A Poetry Break

Yup, before I answer the rest of the questions, it's time for a little poem from one of my favorite books listed below, a man named Robert Service. From his obituary...

He was not a poet's poet. Fancy-Dan dilettantes will dispute the description "great." He was a people's poet. To the people he was great. They understood him, and knew that any verse carrying the by-line of Robert W. Service would be a lilting thing, clear, clean and power-packed, beating out a story with a dramatic intensity that made the nerves tingle.

He has a ton of greats, although I think you either love him or hate him. I think as well (I could be wrong) but, I'm pretty sure - they all rhyme. In a world where it is mostly "too mainstream" and horrifying to rhyme, he's certainly not mainstream at all. He wrote a lot in the gold rush towns of the Yukon and reading him brings to my mind a rough and tumble tavern from years ago where the piano player belts out a tune and all the drunken gold-diggers sing-along, boots stomping the floorboards, glasses held high in the air and tarts on their laps. One of my favorites...

The Quitter
When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child,
   And death looks you bang in the eye,
And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle
   To cock your revolver and ... die.
But the code of Man says: "Fight all you can."
   And self-dissolution is barred.
In hunger and woe, oh, it's easy to blow...
   It's the hell-served-for-breakfast that's hard.

"You're sick of the game!" Well, now, that's a shame.
   You're young and you're brave and you're bright.
"You've had a raw deal!" I know - but don't squeal,
   Buck up, do your damnedest and fight.
It's the plugging away that will win you the day,
   So don't be a piker, old pard!
Just draw on your grit; it's so easy to quit:
   It's the keeping-your-chin-up that's hard.

It's easy to cry that you're beaten - and die;
   It's easy to crawfish and crawl;
But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight -
   Why that's the best game of them all!
And though you come out of each gruelling bout,
   All broken and beaten and scarred,
Just have one more try - it's dead easy to die,
   It's the keeping-on-living that's hard.

Robert Service

A Jen Moment

You may disparage me for this, but I'm not a huge Jennifer Garner fan. The only Alias I ever watched was the one with the funky red wig way back in the beginning. I didn't mind her in that movie with ol' Benny, the one where he's the blind superhero (see, it made *that* much of an impression), but I haven't seen anything else she's been in. Or if I have, it's made even less of an impression than that other one on me.

Although, the last thing I need is to watch a 'romantic comedy', especially one where the boy is named MATT - I gotta tell you, the "Thriller" dance sequence in 13 Going on 30 is absolutely priceless.

Maybe you had to have been in your early teens for the Thriller craze (I actually went to see the Jackson Five tour when I was 13) but as cheesy as this is going to sound - it lifted my heart.

Interview Questions #5

If you could teleport to any time period (past or future), when would it be, and why?

This question and the "what historical figure or person, past or present would you want to have lunch with" question always leave me at a loss. I have no desire to know why someone did something - I find that the reason you had at the time becomes something else when you actually look at it later - or what they thought about anything. People do things and sometimes there's no reason and even if there were, why would I care? I admire people, sure, but I don't think they could tell me anything I don't have to learn myself anyways. This may sound hopelessly narcissistic but all I care about is me. And there isn't anyone out there who could answer any question I would ask - because they'd all be about me.

For the time period thing, the first reaction is to think in terms of "people-time", at least for me. So, Elizabethan times - when they never bathed and carried pomade to cover up everyone's smell? ack, no thanks. Medieval times, when they killed everyone all the time for no bloody reason (hey, I read "Timeline")? Nah. I'd never go near the witch-hunting era - I'd be toast for sure. "The Clan of the Cave Bear" made neanderthals sound kind of romantic but that'd be a NO. I can't even say I'd go back to a time when I didn't know Matt was leaving because I didn't appreciate / understand what I had (because I did) or I could have done it better (because I couldn't have). I wouldn't even want to go into the future. I'm perfectly, insanely, wonderfully happy with right here and right now.

If really pushed, I would return to a hundred different "Earth-thens". A time when the rainforest was whole. A time when the California redwoods weren't a tourist attraction. A time when there weren't 847 extinctions. There's a few animals I'd like to meet and a few places I'd like to experience. But no people.


