Monthly Archives: July 2020

About the Arnolfini Wedding

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After two failed attempts of post-secondary education in pre-med and then in nursing, I took a year’s break to find my fortune (a.k.a. work three part-time jobs) by scooping ice cream, peddling auto accessories, and being a very cheerful bank teller – until the end of my shift when I failed to balance my cash more often than not. Thus buoyed with such success, I returned to the University of Alberta, this time in the Faculty of Arts.

Sometimes I think that if I had been a better student, maybe I would remember more. After all, saying you have a History Degree demands some sort of off-the-cuff knowledge of dates and wars and plagues. (I will NOT, however, forget 2020 and COVID-19.) But the things I do remember are scant and sorted – dumbfounding, really, considering the price tag of my university education and the number of hours I stood behind the cash register in West Edmonton Mall selling radar detectors to pay for said education. (Oh, and for coffee at Java Jive.)

Although I disposed of many of my course textbooks after packing and moving them one too many times, there are a couple of survivors, one of them being my Janson Art History textbook. Paging through, it reads fluorescently: I highlighted 95% of the words. But little of it is familiar and I cannot remember what my final grade was.

Albeit, there are snapshots in my brain: my tiny, elder art history professor, whose passion for art was not dulled to me though I chose to sit near the back of the 400-person Tory Lecture Theatre. I do remember how she chose very specific paintings to represent whole swathes of time. One of those was the famous Arnolfini Wedding.

Maybe you’ve seen this painting before: a very pregnant bride, dressed in verdant green, holds her gentleman’s hand as they pose for a wedding portrait. Her coveted fertility has been obviously secured and she, in turn, has locked in her future as a merchant’s mistress. She is coyly looking down; the husband is confidently facing the artist. And directly in the background, the clever artist has painted a mirror and thus inserted a teeny-tiny self-portrait.

Art can capture not only the subject itself but context, humor, secrets. A photograph of your childhood remembers that favorite cream pitcher shaped like a milk cow but you also remember how you dropped it and it smashed on the floor, splattering droplets of cream everywhere. A portrait like the Mona Lisa begs many questions: Who is she? What’s with the weird landscape in the background? What the heck is she smiling about? And modern fashion or architecture can be baffling to the untrained eye.

If you’re not already versed in a subject and know what to look for, only someone “in the know” can really tell you what the photograph or painting or Cake-Boss cake or is really about. Even better is when they can tell you the additional info that lay within like layers of paint on the canvas.

All seems well in Arnolfini Wedding portrait. The room reflects wealth and happily, the couple are expecting an heir. At a time before iPhones or even cameras, one had to be wealthy to even commission such a portrait, to immortalize yourself among the faceless masses. It seems oddly brazen to advertise the maiden’s state as she is entering the marriage contract but the dog is there to symbolize the fidelity that belongs to the marriage bond.

Unfortunately, the couple never had any children. You can’t see it in the painting, but it is part of the story.

Art, and people, are often so much more than what a first or even a second glance offers. All those myriad iPhone photos on Instagram and Facebook? There’s more than meets the eye there, too. Every picture and every person has a story and every story is worth telling and worth hearing. Not just seeing.

About Miss Kitty

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[Amanda Blake a.k.a. Miss Kitty]

When I was a wee young lass, a show that was regularly on one of the two channels that we got through our television aerial (this is pre-WIFI and pre-cable and pre-satellite dish, all you babies out there) was Gunsmoke. Set in Dodge City, Kansas during the settlement of the American West, Gunsmoke was a western drama series that had been around forever. I remember no real plot lines, but I do remember Marshall Matt Dillon and his deputy Festus and, for some strange reason, the sound of their voices: the deep tenor of Marshall Dillon and the squeaky drawl of Festus.

Oh and, of course, I remember Miss Kitty.

In my memory much of the action took place in the local saloon, where Miss Kitty served up refreshments and, ahem, “entertained” the patrons. I had been to Edmonton’s Klondike Days in the seventies: girls that dressed like Miss Kitty were good can-can dancers and they looked mighty fine in a bustle. End of story. I was five.

I was, however, in my five-year-old cognizance, aware of the urst (unresolved sexual tension) that existed between Marshall Dillon and Kitty. Except it wasn’t called that back then – all I really remember is that they seemed to like each other, but they never kissed on screen. Wikipedia says that “Kitty is just someone Matt has to visit every once in a while”.

