Middle Pages

The years between 1997 and 2006 were the most authentic years I’ve ever lived, the years in which I was most present, and most rooted.   They were the years between the ages of 35 and 44 for me; 4 and 13 for my daughter.   They were the years when she and I were the most important people in each other’s lives. The years before I brought someone new into our world. The years before she did. They were the years when we had no one but each other. We were a family of two. Eventually we would get a cat, who would extend our circle of love. Three girls we were; utterly devoted to each other.   Girls for whom paradise was coming together again at the end of a busy day: taking comfort in the warmth and weight of each other’s bodies: the three of us sharing a couch, sharing a bed, making a life. I remember well one Victoria Day weekend.   My daughter was maybe 5 or 6. Clocks had sprung forward. The days were longer now. Children played on the street until 9 o’clock. Summer was around the

Over the Christmas holidays, I spent time travelling like many do, to see family and loved ones.  Last night in the middle of a deep freeze, I embarked on the four hour trek from my mother’s home back to my own.  Partway through the journey, I experienced some car trouble and pulled off the highway into a gas station. With all the auto repair shops having closed for the night, I decided my only option was to check into a hotel.  I am not sure when the man began following me.  Was it in the gas station where I lifted the hood of my car? The Canadian Tire parking lot? The hotel lobby? I will never know…but what I’d already thought was turning out to be a disastrous evening was going to get worse. Because I was travelling with my dog Georgie, the hotel clerk assigned me to a “pet-friendly” room in a building that was separate from the main hotel.  It was a short drive behind the main building to a smaller building that had its own parking lot- dark and empty.  I was too frazzled from

I'm working something out. It is beginning to seem to me in middle age that I am, as a human being, more than the sum of all my choices and lessons learned,  more than the compilation of my life experiences: the kind of parent I was, the kind of daughter or wife or friend I was; more than a tally of the occasions on which I stood strong and those on which I buckled, and more even than the extent to which I have loved and been loved. In fact when I reach backwards to draw all those defining moments and traits into the present for itemizing, they are not as accessible as they ought to be.  It is not so easy to line them up as evidence of who I am.  They are fuzzy. They have lost some of their salience. Of course I remember what it was like to be the mother of a young child. Of course I remember the agony of divorce,  the tenderness of romance, the moral failings, the personal accomplishments ....but the memories will not cooperate with my efforts to stack them, sort them, and fashion

Social media platforms, like nothing before them, expand our networks to include people who, without them, might have remained forgotten remnants from our past.  That girl who peed her pants in grade 2? Found her on Facebook.  That guy who broke your heart when you were 13? He tweets regularly now about his vegan diet.  That person who shared a room with you at the YMCA when you were travelling through Europe? Her drawings are on Tumblr. That cousin you hardly ever see anymore? You can see pictures of his kids on Instagram. Once the initial glow of reconnecting passes, you have to come to terms with the fact that their ‘stuff’ shows up in your newsfeed. And you soon realize that shared childhoods and shared dormitory rooms do not equal shared political views.  In fact, you may be subjected to disturbingly offensive opinions, and find yourself dismayed as you try to reconcile your happy memories of him/her with the person who now seems to be a total red-necked blockhead.  For too long

Geographies of Divorce: Never "my town" In 1981, James Taylor released a song called "Her town too" ( http://youtu.be/Be73MgBIhUM ) in which he expresses regret that his ex-wife is being excluded from social events because he holds greater social capital than she does amongst the people in the town where they once had a life together. When relationships end, it is a sad but true fact that people take sides, assets are split, and someone, if not both parties, must relocate. Taylor alludes to another type of collateral damage that I'm calling Geographies of Divorce . It's the shifting of boundaries, the renegotiation of territory, the displacement, isolation and the staggering trauma of homelessness that accompanies divorce. In my case Sweet Baby James can relax. The neighborhood I shared for almost 5 years with a man whose town it always was... was never MY town. But the geographies of divorce have tentacles that are still able to reach out and squee

Eight years ago this evening I had eight chicken breasts in the oven – Chicken Parmigiana - for a dinner party with a group of girlfriends, when the phone rang.  It was my mother calling to say that I should come home quickly. My father was in the hospital and had taken a turn for the worse. He wasn't going to make it, the doctor told her.  I phoned one friend to cancel the dinner and asked her to call the others. I wrapped the chicken and put it in the trunk of my car. I rummaged through my closet for a black dress, and told my 13-year-old daughter to do the same. Somehow we threw together things to put in a suitcase and drove 4 1/2 hours straight to the hospital where my father lay dying. He was still lucid when we arrived. He was genuinely surprised to see us. "What are you guys doing here?" he asked, apparently unaware that he had only hours to live. What could we say? That we were there because we wanted to be with him at the end of his life? That we were ther