My November Guest

Picture taken on Soyosan, early morning on Nov. 5th.

Has it been so long? Last November Jiwon, Andrea, Clare and I walked up Namsan on a cool sunny Sunday afternoon. Clare asked who wrote the poem "My November Guest." Although a feeling of recognition stirred inside me, I couldn't remember who wrote it. Jiwon suggested Robert Frost and she was right. Bits and peaces of the poem kept coming back to me as we walked up, especially those alliterated parts "desolated, deserted trees" and gray turning into silver. So many poems and words swirls in one's mind, it's impossibly to have them neatly classified and retrievable, when need arises (unles one makes a point of doing so, of course).

I personally have always been more 'prosaically' bended. When I was a teenager, just like any other teenager, I flirted with writing poems - a girl was expected to do so, after all. It's funny how cross-cultural this pubescent scribbling thing is. Moving through langugages - from Croatian, to English, to German, and back and across - one has to endeavour at getting the rhytm and picking up the melody of the language. Of course, I can appreciate poems in all three, but I still memorize the ones in my mother tongue the easiest.

I don't have the cable TV so I spend my evenings with two trusted companions: the Aussie Shiraz and my Toshiba laptop. I was looking for something else last night but I came across the November poem. I read it over and over again as it really struck the 'melancholy' chord in me this time- and oddly - I could recall it almost entirely today. As my girls in the Middle School were labouring over their cross-word puzzle I was labouring over the lines trying to put them in order. When I did quite successfully, a whole string of memories came back: when I read it for the first time and with whom. It was my "Introduction to the English Verse' course in my undergrad days at York University. I even wrote a journal entry about it. What the heck? Am I really in the early stages of Alzheimers? Is my brain really such a volatile storage keeping frivolous things fresh and easy to reach and leaving the 'good stuff' that I can use (if nothing else than to show off my literary prowess) to rot and crumble.

Another bend in my surfing the net last night led me to a great on-line books link: (www.readbookonline.net). What a great surprise to find there possibly my favourite book and one of the best books ever written (however utterly and shamefully neglected), "Winesburg, Ohio" by Sherwood Anderson. What a chain of memories came: Prof. Anne Pilgrim at York University and my favourite course ever, taught by her: "The 19th Century Novel." She was absolutely mesmerized by this book and she managed to infect me with her literary affliction (although, technically, the book didn't belong to this course as it's not a novel but a collection of short stories with one common theme - emotional paralysis - yet another of my long-term perpetual ailments acutely felt as of late. The promise I had made to myself the night before - to be in bed before midnight and help those racoon eyes pale a bit came to nothing. I was reading the stories until 2:00. "The Teacher" is one of my faves - I loved all over again and felt it even deeper than before -how fitting that I am now a spinsterly teacher just like Kate Swift. Here's a beautiful excerpt from it:

"On the winter night when she walked throughthe deserted snow-covered streets, a crisis had comeinto the life of the school teacher. Although no onein Winesburg would have suspected it, her life hadbeen very adventurous. It was still adventurous.Day by day as she worked in the schoolroom orwalked in the streets, grief, hope, and desire foughtwithin her. Behind a cold exterior the most extraor-dinary events transpired in her mind. The people ofthe town thought of her as a confirmed old maidand because she spoke sharply and went her ownway thought her lacking in all the human feeling that did so much to make and mar their own lives.In reality she was the most eagerly passionate soula mong them, and more than once, in the five years since she had come back from her travels to settle inWinesburg and become a school teacher, had been compelled to go out of the house and walk half through the night fighting out some battle ragingwithin. "
I personally have always been a solitary walker, more or less out of necessity. Walking saved me many times from falling into dark holes. Immediately after mom's death I came back to T.O. having to finish my Internship; after the internship, I had a full-time job in the customer service of a Canadian tour operator - needed to pay off my huge Visa statement. After a day of dealing with angry German-speaking customers and their agents (when I wanted to scream: "shut up, you loser, there are worse things than not getting a room with a view of the lake, that wasn't guaranteed in the first place."), I'd go out of the stuffy office and just walk and walk and walk and walk, for hours on end. I hoped to wear myself out, to be be utterly exhausted before I finally get 'home' and to sleep... I couldn't sleep at all; I'd toss and turn, jumping up, hoping over and over again (not a cliche, dear friends) that I was in a prolonged nightmare - I need another entry to explain this) .

"Home" was actually a decent room with a too-soft bed in a posh house of a posh family in the posh Forest Hill Toronto neighbourhood, right behind Toronto's Casa Loma Castle built in 1911. I made it my home 'caue it was close to The University of Toronto's Teachers College and because it required the only rent I could afford after two years of living on the Queen's University scholarship in Kingston: 10 hours of housework a week. I helped Pam and Richard, the owners of the house with their parties, their pool, theri garden and house plants, shopping, Pam's work as a producer of a TV children's programs, taking Richard's shirts to the dry-cleaners, and the liike. I was your irregular w21st Century Jane Eyre except there was no one around remotely romantic as Mr. Rochester and there was no crazy woman in the attic (except for me, raving in my room on the 2nd room). I liked living there and walking there. Everything around me smelled of old money, of centuries of peaceful privileged life: old brick houses scattered on little hills in the shade of huge maple trees; silver-haired elegant grandmas walking their dogs; pretty Filippinas pushing pretty babies in their expensive strollers; beautiful facades, shiny windows, color-coordinated flowers, manicured lawns.... The neighbourhood alwasy smelled so good: in the spring lilies of the valley and hyacinths, in the summer fresh cut grass, in the autumn fallen leaves simmering in the warm sunlight, in the winter the milky smell of snow and baking.... Pam and Richard were kind enough. At their parties, as I walked around with trays of finger foods or bottles of wine, assisting Pam in her role of a perfect hostess, they never failed to introduce me to their guests - graciously listing all my credentials., nor did they fail to let me have enough of their good wine/food or slurp 1/2 dozen East Coast oyesters right out of their shells, enhanced only by a droplet of lemone (at $2.00 a pop). Under my care and in only 10 hours a week their plants blossomed, their pool sparkled, Richard's shirts gleamed, Pam's ego swelled... we were all content with the deal.

