Blog # 85…September, 2018
“A strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to
give the grave and beautiful name of sadness”
Opening words of Bonjour
Tristesse, which I read first when Francoise Sagan and I were both 18. They’ve lingered with me all these years and
capture what I usually feel at the change of seasons - particularly summer to
fall - a strange melancholy. It often
takes the form of missing people and looking for ways to keep them in my
thoughts.
Priscila Uppal, Canadian poet, novelist, teacher and
brilliant spirit died a couple of weeks ago, on my birthday. Her first novel The Divine Economy of Salvation and Winter Sport, the collection of poems
written during her time as poet –in-residence at the Vancouver Olympics are two
of my most precious volumes. Priscila and I met a number of times, at book
launches, hers and others, at several readings she did in my Canada Council
series, and most delicious of all we used to meet in the locker room of the
Athletic Centre where I swim and she took diving lessons. We had many of those
spontaneous conversations that undressing seems to provoke…about art and
exercise and sport and other things that struck us at the moment. I value that
connection enormously and am grateful for the memories that her work evoke.
On August 25th this year Leonard Bernstein would
have turned 100 and although he died almost 20 years ago, his presence is
still, well present. An inspired
composer and conductor, he could knock off a Broadway tune as well as a funeral
mass for JFK; conduct Brahms as well as
Berlin. I was lucky enough this summer
to see a film featuring The Royal Ballet performing to three of his very different
compositions. The middle one The Age of
Anxiety, based on WH Auden’s long poem, not only was a fore runner to West
Side Story, but captured the angst of the day as well as of the composer.
The most difficult part of aging for me is the death of
people I care about, whether they are public or private figures. In those
internal conversations I have in the middle of the night, I remind myself of
two things…to pay attention to present friends and relish their company, and to
appreciate the creations of artists who have given us their work to
enjoy.
See you next month
