Further on the Road

It was Tuesday.  I hated nothing more than Tuesdays.  Upon hearing the day’s name, my heart would sink.  All sixteen hours of sunlight were associated with nothing more than bizarre smells, bland baking and a boring old lady that I call Grandma, but I’ll tell you now, I saw nothing “grand” about her.  Before leaving the car to enter the little old lady’s too big house, I turned to my mum to make one final plea.
“Do I have to visit her this week?  Can’t I just go with you?”  The complaint flowed so naturally from my lips.
Mum flicked the switch that unlocked the car doors, “Of course you have to go in,” She said without looking at me, “You know that Grandma looks forward to your visits more than anything else.”
I fiddled with the zipper on my backpack and chose my words carefully, “I don’t see why she would look forward to it.  We just spend five hours staring at the clock, waiting for the misery to end.”
“Oh – it can’t be that bad!  Doesn’t she tell you stories?  I thought you would have known the whole history of the Japanese-Indonesian war by now.”
I did like history but continued to argue, “When you were young, did she tell you stories?  I’ve never heard Grandma tell a story in my life.  She’s dull.  She’s just a boring old woman.”

Mum was taken aback, “This isn’t about me or what Grandma did or didn’t do when I was young,” after a pause, her voice was lowered.  She spoke calm and softly, “Back then, she was busy.  She had ten mouths to feed and a dying husband to look after.  But now – now all she has is time.”
“Well, I wish she didn’t have time for me,” I mumbled this, knowing I had lost the battle.  As soon as Mum mentioned her Mum’s hard past, I couldn’t keep calling her a wretched old woman.  I had to go in.  Not for me, but for my mother and for my Grandma who had suffered long and hard to get where she is today.  Honestly, I don’t know how she did it.
I opened the car door and slung my backpack over my shoulder.  I always bring something to do while I’m there – a book to read or a crossword puzzle to work – but I never end up touching any of it.  We just sit there, staring.  I reflected on the last two Tuesdays where all Grandma made to eat was bitter cookies.  She must’ve used whole wheat flour because there’s no other way you can make a cookie taste so bland.  I waved to my mum and swung the car door shut.
I debated whether I should just sit outside for five hours until my Mum’s appointment in the city was done.  I evaluated the sky.  There were no clouds and the summer day promised to be balmy and sweet.  There was a real temptation just to sit on the porch step and wait.  The only thing stopping me was a nagging thought pushing to the forefront of my mind.  The thought simply said, “She’s your Grandma.”  This woman was my responsibility.  None of her other children cared to visit her so it was left on me and thus I decided right then and there that I would make the best of it.
I was surprised to find that Grandma was sitting in the living room waiting for me.  Usually, when I come, I have to go to her bedroom and wake her up but today she was prepared.  In her cataract eyes I saw a desire; for the first time, I noticed that she wanted to spend the evening with me.  I let the corners of my mouth rise up in what could be called a happy expression and said a quick “Hi, Grandma.”  She only smiled.
We both stayed perfectly still as if time had stopped.  It was an eternity later that her dry lips quivered and said, “Aren’t you going to ask me what’s for lunch?”  I tipped my head in confusion, urging her to continue, “That’s always the first thing you ask me,” She stated matter-of-factly as she pushed on the arm of the chair to help force herself up.
“I was actually going to ask how you were doing,” I said this, uncertain if I really had been preparing to do so.  After a little more thought, I realized that I was, in fact, going to ask what she had made for me.  Was I always this self-centered?
Grandma was still struggling to stand up so I rushed over to help her.  Her little frame turned out to be a lot heavier than I thought, “Why don’t you just sit, Gran?”
