Elizabeth Adams's Blog, page 96

Translating the Garden

This is my submission to the next Language/Place blog carnival, to be hosted by Steve Wing. If it's included I'll put a link here. The theme is "Translation." The story is a recounting of a day in the spring, and is an excerpt from the long manuscript about Montreal and Iceland that I'm currently working on.

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Over the weekend, I worked with one of our upstairs neighbors to prune the four Camperdown elms that grow in the garden along the side of our building. Francine was born and raised in Montreal and then married a Lebanese man who had come here to escape the civil war. They’re both a bit older than we are, with two grown children and a grandchild. She speaks some English, but unlike many Quebecois who immediately switch to English — which can either be out of politeness, or out of a desire to show how well they handle the language — when I am with her she only speaks French, and expects me to as well. As with some other francophones, I’ve never been entirely sure if it’s how she’s comfortable, or a deliberate way of indicating a political opinion that French is the language I should be speaking since we are here in Quebec.  As a result I’ve always felt tentative and apologetic with her, slightly ashamed that I’m not becoming fluent faster, and have sometimes avoided longer encounters. But Francine is also one of my language touchstones; each year, as we work on the garden — a job I had volunteered for at the annual meeting of the condominium co-proprietaires, under the illusion that here my French deficiencies wouldn’t matter too much — it gets a little easier, a fact that she notices too.

She had said, on the telephone, that there were some shrubs that she wanted to discuss removing and replacing, so after collecting me at my apartment, we went outside and she showed me the ones in question. The hydrangeas, she said, never bloomed well, and the junipers were overgrown; what did I think? We pulled the branches apart to see how big the trunks were; I asked about the soil –il y a beaucoup de sable, she said – lots of sand – and learned the word for clay – argile. She said the soil was easy to dig, but that we had to get all the roots, or the hydrangea would becoming up everywhere.

Oui, I said, nous avons eu un grand hydrangea au Vermont…les hydrangeas sont très difficiles d’éradiquer.

Eradiquer! she exclaimed, and gave me a teasing half smile. Deux étoiles!

I looked at her, startled, and then we both laughed. After that things went more easily. I asked what the difference was, in French, between hydrangea and hortensia: the latter, she explained, is the name for the decorative blue and pink ones, but in Quebec this kind — she prodded the sprawling shrub near her feet with her secateurs — c’est un hydrangea. We decided to dig up the shrubs later on, when we had gotten the right kind of tools – there was no pointed shovel in the basement – and to try to enlist the aid of my husband if not hers, after discovering that they both had bad backs. Les maris! we cried. Husbands!

Then we began with the pruning – she had never asked me to help with this before, so I listened carefully and asked questions about how she wanted it done – but as we clipped the small branches that had died over the winter, and lopped off larger ones with the secateurs, we also began, tentatively at first, to exchange more information about our lives. She wanted to know what sort of work my husband and I did, and where our studio was. I knew that she painted, so I asked her if she was working on her artwork, and in what medium – watercolors, she said — and what style –a combination of figurative and abstract. What medium did I work in, she wondered, and what type of subject? Landscape, I answered, j’ai oublié le mot...Le paysage, she supplied. Had I had exhibitions in the United States? What was I doing now? She asked about our renovations, which everyone in the building knew about, were they done? what had caused the problem? And we talked, of course, about gardening; I had told her before that we had had a big garden in Vermont, and she asked if we grew vegetables; I said yes, we had, but I was pretty much through with that, although I had thought of trying some tomatoes on the roof, to which she shrugged and said the problem was so much wind up there, sur le toit,  and I agreed, now that we could buy such beautiful produce in the city, what was the point? and we talked about the Middle Eastern market where I knew we both shopped, and its newly opened branch on the South Shore — comme il est grand! et merveilleux!

It was around then, as we began work on the third tree, that she switched from vous to tu. I noticed immediately, but said nothing, even though my heart registered its surprise with a silent little flip. A few sentences later, I answered back with tu.

