the cassandra pages

And the fight for rights continues...

It's a beautiful fall day here, and I went downtown with J., who had a dental appointment. Just as we exited the metro, we encountered this demonstration on St-Catherine Street. It was a counter-protest, in response to today’s anti-LGBTQ2S+ demonstrations by the far-right, taking place all across Canada. Hateful, strident, well-funded and well-organized far-right protests such as this are spreading across the US border and infiltrating Canada, and this makes me extremely sad and upset. So I was glad to be able to cheer the mostly-young people in the counter-protest from the sidewalk.

As the close friend of many people who do not identify as straight, and particularly having followed the journey of the trans son of a longtime friend, I am horrified for anyone whose life is being impacted negatively by the current wave of protest, legislation, and rhetoric ranging from misunderstanding to hatefulness. No one should have to live in this kind of fear, or have their basic human rights denied.

Today is also my 71st birthday, and I can't believe that not only are we still having to protest these issues, but in many cases society and governments are going backwards. Women's rights; LGBTQ2S+ rights; protection from discrimination because of one's race, ethnicity, or religion, or the language one speaks; the right of all people to have healthcare; the right to clean air and water; protection from police brutality and profiling; the freedom to read and teach the literature you want as a university professor...all are endangered, and I could go on and on.

Here in Canada we have been complacent, thinking that we generally have shared values, and that most rights such as these are enshrined and could never be repealed -- but we can't continue to think that way. I grew up with hope for a better world in the 1960s, and I don't want to live my remaining years watching as human rights are eroded rather than expanded, and the climate destroyed. We have to be vigilant, we have to speak out, we have to hold the institutions to which we belong accountable. But perhaps most important, we need to patiently and continually educate people who are afraid of difference that human beings are human beings. It seems to me that this is best done one-on-one or on a small scale, through the stories and examples of real people who we know and love as our children, brothers and sisters, friends and colleagues-- and it can create a lasting change of heart. That process has to happen alongside the legal struggle to gain human rights and equality. We have seen the fruits of this process, for example in society's greater acceptance and equality of gay and lesbian people over the past twenty years, and the rights and dignity that women have painfully won over the past fifty -- but the struggle is not even close to over, people's lives continue to be in danger, many rights have already been taken away, and we can never, ever sit back and think the work is done, even in countries like Canada and provinces such as Quebec.

The Brightness of Flowers, the Darkness of the Sky

I've been sewing for myself this week, for the first time since we moved here a year ago, and it felt like such a pleasure. The fabric is a rayon viscose twill -- a remnant I bought in Lisbon 3 1/2 years ago. And I self-drafted the pattern from a favorite v-neck top, which meant looking up some techniques online for adding and eliminating darts, and for drafting sleeves based on the circumference of the armhole. I had to adjust as I went, a little bit, but it was fine.

The fabric turned out to be quite slippery so it was necessary to stay-stitch all the edges, use twice as many pins as usual, baste some seams first, and then finish all the seams on the inside of the garment. I did a lot of hand-stitching too, on the neck binding and the hems, which I do enjoy, but it's fussy. The result pleased me, though, and I'm sure I'll wear it a lot.

Meanwhile, we're at the height of actual spring blooms. J. and I have been dieting but we treated ourselves to tiny gelato/hot chocolate sundaes at Leonidas the other day, and ate them in the Pierre Elliot Trudeau rose garden in the Town of Mont-Royal, which is an easy bike ride from our apartment. The roses are just starting but the irises and peonies were in full, magnificent bloom, and it did my heart good, after these days of wildfires to the north of us, to see such beauty and color.

Montreal was spared the worst of the smoke and smog, but it was dangerously awful to the south and west of us. We've had a lot of rain the past two days, so I hope that will help the fires to abate.

This was my view on the worst day we had -- bad, but nothing like it was for many of you.

I was horrified by the photographs and air quality readings from Toronto, Ottawa, Syracuse, NYC, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. And before anyone blames Quebec, let's please remember that this can and will happen anywhere there are forests, as our climate comes under greater and greater pressure, with the fires contributing to the vicious cycle. Only the force of collective human determination will change the trend, and it is up to all of us, but particularly industry and government. Please do what you can as an individual, and let's apply as much pressure as we can to our elected officials, and support all of the progressive initiatives aimed at combating the greed, waste, and lack of will that have gotten us to this point.

Squalls

Squall line on autoroute 15, south of Montreal, Quebec.

