Stories Told

 

Earlier this week a few coworkers of mine began exchanging ghost stories.  One coworker recounted how her aunt’s cottage was haunted by a previous owner.  People see an elderly man through the windows of the house when it is supposed to be vacant. There are disembodied footsteps on the stairs. Taps are turned on and off at random. Another coworker shared that her sister’s house had previously belonged to the sister’s parents in law.  The house is surrounded by miles of prairie and is an old, yet still beautiful, yellow brick farmhouse. It is known within the family to be a creepy place during a full moon.  When the young couple purchased the house from their elders the sister’s mother in law (who had lived in that farmhouse the whole of her married life) said in a soft, girlish voice, and wry smile, “Oh, it’s a full moon tonight. The gremlins will be out.” Pets raise their hackles and bare pointed teeth to vacant hallways. Hard soled shoes walk across the wooden floors.  The sounds of people talking are hear behind the door leading to the attic. I scoffed at these stories but leaned in closer and kept listening. It wasn’t yet noon and yet I felt chills on the back of my neck. 

It should be mentioned that I don’t believe in ghosts.  I believe in the power of perception and of the human imagination. I believe in the power of a good story and of the magic (or if I should provide a word which carries less of a supernatural connotation, perhaps "captivation"?) between a story teller and their audience.  Having now shared my beliefs, I know that had I been listening to these stories in a darkened wood near a campfire I am sure my empirical resolve would not shield me from the thrilling power of these tales. 

The moments I spent listening to my coworkers and their creepy tales inspired me to think of the seemingly universal appreciation of an eerie narrative. I thought of those huddled in a longhouse ages ago, who shivered as a bard spoke with a thunderous voice and great gestures of the monstrous Grendel  who wandered the misty moors. I thought of Victorians sitting in overstuffed flower-patterned chairs holding crystal glasses of port round a crackling fireplace on a wintry eve and exchanged stories in hushed, resolved tones of floating grey ladies, mysteriously locked rooms, and draughty castles. For a good story (no matter what we believe) we can let ourselves be carried along for a time in the waves of the tale, for our hair to raise, and to watch for moving shadows in the corner of our eye.  Seemingly, it something we have shared in common through the ages.

The chop

Sat down in a chair at a hair salon earlier this week. When I sat down my hair tumbled half way down my back and I left with it cut just beneath my cheekbones.  I didn't, and have yet, to cry afterwards.

Don't get me wrong. I loved my long hair. "It" was very important to me.  I'd style it, condition it, curl it, straighten it, and make sure it shone.  I'd carefully trim its frayed ends and make sure it wore a hat.  I'd spent years watching "it" grow. Nevertheless, on Tuesday it got chopped.  I grinned as the hairdresser cut away my long locks and loved seeing it fall to the floor.

It dawned on me that so much thought goes towards our hair. It got me thinking about how much attention we give hair and how much effort we put into its maintenance.    Hair is a crucial element in how we present and express ourselves. This seems to be true across the world and throughout history.

With long hair I was Brynhild the Shieldmaiden .  With short hair I am Amelie Poulain and my grandmothers and their sisters in the 1940s. Without hair I'd still be all these women. Whatever fun I have with my appearance I am not my hairstyle.

All in all I'm happy with my new haircut and know that women and their hair are fabulous, but it is the women - rather than their hair - who make the stories and perpetuate awesomeness. (You had it right all along Mum!)

...like burning flames to look on

So the hosts met at Wolfstone, and fierce fight befell there;

Helgi rushed forth through the host of his foes, and many a

          man fell there; at last folk saw a great company of shieldmaidens,

                                      like burning flames to look on, [...]

-from The Saga of the Volsungs, Chapter IX

Have been captivated by Icelandic sagas this last year... it's a whole new world of literature and one I'm thrilled to explore.  The Volsungasaga is my favourite so far. What is yours?

A play.

           The Winnipeg Fringe Festival has come and gone.  For a week the city of Winnipeg was the setting for an ongoing myriad of plays all at about thirty different venues.  An absolute dream for lovers of theatre.

What my writing concerns today isn’t so much the festival itself (though I do love it of course) but rather what thoughts were fueled by my attendance of a particular production.

