creative forces

Blog # 74…October 2017

When we’re born, we’re issued a return ticket.  Many of us huddle in the crowd of avoiders and deniers -  referring to dying as passing on, buying the farm – or for sports fans – the final inning.

Images of death surround us, everywhere from the horror of thousands perishing in wars and natural disasters to the personal anguish we feel when someone close to us dies. As a person without the comfort that religious beliefs can bring, I struggle to make sense of life and death along with my fellow non –believers (I prefer wonderers).  As Woody Allen said,” I wish I could believe, it would be a big help on those dark nights.”

Since I often turn to reading for comfort and understanding of what’s going on, I picked up a recent book called The Art of Death by one of my favourite writers, Haitian/American Edwidge Dandicat to see how she linked the two.The book was motivated by Dandicat’s awareness of the approaching death of her mother. As a writer, she gravitated towards other writers and began to read and absorb the way they handled the topic. She shifts from fictional pieces - Toni Morrison’s Sula and One hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez to deeply personal writings like Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking or Nothing to be Frightened of  by Julian Barnes.

The book that touched me deeply though, was Canadian musician and writer Paul Quarrington’s  Cigar Box Banjo where he speaks candidly about his feelings about his approaching death, how he mourns himself and the sadness his family and friends will feel. That’s what gets me too. As well as reminding me of other things I’ve read or might read, these writers share their feelings in a way that encouraged me to go there also.

In some other departments...we shared our Thanksgiving dinner with the Iraqi family who have been in Toronto for almost three months, introduced them to cranberry sauce with turkey and they brought us Coba, an Iraqi dish.

If it’s within possibility for you, try and visit the McMichael Gallery this month, while the bus leaves every Sunday from downtown Toronto.  The Alex Janvier show just opened, also very worth seeing are the Group of Seven Guitar Project; Passion over Reason – Joyce Weiland meets Tom Thomson and the wonderful drawings of Annie Pootoogook. 

And, we’re all thinking about how we can treat each other more fairly and kindly, men, women and children, all of us.  Next year will be the 20^th time a gang of us has gathered to mark International Women’s Day.  We’ve been wondering how to encourage more women to enter politics or go for other positions of power and influence to modulate the picture.  This week’s news coverage has been important and part of the larger conversation. The humiliation and hurt suffered by women abused in workplace situations of any kind are awful, but women in public life are particularly vulnerable and frequently exposed to death threats... and with Jo Cox, British Labour MP, the most tragic of outcomes.

As I write this, news of Gord  Downie’s death last night reached me…a life well lived, making music and memories  and over too soon.
So Stay Woke, as they say on the internet, keep thinking and talking about these critical issues.