Thank God her brother had some Thanksgiving spirit and common sense and said she was teaching out near “The Park.” And thank God for the friendly staff at the gas bar who gave him good directions to this godforsaken lump of a house. They said his dog would love the fields but not to let him chase deer. Apparently, they came out where a barn or something used to be.

• A Canoer of Shorelines, ch. 7

 
Doug Simmons in ​A Canoer of Shorelines is used to functional directions, the kind that he would get today on a search engine. Turns, exits, distances – all are rendered without emotion, without the background detail that makes them real for some of us.

When I was driving the back roads to Val d’or, Quebec, and the cheery computer voice announced “Turn left at the fork in the road”, I began to seek that fork. Suddenly the voice exclaimed, “Take the left fork now!” There was a compelling urgency in the voice, and I slowed down, my eyes sweeping the trackless forest to my left. I could see occasional gaps between the trees; perhaps there was once a logging road out there. The Voice was still trapped in that era, and insisted that I drive out into the trees. When I did not, there was an abrupt blip, and my screen went grey. The Voice does not manage rejection well.
Ten kilometres later, the voice had forgiven me, and announced, “Continue for twenty-seven kilometres.” Perhaps computer voices cannot convey sullenness, but this one came close.

I glanced back, and sure enough, there were gaps along the swamp. Once, there was a road.

I am a Maritimer, and we don’t manage functional directions well. We want the story!
​
I wanted that computer voice to tell me the entire story; perhaps it could say, “Now we always turned left about here; you can see traces of the road if you look. There was a well-kept logging road, and it was our favourite shortcut. Then times got hard, and the trucks stopped running. They weren’t going to maintain it – it was along the swamp after all – so we keep to the main road now. Too bad about that.” Or maybe, “When [Name] won the lottery, they built a beautiful lodge back there and people came from miles around. They got old though, and their kids didn’t want a lodge, and it’s all grown in now. Kind of a shame.”

Good directions are supposed to inform us. Good directions are rich in history.

Maritime directions are like that. Most of us, when we go to town, confuse Aberdeen and Dufferin unless we are on them. The Call Centre is on Dufferin (I think), but good directions would begin “You know where the old hospital used to be? Yes, handy the fair grounds. Just down the hill….”

I once witnessed a clerk in town providing functional directions to the central post office. “You go down Victoria Road, cross the bridge and up Aberdeen, then turn left on the number 10….” The listener’s eyes began to glaze. I leaned forward. “Just past Frenchy’s, on your left, if you’re heading for Walmart.” The person was a Maritimer; we have an inner tracking device that will guide us to the nearest Frenchy’s.

But rural directions give the best history. The more rural the place, the richer the history. If you stand at the grocery store and ask directions to the hardware store, you might learn that:

The hardware store was always where the pharmacy is, right on the corner. They kept their supplies where the new place is. Of course, in those days the pharmacy was where the restaurant is today. They have good specials. The pharmacist always closed from twelve to one, but the new place is open. They have good gifts in there. Yes, the hardware store. You hold to the left at the corner, right where the pharmacy is, and you go past Duke’s barbershop. Of course, the barbershop is long closed – used to have a bowling alley there, and after it became a pizza shop. It’s all boarded up but it says “Pizza” and she made good ones, I must say. Now on your left a ways down, you’ll see our new medical centre, where the liquor store used to be but not exactly. The hardware store is just below, on your right, behind where the train station was. Yes, and the Mersey barns and all…”

You learn local history, and get a taste of what makes a place special, what makes it home to so many. You will never get that from “Stay on Route 8 South for about one kilometre. It’s on the right, and it has a sign on the road.”

Learning directions as a Maritimer has prepared me for interactions with other cultures.

“Where does this parent live?” I asked a teaching colleague in one community, indicating a name on my list.

“Oh! That’s easy!” she exclaimed. (I was sure it was not.) “You know where my new house is?”

“Not really.”

“Well, they’ve got the frame up now, over there.” She waved across the parking lot toward the lake. “It’s the orange one, right beside it. The one that’s brown but not blue.”

Being a Maritimer, I knew all would be revealed at the right time. Sure enough, as I wandered along, I saw the frame of a house rising beside the road. Close beside it were two bungalows; one was orange with brown panelling, and the other was blue with brown panelling. It was easy to pick the orange house that was brown, not to be confused with the blue one that was brown. Good directions don’t always make sense at first, but they will if you trust them.

Some might think there is a hunt of mockery here. I assure you, there is not. These are my people, my language, and my history. This is my home.

This is how we are. Doug, once again you have missed out.
​
I must go find an Internet connection and post this. You know that ledge where the snowplough turns? Okay! You go past that, past the old farm on the river. They haven’t hayed there in years. Once though, it was a farm and the foundations are still there. You can’t see the river because it’s down behind the hill. Well, pass that road and at the top of the hill on your right there is a ridge. Some days you get a signal there. 

