"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.

Random thoughts for a Sunday evening in December

The kids are finally in bed. They are staying up later as they grow older, and I'm losing (and missing!) quiet time in the evening. We do have different conversations in the evenings though, I find there is more opportunity for openness, for questions, for revelations. A bit more closeness. Tonight, a conversation about how sometimes meaning gets lost in translation.

This week I am going to Haiti for the first time. I am excited and daunted. My grandfather Marcos had planned to take me there, almost exactly 21 years ago. He wanted to show me, freshly out of grad school with my International Development Studies diploma, what development was really about. We had already been to shanty towns in Puerto Rico, where we had lunch with a man who lived in a shack on stilts. He and my grandmother also took me to Venezuela. I remember the mountains and coffee plantations, and getting stuck in a traffic jam for 9 hours. We cancelled the trip to Haiti because of political instability at the time. It was just after American Thanksgiving, the last time I was in Puerto Rico together with my mother.

Lasagna and chili batch-cooked for the week ahead. It makes me feel better about going, knowing a few meals are tucked away. I had to pull out summer clothes to pack, all while hearing there will be snow here tomorrow.

Second Sunday of Advent. A few decorations in place. The Christmas lights aren't up yet, but this year I am focusing on candles. The flickering light. The warm smell of melting wax. The heat emanating from light. 

The Week After

As we emerge from a collective hangover, I wonder how many people Stateside are feeling "I'm never going to vote badly (or not vote) again". Still, it remains surprising to see how much support the President-elect has. It is a gong show. And there's no end in sight. Clearly this won't be business as usual, and no one really has any idea of what will happen.

The political scientist in me is curious. What will the US look like after four years? What will the world look like? Maybe this is the US' undoing. China must be pretty happy. Maybe he surprises us all: wins the war on terror, cleans up the inner cities, fixes immigration. (I caught you laughing, didn't I?)

The human being in me is disappointed. Disappointed in the hateful and vicious rhetoric that has emerged, not only in the US but here in Canada as well. This isn't what my parents signed up for when they chose to live here. Work hard, pay your taxes, be nice. In return, you'll be able to educate your children, have access to good healthcare and live peacefully.

It's really a simple equation.

The healing balm of art and driving on the 401

I spent much of Friday and today driving on the 401. Normally the Ottawa-Toronto drive on Canada's biggest highway is a mind-numbing experience, but on this weekend, after the shock and awe of the past week, I found it comforting and restoring.

On both days, I tuned in to CBC radio as I careened down the highway. On Friday the airwaves were full of melancholy. It was Remembrance Day, and the morning after the world had learned of Leonard Cohen's passing. The haunting tones of The Last Post, and the reminiscences of Cohen's poetry and love songs buoyed me and gave me all the permission I needed to tear up and give in to the sense of loss I was already feeling.

During various outings yesterday and today, I had the pleasure of visiting an art gallery in Hamilton and my friend's gift shop in Port Credit. Both places were finely appointed, with keen attention to colour, light and detail.

And then on the return today, again listening to CBC radio programming, I was introduced to a painting I had never heard of -- The Sun, by Edvard Munch, better known for The Scream -- and also to Zadie Smith, a writer I have never read but who sounded like a kindred spirit as she spoke of playing with fiction and of the power of joy.

These episodes reminded me of the necessity to the human spirit of creativity and imagination -- whether through music, the written or spoken word, or fine arts -- to soothe, to inspire and heal, to bridge cultural and political divides, to explain (or at least bear witness to) the inexplicable.

There is a spot along the 401, just outside Napanee, where someone has built an Inukshuk, a compelling example of how art and communication can be as simple as piling a few stones to take the form of a person, one who stands with arms outstretched, not mocking or harming, but guiding, witnessing and welcoming.

This coming week, as you pore over competing narratives, hilarious memes, contradictory analysis and maddening explanations, take some time to read or write a poem, to listen to a piece of uplifting music, to paint or to view a piece of artwork. Do something creative and constructive with your hands, with your mind. Allow your ears and eyes to feast on something beautiful, made through human or divine creation.

Escape.

This weeping and anxious world will still be here when you get back. But you might feel ever so much stronger to handle it.

Fall

The sky is blue. Piercing blue, and the air is crisp and cold.

The backyard, resplendent in fall colours: red, yellow, orange. One tree is still almost entirely green, with the leaves on only the topmost branches turning blood red, each day, one by one. Another tree, in the neighbour's yard, is almost completely bare, save for a bird's nest that sways in the wind but stays secure.

Wet leaves blanket the yard, and the black-eyed Susans have lost their bloom. The bougainvillea branches, stringy and dry, stubbornly hold onto a few last fuchsia petals.

I should be planting tulip bulbs. And daffodils. I will be mad at myself next spring if I don't plant them now.

Instead I collect the last of the kale and a bowl full of green tomatoes. There wasn't enough sun for them to ripen on the vine. Google promises me they can be roasted or fried, turned into chutney, salsa or soup. I am skeptical, but willing to try.

My husband is putting away the patio furniture: piling up the chairs, dismantling the table, drying out the seat cushions. The deck looks much larger. We should have painted it this summer. It would have dried quickly in the heat. But now the worn out browns blend in with the turning leaves and speak gently with the memory of barbecue suppers and laughter with friends late into the night.

The sun through the glass feels warm and teases me into thinking it could still be summer, if I just close my eyes and believe.

Let me tell you about the men in my life

I can hardly believe this behaviour we are witnessing, the insults and revelations revealed daily, indeed with such alarming frequency that they risk becoming almost meaningless. Such venom and bile that spews forth from this awful being and the people who surround him. Why must we listen to his garbage, to give it credence or even the tiniest bit of attention? Who is he, with his billions? He may have great wealth in material but he lives in extreme poverty of spirit. His jowls quivering, his sausage fingers wagging, his tangy hair flapping -- he is so far removed from reality as to be a farce, a caricature of a certain kind of creature (I won't call him a man) that he deserves only to be ignored and rendered irrelevant.

He is the furthest away in action and temperament from all the men I have ever known, so far away as to be in an alternate universe, now hopefully careening towards a black hole to be sucked up in one great gasp and then forgotten.

The men in my life are good: Husband, sons, father, stepfather, father-in-law, brothers, brothers-in-law, uncles, cousins, nephews, ex-boyfriends, neighbours, coworkers and friends. They are respectful without being condescending, loving without being violent, protective without being patronizing, gentle without being weak, proud without feeling threatened.

I have never been threatened or felt unsafe or insulted by a man. I do know women who have been treated badly by men. I know it happens all too often, and I know it leaves lasting and painful damage. I simply am fortunate to have been treated well by the men in my life, so I also know that good men do exist and that it is possible to live and thrive in a world where women can shine without eclipsing or being eclipsed by men.

I want my sons to be proud of who they are, not shamed because of the behaviour of one jackass who should apologize, not only for his behaviour and not only to the women he has violated, but also to the men whose reputations he sullies by his own words and deeds.

The men in my life are good and decent people, and treat me as a good and decent person. For this I am not grateful -- it is as it should be! -- but rather I am cognizant that it is not the experience of every woman and so I must raise my daughter to expect it as her right, and my sons to emulate the very good men I know.

Lightning

lightning through the window
lights the sky and

brings to mind all the crevices
of darkness from where

we are born
and when we die

we die in darkness
and the light breaks through us

until we shine as lightning
through the window