On the road with Sweet Bobby

Posted on July 11, 2023 by doradueck

I left Tsawwassen close to 7 this morning and now, 7 in the evening, I’ve got my legs stretched out on a bed in a room at the Shimmerhorn Inn in Creston. Nothing luxurious but it’s a bed and the place is rather pretty in blue and white, and I’m very grateful indeed to have the first day of my road trip to Winnipeg behind me. I plan to attend a Mennonite history conference, visit some friends and relatives, and then double back through Saskatchewan for a week’s writing retreat at St. Peter’s Abbey in Muenster. More about all that later if I find time and energy to keep up a bit of a blog-diary.

I decided to take the #3 out of B.C. On the map that highway looks like an earthworm wiggling along the border. No end of curves, that’s for sure, and no end either of up and down, but it’s magnificent country in so many ways, the mountains and trees and valleys and rivers, and in Keremeos and Osoyoos, vineyards and orchards and bustling fruit markets. Traffic was relatively light and road conditions were good.

Before setting out, I downloaded several books and podcasts to help the hours along. Today I listened to the last four episodes of a six-episode podcast I’d started at home called Sweet Bobby. It’s a harrowing true tale about some complicated catfishing, which is not, I learned, the action of catching catfish but “a deceptive activity in which a person creates a fictional persona or fake identity on a social networking service, usually targeting a specific victim.”

Here’s the description of the series.

Kirat is a successful radio presenter. On Facebook she meets Bobby, a handsome cardiologist. He’s a catch. Soon, they get tangled up in a love affair full of lies and manipulation. Then… Kirat discovers a deception of almost unimaginable proportions.

I like podcasts that tell a true story, and are journalistic in style. (Recommendations welcome.) I also listened to an hour of Writers & Co. Although Eleanor Wachtel, one of the best interviewers ever, has just retired after 33 years of doing the show, some of her favourites are being aired throughout the summer.

Day one nearly done then. My body still feels like it’s in motion, but I’ll go for a walk and then, hopefully sleep well, and be ready to drive again tomorrow. A few more mountains to get over or around.

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.

A week of bare feet, with a view

Posted on February 7, 2023 by doradueck

When I woke Sunday morning, “In my bed again” to the tune of Willie Nelson’s “On the road again” was singing in my head. I’d heard the latter just a few days earlier in Mexico when my son and grandson crooned along with Straight No Chaser’s cover of the song, their fine harmonies rousing emotion within me about these two in particular, but also about my whole family with me on this holiday. It reminded me of how the bus driver started each day’s drive on my Britain tour last fall with that song too, which had made me wistful as it was more of an anthem for Helmut than for me, frankly, me never being “on the road” in quite the way he was in his work and pleasures, but I was “goin’ places that I’ve never seen” in both Mexico (we were on our way back from a day at a cenote) and Britain and he wasn’t.

A jumble of resonance in other words, waking safely back in my bed with that tune, but feeling not quite home yet, remembering my feet on cool tile, then springing up to the most wonderful view, throwing on clothes to go watch the sun rise over the ocean, cup of coffee in hand, a sight especially spectacular whenever there were clouds, and then the water shifting throughout the day from blue to teal/green. A view with the best sound effects as well: the endless crashing of the waves against the shore wall of the place we stayed, the breeze through the palms, the happy noises of conversation and children at play. BCB80F50-4BAF-4E54-9D6C-69722BEF8D98

Only one week, most of it spent in bare feet, ACFE4C7E-A60C-471E-851F-BF5AEBFEE8A9 but the 17 of us had a seven-bedroom house to ourselves, along with a cook and staff, and three times a day we ate together and other than the day at the cenote we were together at the house and local beach, playing the waves, playing in the sand, playing in the pool, playing games, reading, visiting. The son with a longtime habit of a bowl of cereal for night snack found the cereal in the kitchen and thereafter, we were all doing it, in cups or bowls, every evening. Stuff like that and more.

Time is time and technically the same measure, but this was time that expanded and is now rounded into a large set of memories I’ll be treasuring a long time. I’d determined to do this event subsequent to Helmut’s death, and two years later and post Covid restrictions, it was finally possible. My personal theme for the week was gratitude, and it wasn’t hard. No, gratitude this week wasn’t hard at all.