in the bleak

QEII, December 10, 2020 

red pickup passes on the right.

window sticker reads "Fuck Trudeau"

black truck with an unsecured load passes on the left

driver is texting

one semi after another passes

not one pulled over

i'm going 117 on the QEII

hoar frost and gray sky 

getting grayer 

snow on snow

wind-drifted crystals float across 6 lanes of traffic

pump jacks

rusted cranes

empty shops

 "China virus! Buy the book!” 

"AB COVID. New Health Orders in Effect” 

Alberta

bleak midwinter

It didn't have to end this way

This week, close to 40 of my former colleagues were handed their termination notices.

40 or more others took a buyout in the weeks preceding the terminations. A similar number of support staff are losing their jobs. This follows a massive buyout of senior staff  two years ago when Alberta Distance Learning Centre restructured itself in a desperate bid to retain its longstanding government funding. 

All for nothing in this government's relentless quest to reduce services to Albertans.

For nearly a hundred years, Alberta Distance Learning Centre has provided educational opportunities to Alberta's kids. From its humble beginnings as a one woman show in the back room of the legislature to its heyday with more than 30,000 students in schools and homes all over the world, ADLC has changed and grown in its quest to meet the needs of kids from virtually every walk of life. From kids living on remote farms, to families who moved abroad for work, to kids with addictions, to kids staying home to care for disabled parents, to gifted kids looking for enrichment, to adult students who fell through the cracks when they were younger.  Kids with mobility issues and mental health issues and autoimmune disorders. Elite athletes and aspiring entrepreneurs. Students in small schools that cannot offer a full range of programming. Students wanting to learn another language or explore areas of interest such as Aboriginal Studies or forestry. Students who lost every worldly good due to fire and flood. Students from large schools who don't fit it. From First Nations to recent immigrants. Christians and Muslims and those whose life experiences have left them with nothing to believe in. Teachers in outreach centres and private schools. And most recently, teachers and students who work remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

All of these-thousands of people-were able to use ADLC to teach and learn.

All were welcome. 

"Success for every student" was not just a motto. It was something we believed in and worked to achieve.

Through the decades, ADLC teachers experimented with all kinds of technology to engage kids. Lessons delivered via CKUA radio. Television programming through the now-defunct ACCESS TV. Telephone conferencing. Online learning. Interactive virtual labs. Personalized instruction. Video conferencing. Forestry and rig simulators. ADLC and its programming was recognized throughout the world. 

I spent 20 years trying to make course content come alive for thousands of kids. So did dozens of my colleagues who created and revised hundreds of courses at all grade levels. I don't know what will happen to the resources we so painstakingly created and left to others to tend. Left to a faceless bureaucrat to maintain until they wither and die from neglect, I imagine.

As the threats to defund escalated, the restructuring began. Teachers who previously worked in communities across the province were brought back to the mothership in Barrhead, transferred or offered buyouts, removing almost all institutional memory from the school. Regional offices closed. The time-tested, flexible and cost-effective marker model was eliminated. Services to adults were withdrawn. Summer school opportunities were reduced and then eliminated. It's not what I would have done. But it wasn't up to me. 

When the announcement that funding would be phased out, rather than face death through a thousand cuts, ADLC decided it would close early, rather than try to do the impossible. It will close its doors for good in June 2021.

It is hard to know who to blame for this travesty. Certainly the government must accept the lion's share of the blame. But Alberta Education began the defunding process long before the UCP was elected.  

Large boards like Calgary Public and Edmonton Public, with their own distributed learning platforms have long resented what they perceived as an unfair funding formula that favoured ADLC - despite the fact that  they themselves benefitted from its province-wide mandate. They lobbied for funding to end. Ironically, thousands of students and families from Alberta's two largest cities make up the bulk of students at ADLC and its sister school, Vista Virtual. Make of that what you will.

Sadly, more than 60% of Alberta's superintendents said they did not need ADLC. Apparently the thousands of students from their schools who use ADLC can receive instruction at the hands of their own already overtaxed teachers who will now be expected to create their own materials and complete their own assessments. Or perhaps their schools can buy courses from Pearson or another corporation with a for-profit motive. Or maybe those students just will not have their needs met. Superintendents can take some responsibility as well.

Did local officials fight hard enough to retain this valuable resource? I don't know what they did or didn't do. Whatever it was, it wasn't enough.

