squash soup

My hands are orange and sore from cutting up a huge butternut squash. It's one of those bright wintry days that look really nice from inside a cosy house, but feel like a son of a bitch when the wind blows ice crystals into your face. Everything is coated with a powdery, pristine blanket of snow, so it's almost painfully bright in our living room with the wall of window. I can barely read the computer screen.

Yesterday at the drop-in centre, we served a fantastic pumpkin soup. Gingery, garlicky, smooth but not too smooth, it was delicious. Sadly, nobody knows who donated it or where I might find the recipe. So today I am attempting a butternut squash soup with the flavours I think I tasted (onion, a bit of celery and carrot, fresh ginger and garlic, and turmeric -- I'll add a bit of cream at the end I think). It's simmering now.

Last weekend I went hunting for new recipes. We've been in a bit of a cooking funk lately -- for months, really -- and I need to find new things to cook, things that don't depend on cheese and pasta, because that gets old pretty quick when you eat it four nights a week. But I realized we have a significant handicap: there are a lot of vegetables I don't like, or that I only like rarely with specific and careful preparation (that I don't know how to do). Eggplant falls into the latter category, and all the autumn vegetables fall into the former - squash, turnip, carrots by themselves, sweet potato, rutabaga, parsnips, fennel. Oh and I don't like bizarre, slippery-feeling mushrooms either. Which writes off almost all the recipes in my cookbooks that I haven't already tried. Sugar D doesn't like brussels sprouts, and I don't think lima beans don't really count as a vegetable.

Wow, that was fast -- the squash is already cooked! Apparently, butternut squash takes longer to peel and chop than it does to cook. Regardless, it smells fantastic. Now I just need to put it in the blender, which could prove hazardous since Swee'pea is napping.

Oh crap. I just tasted it - it's way too sweet. (I also hate sweet and savoury flavour combinations - probably why I hate all those root veggies.) Anyone know how to cut the sweetness? Vinegar? Salt? Add more stock to thin it out? Help!

Which was not what I was going to ask for help with. But it will do for now. Help?

anniversaries

The second anniversary of the Just Posts is coming up very soon.

It was through the Just Posts that I read something about all the women in Africa suffering from fistula, which is preventable and treatable. Yesterday one of my favourite photography blogs led me to this multimedia presentation about a hospital in Nigeria that treats women with fistula. Go watch it; it's beautiful. (Just click on multimedia when you get there.)

* * *
This anniversary is also making me reflect on how the Just Posts have changed my life. On the first Just Post, I pledged to sponsor a child through Help Lesotho and I actually set it up six months later (I know, I suck. But at least I did it, even if it was disgustingly late. And we're still doing it.)

On the first anniversary last December, I pledged to volunteer two hours a month somewhere. I decided on the Drop In Centre, and after my first morning there, I immediately decided to make it two hours a week (give or take a weekend out of town or of illness). I'm still going strong on that.

Last January, I also started selling my prints online and donating at least 50% of the proceeds to the Stephen Lewis Foundation. I've donated more than $200 now from the sale of my prints.

Last Friday I got the following message from the foundation:

It is said that the international financial turmoil will undermine the work of agencies like ours. Supposedly there’ll be no money around for charitable purposes. My colleagues and I refuse to accept that. We work from the premise that the struggle against AIDS will not be sacrificed on the altar of financial turbulence.

So we’re defying the odds. And we’re asking you to do the same. In fact, we’re asking you to do more. We’re asking you to join us in a new fundraising campaign called “TURNING THE TIDE”.

It’s our conviction that so much has been accomplished on the ground in Africa, for grandmothers and orphans and women in particular, that if we can fund every worthy proposal, we can turn the tide of the AIDS pandemic at the grassroots.

People will say that the timing is all wrong. We say, to the devil with the timing. We’re on the cusp of bringing hope to thousands upon thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS. Please join us.

It makes sense to me that charitable organizations could be among the worst hit by the global financial downturn. And it makes even more sense to me that we not let it. (So c'mon, buy a print or a calendar? They make great gifts! Or how about just donate to a charity you believe in...)

* * *

So now what? I feel I need to mark this anniversary by doing something more. But I can't think what. Any ideas???

missed

On Saturday I volunteered at the drop-in centre for the first time in a few weeks. And you know what? I was missed! The minute I got there, Lucille was all, "Where have you BEEN the last few weeks?" I felt bad that I didn't call, but I felt really good they noticed. Is that shitty? Whatever... I used to call to let them know if I was going to miss a shift, but I was never sure the message got through, and nobody seemed to notice anyways, so I sort of stopped.

Anyways, I was missed. And it felt good. The Book Guy is leaving town this week, going to BC, and he's been trying to give me back In the Skin of a Lion, which I lent him a while back. I wished him well, and gave him one of my photo cards. I hope things go better for him there than they have here.

Another man, who I haven't seen for a month or more, also commented on my absence. So I commented on his and he said he went to Scotland. I don't know whether to believe him at face value or if it's a euphemism for a hospital stay or something.

rich

That boy whose picture I posted last time? You wouldn't know it from the picture, but he asked me to take it. He totally mugged for the camera, and I love his expressive forehead.

The first time I had my camera in the smoking area, he commented, "Nice camera." I thought, "Oh shit, he knows it's expensive. I'm busted." I said, "Thanks."

In retrospect I think he was trying to invite me to take his picture, but I didn't clue in, and I didn't want to intrude. We haven't really developed a friendship yet.

But last time I was shooting there, someone else suggested I take the boy's picture, and I said I'd love to, but I didn't want to approach him; again, I didn't want to intrude. Finally, he jerked his head at me and said, "Hey, why don't you take my picture."

So I did, with enthusiasm.

* * *

On Saturday at the Drop In Centre, I showed T. his pictures. I recounted his comments over at my other blog, but here's something I didn't say there. I told him that eventually I'd like to have enough pictures to make an exhibition or a book, and when I asked him if that would be cool with him he said, "Yeah, that's fine. It's like you're doing a family tree, like you're looking into your history."

I didn't know what to make of that. Maybe that is what I'm doing?

* * *

Another man always wears his headphones and sunglasses, like he'd rather not have any sensory input from this place. Apparently there is a no sunglasses rule at the Drop In Centre. I didn't know. But this man was finally coaxed out of his sunglasses, and his eyes were beautiful and alien. For months I've only known him with shades and headphones, and underneath he has brown eyes. He seems much friendlier with the shades.

He said something to me that I didn't quite hear. Something like, "You can tell you work up at the university." When I indicated I hadn't heard, he asked, "Do you ever go to the university?"

I said, "I went there back when I went to school there."

He asked me what I studied and I replied English.

He didn't say anything and walked away, having finished with the milk and sugar for his tea. I wondered if he studied there too, or what he thought of me. I've been getting more comfortable, letting big words come out of my mouth with more frequency. I suppose that's what he was getting at.

I've decided that it's ok for me to be rich. As long as I'm grateful and acknowledge the extreme good fortune I've had my entire life. If being poor isn't something to be ashamed of then surely being rich isn't either?

knots

When I was lying on the massage table last week, finally getting some relief for my poor, rock-tense neck and shoulders, I couldn't stop thinking about all the people who can't afford massages. It felt a little disgusting to spend my money on something so self-indulgent. But massages are so good for you, especially if you work at a computer all day, and then come home to play on the computer. Massages detoxify your system, increase your circulation -- and prevent tension headaches, something I suffer from fairly frequently without regular massages. I think I've had two massages since Swee'pea was born, but I used to get them regularly, and I really noticed a difference back then. No more headaches, and all of a sudden I could do head slides in belly dance, which I just couldn't do before.

Anyways, the table. I was feeling guilty. Finally, I had to say something. I had to share this burden. So I told this massage therapist, who I'd never met before, that I was volunteering at the Drop-In Centre and that I felt really guilty for being so rich when so many are poor. I mean, many people don't even have a quarter for a coffee there. I would never have considered myself rich before, only millionaires are rich, but since I started volunteering, I've realized just how rich I am. I told her about what that man had said about coming to look at the poor people. (A surprised, "Oh!" escaped her lips and floated around the room when she heard that.)

She said I have to let that guilt go. Everyone has hardships and it really does no good to make comparisons. Some may say that another's hardships aren't as bad their own, but you really can't make those judgments. But I really don't have any hardships, I said. I've been so, so lucky. (Of course since then, I've remembered a few.) The therapist pointed out that some people also just have better attitudes than others, and I had to agree. Some people are more resilient than others, although that's not to say that a person's bad attitude is their fault. If no-one in your family is resilient, if they all have poor, self-destructive or nonexistent coping skills, how would you learn resilience? (And I do believe it's a learned skill.)

