and said, "Tiens, ma belle." For those of you out of province, 'tiens, ma belle', the equivalent of 'there you go, doll', is what truckers say to waitresses when they leave a tip or what any other sort of gruff and rough around the edges kind of guy says to a pretty young thing. It's a casual, friendly sort of paternalism. Like being called 'sweetheart' in the post office.

I love it.

Where's the Beef?

I lit the candles for Hannukah this year, as I try to do every year, singing the prayer in Hebrew phonetically, and dripping wax on the table.

This was the first year that my son was aware of Hannukah. On the first night, as I began to light the candles, he started to sing "happy birthday". I told him that this was not in fact a birthday despite the presence of candles. He seemed unconvinced and after listening to me recite the prayer, looked around and asked, "wheres zee cake?"

In other news, I started the boxing. My arm is trembling as I write this post. That's how out of shape I am.

Punch drunk winter stroller

First big snowfall which brought the following thoughts:

1) I can't wait until my son can walk distances greater than two blocks so I can ditch my clunker of a stroller that even the Flintstones wouldn't use. Dervla Murphy says you can get a child to walk (and she really means walk) by the age of three.

2) On that theme, I have realized that pushing said stroller all winter, across snow drifts and over snowplow mountains is not enough to get me in shape. Time to join a gym.

3) And now to make good on my long-term promise to myself to learn how to box.

On that note...

1) People with really bad hair. Wow, it just makes me feel like all is right in the world and that I shouldn't worry so much what the world thinks when I see someone with really bad hair and they're rocking it. I love it.
2) Friends of friends who donate furniture and then help you move it to your house.
3) Zatar sandwhich, all dressed except for onions.
4) My son, listing off all of his friends as he falls asleep (mon ami Ralph, mon ami Georgigiana..)
5) My mum.

Sweet dreams.

Five things I am grateful for (for G.C)

On the radio today (I have made the switch to CBC 2 after getting irritated at all the talk talk talk on Radio 1) the host (in between songs) mentioned that a study has shown that writing down five things you are grateful for once a day increases your health. Since I tend to be an ungrateful bastard (much of the time) and have a family history of hypochondria, I thought I would give it a whirl.

Today, November 30, 2009, I am grateful for:

1) The first snow fall in which my son stomped about in his new boots;
2) Watching my son grow strong and healthy. I read in the paper today that a child dies of hunger every five seconds. It boggles the mind;
3) Bobby pins (see previous post);
4) The Guardian crossword (bathroom scrubber, 6 letters, ?);
5) The curiosity of 6-year-olds.

As I write this, I realize I have a million things to be grateful for.

Thank you, Universe.

(loofah !)

Haircut

I have needed a haircut for a while. The ends are knotty and dry and whatever style was initially cut into my mop has grown out. My hair was tangly and snarly. Time for a trim.

My options were as follows: 1) the really expensive place where I had inadvertently insulted the stylist last time. While he did a good cut I hate having to tip everybody from the shampoo guy to the other one giving you a head massage. I just wanted a haircut. 2) the cheap place on Parc Ave which I only realized after the fact was actually a men's salon. The photos of men on the wall and the name of the place (Boyfriend Kuts) should have given it away but I was focused on my own hair. 3) Try something new.

I am always "trying something new", forever in search of that perfect hair salon, not too expensive, decent haircut and without all of the flaflah of the chichi salons. I have tried so many places in Montreal but I always hold out hope that I will one day find the perfect place. Today wasn't it.

I went to a place that looked funky and was near a university so I thought they'd have a clue. Turns out they didn't and I have the worst haircut I've had in quite some time. And to make matters worse, it is really short so I can't do anything about it except grimace in the mirror and swear at my reflection.

Did I ask for short? Did I ask to look like a twelve-year old? No. Did I not mention that I have been trying to grow out my hair for ages? That layers are what works on my hair? Yes. How the stylist somehow translated what I said into what he did to my head is beyond me. Initially, he went for very short with a bobble-head of bounce on top and a duck flip at the bottom. I kid you not. When I asked for the duck flip at my collar to be removed, I could sense that he was starting to get irritated.

This is something that I also hate about going to the hairdressers, they take it so personally! Heaven forbid you don't like the massacre they've done to your hair! Well, I don't like it. It is ugly and stupid and short and I can't do anything about it. I am stuck with this stupid haircut for at least a year as it grows out. So, yes, I do have a right to be angry. Yes, it is ugly. And to top it off, it was crooked.

I hate my hair.

Baby belly

Yesterday, as I was reading a story about the challenges of friendship to my son, he pointed to my stomach and said, "baby." I thought, wow, I really need to get in shape. He then pointed to his own little round belly and said, "baby." That made me feel better.

Sleeping beauty

I had been warned for some time now but still persisted in the delusion that it would last forever. No, not me, thought I. It will happen to the neighbour and the friend across town, but not to us, not in our house.

Well, isn't there a saying about being the last to know and the hardest to fall, something about vainglorious pride, flying too close to the sun and getting your just desserts?

My son has stopped napping. Over two glorious years of napping has come crashing to an end. And no amount of yelling and door-slamming and threatening (always helpful when you are trying to encourage someone to fall asleep) on my part has stemmed the tide of crinkle-eyed giggling, sock-removing, joyful tumbling and rumbling, silly song singing, pure awakeness from coming into my home.

After my threats and yelling were exhausted, I tried more traditional ways of helping my son fall asleep in the afternoon: lying down with him for hours, reading stories for hours, rubbing his back for hours, leaving him alone in his room for hours, all to no avail. Something has clicked in his growing biochemical soup of hormones, and that something says, "NO MORE DODO!"

I did have a good run though. Two sometimes three hours of naptime meant hours of alone time for me. I started and finished books during naps. I wrote blogs (ahem). I caught up on my internet browsing (it is always important to know the habits of slutty teens). I sometimes (rarely) cleaned the house. I wrote letters and formulated ideas for articles. I drank tea and was alone with my thoughts. I stared at the tree outside that I have yet to identify. I had time to wonder about the tree's identity.

Sigh. Them days are gone. I know it rationally but I am having some difficulty adjusting. At around 2 o'clock I look at my son, hoping for signs of fatigue. By 3 I usually give up and take him to the park, where he will promptly fall asleep in the stroller and I will have forgotten to bring a book (arrggghh).

Ah yes, this is another aspect to the non-napping child. Put him into any moving vehicle, stroller, car, tug-boat, submarine, and he is immediately comatose, no matter how inconvenient it is to the boat captain, driver or stroller-pusher.

But, you cry, AM, it is mid-afternoon and this post is wordy to say the least. Yes, you're right. After yelling, cajoling, whining and bribing, I managed to get my son to sleep by playing dead. Exhausted from kicking and pummeling me to wake me, he fell asleep. Victory is mine! If however short lived. If however temporary.

Sory

There is a new graffiti message showing up on streets, walls and sidewalks in my neighbourhood. I first noticed it on the way to the park. Sory was written in white spray paint across the sidewalk. Yesterday, as I stood at the bus stop, I noticed it written on the street and on the sidewalk, again the white paint. The bus rolled to a stop and passengers disembarked, others clambered on. Sory was hidden by feet and the bus's hulking noise.

