Two Spirits

Glory be to God for dappled things!  — Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Pied Beauty”.

In my short career as bloggist, whenever I’ve received a comment, I’ve gone to check out the commenter’s blog. This past week I had two blogs to investigate. Both were written by men, and both have a certain bluntness to them, but the similarities pretty much end there. It was a sheep-and-goat experience for me, to retain one blogger’s comment (and therefore his link) and to delete the other.

The zapped blogger sent me to a page which made me think he hadn’t seen enough of my writing to notice that I’m an Irish-descended queer from the colonies. Breathtakingly offensive. But enough of him.

The other blogger…man, this guy works hard! Urban Observation’s  stuff is gritty and honest and courageously personal. From the few pages I dipped into, I learned that he’s an American of African descent who grew up in the Bronx ghetto. He studied well enough to land a decent office job when he grew up. For his pains, he’s been labelled an “Oreo”, a traitor to his race. And yet — if I got this right — he’s come home to his neighbourhood, the ghetto from which he had always been encouraged to escape.

Let’s see, get out the books on myths and archetypes, flip-flip-flip, protagonist leaves ordinary world, goes to other world, returns with increased wisdom to own world, that makes him… a hero.

An earlier entry of mine, in which I explained how my pets got their names, was called “Adam’s First Task”. Long before Adam became a dirt farmer and sweaty baker, his first job was to name all the animals. Naming is fundamental to human language, which in turn is fundamental to human interaction. A string of letters becomes a word only by consensus, which means that at least two people must agree on its meaning. Unfortunately — ironically? — to define a word is also to limit it.

Apparently, to some of Urban Observation’s acquaintances, the meaning of “black” doesn’t include “decently-paid office worker”. A South-east Asian classmate of mine referred to her husband as a “banana”, which is the Asian equivalent of an Oreo. Most, if not all, lesbigay Christians have had the experience of other people believing that “queer Christian” is an oxymoron. And on it goes, with language, the tool that should increase the human capacity for love and acceptance, being used instead as a weapon to tamp us into restrictive little boxes and jab us with narrow pointy sticks.

Once upon a time, certain tribes preferred two-spirited people — those who had an innate understanding of both masculine and feminine ways of being — to be their shamans. They were the holy men and women, the unusual ones, the ones who had visited two worlds.

I need to rush off to work now, but I will leave the final word to a Cardigan Welsh Corgi whose wisdom I missed the first time around: Checkers suggested, during the “Name-and-genderize-the-sea-turtle-stuffy” contest, that the turtle’s gender should be green.

First-Class Behaviour

(By the way, note the end of the Leslie Street Spit curving out from the upper lefthand corner.)

I have a friend for whom the romance of travelling to far climes died out years ago. While he still enjoys vacationing overseas with his wife, Robert must frequently fly to Hong Kong or Thailand or Mumbai or Rome or Frankfurt or even Wisconsin on business. He has seen all sorts of shenanigans from all sorts of passengers on all lengths of flight in his time. Destinations? Terrific! Travelling? Terrible!

I thought I would share this little tale of the type of nonsense Robert has witnessed. The incident reminded me of a psychology prof’s warning that as we age, we don’t necessarily become better or worse, we simply become more the way we are.

All passengers were aboard the plane bound for Europe, but its takeoff was delayed for an hour. During this lull, an older woman in first class told one of the flight attendants that she had dropped her book.

Normally a dropped book would not present a great deal of trouble, but this woman’s seat was one of those newfangled pods down the side of which a slim object might disappear, never to re-emerge. The flight attendant apologized for the loss. The passenger, a doctor, did not accept the apology, but insisted on having the book retrieved; she was almost finished reading it, she said, and needed to learn its conclusion.

The space into which the book had disappeared was too narrow to insert an arm. Since the plane was still docked, the flight attendant slipped out onto the boarding bridge and returned with a cornbroom. She explained to anyone listening in first class — and they all were — that luckily one of the other personnel had ridden her broom to work that day.

