Jingle all the way

Well, Christmas has come and while not yet gone (there are twelve days after all), the pot-lucks my waistline and I have been enjoying have drawn to a close for now. The last one was on Boxing Day with Greg’s family; they are all quiet adults and fortunately, as you will appreciate later in this ramble, I can tell them apart. Not only that but we enjoyed our wine, without anyone one accidentally dropping a bottle on the kitchen floor as happened in a previous year, even before we had imbibed.

However, blame it on the darkness of the season, but other things have been going a bit haywire around here. Accidents have abounded.

I may have mentioned our neighbour who is so closely in touch with nature that, in warmer weather, he walks au naturel  in his garden — like Adam in Eden and not nearly as pretty a sight, I venture to say, though I haven't seen Adam. Anyhow, his love of the feral extends to feeding the multitudes of stray cats and kittens in our neighbourhood.



Cute but doomed

He recently had the misfortune of being scratched by one of his protégés the second time he sprayed it with an antiseptic — in a vain attempt to cure its ear mites. His subsequent plea for better cat by-laws was written up in the paper just before Christmas and dismissed as impossible to enforce by the local authorities who noted that “people” should stop feeding the cats.

A couple of days later he himself contributed to cat control when, sad to say, he accidentally backed over the only cat I had named (it used to visit us at suppertime when we ate out on the deck). Our somewhat clueless ‘answer to Adam’ said wee Bollifer had been sleeping under his car and didn’t get out of the way in time. Nature red in tooth and pick-up truck, I guess.

On a happier note, the Hort’s Christmas potluck dinner was both well-attended and deliciously provisioned. However, the woman who guards the tea and coffee bailiwick at all our meetings had set everyone into tizzy earlier in the day when she fell over her own threshold and broke both arms.  She joined the ranks of the other fallen, including a choir member who slipped on grass and fractured her knee.  All these calamities and it was not even snowy yet (well, not on the night I began to write this!)

Greg, a volunteer hanging basket waterer, proved handy on two other accounts. He is a dab hand at making vast amounts of coffee to the correct strength and at “offering the blessing” before meals. He mentioned both the staggering amount of food and the incapacitated members in a prayer which was both heartfelt (he was hungry) and empathetic (he fell on ice two years ago and broke his shoulder).



And this is just the dessert table

Alas, our Prince Philip (you may remember him from our Diamond Jubilee celebrations in September) had suffered a stroke the day before and was recovering in hospital (but happily has since returned home).  Nevertheless at the time, his wife the erstwhile Queen was understandably distraught.

I am not by nature a very touchy-feely sort of person. It does not come naturally, and I have to think very carefully about what to say to those who have suffered a misfortune. I usually try to rehearse using myself as the recipient of my words. If I like them, then, chances are, others will. 

With this in mind, I approached our Queen Elizabeth after the meal to offer a few words of support, as I hadn’t had a chance to do this when she’d arrived.  I was a bit disconcerted when my words were not received as I expected.  In fact, I was subjected to a rather quizzical stare. Then she began to laugh.  Thanks goodness she has a sense of humour: I had fallen victim to another weakness of mine. I am absolutely unable to tell people from around here apart. I try hard and fail, fail, fail.  

Our Princess Margaret and Queen Elizabeth sisters

The woman I was being so solicitous towards was the sister of the afflicted woman, and worse, she has been widowed for many years.  Not only that but I have confused her with her sister before. Mortified, I tried to disappear into nearest door jamb.  

I must say that after those rather dubious beginnings, Christmas itself turned out just fine. We had our own Christmas dinner at home in Parkhill the weekend before with one of our sons. I remembered to thaw and serve the shrimp ring. Aside from agreeing that next year I will follow his suggestion and have carrots, not turnips, the vegetables were a success.



mmmm ... shrimps

 

We were well lashed with turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and mince pie by the time we set out for my mother’s retirement home in Toronto. We had to miss the Christmas dinner at Christie Gardens because they hold it at lunch and we couldn’t get there in time and still have Greg’s Christmas Day service. Mother scooted down for it, but at supper we enjoyed salmon. It took two days before turkey reappeared on the menu, this time as a sandwich.