She sunk back into the blue, worn couch, looking up at me with renewed interest.  Unsure of what to do next I decided to try as mum had suggested, “Would you tell me a story?”  The conversation was so uncomfortable and the words repeated over and over in my mind, echoing their meaningless substance.
“How’s school?” Grandma asked instead.
I wondered if she hadn’t heard me but decided to play along, “It’s the summer, Gran.   There are no kids are in school right now.”
She chuckled, “I forgot all about that.  You know, I never had a summer vacation.”
“Really?  Never?  They just stuck you in school all year ‘round?”
“O dear – O dear,” She said under her breath, “If I had gone to school at all I’m sure they would’ve.”
“Why didn’t you go to school?”   I was caught off guard by her response.  No one can be successful unless they go to school.  This was a lesson that my teachers had worked hard to engrain in me for the past ten years.  Perhaps Grandma’s lack of schooling was the reason she was so lonely in her old age.  As my thoughts progressed along this line, Grandma said something that surprised me further.
“No, no… there are no schools in an Indonesian prison camp.  No one had time to do arithmetic.  We were toiling along life’s path at a much younger age than you.”
Somehow, I had forgotten all about my grandmother’s dark history, “How old were you when they started – er – your internment?”
“Well, let me see,” her eyes stared off into the unknown distance, “It was my parent’s third year as missionaries in Indonesia when the war started and we were interned in the second year.  I would have been eight years old when we were first gathered up with the other prisoners and thrown into a cage like mindless animals.”
I was surprised to hear her descriptive language.  Perhaps Grandma was more talented than I had first judged.  Because without going to school, how does one learn  to use a simile?
“I spent many good years in that prison camp but I don’t regret one moment,” Her sagging skin was etched with wrinkles that spoke more of tears than they did of laughter.  I found it hard to believe that anyone would be alright with being imprisoned, especially as a youth.  “The things I learned in the yard between the chain-link fences guarded by soldiers were more valuable than anything else I could have attained along my journey.”
“I thought you said they didn’t have schools in prison camps.”
My Grandma’s astounding memory kicked in as she began to recite that I recognized to be from Epictetus, “’We see that a carpenter becomes a carpenter by learning certain things: that a pilot, by learning certain things, becomes a pilot… The mere desire to be wise and good is not enough.  It is necessary to learn certain things,’” She summarized that last sentence by saying, “This was the object of my search.”
“I thought that that quote was about education.  Isn’t it saying that school is important?”  I asked, trying to recall just how my teacher had put it when she had shown the class this phrase before summer vacation.
“Darling, don’t you see,” Grandma’s voice was almost sweet and singsong, “A carpenter and a pilot, they both need experience.  They cannot be good at what they do unless the go out and try.  A carpenter may know the math of how to create a perfect chair but can only do so with a lot of practice, desire and wisdom.  I learned everything I needed to know in life right there in that prison camp.”
I wanted to ask her why, then, had her life turned out to be such a failure.  She never got a job and relied on her husband to support the copious family members.  All went up in flames when her husband was restricted to bed with MS until his dying day.  The prison camp seemed to have done nothing for her.
The conversation seemed to end.  I helped Grandma stand up and we went to the kitchen table where she had a little lunch prepared.  Honestly, I don’t think we spoke another word until I said “Good-bye, thanks for the visit,” when I left that evening.  Story time had ended.
                             ****

