The Notched Wing

The one time I was administered Demerol by IV,
The Doctor stayed by my side, just looking at me.

And when it hit, the last thing I remember
is saying to his big brown eyes, ever so sweetly,

“You ever see the wind bend a field of wheat
as it moves across a field? This feels like that
to me. You are the wind, I am the wheat.
You are the wind, I am the wheat…”

That’s the only pretty part of that event.
It’s the only part I’ll repeat.

But some people make me feel that way.
To this very day.

we women who
cover our noble skins
went running in the woods and paths
leading the long way to
the beach.

crunching sand beneath our feet
now freed from the slavery of shoes
we walked the rank and file,
towels, sandals, coolers, kids
the gauntlet of hippies and booze.

past the throng, we thinned away
faded in the distance -
only we two marching a long lost curve
narrowing us out towards
the lonely spit of sand.

you stripped off your uniform
let your elfin body breathe
whiteness and pink porcelain
walked into the gleaming waves
the cut-out doll, receding.

resplendent in your fragility,
burned by the sun, kissed by the sea
you headed for a place only you could see.
it was then i knew we were done and through
and you were lost to me.

If you are opportunistic…
I can tell.

If you are out for less than you’ve earned…
I know.

If you want to pass my work off as yours…
I’ll find a gentle way to
block you, out you,
make you share.

and if you want
to steal from me…

I’ll slip out of your grasp
like a greased pig in the barnyard.

Smiling, cajoling, flipping and tossing,
charming comments will pave
your way the entire time
and keep you accountable
to me.

This business is vicious
in the most peculiar ways.
But I’m up for it.

If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love,
I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge;
and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love,
I am nothing.

If I dole out all my goods to feed the poor,
and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love,
it profits me nothing.

Love is patient and is kind; love doesn’t envy.
Love doesn’t brag, is not proud,

doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way,
is not provoked, takes no account of evil;

doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness,
but rejoices with the truth;

bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails.

But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with.

Where there are various languages, they will cease.

Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part;

but when that which is complete has come,
then that which is partial will be done away with.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child,
I felt as a child, I thought as a child.

Now that I have become a man,
I have put away childish things.

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part, but then I will know fully,
even as I am fully known.

But now faith, hope, and love remain–these three.

The greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13

i shiver
great shudderings
hang out my window
surrounded by
fog…

you creep around me
and tomorrow you
might be gone but
i don’t think about
that…

all there is
this wisp of you
in my heart
this wish i can’t
keep…

natural mystery
what is it and where
does it come from
what does it
mean…

lost in the haze
romantic cliche’s
believing intangibles
will do what
i say…

i can’t make it go
away so i shudder
hanging in fog
in my window
frame…

turn back to bed
so very late
bundle up tight
against the cold
wait….

On Friday, I realized that I am in my last days at my current job.

Once it was good for me, a means to keep my producing chops and paperwork skills sharp, a source of money to make this film happen (accountants, graphic designers and lawyers all cost money). In the past year at this company I’ve done my most accomplished work in an office environment. Some of it creative, too. I was asked on the spot to describe my background in the admin world on an Executive conference call in September, and I didn’t think - I responded like a good actor, leaped in and reeled it off. And, in the speaking, I became aware of everything I have done and can do.

Then I was hit with more responsibility. Technical writing, project management - it has been more than I’d ever expected or dreamed could exist in my role at this company.

It can be a vicious environment, swimming with sharks each day. Constant practice in “Perception is Reality". At first, satisfying to know that the blows can roll off you, that you have learned not to take anything personally and simply move on to the next need without judgment. But now it is wearing on me, eroding my ability to experience joy.

For some weeks now, around 2 pm on Sunday, I descend into a black mood. Unless I distract myself by going to some event or play or social function which feeds the artist me, that blackness clouds everything.

I never thought this about myself (only about other people!), but just realized I have a tendency not to finish my artistic projects. I get them to a certain point and then I have a crisis of confidence. Drop them and move onto something else. I am only comfortable when I am absorbed in something - then my fears are obliterated and I can revel in my imagination, the safest place I know.

I’m staring that in the face today too, a lack of confidence which is unfounded but which cripples me completely.

When I become seized with anxiety, rarely but it happens, I feel like I’m going crazy.

I’m not. I’m not.

My best friend just told me that my fiery spirit is what he loves about me.
“I know it sometimes overwhelms you,” he wrote, “but it is a driving force and one I admire.”

