Tag Archives: Pairs & Artichoke Hearts

What I did on my summer vacation (and what gives me nightmares)

I remember dreading this first-day-of-school assignment, because we did the same thing every  summer. We went to the cottage, which I enjoyed on some levels, but it forced me away from my Dad and my friends, which I didn’t enjoy. I loved the daytime, being outside, swimming, lying on my grandmother’s quilts on the lawn reading comics and eating watermelon. But at night, the sheets were clammy with humidity and it was far too dark. Inevitably, I’d wake in the depths of the night, unable to see my hand in front of me, and get so scared I’d start crying. For years, all my nightmares were of being hunted by malicious forces at the cottage. Having spent months up there as an adult, I’m happy to report that the place of the cottage in my dream world has shifted to one of light.

This past summer, for the most part, I stayed in Toronto; the brief time I was at the cottage, my allergies were awful, so I avoided a prolonged stay. This summer’s highlight was certainly the band reunion, and everything leading up to and away from that.

In August, I made my annual foray to the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake (NOTL). I was late booking, so missed one play I wanted to see and was unable to book my usual B & B, although I did have a visit with Lynn, the owner. I had mixed feelings about my last-minute accommodations, but I enjoyed the birds’ nest behind one of the window shutters. The chatty chicks were nearly as big as their parents and beginning to venture into the huge maple a few feet away.

A small part of the Niagara peach harvest.

A small part of the Niagara peach harvest.

This year, I didn’t visit as many stores or spend much money, and I think I enjoyed NOTL even more as a result. For the first time, I was there during Peach Festival and I think that’s something I’d like to repeat. Three blocks of the main drag, Queen Street, were closed to traffic, allowing vendors to sell locally grown peaches and peach baked goods. In the evening, tables were set up along the street for gourmet dining and local wine sampling. The festival was alive with music; folk, rock, jazz, salsa—even bagpipes. The street felt very different, more relaxed, in part because I could wander back and forth as things caught my attention. The weather was fantastic, beautiful, clear and sunny. At one point, the local biker gang buzzed through town, about thirty of them, so hard not to notice. An interesting contrast. Lots of people were out enjoying the weekend; I even saw Shaw Festival actor Patrick Gallaghan out with his wife buying baked goods.

I’d intentionally left my Saturday evening free, thinking I might indulge in a gourmet meal. But I didn’t feel like it, so instead, I went on a Ghost Walk of NOTL with Lady Cassandra. This was a significant year for such a walk, as it’s the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. For six months during 1813, the Americans occupied this small, but strategic, town, then called Newark. This summer, NOTL flew the vintage fifteen-star American flag alongside the Canadian flag, to mark the anniversary. Historically, there’s a lot of pain in this soil. When the Americans left, they razed the town, leaving about 400 residents, mostly women, children and the elderly, without shelter in December. Many froze to death. This cruel civilian attack was condemned by both the British and Americans. It also laid the course for reprisals, including the burning of the original White House. While the town was rebuilt, many lives were lost, some brutally, during the war years. And the losses didn’t end with the conclusion of that war. The room I stayed in is occasionally haunted by its former occupant, a young woman who committed suicide after her American husband was killed at the Battle of Gettysburg in the summer of 1863 during the American Civil War. Abagail reportedly doesn’t haunt romantics, so I was left in peace, however, those of you who know me well know that I’m highly impressionable when it comes to spooky stuff. I don’t do horror movies because the images haunt me for weeks or even months. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep well and yes, I had to check under the bed a couple of times because I kept getting flashes from an Evil Dead movie trailer.

Self-portrait in Abagail's Rest. Spooky.

Self-portrait in Abagail’s Rest. Spooky.

And, oh yeah, I went to three plays. With the number of actor friends I have, I’m embarrassed to admit that I’d never seen the classic, Guys and Dolls. I was surprised that I knew at least half the score. Although I’d heard Bugs Bunny described as a Damon Runyon-esque character, I’d never understood the parallel until seeing this play. Wow. Talk about a culturally influential show! Peace in Our Time, a later Shaw play, wasn’t, in my opinion, one of his best. Although full of social and anti-war comment, it lacked the level of wit I generally associate with GBS. It felt very heavy handed and static. Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan, on the other hand, was lovely. A thrilling satire that skewers Victorian morals, it contains such immortal lines as: “I can resist everything except temptation” and “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” I really enjoyed the acting, staging and costumes in this production. The music choices between acts were…unexpected: Velvet Underground’s “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” Rufus Wainwright’s “Art Teacher” and Katy Perry’s “Firework.” While I kind of understood the significance of the first two, the final choice seemed to overwhelm the play’s finale, but that is a minor complaint. If you want to visit Shawfest, all three plays continue into mid-October or early November.

