SHE WALKS IN DARKNESS

Inspired by Portuguese Sonnets and Victorian Gothic Horror

She walks in darkness

Out of sight

A beast within

Behind sad eyes

Where others shied

from any fight

She embraced pain 

Saw through lies

They cautioned her 

She had a bite

Eschewed her presence 

Under the guise

Of more appropriate 

Social ties

But when they hurt

Felt shame

Feared pain

They found her

She listened 

To all their sighs

Behind the shadows

Her heart shone bright

In the darkness

She was wise

Beyond her years

Pushed to the edge

Of social norms

And mental health

A Debbie Downer

at a party

A failsafe friend

in times of strife

Behind dark eyes

A careful watcher

For bad in good

Ever present

November 17, 2023

Copywrite Freaka Johnsdotter

REVISION

She walks in darkness through the night

Steady in places where others take flight

Sitting in shadows out of sight

Fearless where others dare not go

She looks for those who are brought low

Staying where others don’t want to know

Companion to those who take it slow

Eyes and ears full of death

Attuned to distress and their last breath

Never alone but absorbed in thought

Memories recalled without being sought

In search of broken hearts to mend

Never knowing what she could give or lend

Cold fingers from the dying cling 

She squeezes warmly with lullabies to sing

Her beating heart slows its pace

Gazing unflinchingly into their face

Knowing how low she can get

Before she needs to recuperate

SINGLENESS AND WRITING

 I started a journal with this title in 1997, dated May 30. I was in my first year as a medical resident in Montreal, and I started writing in third person.

“The night was dark and the sound of rain hitting the roof and flowing down the drain pipes enter the room. She was lying on her bed, seemingly engrossed in a novel. She looked at briefly, laid the book, open on its pages and reached over her side table to light a candle with a match. The smell of the burning match reminded her instantly of a campfire and she sighted and sat up against her headboard in a happy state of reverie. Memories of past holidays, school backpacking trips, and summer camp tumbled through her mind with a smile coming over her face as one happy moment led to another’s memory.”

Some awkward phrasing, giving rise to an image of a happy nostalgic young woman with a room about to flood! My cursive writing was still quite readable, and I stroked through words in error with an average of two lines, something my medical training would teach me only to use one.

“970604

It’s the strangest thing, but I can write things on paper that I hesitate to tell my closest friends in person, and yet I would have no problem my friends or complete stranger reading the exact same words. Although it’s not intuitive, I think part of it [sic] because when a person sits down to read some thing, it means that they have opened theirself [sic] at least enough to make the effort to settle down with a book. And although many would agree with me about it, for an introvert like me who grew up devouring books, I think the medium of print is one of the most intimate, private ways of expression that I have ever known.”

VERSES

Isaiah 54:5 God as our husband

Matthew 19:12 singleness as a choice

1 Co 7:34-36 undivided devotion

Song of Songs 3:5 love in God’s time

Eccl 3:11a In His Time

SONGS

No One But You Lord

Abba Father

As The Deer

Cry of My Heart

Father God

The Greatest Thing

I Cry Out

I Lift My Eyes Up

In His Time

In Moments Like These

Jesus Lover of My Soul

Love the Lord Your God

More Precious Than Silver

O How I Love Jesus

Only A Shadow

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

Vergiß es Nie

When I Look Into Your Holiness

You Are My Wholeness

You Are the One

Father I Want You to Hold Me

I know the tunes and lyrics of most of these songs immediately, although they were stored decades ago. I think of myself of musically challenged, having confused Rush and Tragically Hip songs and many obviously different sounds and styles, much to my embarrassment and others incredulity. But as I sing these songs, there is an undertone that creeps me out. The love of the Father and Jesus is almost cringeworthy, as though their love is an obsessive love usually reserved for crushes, and romantic relationships. In that guileless love is the potential for evil, whether in losing oneself for another or as prey for a predator.

“Dec 16, 2021

THOUGHTS

I didn’t get very far in my thoughts almost 25 years ago,  but I clearly found myself a writer. At least a journalist or a reporter, I think it was difficult to write about singleness when even in my scripture passages, I [sic: sound like I] am not whole single. I am still looking to a man as god. 

Today I can truly write about being single. I could not live the life I have today if I wasn’t single.”

I LIKE GEOLOGISTS

 There are a few things that Princess Pirate complains about because I mention them too often. Hexagons are one.  The thing is, she points them out to me now, so I know that they are growing on her too. I mean, it’s a perfect shape, the hexagon. Except for when a designer goes a little crazy and tries to make something new like an elongated hexagon, which is always a mistake. Spring flowers like trillium are another. There is, however, an obsession that we share, and that I never get complaints about. We both love rocks. 

So I was looking for some cool sites to explore that have local geological interest. Since we had plans to go this past weekend for the Tulip Festival, I looked for information about Ottawa. When I found this website about Ottawa Gatineau Geoheritage Day, I was very excited. It was exactly what I was looking for. It had a map, and pictures of what we would see. 

One picture that particularly caught my interest was a familiar phenomenon that I had seen at McGill’s Redpath museum when it was open (pre-COVID). Unfortunately, we did miss the Geoheritage day, packed with tours, as it had already passed a couple weeks earlier. I did, however, identify where the formation of fossilized stromatolites (only two living Cyanobacteria reefs still exist - the Bahamas and Australia) were just off the Champlain bridge, and hoped to visit with my friend. In the end, she was game, and it was just the excuse we both needed for a wander around the streets and along the river on the Quebec side. 

I had noticed that, on three occasions, rocks described on the website were in “plane sight”. I wrote a comment (my inner editor could do no less) that I thought they may be mistaking the homonym for in “plain” site, and I was please to get an immediate answer back. It was even more gratifying that the mistakes were corrected within hours, accompanied by a hilarious email apologizing for the mistake because they did not have a pilot’s license! (Full disclosure, there is a term in geology that can be used with the word plane and not refer to aviation, but in this case I was right!)

