I’m ​always pleased to discover a writer I’ve overlooked. How did Edward Abbey manage fly under my radar?  Environmentalist, anarchist, philosopher, renegade poet. His first book Desert Solitaire, an ode to Arches National Park, where Abby was a park ranger for a number of seasons, had me hooked.

I spent several happy weeks on the trail of his other works. Dessert Solitaire, by far my favourite, is a love letter to the wide spaces of southeastern Utah. It is also lament against the encroachment of industrial tourism. Chiselled in between the lean and lovely prose are pithy observations about corporate America that could have been written today. The fact that he was writing in the 60s, 70s and 80s—Abbey was born in 1927 and died in 1989—makes his writing seem prescient.

What really captured my attention is what he has to say about “mesa, canyon and plateau [where] the pacific desert lies in whiskey-coloured light and lilac dust." His job as a park warden gave him plenty of time to absorb the “stillness, solitude and space; an unobstructed view every day and every night of sun, sky, stars, clouds, mountains and canyons; a sense of time enough to let thought and feeling range from here to the end of the world and back; the discovery of something intimate—though impossible to name—in the remote.” The enigma of the desert is something I have contemplated from my home in the grasslands of southern Saskatchewan.

Abbey was painfully aware of the limitations of experiencing the desert through human senses—man being exploitative and destructive in his—and wanted be part of what is not human, to overcome his anthropocentrism.  He writes: “In deep stillness, in a sombre solemn light, these beings stand, the fins of sandstone hollowed out by time, the juniper trees so shaggy, tough and beautiful, the dead or dying pinyon pines, the little shrubs of rabbitbrush and blackbrush, the dried-up stalks of asters and sunflowers gone to seed, the black-rooted silver-blue sage. How difficult to imagine this place without a human presence: how necessary.  I am almost prepared to believe that this sweet virginal primitive land will be grateful for my departure and the absence of the tourists, will breathe metaphorically a collective sigh of relief-like a whisper of wind—when we are all and finally gone and the place and its creations can return to their ancient procedures unobserved and undisturbed by the busy , anxious, brooding consciousness of man.”

It is unsurprising that Abby chose to be buried in the desert in an unmarked place where he could become a part of it.

Abbey's backstory is fascinating. He was a prominent writer in the 80s, well-known for his environmental advocacy, particularly scathing of land use policies and clearly“anti-establishment.” Before exploring the American southwest he served as a military policemen in the U.S. army; studied philosophy at the University of New Mexico, and spent a year at Edinburgh University as a Fulbright scholar. His master’s thesis was on anarchism and the morality of violence. He asked, “To what extent is the current association between anarchism and violence warranted?”

Abby wrote eight works of fiction (several became movies) and a dozen non-fiction books. The Serpents of Paradise, a collection of essays and excerpts, roughly chronicles his lifetime of writing. From Pennsylvanian farm boy to anarchist, from naturalist to social critic.  He described himself as “a man of small needs, infinite desires and philosophic pretensions.”  He was sometimes criticized as a misanthrope—which he objected to (citing his hope for “man, the fool”). Clearly he never had much faith in humankind, in cities or human ambition.   “No matter in what nation I live I am certain I would find much to detest. All big social organizations are ugly, brutal, inhuman—prone to criminal acts which no man or community of men, on their own, would even think of. But just the same I despise my own nation most. Because I know it best. Because I still love it, suffering from hope. For me that’s patriotism.”

Antiwar, anti-God, anti-cattle industry, anti-immigration. The Monkey Wrench Gang, a work of fiction, describes a gang of idealists who undertake sabotaging road-building equipment. It’s hard to imagine, given the detail, that Abby didn’t take part in eco-terrorism himself. The FBI apparently had him on a watch list. Abbey hated road building, particularly roads that through his sacred desert spaces. He saw roads and the tyranny of the automobile as the beginning of the end of these hallowed places. "No more cars in national parks,” he wrote. “We have agreed not to drive our automobiles into cathedrals, concert halls, art museums, legislative assemblies, private bedrooms and the other sanctums of our culture; we should treat our national parks with the same deference, for they too, are holy places.”  His suggestions on how to make parks accessible without roads is downright funny, but his intention is serious. Let these places be."