Who wrote this? Were they so confident in their spelling they didn't bother to ask, to check? To apologize and to misspell the apology, there is irony in there somewhere or just banality. Or maybe it was written by someone for whom English is foreign and dense. Why two Rs when one will do? I like to think of a lovelorn youth from Bangladesh or Pakistan, getting used to the chilly air and baggy jeans that are the uniform of young men here, falling fast and hard for the girl with the cherry lip gloss, the tight jeans, the hair that smells like paradise. Love is so intense when you're fifteen. What did he do that he needs to write sory all over the neighbourhood? Kiss her best friend? Suddenly, there are so many girls, and it is so easy. How is it possible not to give into temptation? But then when the lust settles, he thinks only of cherry lips and wants to apologize. She won't answer his texts, she blocks his number. He wouldn't dream of going to her house, where tradition reigns and he would be turfed out without so much as a howdeedo?

So he writes on the street, where she will see and understand. But she was born here, raised in the ethnic ghetto, speaks French and English fluently, can pass, can pass, can pass. She is embarrassed that he has misspelled it. Her friends giggle and say sharp things, turning jealousy into astute observation. She pretends it was a joke, she never really liked him. Swish of heavenly hair and she is gone.

Only the sory remains.

'S-O-R-Y,' spells my son from his perch in the stroller. He looks up and smiles. He is so proud of himself.

Brown bird

Imagine, if you will, a little brown bird. This little brown bird peeps and cheeps and hops about. It is one of the many little birds that hop and flutter from the low branches of a cedar bush to the winter snow below by the bus stop in winter. Surrounded by friends, it flutters and flies, lands on the snow on tiny feet, pecks at the ground, maybe a berry, maybe a grain, then dashes off, chased by another bird, a gust of wind, or the arrival of the bus. Its heart beats quickly quickly under its mantle of weightless feathers. It is fragility and self-contained strength in the same breath.

This bird is oblivious to the city heaving and creaking around it. Its world is the cedar bush, the larger bushes nearby, maybe the leafless maple, maybe the eaves of the crumbling apartment block. It is a city bird but in its element because it is free.

Now, imagine a pet shop in the basement of a shopping mall. Any shopping mall, anywhere. At the entrance there are shiny goldfish bowls and starter aquarium sets on sale. In the window, there are sleepy kittens and confused puppies. If you were to enter the store, to squeeze past the still snake and hunched rabbits, past the bird seed and aquarium trinkets, you would come to a small cage with a small brown bird. That little brown bird breaks my heart.

And that is how I am feeling about daycare.

joy undiluted

As I was rinsing out the empty conditioner bottle this morning, I started to look forward to the trip to the pharmacy this would require. I love choosing and buying a new shampoo or conditioner. I like smelling the different offerings. I like admiring the bottles and seeing what tantalizing teasers the shampoo makers have come up with this time (with kiwi! with emu oil! with alpha hydroxy! with apple pectin! and vitamin c!!). I like the hair care goo for blondes and brunettes and redheads. And that gets me thinking of my yet to be realized dream of being a blonde (a perfect, bottle blonde like Marilyn Monroe) which hairdressers have so far dissuaded me from becoming. These thoughts lead me to the hair dye aisle, which I wander lecherously. Streaks and grey cover-up and moustache dye and chestnut and autumnal burgundy and sassy summer blonde. But back to the shampoos and conditioners. I usually try to find one for curlies though not one has worked so far in taming this mop. I avoid the ones that smell like strawberries, apples or candy, or anything else that reminds me of being thirteen. And I usually stick to the under 5$ range, only rarely splashing out for a more expensive one. Once in a fit of hair envy, I bought a 25$ Aveda conditioner based on smell alone. It smelled lovely but was useless for tangles.

Today or tomorrow, expect to see me in the haircare section of the pharmacy, I'll be the one with the dreamy look on my face.

The taste of childhood (or the art of the run-on sentence)

I was in the health food store today, feeling expansive and rich, which I realized was rather misguided when, at the cash, I had to pay with a credit card because of 'insufficient funds', when I saw carob chips. Sugarless, milkless carob chips, in a clear plastic bag; the sort stores use to pack their own bulk supplies, white label with red lines and black writing.

I bought them thinking of my son but opened them as soon as I got home even though he will only be back tomorrow. Holy childhood flashback! I feel like my whole childhood could be encapsulated in one carob chip. Just one.

~

In other news, the old-school purple sports car (maybe a camaro?) that I had been covertly admiring in the neighbour's back yard was towed by the police today, which gave it all the more an aura of illicit glamour.

Adapting to warm (fiction)

MJ thinks about water often these days. Water seeps into her mind as she sits at her desk, adding the numbers. Water drips in as she drives R to school, even on the brightest of days. She cannot shake it off, not like a dog, not like a duck's back.

Ever since the Announcement three months ago, MJ has been drowning in thoughts of water. She knows she is not alone. At work, her colleagues are distracted. Everett and Lorne drew graphs on the white board at lunch one day with the door closed. She could hear them arguing all the way from her cubicle. Janie, who sits across from MJ, has already submitted her papers for Nepal now that Canada and Peru are no longer accepting wetlanders. 'You have to get in before the rush,' she tells MJ. 'Before everyone wants to go and they close it down, like in France.'

So many have already left. Her friend, Amy, packed it up the week of the announcement. Her husband had an uncle in the USA who pulled some strings. MJ's sister up and moved to Peru before UN Water Treaty Six came into effect and they stopped letting anyone in. She sends letters to MJ and R now, full of Spanish conjugations and relief.

But MJ can't seem to find the energy to leave. And perhaps it is too late. At R's school, the class is half empty. The highways are a breeze now, they have even stopped the traffic report on the radio. No need. There are advantages, MJ tells herself. There is always parking. And the city is so quiet now. No lineups, ever except at the camping and hiking store. And forget about any of the boating stores, you'd be waiting in line for weeks.

MJ has her boat already. It is tied tightly to the balcony. It is not a big boat or a fancy one. She couldn't afford it on her salary but the salesman assured her it floats and that is really all that matters.

On the phone to her mother, who is high in the Canadian Rockies, illegally, MJ tells her of the obsession with water, how it follows her everywhere, how showering and doing the dishes have almost become unbearable.

'But you're ready, aren't you?' MJ's mother asks. 'The kayak and everything? It's ready?'
'Yes, it's ready but what if it's not enough?'

When she is not thinking of water, running water, swirling brown water with leaves and branches and debris, icy cold water, she looks for things that float. Every time MJ enters a room, she quickly scans the furniture, what floats, what doesn't, where could she put R if the time came? She carries her emergency floating device with her at all times and panicked that one time when R forgot hers in the rush to get to school.

Floating. Water. Sinking. Water.

At night, she dreams of rushing floods, of buildings collapsing under the brute weight of water. She wakes in a sweat, again water, and goes to the balcony to check the kayak, glowing yellow in the night. The dry goods are tucked into the toe of the boat, the life jackets hooked to the sides. MJ looks out onto the neighbourhood. Hers is a fourth floor apartment, which reassures her. The moon is bright and full. Already the spring has been so warm, melting what little snow fell in the winter.

I am ready, MJ says to herself. If it comes, I am ready. And she returns to bed.

An old story

The camping trip was cut short for want of children's tylenol. Fever and listlessness pushing me from the back seat as I clenched the steering wheel back to civilization. No one should be sick in a campground.

Later.

The afternoon sun shone water shades on the far wall. D on the balcony watched the yellow, not orange, digger in front of the building. Dig-dig-dig-digging the dry asphalt.

And then a HISSSS louder than a hiss should be. The smell of gas is everywhere.

The workers running down the street and me wondering what to do. Who do I call? I looked at the phone blankly. I pressed 0 then thought better of it. I stepped onto the balcony and yelled to the workers, Should we leave? Yes.

Suddenly panic. Larger than thought. Bigger than my brain. All I can see is the building exploding, fake-mournful anchormen talking about it on the evening news. All I can think is I have to get D out of here. Out. Of. Here. Now.

