On Saturday morning D. started cleaning and before long it turned into a rampage....Before long I just wanted to get out of the apartment and away from him. I felt like backing out of the camping trip and going to Toronto for the weekend.
Well, somehow we managed to talk ourselves out of that one....By the time we had worked it out, I was back in the mood for a romantic holiday weekend on the Bruce Peninsula.
I did get out of the apartment, though, before we left. I walked up to campus to drop off my resumé.
It must be one of the prettiest half-hour walks through any city in Canada. The bridge across the Speed River, the tall silver maples along the concrete flood wall, Victorian houses up the hill, and the campus at University of Guelph, probably one of the nicest in Canada, all reflected the warm glory of a late summer morning. It swept me up in its radiance.
I stopped at The Second Cup. A new franchise, with an Egyptian theme, has opened at the corner of Gordon and College, right across from War Memorial Hall and the MacDonald-Stewart Art Centre. What an ideal location, right on the corner where all the off-campus students pass every day!
I ate a cranberry scone and apple juice before strolling back down the hill and along the banks of the reflective river in the dense August shade beneath the maples. In those few minutes I realized that I cannot move away from Guelph, even to be with D. Not right now. Orangeville and Georgetown have nothing on this beautiful city, with its gardens, its tolerant culture, and its arts community.
Near the bridge, an odd contrast caught my eye: the golden-orange of jewelweed and the true blue of chicory growing side by side. It seemed a paradox: wetland jewel beside the opportunistic weed of waste places, both brilliant.
It reminded me how inexplicable are the combinations of events in our lives. Just that morning had been filled with anger, strife, peace, beauty and satisfaction. I will hold the image of these two plants as a symbol of the complex texture of life
Leaving Guelph around 3 p.m., we wended our way north toward Tobermory. I stopped in Paisley to show D. the old house on the Saugeen River where I lived at the time...I got married. Only seven years ago, that seems such a distant time, like part of another life.
We arrived on the Bruce Peninsula after supper and found the national park campground full. But we managed to backtrack and get a site at Summer Hill Park on Miller Lake.
Rain started about midnight, drenching everything and running in through the seams of the tent.
I had a dream that seemed inspired by A Fine Balance [by Rohinton Mistry].
The water was full of brightly-coloured leeches, shrimps and other aquatic creatures.
A woman had injured herself and her child. A folk doctor came to her and her husband to show how to tend the wound. He explained it to them and a Buddhist monk who sat with them.
The he lifted a basket, shaped as an inverted cone, above their heads and asked for one of them to reach inside. I could see that the basket held a poisonous shrimp-like creature. I feared that the woman would place her hand there. But the monk reached up and placed his hand on the animal for a moment. Then he started screaming in agony.
I lived in another part of the prison, where the people were better-off. I shared a wooden shack with two other men. One of them was was supposed to be Patrick Stewart, but his part was played by another actor, more rugged but also bald.
I had a son who lived outside the prison and had never met me. His mother and her other children had been ridiculed and persecuted. Finally they were all killed except my son. he came searching for me and somehow got into the prison.
He was very small and pale, an albino. His skin had almost a greenish cast to it. Patrick Stewart rescued him and brought him into our cell. We constructed a small wooden platform for him to sleep on and hoped we could conceal him from the guards.
I became a woman, petite, blonde and close to middle age. I went to tell some other women about my son who had arrived. I was a political prisoner but they were there for various petty crimes like stealing bread.
They told me it was okay for me to have my child in the prison. Some of them had their children with them. The guards would not mind.
But then I revealed to my best friend that I was dying of cancer. If the guards discovered I had a child with me they would take him away, because who would look after him when I died? I hoped that I could conceal him and that Patrick Stewart would continue to care for him.
The news on Sunday, that Princess Diana had died, hit us both hard. The death of a relative could hardly have hurt more. perhaps because her name and face have come into our lives so often, it impacted us personally.
It is a tragic end to a tragic life. And yet Diana has made the best of it by rising above her own shame and shortcomings to add her influential voice to some important causes: seeking a cure for AIDS and a ban on land mines come to mind. She has tried to show by example that those with power should lend it to those who have none.
Somehow this seemed an impossible ending to her story. One wants to hope that things will turn out better for big-hearted people....But life is not futile. Small present experiences, like sitting on a picnic table in the forest, enjoying the summer warmth, are enough to justify living. It is the complex fabric of life: jewelweed and chicory.
After just relaxing until mid-afternoon, I took D. to see Larkwhistle, a lush and bountiful garden in the middle of the Bruce's bleak and rocky scrubland.