Besides giving us places to go, I found that there was a book for sale that reminded me a geologic tour that  Princess Pirate and I loved in downtown Montreal from the Redpath museum. In this case, it was based in Ottawa, and advertised for $20, which seemed a reasonable amount for a risk of possible poor quality or disinterest. I reached out to Dr. Quentin Gall by email, and with a few back and forths, we agreed to meet just beside the Tulipfest.

I suppose I should have been more specific than deciding tomeet at a busy corner of his choosing without even exchanging phone numbers. We didn’t know who the other was, but he did say he was coming by bike, and there was a biker was wearing a very red obvious red shirt that passed the intersection twice while we walking nearer.  Encyclopedia strikes again! 

Quentin was charming, and full of enthusiasm for why I was looking for his book, and what I thought of the website.  He came with change (and wouldn’t keep a tip). The book was sponsored, so what I paid for two copies was a bargain for the work that was put into it! 

He asked me if I was a scientist, and I didn’t know quite how to answer. Not really, was the first thing that came to mind, quickly followed by the thought that, yes, I kind of am. It was the first time in a long time that when I admitted that I was a physician that the conversation didn’t change. He was a doctor too, and that was that, which was lovely.

The book was of such excellent quality, and arranged in small areas perfect for walking tours. He clearly could talk for hours about the rocks in the buildings listed in the book, but he was clear that he also provided the architectural context that I am more used to recognizing as a real bonus to my joy. The book also has an extensive intro to all the terms I need to know and some excellent charts in the back that have already given me a great deal of data that I have enjoyed, sitting at a table reading it. I cannot wait until I can walk around on a nice day and use it for reference. I should be able to make some educational guesses in Montreal with the glossary until I get back to Ottawa later this summer (for Hamilton!)

I’ll also have to return to the Champlain bridge late summer when the water table is low enough to see the fossilized stromatolites, and I think that will not have to twist my friend’s arm to come with me on a geological architectural walking tour next time I can come to town. She might even check it out before I make it back!

So, for now, I have in my calendar to look for Jane’s Walk next May, and look for more geological and heritage events in future.

Here’s another lead for another day. In this case, June 4, 2022. Alas, this year I am working. Most of them are Toronto and beyond, but there is one in Ottawa, in case that’s where you are in  3 weeks time!

Ontario has a heritage site for buildings and an open door day to visit.

DURA MATER

 My autobiography title translates roughly as tough mother. It is, in part, a story of one of my favourite aspects of life; relating to my daughter. I tell her stories calling her Princess Pirate. Tonight she created a new one when she said good night. I kissed her on her head in a hug, and she said in her best teen voice, “Ugh, you are killing me with kisses!”

I told her a Princess Pirate story recently, and she thought that I was the Queen and her dad was the Pirate, when I always thought it was the other way around.

He liked (and took) the china, crystal glasses, and Waterford utensils. He stayed unemployed for long periods of his life because so many jobs he was eligible for were “beneath” him. He was content to live a tiny life, and only went along, never inspiring or creating any adventures. 

I had the drive to travel, try new things, and do knew things or at least fun things we like. I could care less about china, or crystal, although I do like the feel of well made utensil! I will do whatever it takes, because who else is going to do it if not me?

I am not sure which version bothers me more. As a queen, I have no King, but how does he get the exciting role of pirate? Because this is what male culture assumes, even to my child? It’s not based on his personality, surely?

As the pirate, I feel I am appropriately counter culture, and suits me the best in the coupling of two fantasies that created the amazing Princess Pirate!

STEWART HALL EXHIBITION

rom the permanent exhibition called Visions of Stewart Hall 1885-1963

CHRONOLOGY

1855

Pointe-Claire opens its railway station.

1885

Thomas and Alice Amelia (Armstrong) Crane acquired a parcel of land in Pointe-Claire. Gradually they bought other lots. 

1890 

Upper-class families begin to look for summer homes for fresh air and rest in the country. Charlesvoix and suburban Montreal, along the St. Lawrence becomes a popular choice.

Construction of the villa finished called the Knoll. It was a building made of wood, with turrets, a colonial roof, and a black and white upper story (half-timbered look). There was a windmill that used gravity to provide the villa with water. 

1891

The Cranes owned from Lake St. Louis to the railway, St. Jean to Sunnyview Avenue. They were travelling between Montreal and Toronto for business. They lived in major hotels like the Windsor hotel.

1898

Farm operations were productive enough to require a distribution network for milk and eggs. There were cows, chickens, and pigs. 

1900

Bourgeoisie were increasing in number by the end of the nineteenth century. Most were men from “liberal professions”, but increasingly members of the merchant class. Modern transportations were predominantly trains and steamships. Two-thirds of Canadian fortunes belonged to Montreal’s English community, and the majority of them were of Scottish origin. Most wealthy families lived in homes in the Golden Square Mile or Saint- Antoine neighbour hood (at the foot of the mountain).

1901 

Hugh Andrew Allan buys the Knoll. (Crane keeps part of the land for the Canadian Nursery).

He was the president of the Montreal Ocean Steamship Company (the official carrier of Royal Mail across the Atlantic, and whose oceanliners were the first to be equipped with turbines in 1904), and director of several other corporations (Halifax and East Railway, Grand Trunk Railway, Shipping Federation of Canada)

He was the husband of Margaret Elizabeth. Guests of the Allans would spend the day playing cricket, tennis or enjoying water sports. In the evening, lavish meals, dancing, card game, and business discussions were common. There was even a telephone line installed as soon as it was possible.

Their Montreal residence was on Stanley Street in the Golden Square Mile.

1911

Charles MacLean buys the Knoll and begins constructing a farm. He is the first to live in Pointe-Claire full time.  The farmhouse was ultramodern, made of stone, with heated marble floors, and they played classical music for the cows to get their the best quality of milk. 

This is one year after his first wife, Martha Fulford and their newborn, died. 

Charles was raised in Lachine, and joined the Canadian Army in 1904, and served overseas from 1914-1918 with the Scottish Light Dragoons.