So. Driving force, eh?

A to B.
In between fits of tears, I will plow through my list.
I will stare this in the face and conquer it.

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
-Frank Herbert, Dune, “Litany Against Fear", 1965

at the end of our illicit affair,
i stopped to see you in your lair -
i was heading through the mountains,
and the treads on my tires were bare.

papers on sunday with coffee strong,
tussling under covers, none of it wrong -
sweeter for that, in our lives yet untold,
there was the sense it would soon be gone.

you sheltered me and gave me a floor
after so much pain gone just before -
you couldn’t know, and i never would spill,
our stolen riches denied we were poor.

i’ll never forget you standing in the door
as i drove off that night, into the storm -
strong enough to love me so,
and strong enough to let me go.

tara hughes

I am in the place I was this evening,
surrounded by my friends,
but it is not the place it was.

The bright lighting is gone
and it is no longer a mezzanine.
It is a warehouse strip club
in an alley at the end of the world.

The hightops are transformed to long bars
which cut across the space
filled with lines of bearish men, laughing,
punching each other in the arm,
garish women in leopard print coats
smearing red lipstick, and airbrushed claws
laughing raw from their throats
heads thrown back in abandon.

The red velvet curtains that swag
across the few windows are gone,
replaced with one giant red velvet swag
across the back of the room -
fifty feet high, twenty feet wide, thick,
it is both luscious & filthy
it can take you to the alley outside
which looks onto grass and empty lots.
We are at the end of everything
and even if we leave
we won’t know where to go.

The red-headed nymph flits about,
dancing to Cyndi Lauper as the lights
wreak havoc with her hair, and
no one touches her here, she is
too pure, and she will drift into the
field as the dawn comes
to be saved, it is her destiny.
Neon, now pink, now yellow-green,
slashing into the dark space,
I am dizzy with light and colour.

i think I’ve been here before,
i look for the dancers i’ve known, adored,
blonde, brunette Barbies floating as if on air
they are gone, replaced with two gap-toothed sadlings
bitter unhealthy, their ill-fitting wigs slip off their heads
as they dance poorly at the back of the room
as if to welcome you to the worst time
you’ve ever had.

There is a bunny in a top hat with a smeared pink nose
She is lost and her costume keeps sagging,
A man with sailor tattoos leers at her and i want
to help her but i can’t move my feet
Friends disappear into the edges of the room, hiding
fading into the dark walls but I am trapped in the middle
caught by some mystery
as yet unseen.

There is a Photobooth through a glass door to the right,
the contents obscured by gauzy curtains -
I am afraid to go inside, subject myself to the
brilliant flashes. Something tells me
I would be burnt into a million pieces of ash.
No one comes out after the flash goes off
but all you hear is laughter
inside.

Your hair is spiked and lit as if in a video game
and I am asking you about Jane
Jane
Jane
Jane

You tell me of how you helped edit her manuscript
when she looked at you and said, despite the abuse,
the mutual boredom, rage, still she wanted you
after all these years, still wanted you and did not
want you and would not let you go. No way.

You tell me of her smell, her taste, when she walked by
you’d drink up her passing, eyes closed, sniffing,
as if she had left droplets of Self in the air
that you were stealing - you are so hungry,
so greedy that my mouth hangs open
listening.

I cannot say a word, I cannot speak the words
the words I once had, had practiced and rehearsed
considered and rejected thinking well since it’s not me
would never be me - how could it be, I am so simple and strange -
i cannot walk away, but i am not brave enough to take the fall
i’d always taken before, and always always long for, just that
fall -
i hang in the centre of the room
deer in the headlights of your
raw power
and my own
lust.

your eyes are flat, you live so deep
within yourself i cannot guess i would not wish to
really. Pinned by that gaze i cannot move
when you step towards me, closer and closer,
i cannot budge and I am panting, terrified and
excited and every thing i’ve ever
thought about myself or worried
disappears in that stare.
i have no words, no thoughts,
i am here now, only
here now, breathing
shallowly.

Your hand snakes around my back and presses
firm on the laces at my back but i cannot feel your
arm around me - only your hand, only that piece of
me meeting that piece of you so near to the veins that race
through your arms and up into your heart, blood
blue with ambition and lack of oxygen.