****

For the next seven days, I couldn’t stop thinking about Grandma.  I let the little story she had told me role over and over in my mind.  The only logical conclusion I could come to was that the experiences she had as a youth growing up in conditions with little food, water or love had formed her character.  I couldn’t see that this was a good environment to be molding an individual so I was determined to inquire from her further on the coming Tuesday.
When my mother and I pulled up in front of the house, a part of me still didn’t want to go in, but I had opened the car door before the vehicle had stopped rolling and was in the house before my mum could’ve put the car back in gear.  Like a blood-hound, I searched out my Grandma in the house.  She was back in her bed under a mound of blankets.
Before I had even said hello, she said, “Come here, sweetie.”  I sat on the edge of the mattress as I do with my mum, “I don’t think that I finished my story.”
I shook my head as a smile pushed my cheeks up into an anticipatory grin.  I was glad that the old woman and I were on the same page.
So the story-telling began, “I did get an education, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.  You said that being in a prison camp was the education you needed,” I reminded her of what we had been talking about the week before.
“That is true,” She paused, “But there is more.  I never went to school as a youth, but when Dirk got sick, I put myself through college to become a teacher.”
“Is that really so?  They would let you teach even though you didn’t even go to grade school?”
“Oh- I never finished the years of schooling.  Getting a job wouldn’t have done me any good.”
“Of course it would have!  You could have fed your family, provided for all their needs!  Just think of the things you could’ve done!”   I didn’t mean to make my Grandma feel bad but the words were programmed in me from the years I myself had spent within the walls of schools.  I was going to apologize for speaking so abruptly but could not before a stream of wisdom flowed from her tender body.
“Education, you speak of education as if it can only be attained from a professor.  The truest forms of education do not come when you study a text book or write a test.  Yes, life is for learning but it’s also for teaching.  I learned everything I needed to know in the Prison camp; Where I failed was with teaching.”
“Grandma, you’re not making sense.  You said that you were glad you didn’t become a teacher.”
“Teaching happens in more places than a classroom.  My only regrets in life were these:  I wish I had cherished every moment with my children while they still loved me;” She paused here as my throat became course with tears, “I wish I had laughed at every joke my husband told me, even if they weren’t funny; and I wish I had drawn closer to the Lord for it is He that paves the road to my successes and finds a way up from my failures.”
My Grandma’s words hung in the air like a heavy fog.  As she told me her qualms my own sorrows bursted from within me.   How I wished that I had never despised this old woman!  How I wished that I had let my Creator guide me through the ups and downs rather than letting myself be hardened from love.  It became the truest desire of my heart at that moment to allow myself to be taught by more than just teachers but by experience – mine and that of the wise.
My thoughts so overwhelmed me that I had not noticed the tears now staining my youthful cheeks or the paths of they had made through the groves and ruts in Grandma’s course face.  Now aware of the heart-wrenching reality, I clung to my Grandma.  She was more than an old woman.  From this point on she was a well-spring of wisdom and experience.  She was the teacher of my character as she sought to fulfill the object of her search.
In my ear she whispered this closing statement:
“That the difference be found in the manners and abilities of men is owing more to their education than to anything else, we have reason to conclude, that great care is to be had of the forming children’s minds, and giving them that seasoning early, which shall influence their lives always after.”  -John Locke
And I was never the same.

Little Peace

Is it just you or is it me?

The blame shifts from left to right.

Uncertainty floods the valley of doubt.

Now peaks of peace are  beyond sight.

Dying to say that I want to live,

I stretch out my hand

"Give, give give!"

It's all about me, I wish you had known.

I watch the tape again and again.

Reviewing the past,

I note that every time

there's a change in cast.

It's like deja vu

all over again.

We're on a loop

and loops have no end.

My throat restricts me

but I want to scream.

How can one suffer for as long as I?

This nightmare disturbed the dream.

If she would be lonely then we'd be okay.

No more fists and no more throats.

Peace would result

if you'd learn to pick up your coat

and go.

Angst en Woede

I took a grade ten design studies course in which we constructed masks and mounted them on big boards.  We draped the fragile plaster masks in gypsona and then painted them.  The result was as follows.
The mask is called Angst en Woede because it represents the anger and fear we experience when confronted with challenges in life.

I don't have any photos of the mask before it was mounted.  My teacher has some of those and I should be able to get my hands on them soon.  I can tell you, though, that it was a messy process.  The students got into pairs to make a plaster cast of their partner's face.  I was so happy with my partner who did a great job of getting the details of my appearance.




Getting the mask mounted was an adventure.  Unlike my peers, I did't use large plastic cups to build up the base that would extend the mask from my board.  Instead,  I did it all with crumpled up news paper.  The results were quite pleasing.



As you've likely noticed, the mask is split in half.  This creates a division between each side of the face: anger and fear are thus represented.

This was after I painted.  I'm not a very good painter and it didn't help that my skin colour paint ran out.  I had to frantically mix paints so that my gradient from red to skin colour would look somewhat decent.

Along with the project, students were asked to produce a creative prose about the mask.  As soon as the booklet is returned, I'll type that up and add it to this post.

So now you have a bit of an idea of how I look, right?  

Backpacking

Tonquin Valley lies within the Jasper mountain ranges.  

I backpacked here twice in the summer of 2013 and am in love.

