Almost Christmas

In November I received an email from Nolan informing me that Pat, my friend in London, was in very grave condition in a London hospital. This was followed by a beautiful email from her that called out for me to go and see her. We have been friends for fifty-four years and it was important for me to spend time with her when she needed me, and it was worth the effort. There is no friend so important as an old friend. In Pat I revisit myself and my family because she was there with me all those years ago. I was still in the process of assimilating the very sad state of affairs when Maya offered to pay my airfare so I could go. Maya had sensed how serious the situation was and provided the push that propelled me into action. Within days I had organized the trip.

I have just returned from Europe after three weeks of sad and happy times with friends and family. It was the trip I never believed possible because of my health but I did it. I pushed myself further than I believed my body could handle, fibromyalgia notwithstanding.

The three weeks abroad were divided so that I would spend week one in London with Pat. That is what I did. I devoted every day but one to visiting with Pat in the hospital. I explained to Pat and Nolan that this week in London was to be with Pat, not visiting the Tate, the Courtaulds Gallery, or any other attraction.
I did take one break to visit Gillian at the Iron Bridge Museum in Telford where she is now Assistant Curator. It was lovely seeing her again thriving in her work environment. She is such a positive and intelligent person. I spent the night in her delightful little cottage in Shrewsbury before heading back to London and Pat's bedside the next morning.

Pat was very ill, but better than I had expected. I had come to say good-bye, and discovered that life is not so clear as all that. She has been diagnosed with Myaloma which is a terminal cancer but just how long she has will depend on the type of Myaloma and the treatment involved. I left London exhausted and stressed from the physical demands that London made and the emotional demands of the situation.

I discovered that London is not for the elderly or infirm. It is too big and busy for me now. I like a slower pace in my sunset years.
For that reason and so many others, I was overjoyed to arrive in Rotterdam for the second week, where I stayed with good friends Quita and Frank to recover my strength. It was the perfect transition from the stress in London to a more relaxed life in Rotterdam. Quita and I spent a day in Amsterdam, and a day in my home town, Den Haag.

Looking backward can inflate memories of places such as The Passage in Den Haag. I always see it as a glittering jewel of urbane sophistication in my memory. But in today's world it seems much smaller, and the glitter a little tarnished. Mauritshouse, is however, as beautiful as I remembered it. Den Haag still is an elegant and stately city.
I discovered Rotterdam and really like its more down to earth and folksy qualities. Frank and Quita live in a beautiful home on the shore of a small lake in Rotterdam, quiet, elegant and so close to everything. Life is truly easy with everything within walking or biking distance. I relaxed completely under Quita's care.
The week in Rotterdam was heavenly. Frank and Quita took very good care of me and I arrived well rested for my last week in Hernen with the family de Sonnaville. We go very far back, our families being close and sharing some exceptional history together. Martien is like my kid sister, Jan and her children are like true niece and nephews.
That final week at Jan and Martien's wonderful heritage farm house was the icing on the cake. This wonderful restored old farm was my Godfather's home. I remember visiting Nel and Oom Steen there for rest and restoration before Martien was born. It was the place I went to when I needed healing - my spiritual home. Now with my godfather gone, I'm the elder, the Tante from Canada and Martien turns to me for counsel and solace. Although we are family by choice not blood, still this transference of roles is a normal progression in life.

It was Sinterklaas week so I took part in family festivities and loved it. Leo being eight, still believes in Sinterklaas so we went to elaborate lengths to keep the mystery going. I was overcome with tenderness when Leo put my shoe out with his. He put a letter to Sinterklaas in his shoe which read:
"Dear Sinterklaas, I am writing to remind you that Claire is here from Canada. You don't go to Canada, so you may not know Claire. She has been very good, so please leave something for her too.
Thank you,
Leo"
How lucky I am to have had this opportunity to be with family and friends again.

Travel abroad is not for the faint of heart in today’s world. The airport routine alone is unbearable. The three hour advance arrival, security check, and immigration and customs at the destination can make the combined waits on the ground longer than the time in the air. The KLM flight attendants try very hard to make the airtime as pleasant as possible under very difficult circumstances. Still it’s a long way from what I experienced as the daughter of the founding representative of KLM in Canada. My dad would be appalled by conditions today. Economy class is today’s version of steerage. Instead of being crammed below deck, we are now crammed into child sized seats with no leg room, and no comforts.

In a word, air travel sucks. I was able to get assistance to and from the gates on a golf cart and was seated in advance of the others. My cane got me those little comforts. My suitcase was overweight (filled with Christmas gifts from abroad) but the check-in attendant waived the fee. Bless her kind heart. So often throughout this trip, I thought of the Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire” when Blanche Dubois says “I’ve always been dependent on the kindness of strangers”. There was the man in a London tube station that carried my bags up an endless flight of stairs; the station worker who so kindly put me on the right train for Telford after I transferred at the wrong stop; the streetcar conductor in Rotterdam that helped me on and off. As I enter my dotage, I am aware of these kindnesses and appreciate them so very much.

The day after tomorrow Glenn will be collecting me. I'll be away again. This time in London Ontario to spend Christmas with Maya and Glenn in their new apartment. I'll be gone for a week and I look forward to some quality time helping the kids organize their home. Willy will be with me, so I won't be worrying about him in my absence.

2009 started out so badly with the loss of two friends just a week apart. It has continued through ups and downs. In November, it looked like Julie was headed for a bad time with her third stroke. She is recovering rapidly and will be coming home for the holidays. Pat has more time than we thought possible in November, and I had the health to be able to go and see her. I was able to enjoy time with good friends in my homeland, and will be celebrating Christmas with my daughter in her home.

It doesn't get much better than that. Merry Christmas everyone.

I'm weighing the pros and cons of flying to England to visit Pat. Nolan forwarded an email from her dictated in the hospital, that is both optimistic (that's true Pat) and realistic. It's so truly considerate of her to want to leave people feeling good, if she dies. Maya suggested that I make the trip to be with Patin these difficult days. So if I go, I might as well go to Holland to see Martien, Jan and the kids as well as Quita and Frank. I don't want to leave it till it's too late. We never know when our time is up.

Time is running out for my loved ones and they are slipping away. It's leaving me feeling so isolated, because as they go, they take a piece of me with them. My peers, my comrades, my friends, we lived a common history and shared similar values. The world for us was a familiar but different place than the world of our children now. Who will know me when my contemporaries are gone? I don't want to be the last man standing.

With Julie again silent in her medicated stroke state, I wonder how long she can hang on this way? How many traumas can one brain survive and what will be the ultimate cost? As she is lost to herself, she is lost to me as well. I'm so glad we had such a great weekend a while back. We looked at old photos, exhibition announcements and reviews and most enjoyable of all - the homemade birthday and Christmas cards that Maya and I made for her. We sat up in her studio, looked at our memorabilia together, laughed and reminisced. We had a great time. Jerzy was in France and she was very happy with Jackie looking after her.

Regarding the studio nastiness, It's occurred to me in irony that Gail didn't need to sack me at all. Given the change of circumstances, I will have to pull out of the studio anyway. The demands on my time due to these grave developments, makes sculpting thrice weekly, a luxury I can't afford. If she had been a little more tolerant and patient, I would have left in a week anyway, without the hurt and anger I'm feeling. Being told to leave the studio after one misunderstanding has been hard to digest. I do suspect Gail's motives. Her real agenda was to clear me out when her classes filled up because she didn't need me any more. I was the financial fallback if the classes didn't fill up.

To chuck me out because she doesn't need my money after all, is so unprofessional and possibly unethical. But by getting rid of me because she can't work with me frees her of guilt. It makes it my fault. So here I am, the offending party when I should be offended. It's a text book "blame the victim" strategy and it really hurts. Women can be very cruel to each other. Some of my deepest wounds over the years were served up by women.

A kinder, gentler perspective.

In my last post, I seem to come down hard on Jerzy. I wish to temper that with some thoughts about his devotion to Julie throughout this terribly taxing time since Julie's first stroke in 2001. That stroke nearly took her from us and after a very long hospitalization she was transferred to rehab and finally home. She was partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. The stroke didn't affect her cognitive ability, speech, and she was still Julie but with a mobility problem. Jerzy did everything he could to make her life as pleasant as possible. The house was retrofitted with safety controls, the garden was landscaped to allow her access in the wheelchair and an elevator was installed to take Julie up to the studio. Daycare workers were hired as well as a regular physiotherapist but over the years Jerzy is the principal caregiver.

