Writers Workshop

With blowing snow and a late start we had the honour of hosting a writing workshop with Sheldon Currie.

Our first exercise was for each member to write one word, then we combined all those words and wrote a few paragraphs.


Sunny
chandelier
sale
sadness

She remembered the first day they met. The parlor in his mother's house had a brilliant chandelier that looked like the icicles hanging from the dead tree over Manson's Brook. The brook, there was a place that brought back her fears; family secrets and internal dread of malignant genes. Her mother had chosen the Virginia Wolf exit plan in Manson's brook, and she was always contemplating her own state of mind, the depth of her sadness, on a daily basis.

But today was sunny, there were prospects on the horizon including Joe. On the first day, the iridescent afternoon had lulled them all into a contemplative heap desiring nothing more than tea and light conversation. But Joe had come to visit his mother with a stern objective; the sale of her house was pending, where would she go. He dreaded the thought of her moving in with him. Would she consent to live in the seniors complex up the road or would she see that as a resignation to death.



Birthday Party
By Katherine Brush

They were a couple in their late thirties, and they looked unmistakably married.
They sat on the banquette opposite us in a little narrow restaurant, having dinner. The
man had a round, self-satisfied face, with glasses on it; the woman was fadingly pretty, in
a big hat.There was nothing conspicuous about them, nothing particularly noticeable, until
the end of their meal, when it suddenly became obvious that this was an Occasion—in
fact, the husband’s birthday, and the wife had planned a little surprise for him.

It arrived, in the form of a small but glossy birthday cake, with one pink candle
burning in the center. The headwaiter brought it in and placed it before the husband, and
meanwhile the violin-and-piano orchestra played “Happy Birthday to You,” and the wife
beamed with shy pride over her little surprise, and such few people as there were in the
restaurant tried to help out with a pattering of applause. It became clear at once that help
was needed, because the husband was not pleased. Instead, he was hotly embarrassed,
and indignant at his wife for embarrassing him.

You looked at him and you saw this and you thought, “Oh, now, don’t be like
that!” But he was like that, and as soon as the little cake had been deposited on the table,
and the orchestra had finished the birthday piece, and the general attention had shifted
from the man and the woman, I saw him say something to her under his breath—some
punishing thing, quick and curt and unkind. I couldn’t bear to look at the woman then, so
I stared at my plate and waited for quite a long time. Not long enough, though. She was
still crying when I finally glanced over there again. Crying quietly and heartbrokenly and
hopelessly, all to herself, under the gay big brim of her best hat.
Copyright © 1946 The New Yorker. All rights reserved.
Originally published in The New Yorker.

In the workshop we discussed this piece and were asked the following questions:
How many characters-3
What do we know about each-man whose birthday it is, wife, dinner
Who is telling the story?-narrator a fellow diner in the restaurant
Why did the author chose this narrator?- dispassionate observer, had no opinion about the couple, judged by their actions only. It's the show don't tell rule of writing states of emotions.
If story told by different narrator how would it change?- if the husband or wife told the story there would be much more emotion attached to the story. It may be too melodramatic and loose readers in the overplay of emotion.
Comic or tragic, could it be comic?if husband it could be comic in a nasty way

Our exercise in the workshop was to rewrite this short story from a different perspective. I choose the perspective of the husband. As follows:


After all these years she thinks this will make up for her inattention, her snideness and her disregard for my welfare, my needs, my wants, my desires. Look at her in that hideous hat, flouting her fashion sense when it is me that has been paying for that sensibility for the past thirty years.

I should have been smarter younger, now it's too late. Her beauty is gone and so is my tolerance. I hope she knows this is the last little extravagance I plan to afford her.

Here it comes, the musicians are playing a birthday chorus and the waiter is bringing the cake.

Must she make a spectacle of us at every turning point. It has gotten so that I dread public outings. She's hoping for adulation from her fellow dinners because she know she won't get it from me. I know her too well to fall for this false celebration. This cake isn't for me, it's for her- to feed her own vanity by placing her at the center of attention.

Well I am not going to play her games anymore. And I tell her so. She starts to shed convincing tears and I look as evil as Hitler. To hell with it. God damn Happy Birthday to me.

“Waiter, bring me a scotch, double quick”





In the workshop we rewrote this poem using a different metaphor.
Original:
Theodore Roethke


Wish for a Young Wife

My lizard, my lively writher
May your limbs never wither
May the eyes in your face
Survive the green ice
Of envy's mean gaze;
May you live out your life
Without hate, without grief,
May your hair ever blaze
In the sun, in the sun
When I am undone
When I am no one.