Maybe it doesn't matter who is to blame.  Alberta's students will suffer. 

And that makes my heart hurt.

I will honour the rich history and dedication of those who built Alberta Distance Learning Centre. Not only for their expertise, dedication, creativity, and vision but also for their very real love for their students. Alberta has lost a vital resource. 

It did not have to end this way.

Consent of the Governed

I stand at my window.

Bright snow on the distant mountaintops.

Clouds drift up the valley from the south.

Not long ago, that same sky was filled with the purple orange smoke of a wildfire just kilometers away. The fire went from out of control, to being held, to extinguished, due to the hard work of over a thousand firefighters, supported by heavy machine operators and water bombers.

As the sun creeps along the horizon, the frost on the metal rooftops dissipates. All around me, houses of stucco and concrete. Yards immaculately firesmarted. The community takes the wildfire threat seriously.

I gaze out over lovely yards, through which bears and deer roam freely. The fall was busy as they forage for fruit. Sometimes they walk right through our yard.  The regional district and the local community organization keep us updated with bear sightings. Just today, I read that a large grizzly boar is roaming the river bottom to the north. We and our neighbours try to live in harmony with these creatures. If someone pulls out a gun, it's to scare them away- not kill them.

The  newsletter from the regional district informs me that there are 4 new covid-19 cases in the valley, bringing the total since the beginning of the pandemic to 43.  Recently returned from an overseas trip, we are on day 7 of quarantine. We hope we do not add to the statistics and we report daily on the ArriveCan app that we still have no symptoms.

Almost within earshot is the lovely Coldspring Creek which burbles happily down to the river. In spring however, the creek turns to a torrent, washing debris downstream and risking property damage. The regional district recently commissioned a study which recommends a mitigation project that will soon be underway.

Much further to the south, summer wildfires devastated parts of the country. 46 people died. The president blamed government agencies for mismanagement of forests. 

Yesterday, there were over 1200 covid deaths in the U.S., bringing their death total to over 238,000 human lives since March. There were 53 in my own country- a total of just over 10,000. The U.S. has had 723 covid deaths per per million, while Canada has 273. Instead of listening to science, hundreds of thousands of citizens in the U.S. pretend that wearing a mask and avoiding large gatherings is a some kind of affront to their liberties. When it comes to "Give me liberty or give me death," it appears they have chosen death. A decision that mystifies me and most of my fellow Canadians, who have consented to respect the advice of government and the science on which they rely.

The US election is still not settled, with the sitting president tweeting that elections workers should stop counting votes. Armed, unmasked supporters surround voting stations and threaten elections workers. The National Guard is standing by. The rest of the world holds its breath.

And I wonder how it is that in my nation, the vast majority of citizens believe that the government is not the enemy. We may not always like the political party that was elected, but we recognize the right of the majority to form government. The vast majority believe in working together to keep each other safe and prosperous. That is how democracy is supposed to work.

Aunt Nin and her quilt

This is my great great aunt, Jane McNaught. 

She was born in the mid 1800s and grew up on the family farm near Glen Morris, Ontario. She was the eldest of four children. She had three brothers- Charles, Robert-who was killed by a run-away cart,-and Samuel. Sam and his family moved to the Peace Country, followed in 1911 by my great grandfather Charles, my great grandmother Eliza, and some of their children, travelling by rail and then ox cart to their homestead near Beaverlodge. Aunt Nin, as she was known to my mom and aunt, followed in 1913 accompanied by a couple of my great aunts who were teenagers at the time.

I don't know much about my great great aunt except that she never married, was exceptionally talented at needlecraft and had a resourceful, pioneering spirit.  She knew her new home would not be as established as the Ontario farm where she had always lived, so she brought with her a platform rocker so she would be comfortable on uneven floors.  It sits in my living room today, and despite its rather delicate proportions, is a sturdy item that can seat a grown man comfortably.

Aunt Nin's most famous creation was a crazy quilt she spent years making by hand. She took leftover pieces of brocade, taffeta, velvet, and silk and sewed them together imaginatively, embroidering delicate designs freehand on the plainer bits. Each piece was joined with colourful embroidered stitches, no two alike. The date she started -March 1887-and the date she finished-March 1893- can be found stitched into the quilt. The back is hand-stitched to the backing cloth in stitches so neat, even and tiny, one would think it was made by a machine. 