He is now over 80 and becoming infirm himself. The 24 hour on-call role is wearing him out and it is reflected in his mood swings. His devotion to her has been astonishing given how selfish he had been throughout their marriage. He loved Julie in his fashion but always needed to be in control. He could be profoundly unpleasant when his control was threatened. This quality has made it almost impossible for him to receive advice, or assistance from anyone. He is a philosophical materialist who can't draw upon any wells of inner faith for respite. His arrogance over the years has left very few friends or confidants. He adores his children and they are his only support. This places them in a very difficult position, because as his children, they are not his peers. He can shut them down in a nano-second. So they are asked for advice on the one hand and ignored on the other. As a materialist, Jerzy puts inordinate faith in doctors and other medical professionals who often don't know Julie or see her as we do. Common sense sometimes suffers because of that as does her quality of life.

Now all these strengths and failings are merging into a tired old man who is wearing out, can't control events and most troubling for him, I'm sure, he is losing his self-control. He feels helpless and guilty about this. Guilt makes a cruel companion when you can't ask for help. His position is so very difficult and I feel a deep sadness for him but I can't provide him help because he dislikes me too much to allow it. I can be available if I'm needed and I'll do whatever is necessary for Julie's well being. She is the one that matters the most and I'll accept Jerzy's contradictions and rudeness as long as she needs me.

A not so happy weekend.

Nov. 8th, 2009

A not so happy weekend filled with anguish.
A lot has happened to turn my world upside down since last Thursday. Just when I thought I was entering a happy phase, doing sculpture again, enjoying good health and freedom from worry, all hell broke loose.

Thursday, an email arrived to inform me that my dear friend of 55 years, Pat, has spinal cancer and we don't know the prognosis yet. Devastating news. She has always been one of life's joyful people.

Then the phone call Friday morning telling me to move out of the studio I had just moved into less than a month ago. What the?
Moving on to Friday afternoon and looking forward to a weekend of fun in Toronto with my other friend of 50 years, Julie. I arrived at Julie's house to find she had suffered a third stroke and instead of going to a music launch, I watched her being taken away to hospital.

Saturday, with a heavy heart, I went to a book launch as planned because the author, another old friend, was expecting me. There I met Maya, Glenn and Mildred who also got bad news about a friend who happened to be in the same hospital as Julie. What was meant to be a happy reunion of friends, was distinctly lacking in the happy department. We went on to the hospital to visit Julie and were appalled to see her decline. Words can't describe our feelings. After two hours we left and decided we needed to eat before hitting the road.

That was the best part of the entire weekend - delicious Vietnamese food.
Throughout this tragic weekend, Glenn was a brick for Maya and a very stable presence for me as well.
Everyone can behave well during life's bright moments, but it's the dark moments that are the test, and he certainly passed.

I decided to return to Peterborough, early on Sunday because I was serving no useful purpose in Toronto. I couldn't bear to go back to the hospital and I couldn't stay with Jerzy in the house. He would rather suffer than have me help him so I serve no useful purpose.

Our mutual antipathy had us spend most of the time in separate rooms and the conversations we did have were "correct". It is impossible to speak honestly because Jerzy only wants to hear his own words. I now really understand why his adult children are so careful with him.

When I arrived on Friday, I found Jerzy, Julie and Claudia (Julie's caregiver) at the dining room table. Julie was slumped forward in her wheelchair half asleep and Claudia was trying to keep her awake. Immediately Jerzy asked me to assess the situation because she couldn't stay awake. She smiled pleasantly and answered yes to everything. She knew me and was happy when I arrived, but didn't know my name. She said yes to all questions.
Claudia: "Do you know who's here?
Julie: "Yes"
C: What is her name?
J: (smiling) Yes"

This went on repeatedly with little progress. Jerzy asked again if I thought she had a stroke. I looked at drowsy, inability to speak, head falling forward and answered, yes it looks like a stroke to me. But, I added, although she can't speak she does understand, she nods and places more emphasis on some yeses than others. Claudia thought she could be exhausted and didn't get enough sleep. What to do? Jerzy wanted the answers a doctor can give. I'm no doctor. I suggested we weigh the pros and cons of keeping her home and observing her carefully, or sending her to hospital for the CTScan and MRI that can answer the medical questions. Julie hates hospitals. The experience will set her back, on the other hand, she could get worse at home. Both choices involve risk.

In the meantime, lets ask Julie what she wants. She can't talk says Jerzy. Yes she can says I. "Julie can you squeeze my hand, once for yes, two for no?" "Yes" says Julie and proceeds to demonstrate. Do you want to go to the hospital? "No". OK that was clear. Then Jerzy breaks down, weeps and says he can't take this any more. I don't blame him. He's the principal caregiver and the burden is growing more stressful as he ages. This adds a new level of stress to the discussion when David arrives. We go around the issues again and David favours the hospital. We ask Julie again and this time she says yes. All the while, she is sipping tea and eating bites of croissant that Claudia feeds her.

Now, what hospital? Jerzy favours Sunnybrook because she survived the first stroke there. I know she hates and fears Sunnybrook but liked the Toronto General where she went after her second stroke. So we ask her where she prefers to go. She clearly indicates the TG. Then Jerzy says we need to wait to hear from Tania, who is at a concert, before taking action. At which point I almost lost it because the point of the hospital at all is speedy intervention. David swung whichever way the argument went, but did finally make a decision to get her to hospital now and not wait for Tania. Meanwhile I had given Julie her magnifying glass to bang on the table when she needed to go to the bathroom. She banged it and was taken to the toilet.

Claudia had to go to her next patient and was running late, so I drove her. In the car she confided that on Thursday, Jerzy was verbally abusive to Julie and that Julie was very shaken by it. Julie told her that when he got angry before she could walk away, but now in the wheelchair she has to sit and take it. She added "I want to just disappear". Claudia hinted that he's much worse since he came back from his vacation in France. Julie was much happier and doing better while he was away.

Anyway, to bring this to an end, Julie was transported to hospital in the car and was rushed into the ER. She was CTed and indeed she was having a bleed in the left frontal lobe which affected the right brain speech center. Before she left she was already recovering some speech, so I believe it will come back. She was transferred the the Toronto Western Hospital stroke unit ICU and when I saw her there she was a catheterized, sedated zombie. She went into the hospital able to eat, drink, and urinate on her own. Now she's barely conscious, on tubes and completely helpless.

Today Jerzy, has adopted the position that he didn't want her to go to the hospital, but was outvoted. No wonder the kids prefer not to be asked for a decision, it can always be served up to them later, on a platter of guilt.

You can see why I had to leave. I was afraid of what I might say. I also didn't dare tell Jerzy that in the hospital, Julie said my name finally, and reacted to my saying good-bye. When a control freak can't take responsibility for his decisions get out of the way before he blames you.

Because I was not allowed to watch television when Jerzy was not home, I almost finished Joan's book.

Three women and me

Today I'm feeling slightly off kilter because of a variety of events ranging from serious to grave to irritating, that have left me feeling sad and angry. For confidentiality reasons, I can only refer to the events without identifying the persons involved.

First, a relative has been confiding in me over a period of years about the abuse she was experiencing from her former spouse. When their union ended she was supposed to sit quietly waiting for his return as she had done so often in the past. But she changed the game plan by deciding to move on with her life. He was most displeased with this turn of events and began stalking and harassing her. Over a period of four years he wrote degrading and slanderous letters to her, her parents, sisters, friends, colleagues and employer; he made countless threatening phone calls to her and the same people He would suddenly appear at her workplace. Protection orders, legal letters and police involvement would not stop this reign of terror. Every day for more than four years she was waiting for the next ambush. The sheer tenacity of the man is daunting.

Finally he was arrested and the case went to a preliminary hearing to decide if there was enough evidence to go to trial. This took place yesterday. The plaintiff decided to represent himself so that he could have the twisted satisfaction of questioning his victim himself. So for an entire day she was subjected to his loaded questions dripping with sexual innuendo as he attempted to discredit and humiliate her. She withstood the barrage with the aid of the Crown running interference and conducted herself with dignity. But it was a shattering experience.

In her attempt to protect herself through the legal system, that same system forced her to be re-victimized by her tormentor. She was in essence, raped by the judicial process because the accused had the right to represent himself. In cases of sexual abuse, harassment and stalking the accused should not have that right. He should be represented by counsel to remove the element of direct intimidation. She stood firm, held her ground and I'm so very proud of her. If she wins and the judge finds there is enough evidence, she will have to face her tormentor yet again at trial. Is it any wonder that sexual abuse victims are reluctant to press charges?

