October 31, Mine and Yours

Angela writes:

It is raining and I contemplate with surprise how little of the Sandy storm made itself present for us here. Strange acting of calamity: for those in the middle of it, the world comes to a stop; for others, maybe not very far away, the same span of time is marked by some inconvenience.


Yesterday we walked along the trail and I got some breathtaking pictures of the sky above the county, without knowing clearly what those same clouds had brought with them somewhere else. Amazing what a little machine like the iPhone can grasp of the grandeur of such phenomena. Or is it that, to such grandeur, our means of intervention are secondary?

All that can be said at the sight of these pictures is, that I was there to witness it. Very little know-how went into the seizing of these cloud formations, except for my being prepared. If such renderings were ever to be properly printed, and presented in a public space, they could, I suppose, be called art. And yet the only artistry at work was that of natural elements at play.













Not long ago we had the visit of my cousin and her two children, grown up inquirers of all things worthy of inquiry. The topics addressed during their stay were numerous, yet the one which kept us awake overnight, believe it or not, was the question of art, and of who can call themselves an artist. Tudor, our lovely nephew, among many other things a dandy if one is yet to have survived the turn of the past centuries, wants to know. Not least because his sister Oana is an artist, who, like all such respectable fellows, bypasses the potential riches promised by lucrative endeavors like her brother's. Her brother, generous in turn, is ready to accept that an artist is one who makes art, even if they take a loss. For the sake of the argument, I contradict, and maintain that an artist can only call themselves such if they bring their work out in the open, to the public. By public of course I do not mean the immediate family, neither one's well intentioned friends and acquaintances, but rather people one does not know.

It is difficult for Tudor to accept that one who plays their bongos (his example) in the solitude of their home is not an artist in my definition. I say, they are not artists, but rather they play bongos. Just as I am not a painter, but rather somebody who sometimes paints. And so long as I will not expose a meaningful body of works, I will simply be one who spends some of her time in such a fashion.

From there, not surprisingly, at least not for me, we went on to speak about love and loss. Yes, this is how far the question of one's coming out with the fruit of their artistic expression took us. A question of definition again. Can love call itself such, if it is not built on the fear of the loss of the beloved? I ask. One condition too difficult to accept without putting up a vigorous struggle. And just like in the case of art, an unjust prerequisite. Why should anybody need the accord, or recognition, of anybody else than oneself, in order to keep doing what they enjoy, and which they cheerfully and freely may call art? For themselves alone to take or leave, for themselves to appreciate.
Likewise in love, the lover should be free to say, I love because I feel like it right now, and I will stop loving when this object will stop giving me what I expect.

Meanwhile, according to my position, neither is for me to take or leave. In art it would make such an occupation deserving of the name hobby. In love the take it or leave it rule makes the relationship a partnership of sorts. There is, of course, nothing wrong with that. I am tempted to say, that is, mostly and maybe rightfully, the form relationships take nowadays. As for love, where the one who loves is concerned with the needs and wants of the beloved, well, for better or for worse, such relationships are on the wane. Who would want to live one's life hanging on the affections of another than oneself?

Is this not what happens, when we take our art, whatever that may be, to strangers, and ask them what they think of it? It is a difficult place to be in, and in a world where self- sufficiency is the name of the most sought after condition, to depend on another's judgement, or passion, or compassion for that matter, is strictly unacceptable.

No wonder that a young and sensitive person may, sometimes, over such matters, loose sleep.

October 19, Sugar Molecule

Angela writes:

Ottawa under heavy rain and fast winds is not much to look at. We could not even get out of the car to go and eat somewhere afterwards. I had had to fast before the test, which took almost three hours. That is because one needs to wait for that sugar molecule, as they call it, to come out of the metal syringe, itself encased in a metal box, all of which are handled with gloves, and travel deep into the body of the testee. This it will eventually light up from the inside.

The lung doctor called me yesterday to let me know that the pet scan shows an area of mild activity, not characteristic of cancer, probably an inflammation of sorts. The results are non-specific again, or inconclusive. I have two options: either wait for another three months and get another cat scan of the lung, and again every three months after, for two years; or have the surgeon go in and remove this formation, with the risk, of course, that upon biopsy the extirpation prove to have been unnecessary. In spite of all the expensive, so-called non-invasive imaging techniques, the scalpel remains the most trustworthy instrument.

Since I was given a choice, I chose to wait.