I had a friend in high school whose mother was a physiotherapist, and she'd also begun to study cranial-sacral therapy. She died when we were about 21, from breast cancer. She'd fought it once, but after a few years she stopped going for her follow-up appointments, and by the time she went to the doctor, she was too far gone. She died a week later, and it seemed clear to us all that she knew it had come back, and she knew she didn't want to fight anymore. She was a truly beautiful woman.

She believed that our tissues hold emotional trauma, they have a memory of sorts. Once, she was doing a treatment on my friend and my friend was suddenly overwhelmed with incredible sadness and she started to cry. She didn't know why she felt so sad, but her mother said it was because she'd released one of these emotional memories. Once she did a treatment on me, and when I went home, my parents thought I was drunk because my gait had changed. I remember feeling like everything was just slightly out of place from where it had been before - both inside and outside my body.

I wonder if the pain and extreme stiffness in my shoulders and neck ("I'm not gonna lie," said the massage therapist the other day, "It's not looking good.") is partly the result of this guilt and shame and embarrassment I've been carrying around for having money, feelings that have only intensified over the last six months. I've never really felt comfortable with my income, I've always been embarrassed that we have a cleaner - embarrassed that we can afford one: I've never been embarrassed for being a slob.

It strikes me that this middle-class shame isn't doing me or anyone else any favours. It doesn't make me donate more or use it more wisely. It just makes me feel bad - silent and embarrassed, especially around really poor people, and I'm quite certain that doesn't help them. The same guilt and shame infect and inhibit my photography. So. How do I get over it?

Wednesday was amazing, and if you can get through this post to find out why, you are amazing too

I've been reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Much of her stuff on the practice of writing and observing people resonate with me, but when she talks about creating fiction, about letting your characters drive the story, I get lost. I just don't get how that happens.

My father-in-law is a novelist, and last time we visited him I asked, "But how do you create fiction?"

He said, "Well you take real life, the things that happen to you, and you make it into legend."

This isn't a poor me post at all. I'm fine with not being able to write fiction, with not being suited to it. But I find it a fascinating shortfall, especially since I'm so fond of blogging and photography.

I love to write, I love to use words to capture or inspire emotion; I love to study people, I love to imagine what's going on with them now and what's happened in their pasts; I love finding or creating meaning in the real world. You'd think fiction would grow naturally from these passions. But I am very much grounded in the real world. It strikes me that perhaps this is why photography appeals to me so much. Photographs can be meaningful and imaginative, but they are foregrounded in some slice of the real world - or at least mine are.

In the second part of Bird by Bird, Lamott gets into "The Writing Frame of Mind." A lot of what she says here seems relevant to photography as well. She says, "Your job is to present clearly your viewpoint, your line of vision. Your job is to see people as they really are, and to do this, you have to know who you are in the most compassionate possible sense. Then you can recognize others."

"There is ecstasy in paying attention. You can get into a kind of Wordsworthian openness to the world, where you see in everything the essence of holiness, a sign that God is implicit in all of creation."

"To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass - seeing things in such a narrow and darkly narcissistic way that it presents a colo-rectal theology, offering hope to no one."

On Wednesday, I decided to drop in at the Drop-In Centre. I've never gone for just a visit before; I've been too nervous. But I feel like I can't delay on my project any longer. I just have to go for it. So I stuck my camera and a couple of memory cards in my bag and headed out.

I stopped at the store and picked up a couple of locally grown cantaloupes, because I've noticed that fruit goes like wildfire whenever they're lucky enough to have some donated. I couldn't help but wonder, though, if this urge to bring fruit was really a need to position myself as benefactor so nobody would be confused about what I was doing there. Maybe I was, but I was also just seeing a simple way to bring folks a small bite of summer pleasure without taking any skin off my back. I also thought about Dirty Dancing, and if anyone asked me what I was doing there I could say, "I carried a (water)melon," and then kick myself for such idiocy after the fact.

When I arrived, Sister Christine exclaimed about the melons. She hugged me and said in my ear, "Aren't you wonderful?!" And I was so pleased and warm. Did I tell you she's being given the Order of Canada? And her response was that well, she couldn't do it without all the volunteers. Yeah, she's pretty cool.

I loitered at the counter, unsure how to approach someone, how to get comfortable. The man who's given me grief before was behind the counter and offered me coffee. I don't drink coffee so I just poured myself some water.

"Did you come here to look at the poor people?" he asked, his friendly smile at odds with his nasty words. This is the second time he's said something like that to me and I felt awful and found-out. I froze. Why does he hate me?

I decided to go to the smoking area because I would feel less on show. If only I still smoked. I was so uncomfortable and still recoiling from that man's words. I remembered the words of the instructor at the portrait workshop I went to a while back. She said when you're working on a documentary project, you will have a point of view; you will have intention. And that point of view may conflict with the subjects' agenda for about how they want to be portrayed. You can't really tell them what your point of view is and get the images you want, so you need to be ok with what you're doing. I've been thinking a lot about that last one. You need to be ok with what you're doing.

My mind went back to Lammott's words, specifically the ones I read just before I left home: "If your deepest beliefs drive your writing, they will not only keep your work from being contrived but will help you discover what drives your characters. You may find some really good people beneath the packaging and posing - people whom we, your readers, will like, whose company we will rejoice in." ... "But you have to believe in your position, or nothing will be driving your work. If you don't believe in what you are saying, there is no point in your saying it. You might as well call it a day and go bowling. However, if you do care deeply about something - if, for instance, you are conservative in the great sense of the word, if you are someone who is trying to conserve the landscape and the natural world - then this belief will keep you going as you struggle to get your work done."

By showing up at the drop-in, I'm trying to break down imaginary walls. I want my photos to show that there is no us and them; there is only us. My conscious is clear. That man obviously feels protected by those walls of class, and every time he sees me he has to draw them around him. His words are more about him than me. Sitting on that bench in the smoking area, I asked myself if I was ok with what I was doing. Yes. Absolutely, I am. That said, that man has an uncanny ability to voice my worst fears and anxieties about what I'm doing.

Immediately a guy I've been friendly with sat down next to me and started showing me his drawings, which he does to keep his mind off things. He starts with the date and goes from there. One page had a map of roads he used to travel in Michigan. Another had the New York City skyline. I told him I'd never been there. He said he's been all over in a car and on a train, but he's never been abroad like to Italy or France. He's never flown. We talked for a while then he moved away.

I sat alone for a few minutes wondering what next, when a woman who's agreed to let me photograph her came out. We chatted for a while and I nervously told her about what the man inside said, wondering what her perception of me is. She asked who and I described him and she said he was just an ass.

I asked her if I could shoot her now instead of the more elaborate locations we'd been considering. She asked if I already had and I laughed. I don't think I could be quite that secretive. She told me that she's been using lysol to clean her feet. She's on day three of an overnight, intensive food-cleaning endeavour. Lysol is so safe she's showered in it before. She said she needs her feet to be clean or she can't focus. And she never wants to consider herself permanently settled because she wouldn't want to miss an open door, an opportunity to go somewhere else. I took some pics and we chatted some more and she went back inside.

Later, someone said she never talks. They were surprised to hear the smart things she had to say. Now, Sister Christine's thanking me for talking to her made more sense. I felt privileged that she talks to me.

After she left I sat there feeling weird again because some people were around when I shot her. But immediately this guy commented on my camera and said he likes to take pictures too but he doesn't read or write so he just learns by doing. I'd never seen him before so I didn't feel comfortable asking for his photograph, but later I wondered if he'd felt left out.

Another man that I've been friendly with sat down and we talked for a long time. Whooee, he told me some intense shit. I don't even know where to start.

His dad tried to get him on disability when he was 23 but the government workers wouldn't even come out to see him. He wonders if maybe he'd gotten on ODSP back then if maybe he wouldn't have gone through all the shit he's been through.

He had five kids and two wives. He loved his kids but he couldn't hold down a job because he has epilepsy and he's illiterate. His dad went through the Second World War and wasn't in good shape when he came home. He did some really bad shit on the street for a long time: for 12 years, he moved the city's crack. He lost his daughter when she was nine and it cut him up. He sobbed on the street. And two days later his older brother died.

But he's been clean for three years, thanks to Sister Christine. He doesn't care who he pisses off; he will stand up for Sister Christine and the Drop-In Centre anytime anywhere, no matter what. She's done so much for him. He said the police laugh now when he calls them about a problem at the drop-in centre, because for so long they knew him as the problem.

He says the government doesn't know its people. It just judges. If only the government could see that people don't just do bad things out of nowhere. He said he could never say this stuff to someone in an office, but he can tell sociable people like me.