The second concern that I'm struggling with is the ill health of my dearest and oldest friend. She and I have been friends since middle school (junior high)and we never lost touch over the years when she moved to London and I to New York. We stood up for each other at each of our weddings and as we moved on in life we stayed close. Now she's fighting spinal cancer, and is undergoing chemo-therapy in a London hospital as I write. I'm told that although the pain has been terrible, she is not in pain now. It is so frustrating to feel this helpless and it is making me angry.

So here I sit writing this because there is nothing else I can do for two women who are both fighting for life in very different ways. There is something I can do however, to be more mindful of others in the moment.

Case in point: I came back from sculpture today, annoyed by a misunderstanding that took place in the studio. It was about not having enough space. Gail is under a lot of pressure to get enough work ready for a major craft show in a week. She needs space for her stuff and her classes are getting busy. It is her studio. I made the mistake of bringing in more supplies yesterday, and storing them there. I could have left them at home until I needed them, but in my enthusiasm I wanted to share my idea with her. It involved glass bricks for sculpture bases that I believed Gail would also find useful.

She told me I had to remove them today and I responded defensively. I was thinking, "my good intentions are not appreciated" and she was thinking "why can't this woman see there is no room". It was an awkward moment compounded by the presence of a third party. I felt like I had been a naughty girl. She also cut my days down to two from three because there are more students than anticipated. It really is damned hard to work with so many people in the limited space. It would have been received better however, if we had discussed this privately, but it's done. In reality, with studio time three days a week and physio twice a week I was concerned that I might be overdoing it. Taking Tuesday as a personal day may be better for me in the long run.

Driving home I remembered my dear friend dealing with Chemo, and I realized how trivial this misunderstanding was. I'm lucky to have a corner in the world to be creative for two days a week and a friend who is willing to share it with me.

Hold the door ajar.

This was first posted on LJ in response to a question raised about having children. The question was posed by Maya and the respondents were mostly young women in her circle of friends. I have met these women and know some quite well through the use of LJ. I love them in all their diversity and intelligence. They are precisely the women I would hang with if I were of their generation. They have spunk, character, creativity and generosity and to a woman they don't want children nor do they believe they would make good mothers.

They love and take care of animals, love their friends, help each other in a nano second as the need arises. They all care deeply about the planet and take steps to make their environment as good and healthy for others as for themselves. It is precisely because they have these gifts that their comments have left me feeling so very sad.

I admire all these young women and I believe the future will be in good hands with them in charge. I respect their choices and I pass no judgment, but I do regret that we are losing the opportunity to have children brought into the world by the best and the brightest of women. If the bright, strong women reject motherhood we will be facing a future of offspring descended from the unthinking, the unmindful, the uncreative and unimaginative. Not an optimistic outlook for the human gene pool. Not a happy prospect to contemplate.

In motherhood they fear what they would have to give up, the loss of solitude, ambition, independence, spontaneity and they express no confidence in their ability to nurture even as they are doing it now with their pets, partners, and friends. These are all valid fears. No parent ever sprang forth fully formed with nurturing skills. Every responsible parent thinks they are not adequate to the responsibility.

I don't think anyone can accuse me of not living a full life. I have done a lot in the world and for the world. My life has been hard, and sad and wonderful. I can assert without a shadow of a doubt, that having and raising Maya has been my greatest and most rewarding experience. I seem to have had a talent for motherhood. It was and remains my constant joy.

Oh, I was afraid. I had no idea what to do. I feared babies and was not very "maternal". I didn't have any yearnings when friends had babies, and I was very ambitious and independent. Then suddenly, I was ready (the right man helps), I got pregnant and nine months later I was a Mom. Elliot and I bumbled forth with hope, love and a new baby that we feared we would break. But it all came together one day at a time. It turned out to be the most creative, innovative, frustrating and challenging journey: a real trip, Elliot would say. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Motherhood's greatest gift has been to get me out of myself. It made me realize that I'm not the centre of the universe and that there is a more important reason to be living than just me.

At the risk of sounding nauseating, parenting showed me a love greater than any I'd ever known. That I'm capable of such a love is awesome in its truest meaning.

All I can suggest to those self-doubting young women, "is live your lives to the fullest, realize your dreams, but don't close the door so firmly on motherhood just yet".

Sparky the studio cat.

Of course we always hear it repeated that for an artist it's the process that matters, not the end result. I'm reminded again of how true that is. I finally had my five pieces from the Mourning series fired. One piece exploded in the kiln. Gail thought I would be devastated but I was completely sanguine about it. It was the piece I liked the least and so it was no great loss. But mostly, it was done already and I had moved on.

I've moved into the English Potter studio in Lakefield and started work already. I rent three days a week (which includes a pottery class) and have my own space for storage. I share the workspace with Gail. We work well together sometimes bantering, sometimes commenting or questioning and often we're silent. The pottery class is to learn pottery techniques that I can carry over into sculpture. Gail is trying to teach me to throw a pot, which I find really difficult. I will keep on trying. It requires a sense of balanced pressure that keeps eluding me. I'm weaker on the right side and still don't know how to compensate for that at the wheel.

Gail is warm and funny and we share most values. Her aesthetic is light, whimsical and beautiful. Mine is heavier, expressionist and sculptural. I don't believe in waste and like to recycle failed pots into comic sculptures. I'm saving my failures to see how I can reinvent them later. Now Gail is experimenting with her failures too. Lost and found art we call it. We can learn a lot from each other.

I've been tidying up the fired pieces readying them for finishing and I started on a new piece yesterday. It has always been my way to work on more than one piece at a time. That way I don't have to face the fear of starting something new.

How do I feel? Like sleeping beauty, only the prince doesn't wake me - the muse does.
I head up to Lakefield with a happy heart, full of anticipation, settle in at my bench and get lost in the work. Not since I shared a studio with Julie in the 1960s, have I felt this way. It's an incredible gift to find my hands and my spirit again at age sixty-nine. Gail has no idea what a catalyst she has been in this process.

Sparky,the cat mentioned in the heading, is Gail's very obese Tortoise-shell cat. I mean OBESE. She is very sweet and loves company, but exerts no energy whatsoever. She likes to look out the window and sit on the door sill. She talks to the birds but they know she is powerless to catch them. Gail has her on a diet which seems to be pointless. Sparky is loving and very present like warmth in a room. So I include her in my cat diary because she marks a new stage in my life.

When does an Artist stop being?

By Claire Hogenkamp - October 13, 2009

When an artist stops exhibiting, is she no longer an artist? If nobody is looking does art cease to exist? That is like the Zen question “if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there, does it make a noise?"

My immediate response is what does it matter? In the case of the artist I might add who cares? Such is the state of Art in Canada that most artists go unrecognized and unnoticed. They just keep on working but don’t give up their day jobs.
The Art elites keep discovering new trends and making new declarations about the status of Art calculated to be radical, outrageous and “new”. Hence members of the public who are interested, are constantly rendered old fashioned and out of step. The public is generally excluded and if art becomes popular it is suspect. I believe this is a defense mechanism that has become a reflex against years of state and popular neglect of the Arts. It’s like saying “they’ll hate me anyway so I’ll show them I can really be hateful”.

This leaves the way clear for the cognoscenti (academics and critics) to toss out declarations like all painting is dead, the landscape is irrelevant, the Group of Seven is passé and thus turn away from Canadian greats like the late Goodridge Roberts (painter); Anne Kahane (sculptor); the late Robert Langstadt (printmaker) and they are not even included in the lexicon of Canadian Art anymore. Their work exists and is important, but if exhibited at all, critics don’t even bother to look at it.

If the art has been created on paper, board or canvass, with paint or pastels, carved or cast in traditional materials it’s not important enough for serious consideration. But if the art is created with meat, by feet, with hurled spit, or exploded shit, it is “compelling, edgy” and very “now”. I don’t object to Art being edgy or now providing we remember who we are and where we come from. We have a tradition in Canada and we neglect it at our peril. Students should know the Group of Seven opened our eyes to our own landscape; Emily Carr is our spiritual art mother; Goodridge Roberts painted with uncompromising honesty, Anne Kahane brings humanism to wood and aluminum with exquisite finesse and Robert Langstadt brought Expressionism to Canadian printmaking. They are important benchmarks for their métiers, and every art student can become better from seeing them.

As for the opening questions, I can say that I have been working away quietly these past forty some years creating landscapes, taking photographs, and recently returning to sculpture, without exhibiting and acknowledged only by close friends and family. Have I ceased being an artist? Possibly, but I continue to make art. It’s not the title that’s important, it’s the process.

