Tagged - Five Things Meme
Randy tagged me for the Five Little-Known Things About Me meme. All right then.
January 18, 2007
May 30, 2006
Nostradamus
The Wikipedia entry of the day is Nostradamus!
This has a rich personal resonance. When my kids were young my sister-in-law, once known as Sharon Wehner the dancer, now billing herself as Ariole K. Alei, holistic matchmaker, said she believed that she had channelled messages from alien/spiritual presences. She wanted to approach Sting, the Dalai Lama and the Pope to inform them of the messages she had received, to bring about a great spiritual awakening of humankind. She felt that people near to her, by birth or marriage, had been reincarnated. Yours truly, unknown to himself, was believed to be the reincarnation of Nostradamus. My spouse and her parents seemed to think that Sharon didn't have the gods lined up in the right order, but they felt the same way. My failure to be open to their collective beliefs, whatever they were, became a sore point in my dealings with my wife, and her parents and their circle of friends. My judgment that their New Age beliefs in things like reincarnation were, shall we say, eccentric, was answered by their judgment that I was negative, destructive, hostile and sick. Repent Harlequin said the tick tock man and all that. My ex's parents seem more comfortable with Ariole's partner's views as expressed in his essays and movie reviews. Anyway, that's what I left behind.
May 9, 2006
Floatplane trip
My office is in Victoria, but trips to Vancouver are a regular part of my work. We tend to go by floatplane, and I took some pictures on my second trip, last week on May 3. It was late in the day and there were dried droplets on the windows so pics from the plane weren't great. This is the plane I took on my last trip to Vancouver:
May 7, 2006
Canada Post
There has been, not unexpectedly, another frustrating experience with Canada Post. I went in to get my mail redirected to my house in Victoria when I moved in at the beginning of April. I was told that I could not amend the Change of Address, and that I had to pay for a new redirection. I filled in the new form, changing my address from Home Street in Winnipeg to my new address in Victoria. The clerk then checked off my forms as an amendment, but what do I know about their procedures. I knew there was a problem last week when Colleen called and said she was still getting my mail. This week - a full four week later - I got the new forms back with a printout of what seems to be a Canada Post intranet FAQ about amendments. It seems that amendments are possible - and free - before the redirection starts. Once the redirection starts, the customer is supposed to cancel it and purchase a new mail redirection.
I went to the post office and showed the clerk what I had received in the mail. I pointed out that I had paid the fees and given them a day time phone number on the forms. I wondered, if what they wanted, was for me to come in and cancel the first redirection, why my forms had been sent back. I didn't get an answer. To the credit of the employee at the counter and her supervisor, no one said that this was my fault.
Canada Post doesn't seem to train and supervise its employees in what should be fairly common procedures. I was resigned to the fact that I could not expect great service at a postal outlet in a drug store, but I expected something better.
March 10, 2006
Migrant worker
On Friday March 10, 2006, I arrived in Victoria on the BC Ferry, The Queen of Vancouver. I arrived in Victoria at about 5:30 PM. I didn't take pictures. I called Claire from the ferry terminal in Vancouver and wish her a happy 21st birthday.
March 9, 2006
Crossing the Divide
Today, Thursday March 9, 2006 I crossed into British Columbia through the Yellowhead Pass, on the Yellowhead Highway, on the boundary of Jasper National Park:
March 6, 2006
Moving Day - Actual
The move was rescheduled, and the movers came on Friday March 3, 2006. The house was packed. I had set aside things to bring with me in the car - some cooking utensils, some plates and bowls to be able to start housekeeping in Victoria, a couple of suits, a supply of clean shirts, some casual clothes. I had set aside one bike, supplies for bike maintenance, helmet, shoes etc to be able to start cycling on arrival.
February 20, 2006
Moving Day - Planned
Blog entries have been scarce since the New Year.
I have listed and sold my house, which involved a thorough cleaning and staying out of the way as the purchasers visited with their agents. I have moved Claire into her first apartment.
I have been packing and getting ready to move. The movers will pick up my stuff, if all goes according to the last plan, next Tuesday February 28. I have had a few valedictory dinners. I have refused to have any functions at work. Complicated story. No time, mixed feelings.
As I am leaving, I am hearing stories that the Province needs to hire many lawyers to fill vacancies in Criminal Prosecutions and to staff Legal Aid offices. Private law firms are complaining they can't get the people they want. What's wrong with legal profession in Manitoba? Greedy, cheap, smug, oblivious and headed for more trouble.
I will have to review these processes after I get to Victoria. I may not post any entries until early March, after I arrive.
January 23, 2006
Moving On
The idea that I needed to find another job, and to make a break from practising law in private practice in a small firm has been growing for a while - perhaps for well over a decade. The job market in Winnipeg was not great for an experienced, mature lawyer, and Iast spring and summer I started to apply for government jobs in other provinces.