I leaned in and whispered that I work in an office. I'm one of them. And he laughed and said he'd like to talk to someone higher up in ODSP, get an apology, some closure. No money, just an apology. But he couldn't do it by himself. He could only do it if someone like me was in the room, someone who understood what he'd been through. Wow, did that ever make me feel good. When we finished I wanted to hug him, but I didn't.

Finally I chatted with John. He was the one who on my second day told me, "This place is amazing. You will meet people here... well some of them you'll wish you'd never met, but some people here are so wonderful, in what they do, and just who they are." He limped over and said he's been having a lot of trouble walking, he's worried that soon he won't be able to walk at all. He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis back in 1985 so he knows the end of the road is coming. But he said that his illness has given him the opportunity to learn and he's embraced it. He talked about his grandparents, who raised him, and all the varied work he's done, and how he believes in reincarnation and the near-death experiences of his grandma and grandpa.

I could feel my face getting sunburned. I'd been there for nearly two hours and I needed time and space to absorb all that had been said and felt. By myself for the rest of the afternoon, every once in a while I had to gulp a big breath in and blow it out in a rush. I wanted to cry or talk to someone but I was alone, and really I kind of wanted to keep it to myself a bit longer anyways. But wow. This afternoon was really a dream come true. I can't believe how forthcoming people are if you only give them a chance.

Who needs fiction when there are so many amazing people in real life?

I've posted the photos over at peripheralvision. I'm really happy with them. They aren't posed, formal portraits, but they also aren't starkly documentary photos. I think they show people you would want to meet. I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts - please go check them out and come back here to comment. What do you think?

And now it is 9:40 am on my second day ALL BY MYSELF and I'm listening to Jimi Hendrix for the first time in many years and wishing it were a reasonable time to just drink beer in the sun, but I have things to do (oh hardship - a massage AND a haircut) and besides that I'm not 21 anymore. But oh the nostalgia.

sunshine and honey

Yesterday at the drop-in centre, a card was being circulated for signings. In my eternally nosy-parker way, I had to find out who it was for, so I asked. And lo and behold, it's for my friend and his brand new wife - apparently they just got married yesterday. How wonderful is that! Pretty wonderful, I have to say, and now when I think about his story, I get an even bigger balloon of good feelings pushing my rib cage up and my shoulders back, like this world really IS ok.

* * *

In other sunshine and honey news, we're having my new favourite meal tonight. We're not really vegetarian: I eat chicken and fish and Sugar D eats seafood and Swee'pea eats whatever he feels like. But it's simpler just to describe ourselves as vegetarian. So tonight we're having creamy dijon potato salad and fresh rainbow trout panfried with butter and fresh dill. Yum.

In the interest of public service and for documentary purposes, I give you the recipe for the potato salad, which I sort of made up from a bunch of different sources:

5-6 medium sized cooked chopped potatoes - I use red ones
about 2-3 cups fresh (cooked) peas - I throw them on top of the boiling potatoes for a few minutes
1/3 raw red pepper, thinly sliced
1/3 raw yellow pepper, thinly sliced
10-20 capers, to taste

dressing:
2 enormous tablespoons of mayo - probably more like 1/4 cup
2 not heaping tablespoons of dijon mustard
1 teaspoon of caper brine
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
freshly ground black pepper to taste
(mix it all together)

And that's it. It's pretty salty, which I love, but if you're not keen on salt, you might want to leave the caper brine out.

Judgy McJudgerson

This morning is GORGEOUS. Fresh and cool but sunny, with a gentle breeze like mint in a mojito. It makes me want to take today off. That temptation could also have something to do with the fact that I don't feel like I actually had a weekend. Yesterday I went to a full-day photography workshop, which I enjoyed but I didn't get as much out of it as I would have liked. It went over time and then I got stuck in traffic so it ended up being an 11-hour day that ended with a big headache.

Because of the workshop, I had to switch my drop-in shift to Saturday afternoon, which I quite enjoyed despite all the other people's drama (OPD), but ultimately I didn't have a full day to just hang out with my fam the way I usually do.

Funnily enough, that boy's mother was at the Drop-In Centre this weekend. First person I saw upon my arrival was the boy and immediately I thought his face looked different somehow, smooth and unpinched - medicated? Maybe I read him wrong and he's mentally ill, not addicted. Or maybe he's self-medicated? I have no idea why, but his face looked smoother.

Then I noticed the woman beside him and wondered if she was his mother. It soon became clear that she was and they were arguing. I tried not to be too obvious about eavesdropping but they were RIGHT in front of me and I was dead curious and I'm big enough to know that I don't camouflage easily so if they didn't want me to hear they could move away. I got the impression that she'd lent him money on the expectation that he would pay her back today but he didn't have it. She had to borrow $10 from her landlord just to get through the next two days and she didn't even have any cigarettes.

Their argument got quite heated and I started to get really uncomfortable. The look on her face was one that I don't believe parents should direct at their children. At times she looked downright hateful. He fought back a little bit, but then he became totally impassive, closed-off I guess, hunkered down. Eventually he walked away, and she looked at me for sympathy. I tried really hard to muster it, producing a weak, neutral half-smile. I think she wanted to engage me in a debrief, but I couldn't really understand her words and I didn't really want to.

I've been struggling about whether to write about this, because I try to make a policy of not judging other mothers, especially mothers of children who are older than Swee'pea, because you can never know what you'll do when the time comes. So far, my mothering is all about survival, and survival requires different things at different ages. It must be VERY difficult to parent such a badass. On top of that, this is not my story. Many times I write about folks at the drop-in centre, but it's as much about my interactions with them and my feelings about those interactions as it is about them. This is different. This is a story that I have no involvement in.

Throughout the afternoon, the mother was a bit erratic: she kept asking for coffee and forgetting it. She'd get caught up in ranting about her son's wrongdoing, to whomever would listen, and her coffee would go cold without so much as a sip taken - again. Some of the people she spoke to, people who are recovering addicts I think, told her she has to stop giving him money, that she's ennabling him. That she has to stop expecting him to change.

Later, she told me that he'd just taken the money without asking, that it wasn't her fault, and how pissed she was that people think it's her fault.

"Honey," said the staff worker, who looks like Lucille Ball, complete with thin, dark, surprised-looking eyebrows like upside down smiles, full red lips, big false eyelashes, blue eyeshadow, leopard-print shirt, tight black jeans and stiletto boots. "It's always gonna be your fault until he takes his head out of his ass." I fell a little bit in love with Lucille (not her real name - although her real name is awesome: think Canadian province that starts and ends with the same vowel and isn't Ontario), with her 50s glamour look, her ability to tell it like it is and boss us volunteers around. She even directed me to take a break, which no one ever has before.

I can't seem to stop siding with the boy no matter how many times I try to wear the mother's shoes. It may have something to do with the fact that he's cute and young (I say this from a maternal perspective not from any other perspective) and so very thin that his shoulder blades poke through his shirt like fragile wings from his hunched, bird-like posture. He stands like an apology.

There were times in their various exchanges that I really felt the mother was going below the belt, maybe not so much with her words but with her tone of voice and expression. If we're not supposed to go below the belt in arguments with our spouses, who are our peers (and we're not!), then it must be doubly important to never go below the belt with our children. No matter how angry and hurt and confused and scared we are, sometimes we just have to step up and be the parent. Children shouldn't be made to morph themselves into armour, certainly not against a parent's tirade.

****

After my shift, Sugar D, Swee'pea and I went to the library. Funnily enough, given the OPD of the previous few hours, I discovered Come Back: A Mother and Daughter's Journey Through Hell and Back by Claire and Mia Fontaine. The inside cover asks something about how can a 15-year-old honours student suddenly become a junkie living in the underbelly of drug culture and what does a parent do about it - or something like that. I cracked it as soon as we got home, hoping to feel more kindness and understanding for that mother, and I could not. put. it. down until my eyes were closing against my will. It's harrowing but beautiful and the thing that keeps me going is the "and Back" in the book's title. Otherwise it might be too difficult.

The book is not really helping with my judgment of that mother, though, because the program that leads to the daughter's recovery also includes a lot of work for the parents to recognize their own role in the behaviour of their kids and to change their own ways of being that aren't working.

This is a very uncomfortable post for me. I'm all about self-acceptance and not holding ourselves to a standard of perfection, especially with our parenting. I tell myself that kids are resilient and it takes a lot to fuck them up, which I still believe, but parents were kids too once, and some parents are more fucked up than others. Judgment doesn't help anyone.

snips and snails

Friday night I dreamed that I had two more boys in such quick succession that I couldn't even blog about them. I was so guilt-ridden that my life had exploded and I hadn't even notified the blog. A few nights before I dreamed someone else I knew was pregnant with three boys.