I dropped off the Art Map in Canada very abruptly in 1970 when I was awarded the second of three Canada Council Grants. I moved to New York to study Film and TV production at Columbia University. I had been a sculptor and printmaker of national stature but was growing more interested in film making. It provided a means of earning a living that sculpture couldn’t. I needed to earn a living. Poverty does not make better art.

Living in a Manhattan apartment in the 70s didn’t provide a work space for sculpture so I had to let it go and concentrate on my documentary film career. I was hired in 1973, after graduation, by Lawrence Solomon Productions as his assistant editor where I learned the editing craft and the film business. I assisted on many films, was promoted to sound editor, editor and later production manager on projects ranging from WNET’s Children’s Television Workshop, to the Pele Pepsico project and a regular series of documentary films for CBS “Eye on New York”. I won film awards at several documentary film festivals for my own independent films as well as craft awards for company productions. I was, as the saying goes, “making it in New York”.
I married in 1976, had a baby in 1977, bought a house and launched my own post production company so I could work from home. I taught film production and animation at Adelphi University on Long Island from 1977 – 1981. From 1978 to 1982 I was filmmaker in residence with the New Jersey Arts Council, teaching a semester each year in New Jersey inner city high schools.

Every summer I came back to the family cottage in Quebec’s Laurentians to introduce my daughter to cottage life and country values. Each summer I painted landscapes for pleasure and so it continued for over forty years.

I moved to Toronto in 1983 and then to Peterborough in 1996 and worked in the communications area of the Ontario government. I designed media campaigns, promoted policy initiatives, and worked directly with First Nations on consultation and communication strategies. I won more awards for effective government communications but throughout, I kept on painting my private vision. My husband died some years ago and my daughter is embarked on a life of her own in London Ontario.

I’m retired now and still painting and taking pictures. I have been a champion of the Arts and an advocate for more Arts funding and recognition. There are all kinds of excellent, talented people here in Peterborough that are eking out tenuous livelihoods as artists or working in unrelated day jobs to support their art. If my volunteer work has helped in some small way to keep the creative fires burning, I’m happy. But now it’s my time. There are some sculptures I need to finish and more paintings to do. I will soon be seventy and time is not on my side. I feel the need to open up my quiet world to let people see my creative process. Perhaps an exhibition will shed some light on my Zen question. “If an old woman paints and sculpts in solitude all her life is she an artist?

Chester - my Peterborough cat.

The cat you see as you enter my blog, is Chester. This is my all-time favorite cat. There was never a cat like him before or since. He adopted me when I moved to Peterborough in 1996. He actually moved in in 97 and lived with me until 2008 when died from intestinal cancer.

When I say he adopted me, it's true. I had two cats Placi (from Brooklyn) and Melody (from Toronto) who had moved to Peterborough with me. We were contented and happy that first winter when a grey striped tiger with a white face and bib started to hang around and watch us. It was really eerie because this cat was outside peering in my windows. When I moved from room to room in my house, I would look at each window and there he would be on a tree branch, on a window sill or on a chair back, just looking in. He moved around outside the house following me inside.

He looked to be in good shape so I assumed he belonged to a neighbour. It was a couple of months later that I realized he was roughing it. Nobody was caring for him because he was much thinner and had started eating the bread under the bird feeders. So I began putting food out for my silent watcher. He would only eat if I went back inside and if I came back out he ran away. For a cat that was studying me so carefully, he was very cautious and wouldn't approach me. So we continued through the winter and into the spring of 1997. By April he would allow me to stay while he ate. Then he would rub my legs when I emerged with his food, but I couldn't touch him. I was fascinated by this careful but devoted cat.

I had begun the spring yard work so I was outside a great deal. Wherever I was working, he was about ten feet away watching. It was clear now that he was a stray and very wary of human beings. He completely disappeared when another person came into the yard. By June the weather had warmed up and I was enjoying the early summer sun on a recliner behind the house. I was dozing off when I spotted Chester (I had named him by then) making a beeline across the lawn toward me. To my utter astonishment, he jumped up on my knee and started a tentative purr. I didn't move a muscle while he turned a couple of times, lay down and went to sleep. I don't know how long we stayed like that - it could have been an hour. I had become stiff from not daring to move. If your not a cat person, you'll think I was mad. If you are a cat person you'll understand because you have done it also - been so still in order to not disturb a special cat. The cat that has honoured you with it's trust.

It didn't take too long after that before he came into the porch to eat. But before he could come into the house to meet the other cats, he needed to be Vet checked, have his shots and then eight days later, he was neutered. I felt like I was betraying him but I knew the perils of a Tom cat's life would bring him to an early and brutish end. I discovered he was about eighteen months old, in good health and I wanted him to remain healthy. Besides, it is impossible to live with a full Tom. The odor of testosterone in a Tom's urine is unbearable.

The most surprising discovery was that Chester was not just a stray, he was a feral cat. He had never been socialized to be with humans. Strays usually were some one's pet once. A feral cat is born in the wild from a feral mother who teaches the kittens how to survive without humans. So Chester had no understanding of the normal human/pet interactions. When I scratched his ears or rubbed his back he grew confused. He had no idea how to respond. The feeling was pleasurable but at conflict with his danger signals. So we took it slow and easy. He was allowed to go out at will, because that was where he felt safe. He was terrified of thunder storms and if he was in the house when a storm started he was desperate to get outside to hide.

Chester got along very well with my two resident house cats and he understood his place in the hierarchy. He was deferential to Placi who was much older, and he was respectful of Melody's moods and space. There was not one hostile incident with the other cats throughout their lives together. One thing was very clear, I was his person. I have never enjoyed such absolute love from a cat as I did with Chester. When Maya came home he liked her too but not as single mindedly as his love for me. Maya said Chester loved one and 1/2 people. We had become bonded. As I was winning him over, he was also winning me. He knew me better than any other cat, could read my moods and anticipated my actions - but then he studied me for six months before permitting himself to be adopted.

I was given a book one Christmas called "A Cat is Watching" in which the author (forgot the name) describes the necessity of keen observation to a cat's survival. The more observant and cautious the longer the cat lives. He claims that cats are watching us quietly and invisibly all the time. They make their choices and time their moves based on the information they have processed, and God help them if they make a wrong decision. I always saw Chester as a prime illustration of that thesis.

It's been said that a feral cat makes a poor pet. There are challenges to overcome like litter box training, irregular hours, absences from home, and territorial marking, but patience and a mutual desire to be accepted does work wonders to alter behavior. I don't recommend a feral cat for a family with children, nor can it become an indoor cat only. If you have a strong need to win, be dominant and control, a feral cat is not for you. In fact, get a dog and avoid cats altogether. I never had a cat more devoted, loving and interesting than Chester. That feral cat was the best cat I ever shared my life with.

The last word after all.

I mentioned in the last entry that my mother finally spoke up to contradict her father when she set the record straight about my achievements in high school. But she did find her voice once before and fiercely stood up to him. My grandmother was still alive, so it must have been when I was about thirteen. I was not the catalyst that time. What follows is my father's account.

My dad had a good friend and colleague, Harold Cohen. They enjoyed each other's company and one summer Harold was invited to stay at the cottage for a few days. Harold had never visited the Gatineau so he drove us up for our annual vacation and stayed for a brief visit.

My grandparents were very welcoming and Harold had a good time. Once he left, Grandpa took Mom aside. He was icy cold when he warned her "never, ever bring the likes of him here again". Mom was stunned and asked what he meant by "the likes of him"? "Those people, Jews" was his answer.

Now you have to realize that there was no hint of disapproval evident while Harold was there, so my mother was shocked. Her reaction was quick and spontaneous. She lit into her father for his antisemitism and reminded him that a lot of "our people" gave their lives to save "those people" from the Nazis and that his own family had barely survived a war started by people who held his views. It must have been a pretty impressive response, because my grandfather was much more cautious around my parents after that. There was never another negative word about Jews spoken in her presence.

A year thereafter my beloved grandma died. The glue that brought the family home lost its bond. My grandfather hired a housekeeper and changed his life very little, but for his children and grandchildren life changed a lot. There was no longer that strong pull to the cottage. Meech Lake became a destination rather than a home. Uncle Watson bought his family another cottage on the Rideau River, and Uncle Ken was married to Rosemary by then and their first child Jayne was born. So we all stayed with my grandfather at different times. To make matters worse, my grandfather decided to sell the family cottage to The National Capital Commission.

That decision more than any other changed the family dynamic. What he saw as a chance to capitalize on the push to make Meech Lake a Park, we saw as a betrayal. He signed an agreement that permitted his use of the cottage for life. Upon his death, the property went to the NCC and his children were out of luck. He exercised his ultimate control.