I don't work well in a panic.

I take D and run out of the building, stopping to bang on the neighbour's door, il faut dire a maman qu'il faut partir. C'est dangereux.

And then.

And then on the street corner with a feverish boy in my arms. No money, no cellphone, no shoes for my boy. Flip flops on my feet and the sun shining bright and yellow on the fire trucks that are taking over the street. A woman near me starts to panic. Ohmygod, ohmygod. She is overreacting. D takes a huge, fever releasing dump. It goes up his back and along my arm.

The fireman I harass says it will be at least an hour before we can go back in but probably more. I leave poo fingerprints on the cellphones I borrow.

I walk to the park and try to wipe my arm on the grass. D and I stink like shit. Greek women with gardening tools look askance. I cannot stay here. I cannot bear being looked at that way. I need a diaper and wipes and shoes for D. The sun is hot and now so close to the jungle gym, D wants to play. But he has no shoes. He is covered in crap.

And that's why it is good to know your neighbours.

The flower shop.

I sweatily explain. Someone gets diapers, expensive ones, he doesn't have kids. I wash D in the sink in the back among the stems and leaves. Eventually we are rescued by the rescuer.

Lesson learned: always take cellphone and wallet. And shoes for all family members. And a diaper or two. And always always be nice to the neighbours.

The life in the hall

One of the often unmentioned side-effects of living in an apartment building is that you get to know very quickly what your neighbours are cooking. And not because they tell you.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. The smell of my neighbour cooking chapatis is enough to make me salivate. And the wafting smell of fried onions is nice in the evening.

I am less certain about the culinary tastes of my other four neighbours. Someone was boiling broccoli at 7 am this morning. Broccoli. 7 am. This is not a nice smell. Another neighbour, on the ground floor, starts his day with what smells like an onion and garlic smoothie. Oh kiss me, Kate.

And what the neighbours think when they pass in front of my door? The poor woman subsists on boiled beans and incense! Think of the child!

Romeo, Romeo

My son has fallen in love with the neighbours. They are a family originally from Pakistan. They have three children, aged six, three and just under two. They have a TV and microwave popcorn at their house, neither of which we have at ours.

Standing on the front balcony, my son can see but not touch the neighbour kids. He cries because they are so close yet so far away. He goes to the back balcony, which we share with our neighbours, and rattles their door, hoping they will open the door, hoping they will come out. He sits, disappointed and dejected, when they don't. He can hear them laughing and playing on their side of the wall and this is a bitter pill indeed. He walks around saying 'hi, friends' in the hopes that these words will act as the magic wand to make the neighbours appear. To console himself, he says 'friends busy'. This is what I have taught him when their door is closed.

This is a tricky dance. The neighbour-kid-dance. The mother's lack of English prevents a frank discussion of the type 'when is it ok for the kids to play together and when is it not?' I can feel the hesitation wafting from both sides of the balcony. Neither of us wants to over-impose or take advantage. We don't want our kids to be messy, obnoxious or wearing-out their welcome. So we are careful, keeping our doors closed more often than not. When the doors are open, we exchange greetings, and small gifts of food, as the kids run screamingly from house to house, my son becoming more and more hysterically excited with each lap.

Yesterday, my son gave the little boy a smack on the head. The mother looked shocked. Play time quickly ended after that.

Yes, I am that kid's mother. Perhaps this is why the door has been so firmly closed today and why my son has spent a good part of the morning moping.

Birds of a feather

The thing with moving is that it takes me time to settle-in.

My spirit rises from my body and takes a week or two to drift back down to earth. I wander around confused and distracted, misplacing the phone, glasses of cold water, pens. Bird-brained, I seek my roost and can't seem to understand that this new breezy apartment is my home.

I bump into furniture in the dark. My washing machine won't work. And last night I slipped and landed with a full-body thud onto the balcony in a misguided attempt to right a fallen plant. Note to self: the balcony is slippery as ice when wet.

I'll call when I land.

Pun intended

Coming back from my weekend away, I was rushing to get on the train. I had that glorious feeling of having spent the day in the sun, all sweat and sunburn, and then hitting the aircon of convention. I like the contrast between the outdoor world of skin and the function and blandness of the train station. I got on the train, assigned seating this time, and took my time getting settled. I said 'hello' to the elderly lady seated next me then dove into the last few pages of Heather O'Neill's Lullabies for Little Criminals (2006).

When I had finished my book I put it down and was ready to make conversation with my seat mate but I noticed she was reading a religious pamphlet hidden between the pages of a paperback.

That stopped me in my tracks.

A garden story

In the collective garden. I try to plant tomato plants while keeping an eye on my son, who runs up and down the aisles. A- is weeding down at the bottom. Ah-, M- and G- haven't arrived yet. J- comes up with the shopping cart full of tools and plants. It is hot and windy. My son has dropped his cashews on the ground and is picking them up with dirty fingers.

A white, French-Canadian woman comes up to the garden. She seems to know many of the members. She smokes a cigarette and has a loud voice. She is looking for Ah- and says she will wait until he arrives. In the meantime, she approaches A-, who has come up to the fence. Cigarette starts telling A- about a research project happening at UdeM, something to do with women from different cultural communities and their food habits, she says. You get a basket of free food, she says, selling the project. There are already women from South Asia and the Middle East, Cigarette continues, we need women from other areas. You're Haitian, right, she asks A-. I am from Burundi, says A-.

I am cringing inwardly as I shove basil into the soil.

Oooh, continues Cigarette, Africa! That's far. She goes on in this vein for a while. I am so offended that I stop listening. That is ok, though, because I have been ignored completely. Too white, I guess.

I swear to myself that when I go back to work, I will not be like Cigarette. I will not pigeonhole people. I will not guess Haiti when it's Burundi. I will not offer people to be part of research studies because I would never want to be part of some research project where free food is seen to be an acceptable and respectful compensation.

People are not their cultural identities. People are not poverty.

I dislike Cigarette. Although I have not smoked in years, there is always a part of me that could.

Cycling in the rain

I have always liked a physical challenge. If there is a mountain, I'd like to climb it. If there is a bike path, I'd like to cycle it. I like the feeling of pushing further, beyond tired. I like the taste of salt sweat on my arms and the feeling of all of my muscles contracting, working in harmony. I like eating dry bread and bland cheese on the edge of cliffs, with only the wind and the waves as company, knowing that anything can happen.

This is not to say I push it the farthest, the fastest, the longest. I have many friends who pass me on the ups of a long hill, who have more stamina, desire, motivation but I like the personal challenge, seeing if I am up to it, racing against myself.

Things changed when I had my son. Maybe the challenge of trying to push him out emptied me of my will to keep pushing on. Suddenly the need for adventure, for a body well-worn with physical exhaustion shifted. Travelling with my son I would worry. Sitting in a fly-infested road-side bar, waiting for a never arriving bus in Central America, I worried. I worried he'd get sunstroke or be bitten by a rabid dog or catch some disease from the swirling dust. I never used to worry. I could sit for days on the side of a road, watching the world go by. I could walk all day with only the vaguest idea of where I would stay that night.

I have missed my adventurous self and have been trying to coax her home.

Today, I feel she made a small gesture of reconciliation. I took my son to daycare, on the bike, in the rain. Now, I know what you are thinking. You're thinking: "AM, that really is no big deal." And you are right, it isn't but it was the joy of not being defeated by weather, of not being intimidated by niggles of worry. It was the ritual of kitting my son and I up in our rain gear, of feeling the lashing rain on my face and hands as I pushed off from the kerb. It was the feeling, after so many months of softness, of that little hardness in my muscles, the feeling of "I can do this."