The Toronto families came over on Boxing Day. When our five-year-old grandson opened his Star Wars Lego, he exclaimed in wonder, “Oh my goodness!” However, his reaction to his Star Wars calendar was, “I’ve got one of those” as he dropped it on the floor (I had been prepared for this by one of my Friends on Facebook who had it happen to her with a six-year-old nephew).

My two-year-old granddaughter was entranced with a giraffe puppet because “it has a mouth,” and the 10-month-old ignored her new toys and blissfully teethed on an old Tele-tubby from great-granny’s play basket.

Greg and I gave the adult children large jingle bells — Christmas decorations for the tree or so we thought, completely forgetting what it is like to have very small children. Truly, we did forget; this was an accident.  Immediately, the three little ones in the midst of a crescendo of Christmas bags, gifts, tissue paper, ribbons and cards, fell upon them and shook them to their heart’s content while we all joined in singing Jingle Bells.  No doubt, they will have many hours of fun doing this again later at their own homes.

In the meantime, home once more, I will write thank-you notes.  Greg will fire up the snowblower and add its roar to the charm of the season. It won’t be jingle bells, but the driveway will be passable. 



And the snow is blowing on our front lawn not the neighbours'

 

Decorations appear for Advent

 

I like Advent because I like anticipation. I particularly like the anticipation that leads up to Christmas. As it gets darker and darker in December, indoors at our house it gets more and more lit up. I suppose one’s outer life may be similarly dark, but a spark glows inwardly and gets brighter as December 25^th approaches. New baby, new life, great baking, gorgeous music, fire in the fireplace: even if some things linger to make me blue, this Christmas is for the most part a red and green season for me.

Last year, I didn’t have much opportunity to prepare for Christmas, but this year is different, so I am taking advantage of Advent celebrations. Last week when the weather was warmer I did a couple of swags for the garage door and an urn display with greens left over from the Hort. Soc. downtown Christmas beautification.  They look surprisingly OK.

Then yesterday,  I got a huge kick out of starting the indoor decorations.

For the first time I put a garland on the railing beside the stairs. The bow was crushed under stuff in the Christmas trunk . I almost threw it away, but when I looked at it closely, I saw there was really nothing wrong with it that a few minutes of fluffing wouldn't cure. There is a parable in that something about our all needing fluffing from time to time.

 

What I like is that I can add to the display from now all the way to Epiphany when the light has begun to return to our darkened world at least from an astronomical point of view.  I am not a decorator; I just enjoy gettng the Christmas things out because, truth be told, I like playing with them.

This is my favourite Christmas bear. He is so staunchly laden  - with even bells on and his own teddy:

 

 

I have finally found a place for the Christmas Santa cat. He is a bit too big for Whoville, and ominously, no one - especially the little snowman - notices his lurking joviality:

 

 

I am going to decorate the Advent wreath with greenery next week . This is one week too early. I dislike the colours an Advent candles are supposed to have. Pink and purple, the proper colours,  don't go with our taupe and orangey living room, so green and white it is; no red, though, for that would be too blatantly cheery:

 

 

 

Love that Christmas ball decorated by yours truly with instructions from a fellow member of the Hort. Soc. Even someone with as little artistic ability as I possess can be creative with a few sparkles and some acrylic paint:

 

 

 

 

A Monet moment:

 

 

The mirror image and the actual picture are so detailed they are chaotic. In the decoraton, the Great Sheep approaches while the Angel of Knowledge is blissfully unaware. What will happen next?
 

 

Father Christmas to the rescue? A "ding dong merrily on high" angel is there too and a beautifully svelte and lissome Madonna. Not sure about the significance of the serendipitious windmill cookie jar - maybe a hint of the Wheel of Fortune:
 

 

 

 

Just my most favourite Christmas angel. "Bring a torch, Jeanette Isabella!" I'll supply her with a candle later on.

 

Here is the Christmas creche. Jesus is nowhere to be seen because he hasn't been born yet. Mary and Joseph are on their way. The angel of the Lord lurks in the undergrowth waiting for when the time is right to tell the shepherds to hightail it to Bethlehem:

 

 

 





 

 

And finally, there is Joseph in a previous conversation with the angel who tells him he should man up and take Mary to be his wife, which he does, thereby endearing himself to me forever. Mary is by herself looking pensive. What will become of her. The ox and the sheep are waiting for the drama to start.