Patrick Lima and John Scanlan, the owners of the garden, sat at the gate to greet visitors. Patrick ahs written several important books on gardening in Canada, and I have long admired him. I purchased and had him sign a book called Portraits of Flowers by him and G. Brender á Brandis, a wood engraver. Ten years ago, I met Ger also, and photographed him for a photojournalism project.
Patrick seemed to recognize that D. and I are gay. He stopped to talk to us for a few minutes. I wish I had known how to get more familiar with him....
I felt rather depressed after we left. These men have accomplished so much of what I haved wanted to do in my life. I felt stuck and helpless.
After visiting the harbour at Tobermory, we stopped on a whim at Singing Sands, which is part of Bruce Peninsula National Park.
As we walked along the beach trail, my excitement grew. Everywhere I looked were wildflowers I have never seen before. I realized we were exploring one of the rare alvar habitats I have read about.
This beach, on the west side of the peninsula, slopes very gradually into Lake Huron. The sand and rocks experience an extreme range of conditions brom brutal November storms to cold bog to blistering heat and drought. This environment hosts rare plants endemic to Arctic, Prairie and Mississippi River Valley habitats, as well as ones unique to the Great Lakes Region.
I didn't expect to see much, so late in the summer. But I found a white orchis, grass-of-parnassus, fringed gentian, a small lobelia, silverweed, shrubby cinquefoil, Indian paintbrush, horned bladderwort and others. I didn't have a field guide with me, so had to idetify them from memory.
The place was so remarkable I will want to return often. I told D. I could have plunked down in one spot for an hour with a good guide book. he was equally excited about the geology.
This area was saved from development in the '60s and only added to the national parks system last year. I felt proud of Canada for preserving such a unique habitat.
We finally drove to Cyprus Lake this morning and spent a few blissful hours in that exquisite section of the national park. We hiked out to the cliffs and found a quiet place on the rocky shoreline where we could swim.
The water felt frigid on our first dip. But after we had lain in the sun for a while and lunched on sandwiches made from camembert and red currant jelly, it felt more bearable. Wonderfully refreshing! We swam along the base of the cliffs for a while and explored the nearby grotto, which has a couple underwater entrances. By the time we got back to our resting place I was exhausted. This reminded me how badly out of shape I have gotten this summer.
Along the hike back to the care we left the trail and climbed through thick woods to a secluded place on the top of the escarpment. There in the privacy of the cedars, with blue sky and poplar leaves overhead, and with the cliff and clear blue Georgian Bay waters at our feet, we made love in the wilderness.
After my recent rants, I find myself speechless. I think anxiety is preying on my creative mind. K. [my estranged wife] spent part of the weekend with my parents....Tonight I have the first joint meeting with K. and P., our assessor [for custody of the children].
I have no idea what to expect. I guess my first concern is that I want some guarantee that K. will no longer restrict access jsut because she doesn't like something I do. If we can't work out a conflict between us then we must go through a mediator.
Brenna started junior kindergarten yesterday, but had little to say about it except for the bad boys who chased her....
Since I started this journal, I haven't done much other writing. I want to get back to writing poetry regularly, and to dig up my fantasy writing fromt he graveyard in the bottom of my WordPerfect files.
I've been playing with the characters in my head, but can't find a place or situation that enthruses me enough to get me started. I need a fit of mania.
As for the poetry, I might today be meeting my fellow poet Gary from the Kitchener writers' circle. The group got me out of the apartment on a monthly basis last year when I was so lost. My schedule hasn't worked out with it this summer, and I have missed the writers.
All four kids are here this weekend (mine not overnight of course). Yesterday was a beautiful late summer day so we headed out to Starkey Loop for a hike, stopping at Dairy Queen on the way.
Starkey Loop is a trail donated by someone to the Guelph Trail Club. It winds through replanted pines, high meadowed hills, maple forest and some wetlands; a really beautiful tract that is nearby and free for the enjoying. The kids caught countless toads and frogs along the trail.
My girls walked the whole way, at least an hour and a half, with hardly a word of complaint. I felt so proud of them. Marian is such a clever scientist, and Brenna the archtypical flower child, all smiles and golden hair.
The horsetails along the trail intrigued Marian and she picked a whole bunch of them.
"Horsetails have been around for millions and millions of years," I told her.
"Oh? Yes, I've seen them in books."
"They were even around long before the dinosaurs," I added.
My comment of the week to counteract her regular exposure to Creationist dogma. I guess I am guilty of what Karen calls indoctrination. Marian laps it up. I worry whether I am hurting her by giving out information that will confuse her. But if nothing else, perhaps she will learn to question everything she hears.
