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.

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.