Dispatches from North Middlesex #9

Things are changing in Parkhill. 

On Main St., Kelli’s Family Restaurant has been sold. There is much speculation as to the nature of the new eatery. Rumour has it the owners are from west of here, perhaps from as far away as Chatham – and may be French. The previous owners were Greek, but spanakopita, tzatziki, and other delectables were never on their menu, alas. The signs in the windows now advertise “Want Home Cooking?” We in the low mobility exercise class don’t know if this indicates the new name of the restaurant or the nature of the cuisine. The chef is said to have worked at the casino in Windsor at one time, so we are expecting great things.

The shuttered dinner theatre is in new hands as well. A steak house will rise from its ashes, although I am being metaphorical as, unlike a previous incarnation of Kelli’s, it did not burn down. The marquee has been advertising an ABBA night on May 23 for the past three or four years, so this development is a welcome change.

And wonder of wonders, the Saturday Globe and Mail is now for sale at the gas station downtown; there are only six copies, so it is wise to get there before noon. 

Our little village is expanding its horizons in other ways too. Over at Tim Horton’s, a customer placed an order, then went out to his car and returned with something in his hand, sat down at a table in the corner and appeared to say prayers. At exercise class, we concluded he was probably a Muslim and definitely evidence of our growing cosmopolitanism. In fact, the North Middlesex Christian Ministerial Assn. in which Greg is an active participant, may need to expand (and change its name) if this trend continues.

In the meanwhile, preparations are underway for Christmas. Lest anyone think we are overdoing the cosmopolitan thing, it is still called that here, not Holiday Season. And there is a nativity scene on the piano at the Leisure club. I have been tempted to wish people a Blessed Advent but felt that might be going too far in the other direction. Going to extremes is frowned on around here.

In any event, no sooner were the boulevard gardens and hanging baskets put to bed for the winter, than it was time to decorate Main St. for the Santa Claus parade. The sturdy ladies of the Horticultural Society collected greenery from the woods at someone’s farm outside town. We then decorated the planters at the new parkette across from Kelli’s and hung swags on all the public buildings. Aesthetic ability was welcomed but not necessary (much to my relief, as my offering looked as if Dr Seuss constructed it). 

Being able to saw thick branches and climb ladders in the wind was more a more sought-after skill. As the new president of the Hort said, “If anyone has anything to say about our decorating, they can do it themselves next year.” So far only a couple of bows have been stolen, and nothing has blown away. 

The men attach the wreaths on the lampposts downtown, and this year, sadly, they did a sub-optimal job. They failed to fluff them before hanging them. I have the same problem with my man and our artificial tree: You really do need to stand the little branches up for an effect of fullness. However, those who decorated the pine trees beside the Post Office did a splendid job of stringing the lights – as one of my neighbours said, “They look like proper garlands.”

The Santa Claus parade was a great success again this year. It is always held in late afternoon, while night is falling. Unfortunately, Greg and I were attending (a rather unaccountably well-lit) Advent carol service at the cathedral, so we missed it; as a result, my information is somewhat second-hand. Apparently the pouring rain let up a bit, and the street was lined with spectators.

 I must run now and finish the four mince meat pies I am making for the St. James Christmas bake sale.  The first year I was here I donated two dozen sticky buns. I felt quite proud of myself until I saw the other ladies hauling in stacks and stacks of baked goods. I am still not attempting such a feat, but I am rather pleased with my pastry.

One small serpent in the garden: I always fortify the mincemeat with lots of brandy, but when I looked this morning, we had none left, I suppose after too enthusiastically flaming last year’s plum pudding. I asked Greg if I could use some of his Drambuie or single malt scotch of which there seemed to be a plentiful supply.  For some reason, this otherwise mild-mannered man said, in no uncertain terms, that I could not. Goodness, was he still harbouring hurt feelings about my assessment of his tree fluffing? I hope not. He has agreed to brave the howling wind and the first snowfall to get me some brandy from the liquor store later this morning.

Shelved

 

This Christmas there will be no flames.

