Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Christmas blues: the gaiety of grief


Dylan Thomas was once quoted as saying, “There is no gaiety so gay as the gaiety of grief.”


Somehow I sort of know what that means, though I can’t explain it.


Yesterday I was making gingerbread cookies with the grandkids (having had to throw out the entire first attempt at dough, so stinking horrible from the molasses that we ended up throwing it at the wall), and more or less feeling OK, but it was an effort. I had to pull myself up for it. For the first few days after my mother-in-law’s passing, I was laden with memories, great waves of memory breaking on the sand, so deep that they went back to when I was a girl of eighteen.


I said to someone I am close to, I have no bad memories of her, and she said to me, that’s because you didn’t see her that often. This is the way we “deal with” grief now. A kind of slamming of the door. Put up or shut up, she was 96 and had her life and a peaceful death, so just forget about it and get on with the cookies.

It’s hard.

Hard this time of year, which is hard already, for reasons I can’t even begin to probe.  Of course the child in me loves the sparkle and twinkling lights and angels and good food and having the family around. But I don’t know of a family that is universally loveable.


A family without tensions and trouble.


I feel over-grandma’d these days. It’s not that I don’t love it. I feel stretched thin sometimes, and I’m not even supposed to feel it, let alone acknowledge it. Everything I do seems to disappear into a black hole, leaving no trace.




I suppose my line of work is a factor. People don’t see me as “working”, in spite of writing six novels, 350-some book reviews, thousands of newspaper columns, dozens of published poems (and two anthologies), essays in text books, and serving as a juror in several competitions. It all just kind of vaporizes as it happens, and I know I am seen as “not working”.  In fact, people’s attitude probably mirrors that of a woman I knew (hardly a friend) who said, once my kids were both in school, “Goodness, Margaret, what on earth are you going to do with yourself all day?” (I was writing a novel.)



On the other hand, why should I expect them to understand? Margaret Atwood was once famously quoted as saying, “I can’t be fired because I don’t have a job.” I don’t either, though I have work. I even have paid work, the steady if not too thick income from my beloved alma mater, the Edmonton Journal. I’ve been reviewing more or less steadily since 1984, starting with the Journal and continuing with at least a dozen other publications. Most of these gigs were paid.


So if you’re paid for it, even if only an honorarium (meaning, a chintzy cheque), doesn’t that make you a professional?


YES. But it’s so much more than that.


This post was once another post, and I cut the second half because it was becoming just too bleak. Having a death in the family right at Christmas is hard. Already you’re assaulted by waves of memory that are beyond your control. But these layers run very deep and no doubt stir up my complete estrangement from my family of origin.


Okay, the “Sisters” post was me. No one saw it anyway, or only a few. And as usual, the person who needed to see it didn’t, or wouldn’t have cared even if she did.





So I had a sort of adoptive family when I got married, but didn’t really realize it for years and years. It grew slowly and without my awareness. Alliances have surged and faded, beyond my power to choose. (Do we choose to love? “Gee, I think I’ll love this person now. Stand back.”) There has been a sort of evolution. Now the lynch-pin has been withdrawn by the natural course of things. We will have to regroup. It remains to be seen who the new matriarch will be.


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Monday, December 5, 2011

Coronet Blue: Candy and David and Jon and Frank




This is an odd little clip. I can't find out much about Coronet Blue because there are only fragments on YouTube. I probably never even watched it, but I do remember that catchy theme song. And Frank Converse, pretty dishy, wasn't he? How old would he be now, or is he even alive? These actors, so fresh-faced, so pretentious in putting on those unplaceable hey-man accents, are now either dead, or all shrivelled up with age.

No doubt, like me, they thought youth would go on forever. No doubt, like me, they thought that the '60s had changed things, really changed things forever, and that it would never go back.

Hey, man. We tried.


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CORONET BLUE: no, I didn't dream this!



This is one of those TV shows that I thought I'd made up or dreamed about. Turns out it was on for one season or something. I'll have to dredge up a clip I found with a whole lot of famous people in it, like Candace Bergen, who weren't famous yet. Oh those summers in Chatham - not such a remarkable place, but I look back on it with such sweetness, the choking humidity, the ferocious thunderstorms at dusk, sleeping over at my girl friend's, or sleeping in the pullout bed in the den watching old reruns of Topper and Love That Bob.

Coronet Blue came at the crest of the cool wave of '60s spy shows like The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Secret Agent, and even Get Smart. (I also found T. H. E. Cat, which I was SURE I had dreamed up.) I don't remember much of it except I think there was an English guy in it, some kind of sidekick. And something about going to a concert, and at the intermission having "one of those insipid orange drinks". Why do we remember such useless fragments?

And whatever happened to Frank Converse, Mr. Dishy himself? He was such a long tall glass of intoxicating water. Then he sort of disappeared. T. H. E., whom I didn't remember was Robert Loggia, sort of disappeared too, into character acting, but by then he was a different person altogether.

And why such nostalgia for such an ordinary town? Why do I remember the living room, the drab carpeting and maroon cherries on the heavy beige drapes? We'd walk to Tecumseh Park in the summer and dredge around in what passed for a pool, and be perfectly happy. Elm trees, cicadas buzzing their long lazy hot and dusty song, happiness.

Nostalgia refers to a sort of pain, an ache, like neuralgia. Not sure what the "nost" is, probably the past. I think I just want to get away from the present, start all over again, be a skinny 12-year-old and maybe do it all differently this time.