Although the broom handle was narrow enough to reach the book, all it could do was bump against it. How to get some leverage? Away went the flight attendant to the bridge again, hoping for more inspiration. She found it, in the shape of a large white metal crank, used to manoeuver the accordion-canopy should the bridge control equipment malfunction. “We’ve got the pilot’s white cane now,” she smiled. “Let’s see if this will help.” Handing the crank to a co-worker, she picked up the cornbroom so that the two of them could work the implements like a giant pair of chopsticks.

Meanwhile, word had gotten out as to what book the doctor had lost. Since there was still plenty of time to kill, a third flight attendant made an announcement to the entire plane: “If anyone is carrying a copy of Robert Ludlum’s Road to Gandolfo, or has read it, could you please speak to one of the attendants.” This request proved popular, with many passengers offering up copies of one or another of Mr. Ludlum’s 27 novels, or standing ready to explain a plot from memory, but not, alas, of that particular story.

With two servants of the air working together, one with the metal crank and the other with the cornbroom, they were finally able to fish the paperback up through the slot until one of them plucked it out with her fingers. The whole first-class section broke into applause and cheers.

Everyone cheered, that is, except the novel-reading doctor. Grasping the precious rescued reading material, she inquired of the original flight attendant, ”Now, what about the bookmark?”

 

(Wordless Wednesday) The Unbearable Lightness of Cheesies

Laundry List, and a Game

Today, Tuesday, is laundry day. It’s the day Jack goes home to his mum, so the clothing left here for him has all been worn. It’s a day I need to stick around the house, to see Jack to the streetcar and see to him after school. It’s a good day for scrubbing weekend schmattas and ensuring office wear for the week.

As I was sorting the laundry this morning, I was thinking about the term “laundry list” which means a detailed enumeration. I decided that today would be good time, then, to catch up on little bits and pieces here in Blogland, mainly dealing with the delightful laundry list that is my blogroll. So without further ado, and in no particular order:

1. On April 4, Goodbear posted an interview with Seamus, my WWF Sea Turtle Stuffy. Go straight to it, or if you prefer, click on “cody bear’s friends” for compassionate, often hilarious, photos and newslets on her dog Cody and her daily life in general. She is also the mastermind of DOG DAILY PHOTO, excellent impromptu portraits of dogs she meets around town. She has a gift for capturing each pooch’s personality.

2. This past weekend, I wrote two and-a-half entries dealing with  Tommy Thompson Park on the Leslie Street Spit. Themarvelousinnature has volunteered with the Bird Research Station for four or five years now. She has three entries specifically tagged for that topic: February 23, March 31, and April 2. When she isn’t taking superb photos of songbirds, she’s examining pond creatures or cattail stalks or meadow vole runways or black knot — things we’ve seen and wondered about hundreds of times, but never got around to answering our own questions about them. Themarvelousinnature might just have the answer; go check it out.

3. Another interesting post dealing with birds has just gone up on exploratorium. [Note: as of April 21, the name of her blog was changed to "The Unwound Road".] It’s about birds that go bump in the night, and how office-tower managers and ordinary citizens might help prevent the accidental death of migratory birds. At the bottom of her article are all the links you need for further investigation of the topic. Eyegillian researches the current literature and delivers incisive, insightful surveys examining the crossroads of scientific findings and human interactions.

4. I hate to see anybody lose a contest. So when the results of the Name-and-genderize-the-sea-turtle-stuffy contest came in, I invited the six second-place winners to give me a word, and I would write a limerick using it. On my sidebar now is “Turtle’s Latest Limerick“, currently featuring one for Goodbear. I plan to post a new one on every monthday divisible by seven. I’ll also add a page to this blog with all the limericks in one place. So-o-o-o, for those of you who haven’t offered a word yet, please contact me! Eventually I’ll extend more invitations, but for now, the six second-place contest winners get top priority.