 

We are subdued.

 

The best we can hope for is a quiet undecorated dinner.

 

 

 

I feel guilty but not remorseful.

 

I  am puzzled by my failings and

 

I am not quite sure what to do

 

with all the ragged pop-up memories.

 

 

 

I can't paste them back together,

 

but I can't throw away the book either.

 

So this year everything will be neatly shelved, 

 

for being tidy keeps serenity intact.

 

 

 

Lorna Harris (December 1, 2011)

Spinning in the deep – a review of CRASH

Life keeps tumbling your heart in circles
till you... let go
till you shed your pride and you climb to heaven
and you throw yourself off.
now you're out there spinning
in the deep.
in the deep.
in the deep.
in the deep..
("In the Deep" by Bird York from Velvet Hour)

A movie soundtrack is like wallpaper for the ears; it’s there, but we don’t pay much attention to it –– at least not at first.  This song, the end of the sound track for Crash, encapsulates many of the themes of the film, which is also about the tumbling lives of many people. 

Crash, directed by London, Ontario native Larry Haggis, has been criticized for looking like a made-for-TV movie, for “hitting us over the head” with its message about racism and for having  an appropriated title.  Nevertheless it won the 2006 Academy Award for best picture and has struck a chord with a lot of people. The woman at Future Shop who rang up the CD for me spontaneously commented, “That’s a good movie, some bad language, but a good movie.”  The woman who does my hair said she liked it and called it a surprising movie, “There is a lot going on it.  You could watch it over and over again and enjoy it.” Indeed you can. There are a lot of themes projected on the literal movie screen that are also projected on the screen of our collective imagination.

Fragments

The film opens with a series of fragments: snowflakes falling in the darkness, tire tracks on snow-covered pavement, blurry circles of light and the tips of a chain link fence.  An unidentified voice talks about losing his "frame of reference" and another person observes how being spun around a couple of times in a car accident can jostle that frame. Protecting one’s fragile self from brokenness, being enclosed by a frame of belief, and spinning a story that might involve escape from this enclosure all define this film.

The conversation we overhear occurs after what seems too have been the first car accident, but this collision actually occurs near the end of the story –– an unexpected, disorienting change in our own frame of reference. The word, “Yesterday,” appears in the corner of the movie frame and with that, the audience is spun around to the past to observe the daily round of a group of people in Los Angeles. The title of the movie refers to many different kinds of collisions.  What causes them to crash into one another? Is there any way out of their driven unhappy lives?

Knee-jerk reactions

One cause of their unhappiness is their knee-jerk habit of jumping to conclusions about situations. A burgled shopkeeper insists his locksmith is a cheat when the latter suggests correctly that the door frame needs fixing not just the lock on the door. This complex-driven judgment almost results in catastrophe later on.  The ego-bound characters dislike the other, the stranger who can’t or won’t speak English. But likely they fear not just the alien in the exterior world, but their own alienated inner self. One character admits, “I feel angry all the time and I don’t know why.”  An experienced police officer observes to his former partner, “You think you know who you are, but you have no idea.”

As a result of their lack of self awareness, they operate from a frame of reference with very fragile, easily permeated boundaries. Trespassing on each other’s personal space often occurs. This intrusion involves real physical space in the actual crashes, falls and assaults. The trespass also occurs because they seem to feel that their honour, dignity and self-worth have been apportioned to them by others and are in danger of being taken away.  Humiliation is a constant threat.  A wife tells her husband, “I was humiliated for you. That man took away your dignity.” One of the black kids, who theorizes constantly on black victimization (while making a living from car jacking) asks, “Why do they put great big windows in a bus – to humiliate people of colour reduced to riding the bus.”  Later on, he is told, “You embarrass me; you embarrass yourself.” Honour lost and honour restored drive most of the characters.


The ego-imprisoned characters lack a relationship to Self, to their own integrity as opposed to the integrity accorded them –– or not –– by others. A young policeman is advised by his supervisor to lie about the real reason he wants to change partners.  Behind them, on the police station wall is a poster advertising “integrity.”   On the other side of the hall is a cement-block partition –– a series of small, rectangular, concrete boxes dividing up and enclosing the space.  Later in the closed space of the front seat of his car, the young man pays a horrifying price for his unawareness of who he really is.