Loud voice

At the small park today, there was a Haitian woman sitting on a bench watching over several children playing on the jungle gym. She kept up a loud and sometimes funny disciplinary commentary as the children ran amok, often calling over one or another miscreant for a time-out or a one-on-one talking to, before sending them back into the fray. It was loud and somewhat obnoxious.

Yet I have joined the club of loud voiced women. It must be a right of passage in giving birth. Suddenly, I am yelling a lot and the strangest thing is children listen to me. I must have a 'mummy voice' that stops them in their tracks.

Yesterday, I hollered at some children trespassing on the collective garden. "Hey, hey!" I yelled while waving my finger, and the kids turned, they slowed down, they asked permission and looked somewhat sheepish. I then gave a loud speech about respecting the garden space. I didn't even have my son with me, I must have just glowed mummy power.

Today, an older child knocked over my son in the chaos that was the park in the hour between the end of school and the call to supper. The boy stood there, unsure of what to do. I marched over and said "Qu'est ce qu'on dit? On dit 'excuse-moi'!" Such sanctimoniousness! And the poor little guy whispered "excuse-moi" and then I allowed him to go.

Oh the power. In becoming a mother I have become a queen over the kingdom of children. Or perhaps tyrant is a better word.

Echos

Out on our daily walk from the park, we bumped into two boys that we see often. My son was happily going up every stoop, walkway and driveway and the two kids, about eleven, looked on. They both seemed a little shocked by my son's apparent disregard for private property as he marched up stairs and attempted to knock on doors.

Enjoying the attention, my son, clambered up onto some lawn chairs on a porch, sat down and looked down, smilingly, at us watching from the street.

"He is like a deputy minister," said one little boy.

The description was so apt it left me stunned. And not only because that was exactly what my son looked like, smugly looking down at us, as we stood at the gate but also because it was coming out of the mouth of a Punjabi kid with echos of the Raj.

I was immediately drawn to some far off place where the sun always shines and children and women go barefoot. The boy's words brought me there, standing cordoned off from the bigmen, at some ceremony, where hierarchy presides, and well-fed men are squeezed into too tight, shiny suits, making endless pointless speeches to an audience who wonders what's in it for them.

I immediately thought, Wow, I'd love to be a fly on the wall at that kid's dinner table. I also thought, I am raising a white man.

Cock rock hard

A sign in the window of a local grocery store: chicken hard, 3 for 1$. Chicken hard? Being a vegetarian I am not intimate with the descriptions associated with meat but chicken hard? Do they not mean the bones, that being the hardest part of anyone's body?

I can see Madam squeezing her way past the familypacks of cumin and greasy pickle to the butcher in the back. "But how hard is the chicken?" she asks, always wary of a scam. The butcher takes the chicken by the feet, plucked and dead and thwacks it against the counter a few times. Bang bang bang. "Hard."

Maybe they meant 'hearts'? But aren't chicken hearts rather small? I know they are not known for their brains, but are chickens known for their hearts? He was such a kind rooster, so loving to his friends, forgiving of his enemies.

I could go on but I don't think you want me to.

Daycare dilemma - Part 2 (for LR)

Finding and getting a daycare in this city is, for lack of a better word, challenging. A better word would incorporate the desperation, the creeping deadline of a return to work. It would take into account the sinking futility of watching a daycare worker flip through endless pages of children's names on waiting lists looking for your child's who, after many months, is not on the list after all. A better word would also allude to the protection felt, the motherly instincts challenged, the deep fear that your child will not be cared for, valued, or caught as he tumbles off the slide. A better word would include the push and the pull, the need for and the caution of daycare.

I have watched my ethics slide in a quest for a decent daycare. I have shmoozed with daycare directors. I have been charming and amenable when I didn't necessarily feel charming and amenable. And recently, I slipped into some daycare nepotism.

My neighbour's accountant is also the accountant of a local, 7$ a day daycare. "I'll put in a word," said my neighbour. I didn't say "don't." I didn't say, "that wouldn't be fair." I said, "that'd be nice." I told family, grinningly, that I might jump the eternal daycare queue but I felt a niggling wiggle of fading morality, somewhere out past the fantasies of having A SPOT IN A DAYCARE.

After a few weeks, my neighbour said I could go into the daycare and ask for J-. I was to mention T-, the mutual accountant. This interaction would allow me to leap ahead of several hundred waiting infants and toddlers to the front of the line. "Hallelujah," thought I.

With my sense of ethics nearing the horizon, I set forth to the daycare.

"Is J- here?" I asked the serious woman who answered the bell.
"No," she replied. "What is it about?"
Now, I was caught. What was I to say? The accounting? I am a notoriously slow thinker on my feet.
"Uhm, the waiting list," said I.
"I am in charge of the waiting list," the woman replied and ushered me in.

It seems my son was not on the waiting list (I'd called twice) so he was put on. And that was that.

I came away feeling as if I had got my just deserts. Fair is fair.

Maybe one day, when my son is twenty or so, he'll get a good spot. For now, I am, undeservedly, on the moral high ground.

Dawg gone

I am struggling through The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (David Wroblewski, 2008). It is a brick of a book at over 550 pages. The only reason I have persevered is that both my uncle and mother thought it was very good. My mum even encouraged me on the phone today, 'give it another fifty pages,' she said, 'and if you're still not into it, let it go.' Another fifty pages.

And it is not like the writing is bad. Far from it. The writing is quite good but more what old David is writing about. For those who haven't read it, it is about a family who raises dogs. That's it. They raise dogs and train dogs and help dogs be born and watch stray dogs at the edge of the woods and talk about dogs and pat their dogs and go for walks with their dogs and feed their dogs and reminisce about dogs. No kidding. One chapter was devoted to naming some new dogs. And they didn't even get particularly interesting names. Now maybe if I was crazy about dogs I'd really be into this.

I am not crazy about dogs ergo I am struggling with this finely written but infinitely boring book.

I'll give it another fifty pages.

My son the genius (for JD)

1) After bath time, I usually spend quite some time chasing my son around the apartment trying to get him into his diaper and then his pyjamas before the wind-down for bed. Tonight, I was distracted in the kitchen and figured I would let him run around naked for a bit. He came into the kitchen, diaper in hand, said 'couche' a couple of times then tried to wrap it around his neck like a scarf. He then laid it on the floor, opened it and then lay down and tried to put in on himself. My son is putting on his own diapers.

2) An obsession with numbers and letters has recently entered our home. My son names letters wherever he sees them, on bags, newspapers, books, and bottles of ketchup. He has even seen letters where others wouldn't. A splatter of milk on the floor is an 'o'. A clothes peg a 'v'.

I say we skip primary school and send him straight off to university.

The Exchange (fiction -1-)

A first attempt at fiction, bear with me.
~

J- surveyed the display for some time before stepping forward to the choose the plant. It was on the edge of the great riot of colour and texture, closest to the street. A single green leaf clung to the barren stalk of what must have once been a mighty plant. Yellowed and curled leaves lay on the ground despite the rich appearance of its soil.

J- lifted the plant and carried it to the proprietor of the shop, an elderly Greek man who sat in the doorway in an old wicker chair.

-Sir, said J-, I would like to buy this plant, sir, but it is too expensive, if you don't mind my saying so. J- could feel his palms sweaty and slippery around the plastic pot.

Mr. L- stopped his quick-eyed surveillance of the street before him, the running and screaming children, the small groupings of alte kakers complaining about life, the sun shifting allegiance from sky to furtive clouds.