Yesterday morning at the Farmer's Market, I met a man with two kids. He asked how old Swee'pea was, and I told him, then asked how old his two were. He thought for a moment, then started rhyming off ages: 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, and almost 4 (or something like that. I might have stuck an extra kid in there). He only had his oldest and his youngest with him.

"Wow," I said. "That must have been a BUSY five years."

"It was."

"It makes me shiver just to think about it... I found that infant year so hard, I can't imagine doing it over and over."

I think this may have been the wrong thing to say. I meant it is as praise and admiration, but I think I offended him.

"Oh really? We didn't find it bad. We had a lot of fun."

The conversation died.

I think I'm getting more and more PTSD about the whole infancy thing as time passes. And this is fucked up but I've drifted away from the friends who had their first baby when I had Swee'pea and who have since had a second child. I feel a little betrayed, to tell the truth, like they've gone to the Dark Side. And I don't know how to relate to the enormity of having a baby AND a toddler. It's stupid I know, but I think my memory of that first year might be getting worse as times goes on. My comment to the man at the market said nothing at all about the joy and love and miraculous expansion of my world.

Swee'pea woke up several times last night, upset and calling for me. The first time I'd just discovered Punk Rock Mommy's blog for the first time (too late) and my eyes were red and sore from crying. So I laid down next to Swee'pea, full of sadness for children who have lost their mothers far too soon, and for mothers not getting to see their children grow. And I did as she said and cuddled Swee'pea. I wrapped myself up in the simple beauty of his eyelashes resting on his soft pale cheek.

I ended up spending the night in his bed, and returned to my bed in daylight. Moments later he was crying for me again, and he came into our bed, where he continued to cry and kick and demand access to my belly. After the whole night at his service, I felt grumpy and claustrophobic and didn't do a very good job of "explaining" to him that I needed a break from his scrabbling hands. I always feel like a lousy mother in these moments, but I rationalize that it's important to learn to respect other people's boundaries.

I fell back to sleep after Sugar D got up with Swee'pea. My dreams were anxious and restless, full of wild dogs snarling and snapping to get at two young children who weren't mine but who I had to protect, burning cars, and angry and alienated people like a Mad Max movie, all in another country that looked remarkably like the landscape of my childhood. I'd become separated from Sugar D and there was no way we'd be able to catch the flight that would take us away from the chaos. I woke up with the realization that I was on my own and unable to get home.

* * *

This morning when I arrived at the Drop-In Centre, a boy was sleeping with his head on the table. The back of the centre with its computers and couches was closed because someone stuck playdough to the ceiling and didn't clean it up. The boy was all elbows and angles and the table couldn't have made a nice pillow. I'm quite certain he was well and truly asleep, not just dozing. I assumed he was sleeping off some excesses of last night. I try not to make assumptions about people here but I can't help my curiosity and eye for details, and some things are just a reality.

When he came up to the counter after he woke up his eyes looked kind of vacant, and occasionally his slow words slurred. It took him a long time to answer my "Do you want sugar in your coffee?" He had scrapes and scars on the backs of his hands and forearms that made me wonder if perhaps he used heroin. Once upon a time I would have thought that was impossible in this small quiet town, but not anymore.

Later, M came in. Last time I saw M he told me that he'd once been very close with the young woman whose dead body police found in a park a month or two ago. Her story had been in the paper: 29 years old, history of psychiatric problems and a conviction for possession of crack. When I read it, I figured at least a few people at the Drop-In Centre must have known her, but I wouldn't have thought it was M.

When he laid eyes on the formerly sleeping boy, M exclaimed and hugged him hard. "I'm just so glad you're still alive!"

Later still, the boy was sleeping at the table again. As I watched his eyelashes flutter lightly on his cheek, it struck me that he was someone's son. He was so young, it couldn't have been that long ago that someone had gazed at his eyelashes resting on chubby, unmarked cheeks like Swee'pea's. Or maybe it was. Maybe nobody's ever done that before... who knows.

I'm glad the boy has someone who's glad he's still alive.

me no thinky

Every once in a while I try to do a thinky post, and it just doesn't work. I'm just not a thinky blogger. So instead I'll just share a few random ruts my brain's been getting stuck in.

*********
It seems like not many rich people volunteer at the Drop-In Centre, except for people affiliated with a church. Catholics tend to actually volunteer, and I've seen people of a few other denominations bring in a pot of soup. Apparently, a few families at the local Seventh Day Adventist Church take turns making a pot of soup each week. Isn't that nice? But where are the rich agnostics and atheists (and by rich, I mean well above the poverty line, able to own or consider owning a home, perhaps a white-collar worker)?

I guess a lot of professionals volunteer on boards and stuff where they can build their network and enhance their careers. I suspect that serving coffee to people with low or no income is not particularly career-building. Mind you, there's also very little risk of it being career-limiting.

***********
Based on a sample of exactly two people, I have come to the conclusion that recovering drug addicts, early in their recovery, are high on sobriety. I wonder if those two will be able to maintain their commitment when the novelty wears off?

*************
I can be horribly judgmental. The other day I saw a brand shiny new Porsche Carrera (or something snazzy like that) with a license plate that said YASMINE. Is it unfair that immediately I didn't like the driver/owner?

My recoil wasn't quite as intense as a few weeks back when I saw a black SUV with the license, HOTT MD. Now THAT's a person I most definitely don't want to meet -- especially not in a doctor's office when I'm sick and vulnerable.

But the worst words I've seen on a car were on a bumper sticker that said "I wasn't born a bitch. Men like you made me this way." Another person I'm grateful I don't know...

***********
Yesterday, I watched an interesting multimedia project featuring 8 photographers in 9 countries shooting 30 people before and 4 months after starting anti-retro-viral treatment for AIDS. There are apparently 9 videos, but I only watched the one in South Africa. It gave me chills and made me cry, although it's not really sad. I just always get chills and cry whenever I hear South African music and think about all the shit that South African people have dealt with and yet still they sing, still they dance. And here we are, having a much easier time of it over in North America, and all we do is sit on our couches, watch tv, play video games, and surf the net. There's something seriously wrong with that picture. Please go check it out.

***********
Imagekind has another sale on: 25 percent off frames until July 7, if you're interested. Just remember to enter the promo code, JULY42008, when you check out. If you want to buy any of my work, whether cards or images, you can look through the work I have at peripheralvision.ca and click on the image you want to complete the purchase at Imagekind. I'm still donating 50 percent of the proceeds to the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

***********
I LOVED SYTYCD last night. I'm really digging Mark and Chelsie, which is a total surprise, and Joshua and Katie were just awesome. I also really liked Twitch and Kherrington and Kourtni and Matt. Oh! And Gev and Courtney are pretty cute too. What did you think?

go ahead, make my day

I was in a very big grump yesterday. It's possible I was PMS-ing. But don't quote me on that.

Anyways, I was very grumpy when I was at the drop-in centre. Some of the usual volunteers weren't there. Mostly it was people who aren't actually volunteering - they're doing community service as part of a sentence. Don't get me wrong, they're perfectly nice folks... they just aren't choosing to be there. So they commented on the cute girls moving across the street and muttered that one of the regulars was fucked! in a way that suggested italics and an exclamation mark. It just didn't make me feel comfortable, and I started to feel stupid or something. Plus, I still didn't see the book guy or my first (hopefully!) subject, or some other regulars I've made friends with. I even started to consider not coming back. I was THAT grumpy.

For some reason though I started talking to this woman I'd love to photograph, and she's into art too. She seems interested in participating in some kind of photographic collaboration but wants to see some of my prints first. I spoke to her just before I left. Afterwards, as I was getting ready to leave, Sister Christine thanked me. I said, oh no problem.

And she said, "And thank you for talking to N."

"OH!" I said, surprised. "It was... my pleasure!"

And she said, "well that's really good. Thank you."

It totally made my day, that Sister Christine sort of validated me.

And then, as I was going towards the door and saying bye and have a nice week to the regulars, a woman I'd not seen before yesterday made eye contact. She looked a bit rough; between the way she looked and a half conversation I overheard, I suspected she was struggling with addiction. Anyways, she said thank you too! Just for being there, not for serving her anything in particular, but for just contributing.

And that made my day even more.

When I got home, suddenly much, much more optimistic, I worked on my photos during Swee'pea's nap. I'd been putting off working on this particular shot, because I wanted to process it well, and I thought it had potential to be pretty exciting. It's my favourite I think. What do you think?