1964


My rewrite:

Wish for a young wife

My Herodotus, my multi-storied resource
May your pages never tear
May your ink remain bright
and not fade with my constant attention
or smear with unwonted tears
May you live out your life
On and off the shelf
without ridicule and criticism
And your binding ever strengthening
In the sun, in the sun
When I am undone,
When I am no one


Thanks to all those who participated, especially Sheldon for his great insight and exercises. And thank you to DesBarres Manor Inn for letting us use their terrific space to host the event.

Nana Station

I lived in Bangkok about eight years in total and lived in various locations throughout the city during that time. One of my apartments was located just off Sukhumvit road one soi over from the infamous sex soi Nana. But I am not going to write about the sex soi here; instead I am going to write about some other people who lived as I did, in the proximity of the sex soi.

I know these people because I could see them everyday, watch them sleep, eat, play and watch them perform their unmentionable bathroom functions. These were the street people that lived in the vacant lot in front of my high rise condo building and in the derelict rebar and concrete structure next to the skytrain platform at Nana which would have been another high rise housing project if the economy hadn't collapsed in 1997.

I watched the people in the rebar and concrete house while I waited for the train. I saw their baby sleeping under a pink canopy of lace set on a piece a oilcloth to protect the child from the sting of mosquitoes. I saw the adults drinking Leo beer at 7 am when I headed to work on a Saturday morning. I watched them ride a bike between the levels of the skinless condominium and wondered where they had found it or stolen it. I watched the green space around the base of the building to try and determine which movements were those of birds foraging for seeds and which were rats waiting for the humans to disgard a morsel of food.

These people I watched from the platform, the other people, those in the vacant lot, I walked past on my my way home to my comfortable 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 balcony apartment on the fifteenth floor of a condo with an Olympic sized swimming pool. There in the abandoned lot stood a makeshift hut of boards, plastic tarp and corrugated iron sheeting. A family of unknown number lived there; some kids a man and several women. The man always greeted me as I walked by; me in my high heels, skirts and dress shirts coming from work and he in a Thai sarong or possibly tattered shorts. He usually lifted a bottle of Sangsom Thai whisky to greet me in the evenings.

Eventually I got used to these people and I would occasionally bring them home food from the school cafeteria where I worked. It was the same food they could have bought from street vendors themselves but the cost on campus was half what it was in the outside world.

The man and I became friendly, he could speak very good English and my Thai wasn't too bad at the time. On my way home, if I had time, I would pass by way of their hut and talk with him for 15 minutes or so. His family was from the Northeast of Thailand. They came to Bangkok like most people did to make a better more prosperous life and like most people, it didn't work out.

I was friends with the family for several months when money must have came in from somewhere to develop the vacant lot and the family was pushed off their squatting ground. I was not there to see the event. They just weren't there one day when I came home and in their place was a small excavator.

All of life is transient. No wonder Thais are Buddhist; they live it's key precept every day.

Note: this picture shows both the rebar condo and the vacant lot at Nana Station

My guy on Phayathai

I just finished the book Such a Long Journey by Rohintin Mistry. A long time ago and a world away I read his book A Fine Balance, which was almost 1,000 pages of misery that taught me a lot about the world I was living in at the time. Bombay, which is where the former novel is set is not Bangkok but they have many things in common; compounds with apartment buildings surrounded by piss soaked walls for one.

In Bangkok I both lived in such compounds and had friends that lived in such compounds where the guard opened the metal gate leading to the street for any vehicles. Foot traffic in and out of the compound came and went through a small door cut into the larger gate.

There were rats and street vendors, old ladies with shorn heads, blood red lips and black teeth squat down in the busy centre of Siam Square selling betel nut, a throw back to the previous century. The lips and teeth were a result of chewing the betel nut they sold; not a great advertisement for the product in this modern age.

And there were street people. Beggars and those too far gone to beg populated almost every footbridge and could be found under overpasses, sitting in the shelter of the shade afforded by the high walls around a construction site or gated housing community.

In my neighborhood, just off from the popular hustle and bustle of soi Ari, sitting in front of the corporate headquarters for one of the major Thai banks, was my guy.

I called him my guy because over the course of several months we became friends of a sort. We never exchanged a word; I am not sure if he could talk, but we exchanged smiles and small gifts.

When I first met my guy he was sitting on the cement next to the frequently extinguished fountain at the bank on Phayathai road. I walked past him on my way to and from the skytrain station everyday. I was nine months pregnant.