Lack of connection

That scene is one of the most intense of many that reveal the lack of a feeling connection amongst the characters.  The crash victim we first encounter muses about the literal lack of touch, “You crash in order to feel something.” Later he is untouching and  tactless towards his mother and his girl friend and suffers for it.

Almost everyone treats women poorly.  The characters’ lack of connection to inward feeling values is projected onto the women they meet.  Men repeatedly relate to women by ordering them to do things: to go home, to go to bed, to calm down.  The women, failing to connect to an inner masculine and therefore in the throes of a negative animus, are demeaning and sarcastic.  The politician’s wife snaps at her maid for not unloading the dishwasher; the actor’s wife accuses her husband of “shuckin’ and jiving” and when he reacts adds, “Anger… a bit late, but nice to see!”

Only the viewers are able slowly to put together the whole picture.  We are the only ones who, seeing the cause of the events, can imagine different solutions from the ones the characters find unconsciously in a split-second.  On a bus an old woman knits –– an unexpected image and one which suggest someone ought to be making whole cloth out of these fragmented lives.  Spinning is unconsciously parodied by a politician who uses “spin” to describe the take he wants his media advisors to place on his story of being car-jacked.  Ironically, the police are the tools the film writer uses to knit the stories together –– but only from a structural point of view. They are as unconscious and compromised as everyone else is.

Frame of reference

Only twice does the camera and thus our frame of reference rise above the action. The first occurs when the camera shooting the action from above pulls back to reveal a television series being filmed. What we think is the “real” movie is just a movie-within-the-movie. This irony might remind us to look outside the frame of our own personal stories –– or at least not to confuse what we think is real with what is merely our projection.

The other time occurs at the end of the movie when the final shot swoops up and reveals an empty intersection with the square box created by the lines for pedestrians clearly visible. There is no traffic.  This box may be a symbol of the limits around the characters: many self-imposed, many imposed by chance encounters.  The intersection is often a place of choice or new direction –– but not in this film.  The shot ends by revealing one of the least likeable characters getting out of her car by the curb and then arguing over yet another collision. 

Close-up shots

At the other extreme are the very few close-up shots –– all the more memorable because the film is shot mostly in a series of medium-range frames.  In two of these situations, a male character is calming the fear of a female.  In one, the policeman redeems his previously humiliating treatment of a woman when he asks permission before touching her in order to rescue her from a burning vehicle.  In the other, the locksmith father weaves a magical story to his five-year-old daughter hiding under her bed, to encourage her not to fear that bullets may once again touch her life. In frightening situations, they calm down long enough to touch and look at the other and see who is really there.

What else can redeem these people? Ironically the action takes place at Christmas –– the time when, according to the Christian myth, the divine embodies wholeness in the person of the Christ-child. The incarnation is supposed to bring peace to both the inner and outer worlds.  Images of crèches, Santas, Christmas lights, trees and parcels abound in the movie. But these reference to the promise of new life are either ignored, misinterpreted or not heard at all by the characters. When the car jackers drop their hit-and-run victim by the nativity scene at a hospital Emergency entrance, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” is on the sound track, heard only by the audience. 

One of the characters carries a statue of St. Christopher, (literally the Christ-carrier), the patron saint of travelers, which his companion calls a “voodoo-assed” thing.  In the end, it does not protect him.  Another character completely under the spell of rage and frustration almost commits an unthinkable act. He believes he was prevented from doing so by an angel in the form of a little girl.  The audience knows what really happened – or at least we think we do.  Is the old man’s conviction in divine intervention just a sentimental belief in magic or has he been offered the miracle of an epiphany?

Final scene

We too want to believe there is more to life than accidents and chance.  In a final scene, one of the car jackers makes a conscious decision to do the right thing.  He no longer embarrasses himself.  In another part of town, the politician’s wife is finally able to accept an embrace.  Several characters wander about in the snowy cold or look out at the weather, which has been described several times as unusual for Los Angeles, the city of angels. They receive messages of love from home on their blackberries. This is not as amazing as angels singing from on high about the promise of peace and wholeness, but it is a start.