My heart is bursting and some part of me bleats again
“you REALLY need to quit smoking” and this does not make
sense to me - I cannot do anything, I cannot move from
my place on this filthy cement floor, I am rooted like a tree, and
now i feel the heat of your body in the cold room, so close and
so far away.

I turn my head aside and your other hand is suddenly tangled
at the base of my hair, fingers twining and moving upwards
curving with my skull until the grip tightens and the move begins,
you are tipping my head, gently pulling my chin up, my eyes see
the dark ceiling split by erratic lightning as the heat of your body
comes near to me in the cold room, a storm of abandon
gathering on my horizon.

You press the length of me, bury your face in my neck and breathe
smelling my flesh as if I am an oxygen tank and you are drowning
as if I am soft and unyielding and I am, I am, oh Lord I am,
my eyes are rolling back into my head
at the press of your nose, your cheeks,
the grace of your hot breath on my throat,
breath, after breath, it is an age, an eternity
and i am losing my sanity, I am shutting down into
pure feeling. This, you, this, you,
too much, too much, too much for me and yet
i am clawing at my blouse, tearing it free
with my nails so the air shocks my bareness
and you are whispering the words “you” and
“perfume” and “you", interspersed with
my own name intermittently.

as i begin to slip into the spinning tunnel that greets me,
delicious frightening friend of old - i have a tendency
to faint dead away in public places -
i fight, fight, fight just to make this moment hold,
and the last thing i feel as i disappear
is the quick push of breath from your nostrils
coupled with the force
of my own
longing.

I wake soaked with cold sweat
alone in my bed.
It is 4:20.

What’s a girl to do
when the boy don’t call don’t write don’t phone
won’t even tuck you in at night,
Oh this one’s got your heart checked out on loan
and it’s long overdue,
its pages are rumpled, some of them crumpled, and now
it might just even
smell like mold.

And you are waiting for a sign, something divine
which is what you thought he was before this mess and distress

Somewhere he drifts through the city
unscathed by the thoughts that now plague you with no outlet
girl they would jet from your lips
like a five alarm fire hose if he stood to take it
but he knows enough not to come around,
not to make a sound,
don’t he,
Sistah.

So you keep closing the bar alone at night
keep watching the drunks stumble home tight with longing

An old friend calls you
to propose, you would move to Vancouver
have his children,
suck his dick like a Hoover, wear nice clothes
and you, girl,
you say no.

So you’re feeling numb, so you’re feeding on crumbs
you can always reheat memories of the night he held you

And you can make it through the day and you will fucking be okay
this love’s not the only one, and one fine day your Prince will come.

But when you finally see him close
that boy will kiss you on the nose
you will touch his scruffy cheek
and you will feel so still, so weak

When he takes you in his arms
with an utter lack of charm
he’s a simple kind of man,
no fucking retirement plan

In the quiet of his room
if you let him hold you true,
a thousand candles burst into bloom
around you.

So what’s a girl to do with that, Sistah?
What’s a girl to do?

tara hughes

it is the phone call allotted to me
with no space for my voice he
spouts my philosophies back to me
speaking with care as if i
need fixing

since i escaped he has whitewashed the walls
hidden my scribbles beneath
and now rewrites them word for word
never knowing he is
only tracing

pedantic lists of bad things to come
from the man once happy to make me laugh each day
once happiest standing beneath blooming trees
happiest now in the cement of his
own making

breathless in the mud beyond
sheer prison walls i’d never seen
lucky for the many who showed me the map
the tunneled route below our cage
just waiting

he who caressed my thigh on the lawn
she who said i could survive anything
the outsiders knew the yards were few
from a sentence for life
to sanctuary

tara hughes

today, in Eglinton square,
there was an old lady with no motility
left in her wheelchair in the sun
for, I was told, all morning

someone noticed, and called the police,
who called a wheel trans,
who all tried to figure out
where she needed to be
but

she didn’t have the ability to speak
her back was bent over so far,
her lips almost touched her knees
and she trembled with palsy

the police looked in her purse
it hung on the back of her chair
no one knew how she’d gotten there
they gave her water, hovered in the air
staring

people are helping
but i’ve nothing to do
i am just a passer by
with no authority and only
the feeling that something
has gone terribly
awry

i went back to my desk and tried not to cry

what is wrong with everything?
who is she?
what does she have to say but can’t?
where is her family?
WHY?