Resentment, not gratitude, is rising in Julie, and for this she is sorry. However, she was mowing happily, the night far away from the sunny morning, and now it is over and Laila, not Julie, has saved the day and possibly the farm. Soon, every house will buzz with the knowledge that the new tenant has set the prized mower on fire. Heads will shake as hands reach for the phone. This one is surely worse than those bootleggers—remember them? Soon, Samuel will know that he has a very bad tenant, and will be studying the lease for clauses relating to termination of agreement.

• A Canoer of Shorelines, p. 51

Julie, in A Canoer of Shorelines, worries continually about what people are thinking of her. She wants to be independent, yet routinely squanders her independent moments wondering how people perceive her and her actions. She was not born in the nineteen fifties, but she had the mindset for it.

For many of us fifties children, worrying over the viewpoint of others is natural. We were raised on the fundamental question of life: What will the neighbours say? This was sometimes restated: What on earth must people be thinking?

How many times did we huddle at the scene of our latest crime, shoulders drooping, while a parent stared us down, a fist pressed to one hip, the other hand pointing to the horror we had been perpetrating, while demanding: What will the neighbours say?

Not: Do you seriously believe those paper bags and scotch tape would make an air balloon capable of flying your sister across the first field? From the top of the barn? The social perception, not the science, was challenged. Did they assume that we understood the science, but hadn’t stopped to consider the long-reaching social implications?

So you are five, and decide that sitting on the sheep pen fence with one leg dangling into the pen is a safe and happy practice. As you cling to the fence post screaming and the ram (this referring to the usually volatile male sheep of the herd, with the well-chosen name “Dynamite”) pounds your leg into the boards, a conversation develops.

Mother (from porch): What’s all the yelling?
Child (from fence): My leg! My leg! Dynamite’s got my leg!!!
Mother: Well, that will teach you to play on the sheep pen. Now get off.
Child: My leg! My leg! Dynamite’s got my leg!!!
Mother: Get off the fence then. Before you tear your clothes.
Child (descending from the fence, snivelling): My leg’s all black and blue.
Mother (checking a small bruising below the knee): What were you thinking? My god, what will the neighbours say?
Yet she hugs the child long and hard, rocking back and forth.

Somehow, we knew that behind the gruff exterior beat a heart that was terrified – a heart that cringed at every bruise, a heart that wanted to boot the ram across the sheep pen and did not dare betray its weakness. The neighbours were the personification of their own self-judgment.

So, like good children, we followed the rules and lived secret lives.

No, we did not to go swimming below the bridge because there was a soft bottom there. Instead, we built rafts using splintery old boards, made buoyant by empty sixties-issued bleach jugs, the ones that would deflect bullets. We climbed over sharp tin cans in the dump to find these. We bobbed, swayed, and tumbled, but we did not swim below the bridge.

When I was afraid of the dark, a plaster guardian angel was placed by my bed and I prayed dutifully to it for protection. Then I loaded my cap gun and slipped it under my pillow. When the night creatures surrounded me, I clutched the stock of my trusty six shooter and knew I was safe. I declared the prayer, but not the gun.

We raced along the beams in the hay loft, and sprang from bale to bale. We reported the truth; we were playing in the hay, and we saw the pigeons!

Somehow we survived a riotous game involving shoving one another off the hay wagon, without broken limbs or damage to the spine or brain. We were playing on the wagon!

I have no idea what the neighbours would have said, because we shielded our secret lives from parents, neighbours, and anyone else. That is why I raised my own child with particular care. I knew what he was capable of. Yet I have walked through a grove of trees to applaud the booby traps my son and his cousin had placed. I recall my amazement as a great log went whizzing past my head, released by a trip wire. It was a feat worthy of physicists. They were ten. And like ten year olds they were both proud of their achievement and horrified by the language with which I pointed out the inherent dangers of their cleverness. Oh! What would the neighbours have said if they could have heard me!

The trick, Julie, is not to let the neighbours rule you. Parents used the neighbours only allegorically. What will the neighbours say? translates I have failed to keep you safe, and you are the world to me. The neighbours are not lurking in the shadows, judging. You are judging them with your eyes, and judging yourself through their eyes. Embrace the love and the fear behind the question of the past, and get on with your adult life.
​
That is all the time I have. I have to find an Internet signal, and get this jumbled reflection posted. What will the neighbours say if I am late?

​
 “All the same,” Laila sighs. “All the same.” She brightens. “That Musko’s no fool. He’ll see it right.”

That is why dogs come to us.

• A Canoer of Shorelines, Ch. 8

 
Julie’s head snaps up. The dreams come to her waking now. Soon she will be living in them, everywhere.
 
She walks to the kitchen on rubbery legs, the floor rising and pitching beneath her feet. Musko whuffs at the door. Let’s walk, please. Let’s walk to the brook and wallow in the shady pool above the bridge. There are frogs to hunt and rich smells. Please, let’s go. Then we will stretch out in front of the fridge, and simply be. We will dream of frogs and rabbits and good things.

• A Canoer of Shorelines, Ch. 32

 
 
Musko is the great black dog that chooses Julie. She does not adopt him, and he is not a rescue dog. He had a good life, roaming free on the Reserve, a good and friendly dog, liked by all.