I asked if she had gone to Beirut this past winter, as they often do, but she said no, they had gone to southern Spain for two months, and that it had been beautiful – ciel bleu et clair chaque jour, chaque jour, incroyable! She explained that her husband’s family was very close and talked constantly, but she herself spoke no Arabic so it was very hard for her, très isolée, and therefore she didn’t enjoy being in Lebanon; sometimes her husband went alone. I told her my sister-in-law was living in Beirut now and loving it, doing a lot of hiking in the mountains, and she stood up, her face glowed with a sudden memory, and said one of the most beautiful places she had ever been were some caverns near Beirut, in the mountains, the anti-Lebanons. It was like something you’d see in in a Disney film, she said, so unreal, but you are there, you are in the film yourself!

Before, I’d thought she was possessive of the trees and the garden, but as we worked and I saw how carefully she pruned, how she stood back now and then to check the progress, hands on her hips, the way she touched a limp rhododendron stem that had been hurt by falling snow, or sighed whenever she had to cut a large dead branch, I realized it was simply the love that most gardeners have for the plants they tend over many years. And for most of those years, she had done it all by herself.

We finished for the day and gathered our tools, and Francine promised to stop by later on when she had called her son about borrowing a shovel.  I was in the kitchen when I heard her knock on our door, and opened it to see her grinning like a smug cat. J’ai trouvé un pelle, she announced, and then paused for dramatic effect:  et une hache! She mimicked lifting an axe and bringing it down on some hapless victim: pour les racines! she added. I burst into laughter, which caused J. to leave his desk and come down the hall. What are you two laughing about? he asked. Francine has a shovel and an axe, I said. An axe? he repeated? Oui, we both said. Pour les racines – the roots!

Ok, he said, looking from one face to the other. Whatever you say!

There’s to be rain this week, Francine said, and I nodded, I had seen the méteo; Which day shall we meet, then? We agreed on Wednesday, at nine a.m.

A mercredi! I said.

A mercredi! she replied, and pulled open the door to the stairwell, smiling at me.

La Fete Nationale: St-Jean-Baptiste

It's getting very blue-and-white around here as Quebec's National Day approaches: tomorrow, June 23, the feast day of Quebec's patron saint, John the Baptist.

The 23rd hasn't fallen on a Sunday for a while, but tomorrow we Anglicans are celebrating with special music all day long to commemorate John the Baptist. If you'd like to listen to Evensong, it will be broadcast live at 4:00 pm, eastern daylight savings time. Here's the program, which includes the magnificent Second Service (Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis) by Orlando Gibbons and his verse anthem, "This is the Record of John" in which the verses are sung by our alto/counter-tenor soloist, Simon Honeyman, and the refrains by the entire choir. Sadly, it will be Simon's last time with us; he's moving -- and we'll miss him and his wonderful voice very much.

It's also our last choir date for the season -- now we've got two months of "pick-up" choir with half our soloists each week, until we return in September. It's been a very good year for me but as much as I love to sing, I'll be grateful to have some time off, and some free Sundays.

Dream of the Bony Fish: part 3

The dreaming mind is very odd. I've always been curious about how dreams arise, and from where, and have often searched my memory for clues and associations from waking life. This one had quite a few.

The morning before the dream, I was talking to a friend in the community garden who has grown a huge spiky plant with brilliant blue flowers. It wasn't exactly a thistle, but reminded me of a much smaller native planted called viper's bugloss. I asked him what it was and he handed me the planting tag: "Great Wyoming Bugloss." Where did viper's bugloss grow? At the Boat Lot.

The evening before the dream, I had a FaceBook exchange with my cousin, who was often with me at the lake when we were kids, and who lives there now. We were speaking of our mothers, who were sisters: this week marked the anniversary of my aunt's death.

I'm going to the lake next week.

And just before I went to sleep, I was reading The Saga of the People of Laxandall, from the Icelandic sagas. I don't remember any mention of sturgeons, but certainly of fishing, and of shape-shifting. One of Haldor Laxness's modern novels of Iceland is actually about a woman who changed herself into a fish, long hidden Under the Glacier.

So the dream didn't arise from nothing, but who knows how these ideas and memories managed to combine themselves into one of "those dreams" that seem to be telling me something? I wish I knew! But I do believethat we all have within us ancient wisdom, whether it's hidden under the glacier, under the water, or just under the many layers of our busy waking lives.

