Joy List

There are certain people who love lists. I know this because I am one of them, and I know I am not alone because there are social media pages devoted to lists, there’s an entire sub-genre of journalism devoted to lists and I have a book titled Curious Lists: a creative journal for list lovers. If you are not a list lover, let me convert you.

Oh lists! How I love you, let me count the ways.

 

The first list I can accurately remember would be my Grade 1 spelling lists in Annie Doyle’s class at Guysborough Elementary School. In the beginning I was not fond of these lists; I am a horrible speller. But over time I grew to love them because it reduced the problem of spelling down to 10 words.

 

If you could remember 10 words for several hours; enough time to get to school and take the test, you would be a good speller. You would get a gold star rather than a withering stare. You would have achieved something through the use of the list.

 

And this is really what the first joy of list comes down to; achievement. The achievement can come from learning what is on a list or from crossing things off a list—either serves as motivation to action in pursuit of a goal.

 

I don’t have a spelling list anymore—although I probably should – but on good days, I have work lists, chore lists and grocery lists. They all bring me delight and fulfillment.

 

Work lists are essential. I easily forget evergreen stories I have pitched and have set aside until a later date for when breaking news is less likely to fill a newspaper.

 

When I need to make sure the editor has received all my stories, I need a list to make sure I have not forgotten to send one; that has happened. I have looked at the first draft of the paper and wondered where my article was only to find I hadn’t sent it.

 

I need work lists to provide a starting point as I sit down at my desk in the morning. What emails do I need to send, what research needs to be done, what phone calls need to be made. Without lists my work life would fall apart.

 

At home I need chore lists to make sure the bills get paid, the floor gets vacuumed and the kids get picked up or dropped off when needed. I did forget to pick a kid up at school once, but not my own, so that was worse.

 

I also need lists to make sure I attend meetings on time. There’s nothing I hate more than people who are late. I am always early for everything unless I am absent; having forgotten the meeting. Last weekend I missed a meeting—I had not written it on a list.

 

And then of course there are grocery lists. Any nutritionist will tell you that you need a grocery list—without one you might as well go to the store burn your money and give yourself scurvy and rickets because your diet is so poor.

 

Grocery lists have become even more important this past year as we have reduced our number of shopping trips to once a week due to the pandemic and the desire to reduce exposure to the virus. For once a week shopping, you need a list.

 

Last year I came up with a life hack for grocery lists, to reduce the likelihood of losing your list and making it easier to follow in the store; write the list on a discarded enveloped cut it at both ends and wear it as a bracelet. If you use this method, you’ll never lose your grocery list again, but that would make me sad—bringing me to the next part of my joy list; the lists of others.

 

I love finding lost lists. They are so interesting; an anonymous doorway into other lives. Yesterday I found a list wet and bleeding ink onto the sidewalk, discarded in front of the post office. It was on a small rectangular piece of paper, torn precisely on one side, containing a short column of only three items: Cat stocking, dustpan, Lg. bag. What would you make of that?

 

The paper was neatly folded into eighths and the list was written in a fine hand in blue ink on the first quarter length.

 

Lost notes bring out my inner Nancy Drew.  Is the note handwritten or printed, in pen or pencil, on fresh or recycled paper, in one hand or multiple? There’s a lot that can be intuited in such a note.

 

Unfortunately, there are fewer lists to be lost these days; even before anyone has a chance to adopt my list loss defying life hack—the reason, smart phones of course. One more joy technology has unexpectedly erased from modern life.

 

If I thought a bit harder, I might come up with more lists that I love, but at this moment, the last on my list of comments about lists is the book list; those that we want to read and those we have already read. Again, I need both types. I can hardly remember what books I read last month let alone last year which is why I need a ‘have read’ book list. Without it, I start to read mysteries and think I am especially clever only to realize halfway through that I have already read the book.

 

December is one of my most favourite months, not only because I am a Christmas fanatic but because an avalanche of year end book lists are released at that time. And those are my most beloved of lists. They’re full of excitement, opportunity, adventure, and most certainly joy.

 

Lists in their multitude of forms, keep me on track, function as a reward chart, and provide fodder for creative thinking. 

Lists, what would I do without them—not much because I would have forgotten what I had meant to do.

Talk about book club: opening doors to a new universe

  

Book clubs aren’t really my thing but in the past year and a half I have joined two. One of which is on hiatus because of the pandemic and the other was created because of the pandemic. The first was an in-person monthly meetup to discuss books based on a theme; but the pandemic saw our gathering place shuttered and the end of the club for the moment.

 

The second club was started by a literary friend of mine from back in the Bangkok Women Writers Group days. She was looking for some social interaction from within the confines of her remote setting—something to get the ‘little grey cells’ moving. So, she sent a shout out to friends, family and former writer’s group members about an online book club idea.