I have had people ask me, when I go north on a contract, to bring them back a dog. They even describe the type they want, like the community was perhaps a pet shop and I would browse the aisles, seeking their dog.  Some dogs are looking for a home, but some are happy just the way they are. It is important to learn the difference.

Musko had a home, and his home was the Reserve. He chose, however, to go with Julie. He was a watcher and a mentor, a being who appreciated the present and all it had to offer.

I believe Julie needed him to find her way through her dream life, and his presence was a gift.

As the world darkens around us, as we strive to suck each moment dry of all opportunity, we need the guidance of dogs. The other day as the heat pulsed around me, as CoVid numbers rose and fires scorched the earth, I came upon my husky, napping in front of the fan, four paws splayed to the breeze, eyes closed, husky smile playing about her mouth. “Today we have a fan,” she explained. “Let’s enjoy it, shall we?”

How did this special bond with humans come to be? I believe that Musko might tell it like this:
​
The Creator looked over all that he had made, and his heart broke.
For there was strife and violence over the earth, and the hearts of humans had turned to darkness. Rage, selfishness, and despair were everywhere. Many were seduced by the power of evil, and many brought low.
And then he saw his crowning achievement, the joy of his creation, Dog. And the Creator wept, for Dog was in chains, his eyes dulled, his spirit broken. How could this be? How could all the beauty and balance of the First Time come down and down to this?
So he gathered Dog and all his companions, and reached deep into their hearts. Some were too broken, and these he kept with him, to be healed in the fresh forests of another world, to be renewed that they might one day return.
To the others, he gave a blessing and said,
“I give you the strength to endure. I send you to seek out the broken among the humans, and lead them to find their hearts. You will listen, and you will lead. I send you, Dog, and your followers, to teach my people to be better human beings. You have patience, forgiveness, hope, and presence – the gifts of creation that they have forgotten.
“Your task will be hard, sometimes dangerous. But only you can accomplish this.
“Comfort, O comfort my people.”
That is why dogs come to you.

Perhaps I am fanciful, but then again, it feels good to relax in front of the fan, cool air pulsing against the soles of my feet.  I relax and draw down deep into my being.

And there I know, that if I can live with patience, forgiveness, hope, and presence, I can change a tiny bit of the world.

And that is a start.

Thank you, Musko.

But children are truth, and the truth will not be buried. It will call itself forth. 
And when the day of reckoning came, the earth heard and brought them forth. The earth itself called out for justice.

“Now I am pounding and screaming through the thick planks and there are voices on the other side, but they are chatting about something else. My story is important, I am screaming. Listen to it. Their voices are muffled, but I think that they are telling their own stories. Or perhaps they are telling their own story of me, a distorted story, and I am not really in it at all.
 
“They have their story of the owl, as it was for them.
 
“I know the real story, and I need one person to understand it…”
 
--Rachel, A Canoer of Shorelines, p.124
 
Wasaya is a healing place, a gentle, affirming setting, but Rachel misses much of the joy by indulging her human need to be understood – to have someone tell her that yes, she is doing it right; she belongs.
 
Really, how often are we truly understood?
 
In all honesty, would this understanding improve our lives?
 
Rachel would initially be relieved to meet this one person who understands her, but I believe that she would soon be looking for another, if only to confirm the findings of the first.
 
Jean Vanier sees the human condition so well in Becoming Human :
 
We have compulsive needs: to win, to control, to be loved. Likewise we have compulsive fears: inner        blockages, fears of some relationships, of conflict. These compulsions push us forward but they also      constrain us. They close us in on ourselves, make us blind to our own limits and brokenness, and to the beauty and gifts of those who are different. Under the control of our compulsions, others can quickly become a threat: they stand in the way of the love or success we seem to need so badly. (P. 113)
 
 
On a basic level, we miss our own lives when we indulge in these needs.
 
On a more dangerous level, we can ruin the lives of others.
 
Here is a parable about giving in to the compulsion to win, to control, to be loved:
 
There were once lost people who roamed the earth, going back and forth. They looked upon a new people and said, “Let us make them over in our image.” They did not stop to think that making things in one’s own image was actually the right of the Creator.
 
The lost people turned to this new people, and saw that they were marginalized, weak, and vulnerable. They formed a picture of how these new people must be remade. They consulted their books, and found approval for their quest. It would be easy, because they had power in the land.  And they saw that it was good.
 
These new people resisted mightily, for the picture forced upon them was strange and frightening. They had their own picture, their own story, and this was alien. They did not see themselves as a new people, for they had been present from the very beginning.
 
The lost people were angry, because the new people would not do what was best for them. The best was, without doubt, their way. Look upon us, the lost ones demanded, and see that we are worthy.
 
Let us take their children, they decided. It will be easy to remake the children. They will forget their ways, and crave our enlightenment.

Thus the dark scheme began.
 
Behold, the children wept in the night. Some died of grief, some of neglect, others through acts of violence. All suffered and were broken under the hands of the lost ones.
 
This was a shame on the lost ones, so they tried to bury the knowledge.

​The lost people hid the children in the ground, and walked away.
 
But children are truth, and the truth will not be buried. It will call itself forth.
 