When Aunt Nin died, my grandmother-her namesake- inherited the quilt. When I was a kid, sometimes Gramain would take it out of the cabinet at the top of the stairs and show it to me and my cousins. We admired the handiwork. The bits of painted silk that had begun to rot. The little pictures this unknown aunt had stitched into the cloth. And, then the quilt went back into storage, too delicate to grace a bed. Too precious to be put to use. When my grandmother died, I inherited the quilt. I stored it in a special case, looking at it from time to time.

It took Aunt Nin 6 years to make her quilt, but for well over a hundred years, it has been hidden from view. One day it will be nothing but scraps of cloth. Who will have seen it? Who will have appreciated the skill and creativity and the hours that went into its creation? Who will be there to speculate on the character of the woman who created it? To wonder what Aunt Nin was thinking of during the hours and days and years she toiled over this crazy quilt. Did she remember the parties and events each scrap of cloth represented? Did it fill her with the memories of younger days? Perhaps she imagined it would one day sit on her own bed in her own house. Perhaps she thought about how it would be passed down through the generations. Or perhaps it was just the result of a low cost hobby that helped her while away the time as she watched her brothers marry and settle down and raise their own children as she, the spinster aunt, aged.

Aunt Nin was 41 years old when she started her quilt and 47 when she stitched the date signifying its completion. She was 67 whe she packed up her platform rocker and her quilt and her nieces and moved from the only home she had ever knew to a pioneer shack in the bush of northern Alberta. By the time she left Ontario, she must have known that quilt would never grace a bed in her own home. But it would always be a kaleidoscope of memories, pieced together one bit at a time. It was the work of her own hand, something to comfort her as she lived out the rest of her days in her brother's house. 

We moved this summer. Starting a new life in a new house in a new province, I think about those who went before. Those who took a chance. Those who laboured to create a life in a new place. Those, like Aunt Nin, who made the most of what life offered.

Aunt Nin's quilt now hangs on a wall in my house.

When I look at it, I think about those who make the best of their circumstances. Those who take the scraps of what could be a drab and humdrum existence and make it into something beautiful.

What is your house worth?

Real estate appraisers look at many things when they appraise the value of your home. Size, quality of finish, materials used, number of rooms and comparable sales in your neighbourhood.  Realtors have other things they consider- mostly the market and what buyers are looking for.

 

Sellers have their own considerations, things they think about when they try to figure out what their house is worth. They know what they paid for it and they want a return on their investment. Surely it’s worth more now than when they bought it. It’s worth the labour they put into landscaping, the time-consuming effort of building up the claylike soil with years of compost, the time spent nurturing saplings as they grew into trees and seedlings turned into flowers. It’s worth the many dollars they put into upgrades. It’s worth the hours they spent on cleaning and maintenance. It’s worth the good taste they put into renovations.

But when you sell your own home, how can you put a value on it? How much is your dining room worth- the place where hundreds of family meals have been consumed, the place where your lively book club has shared thoughts deep and shallow, the room where your entire family has gathered for Christmas dinners, the room filled with candlelight, laughter and love?  

The basement bathroom with its mural of tropical fish, painted by your daughters after a trip to Central America? How much is your living room worth- the site where your local arts presenting group Stage North was born, where local NDP volunteers strategized, the site of so many get-togethers? Where your dogs sit on the window seat and bark at Roxy and Annie and any other dog or child that walks by?

How can you put a dollar figure on the family room where you sit every morning watching the birds your husband lovingly feeds? The back deck where you drink your cocktails every summer evening, in your once-bare back yard, now surrounded by an impressive forest of  trees? How do you evaluate your big basement with its long bar and cozy fireplace, home of your fabulous Christmas parties? The apple tree that has grown to produce enough apples to feed the neighbourhood? And what about that basement door, the one your teenagers snuck through after a night of partying? How much are those memories worth?

 

There is another element appraisers consider when evaluating a house- something they call “best possible use”. Best possible use means the best way for a property to be used. Maybe the little house your husband grew up in is better suited for its new location as a summer cottage on a Saskatchewan lake instead of its former spot on a residential Edmonton street. The 50s split level he grew up in- on “the biggest lot in the district” as his mother says- maybe the “best possible use” for that property is for it to be split into two like so many other lots, the house replaced with two modern two story homes. Maybe the best possible use for the elegant arts and crafts bungalow my dad grew up in West Point Grey was for it to be torn down and replaced with a pink stucco mansion.