When I smile it’s a gift, something free
but no, you choose to see it differently
There’s no need for you to leave your friends
Lurch over and leer at me with a joke in poor taste
and truly lacking in economy

You murmur the word “sexy” but I did not choose to be
What you see is just an accident of birth and I could dress poorly
Cut my hair, talk in mumbles, craft a blank stare
And you’d still hit on me because I’m here,
I’m alone and I seem friendly.

You wanna know me? You can’t possibly.

I am best friend to many but lover to only some
I have my secret escapades only I know I’ve done
I smoke too much, I drink to excess
I eat like a vegan, cook meat to impress
I am a tigress and I am also a calm breeze
I am a 12 year old boy and I am also the prom queen
I am not your Madonna and I am not your whore
I am both of these and so much more -
A twelve level department store of intellect and beds
I take more time to know than the layout of Honest Ed’s

And here you are with your sweeties and honey pies
You can’t see my life in the panes of my eyes -

I am the 9 year old girl on a horse 18 hands high weeping with fright and galloping up a hill to the sky with a jump at the top so big I fear for my safety

All this I am, all this is me -
Don’t you dare reduce that to the word “sweetie”.

Still you stare, blinking eyes
A half eaten grin stretching wide
And I’ve said none of this, never would
What I say instead is fairly good

I have an IQ of 154 and I am very, very easily bored
Can you leave now please? My beer is getting warm.

I’m leaving a dinner party with dear friends and I hear a short sentence about me uttered just as I close the door. This comes from a recent arrival and relative stranger - their neighbor - someone with whom, for their sake, I really don’t want to have words.

It is a slight against my intelligence. Over a comment about the game, Crib. Spoken by a guy who had met me only 20 minutes earlier.

Buddy, I think, stepping down the last stair, if I wanted to wipe your ass with the crib board I could, but that game bores me interminably. If I wanted to challenge you to a game of reciting prime numbers, you’d leave feeling as if you’d had your ego fucking castrated without anesthetic. But I don’t use my intelligence as a weapon. I won’t. You can use being smart to be funny, you asshole, not to pass judgment on me based on what…my appearance? my smile? What?
What am I missing here?
FUCK!

And I’m almost out, closing the door when…

I lose my temper.

In those seconds it takes for the door to swing shut I know exactly the words I should scream up at him. And then, of course, slam the door on my way out.

There is a click as the door shuts.
I stand outside, wondering if it is worth it to go back in.

The fury descends in full force, like a storm of birds around my head in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

I am stuck outside, panting, thinking. I force myself to walk, hoofing it to the bus stop, growing more furious with each step. I ride home on the subway with music blasting in my ears, head tipped up and staring up at the ceiling. I walk three times around the block when I finally get home.

The Fury.

Since I was a young girl, and lost my temper on a helpless animal, I’ve practiced controlling the fury. Some people are just like helpless animals, really, and if you turn that on them with no warning you really hurt them. It is so enormous, so out of proportion, that it scares people. It doesn’t scare me, in isolation. The consequences of it scare me.

It is not my choice, that I’m aware of anyways, that I’m not acting anymore. It feels like I’m a side-show act for the Gods, a rat in a maze going towards the things I’ve always loved and finding a wall while some mighty Goddess of Creativity tricks me into another direction, giggling hysterically. Sure, what I’m being pushed towards is great in its own way, and thank you (Great Spirit), I’m hoping this is right, how could it not be, eventually.

But here’s what sucks about it:

I have huge emotions, huge. Ever since I was a child, I’ve had to hide them. In the theatre, I had to control them, but it is the only place where the sheer size of my emotions was an asset and not a liability. Not something to be ashamed of, but something I could rely on. And for the first time in my life, I could let them go and it was safe.
For the first time, I wasn’t a freak.
I was perfect.

If you saw me play Juliet at the Citadel, you saw a brief glimpse of the fury. When Dad Capulet walks into her bedroom, decrees that she shall marry Paris, and all hell breaks loose. He tells Juliet what she WILL do. And my director (a brilliant interpreter of Shakespeare for all his other foibles) asked me to indulge in the fury. She’s a teenager - why not?

In real life, as in that play, I hate it when someone tells me I can’t have something I want.

I dug in my heels and I screamed the word “NO!” I remember the word always bubbled up from my guts like acid, and when I screamed it I had no proper vocal tone, it was all broken edges and throat.