And when the day of reckoning came, the earth heard and brought them forth.
 
The earth itself called out for justice.
 
For the children were always loved, always beautiful, always perfect.
 
And the rest of the parable lies in the future.
 
To win, to control, to be loved: we group these together. If we win, if we are in control, then we will be approved. We will be loved! However, love is not something we achieve; it is something we recognize and embrace. It is present. We always had it. We just didn’t notice.
 
When we surrender to the awareness that we are loved, we can begin. I turn again to my favourite quote from Henri Nouwen’s Here and Now: “Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing… can take that love away.”
 
To find joy in our own lives and in the lives of others, we must surrender our compulsions. All we need is the discovery that we are loved anyway, and that although none of us truly fit in, we all belong.
 
Creation flows through us and around us; the breath that moved over the waters in the beginning is the breath that stirs the trees around us and the same breath that flows through each of us. We are one, and we belong.
 
If only the lost people had remembered that they were loved unconditionally and from the beginning, then they would have walked with the new but ancient people, and the times and memories would have been gentle, like the sunrise over Rachel’s cove.
 
The children had known this unconditional love; it was embedded in their birth. And that is why they will ever be present.
 

​In the background there is a clattering and scraping as chairs are shoved back and ashtrays are flung beneath the sink. There is a glimpse of slim legs flashing up the stairs, shorts riding over thighs, as my mother and her younger sister, my dear Aunt Claudette, run gasping out of sight.

Now Father is standing on our driveway flanked by the Sisters, so much black fabric and Roman collar and wimple dazzling in the evening. My mother and Aunt Claudette pop through the screen door, breathless and delighted, now in swishing flowered skirts skimming just below the knee. There is a hint of hidden shorts in their eyes.
 
--Wasaya Journal of Rachel Hardy, A Canoer of Shorelines, pp. 19f.

In those days, a visit from the priest was a holy moment, and you could not receive sanctifying grace wearing shorts and clutching a cigarette. There were undisputed rules, but I recall the mischief and tongue in cheek of those moments. Perhaps that has helped me to grow old with a little honest grace, to see with both eyes open.

Rachel in A Canoer of Shorelines was born in the nineteen fifties, and so her formative years would be the sixties. This was my generation, too. Hers, like mine, was not a nostalgic journey through poodle skirts, marriage to a childhood sweetheart out of high school, and settling down to a modest bungalow with a neat lawn, doilies on the end tables, and years of dedication to church and community ahead. Nor was it a drifting into the sixties world of berets and esoteric jottings, later swirling with psychedelic colours and Trips!

We were innocent to the point of naiveté. We did as we were told. We did not dispute obscure truths like “Girls who talk like that wind up in the Convent of the Sacred Heart”, or “The Beatles won’t amount to much.” At the age of eight when I witnessed the rise of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, I planted my shuffling feet firm, and scoffed at their disgraceful hair. In my secret heart, I was at the edge of the stage screaming my adulation, but I was not going to wind up in convent school.

I suppose that I could say that  our parents manipulated us. However, in most instances it was for our own good. The woods, for example, are not a safe place for children to roam. Perhaps it was unfair of my parents to provide a particularly menacing version of a children’s song about picnicking teddy bears, but I know I never went into the woods alone – I had no desire to discover a swarm of glassy-eyed teddy bears lurching toward me from the shadows, zombie-like arms extended. Yes, that song stayed with me, a subliminal message planted by protective parents. I was sixteen and carrying a shotgun before I comfortably entered the woods on my own. The teddy bears were out there, at least until six o’clock when their parents took them home.

We did not question these things, but when it came to important truths we were not gullible.

Our access to television was limited to preserve our innocence, but our permitted shows were rife with violence and racism. Somehow, we accepted that what was happening was not real, and that if we drove off cliffs, we would not get up and start again. We had also seen real dynamite used in blasting stumps, and knew that if we stood on that stump, we would not wipe the soot and ashes from our faces and light the fuse again. We watched The Beverly Hillbillies, but did not emerge with a belief that grandmothers concocted moonshine and that mental challenges were a laughing matter. Personally, I worried over Jethro, and hoped that he would be safe.

We experienced things which touched us then ebbed away. In Grade one, we all sang with great gusto a most unusual song in which the protagonist mistook a man of colour for a horse. I felt puzzled, because the difference between a horse and a man should have been obvious. I recall that the teacher planned a float for our class in the parade, in which we would all be in dark face and seated in a watermelon patch. The plan was to make us look cute and funny. I was not comfortable; I thought this was an odd thing to do. We watched the original Peter Pan cartoon and were confused. Who were these strange beings pretending to be Indigenous and doing it so badly? Did they know how to work ash? The questions we should have asked were: “Who are the people that come up with these things? Why do they think these are funny? What are they telling us to believe? Who does believe them? Are they still among us?”