And it's available at Imagekind (you can click through directly from the image), which just happens to have free ground shipping in the US until June 16. Just make sure to enter the promo code, DAD2008, when you check out.

comings and goings

People come and people go at the Drop In Centre. There seems to be a core population of regulars, but others come and go. Whenever I meet someone new to me who intrigues me, I always worry they'll stop coming before I have a chance to learn more.

Several weeks ago now, I met one of those intriguing people. He was at the shelter, and when he asked for a coffee, he was a holding a paperback: Michael Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost. I mentioned that In the Skin of a Lion was one of my top 5 favourite books of all time. He said he reads a lot of Booker Prize winners but he doesn't know if that's good or bad... sometimes they can be - he searched for the right word - "a bit head up their ass?" I supplied. That caught him by surprise and he laughed. "Well that's one way of putting it," he chuckled. I haven't read a Booker Prize winner since university.

He has a posh British accent and every time I see him he's very clean shaven. He wears white button-down shirts, the kind that the bureaucrats I work with during the week wear. He looks like he could be working there right now. He doesn't have the rough look of an addict or the medicated look of someone mentally ill. One can't help but notice a certain similarity among the people who come to the Drop In Centre. In particular, men staying at the shelter have a weathered and guarded look, a metaphoric hunching of their soul's shoulders and collars against the elements; their skin is necessarily and obviously tough. But not this man. His cheeks are smooth and have a healthy pink look about them, free of ruptured capillaries or grooves of exposure. At one point, I suspect his life must have been pretty easy, and yet he has none of the arrogance of one who feels s/he doesn't belong here.

I'm dying to know what made him end up in a shelter. I keep thinking I'll ask him, because he has a sweetness and humility about him that make me think he wouldn't mind answering, but then he doesn't come until we're just serving lunch and it's too busy to chat. So we can only exchange a quick "what are you reading this week?" (He seemed quite taken aback at the week I was reading a book of essays by 30 Canadian mothers. "Oh. ... Are you preparing for uh...?" he gestured at my belly. He was surprised to learn I'm already a mother... it made me wonder if perhaps we'd been flirting. Even though he's quite a bit older, maybe I'm a bit attracted to him, in a harmless I'm married but not dead kind of way.) The last time I saw him I said I wouldn't be here the following week but I would be the next and I'd try to dig out my copy of In the Skin of a Lion. "Ok," he said. "I'll be... here," shrugging kind of helplessly. Like where else could he go? Even though I suspect he'll be relatively quick to find himself a place and get on welfare and start the rest of rebuilding, it was like he couldn't see that at all.

But this week he wasn't there. I was all set to ask him if I could photograph him. I wasn't going to chicken out. But he wasn't there so I couldn't ask. I'm hoping he's just enjoying the gorgeous weather today and I'll see him next week.

I do, however, have my first subject. And he's turning out to be a great first subject. He's challenging me to think and direct when what I really just want to do is just catch. He's making me decide what locations will help make whatever point I want to make (what point DO I want to make?? I DO want to make a point, but I want it to come out organically rather than me contriving to make it) rather than telling me where he'd like to be photographed. I still haven't taken my camera out, but I'm looking forward to more conversations with him and hopefully others.

***

Two men approach the counter together. They both want coffee. One pays his quarter, the other says he's at the shelter. His friend pipes up that people at the shelter get free coffee. I already know this. The man at the shelter says to the man who paid, "You haven't haven't lost your pride... you don't know how good it is to pay for your own coffee."

***

A boy says he's diabetic and has to watch his sugar. He lives on the streets and when I ask how he manages his diabetes on the streets, it comes out that he doesn't really. He lost his health card and moved before a new one reached him. They won't see him at the clinic. He hitchhiked down here from Thunder Bay when he heard that a girl he dated all through high school had cancer and maybe wouldn't be released from the hospital. I suspect he's feeding me a line, but it doesn't matter. We give him some buns with peanut butter so he doesn't have to eat the fresh donuts that came. He starts selling cell phones out of his bag and it seems like suddenly the place is all atinkle with ring tones.

***

Another man asks me and another volunteer what people like us are doing at the Drop In Centre. Why aren't we in our 8000-square foot houses, fully furnished? At first I take him at face value, then I realize he's kind of mocking us. Even though I've never seen that man engage in a coherent conversation and I know he's kind of nuts, I feel like he's onto me, that he knows I'm a fraud, some kind of pompous do-gooder with a silver spoon in her mouth who uses people for playthings; who once a week sinks down from her $5-pineapple plenty to play in the slums before her Sunday brunch slot. In that moment, I don't have a decent answer to his question.

"This is the place for derelicts and murderers and rapists and..." he goes on and on at some length detailing the worst of humanity. "Everybody here hates Jesus Christ," he ends. I have nothing to say to this because I don't think that's true. I've seen quite a few crosses around necks here.

Later, over brunch, when I tell Sugar D about this man's mild outburst and doubt my motives, he reminds me that I do know why I'm there, because I get to meet people, interesting people, and get out of the house. I suppose that's as good a reason as any, probably the reason most of the people come there. I go because the counter is just a counter, not some line between the do-gooders and the done-good-unto, the rich and the poor. It's just a counter that anyone can choose which side they want to stand on today, whether they want to serve or be served on any given day.

cover photo

Tonight at the grocery store, I happened to glance at the newspapers as I was leaving. The headline of the G-town Mercury read, "Rags to Riches," and I had a cynical moment of yeah whatever, thinking of the people at the drop-in centre. A familiar name floated in through my cynicism... I looked closer at the paper and stopped dead. Not only a familiar face, but a familiar photo. My photo! On the front page!

There was no photo credit; it said only "submitted photo." The reproduction was lousy, and I wondered why, figuring it had been stolen off flickr. I reread the headline, and realized that it had been submitted by the man himself. It feels right that I didn't get credit. It feels good that he liked the picture enough to share it with the paper, and it seems right that he doesn't know my name.

The story is about this man, the man that I didn't see for ages and ages and I worried he was dead, but finally saw at the drop-in centre a few months ago. The one I gave prints to just a couple of months ago.



This is one of the photos that I gave him, the one on the front page. Go read his story and come back. It's pretty cool.



You back? Good. I just want to point out a whole bunch of details and weird coincidences.

I shot the picture a year ago, almost exactly. I saw him a day or two after that, and then not again for a long time. I worried he was dead. Then finally I saw him at the drop-in centre in February. I figured he must have been hooked up with the drop-in centre all along. I remember thinking it was a bit strange that he panhandled when he was hooked up with the centre and Sister Christine paid for his coffees, but whatever. To each his own. I never really believed that he was actually homeless, but the article says he slept on the street for a whole decade.

Did you look at all three photos? The one with the cop who helped him? Well, that was the same cop who brought our family member to our house when she was evicted, the night before my first shift at the drop-in centre. I remember being mildly surprised with the kindness and respect of both cops, but scolded myself for succumbing to old stereotypes.

So to recap: I never go to the grocery store during the week and I never read the Mercury, so it was a fluke to even see my picture on the paper. It was a fluke that I had the courage to ask for his photo on that day, just days before the cop started helping him. It was kind of a fluke that I saw Rick at the drop-in centre, because he never comes on Sundays and I don't usually work Saturdays. It was a fluke that I gave him the prints less than two months before this story got printed. It was a fluke that our family member got evicted the night before I started volunteering at the drop-in centre. It was no fluke that the drop-in centre helped find her permanent housing because that's what they do. And of course, it's probably not really a fluke that the same cop who removed our family member helped this other person.

The world is a strange place, don't you think?

benediction

It’s a gorgeous morning when I walk to the drop-in centre. The streets are nearly empty, I guess because it’s still fairly early and Sunday, except for a sporty red car with Tragically Hip blaring out its open windows. Happy Hour… Happy Hour… Happy Hour is here…

***

The police come. Apparently they show up once in a while looking for someone. One officer comes in the front door and the other goes round through the back. I wonder if there will be a violent take-down, if guns will be pulled. They meet near the washrooms, and one officer goes into the men’s while the other goes back around the computers. I remember that a man I hadn’t seen before went into the bathroom, quite a while ago now, but he must have come out without me noticing. I only noticed him because earlier I found him and the woman he came in with a bit scary, especially when the woman rebuked him: if you do that they’ll be even more suspicious. Don’t do that! After a minute, the bathroom officer comes out and stands sentry next to it.

Sister Christine speaks to the policeman and the word indisposed, carefully enunciated, floats over to my ears. Guess that guy hadn’t come out after all. After a while, the man comes out of the bathroom, and the cops escort him calmly and uneventfully from the building.