If I let it go, it feels like winds roaring from my feet and out of the top of my head. Images flit quickly through my mind, leaving behind only more fury.

I’m standing in a batting cage with a baseball bat, except I’m not a clutz at sports anymore, this time I can crack that ball and my muscles flex and curve and the impact rocks through my shoulders and knocks me back on my feet and the follow through is smooth and slow motion after that sweet sound of violence on the ball. Home runs all. Over, again, over, again.

The Fury makes me wonder if one day I’ll go crazy.
“I’m afraid…I’m like my Dad….” says Catherine at the end of “Proof".
That was the scariest moment I’ve ever had on stage.
To admit that, sometimes, I too feel crazy.

The only ones who’ve ever seen it in real life are my family, and my theatre school classmates.

I walk around the block and walk around the block until I can calm down enough to handle my anger, go inside.

It will be hours before I sleep.

I’m so volatile recently, quick to anger at work…and this evening.

Maybe it really was a bad week to quit smoking.

Rainy days always made the girl feel as it time had stopped. She felt ageless.
She had not been so strapped for cash, so alone, and yet, so at peace, in years.

She had no need to eat, no need to sleep; the restless sound of the rain pulled her soul out and up into the wet air through her bedroom window.
Silting through the leaves which hung dripping in the air, past the robins and squirrels leaping like faeries from limb to limb, she soared above the peaceful street in her mind.

The tree trunks seemed to open their pores and breathe, whispering fifty years witness of days - parents, children, lost girls, changing landscapes - and evenings - quiet slumping homeward treads and students trumpeting their invincibility.

Flying above the street she sees the bearded man in his waistcoat and long jacket. This is the uniform he wears all year regardless of weather, and the dark jacket - buttoned up to the tie - has rips in the shoulder seams, frayed edges. She has heard he was once a psychiatrist, who has since gone mad. He is a fixture in this neighborhood, walking a well trodden and wide-ranging daily path. He is, perhaps, sixty years old, and takes the tiniest steps as if each one is precious, or pains him. Once in a while he speaks to someone she cannot see.

She glides down behind him and drifts by his shoulder; invisible, barely stopping, she caresses his cheek and glides up up again on her way back to the bright window and her lair.

He stops. Scratches his beard where the marks of her passage lay in damp traces.
And resumes walking.

My funny, crazy, generous Dad always sends me something on Valentine’s Day.
I can’t remember which year he sent me this book, inscribed “With love from Dad, on Valentine’s Day".
Last year? This year? It is a blur.
It sat on the shelf waiting until I found the time and space of mind to read it.

Some time ago, an old friend and true love sent me a quiz.
It asked for three sentences about what I felt God meant to me.
It promised no judgment.
I remember my answers as angry, defensive. I was angry with my life, I guess.
I don’t believe in one God, I suspect we all have different names for the same thing.

Reading this book now, I see it can all come down to humility and simplicity, commitment and community.
You are here for a reason.
Do what you are here for, whatever that happens to be today.
Don’t waffle. Don’t hesitate. Don’t equivocate.
Respond. Do something.

Reading the books my father sends me helps me know him a bit better.
And when I send him books, it’s about him knowing me in some way.
We share something in our appreciation of black humor, giggling to ourselves while reading Mark Haddon’s “A Spot of Bother".
Perhaps this is why we all share books we love with others.
It is about communication and community.

Thanks for this book, Da.
A touching tribute, a lovely read.

I have recently moved into a small attic apartment which has plenty of character and charm…underneath the problems and grime.

I am astonished at the grime left by the previous tenant (how could you LIVE in that??), just as I am astonished at what my dear landlords believe is acceptable in terms of repairs and maintenance. You see, I lived in this building, 3-4 years ago, in a different suite. It was rough when I moved in but everything functioned; it was clean and it was newly primed.

Not this time.

When I moved in, the bathroom looked as though there had been an “exploding butt” incident. Usually I use the term “crap everywhere” to describe a disorganized space with nothing put away. In this case, one could use the term literally. With a mask, rubber gloves, it took me 3 attempts to get it clean.

I kept taking a break to throw up or gag over the sink. Pant, exclaim, shudder. Walk in circles around the living room, whispering “ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod!” My neighbors must either think I’m crazy or I have a sex addiction, such are the sounds I can’t help but make after facing one of these tiny untouched filthy places, hidden within the apartment.

