Trophy Wives

My father was 14 years older than my mother and I certainly know lots of people who have connections with those much younger than themselves. I’ve never really understood it – all my relationships have been with women a couple of years younger or older than me. It was funny a few years ago when someone asked Liz, my wife, if she was my trophy bride (given she is two years my elder). Very complimentary to her, I guess; to me, not so much.

Still, I sometimes wonder when age differences move beyond the understandable and move into the creepy. The heart wants what it wants, according to Woody Allen – and I fully recognize the irony of quoting him in this context. But what exactly is it that it does want in these cases?

Some might think it is a desire on the part of the man to cling to youth – his youth by proxy – and, more importantly, potency. Yesterday I saw a picture of retired Senator Rod Zimmer coming from court with his twenty six year old wife (he is in his 70s). It wasn’t his legal problems that were at issue though he has plenty of those – she was being charged with weapons possession as part of a drunken incident. I was struck by how angry she looked and how tired and stooped he appeared. And what was she seeking – financial security or a father figure? I wondered if the two things – his youthful wife and his legal troubles – were linked to a common cause, a desire to still feel in control of the world.

Of course, none of it is simple. The pattern of older men and younger women is common place even when the man isn’t rich or the woman isn’t alluring. It may be a cultural thing, part of the infantilization of women that some men need to feel like men. And according to Kate Fillion who wrote extensively on the subject in a book called Lip Service, the same phenomena occurs with older women and younger men. It is less often commented on and perhaps less common but the dynamic seems remarkably the same.

I’m sure that in the end it all comes down to our selfish genes and the desire to find the right mate even if child rearing isn’t what we have in mind. Or it could be someone was too busy to fall in love (again) until the candle was almost burnt down to the base. Tony Randall married for the second time late in life (his first wife was deceased). He sired children and seemed enormously happy – though I often felt there was a deep sadness inherent in that family. He would never see (and didn’t see) his children graduate primary school let alone have children of their own.

For me, I’ve always needed to have a deep relationship – based on shared values and experiences, shared tastes and shared times together. Liz and I spend hours every day just talking and while I’m quite capable of carrying on an endless monologue it is in dialogue that I find my joy.

And that’s ten minutes.

Treasures

I’ve spent 23 of the last 33 years, living, working and travelling in the North. I’ve visited about 40 of the 75 or so communities in the three territories – as far north as Grise Fiord, as far east as Broughton Island, as far west as Whitehorse and as far south as Sanikiluaq. I’ve been to a couple of national parks, visited mines and oil rigs in the Beaufort Sea. I’ve come in all seasons of the year and flown in all kinds of planes from single engine floats to jets, travelled by truck, car, snowmobile, boat and dogteam. But I’ve never been to Nahanni Park.

Until yesterday. Well, almost. We tried flying in and did get into the park’s airspace but rainstorms and lightning forced us to return early. But what I did see was stirring. The accompanying photo is Little Doctor Lake right outside the park boundaries. But we also flew over the Ram River and the Ram Plateau. It was magnificent.

The history of Nahanni is an interesting one. Years ago it was proposed that a massive hydroelectric project be built on the Nahanni River which includes the spectacular Virginia Falls. An environmental group persuaded then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to go there and meet with the people and see the place for himself. He sat in a circle around a camp fire and listened to what the elders had to say. Then he got in a canoe and paddled the river. When he came back he declared the area too valuable to be economically exploited. The Nahanni Park Reserve was created. Can one even imagine our current Prime Minister – who prefers to visit the North with military aircraft and pretend to shake his fist at Vladimir Putin – ever doing anything so human?

I am not a particularly avid outdoorsman. I much prefer a city boulevard to a flowing river. But I am a rational environmentalist. The wilderness has values that transcend the oil or minerals we can take out of them. They support the entire eco-system that makes our cities and towns liveable.

