What she left

Posted on October 28, 2010 by doradueck

“What will I leave of myself?” asked nurse and poet Christine Wiebe (1954-2000) in her journal. The question found its way into a limited edition book, “How to Stay Alive,” produced for family and friends, and now into excerpts carried in the latest issue of the online CMW Journal. I hear it, honest and poignant, as it weaves through the 79 online pages of the piece, and through her poems, and as I read her mother Katie Funk Wiebe’s short biography of her daughter, then a short analysis of Christine’s work by Ellen Kroeker (and the poem, “Her Spirit, a Small Bird with Color”), and the reflections of her sister Joanna and Jeff Gundy Christine, and… well the whole issue, in fact.

Christine faced many health challenges, including lupus and heart attacks and eventually the complete collapse of her body and death. She was interested in healing — of others, of herself. She was both Catholic and Mennonite. And most of all she wanted to be a writer. And she struggled — in the way one’s thoughts turn round and round in journal writing — with those dreams (and others) and what might not be accomplished.

On the evidence of these articles, she left more than she knew perhaps, for her mother, sisters, friends, colleagues, clients, especially in terms of personal interaction. But in addition, and here I speak as one of those now reading these gathered words by and about her, these frank and lovely, almost heartbreaking words, I want to answer her, you left us all this: a gift of what you saw and strove for and accepted.

I close with one whimsical foretaste of Christine’s art and poetry from her journal (used with permission):

Everyone has an angel.
Angels have friends.
Imagine all the angels around
your bed
before you sleep.

The Matter with Morris

Posted on October 26, 2010 by doradueck

With one Giller prize under his belt, and a nomination for another, David Bergen’s star is high in the Canadian literary firmament. In this his latest book, the protagonist Morris Schutt, 51, works his way through something of a midlife crisis – a crisis of grief, really — precipitated by his son’s death in Afghanistan, for which he feels vaguely responsible. Morris is conflicted in many ways, not least of all that he was raised Mennonite (though “had shucked that off quite quickly”) and wishes he were Jewish. He sees “all of us…marching towards non-matter”; he needs “to understand how he could still grasp and hold on to the essence of his life.”

There’s not that much that happens (the critical event having occurred already), except for Morris’ inner questing, and the small steps he takes both backward and forward to respond to his situation. These acts, little more than gestures at the time, gather however, and seem both significant and hopeful by the end.

I have to say I was disappointed with the book at first. Something about the writing/characters wasn’t ringing true for me (and I don’t mean Bergen’s trademark spareness). Was it striving for affect without giving sufficient support for it? Perhaps I was comparing it to The Time in Between, which I’ve liked best of Bergen’s books so far. (I’ve not read The Retreat, the book just before this one.) But I can also say that by page 70 or so – page 76 to be precise – the book (or I?) had found its stride; found depth.

I was struck by a tiny recurring detail: Morris pulling a blanket up over someone (for example, over his letter writing friend Ursula, the prostitute Leah, his daughter Libby, and his father), tucking them in for sleep. It had a parental tenderness, but eventually I felt intimations of the undertaker as well.

Bergen insists he’s not Morris. There are certainly parallels between them, though, and Bergen admits he’s “pillaged” his own experiences for the novel. Those who know his Mennonite background and community, as I do, may find this adds layers of interest to the reading experience, and perhaps questions and some dissonance as well. I think it’s a book that needs — and provokes — further discussion, more than I’m able to give it at this time. But I’ll certainly be interested to hear from others who read the book.

October

Posted on October 23, 2010 by doradueck

I don’t know when I’ve felt the particular October-ness of October as intensely as this year. This tenth month of our Gregorian calendar sometimes behaves like the eighth, which it was in the Roman calendar (octo), sporting all the charm of late summer instead of early winter. And this year too. The geraniums in the barrel planter and the clematis on the garage wall are still blooming merrily, and though the rest of the flower beds are finished, I cut marigolds for a table centerpiece yesterday. Long stretches of days this month have been warm, even hot.

At the same time, there’s the sweet melancholy of fall in it, the trees mostly bare and the colours monochrome, geese overhead, huge bins full of pumpkins at the Superstore, dark encroaching earlier every day.

This October has been especially blessedly poised between summer and winter, so well fulfilling its role as consummate autumn month (for this part of the globe, I mean), a time in which we live with a keen awareness of what has been and what’s to come. As if both memory and wisdom have reached a near state of perfection, though of course nothing’s perfect about it, unless it’s compromise of the seasons.

And in October, or so it seemed to us this year, every organization or institution – be it cultural or church – puts on a conference, fund-raising banquet, or opens its “season.” On the heels of Thanksgiving with its praises and feasting, there’s been the riches of a Mennonite history conference, and lectures on McLuhan, and the first of another “Take and Read” series, and the Manitoba Theatre Centre’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and then for good measure, “Lenin’s Embalmers” at the Jewish Theatre, and CMU’s annual J.J. Thiessen lectures, this year on the spiritual power of desert and wilderness (or Winnipeg winters, as one participant noted), and so it will go into the last week of the month as well. I hope this recitation doesn’t sound like trying to impress with busyness. The emphasis is “riches.” And there’s plenty we haven’t attended as well. October, apparently, is congenial to planners, and thus it gets stuffed, like the Thanksgiving turkey, which makes it nourishing, and interesting too.

October seems a month with post-menopausal zest (about which I know a little myself), and so we follow the weather, and when it’s warm, we’re outside, walking or whatever, and as far as our energies take us, we’re attending things. And if it all feels intense, sometimes overwhelming, it’s because one knows what end of the calendar year we’re on, the end and not the beginning, trees revealing their bones and everything wrinkling and fading around us.

As if to remind us of the poles, two of our grandchildren have birthdays in October. We sent our packages and as much love as we can convey in the mail to the world’s liveliest and best 4 and 9-year-olds, but closer to home, we’re having to respond to the needs of my mother, 88, frail, barely mobile, and slated for surgery next week.

The month will end with Halloween, and whether you go for the ghoulish or the respectful aspect of remembering the dead, it too is a sign of turning. But, for one more week, it’s still October. Last night the moon was full, almost sun-bright, and we left the bedroom curtains open to the beautiful light.