Thursday, December 1: We had to cross the border into the U.S. this morning to do some errands. It was dry, windy, and quite cold when we left the city around 9:30 am, but no frazzle ice was yet to be seen on the St. Lawrence River. The sky looked like snow, though, and sure enough, as we got out into the flat countryside south of the city, we could see a definite squall line -- blue skies to the right, and a line of leaden snow-filled clouds to the left. Soon we were driving through pelting, blowing snow that was sometimes lighter than air and drifting fast across the already-white fields, and sometimes beating a staccato of tiny icy pellets against the windshield, which cautioned us to drive very carefully, because that kind of ice can act like ball bearings under the wheels. And then, suddenly, just before the border crossing at Champlain...nothing at all. Tan, bare fields with green hay still coming up in places; nonchalant geese pecking in dry cornfields, and no snow to be seen. 

Two hours later, on the way back, the day had turned to beautiful blue skies, and the roads were bare. Those of us who live in the north are quite familiar with this phenomenon of squalls: short-lived, intense bursts of rain or snow, often accompanied by gusting winds, that can feel like a blizzard when you're in the middle of them, but which -- unlike blizzards -- pass quickly, often bringing high-pressure and blue skies in their wake.

It made me think about how life has felt lately: unpredictable and buffeted. But then again, all the disturbances in my life have been mere squalls compared to the relentless and devastating storms of war, starvation, oppression, homelessness and displacement, illness, loss, and death that millions of people face. And yet -- no matter what, some of these remarkable people manage to adjust their attitude and still find joy in their daily existence. I try, but I still have much to learn.

--

Angel-wing begonia with wooden angel. Fountain pen drawing in sketchbook, 6" x 9".

Friday: Late fall in the north: this is the stripped, dry, testing time at the end of the year. Short days, distant pale sun, bare trees, and an increasingly penetrating cold. Ironically, when there's more snow covering the ground, it often seems warmer, and easier to be outside: during these current weeks, though, the landscape feels like a bed without a blanket. We are all driven more and more into the interiors of our homes, and of ourselves. 

I swam, early this morning. Sleepy and not in the best of moods when I pushed myself into the elevator, into the locker room, on with the suit and cap and goggles and into the water, the rhythm quickly took over and after five laps I was already feeling better; after twenty-five I felt renewed, at home in my body in spite of its creaky and achy parts, ready to face the day.  A couple of afternoons ago, I rode down and walked back up the many flights of stairs to my apartment -- this is something I should, and could, do regularly. And while swimming does stretch and use most muscle groups, some yoga focused on balance and strength would be good this winter too.

For someone who tends to be pretty consumed with thoughts and words, I know that I can't live entirely in my head, or let myself become distracted and immobile for hours on end. I need to use my body to make music, make art, knit and sew, chop and cook, move from place to place. It helps to feel my lungs breathing and my heart pumping blood. I think that one of the problems of living in harsh winter climates, especially as we get older, is the feeling of enclosure and constriction which can lead to a lack of embodiment. I can't ski anymore, we no longer shovel snow, and I have to be careful not to have a bad fall on the ice; this is just being prudent. But being outside in winter has always been invigorating for me, and a joy, so I have crampons for my boots, and a ski pole for when the weather is really dicey, and we make a point of getting out. It requires effort and discipline to build movement into my schedule, but I know it's not optional. How do you deal with this, you who live in a place with definite seasons? And how is your mood these days?

Déménagement

J. and M. on our terrace in Montreal's Plateau Mont-Royal, in 2012.

We're moving. That little statement could mean all sorts of things. But the French word déménagement is so specific, and in this case it means we're moving house. To faire le menage is to do the housework; the word ménagement, without the "dé", means "care and attention". My dictionary tells me that to speak sans ménagement is "bluntly", to be asked to leave sans ménagement mean "forcibly evicted." I like the way the word déménagement reflects the accumulation of care and attention put into one's home over the years, that one doesn't simply pack objects and oneself and move, shift locations, but that when we leave our home, hopefully for another, we also wrap up our memories and our time spent in a place that was not simply an address, but a home.

