Author Archives: doradueck

October

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October. A lovely month, often resonant of summer, and just as often, it seems, of winter. I spent half the month in Nova Scotia, visiting my daughter and her family, who have moved to the Annapolis Valley. It was my first time in the Maritimes. I experienced heat, cold, wind, rain, and beauty wherever I looked. There were many fine days too, as in almost perfect, and the fall colours were spectacular.

As per family visits I spent time with my dear people, and as per my personality, tried to make myself useful (!) by mending, digging up the garden beds, playing with the children. All of which I enjoyed.

We did a few outings — to a tall lighthouse and a short one, to small villages, and to the Frenchys thrift clothing store in Digby (apparently the original). I especially enjoyed seeing the replica of painter Maud Lewis‘s house (the actual house is in the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia) as well as her gravesite and the memorial structure where the house used to stand, which the designer called a “ghost house.” It reminded me of the bones of what’s left of things (sort of like Borrowing Bones!).

Since returning to B.C., I’ve been catching up with family and friends and reading a fair bit (attempting to read the Booker shortlist, though since I’m depending on the library I may not get there by the winner announcement Nov. 10). And, like many other Canadians, I’m following the World Series and holding my breath on behalf of the Blue Jays!

The lovely welcome of a hotel room

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A highlight this month has been a tour of Ireland. Each day of the tour I selected four photos out of many and wrote a short paragraph on Facebook, and that seems enough for now in terms of description; amateur travelogues are not actually that compelling. (Remember those long and boring slide shows we used to endure when someone from family or friends had done the requisite pilgrimage to Europe?)

Suffice it to say that Ireland is a beautiful country with a complex and fascinating history, and that my short tour will inform me in various ways going forward. I enjoyed it very much.

However, I do have the self-imposed resolution to post here at least once a month, and in fulfilment of that vow and retrospective of my trip, I’ve been thinking about hotel rooms. A tour takes one into a “new” hotel room on many a night, though there are a few times when the stay is two nights, and the need to not pack up in the morning a definite bonus.

When I enter a hotel room on a tour, I seem to promptly forget the previous room. I decided to take photos of the rooms this time, just to remember them a little. It’s not that hotel rooms in a middle-of-the-road tour differ much; they’re usually rated at a 3 or 4 (I think I’ve only stayed in a 5 star room once), and those we stayed in were more or less the same — you know, bed, bathroom, closet, coffee maker, TV. Perfectly clean, pillows generally thick and abundant, sheets and duvets white and crisp (and far too tightly secured under the mattress). Still, there was always a bit of excitement in me each afternoon or evening when we reached our hotel destination, a curiosity about the room, a glad sensation of letting myself down into its welcoming and undemanding hospitality. Here it was. For me to use. To sleep in, to retreat in, to return, if only briefly and partially, to a sense of domesticity and home-ishness in the midst of the travelling that takes one away from home to unfamiliar places.

I liked the rooms I stayed in. One was memorable for its little window nook with two chairs and windows on three sides. Another turned out to be a family room, with an additional bunk bed; I almost wished to gather some urchins off the street to have a bit of that kind of company! The Titanic Hotel had rivets on the door!

A hotel room may announce itself with its decorative flourishes but it doesn’t speak with any kind of intimate personality such as the rooms of our homes do. It doesn’t talk back, in other words, just invites us in, and without judgment lets us take our shoes off and put up our tired feet.

Fate unknown

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This week I attended, with my sister and brother-in-law, an exhibit at the Mennonite Heritage Museum, Abbotsford, B.C., called “Unearthing the Vanished: Mennonite Experiences in Stalin’s Great Terror.”

It tells the stories of some of an estimated 9000 Mennonites — generally men — arrested during the Terror of 1937-38 in the Soviet Union. These stories are but a sampling of the 9000, and the 9000 itself but a portion of the number in the larger population who were affected in that period. (See, for example, books like Solzenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago.)

Janet Boldt, one of the writers/researchers of the exhibit, whose own relatives were taken in the Terror, gave us an excellent introduction to the exhibit.

In panels of text, photos, art, and poetry, and materials like a boy’s begging cloth and copies of trial documents, the exhibit presents the background to the Terror, details of arrests and interrogation and sometimes (if known) outcome, as well as faces in a 3-panel Wall of Sorrow. Even starker than photos are simply names with “profile cutouts.” In many cases, all that can be said is “Fate unknown.”

“Take a moment to gaze at their faces,” the exhibit guide advises. “[A]ll were part of the fabric of society, all were part of what it means to be family.”

A wail of lament

The exhibit also addresses the affect of these arrests and disappearances on women and on children. Collectively, it’s emotional; it’s moving. It’s a wail of lament.

I can’t help thinking of a 1912 funeral photo (below) of my grandfather’s family (he’s the second from right in the back), at the time of his father’s death. Of these siblings, only he and one brother, far left, would later manage to immigrate to Canada. What was the fate of the rest of them? A few letters in the early 1930s speak of Verbannung (exile) and great hunger.Of her family, my grandmother wrote, “If only I knew where all our family members are…. What happened to them all?”

It’s also impossible to look at this exhibit and not think of images and videos we see in the news every day, not arrests into a “Black Raven” vehicle at midnight but masked and often unidentified ICE agents seizing people in broad daylight. Reports of terrible treatment in places like Alligator Alcatraz are emerging. There seems no recourse in these grabs to lawful procedures or justice. It’s neither alarmist nor conspiracy theory to draw parallels between the “disappeared” of my heritage and today’s new masses of the “disappeared.”