However, after Mom's death it was difficult to be around this happy family who hustled and bustled, sang and played the piano, ran wildly in the garden, entertained (Pam herself is a cancer survivor. After conquering her disease, she made sure to live to the fullest). I felt as if in this elegant upper-middle class home, there were two different species with an enormous chasm between them: them, the happy 'have-it-alls' against me, the uprooted, devastated, ravaged by pain and insomnia, tired - sometimes working 50 hours a week. While Pam, - reclining on her plush white sofa, the epitome of a queenly well-preserved mother, hair perfectly highlighted - sang her Carol King songs with the help of an expensive karaoke device and her three talented tall, beautiful, slim and smart daughters home on holiday from their Ivy League schools, I, the motherless daughter, was crumpled on my bed, rocking and moaning, listening to Eva Cassidy in a morbid need to listen to someone from the other side (Eva Cassidy died of cancer and her family published her songs posthumously). Is it a big surprise that I couldn't spend my free time in this house?

I think that in the end what saved me was the total physical exhaustion that in the end turned me into a feelingless automaton. Most nights I didn't sleep at all, getting up puffy-eyed and stiff, having to rub ice cubes over my face to help it deflate. I'd walk to work, be there by 9:00 and finish at 5:00. Once out of the stuffy loud office, I'd walk until midnight or later. Only 3 million people live in Toronto, but its land surface is enormous - a huge North American city , indeed. Many times I would end up possibly 20 km away from where I'd started.

What did I think about when I walked? The point was not to think. I'd look at people, houses, dogs, cats, flowers, grass, insects, anything; I'd examine window shops, entrances to building and cafes, movie theaters. What always surprised me was that in such a big city all people had same expressionless faces. Pam, who had lost her brother to AIDS a couple of years before I moved into her house, told me that after his death she'd sit on a subway not able to contain her grief, sniffling quietly into her Kleenex, wonder: how come more poeple are not weeping.? I had the exact same thoughts. How is it that in such a big city only I appear to be falling apart? Then, I'd see my expressionless face in a window, the face that didn't reflect at all the gaping hole in the midst of my being, the hole that hurt and hurt and hurt... HOw many are just like me, I'd wonder then. Must be dozens, hundres, possibly thousands.

My cell phone would ring, family or friends trying to locate me. I chose not to answer, I didn't want to speak to anyone. I couldn't handle yet another well-meaning "life must go on" consolation. In time they gave up on theri sincere attempts and left me alone just when I was ready to be around them again. You can never get it right, can you? At least, I fail in this department.

I have these strong legs to thank for not going crazy then and on many other ocassions. I think we all have moments when we need (or have no choice but) to be alone; however; we cannot bear staying in the horrible blank staring silence of our rooms. We go out to be among people to feel like we belong. Look at all those people in toronto (a very lonely city, I might add - or any other big modern city) who spend their Saturdays and Sundays reading at Starbucks, Timmies and Second Cups. There's something about reading in a coffee shop, some kind of romanticizing in progress that helps us deal with our "I'm so alone" thoughts. Don't we all adopt a bit of an 'oh so cool intellectual' posing while sipping our java, poring over our books and looking ever-so purposeful... For some, there's also the hope of striking up a conversation, of meeting someone with similar literary tastes, or - quite frankly- nice eyes, bulging biceps ... I know, I know, not everyone who reads at coffee shops is lonely just like not all fat people are fat because they have issues that lead to overating - some, admittedly simply like to read at coffee shops and some, admitedly -and most naturally - like to eat,,, but still, for many the stereotype rings true.

I have no idea how I got to talk about all of this. Two glasses of excellent Aussie Shiraz (got on sale at Home Plus) seem to have lead me into this amateurish pseudo-philosophycal direction. Oh, yes, I remember: I started talking about the November poem. It's weird how I know it now almost all by heart. And perhaps I should iknow it, too: November, after all, is the month in which my Grandma and my brother Goran were born; it was also the Day of The Republic in the former Yugoslavia, a holiday celebrated with fireworks and festivals; it is the Rememberance Day in Canada, The All Souls Day, and the Peppero Day in Korea (hahaha) .
So, here's the poem "My November Guest." My fave images that almost (but not quite) make me hate November a bit less: the silvery mists, faded earth and heavy sky (see the pic!)



My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autum rain
ARe as beautiful as days can be;
she loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her Pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list.
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded Earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eyes for these,
And vexes me for reasons why.
(wow, all these s's and z's - like rustling of the leaves, pretty coolio)

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare NOvember days
Before coming of the snow ,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

Alas, I still don't like November. The only month I like less is February. At least in November one's looking forward to all fo the Christmas excitement that's just around the corner. If you live in Canada, February means 2 or 3 more months of winter in which nothing special happens (o.k. Easter, but who, really cares? )
I'll have now another glass of Shiraz and read another paralysis novella from Winesburg, Ohio. And, you, keen reader, if you've lived through all of the above, you deserve 2 glasses. Cheers to you - and , o.k. November, too.