I’m not particularly anti-development either. Canada’s wealth – our wealth – mostly comes from the resources that lie under the surface of the land. Development is needed but it needs to be sustainable and, sometimes, it needs to be refused. Some people cannot look at a beautiful landscape without wondering what treasures lie under the surface. It is good to wonder but not to the point where it blunts your ‘sense of wonder.’ While not every bit of land needs to be locked away forever in a national park, we do need to do a better job at preserving wild spaces and large eco-systems. Despite the claims of the government to be doing that, Canada, in fact, ranks abysmally low on protecting our vast resources of water and land. We can and should do better not be stopping development but by being more selective in where and, especially, how it is done.

Sometimes we should stop worrying about the treasure that lies beneath the ground waiting to be plundered and simply treasure what we have.

And that’s ten minutes.

Pastoral

Many people go on and on about the beauty of this particular landscape or the other. They tell me how much they miss the hills of home or how there is something about the light in the sky that always tells them where they are. Each outcropping or stand of trees represents a landmark in their journey from childhood to maturity. Blah, blah, blah.

Frankly all countryside looks pretty much the same to me. As The Arrogant Worms put it: it’s all rocks and trees, rocks and trees and water. Which pretty much sums it up.

I was recently in rural Alberta visiting my in-laws in the wake of my mother in law breaking her hip. It involved a lot of driving around. My wife was telling me how it was all so familiar, so Albertan. I responded that the only way I could tell I was in Alberta as opposed to rural anywhere else was by the large number of oil pumps extracting hydrocarbons from the ground. That’s right. For me the most distinctive feature of the landscape was a manmade device important for powering cities.

Really, when I look around – to the extent that I can see through allergy blinded eyes – it all looks like empty fields broken by clumps of bushes or trees of various heights. I’m sure there is some variation in types of trees but really, it’s all just wood, right? And one little valley shaped by a piddling ass stream is pretty much the same as another wherever you go.

Now I’m not oblivious to the spectacular. Mountains with snow on top have always impressed me as have really big waterfalls and the ocean. Though it has to be a real ocean like the Pacific and not some piddling little sea or lake. Yes, nature can be impressive but really, if you’ve seen one big gush of water going over a cliff, you’ve pretty much seen them all.

For the most part I view the country side as pollen filled wastelands one has to cross to get from one city to another. Not that every city is a wondrous place but in my experience they are all significantly different one from the other. No one is going to confuse Seattlwith Paris the way I confuse Saskatchewan and South Dakota or the wilds of New Brunswick with northern Ontario or Wisconsin. Contrary to what Karl Marx said, even an idiot must prefer cities to rural life.

Cities have character. They have interesting architecture. They have fine restaurants. And theatres. They have interesting people rather than coyotes and bears. They don’t generally have an excess of allergens.

And they have airports which – to me – is the next best thing to teleportation.

But that’s ten minutes. Inspired by Sheri Dibble Shvonski though probably not in the way she meant.

The Yoke of Servitude

I had an interesting dream last night. I was on a crowded subway car with my wife. We had gotten separated by a half dozen feet. A man next to my wife suddenly grabbed her ass. When she objected he sneered and said: “You should learn how to take a compliment.” I reached over and grabbed his tie — it was yellow with a paisley pattern — and flung it over the hand rail. I yanked it up until he was lifted off his feet (told you it was a dream). I said. “Nice Tie.”

Wasn’t that shocking? I mean, who knew a necktie could actually be useful?

At one time in my career, I was forced to wear a tie most days. I tried to subvert the process in any way I could. I had a couple of leather ties for example and an Amnesty International tie for when I felt particularly trapped. I wore a lot of pink ties, too. When I couldn’t get away with looking odd, I had a couple of hand-painted Italian ties — at nearly $75 each (a lot in the 80s, hell, it’s still a lot). I still have those ones — proving you do get what you pay for. They don’t even have that characteristic crushed look that most ties get around the knot area after a couple of years.

I eventually collected nearly sixty of the damn things, many of which are still hanging in my closet. I wear them when I have to — keeping a full set of dress clothes in my work closet that I change into when jeans and sweatshirt simply won’t do.

Of course, my collection is trivial compared to that of David Hartwell, senior editor at TOR, the largest science fiction publisher around. David once told me he had over 500, if memory serves. I know they form a popular exhibit at some of the larger SF conventions. David, of course, has taken the necktie to new heights — some of his ties are stunningly beautiful; others are eye-watering. Somehow that all look fine when he’s wearing them.