You may notice the extreme amounts of clouds in these photos... well it did rain the whole time.

It was a beautiful place and I hope to share some journal entries soon.

Dear Mr. Raindrop

Little tiny raindrops
you just won’t go away.
Can’t you stop right now
and come back another day?

Today you’ll smear my makeup
and get my hair all wet.
You can fall another day
but I’m not ready yet.

Little tiny raindrops,
you drop with no relent.
Won’t you just stay up there
in the clouds from which you’re sent?

Today’s not the day for rain.
Not today – O please!
Today I need the sunshine rays
to dry up all my tears.

If e’re I felt a greater need,
I feel the need right now.
I want to live a happy life but
raindrop, I don’t know how.

Restlessly

Silence – O the silence of a sleepless night.
The silence echoes that something’s not right.
A late night driver swishes by.
I should not hear it for here I lie.
I should be sleeping,
joining the silence of the night.

A burst of noise strikes my ear.
My daughter cries, wanting me near.
Her sobs shake me, the walls are thin.
I struggle from sheets to silence the din.
My feet fall into slipper,
I pad down the hall to silence her fears.

Her door creaks on its hinges, screaming for oil,
She whimpers and sniffles and tells me her toil.
She saw his face in her dreams on her bed.
Her daddy’s face swirls ‘round in her head.
My breathing quickens, is heavy and thick.
How can I tell her that Daddy’s not loyal?

I comfort her with strokes on her arm.
I coo and kiss and bind her with charm.
She turns in her quilts and drops of in slumber.
I can’t help but think, It used to be thunder
crashing, shaking, lighting her walls
but now her absent father strikes her alarm.

Her nasal passages whistle a tune,
I rise from the bed and exit the room.
Soft slipper on carpet rejoin the night,
the ticking clock says “It’s all alright”.
The click of the lamp plunges me to darkness.
I’m not asleep yet but maybe soon.

"Williams" - SciFi School Project

Williams

In the blink of an eye it was 3013.  It was a whole millennia in the future so the village Williams found herself in seemed too primitive.  The 21^st century time traveler wondered if she’d been transported back in time rather than forward as she’d intended.  She wasn’t totally sure that she was using the technology properly.  After all, the man who designed it had died four months ago and hadn’t left detailed instructions on how the machine was to operate.  Yep, that was her husband.  He was always so secretive.  Williams suddenly became self-conscious off her style of dress that, a few moments ago had seemed so normal, but now appeared obscure in comparison with the citizens that bustled about the little clearing.

                She assumed that she was in a residential area.  Small ten by ten huts lined the dirt road on which she stood.  Everything was dirt, actually; not a green thing in sight.  A group of bedraggled children ran past, sending dust up onto her white suit pants.  Their hair was at least to shoulder length, even the boys’.  “Don’t they have scissors in the future?”  Marissa Williams asked herself, knowing that she’d never let her little boy, Jordan, go around with hair like that.

                Marissa then felt silly standing in the middle of the dirt field.  She ventured off to the side to speak with a slender woman who had wispy, black hair going down below her waist.

                “Hello, can I ask a favour?”  Marissa asked somewhat uncomfortably.

                The woman cocked her head, “Hillue, don’t yew tolk d’outrageousl!”

                The woman had an accent that Marissa didn’t recognize.  Perhaps the English Language had changed in the thousand year period she’d skipped.

                “Yes, I suppose I do,” Marissa responded, insecurity about her own peculiar accent was creeping in, “Can you tell me if this is the biggest city centre around.  Is there a place with more advanced technology?”

                “Eff yew jaunt over seas to Great China, yewl spot thi most tanteunous technologi en the sphere but rit here yewv been looking at thi mest advanced en this land mass.”

                It took a second for Williams to decode the woman’s smooth sentences but it finally clicked in.  So this was the most advanced city in North America?  Impossible!  Marissa could hardly believe.  Before she could protest the woman’s statement, a booming voice broke out from the skies.  It was something Marissa could only describe as an intercom system.

                “Thi rain scheduled for this day will commence en thirty seconds.  Proceed to yewr hive, eff yew will,” said the mysterious voice.

