Reading to Writers: the West End Writers Club Part 2

frozen wild-berry Whistler

A Creative Non-Fiction piece (with Prose Poetry tendencies) originally written for Hyperlocal on Canada Writes cbc.ca. The objective was to write of how a place, that is or was important to you, had changed over time.

Winter 1968

After Haight-Ashbury’s Summer of Love

Before the summer revolt of les soixant-huitards

My family went to Whistler and stayed at my Godparents’ hand-hewn log cabin in Alpine Meadows.

Prince George-born, my Godfather was a childhood hero of mine: brilliant weekday lawyer, weekend woodsman in a raggedy black t-shirt. My Godmother was my mother’s best friend since they were the It Girls of 1940s Prince Albert Saskatchewan. Each Christmas and birthday until my 21^st, she gave me a piece of Birks Regency Dinnerware: completed by a wood cutlery box - a silver plaque on which were engraved my first and middle initials followed by a blank space __.

The Cabin:

While our parents drank Canadian Club rye whiskey inside, we four little kids jumped off the roof into 5-foot deep powdery snow—frozen wild-berry bushes sloping, rampant, beneath, to the end of the property (somewhere back there in the trees). Nights we jostled for space and dominance in the open sleeping-loft.

That first night, while straightening my mattress, I stepped backwards off the railingless loft, landing (white-nightied) 10 feet below on the solid oak-plank floor beside my father’s chair.

“Nice of you to drop in!” he joked (we were great friends) presumably trusting I’d scrambled down the ladder to throw myself at his side.

The next day I fell 8 feet off the chairlift. I had skied before but with only a rope-tow up the hill; wooden skis bound by aluminum and leather straps to my lace-up leather ski-boot clad feet.

My father had explained that once you are sitting on the chairlift you should reach up and lower the safety bar. I reached too soon: the wind had angled the chair perfectly for falling into the deep powdery snow.

My little sister followed on the next chair with our mother in her Nancy Greene ski jacket. Nancy “The Tiger”, rising star of the Canadian competitive ski scene, was instrumental in the development of Whistler-Blackcomb Resort. While the jacket languished in the closet for four decades until our family house was sold, Nancy was chosen to be a Canadian Senator and Canada's Female Athlete of the 20^th Century.

Pulled from the snow, I got to be escorted up by a “cute” ski patrol guy. He seemed so mature: unlike the long-haired hippy ski-bums who were the main demographic of the fledgling mountain community.

The last time I skied at Whistler was after a cold New Year’s Eve spent dancing to Blondie, Gary Numan, Elvis Costello…   at the UBC student cabin: waking to frozen Kokanees forced up into bottle-capped 15cm phalluses and a sobering -30 Celsius morning on the chairlift, swinging 50m above the run.

By then my Godfather was a lesser hero; his ever-present silver flask of Johnnie Walker Black Label nestled in his silk-lined inner pocket. Admittedly, he still cut a dashing figure; motoring Pierre Trudeau around Vancouver in his vintage Allard.

By then I was ready to trade my skis for a mountain bike. I dodged urban obstacles, mounted 30 kilometer hills. I rolled long roads carved across Spartan tundra, salty deserts, and flattest wind-driven prairie. I spanned bridges suspended above engorged rivers and glided tarmac over the placid Jordan baptismal River – there, where it feeds the Sea of Galilee through common drainage pipes.

But I never ventured off-road on rocky mountain trails.

When my Godmother developed Parkinson’s her knees buckled under her like a plastic Push Puppet I realized later when I saw the “serial killer trophy” toy giraffe of Dexter’s Hannah McKay. Pushing up under the base; elastic collapsing the limbs.

When I developed Parkinson’s my chiropractor taught me to pigeon-toe my left foot (on skis: the beginning of a snow-plough turn) so as not to collapse that way. And so I surrendered my mountain bike and its thrill of dodges and too-fast descents.

Summer 2012

After I had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease   

After we married in a simple DIY gathering in my family’s back yard (no new initial to engrave in silver)

Before I’d seen real mountain biking

My husband and I went to Whistler and stayed at Nita Lake Lodge.

The “Boutique Hotel”:

The Savile Row suited Japanese father-of-the-bride paced the faux plank floor of the lobby (nonplussed by the Teva-sandalled, Bermuda-shorted “CONGRATULATIONS!!!”) until his powdery-snow tulle-enrobed icicle-girl descended soundlessly by elevator to his side. Without a word he slipped her into the impatient limousine.

Meanwhile, with neither skis nor competition mountain bikes we were transported securely and comfortably by the Village Gondola up to the Roundhouse Lodge near Whistler’s peak, unremarked by the Crankworx free-riders shredding only metres below, tricking down my vicarious thrills (orthopedic cushion on my every-seat).

Then from Peak 2 Peak 435m up to Blackcomb’s Rendezvous Lodge patio: on the safety railing between us and the spreading empire of what was once known as “London Mountain”:

someone’s frozen wild-berry yogurt – thawing in the summer sun.

After many retouches… le voilà!

The Reading:

I didn’t read as clearly this time as the 1^st, but it wasn’t a disaster I don’t think…

Some of the writers had very positive things to say about the writing. Always helps!

One or two got stuck on details that weren’t important. And one was very upset by my father’s joke when I fell out of the loft, even though I clearly explained he thought I’d jumped…

After the 1^st reading, some of the group had begged for notes. With a few different writers present the 2^nd time, the Notes were rejected categorically. I agree. If a reference is not common knowledge, the meaning can often be inferred by context. Or Goggled. I’m not trying to reach a maximum of people nor am I trying to be elitist. Some effort is, I hope, worth the reading.

But what was really interesting to me is how remarks on form made me see where I’d been lazy and that after serious analysis of the structure, not only do I feel I resolved the problems, I also saw how strongly the piece resembled my visual work of the past: strong visuals set in groupings of elements (in this case words) with space between. It was described as very “atmosopheric”. Repetition is deliberate. Meaning is implied: emotion evoked…

It is definitely not a narrative story – which I hadn’t made clear. It’s something like poetry in free verse, I expect…though I don’t have the training to say for sure. Just declaring it to be other than a story loosens expectations. A reader can more freely take away what the piece communicates to them. Or doesn’t…

Disease Dying Death « C`est la vie! »

 (Originally written while in Sénégal, things happened – very à la sénégalaise – preventing me from publishing this post then…)

In my white anglo Westside Vancouver childhood, government-mandated French in schools (and on our morning cereal boxes) was such that « C`est la vie! » was a straightforward, happy exclamation, like Doris Day’s Que sera sera in our mothers’ time. We were as sheltered from disease, dying, and death as possible. And none were “life”.

No doubt it is Faith in Allah which makes it all so different in Senegal. And the fact that each is a weekly occurrence in communities of large families where one actually knows the son of the cousin of one’s mother’s great aunt’s brother (same mother, different father)… makes it hard to ignore a reality that is so ever-present.

When our friend killed himself, his best friend (both white atheist Frenchmen), said « C`est la vie », his eyes red with mourning. He’s lived there even longer than I had, and although we all say Insha’Allah, his declaration seemed sincere, not just a social convention.

And even more so for believers.

Growing up we went to church and catechism classes, though none of our friends did. My parents were practising Catholics but they were the exception even then. I’ve never before lived surrounded by believers so I can’t say Muslims are more this way than other believers. I just know that in Senegal, Disease Dying Death, are definitely Life.