Just Another Word -

part one:

Freedom came to him like Cohen’s bird on a wire. He feared the wire he balanced his fragile existence upon would clip his wings as he slept one night and he would never fly again. The wind could come at any moment and carry him to his death below. Freedom was a fickle gift anyway. He skirted his way through passengers to the car door and tried to remember that sign he’d seen in a photo of a Nazi concentration camp. Arbeit macht frei. Yes, he thought, that was it. Self-sacrifice would bring them freedom.

Illaam ran up the subway exit to Bloor Street looking up and down the crowded flurry of Monday morning pedestrians; everyone had somewhere so important to get to that elbowing him for space was par for the course. For a moment he forgot his destination and his heart began to beat rapidly. Destination, from Destin, French for fate. He tried taking a deep breath but only gasped on the damp foggy diesel scent of the city. It didn’t smell like his city, the one he had known as a boy. But this wasn’t the time for reminiscing – he had to find his way to Station D51.

Monsieur Eric a dix-huit mois!

Bonne journée, mon petit...
et milles bisous !!!!!

Undetermined creations
Her words are shapes on white paper:
The space is well used, he says.

My Mother

by Ruth Travis, 1974

My mother never bought herself pretty dresses or wore lipstick like everyone else’s mother. I didn’t think to ask her why back then though I was almost shamefully aware of her absences. You know, those things that make a woman look like a woman, and, presumably feel like one too.

On the television commercials, they showed the woman checking on dinner in the oven, tossing off her apron and dashing to the nearest mirror to fix her hair and apply an extra coat of ruby red lipstick. Then she somehow magically arrived at the door just as her husband climbed that last step of their front stoop, looking like he had been to war and back. After kissing him, a gleeful smile on her lips – she was so very pleased to witness his safe return home from the office, I suppose? – the woman would loosen his tie, lift his feet onto the ottoman, provided him with the daily newspaper and a refreshing cold glass of something or other.

My mother was not that woman, not by a long shot! There were no greetings at the door and a home-made meal was not always on the menu. When my father arrived from the university were he taught biology, he often greeted my mother in the kitchen or wherever else she might have been keeping herself. More often than not, she was helping my brother and me with our homework, papers strewn about the dining room table. She seemed pleased enough to see him, but her hair was usually pretty mussed up and x-nay on the ruby red lips.

When I was in grade school, I hated that she wasn’t like that woman on television. And I felt so embarrassed when bumping into my father’s fellow professors during our weekly excursion to the supermarket, which mom would ask me help her with. Worse than these important men (so I thought them to be then), were their wives, all smiles and wearing that healthy glow of makeup, not a hair out of place. I knew nothing about the wonders of hairspray yet. I wanted to say, “Gosh, mom...that was the university dean, dad’s boss! Couldn’t you...?”

But I didn’t. I kept my resentment to myself, out of respect – my parents had taught me well about respect. Besides, I didn’t want to come off as just another goof-ball in this strange family of mine, so I remained quiet. Except for this one time...

It was my first school dance. Grade seven. Now that I was in middle school, we were allowed to have chaperoned dances. There was this boy, Walter, that I really liked and I was hoping he’d find out that night, during girl’s choice.

It didn’t really bother me that my mother had been asked to chaperone, not at first anyway. When I saw Walter walking towards me, my heart stopped and I couldn’t feel my legs. I mean, I could have sworn they’d been cut off at the hips when I wasn’t paying attention. And that was when I saw mother walking towards me. She reached me before Walter did, her face damp with sweat in the over-heated gymnasium, her hair all out of sorts, and, wearing pants. She smiled and said, “Are you having fun, Ruth?”

She knew it was shame that had me run out of that gym just as Walter’s lips opened to say something to me. She never said anything but I knew that she knew. I never apologized either. Why should I? I really truly was embarrassed and wondered how this woman could possibly be my mother. How did father stand it?

She looked sad for days after that dance. Even so, she smiled as we passed each other and said how nice that Walter boy seemed and had I spoken to him at school that day. I didn’t tell her that Walter and I had in fact talked and had hardly stopped speaking since the day after the dance. I wanted to hurt her, I suppose. I wanted her to know without actually telling her that she was an embarrassment to me, and most likely to dad too.