 

The bottom line is your house is worth what someone is willing to pay for it and in our case that number was a lot lower than I expected. But when I think about it, maybe now the house needs to be put to its best possible use. It’s a family home now occupied by two people.  It has rooms that sit empty year after year. Maybe its best possible use is for it to once again be lived in by a family. A family with kids that can run in the yard and hammer out tunes on the piano and sit around the fireplace and grow up to sneak in and out of that basement door. A place where a new family can make their own memories.

 

So I will say goodbye to our house.

 

A house that has given me memories worth more than any dollar figure, memories I will take with me to my new house, wherever that may be.

 

And I say welcome to this house, new family. May its fires warm you. May you harvest the apples from its tree. May your rooms be perfumed with flowers from its garden. May you share many dinners with candlelight, laughter, and love. 

And please. If it's not too much to ask. Could you feed the birds? They are going to miss us.

nicola vs chair

The chair wants to be pink.

I want it to be white.

For the past three weeks we have been engaged in a battle of wills- me as the aggressor and the chair as the passive-aggressive “victim”.

 

In the middle of moving, for some reason, I decided to refinish this chair. I tell myself that I do not want to move it if it isn’t worth fixing.  But I don’t think that’s the real reason. As I dismantle so much of the life I have spent the past thirty years building, part of me wants to hold on.

 

My parents bought the chair- a decrepit platform rocker- along with a matching loveseat, at an estate auction near Beaverlodge in the early 70s. At the same time, they bought the oak table that currently sits in my dining room, the 6 chairs now owned by my middle child, and a spool bed now owned by my sister. While every other item has been refinished, reupholstered and put to use, the chair has languished in basements, garages and storage sheds for the past 50 years. The upholstery has faded to an ugly green-gray. Pieces have fallen off. The wood seat, replaced at one time with plywood, is mildewed and rotting.  My dad tried refinishing it once and could not get past the red stain that someone, long ago, had applied. A stain that permeated the wood.

My friend Kelly volunteered her husband Bruce to rebuild the seat, so that problem was solved. He is a master at fixing things.

I decided to paint it white to go for a shabby chic look. 

I should have talked to people first but instead I gave it a good wash with mineral spirits and sanded it down lightly before I started painting. The stain immediately bled through. I painted it again. And again. My friend Sheila said to use Bull’s Eye primer so it covered it over with that. Again and again. Still pink. Whatever stain was applied is resistant to change. The chair wants to be pink. My English teacher friends said try shellac primer. So I used that. Better.  But still a little pink.

 

The painting gives me time to think. I think about our upcoming move. We have lived in our current town for 30 years and in our present house for 14 years. Why are we moving? Moving away from our dearly beloved house and a community where we have great friends? A place where we can go to the local brewery and always find people to visit with over a pint? But our kids have moved far away and we want to be just a little bit closer to at least one of them. I do not like the politics of this place and I know I can’t change it. I don’t like the long winters. After the fire, I thought I could help remake the town into something new and better. But it will always be what it is. Part of me feels that if we stay, I will become like this chair, gradually fading away to nothing. 

I need something to restore me.

 

When I move, what will change? Will a different life be a better life? After 30 years here, how much of me has been imbued with the culture and landscape of this place? How much of me will be resistant to change? We would like to move to the Columbia Valley. An acquaintance said, “Oh, then you’ll be mountain people.” We also thought of Vancouver Island, to which my brother’s partner said, “Oh, then you’ll be island people.” Are we mountain people? Are we island people? What would either of those identities entail? The only true geographic identity I have ever had is being a northerner. A northerner, with all the stubbornness, resiliency, “can-do” attitude, creativity, and self-sufficiency that entails.

Can I be something else?

 

I think I am winning my battle with the chair.

 

It’s almost white. But I’m not done yet.

 

I know that when I am finished, I will always see a little pink. I will always know that under the paint, there is a stain embedded deep in the wood. A stain that cannot be removed. Like the chair, for good or for ill, I will always be stained by my history and geography and all those who have impacted me. Whatever replaces the north as home will only ever be a layer over my true self. Underneath, I will be a northerner wherever I go.

Everything Breaks

First the watch stopped keeping time. 

You ordered a new one but it wasn't a priority item, so it would take over a month to ship. Time didn't seem to matter most days anyway so you just got used to never knowing the hour or even the day.

