Thankful Grateful Blessed
I have discovered that I am marking the passage of years by the appearance of this sign in Doug’s care home. Thanksgiving - again? Has an entire year really passed since last Thanksgiving? I find myself taking stock of my year - accomplishments & disappointments, joys & sorrows, blessings & burdens - and thinking about what I can (try to) achieve in the last months of this year.
My problems fade to insignificance when I read the news, and between reports of wars and deaths I interpose Jay Rayner’s restaurant reviews and the Culture & Lifestyle rabbit hole that leads to. Recently an actor whose work I admire said of another actor (whose work I don’t know) “ . . . this woman showed up and claimed her seat at the table with nothing on her face. I am so impressed and floored by this act of courage and rebellion.”
In the past I might have scoffed, “That’s courage?! Come on!” But today I try to imagine what it might be like to be a person who is expected to present a certain image in public, or even a person who wears make up on a regular basis. I have zero lived experience of this, so I can’t judge the degree of bravery it takes for someone who is photographed a zillion times a day to leave her house makeup-free.
As a creative writing teacher, I ask my students to include an aesthetic statement when they submit a piece of work. I explain that if I have an understanding of what they are aiming for, I’ll be better position to mark their work in a way which will be more useful to them. Not only “I think this worked well because/ you may wish to revisit this because . . . ” but also “I believe you met your objective in this way/ perhaps your desired result is let down by this section because . . . ”
For some classes I use as an example the poetry of Rupi Kaur, who writes in lowercase, almost punctuation free. She has explained that this is not a random, meaningless choice, but “in the gurmukhi script... all letters are treated the same. i enjoy how simple that is. how symmetrical and how absolutely straightforward . . . a visual representation of what i want to see more of within the world: equalness... so in order to preserve these small details of my mother language i include them within this language. no case distinction and only periods.” I choose to believe the ‘bare faced’ actor has as compelling an explanation for her choice, and wonder if she considers herself a courageous rebel.
Back to the newspaper: I have become my paternal grandmother; I remember her reading the obituaries every morning and I do the same. So many speak of the “brave battle” a loved one has fought, with cancer, with heart disease, with a mental illness. Apart from my ambivalence about the war metaphor so often used, I question the use of “bravery” here, but remind myself - again - that I can’t guess at someone else’s lived experience.
I speak of Doug as “living with dementia” knowing it was not a choice he made. It’s not anything over which he has any control. He IS a brave man - he’s made lots of courageous choices in the past, and done many things I consider deserving of the term. (If the Toronto Star’s archives weren’t kept behind a paywall, I’d link here to his reports from the front lines of El Salvador’s civil war.) I am thankful that I knew him when he was well, and was able to witness his courage.
The ping of an incoming email. A friend, who ends her note with, “You are brave and good.” I hope she is right. I hope that I am brave and that I am good. I’m grateful that she can see those characteristics in me, especially on the days when I cannot.
On to the book reviews where there will be one that applauds the bravery of the writer to tackle a certain subject, to expose secrets, or to dare to craft a novel in an innovative way. I tell my students they are brave to write at all - and brave again to share their writing with the rest of us. I am blessed to have students who are willing to push themselves far from their comfort zones, with the added bonus that their confidence helps me grow too.
The weather has turned. A long, warm autumn, with hot summer-weather days has, overnight, become the start of winter, with the first snowfall of the season causing two highway accidents north of North Bay over Thanksgiving weekend. Next time I visit Doug I'll bundle him up, and together we'll brave the cold.
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