-I have been waiting, said Mr. L-, staring up at J-. He placed his hands on his armrests and pulled himself slowly to his feet, I have been waiting for a long time for this moment.

J- shifted his weight and moved his shoulders under the polyester fabric of his shirt.

-That plant, said Mr. L-, pointing to the hunched stick in J-'s hands, she used to be a beauty. I bought her from Sorento when she was just a bud, a bump, a nothing but I knew, I knew she would one day be a great lady. Mr. L waved his hands. Sorento, he never sold me a bad seed.

-I loved and cared for her. I watched her grow. Her beautiful leaves like nothing I had seen before. Most of the time, nothing special, long and green and shiny. And in the summer, she'd transform, her leaves would turn gold, purple, flecks of silver and black, red. So beautiful. Mr. L- stopped, his eyes elsewhere. And then when she was old enough, I brought her outside for the summer, so the people could find joy in her beauty.

J- started to look about. Were passersby noticing how he stood there, caught by Mr. L-'s ravings, his rising voice, his flailing hands?

-I have seen everything, cried Mr. L-, I watched as you passed by and noticed my beauty for the first time. I saw how she made you stop and reconsider everything. I saw how you wanted to have her. I watched as you passed by each day, your satchel swinging from arms tired from working hunched at a desk all day. I saw the way you would look, sideways at her. I saw you stop and bend close to her, whisper to her, stroke her gold and red leaves. Don't think I didn't see. Mr. L- was yelling, his face shiny with emotion. I saw. I saw everything.

J- could feel the shift in the air, he squared his shoulders and breathed deep.

-You killed her, said Mr. L-, suddenly quiet, deflated. Leaf by leaf, one by one. You killed her. And now you want to buy her? And for a cheaper price? Mr L-'s voice almost cracked, cracked at the injustice of the world.

-Take her, Mr. L- pushed the plant into J-'s chest. Take her and don't let me see you again.

J- turned to the street. An alte kaker glanced their way, drawn by the scent of defeat, then looked away. J-, holding the plant to his heart, stepped back into the flow of the street.

~

Apple bums

Several months ago, there was an ad on TV for a large grocery store chain. The premise was that there was a great variety of produce to be discovered at their store. The ad showed a little boy asking his father the names of fruits and vegetables. "What's this?" asks the boy. "A peach," answers his father. "What's this?" asks the kid. "Broccoli," says his father. At the end of the ad, the kid points to a large, green bunch of leaves and asks, "What's this?" The dad is stumped.

Watching the ad, I yell out "Swiss chard, you fool!"

Well, the pigeons of smugness have come home to roost. My son asks the names of the most difficult things. What is the name of the space between the nose and lip? I answered "the upper lip, moustache area". Wholly unsatisfactory. And the bottom of an apple, that little crinkly area? What is that called? I have no idea. And what about the space between the cheek and the ear? Chear? And that mini-tractor thing that swoops along dusty sidewalks, sucking up trash in its vacuum hose, what's that called? A golf-cart speedball?

My sense of the articulate has been badly shaken.

Afghans in the park

The past couple of time I have taken my son to the park, I have noticed a new gang of kids added to the usual mix. Most days, the park can be divided along ethnic and socio-economic lines in the sand. There are the Punjabi kids who take over the jungle gym for an Indian version of 'tag' that involves someone yelling 'superman'. There are the Greek kids followed by concerned grandmothers who try to get them to eat at every opportunity. Then there are the poorer white kids, who stand in groups and use curse words. These kids have the unhealthy pallor of poverty. They shove harder on the slide. They have more to be angry about.

I have watched my son negotiate through and into these different groups. He has his favourites among the Punjabi kids, some of whom carry him and hug him when they see him. He has taken advantage of the Greek, snack ladies when they have bananas. 'Banana, banana, banana' he yells until one of the grandmas hands him part of a banana. 'Banana' he proudly says before stuffing it into his mouth with sandy fingers. He stands back from the barreling energy of the poor kids.

Lately, there has been a new group, a small gaggle of miscellaneous kids playing cricket between the jungle gym and the much-ignored swings. Pale skinned, bare footed children. The girls in that universal dress, the one seen on girls the world over, polyester, faded, too small or too big, ruffles hanging limply, crushed velvet or scratchy lime green. A white scarf hastily draped over messy hair. Boys in the pyjama suits I associate with Pakistan, long sleeved white shirts hanging low on matching pants. The cricket bat looks like it has been through a war. Where are these kids from? They haven't been here long. They haven't had the time to reject the clothes their parents brought with them in favour of skinny jeans and sparkly t-shirts that say 'girl' or 'pretty'.

And they have a certain look about the eyes. Wide eyed. If I were a white man with a belly and a tobacco pipe I might call it 'sauvage'. But I am not a white man so I will call it 'knowing'.

They play amongst themselves, absorbed in their game and oblivious to the woman puzzling and watching over them, her son declaring his love of bananas.

Movie

The other night I watched "12 Angry Men" (1957) with Henry Fonda. Wow, they sure don't make them like that anymore. Or maybe they do. I read recently that a remake has been made called "12" but considering what I saw the other night, I am sure it won't be nearly as good.

Wow. Again. It is rare that I will entertain the notion of watching a movie with twelve white guys sitting in a room talking but I am glad I did.

There is something to be said about good cinema.

That something won't be said now as I plan to watch "The Night of the Iguana" (1964) based on Tennessee Williams' play of the same name. Ah, the joyful relish of a good movie.

Travel writing

Lately, I have been thinking about travel writing. I am reading a friend's book, Poets and Pahlevans: A journey into the heart of Iran (Marcello Di Cintio, 2006) and it is making me think of the craft of travel writing.

How does it actually happen? I picture a sweaty and tired traveller hunched over a rumpled notebook in a sparse hotel room, a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, frantically scribbling with a runny ballpoint. Or maybe a laptop on a cafe table, high, louvred windows and incredible luxury at dirt cheap prices as the monsoons flood the streets outside. Iced coffee after iced coffee on lazy afternoons. The first is a furtive, private affair. The second a more romantic, colonial fantasy. Or is it more of a stream of consciousness thing? Self narration through mundane daily activities?

"I hailed a taxi, the dust at my feet softening the harshness of the sun-baked earth. A broken-down, applegreen car pulled up. There were already four customers squeezed into the front and back seats. My place was in the front seat, next to a young woman in a tight, sequined top and traditional African pagne. Her face shiny with sweat, she smiled and shifted over towards the gear shift. There is always room for one more. "

Or is it an act of memory? I am always impressed when I read that some writer spent six months in some unobtrusive place such as western Massachusetts or Ontario, writing and recollecting about travels in Mogadishu or Kazakhstan. I wonder what gets distilled through memory, new context and the need to get onto something new.

All to say, I am quite enjoying the book.

Outremont

Today I have been thinking about being rich.

I am sitting in a park in Outremont. Genteel, well-heeled, civilized Outremont. As I eat my take-away lunch on a park bench, I look across to the solid brick homes that line the park, their white colonnades looming over perfect shrubbery. The children playing behind me are better dressed than I'll ever be. Their parents and nannies discrete in soft tones of grey, beige and brown.

I eat greasy chickpeas sprinkled with coriander and fantasize about which house I'd buy if some yet unknown wealthy relative were to die and leave me their millions.

The cupids on the fountain are well-fed and insolently cherubic. The hasidic kids keep kicking their yellow ball into what is left of the pond. Bald men in camel coats, large sunglasses and perfect scarves pass with pretty women on their arms. My lips are shiny with roast eggplant but I won't wipe them yet, there is more beet salad to be eaten.

