My Dearly Departed Significant Other: recent sightings and other thoughts

In April 2015 I wrote about a dream I had of Mary. (It is posted elsewhere in this blog). She was facing the light and was heading off, without me, and without her sweater. Some time ago, perhaps a year or more now, I had another dream of her, which I thought I should document here as we approach the 7th anniversary of her passing. Seven years already! Time flies. 

In this dream I was walking, alone, in a European city, in a neighbourhood consisting of tall older buildings on narrow streets lining canals. (I had recently returned from a trip to Amsterdam, which bears a striking resemblance to this dream city). It was night, but the city was lit up for a festival of some kind, and the narrow streets were crowded with people drinking and singing and dancing. Where the streets widened into plazas in front of churches or municipal buildings, there were food kiosks and bandstands, streamers and lanterns, jewelry and knick-knack vendors.

I wandered around one such plaza, surrounded by people in wild costumes and extravagant makeup. There was a lot of background noise, made up of laughter and singing and music. The crowd was at that density where sometimes you can find yourself in a dense group, then suddenly you are briefly in the open. I moved with the currents, seeking more open areas. As one such lead opened up in the crowd, I spotted Mary on the other side of the plaza. 

She was wearing what looked, from a distance, like a full body tattoo covering one side of her body, from her toes to the roots of her hair. The tattoo was of a tree, her feet the roots and with colourful birds and playful squirrels partly hidden behind leaves and branches; her hair was spiky and green and mimicked the crown of the tree. The tattoo on her face was of a brightly coloured peacock looking out from the foliage. The other side of her body was dressed in a very nondescript monochrome fashion, with her head shaved on that side. 

She saw me, gave me a big smile and a wave; then the crowd closed in again and she was gone. 

Seems to me she was having a great time. Certainly the wild appearance is something she would have done in life. And it also seems to me that she wanted me not to worry about her but to get on with my life; we'll meet again eventually, but not yet. 

...

Recently I also thought back to the service we held in her memory in the spring of 2014. Friends and relatives told stories and sang songs; Rolf (the Buddhist monk we knew through friends) kept things going. I was pretty numb and when Rolf suggested I say a few words, initially I didn't know where to start, as I hadn't been able to prepare anything. 

But as I stood up I thought that each of us has a special gift, a superpower that, to the holder, seems so easy and intuitive that it is difficult to understand that others might find it frightfully difficult. One thinks of musicians who have a skill to start with; for some of us no amount of training or courses or practice will make us into a concert pianist. (Case in point: I am listening to Glenn Gould's rendering of the Well-Tempered Clavier as I type this). 

Mary's superpower was the ability to listen to children and teenagers, especially ones in trouble, in such a way that they wanted to confide in her; and to speak with them in such a way they wanted to listen and understand. She used this empathetic skill in conversations with our children but also with our nieces and nephews and other children lucky enough to meet her; and this was the secret to her success as a social worker in the field of youth protection. 

So in my comments to the assembled group, I recall speaking to my children, my nieces and nephews and their partners, and asking them to remember how Mary interacted with them as they were growing up, dealing with the various challenges that children face and that we as adults tend to forget. I asked them, as they become adults and have children of their own, to try to adopt some of Mary's approaches; while you may never be a Glenn Gould, the objective should be to be able to chunk out a few chords from Mary's songbook. In this way we can hope to spread some of Mary's gift of empathy and child-like understanding wider, which can only be good for the world.

Today I watch the next generation of children; and I am pleased with how they are turning out. Mary's approach to child-rearing is living on in her children, her nieces and nephews and their partners. 

At the ceremony I asked my brother to sing a song that he wrote with his partner. It is called "The Path You Leave Behind"; it is described as a non-denominational gospel number. It is wonderful to see that the path Mary forged continues to be trodden, and I hope this will continue through future generations as well. Meanwhile I am happy that she has found the quirky kind of space where she will thrive.