This was done to spite Watson for buying his own place. Grandpa forgot all about his other two children and his grandchildren. The place that had been the hub for his family, no longer promised any future. The family began to pack their emotional bags in preparation for the end. Though we still spent our vacations there till he died five years later, we viewed the place as tenants would a rental. Once he died, we were allowed in briefly to remove personal effects only, the locks were changed and eventually it was torn down to make a public beach and picnic area.

The ultimate irony was the name: not Balharrie but Blanchet Beach (after a neighbour from New England). A French name looked better on a Quebec map than a Scottish one, even if the Blanchets didn't speak a word of French. The vindictive pride of an old man and the politics of the time erased our family history from Meech Lake.

My Three Perky's

Memory, I'm told, is selective. I am having a terribly difficult time writing about my Meech Lake days and my mother. Don't get me wrong, I did love my mother a lot. I also adored being at the Balharrie cottage every summer. So what's the problem?

It was the period in my life when I grew aware of the dark side of life. I was getting older and beginning to see the complexities in people. My mother was a huge influence on my development. She was bright and sunny but over time I noticed her mood swings. She and I shared a bunkie and that was fun. When we were alone my mother was interesting and fun and even loving. However, when we were within her family circle I experienced a much harsher and more critical mother. I never could do anything right.

I would try very hard to not be a disappointment but somehow I always failed. It took me years to understand that my mother was viewing me through her father's eyes and trying to bend me to his standards. It was a fools game that always cast me as the loser. Since my grandpa didn't like me very much, he rarely approved of me. Hence, I was a constant source of tension for my mom. She could be harsh and exacting. She sometimes got carried away with discipline and was no stranger to using corporal punishment. Looking back I often wonder why? I wasn't a bad kid. But I was headstrong, anathema to my grandfather. I guess it was all about control. My grandmother would intervene and take my side or remove me from view. She would ask me to help her or set up a new game in the cottage that we would play. My grandma was my champion.

Somewhere in the course of events I came to believe that Mom didn't love me. So, I fixed my trust and affection on my father who I didn't disappoint at all. In fact, to him I was a source of pride. The years between seven and thirteen were my growth years, physically and emotionally just as with every child. I learned to be more wary and defensive. My innocence was wearing down. The problem of course, was that my father worked and was not always around to protect me.

I had lots of amazing and really good experiences too. My early childhood in Holland was so filled with love, it had given me a strong enough emotional base to withstand the Ottawa chill. Years later my mother would muse about how different our lives might have been, had we stayed in Holland. She often said that she loved life in Holland in spite of the hard war years.

These were the Perky years. From age eight to thirteen, we had three cats in succession, called Perky1, Perky 2, and Perky 3. They died or disappeared while we lived in the Snowdon area of Montreal. Perky 3 was not allowed to go outdoors and he lived a very long life, moving with us to Lakeside Heights in Pointe Claire. Perky 3 joined the family when I was eleven and lived well beyond my parents till he was eighteen.

Around thirteen I realized that my mother had mood swings. For many weeks she was fine and then she would become super energetic, stay up all night, start ambitious projects that would continue for several weeks until she crashed. On the way down she started to get super critical, fly into rages, be petty and vindictive, and eventually close down. I feared her most during the super energy periods because I could never be sure when the anger would begin. As an adult, I was asked by a counsellor I was seeing what emotion I remembered most from childhood. "Fear" I replied without hesitation. Fear was my dominant memory.

Today I know that my poor mother had a form of Bipolar disorder and suffered from crippling migraine headaches as well. At the time her condition was not named. She was described as having spells. The worst spell happened when I was sixteen. The depression stage lasted for nearly a year. My mom was tranquilized and spent the year as zombie. My dad and I looked after her and the household. He food shopped and did the exterior work while I cleaned, did the washing and ironing and we took turns cooking. At the same time, he went to work and I to school.

I wanted to have a normal teens life, dating and going to dances but not successfully. In the end I failed the school year. The Principal of John Rennie High Mr. R. Dixon was perplexed because he knew I was bright. In those days the teachers and principal actually knew their students. He mentioned his concern to his secretary Marian Griffiths, who was my best friend Pat's mother. This dear woman broke confidentiality (it was a matter of pride not to speak of the problems at home) and told him what had been going on in my life over the past year. He immediately passed me conditionally. I and several others in difficulty, were placed in the same class with a really caring teacher. The purpose was to focus on a stress less academic environment where we could catch up. It worked so well that I graduated high school at the top of my class with a full Fine Arts scholarship to Sir George Williams University (now renamed Concordia).

My mother recovered and never was so sick again. My parents were proud of me and my grandfather was sorry that "I never achieved much". For the first time my mother set the record straight and told him that he was mistaken: I had achieved a great deal.

There, I've written about this painful period after all, but I won't dwell here. It's time to move on.

Another loss.

kingmisha at 2009-09-18 06:13 (UTC) (Link)

I've been away for some time at my cottage throughout August, and around town in Peterborough since I got back. I didn't miss blogging because I was painting a lot at the cottage (eight landscapes) and did a new sculpture once I got back. I keep adding to the mourning series instead of moving to another theme.

It seems so imperative to me to get this series out of my system particularly in view of recent events. Mary Travers of 'Peter Paul and Mary' was a woman I respected a lot. She applied her considerable talent to causes that mattered to me too. I did sometimes feel the group was a little light but that was the reason they transcended the folk music world into the popular market. They brought the messages of peace, hope, and racial tolerance to a much wider audience.

I particularly respected their unwavering opposition to the Vietnam War. Mary was also a strong feminist and performed without a hint of sex kitten about her. She was tall, angular and direct in appearance and performance. She was not severe though, often seeming quite gentle and funny.

I was a documentary film maker in the seventies, and involved with a variety of political, left-leaning groups concerned with freeing Civil Rights leaders like Angela Davis and Huey Newton, to ending the Vietnam tragedy, to affirmative action for women. It was a very intense and stimulating time when we believed we could change the world. In retrospect I believe we were the catalyst for change. Social upheaval contributed to the end to the Vietnam War and certainly hastened anti-segregation legislation. Artists like Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Harry Belafonte, Miriam Makebe, Odette, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Woody and Arlo Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Peter, Paul and Mary helped wake people up and inspired us to keep the faith.

I was often invited to parties where I met like minded activists and sympathisers. I would host dinners at my place as well where everyone who came contributed funds to some cause like supporting Mc Govern for President or freeing Angela Davis. Meeting Mary Travers at some of these fundraisers would not raise a second thought. It was normal. We were the movers and shakers in the art world of that period.

Another Loss from Livejournal (Kingmisha)

I met Mary Travers in NY when we both were working on the same feminist committee for International Woman's Year. We were at a fund-raising house party on 5th Avenue hosted by some really wealthy women. We were both hiding in the coat room from too many intense women in one place. We talked for quite a while. She was quite shy, soft spoken, very striking and tall.
Another one of those encounters where we promise to keep in touch but then we never do. She used her talent to help others.

Thank you Mary.

Cottage in the rain.

I've been off line for a while at the cottage. It rained for the full week with Maya having one swim and me wimping out in the shower. If this had been 15 years ago, the only bathing option was the lake and we were much hardier for it. I miss those roughing it days because I was fit enough to enjoy the experience. That all changed with the stroke.

The stroke robbed me of my coordination, balance, strength and self confidence. Now I trip over uneven ground, I need a ladder to get out of the water, I can't get in and out of the canoe easily, but I can paint, take photos and walk. I still swim well and the added body fat has improved my already formidable floating ability. It's true, I float like an air mattress without needing an air mattress. It's quite remarkable really.

Maya and I took our three cats (the cousins) to the cottage together. It was their first cottage experience and to say they enjoyed it, is putting it mildly. They had a party after their initial nervousness passed. Inside and out the kitty train was always in motion. Mousing involved Willy catching the mouse and carrying it in his mouth round and round the house, followed by Twee and Choco bringing up the rear with a perplexed expression on his face - huh "what's going on. I better run to catch up". Then there were the many nights of passionate sex for Willy. The object of his affection was big fluffy Twee who was not impressed. All the cats are neutered but they do still have erotic moments usually with fluffy sweaters, towels, cushions and to Willy Twee is the best cushion ever. As mentioned above, Twee was not impressed. Outside, Choco came into his own. Normally he's a follower and timid, but outside he assumed an adventurous and brave personality. Willy was much less crazy than I had expected and actually stayed close to home.