He loathed tourists, especially those dependent on cars and roads, and described the new park campgrounds as suburban villages: “elaborate house-trailers of quilted aluminium crowd upon gigantic camper trucks of Fibreglass and moulded plastic; through their windows you will see the blue glow of television sets and hear the studio laughter of Los Angeles.” His view of the damning of the Colorado, the flooding of the canyonlands, and sterility of Lake Powel, pulls no punches. On the American tendency to commodify nature and pander to the right, he wrote scathingly, “the voting bloc of Know Nothings, racially prejudiced, religiously bigoted, opposed alike to the graduated income tax, the United Nations, urban renewal, foreign aid, legislative reapportionment, public welfare, Medicare, and even free lunches for children.”

Yet as timely as these observations seem to me (especially in light of the political mayhem in the States) I began to understand why Abby has not remained in the public eye as a great environmentalist. The more I read more the full-dimensional man came into view and the more I understood why some of his views were problematic Why he was called sexist, racist, and a dangerous subversive.

His attitude towards women was definitely sexist.  To him, at best, women were pleasing ornaments (“at University of New Mexico I studied women”); at worst, objects to fulfil his basic needs. In a tale of a river expedition his only mention of the wife who accompanied him is that she was supposed to be the succour of his old age and he couldn't afford to lose her on the rapids. I suppose at one time this might have been deemed humourous. An excerpt from his novel, A Fool’s Progress, about his pursuit of a woman, the ethereal Claire, lapses into a sexual fantasy that is, frankly, as boring as it is demeaning.

His description of shooting caged rabbits (“though we ate them”) does not show him in a flattering light. He’s an advocate of the 2nd amendment of the American Constitution, the right to bear arms. I could get behind his disdain for the American pursuit of pecuniary happiness—“Business means America and America means business,” quoting from the U.S. Chamber of commerce, and even his lament about “the Sick Seventies" ("when even sex therapy and spiritual fulfilment are growth industries. (My cousin Gus, told me the other day, with barely subdued excitement, that he has nailed down the Transcendental Meditation franchise for Winkelman, Arizona)," but he progressively veered into red-neck territory.

 The Serpentines of Paradise reveals Abby’s downward trajectory into a hard-drinking radical.  As he grew old and more jaded, less joyful in his dismissals and complaints, his writing became didactic. We see him, sick and struggling, on a river trip in Alaska, out of his element and hungry to see “GRIZZ,” like one of the tourists he despises.  On another river trip, alone and at the end of his strength, at the confluence of the Colorado and the Green Rivers, he knew full well that each vigour-testing excursion may be his last.

He became bitter. In the last two or three essays in 1988 he harangued Mexican immigrants, the cattle industry, women’s fecundity and overpopulation— with barely suppressed violence. 

Maybe, I conceive, this is why I'd heard of Edward Abbey. 

I suspect my personal library has a good few writers that have not stood the test of time. Abbey was clearly at his best when he stayed in the desert. His descriptions of the canyonlands in fall colour, or the desert ranges, are sublime. “Blue hills prickly with cactus, agave, spiny shrubs and stinging nettles, mostly bare of any vegetation at all, scaled and plated with loose rock, the high ridges notched with points like a dragon’s backbone.”  He writes of walking out in the Badlands and seeing a single Indian paintbrush “lifting its cup of salmon-coloured, petallike bracts toward the sky. The paintbrush too is beautiful, with the especial and extraordinary beauty of wild and lonely things. Every desert flower shares that quality. Anything that lives where it would seem that nothing could lie, enduring extremes of heat and cold, sunlight and storm, parching aridity and sudden cloudbursts, among burnt rock and shifting sands, any such creature—beast, rid or flower—testifies to the grandeur and heroism inherent of all forms of life.  Including the human. Even in us.”

These are the desert lands I recognize. And while I'm not sure I'd have liked the man, there is much to commend in his writing, His sensitivity to the landscape and his drive to preserve it.  “What does the desert mean?” he asks, then answers, “It means what it is. It is there, it will be there when we are gone. But for a while we living things—men, women, birds, that coyote howling far off on yonder stony ridge—we were a part of it all. That should be enough.”


​

Typically, I wait a few years for good books to shine their way to the top--and I don’t mean the bestsellers. I’d certainly heard about R.F. Kuang's Yellowface, long before I cracked the cover.  The premise alone —a white writer steals a dead Asian’s friend’s manuscript and rockets to bestselling author status—was intriguing. 

I was not disappointed. This is an absorbing novel.

The main character, June Hayward, who is white, rewrites a stolen manuscript and almost convinces herself it's her own creation. Authored under a racially ambiguous pen name, the work becomes an overnight sensation, however soon shows cracks in the authenticity. Literary critics are quick to recognize the hand of the dead Asian author, but also to find fault in the book's stereotypical descriptions of Asian history and Asian characters. The hate mail and criticism directed at June starts to outweigh her literary acclaim, and she goes down the rabbit-hole of fraud.