Then it was the "n" on the keyboard. It just stopped working. Funny how often you use the letter “n”. But the Apple store was closed so what could you do. The laptop seemed almost useless now. 

"You don't know what you got till it's gone," played in your head.

Then the dishwasher stopped on one cycle, re-setting itself when it got down to "0". Then it just stopped altogether. Finally your husband reached the helpful local appliance guy over the phone. He said the machine wasn't worth fixing. You needed to buy a new one. He said they were easy to install by yourself but you knew you couldn't. So you started washing the dishes by hand. It was weirdly satisfying, your hands in the hot water, the grease and food residue disappearing in the suds. Like you were cleansing more than the plates and bowls. Something you could DO. Something tangible and familiar in the face of so many unknowns. 

"It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine” was your soundtrack those days.

You had to cancel your trip to meet your daughter and son-in-law. Would you get a refund? Right now, that seemed like the least of your worries. You just wanted to be safe. You wanted your family to be safe. Even if it meant you couldn’t see them.  

Morrisey’s “I Will See You in Far-Off Places” kept running through your head.

Things started running out in the stores. Toilet paper. Hand sanitizer. Flour. Yeast. Eggs. Beans. Pasta.  Things you couldn't predict. The outbreaks at meat packing plants caused shutdowns in production. And there was no accounting for what people were hoarding. It was like people were going back to their pioneer roots but without being self-sufficient and suddenly you realized how not self-sufficient you really were. How dependent you were on people you don’t even know just to get through every day. 

The internet was slow. Other times it was the cell service- your life-lines with the world.

People all around out of work, living off savings and credit cards and loans and government promises. First it was no one you knew, and then it was.

And still the COVID-19 numbers were moving up and up. First creeping and then ballooning and there was nothing to do but watch and wait and hope. Hope that people would follow the instructions. That there would be a vaccine. That science would win before someone you knew died. You avoided the elderly and your own family and friends and for a long time, it was no one you knew who got sick. And then it was. 

Nat King Cole’s “Smile” was your theme song. Because you tried to smile, even though it felt like everything was breaking, including your heart.

You prayed those tax dollars would hold up and that single payer public health care system you believed in would be enough to save you. That the "economy" would hold. That property values wouldn’t collapse. That decades of savings would not be wiped out. That already high rates of inequality wouldn’t lead to greater disparity. In your heart, you knew that wasn’t true.

Flatten the curve, you were told. Social isolation. Herd immunity. Physical distancing. The r-factor. New terms you tried to learn. New rules you tried to follow, counter intuitive as they seemed. Science you tried to understand. 

The one thing you did understand was the fear.  Fear that someone you loved would fall ill and there would be nothing you could do to help. That they would die alone and all you could do was weep. Fear for yourself. Fear for those with mental illness. Fear your country would be the next Italy. 

In the middle of it, conspiracy theories. That China deliberately planted the virus to dominate the global economy. That your government was trying to screw you over. That your rights were being stripped away. People wanted someone to blame. They wanted to be angry. Because anger somehow felt more productive than fear.

You watched the news from south of the border. Lineups for food banks. The homeless sleeping in parking lots. Armed people on the steps of the legislature, demanding their “freedoms”. Demanding an end to the lockdown so they could get their hair cut and walk on the beach, regardless of who they infected, including themselves. “Give me liberty or give me death,” they said and where would that end? Then the news that the sale of guns and ammo was at an all-time high. You were afraid there would be some kind of anarchy. A fear that had you wishing you had been in that line up for a gun at Cabela’s before it got shut down. Fear you would be the next U.S.

Fred Eaglesmith’s “Time to Get a Gun” started playing in your head.

Your Special Day

Yesterday was my birthday.

All things considered, it was a pretty good day. I talked to all my kids and a few other relatives. I got many warm wishes over Facebook. Some cookies and homemade face masks were dropped off at my house by a friend. My husband made French toast for breakfast, barbecued steaks, made a cake and somehow even managed to procure gifts. Pretty good considering we’re stuck here with three feet of snow outside in the middle of a pandemic. It doesn’t compare to last year when the world was good and three kids were all in the same place at the same time and we went out for cocktails and dinner, but people made an effort to make me happy and it was appreciated.

Birthdays are funny things. No one asked to be born, yet we honour their existence with greetings and gifts on that one day. That one day when we are encouraged to be self indulgent, to celebrate our own uniqueness, rather than thinking about others.