 

I joined because –well, what is there to talk about these days. Nothing that we aren’t all sick of talking about already.

 

In an odd symmetry, the pandemic became Shiva; a creator and destroyer of worlds -- in this case book clubs.  

 

A book club becomes a world in itself; there’s commitment and duty to others, required tasks and times. It becomes part of your life and makes you a member of a new and evolving community.

 

Joining a book club is a way to enforce close reading. Generally, I read a book without putting much thought into what I am reading which is why I have read War and Peace twice; once for the story and once for all that literary stuff I was supposed to be noticing.

 

A book club also acts as a surrogate university. I have spent most of my adult life in university. I like to be introduced to new things and that is why I am, some might say, addicted to post-secondary education. I have a very broad range of interest; one might even call it catholic in the non-denominational sense of the word. But at this time, I am unable to attend classes due to the pandemic—I now rely on book club to introduce me to strange and wondrous things.

 

The most recent book I read for the online book club was an introduction – or perhaps a reintroduction—to a genre of fiction that I would not have picked up without inspiration from the book club.

 

The book was called Lovecraft Country – and in doing some research after reading, I found that it fell into this genre called New Weird. If there is one thing I like, it is weird.

 

I’ve always been a fan of magical realism and read a lot of science fiction and some fantasy when I was in my teens. In more recent years, I’ve been drawn to what I might call the grown-up version of these genres; speculative fiction particularly as penned by Margaret Atwood.

 

Lovecraft Country while weird was also familiar and it reminded me of how much I used to love Ben Bova, Carl Sagan, and Isaac Asimov. I decided it was time to read more widely in this new genre.

 

I did some research and found a few authors who fell into the New Weird genre and were available through my library. And here I’ll just stop to say; Libraries, how small my life would be without them.

 

Within a week of ordering, the library had delivered the full Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer as well as a few books by China Miéville along with other novels I had recently ordered.

 

With a weekend spread out before me like a fresh field of snow, I opened Annihilation- the first book in the trilogy-and didn’t stop reading until Sunday afternoon when I had finished all three books and could no longer ignore house or office work.

 

It’s been a very long time since I binged any one thing for that length of time; not movies, streaming TV series or books. That’s mostly because I lose interest; I no longer care what happens to the characters, if they live or die, or if the mystery is solved. But these books captured me- compelled me to refuse a dinner invitation (the only regular social interaction I’ve had during the pandemic), procrastinate about work (although that is a given in the life of a writer) and miss an online book launch and reading by friends of mine that I really did want to attend.

 

These books, like the novel that brought me to them, are part of a lineage of creation that flows back to H.P. Lovecraft. I have never read Lovecraft, but as a prolific reader I have come across his name from time to time.

 

And just when I was thinking of doing a little research of my own into that author, a podcast on Lovecraft and his current popularity happened to hit my playlist. A CBC Ideas episode—hard to believe that both the CBC and I were culturally on point.

 

The podcast mentioned the book Lovecraft County and defined the Lovecraftian genre as ‘Cosmic Horror’ which accurately described the Southern Reach trilogy although one might only think so after they have read the books—before it might not seem near descriptive enough.

 

And while I agree the term ‘Cosmic Horror’ fits, I find the more recent genre moniker New Weird less agreeable. These books reminded me of my favourite Stephen King novels: Tommyknockers and The Stand. Coming from Stephen King they are automatically cast in the horror genre although if you are a fan of King’s you know he masters many muses under that umbrella. So, I was left wondering what was so weird or so new about these books to merit the classification.

 

Sunday evening, I started a novel by China Miéville but maybe it was too soon after my affair with VanderMeer; I just couldn’t commit. What I did read felt a bit like Robert A. Heinlein and I have never been a fan of that type of science fiction. Plus, I usually need a break between genres and tend to skip back and forth between mysteries and novels on literary must-read lists.

 

Then the children decided to colonize my bed and the chatter eliminated the possibility of following any plot line let alone sentence. Given my seclusion, nestled in my blankets and pages for most of the weekend, I couldn’t reject their company.

 

I felt guilty for spending the weekend in bed; no physical activity, no fresh air on what was a sunny day, no accomplishments other than a stack of books that I could mark off as read.

 

But I was entertained; for a short while I could forget -mostly- about the pandemic. And if the value of entertainment wasn’t enough to assuage my guilt – thanks to the book jack design—I will never spell annihilation wrong again—and that’s a real bonus for a substandard speller such as myself.

A civil discourse

The fact that there is a paucity of civility across the political divide is clear but that is not the only place that respectful discussion has been in short supply. With the shouting match of competing dogmas that broadcast news has become, I forgot what it was like to hear, reasoned, respectful interviews.