Brenna and I often found ourselves behind Marian and D. with his kids. We would poke along, pick flowers, or just hold hands. I love my kids.
Last night D. and I watched Princess Diana's funeral, which he had taped in the early morning. It moved us profoundly.
We were impressed that the coverage showed two gay men embracing. One was weeping and his friend or partner kissed him on the forehead. It was one of the tenderest moments in the whole show.
D. is thoroughly depressed about it, probably because his favourite Grannie was British. I finally broke during Elton John's song and wept through the images of Diana in happier days. Her brother's comment, that fortunately her life had ended at a time when her private life was happy, consoled me a little. But for me one of the saddest parts is the hint that she was conscious after the accident.
D. said it was a shame that Mother Theresa had gone at a time when her death would be so overshadowed. But somehow I don't think she would mind. After all, she was a woman of great humility and from the images of them together, she seemed to hold Diana in respect.
It seems rather ominous, though, that two of the greatest living humitarians should leave this planet in the space of a few days.
Things aren't going so well. D. and I aren't getting along at the moment and he decided to go stay at his mother's for a few nights....
Last night I slept alone here. I didn't go to bed until after 2 a.m. I've eaten nothing but breakfast cereal.
I remember after I separated from K., and when I broke up with my first boyfriend last summer, I felt exhilerated at first. Both relationships had been pretty unhappy for me at the end, and breaking up was a relief.
But now I just feel depressed. I can't afford the rent here without his help. If he decides he wants to break up, I will have to move out. Even if I had a job, I doubt I could make it work.
On Saturday K. is attending a conference at the Salvation Army church here in Guelph. I suspect it is for New Direction, the "ex-gay" Christian ministry I used to attend. I heard that Karen and another wife of a gay man are forming a support group.
My heart sank when I realized where she was going. It isn't an organization that accepts homosexuality. The group will only reinforce her belief that homosexuality is a sin. Rather than helping her heal and get on with her life, it will reinforce the conflict and animosity between us....
D. tried to phone a couple of times during the day yesterday, but we missed each other....We finally connected this morning. He misses me a lot and is going to come home tonight. He knows we need to talk, but now I find myself the apprehensive one. He says he needed time to think....
But first I have my appointment with K. and P., our assessor [for child custody issues]. This was supposed to happen last week, but kept getting bumped. It will be the first time in about two years that my wife and I have actually sat down together to try and talk through any of our differences. After all I have gone through, I find it hard to believe this will bring any improvement.
Last night with our assessor, K. and I sat down and actually talked about some important issues for the first time in 21 months. P. told us we both seem like sensible people and from his time with our children he could see that they like both of us a lot.
Then we discussed some issues, moving from easy ones to religion and then on to K.'s concerns about the kids staying overnight here. This was a bit ticklish. She clearly believes it would be inappropriate for the kids to see me in bed. And if anything happens that she doesn't like, I believe she would quickly place restrictions similar to the ones she has made before.
P. was very supportive and helpful to both of us through the discussion. He tried to humour K., but she resisted him. Finally he asked what I had not expected so soon in the process: would she be willing to allow the girls to stay overnight with me. Her anger and reluctance were obvious. But when faced with this question from the psychologist, she had to agree.
I couldn't believe it. I came home so happy to D. last night. I held him and held him, chatting endlessly about the meeting, replaying different incidents.
At the end, P. had smiled at us, "Well congratulations!"
K. shrugged; "What do you mean?"
"Well, you've made progress," he said.
She looked blankly at him.
"And you have actually sat in the same room for two hours and talked about things you haven't been able to discuss for over a year."
The significance of this was lost on her. As the three of us walked out together, I could not see any joy or relief in her manner. This was not the outcome that she wanted.
Today at 5 p.m. I will pick them up, and K. will pick them up from here on Sunday morning after breakfast. The first thought in my head this morning when I woke up was that tonight I will get to tiptoe in and see dear, beautiful Brenna sleeping. I won't see Marian sleeping! Ha ha! My unique five-year-old is almost always awake until 11....
I told K. and P. I would put Brenna to bed in the bedroom. When the rest of us are ready to turn in, I will move her to the futon couch and Marian can share it with her. D. and I will sleep in our "pyjamas" in the bedroom so that we can keep the door locked. K. requires this. It's quite ludicrous really. But as P. said, this is the place to start, and we can progress from here. K. didn't understand what he meant by that.
"Progress where?" she asked.
I discovered that P. is good at bullshit when people get unreasonable.
D. and I were happy to be back close to one another. We have a lot to talk about, but last night he was too tired. I was too excited and scattered. I chatted endlessly. D. said he hadn't seen me so happy in a long time. It is really true.
