Intro

I feel a little like the whole news situation involving our neighbours is akin to being in the vicinity of an argument. There’s tension in the air, therapist-like suggestions on social media, and people who go about willfully business-as-usual. I’m fine, but I’m a little distracted?

Pot-pourri

In the midst of Spring Break, there is still time to read, thank goodness. Reading from all kinds of books yields a collage of quotes… There’s William Trevor’s short story “Broken Homes” in which the main character is 81 years old:

The dread of having to leave Catherine Street ordered her life. With all her visitors she was careful, constantly on the lookout for signs in their eyes which might mean they were diagnosing her as senile. It was for this reason that she listened so intently to all that was said to her, that she concentrated, determined to let nothing slip by. It was for this reason that she smiled and endeavoured to appear agreeable and cooperative at all times. She as well aware that it wasn’t going to be up to her to state that she was senile, or to argue that she wasn’t, when the moment came.

In Goodbye to Clocks Ticking, Joseph Monninger catches himself feeling annoyed because cancer is forcing him to accept letting go of control.

What I rejected was the possibility, the absolute likelihood, that I needed help. That I needed guidance. […] As a former English professor, it reminded me of Regan’s statement to her father and liege, King Lear, when she points out that he needs governance.
Regan. O, sir, you are old!
Nature in you stands on the very verge
Of her confine. You should be rul’d, and led
By some discretion that discerns your state
Better than you yourself.

In Olivia Laing’s book Funny Weather, I met Derek Jarman, and find his last creative project, his garden, so arresting.

If this all seems a little bleak so far, all a little too old age and dying, there’s this curious incongruity in what Canadians consider their “back yard” and what the British consider their “garden”. I found this while reading A History of Domestic Space by Peter Ward:

A pair of French doors led outdoors from the dining room at the back of the dwelling and, as we stepped outside, I mentioned what an attractive back yard they had. 'Garden,' he corrected me, one of the endless small cultural confusions that bedevil Canadians in Britain. Two words had betrayed my rough postcolonial origins. In his world a garden was a tranquil enclave of lawns and flowers. In mine a garden might be a plot of worthy vegetables or a handsome floral border, but it formed part of something larger and rather more crude - a yard.

This, he writes, comes from the farm where our farming ancestors had yards

taken up by kitchen gardens, chicken coops, animal pens, storage sheds, and the like. In any case, the grassy swards and floral bowers found in occasional farmyards did little more than decorate utilitarian spaces.

And should we push the fun of contrasts just a little further? This week, I was listening to Harry Belafonte at Carnegie Hall and this made me smile:

(Have you heard of Harry Belafonte? I’m pretty sure that prior to this 1000 Recordings adventure, I had not. Which isn’t the point… I’m young, he’s dead, my musical knowledge is only beginning to expand. But what a delight to listen to his voice! This album was really nice.)