Some of my friends or colleagues, with whom I communicate from time to time, give me an idea of how they imagine convalescence. Since the university professor’s most important complaint is to have not enough time to read and write, to do research as it is referred to, because of teaching and other administrative duties, a character on sick leave, or, even better, on disability, such one like myself, would certainly take advantage of all the time freed up by the disease in order to, while taking pills, read and write. And, in case that person, on account of some debilitating condition, were unable to write, they would certainly at least read voraciously all those excellent books they were not able to get into while doing the work required by their salaried condition.

To this question I have to again answer in the negative. No, I do not read. The fact that I lay, apparently still, propped on a pillow, on my couch, does not mean that I am comfortable. Indeed, as the traveling sugar molecule would tell you, if it could speak, the condition of the opium eater that I have become is one of double discomfort: a fire burning within the body, especially along the spine, which takes not kindly the loss of one of its member vertebrae; and a film of ice coating the outer envelope of this burning body, the skin. If for Scheherazade it was not difficult to answer the riddle of the one who walks dressed and undressed at the same time, by wrapping herself in a fishing net, for me the answer appears less easy to grasp.

Between reading books, after fifty years of book reading, and reading music, as I now do, as a beginner, there lies a difference that in fact allows me to take pleasure in the second and reject the first. Reading music is at this point the recognition of a direction, and a rhythm for the hands. For the moment it is all about the hands, and the manner in which, without grasping anything whatsoever, they bring about some lovely and ephemeral formation of sound. No real meaning beyond that deciphering, if not the correspondence between sound and a small, well-defined gesture. The reading of books, now an old if not respectably competent endeavor, is much more about finding the sought-after meaning. Why this, why that, and how it came to be. All the awe at the deciphering of signs, which makes reading so enjoyable in the beginning, now lost. The attention we must bestow upon such an occupation, much more purposeful than the one we apply to hitting the right note.

I am not, of course, against reading, and if I were, it would take longer than this to justify. Yet for those who consider it to be the most desirable of the minor, low energy actions to fill the day of the proverbial patient, I suggest that the fictional nature of all reading can only offer false, self serving answers. The pleasures of fiction can easily hide the struggle at hand. While the clearly imperfect exercise of one’s hands, in painting and music for instance, gives the full measure of the body’s mood.

October 9, Giving Thanks for Bartok

Angela writes:


I would like to wish you a very happy thanksgiving week. This is a marvelous holiday to which I used to pay little attention when I was younger. It did not belong to my childhood and I did not fully understand it, mainly because when one is young, one thinks less of what one has, or has been given, than of what one is poised to expect and receive. This is not only true of the young, it is also true of the university setting of which, for so long, I have been a part.

It is wondrous to be, as I am right now, the object of the attentions of those who are around you and notice the manner in which they achieve such presence. I am certainly wary of judging those overwhelmed by their work, if not by life. I have been there, where there was no time for those far away. Not to speak about those left on the sidelines. I had a job to do, and no matter how hard I tried, I never got it quite right. Or so it seemed. That is how mother university (or is it a father?) trains her offspring.

On the other hand, people who have other occupations than the academic seem to have an easier time. With the understandable exception of the illness-fobic, and there are a few I came to uncover. Yet all are saved by the retired, and I take that in the wide sense of the word. Oh, the retired! Those who have given up ambition! Where would we be without them, who fortunately have time to take care of the ill, the busy and the stressed out?

You may remember that I was apprehensive about going to Montreal. Fortunately, the first day I had there, Heidi spent a whole afternoon with me. Not because she did not have more pressing things to do. She came to see me and alluded right away to the physiotherapist who wanted me to practice the computer keyboard, no matter what words or numbers would cross my mind and come under my fingers. What a narrow use of my precious energy, she mused. For her, who, among other talents, including writing, is an accomplished musician, a keyboard is a piano keyboard first. We went to the music store to look up pianos. And at the end of another couple of hours, we came up with a choice.

While waiting for my keyboard here in Springbrook, I started looking into some of the rudiments of this trade. My long distance teacher sent right away a whole cahier with music exercises put together by the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok for his son. Of course these exercises contain a lot of motifs which used to fill my childhood's everyday musical landscape.

Now the keyboard is here, looking out over the turning foliage and the everyday more barren trees. And I have to say, the effort it takes to work those keys is very different than what it takes to write on a keypad. I have the sensation of touching something original, I would venture to say from before writing, even if I never thought of the writing keyboard as the approximate replacement of a more authentic one, which would by now be lost. But there is this visceral pleasure contained in the pushing of a key and that resulting sound, hopefully the right one, which should come out and greet you with what feels like encouragement. Not to speak about the effects of a series of sounds, which, in the right order and with due exercise, may begin to make sense. When I am not practicing, I listen to a recording of this music, while doing my painting. There is ever less time left for me in one day. And since I only have a few hours of active energy to begin with, i do not quite know how to give myself to these tasks, one more pleasurable than the other. I am afraid the first casualty of the true keyboard, you might have noticed, was the computer.