Did my parents sing racist songs, chuckle over racist movies, honestly believe that we were safe because they unsettled us with creepy songs? I do not think so. They were the types who greeted the priest with an impish smile, sinful shorts defiant under pious skirts. They were polite, but not intimidated. They were the moral compass that taught us to love the people of the world. I know that they were that moral compass because, by imitating them, I can be that moral compass for my grandchildren.
​
We can overcome our literal fifties naiveté; we do not have to be racists even if it was woven into our education. We can reach beyond the twisted stories, imitate the loving moments and the courageous moments that we were taught, and witness the birth of the world. For now, though, I must set this rambling aside. It is six o’clock, and I feel like a walk in the woods. 

“So. When do you think you’ll be heading out again?” Julie asks, for by now she is not just concerned, she is anxious.

Doug shakes his head, grimacing. “I’m sorry, but I thought we were clear on this. I thought we were going to try again.”

“No,” Julie replies. “I just said you could stay, you know, until –“

“Precisely. You did. And now, here I am.” Doug grins. “I’d say that this is a good start.”

• A Canoer  of Shorelines, p.93

Doug, in A Canoer of Shorelines, is not someone who sees the point of view of the other. Doug does not care about the point of view of the other. The world belongs to Doug, and the opinion of others is only there to serve him. Doug is full of dreams and plans, and he sees your view as simply academic.

What does Doug have to do with self-publishing? Nothing, really.  But Doug is out there, and as you set forth on the marketing road on your journey, as you writhe to bring your novel into the world, you will meet him.

Self-publishing is an exciting adventure, and soon your peers are celebrating sales and successes. Meanwhile your cousins and friends have bought your book and shared your news on Facebook. One has penned an amazing review. They are not what we call “market influencers”, but they are in your corner. That is important. The local store reports your success. They have already sold three books! And it has only been three weeks.
​
You are excited to see that you have many followers on Instagram now! Your inbox is filled with messages of support, and although on one level it is flattering to hear that your book is awesome, on another you worry about PayPal and hurt feelings.
You are a master of the Review Query, and have a media kit worthy of a Great Work. All you need is a Great Work to accompany it.
Somehow you schedule your first book signing to coincide with the book launch in a neighbouring town of a well-known local author. You are curled in a cozy section of a bookstore that pulses with love of books, chatting with other struggling writers about writer’s block, self-publishing, and the books we love.
You book a farm market again because you had a great visit last time – and discover that it coincides with the anticipated tropical-storm-with-significant-damage. You plan to pack a cross saw, because trees fall across your road with alarming frequency.
You have limited Internet access at the best of times; with the arrival of leaves and humidity, your signal becomes intermittent. You open promising sites, and the wheels spin. You are weary of “Check your Internet,” because you have no Internet. You scoop up lap top and portable Wi-Fi and race for the car, the dogs bounding behind you. “A car ride! A car ride! Yep! We’re going on a car ride.” You crowd them back into the house, dropping keys. The screen protector slips from your phone in the heat and slides between the slats in the deck. You leave it behind, needing to find a signal before your lap top expires. Now you are on the hill, and the temperature is 34 0C. Soon your Wi-Fi refuses to operate; it is hot to the touch. Your lap top announces that the battery is at critical low, and urges you to plug it in. You scream to the unfeeling universe that your lap top is too old for this service, and then you race for home to charge it up. You know that when you return, the signal will have moved on. You know that the Internet signal is not sentient, but you curse against a pitiless sky anyway.
You have opted to launch during the Third Wave, and you had a virtual book launch all planned. Now, you know that it will never happen, because no one wants to stare at an empty screen. You send messages and cheery updates and blog notifications instead, and begin to suspect how your marketer friends on Instagram feel when you ignore them.
Your business page will not let you post, and finally you begin to realize that the fault does not lie with Facebook. You have to log in from the browser. Just like you told people when you worked at the call centres and they didn’t like it either.
Between the moments, Doug steps in to orchestrate. Doug does not feel that you are trying hard enough. “Don’t listen,” your true friend urges; “just get your book out there -- you can concentrate on pre-Christmas sales with what you are learning now.”
Doug has ambitions involving marketing your literary novel at the adult shop in town; your friend suggests you follow the farm markets and the stores where you have discovered a kindred love of books, a possible family connection (You wore your well-loved Labrador t-shirt to a fascinating little store, and the proprietor was from Labrador!), independent book stores who will do anything to help a new author, and many reasons to smile. You discover the people that your book was written for. And you know that it is not a great book but it is a good book, because they are good people.
You awaken early one morning to a five-star review that is being posted on Twitter. Someone else is willing to undertake a review, someone who knows places that are special in the book. The Woodstock of farm markets has offered you a space. An email arrives late at night welcoming your book to a terrific little gift shop. The dogs have forgiven you for leaving them behind when you were on your car ride. Your life is moving forward. You have met incredible people and had great conversations. You have been reviewed and interviewed, and when you add up the sales, you realize that progress has been slow but steady.
Doug is not happy with these accomplishments. You are not selling many books, he reminds you. You sure didn’t organize this one!  You didn’t plan. Did you think to do a marketing plan? How about a media kit? Doug was not there during the long hours you and FriesenPress put into these! Perhaps he was doing inventory in the attic?
Then Laila steps in, and her words ring across the lake: A satisfied mind is the measure of success. You listen to that one who makes sense; never mind that Doug.
Self-publishing is a wonderful, painful, joy-filled journey. Too bad, Doug, that you missed the fun.
 