5. I’ve written a good deal about Cai, my Cardigan Welsh Corgi. If you need a more consistent Cardi fix, click over to Checkers’ World or the Yasashiikuma blog. One blog specializes in photo essays illustrating comical Cardidom from the dog’s point of view. The other examines all things Cardigan from the breeder’s point of view.

6. If you’re a cat person, or if you just need a good cry, go read The Aged Cat. Her blog’s raison d’etre recently passed away, and she hasn’t written for a couple of weeks now, but what she has posted is brilliant, beautiful, and heartbreaking. She also serendipitously created  the phrase barklove for dog people.

7. Since beginning this blog just over a month ago, I have made some friends in far places. Lately I noticed that two of them, Goodbear and Livingisdetail, comment on each other’s blogs as well as on mine. All three of us are generalists who write on various topics connected with our personal lives. Livingisdetail, for example, posts on everything from drambuie to duckponds to dumptrucks. Since one lives in the American southwest, the other in Melbourne Australia, and I in southern Ontario, I suggested to Livingisdetail that the three of us should get together for coffee in a location central to all of us — like, maybe Morocco. So-o-o-o, I have a GAME for my readers: Think of at least two other bloggers that you would like to get together with over a coffee, a tea, or a pint. (For non-blogging readers, you can choose either bloggers or acquaintances.) Check out a map or a globe. Where would you meet? Bonus question: What would you wanna talk about? Lemme know! No deadline or prize for this game, just something to think about.

 Time to fold the clothes! Thanks for sharing laundry day with me.

Turtlecop! All Three Exciting Episodes! Next!

Although the scarf and helmet might suggest appropriate turtle use, the stirrups are ergonomically  unsuitable, as is the upright posture needed for this activity.

First Episode

I was nearly finished my Saturday morning at Tommy Thompson Park, on the Leslie Street Spit, when I saw a large dog merrily galloping across my line of sight. This dog and I were still far enough into the park to be beyond the signs that tell humans not to bring their pets to the park, and the sign that carefully explains why not to. While I realize that canine literacy rates in Canada are very low, I thought surely there must be a human owner somewhere about.

A minute later I caught up with bowser. He was on a ridge a few metres higher than the trail. He was defecating. I started to pull a pick-up bag from my  coat pocket. It was then that a guy maybe 30 years old, about twenty feet ahead of me on the trail, softly called his dog. I waded in with both flippers.

“First of all, you should be picking up after your dog! Second of all, he should be on a leash! Third, dogs aren’t allowed in here — the park is well signed!”

The poor bagless schmuck told me that he had just been explaining (the other guy with him was apparently a stranger) that when he was growing up here, he used to let his dogs run all over the place. Ignoring the logic that if he already knew his error, he should have already called his dog, I replied, “Well, it’s now a sensitive wildlife area, and dogs are not allowed! I don’t bring my dog here!” Handing off the bag to the hangdog owner, I went on my way. About twenty minutes later, while waiting for e.g. to meet me, I saw the young man leave the park, his big bouncy dog on a leash.

And I felt…really kinda crummy. I rarely intervene like that. If I hadn’t seen the owner, I would have simply picked up the poop and grumbled to myself about some people giving dogs a bad reputation. And I also didn’t know how much of my speaking up had to do with the fact that e.g. and Cai and I had come here one morning last summer, read the signs, and decided that e.g. would drive Cai over to the offleash area at nearby Cherry Beach while I explored the spit. If I’m going to abide by the rules, then by golly, everybody else can too!

Second Episode

When e.g. swung by with the car, I told her what had happened. Her first response was, “Anger can be a deterrent.” Then she proceeded to relate another example of citizen policing that she’d heard at the dog park that morning.

A woman walking her dogs saw a much younger woman eating take-out chicken pieces and dropping the bones on the ground. Older woman told younger woman that chicken bones can harm dogs. Younger woman started arguing with older woman and insulting her. When older woman walked away, younger woman threw the chicken bones at the dogs.