                “Where is that coming from?”  Marissa did not realize she was screaming.

                “Thet is thi ski voice warning us civils to get endoors.  D’ew have a hive?”

                “A hive?  No, I don’t even know what that is!”

                “Come with mi,” the woman said, gently grasping Marissa’s arm and guiding her inside the little hut.  They had to duck to get through the door.

                Marissa’s eyes grew wide with astonishment.  The “hut’s” interior was impossibly large.  Directly in front of her was a stair case that could’ve fit in the largest sky scraper she’d seen back in twenty thirteen.  Outside the house, the pointed roof had hardly looked six feet off the ground but now, to Marissa’s utter disbelief, she stood in an interior larger than any mansion she’d heard of in the 21^st century.

                “Thi rain will stop et four thirty.  Would it please yew to join mi for hot tempters in thi mean time?”  The woman asked this politely as a child descended the everlasting staircase and took the woman’s shawl to hang it up on a wall hook.

                Marissa could only nod.

                She didn’t know how it happened but she suddenly found herself sitting at a round table with at least ten other women.  They all sat in silence, taking sips from the hot liquids that pooled in big round mugs – mugs that could only be classified as bowls with handles. 

                “Dew yew like yewr tempter?”  one of the women, the bolder type, asked Marissa.

                “It smells good,” she smiled, still not brave enough to try the bright blue beverage.

                “I em sore displeased with myself for I never requested yewr name,” said another one of the women, who was a little plumper.

                Marissa had to think for a moment, “Marissa Williams.”

                The room exploded with laughter, “Shay’s got a since of humour, this one!” a lady bursted out, almost spilling her hot tempter on her lap.

                “What?  What’s so funny about my name?” Marissa had to stretch her vocal chords to overpower the din of laughter.

                Silence fell on the group and the women began to look from one to another in deep concern.  Worry built up in the young time traveler’s mind. Did she have some forbidden name?  Had things really changed tha –

                Her thoughts were interrupted by a small, timid-looking girl who looked to be in her teen years, “Yewr not jostling us?”

                “I’m dead serious, if that’s what you mean.”

                “Are yew the Marissa Williams?”  The same girl inquired.

                “I’m sure it’s a common name,” said Marissa sensibly.

                “Nay, nay.  Not since the Marissa Williams began her clock jumping.  A person would hardly dare to mutter the name.”

                “Clock jumping?”  Marissa tried to fit the scrambled pieces of her time-traveling puzzle together in her head.

                “Don’t tell mi yew don’t know thi tale!”

                Marissa softly shook her head which cued the group of solemn women to tell Marissa their history.  A crazy woman, they explained, from around the 21^st century discovered time travel.  The women went into details about how historians infer that she wasn’t always insane but that her first trip to the future had caused some instability and she began to search the timeline for what she entitled “the answer”.  The woman, whose name was Marissa Williams, finally settled in the year 2520 where she overthrew the government and established a new system called Williamism – very similar to communism and tyranism. 

As Marissa listened to the story told from the women’s trembling lips, she couldn’t believe that this is what time traveling would do to her.  Besides this, some aspects of the story were false.  For one, it wasn’t she who’d discovered time traveling; it had been her husband’s life work.  Before Michael’s death, he made the wish that she would be the first to go on a mission through time.  Her trip here was only a fulfillment of his will and these women tried to say that it was the darkest time of their history.   Marissa’s mind now only wanted to think of her husband.  She thought of how brilliant he was.  He was a master at science though he never came off to her as geeky.  He had a gentle way about his words that would calm the wildest storm.  It took a great deal of effort on Marissa’s part to listen to the rest of the story.

“That is when Great China took thi place over.  Their domain is this whole sphere,” a woman finished gravely.

“What about Michael William’s?  Do you know about him?”  The widowed woman plead for an explanation without thinking.

“Of course, he’s our silent structure.”

“What?  What is that? Where is he?”  Marissa jumped from her chair, still delirious from the confusion of shifting a whole ten centuries into the future.

“Master Michael is everywhere.  He’s our… what would you call him? – our president.”

