Wrenched

I don't know what I did yesterday, or at least I think I don't know. Last night it was evident something had happened, as I tried to sleep with a knife-blade stuck in my hip bones. Or maybe it was an axe. I don't usually get this sort of thing - oh, maybe once in a while. I hate to admit to arthritis or anything else, as secretly I think of illness (all illness) as "weakness". "Sickness is for mortals," my husband once said - no, he says it all the time, sending me up.

Now I sit in my not-so-great office chair, but at least better than the last one, with an ancient heating pad jammed against the vicinity of my left hip. It's too well-upholstered (the hip, not the chair) to do much good. The chair has a huge gap under the arm where, if it had something solid, the heat would go exactly where it needed to go. I have to hold it there with my left hand, constantly.

How did it happen? I'm not sure. I went to Erica's Christmas extravaganza yesterday, perhaps the sweetest moment of a grandmother's year - little kids in Oliver costumes, an 8-year-old girl playing Silent Night on a 3/4-size violin. This year, unlike other years, a little bit of (actual!) Christmas music snuck back into the proceedings. Last year there was just nothing, no Frosty or Rudolph, just a winter festival with completely unknown songs. Still nice, but unfamiliar, an obvious bow to political correctness.

Maybe there were complaints, who knows, which brought about the changes this year. In any case, there was Erica in the very front row, singing songs from Oliver: Food, Glorious Food, and Consider Yourself. Though these aren't strictly Christmas songs, all the sooty plate-banging Dickensian waifs somehow fit in beautifully. I had never seen my gorgeous granddaughter with her blonde curls all braided up, wearing a grey gingham dress and scuffy old tie-ups like something out of a storybook.

At the end of the concert I felt a rush of icy air, looked around, and saw double doors opening out to a very rare scene in this part of Canada: SNOW! I could practically hear Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney singing White Christmas. Then the girls, let out of school early, ran out into the playground. There was NOT ONE KID there - maybe it wasn't allowed, who knows - so they had the run of the huge place, dotted with giant snowballs and half-snowmen (can you believe kids don't know how to make them here?). When they finally hightailed it out to the play equipment, it was so slippery from frost that they shot out of the end of the slides as if forcefully ejected. Lauren (whose concert is today - double joy!) couldn't get up on the swing. The seat of her snow pants was too slippery.

"Nanny, lift me up," she said, and I did. Was it then that something snapped, or went out of alignment or what? I lifted her, gave her a few pushes (she's six and does not normally need such help, but bundled up like the Michelan Man, I had to get her going). I didn't notice anything until I got home, then -

Jesus! Or whoever! Someone was shoving a hot blade between two bones, and twisting. I knew taking any kind of pain medication would be futile, though I did it anyway, and I was right. I had "done something to my hip", the hip that tended towards arthritis that usually didn't register more than a twinge or a low-grade ache.

So I sit here now. I just went on Facebook, damn it - one of the worst habits I formed this year, after swearing I wouldn't use it. It had something posted like 25 Questions You Should Ask Yourself At The End Of The Year (That Will Probably Make You Feel Really Lousy For Not Accomplishing Any Of Your Personal Goals).  I see I have not taken adequate care of my body, have in fact said screw it most of the time while I try to cope with other things.

Losses. Some gains. Each stressful in their own way. Having to cut loose from a  formerly-close friend whose communications had devolved into boredom and bile. Worse, her integrity had failed, and she was sneaking around planning to leave her husband while insisting it was her grim duty to stay with him until he dies (he has Parkinson's, and she makes him feel bad about spending time with a buddy because my friend does not like the buddy, and wants to separate the two of them for reasons of her own. This means he can't go sailing any more, one of his favorite activities.)

Though we used to say we were sisters in all but blood, I find, to my shock, that I just don't like her any more, that her empty distress calls and perfunctory phone calls to make up for the abyss of her silence ("and how is so-and-so, and how is so-and-so," once asking after my DOCTOR whom she knows nothing about) leave me drained and disappointed. Those so-called conversations were no more intimate than talking with a stranger at an airport. Except for her huge dumps of venom, the whole thing had gone dead for me.