1915-6

The Knoll is demolished to make way for living year round in Pointe-Claire.

Mull Hall is built, inspired by Fulford Place in Brockville, and named after the memory of Clan MacLean’s ancestral home on the Isle of Mull, Scotland. Locally, it was called Château MacLean.

Robert Findlay was the architect of the neoclassical architecture building, with a symmetrical facade, except for the main entrance portico adorned with columns, and a formal colonnaded veranda out back overlooking the water. The walls are made of locally quarried limestone blocks, and the roof was originally covered with cedar shingles. The facade was symmetrical, except for the main entrance portico adorned with columns. The colonnaded veranda was formal in taste.

1917

Charles marries Doris, his second wife, in London.

1919

They returned from Europe to settle at Mull Hull with their first child Ian.

They live as “gentlemen farmers”, for pleasure, with about 25 employees doing the work. 

1920

Morna MacLean was born at a rented suite at the Ritz Carlton.

1931

Muriel MacLean was born.

The children ate most meals in their nursery, on the second floor, with a dumbwaiter bringing up food from the kitchen. When Nannie had the day off, they enjoyed the solarium (located on the west side with a wrought iron frame) or winter garden, with parrots, dogs, and mischief in the fountain!

1940

The Religious of Holy Cross arrived in Montreal in 1847, and are still active internationally today. In Quebec, they founded College de Saint-Laurent, Montreal’s College Notre-Dame, Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal, and Les Compagnons de Saint-Laurent (theatre). Saint Brother Andre (born Alfred Bessette, and initiated the construction of Saint-Joseph’s oratory) is their congregation’s most famous member.

The priests buy Mull Hall, and turn it into a noviciate, and operate the farm. They moved from Sainte-Genevieve, and called it Saint Joseph Novitiate. 

The attic was used as a dormitory. 

The chapel was in the room next to the solarium (grand salon) with the altar facing north where the stage sits now.

The basement housed a workshop to make candles for the Oratory. 

They made no major changes except adding a statue of St. Joseph in front of the portico. 

They kept in use the volleyball and tennis courts. 

The initial price was “derisory”, and the farm fed the community with surplus eggs and milk sent to the Saint-Croix priests’ college (now Cegep St Laurent), but it became a financial burden as the student numbers dwindled.

The priests lived reclusively during the 17 years there.

1950s 

Montreal suburbs experience a boom, and farmland starts to be subdivided and sold to developers.

1957

Development Corporation buys the property, with plans to tear down the mansion and build high-rises (in 1959)

1958

The farm is destroyed in a fire, and the abandoned Mull Hall suffers serious damage during the winter.

1959

Walter Montcrieff and “May” Beatrice Stewart (born in Jamaica, trained as nurse in Edinburgh) lived as neighbours to the MacLeans for nearly a decade just east of Mull House (now Stewart Avenue). They buy the property before the demolition occurred. 

Walter was heir to the Macdonald Tobacco fortune (shared with his brother Thomas Howard, their father Sir William Macdonald). He was the sole head of the business from the 1920s to 1968.

 He met May at the Royal Victoria Hosptial, and were philanthropists, donating to  Macedonian College, McGill University and the RVH. May wanted to save the MacLean house. They bought it anonymously before it could be demolished.

On September 12, the Stewarts sell it to the City of Pointe-Claire for $1, with the understanding that it would be developed as a park, and maintained in perpetuity.

The city opened dialogue with the citizens of Pointe-Claire to decide the future use of this newly acquired building. Vi Duncanson headed the committee that proposed to use it as a cultural Center, which the city accepts. The goals were to make culture more democratic and to provide access to high quality courses and content. 

1962 

Stewart Hall Cultural Center opens, with Vi(olet) Duncanson as the administrative director. She involved Jean-Paul Morissette (director of National Art Gallery), Evan Turner (director of Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), and Winthrop Judkins (McGill University professor and art historian) in the designing of the first policies. She hired Helen Judkins and Ruth Auersperg to develop the culture programs and art gallery.

It was inaugurated in 1963 by Governor General George Vanier.

It was remodelled with a new roof, HVAC, and to house the new functions. The third floor became the Art Gallery, the second a library, and the ground floor and basement housed various associations. Because of the Cold War, the Pointe-Claire Rifle Club was among the first, with a shooting gallery set up in the basement! Other groups included Claycrafters Pottery Studio, Lakeshore Weavers Guild, Lakeshore Camera Club, and The Stewart Hall Seniors.

1967

Art Rental and Sales Service starts and continues to present day.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Archives of the Lake St. Louis Historical Society 

City of Pointe-Claire Archives

Stewart Hall Archives

Album universal, Vol.22, no.1113, pp.560-561, Sept. 2, 1905 Bibliotheque Nationale du Quebec

I AM WRIMO WINNER, TOO!

 I have joined the illustrious gang of "winners" who have completed a gruelling month of writing 50,000 words for a novel. 

I reread some of it already, and it was good and bad!😄

Now, to put it all together. I am overdue in actually finishing a novel, a goal a little more recognisable in the general public than being a NaNoWriMo winner!

I would show you my certificate, but my google blog and my pdf refuse to cooperate today! You will have to take my word for it!

