At the Dinner Table

"No, don't ask him, he doesn't talk about the war. It must have been traumatic for him. Probably best not to bring those memories back, especially now when his memory's so vivid, but his body and mind so frail." I explained this in French, so that no one but our friend Kathleen and my husband could understand.

We were sitting at the supper table at my grandparents', a nook in the kitchen. The dining room was for special occasions, like Sunday dinner, and tonight we had take-out from Dominoes. I had come down to central Pennsylvania, my childhood home, from Quebec City, where I now lived with my husband, Jean-Philippe. We tried to visit my family at least three times a year, especially now that my grandfather's health was deteriorating. On this visit, in June 2008, we had invited Kathleen to come with us since she had always dreamed of visiting Philadelphia and Gettysburg.
Between bites of pepperoni pizza, Jean-Philippe convinced me that Kathleen could ask about the war. "Sarah, she's a guest. It's okay if she asks. If he doesn't want to talk, he won't."
"All right, all right. Go 'head."
Kathleen turned to my grandfather sitting beside her and asked "So, Mr. Keller, Sarah says that you were in the war. Were you on the front?"
"Oh no, no," he answered, "I was a radio operator even then. They'd sent me out to California to relay messages from the Pacific."
My entire perception of my grandfather as a soul troubled by the nightmares of the brutalities he'd seen as a young man crumbled before me. The images of years on the front line in France killing his German "cousins" dissipated. It wasn't that he was traumatized by what he'd experienced at war that kept him from answering my sister's and my questions about it for school projects, but just that he didn't have anything to say. Perhaps it seemed sacrilegious to him to speak of his safe existence in a Californian office while his childhood friends had been killed in action. Maybe he was ashamed of his security in a time of insecurity.
The cloak of silence fell with the curiosity of a stranger.


(Inspired by the Sun's March 2009 Readers Write theme)

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Rap Spherical

I went through a rap phase a couple years ago. The Christian hip-hop forum Sphere of Hip-Hop inspired and motivated me to write a rap myself.

Here it is:

Philosophies and ideologies circle round, "spherical"/ been recycled 2,000 years, threadbare, our rhetoric simply rhetorical.   

Purely analytical, logical seeking evidence from periodicals, all else deemed magical/ Skeptical, cynical, while gazing eyes on the freeing scars, slightly mystical.

Generation to generation the lies multiply, no longer practical, but lifeless liturgical/ Spiritual pride blinds eyes to practices that are borderline comical/Flattered as the big, black crow, the cheese...satirical.

Cock crows three times, yet you deny the one you've seen eye-to-eye/ smells political, like Good Ole King Cole before his pie/ as he slices it open and the crows cry.

Proverbial camel through the needle's eye, Rich Young Ruler like the typical American guy/ Refused to give his all to keep his piece of the pie.



I still admire those that can expertly mix rhythm and rhyme with references to pop culture.

The Fence

Dad built the wooden fence around our yard to keep my brother and I from running out into the street. We were rambunctious toddlers and our yard led directly into a narrow alley downtown, so an inattentive moment could be disastrous for us.

I remember him digging deep holes and pounding the posts into the ground. Then he nailed two rails across the posts.

The screams of the belligerent teenager next door were not considered when constructing the fence. Mom and Dad figured her parents were dealing with a rebellious teen. Even when her little sister would cry and yell and kick when her father would pick her up from playing with me to take her to their cabin, Mom would try to soothe her. "You can come back to play after your trip. You can start where you left off." She didn't realize that the little girl would never be able to start over again.

When Dad read in the newspaper that the neighbour was being investigated for sexual abuse, he and Mom decided to put the house up for sale. The fence had kept us safe from running out into the street, but now seemed too weak to protect us from others getting in.

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Fences

This month's topic at The Sun Magazine is "fences." I've been lucky enough to never live in a home that needed one. Do you have an experience that portrays fences, literally or figuratively?

A Little Bird Distracted Me

A gorgeous day yesterday and even though I usually stay inside to study when it’s nice out, I decided to go outside to the picnic table.

Why, you might ask, would I choose to stay inside when I can go out on my patio? Because I get too distracted.

Case in point:

Yesterday, the next-door neighbour found a parakeet in the tree next to her balcony. When she went outside to see it, it flew onto her and climbed onto her head. She called down to me and another neighbour, who was washing his car, to ask if we knew who the owner might be. Nope. The bird then flew onto the balcony of my upstairs neighbour and when it saw me it dove right down onto the chair I was sitting on. Then it hopped onto my hand. Well, I couldn’t continue typing with a bird on my hand, could I?

When she (it looked like a girl bird, so let’s go with “she”) saw its reflection in my computer screen, she was here to stay. She even pooped on my “I” key!

(Notice the "Gerard Manley Hopkins" book...Good intentions!)

She passed at least an hour with me. My neighbour and I gave her water and the top of a hamburger bun to eat. She was so friendly, she even gave me kisses! I realized that I was talking to her as though she could understand me, asking her about her owners, her home, and reassuring her that we would take care of her until we got her home.

I finally realized I needed to get back to work, but I didn’t know what to do with the beautiful yellow and green bird. I didn’t want to let her go just to be eaten by a hungry cat. I asked around about a bird cage, but no one had an extra one. So I decided to go door-to-door to find the owner. I felt like a pirate with a parakeet on my shoulder knocking on doors. I subdued my desire to hurl “Aye, matey” when the doors opened to me. After visiting two houses, the bird bolted into the air through the branches. I was surprised how high she could fly after spending most of its life in a cage.

My nap yesterday was full of yellow and green blurs as the little bird tried to lead me to her home. And she COULD understand me after all.

My afternoon was enriched by the presence of a little bird. That distracted me.

Prize

One of my poems, "Kaleidoscope," has won an honourable mention (2nd category) in a poetry contest! Because I still hope to have it published, I won't publish it here, but if you'd like me to email you a copy, let me know.

This month's topic on The Sun Magazine is Choosing Sides. Luckily I don't really have anything to write about on that subject. When have you had to choose sides? What did you end up doing?