The sun is shining and the buds are a hazy blur of neon green on the branches of old trees. There is no loud music, no honking cars, nor yelled conversations. Everything is calm, composed.

A walking tour crosses the park, the leader in the hat one would expect of a tour guide. What does she tell them? 'This is what money looks like'?

I finish my lunch, wipe my fork and fold away my paper napkins. You never know when they could come in handy.

Bought the t-shirt

Today, my son wore his Istanbul t-shirt that a friend got for him last year. It fits now and the weather is warming up so it seemed the perfect time. I loved seeing him in it. I loved watching the parents at our mom & tots activity double-take on it then double-take on me ("Is she Turkish? Is his father?"). I love that this t-shirt makes him a traveller, pushes him out beyond the boundaries of Montreal, Quebec and Canada into the wider world of exotic clothing. I love the humour in the image of an almost two-year old, world weary traveller.

He also has a silk pyjama set from Vietnam and an Indian outfit, with sash and draw-string pants. But these I am less sure of. Can I put these on him? Will I be just another middle-class-ish white woman dressing my boy 'ethnic'? I know exactly the thoughts that would go through my head if I saw someone else's white kid kitted-out in a Peruvian poncho and faux-African print pants. My eyes would be rolling in my head. I would be mumbling about cultural appropriation and colonial grabbing.

But a t-shirt? That seems ok. Right? It claims exoticism yet is in a form that says North American. It says "I travel but I know my place. " It says "There is irony here, below my chin and above my diaper."

Inspired by the Istanbul t-shirt, I picked-up a Cuba one at the friperie.

Emotional Twos

We are in the home stretch, reaching towards my son's second birthday which falls right in the middle of the summer. When people ask me how old he is now, I just answer "He'll be two this summer." The coming months are a preparation for the much feared terrible twos.

I am starting to get a taste for what lies ahead. My son's favourite word is 'no'. I thought we had skipped this stage but I was wrong. "Shall we go to the park?" "No." "Time for a bath." "No." "Time to put the markers away." "No." "Do you want to snuggle with mummy?" "No." It has become the most powerful word in our house. And he uses it with the disdain usually reserved for fourteen year-old girls. "Do you want some cheese?" His look tells me that he can tell I am trying too hard, that what I am offering is second-rate, that by merely asking I have lowered myself in his esteem. "No."

And the emotions. Oh, the emotions. Tears at the drop of a hat, in fact, sometimes the hat doesn't even need to be dropped, just mentioned. "Shall we put on our hat?" "No. Wahhhhhhhhh." Excitement so bright and loud that it often takes a tumble to calm it. To wit, watch him climb in and out of the crib in near hysteria for as long as the mood holds or he lands on his head. He is autocratic. A second favourite word after 'no' is 'more'. More songs, more stories, more snacks. But beware the fool who chooses the wrong song, story or snack. "No, no. Wahhhhhhhhhhh."

I think this is about proportion. Proportion and emotion. Up until now my little man was a fairly straight-forward kind of guy, a meat and potatoes, I know what I like and I like what I know, two-car garage and an unquestioned house in the suburbs sort. Now, he's getting the emotions flooding in and he sure doesn't know how to handle it. He's signing up for 'wild man' weekends, he's calling his friends up in the middle of the night and flying into a rage about missing a parking spot. Everything is off-kilter. One minute it's 'I'M SO HAPPY!" the next it's "I NEED THAT CELLPHONE OR I WILL DIE!"

Maybe the next year will be a process of learning how to deal with strong emotion: joy, disappointment, frustration, excitement, pride. But for now, they sweep over him like a wave, he totters and sometimes goes under, consumed by the feeling. Maybe the unending 'no' is his way to slow the flood.

(The image, by the way, is from Jill Greenberg's series "End Game" in which she photographed children after she had taken away their toy or candy. Ouch.)

The attraction of memoir is (dis)honesty

I have been thinking about writing lately. I am seeing if I can go from one who reads to one who writes. It is a humbling challenge especially when I read lines like "I was a young woman of occasional good looks" or references to childhood as the murky sea-floor while the world of adults happens up on the surface of the ocean (Nuala O'Faolain, Are You Somebody?, 1996). Now that is writing but then again, she was someone who dedicated her life to the literary way. I am just playing.

I have always thought to write about my family. If no one does it before me, I will write about the women who came before. Because of world wars, migration and Nazi ovens, my foray into the past can only go so far. In fact, the furthest I can get is my grandmother who died many, many years before I was even a thought. But my grandmother and my own mother are interesting enough in their own right to fill at least several hundred pages.

This is what I know about my grandmother: She survived the war. She was beautiful and blonde and jumped from a train on her way to a death camp. She loved to skate, something my mother, for all her effort, was never able to master. She had an affair with a well-known writer who demolished her in a short story. She was bossy and proud and smart. She was good at maths at the local gymnasium.

This is how I would recreate her:
-Summer in Poland, in a thin dress with washed out flowers on it, squinting maybe, as she looks across a field of dry grass. I would like to feel the ambition coursing through her veins, reaching into her hands, pushing down into her feet, putting her on edge. It is a small town.
-I would like to give a voice to her own survival. Everyone who survived did so through luck and finger-nails-scratching-the-dirt determination, through conniving and betrayals, and walking on when you really want to turn back. And then they all came here and pushed the horrors of what they'd seen and done far, far away. I would like her to speak. To speak with pride. To say out loud the inherent victory of "I survived" that wipes out any hint of shame.
-I would have her skating in fur-trimmed coat and warm gloves; laughing and looking like a cross between Ingrid Bergman and me. Maybe a cigarette between gloved fingers (let's make them turquoise) and that old fashioned, too bright, chalky lipstick from the fifties. Men watching as she glides past, her legs encased in stockings. Snow on eyelashes and laughter in frosty gusts.

The sound of silence

This blog business is rather interesting. I have, in recent days, not had much to write. I have tried to think of various topics of interest but have excluded them for being too chatty, too personal, too keen, or just too boring. I started an entry about the surprising number of parents killing their children in recent weeks but that was too morbid.

In an online world where there is often too much blather, spelling mistakes, misinformation, and stupid opinion, I have been silent. Maybe that is a good thing. Creativity comes and goes like desire, like the moon.

This process is for me one of exploring writing, of embracing the word as a creative force. I am trying to respect the ebb and flow of that energy.

In other news, I have finally joined the 21st century and have decided to get a cell phone. I am thinking of using the following as my ringtone. Rock it, Billy!

Reading round-up

I found Chuck Palahnuik's Lullaby (2002) on the sidewalk a week ago. I read half and then gave up. I don't usually give up on books halfway through but there is so much good stuff to read out there and this book just wasn't it. Long on description, light on credible characters and a rather irritating obsession with some white girl rasta's shaved hoo-ha. Probably why it was on the sidewalk in the first place.

Before picking up Lullaby, I read Shakespeare by Bill Bryson (2007) of Notes from a Small Island fame. A quick and light read. Like a panini in an airport, it won't really fill you up but the grilled veggies are nice if expensive. This was a loaner so cheaper than a panini.

I am onto Amos Oz's To Know a Woman (1991), a pass-on from a friend trying to lighten her library. I am only a few pages into it but at least it is decent if somewhat depressing writing.

And finally, I picked up David Adams Richards's Mercy Among the Children (2000) at the second hand shop (I also picked up a plastic dump-truck). It has won many awards, sometimes a sign of good things.

What are you reading?

Daycare dilemma

I am finally starting to look into daycares for my son. That is, I am starting to get serious about it. He is already on the waiting list for over 30 daycares, I have visited several and have fervently prayed for others. But these actions remained in the abstract until now.