Today I have tackled the cupboard under the sink. And though I have discovered a small leak in the plumbing (another blow), I have also managed to scour the wood and reline it with cupboard liners.
Again, frequent breaks.
Again, gagging.

When I first start, I think “How bad could it be??".

Then I discover it is worse than I thought.

As the magnitude of it sinks in, it seems worser, worser, worser, worser until you hit something particularly noxious and think, “This is the WORST".

Then you turn the corner.
All of a sudden, one small part looks…actually quite good.

Then the whole begins to look better.

And you slowly find your way to “best", whatever that might be.

I need to remember this journey these days as I drift about in my career, stuck between projects not quite on the go, pushing through the “worst” of each and hoping I will soon click in to “better".
I really don’t know where I am going, these days.
But it must be towards “best", mustn’t it?

I’ll just keep tackling one small job per day, work through the worst of it till I reach the best.

Like the previous apartment, I know this will become a haven.
It will be beautiful and it will be calming.
It is filled with light, it is airy.
It is affordable.
It is mine
and I can think here.

At this rate, there won’t be a housewarming until Thanksgiving.

So be it.

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”
Calvin Coolidge

I was asked to write a wee piece about working downtown before the G20 weekend, for the new online magazine, Back of the Book.

Above the yellow zone: the secretary’s diaries.

My life is changing radically, and the day on which this piece was due was one of the most personally difficult days in recent memory.

Reassuring to know that I can still write when things are going wrong.

hope you like it…

t.

I cannot believe that so much has happened in such a short time.
I believe that in 2009 I worked the hardest of any year in my entire life.

As the year draws to a close, I massage my bruised ego and baby my overworked bod, and look back on so very much.
And it keeps me from my zzz’s.

Our website for the film, “Goodness in Rwanda” is up for renewal next month. This time last year I walked over to Gord Rand’s house to pick up a pot from a potluck and it started. We picked up this idea, which was collectively wished and wanted by a group of like-minded individuals & fellow practitioners, and we were lucky we got to effing ran with it.

We are still running.

Not only did “Goodness” go to Rwanda in October after a successful run in Toronto, but we shot the documentary of this journey with our talented filmmaking team and with the generosity of spirit of our fellow artists & technicians.
The blog is here.
It was a life-altering experience.

2 weeks before I left my full-time job to start this new endeavor as a Producer….

and on my birthday, 2 weeks before that, all my oldest and best friends came to celebrate this new chapter at our home.

I discovered that I am scary around a hibachi - would have lit my own dress on fire if it weren’t for Sam and Sarah.
Leo, a workaholic like me, arrived after work and allowed me to torture him with angel card readings.

4 days after returning to Canada I was temping again.

I wrote my first film budget, which sucked, and then many many more. I wrote my first film investor’s business plan. I produced a film in Africa, with a great team.
We raised the money to shoot the film in Africa.

I met amazing people in Rwanda, and had my eyes opened to horror and resilience and joy.
I grew to know the production team and cast of Goodness, and am still surprised at how much I am in love with those fukkers.

In my last week of work, about to go back to the artist’s salary, my boyfriend was hit by a car on his bike.
He could have been killed. Was luckily only lacerated.
Recovery is long. And as yet, ongoing. He is not able to work.
He is also not able to ride his bike. He loves riding his bike!

My brother started an MBA - not bad for a kid who almost didn’t graduate high school - and he is acing it.
My Dad met my boyfriend and stopped worrying.
My mom broke her hip in 3 places just after selling her house and moving to Calgary to be close to my brother.
And just after she’d bought a condo in Calgary, but had not yet moved.
When she got out of rehab 8 weeks later, we flew home and unpacked and set up, with the help of family (Vital assistance), her entire home in 3.5 days.

Matty Butterfly graduated from Fashion school and I got to see his final shows in Toronto, then moved to Provincetown to be a painter and to make clothing.
Marian continued to beat the odds and the system in Regina.

Lynne’s teaching took off again, Kent’s writing took off again.
Shern got a big break after taking the leap to the new talent pool.

KA bought her big girl condo - she is such a styling, happening creature, and I am so proud of her for her resilience.
Dov broke his ankle, and did his summer stock show in a leg cast, in pain. And still came to my birthday. Dov is Ironman.

Rich decided to go back to school, and is quietly making it happen.
Dion had another banner year at Stratford, and started drawing again.