I found myself engrossed in the main character's account of how bestsellers are chosen, and the role social media plays in determining a book's success. The viciousness of the Twitterati certainly rings true, and hints at a parallel reality, a dark world of the Internet. And as if death threats and hate mail aimed at authors aren't disturbing enough (“racist bitch,” “fucking liar,” “this book is so racist only a white person could have written it”), the description of a rabid cancel culture is  more disturbing.
 
“Racism is bad, but it’s okay to send death threats to Karens," as the protagonist claims.

Today, it is more or less verboten  to write outside the experience of your own race or culture. Though I don't support racial plagiarism, as a white female writer I do identify with the protagonist’s cynicism over having little of relevance to offer today's publishing market. In Yellowface, the industry has clearly co-opted diversity as a business strategy.  The current publishing agenda is something many contemporary writers run up against. ​I could also sympathize with the main character's long-term pain and loneliness, and the duress of labouring under the commitment necessary to turn out a work of fiction. Here’s a memorable quote from the book:

​“Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic.  Writing is creating something out of nothing, is openings doors to other lands. Writing give you power to shape your own world when the real one hurts too much. To stop writing would kill me. I’d never be able to walk through a bookstore without fingering the spines with longing, wondering at the lengthy editorial process that got these titles on shelves and reminiscing about my own.”

I applaud the pluck of Kuang, an Asian woman writing as a white woman—the reverse of which no white writer in her right mind would attempt today. And even though the fictitious June Hayward, the protagonist, is morally corrupt, she becomes a sympathetic character in the book. Kuang gets it right.
​
Yellowface is about the commodification of identity, the avarice of publishers, and the moral bankruptcy of a writer who feels pushed to desperation. The book is important beyond its social commentary and contrarian viewpoint. It has all the craft of a good book: a compelling hook, razor-sharp wit, satisfying plot, excellent pacing, denouement and resolution—all the tricks of the trade.

 Whether it stands the test of time remains to be seen but I can’t wait to read more from this writer.

Austen's Emma is about a superficial young woman from an upper middle class home in the fictional village of Highbury. Regency-era English society, as we know, was fascinated with wealth and manners, and so, clearly, was Jane Austen. Austen ridicules the upper class even as her heros and heroines prize and cling to its values. It's a theme that is popular today--eviscerating the rich while seeking to be like them.

As a writer, I'm always curious to know what makes a novel "great." What makes writing worthy of posterity--what accounts for its staying power? Long after books by fashionable authors of the day are taken off the shelf, some books endure and go on to become classics. Of Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and her seminal Sense and Sensibility,  I have no doubts--these are great books. Austen's wit, power of observation, her pithy turn of phrase are incomparable, and her plots generally don't disappoint.

Having read a goodly number of her famous works, I was late coming to Emma, and looked forward to this one, Emma. You know the feeling--like dipping into a nearly empty chocolate box. But whoops--Emma was a bit like sinking your teeth into a peculiar-tasting turkish delight. I read on, thinking the novel would wax to that sweet witty prose, liberally laced with nuggets of wisdom, but what I found, page after page, was superficial dialogue.

Parlour chat.  Filler.  Whole chapters of vapid nonsense. 

​As in:

"...I did not know she had any taste. Nobody talked about it. And I hate Italian singing -- There is no understanding a word of it. Besides, if she does play so very well, you know, it is no more than she is obliged to do, because she will have to teach. The Coxes were wondering last night whether she would get into any great family. How did you think the Coxes looked?'

"Just as they always do--very vulgar."

And so on.
 
Young Emma, fancying herself a match-maker, an apparently common passtime for the rich and idle,  decides to improve the marriage prospects of a young friend. Harriet Smith's breeding is "ignoble" but she eagerly follows her mentor's advice. Romantic misadventure ensues, hearts are broken, and Emma is reproofed by the man she will end up falling in love with. Meanwhile the rich carry on, and the poor and the downtrodden follow humbly in their wake. Women are pawns in the game of matrimony and entertainment. Almost everyone behaves badly.

So why is Emma considered to be a classic? Well, yes, Austen manages to portray 18th century society and the importance of "propriety," as well as the facile rich and well-bred.  And yes, she makes society look shallow and ridiculous, and the lowborn to appear good--but the pages and pages of empty chatter are excessive. 