Recently, I visited a daycare that a) has space, b) is available now, c) is around the corner, d) is subsidized and therefore quite affordable, and e) is ready to accept my son part-time. Then why am I frozen? Why am I not jumping at the chance to put my son in this daycare? Why did I not fall asleep until after midnight last night, tossing and turning in my ambivalence?

The daycare in question is a home daycare, run by a woman who seemed pleasant enough. None of the children were smiling though they were playing quietly by themselves. When my son went to carry a table across the room, the lady took it away from him. She was open to vegetarian options but in the same breath mentioned fish and rice krispie squares. She showed me the little blue mats that are used for nap time and I suddenly had a vision of my son being put to sleep on the mat on the floor, completely out of context to the world he knows. And I thought, well, he'll get used to it. But it suddenly seemed so scary and sad.

My son has been going to daycare two mornings a week and strangely, none of the fears that assailed me at the new daycare ever came up at the morning one. A day is much longer than a morning, a friend reminded me. It is, but why am I reacting so strongly? Is it the idea of naps in foreign, new places? Lunches prepared and served by someone else? Or was it the environment that I intuitively felt as unhappy, controlled and unloving?

I have been rationalizing the experience to myself. Maybe I am overprotective. Too controlling. Maybe I am not ready to let go of my son. But I don't think this is true. What I want for him is to be happy, to be valued and be cared for. I didn't feel it there.

I will give it a second chance. First impressions, especially mine, are usually wrong.

What a minefield.

And now I can finish 'La strategie des antilopes'

I have finally finished Julia Alvarez's In the Time of the Butterflies (1994) and have but one word for you: mehhhhh.

Boys, boys, boys

I am currently reading It's a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons (ed. Andrea J. Buchanan, 2005). It is making me think about being the mother to a son.

The first essays are about the shock and disappointment that the writers felt when they found out they were having a boy. The moment of truth comes for most at their ultrasound when the foetal penis makes an appearance. The women explore their expectations, their family histories and their hopes all in a desire to understand why they wanted girls and not boys.

I, on the other hand, wanted a boy. I even wanted several boys. If I were to fall pregnant again, I would not be disappointed with another willy in the family. When I was in my early twenties and dreaming of having a family, I always saw myself with sons. Long before I was pregnant, my mother predicted a son. All to make perfectly clear that boys have been on the menu for a long time.

But why?

I have been thinking about this as I read It's a Boy because it seems at odds with the prevailing sentiment. I look at my own life and think that I can explain the reasons why.

Boys are a foreign world to me. I never played with legos or blocks or trucks. I didn't have a wooden sword or toy soldiers or a train set. I had dolls and dresses and plastic high heels. The boys I knew as a child were boisterous and loud and full of agressive energy. They confused and fascinated me but I never understood them. Then I grew up. Men continue to fascinate and confuse me and I still don't understand them.

Now I get to buy my son train sets and small cars. I watch him run and jump and explore. By having a son I feel as if I have been given the opportunity to travel in an exotic and wonderful foreign country. My son is my passport and my guide. I feel so very fortunate.

Turning tides

I have gone to the dark side.

The day started off normally enough. My son and I took our daily ramble through the park in the sunshine. He climbed up and down hills and commented on his dirty hands. I tried to interest him in the squaking seagulls to no avail. Then it happened. As we were making our final round through the park, I noticed two teenage boys on the roof of a park building. They were enthusiastically kicking what looked to be part of the chimney. When they saw me staring, they waved. I waved back but continued to stare, hoping my act of witness would get them on their way. They waved some more and pretended to not be interested in kicking apart the roof-structure. They started up again once I turned my back.

I walked away. But I walked away mad. My thoughts were along the lines of: "those destructive little fu#$%ers!" And then I did something I have never done in my whole entire life. I walked into the local community centre, and called the police. I CALLED THE POLICE.

Maybe it was because they waved. Maybe it was because they looked so bored and middle class. Maybe it was because I hate to see destruction for destruction's sake. Maybe it is because I am a parent now and have a new sense of community responsibility. I am not exactly sure but I am surprised at myself.

So, perhaps my warning should read: Beware neighbours, I've got 9-1-1 on speed-dial!

You are not welcome here

I am new to my neighbourhood so I am still in the process of finding and negotiating a space for myself within the community. It is a challenge. This is an inner-city, multi-cultural neighbourhood. There is a large, mostly elderly Greek population and a newer, younger South Asian population. There are large apartment blocks piled on top of crowded Indian groceries, next to Greek bakeries. It is crowded, colourful and sometimes dirty. It is known in the wider city to be poor and violent.

When I first arrived, I did the rounds of community organizations that offered services for young children. The reception I received was chilly at best. I am not visibly ethnic and was therefore not considered to be the target population. In the end, I found children's activities outside my neighbourhood, where budgets are not so linked to ethnic identity and presumed socio-economic status. But it left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Yesterday, I went for the first meeting of the collective garden I was rather keen to join. Upon arrival at the large, multi-use community centre, I saw that the room next to the one I was looking for was open. I poked my head in and asked "jardin?" When answered in the affirmative, I entered and took my place next to several elderly Greek gentlemen who continued to chat and banter among themselves. "Hmm, not so friendly" I said to myself. "Maybe it's a language thing." After a few more minutes, another man arrived, hailed as 'boss' by the group slowly gathering. He looked over at me and then rudely asked me for my documents. What documents? I wrote my name on a pad of paper he provided ("Capitals!" he insisted) and patiently waited for the meeting to start. 'Boss' then returned and told me that I could be on my way as this was a private meeting, thank you very much. I was confused. I had not felt so pointedly unwelcome in quite some time.

In the end, it was the wrong garden. The elderly Greeks were meeting to discuss the community gardens, the hotly contested and possessively guarded plots to the north of the school, I was joining the collective gardens, the small, shared plot at the front of the library. I was in the wrong room.

The collective garden meeting was friendly and relaxed. Members were from various backgrounds, visible and not-so visible minorities and majorities. Everyone's voice was welcome and there was space for each to have their say. We are even going to try planting potatoes and artichokes this year on my suggestion.

Sometimes, it takes a while to find one's place in a new community, to negotiate the prejudices and assumptions of appearances, and the minefield of limited ressources.

Street walker

On Wednesday evening, there were two related segments on As It Happens (CBC Radio 1's evening current event show) that were of particular interest. The first, was an interview with a woman from small-town Mississippi who recently had a run-in with the law. The reason? She had let her 10-year-old boy walk to baseball practice.* The walk was along a residential street, in daylight hours, and was about a kilometer long. The woman, whose name I forget, was given a warning by police after they had been called by concerned neighbours. The companion piece was an interview with a scientist in the UK who had studied several generations of a single rural family to see whether 'freedom to roam' effected their sense of direction. While 'grandpa' had been allowed to roam far and wide as long as he was home by supper, by the time we reach the present generation, the 'grandchild' is not even allowed to cross the street. The scientist, again, my memory for names is rather limited, had drawn a link between a child's ability to discover their natural environment and their sense of direction as an adult. It turns out, grandpa had an excellent sense of direction yet this skill has weakened with each subsequent generation.

I have a good sense of direction. It is one of the only aspects of myself that I am unabashedly proud of. I believe it has helped me to be at home in various places in the world. I am at ease because I know, in a sense, where I am.

I was also given the freedom to roam as a child. I remember the first time I crossed a street by myself: my mother stood on the balcony, in a brown poncho, encouraging me, 'no cars, no cars', she cried as I took my hesitant first steps onto the street. I was so proud of myself. I was maybe five. By ten, I was taking city buses with friends to go to school. The rest, as they say, is history.