But I am almost certain I'd just make different mistakes.


http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

T.H.E. Cat Robert Loggia




I confess I never watched a single episode of T. H. E. Cat. I think I heard my brother refer to it once, so I knew about it. "Oh boy. T. H. E. Cat." His friend Grahame would say, "Choice or what." "Yeah." "T. H. E. Cat." It was so cool, it hurt. When I watch the opening titles, *I* hurt, it's so cool. There was never a time, and will never ever BE a time, like the '60s.

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Sunday, December 4, 2011

Kathleen Wilhelmina Gunning: a great lady,and sadly missed




Kathleen Wilhelmina Gunning


GUNNING, Kathleen Wilhelmina (nee Hitching) - Peacefully in her sleep on Thursday, December 1, 2011, surrounded by family. Kathleen was in her 97th year. Beloved wife of George Clifford Gunning, who predeceased her in April 2005. They were married for 63 years. Mother of Bill (wife Margaret), Port Coquitlam, BC; Judith (husband Wayne), Oakville, ON; Ronald (wife Joanne), Kingston, ON; Alan (wife Janet), Caledonia, ON. Lovingly remembered and now sadly missed by her six grandchildren Shannon (Jeff), Jeffrey (Crystal), Christopher (Melanie), Cory (Keri), Kyle and Lauren. Kay was also richly blessed with nine great-grandchildren whose photographs adorned her home at The Village of Wentworth Heights in Hamilton, ON. The family wish to extend heartfelt thanks to the Scotsdale home area caregivers who lovingly attended to her needs throughout her ten year residency. Kay will be fondly remembered by her nieces, nephews and all friends and family who knew her. A private family interment will be held at a future date. If desired, donations made to the Canadian Cancer Society or the Hospital for Sick Children would be appreciated by the family.                                                                            

Published in the Toronto Star on December 3, 2011




I guess we knew it was coming, when my husband's brother called from Ontario to say she was getting weaker, not eating much, not able to rouse herself from bed.

To that point, her appreciation for life was a gift to everyone around her.

In forty years of knowing her, of having the privilege of being her daughter-in-law, I have too many memories to share here. Mostly I remember her kindness, her rather peppery humor, her straightforwardness. As an army nurse in World War II, she never lost the nurse's keen diagnostic eye, and if you didn't feel well she scanned that eye over you and told you what you should do. Like, go to bed, now!

I remember when my daughter was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, back in 1977, and she flew out from Ontario to help me. She'd never been alone on a plane before in her life, and I didn't ask, but she offered, and we could not refuse.

While I nursed a fractious, difficult baby, she did everything else, cooked, cleaned, kept my 18-month-old son amused. I just didn't have anything left for him, but Nana saved the day, and I will never forget it.




She made the best, and the most, of everything she had. She lived through the Great Depression, then dealt with many lean years while raising four kids by somehow stretching the resources, so that no one ever felt "poor".





My husband is the science nerd on the right. Looks like someone out of The Big Bang Theory, doesn't he? But his parents were extremely proud of the fact that he was the first Gunning to go to university (at age 16, ending up with a Masters in biochemistry. Sheldon, are you there?). This doesn't happen by accident.





Note Mum reflected in the background. I don't remember my Dad-in-law cutting up like this! Bill probably took the photo.




Going steady.




This is what Christmas looked like in 1947. Little Billy in Dad's lap is now 65!




My personal favorite. Surreal, misty, full of love. "Billy + Mummy, 5/6 months."




Lovely bride (1945).




Dedicated nurse.




Thursday, December 1, 2011

Pardon me miss, but I've never done this



(From a musical called Little Me, unknown.)


FRED




Pardon me, miss, but I've never done this
With a real live girl.


























Straight off the farm with an actual arm
Full of real live girl.




Pardon me if your affectionate squeeze
Fogs up my glasses and buckles my knees,








I'm simply drowned in the sight and the sound
And the scent and the feel
Of a real live girl.



SOLDIERS

Nothing can beat getting swept off your feet
By a real live girl.
Dreams in your bunk don't compare with a hunk
Of a real live girl.



























Speaking of miracles, this must be it;
Just when I started to learn how to knit.
I'm all in stitches from finding what riches
A waltz can reveal
With a real live girl.






[Whistle]
Real live girl.
[Whistle]
Real live girl.
























I've seen photographs and facsimiles
That have set my head off in a whirl,
But no work of art gets you right in the heart
Like a real live girl.








Take your statues of Juno,
And the Venus de My-lo.
(Me-lo.)
When a fellow wants you-know,
(We know.)




Who wants substitutes? I'll o-
Verlook everyone in the book
For a real
Sexy Sally or Suzabel.
Take your Venetian or Roman or Grecian
Ideal,
I'll take something more "uzabel."



Girls were like fellas was once my belief;
What a reversal, and what a relief.





I'll take the flowering hat and the towering heel
And the squeal
Of a real live girl.




























[Dance]
Real live girl.
[Dance]
Real live girl.

Go be a holdout for Helen of Troy,
I am a healthy American boy.





I'd rather gape at the dear little shape
Of the stern and the keel





Of a full-time vocational,
Full-operational
























Girl.


It's December the first: let's have a party in my rec room





Seeing these guys again is like visiting old friends. I was an SCTV fanatic for many years, starting with their humble beginnings in Edmonton, Alberta (I swear the hot tub scene in that Joan Crawford sendup was filmed at the Edmonton Inn), then soaring to great heights on American national TV. Seldom has a comedy ensemble worked so well. Never noticed the saxophone growing out of Rick Moranis' head before.

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SCTV Christmas in Leutonia - Cabbage Rolls and Coffee





We watched this one over and over again. What the hell was it about? But it was funny. Kind of like the Five Neat Guys (see other clip). I thought this one was festive, especially hiding the egg and the Christmas Budgie. I won't get into exchanging the socks.


http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm