The Lonely Side of Following One's Bliss

Irish Times Pub, Bastion Square, Victoria, B.C.

Years ago I was walking across a rain dappled campus at the University of Victoria. I had spent a wearying week trying to find out why my student loan money hadn't been transferred to my bank account. Without the money I couldn't pay for my courses and get on with focusing on school. 

At the time, I was walking behind two professors or men in tweed (I assumed they were academics), one holding a black umbrella for both of them. They were bearded, slim fellows, one slightly bald. Heads slightly down, rain pattering on the fabric, they were chatting about Joseph Campbell and his famous line: Follow your bliss. 

Joseph Campbell

It was late afternoon and for some reason I decided to follow these  men. Maybe it was the comfort I felt in being near their company, that they were discussing a subject I knew quite well and yet didn't know. I knew the standard works of Joseph Campbell. I had read the Hero With a Thousand Faces and referenced him in the two theatre history papers I had written the year before. His advice, however, of 'follow your bliss' was not so much a result of his work and research but a lesson from his life. From what I understood, Campbell traveled the world and pieced together his ideas about myth through literature, philosophy and psychology. In the presence of a baffled business student, someone wavering between following his father, a captain of industry or doing what he loved, he told the young man to do pursue the latter. This meant becoming an artist and as it turned out, the student when on to brighter and better things instead of going into the family firm.

It was a significant discussion to overhear because I asked myself whether I knew anything about following my bliss. Absolutely nothing, was the response. An hour later, I went to the university library and dropped out of all my courses. The money wasn't supposed to arrive, it was a sign. I really couldn't stand what I was doing, namely theatre. I thought it was something I wanted but it wasn't. And it wasn't my 'bliss'.

I celebrated with a meal at my favourite Victoria pub and the next day found a job at a liquor store. I never felt such relief in my life. I had gone out on a limb and there was a safety net waiting.

I still don't know if it was the right decision but I figured it was a start. I eventually left Victoria for Vancouver and Vancouver for Niagara with the intention of Following my bliss. 

Winery Barrel Cellar, Vineland, ON.

For a long time I thought this bliss I was seeking was involved in the wine industry. That misconception, fortunately was laid to rest after a grueling harvest week as a cellar hand at a Vineland winery in the fall of 2011. I had to quit the job because of health reasons and ended up moving out of my apartment, my mother having suggested I cut my losses and house sit for her and my step-father in Essex County. (I should note I went after the winery for misrepresentation and managed to get a three-week severance pay.)

In Kingsville, I got a part-time job and applied for E.I. and managed to coast through the rest of the year and into the next. I returned to my writing and worked every morning before heading to work in the afternoon, completing a book which I am now marketing. 

This was my bliss.

But I've learned something, it has been lonely. 

My days and nights like last year are like my days and nights now. I come home, I have dinner. I watch a little t.v. to unwind then I write or read. I repeat these patterns now and then looking for opportunities to get out of the house.

Last night I went to a poetry event to read a poem that had been shortlisted for a Bookfest contest in nearby Windsor. Initially I was excited at the prospect of sharing my work to a large audience but as the day drew closer I felt that old hesitation again and the day of the reading, actually wished I could stay home instead of go out. 

It was a nice evening, the clouds were hovering over the lake and when I arrived in Windsor, I got lost, driving in the rain, finding myself on Riverside, gazing back at the bridge, a red sunset going down on the river, on the towers of Detroit, the drops on my windshield almost pink. I could have stayed there but I continued on, finding a parking place, finding the venue, a worn down bar on University Ave.

Walking in from the rain, smelling the fried food, hearing the murmur of conversations, I was a little disappointed as I glanced at the crowd. I have been writing since I was sixteen, doing my best to perfect the craft, something I started out doing for fun, little by little realizing it is the only thing that makes me happy. But every writer's group I've ever attended in Ontario, every poetry reading event or get together I meet only older people. 

No difference last night. Most of the writers I encountered were wrinkled and grey. Some were teachers, some professors, writing their part-time passion. They drank their beer, they chuckled and shared stories. When someone familiar walked through the door, there was always a person waiting to shake their hands and welcome them. I had a beer and sat at a table off to the side, the only seat available.

I was looking forward to the evening to meet some fellow writers that were about my age but once again that hope was dashed (and I intuitively knew this before I left the house). I listened to the other poets read, all the while drinking my beer, looking out the window, wishing I could leave. When it was my turn, I read my poem. It was well received, my prefacing it with a humorous story to both relax the audience and myself. In the main, I was proud of my effort and though I didn't win and it wasn't so much that I hoped to win, to be first or anything, I just wanted the opportunity to read my poem at the BookFest and potentially meet other people, hopefully my own age.

Strange now to think about those two professors this evening, to think about dropping out of UVIC, how every time I go out to be involved in my 'bliss', I meet senior citizens instead of my peers. Yes, I think I have followed my bliss but strange how it has lead me here to South Western Ontario. I feel like I'm part of a prank no one has let me in on. Campbell said to follow your bliss and doors will open for you where you didn't know doors would be. What doors? I keep asking, I see only the same walls.

I think about those famous writers in New York or France, artists who got together at salons and read their works and shared. I've never quite experienced that. I wonder if I will. 

In Kingsville, there are no writer's groups. Here, most of the people my age are married with kids. All the pretty women have wedding rings, usually diamonds, probably wed to a greenhouse owner or the son of one. 

Kingsville, I have no complaints though sometimes I feel like I'm in exile. It is a pleasant, rustic little town, a place you would want to raise a family or retire but not for someone in between everything. There are wrap around porches and new subdivisions, and people at the beach and the park. On a sunny, Sunday afternoon in autumn, it is a safe place to be. There is little excitement here, the liquor store closes at six most days and the bars are filled with retirees.

Queen St., Kingsville, ON.

I wish I had something optimistic in mind to finish here but I don't know. I think about my guitar teacher who told me that to do what you love, you must sacrifice. I never asked him how long or what the sacrifice entailed, I assumed it was something significant. 

I look up at the window now, there's a reflection of my face lit by my laptop screen in the glass. I almost swore it was a ghost. 

And I think to myself, if I saw Joseph Campbell now, even his ghost, I'd throw my shoe at him.

Movies Made for a Sunday Afternoon

Growing up, I still remember my father flicking through the channels on a Sunday, drinking his beers, happening on some old western or James Bond film. At commercials, depending on the season, he'd go back to a football game or eventually find a soccer match and stay there.

I still snippets of those movies in my mind. Often times I never saw the ending because the game took precedence or something else came up, someone in the neighborhood rang the door and I was off playing hockey in the street or baseball in the park

Now it seems I have time on my hand to write blogs and remember. And though there should be other things I could be doing, I feel a little nostalgic for those fragmented films I saw, pieces that I got to know half-way through and would have to pick up the remainders after renting them in my early twenties or thirties. 

And some new favorites, of course. 

I'm well aware of the plethora of movies lists made by film buffs. There's list for every category: best films, best comedies and westerns and villains and heroines and stars and laughs, everything topping out at a hundred and after that, well, it's something more personal. This isn't an attempt at list making, more of a reminiscing, a reconsideration of what I think are the best films made for a Sunday afternoon. 

What kind of Sunday? Well, I guess that depends on the film?

Peter o'Toole and Omar Sharif in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a perennial favorite of stations with nothing else to show. I believe this is one of the most frequently aired movies of all time. In my childhood, it was on every season, usually a Sunday. Again, I saw it the first few times in pieces. The scene at the river where Sundance tells Butch he can't swim. Butch, of course, can't help laughing. They've been running for their lives, staying ahead of the law. "What are you crazy," he finally says after a good chuckle, "the fall will probably kill you."

Along with the above, I have to say Lawrence of Arabia and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. So here we are, starting off with Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Jack Nicholson - all these great actors that brightened our lives on a lazy Sunday. And these movies are all quite long too. So if you don't have any distractions on a Sunday you don't have to worry about missing something. Lawrence of Arabia, especially, I found always starts about noon and ends closer to four. It's a great movie to watch in late fall or winter. There's a desert on your screen but it's chilly outside. And yes, there is no gold in Akaba.

Then there are the other classics as well like the Godfather Part II which must be savored on a Sunday. I love that scene where the young Corleone unscrews the light bulb before taking out the don. One of cinema's greatest and yet most enduring movie moments. 

Shane

One mustn't forget the westerns which are a fallback on the weekends. I remember seeing the ending of Shane before I ever saw the beginning, the little boy running off, crying 'Shane! Come back!' to the mysterious stranger as he rides off. A beautiful moment. Then there's Unforgiven which to me is an October movie. It's best to pop it in or find it on the tube on an overcast day in order to appreciate the mood it casts. And if it rains towards the end of the movie, even better. I'm certain it is Eastwood's best though I'll admit, I saw many a-spaghetti western on a Sunday as my father went back and forth between a Buffalo Bills game or a Manchester United match.  The Good, The Bad and The Ugly will also do and yes... Fistful of Dollars. 

Then there are the romantic comedies. It Happened One Night is a great spring film along with the endearing You've Got Mail and When Harry Met Sally (the latter two Meg Ryan's best before she botoxed her lips).  

The former film, though is lesser know and is a Capra classic, long overshadowed by the infamous Christmas flick, It's A Wonderful Life (also a good Sunday afternoon film done by the same director). But It Happened One Night is not only a Pride-and-Prejudice-they-love-each-other-but-hate-each-other-first type of film, it's a good road and buddy movie. In fact there's a bit of that old class divide going on as well. If you've see basic, modern road rom coms like Leap Year, Chasing Liberty (poor Matthew Goode), The Proposal and so on one must see the one that inspired it (though you should also read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice considering it has pretty much set the standard for all romantic comedies whether you like to admit it or not).

But I digress. 

Cool Hand Luke is another essential before I move away from the classics along with the Wizard of Oz, The African Queen (with The Pride and Prejudice thing going on, I should have included it above) and From Here to Eternity with its now parodied kiss on the beach scene. All are amazing movies in the middle of a Sunday. 

Spartacus

Then there are the old sword and sandal romps, just as jovial as the westerns. Think of movies like Spartacus (not to be confused with the series),The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur. We have nothing in modern cinema to compare these films too. Gladiator is just Braveheart (another Sunday gem) redone in togas while 300 is a celluloid comic strip on steroids, all cheese with no calcium. In fact I think it is one of the most vapid and over the top movies ever made. It's so bad it doesn't know it's bad (unlike Troy).

Then there are the great fantasy adventure movies like The Princess Bride, The Fellowship of the Ring (the rest of the trilogy is terrible... I'm sorry...just endless fighting and scenes with Frodo battling with himself...boring...and Gollum who always sounded like someone addicted to nasal sprays), Star Wars (more sci-fi of course), The Goonies (not a fantasy but a kid's fantasy so it counts) and The Neverending Story which is a masterpiece in itself. 

Then there are the sleeper Sunday movies like American Graffiti and more recently (500) Days of Summer which are both good fun but also provide a good story. And the great comedies like the Marx Bros.' Duck Soup and  A Night at the Opera and the Monty Python masterpieces, Life of Brian and Holy Grail.

I must mention Fargo and Full Metal Jacket, both meant for a darker, more devious moods along with Psycho, Vertigo and Rear Window, all Sunday afternoon masterpieces by Hitchcock.  

Groundhog Day is good for February malaise.

The Return (Возврашение)

Enough of American films. 

There are numerous foreign titles that are equal to the above if not more complex and satisfying. A new favorite of mine is The Return, one of the greatest Russian films ever made. In it a father comes home to visit his family. His two sons are twelve and six respectively. The eldest admires his dad, forgives him for his absence while the younger is miffed and angered, still feeling abandoned. It is less about what is being said and more about how it is being said. The father takes the two boys on a trip to the north and it becomes more incredible from there. It is a film of silences and gorgeous cinematography with Russian's northern forests and wilderness taking pride of place in the movie. Unplug the phone, switch off your cell, tell your girlfriend to go to the mall if she's not into this kind of thing. This is movie making that absorbs and haunts. 

There's Das Boot (Director's Cut and if you have the time, the five-hour uncut version first shown on German television) and the lesser known Dutch film Black Book (another film about the second World War). The former is pure adrenaline and claustrophobia while the latter is dark magic, intrigue, romance, sex and thrills.

Famous fountain scene in La Dolce Vita

European classics also include Fellini's La Dolce Vita, Truffaut's 400 Blows, Bergman's Wild Strawberries and Kirosawa's Rashomon. These are perhaps four of the most important films made outside of the Hollywood paradigm and deserve to be viewed on a easy Sunday afternoon with no distractions and an open mind.

Lighter fair I recommend everyone's favourite foreign comedies or dramedies, Amelie and Life is Beautiful.

For my wild cars, I throw in Pedro Almodovar's Talk to Her and Volver along with Ridley's Scott's Prometheus and Blade Runner.

Though if I had to pick a favourite for best Sunday movie experience, it would be The Bourne Identity and/or The Bourne Supremacy. Ultimatum was good but these two are superior.

To Lvov: The Scandalous Roots of One's Slavic Past

St.Cyrill, St.Catharines

To Lvov. Which station
for Lvov, if not in a dream, at dawn, when dew
gleams on a suitcase, when express
trains and bullet trains are being born. To leave
in haste for Lvov, night or day, in September
or in March. But only if Lvov exists,

- Adam Zagajewski

Before leaving for Europe, it was always my best intention to visit the ancestral countries of both my parents. 

As it turned out, there would be familial links to my father's side, relatives I could stay with in Holland, birthplaces I could see and visit and stories I could hear about. Naturally, there would be photo albums and memories. 

This would pose no problem. 

Unfortunately this wouldn't be the case when it came to my mother's roots; I had nothing to go on. 

To compensate, I decided to do my own research and familiarize myself with the basics of my mother's culture. I bought a book about Ukraine and the Lonely Planet's guide to Eastern Europe. I read the novels of Mikhael Bulgakov. I even went online and investigated potential cities to visit such as Lviv (Lvov), Odessa and Kiev. I checked out accommodations and room prices through AirBnB; overall, they seemed fairly reasonable. I looked at trains and buses. I didn't foresee any major troubles in getting there and exploring.

Time is crucial in everything and I suppose the one thing that deterred my search for maternal roots when I arrived in Europe was the presence of the FIFA Cup. This would be an issue. In Munich, during Oktoberfest for instance, prices for rooms skyrocket to take advantage of the eager beer-swilling tourists. I expected the same from Ukraine and of Poland, the two countries that would be co-hosting the games.

Despite my research and intentions, despite my closeness on my trip, being at one point a mere hour away from the Polish border in Berlin, I never managed to forge a route into that mysterious, Slavic side of my identity. In truth, I will say I was a little disappointed in this regard, not so much in myself but circumstances. I had studied Russian for a year and before finalizing plans, daydreamed about walking through streets where the Cyrillic writing would be everywhere. I had been looking forward to making my way east, seeing the churches and sitting down in a restaurant, eating borsch and cabbage rolls in the land where it had first been concocted.   

Dostoevskyhaus, Baden Baden, Germany

Thankfully, there were familiar vestiges and reminders of Slavic culture in Germany. In Baden Baden, many of the tourist shops inform visitors that the staff within speak German, English and Russian. The woman who welcomed me at the Friedrichsbad spoke Russian. Not only this, the guiding signs in the facility are written in the three languages with French being the fourth. 

Outside the spa, just around the corner is the Dostoevskyhaus, named for Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) The great Russian novelist had visited the city with his wife Anna in August, 1867 during a tour of Europe. He gambled at the famous casino and based a novel on his erratic and hopeless experiences there (today the lower floor of the 'haus' is a real estate office). 

A peer of the troubled writer, Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) loved the city and urged fellow writers to join him there. There is a bust of him on the Lichtentaler Allee. 

Baden Baden famous Russian Church

Baden Baden also boasts its famous Russian Church as does Leipzig in Eastern Germany. 

And yet somehow, it was good but not good enough. Back in Canada now, I continually return to my pictures of The Netherlands and smile and think back nostalgically to my hours there. I have pictures of where my father lived in Amsterdam. I visited Haarlem where my Oma was born, having biked its streets and drank its beer. Strangely, despite all these beautiful experiences, it feels in-balanced as if I had been unfair to a part of myself and favoured one side over the other. 

Though maybe I have to come to terms with what I know and will never know because that's the way it has always been. When I think of the research I've done, my interest in Russian literature and language, it has always been my effort to reach out into the hazed past as opposed to have been brought up in it. A lot of course, has to do with my mother.

My mother's side of the family has so little to do with their heritage. Unlike my father, she, in her adult life had little contact with her parents, my grandfather dying when I was little, my grandmother living on the other side of the country. I can count on my two hands the times I sat with them and had a conversation. A solemn contrast to what I experienced with my father's family. We lived just around the corner from my Opa and Oma. I never heard Russian or Ukrainian spoken but I listened to Dutch conversations several times a week. I ate gouda cheese and other Dutch delicacies daily, thanks in part to the import store on Ontario St., Ramakers. 

It was only at Christmas that I had perogies and cabbage rolls at my aunts. 

My mother only recently told me that she had let herself become 'Broerse-fied', allowing her husband's Dutch culture to take pride of place before hers. For her, the past was laden with bad memories and misplaced dreams, family feuds and conflicts, ubiquitous skeletons creeping out of the closet. This is the reason why we never had a samnovar or Ukrainian decorations in our home and instead had teak furniture - wall unit, tables and so forth then popular in Scandinavia and those households with Northern European backgrounds. I remember the Delft tiles and the yellow, wooden clogs near the window. I remember the Breughel and Van Gogh prints in the hallway and living room.

Perhaps this is the reason she remembers so very little of her parents' world, where they come from. I learned in my late twenties from my eldest aunt the true origins of my grandmother and grandfather.

From what I have gathered, my grandmother's mother, Sophie (София) came from Western Ukraine, the city of Ternopil (Тернопiль), two hour east of Lviv (Львiв). Her mother died when Sophie was five. Her father passed on some seven  years later. She moved to Saskatchewan in 1919 with her step-parents, marrying my great-grandfather, Max (Максим) soon after.

My grandmother, Josie, was born in 1923 followed by her two sisters, Anna (1926) and Marrianne (1927). When she was four years old, her father killed himself. 

There is some speculation regarding Max's suicide but many believe he killed himself because he had been diagnosed with tuberculosis. Others say it was the diagnosis compounded by depression. He learned that his wife was cheating on him. Sophie believed she didn't have much time to find a new husband and should start sooner. Without the support of his wife, Max slit his throat, feeling utterly alone in the world and certainly died feeling both betrayed and ashamed.

Following the funeral, Sophie married a man named Daniel (Данaйл), also of Ukrainian origin. Sophie had two more daughters, Olga and May. But apparently Dan couldn't keep it in his pants and made 'attempts' on my grandmother (whether my grandmother was raped or not has not come to light). Sophie, knowing that Dan couldn't corral his darker habits sold the family cow and gave my grandmother the money to start a new life in Toronto, Ontario. 

There she met my grandfather. Pyotr (Пиотр) came from Russian stock. His family, it is said left Russia because of the Revolution and headed south to Buchovina (Буковина), a region now split between present day Ukraine and Romania. (In those days, the borders were tenuous. It is said that a man could have been born in the Austro-Hungarian empire, have been of Ukrainian background, been Polish and then an Ukrainian citizen and not have left his hometown during the eighty years of his life.)

My grandfather's family was broken up because my great-grandfather headed to Canada to start anew. He told his family (two sons, a daughter and wife) he would find relatives, find work, buy a home and send for them. Unfortunately, upon settling, he fell in love with another woman in Fort Francis, Ontario. After making his way with his family across the Atlantic, down the St.Lawrence, my grandfather came to seek out his father on a cold winter's night. His father welcomed him at the door with chilling words: "I never want to see you again in my life" and slammed the door on his eldest son. 

Pyotr's mother found work as a maid in Toronto. My grandfather worked a slave labor-like job in Port William. Eventually his mother saved enough money and was able to bring her three kids together.

Strange to think that my own paternal great-grandmother warned my future grandmother, Josie not to marry her son. There are even family tales that she cursed her eldest to a life of hardship and pain. 

Who believes in curses anyway? Josie married Pyotr. They had five kids, my mother the youngest.

Recently, my mother's only brother died. He was in late sixties. We weren't surprised. His wife of over thirty years passed away last year due to cancer. With couples who've lived together and loved each other so long, it is only inevitable that one goes right after the other.

St.George's, St.Catharines

The last time I saw my uncle I was twelve. I know nothing of him, just like the family. Instead, what I have to go on are the traces, the disappearing footprints in the snow that lead here and there, all them found through my own inclinations, following them, unsure if I want to keep going. I suppose this is the reason I add a veneer of myth to my life as if it might add some colour and depth to the little I have gleaned. Maybe I'm in love with the illusion of the culture, the far away traditions. Winter nights when I still lived in St.Catharines, I would take a walk through the Facer neighborhood, passing St.George and St.Cyril, looking up at the solemn, noble facades, up at the snow-whisked domes, looking through the glass front doors and dreaming about the cultures that built them, about the languages that trembled behind their walls.

When my grandfather died, the service was at St.George. The eulogy was in Ukrainian. My mother sat in the church, staring up at the icons not knowing what it all meant but also not wanting to. He was a cruel man, a closet alcoholic, the kind whose moods changed and out of nowhere he would pull out the strap because it made him happy to beat one of his kids. He was the kind of scheming man who burned the family home to collect insurance money. The insurance reps suspected this and only gave my grandfather a quarter of what the house was worth.

For my mother, he burned her favourite home, the place she most loved. 

But what can a man become, really? My grandfather walked away in the frosted night from his father, heeding his words and in turn became the father he despised. It could have been the curse. Later, my uncle stood by his father's tombstone, having waited hours for the grave diggers to rectify their mistake. They had dug up the wrong plot. The director of the cemetery was quite embarrassed, apologizing to my mother and aunt. For my uncle, it simply meant standing out in the March cold, smoking cigarette after cigarette, making sure the man who had tormented his life, the man who withheld any iota of kindness was six feet deep and in the right place.

And here I was, out on snowy evenings in St.Catharines, romanticizing a world so many try to escape from.

My friend is married to a Ukrainian woman. Her father, like my grandfather was a cruel man, he too an alcoholic. He had a past. He managed to elude Stalin, escaping a P.O.W. camp with his wife in Central Europe, making their way to France then Canada. In St.Catharines he helped build St.George's. He also went on to father three kids, my friend's wife the youngest.

To this day none of them talk to each other.

It is almost the same with my mother, the lines of communication are tenuous.

As for Nana, Josie, the one who had been the four-year old girl, the one who was taunted and teased by her classmates because her dad committed suicide, well, we fear she is near her end. Though, she's always been close to it. When I was living in British Columbia, she tried to kill herself with pills. I remember the hospital room in Surrey and how she spent the whole time wandering the halls, unable to talk to either me or my mother. She lived longer than her father but was never quite there. I'm sure at her funeral, there will be no need for a high collar to hide her wound.

When she goes, she'll leave nothing, her eldest daughter having drained her bank accounts to pay for her whims. The family has known about this, they talk about it but they do nothing. What can you do? I'm sure my aunt is still angry at her mother for not heeding Pyotr's mother's advice.

And when Josie goes, well, I'm sure another aunt will be in there to pick at the scraps when she is gone, looking for anything of value. That's what she did when my grandfather died. An aunt who once appeared on Oprah, who preached no sex before marriage. How ironic when her own teenage daughter was buying condoms at a pharmacy the week before.

Perhaps my oldest aunt is doing all of us a favour. Who wants anything left? When my grandfather died, his will was dispersed. All that remained was an 'education fund' but we only found out about this years later when I was going to school. Of course, with my mother's family, that $25,000 disappeared in one fail swoop, one aunt feeling she knew who 'deserved' the money and who didn't. (None of it went to those who were going to school, however...)

So yes...this is family. This is the legacy...

Maybe I'm glad there was nothing in the Ukraine for me to look for. I guess when I think of it, I'm glad I never made my way east, nothing further than Berlin, that I saw enough cultural icons in Baden Baden and Leipzig to satisfy my longings for a Slavic past. Beyond that, what could there be? Empty hopes, I'm sure. 

Nothing in Lvov, nothing in Ternopol or Odessa.

It's better when it's just a dream, empty churches I once passed in the winter, seeing my own breath disappear in front of me.

Meeting the Dislexyc Grapes

My last night in Cordoba I really didn't know what I was going to do. I had spent many of my evenings wandering the city, crossing and re-crossing the river using the old Roman bridge, passing through the park where locals walked their dogs and socialized. Beyond that, I had my ample share of paella and tapas, wine and cerveza and if I needed entertainment, there was a young violinist playing Bach and popular international pieces nightly by the triumphal arch. 

I had visited the famous Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos for the elegant, if not touristy fountain display. And I spent the latter parts of my evenings down at the Plaza de Tendillas, my feet in the fountain, drinking beer, watching the kids skip and jump and splash, and the visiting university athletes drink from large Amstel bottles.  

Puta caliente!

The last night was also the hottest. At quarter to nine, it was 43 degrees C. I shook my head, snapped a picture and wandered down the old streets of the eastern quarter, slowly making my way back to the bridge for one last sultry, sunset glimpse of Cordoba. I wiped the sweat once more from my neck, airing out my shirt for the fifteenth time. Certainly the guidebook had advised against traveling in July and August. But I figured there would be less tourists and I was right. I suffered in the night, I sweated and drank umpteen bottles of water but the crowds were small in the streets. Manageable, really. And for me that  was a plus. Less people to deal with. At the Mezquita, the famous Mosque of the 8th century, now converted into a Catholic Church, there were spaces of relative peace. Tourists held up their digital cameras but you could take pictures of the pillars and the beauty without knocking elbows.

