Blog #160...December 2024
Dark days and falling leaves...I'm beginning to write this on Remembrance Day, always melancholy and an occasion to look back. I fell in love with London when I lived there in in the late 50's. The city still carried visible and invisible scars from WWII and working at Hammersmith Hospital (which had a midwifery school) was like playing scenes from Call the Midwife.
When I saw Lee Miller's photos of the blitz in the film Lee, I was transported back to walks around our Earl's Court neighbourhood where bombed out buildings were a common sight. Watch for Lee on your streamers, it's a great story of an amazing and little known woman. Played brilliantly by Kate Winslett, Lee Miller was a Vogue model in New York in the 20's who travelled to Paris in the 30's and arrived in London just as the war broke out. She began taking photos and became a courageous and skilled war photographer, covering the liberation of Paris and the last days of German occupation and the camps. Toronto Metropolitan University's Image Gallery has a show of her work as well.
Steve McQueen's film Blitz follows a young black child evacuated from London's east end who jumps off the train carrying him and hundreds of other children to safety in the north. On his journey on foot back to find his mother he encounters some small acts of kindness, along with the atrocities of war and the cruelties of racism - see if it turns up streaming too.
I've enjoyed the creative work of artists in their nineties lately, very encouraging. Clint Eastwood, at 94 recently released Juror # 2, a court room thriller exploring moral issues - bringing the count to 60 films that he's appeared in, produced or directed, sometimes all three.
Alan Bennett 90, the quiet member of Beyond the Fringe has survived his pals, Jonathan Miller, Dudley Moore and Peter Cook to write plays, screenplays and novels, most recently Killing Time. His true experience led to The Lady in the Van starring the late Maggie Smith who missed being 90 by just three months. And Penelope Lively, I mentioned her memoir last blog, is now 91.
Many people I know are in a book club, or a choir, maybe both. I love reading, and singing but have never felt drawn to do either in a group...until now. The book club emerged organically about a year ago. I'd been chatting from time to time about what we were reading with a friend I'd made in the locker room where I swim. Our meetings are never planned, only last a few minutes when we happen to be changing clothes at the same time and we don't always read the same books. It's an unconventional book club but very satisfying all the same.
The choir, also made up of two members, is more recent and consists of me and a friend with some health challenges. We both seem to have a huge store of lyrics in our memories and derive lots of pleasure belting out Al Jolson or Cole Porter songs either on the phone or in person. Singing gets oxygen to the brain and releases endorphins - like running and it's good if you're not inclined toward vigorous exercise or it's a rainy day!
All these things\ - movies, books, singing help keep the darkness out, and there's been so much of it lately. The sadness of Murray Sinclair's death, made meaningful by the wonderful Anishinaabe memorial on November 10. Seeing Mary Simon, Wab Kinew as well as Justin Trudeau join Niigaan Sinclair and the Assembly of \First Nations chiefs to express their love and appreciation for Murray warmed my heart.
I'll leave you with a quote from Isiah Berlin that sums up one corner of our current distressing world " Freedom for the wolf often means death for the sheep." And from Margaret Atwood, as The Handmaid's Tale jumped back on the bestseller list right after the US election, "Despair is not an option, it helps no one."
We'll see each other again in 2025, God willing and the creeks don't rise. Until then look after yourself, and each other. And, read a book, watch a movie, sing a song!