That was eleven years ago, just a silly thirteen year old girl with so much to learn about life. I do not have the same life now, mostly thanks to what my mother taught me. It turns out I was wrong about those women on television, and about how things are rarely what they seem to be. I was wrong about how dad saw her too, and came to realize over the years just how beautiful she is in his eyes.

Everything changed for me two weeks after the school dance. I overheard a conversation between my mother and her long ago friend I had never met nor heard of until that night. Barbara - That was her name. She had stopped over in Mississauga on her way to some important meeting with some important people. She had apparently chosen to remain single and commit her life to being in charge of this organization. I can’t remember which one now. I had heard of women like her but I’d never met one before that day.

“Do you ever regret, Jean?”

“Of course not,” my mother replied. What was there to regret, I wondered.

“Jean...It’s me, Babs. The two of us were like sisters back then. You can tell me...what is marriage like?”

“Oh you know...It isn’t perfect, and...well, there are times I feel a bit boxed in. But Peter has been a good husband and I’ve never stopped loving him.”

“And?”

My mother hesitated before going on, “And sometimes I am jealous of the research work Peter took over when I left the biology department. I miss feeling I am making a difference that affects mankind instead of trying so hard and never knowing whether what I do in this house makes any difference at all.”

She stood then, no longer looking like the woman I knew only as my mother until that night. “I do so love Peter, Barbara, and I’m so fortunate to be a mother.” Seeing her friend’s face wrinkle up, she turned and looked at her. “Babs! I’m not just saying this for your sake. It’s a good life, Barbara, really it is. "

“My only hope is that I’ll raise my children right and that someday my daughter will live in a world that allows her to do any of the things her heart desires, and that she won’t have to choose between a career and marriage and motherhood.”

Leaning against the other side of that living room wall, eavesdropping on what I knew my mother never meant for me to hear, I felt my hair stand on end at knowing what my mother had given up for me.

That was the day I discovered the beauty that is my mother.

Happy Anniversary to Me!

October 19th has become a day of celebration for me. You see, it’s the day I jumped off a bridge. Not an actual one - It was of the metaphorical kind - but I suspect it took the same amount of momentum and courage to dive. It was a cold, cloudy, rainy day three years ago, and the water was cold also, but only on impact. October 19, 2004, I stood alone on a bridge that would forever divide my life into before and after.

I had checked out the ‘other’ life in 2003, volunteering for a lay-off from a corporation I had dedicated most of my life to. And after passing by a 2”x 4” cardboard thingy pasted on my refrigerator door every day for a year, I finally stopped and answered its question:

If you knew you
could not fail, what
would you attempt?
KOBI YAMADA

Within 24hours, my networking led to making music again, and I didn’t stop singing until the day of my return to the corporation, whose name I still can’t get myself to put on paper, the inflictor of so much neglect and lack of appreciation, and, dare I say, abuse. A few months later I found my way to the door.

I signed their papers about media secrecy and a promise to never return. There was no thank-you, no gold watch. They took my security card away and I walked out one last time.


I gave up a ‘job’. I gave up a good wage. Faced with poverty, I gave up smoking, steak and the crisp scent of new books to add to my library.

I found freedom, and I gained me. Every day brought with it newly discovered skills, talents, passions and joy. And so, to those old cronies of mine who may stumble upon my blog and wonder if I’ve ever regretted, even for a moment...the answer is no. The 19th of October is so very important to me because it is the day I listened to my heart and concluded that what it had to say was more important than anything I’d ever heard before that day. It was the day I said YES!

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards:
they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do
more of what they want so that they will be happier.
the way it actually works is the reverse.
you must first be who you are, then, do
what you need to do,
in order to have what you want.
MARGARET YOUNG

BROKEN: ONE

Marjolaine Hébert

October Haiku

the sky drops the moon;
through barren fall trees i am
blinded by the cold.

about A man - La muerte de un hombre

la última parte:

El viejo don que leía novelas de amor volvería en casa. Se acostaría, cerraría sus ojos y soñará despierto de la señorita Aldonza. Tan claro su destino difunto detrás de sus párpados...
"¡Oh! mi querida amor perdida." Y oímos un grito último en la noche...
"¡Ojála!"

...buenas noches, Quixano...

nude no. 3

marjolaine hébert

about A man

part five: ROMAN D'AMOUR

Accoudé à la fenêtre
Toute grande ouverte, je
Fais face à la journée dans
L'obscurité. J'allume la télé
La pluie m'entoure
Et toi - tu lit ton roman d'amour.