Maya worked on her dissertation, I read and puttered as always. Many good games of scrabble were enjoyed on the rainy evenings - many rainy evenings. I was attacked by chiggers who stealthily bit me without my noticing until the bites started to itch. I got to enjoy yet another novel experience up there. Each year something happens that leaves me asking "what the...?"

Nevertheless we had fun together and it was worth it. We have so little time to be together these days. Next week I'm going back alone with Willy for the rest of August. Let's hope I'll see some sun. So I'll be off line again. See you in September.

Snippet Song Book

In an earlier post I talked about my grandmother's really "old" oldies that became snippets of songs in my memory. So that the snippets continue to be sung I bequeath to Maya and Tracy the following lyrics. I can't write the tunes, alas.

1. Always In the Way

Please mister take me in your car
I want to see Mama.
They say she is in heaven,
is that very, very far?

My new Mama is very cross and
she does frown and say - you're always in the way.
My old Mama would never say, your always in the was.

Please mister take me in your car
I want to see Mama.
They say she is in heaven,
is it very, very far?


2. Dinner for One

Dinner for one please James.
Madam will not be dining.
Yes, you may bring the wine in.
Dinner for one please James.


3. Rubber Dolly

My mother told me
that she would buy me
a rubber dolly, if I were good.

But when I told her
I'd love a soldier,
She wouldn't buy me that rubber dolly.

4. My Bonnie

My Bonnie lies over the ocean.
My Bonnie lies over the sea.
My Bonnie lies over the ocean,
Oh bring back my Bonnie to me.

Bring back, bring back,
oh bring back my Bonnie to me, to me.
Bring back my Bonnie to me.

5. A Bicycle Built for Two

Daisy, Daisy give me your answer do.
I'm half crazy over the love of you.

It won't be a stylish marriage.
I can't afford a carriage.

But you'll look sweet upon the seat
Of a bicycle built for two.

6. Katie

K-k-k Katie, you know I love you.
You're the only g-g-g- girl that I adore.

When the m-m-m moon shines over the cowshed,
I'll be waiting at the k-k-k-kitchen door.

7. A Bird in a Gilded Cage (I had forgotten these snippets, but thanks to Nora Kerr here it is).

(Arthur J. Lamb and Harry Von Tilzer)

The ballroom was filled with fashion's throng,
It shone with a thousand lights;
And there was a woman who passed along,
The fairest of all the sights.
A girl to her lover then softly sighed,
"There's riches at her command."
"But she married for wealth, not for love," he cried!
"Though she lives in a mansion grand."

cho: "She's only a bird in a gilded cage,
    A beautiful sight to see.
    You may think she's happy and free from care,
    She's not, though she seems to be.
    'Tis sad when you think of her wasted life
    For youth cannot mate with age;
    And her beauty was sold for an old man's gold,
    She's a bird in a gilded cage."

I stood in a churchyard just at eve,
When sunset adorned the west;
And looked at the people who'd come to grieve
For loved ones now laid at rcst.
A tall marble monument marked the grave
Of one who'd been fashion's queen;
And I thought, "She is happier here at rest,
Than to have people say when seen: "

RC

Add to Grandma's repertoire, the songs of Vera Lynn and some hymns like The Old Rugged Cross, and you get a good picture of my beloved grandma singing away as she did her chores followed around the house by her adoring grandchild.

How could anyone have been so lucky to have had not one, but two really interesting and loving grandmothers.

Dark side/bright side -

There was a dark side to all this familial bliss. My grandfather had a cruel streak that he would unleash on the unsuspecting and the innocent, like using a six year old to mock her own father's language or rounding up the grand kids to witness him brutally beating a porcupine to death. We were appalled and fascinated by the execution. What had the poor porcupine done? It wandered into the woodshed. It is a wood eating mammal a little larger than a raccoon. It's a non-aggressive, slow moving vegetarian that defends itself with raised, sharp quills that puncture skin, but not an axe.

Grandpa seemed to enjoy killing things, because I also remember that he tormented and finally killed a large milk snake - a truly beautiful creature. The way Grandpa carried on, the snake was putting everyone in serious danger. Milk snakes are harmless and are a danger to frogs and mice only. Even when I was little, I would think what had the victimized creature done to deserve so much wrath? I never dared ask out loud though. We kids, organized a nice funeral service for the deceased snake, with Hildie (Hildebrand) Guerrin, the only Catholic among us, conducting a solemn mass.

I was seven and learning how to swim. It was slow going because I preferred playing in the water to practicing swim strokes. A deal was struck, if I learned to swim by August, Mom would take me to see the movie "The Yearling". I really got serious about my swimming then because I badly wanted to see that movie. It was about a boy who raised a faun from the wild. Oh bliss - I wanted to hand raise a deer and dreamed about it all the time. I was making progress at the Dog-paddle when Grandpa decided to accelerate the learning. He threw me off the dock and then held me underwater to show me I could survive. I bobbed up to the surface in terror, when he did it again. My grandmother was furious. I remember her calling "leave the child alone" and "you're scaring her". I don't remember what my mother was doing but he did stop "toughening me up". Swimming practice ended abruptly and I didn't learn to swim till the following summer.
I didn't see "The Yearling" in August either. I did learn that life isn't fair.

My mother's kid brother Ken was my hero. He was in his early twenties, drove a coupe with a rumble seat and paddled a canoe. He worked days in Ottawa as an architectural draftsman in his brother Watson's firm. He drove home to the lake in the evenings and would take the canoe out for a paddle after supper. I admired everything he did and wanted to be just like him. Ken knew a whole lot about wildlife and birds. He would paddle into the back bays to observe and photograph the swamp life behind Davie's Island.

I desperately wanted to go with him so I helped him load the canoe, hold the bow and never never begged him. I was smart enough to know that a nuisance is not taken anywhere. Sometimes on weekends, he would look at my eager face and say "you can come if you sit still and be quiet". Oh bliss I was going on his adventure. Ken never knew until years later, what a positive influence he had on my life. Every iota of information he passed on I absorbed like a sponge and I became a naturalist like him. We talk now and compare our observations. We support the same organizations and read the same conservation literature. Had he not been kind enough to share his observations and explain what he saw, my interests today might have been very different. His respect for and enjoyment of nature has been handed down through me to Maya.

Ma this is my lake...

Can you imagine a grown woman pretending she didn't smoke because her father didn't approve of women smoking? Why would a mother become more severe with her child in the presence of her father? For that matter, why would my mother persist in bringing her family into the bosom of her family to be trivialized by her father?

I spent each summer with my mother at the family cottage on Meech Lake. Don't get me wrong, I adored the place and had an amazing time but my mom must have been under constant stress, trying to keep me out of Grandpa's way. I was happy to be invisible, it meant I could play for hours in the vast expanses of outdoor adventure. My grandmother really was the centre of life in every way. Weekends my cousins Janice and Julie would arrive and each summer Janice came to stay for a week or two to play with me. It was a charmed life for a kid in the days when we were sent out to play with little supervision. That's how we learned what we could do and what the world was about. We were given ground rules and heaven help us if we broke them. Janice, who was partially blind with an over protective mother, remembers her weeks at the cottage with me, as the happiest times in her childhood. She was free to learn her own limits as she discovered untold strengths.

Grandma was an amazing cook who baked and cooked on a wood stove with a warming oven and towel drying rack over the stove. The meals that came out of that kitchen were unforgettably wonderful. There was no fridge at that time, just an ice box. Once a week we went in the old sedan to buy blocks of ice. I loved to go because the ice house had a sawdust floor and was so cool on a hot day. Grocery shopping in the Old Chelsea General Store was always concluded with a double dip ice cream cone - the best ice cream ever. On the return trip to the cottage, when we rounded the bend a got our first glimpse of the lake, Grandma would slap Mom's knee and say "Ma this is my lake". I still get shivers when I remember it. We loved Meech Lake that much.

Many mornings Mom and I would go berry picking to supply the fruit for delicious pies. I always had a small turnover of my own which Grandma made from the leftover pastry and fruit. There is nothing so comforting as walking into a house filled with the aromas of freshly baked pies, six at a time, cooling on the shelf above the stove. Lunches would just appear on the big family table in the screened veranda. Dinners were always warm and tasty, but breakfast was my most memorable meal. It never occurred to me then that my dear Grandma worked like a lumber camp cook and considered it normal. We all thought it was normal.

My dad would arrive for his two week vacation and help do the major construction projects my grandfather saved for his arrival. My father was a "good worker" so he played a big role in constructing a new dock, repairing the boathouse, stacking wood etc. Apparently the Balharrie sons were too fragile to help their father. Ken lived at home but had a lung problem. Watson was up with his family every weekend but suffered from asthma so couldn't do heavy labour. Hence, by default, my father was the heavy lifter on all major projects. He paid for my summer vacations with sweat, but I believe he enjoyed having a role to play.