My part, I think, was to let it go on too long. Which I did, still hopeful. Contrary to conventional non-wisdom, hope is NOT the best thing in many situations. I did however land a book contract for Harold Lloyd, amazing to me, but also full of anxiety because now I am hearing that it is almost impossible to get any attention for a book, particularly literary fiction. But Rich Correll called, he really did, after years of futile attempts to get hold of him. Somehow-or-other he got my samples of The Glass Character and seemed to like what he saw, or at least the idea of it. I made the mistake of sending him the whole manuscript, which must have been overwhelming. After the editing process, I realized it wasn't even the same book and that the post-edited version was 100 times better, but by then. . .

So I don't know what to do here. I never do. Phone him again? In the new year? Ever?  I have a tendency to wear out my welcome after two calls. People don't want to deal with me, I guess. I lost Kevin Brownlow that way, after sending him an impulsive, gleeful link to my blog post.

Bad idea. But no one told me.

I can't write about all the rest of my life because this is probably boring enough. Part of my dream came true, but the rest of it looms and creates anxiety, terrible anxiety. I may still lose this dream, it may just drop into the abyss like everything else I've done. I don't know what I expect to happen, or how to handle what MIGHT be tiny little specks of hope that someone will notice it beyond the Canadian literary wilderness.

So I sit here wondering where I got wrenched, how, and why it's so hard for me to bend and straighten and walk. There will be no running around in the snow after the concert today, not for me anyway, no heavy lifting. What I've been given in my life has rained down from the heavens (supposedly, though maybe I did have something to do with raising kids who turned out to be wonderful parents). What I want: I feel like I have these pliers in my hands and am trying to pull out the back tooth of a hippopotamus.

It's not good to be ambitious, unless you are hard enough, unless you have the right stuff, and it looks like I don't. I always hang on too long. But if I let go, would there not be an even more formidable abyss below me? Would I ever stop falling?

These are the festive thoughts I have, at this festive time of year.

Miracle on Rae Street

Only at this time of year can you get away with this kind of display! This incredible light show blazes in my neighborhood every Christmas on Rae Street, Port Coquitlam, collecting donations for various charities.

If you think it's all a little too much, especially as you approach the house nearly blinded by the brightness, just try taking children there. It becomes a whole different scene.

That's not a real Santa, though you'd never know it by the kids' reaction. And he moves!

The display includes an incredible array of figures: Rudolph, Frosty, various Disney characters, and just about every other Christmas figure ever known, all lit up like brilliant candles in the dark.

NOEL!

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Tiny angels, Christmas angels

Oh my, oh my. Went to my granddaughter Erica's Christmas concert this afternoon - she appeared, grave and serious, in a gorgeous black-and-tartan dress worn several times by the girls in our family (a sort of heirloom now), singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town with graceful gestures that seemed almost Polynesian. She looked shockingly beautiful up there, and grown up.

So afterwards I went for coffee with my son's Mum-in-law, which I haven't for a while and enjoyed immensely. She insisted on giving us a beautiful potted poinsettia-and-white-flowers mix that will probably bloom lavishly in a day or two. Then came home to make chili, which I had planned to do yesterday and just ran out of time.

I don't enjoy cooking, even if I love the result, so I wondered what would make it go down better (besides that fizzy grapefruit drink I am so addicted to now, Dole Sparklers they're called). I thought, hmmm, let's put some Christmas music on! I haven't intentionally listened to a Christmas album yet this year. My hand just gravitated to Roger Whittaker, though my rational self was saying, "Margaret, NOT that sentimental old thing again."


Oh yes.

This was, in fact, a sort of test. I've tried to write about the spiritual meltdown I've experienced over the past several years, the fact that my entire belief system seems to have been blown to bits. Do I still believe in, well - God, or something like God?

Might it be a bit of a test to listen to this song, this song that always made me cry when my children were small?

This song that still made me cry last year? Was I so dried up, so hard-hearted, had I turned my face away from Love and Grace and all those things that used to hold my life together so much that my tears had turned as hard and crystalline as Lot's wife?

Friends, I cried. Did I cry! I bawled. It was wonderful, soul-rocking. I don't know what it is, perhaps just the way he sings it, and the deep truth of this: the only gifts that I could want are you. My darlings.

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Too much informa. . .tion

Sometimes I think the human race gets together to have huge meetings (excluding me, of course - I'm either late or don't know where the building is) to decide what's in and what's out - what's unacceptable, and what's warm-and-fuzzy-and-admirable-no-matter-what-it-is-or-who's-doing-it.