Le café est prêt
J'entends le chien glapir
Entouré de bruit, c'est le silence
Qui m'envahit.
J'ai besoin d'amour comme dans les pages
De ton livre
Mais tu ne lève pas les yeux
Tu ne fait aucun bruit.

Caught hangin' around this morning...

__________________________________________

TO: my fellow writers, about A man

It is clear by now that Don Quixote and its many authors (all of whom are embodied in one Miguel de Cervantes), is much on my mind this week. The reason for this is known only to myself and the antagonist of these fragmented passages of mine, although A man will likely never view them. And to those of you who are familiar with the don know that even if he did, this man's likeness being so similar to the don's, he would of course not see himself in these words, would he?

Tonight, while reading Cervantes's words from prison (written nearly 500 years ago), my thoughts are with my writers group as I anticipate our first autumnal meeting and what novel things we might discover of ourselves...

...and what, then,could this sterile, ill-tilled wit of mine beget but the story of a dry, shrivelled, whimsical offspring, full of thoughts of all sorts and such as never came into any other imagination--just what might be begotten in a prison, where every misery is lodged and every doleful sound makes its dwelling?

This from the man who wrote what is considered to be the best work ever written, a true homage to the novel. Perhaps it is his want of truth and his unapologetic use of imagination that makes it so beloved to the reader (the one belonging to the 16th century as much as to the reader of this century).

Words of the imagination are the most useful and entertaining, the nearer they approach the truth, and the more probability they contain; and, even history is valued according to its truth and authenticity.
(2,62)

You now wonder to the purpose of my words. I think it is this... that as we gather to share our stories next week, we need to remember that our stories are our own. They have never, nor will they ever, belong to another. We are verily the author of the stories we write -fiction & non-fiction alike - and the owner of our imaginations as certainly as we are the owner of our lives.

when we are really honest

with ourselves

we must admit our lives

are all that really belong to us.

CEASAR CHAVEZ

about A man

La cuarta parte:

Upon seeing the fair maiden frolicking in the fields, the knight restrains his white horse. She holds a lilac in her hand and she smiles to the stranger who soon removes his mask. A flicker of remembrance comes upon her and she says, You are Quixano!

The enamoured knight bows to the lovely lady and bestowing her with a perfectly ripened pear proclaims, You are mistaken, my princess! I am the Don Quixote.

She takes a bite of the fine fleshy fruit, savouring its sweet nectar. Oh, but I am not a princess, she corrects him and extends the pear to the kind man to taste.

But...Are you not Dulcinea?
My name is Aldonza, Sir.

The knight-errant mounts his nag and dashes off through the field without a farewell. Thus abandoned the lady holds sorrow in her heart for the quixotic little man who gave her a perfect pear.

**********

about A man

troisième partie:

So certain was he of her reciprocal adoration that when she greeted him with less than a smile that day, his balls retreated so deep within him that he attempted sending out a search party, to no avail. He was wrong – why couldn’t he see that? He was, after all, the one who had gifted her with a copy of Saramago’s “Blindness”? What he deemed behaviour worthy of her affection, she experienced as the dance of the man-child demanding devotion.

**********

about A man

deuxième partie:

The gentleman was chivalry personified that evening he whisked her off to a French bistro in the village. The air was warm, the Moules au Pernod, delightful, the Australian Cabernet fruity and full-bodied. The promise of a second date was on the horizon when, without warning, this very same ‘gentleman’, after having consumed 2 ½ glasses of the wine, had become an egregious ass, a blatant buffoon of bad behaviour! With a few eloquent lies she made her escape, confused and disappointed and disheartened, swearing she was now officially celibate. Yes, the walk home that night was a long and lonely one, but the stars in that summer sky? She was so grateful for those stars…

**********

object word: egregious

about A man

première partie:

Oh gallant solitary knight, he who sits upon his sleek white horse, should you not now be dashing off to save your fair maiden true? The lady dances in fields of French blue lilacs, her smooth, sleek virgin body layered in white silk ribbons, baby’s breath wrapped round and round her golden locks, one salty tear caresses her cheek as she awaits your rescue. Go, now! Be quick!! But if you might indulge me a moment kind Sir, oh worthy valiant warrior… what shall you propound your pretty prancing princess?

**********

object word: knight