This was the second time I took transit to NOTL and it just doesn’t work well, so I’ll probably go back to renting a car. The GO schedule doesn’t take curtain time into consideration, so play-goers may have to cab it from either St Catharines or Niagara Falls. Of course, the  other advantage of a car is that I can stock up on local fruit and wine before heading back to the city.

Morning Glory

Morning Glory

At home, my balcony garden really took off this year. As well as violas, morning glories, marigolds, portulaca, begonias, impatiens, and sweet potato vines, I tried a gerbera daisy for the first time. It’s been sending up bright new blossoms all summer. The quality and range of floral colours have been lovely and it’s been really gratifying to have bees visiting my sixth-floor balcony. Additionally, I tried growing vegetables this year. I started them indoors from seed, probably a little late. I have about a dozen tomatoes, half-a-dozen cucumbers, and an uncertain number of peppers coming along. It was more successful than my previous attempt at a balcony vegetable garden, and I learned a few things, so plan to try again next year.

CNE midway at dusk

CNE midway at dusk

My friend James and I made our annual pilgrimage to the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) and did some of the usual things and a few new things. We saw an intimate performance of the Flying Wallendas’ high-wire act. We missed the Super Dogs, so we checked out the miniature horses instead. We also walked through the cat show, which consisted of a variety of over-bred felines, mostly sleeping in their carriers. I was really taken with the Savannah cats, until I found out that they’re a cross between a wild serval and a domestic cat, only recently accepted as a new breed. Although a striking and affectionate cat, I don’t know why people can’t just leave wild cats alone to do what they do in their natural habitat. I was also really glad to see a large booth for Ninth Life Cat Rescue, an organization that rescues cats from death row in shelters, housing them until they can be adopted. If you’re considering feline companionship, personally, I think adopting from a shelter is a more responsible way to go. We wandered through the international pavilion, watched people on midway rides, and, after much consideration, I ate a deep fried Mars Bar, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

In other news, I completed the revised draft of Pairs & Artichoke Hearts. I got some great feedback from one of my first readers, and there’s some further work I’d like to do before sending out queries. I was also able to get back to writing my PhD dissertation; last year’s car accident did a number on my cognitive abilities, among other things, but I feel like my head is finally fully back in the game. I drove for the first time since the accident, even at night and in the rain, and nothing bad happened. I attended four funerals and a wedding, the ratio perhaps a sign of age. I did some non-academic reading, including Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 (all 925 pages), as well as some hybrid hardboiled science fiction, and some comic books. I went to a few movies, notably Red 2, Iron Man 3, and Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing.

I took more time off than I’d intended, but the upside of that is now I’m eager to get back to schoolwork! And that’s a good thing.

© Catherine Jenkins 2013

Fall / Winter 2012

Oh my. It seems to have been another long while since I updated the website. I still blame the PhD, although I’ve added some teaching responsibilities as well, so in fairness, it is, perhaps, the combination. You will, I hope, be pleased to note that I have not been so remiss in my book writing. Pairs & Artichoke Hearts is nearing completion and I expect to begin marketing it to publishers by the spring. If you want to read more about it, please go to the Works in Progress page, and my entry into The Next Big Thing!

In spite of the favourable tone of last fall’s post, I’ve reverted. I’m still working on the apartment, and hope to get back to working on it more seriously over the winter holidays. And I’ve returned to my cave; I’m only venturing out when necessary. Looking forward to a long and productive hibernation as winter’s chill sets in. On a brighter note, I’ve returned to cooking, creating vast quantities of hearty soups and chili to stave off the cold. Even on nights when I don’t feel like cooking, I can go to the freezer and heat up a homemade meal, which is always pleasant (not to mention considerably less expensive and healthier than ordering take-out).

Life was moving along quite smoothly, and I was making excellent progress on my dissertation—right up until the rental car I was driving back from the cottage got T-boned by a cab in early September. I’m okay, but still on the mend, with the assistance of many alternative healthcare practitioners, lots of sleep, and gentle downtime. The cats, who were also in the car, were fine and recovered much more quickly than I have. This is an event I could have done very nicely without, an event which has caused considerable internal stir, not only physically, but also psychically. The police concurred that the accident was entirely the fault of the other driver, and yet I’m the one who suffered injury, and is still recovering more than three months later. The notion that I could be doing everything right, or at least nothing wrong, when the universe whaps me upside the head for no apparent reason, is very disconcerting.

