When we lose the greats

Lee Maracle (1950-2021)

Marie-Claire Blais (1939-2021)

bell hooks (1952-2021)

Joan Didion (1934-2021)

Candy Palmater (1968-2021)

Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1931-2021)

When we lose the greats, it is as if the earth stops turning, for a fraction of a second, and exhales. Be they old or young, we think: It's too soon.

When we lose the greats, we worry and wonder how to move forward. Who will comfort us, who will teach us, who will help us navigate these confusing times? In our grief it is difficult to contemplate that others may follow. 

The world has lost 6 more greats in these fading days of 2021, as though the year's losses -- loss of stability, of time, of friends and family members to cancer, heart attack, covid, steely old age -- weren't bad enough.

Perhaps our planet thought that it could trade away its dread of the new year to come; as though releasing them to the universe might also release its own fear, or maybe even motivate its citizens -- us -- to alter our destructive ways and pay attention for a change. A grand bargain for peace, justice, climate action.

How could anyone possibly replace them? They whose words kept us afloat in dangerous waters, through times of conflict and grief, in search of truth, in hope of reconciliation:

"Even the waves of the sea tell a story that deserves to be read. The stories that really need to be told are those that shake the very soul of you... I prepare to be shaken." Lee Maracle, Celia's Song, 2014.

"Tout est immortelle et rien ne sera oublié de ce qui fut." Marie Claire Blais, Les voyageurs sacrés, 1962.

"I choose to re-appropriate the term ‘feminism’, to focus on the fact that to be ‘feminist’ in any authentic sense of the term is to want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression." bell hooks, Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism, 1981.

"Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant." Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking, 2005.

"The reality is that words do hurt. Which is why, as a society, we remove hurtful words from our vernacular as we evolve." Candy Palmater, in Chatelaine, 2017.

"We are fragile creatures, and it is from this weakness, not despite it, that we discover the possibility of true joy." Archbishop Desmond Tutu, The Book of Joy, 2016.

How fortunate are we to have shared time on this planet with these greats. May their memory be eternal, and may their words be their legacy and an inspiration to a new generation -- to all of us -- to be great. 

The Erotic Theodorakis

The Greek singer, Yiannis Parios, compiled the love songs of the legendary Mikis Theodorakis and the two sang together on a starry night at Lykavitos.

This was a soundtrack to my childhood. My Dad singing in the car, or in the basement with the men's barbershop choir he pulled together. Dancing with my friends and our parents late into the night at church community dances. Summer beach parties with my cousins in Greece. 

I'm reading more and more about Theodorakis, and listening to his music again, following his death at 96 on September 2. He was THE Greek composer of the past century. I'm old enough to know his music and to remember - to be stirred by the first note or two of a song and know in my heart the words and notes that follow - but young enough that I did not really know of his significant political impact during Greece's dark days of dictatorship. Imprisonment. Torture. Exile. I'm learning that he also collaborated with Pablo Neruda, whose life experience as a Chilean poet and political protagonist mirrored his own.

You've all heard his music, whether you are Greek or not. Think of Zorba's dance - those first 2 notes that summon you to dance, to put your arms on the shoulders of strangers next to you and to move to an ever faster rhythm until you collapse, breathless and laughing - and you'll go "Ohhhh, right. I do know that one."

If you have Greek blood running through your veins, then you know that his music is more than entertainment. It is the soundtrack of almost a century marked by conflict, occupation, poverty, political and economic extremes, perseverance. And one that is also based on the deepest passion and love - eros - for country and fellow travellers on this earth. 

Now, I get it. May he rest in harmony, his memory eternal.

The rhythms of winter are shaken.

The light is expanding and the air feels moist -- the ick factor of growth initiating beneath our feet, as the worms begin to slide through the softening soil with no knowledge of why, or of the colours of spring: the brilliance of beauty not yet realized.

The dust and gravel on the streets, stirred up by cars passing and churning small particles that choke the air in my lungs and scratch at my eyes. 

There is a hint of warmth from the sun, as the temperature cracks ten degrees celcius for the first time in many months. Was it only months ago?

These days may be more silent, as we retreat and maintain our distance, owing to the unseen murderer that circulates, hijacking the droplets of one to land on the skin of another, infecting an ever-increasing number of people and, possibly, a whole generation: Those who were birthed as the world -- at war with itself -- began its slow implosion. 

My skin expands, wants to open, rather than contract, and there is softness where before there were flakes that itched despite the lathering of lotions to protect it, this outer organ that holds me together; a thin veil between health and decay.

It is spring, and the rhythms of winter strike a slow retreat, fading to stillness as we await the chatter of newborn birds in cloistered nests, the scurrying of critters across our decks, the patter of rain, and then the thunder: the symphony of summer to come.

This is a night that stays with me forever

This is a night that stays with me forever.

The fourth Sunday in September. The turn of summer to autumn. The night we sat - my aunt, my brother, and his partner - as we listened and waited for our mother to pass from this life to the next.

It was the part of the journey on which we could no longer accompany her. She no longer responded to our voices or to our touch. The silence broken only by her watery, raspy breaths and the whoosh of the machine that administered pain medication. We pushed that button every 20 minutes: push, whoosh, and wait.