I think back on the birthdays of long ago, those many birthdays of my childhood, a childhood where birthdays were big events thanks mostly to my mom. I try to find meaning. 

I am sure if she had been born in a different era, Mom would have been a career woman but she was a 1960s mom who put all her energies into home and community and family. She loved big projects and entertaining. She included everyone in these events. I wonder now if she had ever been excluded herself in her own childhood. Or if growing up in the depression  made her more aware of the suffering of others. She never talked about it, but I wonder. Or perhaps as a teacher in a series of small towns, she had seen the pain that exclusion caused. Or maybe that was just who she was. Whatever the reason, Mom insisted that every girl in my class got invited to my big day. She spent weeks experimenting with crafts and games and cooking and making goody bags and always seemed to pull off the big event effortlessly.  I know she wanted me to feel special and I did. And she wanted to be a good hostess by making all her guests feel welcome. These parties caused me stress. I was the centre of attention, something I have never enjoyed. I was a quiet introverted kid who mostly lived in a magical world of my own imagination and big crowds made me anxious.

Grade two me.

In grade two there were 42 kids in our class, half girls, and they were all invited to my birthday. Mom went all out. Goody bags were paper lunch bags decorated with bunny faces and bunny ears. Cookies were little nests of dough rolled in coconut and filled with jellybean eggs. Crafts were making our own decoupage brooches out of photos cut from magazines. I had a new dress for the day. 

Me with my best friends Patti and Vivianne

It was spring, most of the snow had melted, and I was on my way back to school after lunch on party day when I was suddenly gripped by such stomach pains I had to lie down on the side of the road-it was pure nerves. Eventually I dragged my way back home where I was put promptly to bed before the party.  On any other day, after school activities would have been cancelled. You don’t go to school, you don’t do anything else.  But 20-plus little girls were coming to a party, so the party was going to happen.

And so it proceeded. A lot of running around. A cake shaped like a castle. So many presents. Colouring books and crayons and paper dolls. Girls I barely knew dressed in their party dresses, standing awkwardly with other girls. Shy girls, poor girls, farm girls, daughters of engineers and teachers and truck drivers and the unemployed- I guess. I didn’t think about that back then. I didn’t know unemployment or poverty existed. All I knew was that I was at the centre of things and I didn’t much like it. I was supposed to be friends with kids I didn’t even know. I was eight. It was supposed to be all about me. And it wasn’t about me at all.

Girls and cake

It’s something I look back on and wonder about. I wonder what my mom was thinking. I know my grade three party was a lot smaller. And I think about how the most powerful lessons in life are not necessarily the intended lessons. My mom probably learned something about me that she didn’t know. I learned something about her. I also learned a little bit about what it means to be a hostess. Mostly what I learned was that nothing is ever all about you. Not really. Even when you want it to be.

Nothing.

As my big day unfolded yesterday, I read about impossible situations in our province, country, continent and globe. Layoffs and shortages and homelessness. Uncertainty. Homelessness. Hunger. Fear.

As I celebrated being me, I watched the coronavirus numbers tick ever upward, so many infected and the dying here in my own province and in the world at large. Almost impossible to imagine as I sit here in my comfortable house in my little town.

Every day we all go about our business, trying to fill our time, thinking about our minor inconveniences and our larger struggles but underneath it all, we wonder where things will end up when all is said and done. What will the world look like? How many will die? How will we live?

Yesterday was my birthday. It was full of well-wishes and phone calls and gifts and doing whatever I wanted. But it wasn’t just about me. It never is. Ticking away in the background is always injustice and inequality and uncertainty and people trying to make things better.

It’s a lesson that has taken me a long time to learn.

Thanks Mom.

waiting for the light

the light from a star takes years to reach your eyes

it is there but you can’t see it

flaming in space for years before it reaches you

you don’t know it, but you are waiting

waiting for the light

the virus at first so distant

now

here

in your country

in your town

in someone you know

maybe

in you

like the light from a star, it is here

but it takes days

before the symptoms can be seen

before the attack

before lives are forever changed

and all you can do is wait

daughters and sons and parents and brothers and sisters and friends

each of you

sitting at your own table

the news rolling over you

wave after wave

each worse than the last

making small talk

ice in our hearts

as we wait.