***

Someone donated five boxes of candy canes, and Sister Christine asks me to put a couple out for people to help themselves to. Immediately, a man comes to the counter. He doesn’t look very old, maybe 35ish, and his blue toque matches his round blue eyes. He has reddish gold curls sticking out from underneath his toque, and stubble the same colour covers his jowls. “Are these for just anyone?” He is incredulous.

“Yep.”

“Oh great.” He speaks slowly. “I’m going to take some for my room at the shelter, for when I can’t smoke, it will really help.”

“Oh, good idea.” I’ve smoked before. I know how much nic fits suck.

“I’m James,” he says, holding out his hand. I notice he has a silver ring on one of his fingers, and his hands are nice, big-knuckled yet smooth and hairless.

I shake his hand, “I’m Kate.”

****

Later, people line up for lunch before it’s ready. I start to go down the line, finding out who’s paying or using an account. It doesn’t really matter if people have money or not, but we like to have some idea of how many meals we serve. And some people like to pay for their meals.

I can’t remember the name of a man who got a coffee from me a little earlier, but I know he has a card. He’s wearing black skinny jeans and a short black blazer that ends at his waist, nipped in. His long brown hair is in a pony tail, and I tried not to notice the tremor in his hands. But it was obvious. As I reflected on the possible causes of his tremor, I noticed my own hand shaking. I worry it’s carpal tunnel, but I remember the days when it was really bad hangover.

“I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.” The long-haired man in black reminds me, and as I search for his card, he asks me how long it took me to grow out my hair. I find this a strange question and figure I must have misheard, but no. He asks again, and I heard right. It takes me a long time to think back. I cut it to shoulder-length right before Swee’pea was born, so it’s been about two years. It’s suddenly crazy long now.

“Wow. That’s a lot of growth in such a short time.” I feel bad for thinking about cutting it off last week.

James reminds me that he’s at the shelter, so he’s not expected to pay. “But,” he says, “I may not eat right now. I might eat in a little while. I’m on methadone, and I just took it, and sometimes it” – he rubs his belly with a pained expression and I can’t hear his exact words as they peter out, but I get the gist. Methadone can upset your stomach. I get the impression that if he didn’t time it right, he might even lose his lunch entirely. You learn something new every day.
We serve more people than I think I’ve ever served before.

****

Later still James comes up for a coffee. “Hi James.”

He looks a bit confused. “Pardon?”

Shit. Maybe I got his name wrong. “It’s James, right?”

“Oh.” He relaxes. “Yeah.”

“Did you get something to eat?”

“Oh yes, thanks… What’s your name again?”

“Kate.”

***

Earlier, Sister Christine asked me to come with her to get kidney beans from the storeroom. We walked through the centre, passing tables and computer terminals, and she said good morning to everyone, asking one man if he was feeling better today (yes). As we passed the people on computers, she touched each person’s head as she said good morning, her hand resting longer than strictly necessary, and I imagined grace and love flowing through her fingertips into their hair follicles and spreading across their being. It looked like a benediction. I suppose maybe it was.

porcelain altars, crazy, and Cuba

Ugh. I threw up Friday afternoon... luckily (in a way) I'd been so nauseous at work that I came home around noon, and felt awful in my own bed for a coupla hours before actually doing the technicolour yawn. When I left work, I worried I was just being fooled by a panic attack, that I was somehow regressing to the anxiety of a few years ago, so it was (almost) vindicating to spend hours and hours and hours shaking with cold, and feeling exhausted and nauseous, complete with a prayer to the porcelain goddess. I wasn't panicked, I was actually ill! Very, very ill!

Anyways, I spent yesterday horizontal and feeling weak, and today I'm upright. I've even left the house, although I cancelled my shift at the drop-in centre this morning. Somehow I thought my commitment and its attendant possibility of contagion would not be appreciated, especially considering the whole food handling aspect.

I hope to hell we've now paid our illness dues for the winter. I've had three different bugs in the last month, two of them awful, and Swee'pea and Sugar D have suffered nearly as much.

I'm even feeling strong enough to enjoy some good news. We booked a trip to Cuba! In three weeks! (Yay tax return!)

And even more significantly, our family member who has been of no fixed address for the last two and a half months, moved into her very own one-bedroom, subsidized apartment. This is truly amazing, especially considering the fact that any time I raised the subject of exploring a subsidized apartment (and I'd done it more and more over the last several months), she shut the subject down immediately, coldly, in no uncertain terms.

Mostly, we have the case worker we've been working with for the last year to thank for this. She'd not been able to meet with our family member until a month or two ago, because we figured our family member would be hostile and slam the door in her face. But because our family member was being sheltered in a motel on the Drop-In Centre's dime (yes, the very same drop-in centre that I started volunteering at the same weekend our family member lost her most recent housing), she was able to make contact and develop a rapport. It was the case worker who not only found an available and appropriate (not to mention idyllic!) unit, but who convinced our family member to consider it, and who negotiated terms that were acceptable to our family member. I want to kiss the case worker, or send her flowers or chocolate or donate somewhere in her name, if she can't accept gifts.

I'm also grateful for the contact we made with the drop-in centre. Until I started volunteering there, I had no idean of the range of services they provided. They really helped take the pressure off us during this difficult time, and even provided food vouchers and once a food delivery when our family member hung up on us after telling us she had no food.

The other key factor, I think, is that our family member slipped on the ice several weeks ago and sprained her ankle, which meant she wasn't able to look on her own for her usual kind of housing (a room in a house shared with the landlord -- the kind that has no security and never lasts because the landlords are driven crazy by her crazy-making behaviour). Now, our family member doesn't have to share space with anyone, and has a full apartment with big windows that is walking distance to the places she needs and wants to be walking distance to. I hate to jinx it, but there's a lot more chance of long-term success than there has been anywhere else she's lived in the last five to ten years. Not only that, but she's met the case worker, and trusts her, so hopefully over time that relationship can lead to more help, now that the immediate housing need has been taken care of.

Dealing with our family member is hard, and sometimes makes me feel like "Why me?!?" but it's also taught me more thoroughly than anything else could have that we cannot take our mental health for granted. We all have the potential for mental illness, if we have enough bad shit thrown at us, if our capacity for coping is overwhelmed by just too much to cope with.

more blathering

I just finished watching The Motorcycle Diaries. Something about the time when Che was at the leper colony where the Amazon segregated the ill from the healthy, something about the nuns there, made me think about the drop-in centre. It seems I'm only capable of blogging about three things days: photography, woe is me, and the drop-in centre, and I suspect I've been losing readers. My apologies.

My brother was really into revolution theology; he even considered converting to Catholicism, but didn't for some reason. He went to Chiapas, Mexico, probably 10 years ago now, and did research for a series of paintings of people who had been murdered in the struggle for freedom. He called it Portraits of the Disappeared. One of the most beautiful pieces was of Bishop Romero, who was murdered while he gave mass. After my brother came back to Canada and painted the actual paintings, he returned to Mexico to give some of them to the families of the deceased. My sister lived in Havana, Cuba for three years, and Santiago, Chile for a year or two. Her PhD and subsequent career is mostly focused on Latin America. And yet I know very little about Che Guevara, apart from his face of course, which I know from all the t-shirts.

* * *

I've never known a real-life nun before, and the thing that most surprises me about Sister Christine is her humanity. I expected a nun to have some otherworldly grace and serenity about her, to have a peaceful face that indicated a rich inner life. But Sister Christine isn't like that. She is down to earth. She bosses us around and she is stern when she needs to be. People are constantly wanting a word with her, and she gives everyone the time they need, including me. I don't know much about Christ or Catholicism, but it seems to me that Sister Christine really is doing Christ's work, the way he intended when he said things like love your neighbour and, even, love your enemy.

* * *

A couple of weeks ago, one of the long-time volunteers mentioned that she just didn't like one of the clients, a woman. She said she likes people, but she just doesn't like that woman. At first I was shocked, but then I was ashamed to realize that there was more respect in her dislike than there was in my naive sympathy.

* * *

I chatted with a young girl in college about why we're volunteering. She has to do community service as part of her program, and I told her about how I liked it so much I immediately upped my commitment from two hours a month to two hours a week. She responded with something about every little bit helps, but it fell flat with me. We're serving coffee; we're not saving the world. This isn't like recycling or using fluorescent bulbs or not driving as much where every little bit really does help. The people who keep coming back to volunteer at the drop-in centre do it because they like it, they like meeting the people the meet, they like the structure or how it feels, it keeps them sober or healthy in some other way. Whatever. It's not because every little bit helps, and anyone who thinks they're being altruistic is fooling themselves.