WRITING QUOTES FROM ESPRESSO BOT

"Whatever you choose to call it, staring into the abyss in search of an idea can be terrifying. " 
Colin Nissan (Don't Be That Guy)

"Novels do take charge of the writer, and the writer is basically a kind of sheepdog just trying to keep things on track."
John Gregory Dunne (Nothing Lost)

"The real hero is always a hero by mistake, he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else."
Umberto Eco

"Not a wasted word. This has been a main point to my literary thinking all my life."
Hunter S. Thompson

"If I stop working and just try to enjoy myself, I get very neurotic and guilt-ridden. Orwell was the same." 
Arthur Koestler (The Sleepwalkers, The Act of Creation)

"I write slowly because I write badly. I have to rewrite everything many, many times just to achieve mediocrity."
William Gass (The Tunnel)

"People underestimate the power of writing in terms of why certain arguments stick and why they don't...My objective as a writer is not merely to write in such a way that people read it and say, 'Yeah, I think that's correct. It's to write in such a way that people are haunted. That they go to bed thinking about it, that they wake up thinking about, that they tell their spouses about it, that they tell their children and their friends about it. That they grab them by the arm and say, 'You got to read this.'"
Ta-Nehisi Coates (The Water Dancer)

"Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft. The greater your vocabulary the more effective your writing."
P.D. James

"Language fits over experience like a straight-jacket."
William Golding

"Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them."
Harlan Ellison

"Most of us find our own voices only after we've sounded like a lot of other people."
Neil Gaiman

"Writers have a rare power not given to anyone else: we can bore people long after we are dead."
Sinclair Lewis

"Tell the whole truth. Don't be lazy, don't be afraid. Close the critic out when you are drafting something new."
Jane Kenyon (Let evening come)

"I want to be read. I want to be valued. That is perhaps the only shot at immortality a human being can have. "
Anne Rice

"It had better be quirky or perverse or thoughtful enough so that you hit some chord in them."
Nora Ephron

"Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun."
Christina Rossetti (19th century poet)

"I'm not too keen on characters taking over, they do as they are damn well told."
Iain Banks (The Wasp Factory)

"Trust your reader. Not everything needs to be explained. If you really know something, and breath life into it, they'll know it too."
Esther Freud (Doctor Who:Attack of the Cyberman)

"I approach the work as though, in truth, I'm nothing and the words are everything."
Louise Erdrich

"You know what about writing? It doesn't have any walls."
Lidia Yuknavitch (The Night Watchman)

"Along the way accidents happen, detours get taken - the accidents turn out to be some of the best things."
John Irving

"Write toward vulnerability"
Anne Lamott (Bird By Bird)

"Write about the emotions you fear the most."
Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak, Shout)

"Writing is thinking, and if you don't think clearly about what you want to say, what story you want to tell, you will never write clearly about it."
Kevin Coyne (musician)

"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive."
James Baldwin (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings)

“You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or rather you can if you will be ruthless enough about it.”

Ernest Hemingway

“If you want to work on your art, work on your life.” 

Anton Chekhov

“If the stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed.”

Barry Lopez 

“No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye.” 

Elizabeth Bowen

“Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing.”

Zadie Smith

“Here's how to write a mystery novel: at the beginning you tell a lie, and by the end you tell the truth.” Gregory McDonald

“There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.” Rebecca West

“Above all things—read. Read the great stylists who cannot be copied rather than the successful writers who must not be copied.” 

Ngaio Marsh

“Have more than one idea on the go at any one time.” 

Geoff Dyer

“It ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.” 

Jack Kerouac

“The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion…in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it.” 

Jules Renard

“Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.”

 Bernard Malamud

“A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage.” 

Sydney Smith

“The most critical thing that a story must do—the tippity-top of the narrative mountain!—is make the audience feel something.” 

Chuck Wendig

“I write a story as if it were a letter to someone and essentially, that’s what you do.” 

Theodore Sturgeon

ONLY A DAY AWAY!

I feel like every graph tells a story. These are the graphs of my third NaNoWriMo. It is a story of persistence, mediocrity, chaos, neglect, and discipline. 

The first graph proves that I am not an overachiever. The second proves that I am inconsistent. Together they prove that when I want something, I can get the job done! Also, I am very motivated by deadlines!

During this month, I have worked my full compliment of shifts (can you tell which were my two work weekends :)?), vacuumed my house, kept up on laundry, changed my car's winter tires, gone out to dinner with good friends, signed a contract for a bathroom reno, visited Ottawa for an overnight getaway, participated in a book club, visited two art gallery exhibits, fed my kid three times a day, had a friend over for a late Thanksgiving dinner, hiked, shovelled, watched a few Christmas movies and shows, and caught up with friends and family.  

I am proud of what I have accomplished, but my life will be a lot simpler on December 1st without the singular focus necessary for this event!

THE ORIGIN STORY

My friend asked me last night what has inspired my love of the Chateau Laurier. I would have thought that I was born with an innate love of Fairmont hotels, but I would have been mistaken.

My earliest memory of a Canadian Pacific (CP: now the modern Fairmont) castle-like hotel was a trip that my family took to Banff. It is a memory stitched together with just a few images. Some of my memories may not have been the same year or even in the right place, but there are two things I remember strongly: waking up at least one day in the campground and doubting my dad’s proclamation that we were in the mountains, until the fog finally lifted to reveal the rock face that had been completely obscured in the dark right beside our tent, and the outrageous and hilarious freedom of wearing garbage bags with our arms poked through because of rain, feeling none of the usual embarrassment in knowing that everyone we met was a stranger anyways. 

I have a vague memory of stopping for a hot chocolate in the lobby of the Banff Springs Hotel, but maybe it was just a look in the lobby. I have a picture of the hotel that must have been taken from some height, and looking down into the valley, the hotel was the scale of Neuschwannstein, and resembled the castles that I later knew were as an adult in Europe, with the ruins of Heidelberg found in the fog being a strong memory with no photo. When I moved to Montreal, I am not sure I understood the breadth of the CP hotels that spanned the country. I think that Quebec city’s Chateau Frontenac (CF) may have been my only knowledge of a hotel with the turrets and dramatic rooftops outside of the Rockie Mountains, but I am even unsure of that timeline, and that I would have connected the two spanning such a distance as where I grew up to where I ended up. 

What I do know was that I started a file folder with the bills and room cards for all my Fairmont Hotel stays over the years, and this is the timeline that I am more certain of, although given memory’s unreliability, there is still some artistic license likely to be present.

From my records;

My first Fairmont booking was for a conference in Toronto called the North York Emergency Medicine. It was 2007, and I did not go alone, leaving my then husband and my one year old daughter to their own devices while I spent long days learning. I remember that we took pictures in our bathrobes, and that my daughter was just starting to walk with confidence, using a toddler sized rolling walker and enjoying the enormous carpeted floors of  the lobbies and hallways. The hotel was the Royal York, and I can’t remember if it was this visit, or another in 2009, but we took the train that actually brought us to the train station that still serves the hotel. 