Final Episode

Yesterday, I played one of my least-favourite games: Homework Police. I had gotten one version of requirements from Jack’s mum, and was getting another from Jack. Much growling and squealing throughout the afternoon and evening ended with Baby Bear going to bed in tears, and Papa Bear (me) mad at everybody. This morning, as we were getting our coats on to head for the streetcar, I told Jack I made a lousy cop.

“From now on, if you’re gonna write your homework assignments on your arm and lose them during your swimming lesson, that’s your problem, not mine. Any time you want my help, I’ll be glad to help you; otherwise, you’re 11 now, so it’s time to be responsible for your own stuff. Okay?” Jack listened, silently, seriously, nodding. Then we headed out together to the transit stop. Jack got on the streetcar and waved; Turtle waved back, and threw away her badge.

Spit in the Lake (II)

Yesterday I wrote about viewing 15 species of anseriformes in Tommy Thompson Park. I also saw three charadriiformes, a piciforme, a gruiforme, a pelecaniforme, a falconiforme, and nine passeriformes, plus an Eastern Cottontail and a fat raccoon. Not bad for a garbage dump.

The Leslie Street Spit is an accumulation at the foot of Leslie Street, Toronto, of debris from demolished buildings. It was begun in the late 1950s and was originally intended as a breakwater for the harbour. While the need for the breakwater diminished, the rubble pile kept on growing, and with the dirt that came from new basement diggings, little by little the spit seeded itself. Grass and cottonwood trees and other sheltering or tasty plants started to grow. In the 70s a grassroots (!) lobby group called Friends of the Spit arose, which has battled to promote it as a wildlife refuge, and thwart plans for golf courses and carnival activities, ever since. Sometime in the 90s (I think) Tommy Thompson park was inaugurated.

During the week, dump trucks still rumble through with their loads, but on the weekends the 5-km spit is open to the public. People come to cycle, blade, jog, stroll, birdwatch. The Toronto Field Naturalists hold monthly nature walks. And the Tommy Thompson Park Bird Research Station allows people to see what they’re up to.

Thanks to some information from Themarvelousinnature, I was able to find the research station yesterday morning. It’s a tiny wooden cabin with a friendly verandah, one door, and windows on three sides. Inside, a desk stretches from one wall to the other. Completing the decor are a couple of chairs and a locker bedecked with photos of birds the station has banded.

When I showed up at 11, the volunteers were returning from making their rounds of the mist nets. Although they’d been at it since 6 am, on this day they had found fewer than half a dozen birds. I was lucky, then, to see them returning with one indignant male cardinal. I was invited into the building to see them inspect the squawking mite, who raised his crest as high as possible in an effort to prove that he was actually a crocodile, and they’d better not mess with him!

Dan, who was holding him, gently fanned out one wing, explaining that a lot of birds can be aged by the extent of moulting. He went on to say that this method doesn’t work on some birds, such as cardinals, who moult all their feathers. Then I was shown the band already on this fellow’s leg. It was the second time their nets had caught him; no wonder he was grouchy! They flipped through their binder for his band number, and found that the first time they’d caught him was in the autumn of 2006. A bird at least two years old, then. Giving the cardinal a last fond stroke on its ruffled crown, Dan pulled the plug from some clear plastic piping, maybe eight inches in diameter, which described a U shape from the desk top to the outside. He reached into the pipe, released the bird, and away it flew.

Spit in the Lake (I)

I went birding this morning in Tommy Thompson Park. I counted 31 species of birds, including 15 species of anseriformes (= ducks, geese, and swans). The Ring-necked Duck was a new one for my life list, as was the Green-winged Teal. If The Marvelous in Nature reads this, she’ll be happy to know that I finally saw my first American Tree Sparrow.