Overall, I never once felt like I was jostling with others as I had in Madrid's more bustling plazas. The squares of Cordoba were comparably quiet and at night, beyond the babbling of the fountains, one could hear the moderate hum of conversation and giggles of children. 

I stayed in the old part of the city above a local restaurant. My host and hostess owned the establishment where they served middle eastern fare and I spent four out of my six nights dining and drinking there. Following my last walk through the city, making sure to avoid the street of brothels, I found myself back at the tavern. 

My host, welcomed me, shaking my hand, a cigarette in his other. He was a slim, bearded Turkish man with long curly, black locks who spoke only his native tongue and Spanish. Besides the restaurant, he was a locally-famous flamenco musician who fused the world of Istanbul with Andalusian. I practiced my Spanish with him the first night I arrived and even sat with him and his friends and the server, Marie's friends. 

It was in the tavern three nights previous that I met Beatriz. I'm sure I might still be there if an obstructing angel hadn't gotten in the way. It was around ten o'clock. After a plate of couscous, I was drinking my third beer when she arrived on bike, visiting her friend. Marie and her chatted and then she sat with me. Beatriz knew a little bit of English and I enough Spanish. I learned a bit more with her help but mostly my impromptu lessons were forgotten. I enjoyed far too much gazing into her Andalusian, almond eyes. Her knee knocked against mine now and then and a  cursory, shoulder-length strand of black hair kept falling away from its place behind her ear. Her cheeks were high and her lips lovely. I loved watching her speak Spanish.

In our Spanglish we talked about music; I said I played and I recorded some songs while living in Vancouver. I was also writing two books, one about my childhood, the other a verse novel about an Austrian winemaker that falls in love with five women (cinco mujeres). She seemed impressed. As for me, I nervously flipped through the pages of my Spanish phrasebook to find the right words. I remembered what I could.

It seemed that anyone else who might join our conversation was only interrupting or annoying us. I wanted to learn more about her. She was a pharmacist and worked long weeks. That weekend, a three day holiday. She had tomorrow, the Monday off. I asked for her email address. "I don't do email," she said to me. "Then your phone number?" I responded.

I passed my pen and journal over to her and she took them with her light-olive hands. She jotted her number down and told me to call her.

"I'll do my best. I want you to be my personal tour guide."

And I did try. I tried to call her the next day. I went to several pay phones but they wouldn't work. One stole my euro, the other kept spitting my money back out, the metallic clink of rejection causing me several times to slam down the pink T-mobile receiver in disgust and frustration. 

What could I do? I didn't have a cell phone so I couldn't call her that way. And that night, both my host and hostess didn't return to their apartment so I had no to ask for their phone. I figured it wasn't meant to be and left it at that. My romantic side was effectively invaded by the practical one and all my fantasies of a mid-vacation tryst vanished into the banality of acceptance.

So it was interesting to meet Marie's boyfriend tonight, my last night in Cordoba. The Turkish man promptly introduced us, asked if I was hungry (I was fine) and went back to the kitchen, probably to prepare some more couscous. 

Marie's boyfriend and I sat outside in the heat, the sky darkening, the synthetic orange glow of lights glowing sadly, drably from their wall lanterns. We drank beer. He knew a little English but he was impressed with how much Spanish I had picked up in the last two weeks. 

He also asked about Beatriz. I told him: tell her I did my best but the phones in Spain don't like me. I wanted to say that the first night I met her I could have kissed her right then and there but it was getting late and we were both tired. I also wanted to say she had the kindest and most beautiful face I had seen since my arrival. But I wasn't proficient enough for such poetics. Ella no tiene correo electrónico y no tiene un teléfono celular (She didn't have email and I didn't have a cell phone.) It was fate, yes and my obstructing angel.

It was then that two guys, one of them on bike pulled up. They spoke the rapido Spanish of the south with Marie's boyfriend and when I tried to offer my basic conversation, they said it was okay if I wanted to speak English with them. My eyebrows jumped up. Wow, actually English-speakers. I had encountered one or two on my travels in Spain.

They were hungry and we went inside the tavern so they could order some couscous. Joining them, I had another beer as did they. They asked where I was from, what I was doing in Spain. Mostly traveling and wandering, I explained. Brandan had spent some time in Dublin which explained his distinct English-Irish accent and when he said 'fuck' he reminded me of Colin Ferrel in In Bruges. As for Andrés, he had a more American-sounding accent.

They ate pretty quickly when their food arrived. I commented on their appetite. 

"Well, we're high," Brandan said smiling, nodding his head, his mop of curls shaking. 

I chuckled. "Well, I'm drunk."

And the conversation continued on. They told me they were part of a band. What was the band called?

"Dyslexic Grapes" Andrés proudly announced.

I nearly shit myself laughing. It wasn't so much that it was funny but it was just the best name of a band I had ever heard. It was the kind of brilliance best associated with a Monty Python skit. And because it was so brilliant, I found it humorous. 

Then, when Brandan slid a sticker of their band logo across the table I started cracking up again: they reversed the 'i' and 'y' of their band name to enhance the beauty and irony of it all - Dislexyc Grapes. (I proudly wear this sticker on my notebook computer).