I applied for a job with the British Columbia Attorney General's Department, in the Legal Services Branch, in August 2005. I was interviewed in October. I was advised by telephone, just before Christmas, that I have the job. The written appointment came in the first week of the New Year.
I was treated well and I was impressed by the hiring process. I knew about my destination after a few visits over the years, and I liked what I saw on this visit. It was a simple decision, although the process of moving is going to be a struggle. I accepted the job. I have told my family and friends, I have listed my house for sale, and I am preparing to move to Victoria, British Columbia.
February 21, 2005
Opening the Windows
One of the stories Fr. Britz mentioned during the 2005 St. Ignatius Parish Mission - the story about John XXIII and wine and company at meals - resonated with me. Fr. Britz said he was a young seminarian at the time.
January 17, 2005
Reuben
Reuben Warner was my roommate in the St. Boniface Hospital during my first hospital stay in January 2001. He had arrived a day and half before me. He had been blocked for a few weeks, he was bloated, he was diagnosed with a circumferential tumour high on his descending colon. If memory serves, he had his colostomy earlier than I did. I don't think his surgeon resected his tumour when she did his colostomy, but I believe he had his major surgery much sooner than I did. He had some complications and was still in the hospital when I came back in February 2001.
January 15, 2005
Surviving
This is the second entry on the period in early 2001 when I had surgery for a bowel obstruction. I spent a few weeks at home after my colostomy. Before I went home, the teaching nurses from the Enterostomal Therapy Program made sure I knew how to empty and rinse the bag, and to how to manage the the process of changing the bag which was removing the adhesive seal, rinsing the stoma, measuring and cutting a new seal and applying a new bag and seal. I still have the prescription form for an Activelife Drainable pouch #28209. The seals are very good but taking one off a hairy belly is a delicate adventure. Sometimes the seals would peel away from skin cleanly but they tended to find any hair and take hair out by the roots - and hair kept growing in under the seal. I got some scissors to clip the hairs, if I could get at them, instead of ripping them out. It was also important to try to pick a quiet time for the procedure to avoid making a mess.
January 14, 2005
Surgery
This is autobiographical, referring to my life in the time starting a couple of weeks before Christmas 2000, until April or May 2001. I had three operations. For 7 or 8 weeks in January and February 2001, I believed that I had cancer.
July 20, 2004
Sleeping with Aliens - More
I spent a long time reading, summarizing and reviewing Sleeping with Aliens. I posted a review on the Blogcritics site, and a long commentary on this site. It isn't kind to the New Age.
July 17, 2004
A Critical Year
My wife first asked me for a divorce on April 29, 2003. She changed her mind and stayed for a near year before she told me, in March 2004, that she had decided to leave. Through that year, I faced the question of what was wrong with me, to make my wife, Jan, want to leave. While more delicate writers might speak of our discomfort with one another, she explicitly said there was something wrong with me.
I knew that I had become uncomfortable with her family and I had started to realize that she was needy, but I loved her. When I found out what she thought of me, I realized that I had to get away from her and get on with my life.
June 3, 2004
Changing Views of Religion
My parents were immigrants to Canada from rural Zeeland, the province of Holland nearest the Belgian border. They were Catholics and saw to it, with some personal sacrifice, that my siblings and I attended a Catholic parochial school. I remember getting up to go to Mass and serving Mass in Latin, before the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council. We had to take breakfast to the Church and eat our breakfast before school - which was in the basement of the Church. In those days a fast of at least three hours before Communion was observed. I went on to a Jesuit High School. As a child and teenager, I accepted being Catholic as part of my identity.
May 18, 2004
Remembering Sister Jane
Sister Jane's drop-in Center, Chez Nous, operated in an old bank building at the corner of Main Street and Higgins Avenue. When Jane was sick, the Center was frequently closed. When Jane died, her friends and supporters on the Board of directors of the non-profit corporation were left with a decision to sell the building, or to try to carry on Sister Jane's work.
They have carried on. Jane's therapist and friend Vicki Frankel helped the Board to reorganize itself. The Board members trained themselves to work in the drop-in Center, and they found and trained more volunteers. They raised money, and they kept the doors open. The Archdiocese of Winnipeg has been recognizing their work, and Sister Jane's work in taking collections and publicizing the work of Chez Nous in its internal newsletter in May 2004.
May 17, 2004
More about Sister Jane
Since I first posted about Sister Jane, I have talked further with her legal personal representative and her family, and reached a point where I can tell more of her story and how her life affected mine.