The bird that thrilled me the most, however, was one that I almost missed because I was looking at a bunny instead. It was just after noon. When I took my eyes out of the ditch and back onto the road, what I saw next was the birder on her bicycle about 20 feet from me and bunnykins. Approaching quietly, I followed her line of sight, and viewed a pale grey bird, the size of a robin, at the top of a mid-sized tree.

“What have you got there?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” she replied, “I don’t have my guide with me.”

“I do.” I pulled my well-thumbed ROM Field Guide to Birds of Ontario from my bookbag. I looked through my binoculars. “Ohhhh… I think it’s… lemme look in the index…” Flip, flip. “This?”

We took turns reading the description, peering through our binocs, describing it out loud, until we were sure that that was our bird. It was a Northern Shrike, not as rare as its cousin the Loggerhead Shrike, but uncommon enough for me. Northern Shrikes breed way up in the top fifth of Ontario, about three-fifths higher north than I’ve ever been. So let us say, once again, that I was thrilled. The other birder cycled away, I penciled the new bird on today’s list, I looked up, and the Shrike was gone. It was one of those magic moments.

Nanabush Chuckles

Two summers ago, my partner — let’s call her e.g. — and I decided to take our almost-son, Jack, on his first camping trip. After researching the various Ontario Provincial Parks, we decided on Bon Echo. This beautiful park has everything we were looking for: a small swimming beach, a canoe rental and one-day loop route, a radio-free camping area, a history of visits from various Group of Seven painters, and Mazinaw Rock.

Mazinaw Rock is an escarpment that runs for just over a mile along one side of narrow-but-deep Mazinaw Lake. The cliff face towers 300 feet above the water’s surface (and maybe another 150 feet below it). On the rock at canoe level may be found over 250 red-ochre paintings. Because no foolproof scientific method has yet been devised for dating pictographs, no one is sure how old they are — anywhere from 200 to a thousand years or more — or exactly who made them.

Nevertheless, the pictures are definitely Aboriginal, and the Anishnaabek people recognize some familiar faces among them, the most popular being that of Nanabush.

Nanabush was the son of the West Wind and the grandson of the Moon. Some say Nanabush created the world, or recreated it after the Serpent People flooded it. His pictograph on Mazinaw Rock, the one that Bon Echo Provincial Park has adopted as its logo, shows him with canoe-paddle-sized ears, holding a stick as long as himself in his left hand. Is it a rifle? A spear? A tent pole? Jack thinks Nanabush is leaning against a tree, watching and waiting. I think he is hovering at his doorway, a crevice in the rock into which he will slip with a parting chuckle after playing a trick on someone.

For Nanabush is a trickster. He is a shape-shifter. He is a teacher, commissioned by the Great Spirit to help instill a little wisdom into humans.

On our canoeing day, we paddled the half-mile across the lake to view the pictographs more closely. E.g. took some photos.

On our final morning, we boarded the 26-seat Wanderer Too’r boat to learn more. Our guide told us that Nanabush would sometimes put stumps or roots in front of children, to teach them to pay more attention to where they were going and what they were doing. I laughed, imagining those poor startled kids still lacking the adroitness of adults, literally running into Nanabush and his tricks.

The tour boat docked just below the gift shop. Jack and e.g. each found a souvenir they liked. I couldn’t resist a white coffee cup printed with the logo of Nanabush and the words, “Bon Echo” — the perfect souvenir! Smiling at my enthusiasm, the clerk wrapped the cup in tissue paper and placed it in a nice shiny bag.

On exiting the gift shop, we trooped over to the nearby comfort station. E.g. went first, while Jack and I took a seat on a bench outside. It was hot. I took off my bookbag, set it on the bench beside me, and placed the bag from the gift shop on my bookbag. Yes, the nice shiny plastic bag. Containing the coffee cup. Was resting on, not in, my sloping bookbag. But not for long, of course. Withing seconds, the plastic bag slipped off the bookbag, over the edge of the bench, and onto a pavement tile with the sickening crunch that lets you know that your brand-new souvenir china mug that hasn’t even come out of its shopping bag yet has broken and it’s all your fault because you put it on your bookbag instead of in it. I shrieked. Jack hovered solicitously, patient wisdom softly lighting his eyes.