Like every other self-respecting five-year-old girl, I just saw the romance in it. I adored Miss Kitty for the television-star that she was: glamorous and feminine and entrepreneurial. (Hey! She was part-owner of the saloon!) But business owner aside, I saw Miss Kitty as a girl. And when I was five, in my pre-women’s-liberation mindset, there were just certain things that you did not do to girls.

Namely, shoot them. It would seem that in the course of a long-running television series that featured gunslingers in the American West that every single cast member had to get shot at least once. But I don’t think anyone important ever died. I’m sure back then, as they do now, they just write in some superfluous character (for one show and one show only!) that will take the fatal bullet that saves the rest of the top billing cast. (“Who is that guy? Oh, wait, they’re gonna go ambush the Mob in an abandoned factory. Never mind.”)

The thing was, though, I didn’t know about movie magic when I was five. I thought that if someone got shot on the show, they really got shot. Like, with a real gun and real bullets. Doctors were standing by to perform life-saving surgery and it usually worked. This was just a part of the gig, apparently, and that was why actors got paid the big bucks.

And, apparently, one day Miss Kitty drew the short straw.

But she survived! Whew!

Okay, I’m older (than five) now and I know that this is not how it works (anymore. I mean, maybe it did work like that back then?) I did have some nightmares. I mean, they shot Miss Kitty, ergo NO ONE is safe.

I must have got over it at some point. Blood and guts didn’t bother me – maybe that’s why I opted for a stint (one year and one year only!) in nursing school. I also didn’t mind needles – my whole class practiced saline hip shots on me – less fun than Jell-O shots, but I was a martyr for the cause.

Fast forward to now: I still don’t mind needles (go donate blood, y’all) but I am starting to lose my stomach for shoot-em-up shows that pass for entertainment. The other night Rick and I unknowingly picked out such a flick for a Sunday evening. I was interested in the plot so we watched till the end, but seriously? These people were enjoying killing each other. Ain’t no doctor that could fix that, if it was real.

I’m still a little naive, like five-year-old Bonnie, but I’m also adamant in believing that Real People Out There are Mostly Nice. Real People don’t shoot girls OR boys for fun.

Maybe what I need to do is get back to the sweet and romantic stories. Maybe that’s why some people that I love as they get older have fallen in love with those predictable-and-maybe-a-little-badly-acted Hallmark movies that I make fun of. Maybe this is my future. Maybe this is what getting older is about: deciding what nonsense I’m gonna put up with.

I’m gonna vote for Nice, for Kind, for Sweet, even for a little Naive. I know what Miss Kitty’s profession was now, but like all good stories, Gunsmoke knew that they didn’t have to tell you everything in order to spin a good yarn. And they didn’t shoot everyone in the same episode, so there’s that, too.

And I mean, let’s be real: that would have been too stressful for the surgeon on call.

About a Change in the Weather

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(True to summer in Alberta, there certainly has been A LOT of weather lately. Here’s another throwback to the what the weather was like in my yard twenty years ago…)

Some days it seems like my children go through more emotional ups and downs than a Richard Simmons infomercial. Often the grouchy quotient is elevated by a bad cold and/or not enough sleep. But sometimes, in young families, I find we’re still all just trying to get used to each other.

Throw another kid into the mix and things can really get messy. My children love to have friends over. The best thing is when a family with about the same number of kids comes over and mine pair off with theirs. But the other day, just one friend came over and this particular day, it emphasized the battle lines. 

It all started out innocently enough. Gil, my oldest son, had the great idea of playing baseball. Of course, Mom had to dampen that idea by nixing the use of the real baseball bats since I wasn’t able to supervise at the time. Maybe it’s just me, but there’s something about three and five-year-olds swinging a Louisville Slugger with reckless abandon that I have a problem with.

So, they settled on just playing catch. Gil doled out the ball gloves and, true to form of the oldest child, began to give everyone orders of where to stand, how to hold their glove, who throws to who, and so on. As I looked up from vacuuming out the van, I first noticed Simon, the three-year-old standing about one hundred feet away from Tim, to whom he was supposed to throw the ball. So, I did what no mother is supposed to do. I interfered. All I did was make the suggestion to Gil that maybe there was no possible way that Simon ever in a million years could throw that far. Simon apparently had more faith in his big brother’s direction and proceeded to run the first ninety feet towards Tim before he hurled the ball at him with all his might. He still came short three feet.