Dream of the Bony Fish: part 2

So who are these people and what are they telling me? I think Mike had it pretty close in his comment on the previous post. Although I don't know for sure, I suspect that my companion is my mother; it was with her that I most often visited that place and looked down into the water. There are no sturgeon in that lake, but this one seems like it must have been present in the lake forever, to have grown to such a size. I think it represents something very ancient: probably wisdom that the lake -- my subconscious, or the unknown, or maybe actual wisdom from ancient sources-- wants to show me. That the fish then turns into a woman, and the scene shifts to an interior doesn't feel odd or frightening to me; this doesn't represent a death but a transition, though how I know that is never clear.

The older man may be my grandfather, who I often saw in such a place; in fact I have a photograph of him in a grey barn-boarded interior; nevertheless he wasn't physically recognizable in the dream, but in the man's kind, protective, caring manner that created a feeling of safety. Now it gets more difficult: was the blonde woman my mother? My mother was an artist, but stopped doing artwork when she had me and never went back to it; still, it was he great love and she shared it with me. She had dark hair; she died of cancer. The dream woman looked nothing like her; the artwork on the walls looked nothing like hers. Is she an angel, a spirit, perhaps my mother but in a different form, different realm?  I think so, and whether these two beings -- appearing to me like the angelic messengers who appeared to Abraham as visiting travelers -- are recognizable or not, the message of the dream seems to be a reassuring one. This life is terminal, our bodies die, but life and spirit continue, and creation -- represented by the art -- continues. I am encouraged by these two beings, both by their manner and what they show me; I should keep creating. Both the ancient fish and the messengers seem to indicate that wisdom is always available, if I look closely and listen for it.

Do you see anything different, or something I might have missed?

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Tomorrow: parsing daily life for some sources of the dream

 

 

Dream of the Bony Fish: Part 1

Last night was fitful. It was hot and humid, and I woke again and again, finally going out to the living room to try to sleep on the couch. I did sleep, but was awakened again around 3:00 am by a group, led by a loud male voice, singing Celtic music. It was not a peaceful night.

During its course, I had many complicated, disjointed dreams, but one of them came to the surface of my mind this morning and stayed. It was another in the series of infrequent but significant dreams I've had about seeing things in or above the water of the lake where I grew up.

In the dream, I am standing near the Boat Lot, an unbuilt piece of land held in common by the Lake Association for the purpose of launching boats by people who didn''t have water frontage. As it was when I was young, the sandy lot is covered with short scrubby weeds, and sloped downward toward the lake.  There used to be a short dock, from which you could often see large carp in the warm shallows, gliding under the lily pads that covered this small cove, but there is no dock in the dream. Instead, I am standing up on the bank. Someone else is beside me, but I don't know who it is. Looking down toward the water, I see a large fish -- a huge fish -- moving slowly among pond weeds of the same brownish color as its back. Aloud, I say to my companion, look, look at that huge fish. The fish is the size of a dolphin, as mall whale, and it's definitely not a carp. It has a thick bony back with spiny protuberances, and a long tail. In the dream, I don't identify the fish, but on waking I know: it's one of these.

 

Then the sturgeon changes into a woman. I don't know how this is accomplished, and I don't exactly see it in the dream; I simply know it. Next I am in a dark room paneled with barn boards; perhaps it actually is a coverted barn or shed. The walls are covered with artwork: artwork done by this shape-shifting woman. My companion is no longer with me, but there is anolder man in the room; he is the woman's father who seems responsible for her. Somehow I learn that she has been ill -- some sort of cancer -- but she has recovered and continues to do this work, which I study on the walls. Although the images do not remain in the morning, in the dream I am moved by them, and tell her father that they are very powerful and beautiful. Only at that point does the woman herself enter the room; I encounter her indirectly, as if in my peripheral vision. She is in young middle age; has short blond hair and is wearing a white blouse; her presence is extremely beneficent. I repeat my feeling about her work and she smiles but does not speak, and I wake up.

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Tomorrow: my interpretation -- but feel free to offer yours!

 

Haiku

Today's sole comfort

the invisible caress

of the whirring fan

"What Do You Want to Make Today?"