 

The culture has created a storyboard where politicians and journalists are portrayed as advisories. Under the Trump presidency, what was already floating in the zeitgeist, was hammered down on a daily basis with the president constantly attacking journalists and the media in general.  

 

It has gotten to the point that I joked recently with an interview subject, who was a lawyer, that both of our professions topped the public’s list for ‘most hated.’

 

There is the assumption now, that journalists are out to get politicians, that we want that ‘gottcha’ moment.

 

But journalists, distinct from pundits who seem to have replaced journalists in the never-ending news cycle, exist to serve the public interest and not ride a personal hobby horse into the ground.

 

But it must be admitted, sometimes it is hard to put your feelings aside when someone is clearly lying or deliberately obfuscating.

 

On the other hand, we must consider what this job looks like from the other side of the microphone.

 

Interview subjects submit to our questions and answer to the best of their ability most of the time. In my estimation, that takes some bravery, some intestinal fortitude.

 

I have never been keen to give interviews the few times I have been asked. I get nervous, afraid I’ll say the wrong thing, or fail to make a coherent argument. It’s one of those situations where experience on both sides of the equation makes you a better person.

 

Last week I was in a situation where I asked an interviewee a question that was clearly unexpected. And as they answered the question, I did feel a great deal of respect for their reaction and for the position in which they put themselves; seems a bit like standing in a batting cage with the pitching machine running amok. Taking questions from the press is part of their job description, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be afforded recognition for doing it well.

 

This morning I was listening to a podcast that I especially like which always has great reporting – Reveal. On this day I heard a great pair; interviewer and interviewee—clearly at opposite ends of the political spectrum but both affording the other respect.

 

The reporter Al Letson wasn’t throwing softballs but asking the hard questions in a tone that allowed the interviewee pastor Robert Jeffress to reply with respect; without belligerence on either side. I don’t think I have ever heard it done better.  

 

I will always remember this interview as a guide in my profession. And it is my hope that this civil discourse will become so common in the media landscape that it will not elicit comment for its rarity.

Modern death masks

I belong to a special group, a group of people who have lived through being turned inside out—so to speak. But this inversion didn’t take place out in the world, it took place before I was born; in utero.

The particular birth defect is called an omphalocele—and while I can write it with help from spell check, after more than 40 years of describing it, I still can’t be sure how to pronounce this strange condition.

 

For 40 years I was very alone in this medical mystery, a group of one. But several years ago, what I thought would be yet another fruitless search, found community. A community of new moms with what we call O-babies, a community of adult-O survivors and a community of O-angels because even with today’s advanced medical technology—babies with this defect often die.

 

It is these angels I contemplated last night. After a year or so in the various community groups, I decided to quit the O-angel thread. I didn’t want to look at dead babies anymore; I did not want to see the cause of someone’s extraordinary grief. I could send messages of condolences, but I wasn’t ready to be confronted by the images of the children that didn’t make it.

 

Last night as I was scrolling through Facebook I came upon a post of some cute newborn pictures. There was the floppy bow on the tiny hairless head, the scrunched-up neonate pose with the closed eyes, facing the camera; a loose-knit blanket draped over the back and shoulders.

 

The text informed me, that this was an angel, a child who had entered the world but couldn’t stay. It also thanked a photo studio, by name, for the pictures. And it was this that struck me the most; someone makes a living taking photos of dead children.

 

That’s a harsh way to put it and for the families who have lost their babies, I know these few pictures of their children are precious; but I am curious about this job and about this practice.

 

Death and the process of documenting it is something that has fallen out of favour in western society. Now we more often than not look to the possessions of the dead to remind us of what they were like in life. But a tea pot doesn’t preserve the face of the dead and the human mind fails to remember faces and features over time.

 

In a historic Gaelic house I once visited in Nova Scotia there was an unusual picture hanging on the wall. These days we’d call it a multimedia installation; at the time, I suspect, it was just how things were done. In the frame there was a mixture of elements- a palm frond cross such as you might get during Easter mass, some silky yellow fibres, and paint—in combination they made an image but not of a scene, not a place, more like a collage that pleased the eye without confounding it. It was beautiful in its strangeness.

 

I asked the docent of the house, which was part of a historic village preserved as a living museum, what the picture signified, and she told me it was a memorial. The silky yellow fibres were strands of a lost child’s hair. The cross would have been made for the funeral service. She went on to say that the Victorians, which was the approximate period of the house, were funny about death and their need to keep these morbid items in circulation within the household.

 

But perhaps, I think, it is our culture that is funny about death; trying to hide it away and confine it to a short service—leaving the bereaved to their grief never to be spoken of or seen again after the initial loss.