The following year, 2008, we booked a room at the Hotel Frontenac in the summer, and now we full blown chased after the little tyke who ran away if she could! No walker needed!

In 2009, I indulged in a night to celebrate my birthday, staying at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in hometown Montreal, with a view down on my favourite reminder of Rome (Vatican City, actually) that is Mary Queen of the World cathedral, and the incredible Sun Life Building that sits kitty-corner to it. 

The Chateau Laurier was next, during a year that I was developing the intention of becoming a  premier member.  That year was 2011, and there was a midwinter promotion in concert with the Holtz Spa in the nearby Byward market. I went with two friends that I knew from a group of long time friends. At the time I don’t think we had spent any time together by ourselves, but that trip changed things. Both of these women have become very important to me, likely beginning with that stay.  This also is likely to be the start of the idea for the book I am on day three writing. Certainly, CL is the closest Fairmont hotel to me unless I stay in Montreal, so has been the easiest to visit. It has never had the heart stopping increases in price that CF has had, and it is now officially the CP hotel that I have visited the most, thanks to my recent visit there with one of the two women that accompanied me there ten years ago. 

The three characters may have developed on a different timeline, but it is interesting to see the parallel of three women from that visit. I know that two of my original characters were based on others, and not on my travel companions, but even down to the room we had with 3 separate beds and a view to Parliament Hill feels primordial to where my story has evolved from. I also wonder if all my reading of Nancy Drew (ND) and her two best friends could have played a part. I think I may have even added a boyfriend, like Ned, to balance out the estrogen. The Mystery at Chateau Laurier was the original title, which sounds like a ND mystery, and the name stuck until my first NaNoWriMo in 2019, when I started to fill in the characters, but the mystery plot never developed, or was very awkward. 

I started going to the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) conferences beginning in 2011, and travelled to quite a few cities this way. I found the cost of the exchange rate, and the demand in the US cities almost unaffordable, so was not able to consistently stay at a Fairmont. I did enjoy my stay so much in Boston at the Copley Plaza that I returned with my family, this time with a time booked to walk their lobby dog named Caty (pronounced Katey). I remember a little room in San Francisco that was the peak of what I was willing to pay for a night, especially for a room that I was literally only using to sleep in. It was steep in price, but also in real estate, and I when the sting of the cost wore off, I was glad to have stayed truly in the heart of San Fran, even if it was just for a short time. 

I started this blog in 2012 on a spinoff trip as a Rick Steves superfan with an incredible stay at the Fairmont Seattle. Eating alone turned out to heighten each meal that I ate, and certain foods still come up as fond memories. Spanish fig loaf found in a brick at the international section at the grocery store, and several failed attempts to make the breaded cheese croutons that topped a vegetable bisque soup come immediately to mind. The food was accompanied by the luxurious surroundings and a pianist! I can also recommend that fall is a great time for eating out!  

Today I was reminded why I had the idea of a treasure hunt, when I found an envelope from October 26th, 2013 addressed to Princess Pirate, Room 373, and was dotted with pastel coloured and sparkly stickers in the shape of hearts and with happy horse faces . I don’t remember the ruse, but I wrote at the top, I believe addressed to the front desk staff:

BONJOUR. LAISSEZ MOI Á LA RÉCEPTION

The first clue must have been hidden in plain sight in the room, left to be found.

It read:

Good morning, Rebecca! 

Today I have a treasure hunt for you! 

The first clue is waiting for you at the lobby’s front desk, where I checked in. Just ask for a message for room 373. 

Good luck,

Love, 

Mom (smiley face emoji)

The second clue read:

Ask your daddy to help you find Albert Einstein’s photograph. 

Below it is a desk. 

Check the right drawer for your next clue.

P.S. This poodle is for decorating our shoelaces.

The third clue read:

Good job!

You found the next clue! 

(Editor’s note: I am hearing Blue’s Clues in my head now. I think that might have been my inspiration. Unfortunately it may have also been my aspiration. This was not great work, which is why I have had so much trouble making it into an adventure worthy of a novel!)

This place I found when I visited the castle last winter.

I loved it and am so happy to use it’s hiding place today!

Don’t leave the room, but look for a lamp with a stack of books. 

Don’t be afraid to be a detective. 

Be curious - I promise it won’t break!

The fourth clue was the last clue, and it read:

Wow, that was the toughest spot to find. 

Hope you are having fun!

Now it is time to return to your room.

Find the “safest” place and press the numbers of your birthday - month. 

Don’t forget to put 0 (zero) in the tens spot + day. 

(Editor’s note: I think this is confusing, and I don’t remember what the gift was!)

Hope this is a good gift for a princess!

Enjoy your castle!

I have long admired the construct of a murder mysterday, but before binge-watching was a thing, the closest thing we could come to was binging a series of books, which was hard to do given the constant wait required repetitively for the next book in the series to be released to you after putting it on hold. Even then, with authors like Agatha Christie who had long ago finished writing, it seemed like a far-fetched idea to have so many murders around one person, usually in a small space, or in a small town. These eventually transitioned to murder mystery shows, and the sequence of so many victims quickly became too terrible for me to bear. So I have still never read all of Agatha Christie’s books, and I don’t binge watch crime shows for fear of becoming so despondant as to be suicidal. I like the “twist” though, and when I started writing this book in 2019, I thought that I would take inspiration from the idea of a letter, but it turned out not to be a very interesting device for a plot twist. 