My guy had a backpack and in this backpack he had some small things that he would lay out on the side walk to sell to passersby. He typically had key chains, single serving packets of nescafe and other small light wares. He, unlike other street people, was always impeccably dressed with a nice silk shirt and clean black pants. His hair was combed and he was clean shaven. He never approached people or harassed them to buy things just sat there and smiled at everyone.

My guy was young, I would guess early 20s. He had a physical affliction which twisted one leg, and his facial expression while always pleasant and friendly was a little off-center.

Over time I came to look forward to this friendly face that I knew I would encounter just outside my door and although I had no need for instant coffee or key chains I would stop and give him 20 baht just for the smile. I didn't give it to him every day and he never seemed to expect it from me and was always gracious when I did have something for him.

Our relationship went along like this for almost a year. Then he stopped coming to the bank sidewalk. I have to say that I was worried about him, wondered where he had gone. Of course there was no way I would ever be able to find out the answers to these questions. Street people may have addresses but they aren't known to people like me, not usually. I mentioned my concern to my partner at the time and he, living and walking on the same street as I did, had no idea who I was talking about and furthermore felt my concern was misplaced.

Eventually he came back and it was as if my worst fears had been justified.

One morning he was back sitting in his usual spot but he was not his usual self. First, he had no bag, he had no things to sell. His clothes were rough and dirty. He hadn't shaved. And worst of all was his face; there was no smile there just a look of despair. I felt so bad when I saw him. As I approached I saw all the people, who like me had known him in his previous incarnation, just walk by him ignoring the fact that he was there. I must have seen 30 people pass by him like this before I got to his spot.

I stopped and got out my wallet and made a point of showing others that I was giving him money. He gave me a wan smile and sat back down on the cement. As I had hoped after I continued on down the road to the skytrain and on towards work other people started to stop and give him money too. I hoped that whatever had befallen him, some quick cash would remedy. It wasn't so.

The next few days that I saw him he continued in a disheveled state. I was heading home one hot afternoon and saw him sitting dejected in front of the silent fountain. I stopped and through some mime convinced him to come with me to the nearby market. He was shy of me; still not sure of my intentions. I took him to a noodle stand and we had lunch. He watched me as we ate and he watched others in the busy market as if he expected someone to throw him out at any minute.

I bought him a new shirt and gave him some money; more than I usually gave him but still not much of any amount to a foreigner like me.

My guy was gone from his spot for the next few days after our little market outing. I was hoping that the money I had given him was not taken from him by whoever he might live with. I was hoping that this small gesture would make a difference.

After a week he was back, and he was smiling, clean and toting a canvas backpack with smiley face key chains for sale. I bought two.

I have been gone for almost four years and I still wonder about my guy and hope he is doing well.

First kiss

I have been meaning to write this since valentine's day but life overtook me until this time.

Leading up to valentine's day I listened to a DNTO broadcast on the topic of: your first kiss. The show made me think back to my first kiss so many years ago.

To be fair my first kiss was when I was 5 years old, under a spruce tree which had my initials carved in it next to my family's u-pick strawberry field. But it was disputed by the co-conspirator in the following years as to whether the kiss occurred or not. So I will document my first kiss as the one I received when I was 15years old in my aunts' spare room in Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia.

The boys name was Sasha Viminitz, you can't forget a name like that even if you didn't kiss him. I met him in the provincial debating championship held in Digby in the winter of 1988 (?). I was in grade 9 at Pugwash Municipal High School and he was in grade 9 at Oxford Street school in Halifax. From the moment I first saw him I was smitten and when I heard that suave Russian name fall from his lips I felt my knees buckle.

At first he acted superior to me, the country bumpkin, but after we talked a bit and he discovered that I did not hail from the red dirt land of Pugwash and had lived and traveled in other vicinities he dropped some of the city slicker attitude.

The debating championship was held over a weekend with teams from across the province meeting in Digby. My team consisted of myself, the school brainiac Christian and one other girl who made the team due to the fact that she showed up to the try outs and she had stage presence; she was consummate beauty pageant contestant; other than that she was most likely the dullest knife in the grade 9 drawer at our school.

We were staying at the Old Orchard Inn just outside of Wolfville, we three girls and one of our teachers. We drove the additional hour to Digby in the morning of the debates. It was a big thrill. Away from home, on a sleep over in a hotel with some school mates. It didn't matter that none of us were friends, we weren't enemies and this was an awesome opportunity for us all.

Along with all the awesomeness of the trip and the hotel I added Sasha. By the end of the weekend our rag-tag debating team came in 56 out of 57 teams and I had gotten Sasha's phone number. I was completely satisfied with the results.

For the next few weeks Sasha and I did the teenage telephone thing, wracking up telephone bills and hyper-stimulating our hormone levels. We spent hours on the phone and talked of very little. Certainly nothing of importance.