* * *

My eyes are certainly opening. Last weekend, one of the clients looked so rough, all bleary and blood-shot eyes under his brimmed hat; I remember feeling that way sometimes when I was in school. A kid I hadn't seen before kept his hood up the whole time and sucked back at least six cups of coffee within at most two hours. It didn't seem to help him, but one of the volunteers reckoned the coffee consumption was related to addictions of one kind or another. Another couple of kids never have any money, and I remember how much I didn't like spending money on food. I always wanted to save it for booze. One volunteer was doing a sales pitch on the gravy last weekend, which was mushroom based, with imported mushrooms no less. The kid said something to me about mushrooms from Mexico being really good. Really? I said, thinking I'll have to keep my eye open for them at the grocery store. They laughed a lot and I finally caught on that he wasn't talking about the gravy.

I wonder if I would have gone to the drop-in centre if I had known about it when I was drinking heavily at school? I probably would have. I'm not judging these folks, because addicts and alcoholics need to eat, and if they're so addicted they can't pay for it, I'm really glad they have somewhere to go for food and friendliness.

* * *

I really enjoyed the Motorcycle Diaries, although it took me several nights to get through it. It's a slow, important kind of movie. (It didn't hurt that the actor who plays Che is very, very hot.)

* * *

A month or more ago, I had to switch my Sunday morning shift to Saturday afternoon. And I saw the guy I shot last May, the one I'd been slightly concerned about since I hadn't seen him panhandling since. I struck up a conversation with him, reminding him that I'd taken his picture, and he said yes he thought he remembered that. I said I could give him some prints if he wanted, the following weekend, and he said that would be great. I asked his name, and he told me, and I introduced myself. So I had the prints made (I guiltily only included the shots that he knew I took, not the ones that I took before I asked his permission), and put them in my coat pocket and nervously went the next Sunday. But he wasn't there. And not the next Sunday or the one after that or the one after THAT. I asked a long-time volunteer about him, and how he'd said that Sister Christine pays for anything he wants, and how yes, sometimes she does that for certain people (like her sister). Anyways, it also came out that he doesn't often come on Sundays, but he's alwasy there on Saturdays.

So last Saturday I stopped in after the Farmer's Market and sure enough, he was there, at his usual table. I gave him the pictures and as he looked at them, his face crinkled into an even bigger smile than when he smiled for my camera, and he chuckled a few times. As he passed them around the table, I asked, nervous that he wouldn't like my processing or the way he looked, "Do you like them?" And he said yes. Thank you.

Sometimes at the drop-in centre, I've noticed that thank you can be uttered with a special, slow signifcance, often with a moment of penetrating eye contact that causes everything to slow down. They are moments that make me think the thank you is about something entirely different from the thing they're thanking me for. It happened for the second time last Saturday, just for a second, then things sped up again and I walked out, saying see you tomorrow to a few people.

where have I been?

The intense relief I felt upon hearing we didn't that lovely house kicked off a frenzy of spending ideas. It was like we'd just gotten a raise or a windfall not having to pay for that house. We could go to Cuba! I could get a new lens! I could go to BlogHer! Maybe I could go on some photography workshop! I've looked into most of those options but so far haven't done any. Now, the frenzy has given way to mild sadness. Every time I'm in the vicinity of that house, or near somewhere where I thought about that house, I feel sad. Sad that the two weeks of moving in our belongings and family will never be. It's ok, really, I know it was never meant to be and there is probably something better (and less expensive) around the corner.

After my initial disappointment at having gained 10 pounds in the last few months and not in fact having shrunk all my pants as I'd originally thought, I've been going to the gym with respectable frequency. I thought the weight would fall off with the increased activity and decreased wine and cookie consumption but sadly no. At least I'm not gaining weight, but still. I think the next move will be to buy new dishes. I strongly suspect that there is a downside to "generously proportioned" dinnerware as nice as the pumpkin colour is.

I've also been thinking a lot about photography. Someone's starting up SoFoBoMo, sort of like NaNoWriMo. If you sign up, the goal is to create a solo photo book with 35 photos, all laid out preferably in a pdf. You have 30 days to make the photos, process them, and lay them out with any text. I haven't signed up, but I've been thinking about it for the last month at least. I'm not sure if I want to sign up, but I think I may try to play along informally, so that if I don't follow through I have no one to answer to buy myself.

I've also been exploring blurb and their bookmaking software to see what it's like. It's really easy and you can even import your blog to lay it out for a book, but you don't end up with a pdf. You end up with a file format that can only be produced by blurb, which I suppose makes sense since the software is free but still.

Anyways, last weekend I asked Sister Christine's permission to approach people at the Drop In Centre about sitting for me, and she agreed, if somewhat unenthusiastically. I think she was concerned that I would just go shooting everyone without their permission, and "some people are funny about pictures." I didn't do a great job of reassuring her because I was nervous, but I know inside myself that I will make sure not just to get people's consent but to make sure they understand this is for an art project. So we'll see where that goes...

Sugar D's been working hot and heavily on my own gallery site, which will also have a blog focused mostly on photography. I've been surfing the web checking out other photographers and looking for workshops and thinking about possible projects. Sometimes it feels really good to be working on something bigger than myself and my family, but other times it's scary as hell. Sometimes I get scared that my newfound ambition is interfering with my parenting. I remain haunted by Her Bad Mother's passing comment somewhere else that some famous author's kids talked about always wanting to be inside the room their mother was in, always feeling, literally and figuratively, shut out. Anyways, I'm trying not to get paralyzed by thinking. The important thing, and I have to keep consciously reminding myself, is to keep seeing and looking and squeezing the shutter.

My wrists are tingling. I've been typing like mad at work this week and my wrists are really feeling it, so I'll sign off now.

backwards in time

Deep down, I knew it had to happen, because I'd seen the reference to diapers and formula on the services description when I called to volunteer, but I'd hoped it was such a rare occurrence that I just wouldn't see it. I saw it today.

A boy, early twenties, came in with a baby this morning. At first I thought the baby was no more than three months old because of a faint head wobble visible under the fleece. But I think the baby was a couple of months older than that, just sleeping. He sat for a few minutes at a table, his back to me and the counter. I watched him sit with his head resting on the baby's head in that universal gesture, his fingers absently stroking the fine hair.

I imagine he just inhabited that moment, as I have so many times, every part of my being centred in the feel of my hand and face on this precious head, all soft and vulnerable. More likely, though, given where he was, he didn't have the luxury of just enjoying his child for a moment in between obligations and feedings and cries, more likely his head was full of all the circumstances that brought him here, in need of how much I have no idea. I'm guessing diapers and formula to start. I hope he has a home and I hope the baby has some relationship with the mother; I hope they're just having a stroke of temporary bad luck, a dry patch between paycheques.

I can't help but think, though, that that poor child, of whom I saw only a wisp of hair and a Michelin man outline of fleece, hasn't got a chance of seeing anything more than the insides of drop-in centres. I left the centre a bit early, my heart like lead in my belly and my eyes like sprinklers seconds before the spray.

* * *

A lit bit earlier, a woman I'd never seen before came up to the counter, after the first rush of lunch but close enough for me to offer her a meal. Her hair was bleached blonde and in a ponytail, and she had a thin line of black eyeliner on her lower eyelids. I noticed because not many women wear make-up here and because in high school I'd always wanted to get that thin line of eyeliner but never mastered it.

No, just a coffee, she said, I ate yesterday. I laugh, thinking it's just a figure of speech. But no. After a pause she says, wait a minute. Maybe I didn't eat yesterday. I was too stoned. She laughs and elbows someone standing next to her. I was too high to know if I ate yesterday. She drinks her coffee at a table and leaves without eating.

* * *

Earlier still, another woman I'd never seen before came to the counter. Her gray hair was shorn in a buzz cut, and she had a few very long rogue hairs on her chin. When I asked if she had a card and she started fingering through her change (we aren't supposed to give free coffee), her tongue kept unfurling from her mouth, mostly unconsciously I think. She spoke as if her tongue was too big for her mouth or like she had a hearing impairment, maybe both. I felt awkward serving her, I'm ashamed to admit, unsure what kind of behaviour to expect of her or how much she understood of me. I felt a little better when another volunteer called her by name, L, because they don't usually do that with the more unpredictable folks.

Some time later, L. was loitering by the counter, clearly wanting to be part of the conversation. A third volunteer, V, a woman who pretty much runs the place on weekends, starts talking to her. I hang about too, curious. Suddenly L. grabs V's hands and presses them gently to her cheek, her eyes closed for a moment in the bliss of physical affection. I love you, L. says. I love you too, says V. This is my sister, V tells me. After a few minutes, L tells me that she doesn't need to pay for coffee, and V. confirms. Sister Christine takes care of all her needs, coffee, hot chocolate, a meal, whatever. She doesn't need to pay. I took a moment to digest this crumb, then remembered that I had asked her for money and she'd paid. I told V. that I took a quarter from her and we gave it back. I didn't want to give her a hard time, L explains to V. She gave the newbie a break.