Tonight is the last we'll spend in the condominium where we've lived ever since coming to Montreal. It is one apartment of ten in our building, which, as co-propriétaires, we all own and care for together. I've been one of the people responsible for the gardens, while J. has had a much larger role as treasurer and a member of the CA, or conseil d'administration, the executive committee that's in charge of maintenance, repairs, hiring and managing helpers, and assuring the smooth running of the building. It's been a great place to live for the past 18 years (how can it possibly be that long?) and we're sorry to be leaving this neighborhood, the park, and especially our neighbors who've become good friends. However, the pandemic showed us that this small apartment simply doesn't work for us as a place to live and work as well. When we were going to our studio every day, it was fine, but during COVID, and since cutting back on our professional work, we haven't been using the studio very much, while, at the same time, the rent there has been going up astronomically under new owners. We looked and looked in this part of the city but couldn't find any good or affordable solution for a larger, brighter, recently-built space that would serve as both living and work space, and also be an appropriate place for us as we grow older, with room for help if we ever need it, proximity to our medical providers, easy access to the international food shopping we enjoy, and some additional amenities. Neither of us wants to be responsible for an aging building at the same time as we, ourselves, age.

Tonight.

To our surprise, we found a recently-developed area close to some of the food shopping -- Middle Eastern, Asian, Greek -- that takes us across the city every couple of weeks. At first we couldn't imagine living there -- so little green space, none of the genteel French atmosphere of the area where we live now, but rather a mix of large, professionally-managed residential high-rises and industrial areas and gradually-developing retail infrastructure -- but when we actually visited the buildings and saw some apartments, which offered so much more for the price than in the more traditional neighborhoods of the city, we began to consider it. In the end, we bought a condominium on the 11th floor of a 12-storey building built in 2018. We've both always had it in the backs of our minds that we might like to live in a modern, light-filled urban space, high up -- I think this realization came after some of the apartments we stayed in in Mexico City and Athens. I'm still kind of shocked that we're actually doing it, but the papers have been signed, we have the keys, the boxes are packed and the bed-frame taken apart -- and tomorrow at 8 the movers arrive. We will close our studio when the lease runs out in the fall, or perhaps before then, since we've packed up or sold quite a lot of what was there. We've gotten rid of a lot of possessions, including books and clothes, in this second major downsizing of our adult lives, and that feels great. In our new space we'll each have a workroom/studio of our own, and I look forward to this very much, and to whatever comes out of the solitude and new inspiration of the big skies we'll see every day.

At the same time as we've been preparing for the move, I've been deeply concerned about my father, and, as I've written here, we made three lengthy trips to central New York to be with him under the rapidly-changing circumstances of his health; he was first with us, then in assisted-living, then hospitalized with pneumonia, then in a grim rehabilitation/nursing facility from which I've been desperately trying to extricate him. This week our application was accepted, and he has moved into one of the excellent New York State Veterans' Homes, where they are glad to begin to know him and care for him as a veteran of WWII. In spite of our personal changes and exciting new beginnings in Montreal, part of me is there, back at the lake, wanting to spend time with my father during this uncertain final part of his life -- so we will find ways to work that out.

A Brief Comment on the Truck Convoy

First of all, I would like my US and international readers to know that the news about the truck convoy protest, as reported in Canada, is quite different than what I have heard is being reported through some other media, notably Fox News.

Second, a large majority of Canadians are appalled by the protesters and the support they have received from outside Canada, particularly the US far right. Many Canadians are baffled as to why it has taken so long for the police to clear the blockades.

The right to protest is enshrined in Canada, and especially in Quebec, where I live. In Montreal, there are protests and demonstrations all the time, and the city and police know how to handle them fairly peacefully. I'm sure that the initial hope was that the truckers would leave peacefully on their own. However, we should all realize that if this were a protest by Indigenous or other minorities/people of color who blocked city streets, transportation routes, or the supply chain for goods, action against them -- including arrests -- would have been much faster. And it is clearly true that, as in the January 6 2021 Capitol insurrection in D.C., some members of the police and military sympathize and identify with these mostly-white, mostly working-class, mostly-male protesters, some of whom were armed and ready for violent confrontation.

We must not close our eyes to this glaring example of inequality and preferential treatment, which is now typical of most nations in the West. And as Canadians, it's crucial that we see it and speak up swiftly against it, as well as condemning hate speech, far-right ideology, and the influence of foreign money in our domestic affairs.

 

A New Year's Walk

Happy New Year! I hope I've learned and grown in 2021, even if what stands out more clearly right now are the struggles and worries. May 2022 be a gentler year for all of us, and may we remember to be grateful for what we have -- including each other.