I’m not sure who invented the necktie. I could google it but sometimes speculation is more fun. For example, I think they started as a rope tied around the neck of the King’s closest advisors. When he wanted advice he’s give the rope a little tug to draw them closer. If he didn’t get the advice he wanted he’d tug a little harder.

Another theory. They were invented by a squeamish Italian designer who was tired of seeing the chest hair of his compatriots through the open collars of their shirts. The necktie doesn’t work if the shirt isn’t buttoned to the top,

Me — I don’t care. I can hardly wait to retire so I never have to wear the ‘Yoke of Servitude’ again.

And that’s ten minutes.

Visible

I see myself everywhere. In movies, on TV, in magazines, in every walk of life, every degree of success. No matter where I look, I see myself. That’s because I’m a white man. This is part of what is called male privilege. The ability to envision yourself as the absolute norm to which all others must be measured. Being visible is an important part of the pure raw assumption of being deserving – of power, wealth, status. Change what you see and you change what you are.

Not everyone is so fortunate. Some people only get to see parts of themselves or only get to see themselves in limited roles or places. Women, blacks, Asians, aboriginals all are excluded from this passage to ‘normalcy’. To a lesser or greater extent.

Perhaps those who never get to see themselves as normal, never get to see themselves as public personae are the disabled. We, grudgingly, may make accommodations in the form of wheelchair ramps or guide dogs being allowed in restaurants but tolerance is not the same as acceptance. It is definitely not the same as seeing people as people in every respect and aspect of their lives.

I spent a couple of hours at the Royal Ontario Museum yesterday. It was fun to see the dinosaurs and the art deco furniture but it was important to see the display on fashion. The exhibit showcased the work of a Canadian fashion designer who has spent the last number of years creating clothing specifically for people confined to wheel chairs. This clothing not only fits and is comfortable and easy to put on –all important – it is quite beautiful. It creates an image that is ‘tailored’ to the person, that acknowledges them for who they are.

The most amazing and moving part of the exhibit is a short video that documents the creation of store mannequins that represent people with disabilities – amputations, spinal curvature, dwarfism or other body differences. The models – each mannequin is designed for a particular person—were initially hesitant, embarrassed, fearful but when the final product was unveiled – literally – they were amazed and overjoyed. And when they saw themselves clothed and on display in the window of a high fashion store in London, when they saw others seeing them there, they were transported. And so was I.

And that’s ten minutes.

Camera Obscura

While I was in Paris a couple of weeks ago, my digital SLR stopped working. One minute it was fine, the next the digital display was nothing but a pattern of black jagged lines on a white background. Sort of like an Apple ad. The camera still worked in a way, it would click and record data but I couldn’t see what I was taking right away. It was just like the old days, when you couldn’t see your pictures until after they were developed.

How retro. Of course the real problem was that I couldn’t meaningfully change the settings, turn the flash on or off, change the film speed and so on. Most frustrating. I was left with a couple of android smart phones (more useful sometimes as cameras than as actual talking devices) and a point and shoot digital. They did an okay job for some things — basically anything more than two feet and less than ten feet away. After that, the resolution and focusing is a bit off.

I also happened to have my forty year old Olympus OM-1 and a couple of rolls of film. I’ve been hauling this baby around for years. It was the first of the real light weight SLRs brought out in the seventies. Very low shutter vibration, easy to change lenses (actually easier than my brand-new Sony). Very nice lens resolution as well. But of course, it costs a lot of money to operate — about 50 cents a picture — so you have to approach picture taking in an entirely different way.

No more of just hold it up and shoot and shoot and shoot. Never mind if the picture is properly framed or composed, never mind if the light or exposure are right. If this one doesn’t work, I can always take another. And with instant feedback, I know right away whether I have to.

As a result, you spend your whole life looking at the world through the lens or on the screen of a camera. With film, you have to look at the world, really stare at it; you have to discern the patterns of surprise or beauty. You have to know the world before you can film it.

A lesson learned — the high tech digital camera is the real camera obscura, hiding the truth of things behind instant gratification. Am I now determined to give up my digital life for a more analog one, revert to film instead of pixels? Not bloody likely. Digital is too convenient, it is too cheap. But that doesn’t mean it has to cheapen my experience.