After a few weeks of lusting on the phone- I hatched a plan to see Sasha in the flesh in Halifax, several hours away from Pugwash where I was living. I arranged to take the bus to Halifax and stay at my aunts house in the suburbs for one weekend. My mother was living up North and was rather oblivious to everything that I did and gave her consent for my travel plans. My aunt was a little more cautious.

When I arrived at my aunts house she quizzed me on 'the boy'. She was not happy about the circumstance; me coming to Halifax to visit a boy, going into the city by myself to his house. A house that she assured me was in a very bad part of town. Granted, I now know that Maynard Street is a bad part of town and she had very good reason to be concerned. In a similar situation I would not give my daughter leave to follow through with a similar adventure.

Bright on Saturday morning I headed out to the city. I am uncertain but I think that my aunt drove me to Sasha's house. She didn't usually drive in the city but she really wanted to know where I was going and make sure it looked less than menacing.

I walked into Sasha’s house. The door was open onto the street and I found him towards the back fixing a bicycle. We walked out the front door and waved my aunt off and proceeded to explore the city.

The first stop was Citadel Hill. We walked around inside and then proceeded to take the leave that is given to young people on the hill and rolled ourselves from top to bottom numerous times until we were so dizzy we felt sick. Sasha's lab coat flashed brightly and was soon full of grass stains but it didn't seem to diminish his unique fashion statement.

We walked around Scotia Square and down on the waterfront. It was a fabulously sunny day with a strong breeze. The most perfect spring day two young lovers could ask for.

I returned to my aunts house that evening and dreamed of Sasha, at least I did while I was still awake and too excited for sleep.

The next day Sasha came to my aunts house. I was staying in the spare room and that is where Sasha and I decamped for most of the afternoon. We sat and talked in there with the door closed for hours. Occasionally my aunt would knock lightly at the door and offer an excuse for an intrusion; snacks, an introduction to her pet rabbit etc.

But eventually the big moment arrived. We ran out of things to say. He looked and me and I looked at him and the silence took on a clear meaning and mutual intention. We kissed. I can't remember what the kiss felt like; we may have grated teeth maybe not. What I do remember was the feeling that shot through my entire body; I was electrified. Every cell and molecule was on fire. The moment lasted through several lifetimes and then we were back sitting in a small room in the suburbs. We kept talking. And soon it was time for Sasha to head home.

I never saw Sasha again after that. I am not even sure if we even called each other again after that weekend. But I never forgot him or that electricity I felt in that moment.

Listening to the radio show about first kisses took me back to those days and I wondered if I could find Sasha in the cyberworld; for like me we have a name that no other person on the planet can claim. I am the only Lois Ann Dort and he is the only Sasha Viminitz.

I did the usual google and Facebook searches. I found a Facebook page immediately and the profile pic was of Sasha when he was possibly a little bit younger than when I first met him. No mistaking that face. I sent him a message wishing him a happy valentine's day some 20 years late and mentioned the details about our early teenage romance to jog his memory. I regret to say I have not heard from him. It would be fun to find out what he is doing now. According to his profile he is in Edmonton, a city I too once lived in.

A google search was not very productive. There were several pages of hits with his name on them but they almost all referred back to something that had occurred more than 10 years ago.

I have come to several dramatic conclusions about what this all means. The first being that Sasha may be a ghost. His digital trail died several years ago, there are no recent google hits for his name. Of course he must have been alive at least five years ago when facebook went online but that does not mean he is still alive today. There are many cases where people who have died still have live cyber accounts. It always disconcerts me when I pull up my friends list and find my uncle Henry there; he died over a year and a half ago. And until recently when my aunt called me on Skype the incoming call was designated as being from Henry. Freaks you out a little. So maybe, and I certainly hope not, Sasha is a cyber ghost.

Another possibility I have considered is that maybe Sasha is jealous of me, or of what he can access about my life on the internet. He believed he was the smarter of the two of us when we were teenagers and now judging by our presence online I have far surpassed him. If you google me you will find that I have written the authoritative quote of recommendation for the back cover of a book of fiction. I have written a thesis which is occasionally cited in other people's research. I have worked on an archeology pit crew. I have helped launch a book of creative fiction in Bangkok. My writing has been cited in art exhibits in both Amsterdam and San Fransisco. And I currently have pages of bylines from my local newspaper online. It's a significant digital footprint. I am proud of what I have achieved. But I do wonder if he is out there, and he bothered to look, would it deflate his ego? I hope this is just my own ego thinking out loud and not in any way a reality.