So, in this picture, I'm waving to you from the banks of the St. Lawrence river, with the Biosphere in back of me. Yesterday we went for a long walk at Parc Jean-Drapeau, site of Montreal's Expo 67: this geodesic dome, designed by Buckminster Fuller, was the United States pavilion for Expo, and is now a museum dedicated to the environment. But yesterday we were pretty much the only people on the two islands in the middle of the river, and even though it was a grey day, it was just what I needed. Lots of wildlife tracks in the snow, many birds including a huge flock of robins (what are they thinking?), the St Lawrence roiling along in its winter mood, red rose hips against the snow, junipers loaded with blue berries, overgrown plantings, a greenhouse where large tropical plants were being overwintered, and many odd graphic images from the desolation of winter and the decay or remnants of structures built for Expo that have fallen into disuse. I hope you'll enjoy taking this walk with me, and I wish you all the best for the year to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lights on at 1 pm: Winter Solstice

The shortest day of the year was a sunny one in Montreal, at least for the brief daylight hours. I started this quick watercolor after lunch, and noticed that the park lights came on at 1 pm! It's 3:45 now, and the sun is going down - there are just some last rays on the tops of the trees, and white snow on the ground that looks as though it might stay. If I ever forget how far north we live, the solstice reminds me.

The day may have been sunny, but the mood in the city definitely is not, as we battle an Omicron surge that is frightening in its speed and intensity of transmission. Many restrictions have been put in place already by the province, including closing the schools, and our mairesse, Valerie Plante, has declared a state of emergency from her home, where she is isolating after testing positive herself. The hospital emergency rooms are already near capacity.

My Christmas wish to all of you is to that you won't disregard the threat of this variant. The behavior you've adopted that has kept you safe so far is probably not enough to avoid infection. Please get a booster if you're eligible; wear a high-quality or a double mask; keep your social contacts and your errands in public places to a minimum. The exponential rise in cases we are seeing here is astounding, and half or more of those admitted to hospital are now double-vaccinated people.  Booster roll-out has been slow in Canada; here in Quebec only the elderly have received third doses, and people above 65 have just recently become eligible to make appointments -- the virus is taking full advantage of that fact. (My own appointment is scheduled for December 27.) And while hospitalizations are about a third of the level they were with the first wave, and deaths are still fairly low, the danger is not just to the elderly or vulnerable, or the unvaccinated. A two-month old baby died of COVID in hospital here last week. Please, be very cautious, and if you live in a place where Omicron has not yet hit, think very carefully about your holiday plans, who you will be seeing, and what it means to love them, because with this variant, everything can change in a week or less. This is one year when the pressure or desire to visit one's family should take a back seat to protecting them. I say this particularly to my friends in the U.S., many of whom still seem oblivious to what we are going through up here -- and it's not even the worst of it yet -- or what people in Europe are going through.

So it will be a different Christmas, once again...we have a tree, and lights, and the smells of baking; there's snow outside and warmth inside, but the holiday will be a quiet one. I'm sure we'll check in with friends and family via zoom. My daily task is to keep my own spirits up, and to face the seemingly-interminable pandemic, and uncertainty about the future, with courage. It's not easy for me, and takes conscious intention. Today before I got up I thought quite a bit about gratitude. Later I baked a complicated cake, made some five-pointed origami stars, wrote letters, took a long vigorous walk in the park, and still, I felt the presence of discouragement and anxiety in the background. The predictability of the solstice is ancient and steady, though -- and I took comfort in that.

Autumn Days

The trees in the Adirondacks were beginning to turn when we drove up the Northway two weeks ago, but it's only in the last few days that the city park has begun to show color. It's been so beautiful that I couldn't resist getting out my watercolors to make a couple of sketches. The one at the top of this page is the second and more refined of the two; the first one I did is below. I posted it on Instagram and got a message from my friend Michael Szpakowski in England. He's an artist and art educator, and we've been following and commenting on each other's work for years, first on Flickr and now on Instagram. The conversation we had was helpful for me, in thinking about what I was doing, and I asked his permission to reproduce it here. Thanks, Michael!

 

MS: Gosh that is lovely! & what a tremendous command of colour you have!

BA: It's nature that commands the color! But thank you. I tried to just get it down fast and not fuss.