So put 9-1-1 into your speed dial, neighbours. My boy is going to be out on these city streets. I hope that one day, he too, will have a good sense of direction.


*I once read that good writing requires no exclamation marks but boy-oh-boy, I would use one here.

Howling at the moon

There is a stranger living in my house. He arrived without warning and unceremoniously kicked out my lovely baby boy.

This new guy is moody. One minute he is laughing and enjoying life and the next he is angry and overwhelmed. He throws toys around the house, usually in frustration but sometimes in glee. He cries at the word 'no' yet says it himself often. He throws himself on the ground in fury one minute and then the next acts as if he will die if he doesn't get a cuddle that second. And sometimes he is a perfect little angel, smiling and laughing, talking and sharing. He keeps me off-guard.

To wit: his love of markers has become obsessive. A ballpen on a table becomes the Holy Grail to his own Indiana Jones. He must have it at all costs. Height, wobbly chairs, and a glaring mother are all mere obstacles in his quest. Once he has his pen, the walls, floor and cupboards all become victim to his furious scribbling. The removal of said pen can lead to seismic, earth shaking, the cave collapses, the large rolling stone crushes all, and Indiana barely makes it out alive.

I expect that soon he will be howling at the moon and eating small rodents.

The terrible twos have come early to our house.

Seeing the city differently

Once my son started walking I started spending a lot of time in parks. I became acquainted with the enormous poplars, the shady lindens, the preening catalpas. I learnt to observe the sky, to watch the clouds scuttle across high blue, to know the signs of rain. With the changing of seasons, I learnt which trees shed their leaves first, which last, and which went out in a blaze of glory. I learnt that dead ginko leaves, despite being a radiant yellow, smell rotten.

I know when the ducks fly south and when the swings are taken in for the winter. I know where the squirrels and petancle players hang out. In fact, I know which parks have animal life and which ones are barren and quiet except for the overhead drone of distant planes.

I have learnt, sometimes the hard way, which sidewalks are clean and which are covered in old garbage, soiled diapers and glass. I know that where there are seagulls there is also soggy bread and bird poop.

Today, my son reminded me that climbing on bleachers is a joyous past-time. He also discoverd the primeval pleasure of crushing ice puddles. He stepped, gingerly at first, on the ice crusts and then stomped gleefully at the crunching of ice below his feet. When he got tired, I pushed him in the stroller and made special detours towards the ice. I, too, wanted the thrill of destroyed ice plates under my boots.

The end of the affair

The city is looking dirty and shabby. This is Montreal the morning after, unshaven, bleary-eyed, make-up askew, wearing the same underwear as last night. The heady affair with Winter is drawing to a close. No more ski weekends, no more shaken snowglobe photo ops, no more pride at surviving in -25 weather. The yearly honeymoon is over. All that is left is cigarette butts, dog shit, and mushy cardboard boxes. And very dirty cars.

Time to take a shower, dear city. I feel grubby just walking your streets.

Shake your hair, Montreal. Dust off your coat. Your new love is coming soon. Forget Winter, he was getting to be a bore. Time to move on. Let's get green and wet. Show me some colour and light. If you are going to get Summer to stay awhile, you're going to need to make a bit of an effort. She's a fickle lady, that Summer. Last year, she barely made an appearance, begging off on some pretext of being super busy in Florida and Spain. I know that hurt but remember the feel of her when she stays two, three months? Warm air up your skirt. Sun on your parched sidewalks. She's worth it, you know she is.

Oh, and Montreal? Please let Winter go. I don't want to see him around here for at least another nine months. Il est trop lourd!

Why I love public libraries

Oh public library, how I love thee.

I love the young, gangly teenagers who always hog the internet computers. I love the Sikh men at long tables, their laptops glowing and sometimes singing. I love the retired folks who doze in the sun near the newspapers. I love the students, huddled in their cubicles, at the back of the stacks. I love the children, coats askew, pushing and shoving at the check-out counter. I love the homeless man, large backpack at his feet, reading about dream analysis on a cold day. I love the librarians, especially the one from Rwanda who says 'nonante' for 'quatre-vingt-dix' and the other one who told me the movie I was taking out was a 'turnip'.

I love the displays of French poetry, romance novels, guides to writing, or Quebec winters, all tantalizingly exposed for the picking. I love the community newspapers, haphazardly stacked on little metal stands at the entrance, only some of which are in English or French. I love the free bookmarks advertising booksales for 1$ or less.

I love the stacks. I love the feeling of holding a piece of paper with a seemingly random jumble of numbers and letters that guides me to the book I want. I love the briskness in which I type a search into the computer monitor. I love finding a book in the 'New Arrivals' section that has been the talk of the town.

I love finding a DVD that wasn't there the last time or ordering a book that is at a library across town. I especially love the automated phone call telling me my requested book is waiting for me.

I love how the library is for everyone. Everyone is included and everyone belongs. I love how I have read many hundreds of pages of fiction, essays, graphic novel, and how-to books and haven't paid a cent.

Musings on celebrity crush- Jian Ghomeshi

Dear Jian,

Several weeks ago you were to come to Montreal to interview Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003) and most recently, Things I've Been Silent About: Memories (2008). You didn't come, though. You were fogged-in at the airport. That's ok, because I couldn't come either. The free babysitter doesn't work on Wednesdays.

I have a crush on you, Jian. And I am not alone.

Is it because you are the perfect guest? You only come when I ask you to and stay only as long as I like. You don't require tea or biscuits. You don't comment on the dust or the dishes or the state of my hair. You come in, you are charming. You tell me interesting tales and interview various people who I wouldn't have heard of if you hadn't found them. You laugh and include me in your irony, your mis-steps, your asides. I am cared for. Yet I am free and invisible.

Maybe it is your voice. You have a nice voice, Jian. Is a nice voice a good basis for a life together? It might be.

Ah, the joys of the CBC Radio crush.

A beginning- or why I want to read all Jean Hatzfeld's work

I have just finished Machete Season (Saison de machettes, 2003) by Jean Hatzfeld and I need to talk about it. It is an amazing and disturbing piece of writing. The second in a trilogy about the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, Machete is essentially a series of interviews with a group of perpetrators who all come from the same small region of Rwanda. The interviews take place in a prison where the men are being held for perpetrating genocide.

After interviewing the survivors from the area of Nyamata and writing a book about it (Dans le nue de la vie, 2000), Hatzfeld finds himself drawn to the perpetrators to try to understand how they lived the experience of systematically hunting and killing their neighbours everyday for over a month.

The answer is not pretty. The killers, who are at times grotesquely honest, show little insight into their actions. They are egotistical, self-centred and show no remorse, regret or sadness for the lives they have taken. They don't have nightmares. They are not mentally unstable. They are a group of men, sitting in prison, feeling bad for themselves, unwilling to explore within themselves the reality of the horror they have perpetrated. Disturbing stuff. I feel that in reading Machete, I have looked right into the darkest corners of the human soul. And what is most disturbing is how banal and normal killing can become.

I have been staring at people on the bus. We are all potential killers. I am feeling protective of my son.

I have started to read the third in the trilogy, La strategie des antilopes (2007, I don't think it has been translated into English yet), which is about life on the small hill community of Nyamata after the perpetrators are released from prison. The survivors and perpetrators are neighbours. This makes me want to scream yet I can't put it down.

Now, I want to read Eichmann in Jerusalem (Hannah Arendt, 1963) and Hatzfeld's earlier work on the war in Bosnia, L'Air de la guerre (1994).

I can't seem to get enough of this stuff. Why?