What's one thing you haven't done that you absolutely must do before you die?

I can never just give a straight answer, can I? For this one, I'm going to give you the list of 20 things that I wrote last year for Matt. The one's in this color are the ones I'm aiming to accomplish in the next two years.

1. Walk the moors and then have a pint in a small pub in Ireland.


2. Buy a motorbike.


3. Succeed in actually making the astral projection thing work.


4. Build a cabin in the woods, wake up every morning to birdsong and be able to see the stars at night, every night.


5. Kayak the caves in Nelson, NZ (as well as go to Whispering Falls and Mt. Arthur)


6. Climb the Sydney Harbor Bridge.


7. Figure out what I'm good at and love to do and then do it for myself so I never have to work for anyone again. Ever.


8. Sleep in a hammock and visit the rainforest in Ecuador.
9. Swim with dolphins in the wild.


10. Quit smoking. For good.
    
11. Stand with my feet in the headwaters of the Amazon.


12. Climb a mountain in Tibet. But not a big honking one. I'd actually like to enjoy it.


13. Meet a lion.
    
14. To visit a monastery or a church to hear the monks chant. (Italian, Tibetan, I don't care).


15. Meet Jen,also.


16. Have a Stella in London with Pob, a cider with Sal, a port with Vanessa and a pint in Glasgow with PornyBoy.


17. Go to Java to circumambulate Borbodur .


18. Be kissed underneath a waterfall. Preferably a warm one.


19. Become fluent in another language (not French).


20. Spend time with a crocodile.
    
    

Aside

Gasping from my bike ride, legs wobbly, pulling on a clean shirt ... the phone rings.

It was Matt.

I just spoke to Matt for the first time since December 12.

I have no idea how that makes me feel. Me, who always knows how I feel.

Thank god I have tequila.

Interview Answers #3 - Influence

Yourself specifically excluded, who has been the single most influential person in your life? And, why?

A man named Jed. It is a story I'm not really prepared to tell, except through things that were written in the past and so that is how I'm going to answer this question. It sounds so "young" and dramatic now, to me, but, frankly I was young and dramatic. Although it was not always something I utilized and many times I refused entirely, the influence through the years has been as steady as a river flowing through the middle of my life, a river that he set free.

I met him early in 1995. I left here in December of that same year. The following was written in 1997, as an explanatory companion piece to a poem called "Talisman" written in December 1996, a small portion of which is below:

Not knowing where to go,
I come to you.
Not knowing where to turn,
I turn to you.
Not knowing what to say,
I speak to you.
Not knowing what to hold,
I bind myself to you.
Having lost my way,
I make my way to you.

Companion
Once there was a young girl who believed, deep down inside, that she could be more than she was.

But for all of her life she had been surrounded by people who believed only that she was less than she was.

When she began to grow to be someone more - those around her refused to acknowledge the changes in her and so continued to treat her as they had always believed she was.

Eventually, inevitably, she once again began to trust their judgement over her own.

One day, someone new, a man, came into her life and he just naturally treated her as if she already was more, even, to be honest, more than she could ever be.

She found that this simple belief in her actually became the truth in many ways and at any time when she felt less, all she had to do was be the person he believed she was, and almost magically, she was.

When he was no longer a part of her life she found that she still needed the support of his faith to give her the motivation to become that person, to continue to grow.

To achieve this end, she carefully encapsulated all her experiences of him and built of them a talisman in her mind to keep in a corner of her heart.

And then the young woman left the scant comfort of home behind her and began a new life in a strange city.

And when she needed the man's support or a calming island or a reminder of who she was trying to become, she would retreat into her heart and take out this talisman to give her the strength to continue on this path she had chosen.

Over the years it became less and less about the man and more and more about the essence of the great gift that he gave her. An irreplaceable gift of strength and goal. A priceless belief. A gift all the more precious for being given freely, unexpectedly and unselfishly.

A gift of life.


February 1997

Interview Answers #2 - The Rest of the Books

The 'Everything Else' Category. It's interesting actually, that I have more childhood books that come to mind - although there is quite obviously a strong commonality between all the novels that carries over to this day.