In one dream room
I am the dark one.
I am marked. I am hated.
I am their puzzle and the pieces do not fit.
…
In my dream room
I am myself.
Outside my dream room
No one understands my puzzle.
They cannot see
The pieces all lock into place
And I am a Good Life.

-from Tina’s dream room poem, A Canoer of Shorelines, pp. 250f.
​
Tina is the one for whom I will always grieve. She is gifted, yet only her disability is documented. She is sensitive to the world, yet the world turns against her and breaks her. Which one of your students is she?  She must be from one of those places? Please do not try to lock Tina into your reality. She has her own reality.

Tina is the one on the edges, the one without a partner in gym class, the one with no group on the field trip, the one who does her own project; the one that students avoid or joke about. She is the one that teachers worry over, for in her presence they feel helpless.

Which one of my students is she?

Tina is Every Child.

Every Child is a good starting point for a reflection on Canada Day.

Canada Day is meant to celebrate all that has made this country great. This presupposes that the country was not great before “Canada” came into being through the political machinations of the nineteenth century. The history of disease, exploitative trading practices, environmental degradation, and negligence (particularly in the area of education), however, speaks for itself.

Many people are coming forward and saying that they will not celebrate Canada Day; it feels wrong to cheer and celebrate when every day, more bodies of residential school victims are being revealed. They, like Tina, are Every Child. They look to us, bewildered, trying to understand what they have done to be so hated. They were pieces of the puzzle that did not fit – and for that, they were swept away. They call to us, and until there is justice, how can there be celebration?

So what do we celebrate this day? This can be a learning day, a day on which we stand on the ashes and build. Not rebuild, please, because that sounds like we want to have the same structure again. Instead, listen to the ones who are mourning; sit with them, hear them. Grow from their stories. Prepare to change, for history has many hidden layers, which must be explored. Let this day be a starting point for our entire future. Let this be a day that lives on, that is not shelved and over in a week’s time.

I am reminded of a Grade 8 student, preparing his “poster advertising land in the West for Settlers.”  I commented that his draft made it look like the land was empty. Was there no one living there? The eyes narrowed; a mischievous smile played about his lips. The final poster came with the caption: “A deal so good – IT’S A STEAL!!!”

Now that is history! Cree history!

Since Canada has claimed the land, it stands to reason that Canada must take responsibility for the children buried there.  We all have a duty to build a world in which children are valued and have a future. We have a duty to celebrate Every Child.

In my last year of teaching, I worked with a very special teacher, always smiling, always with a good word for every student he met. One morning as we were going over educational plans, he shared, still smiling, a few of his “educational experiences.” The smile faded, and he leaned forward, hands clasped, elbows resting on his knees. “Now I ask you,” he said, “was I really such a bad little boy that I deserved to have that done to me?”
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That is the voice of Every Child, a puzzle that is beautiful and shining, a Good Life that yearns to be affirmed.
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The puzzle of Every Child is a hard one, but oh, it is sweet to see the pieces come together, after hard work and patience, to see the Good Life. 

​“The job goes, she learns, to a vigorous recent graduate from the Liverpool area. He has enthusiasm, has in-depth knowledge of the curriculum and current policy, is a consultant in internet technologies, and did part of his practicum in Grade 8. He also plays the guitar and is an athlete. He is an excellent match.
Julie is a canoer of shorelines, with big oil bills ahead. In her heart she is an excellent match, but as she plods along the old truck road, she knows that she really is not.”

• A Canoer of Shorelines, p. 292

 
Julie does not really prepare for the interview. She does not practice sample questions, study documents and current best practices, or gain experiences that demonstrate skill and commitment (such as volunteering.)This week, my speculation is more properly an advice column.  Years of video and phone interview experience have taught me three things: dress and decorate according to the job, avoid burning the barn before the interview, and keep the dog entertained. Much as I like these interview formats, so much can – and invariably does – go wrong.
 
Someone once told me that she “loved” phone interviews because she could sit back in her pajamas and relax. I was raised on a farm, and lounging in pajamas was a privilege reserved for acute bouts of influenza. One greeted the morning, and one’s chores, dressed. Besides, the clothes that you wear for the phone interview permeate the phone line; dress professionally if you want to sound professional. My friend eventually sacrificed the bunny slippers for low heels, and experienced success.
 
Additional attention is needed for a video interview. Prior to my first video interview, a friend and I did a “practice run.” This was wise, as she pointed out that the unmade bed and heaps of books on the floor were distracting. I improvised an attractive blanket screen for a background (This was before those wonderful backgrounds), and all started well. Two minutes into the interview, the panel members turned to one another. “We lost her,” they said. “I am still here!” I called out, as they rose as one and exited the room, chatting about trying the phone. An assistant entered, placing a hand on either side of the screen. She gasped, and in that instant I knew the feeling of a squirrel, staring back from a live trap. However, for two minutes they had seen an attractive, neat background – not an unmade bed. I was still able to describe my resources on the phone, and a week later I drove off into a snowstorm to my new contract.
 