MS: You are far too modest. I do not believe there is any such thing as a simple transcription of colour or light or geometry or whatever, simply because of the nature of our embodiment and how sight and brain work. Even the most accurate photographic representation of a scene will differ in many ways from what the eye sees (indeed different *eyes* see quite differently) The artist uses her skills to create something which *summons* in the eye and mind and memories of the spectator a *sense* of what the original scene looked like. You do that with such joy and verve and delicacy and also boldness here…

 

BA: You're completely right [about how we see], and I didn't mean to send you a disingenuous reply, it's just that Instagram feels like a hard place for substantive art discussion. Let me try, though. Nature is the guide, and I'm always trying to find aspects of a scene that "sing" somehow, sometimes through form, but more often through color. There is a pair in this sketch -- the blue-green hedge at right center, and the reddish-purple tree -- that I took as the key, but without completely realizing that was what I was doing. All the other greens in the picture are supporting characters, as it were; it's that blue-green and its complementary relationship to the tree that are interesting and emphasized. Everything was backlit, so the color of the highlights was also important -- for most of the greens, there was a range from grassy/bright green to yellow, but in the hedge, the highlights were blueish-white. So then the question becomes, whether to use green pigments or mix the greens from yellows and blues on my small watercolor sketch palette. In this case, I used viridian for the hedge because I wanted its clarity and coolness rather than, say, using a mixture with cerulean blue which would have been more opaque. Then it was important to choose a cool-toned red to mix the purple shades for the tree. I wish now that I had subdued all the background yellows a bit more - there's a little too much warm color there that comes forward and competes. But I'm learning as I go, there's always something new to learn, and going back and analyzing the picture (which you've gotten me to do, thank you!) is the biggest help!

 

MS: That is a very generous & interesting reply! I think we’re on the same page in a number of ways (the broader question of the relationship of what was seen to what gets depicted and how) but your razor sharp focus on colour and the chain of questions around it is both fascinating and completely alien to my own methodology ( which is, essentially, ‘hmmm let’s bung a bit of *that* *there* ) and hence doubly worth me reflecting over…

 

 

 

Having had that conversation, I tried again a day or two later, and did the painting at the top, of which the image above is a detail. It's certainly more polished, thought-out, and composed, though it doesn't have the energy or wildness of the first sketch. But again, I learned things doing it, and in this case tried to listen to what I had criticized about the sketch. I especially like this bit, with the children's bright blue climbing gym and slide just brushed in quickly, and the shadows on the back of the hedge under the trees.

 

Sometimes I don't know why I do watercolors - they're such a struggle, and usually a disappointment, at least in part. But there's something magical about their purity and spontaneity that never seems to happen in other media; I suppose they're more like drawing, in that you can really feel the artist's hand and brush moving over the paper. The accidental is always a part of the finished image, because it's a medium that can't be completely controlled when you're painting freely. Because of that, chance plays a part, as does the subconscious; some decisions have to be made instantly, and the result really can't be predicted. When I look back through my sketchbooks, I feel like I not only remember those moments the pages attempt to capture, but I learn something about myself. These were the last two pages in a sketchbook I've kept for the past year - in fact, the very first page in it is also a watercolor of the park and the fall leaves, from a year ago (shown below). A lot has happened in that year -- in the world, to me, and to all of us. I don't feel as exuberant, for sure. But I'm still here: still making art and setting down words.

 

A Somber July 1

Though I'm a relatively new Canadian, I am a North American of New England settler/colonial stock, and therefore share in the shame of what was done to the indigenous population of this continent. There is no way I can celebrate Canada Day, in light of the discovery of the graves of nearly 1,000 children who died at residential schools -- and there will certainly be many more. I urge all of us to spend at least some time this day in reflection and sorrow about the tragedy that took place on this soil, and consideration of what can be done to make reparation.

 

In addition, the indigenous people have warned repeatedly about the damage being done to the natural world, and have never abandoned their sense of stewardship. Do we need any more proof than the temperatures and wildfires in western Canada, or the recent tornadoes and violent weather here in Quebec? This is a time of reckoning on so many fronts, and we can either bury our heads in the sand, or demand genuine action by our governments, and work individually for change.

Hermit Diary 33: 50 Years of Ministry

 

On Monday I did this interview with Michael Pitts, former Dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Montreal, author of the newest book at Phoenicia Publishing, and a good friend. The next two days were spent on editing, resulting in the video shown above. Michael is a very progressive thinker and theologian who has written a lot about the issues facing the world and the Church -- and he's not someone who's afraid of change. I hope some of you will watch this, even if you're not a religious person, since we talk about issues of justice, the pandemic, doubt and uncertainty, and how mystery and science need to co-exist, not negate each other.

Here's a preview, in case you want a taste of the longer version:

 

I have to say that I love doing this kind of work, and that learning more about the technical side of video editing has been a pleasure, not a chore. My mind is racing with ideas of how to use live online events and recorded video for effective and creative communication: it's one positive and exciting outcome of our present situation.