I can't help thinking Austen needed a good editor.

​Marriage and social status appear to be all that women had to think about--rich and the poor alike. Austen does make some of her own opinions clear through Emma, who most of the time persists in being silly and small-minded.  Here is an example:

"A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid! The proper sport of boys and girls; but a single woman of good fortune, is always respectable , and may be quite as sensible and pleasant as anyone else. And the distinction is not quite so much against the candour and common sense of the world as appears at first ; for a very narrow income  has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper. Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small and generally very inferior society, may well be illiberal and cross. This does not however apply to Miss Bates; she is only too good natured and too silly to suit me; but in general she is very much to the taste of everybody, though single and though poor. Poverty has certainly not contracted her mind..."

Emma goes on to make light-heartedly fun of unfortunate Miss Bates and her niece (for a few hundred pages or so,) though eventually she does come to feel ashamed of herself. In the meantime: the parlour and picnic chatter continues. At first I thought Austen's heavy use of dialogue (without so much as a "he said/she said") must have been a novel writing technique, but I reached back  further (Maria Edgeworth of whom Austen was a fan), and see this wasn't new. Nor is it true, as some critics suggest, that Austen's ability to make readers "like" unlikable characters is unique. 

Here is another of Emma's viewpoints.

"A young famer, whether on horseback or on foot, is the very last sort of person to raise my curiosity. The yeomanry are precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do.  A degree or two lower, and a credible appearance might interest me; I might hope to be useful to their families in some way or other.  But a farmer can need none of my help and is therefore in one sense as much above my notice as in every other he is below it."

There wasn't a single moment in this book when I liked Emma. Why was I knocking myself out over a 495 page book that could have amply concluded in 250.  Why is Emma considered a masterpiece? Was Emma the first example of "chick lit?" (if you need a reference, chick lit reflects society and makes a joke of it while at the same time revelling in the status quo).

To me, Emma is generally an empty narrative, full of "filler," premasticated easy-to-swallow fare. Mildly amusing at best, boring at worst.  To be fair, Austen does paints a good picture of a narrow-minded girl with a lot of growing up to do.

And what young woman who's been cosseted and sheltered from the world, told she is clever and knows herself attractive, is not a shallow dish, waiting to be filled?

Emma leaves me cold and my only conclusion for its ongoing popularity is that Austen is a commercial blockbuster, her name commands visibility and visibility commands sales. Emma is one of the few examples where I've found the movie is better than the book.

Austen's point can be made in 90 minutes.
​

  

I am forever catching up.  My problem, as a lover of classic novels, is that I'm not on the look-out for new voices in old styles. Hermes Gowar's debut novel is like a winkle in time, so convincing in its recreation of the sights, the smells, the fashions, the brothels and society of Regency London that it's hard to believe itl was written less than a decade ago.

Set in 1785, the story follows the fortunes of a lonely trader, Jonah Hancock, whose ship has been traded for a rare curiosity, a wizened specimen of a mermaid.  To recover his lost investment, Johan must put the thing on display—which not only earns him back a fortune but brings him into the society of the most desirable courtesan of London, Angelica Neal.  Angelica, an impetuous beauty, has aspirations of controlling her own destiny.  During an unhappy affair of the heart, she endures the innocent company of the trader and demands, in jest. a mermaid of her own. Jonah sets out to provide one for her. 

The vivid characters of Gowar’s creation sparkle and beguile—the imperious bawd Mrs. Chappel and her nunnery of young prostitutes; Jonah’s niece and erstwhile housekeeper, Sukie; Angelica’s darkly disapproving companion, Mrs. Frost.  There are many twists and surprises for the reader. A darker undercurrent of themes lurk here too: the nature of desire, confinement by society, the subjugation of women and their destructive revenge.

Hermes Gowar's work sparkles, her prose is concise yet poetic, and the narrative voice is strong. The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock intimates that the folly of humankind is our inability to resist temptation—even when the peril in our actions are abundantly clear. This is an enchanting story.

This summer I discovered the writer Elena Ferrante—in my summer garden, over morning coffee.  The perfect way to greet the day when all is fresh and clear, including the mind. Ferrante and coffee—coffee brewed in a frustratingly complicated expresso machine that happens to deliver a sublime demicup of coffee so delicious it’s gone all too soon—like Ferrante’s tantalizing pieces in Incidental Inventions.