I took inspiration at least for the protagonist Stephanie from a Tissot painting that I have loved for a long time that hangs in the National Gallery of Canada called The Letter. It is a medium sized painting set in a beautiful garden. A woman with an elegant black gown and hat from the late 19th century holds a letter in her gloved hands that she is actively shredding. The multiple pieces hang impossibly in the air behind her, as if caught by an updraft. She is surrounded by fallen horsetail chestnuts, so I always imagined the park to be in Paris. She stands on the grass, which is a big no-no in a park in France, and there is only one table behind, so although I had imagined that she was in a public place, maybe she is at her own private residence and the man behind is not a waiter but a footman maybe. I don’t know what is happening, but her face seems confident, making the expression closest to disgust. Maybe she has  been stood up with a letter carrying the excuse? Whatever is happening, she is not devastated, but this is just the beginning of a story in my mind. She is my first truly original character. She is not based on anyone I know. She is her own persona, although I have to admit, she is also the character most like myself!

So there you have it. A story written over two Novembers, from 2019-2021, started a long time ago. The three women characters have been developing on paper and in my mind for along time, and they probably met the Chateau Laurier during a cold a grey fall in 2011. It was not a trip very far away, but that weekend changed my life. It brought me to dear friendship with two extraordinary women, had me fall in love with the architecture and history of the hotel, and started my writing inspiration for the story that continues to challenge me today!

COMING UP FROM BEHIND

I am barely keeping my eyes open, but I have passed the 40,000 word mark this morning, and am able to finally go to bed at 23:55 because I have passed the 42, 500 work count today. It was a big one, and it's going to be no small feat to write 2500 words a day for 3 more days, but I am back on track, and looking towards the finish line. 

Good night wrimos!

Good night moon!

NANOWRIMO 2021

This month is going quite smoothly, but I tend to be a chronic underachiever! Although not far from the stable graph line sloping upward to 50,000 words, I have only surpassed it twice, November 4 and 5th. It would be easier to finish on time in one week if I had, and my failure daily to reach the target is sobering. On average, I am writing 1460 words a day, which is why my current word count needed is 2137. A small deficit kept from November 7th grew significantly with weekend shifts with 0 imput (losing me a 21 day in a row and every day writing. The holy grail of achieving your daily goal for 30 days isn't even on my radar!)

In addition, this year, several in the Montreal group (of which I am grateful for their motivation) are already at 50,000 words and writing beyond! It's exciting to see how some took off running and left a bunch of us the dusk, most of them with day jobs and some of them with lives! 

That being said, I finished my last (night) shift yesterday, and feel somewhat lucid today, so I have a really good chance to get this done. My only glitch is a 2 day trip to the scene of my story with a friend, in part to celebrate our current age before upcoming birthdays. I hope she knows how much time writing takes! If not, I am going to be losing sleep for the last push!

What is exciting to me this year is to see how preparation helps. In an ideal plan, your house is in order and your freezer full of food, as well as 30 plot points or scenes for a place to start every day. Still, I have 6 characters, one that is likely to end up on the cutting room floor, that I have enjoyed following around. I never got into those video games like SIM city where you create and world, but I feel like it's very similar. In my hands, my characters resemble awkward monsters like Frankenstein's, and like the early CG effects associated with creating people and putting them in situations. 

The other factor was a very frustrated creative writing teacher that initially I found very critical. With time, I saw that what he was criticizing was a group of writers that were excellent at writing what they knew (their own reflections), but the class was meant to create something new. That is not easy, and it was not easy for our teacher to get us to live out our fantasies. I am starting to get it, finally. After decades of journaling, my ability to report and reflect is not bad (not good, but not terrible!), but I have to create something new. 

The question of, "What if" is a great starting point. What if my character living an ordinary life of a daily grind has something extraordinary happen? What then? That is when the fun starts!

Next, when your characters are boring you, there are ideas like: Flashback to explain their emotions. Grab a tearjerker. Stir the pot. Forget the rules. Write the rules. Depend on insanity. Some of this I credit to Scarlet, our Montreal leader extraordinaire. Some she would credit to a packet of cards from the Writer Emergency Pack by John August, like Change every blessing into a curse, That's Not the Dragon, and Standard Procedures.

My fellow Montreal writers have also been inspiring. We have virtual sessions where we chat and inspire, and then write for 30 minutes of the hour. There is some competition in how many words we each type, but it is a friendly one. Like yoga, most of us are just competing with ourselves, and at times the days with the lowest word counts are necessary moments in creating the next new idea. There is also a group that hangs out at different times on A Writers Mess on a server called DISCORD, and the sprints are frequent and short, with lots of nice things (if you are willing to learn a little coding) and helpful people to coax you along in your journey. You can even use the BOT to do it all by yourself! I found that helpful last night at 23:43!

As an exercise in not judging what we write, this elusive goal keeps the critic on our shoulder in check. Afterwards, some serious judgement will be necessary. At one point I was so tired, and my character had had three name changes, that I couldn't remember what to call her!

I have learnt that your soundtrack cannot be too slow, and my new favourite is a 25 minute 42 second CBC recording of Alexandra Streliska "Inscape". I also recommend google docs. It has an excellent autocorrect for grammar, keeps a word count total or for a highlighted part. Plus, my daughter has more than once been my IT support to help me get out of trouble!

So today I start at 35,043 words in my count. A few are plot points and not yet stories. I am taking a risk not using these words to contribute to my word count, but I think reflection is a powerful thing and I might not have much bandwidth after this to consolidate my thoughts. Last time (and for the first time in 2019) I wrote 50,000 words, I couldn't look at it for months. It speaks to under training, and reminds me of the marathon I ran once. I was in good shape and definitely did some training, but after I finished, I didn't run for months. Not great! 

I am excited to put the two parts of the story together, and I have put out feelers to a few people willing to read at least part of it. This will not be great Canadian novel published for the world to enjoy, but it will be a stepping stone to something else. If nothing else, it is wonderful to see the process if you just keep applying the work!

Good luck to all my NaNoWriMoers out there. Whether you make your goal, or fail to achieve it but do something else instead, you are a winner! Showing up is more than most are able to do, and you did that and more! I am so proud of you!

CREATIVE WRITING WEEK FOUR

Prompts:
Bird

You too (et tu brute)

2 stepping across life

Lessons:

Fiction is a beautiful lie. 