His secondary role was to play straight man to my grandpa's comedian. Each breakfast, went like this, Grandpa would ask me "how do you say orange juice (or whatever) in Dutch?" I would translate and Dad would unwittingly collude by repeating it. Then Grandpa would laugh heartily at our funny language. It didn't take this six year old long to understand that Dutch was a dumb language and English was better. Harmless fun? Not really, not for my father, but nobody realized it except my grandmother who would attempt to change the subject. Bless her, it never worked.

Recollecting these memories now, I see why my mother kept taking us back despite her father's controlling antics. The pull of life at the cottage was too important after years of war and deprivation. She took the brunt of his negativity, but she was home and wanted us to share it with her. It was a trade off she was prepared to make. In the end, I'm truly grateful she did.

Allie and Black Beauty

Grandpa Jimmy was a patriarch in the true sense. He ruled the family with a resolute and unwavering authority. His sons were important to him but his daughter, not so much. Women were useful to his comfort and well being but didn't count. It was his misfortune to have only granddaughters - six in total. Not one of us could carry on the Balharrie name, so we were of little value. He was a Mason and truth be known, also a closet Orangeman. I learned many lessons from him such as the perfideousness of Catholicism, and Jews were not to be trusted. People of colour were never discussed because they didn't exist in his world. Where my grandmother was compassionate, he was hard. Where she was flexible, Grandpa was unbending and where Grandma had an open mind, his was closed. But his values ruled.

I was afraid of him. So was everyone else in the family. Still, I have fond recollections of him telling me stories. Every morning after breakfast we would retire to the sun room where he smoked and told me a long continuous saga about Black beauty and cousin Allie. Alie was a mentally unbalanced relative who wore a Coca Cola carton as a hat in real life but led the life of Don Quixote with his trusty horse Black Beauty in the story. Each day there was another chapter. Needless to say, mornings with Grandpa were exciting. This lasted the six months I lived in that house. Once we moved out it was over and I never recaptured that intimacy with him again.

I was for that brief time, the child of his daughter whom he thought had died in the war. We returned and his relief translated into tenderness for a little while. After that, I was tolerated but never accepted. I was a foriegner, the child of a foreigner who his daughter had regrettably married. Watson was his favourite and he showed it. My mother felt it so acutely that she was always striving for his approval. She was a grown woman ever anxious and always disappointed. He went to his grave withholding his approval. Once he was gone, my mother relaxed.

Winky #2 - The Balharries

Let me preface this entry by saying that none of the following comes from my own experience. I didn't know the Ottawa relatives until I was brought into their orbit on an airplane at age six. I don't remember the names of the relatives nor do I remember their children. I was a foreigner in that family. I never stopped feeling foreign in their midst. I did have a sense of belonging with my grandmother, whose love embraced me. My Uncle Ken filled me with awe and wonder. He took time to show me the natural world and he was young enough to be approachable.

Winky#2 Was a beautiful grey, Persian tabby cat that my grandma adopted to take my mind off the Winky we left in Holland. Since we were living in Ottawa at my grandparents house after our arrival, Winky #2 was moved in as a kitten. He immediately adored Grandma and ignored me. He became her cat. Though cute, he certainly couldn't replace my Dutch Winky. It was not difficult to leave him behind when my parents moved me to Montreal six months later. The KLM office was operational and my father found us an apartment that had an outside back staircase that I recall liking.

We were not supposed to have pets, but we were soon adopted by a stray, jet black tom we named Ebony. At first he slept in a nice house on the back balcony that my dad made. He came into the house to eat. Eventually, he came in to rest from his tom cat adventures. Ebony had a home and I was happy.

So let me set the stage for my Canadian life, with an introduction to my mother's family - the Balharries. Her grandparents came over from Scotland with three sons and a daughter. They started a modest bakery and shop in Ottawa and as their children grew old enough, they all helped in the business. My mom's father was James (Jimmy) and he was the delivery and counter man. He set out daily with horse and wagon to deliver bread, pies and baked goods to the many households on his route. He had a jovial demeanor and was well liked by his customers.

One customer in particular liked him a lot. She caught his eye, because she was an elegant dark haired beauty who was the daughter of a genteel English widow, poor but with "pretensions" (his words, not mine). Florence Gilchrist had a musical education and was quite well known throughout the Ottawa Valley as a Church soloist. She made a modest wage as a guest soloist, performing in different churches. She was blessed with a rich clear soprano voice and a very poised delivery.

The voice I remember, was no longer so rich and clear. She was much older by the time I entered her life, but she still carried a tune well and loved to sing and play the piano. She had a vast repertoire of really "old" oldies that I would learn to sing with her, like: "Bird in a Gilded Cage", "Dinner for One", "Rubber Dolly", "Always in the Way" and an assortment of popular hymns. To this day I can sing "Jerusalem", "Onward Christian Soldiers", "The Old Rugged Cross" and the"23rd Psalm". Alas, I can only remember snippets of her popular classics which Maya and her friend Tracy fondly called my snippet collection. They made frequent requests to hear my snippets when they were kids. So Grandma remains in the old songs.

My grandfather married my grandmother (even though her family was penniless) and they started a family. The first born was Watson, the wunderkind architect. Next came Florence, nurse and my mother, and "surprise" thirteen years later Ken was born. He had a twin, but his sister Claire didn't survive. He was and continues to be an award winning nature photographer.

Over the years, the family bakeshop had grown into a very large bakery business with many drivers and routes all over Ottawa. By the time I came into their lives, the Balharrie Bakery was a a household word in Ottawa, a huge success as were the Balharrie heirs. My grandfather's older brother Jack was elected Mayor of Ottawa, his sister Jessy married very well and my grandfather and his brother Dave ran the family business. The Balharrie men were Masons and community leaders. Being canny Scots, they were very thrifty and became wealthy. When his father died, Grandpa decided to sell his share in the family business and become a mortgage lender. This permitted him to be home most days to survey his domain and oversee my grandmother.

She, the happy church soloist had abandoned her career because her husband believed her place was in the home. Traveling around the countryside singing in Churches and meeting heaven knows who, was an unnecessary frivolity. So she retired from the sacred music scene, raised her family and modestly remained in the background except during the years my Great Uncle Jack became Mayor in the late thirties. His own wife was homely and painfully shy, so my grandmother was deputized as the official hostess for the Mayor. She loved people and had the style and poise that made her a natural hostess. Even my grandfather had to agree to let her assume the first lady role. So Grandma did get to spend a few years in the limelight, "putting on airs" as my grandpa described it. That was the last opportunity she got to put on airs because she was grounded for good after that. Her hostess skills were directed inward toward family only.

Coming to Canada

Well we're on our way aboard a KLM Turboprop plane on a 14 hour flight to New York with stop overs in Iceland and Preswick, Scotland. I remember the excitement I felt, the little plane toy and the pin depicting pilot's wings I was given by the stewardess. There was a lot of engine noise and vibration that gave my mother a headache. There were brown paper bags for airsickness, a common occurrence then.

Did you know that air passengers received a blanket and a pillow each, that meals were served on real plates with real cutlery and that KLM stewardesses had to be registered nurses to qualify? Those were the early days of trans Atlantic passenger flight. The planes were terrible but the service was excellent. Luggage never was lost.

We were flying to New York because there was no KLM service to Canada yet. That was the point of our moving to Canada. My father was being sent to launch the KLM name in Canada. It was a new beginning for us but also for Canada.

It was early July and extremely hot in New York where we had to wait several hours for a connecting flight to Ottawa. Kennedy Airport was called Idlewild then and was much smaller. I remember having breakfast in a restaurant where my Dad ordered corn flakes which arrived at the table dry, in a bowl, accompanied by a jug of milk. He never dry cereal before so he began spooning up the dry flakes. He was not greatly impressed with this American icon. My mother laughed and set him straight. It tasted better with milk. I tasted my very first Coca Cola. It was fizzy, spicy-sweet and a total surprise in my mouth. It tasted like an other world necter.

We boarded our little plane for Ottawa and continued to vibrate our way to the capital city of Canada. Grandma, Grandpa, my Uncles Ken and Watson were at the tiny airport to meet us when we came down the stairs to the tarmac. Watson filmed our arrival and those black and white frames revealed a happy, skinny kid skipping down the steps followed by two tired, bedraggled and terribly thin parents in ill fitting clothing.