The book is a compilation of one-page essays written for The Guardian over the space of a year.  The year was 2018—a simpler time, or if not simpler, a holding pattern before the new millennium and the maelstrom of the present century. Simplicity is Ferrante’s strong suit. Elena Ferrante has been named as one of the greatest writers of our times, one who can write about anything with unflinching candor.  She has an ability to get to the heart of the matter in a very few words, which makes reading the one-page essays both a pleasure and an astonishment. 

Her first piece is, fittingly, about First’s—first love, first time seeing the sea, first airplane ride, first intoxication. After making an honest effort to extract First experiences, she found the exercise “wanting.” “[Firsts are] swallowed up by all the times that follow," she says, "by their transformation into habit, and yet we attribute to them the power of the unrepeatable,”  

She goes on to consider the process of becoming that is inherent in beginnings. Beginnings are the start of experience, and experience becomes the process of transformation. It made me think of two things. The first was a comment by a friend, who, after reading some of my early writing, said to me: I don’t think I would have liked you had I known you as a younger woman. The piece he read was about a casual affair and the quandary of passion gone cold—I can’t even remember the name of the story but perhaps it was a little shallow. I was a surprised by his comment but hoped it implied that I had improved with age, deepened, become more subtle, complex or thoughtful.

The second was a question posed to me during a card game: what is your greatest change in the last decade? When I couldn’t answer the question, I was asked another: what was your best decade?  Hardly easier. I flipped off an answer: "the current one, of course." But in all seriousness: who we are, who we were, who we will become are soul-searching questions, far more thought-provoking than beginnings.

Ferrante said in her closing to the essay that “What we were in the beginning is only a patch of colour contemplated from the edge of what we become.”  The “edge of becoming” is appropriate, coming from Ferrante because no one knows who she is: Elena Ferrante is a nom de plume. The mystery of her identity has been disputed for decades.

As I look back on beginnings, I wonder if I have become more settled, more reflective, less shallow with age. Or have I only become more pensive, more wistful—considering what has passed, and cannot be recaptured (energy, passion, innocence).
​
The truth is, when we are within ourselves, in our present state, we don’t consider who we will become. Perhaps we are like Russian dolls, selves within selves, in ever-condensed order. Do we ever become our essence? Or, as we age, do we carelessly shuck away what we think of as the useless shell? A lifeless skin that itches, a hollow chafing. It is good and necessary to contemplate beginnings from the edge of what we become—the edge, because the center may yet be revealed.

The lesson in this is not to become too attached to ourselves. We will change. Not necessarily diminish (though some reduction is as inescapable as time), but hopefully be enriched, as we move toward truer self. 

The Christmas tree is lit, the orchestra is come.  We assemble with coffee cups and scores, children in tow, worries of the season galore.  We are the choir for the Singalong Messiah, a tradition for dwellers of the great worldwide cities.

We arrive in mid-winter, a Saturday afternoon in Saskatoon, to test our voices and temper our souls.
We have lingered long at the parking kiosk. Joy does not mark us this cold day, nor even light-heartedness.  We resemble ruffed grouse, stamping our boots, shaking our coats, jingling car keys, juggling cell phones. It is a mark of my determination to participate here that I paid $6 for parking--to be close enough to the church not to perish in my frozen pilgrimage.   

And so to the top balcony of Knox United Church. Closer to God, and to the heat. 

The stained glass windows are splendid with sunshine. I bask in the multi-hued glow, looking down on the gathering crowd. Old and young, families, singles.  The conductor and first violin make their entrance. We applaud, a well-versed if not well-rehearsed crowd. He greets us, our maestro, tests our "stand" and our "sit,"

He tells us there are two human needs as old as humanity itself: the need to create and the need to seek beauty in the world. Create. 

​As basic as drawing breath.  

The opening strains of the revelation are sublime....slow, solemn, swelling with emotion. We must hold back, not spoil the note-- a trot of notes to call us to attention (my eyes have already gone helplessly dewy). 

I focus upon the stained glass windows, glowing with kings and courts, wise men and women, Angels in rich colors.  And the glory shall be revealed In the lowering light of a Saskatchewan afternoon.  Crisp and sub-Arctic, the words are comfort. 

Comfort ye...

Rising, rising now like the peregrine in the wind. The power revealed, how can the tears not come. The colored window splinters into angels. The folds of gowns are too delicate, the shadows of eyes too painful. Hands each, voices lift. The sandaled feet of the saints and the shepherds are so vulnerable. 

Tidings, unto the cities, behold the glory of the Lord. The young Tenor steps forward, tips his head in readiness.  A modern man, he, half-youth, his collar open (he sports the man-bun).  Yet from his lips come the Ages, deep and sonorous. As voice as classical as a sage, unshakeable with faith.