Then events unfolded in Newtown, Connecticut these last few days. While this is one more in a long line of such tragedies, this particular one has affected me more than most, I think because it involves young children. They weren’t doing anything wrong either, and yet now they’re dead or traumatized. I know I’m looking for logic where none exists. My heart goes out to all those involved, the living and the dead. But yes, this rightly brings up the question of “the right to keep and bear arms,” the second amendment of the American Constitution, adopted, I would add, in 1791. I suspect that the gentlemen who saw to its passing would shudder at some of the ways it’s been twisted over time, as well as the “improvement” in killing power of today’s weapons over the single shot rifles they were thinking about. My mother grew up in a pioneering family towards the end of the pioneering era in the Canadian outback in the early 1900s. My grandfather had rifles; they were kept in a locked cabinet and were used to hunt food or euthanize injured or rabid animals. These are not problems most of us encounter in our comfy urban settings. In the US, to a lesser degree in Canada, and to a greater degree in some other countries, we have turned such weapons on each other. The statistics support that countries with fewer guns have many fewer firearms casualties. In spite of this, when mass shootings happen in the US, people buy even more guns. Where is this heading? Are people going to pack little Billy and Sally off to school with their respective Spiderman and Barbie lunchboxes, along with their flak jackets and handguns? Maybe a .22, something small enough for a child to handle, in black for him and pink for her? Maybe more guns isn’t the answer; maybe a more compassionate society that actually listens to the needs of its children, especially its young men and boys who are statistically more likely to respond with violence. The individual responsible for the devastating carnage in Newtown used his mother’s legally obtained and licensed assault rifle and handguns that she had purchased for self-defense. Seriously? The population of Newtown is about 27,000 and by all reports, it was a peaceable place to live and raise a family. If Americans living in such postcard perfect small towns feel so paranoid that they need military weapons in their homes, then the terrorists won a long time ago.

Maybe it’s just my perception, but it seems that all around the world, people have dug in on opposing sides and there’s no room for the middle path, no room for negotiation. I see this around the question of gun control versus the right to bear arms, but I also see it in the widening gap between rich and poor, between capitalists and environmentalists, and among fundamentalists of every stripe. It seems that if you’re not dug in on one side or the other, then you’re a victim, and no one wants to be a victim. I’m not sure when we became so ardently polarized. But it scares me and makes me very uneasy about the future.

Enough. The holidays are almost upon us. I’m done for the term. I need a break. I’m taking the train to an overnight getaway in Niagara Falls. En route, I’m stopping in St Catharine’s to visit two exhibits of work by Dennis Tourbin, my late friend and creative mentor. I’ve never seen the Falls in winter or at night, so I’m looking forward to that strange magic, in conjunction with all the kitschiness that is downtown Niagara Falls. I even snagged a Fall’s view room! Looking forward to the opportunity to reset, and hoping to begin the New Year with a new, more positive, outlook as I push towards the completion of a couple of major projects in 2013. Best wishes to all for a happy, healthy, and peaceful New Year.

© Catherine Jenkins 2012

June – July 2003

It’s all about balance, one of those things in which there can be an enormous gap between theory and practice, between intellectual understanding and living it. And being someone with a natural tendency to obsess on intricate and specific things for long periods of time (‘tis the nature of writers and editors) sometimes that balance can get radically off-kilter. Don’t worry, I’m working on it.

By this time last year, Swimming in the Ocean, the first novel, a novel it took me ten years to understand how to complete, was out and I was in full tour mode. But by this spring, I was in a mild state of depression, a place I hadn’t been for quite some time. I think it was brought on by a series of things happening concurrently: let-down from finishing the book at long last, tour exhaustion, financial stress, too long and cold a winter, and finding several people dear to me also suffering various stresses. I was seriously considering packing my bags and leaving (Toronto, that is), not that I had any place else in mind. It was more an escapist consideration than anything else. Realizing that no matter where you go, there you are, I stayed.

Things turned very suddenly. For several weeks, I found myself overcommitted to paying work, sometimes juggling three clients simultaneously, afraid to turn projects down, getting up at five or six in the morning to start work, just to try to get it all done. That phase seems to have passed now, allowing me some time and energy to get back to what I’m really here for: writing.