Childhood books:

The War Between the Pitiful Teachers & The Splendid Kids, Stanley Kiesel

A Wrinkle In Time, Madeleine L'Engle

The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis

James & The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl

The Bunjee Venture, Stan McMurty

The Borrowers Series, Mary Norton

---

The Collected Poems of Robert Service

The next two - I've never read the others / sequels / follow-ups and probably never will but I find that these two books serve well to remind me of many things that I need to be more mindful of for believing in myself and being true to that belief. I reread them usually once every 1 to 2 years, usually at turning points in my life. They give me courage. They encourage me.

Conversations With God, Neal Donald Walsch

The Road Less Travelled, M. Scott Peck, MD

Animals Nobody Loves, Ronald Rood. This one was written in 1971 and I've had it since I spelled my name Jennie, so at least 25 years. It's pretty beat-up these days. It's a book written by a naturalist in defense of the animals that mankind 'hates' due to the way the act or look. It's a slim book but it covers rats, wolves, bats, snakes, eels, spiders, fleas, mosquitoes, octopus (octopi?), vultures, pigs, and coyotes. It tries to make you see them from a different perspective and it's incredibly well done. This excerpt, although long, is one of my favourites:

Ordinarily, you don't expect much from a tankful of crabs. Of course, stick your finger down among them and you might be sorry; give them a dead fish and it's reduced to a skeleton. Crabs can pinch, bite, run and swim - and that's about all. Probably nobody in his right mind expects a crab to fly.

But that's what the crabs seemed to be doing in the marine aquarium. Or perhaps they were climbing up the sheer walls of the tank, over the edge and out to freedom where nobody ever saw them again. In either case, every day the caretaker would count the crotchety crustaceans and every day there would be a few less. Obviously the crabs were going somewhere? But where? And how?

Then somebody noticed that the crabs hadn't disappeared entirely. Half hidden among the scenery at the bottom of the tank were a few relics: a claw here, a leg there; plus a bodyshell or two, opened expertly as a connoisseur would open a crab - top half separated from the bottom half , and contents scooped out.

That last discovery did it. To the knowledgeable scientists there was only one creature dextrous enough for such a job. Somehow, an octopus must have been dumped into the tank with a load of crabs. Now it was hiding among the material on the bottom, quietly helping itself to a gourmet meal whenever it wished.

So the authorities set about to remove the prankster. Carefully checking each corner of the tank, they stood ready to collar the culprit when they flushed him out.

But - no octopus. Every potential hiding place, and those that weren't so potential, drew a blank. Knowing the capacity of the octopus to change color and pattern to match its surroundings, the caretakers paid special attention to the bottom debris, thinking their quarry might be hiding in plain sight. Still no octopus.

Yet all those crabs hadn't just up and died. They hadn't had an underwater war, either. There just had to be an octopus. But where?

The answer lay in a nearby tank. Nestled in its cubbyhole, gazing innocently out on the world, was the ancient nemesis of crabdom. Its body gently rising and falling as it passed water over its gills and let it out through its siphon, the octopus quietly breathed in its almost-human way and quietly looked with its almost-human eyes. Obviously nobody could ever expect such a guileless creature. Besides, how would it get from this tank to that one?

A little sleuthing on the part of its human keepers solved the mystery. The octopus waited until the aquarium had closed down for the night, and then it simply went out for supper.

Reaching up above the surface of the water where it stayed so peacefully all day, the octopus clamped a few suckers of an arm or two to the glass of its aquarium. Even as it hauled itself up, more suckers were reaching forward for a fresh grasp, and so it flowed up to the top of the glass. Then down the other side, over to the crab tank, up the glass and down again - and the delightful bonanza of an after-hours feast.

But that's the way it is with the octopus. It not only has the ability to size up the situation, but it has the capacity to do something about it. Many scientists, after watching the behaviour of this eight-armed cousin of the lowly clam, have come to the conclusion that it is about the most intelligent creature in the invertebrate world. And that's taking into account the marvelous actions of ants and bees, too.

Interview Answers #1

I'm going to do these bit by bit as they seem to be looking like the longest answers on the planet. So, here's a start and then I'm off to the couch to read a couple of my new books.

Where were you born?

Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, July 12, 1969. We left before I turned one to live in Victoria, BC and although I went back to Alberta for almost 10 years, I've never gone to Lethbridge and now that I think about it I can't say that my birthplace factors in my life at all the way it seems to with a lot of people.

What are your top five favourite books?

Jen,also is right, this one is tough, in fact, almost impossible. I think the best I can do is to tell you the books that I have RE-read over the years and that I take with me from place to place. I can pick up a book in the library, get it home and, within three pages, tell you if I've read it - before I put it down because only very rarely does something engage me or fascinate me or resonate in me so much that I can bear to read it twice. So, here we go. Three sets, the first one is novels. I'm terrible at articulating what makes them special to me - it's some kind of mental block or something - so I'm going to do that with a review that says some of what I would if I weren't so hopeless.

Shadowland by Peter Straub. I first read this in my early teens and even now, it never fails to fascinate and to make me cry at the end. One of my other favorites is Stephen King / Peter Straub's The Talisman - at their very core, they are similar and both are so very powerful and vivid.

Straub burst into fame with his previous book "Ghost Story" but this book has always been my favorite. It has stories within stories, details in one part that take on ominous meanings later in the story, and a weird meshing of magic and Grimm fairy tales. What is real and what is not is a constant question and never fully answered. It does lead to a very stunning though violent ending. It is also a coming of age book but so different from many others of that type. Truly unique which may be why it confused people at first because it fit no clear cut category. With its stunning deatil and visual images, I am amazed no one ever made this book into a movie.

Imajica, Clive Barker. Takes me breath away.

After finishing this series (reading them all in one volume can be arduous at times...but, it's worth it), I felt that aching void in my book-world... that feeling where there is no other book out there that can fulfill your fantasy cravings... no other book that can take you to the Imajica world(s). Barker's imagination is some really powerful stuff. I guess that's why I ended up reading Imajica a second time...and I'm sure I'll return to it again sometime down the road.

Everville, Clive Barker.

'Everville' could possibly be the best work Clive Barker has ever written. Although considered a sequel to 'The Great and Secret Show,' 'Everville' will stand on its own for most readers. TG&SS provides some important background material on, for example, the nature of the conflict between the inhabitants of Quiddity (the Dream Sea) and the humans here on Earth. The book overflows with Barker's imagery, and he presents vivid depictions of the Dream Sea and its otherworldly menace, the Iad Urobros. His characters are fleshed out in the extreme, and many rank with some of the most memorable in all of literature: The orphan-Maeve O'Connell, the religious skeptic-Harry D'Amour, and the unspeakably evil men vying for control of the portal to the Dream Sea above Everville, Kissoon and Tommy-Ray.

In A Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson. It's not often a book makes me laugh out loud - this one did countless times. It's a 'travel book' about Australia that no other could possibly live up to. Brilliant.

Bill Bryson follows his Appalachian amble, A Walk in the Woods, with the story of his exploits in Australia, where A-bombs go off unnoticed, prime ministers disappear into the surf, and cheery citizens coexist with the world's deadliest creatures: toxic caterpillars, aggressive seashells, crocodiles, sharks, snakes, and the deadliest of them all, the dreaded box jellyfish. And that's just the beginning, as Bryson treks through sunbaked deserts and up endless coastlines, crisscrossing the "under-discovered" Down Under in search of all things interesting.

Bryson, who could make a pile of dirt compelling--and yes, Australia is mostly dirt--finds no shortage of curiosities. When he isn't dodging Portuguese man-of-wars or considering the virtues of the remarkable platypus, he visits southwest Gippsland, home of the world's largest earthworms (up to 12 feet in length). He discovers that Australia, which began nationhood as a prison, contains the longest straight stretch of railroad track in the world (297 miles), as well as the world's largest monolith (the majestic Uluru) and largest living thing (the Great Barrier Reef). He finds ridiculous place names: "Mullumbimby Ewylamartup, Jiggalong, and the supremely satisfying Tittybong," and manages to catch a cricket game on the radio, which is like ...

listening to two men sitting in a rowboat on a large, placid lake on a day when the fish aren't biting; it's like having a nap without losing consciousness. It actually helps not to know quite what's going on. In such a rarefied world of contentment and inactivity, comprehension would become a distraction