But then, the treacherous semi-tone....

The people that walked in the darkness, we are reminded, they have seen a great light.  For the shadow of death is in the windows. Death is in the reclining figures, the extended hand,  the face of the Egyptian. 

But unto us is born. The Sopranos have found it, caught up hope and lifted the cover of darkness. The Altos draw back the covers smoothly, and the Tenors shake out the folds with authority.

Wonder ful.  And his name shall be called. 
Wonder.
Full.

And now we are skipping and leaping with song, wriggled with uncontained joy. As a breeze swirls, a zephyr, a stream of water, cascades with air and light. We are fairly jiggering with delight.  Too soon, too soon.Slow now, slow the heartbeat, be calm. 

Calm is in the mournful note that appeals: we dwell upon the earth. The shepherds are in the fields.  But lo, the angel. As one, staccato!

The Sopranos on high, and Tenors swoop in, the Altos busily build the layers of sound. Repeat, circle, soar. We are birds of prey.  We have majesty. Too soon greatness is gone from sight.

We turn to an easy yoke. His yoke is easy, and his burthen is light... An easy pace, imperceptibly quickens, a lope that is finally checked. 

What?  Is it intermission?


How flawed we really are: ugly and lovely at once. Mouths with crooked teeth, faces creased with smiles that hide cares.  Lipstick happlied hurriedly, coats donned with cat hair clinging. Coffee stained breath, we are the grey-haired and warty. Humanity is a scattering of noise, hopelessly indistinct and unorganized. Ceiling fans reassert themselves, children scamper in the aisles. Water bottles are untapped, singing is a thirsty business.  The orchestra has vacated their seats to stretch their legs. 
​
But the oboe sounds, and the strings respond. We gather our thoughts to cello and horn.  Our soloists return en masse.
 
                                                      Behold!
                                                              the lamb of God! 

​The sin of the world--my score reminds me: Pitch! We rise slowly, carefully, the sin of the world a rhythm at our heels.  We are demoted a semi-tone to underscore the fall. Even as we raise up our voices we are denounced. Reacquainted with grief, and the sorrows our days, we court rejection and doom.Obediently we are reseated.  Dejected we plod. A harpsichord harps mercilessly. We are weakened and fainting.  Even the violins at last relent.

But no, changing our minds and our hearts we renew the pace and set to cantering. He hid not his face from shame. Briskly. The strings take up the question. We stand, marshalling our colours.  Rally now, and smartly so. Still wincing a little, still a little bruised.  But with his stripes we are born.

Raptors reappear, still at the distant. Circling high, they gaze upon us. They spin on the wind, and we like sheep... we bleat, we bleat. Everyone to his own now.

We scatter and roam, climbing foothills of notes, stumbling into the valleys of awkward timing, heads wagging, we have gone astray.  Dischordant, flat, octaves in ruins. We have turned, we have turned, the inequity of us all! Now run with that: run and laugh him to scorn. Delight in him, deliver him, Deliver delight--we pound this to pieces, as an impatient child crushes a jawbreaker: words without meaning.

The beautiful Tenor chimes in, lamenting at last: why do the nations so furiously rage together?  We shall break the bonds.  Halleluiah! All stand!

Stand! The king!!

Even the hair stands on end. For we shall live forever. Tears unleashed, horns blare, drums pound. Forever, Forever,Halleluiah! 

How can we ever sit again?

But sit we do, and wait--are we tuning up again?  Surely not another intermission.  The Messiah is lengthy but we've just got up a head of steam.  Our concentration has slipped but a moment, a shiver, a shudder.  We recover,  breathing hard.

Breathe.

Strings call us: listen.  And now a sweet sound: the silver-tongued Soprano, young of tone and firm of purpose.  Great in beauty is she with the golden hair, smooth skinned, beautiful.  A modest maid yet who could resist her.

Simply she sings, but she is strong, riveting. With graceful wing-beat shebear us aloft. Swiftly, swiftly. She knows her redeemer lives. 

She asserts that he shall stand upon the earth, the earth that stretches before heaven, beyond our highest mountains, beyond our imagination.  Seas, plains, prairies nights and days are as nothing to eternity. We respond gravely, sensibly. We return to earth from our heady heights. And since by man came death, we are broken again.  Again and again.

But.