Ten books to take into quarantine

Strange times we live in. Will the world come back to "normal", as it did (sort of) after 9/11? Or are we headed to some new world of unknown form? Hard to say. But meanwhile Facebook friends have been busy suggesting Seven Favourite Discs, or Ten Favourite Books. So here are my picks for ten books to take into quarantine, with text expanded from the short blurb I posted on Facebook. What are your favourite books?



Day 1: Ficciones, by Jorge Luis Borges.Seventeen little gems. This copy is the very one I discovered on my parent's bookshelves in about 1965. Translated by Anthony Kerrigan. (There are some subpar translations out there).



Day 2: If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, by Italo Calvino. This falls in the "If you liked Borges, you'll like this" category. Entertaining, allegorical and subtle. You'll get used to the second person writing, wherein the author talks directly to you, the reader, about this new book you've just encountered at the local bookshop. You're sure to like it, it's by that famous Italian author Italo Calvino. At the beginning of Chapter 2, "you have now read about thirty pages and you're becoming caught up in the story." Self-referential and post-modern in a way only the Simpsons have managed at the mass media level, but with much higher literary values. No cowabungas here. Translated by William Weaver.



Day 3: Foucault's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco. Absurdities of the whole conspiracy theorist thing. Eco can be a bit of a showoff, flinging about literary allusions to everyone from Shakespeare to Borges with wild abandon. Another of his novels was littered with references to Borges, and while I felt smart having noticed them, I realised there were probably references to ten or twenty more authors that I had missed. But cut him some slack and dive into this hilarious review of Knights Templar, Rosicrucians and all the wingnuts surrounding them today. You won't regret it. Translated by William Weaver, who also translated my copy of Calvino.

Day 4: A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick.  It's hard to pick just one book of his, partly because I haven't read them all (he was nothing if not prolific). This one was made into a superb movie of the same name, and I picked it partly because his other movie, based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, is better known to the public. (That movie was called Blade Runner). While this might seem like a major shift from previous suggestions, Dick's brand of darkly allegorical and dystopic surrealism reminds me of Eco, Calvino or Borges. Thing is, a lot of Dick's allegories have come to pass in one way or another.

Day 5: Protector, by Larry Niven. Yes, Ringworld is more famous (and is a cracking good story to boot) but Protector shows Niven at his best: Phssthpok is an alien who is completely internally consistent but, well, completely alien. Also, the space battle sequence respects concepts of travel at relativistic speeds and conservation of momentum, and thus takes place over several months. The lack of sizzle makes it hard to convert something like that into a Star Wars movie, but this is how it would play out in the absence of an FTL drive (Faster Than Light, for the uninitiated).



Day 6: Journey Into Fear by Eric Ambler. Many of Ambler's lead characters are Joe Anyone caught up in something they didn't ask for and for which they are not prepared or equipped. In this thriller written in 1940, a bookish British munitions expert with a PhD in ballistics travels to Istanbul to advise the Turkish military on upgrading their naval guns. On the way home it becomes obvious someone wants him dead. Very well done, and very Hitchkockian, although the movie was made by someone else. Sadly Ambler is mostly out of print these days, so if you see anything by him, grab it. He was an excellent writer. 

On a personal note: In another of his prewar books in the same vein, a young engineer gets a job with a munitions firm. Asked why he's doing it when it all will only be used to slaughter his compatriots in the fairly near future, he says something along the lines of if I don't do it, someone else will, and I need the job. That line was on my mind as I picked a career path after getting my engineering degree.



Day 7: The IPCRESS File, by Len Deighton. This book features superb writing and provides a lovely antidote to Ian Fleming's James Bond franchise: the unnamed protagonist works out of a seedy office suite on the third floor of a building surrounded by strip clubs. When he rips his trousers climbing a fence, he worries his expense claim, which is already three months late since he changed department, won't cover it. When he needs backup, he gets an aging private eye driving a Ford Anglia. But the plot and pacing are excellent. Deighton wrote three sequels, of which Funeral in Berlin is the best.



Day 8: Cocaine Nights, by J.G. Ballard. Some of you will know of my fondness for Ballard. For more, see my blog post (here) and scroll to the bottom.