Lately we've seen the phenomenon of public confession, of celebrities mounting the podium to announce their "sins": violence, adultery, mental illness, and (especially) addiction. While it's still not exactly considered noble to proclaim these formerly-private and oft-disturbing phenomena, the culture still laps it up, telling themselves that confession is good for the soul and provides "healing" and positive examples for others.

Yeah, right - but how 'bout if you're one of the best-known children's writers in the world, a beloved figure who has entertained millions of kids with his "manic" (the buzzword in media) retelling of his often-surreal tales?

This guy is famous-famous in this country. His name is Robert Munsch, and he has always given me the creeps. He makes faces and screams and yells and jumps up and down, and sells millions of copies of oddball books like The Paper Bag Princesses and the much-overrated Love You Forever.

Love You Forever is all about how children who have been unconditionally loved by their parents grow up to be adults who unconditionally love their ageing parents. This involves various things being thrown down the toilet, not to mention adults crawling along the floor on their hands and knees, a bizarre detail that no one seems to notice. It's not a particularly good book, but it exploits certain tender spots in the human psyche and makes people bawl their eyes out.

OK, let's get to the point here (since it's 7:20 a.m. and the workmen putting the new windows in will arrive soon - still time for another coffee??): Munsch just came out a few days ago to tell the world that he is an alcoholic and a cocaine addict who partook of these substances to "try to deal with mental illness": specifically, bipolar disorder. To help him with his struggle for sobriety, he says he has been attending meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.

Munsch has barely four months sober, and recently suffered a stroke which has affected his speech and no doubt his thinking. He freely and openly violates the 12-step confidentiality rule which states that members must maintain "personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, film and TV".

Does he think he's above that rule? That the rule is silly and unnecessary? Or hasn't he gone to enough meetings to know why it needs to be there?

It galls me when celebrities step up to the microphone to announce a sobriety which balances on such shaky legs. It galls me further when this celebrity begins to soften or even justify the hard facts of his addiction by saying things like, "I was a French-style drunk, who is quietly immersed in alcohol all the time. I didn't have binges. I was just having a morning drink." He goes on to say he "never drank when he was writing or performing or looking after his children."

But hey: with someone as "manic" and work-obsessed as Munsch, how much time is left over after writing, performing and looking after his children? This is a blatant contradiction no one has picked up on. Not only that: he claims, "When I was drinking, I would sometimes drink too much and do stupid things. And one of the stupid things I did was use cocaine."

So much for the "French-style" drunk. Did he snort the coke while wearing a striped jersey and a beret?

According to recent news articles, there has been a flood of sympathy for this guy, an outpouring of praise for his honesty, humility, etc. But I wonder. A stroke might just impair his ability to write and perform at his usual "manic" level. But this kind of announcement is guaranteed to keep him in the limelight. We LOVE hearing about other people's pain: it's called schadenfreude, literally meaning shameful joy. (Alternate meaning: Entertainment Tonight.) And we love that peculiar mixture of admiration and pity that these dark secrets call forth.

It weirds me out that a kids' performer has come out as a cocaine addict. It's disturbing and creepy. I have to admit, Munsch creeped me out to begin with. It's something about those bizarre crazy faces and the way kids scream in response.

Though supposedly 99% of his readers have come out in warm support, part of me is still thinking, "Wait a minute. Kids' entertainer. Cocaine addict?" Can you imagine Mr. Rogers lying in a gutter with an empty 40-pounder under his arm? Captain Kangaroo smoking crack? Bob from Sesame Street sticking needles into his. . . oh, you get the picture.

More than that, can you imagine these guys getting up in front of the media to "confess" their habit, confident that the revelations will only unleash a flood of warm support? I guess I'm just an old biddy, but I thought kids' entertainers were supposed to set an example of how to grow up, how to live.

Are you a fan of Munsch? Fine. But answer me this. Would you want your kids' Grade Two teacher to be an alcoholic cocaine addict? How about their Sunday School teacher, their gymnastics coach? What if you found a stash of cocaine in the coach's locker? Would that be OK?

I guess I'm just sayin' that this is too much, way too much information at the wrong time. I wish Munsch had at least waited more than "about" four months (probably considerably less) to come out with these revelations. Is there such a thing as dealing with your "issues" privately in this day and age? Apparently not.