Depression is a low-energy state, a state in which it’s difficult to locate creative energy; too long without a creative fix can send me into severe depression. Being overworked is a high-energy (or high-anxiety) state, a state that, while invigorating, is a difficult one in which to locate creative time. I seem to function optimally when there’s too much going on. I need a great deal of stimulation to keep from getting bored; if I get bored, I also become depressed (something that keeps me away from routine jobs). I think a period of hyperactivity was necessary to snap me out of the state I was in. Since rebounding from these two extremes (both of which had a negative impact on my writing productivity), I now feel like I’ve relocated my centre, my balance.

My psycho-emotional life is a bit of a tightrope by times, an exercise in extremes – anyone who’s read Swimming in the Ocean is probably already aware of that. You may be relieved to hear that I’m considerably less volatile than I used to be. I’ve worked to understand what to avoid and how to explore difficult emotions, which are often necessary to the writing, more safely. Which isn’t to say I don’t go out on limbs anymore; I certainly do, but I usually tie off the safety rope first.

Although statistically people are more prone to depression the more times they experience it, personally I feel that the work I’ve done in understanding my depression has made me more conscious of when I’m moving in that direction and more able to redirect my energies more productively.

Although I have been offered the quick magic of pills to alleviate the symptoms of depression, I’ve always declined. I’d rather develop my own coping strategies, no matter how rudimentary. It gives me a greater sense of control. There’s no denying that antidepressants help a lot of people, but recent clinical evidence, which agrees with my experiential evidence, supports the notion that talk therapy alone can change brain chemistry. Unfortunately, I think we as a society are too busy or too lazy or too disconnected to sit down and do the work of actually figuring out what the problem is and would generally rather pop a pill to feel better, while not addressing our damaging behaviour. While medication can make talk therapy more approachable in some instances, the drugs alone don’t fix anything. They’re a little like putting a bandage on someone’s toe while gangrene is consuming their leg.

I recently heard stats on the rapid growth in the use of antidepressants in Canada. Hopefully this dramatic increase isn’t simply the result of mass-marketting campaigns by pharmaceutical giants out to pad their earnings reports, but I’m not sure what to make of it. If we, as a society, are becoming more accepting and supportive of people with depression and other mental illnesses, I think it’s a good thing and about time too. Denial, the inability to discuss psycho-emotional problems, even among families or with friends, is damaging and has caused tragedies to be needlessly repeated. However, if the dramatic increase in the use of antidepressants points to an increase in depression in our society (and there’s a lot to be depressed about in our world), that’s frightening. Maybe we all need to take a serious time-out this summer, reassess our priorities in life, turn off the news and stop trying to run our lives around the technology that keeps pushing us to produce ever-faster. What have you done for yourself lately?

I’ve gone back to playing the piano, working primarily on Bach Inventions (for now) in an effort to get my hands and focus back. I was surprised at how much better I felt and can’t figure out if it’s the playing or if it’s the Bach (used extensively in music therapy because of the soothing effect of it’s mathematical stability). I felt calmer and more in control. What surprised me even more was that when I got busy and stopped making the time to play, a friend of mine commented on the difference. I knew playing was helping me internally, but it was helping externally more than I’d realized. So I’ve been playing again this week and now that I fully appreciate the point, I shall continue.

This is the sixth summer I’ve been in Toronto and I have yet to really engage with the city. My presence here has just felt too tentative, but that’s beginning to change. This may be the first summer I’ve really enjoyed for a long time. I have tea plans with various friends, have made note of some historical walks, have picked up tickets to see the big Rolling Stones concert, and generally I’m just keeping my eyes and ears open for interesting opportunities.

Now that the mad rush is over, I’m settling in to complete the rewrite of the novel version of Pairs & Artichoke Hearts, the gender-bender romantic-comedy screenplay I wrote in ’96. I like the idea of publishing work in the order in which it was conceived, so I want to complete this project before turning back to the new novel, which is well on its way.

I need to produce, to keep on keepin’ on. It makes me feel alive, most comfortable in my own skin. And maybe someday, if I persevere long enough, the work will provide for me and I won’t have to spread my time and energies so thinly. That would make me genuinely and deeply happy. In this life, we aren’t necessarily rewarded for our efforts, at least not always immediately or as expected, but as a music teacher of mine once said, “I find the harder I work, the luckier I get.”

©Catherine Jenkins 2003