Don't mess with a soufflé.

Artists/authors:

Linda Marics

Suzanne Belair

NANOWRIMO 2021

 WORDCOUNTER

BACKGROUND MUSIC

REWARDS: 

PERPETUAL CALENDAR

THE HERO'S JOURNAL

FANFICTION BY TABITHA GILROY

PUBLISHED NOVELIST ON ZOOM

Word sprints 658 in 30 minutes PR!

Vocabulary to incorporate (can you find the six words?)

On the island of Capri, in a hypogeum populated with boats bearing tourists, seeking its cerulific waters, an otacust in a boat wheepled in alarm when he saw a man disrespectfully avulsed a zoetic creature from the stone wall.

2 days with no words is killing me now! I must keep it up until my next shift, and then not give it up no matter how bad I feel afterwards. 1667 minimum a day to the end. Half-way I am crawling back at 21,705.

Monday morning write-in gave me 2000 words in 2 hours. My best word count! 

CREATIVE WRITING: WEEK THREE

Inner voice - italics

?clearer. Less censured. In some characters, more sure; in others, insecure.

It should be clearly different than outer thoughts.

Back story - research

What’s next, flow

Velocity, rhythm

HOW CAN YOU TELL WHETHER OR NOT SOMEONE WILL BE A GOOD FRIEND (5 minute, in class)

You can only tell if someone will be a good friend over time. 

It is easy to know if you like someone or not often within a few minutes of meeting them. But friendship requires more complicated decisions and character traits than the common interests or sense of humour or agreeability that makes the first encounter the start of a friendship. 

It is much harder to  have a good friend. They need to be able to respond to some of your needs. They may need to know what you need even when you can’t tell them. Some traits that make a person easy to know initially do not guarantee that they will be a good friend over time. 

Even more complicated is the fact that two people are changing over time.

Authenticity vs hook

Mina bird

*Background story

The sound of the city at night

What is the coolest thing found in nature (awe-inspiring)

I am really proud of …

The sounds of the city at night

Sometimes when I am sitting in my house in the suburbs, I am amazed at the absence of sounds. I think myself very lucky, and do not miss living in downtown.

When I go for a walk, I hear neighbours talking and laughing in their yards. The leaves  in the trees rustle in the wind in the summer. They swish around the street when it is fall. Sometimes there is the sound of rain falling and striking objects as it lands. Other times, the wind swirls around in gusts, and seems to come alive as its own entity.

With the windows open in the summer, the occasional car sound passes by. For a wonderful year, there was not even a plane that could be overhead. But now, the planes seem to fly low and frequently just as the sun sets, putting my teeth on edge. I hardly notice the crickets looking for love, or the shuffling of a skunk or raccoon through the yard until it passes. Then the tranquility returns, and the symphony returns to my ears, restoring my calm. The fall usually brings the sounds of geese leaving for the south, travelling under the safety of the night sky, and honking their good-byes.

Each morning, the newspaper delivery car drives by at 5:30 with a defective muffler, and wakes me up with the violent shaking of my windows. If I am lucky, the birds chirp me back to sleep until my alarm goes off later. 

Last year, when they dug up my street to place drains and rebuild the roads,  I actually learned to fall back asleep to the sounds of heavy machinery instead!

Recently, I went to downtown for supper, and I was surprised at how calm the sounds were after dark. I usually visit the city during the day, when it is jarringly loud at times. I think of my streets as quiet in comparison. But in the right streets, downtown has a quietness too. Less animal noises, but the hum of a quiet version of itself.

I hear a low grumbling, and I sleepily recognize that the night is coming to an end. I am instantly awake, as I race to the door. It’s garbage day, and I have to get the garbage to the street before the truck arrives at my house!

FEEDBACK:

Recognized as a compare and contrast essay

Less seems - directly is

Sometimes is weak - rarely, from time to time

Silence to noise

Take out downtown

Move through the night temporally - natural order of time

CREATIVE WRITING: WEEK TWO

Q: What happens next? Emotion. Motivation. Don't describe. It's like a performance. Be a storyteller.

Is your story moving along? Do I care about what I wrote?

Drama is often negative. Conflict doesn't have to be unhappy though. Think of the truth in comedy. 

Think of Dave in Vinyl Cafe. Find a personality with problems, and they can become your conflict that moves the plot forward. Create a character we care about. 

Make discoveries. Follow the action. Make a treasure hunt, and keep leaving clues. Find a cue. Create a safe place, and then change a variable. 

Editing is like playing a Jenga game. How much can I take out and it still keep its integrity.

In 8 weeks, am I a better writer?

Reminiscences

Pay attention to the point of view, and don't change it unless you make another chapter.

Layer the interaction

PROMPT (last week I missed):

Wool

By the ocean

Accident

300 words

a couple of characters

----

for next week:

an unexpected phone call

holding hands

jump

CREATIVE WRITING PROMPTS: WEEK ONE

A rock is thrown through a window

Write a story about a character who interprets people's dreams

I told you so

ON WRITING

Writing feels essentially a selfish act.  An attempt to thwart mortality and live on in words, that in future, you will no longer be able to speak. The opportunity to tell a story that no one else in your life is willing to listen to. It requires time away from other social interactions. Carved out from the time you could spend with others. The focus taken away from all sorts of other priorities. Time all for yourself. A pleasure only for the extremely shy and introverted and antisocial. A feeling of guilt for me. A futile exercise. A waste of time.

Living alone in covid, writing feels less selfish. With families insulating themselves at home, the extroverted demands of society dropped precipitously. Writing becomes therapy. One hand clapping in the forest, never to be heard. An attempt to refine one's thoughts. The defence you never had a chance to voice in real time. A legacy you leave without knowing who it is for, if anyone. A voice in the wilderness, perhaps sent out only to the vibrations of the vast magnificent universe itself.

Writing feels like necessity. The vice of selfishness I was taught, I now see as self-preservation. The church's idea of centuries warping the ancient ideas of a spectrum. From a balance of yin and yang, to Aristotle's Golden Mean twisted into black and white. If it's not a virtue, it is a vice. Selflessness is the virtue. Selfishness, the vice. Leaving no room for self-care or self-preservation.