Yet, you can prepare for hours, setting the stage, and then find yourself huddled in a dog hair packed car, on a lone hill, at the height of a thunderstorm, seeking an internet signal. Lightning bolts flash around you as you wave and give a thumbs up to passing cars, or they will rap on your window offering chains, gasoline, or cell phones. We look after one another out here. The interview panel stares without expression, and then quick notes are penned. Prepare, but accept the exceptions that the elements send.
 
My favourite interview of all time was a phone interview, arranged for late on a weekday morning. I was dressed for school, with documents and sample materials at my fingertips. My teenage son was, I believe, mowing out front. Two nights before this, we had burned out the foundation of the old barn, and I had earlier checked for any hot spots. All was well. The phone rang and the interview began.
 
I was confident; I felt in charge. Then a thick plume of white smoke coiled past the window. I scanned the yard for my son, willing him to race for the garden hose and dose the smouldering straw. “Could you please repeat the question?” I asked in a poised and professional voice.  The smoke thickened and my heart sank.
 
A car rolled down the driveway, lurching to a stop near the barn site. Two women in their Sunday best scrambled from the car. One dropped her briefcase and seized the hose. The other wobbled through the high grass in her dress shoes to the faucet. There in the rising wind, skirts and hair billowing, they hosed down the straw. I am not sure what the interview panel thought when I said that the barn was on fire but it was under control now. Perhaps they thought it was an example of Maritime humour.
 
Recently, a local journalist interviewed me about my writing and publishing journey. I set up my props – media kit open on the computer screen, a Word document of the book body ready for quick searches of relevant passages and quotes. I was nervous, because this was a new type of interview experience for me, but I was prepared -- and in full business casual attire. I did not factor in the dog’s love of phone calls.
 
The interviewer was kind, providing prompts and allowing me processing time. Then, the dog settled beside me and pressed one ear to the phone. The computer screen turned blue. The message assured me that, although something was wrong, “we” were compiling an error report and would restart the computer. The dog began to paw my arm, announcing that she wanted the phone. I rose and paced; the dog followed, tugging at my sleeve. I closed my eyes, focusing on the voice, avoiding the “Oops” on my still blue screen. The dog sank her teeth into my sleeve, a dead weight now, dragging beside me. I will always be grateful to the interviewer, who kept me on track.
 
When I put the phone down, the dog marched to the treat cabinet and turned hopeful eyes to me. “I did not bark. I deserve a reward, don’t you think?”
 
These illustrations lead me to three pieces of advice:

1. Appearance: Select your wardrobe early. Practice in it. Check your setting. Make sure that you have Internet access.
2. Environment: Schedule potential disasters, such as barn burnings, at least one day after the interview.
3. Support individuals: Provide comfort objects for the dog, in an outdoor setting. If it is raining, keep a large pile of treats by the phone. These are not bribes; they are incentives.

 
Above all, be honest with the interviewer. My nervousness was based on the newness of the experience, and I did admit that. I wish, sometimes, that I had also shared the dog’s eagerness to participate. The antics were, to me, very endearing.

​Alice, wise woman arriving, closes her eyes and smiles. “This is a new memory,” she says.
And thus the afternoon begins. Alice drowses, Julie paces, Tim alternately enthuses and falls silent, and Theo twitches, his eyes on the lake. He longs to be on the lake, for there he will see her. She will shine, and she will be singing.
The silences in the campsite grow, and finally they simply are—feeling the moment, savouring it, not looking back, not looking ahead. It is not a return to Kedge times, it is the arrival of something new, perhaps unexpected. Something surprising and necessary.
-A Canoer of Shorelines, p. 297

In the novel, the Martins come together for a special family camping trip. They share this time in hope, but a shadow still hovers over their future. As they go through the motions, it is not the settings or the foods or the actions that hold them. It is the sharing of one another’s presence. This is a gift.

Summer is approaching. The Third Wave of the CoVid pandemic appears to be receding. We are eager to reclaim the elusive normal. We are tired of living in the shadows; we want to get out there and have fun.
We have earned it, surely.

The restrictions that have governed our lives are relaxing. It is time to prove that we are comfortable and not “nervous of CoVid.” We want to gobble ice cream in a food court with all our friends, twirling our masks and laughing. We want to roam across borders for the pure exhilaration of crossing. The world is ours, and we revel in our freedom.

I listen to the radio, and only one death is announced. This is progress. Only one is dead. We can accept one. Most of us are still here. At first, I am relieved.

Then I am not.

I see an older couple, perhaps reclining on deck chairs as the lake breeze fans the flies away. I like to think that he turns to her, a gentle smile in his eyes as he touches her hand. The summer has passed too suddenly, and the lake is fading into memory. “Next summer,” they vow. “Next summer it will be our time again.”

Perhaps they have passed a quiet late winter evening reviewing old albums, recalling the times when they and their family were young and the lake was all in all to them. Next summer, they promise, they will walk in those memories, and it will be sweet.