Day 9: Two books by Bernard Atxaga. Yes, I am cheating a bit here, but bear with me. Basque literature is very lean, given the language is spoken by very few people, and that it was actively suppressed by many Spanish governments, Franco's being only the most recent one. I have seen statements along the lines of only 100 novels (or books) have been written in Basque in the last four centuries. Regardless, these two books are very rare translations of very rare books, and were translated to English in two stages: from Basque to Spanish by Asun Garikano and the author, and from Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa.

The first one, Obabakoak, introduces the Basque back country in a series of linked short stories set in the town of Obaba. (According to Wikipedia, the title tranlsates roughly as "individuals and things of Obaba"). The writing is gentle, ironic and not a little fatalistic.

 

The Accordionist's Son is a coming of age novel. Lordy how I hate those words on the cover of a book! Usually I'll run the other way when I see them. But this one is very good and also provides some understanding of the impact of the Spanish Civil War and the Fascist era on small-town Basque country, which is rugged, remote and difficult to travel even today, especially on the Spanish side of the border.

 

Day 10: A Man called Ove, by Fredrik Backman. Translated by Henning Koch. A very touching story that somehow launched itself off the shelf and into my arms in a local bookstore earlier this spring. Ove is the perfect curmudgeon, and you can see the fondness people around him have for him even if they are only seen through his eyes. Very touching.

So there you have it. 10 (OK, 11) books covering a range of styles and genres. Let's see yours.

The Canadian health care system works better than the US system

As a normally polite Canadian, I am royally ticked off and I’m gonna have to deliver a rant. (Sorry).

I am thoroughly fed up with uninformed American (and Russian) trolls loosely flinging unsubstantiated and factually incorrect statements about the Canadian health care system all over the InterWeb, just because they have a political axe to grind. So let me give it to you straight, in ALL CAPS because that seems to be the only way some folks might take notice:

THE CANADIAN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM WORKS.

Is it perfect? No. No system is ever perfect. But here’s another point: 

NO CANADIAN EVER WENT BANKRUPT BECAUSE OF A HEALTH CARE ISSUE. 

In the US there is some argument about the exact number, because most people who declare bankruptcy have multiple sources of debt, but one study suggested that medical expenses or loss of work related to illness contributed to 65% of all bankruptcies in the US last year. (Click here and here.) That’s 65% of 750,489 bankruptcies, or just under 500,000 cases in 2018. And yes, I am quoting the Washington Post, which some may say is fake news, mainly because the article is critical of Bernie’s loose throwing around of facts, but hey! At least I am providing a source for my information, unlike the trolls. Get the facts first, then you can argue.

So what makes me an expert, you ask? Sadly, personal experience. My wife, may she rest in peace, required multiple back surgeries to insert two steel rods to support her spine, which was collapsing due to advanced scoliosis. Later in life she was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer, which required 2 years of chemo and radio therapy as well as several surgeries. Cost to us: Nada. Zip. ZEE-RO. OK, I may have paid for parking at the hospital now and then. But it didn’t prevent us from paying the mortgage or sending the kids to school. (Now there’s a topic for another rant.)

Yes, the cancer killed her. (Six years ago this week, thanks for asking). But this outcome is no reflection on the quality of the care; it is my understanding that American women are also dying of breast cancer. Give me a minute and I’ll dig up comparative stats on that, too, if you are too dense or stupid or unwilling to do so yourself. 

So if you have an opinion but don’t know WTF you are talking about, you have a few options. You can use the Internet or other public sources to obtain some facts, and accept that these facts may change your opinion. You can blather on regardless, revealing yourself to be a troll who will regurgitate just about anything fed to you if it meets your prejudices.

Or you can STFU. May I politely suggest that STFU is a reasonable first step. 

OK, the rant is over. I feel better now. (Sorry about that). 

UPDATE 2020-03-16: An American friend reposted this on his Facebook page, which led to sometimes heated debate over something like 100 posts... I might clean it up and remove names and copy it here. Stay tuned!