All night.

And then, as the light of dawn began to break, there was only silence. The silence and freedom of eternal peace.

Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness

It turns out that all the proverbs are true.

As my neighbourhood and city begin the recovery following this weekend's double tornadoes, I find myself saying and thinking all sorts of truisms that have emerged from crises worse than this. I suppose it is human to want to soothe after catastrophe strikes. We immediately move to make it better, to fix, to heal. Some things we can fix with tools, others with words.

Home is where the heart is. I realized this weekend that when push came to shove, my preference was to hunker down and hibernate in the midst of a crisis. No doubt the stores and coffee shops were full of people stocking up on supplies, but I had no interest in going beyond the surrounding streets of my neighbourhood. And, while I myself walked around to take in all that had happened, I felt a slight resentment of those who seemed to come from elsewhere to gawk and take photos for their social media news feeds. Instead I wanted to surround myself with my family, have tea with my neighbours, and insulate myself from the rest of the city. Although we were without power, we had food, water and each other.

There's a silver lining in every cloud. Silver, not gold or platinum. I love silver. It is cool and crisp, unassuming and dependable, yet beautiful. I don't trust people who are always seeking "the best". Why the best, why more, why shinier, when good is more than good enough? Perhaps this makes me seem unambitious. When the clouds rolled in late Friday afternoon, the darkening sky was ominous and heavy. As the rain started, I quickened my pace to the car and began to drive home. Half way there, the rain and wind were too heavy to continue and I pulled into a plaza parking lot to wait it out. With the radio newscast interrupted by tornado warnings, the thought occurred to me that perhaps sitting in a parked car in an open lot was not the safest place to be. By the time I realized that I should look for a place to take shelter, the wind had stopped blowing and the rain had lessened to a drizzle. I continued home, stopping for takeout on the way. At least Mucho Burritto was still open, with power and food, and the lineup not too long.

Count your blessings, not your troubles. Four. I have many blessings. But my four greatest blessings are my husband and my children. With these four people in my life, I can go anywhere, do anything and be happy. I hate Monopoly. I am not competitive, I am not inspired by money, and I don't have the patience to build an empire one green house and one red hotel at a time. But Monopoly by candlelight, without power, was enjoyable because I was with these four lovely (though highly competitive) people. Ok, a glass of white wine also helped. Make that five blessings.

Many hands make light work. The relief in our home was palpable when a neighbour a few streets away said she had power and we could go over to charge our devices. There were trees down in her back yard, but we were relieved to be able to charge our phones and "reconnect". We compared notes on the street, or by texts. Some had power but no damage. Others had experienced some damage but had power. Fences were righted, fallen trees chopped to smaller bits. Ice packs and coolers tallied and at the ready. All around us people were at work putting the streets and power lines back in order. In a city of a million people, power was back within a few hours or a couple of days for most. While there are still parts of the city without power, everything is being taken care of in a peaceful and orderly manner. (This is a government town, after all.)

Make hay while the sun shines. While I am certainly grateful to have emerged unscathed, with my home and family intact, I find myself wishing that we had a few more candlelit nights ahead, that we had a few more days without wifi, that we had to be creative for just a few more meals. We were just starting to realize that in fact we were in pretty good shape : we had candles and flashlights, we had batteries and a portable phone charger, we had a portable cook stove, we had food; and, while the freezer would have held out for another day or two, we had a plan to distribute its contents to those with power if necessary. We were prepared and had more than enough of what we needed. Although we had never planned ahead with a tornado in mind, my husband was excited to be able to pull out his head lamp and  we didn't have to ration food or candles.

Tonight I lit candles again, despite the power restored.

One year ago, my family in Puerto Rico, together with their fellow 3.5 million islanders, were hit by hurricane Maria and were without power and water for months and months on end. They had to make decisions and to ration their time and resources every day, just to put together the bare necessities, not knowing how long it would take for life to return to normal. An estimated 3000 people perished in the aftermath of the storm, and recovery and reconstruction continue still.

No one died here this weekend as a result of the tornadoes, and there were very few serious injuries. There are many families, particularly in Dunrobin outside Ottawa, whose homes were levelled. I can only imagine their devastation. Some neighbours' homes and cars sustained damage. We lost many beautiful trees. These are significant losses, indeed.

But in the darkness, there is light. And every once in awhile it is good to be reminded of it.

Home is where the feta is

Photo credit: Jody Martin

My cousins tease that a good job in Greece is as a feta seller to me. I buy, and eat, it by the kilo. A single serving for me might last a week or a month for someone else.

The perfect feta is a balanced mix of salt and tang, creamy and crumble. It pairs well with extra virgin olive oil and oregano, crusty bread and a ripened tomato. Kalamata olives on the side are divine.

It's best enjoyed at a tavern by the beach, after a few hours of swimming and floating in waves under the baking sun, sand stuck to your feet and your skin slightly sticky from the salty sea, with a bottle of cold water (or beer) and a plate of fried calamari or smelt. Or, melted in the oven, with roasted red peppers and oregano, to dip with oven-baked pita.