Writing is self-care. Writing is for self-preservation. Writing is for me.

AN INTROVERT'S MANIFESTO

I am an introvert. Probably I am a shy introvert. But I have spent my career trying to live as the expected extrovert, and learning some very bad habits.

My job, like many in public service, puts me in contact with a lot of people. Professionalism does not allow me to avoid the very thing that takes my energy. I must talk to patients and staff and families, be interrupted from tasks to communicate and act. Sometimes it takes me days to recover.

But before this was my job, it was more acceptable to be a quiet observer and thinker. I was a student, after all, and spent hours every week in my own head, praised for my conscientiousness and careful work, and given hours of time to process and evaluate per hour of class interaction.

Back then, when I was asked what animal I most identified with, it was a deer. A lot has changed. If you ask me today what animal I most identify with, it is a shark.

So what has happened?

In the last twenty, maybe 30 or 40 or 50 years, our society has become obsessed with efficiency (because this makes things cheaper), and performance is often based on the appearance of efficiency. Those who act are valued over those slow to act. But reacting isn't the best solution long term. You need to create the way the world flows past you, not just be able to swim in the stream. Acting with purpose and forethought is how an introvent best creates a better environment.

So I have realized, after twenty five years of cultural indoctrination, that I have lost my skills as an introvert, but react with the best of them, living in a stress response state like a shark. I am almost never, even at home in my own family environment, acting in an unstressed introverted way. I have lost my skills to listen, consider, and even be conscientious. I am trying to find a way to express myself, and not be a doormat, but often speak up to even the "fairness" of the conversation balance, and find myself unskilled in turning into my words into something practical.

I am trying to rediscover these skills, and give myself time to recouperate. I am trying to be alone without feeling lonely. I am trying to resist the urge to believe my culture that I am not as good as someone who recharges around people and doesn't find themselves in their most stressed state most of the time at work. It's a work in progress; like most everything.

Sometimes I imagine a world where my boss schedules me with a day off every couple of shifts so that I recouperate my energy. Where my colleagues would think twice about interrupting for every single thought they have, considering that I was "thinking", and waiting until they had done their full assessment before asking me what was already documented. I wonder what it would be like if the doctor who led a trauma or a code who was quiet would be listened to, instead of being talked over or pushed aside. I wonder what a band of misfit introverts could do in our system if we had power and control over the budget. Keep dreaming.

A TIPPING POINT (OF TIP DIPPING)

Sometimes what is done for years even decades makes no sense. I might notice. You might notice. But most people don't until one day something happens and it changes everything. Your knowledge didn't make the change. The people didn't make the change. But something happens, and it all changes.

I noticed today at Skate Canada, which I was privileged to attend thanks to a friend's friend's complimentary ticket, a few skaters with ombré hair. They looked nice. For years and years, peers and hairdressers have suggested that I should get highlights. I have always hated them. In my middle age group, it looks too obvious, and within days the roots show even if it was perfectly executed on the day of the hair appointment. I have seen twenty year old women highlight their hair, and look middle aged. I have never seen a highlighted hair that didn't look fake. To me it made no sense. But many many people relied on this. Spent a fortune getting them, and manically tried to maintain them. It never made sense to me.

Enter the recent trend of ombré hair. Back in the 80s men were getting their hair tips done, usually blond. It was laughed at later, but it was never applied to the permed highlight hair of women until the last decade. And it has changed everything. No longer fighting the growing hair, it could grow with the hair. Young women looked sophisticated and their age. Older women didn't have to worry about "growing the highlights out". It was enough to break the trend of highlights, much to my relief. But it came from a tipping point unrelated to sensibility. It was based on aesthetic, and took more than one generation to change it. It wasn't chosen, but it happened nonethless.

So, if something doesn't make sense, and you wish it was otherwise, sometimes it has nothing to do with convincing others to agree with you. Sometimes it just needs a different, hopefully better idea to replace the former one.

FORTIES AND FAILING IT

My daughter came home from school today, upset. She had been working hard at a poster project, and her teacher criticized that it was too little in so much time. In 50 minutes she had drawn an oval and two hands. This is not uncommon, but having her teacher call her out on it was. She felt like a failure.
I did my best to re-frame the day. She admitted that it was a pretty great day otherwise. I told her I loved her, and that I had never seen her fail yet, and that the only way she would fail is to give up now. I asked her how she felt when I "failed" the triathlon, placing in the bottom 1% and she had to admit that she was proud.

But tonight, when she said she was ready for bed, I walked through the house to her bedroom and saw everything that I asked her to take care of every day done badly or not at all. Her clothes from tonight and this morning were on the ground. Her bookbag was stuffed with loose crushed papers. Her coat was on the floor instead of the empty hangar. Her shoes were knotted from when she removed them. So instead of being the mom that I wanted to be, I took every careless act as a personal insult, and I felt ashamed. Ashamed that I let others take advantage of me. Ashamed that I let her have playtime after school instead of doing chores, because I think she needs it, but maybe I'm not completely okay with. Ashamed that I can so carefully explain the simple rules I ask to be honoured over and over, and to be completely ignored. So I freaked out, and made her correct all these "failures" before she went to bed.

They say that the forties is when you know who you are, and have the confidence to be who you are. Some of my friends have things organized: menu planning, house routines, time to paint and run 10 k and something of value to teach others. I feel like I am constantly made aware of my failings, but I have never been more disorganized. I can't seem to set a routine and keep it, whether in menu planning, housework, work work. And instead of having an ally of 15 years and share stories of the same timeframe, I am gun shy, anxious, and way oversensitive to shame.

I guess I'll have to listen to my own advice, and try again tomorrow. Here's to hoping that in my fifties, I will finally feel comfortable in my own skin again, and, even before, not overreact so strongly to laundry on the floor, and next time, like the politician's advise, trust but verify.