So then I am left with the third possibility, he thinks I am some clingy psycho stalker. Really I am just curious. Curious about the lives that have met mine and what has become of people that were once significant in my universe.

I plan to tag this post with Sasha's name. Maybe that will get his attention.

Update: I googled him again and this time found a Flikr pic and evidence that he is running a hostel in Jasper, Alta. So I guess he just thinks I am crazy. C'est la vie.

Missing my health

Today I cried in the ambulance almost all the way to Antigonish. For those of you not familiar with this area that is almost an hours drive. I was crying more from frustration than from pain, although the state of the road despite the current governments 5 year road construction plan, is abominable. I was crying because before I left on a winter road with high winds I had not seen my children.
It's a painful thing to leave your children behind and not be sure when you will see them again. I assumed it would be soon, later that day, but one can never be sure about things in life and I had a very bad feeling.

I had the same feeling I had had eight years ago when this same medical problem brought me to the brink of death on Christmas day 2003. At that time I was resigned and even welcomed the possible end of life; at that time I did not have two children. As people always tell you; children change everything.

Bumping over that snowy road to the hospital in which I was born, I was not worried about death due to my medical condition but due to an accident. All the nurses bidding me a safe trip as I was wheeled out the door from my local hospital did not make me feel any better about this.

It had started out a bad day. I have only been in the hospital since Saturday night, now Tuesday morning, but I had expected a quicker recovery. Usually a day or two sets things right and as of yet things are not right. This is disconcerting. I have a life I want to get back to.

I have been planning a writers workshop for months to fall on this Saturday. I have put ads in the local papers and was about to post further notices in this and surrounding towns when I was waylaid once again by my body.

Other than that, I had stories on the go for work, I had planned outings for the kids. There is never a good time to be sick but this is particularly bad.

And now, three days into it, I can not see a resolution. It left me emotionally drained and I started to cry even before I knew I was going in an ambulance in bad weather for a consult in Antigonish.

So I cried and there were so many reasons for crying. I am not getting better. I worry about my kids, again in so many ways. On the night I went in the hospital it was a snowstorm and I worried about my kids driving down to their grandparents house where they are staying for the duration of my hospitalization. I worry about how it affects them; me being sick. They miss me but how does it affect their feeling of security? That is what I most worry about.

And then there is the worry about what will happen when my father and stepmother are not able to take of the kids when I am sick. That day will surely come. I will always get sick- I always have.

And then there is that- I have always been sick. It isn't constant but I end up in hospital several times a year for bowel obstructions. I am sick of being sick. I know there are worse things to have but there are better too.

When I see things that some of my friends write about their sick kids I always consider their situations carefully. I don't have sick kids but my kids have a sick mom; in some ways it is similar. I am unable to fix what is wrong for my kids. I can't make their lives normal and free of hospital visits. How must they feel to see the person they depend on so helpless and hurt? I don't know and it bothers me.

In the ambulance I tried to imagine myself in another place. I chose my favorite temple in Thailand, just across the river from Bang-Pa-In Palace, Wat Niwet Thamprawat. I sit in a chair made of recycled tires next to a cement table under a Bodhi tree. I watch the cats roll on the tops of the sema marking stones and jump down when serene saffron robed monks set food out at the base of the tree. The monks cells are painted a Tuscan orange that reminds me of the wild poppies that fled past my window on my first train trip into Italy. It is the similarity to the Tuscan architecture that draws me to these cells under a much hotter sun.

I have visited this temple many times both in my mind and with my feet. I have sat under the bodhi tree of enlightenment and filled my notebooks with longing, hoped for lives and current struggles.

I once took Hannah there when she was a baby, perhaps 15 days old. Tets, Hannah and I toured Bang-Pa-In Palace and then took the tram across the river to the Wat. She was buried deep in a carrying sling that looked so much like a purse that I put a sign on that said 'baby on board' so people would stop jostling my 'bag' when I was on the bus, skytrain and sidewalk. People were always amazed when I parted the lips of the carrier to reveal a small infant inside.

The day we went to Bang-Pa-In was windy and the hot air parched me and I was worried the baby would suffocate with the heat. I constantly checked on her temperature and woke her frequently to be reassured by her cry.

We made it through that day as we will make through others but now it is just me and it is hard when I fall down on the job; whether it can be helped or otherwise.

So now I am watching the clock waiting for supper. I feel hungry but I also feel sick. It's hard when food is your enemy and every bite is repaid with a searing stab. It makes you cautious of food. It turns into a love hate relationship.

So now I wait.

PS- I was released from the hospital on Thursday afternoon. Currently waiting to see if my workshop can continue despite the bad weather.