I've been feeling, actually, like I wanted to make a new dress. I spent some time at the end of last week looking at patterns online, and thinking about fabrics -- the ones I've got in my stash, and some I had seen at a favorite shop while shopping for sandals. My enthusiasm (when in the throes of such a desire I often feel like a horse in a starting gate) was dampened a little because, in the enduring tradition of knitters and sewers, I already had a partly-finished dress that I started last summer. So, over the weekend, I actually sat down and finished all the little fussy hand-sewing details. And felt extremely virtuous. It's made from a Liberty of London silk crepe print: fabric I bought at least twenty years ago, and it too matches the cat.

But for new, potential projects, I chose four new patterns online from SewingPatterns.com and decided to buy them as printable e-patterns. This morning I printed one of them -- all 41 tiled pages -- and have been taping the pages together prior to cutting. The jury is still out on whether I'm going to like this method or not. It's great to have a huge selection of patterns available, instantly, from many different manufacturer, some not available locally; it is a bit of work to print and put them together, but then, I've always liked kits, especially things made out of paper. Today as I worked on this, it felt simultaneously like a throw-back to the late 50s and 60s, when my mom and I used to order paper kits through magazines like McCall's Needlework and Crafts or spread dress pattern tissues out on the dining room floor together, and absolutely current, since this is only the second such downloadable pattern I've ever used. Printing patterns on tissue and supplying them to stores, where many languish in those heavy metal file drawers and never sell, must be very costly, and the pattern  companies -- as J. pointed out, over lunch -- have to bear not only the printing, advertising, and catalog costs, but also probably have to accept returns. It's yet another aspect of the publishing industry that is changing, for very good reasons, and probably forever.

It seemed like these crafts were dying away, but for a while now I've been following the growing resurgence of interest in sewing, knitting, and other textile crafts among young women. There are some terrific blogs and websites now, both for makers and for supplies. I love looking, and always get ideas, but my life hasn't included a lot of such crafts for a long while. Needlework used to be a big part of my life, though, and I'd like to try to make at least a little room for it. Last week, encouraged by a visiting cousin who is an avid sock knitter, I also took up and nearly finished a pair of knitted socks that were begun even longer ago; another evening should do it on those. It feels so good to finish things! (Don't ask me about that half-done quilt.)

The real point, I realize, isn't the choice of whether to sew or paint or practice the piano or cook a nice meal -- it's that making time every day for creativity, for making things, is a major thread connecting me to my very core, and I ignore, deflect, or stray from it at my own peril. I was reminded of this when I listened recently to a commencement address about creativity by Makoto Fujumura, linked on Marly Youman's website. In it, he repeats a question asked every day by a progressive school in New York City: "What do you want to make today?" I know that my life has been more centered on this question than many people's, but also, for certain, that if I asked myself that question every single day of my life, and acted on the answer, I'd be even closer to living the way I really want to, and being the person I'm meant to be. And it's not a selfish question, because making things for other people, or with other people, is just as wonderful. We can know all of this and still get sidetracked by demands and responsibilities, and therefore we don't write that one line of a poem, sketch our feet, or turn routine dinner-making into something beautiful and creative, even when we know those acts return us to ourselves.

Why? How does it work -- or not work -- for you?

Tricolor

I promise. I really truly did not buy new sandals today to match my cat.

(p.s. they were on super-sale. I couldn't resist!)

Garden Conversation

Photo (and feet) by M.G.S.

 

It's busy at our jardin communautaire these days. I went over fairly early in the morning a couple of days ago, a time when I knew it would be pretty quiet. After I'd been working for a while, making a loose cage of bamboo stakes and strings for my delphiniums, I heard the chain and padlock clink, and in came a mother, with her little boy in a stroller.

I'd seen this woman before. She's Muslim, and wears long flowered dresses and a coordinated headscarf. She and her husband built a raised bed, and in it they grow all sorts of vegetables and greens that I can't identify, but I'm very curious about. The husband always says bonjour when I greet him, but although I've said both bonjour and salaam to the woman, she's always been too shy, or too conservative -- I wasn't sure -- to speak back to this very white woman with her bare arms,  tank tops and shorts. I kept on working, but I was thinking about how I might be able to break the ice.