Without the home movie footage, I would have little memory of our arrival. Total strangers were hugging me and passing me from arms to arms. My grandmother and mother were crying and hugging and even my grandfather was emotional, pumping my father's hand. This was my first introduction to my Canadian family. Much later, I understood that until the liberation and the return of those Canadian soldiers who had visited us in Den Haag, my mother's family had no idea whether we were alive or dead. They had received no word from Holland for over three years. Our arrival heralded a return from their worst nightmare.

Moving beyond the war years

I am really impatient to leave the war years and move on with my story, so I'm compressing the last year 45 and 46 into one significant event. In 1946 my parents moved me to Canada. My Mom was going home and my Dad was returning to the country he loved. I didn't have much to say about it. I was six. I had been well prepared to accept the move from all the wonderful stories my dad had made up about Canada. I knew we were going to a special place.

My father was returning to the country he was forced to leave years earlier. Only now he was returning not as a farm labourer, but as the first representative for KLM Airlines in Canada. He was assigned the responsibility of opening and effectively launching the Canadian KLM air service. International air travel was going to be a big thing and KLM wanted to be in on the ground floor. My father, with his past Canadian experience, his Canadian wife, and his performance record during the occupation was the logical choice to head up this branch operation. A couple of years later he requested that his good friend Gert van den Steenhoven be sent to Canada to assist him. Thus my Oom Steen arrived back in our lives in Canada.

On reflection now, as an adult, I realize that our departure must have been a very sad blow for my dear Dutch family. It meant the tearing apart of a closely knit unit that had supported and helped each other survive during some of the worst years in Dutch history. Oma would no longer play an important role in the development of her only grandchild and my Tantes, the teachers, would not play any role in my education.

On departure day, I was upset because Winky would not be coming with us. Since my birth Winky was part of my life. That cat and I had become inseparable and leaving him broke my heart. I was inconsolable. While the adults bade each other tearful farewells before the ride to the airport, I was in a corner hugging and kissing my cat.

Arrangements had been made for Winky to live out his life at a friend's home in the country where he would be able to go outside and hunt to his heart's content. Later letters told us that Winky had indeed settled well into country life and that he lived to the ripe old age of sixteen.
He was a true survivor.

My grief was soon forgotten in the excitement of a plane trip. At six, I was quickly swept up in all the new adventures. The tearful goodbyes were quickly forgotten and I was into a new chapter of life. Children are virtuosos at living in the moment and I was no exception.

Back to now - Willy and Tomson Highway

Yes the cat currently sharing my home is a two year old, brown, tiger striped bundle of mischief called Willy. Willy is a very bright, funny and talkative cat that brings laughter to my life. I'm writing about him to identify this entry as an up to the minute description of events that are drawn from my past.

I'm now in the final stages of my second sculpture from the mourning series. The first, "Grief" was finished last week and I'm nearing the end of he second in the series "Grief and Comfort". These two sculptures are small versions of the life sized pieces I did back in the sixties. When I told Julie about making them again in miniature, she was very still for a moment and then said "oh Claire I'm so glad, it's like spitting in Alfie's eye". I was so surprised by the happy vehemence in her voice, I whooped with laughter. So unlike Julie to be bitchy.

Later Freya and I went to Market Hall to see Tomson Highway and Patty Cannu in a Cabaret performance of songs from Thomson's plays. It went back to the The Rez Sisters and through to Rose the last in the series to date. Did tonight's marvellous performance ever take me back to the late eighties and early nineties - happy days at The Native Canadian Center in Toronto studying Ojibwa language and culture. I met Tomson when he was Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts, and I saw all his plays at the little theatre in The Native Canadian Center. He was a young struggling playwright then and I was newly assigned to develop strategies for communicating and consulting with Aboriginal communities for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. I knew very little about First Nations issues and even less about Aboriginal cultures but I was very keen to learn. I saw this assignment as an opportunity to learn and make a positive contribution. It was also a huge challenge.

One day, I had lunch with a board director from Native Earth who was bemoaning the financial shortfall between the grants they received and the actual cost to send the Native Earth cast and crew to Edinburgh. Native Earth Performing Arts had been invited to bring the Rez Sisters to the Edinburgh Festival in 1991. A very big honour and coup was endangered for the lack of $30,000. Before I knew what was happening, I heard my voice saying "I'll raise that money for you".

I struck a committee of Junior League doers to raise the money. We had three months to accomplish this. We needed to meet every few weeks take stock. I was so firmly convinced by the merits of sending an Aboriginal Canadian theatre company to Edinburgh, that I was convinced we would have no trouble raising the funds needed. Well, I was wrong. I met prejudice against "Indians" head on in the highest corporate offices. In the end, we only raised about $6,000 in cash and the rest by in-kind donations, such as Air Canada shipping all the sets, props and luggage free if the cast flew Air Canada. Since they had to fly anyway, this was a huge help. These in-kind donations really worked out well in the end, but I became very discouraged. Companies like Beaver Canoe and Roots that identified themselves with all things Canadian and natural, had no interest in helping an indigenous Canadian theater group go to an internationally recognized arts festival. Beaver Canoe's imagination only extended so far as wanting to hire some dancers and drummers to perform at the opening of a new store. I was close to banging my head against a door in frustration.

Well, in spite of all that, they got to Edinburgh, and I got to know Tomson through those awful fundraising meetings at my house. He would arrive and quietly seat himself next to the refreshments while we droned on about shortfalls, corporate presentations, and targets. Every so often we asked him a direct question about technical requirements, cast needs etc. He would answer and quietly eat all the refreshments, then rise and slip away. He always walked downtown form my North Toronto home. He didn't take the bus. It was hard to equate this quiet shy man with the clever, whimsical and multi-talented performer on stage. This was shortly before the time that Tompson lost his incredibly gifted brother Rene to HIV/Aids.

Tonight I had the opportunity to meet Tomson again after the show. He didn't immediately recognize me asking, "are you Swedish?" No Dutch, I replied. He said, "what's your name?" I told him and his face crinkled into a huge smile followed by an even bigger hug. He turned to another woman standing with us and said "Claire helped us get to Edinburgh". The woman was one of the original cast that went with The Rez Sisters to Edinburgh. She hugged me too and I basked in the warmth of recollected moments before we started comparing how old we all are now and how fatiguing it is holding our stomachs in - all very funny and good natured.

The performance was brilliant, moving and sooo professional. The meeting was genuine warmth and totally goofy. I had a wonderful evening and came away so glad to be alive. Freya had a great time too.

The irony is that I didn't contribute much to understanding Aboriginal culture while in the government, but it seems I did contribute to the success of Aboriginal theatre in my corner of the world.

The Canadians are coming...

Liberation and the end of the war in Europe brought many changes to my young life. I was allowed outside to play with other children on my street. I learned very quickly that playing freely with children my age was a lot of fun. There were games of hide-and-seek, and jump rope with lots of laughter. At the age of five I discovered a childhood social life.

My mother was happy too. As the liberation was drawing nigh, my mother was feverishly sewing. She had managed to collect enough red, white and blue cloth to sew together a Canadian Union Jack to hang out of our window. She was sending a message to the Canadian liberators that said "WELCOME and THANK YOU! The Canadians liberated Holland and within their numbers were many young men from the Ottawa area that either knew of my mom or were told to look her up by friends and relations. Canadian soldiers were turning up regularly to visit, sleep over, have a meal (that they provisioned from their rations) and generally check up to see if Florence and her family needed anything and were were OK.

One day, as I was playing with other children, a Canadian soldier walked up and asked in English
"Does anybody know where the Hogenkamp family lives?" He said he had little hope of anyone understanding but asked anyway. A small voice in the group piped up in perfect English, "I do, that's my house". He was Uncle Jimmy (I suddenly had a lot of Canadian uncles) a second cousin from the Ottawa valley. He offered candy bars to all the children, but they refused to take them. We had been so indoctrinated to refuse anything offered by a soldier during the occupation, that when the Canadians first arrived, we wouldn't take stuff from those soldiers either. I turned to my playmates and in perfect Dutch I told them it was OK to accept treats from this soldier. He was so impressed that when he went back to the Ottawa valley, the bilingual exchange became part of family folklore.

Through these visiting servicemen, my mother's family learned we had survived and were well.
They had not received a letter or heard a word about us for three years. They were overjoyed to discover we were still alive. Visits from these wonderful Canadians brought food, laughter and a lot of English conversation into our home. I don't know how long these Canadian visits continued, or how many there were but I do remember that time as very happy. My parents were light hearted and very merry around the house. It was a good time for us all.