Everything went downhill from there as the three younger players suddenly lost all interest in “organized” sports. Gil declared mutiny and informed the younger tribe that he was running away from home. At first, they weren’t too concerned since kids are used to each other’s dramatics.

But then Gil crossed the fence and Tim got mighty upset with this turn of events. Perhaps it was genuine concern for his big brother’s welfare or maybe he was worried about losing a good Nintendo partner, but he felt the acute need to report Gil’s departure to me at the top of his lungs. I yelled out to Gil to remember that he couldn’t cross the fence that bordered the back of our property and he replied that he merely intended to stay out in the bush forever. Much to Timmy’s dismay, I returned to removing an entire sandbox from my van.

After ten minutes of Tim keeping a not-so-silent vigil at the barbwire fence, Gil suddenly decided that forever was a long time if he had to listen to his brother whine for him to please, please, please come back. He stepped out of no-man’s land and to Timmy’s relief, agreed not to play baseball but to ride bikes instead.

With the incentive of the younger friend’s ability to ride his brand-new two-wheeler, Gil that day learned how to ride a training-wheel-free bike, after a few good pushes from his mom. The boy who convinced himself he could never learn to ride a bike was all sunshine and laughter, a sharp contrast to the gloomy boy he left behind in the bush. And I just marveled at how quickly the weather could change in my yard.

About Weddings

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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/regina-couple-pandemic-wedding-plans-1.5579744

Weddings are looking a lot different this year, aren’t they?

We have two friends who are planning their weddings for the same date in August, one here in Vermilion, Alberta and one in Regina, Saskatchewan. It has been interesting to hear about the moment-by-moment changes that have been made since we went into COVID lockdown in March. The anticipated numbers of attendees first plummeted, then rose back up a little. Dresses have been held up from being shipped from the U.S.A. And the venues have been changed. All in all, it seems like some things have gotten a little simpler.

As my eldest son Gil has relayed to me via the numerous twenty-somethings he knows that planned their weddings for this year, in the end, all that really matters is the getting married part. If the fluff and the gifts and the mega-decoration and all your millions of friends in attendance are what you REALLY want out of a wedding, well then maybe you need to postpone it to next year. (Or, never. Just sayin.)

Well, okay. Just because I’m not huge Party Girl now, doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the fact that I had a pretty big wedding myself some (gasp!) twenty-eight years ago. In a lot of ways, growing up in the middle of the Borscht belt, in the town I affectionately nicknamed The Ukrainian Wedding Capital of Canada, my wedding was pre-planned. I knew where I would get married (the little RC church in Derwent), where the reception would be (the Derwent and District Recreation Centre), who would be invited (all my friends, all manner of relatives both shirt-tale and front-collar and the twenty people my non-Ukrainian fiance’s family got to invite) and what we would eat. (Hello! Ukrainian food!)

We grew up going to weddings so we knew exactly what to expect. We learned how to dance at weddings, got drunk for the first time at a wedding and got our first kiss there – and second, third and fourth if there were a lot of groomsmen or bridesmaids in the reception line. In a close-knit community like Derwent, back in the day, not inviting all the neighbors to your child’s wedding was… well, it was just not done.

Case in point: this year, as the quarantine had just begun, my mother’s birthday fell on March 22. She would have been 92 this year and I try to do something each year to commemorate the day. Since it was #stayhome, I decided to go through the box of wedding invitations that had come from her house. And then, because it’s me, I decided to “organize” them by date.

These are the stats. From the 1950s, my mom had saved 15 invitations. From the sixties, there were 62. From the eighties, 85, and the nineties, there were 38, one of which was mine.

Oh, and the seventies? From the seventies, my mom had ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN WEDDING INVITATIONS. I mean seriously, I had to go take a nap afterwards. Simon took pictures of the stacks and posted them on Instagram because: 1) He’s a Gen Z; 2) He had never seen a wedding invitation before – him of the age of internet invites; and 3) He (rightfully) couldn’t believe Baba had been invited to well over 300 weddings in her life.