The food of my Greek heritage is simple and good, filling and nourishing to both body and spirit: fresh vegetables or beans slathered in olive oil, fish and seafood pan-fried with a side of greens, white grilled meat or poultry, baked pasta or potatoes. And feta on the side of everything.

When I was a kid we could only buy feta at the Italian food store, also the sole source of kalamata olives and olive oil, which my mother used to measure out and mix with vegetable oil to make it last longer. Now, even McDonald's does a Greek salad with crumbled feta and black olives.

I've just returned from a too-short, two-week holiday in Greece, where we ate fresh figs and grapes plucked from our hosts' trees, and feta accompanied every meal: layered with phyllo pastry for breakfast, on a horiatiki (village) Greek salad for lunch, alongside a souvlaki or on baked pasta for supper. We swam in the Aegean, racing against the waves and calling out "There's another one! Watch out for that one!" under the bluest sky and the hottest sun. We trekked through the ruins of Mycenae and Knossos, the dust of thousands of years' past on our feet. We drove past blackened mountainsides, stark evidence of the previous month's wildfires in which over 90 people lost their lives as the wind propelled towering flames across acres of dry brush in the matter of minutes.

Now at home, and still jet-lagged despite several days back in the eastern time zone, I indulge in Canadian-made feta on toast for breakfast despite my husband's sideways glance. Outside, it starts to rain. The grass is green and the trees are lush in Ottawa, but the newspaper documents wildfires blazing in Western Canada.

I've napped each day this weekend, giving into jet-lag and lulling myself to sleep, imagining I am still in my beloved Greece, where the cicadas buzz with deafening cacophony, where the sea cradles me with refreshing waters and buoyancy, where the sun bronzes my skin despite lathering on the sunscreen, and where the hospitality and feta are plentiful.

To donate to recovery efforts from wildfires in Greece:
https://www.desmos.org/

To donate to recovery efforts from wildfires in BC:

https://www.canadahelps.org/en/crisis-relief-centre/2018-british-columbia-wildfires/

"The flesh pulls downward, the spirit toward the heights"

Last week I finally completed my official trip report for work, one month late, specifying the objectives and results achieved on my recent trip to Haiti in December. I appended my official schedule, and outlined all the meetings I attended, the issues and challenges raised, and specific items for follow-up.

But this is the report I wanted to write:

When I travel, it's the moon that grounds me. I look up and see that it is the same moon that I see at home, or in Paris or in South Africa or any of the places I've been to.

The sky, the stars and the moon: These are constant.

When I look up, I don't see the crowded and ramshackle housing, the smoke rising from kitchen fires, the broken streets, the traffic, the schools without walls, the streets teeming with people selling everything and anything they can lay their hands on -- toilet paper, bananas, tires, clothing, dishes, artwork. Life happens outside here, by nature, by necessity.

I didn't see any begging, except for one lady with a baby at one street corner. There are few people from whom to beg -- the rich, the Westerners, the diplomats, the elite, the NGO workers -- they all drive around in armoured cars or SUVs, protected by tinted windows and bodyguards. We aren't allowed to walk around, to explore the streets on foot, or to take taxis or public transportation. No one wants to be a consular case. And so, there is no begging.

People warned me, and now that I'm back they ask if I am shocked at what I saw. Yes, and no. Of course, to see such levels of poverty, in this hemisphere, in this day and age, is shocking. But it is not only here. I have seen it elsewhere -- Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Mozambique, the Philippines, India, Cambodia... and not that long ago. I know, also, that poverty exists in my own country: on First Nations reserves, in pockets of rural communities, on the streets of Ottawa.

I visited a village where latrines for each home were only recently built, and yes, there, I was shocked. My grandfather, who spent decades as a missionary in Latin America in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, would say that the poor didn't need proselytizing; they needed schools and latrines. So yes, I was shocked to discover that in this day and age, only 1000 km away from mainland USA, people were still defecating outdoors. We held a meeting with a group of village leaders to discuss the project. We sat outside, in a circle underneath the trees. Everyone present wore clean and decent clothing. My colleague asked them: "What impact has the project had on the community?" At first I felt embarrassed at the question. The leader spoke clearly, unfazed: "It means we no longer have to defecate outdoors." Behind him, a young man was ironing the day's wash. In the trees, corn hung to dry. The December breeze was cool.

I left feeling quite inadequate: who am I to think I have anything to offer here? In what manner can I serve that will truly change the course of a single life, let alone of a country?

In his book, Letters to Jesus, my grandfather wrote: "Each new experience rekindles the fire that cannot be extinguished. One day, I heard the song of a peasant as he worked: 'The spirit and the flesh are in a fierce struggle; the flesh pulls downward, and the spirit toward the heights.'"

When I look up to the heights, I see the same moon, the same stars, the same sky as do those people whom I met, and I am reminded that we occupy the same planet. I have no inherent right to the things that I have, to the life that I live, and neither do they have an inherent obligation to live as they do.

Perhaps all I can offer is to bear witness to their fierce struggle.