My friend Yashy became an Associate at Law at a prestigious litigation firm.
Alec & Amanda brought Inara into the world - I get to meet the wee lass this week.

My friend Victor is marrying the beautiful Leslie tomorrow, and I will be honoured to witness it. (Bawling, probably)

All this accomplishment, and think of all the work behind it to make it happen.

So, yes I’m tired, but I can sleep later. I was not the only one growing, learning, & doing in this year of toil.

Maybe, just maybe, we will get to coast sometime in 2010 on these accomplishments.

I am so very proud of my friends and family.

I’ll be proud of myself after I get some sleep.
I’ll just white-knuckle it to 2010, and the coasting part.

Here we go in to a new decade - man, we rocked 2009, for all its struggle.

Just got back from family Christmas in Calgary - on Boxing Day we went to my Dad’s brother’s house for one of their legendary Game Days. (They are vicious “Pit” players).

Knowing how I love “old things", my Aunt asked me if I would be interested in keeping a watercolour painting which had always hung in the Hughes home, ever since my Dad, and his brother and sister, could remember. Toronto as seen from Ward’s Island, by Owen Staples - old City Hall is recognizable, St. James Cathedral on King East is also prominent. There is no CN Tower, the financial district as we know it is not yet built.

We don’t know how this painting came to be in the family home.

Today I searched the artist on the internet - it seems he worked with my Great Grandfather at the Toronto Evening Telegram. Alfred T. Chadwick (great Grandpa) had started at the paper as a copy boy and eventually became the Business Manager, as well as one of the executors of the J. Ross Robertson estate. He must have known Owen Staples because Mr. Staples was an illustrator & cartoonist at the paper for many years.

If we date the painting to the same year as the others he painted from Toronto Island, it would date from 1931.

Apparently Grandpa Chadwick gave much of his estate to the Children’s Hospital and to the Toronto Public Library.

My paternal grandmother, who passed away suddenly when my father was 21, had been a librarian at the Toronto Children’s library - my dad has passed on to me her notebooks with her short stories, and her writing desk which I treasured as a child.

I have always been fascinated by our family history - now that Toronto is home for me, I am even more excited to find out how our family was a part of the city.

I also have an entry point or focus for learning about the history of the city, and her artists.

Here is Owen Staples’ bio.
(When I figure out how to post a photo, I will post a photo of the painting.)

Staples, Owen
(1866 - 1949)

One of Toronto’s leading artists of the early twentieth century, Owen Staples emigrated to Canada at the age of four. Showing an early inclination for art, Staples completed studies under both Horatio Walker and George Reid at the Art Students’ League of Toronto before reaching the age of twenty. He then completed his artistic education under the famous American painter, Thomas Eakins, in Philadelphia (1887-1888). Staples first gained employment as an illustrator for the Toronto Evening Telegram, working there from 1885 to 1908. Thereafter he was appointed the historical painter for the John Ross Robertson Collection, as well as illustrating a number of books, executing commissioned murals, and producing a fine oeuvre of paintings, watercolours and etchings.
Owen Staples has long been recognized as a master painter and etcher of architectural views and landscapes, both of Ontario and other regions. He was a full member of the Ontario Society of Artists (1889), the Canadian Painter-Etchers (1916 - later, President), and of the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour (1925). During his career, Staples frequently exhibited with the prestigious Royal Canadian Academy (1888-1940), as well as with the Scottish Water Colour Society (1933-1938), and in St. Louis and Chicago. His art is housed in most major Canadian collections, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, and the National Gallery of Canada.

Information supplied by:
www.artoftheprint.com/artistpages/staples_owen_
roadleadingtothelakeatportunion.htm

I am house-sitting for some friends in a different neighborhood, just off of Yonge Street.
I am a bit spacey today.
I go to the store to buy a can of pop, and it turns out to be the most expensive can of pop ever.

Put my cell phone down on the counter, an unwieldy HTC mobile computer phone thingy.
Dig in my tiny purse to pay.
Feel someone brush close to me in the crowded little counter area.
Pay.
Turn to get my cell phone.
…
Gone.
Run home, try to call my own phone.
Answering machine picks up, over and over.
Someone (not me) is making a call.

Call and cancel my phone service, and hope that in the 10 minutes just passed
a) they weren’t calling Japan/Brazil/insert expensive overseas call here
b) they get cut off by Telus right in the middle of their call

It is enough to turn me off drinking pop forever.
My knees are still shaking.