 

In the past people wore their grief, literally; widows’ weeds and black arm bands. And they wore them for more than a day or a week. While I don’t believe in prescribing how people should dress or feel, it would be nice if people could display their grief for more than a day- in recognition that grief takes time. We must be given the time necessary without feeling like we are abnormal for the sadness that won’t release our hearts after the death of a loved one.

 

In addition to the clothes worn by the grieving there were also funeral masks and works of art such as the one I saw, made to commemorate the dead and keep them with us.

 

In some societies, the dead reside with the living. They are part of the family; desiccated remains sit in a favourite chair for decades while grandchildren play at their feet.

 

I wouldn’t want to intertwine the lives of the living so inextricably with the dead, but I would like to have the cultural capacity to deal with death better. Perhaps it starts with pictures of angels.

Death Watch

“Wanna see this video of the woman getting shot?”

 

This was the question my 15-year-old asked me on the day the rioters stormed the Capital building in Washington, D.C.

 

“No,” I said. “I don’t want to watch someone die.”

 

I’ve never wanted to watch someone die but for my daughter’s generation and for most other people, watching people die on live streaming video feeds is normal.

 

I asked my daughter how she felt about it and the answer was nothing. Watching someone die in real life but on the screen was no different to her than watching a movie or TV character die on screen. And that scares me.

 

The first time I ever saw someone die on TV was in 1986. I was 12 years old and the space shuttle blew up as we watched the first teacher launch into space; except she didn’t.

 

I don’t think I saw the launch in real time, but I did see it on the news later that day and I have never forgotten what it felt like to see the moment when human triumph turned to tragedy – when lives were lost while the world watched.

 

Before that time, I don’t think I had ever knowingly seen a person die on screen. We always had the television news on when I was a kid, but I don’t think the sensibilities of the time allowed them to broadcast unfiltered death.

 

Since then there have been many mass casualties and singular deaths available for consumption on TV and computer screens. Watching them, often on repeat, has made people both numb to the truth of death and scared of the world.

 

On September 11, 2001 I was in Bangkok, living in a small apartment. I had no television; in fact, I had given up television in 1997. But I heard the news, I saw a picture of the smoke pouring out of the twin towers in a newspaper; I have never watched the footage of that horrible day.

 

Watching thousands of people die on the 24-hour news cycle of CNN that day, and in the days that followed, did something to America. I felt it on my first visit back to the States and I still can’t put my finger on exactly what you’d say that something was –but they’ve been watching death ever since.

 

More recently society has watched the live streaming deaths of Philando Castile, Floyd George, and those that died during the Christchurch mosque attack. There are more, but I don’t watch them. It can’t be good to watch these things. Depending on the person; watching death on the small screen either reduces the humanity of those that die or creates despair for humanity in the viewer.

 

These days whenever there is a major disaster; created either by nature or humankind, a quote from Fred Rogers fills social media, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

 

I would add a postscript to that advice: Stop looking. And I don’t mean we should bury our collective heads in the sand but that we should not traumatize and or desensitize ourselves to the death of others by watching it on repeat like some crazy cat video.

 

I am still fascinated by space and the voyage toward discovery. And while there’s hardly ever a launch covered in the mainstream news anymore, I do livestream launches and watch them with my children.

They watch with anticipation; I watch with anticipation and dread. I cry with relief when the launch is complete; the astronauts beyond the force of gravity.  I watch knowing that I might see someone die, not because I know I will.

Notice from the afterlife

This morning’s email includes a notice to congratulate Rosalind on her 20-year work anniversary.

 

I’m still young enough, although almost 50, that none of my age-cohort acquaintances have been settled in any job for that length of time.

 

Myself, I’ve been in the same job for 10 years, which is surprising. Gen X has taken a long time to settle down.

 

But Rosalind- she didn’t settle into a job 20 years ago- she died.

 

Eight years ago, this woman was celebrating thirteen years as a freelance illustrator and four years as a mom- she didn’t know it was all she’d ever have. Time would end before the next anniversary, the next birthday.

 

We weren’t close--she was my co-worker; someone I might see as I moved through the city. But her death shook me.

In some ways our paths were similar. Two single mothers with young children-her son and my daughter born a year apart. Working freelance in our chosen fields; a choice of freedom over stability. When I got news of her death, I saw these commonalities clearer than I ever had before.

The death of anyone who hasn’t reached their prescribed number of days is difficult but when a mother leaves a child; there’s no holding the grief in such a small vessel.

Sometimes I wish social media wouldn't send such shocking reminders of transience to my inbox. But it might be a an unwanted gift; this notice from the afterlife.