Pretty soon I noticed that the little boy was out of his stroller and wandering around. He's skinny, with a nearly shaved head, and big, brown, curious eyes, and he kept looking over at me, so I stopped working, grinned at him, and waved my fingers. No reply, but he noticed, and I heard him go over to his mother and start chattering. Good, I thought, he's telling her that woman over there waved at me. The sun had vanished under dark clouds moving in from the west. I finished my work and gathered my tools to take back to the shed, and started walking down the row.

Just then the woman also straightened up and headed in th same direction, her back toward me. She went over to a pile of branches that had been left for people to use as plant supports, chose a few, and started back; now we were almost face-to-face. Bonjour, I said, and gave her my most friendly smile. She looked straight at me this time, still shyly, and whispered "Bonjour," holding the branches in front of her chest.

Parlez-vous francais? I asked.

She gave me a helpless look; I knew the feeling. Je parle un peu d'anglais, she said.

Oh! I said, laughing, and switched into English: That's better for me too. She smiled a little, for the first time.  I looked over at her son, who stood off to one side, his big eyes moving from one of us to the other. He's very cute, your little boy, I said.

Thank you, she answered, and smiled again, looking at the ground.

What's his name? I asked. She uttered a long name, several words strung together, and I didn't get any of it. I smiled though, as if I had, and, feeling shy now myself, went off to the dry sink to rinse my tools under the hose before hanging them up.

When I came out of the shed she hadn't gone back to her garden, as I had expected, but was still standing near the end of the row, clutching her branches. Oh, I thought, she's stayed here to say something else to me! I smiled and came closer, silently admiring her long dress with its garden of flowers in muted tones of purple, blue and maroon against the blue headscarf. I wondered again where she was from, but decided to save further questions for another day.

She looked up at the sky, now full of gathering clouds, and then at my face. You think...rain? she asked.

I nodded and said, Yes, but maybe...fast. I moved my arm across the sky from west to east. Maybe...over soon, then sun again.

She nodded solemnly, agreeing with that assessment. Good weather now! she said. Things grow well!

Yes! I said.

But not too hot! she added, and we both smiled.

Bye-bye, I said to the boy, who was now looking quite amazed -- what was going on with this mother of his? --  and said goodbye to the woman. Goodbye, she said, and watched as I took my bike out the gate, then taking her boy by the hand, walked back to her garden.

(thanks to my niece M. for taking these pictures in the garden last weekend)

The Noisy Protests, and a Silent Vigil

Tonight, our cathedral is holding a silent candlelight vigil as our first response to the impasse between the protesters and government here in Quebec. Negotiations broke down recently when the goverment walked out. This past weekend, Montreal hosted its annual Grand Prix Formula 1 race, and as a symbol of wealth, excess, and sexual exploitation, it became a focus of the latest protests; demonstrators against sexual exploitation of women joined the students.

Some of it was humorous -- I can't stand the Grand Prix, and appreciated the symbolism of naked andnear-naked students marching along streets thronged with the "beautiful people" who follow Grand Prix events -- but the riot police were right there too. Obviously the city and merchants don't like this economic disruption, especially as we head into the season of summer festivals. There were many arrests and a number of clashes with police, who continue to overreact, using tear gas and pepper spray and beating some protesters, and residents were kept awake into the early hours by the police helicopter; several of my choir frends said they'd been unable to sleep, which happened to us earlier when the helicopters were in our neighborhood.

It's a tense situation, and not getting better. A lot of older people have joined the protests because they're appalled and anger about the hastily-passed Law 78, which prohibits demonstrations or gatherings by more than 50 people without prior permission, ; the issue is no longer tuition hikes but mroe of a generalized, Occupy-Movement-related outrage about systemic problems and not being heard. Other people are getting really fed up with the protests and disruption. Everyone is tired and the groups seem increasingly polarized rather than moving toward a solution.