The saga with K. has weighed on me particularly this summer. I'm not sure why. Probably because I had looked to Pieter to help us move forward. And as the assessment got dragged out and delayed, I grew increasingly cynical about it bringing any change. I was getting tired of fighting. Last night I was surprised.
On Thursday evening I had supper with my friend R., a professor at the university who I have gotten to know through Gay Fathers. He and his wife own a house with a scenic overlook of the city. We toured the garden, still full of bright flowers. I have never seen goldenrod used so well in a garden. There is also a rose garden, a long bank of evergreen shrubs, and a collection of rhododendrons....We sipped a sweet New Zealand chardonnay and sat on the back porch overlooking the city. Woolly thyme softens the edges of the limestone pavers and bright pots of petunias and mums line the steps. For hors d'houevres we had a black olive tapinade on crackers.
Over salmon, beans, new potatoes and corn-on-the-cob he talked about his son's wedding and I told about how good it was to have my kids here for the weekend. We shared our family photos. Later his wife came home and the three of us talked together about my coming-out experiences. R's wife has accepted his coming-out very well. I wish that someday K. and I could spend an evening with them.
I told them about my web page and writing ambitions; how poetry and fiction seem to burst out from deep inside me. It made me want to get back into a writing mode. On the way home I composed a poem in my head and put it down when I got back.
D. and I wake up to the words of the BBC news on the radio each morning. Yesterday it carried a segment that argued the case for the use of naturally occurring drugs. One of the people interviewed was an ethnopharmacologist, someone who studies the use of drugs in native cultures. And I thought, "Isn't that what I've wanted to be all my life?"
Now I'm not sure. When I visited several websites on ethnopharmacology, they seemed to deal mostly with narcotics. But I was thinking more of a National Geographic book that fascinated me when I was a teenager, The Healing Arts. The subject also reminded me of a Reiki session I had earlier this year. I had some powerful visualization experiences during the session. It gave me the impression that I should devote more attention to my interest in medicinal herbs. This is something I want to explore on the web more.
All four kids are here for the weekend. Marian kept changing her mind about where she wanted to sleep last night, reorganizing everyone else. I finally had to put my foot down, with resistance from M. and E. [D.'s son]. My family ended up sleeping in the living room, and D. and his kids in the bedroom.
Marian didn't go to sleep on the brown couch until well after 11. Brenna and I shared the futon. She kept turning perpendicular to the wall and kicking me in her sleep. Marian was awake again around 5 and never went back to sleep. She kept whispering, giggling and sniffing, so I couldn't sleep either. This apartment is definitely too small for the six of us.
I learn from my friend R. that the excellent New Zealand wine we had on Thursday was a 1995 Chardonnay called Brajkovich. However it was a vintage special release. He recommends the New Zealand sauvignon blancs, such as Selaks' Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon, Marlborough 1995, and believes it is commonly available through vintages, and comparatively well-priced. He also suggests a third NZ wine, "which is not really a patch on either of those," but worth trying: Montana (Marlborough) 1996 Sauvignon Blanc.
I would also like to include the recipe for his excellent tapenade. This is probably my first taste of anchovies, and I never dreamed the spread contained them!
In a food processor coarsely chop olives with anchovies. Add tuna, capers, oil, zest, and lemon juice and blend to a coarse puree. Keeps covered and chilled for 1 week; "we often hold it longer."
Last night after the Magic gathering [card game] I drove Joe home again. We picked up his wife and baby at a friend's place. The friend turned out to be someone I know. I first met E. through the Christian community at University of Guelph. Her Catholic group shared a club office with my evangelical campus church. We had mutual friends. Last night, E. wanted to talk Jesus. We discussed the Jesus Seminar and infallibility of the Bible. We had trouble understanding on another; I think it's because we were both speaking vaguely, afraid to say what we really thought. I have thrown out so much of my old black-and-white thinking. Confronted with the need to express my beliefs, I didn't know what to say. I like E., but was glad to leave.
I don't know whether she realizes I am gay. I should have just told her, but felt awkward about it in front of other people. I have told Joe. On the way home in the car I kept wondering whether he had told his wife, Coral. And what would be their view of gay people?
....I am afraid to identify myself as [a Christian], anymore. This isn't because I don't believe anything, but because I hesitate to identify with a church and dogma that have traditionally supported bigotry and abuse. True spirituality is inward and highly personal. My own experiences cannot invalidate those of others. That is why I have discarded my fundamentalist view of the Bible. It and other religious writings simply record the lives of other people and their search for God. Their cultural and individual histories bias and limit them.