We had more beer and chatted for awhile, mentioning bands we liked, books we read. I told him Spain attracted me because of the literature - Lorca, Cernuda, Salinas, Aleixandre and so forth.

As for philosophies, we shared them. The idea of success, for instance, being famous. They claimed they just wanted to party and have a good time. I confessed my whole trip was a means of just having a good time, but also escape, getting away from the locked-in self I was back in Canada. I could have spent the summer working my job, doing the same thing but I decided to take a risk. And it paid off. I could meet people like Andrés and Brandan and that made my vacation more of an experience than just a distraction. 

Marie wanted to close up the bar. We were the last to leave so we paid our share and headed out. Branden grabbed his bike and we walked through the late night streets of Cordoba. They still wanted to drink and so did I. I had a train to catch in the morning (the infamous Renfe episode related in a late August blog) but it was only one a.m. and with the heat and the fan in my room that hardly kept me cool, the chances of falling asleep, no matter what, were relatively slim. Another beer or so and then bed or whatever.

We strolled along the Calle Claudio Marcelo, passing below the old Roman monument from a forgotten century. I had seen the Seneca statue and fountain in my wanderings and I knew this city's history stretched further back than the Moors of Abd al-Rahman I's time. But it was interesting, being in such a historically important place, entering the vast square of the Place de Corredera, a place reminiscent of Madrid Plaza de Mayor to have Andrés comment on how sick he was of his hometown. 

My eyebrows jumped up again. Why was that?

He wiped the brown hair falling low over his brow. "It's always the same people, the same crowds, the same things." He said. "The tourists and the flamenco. The government puts all the money into promoting flamenco. All the arts grants of the south go to flamenco. And I don't mind flamenco. I think it is good, but there is more to Spanish music than flamenco."

I nodded. I felt the same about Canadian literature. It was always old women writing about the prairies or another story by Alice Munro about the distance between a woman and a man in marriage. If not that, some story about immigrants in Toronto who happened to be from Pakistan or India.

And like Andrés, I didn't really mind some of it, but I understood. Money always goes towards enhancing the cultural stereotype so when the tourists arrive, they can find their preconceived notions easily and feel satisfied in their search. And I suppose every country is guilty of allowing their iconic image of themselves to take centre stage in tourism booking offices. Germans have Bavaria and bratwurst, the Dutch have Zeeland and the windmills and the French Paris, the Eiffel Tower and the idea of Parisian, Bohemian Romance. Complexity of culture is hard to sell.

I also mentioned that I self-published a book. Andrés said he wanted to read my book.

We stopped for beers in a small bar on the far south-west corner of the square. The crowds here too were spare, the conversations, like the candles on the tables, almost out. It was only a matter of time before this place would close up. We stood outside at a tall wooden table. I had my tenth beer of the night. After my failed attempt at smoking marijuana ("you're not inhaling right, man..." Brandan cautioned, "it's good shit, don't waste it..."), Andrés asked if I wanted to hear some of their music. Of course, I said coughing. 

I listened and was surprised at how amazing it was. While eating couscous earlier, Branden moaned he wasn't a good drummer. But with the over-sized earphones on my head, listening to the first track of their music on his small mp3 player I had to think otherwise. I wasn't prepared for how good they were.

I loved it. The square disappeared, the night was less intense in terms of heat. Of course, their music was nowhere (thankfully) near flamenco in style. I couldn't quite put my finger on it but I know it was incredible. They had their own distinct style though I could hear some blues and alternative music flowing through the guitar riffs and drum beats. It wasn't typical of anything but it was playful like their band name.

But sadly, the beer had to be consumed because the small bar (really almost a closet with alcohol, beer kegs and a bathroom) too was closing. I walked with Andrés and Brandan back to my host and hostess' apartment. The heat hadn't really let off and I was eternally thirsty. I shook their hands above the wet, hosed-down streets, regretting that I had not met them earlier in the week. I would have loved playing guitar with them, jamming with the Dislexyc Grapes.

For those of you read this, I highly recommend them. Check out the link above. And though I have no Spanish beer on hand, I raise a glass of Dutch jenever to them and their future success or however they want their recognition. To Andrés and Brandan.

And can't forget, Beatriz, wherever she might be, the Cordovan beauty that got away and didn't believe in email.

Brandan y Andrés

That Lost Sense of Home

It's raining in Kingsville. Apparently it hasn't been like this all summer. Which is nice to know, considering last year. But a light rain after a dry summer, a kind of gift. 

I hope the autumn is dry and cool and there are few days of showers to mar the smoky air. I look forward to watching the corn fields come down with the harvest. I am looking forward to seeing the leaves yellow and orange. 

I am looking forward to this. And following it, winter. 

But I can't help but say I'm a little bewildered. Leaving Europe was like leaving the comfort of something so familiar. Almost as if I was saying goodbye to a beautiful woman, walking away from her presence and bed to return home to another woman, a kind, but unloving wife. And it's not that I've cheated myself or anyone, just seen something new, something different, a way of life that I would say makes more sense. 

In Germany, you can drink beer in public, on bridges, on park benches, in the streets, on trams and trains. And why not? I rarely if ever saw violence break out. No moments of publich intoxication where the cops had to be called in. The parks are filled in the summer. You can smell the aroma of BBQ. Picnic blankets lie on the grass. There are coolers, bottles of wine. There is nothing really to fear.