I do not know how it begins – perhaps a little fever, a general feeling that something is misplaced in the body. Soon it is a trip to the hospital, a precaution, and soon again it has passed. They will be home in a few days, and summer is coming. The lake calls.

I do not know how it ends, or why. Perhaps it is the virus, perhaps something that came after, but now one person is gone. The other will sit alone on a deck chair, the hand empty. There is no “only” when the one death comes. It invades that family, and it impacts the world.

On the James Bay coast, the pandemic has burst upon the world. Cases mount and escalate, but this is not 1918, and this is not the Spanish flu, and we know so much more, so why are people still sick? Are they not trying hard enough? we wonder. Don’t they know enough to sanitize and social distance and wash all points of contact?

They do. What they need is opportunity. One cannot sanitize when the water is dirty. One cannot social distance when one has no space.

When health has been compromised over the generations by the impacts of colonization, and when people are packed into substandard housing with their health weakened on so many levels, without clean water and sanitation, sickness tends to spread. It is real. It is immediate. It is a call to action.

Elsewhere in the world, the flames also spread.  If we travel into the world, perhaps we will bear witness to people who would love to have a sheltered life, enough space to social distance, and doorknobs to scrub. Their pandemic is not over, and I doubt that they are excited this day. Millions of people are grieving the death of someone, someone who was their life.

So I must take note of that, and cherish each person who touches my life, because we share the world. I have a responsibility to each person who touches my life, and that includes everyone. in the world. Every moment touches everyone. Every death, everywhere, touches me.

To be still, and listen to the life of all creation, is a gift. To feel the grief and the joy of the earth, in all its little moments, is a rare thing. It is not something we work for, but something which might come upon us – a moment surprising, and necessary.

And then we can begin.

​Joe walks on the pine needles, doing a little hunting and fishing, a little cutting. And at the back of his mind always, always, there is Jacob, spinning in space as he falls, or lying crushed or burnt, or all of these. Joe raises his Winchester to his cheek and the dawn is still and Jacob will never do this, will never know this, and the leaves flame along the island but not for Jacob. Oh, Jacob. Oh, Joe.
-A Canoer of Shorelines, p. 200  

Every day, every moment, Joe has to get his mind around his son Jacob. Every day, every moment, Jacob moves a little closer to the right, or leans down to tie his boot, and the cable fans past him. He lets out his breath in a great rush. Sometimes, he laughs. He pulls away his hard hat for a moment, pushing back his thick hair while the rest of the crew gather close, clapping his back, needing to touch him because he has come so close but he is fine. And yet, every day, every moment, Joe kneels beside Jacob’s coffin and it is closed because the cable did not fan past that time, the real time.
-A Canoer of Shorelines, p. 271
 
 
Joe has lost his son, and all his moments from that time forward will be without him.
 
My mind turns to a quiet late summer afternoon in Winnipeg, to a little family group strolling home from the matinee, a sudden car weaving onto the sidewalk, the little girl dragged, her tiny shoe empty on the sidewalk, the parents hunched beside the coffin of their beautiful child, the community in grief.  
 
The driver had been drinking. The mother forgave him, as part of her healing, as part of his.
 
She held a feast when the birthday came, to remember her child and to acknowledge her child’s friends. Her arms spread to the sky as she tossed handfuls of candy for the little ones; her face was beatific.
 
Yet she feels forever the sword that pierces her heart.
 
My mind turns now to a quiet spring evening in London, to  a little family group strolling as the day cools, a precious family moment to cherish, and suddenly a vehicle is turning and bearing down on them. Moments later, four people are dead; a child is in serious condition in hospital. I am told that this was a deliberate act. Someone turned the wheel and sent their vehicle into this little family group, fully into this precious family moment, and we can never have that moment back to reverse or undo. It is in our history forever.

People walk in fear. They do not know when they will be perceived as a target. They walk, especially, in grief, for this family who shared their vision, their faith, their culture.
 
These moments are now in our lives. We cannot prevent these moments anymore.
 
No matter how many ways we imagine events differently, they are done. A little girl lies broken on the pavement; a family lies shattered on the sidewalk. How do we live, going forward?
 
We teach health and safety, but addictions flourish. There is an underlying pain in our world.

​There is rage, too, loose in our world. We teach tolerance and respect, and children still suffer intolerance and hatred. It is often subtle, but it remains. We claim to live by tolerance and respect, but do we? 
 
Do I? Do I not contribute funds, retweet statements supporting cultural awareness and education? Do I, however, speak up when silence should not be an option? If I feel safe, I do. Otherwise, I choose silence. I claim to want balance, yet I hesitate.
 
These things are with us forever – the world will never know the joy of this little girl grown to adulthood, or the pleasure of this family, a family from the neighbourhood, a family who should have been safe in the neighbourhood, growing old with grandchildren joining the evening walks.
 
We will never know the joy of two hundred fifteen children and many others, grown to adulthood and passing on the teachings to their descendants.
 
With every loss, humanity has lost.
 
When we finally learn to walk with one another and be truly present to each other, we will learn to celebrate one another and grow through each other. Perhaps, then, when the time comes to part, our memories as humanity will be sweeter.