That is how, for this thanksgiving, I had to give thanks for all the friendship which has accompanied us for the last year. Soon it will be a year since Colin wrote a long letter to my family doctor, asking not only for the appropriate pain medication, but for a serious investigation of the pain in my back. What else can I wish for, if not to grasp the one thing to be thankful for, even as life put us through her blind, cruel workings.

September 29, Passing Through

Angela writes:

As soon as we got on the train it felt like we should do this more often. The seats were comfortable and unusual, yet not new. I assumed VIA may make new out of other companies' old holdings. Since we've been living in the country, we are not quite as fascinated by the countryside sites swiftly running by the train window. We took out our various writing tools and set out to do some writing.

Coming to Montreal is always a bittersweet experience. It throws me back almost three decades ago when I lived here for four years during my graduate training. Bitter because I was poor and wary of the future in those days, but mostly because I only knew the city in winter. In order to save on rent, and to spend time with my parents, I would leave at the end of every school year for Calgary, and came back to Montreal in fall. Nobody figured why I would do such a thing, why I would leave this cultured city precisely when things were poised to blossom. Yet those who know the hypnotic appeal of the Rockies will understand.

That is how this city, to this day, only presents itself to me under its most difficult appearance: windy cold winters with little sun and slush up to one's knees. I yearned for Alberta's solid, white-particle winter breath. For the infinite semicircular horizons, the white sun, the chinook's transforming incursions by which winter went into spring every few weeks. And, of course, for the premier Lougheed's largesse, that which had given me a scholarship to go to study in Montreal.

Whatever I got in Montreal, I had to wrestle out of it. The French language was not given, I had to insist that people speak French to me, rather than English, and it was not obvious why that would be so. Moreover, some things remained equal wherever I went. In Alberta, just like in Quebec, and later in Ontario, I was and am still taken, today, for a traveller. Une voyageuse. You are visiting? En visite chez nous? ask the more polite among those who enter the conversation. It would be easy for me to say yes, after all it was and still is true in a sense. Just like the French from France will not accept that I come from Canada but want to know where exactly, that is, originally, do I come from. Le sang ne se fait pas eau. Blood does not turn into water. They can tell that Canada is not quite blood where I am concerned.

When the time came to defend my thesis, I travelled to Montreal from Calgary, where I had gone back to live. I was honored, and it was an overwhelmingly pleasant surprise to have my friend Catherine attend the defense. She, who was never as blissfully ignorant as I, said nothing further about how this process usually unfolds. At the corner of the table, a woman, by all appearances homeless, took a seat. She sat in through the whole procedure and nobody seemed aware of her being there at all. As if she did not exist. Somewhere in the back of my mind, in spite and beyond the anguish such events are bound to produce, I thought she might be a ghost only visible to my eyes, an angel in disguise.

Years later I had to come back to this same university, this time as an examiner. And then I found rooms full of the friends and relatives of the defendant, all poised to praise publicly the accomplishments of their friend and kin. The defense, which in my case had been some sort of a disruption in the day of those supposed to fill the seats of yet another committee, could be what it was supposed to be. A celebration. Particularly when the blood is at home and not just visiting from elsewhere.

Of course when I got back to Calgary my mother organized a big party for me, and all our Romanian friends came to the feast, like they always did when she was inviting. They certainly and rightfully came as much for her as for me. But this was in fact a private, confidential celebration. My parents were convinced I had accomplished something important, without knowing what. Thanks to that, I had to believe it myself. If I received so little recognition from the public sphere - and years would have to go by before I would get some of that -, it was, no doubt, because I had chosen a particularly difficult group to call mine.

September 27, Less than 100%

Angela writes:

I had just been moved from the scan gurney onto the hospital bed waiting next to it and was trying to follow instructions. Not to cough in spite of the saline solution which, forced into my lungs, was now trying to come upwards and out. Coughing would further trouble the lung which had been stirred. The doctor comes smiling before me and by now I know he is smiling simply because such is his fortunate disposition. His name and waving long beard, black streamed with timid white tidings, rimes with mujahideen, while his disposition, at odds with that rime, makes him immediately lovable.

Still wearing the radiation-proof costume recalling a Scottish clan's green and blue plaid, he brings under my eyes a vial of clear, water-like liquid. Look at this, he says proudly, you see? There's the matter we just extracted. I have to look very closely, the "matter" consists of a few minuscule bubbles similar to those Perrier would yield, or champagne. I try to be excited about this harvest, he certainly is and I could only hope the evidence we needed is trapped in there and relevant.