Wait for the light

in this war with an invisible enemy

the best action is no action

the best way to hold each other close is to stay apart

and trust in the invisible warriors

whose light is shining even when we can’t see it

the grocery store clerks and health care aides

nursing home attendants and truck drivers

itinerant farm workers and warehousemen

doctors and nurses and scientists

and all who sit and wait

Wait for the light.

Little Women

I watched the movie "Little Women" a few weeks ago in the fabulous Rex Theatre in Slave Lake. It is a great movie that illustrates the struggles women have gone through for generations in their attempts for equality.

My paternal grandmother was matron of a hospital in 1914. By my count she was in her mid-20s at the time (she lied about her date of birth a few times so she could keep working past mandatory retirement age). My other grandmother was admitted to nursing school but didn’t go because her family left Ontario to pioneer in the Peace Country and she went with them.  She was fascinated by medicine and the veterinary sciences. My great aunts all became teachers but they had many other skills and talents in art, photography, farming, and the biological sciences-who knows what they would have done if they had been born in a different era? I’m sure my maternal grandmother would have been a vet and Granny Hartford ? Maybe she would have ended up managing a corporation the same way she managed her lively household. They were in no way "little woman." They were fierce in their own ways. They were smart, opinionated and enterprising. And they were role models for the next generation of females in their families.

Granny Hartford,front and centre

My mom graduated from high school at age 16. She got a commerce degree and then was told there were no jobs for women in that field. She became a teacher, guidance counsellor, got a Masters degree, then became a wife, mother, and community organizer. She used her talents in many ways but I heard her say more than once that she wondered what her life would have been like if she had been able to pursue a career in marketing. She marketed the non-profits she belonged to like a pro.

Mom on her graduation from University

My mom and dad both wanted me to pursue a career in science. I didn’t think I had the aptitude so I too followed a traditional women’s career as a teacher. I don’t know why I thought I wouldn’t be good in the sciences. I wonder if my education had something to do with it. Were there subtle or less-than-subtle hints that I wasn’t smart enough?  My report cards-stowed away for me by my packrat mom- indicate my teachers thought I was great in the humanities, but lacked the critical thinking needed for the sciences.

My own two girls have not pursued anything in the way of traditional women’s work. One has a degree in Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Biotechnology. The other is a geophysicist who worked in oil and gas for several years in a male dominated environment and is currently studying climate modelling. They were encouraged in these pursuits by their dad and me and their grandparents and their small-town public school teachers. Have they experienced discrimination because they are girls? Absolutely. As a summer student working for a survey company, my eldest often was left in the office while the male student went out in the field. The other? There are not a lot of women in oil and gas. She knows what discrimination is. However women in the industry have their own network to support each other. They’ve both learned when and how to assert themselves and when to stay quiet. When to fight it out and when to pack it in. How to develop allies. Mostly, how to work and work and work. It’s not a level playing field but they are smart, enterprising, and hardworking. And I hope they have more confidence in themselves than I did.

The world has changed a lot since Granny Hartford was matron of the Weyburn Hospital. It’s changed since my mom was denied a chance to use her creativity and drive in the field of her choice. It’s changed since the days of my schooling where I was told I “failed to grasp the concept of variables”.  Because I do fully grasp that concept. There are a million variables that influence not just the result of science experiments, but also where we live, how we live, and the opportunities that lie in front of us.  

There are still parts of the world where women are denied their full potential.  I would like to think that Canada is not one of those places, but here in Alberta there is still inequality. We see recommendations that certain services to women are considered of “limited value” despite the fact that tubal ligations and breast reductions are life changing for many women. Yet vasectomies are not mentioned. It's hard not to disagree with my friend Stacy when she says the government wants to keep women big breasted and pregnant. As well, Alberta has the largest pay gap in Canada between men and women- about 40% according to the Alberta government. Women are more likely to work in minimum wage jobs and are far more likely to live in poverty. Misogyny is alive and well as anyone following the nasty comments directed at former Premier Notley and former environment minister Shannon Phillips demonstrate. Or the ongoing attacks on the traditionally female-dominated professions of nursing and teaching.

Louisa May Alcott and her sisters might have been considered "little women" but due to women like my grandmothers, today's girls can be much more than that. Thanks to the passion and drive of today’s young women, I know improvements will continue. It is sad that we need a day to reflect on what it is to be a woman, but we do. We still have a lot of work ahead of us. 

Happy Women’s Day, ladies!