The resurrection. So in Christ, the eagle. We are adamant about it now, and we will not be cheated. Even as the Tenor admonishes us to behold, for he tells a mystery. Trumpets sound: this is no mere tale.  It is crystal clear that the dead are raised by the blare of cold brass. Bold now, and let us be sure: we shall be changed.  Be changed. 

The Amen. The Amen--Amen--play it on the tongue, over the palate. Let it reach into the braincase, let it tatoo the blood. Amen unrelenting and unremitting until the joyful noise has raised the roof!

Every corner of the church, every heart, every window rattles, We have given up thought, the mind vacates, and we are borne on wings of sound. Feathers curling in wind lifting, nerves ashiver, we are  not our mortal selves.  No longer made of bones and sinew and breath, we are the windows of God, we are souls united.  Our sound has gone out unto the ends of the world!
​
The concert is over, the lady asks for the programs back. We leave in peace. Mitts are retrieved, cell phones checked, A blast of cold air meets me on the stair.  Outside, on the steps of the church, one brave girl dons helmet and face mask and climbs onto her bike.  We are ready to resume the mantel of mortality. I shiver as I dash for the truck.   

It's a shock to return to the city after a gold September. If you have ever been trapped in a stairwell you must know the feeling: annoyance, frustration, perhaps even a slight edge of panic.

When I found myself stuck in the stairwell of a medical clinic recently, I was first surprised at the level of security—but of course locked doors and code-pads have become a fact of life. I did not even bother to grumble about fire safety, or curse the lousy cell phone coverage in my cement prison, I considered my options: I could go up or down. Both meant raising my voice (and blood-pressure) and undignified pounding on doors. Instead I decided to wait for the next person who entered the stairwell.

While I waited, I found myself looking at a three -foot graffiti message painted under the stairs.

Five Steps to Happiness. 

1. Banish hatred
2. Relinquish worry
3. Be present
4. Give More
5. Expect less

I’m not a great fan of five-step anything--life is far from simple and there are few shortcuts to take us to where we want to be. I wondered, too, about step five: expect less. I, for one, have been brought up to expect more from life. Constantly we are reminded by media that we deserve more, that we deserve that holiday, that car, that cosy pair of $100 slippers.  I certainly did not deserve, as a member of the tax-paying public, to be locked in a stairwell of a publically funded building.

The medical clinic I was visiting that day cares for some of the city’s most disadvantaged patients—poor, First Nations, many of them struggling with addictions. In my job as a public health epidemiologist I spend a lot of time worrying about HIV. Saskatchewan has the highest HIV rates in the country; this hasn't changed in ten years. About 65% of HIV positive individuals in this province are First Nations or Metis. Mortality among HIV patients in our area is almost 20%.

Happiness to many of these individuals would possibly be a fringe benefit to survival. For the thousands who have historically received less from Canada—less opportunity, less employment, less wealth, less health---the working definition of happiness is surely different.
 
But it's a pretty simple recipe and a foolproof one at that. To give up prejudice and hatred, to suspend worry and doubt about the future, to be more present and more aware of what we have to be thankful for, to give more of ourselves--this could be what it takes.For those whose more urgent challenge is to find the next meal, a place to sleep, getting their kids back from social services, happiness may indeed fall to step five alone. The lowest common denominator. Expect less. In a way, however, expecting less explains why little progress has made on issues like poverty and HIV. We have not expected more of ourselves or our government. Instead we have fortify ourselves against crime, fueled ourselves with hatred and racism, worried about our belongings, railed about our hospitals being overcrowded and unable to serve our needs, cast ourselves to the future, tightened our belts--and expected more.
 
It is taking us a long time to read the writing on the wall.    

Guest blogger Arlette Seib is a writer, photographer and artist inspired by prairieland.  She and her husband ranch with sheep on a large swath of land she calls grassland heaven in the Allan Hills near Watrous, Saskatchewan.  Vist her at woolstoneprairie.com. Welcome, and thanks Arlette for your contribution!
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A life raising sheep on the prairie sometimes seems ordinary. It’s easy to slip into the mindset that a sheepish way of life is not that grand in the scheme of worldly endeavors. Especially when, in the online world we inhabit, people are vying for extraordinary popularity and some have found fame and fortune for unlikely reasons.

I lean against the box of the side-by-side, looking across the rolling hills and wetlands of this prairie landscape, hearing the snuffles and chewing of the guardian dogs eating their morning meal. A black and tan Kelpie dog sits on the seat watching the flock, ever hopeful for a stint of work. The sheep move off—they always do. The ewes are not interested in hanging out near us, particularly when a stock dog is alongside. But I have to wonder, do they have a sense that my human condition doesn’t fit in their natural one?