I hesitate to record my own beliefs in my on-line journal. I do not want to offend, as I have been offended by my former religious community. But if we do not give an account, as the other writers have done, how will anyone find his or her way alone? We can learn from others, as long as we hold everything under the light of our own values and intuition.
Alone with myself again in the car I had to ask, "What do you still believe in, Van?"
"I believe in God. I cannot deny that I have experienced God's presence."
"Is it the Christian god?"
"Does it matter?"
"Does anything matter to you? Do you believe in Jesus?"
"Oooooo, that's hitting below the belt..."
"Well? Do you still believe he died on the Cross to save us from our sins? Do you believe in the Resurrection?"
Silence.
"Do you believe in sin?"
"Sin is the thing that breaks down our relationships with God, with other people, with ourselves. It is part of being human, and nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing can magically take it away. Becoming a Christian doesn't make anybody a better or more important person."
"So did Jesus dying on the Cross count for anything?"
"Yes, because I related to his loneliness and his suffering. In my darkest times I turned to him. I related to God through him. When other people told me I was evil and in rebellion against God I would go home and pray. Somehow I heard Jesus telling me I wasn't a bad person, that I was okay, I didn't have to change or do anything, just wait and rest."
I had tackled enough hard questions for one night. I fell silent inside, feeling relieved at my answers.
At noon I am lying on the couch at my best friend Daniel's apartment, with an early autumn sun glowing in the curtains, frosted-glass vases tinted purple on the window sill, and sounds of Africa on the stereo. This is one of those places in time I live for. I do my best to surround myself with beauty. Bat at times beauty, of its own volition, comes and surrounds me.
This week I finally got to spend some time with Daniel, a close friend who just returned from three months in Southern Africa....Last February I introduced him to Martin, another friend from Toronto....Within a couple of weeks the two had started going together and now they plan to find an apartment together next April.....
On Thursday I went to Toronto for Gay Fathers, and rendezvoused for a Thai supper with Daniel. He showed me all the wood and stone sculpture, masks and painted cloth he brought back from Zaire, South Africa and especially Zimbabwe. I received a sculpture, smoothly carved from acacia, called Father and Children. He told me about some of his travels this summer, particularly camping with a couple of gay tour guides in the desert in northern Botswana, with tigers roaring in the darkness and hyenas running through the camp....
I returned to Toronto on Saturday morning for the sole purpose of visiting our friends. D. had to work in the morning so he dropped me of at the Go bus station in Mississauga and I rode the rest of the way downtown. I met Daniel at St. Lawrence Market on Front Street and we strolled around one of the most delicious spots I have yet found in Canada. Before he even arrived I had already consumed a piece of banana loaf cake from Starbucks Coffee Shop and, from the market stalls themselves, a custard tart and a cheese latke. Daniel and I toured the entire market, admiring jams and spreads, dyed cloth, fortresses of cheese, orchids, freshly cut basil and marjoram, and tables full of multigrain and fruit bread, focaccia and sourdough loaves. I could go on endlessly.
Toward noon we got coffee and went to sit by a fountain, watching children play and pigeons scrounge for bread crumbs. We talked about many things, including the way of poverty in the world. An old man was working the crowd. He flattered Daniel about his lack of grey hair and it earned the man a quarter.
I told my friend about times when I've been in Toronto with only enough money to buy maybe a slice of pizza for supper, and to get me home. It is a vulnerable and lonesome feeling. It has taught me to look at the homeless through different eyes. I do not need to preach to Daniel....I want to go as Daniel has done, to know the land and the people of Guatemala and Zimbabwe.
His next journey is a business trip to Bulgaria to show government officials the opportunities and technologies of distance education. If the seminar works out it will go on the road to Romania and Tunisia.
D. and Martin joined us at lunch time. Then we went to Kensington Market for more browsing and shopping. Martin and Daniel bought all kinds of exotic fruit: papaya, lychee, star fruit, fig, Asian pear, and as many others that I cannot name. That night they made Chinese chicken dumplings and fruit curry for D. and I. For breakfast the next morning we had muesli buns, Montreal bagels and the most exotic fruit salad I have ever tasted.
We had not yet finished our gourmet novelties for the weekend. D.'s time living in Switzerland left him yearning for raclette. At Kensington Market on Saturday he found some raclette cheese. After we left Daniel's on Sunday we went to the Eatons Centre and found one of the electric grills traditionally used for heating the food and melting the cheese. D. bought it. We picked up zucchini, mushrooms, breakfast sausages, bacon and, on my inspiration, artichoke hearts. We came home and I had my first taste of this cholesterol-rich Swiss meal. It was delicious.
All written material and images are ©1997-2001 Van Waffle. This page updated Apr. 10, 2002.
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