Here, the parks are empty, even on the most serene of days.

Spestraat, Haarlem, The Netherlands

In Amsterdam, Haarlem and other Dutch cities it is easy to get around. The trams are so easy to negotiate. The bike lanes are well-paved and amazing. You don't need a car, really. (But be aware of the rules of the road, just because you're a cyclist doesn't mean you can ignore them - and the everyday Dutch are hard on those who defy their regulations.)

Here, the bike lane is the pebbled shoulder in most cities (though some of the bigger are more accommodating of two-wheeled, methane free travelers).

I felt at home in that world. And now I'm 'home'. 

And though it is familiar, I have forgotten the names of some towns and places. I know the roads still but the small differences are there, I can feel them. And it's not all bad, no. But it's not the same.

Before Kingsville, I was in my hometown of St.Catharines. I stayed with friends of mine. They were kind enough to host me for a few days. I didn't really contact family. The old tensions don't seem to go away. We are Dutch so being stubborn (hardnekkig in Nederlands - or thick-necked, how appropriate) and habits like that are hard to be rid of.

But Kingsville, as if the rest of Canada was another continent and in between vast corn fields and wind farms, highways that give one a preview of the prairies. Kingsville where public transportation doesn't exist. Either you drive or bike (on the above-mentioned shoulder). Kingsville where the quiet is continually interrupted by the crickets, the sound of lawn mowers. Kingsville where the liquor store closes at six most nights, where the books on the library shelves are basic bestsellers, literature and art and poetry rare.

Kingsville, the home I would never had expected. Had you told the proverbial previous self of two years ago I would be living here, he would have chuckled and then asked, Kingsville, you mean Kingston, right?

St.Catharines like the other cities of my past are closed doors. I lived in them long enough to discover I didn't feel at home there. But in Germany, I found home. Curiously enough, in Leipzig where yes, the parks are filled and bicycles are seemingly everywhere. Leipzig where it felt like leaving a familiar, loving room where now someone must now touch the other side of the bed and let out a sigh in my absence.

Toteninsel - Arnold Böcklin

The Leipzig of Bach, Schumann, and Mendelssohn. The Leipzig Wagner didn't think too highly of but now he would probably would, what with both the beautiful opera and symphony house facing each other on opposite sides of Augustuspatz. The Leipzig of the silent revolution on Nikolaistraße. The Leipzig where nearby in the late 1700s Schiller wrote his famous An die Freude ('Ode to Joy'). The Leipzig of Klinger and the art museum where you can find my favourite version of Arnold Böcklin's Toteninsel (Isle of the Dead).

Yes, that Leipzig. The Leipzig of friends Sebastian, Mira, Kevin, Tom and crazy Marco who during the volleyball game one Sunday flirted with his teammate's wife. Albeit accidentally and innocently but Marco isn't too innocent.

The Leipzig of trabbi tours, their motorboat, methane-like exhaust and the Stalin building and the Panorama Tower and the grand Promenaden in the Hauptbahnhof where Sundays the groceries stores are overrun. And in the south, the Cospudener See where some parts are for naturists. There on the sand you can find untanned bottoms and love handles without swimming trunks to accentuate their folds. And for one shining, transcendent moment, you might see someone attractive strip down after her bike ride to cool in the waters. Yes, for once, but rare... because you soon learn that most public nudists are overweight, over-tanned men who consume far too much beer, their bratwurt proudly (and unpardonably) on display. In Germany, one needs to misquote the adage and shake your head realizing yes, 'if you don't have it, flaunt it.'

Leipzig for a month and half and I felt more at home than all the collected cities I resided in while in Canada. And like the confused astronaut in a Stanislaw Lem novel, having returned from the stars, he finds it hard to reconcile the then with the precarious now. Where it made sense is behind him and where he is now is a whole another planet. The rules are the same but he feels the unease, unable to fulfill himself with his new predicament. He'd rather be alone and lonely up there, out there than be here.

Home, always a question, a reaching, an enigma. For some home is the kept and complacent lawns of suburbia and the flower gardens and impromptu front porch conversations. There is always that polite wave to a passing car, a recognizable face but still a stranger, a neighbor around the corner, familiar but foreign. You know they have a corgi and take a walk around dusk but that's it. Nameless and you nameless to them.

For others, home feels cosmically misplaced, as if God and his aimless band of angels wanted to tempt the solemn, modern Job, asking him, can you feel settled here when there is something more out there that is more suitable? That lost sense of home, can you live with it?

Of course, it is hard to put roots down in places that don't offer the comforts and cultural richness of a city like Leipzig. One would assume it to be a task in futility to feel at ease in a place like Kingsville when home was briefly there, over there, across the pond in Eastern Germany. Home in the earthy aroma of parks, in the flat tire near the university and the lemony taste of a weiss bier on the Markt. Home, Faust's golden, lucky foot, Mephisto mocking the troubled student above Auerbach's Keller. Rub the lucky foot, the German couple said, and it means you'll return to Leipzig.

One prays this to be true. Otherwise, for now there is Kingsville (and no, it's not bad). At least there is the lovely, verdant scent of nature, that smell of trees in the evening, of wet earth after the rain. And again, let the autumn be a dry one.