I had been awarded that which only a few days ago seemed preferable to the imaging tests. A biopsy, that is, a procedure with a higher degree of eloquence, physical, intrusive, and painful to boot. Three hours later we were out in the Kingston windy sun, the lake breathing almost furious at our feet. Another appointment was waiting, the pain clinic which I had not dared reschedule since one only gets a shot at it once every two years. I had not considered what fasting for about fourteen hours, and a fine needle pushing slowly into your lung, can do together. At the clinic, three forms were waiting to be filled.

As applications for government grants go, the one this researcher uses, in order to build up the body of pain under investigation, is seventeen pages long. Between four in the afternoon, and six in the morning of the next day, I slept. Intermittent and belabored sleep, with the lung just punctured making itself known at every breath. At night I woke up and did my exercises, wondering whether I would be able to take this planned trip to Montreal. I very much doubted I would. Two tests later, I only had one aching lung to show for myself.

The morning came, cool and sunny, once again offering its promise to those ready to march on as they say. Sleep can perform miracles and I had slept through difficult breathing and the fear that my trustworthy lung was betraying me. I decided that I would go to Montreal against the odds, if only because four days without Colin is too much to bear. Come what may.

What came was the phone call. The lung specialist, also known as the iPhone doctor, was as prompt, if not better, than he had declared. The biopsy showed infection and/or inflammation, but not cancer. While I was ready to give in to my joy, he was not ready to let me. It is not a 100% certain diagnosis. The needle might still have taken a sample from an area adjacent to a cancerous formation, which could have been missed, etc. I said I was happy with less than 100%. I have not known much of 100% of anything at anytime. Particularly so when it comes to cancer. He disagreed, and held on to his quest of the 100%. We are still waiting for a pet scan for which we will travel to Ottawa. If that shows a hot spot where the shadow is, then we will have the surgeon go in and remove it.

Still, I insist, it is good news, we have moved up from 42% possibility of cancer to, say, little under 100% (I do not have the exact number here) possibility of not cancer. That's good enough for me anyway. In the evening, heartened by the less than 100% but still good enough news, we got to read the report of the skull scan which was waiting, unopened. The brain, as I learn, is enveloped in a porous tissue, called arachnoid mater. A translucent spiderweb which gives way, through granulation, to light formations in the darkness of the skull. This, in the first report, appeared as "lucency". A spot of shining like that of the moon, and rime to "lunacy". In there the fear of a myeloma formation took shelter. As it turns out, thanks to that cat scan where I could not contain my tears, it was simply the spiderweb's doings, which, ignorant of percentage, deploys its inconsistencies in the fullness of time. A bit of light, a bit of shining, not cancer.

September 22, For Alberto

Angela writes: Last night we saw the film Certified Copy by Abbas Kiarostami. I had had a particularly sad day, and the film somehow brought me back from my sorrow. Colin found a way to leave work and come with me to Trenton where the cat scan was scheduled. Often if I am on my own I can bear the difficulty of such tests with some stoicism, but as soon as he is with me, I let go. He is the perfect medium for tears. I have been to this hospital many times in the past year. I used to prefer it to others because it is small and easy to reach. Yesterday, nevertheless, this submission to imaging machines had reached some critical point and I found it difficult to even bring myself to go through the motions. For the first time, I was almost wishing for a more painful, physical, more real procedure. That something should be so painless, and yet so threatening, felt very much like mental torture. Every time a lay on the narrow gurney that goes into the machine, it is as if I am about to open one of two doors: one that leads to the normal, the other, to the pathological diagnostic. I wish so badly to open the right door, but the chances, optimistically speaking, are at most one out of two. If I used to lie still at the centre of the radiation machine, I realize today, it was because, precisely, it was treatment, and not diagnostic I was undergoing. I felt very little discomfort while knowing that the attack, the aggression was there and hopefully working for me. That in fact allowed for some exorcism, together with the exercise of courage. When the machine – and they all resemble each other, scanner, magnetic resonance, radiation – is used in order to read the inside of the body, something terrible occurs, especially when one, like myself at the present, thinks they are beginning to do better. All that work to become stronger can be wiped out by an image and the shadiest of images will give the lie to our subjective, hopeful idea. Already weak as I was entering the room, I kept loosing control by the second, so much more when I noticed that the technician who was going to do this test was one who had done other tests for me, in Belleville. Everything may become an ominous sign. I lay down and the woman in charge of positioning me wrapped a strap over my forehead so I may not move. As I went in, tears started streaming down my temples and try as I may, I could not stop them. I definitely did not want to start sobbing, which would really have shaken the whole of my body, head included. I had made the mistake of crossing my arms over my stomach and it was too late to change that; such a posture obstructed the deep breathing that might have put an end to this attack. Fortunately the head scan is very short. Somehow the two in charge had noticed I was crying although I always think they do not really see much about the person going into the machine. The girl brought tissues, which, light as feathers, took flight from the box and could not be grasped. They would have been useless anyhow, hospital tissues, ridiculously small. I got up in one straight motion from the gurney thinking that less than a year ago I would not have been able to get up on my own. I do not know why this film, which we watched later at night, was such a liberation for me. I encourage you to see it. The drama, which unfolds between two charming strangers who could be meant for each other, takes place in Florence. Of course, that would be enough to lighten anybody’s chagrin, for there is this atemporal, I dare say eternal quality to everything in that land, from cypresses to pots of flowers to statues of which the very copy of the copy is already antique. Everything the eye apprehends is the old copy of something so much older as to be immemorial. And yet people keep living there, in the here and now, and in each one of them something a bit off makes one wonder if the people themselves are not somehow the lovely ghost of somebody who lived amidst those walls a long time ago. Which made me wonder if I was not, right now, repeating perhaps an older, perhaps an immemorial story myself …