So here we are, holding a silent vigil. A friend of mine who's been very upset about police violence and Law 78, wrote to say that he doesn't think the vigil will do much good and that the church, as usual, lacks courage. The fact is that our cathedral community is divided, just like the rest of society, but we've issued a statement that came out of our group discussions, written by a small group I was part of, and now formally adopted:

We at Christ Church Cathedral [Montreal] are greatly concerned with the current social crisis. While this crisis began with the question of university fees, we are now faced with a larger question. What kind of society do we want and how can we build a future together based on equity and respect for all?

As a faith community and as citizens of Québec, we at Christ Church Cathedral call for a society:

· Where the dignity and equality of each person is respected,
· Where the voice of every human being is heard, and
· Where the principle of non-violence prevails and where power is not abused.

Therefore, we urge for negotiations to take place in a spirit of genuine cooperation and compromise, with the aim of finding a just and equitable solution to the present crisis that articulates a shared vision for the future.

Our Dean was on the CBC yesterday morning, talking to a respectful but questioning interviewer. I liked what he said.

And this is what I wrote back to my friend; not just a letter but a chance for me to try to conslidate my own thoughts:

Dear ___:

I hear you. At the beginning of this conversation within our community, I had hoped we could make a stronger statement, such as, "Violence in any form is unacceptable, and this law is unacceptable and is leading to greater polarization of our society." When I saw how much division there was in our community, I realized we couldn't do that, certainly not right now. In fact, the statement we're making is closer to it than I had expected. We are saying that violence is unacceptable, we're saying that we must listen, hear and talk to one another, we're saying that we have a different vision of how society can and should be.

No, one candlelight vigil isn't going to change things very much, but as a witness in our city it is actually something people haven't seen. It's a space of silence in the midst of a great deal of noise and confusion, and that is powerful. I think it will actually get some attention and make some people think. And it also moves us forward as a community -- without doing violence to one another in the process. We have to see it as a first step for us, too.

I don't agree that we're living in a military society now. Syria is a militarized society, as are many totalitarian regimes around the world. We're far from that here, and even the U.S. -- which I've criticized for decades -- is far from being truly militarized. I do strongly agree that laws like Loi 78 are the first step toward the erosion of freedom and liberty, and they must be opposed right at the beginning, and removed like dangerous weeds. If the church isn't ready to say that, then people like you and I need to look for other places where we can express our opinion -- and there are plenty of those -- and still work within our church community with love and patience.

The church's initial position has been very frustrating to me at different times in my life -- it has often seemed timid and "behind" on important issues. But as I get older I realize that God's time is not like ours. During my lifetime the North American church has moved from opposition to strong support for civil rights, for women, and for gay people, finally embracing the role of blacks, women, and openly gay people in every sacrament and in every role within the church. That is huge, and it gives me hope.

The issues that young people are pointing out in the Occupy Movement -- economic disparity and lack of equal opportunity, environmental degradation, the role of extreme wealth and greed, and lack of true democracy, militarism and erosion of personal freedom and civil rights, and incessant global warfare over ideologies, religions, and resources, to name just a few -- are not new (as the Gospels tell us!) but are presenting themselves today with greater and greater urgency because now we can see that the whole planet is an interlocking web of systems in danger of collapse. The church is really only just beginning to grapple with how it can respond, and first it has to see and disentangle itself from its own complicity in the systems of power, oppression, and fearful maintenance of the status quo.

That's a long, difficult process. I think Jesus understood that very well. He had the fire of an angry young man, but his sadness tells me that he also understood human nature: how slow we are to "get it," how fearful we are of losing what we have, how quickly we judge and persecute. That's why, I think, in his most famous teachings he didn't leave us with a revolutionary message about fighting and overthrowing the powers, but with the words, "Love one another" and "Blessed are the peacemakers." He realized that the only way toward lasting change starts with love and must always be animated by love. It starts with God in the heart of one person and spreads outward. Non-violence is one expression of that love. Standing together tonight, in spite of our differences, is another.

Each of us has a different role in these processes. Part of what we need to pray about and work on now is discerning those roles, I think. I'm grateful to you for your honesty about how the protests have affected you and I know it's helped us get to this point. I'm absolutely confident that over time we will see movement and greater courage within the church on these issues, just as we have on others. Right now, this small step may feel like it's too little in the face of big problems, but I think if we remember, "Where love is, God is there also" a way will open.

love,
Beth