Ellsberg, Sister Wendy, & my great-grandmother

Posted on June 19, 2023 by doradueck

This post will be is a ramble—no fixed destination, simply one thing reminding me of another and another. I begin with the death last week of Daniel Ellsberg, 92, former military analyst and whistleblower. Troubled by the Vietnam War and what he knew were massive government lies, Ellsberg secretly copied thousands of pages of what became known as the Pentagon Papers and released them to newspapers.

I certainly remember well enough the news in those years about anti-war protests and Ellsberg’s name and notoriety as part of the chain that led to Watergate and eventual U.S. withdrawal, in defeat, from Vietnam. I experienced a tiny protest event of my own at the Bible school I attended when I criticized an American missionary who had championed the war from the pulpit during chapel, and was angrily criticized in turn by some loyal American students standing with me in the line for lunch.

Generally, however, U.S. news and the release of the Pentagon Papers seemed a long way from the basement room I occupied in Calgary in June, 1971 when the New York Times began publishing excerpts, a truly long way indeed from the boring summer job I had for the City, mainly, as I recall, outlining in colour on a large city map the streets that the men in their street cleaning machines had cleaned during their last shift. I also remember that a couple of the women in the office took me along to a mall during our noon break one day and urged me to buy the dressy hot pants outfit I tried on, hot pants being all the rage that season. At that stage of my life I still had the legs for hot pants, but on account of my upbringing did not have the freedom and inclination, so while it was fun to model I demurred to purchase.

dearest-sister-wendy-side I was alerted to Daniel Ellsberg again this past year by occasional mention of him by in the book Dearest Sister Wendy…, which consists of letters exchanged between Daniel’s son Robert Ellsberg, publisher at Orbis Books, and cloistered nun Sister Wendy Beckett, whom I had come to admire from the BBC documentaries on art she did back in the 1990s. She would stride into art museums with her black habit billowing behind her, about as far from hot pants fashion as you can imagine, bringing love and insight and utter lack of pretension to all she saw. (These can be viewed on YouTube.) Hers was a brief and unlikely fame, and come to think of it, in that unlikeliness, she was very similar to Daniel Ellsberg, who a friend of his called “one of those accidental characters of history who show the pattern of a whole era.” (Read an interview with Robert about his father here.)

There’s a wonderful painting of Sister Wendy on my “mantel” (over a television, not fireplace), painted by my artist friend Melody Goetz. I’m finding that hardly anyone who sees the painting has heard of Sister Wendy, but she’s been an inspiration to me through the documentaries and also her books about art and now this recent book of letters, compiled by Robert. Her cloistered world was small, yet large in its generosity and assurance of God’s love for and within people. As, for example — opening the book at random — in these sentences in response to his frustration over the then-president:

…dear Robert. Perhaps you should put Mr. Trump on the altar and sacrifice all your reactions to him. Where does it get you? He needs love as does everybody…. God despises nothing “that he has made.”

My friend Melody is a great admirer of Sister Wendy as well, hence the many hours she spent on this fine rendering of the nun, posed against a heavy door where she waits, slightly bowed, hands at rest, for Mass. When I saw it I said if it were ever available for sale, I’d be in line for it, and then one day, she felt it was ready to leave her house, and now Sister Wendy presides in mine. Scan I’m drawn to her prayerful composure, to her enviable peace about aging, to her hands. And I’m reminded of the hands of my great-grandmother, Katharina Mandtler Derksen, who led a very different life than Sister Wendy (a difficult marriage, and birthing 11 children with only three surviving to adulthood) but exhibited, according to my mother’s recollections as a child, a similar calm and praying presence in their home in the last years before her death.

In the human library

Posted on April 26, 2023 by doradueck

Yesterday afternoon I was part of a “human library” at my granddaughters’ school. In two sessions of 15 minutes each, the Grade 11 students assigned to me — I’ll call them Emily and Rose — asked me questions and then took my “portrait” (a.k.a cell phone photo).

