Archives for January 2019

I’ve spent most of January in the small town of Nelson in BC nestled between the Selkirk and the Purcell mountain ranges.

The idea was to downhill ski at the local resort, Whitewater and overdose on deep powder snow. The resort is nestled under the magnificent Mount Ymir (the peak is at about 2400 metres for those who wanted to know). After a stunning powdery three-day start ski-touring at Stagleap park near Salmo, we had to adjust the schedule to accommodate the sad event of less than 20 cm of snow in three weeks.  The locals say it is the driest January ever and of course last year it “puked snow” for the whole season.

So I did more Nordic skate skiing including a full moon night ski. This is easier on my knees and better for my heart. I enjoyed the eclectic offerings of our new hometown – the recreation centre for yoga and swims, independent restaurants, micro breweries, the art gallery and scenic mountain drives to the hot springs at Ainsworth and the village of Kaslo.  In Castlegar, on the way to Red Mountain at Rossland – known to most of my generation as the home of 1968 Olympic skiing champion, Nancy Green, I marvelled at the conflation of the mighty Columbia River and the West arm of Kootenay Lake.

The area is dotted with charming small towns lined red-brick and wooden slatted buildings from the turn of the previous century when gold, silver and logging booms fuelled the economy and attracted those adventuring Norwegians and other speculating pioneers to the lands of the Syilx and Sinixt peoples.

The younger residents of Nelson vaguely adhere to a local uniform that features those Tasmanian all-weather boots, vanity toques that are worn indoors, flannel plaid shirts, jeans, felted slippers and cosy wool socks.  There is a daily practice of acceptance of the gender continuum and equity. My hatha yoga class is low on brand-name yoga wear and high on diversity.

Meanwhile, I nurtured my seasonal obsession with Open Tennis events by streaming too many Australian Open videos. I mourned the defeat of my idol Roger Federer to the upcoming Greek star, Tsitsipas.  I marvelled at the transformation of Raonic’s game by Ivan Lendl.

I watched Serena Williams performing with supreme athleticism, dignity and grace as she continues to shoulder the burden of the various prejudices against her gender, the state of motherhood, her race and body type. Naomi Osaka, no the world’s number one is standing on those shoulders. My reading was reduced to scanning tennis writing from all sources and listening to live, radio reporting of the games.

I struggled to finish Esi Edugyan’s book, Half-Blood Blues but managed to crack open her latest, Washington Black.  I couldn’t settle down to read anything else. My own writing stalled during an attempt at a magical realism piece much longer than the short story length I am comfortable with.  I choked with the revisions and a deadline for a non-fiction sports piece. Yes, I am concentration challenged this month.  I need to keep checking the tennis scores.

I have taken the following remedial steps.

Inspired by the recent death of Mary Oliver the poet whose work I was introduced to last year, I have decided that I want to stay amazed and need more poetry in my life. I have signed up for Poem Daily.

I have scoured the AO tennis writing for energizing verbs to apply to my writing as recommended by Joe Moran whom I have previously written about. I have converted this list into an inspirational graphic to celebrate all of writing, reading and tennis. Please read David Foster Wallace on Roger Federer in the link above for further inspiration for both writing and tennis. Thanks to Wordclouds

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The cabin was dark and cold this morning and I scuffled about finding candles and so forth so that my partner and I could cope without electricity. The reliable wrought iron wood stove soon provided some heat and eventually coffee. Power failures are common here in the winter. The storm winds blow the second growth trees down onto the lines. Much later, we would learn how extensive the damage to the power lines on Vancouver Island was and feel grateful.

It was the Winter Solstice, the morning of the shortest day of the year. I was waiting for the cable ferry to resume operations so that I could take the two-kilometre journey across Baynes Sound from my small island to the larger one. All the island’s residents and visitors are all at the mercy of a winter storm – a storm with winds reported to be gusting from forty to ninety kilometres an hour.

Eventually, the pale and fragile winter light found its way into the cabin. The candles became useless. I picked up my book, Milkman by Anna Burns and started to read.