“Let mi explain,” another women interjected, “Wi needed to select new government after Mrs. Williams was brought down. With cloning technologi our studiers brought back thi greatest mind in history: Michael Williams.  He then established thi greatest system of government in history.  For a while, things went smooth as rinoleaf.  Eventually, however, people got tired and wanted excitement.  A huge revolution destroyed thi money exchanges and made room for Great China to take over.  Williams then had to be brought underground.  Several thousand more clones were made so that thi bureaucracy can be run bi him and him alone.  Many Michael’s have been assassinated but they still remain.  He rules our land justly.”

Thousands of him… was Marissa’s thought.  She still hadn’t gotten used to the thought of life without her husband and now they say that there are thousands of clones.  Are they really her husband, though, or are they just soulless bureaucrats?

“China thinks wi are primitive.  Wi keep them thinking that,” The plump woman explained, “Our houses, they look small but yew can fit a hundred families in one hive.  Wi grow only thi food we need for a tenth of the population.  Thi rest live off of nutritious tempters.  Our secret structure is stable and cannot be destroyed.  Thi environment bubble wi live in lets us live as though the sphere wasn’t completely ravaged by pollution.  Michael is a truly good ruler.”

“Is that all he is to you?”  Marissa spat in disgust, “Is he not a man?  Can he not feel love and hatred as you and I?  Yet you trap him in a secret, use him so you can have a pleasant life.  You disgust me.”

The women looked shocked.  Taciturnity settled on the room until a woman, who Marissa hadn’t noticed before, spoke up, “Wi disgust yew? Are you not thi insane woman who destroyed our nation with radical acts in the mid-twenty-fives?  Do yew no longer claim to be her?”

Twenty eyes stared holes into Marissa until her fear became anger.  She tossed the table over, shattering bowl-mugs and sending the tempters onto the synthetic flooring.  A twinkle of choler flashed in her eyes and she burst out of the house into the pouring rain.  Had four thirty not already passed?  She ran, maddened, through the mud.  She sunk up to her knees in the thick swamp that the rain had made of the streets.  She cried out, “If only things could be as they were.  Before all of this, I was free.”

A flash of light appeared to Marissa.  She could still feel the cold rain and clinging mud on her body but before her, in an unreal display, stood her late husband.  He looked just as he had before he’d died.  His cheeks were sunken from radiation poisoning and heavy bags weighed under his eyes to show his many nights without adequate rest. 

“Hello traveler,” the radiant figure spoke, “You’ve triggered the failsafe action of the device.   It has been detected that information that you’ve obtained during your expedition could prove harmful to both you and the timeline.”

Marissa tried to speak with the calm vision of her husband but she finally concluded that he was nothing but a recording.  He didn’t even know who he’d be talking to when he taped it. 

The recording continued, “You now have an option,” Marissa cringed.  She hated decisions. “You can chose to either proceed back to your original time with the knowledge of this experience or these events will be wiped from your memory to preserve the time line and your own safety.  Time travel may have serious mental effects and now is your only opportunity to erase this trip from your memory.  Say ‘repeat’ if you would like to hear the message again.”

Marissa couldn’t help but smile.  She loved her husband and wished she could spend more time in 3013 to see if she could find some of the clones.  However, the recording hadn’t mentioned this as one of the options.  Should she keep the memory and risk losing her sanity?  She shuddered at the thought.  No matter how much she wanted the answer, she knew that she was not the one to find it.

“Send me back,” she said weakly, “Take it all.”

“Thank you for participation in the Williams project.  Have a nice day,” The recording said.  With another flash of light he was gone.  Tears began to tumble down Marissa’s soaked cheeks and, as soon as she blinked to clear her eyes, she found herself back in her house.  She wore a soft bath robe and was holding a cup of coffee in her hand.  For a moment, she felt like shouting out all that she’d seen but the memories began to trickle away from her.  She’d been put back to 2013 about a day after she’d left originally so in the room with her sat eager research assistants.  Their faces all took on a blank expression as they noted the confusion resting on Marissa’s. 

“You took the fail safe, didn’t you?”

Marissa nodded because that was all she remembered.