Beauty in the Commonplace

We almost didn't go and I'm so glad we did! Hardy said, "If we don't go tonight then we've missed it." It was cold and rainy, but we grabbed our umbrella and off we went to see the exhibit American Chronicles: the Art of Norman Rockwell.

I remember seeing Rockwell's paintings when I was a child. My brother collected all kinds of magazines and kept them in an old shed in our yard. I'm quite sure that's where I saw them.  Rockwell published his paintings on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post for forty-seven years. Although he painted many portraits of the rich and the famous he said, "The commonplaces of America are to me the richest subjects in art. Boys batting flies on vacant lots; little girls playing jacks on the front steps . . . the things we have seen all our lives, and overlooked."

"The things we have seen all our lives, and overlooked."

I'n not a famous writer, and am not comparing my skills to Rockwell's, but I think the subjects he painted are the kind of things I like to write about. I'm in good company too. I'm reminded of L.M. Montgomery who became known worldwide because of her Anne books. On our visit to Ontario, I saw a compilation of "18 newly discovered stories" by L.M. Montgomery. It was published in 1994 with the title At the Altar. The stories are delightful character portraits of women who used to be called "old maids" because they had passed the marriageable age.The comedic happy ending in each story is a literary tradition, but it also pleased her readers, guaranteeing her an income. It certainly captures the social circumstances of most women of Montgomery's time and how difficult it was for them to remain strong and independent.

I also think of Theodor Storm (1817-1888), that famous North German poet and novelist who wrote wonderful stories of ordinary life as he observed the people around him. It was a delight last autumn, during our trip to Europe, to visit the harbour city of Husum and the house in which Storm lived and died. The house is now a museum.

"The things we have seen all our lives, and overlooked,"

This spring Hardy and I observed a pair of robins in our backyard. Last year they built a nest and laid their eggs, but the eggs never hatched. In late fall, when we returned from Europe, I retrieved the nest from our cedar tree with the two beautiful eggs still intact. Perhaps our presence in the yard had scared off the robins. This year it was quiet in our backyard because we were gone for two weeks. The robins had built their nest in the same place and the three babies had already hatched when we returned. A few days later the robin family treated us to a free show. The babies sat on our bird feeder and on the deck railing, waiting for their parents to come and feed them. They balanced precariously, their feathers ruffling in the wind. Flying was still so new to them. The parents hovered nearby, encouraging them with chirps and worms. Sometimes the male brought the worms to the female and she fed the young. It was definitely team work!

It doesn't seem that long ago when we were feeding our young and now they are feeding theirs and we are watching them. We never realized what an amazing dance of life we were performing and neither do they!

"The things we have seen all our lives, and overlooked."

Where Are You From?

Exhibit at The Canadian Museum of Immigration, Pier 21, Halifax, NS 

"Where are you from?"

People ask this question often, possibly because I have a slight accent but it is not identifiable. That question poses a dilemma for me because it requires a lot of explanation. I usually ask them if they want the short answer or the long one!

I don't remember my country of origin (Ukraine), but I love listening to someone speak Russian or Ukrainian even though I don't understand it. Neither do I remember the four years our family spent in Germany, but I learned to read and write in German and eventually did my doctoral studies in that language. I do remember Paraguay, the way a child remembers. I grew up in Canada and that became my home, and English the language in which I felt most comfortable. My years as a young wife and mother were spent in Africa, and then we came back to live out the rest of our life in Canada. I have lived in three different Canadian provinces. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be born, grow up and die in the same place! Possibly that would have been my lot, had war not disturbed our rural Mennonite way of life in Russia.

Recently I attended a book reading by Miriam Rudolph. Miriam is an artist who has written and illustrated a bilingual children's book (English and German side by side), called David's Trip to Paraguay, the story of her grandfather's trip to Paraguay from Canada when he was a little boy.

 The author and her book fascinate me at many different levels. First, I identify with the child in her story. I feel as if I'm  looking in the mirror where I see myself but everything is  reversed. I had the same adventure, at about the same age, but left Paraguay to go to Canada. The brilliant colors of Paraguay stayed behind and I entered the Canadian prairies just as the autumn color palette gave way to the gray and white landscape of November. My adventure took place exactly a quarter of a century later than David's, and part of my trip was by airplane rather than by ship.

"Where are you from?"

Like me, Miriam too has difficulty answering that question   Her father is from Germany, her mother from Paraguay, she now lives in Canada and each of the countries she has lived in becomes a part of who she is. In her artist's statement she writes, "My paintings and prints are visual diaries that narrate my experiences and perceptions of different places I have been to. It is important for me to experience my surroundings very consciously, to be aware of details and render the essence of a place in my artwork. Beneath the narrative of memories lies the concept of my search for belonging that I experience after living in three different countries and cultures. My work shows places that I am connected to and serves to document, to evaluate and to remember."

I express myself through journaling and behind my desk is a shelf of diaries that tell of my life's journeys. I have begun the monumental task of going through them and transcribing them. I begin with a birthday book I received many years ago as a young teen, and the memories emerge one by one  . . .

"Thursday’s child has far to go"

One of  the "Nanas” by the French artist Niki de Saint Phalle

 in the Historic Grotto of the Herrenhausen Baroque Gardens in Hannover, Germany

I have finally read Miriam Toews’ book The Flying Troutmans, after it has languished on my to-read shelf for about two years. In spite of the dark topic of mental illness, the miserable situation in which the characters find themselves, and the vulgar language they use, I caught myself laughing a lot as I was reading about this family who gains a new perspective when they go on a long car trip. Trips will do that to you!

Reading Toews' book got me thinking about all the travelling I have done in my life. I think I must have been born on a Thursday! The first trip I ever took was even more miserable than that of the Troutmans. It lasted four years (1943-1947) and began when I was just four months old. I have no memory of it, and perhaps that's a good thing! My parents, my two-year-old brother and I, my grandmother and my teenaged uncle fled for our lives from Ukraine through Poland to Germany and finally to Paraguay. A sister was born en route.

The Paraguayan Chaco became our home where we settled for five years. For me, these were wonderful years of living in a small village where we all knew each other. When I was seven years old, I went to school -- a one-room building right in the centre of the village that also served as a church. Here my father preached on Sundays and we went to Sunday School. I learned to read and write, recite poetry, sing and talk about God. It was my small, safe world.

For my mother, the Chaco was a place of backbreaking labour, living in crowded makeshift quarters, battling insects and sandstorms, and birthing three babies in the midst of it all. Mom was overjoyed when we finally left for Canada, where her mother’s family had settled in the 1920s. That was the first of many airplane trips I have taken. The smells, sounds, and texture of things I had never before encountered linger with me still.

As a nine-year-old, I found life in Canada hard at first. For one who communicated so naturally and easily in both Low and High German, I had to learn to speak again, and when I did, the words came out wrong. I wore the wrong clothes and took the wrong food in my lunch box. My classmates were younger than me, but seemed smarter. Lying in bed at night, I thought about our home in Paraguay, and I so longed to go back there that many times I cried myself to sleep.

That was a long time ago. Since then there have been many trips and each one has changed me, gifted me, taught me, and prepared me for something else in my life.