After all this, I predict that Munsch will become even more of a beloved figure, more warm and fuzzy than ever before. His book sales have spiked already. I guess a man that famous can do no wrong. The rich get richer. But I can't help but wonder. . . what if I came out with similar revelations (not that anyone would be interested)? I think what little career success I've had would permanently tank. I'd disappear without a ripple.

My advice to Munsch is to go away for a while and seek some real recovery. Find out just what the word "anonymous" means. You'll see that the principle is there for a very good, even crucial reason, to protect ALL members and to prevent celebrity-itis (famous people convincing the public that they are AA "leaders", then relapsing again and again).

Four months may seem like a long time to you: but how long did you drink? Four months? Four years? Four decades?

The girl with the flaxen hair

I have to admit off the top that this photo is way out of date. That little girl, one Erica Morgan, is now turning five, a momentous age that represents a developmental leap, and

a new readiness to read and write and sit still long enough to attend classes.

Plus she still breaks the cute-o-meter every time.

Erica Morgan is a princess from tip to toe, from her tossing curls to her crystal-blue eyes,with the longest eyelashes anyone has ever seen. They're like fans, for God's sake. When she flutters her eyelids, there's a breeze.

All my four grandkids are wondrous to me, representing the upspringing of new life in the midst of a very dry wasteland. My disillusion with the writing business (NOT with writing itself, which was still compelling) had parched my insides into those flakes you see in the desert, you know, in National Geographic or someplace.

Erica made her debut at such a time, and I will never forget rounding the corner in the hospital room and seeing her for the first time: she looked like a tiny, pink, compact, living rosebud, and she had that ineffable sweet baked-biscuit smell of the newly-arrived.

It's a fascinating thing watching any baby become themselves, evolve into

who they are going to be. I remember reading somewhere (maybe one of those myths we all ascribe to, like "you remember everything that ever happened to you" and "we only use 2% of our brains") that our personalities are basically set by age two. Yikes. Parents who've made any mistakes at all must shudder at such a statement.

But such is the fluidity and surprise of human nature that even the worst two years can cause the plant to grow around the obstacle. Cedars abound here, and many of them grow too near power lines. Often they have to be trimmed in a weird-looking circle. I saw one recently that had put out a lot of new branches, but they all came straight up within a couple of inches of the power line. The tree "knew".

So what does this have to do with Princess Erica? Even the best life in the world is burdened. If nothing else, it's burdened by turning on the TV (guaranteed to depress anyone) and finding out about oil spills and plane crashes and little children dismembered by fiends. Who can fail to feel something, not hopeful, but horrific?

We need to say to our kids and grandkids, it's all right, there are terrible things out there in the world, but here, in your own home, it's not like that. The odd emotional explosion clears quickly for the most part, and it's back to the twinkly, shrieky fun of two little blondies tearing around the living room.

I love them beyond endurance, sometimes, and I do worry about the sort of earth they will inherit. Is violence escalating, or is it just reported more accurately (the old saw that journalists fall back on)? What about the stress of a madly-accelerating world, with gadgets replacing real human contact and people swelling in gross obesity due to grabbing the easy drug of junk food?

It wasn't supposed to be that way. I remember back in the '60s, there

were all sorts of reports of Xanadu, the World of the Future, of a lean, fit population (all that low-fat cooking, remember?) only having to work three days a week, spending the rest of the time in creative and recreational pursuits.

(Oh, and remember those dumb-ass domed cities, like something out of the Jetsons?)

It isn't going to be that way for Erica, my little blondie. I hope she will manage. Acceleration tends to lead to more acceleration, unless stopped by a crash. Like the frog slowly stewed in increasingly-heated water, we just don't notice it, until we see the alarming increase of depression and addiction and autism and. . . fat.

It's doubtful Erica, in her sparkly little tutu and candystriped tights, will be anything other than sylphlike. I want a happy life for her, want it more than I want to live. I have the tremendous opportunity to love her without reservation, without the burdens of parenthood. I can be the fun nanny who chases them around the room, plays Barbies and PlayDoh and paper giraffes.

Sometimes I ask myself: What good will it do? Won't they forget? Is any of this banked in the psyche? How much do we remember?

No matter. Maybe it's for me, as much as them, and I will remember, remember every single sweet blessed day that I get to love them.