April 18, 2004
Writing
My friend Randy has had an Internet presence for several years. He started with web pages which evolved into a blog. The idea of writing a blog myself has been growing for a while. The current tools for Web logs make it easy to publish. I enjoyed creative writing and writing essays as a student, and writing for sf fanzines. I always thought I would write but I always found excuses for not writing: too busy at work; too many jobs around the house; need to spend time with the kids; need to relax and read a book; fear it will compromise career choices in law; fear it will alienate business partners or clients; need to get over the latest crisis at work. Insecurity about my voice and my talent played a part, but depression and shame played a larger part. With depression and shame came a deep fear of self-disclosure and honesty.
A few days of separation
Jan stayed for a couple of days after we gave Claire the divorce news on Wednesday. She moved out on Friday. Claire and I are discussing some of the basics - shopping, cooking, cleaning. This is a new and strange situation but we are trying to live with it.
Jan took one of the desktop computers with her. Claire had been using that for a lot of her writing and online work. I copied or moved all her files and favourites to the other desktop, and Claire has been able to get everything set up and working. We have to negotiate our computer access now.
I have kept up my riding and my time with my friends. My family are concerned and calling to help us me, Claire and Dave, as much as they can. I have been able to share the news with neighbours and to get some comments on housing issues, and support for staying in the neighbourhood.
Dave has been tougher to talk to this week. He called Thursday night and complained I had not called him this week. I reminded him that he had been late for our planned time on Monday and that I had told him that I would not be around this week. He was demanding models and things. I knew that his mom had bought him other stuff earlier in the day. I am not in a bidding war for his affection. I reminded him that I had been having a hard week, with other issues, and he hung up on me.
I dropped in on Dave on Saturday morning and he gave me hell for dropping in. Since the worker in his room had not answered the phone when I called ahead, I had I had inferred he was having breakfast, and I was right - I found him in the dining room. He went on about how I didn't listen to him or to his needs. I said I would call and make plans later. He called me Sat. evening and asked me to bring him some things that he already owns, and I can live with that.
Claire and I have been watching movies. We saw Kill Bill, Vol. I on DVD and we are going to catch Kill Bill Vol. II at a matinee today. Dinner is cooking in the crock pot.
April 15, 2004
Truthfulness
Last night Jan and I told Claire that we are going to be divorced after almost 21 years of marriage. Jan had made her decision quite a while ago. She told me over a month ago but she did not want to tell Claire. At that point, Claire had a few weeks of classes left, and exams, and the idea was to give her some peace to finish her first year of University. I agreed, for self-serving reasons.
I didn't really think it would affect school. Claire has always succeeded in academic and intellectual matters in spite of struggles with her feelings. I don't think that an immediate announcement and separation would have interfered with her routine and study habits. I agreed because I needed time to react to the news and to make decisions. I agreed because the news would be painful for Claire, and I was not strong enough to be present to face her pain at the time.
It was a relief to tell Claire, and to be able to move into the future. Claire has been shaken by the news. One part of her pain is that we fooled her and that she had not seen this coming. I think I felt the same way when Jan demanded the divorce a month ago.
This was not Claire's fault. She is a victim of her parent's struggles. She has been sacrificing herself to try to please and support both parents. I am looking forward to our new freedom.
April 7, 2004
Dispossessed
In looking at some old email in an archive folder, I recollected that I used to sign my email with quotations. For several months or years in the mid 90's, I used a quote from The Dispossessed, (Harper & Row, 1974) by Ursula K. LeGuin:
It is the nature of idea to be communicated: written, spoken, done. The idea is like grass. It craves light, thrives on crossbreeding, grows better for being stepped on.
When I checked Randy's blog, his entry for April 5/04 mentioned his sf fanzine, Winding Numbers. I wrote several articles for Winding Numbers, including a sercon (that was fannish talk for serious and constructive) or critical, literary review of The Dispossessed. LeGuin has remained one of my favourite writers, for her honesty and intellectualism. I also agree with some of Thomas M. Disch's comments about LeGuin in his book The Dreams our Stuff is Made Of. Disch considers that LeGuin has been made into a feminist icon by literary critics, and that some of her ideas and themes have been appropriated and misrepresented by critics and imitators. Disch is not particularly enchanted with feminism and magical realism in fiction. His critique becomes sour around these matters of taste, and I part company with him while agreeing that LeGuin has become associated with superstitious lyricism.
April 6, 2004
Meeting Sister Jane
A little over two years ago, in the early months of 2002, I started a court proceeding for a woman who ran a drop-in center at Higgins and Main, in the very deepest, poorest, most alcohol and drug addled part of Winnipeg's inner City core. (I am, by the way, a lawyer by day). Sister Jane was, at that time, 50 and had been a Catholic nun since she 20. She was living alone, without the support of her religious congregation, and she had terminal cancer.
She had been raised in New Hampshire and joined her congregation as a young woman just at the time that memberships in the Catholic Religious Orders was plummeting. Soon after she joined her Order, she accepted an invitation from a Canadian nun, a self-styled visionary reformer, to move to Edmonton and then to Winnipeg to be part of an innovative spiritual commune.
It didn't work for Sister Jane. The project tried to fuse transformational psychology with Catholic spirituality but it seems to have lost its connection to the Scriptures and the traditions of the Church. It became the leader's personal project, and became whatever the leader wanted it to be. Jane found that her leader was controlling and grandiose. Jane swore in Affidavits that the leader introduced a purported therapy in which she initiated naked hugs which progressed to other sexual acts. Jane submitted sometimes but started to resist and react, which angered her leader, who disciplined her within the close confines of their communal life, and expelled her from the commune. She was then marginalized in her own Order because of her alienation from the leader and the rest of her Sisters who were connected to commune and the project.
Sister Jane had remained a member of her Order, but had started to live on her own. She received a little support to find a building and start a drop-in place but she had to recruit a board and to find funds for operating expenses and her own needs from a very early stage. She made friends, and her friends supported her and her ministry.
When she found that she had cancer, she sought some support from her superiors in the Order. In that process she described her personal experiences in the new movement, and she found that she was getting very little support. The Archbishop of Winnipeg listened to her and helped her personally with some other needs, but he did not intervene in the affairs of Jane's autonomous Religious Order.
When I met Jane, her cancer was in remission and she was trying to understand if she could continue in that Religious Order, or if she had to leave. We started Court proceedings to recover compensation for the harm caused by illegal acts, her cancer came back in the winter of 2002-2003 and she died last summer. Her ministry was curtailed by her illness, and it closed for a while after she died. Her friends have been trying to revive it.
I visited her last spring, before her last hospitalization. Her ministry was based in an old three story bank building. The drop in was on the main floor and she lived in a suite on the upper floors. It was a small apartment, with a little chapel or prayer room. It was small oasis for her in a tough area of town and Jane lived with anxiety and fear.
When I had been discussing her evidence with her, I had tried to understand what she did at a drop-in. Did she provide a social service? Counselling? Teaching? Referrals to other agencies? Some kind of therapy? She explained it as living out the Church's preferential option for the poor. I recognized that as an articulation of liberation theology, but I don't think I started to understand it until later. What she did was to be present for people and to listen to them, providing them with a safety and respect. The theologian Rowan Williams, in his book Christ on Trial, How the Gospel Unsettled our Judgment
wrote:
God's transcendence is in some sense present in and with those who do not have a voice, in and with those without power to affect their world, in and with those believed to have lost any right they might have had in the world. God is not with them because they are naturally virtuous, or because they are martyrs; he is simply there in the fact that they are 'left over' when the social and moral score is added up by the managers of social and moral behaviour.
What strikes me about Sister Jane's work is that she was able to carry on while she herself was deeply wounded. I think I have only been able understand the value of her ministry as I have begun to experience my own pain and powerlessness over the events and the people in my life, and when I have needed to have people listen to me.
Last week a common friend of Jane's and mine told me that Sister Jane had seen that I was going through some changes - as I certainly have been. I was simply moved to tears that she had the compassion to see me clearly while I thought I was helping her.
April 3, 2004
Sea of Flowers
I first heard the simile of the prairie as a sea of flowers used by Stan Rogers, the great Canadian singer and songwriter in his song, "Northwest Passage". A few years ago, when I was involved in an Internet mailing list devoted to Canadian folk music, I tried to find out when it entered our literature. It seems to have been in the early 19th century when American settlers started to push west onto the plains of western Illinois. Like Stan Rogers, we need to reach into our imagination to see that scene today.
The tall grass prairie used to cover parts of the eastern Great Plains, including the fertile valley of the Red River as it runs into Lake Winnipeg. For centuries before the settlement of the prairies for agriculture, travellers arriving through the forests of the Canadian Shield and the sandy eskers at the edge of the Shield would have had a vista of miles of tall flowers and flowering grasses rippling in the wind like waves on the sea.
The prairie in its natural state was intimidating. The tall grasses could rise over a person's head, and the grasses were hardy, coarse, prickly, cutting, stinging and infested with biting insects. The prairies might be swept, on a given day, by wind, rain, fire or snow, or flooded, or baked in the glare of the sun in a cloudless sky.
That's where I live, and where I have lived for nearly 50 years. I live in Winnipeg, a large small city in the Red River Valley in Manitoba. My parents left Holland and crossed the ocean and half a continent to try to raise a family in this windy city built along three rivers, in a landscape that was once a sea of flowers. When I was a child, our family home was at the edge of a blue-collar area near the airport, which occupies the Northwest corner of the City. There were patches of prairie a short distance north of our house, and there were vacant lots full of grass and brush tall enough to make hiding places and imaginary battlefields.
The sea of flowers has long since been plowed over but it survives in small patches and in the imagination. That's my home and my starting place for this blog.
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