* * *

The tall bearded man who always has a joke told me a good joke today. His hands are red and swollen and look slightly frostbitten. I think it's because he washes his hands a lot but he never dries them, just lets them drip. His jokes aren't always funny, but they're usually off-colour and often sexist, not that I really mind. Today he asked me, What's the difference between an in-law and an outlaw?


An outlaw is wanted.

* * *
I'm becoming known, slowly. One man called me peaches and another introduced me as his sugar girl. I'm pleased to be included in the silliness.

* * *

Yesterday I did as Den asked and went out with my camera around 8 in the morning. And I'm glad I did. It was cold and snowing when I left so I had to put my camera inside my coat. Thanks, Den... these are for you:

I felt haunted by the person who wrote, "I lost my virginity here." I imagined some cocky and apathetic girl like I once was, feeling the need to mark her territory and commemorate the spot (isn't that really just blogging without the technology?). But there is only the merest scrap of comfort being out of the icy wind in this place that is all right angles and hard concrete. I started to think about the kids who come into the drop-in centre, and I started to question the nature of consent; if maybe in some cases it can look like consent and feel like consent, but perhaps it's not really? (This morning's baby and the drug addict seem to illustrate this question perfectly.) It is only when I got home that I realized maybe it wasn't even a girl who wrote it, maybe it was a guy and there was no girl around. Or, maybe, there wasn't even a virgin, maybe it was all a facade.


Something about the new snow collected in the corners of these steps just made me so sad, with everyone's need to record calling out from the concrete, I was here once, to mark out some permanence, even if it's just in a urine-soaked tunnel outside the bus station and under the tracks.

addictions

I can see how volunteering at the drop-in centre can be addictive. I'm fascinated by the people, the other volunteers as much as the people being served. I go for purely selfish reasons, but I'm ok with that because other people benefit and it's not hurting anyone. It just feels good. Why didn't I do this sooner?

A girl in high school tells me that she just finished her community service hours but she loves it here so much she still comes about twice a week. I wish they'd had that requirement for community service when I was in high school. This is really my first volunteer experience. It's shaming. There are also two university students, which surprises me. When I was in university I was far too busy drinking, playing pool, talking out my ass, and occasionally going to classes to even consider volunteering somewhere. But they're science students, and in my experience the science students were much better behaved.

The man who puts ham and potatoes on the plates and passes them to me for creamed corn was here last weekend. He volunteers every Saturday and Sunday, all day, works four days in Hamilton for pay and spends another day walking dogs for the humane society. Wow. Keeps him sober, he says. Six years he's been clean, but that doesn't mean he doesn't still want it. He says he'll never give up getting laid, though, which shocks me. It's never occurred to me to give up getting laid, but I suppose it's different being married.

The man who washes dishes, he was here last weekend too. The box of slightly bruised apples that's been donated also has mushrooms thrown in. We talk about mushrooms for a bit, and when I offer up the tidbit that mushrooms are made almost entirely of protein, he says well, they have very little nutritional value but what there is is all protein. He studied nutrition in university but he made one big mistake: not getting a job in his field 20 years ago. Privately, I don't know how that can be a mistake when it's so difficult and often beyond a person's control. He looks 30 but he's 42.

Sister Christine runs the place and all the shelters in the city. She helped our family member this week too. She is old and small, but you could never describe her as a little old lady, or if you did, you'd realize your mistake soon enough. She has a presence much larger than her body, and she's always directing someone or other, or listening to someone in need. She eats standing up. I don't know why I find it remarkable that she wears crocs but I do. Today I notice her ring, and I remember that she is a Bride of Christ. I wonder what metal her ring is made of -- it hasn't yellowed like my white gold band has. I wonder if I will ever be able to get her to sit down long enough to make a portrait?

A man comes up to order a coffee, no sugar, sugar makes you crazy. He's wearing a tweed sort of English golf hat, and has eyebrows like my dad's right before he gets them trimmed. One of his eyes squints a bit and immediately I mark him as a future photographic subject, if I should be so lucky (I know, I feel like some kind of predator stalking my prey, but on the other hand I'm just interested in getting to know people, with or without my camera. And I have paused to consider the ethics of blogging about these folks like some scavenger feeding on the fragments available to me, but I can't resist sharing with you, even at the risk of appropriation). He talks about his theory of madness caused by sugar in a good-humoured way, then comments that we look like new volunteers. He comes in closer to me and lowers his voice, "This place is amazing. You will meet people here... well some of them you'll wish you'd never met, but some people here are so wonderful, in what they do, and just who they are." And I know he's not only talking about people like Sister Christine. I like him already. I hear someone call him John later and I hope I get the chance to use his name.

Not that it's all sweetness and light of course. First thing this morning a women comes to the counter asking for a little bag that one of the workers put away for her. None of us know of any such thing. She has acid green eye shadow up to her eyebrows and bright red lips, and a slightly mad look in her eye. She's not happy to be told she needs to wait until someone else comes in. Later, I'm near the phone when she asks to use it. Right away. When she asks the more experienced volunteer she tells her to wait a moment while someone takes the enormous pot of boiling potatoes across the kitchen to drain and mash. I see she has very long dreadlocks, almost down to her bum, and a faint whiff of urine hangs around her. Must be the dreads I think. Some of her teeth are brown, which I notice when she grumps at me for having to wait for the phone. I mean, it's an emergency! After she finishes on the phone, I hear Sister Christine talking about schizophrenia and people starving to death if she didn't feed them, and how that would look very bad on the drop-in centre.

I notice how the more experienced volunteers deal with particular individuals, reminding them to only take one piece of cake because there's no other dessert for lunch, or only enough creamer for the cup of coffee they've just been served. I find it fascinating that they can be so direct and effective yet so respectful. We can't leave even a few quarters out in the open, and my coat gets locked up. Good fences make good neighbours and all that I guess.

I'm still awkward because I'm learning the ropes. I don't know the routines or where things are. But that just makes me want to come more, to overcome that awkwardness. So I tell the staff person who comes just before I leave that I would like to come every Sunday morning, give or take. My two hours a month commitment has grown to two hours a week, just like that.

* * *

Today's the last day to vote for me at the CBAs... if you've already voted, thanks! Now I'll just cross my fingers and hope for the best... and now I'll stop badgering you. Thanks for your tolerance.

tenous

**Now with more pimping! See below...**

I didn't expect the first person I served coffee to at the drop-in centre to be someone I already knew. My brain stalled, I figured he must be a volunteer, but a story someone told me recently involving a hairdresser and bipolar disorder niggled at my mind.

"Do you remember me?" he asks.

Yes, I do. He was the hairdresser on campus who did all kinds of wacky things to my friends' hair, and less wacky colours to mine. He was married with kids, and fun and charming. My one friend's hair changed every six weeks, each new style and colour more outrageous than the last. He asks what I've been up to in the last many years and I tell him. He notices my wedding ring and I tell him about my son. He is thrilled.

The question hangs between us, unspoken. What about you? Why are you here?

So he tells me. He had to have chemo for his liver and he had to stop working. He got sick, bipolar, and lost everything. Now he's fighting for his boy in court. All stated matter-of-factly, until he reached the part about his son.

"Oh, T. I'm so sorry."

He shrugs, a little uncomfortable with my sympathy? "Tough things happen. But yeah, chemo ruined my life." I am stunned as he walks away, reeling from the tenuousness of the threads that hold us to the dearest parts of our lives, how quickly it can all fall away. I suppose this is why I volunteered, but the sorrow pulls me down. I suppose nearly everyone here has a similar story. And yet there are jokes and silliness.

T and I talk a bit more here and there through the morning. I help serve ham, mashed potatoes, a mixture of canned peas and corn, salad, buns, and random goodies for dessert, whatever was donated. The people are nice, and funny, and I enjoy being part of it. And I couldn't help but scope out a few possible models.

I committed to only two hours a month, but I think I want to do more. I had worried that with things going on in our family, it would be too much of the same. But it's not the same. The people I served today are friendly and pretty appreciative of being served a hot meal in a safe place for less than a dollar, or, if they don't have any money, free.

But seeing T and how much he's lost knocked the wind out of me. I'm still catching my breath.

Edited to add: Voting is open for the Canadian Blog Awards, and I've been nominated for Best Photo/Art Blog. Please go vote for me. Apparently, voting goes in rounds, and you only get one vote per category per round. Voting for Round 1 ends January 21, 2008, so please go vote for me now (Write About Here, in case you forgot where you were.)