September 20, Iron Drama

Angela writes: Before every appointment for a new test, I go through a bit of madness, which can last for a few minutes, hours, or days. Or maybe I should call it a creation of signs, like that which occurs in analysis, as Heidi reminded me today. Confronted with silence, the analyst may sometimes provoke in her patient some sort of a physiological symptom supposed to speak on behalf of the speechless analysand. Under my circumstances, I often play both roles, I am the analyst and the analysand. Needless to say I prefer the scarcity of signs nowadays. Somehow, I tend to believe that signs most often foreshadow the ominous; I admit to a tendency to expect strife rather than easy conclusion.

A few weeks ago I was due for those scan and x-rays which ended sending me for more biopsy and scans. While preparing to leave for the hospital, I somehow succeeded to tie up my necklace, made of small amethyst crosses linked by a very fine chain, into as many impossible knots. By some automatic, mindless repetition of motion, I had been folding it in two, then four, then eight. And just before taking the test, it seemed of utmost importance that I be able to bring the necklace back to its normal condition.

Three weeks later, when we finally got an appointment to see the lung specialist you have read about, I was preparing myself for this visit, at the house in Belleville again. (It appears that that house has something to do with the investigation of ill fittings.) I took out of the closet one of my favorite dresses, made of light blue linen, and perfect for the dying summer day the next day was going to be. I am not sure it needed any ironing at all. Yet to make it better, I put it in the drier and set it for “Touch-up”. I knew full well that linen is a touchy fabric, but tried my luck nonetheless.

Twenty minutes later, my dress looked like a piece of cloth meant for cleaning some very clean floors. I panicked like I rarely do. I was hungry, weak and disheartened. Went rapidly in my mind through all the stores I knew of in Belleville, where I could find an iron to buy, because of course, thanks to the “touch-up” function, I did not have one in the house. I threw myself in the car, almost fainting in the heat of the day. I drove to the closest hardware store only to find out that they did not carry such things. My only hope was Sears, the store across the city, foundation of the daunting Belleville mall. It was rush hour and Belleville traffic was even slower than it regularly and predictably is.

Half an hour later I was contemplating the selection that venerable department store had to offer. Not one iron priced over $29.95. I did need an iron very badly, but did not want to spend small money on new trash. Finally, looking them over again, I noticed in a corner, hidden and unremarkable on account precisely of its beauty, a green iron bearing flowers daintily engraved, and the promise of extreme ecological efficiency. German technology made in Germany. I could not have asked for better. It took another half an hour to get to pay for it, in spite of the store being empty. And the cashier did try, as they always do, to dissuade me from buying this object, on account of its price, which was going to come down the next day. Alas, sometimes one can simply not wait until tomorrow. I was needed for lung investigations in Kingston at 9 in the morning, so I insisted that I buy my iron as it was, and rushed home, flushed with that sensation of at once guilt and joy of having done something morally reprehensible.

Belleville marina

The next hour I remember as one of the most peaceful I experienced of late. Listening to the radio, where the story of a children’s show of yore was unfolding, I was brought back to my own youth, when I used to iron in the company of what was then called “radiophonic theater”. I put my new, perfect, ecologically friendly ironing machine to good use, and righted the wrong I had done by trying to quickly touch-up the precious, fussy linen. By the time Colin made it home, all traces of panic or distress had been ironed out.