The girls were lovely. Not surprisingly, both wanted to know about being a writer — how did it happen and where did the stories come from? Emily also asked if I had a piece of advice or what I might say to a younger me. I told her about moving provinces and changing schools for Grade 12 and how homesick I’d been for my previous school and how lonely and self-conscious I was at first. What complicated that circumstance was that since two schools had amalgamated that summer, the students in each half knew each other and, I suppose, assumed I belonged to the other group. I told her I remember walking the hallway between classes by myself, thinking everyone must notice and consider me a loser (or whatever the term was then) for having no friends. Since I know better today, I said, my advice would be that people don’t notice as much as you think they do, but I would also say to that younger me, “It will all work out.” Which it did; eventually I made some friends.

Rose asked about a present challenge. Learning to live alone again, I said. My specific story this time was as recent as the day before, when I took the ferry to Vancouver Island. Simple enough, yes, but I’d never done it myself. New driving situations make me nervous. First, I couldn’t find my lane, and went to the going-to-Nanaimo section instead of going-to-Schwartz Bay. I anxiously circled about until I got to where I was supposed to be. Then when we arrived and I went down to the vehicle deck, I was disoriented in that field of tightly packed vehicles and couldn’t find my car anywhere. Until I finally did. IPhone Maps directed me to my destination on the Island and I had a wonderful visit with friends. On my return, I knew better what to do at the ferry. Small things perhaps, I told my sweet interlocutor, but we never stop learning. And when we stretch ourselves in spite of fear and the stretch is successful, it boosts our confidence.

As for my younger self, I’d mused to Emily that I would love to meet her. Back home, Human Library done, I thought further about such an encounter, not just Older Me looking at Younger Me but her seeing who she would become. Would she be surprised? Would we be satisfied with one another? Though we were slightly wary at first, it was strangely joyous to imagine our conversation.

Deeply affected: Women Talking

Posted on February 17, 2023 by doradueck

Two things I don’t do often: write a blog post just a week and some days after the previous, and go to the same movie twice. I’m doing the first because I was so deeply affected by seeing “Women Talking” I went two days in a row. The first time, I attended alone, and the second, with four friends and then out to dinner to discuss it. Both times were powerful. onesheet

This isn’t a typical review, so if you’re not familiar with the details of the film, there are many reviews (like the Guardian’s) and responses online that supply them. Nor is it about the plight of the women in the story behind the story or how consistent or compatible to “real” Mennonite life it is or a critique of casting or screenplay or anything else. These were discussions that happened in my Facebook feed before I attended, and they interested me because years ago I engaged myself with the Bolivian Mennonite women’s story and also read and reviewed Miriam Toews’ novel Women Talking, but after seeing the movie I found myself strangely disinterested in opining on any of this, for the movie affected me at a visceral, not intellectual, level, and that’s still the place it sits. I can’t quite articulate why or what about this version of the story called up such emotion in me. My friends and I certainly remembered situations of it not mattering what we thought but mine has been a place of privilege in terms of the horrific backstory here. Still, somehow I felt myself within every woman in that hayloft, as well as those like Scarface Janz who left the conversation. I did love the two older women in particular, yes, but I “knew” the women of the other ages too as the camera lingered on their faces. women-talking-hero

But I’m not sure that’s quite it either, it sounds preposterous to suggest that I understand each angle or position within the arguments, reactions, consolations, and even laughter about forgiveness and innocence and courage. About the wisdom in “it is possible to leave…in one frame of mind and arrive elsewhere in another entirely unexpected frame of mind” (August). About what to do!

Please forgive the foggy imprecision of this response. Maybe it was simply being drawn into a story that feels core in its concerns, about topics important to all of us. And for sure to women. Maybe it’s because if I wrote the minutes of my life I would set down exactly their desires too: that we want our children to be safe, that we want to be steadfast in our faith, that we want to think.