My thoughts were set into motion by a play called ’33, a Kabarett by Bremner Duthie who is its creator and sole performer. Set during the rise of fascism in Germany during the 1930s, Duthie plays the lone survivor of an entire troupe of cabaret performers . Haunted and escalating towards madness, the survivor and former cabaret MC (played by Duthie) relives his friends’ best performances. Heartbreaking and sometimes unsettling, it was utterly captivating. Duthie's talent and presence are unforgettable.

When a play is done well, I believe that there are no truer words than “All the world’s a stage.”  A good play draws you in and the theatre doesn’t feel as cavernous as it did before and you find yourself leaning closer towards the stage, and maybe your mouth is hanging slightly open in silent wonder. You are completely seduced.  There is nothing but that stage. This was one such play. It was well done. 

I'm no philosopher, but I probably believe in the importance of the Arts more than most things. I believe that the Arts are what define the human experience because its existence is so strange and unnecessary and that’s where I feel its beauty is found.  Singing, dancing, painting, writing, are not necessary to our survival. Theatre is certainly not necessary to our biological perpetuation as a species, nor is cabaret, really. But for some reason it matters that the ghosts of those cabaret performers keep on living their bawdy acts and that theatre exists because there is nothing more human than the expression of our perceptions and experiences by way of the Muses.

And ’33, a Kabarett and its presentation are a great manifestation of all of these ideas, I believe.  The play and its performer poked and prodded its audience and I was happy for it because to stop questioning, to stop considering the “what” and “why” we are or to imagine an existence without free would be a terrible and dangerous thing.

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"Elle portait, comme un homme, passé entre deux boutons de son corsage, un lorgnon d'écaille."

-

"She wore, like a man, tucked between two buttons of her bodice, a tortoiseshell loignette."

Madame Bovary

(1856)

Gustave Flaubert

I won't ever manage to forget about this line.  It says so much about the time in which this book was written, about relationships between people, about our perceptions and feelings regarding both women and men, about ourselves in our present time, and says so much - of course - about Emma, about Charles.

Image 1

Femme lisant/Woman Reading. Henri Matisse (1894)

Thoughts on money and dreams

It is an unfortunate fact of life that most of us mere mortals need jobs. I, unfortunately, am one of these individuals. Bills need to be paid, food needs to get purchased and eaten, and that Cath Kidston bag needs to find itself in my arms. I work so that I can survive and enjoy little luxuries along the way.

I recently graduated with a master's degree in history, but guess what, historians don't make millions and unfortunately, finding a job with history degree needs some determination, imagination, and luck. I guess I've always known this. The decision I made to go to university was instinctual. I wanted to read and learn, to wear tweed and be lost among the book racks late at night like all the historians I saw growing up on documentaries as a child, like the characters in the stories of M.R. James. I never really concerned myself with what would happen after I was done with school.

This is the first time I am out of school with no immediate plans to return to school. It is October now and I miss it already. I miss the late, late nights where I listened to jazz lost in the 18th century England or Rupert's Land. Now, like many others with liberal arts educations, I do not have employment pertinent to my studies. No book racks, no dusty documents, no late nights writing. (But tweed and elbow patches I still wear.)

I'm currently turning over the thought that a career does not define the person. Without realizing, I'd for years believed that a person's career defined them. How North American white middle class of me. I'm part of the generation that was told they could do anything and frankly, to a certain extent, we can. I'd come to believe to do anything less than our absolute best was failure. Technically, I know I COULD be a lawyer, though I'm not particularly inclined to become one. Is this failure? Could I sacrifice my nerves and free time to dedicate myself to gaining a higher pay check? These thoughts also apply to our desire for all things material. We feel entitled to have everything bright shiny and new right away. Nothing is ever good enough. I think most of us have forgotten how a few generations ago people didn't have credit as we do. No cash? Do nothin'. I'm not poor by any means and so I should stop feeling like I'm poor. Poor is not being able to afford food. Nevertheless, it seems that many of us feel that we're poor if we can't get what we want when we want it. This includes (included?) myself.

I've begun looking at the world beyond the nine to five. No, my job isn't what I ever dreamed of having, but I think it supports my dreams in another way. It won't be able to pay for those Louboutin shoes or that trip to England I've dreamt of, but I do have my English Breakfast tea with too much milk and Oscar Wilde's short stories.

So, really, this post is about the fact I'm in the process of grasping two thoughts:

A person's imagination is their ticket to freedom.

and

Dreaming is free.