What I’ve actually decided to do — after I get that expensive display replaced or, just as likely, buy a brand new digital (that’s right it is almost as cheap to buy a new one as fix an old one) — I’ll treat the world as it deserves to be treated. With observation and thought and consideration of what it is I’m actually seeing.

And that’s ten minutes.

Church

I saw a quote recently that asked: if God is everywhere, what do we need churches for? A good solid Protestant question if ever there was one. An even better atheist one is: if there is no God, what use do churches or other assorted places of worship play?

I tend to think that churches have always tried to emulate and overcome the beauty of nature. There are places in this world for which the term ‘holy’ or ‘sacred’ spring naturally to the lips. Great waterfalls, sun-dappled forest grottos, the deep places of the earth, the highest refuges of stone and snow and sky. Nature, in all its wonder, holds all the awe and splendor anyone could need for an entire lifetime.

Cathedrals, like every grand work of man, skyscrapers, massive dams or bridges, create similar senses of awe and wonder. You cannot stand within them or before them without feeling overwhelmed by their magnitude or even beauty.

We build these things not to assert god’s mastery over us but our own mastery over nature. There are those who find such assertions presumptuous or even wrong but there you have it.

I like churches when they are no longer primarily religious expressions but cultural ones. The first re-purposed church I remember seeing was a large Catholic one transformed into condos in the city of Halifax back in the 70s. They were kickass accommodations not the least because they retained so many features of the previously consecrated space.

A few years later I travelled to Europe and visited many cathedrals – some of which were still active (though hardly full) worship houses. The one in Salamanca, Spain, was particularly interesting. Spanish masons had a long history of conflict with the Church and especially the Inquisition – but they were a necessary evil for the Church. The tension resulted in some very salacious and sacrilegious carving being placed high in the naves of the church, invisible until modern times brought us telescopes and binoculars. Priapic bishops and cavorting priests and nuns attested to the opinions (or perhaps observations) of the stone carvers.

Last night I dined in a deconsecrated Anglican church – a place with a lot of significant religious and cultural history. Handel first performed the Messiah there and the organ still stands. I could go on about the beauty of the place and the excellence of the food…

But that’s ten minutes.

 

Our Human Heritage

Yesterday was as perfect a day as one could ask for – almost, if I don’t count the absence of my wife. But still. Slept until I wasn’t tired and then rose leisurely with no prospect of work other than this brief ten minutes. A slow gentle entry to the day with coffee and breakfast consisting of toasted sourdough bread topped with locally smoked bacon, fresh tomato slices and melted cheese served with berries and fresh yogurt. Gentle conversation as we overlooked the calm blue waters of the Salish Sea (aka Georgia Strait). An eagle flew by at eye height (we were on a deck on the side of a hill) while sailboats drifted lazily along.

Later a trip to the market to buy vegetables and meats and bread all locally grown or made, followed by berry shopping at local growers and lunch at a vineyard. We returned to the deck for a few drinks and wide ranging conversation filled with insight and humour and deep felt friendship and love. A home cooked meal and more talk into the gentle evening. Warmth in the air and between old friends. Nothing accomplished; no great works contemplated or carried out but no conflict either. Sunshine and water and fresh air and friendship. What more could anyone ask?

Really, it sounds like the first world existence of the overfed bourgeois and I suppose it was yet it also had a universal quality too. We observed and reveled in nature and our own comfort, we ate food that had been locally grown and prepared, which we gathered from merchants whom my friends knew by name. It was the life of a community. We shared libations and conversation. We laughed, cried a little too from the joy of shared sadnesses. We discovered some small thing about each other and ourselves that we didn’t know before. We soaked in heat and beauty and peace.

This is the commonality that should bind us together. Instead we humans – so magnificent in our intellect, so rich in our ability to understand and to share things both simple and complex – can find no end of ways to fight and disagree, to hate and to hurt. The very tools that should tie us together – language and the sense of wonder at this glorious world – we use to turn life into a hard scrabble of struggle and conflict. How sad.

But that’s ten minutes.