Menacing deep green-gray swells filled Baynes Sound and lurched northward. The sky was filled with featureless deeper gray cloud.  There were no signs of the flocks of winter seabirds that take up winter residence in the usually calm bay.

Eventually, we left for the ferry to go into town, Comox that is.  These days I tend to avoid the acquisitive crises of the “Christmas Season.” I have recalibrated my material expectations and hopefully those of my family and friends. The exceptions, of course, are good food and wine. The planned trip to Comox was nearly necessary – food, wine, a swim and to watch a hockey practice of the Swiss Juniour Team. OK – that’s not me but it was on the list of things to do.

We help two other two drivers pull the fallen tree from across the road and drive to the ferry dock. The island is more exposed here than on the north end. Foaming driving angry white-capped waves fill the crossing. They splash, crash and smash against the dock rails and create pulsing sheets of fine spray. The wind catches these sheets, blows them across the pier and for seconds the air-born water obscures the flapping flags on the shrouds of the Baynes Sound Connector, the cable ferry.  My glasses are dotted with droplets that if left to dry will become crusty flakes of salt.  We learn that not only is the sailing of our small vessel impossible but that all the big ferries between the island and the mainland are cancelled too.

The sun comes out and there is a magnificent rainbow in the north that arcs across the brightening sky from the east shore of Vancouver Island. The clouds break up and hurtle north. The wind buffets about the solitary seagull that is possibly hardier or hungrier than the others. I imagine that the eagles are grounded, hunkered down and huddling in lower safer perches. A loose blue plastic barrel sails by on the surface of the water, tumbling in the chop as it is swept to shore. A fishing boat rockets by with a similar momentum and hurtles toward the safety of Comox harbour.   Mount Washington is still shrouded by all of clouds, fog and rain. Hopefully, some snow is falling at the very top.

There will be no ferry crossings now. We wait for the weather to improve and I resume my reading.

Milkman by Anna Burns is this year’s Booker Prize winner. It is a story told in the first person voice about a Catholic adolescent living in the civil war of Northern Ireland in the mid-seventies, a victim of ”religious geography” and long before the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. 

The failure of the protagonist’s strategy of non-participation by “reading-while-walking” is the main thread of the story.  She tries to escape the horrors surrounding her by reading exclusively novels written before the twentieth century.

The author does not give any of the characters Christian names that may traditionally Catholic or Protestant but rather they are known by their relationship to the protagonist or their role in her world. There is first-brother-in-law, Tablets girl and those non-conformists who are beyond-the-pale. The Pale or English Pale was a medieval English community in Southern Ireland.   Some of the characters names evolve as the relationships change, for example almost boyfriend.  I enjoyed the chorus of the “wee ones,” her three still-innocent younger sisters.

The prose is populated with strings of compelling neologisms that provide powerful promulgation and yes, stuff happens – “staying, ordering, commanding, warning” and “depravity, decadence, demoralization, dissemination of pessimism, outrages to propriety.”

The story addresses tribalism, misogyny and the fluctuating morals and norms of a community at war. The author examines the distortions of everyday acts and the meaning of language where the abnormal and immoral are normalized in the setting of civil war.  Rumouring and intervening are sanctioned actions. Finding a cache of weapons in your coal cellar is expected and objecting to it is treason. The community struggles with the possibility that a non-political normal murder may have occurred among them.

A powerful stalker who, without touching her, systematically violates her mental and physical health erodes the protagonist’s identity and independence. The protagonist postulates her society has not learned to identify shame but rather substitutes fear and anger to avoid confronting that terrible emotion. The resulting tribalism, hatred and violence are viewed as resulting from the immaturity of the two societies. There are several references to the culture not yet having learned how to genuinely express either sorrow or regret and being held hostage to their own pride.  There is also a profound reflection on friendship and trust. “Trust was over…even if fondness remained.”

Milkman is a compelling read from an innovative voice that addresses the painful subject of how ordinary civilians conducted themselves during the civil war in Northern Ireland.