There is a beautiful simplicity to watching sheep trail off across the prairie landscape. I have taken photos of them many times over, in different spots, in different seasons, and I never tire of watching them as they go. Maybe it’s because I wish to hold onto the unmistakable connection the animals have to each other and to this land. Or perhaps it’s to preserve those fleeting moments when my human condition meets their natural one.

The ewes seem to go precisely where they need to go but it seldom feels like they planned to go there. Not every animal follows the other when they head out for the day. More often small groups of ewes branch out on finger trails. Each group is taking the path of least resistance, flowing and curving with the land, knowing that the most natural way to travel through the day is to find the flow and go with it.

Land and animal serve the needs and functions of the other; they are united in a shared giving and taking to keep the balance. But also within this unity there are less obvious but well recognized truths, like finding the flow and going with it. Perhaps part of the deeper connection humans seek are to be found within a similar shared unity--waiting for our rediscovery. Only by a willingness to become part of it, rather than ignore or conquer it, will we discover within ourselves those long lost deeper connections.

Having finished their meals, the guardian dogs are milling about. The eldest dog noses my hand, bringing my attention to more immediate matters of doling out affection. The female steps up onto the floorboard of the side-by- side, sniffing the Kelpie still watching the sheep. Two guardian dogs have already left, catching up to the ewes  as they disappear over the next rise. The youngest dog stands looking about, just as I was a moment ago.

Prairie land, sheep and dogs… After a stretch of busyness and fitting into other people’s agenda’s, soaking up a scene of sheep grazing with the working dogs nearby is just what is needed to begin the process of coming back to some semblance of balance. Of returning to a time and space that revolves around the ebb and flow of nature, rather than the whims of human opinion and ego. There is no substitute for prairie spaces calming the storm after chaos. Every day here is ordinarily grand and ordinarily wise, so much so that I worry that it just might escape me. I murmur a few meaningless words to the eldest dog and begin to collect the feed dishes.

Arlette Sieb, 2019
  

​A whole year between blogs.  It’s challenging to keep going. Whenever self-doubt afflicts me, when I wonder who I’m writing for, I think of my friend Page, a photographer—living the dream, doing what he wants to do—what he was put on the planet to do. 
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There is wisdom in accepting your limitations, but there is greater wisdom in realizing your potential.

Jim Page has led a “checkered life”— life is, after all, a series of unpredictable moves.  Bold moves, strategic moves, career moves, moving house moves. A few stumbles, charges, some startling and splendid recoveries.  From his hippy days on the West Coast, to his Big City sojourns as a mental health worker, Page has moved back and forth across the country following the dream. 

Most of his jobs over the years have allowed him to pursue his photography, adjusting his availability to the season and to following wildlife.  He is a gifted writer, and was a photo columnist and feature writer for Explore magazine for more than a dozen years.  He taught at the Western Academy of Photography in Victoria BC.  His photography appears in Candace Savage’s Prairie and his own book, Wild Prairie (Greystone, 2005). I count myself fortunate to have worked with him on a number of magazine articles.

When he isn’t crawling through a ditch in pursuit of the perfect image of a frog, or sprawled on a dance floor catching the color and motion of a pow-wow, he is secluded in his tiny house with the window shades drawn. He processes literally thousands of images annually. Since moving to the village a decade ago, he has been fairly single-minded in his pursuit. He lives quietly, and isn’t always visible in the village. Our Mayor, when he bumps into him on the street, still asks if he is new in town.

Page is prepared to leave town at the drop of a hat, to travel hundreds of miles to photograph bears or salmon. His favourite photo-hunting grounds are the Grassland National Park, on our doorstep. There, he captures the wildlife, in all its startling, scintillating, thought-provoking grace and power.

Approaching 70, now, he still sleeps in his car to catch an early dawn, but he has started to draw the line on the number of nights he’ll tent or rent a shabby hotel-room on a shoot. After a quarter of a century of wilderness backpacking, his knees are a wreck, but he thinks his vision is better than ever. His needs are few.  He’s not interested in money or fame. Living the dream means prioritizing and giving up a few things. He gets more satisfaction from posting on his Flickr page, sharing comments with his fans and fellow-photographers, than working commercially.

So when I wonder who I’m writing for, I remember my friend, and what a gift it is to have curiosity about the world, and the skills and self-guided direction to explore it, and share the wonder.

Read more 

​See James R Page’s images here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pageworld/      


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