All told, even though I had lived through that golden age of weddings, it was hard for me to wrap my head around. Sure, Mom and Dad didn’t go to every wedding they were invited to – sometimes two (or even, three) weddings fell on the same date. But I do remember when I was growing up that a summer weekend without a wedding to attend seemed a little, well, boring. And if an invitation specified “No Children, Please”, we were horrified to be deprived of a meal equivalent to “eating out”, of stacking up plastic drink cups as high as we could make them and of tooling all around Main Street Derwent with a crowd of other kids, pretending we were the Lords of Flatbush.

The marriage is the most important thing. But there’s a whole lot of other fun stuff that can make a wedding memorable. And right now, COVID-19 is making the weddings super memorable as intentions and guest lists get more concentrated. Going through with happy plans in the middle of a pandemic is always going to be something to remember.

You won’t beat my Mom’s record for wedding invitations this year, or this decade, because it’s just not a thing anymore. But the main thing? It’s still the main thing.

About Halfway

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July 1 marks the halfway point of the year. And this year in particular, The Year the Virus Stole My Job/Graduation/Sanity/Fill-In-The-Blank, is one that many of us just wish we could Do Over.

But the toothpaste is already squeezed out of the tube and there ain’t no way to get it back in, short of toothpaste tube surgery. That sounds messy, sticky and without guaranteed results. Might as well regroup and figure out a new container or use for the toothpaste.

I am a person who likes to make resolutions at the beginning of the year (yes, I’m one of THOSE people), but I also know that without periodic review and re-engagement, I can lose focus. An auspicious date like July 1 – not just Canada Day (yay!), but 6 months from and to January 1 – is a perfect time to re-resolute.

I have kept a journal for many years now and I noticed a pattern a few years back – I often return to the same resolutions year after year. Most resolutions for me are not One-and-Done or else they wouldn’t be a recurring phenomenon. Maybe it would be better to call them Intentions. Or even Reminders. Re-Minding is all about getting your mind right again.

These are a few of the things I see as good things to remind myself.

Drink more water. Such an inane resolution really, but for me, I need to remind myself to not just drink my black water (a.k.a. My Beloved Coffee) but to intersperse my cups of java with cups of the clear stuff.

Quit eating crap. Well, not so much of it anyway. I don’t subscribe to an austere diet – although a reset like The Whole 30 once in a while doesn’t hurt. But coming through COVID-19, a.k.a. The Great Global Baking Challenge, it’s good to get back to soups and salads for lunch. And thankfully, fresh garden produce is just around the corner for extra incentive and general yumminess.

Move. Everyday. The older I get, the more thankful I am for the ability to move my body. Some days I do hard stuff like my boot camp class. Some days I just go for a walk or vacuum the house. I set timers to make myself get up from my desk and stretch, look out the window, refocus my eyes, get a glass of water. And I try everyday to go outside, which seems to require and inspire movement in and of itself. For an Indoorsy Girl, this is a miracle and a revelation that I can enjoy being outside (almost) everyday.

Keep in Touch. Along with Indoorsy Girl, I am also Introvert Girl. However, introversion is not the same as Doesn’t Need People. The pandemic introduced me to the Walk-And-Talk – talking to a friend on my cell while we both walked in our respective locations. Normally, I don’t like talking on the phone, but since this was the best option available, it became Okay. And even though I had some of my family around me 24-7 for the intense six weeks of quarantine, I was reminded how much I miss actually seeing people, talking to them in person, hugging them. Most of the hugging is still on hold but I do make sure that I break up my working-at-home-weekdays with at least one In-Person-Friend-Date. It’s always good.

Start Something. Keep Going. Finish Something. I always have some project I’m working on. In the past it has been more hobby-related like scrapbooking or organizing (anything, I like organizing ANYTHING). These days, I’m trying to focus on writing. I have one project I want to finish by the end of the year, one I want to keep going on and one I want to launch. Deadlines (as my husband reminds me) are a good thing. They keep you honest and help you GET STUFF DONE. If it’s important, you need to set aside the time to do it. And for me, my writing projects, are IMPORTANT. And if I keep doing the small and simple stuff above, it will give me the energy and the sanity to stick to my bigger intentions.

What’s on your Redeem-the-Rest-of-2020 list?