Unwrapping the tissue paper, I found the drinking part unharmed and the handle in three pieces. Perfectly intact pieces, mind you. Then I heard the laughter, and I laughed too. “Look at that, Jack! Nanabush has taught me a lesson! Do you think we’ll be able to glue the pieces back together?”

Jack was convinced we could. Once back in the city, I successfully repaired the cup, and it has held my morning brew ever since. I am honoured that Nanabush the trickster left me a unique souvenir of Bon Echo.

Impulse Purchase, with Prologue and Afterword, in Diary Genre, Prefaced by a Victorian-Era-Style Overly Long Title — Complete with Two Types of Parenthetical Punctuational Enclosures — Made in a Slapdash Effort to Create some Humour by Providing a Visual Device to Preface the Writing Portion, Being as I Don’t Have a Ready-Made Photo to Insert Here and Didn’t Have Time to Compose One (Although I Did Briefly Consider Entitling this Entry, “Photoless Phursday,” in Reference to “Wordless Wednesday”, the First Attempt at which I Essayed Yesterday); OR, A Study in Concealing Mediocre Writing under Clever Design

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Wednesday, 2 pm.

I have a headache. Despite a nice visit with Jack’s mum this morning, followed by an hour and-a-half of walkies, I feel crummy. And Cai is limping again after playing with some of the other doggies in the off-leash area, which makes me feel doubly crummy. And tomorrow I have to work for a living, and Friday I have to work from 6 am to 7 pm, so like how am I sposta keep up with this daily writing habit when my head hurts and I’m feeling guilty for letting Cai offleash and all I can think of writing about is fridge magnets? I feel triply crummy.

3 pm.

I start sifting through my partner’s photos. I find one that I would like to entitle, “The Unbearable Lightness of Cheesies”, but can’t organize my thoughts to write any commentary. That would make it another Wordless Wednesday entry. Lemme see, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Su– I’m not that organized.

4 pm.

The cheesie photo has made me think of movies. I stuff the little cloth WWF bag, the one that Seamus the Sea Turtle came with, into my coat pocket and head over to the neighbourhood video store. They don’t rent videos anymore, of course, but my partner has claimed that even DVDs will soon be anachronisms. Never mind; no one has dialed a phone in years, either, though we still say we do. I’ll survive the next technological change with grace, if not gusto.

4 10 pm.

I’ve come to rent a movie. Some film with a bit of brain behind it. Maybe “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, or “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, neither of which I’ve seen. Something that doesn’t have its protagonist staring at a computer screen wondering how to expound on fridge magnets. As I edge past the sale bin, a decade-old film that I’ve already watched waves to me. Should I buy instead of renting? These previously-viewed DVDs are are a good price; there’s a buy-two-get-one-free deal on this table; and two of the other six dozen movies look like we’d watch them at least twice. Good enough for me.

5 30 pm.

My better half arrives home. She has a great idea of how to cook the trout I pulled from the fridge this morning, so I graciously allow her to make supper.

6 40 pm.

We settle into the sofa with big, steaming bowls of soba noodles and trout with orange sauce to watch the Japanese film, “After Life.” Like the few other Japanese films I’ve seen, it is very quiet and slow paced — but hey, this one’s about eternity.

8 40 pm.

Such sweet characters! Such gentle pathos! Such  dirty dishes! Time to wash up, put Cai’s kibble on to soak, and go to bed. The movie was a good idea. By doing something completely different, away from my keyboard, my subconscious was able to move beyond cheesies and fridge magnets to Friday’s topic, which I’ll work on tomorrow when I’m fresh. Tomorrow, I will write about my coffee cup.

(Wordless Wednesday) Paul Peel for the 21st Century