Bugs

Early spring Monday morning, listening to the news,
trying to expand my knowledge
when I see an Asian lady beetle
striding along my window ledge.
Pretending to be a ladybug but it’s not
Just another non-native infestation
The red army’s at the ready
having spent all winter in preparation.

If there’s one scratching on your face
you know there will be a thousand soon.
Crawling behind walls, on curtains,
beneath dustbins they loom.
Be kind, do better, touch grass
and more platitudes from the on-line preacher.
Sure, in a minute, but right now
it’s time to feed the vacuum cleaner.

Inspired by Spring Rituals. Photograph by Fred Ni.

Letter to the Editor

I walked by St. Casimir’s yesterday and was reminded of Palm Sunday. In my early 20s, I denounced my Catholic upbringing. My ultra-liberal mind uniformly decided Catholicism was bad for women. Few things in life however are that black and white; most are grey with a ton of nuance. Religion can provide structure and settle an inner unease. It is rich with parables of reflection and wisdom, even richer when not infused with a sting of shame. Those congregating on Roncy after Mass always look entirely jovial. But maybe it is just because Mass is over; how I remember it.

Inspired by the Corpse’s recent newspaper theme. Photo by Wendy Whelan

Pack 33 Cubs Enjoy Hike

FANWOOD—June 1970—My mother sent me off on an afternoon hike in the Watchung Mountains with a bunch of other scouts from Pack 33. It was a big enough deal that I might just remember a little of it, but not nearly as big of a deal as getting my name in the paper, which I do not remember at all.

     That it was even reported is remarkable enough. That we can now search these archives online still amazes me. But the most astonishing thing of all really warrants its own headline:
     Newspapers.com Junkie Discovers His Name Spelled Correctly!

Inspired by Birds my Mother Knew. Clipping from the Scotch Plains/Fanwood Times—July 9, 1970.

Birds my Mother Knew

In the continuing effort to unearth Lauretta’s gangster moll past, I revisited her wedding. She’d married Presbyterian on a Tuesday and to an empty chapel. Just Barney and her, and two people I’d never heard about: John Cismus and Jean Johnston. Once I started digging, I hit sketchy straightaway. The Best Man, a 23-year old petty criminal, had a string of crimes including theft, smuggling, and assault. But it was when he was arrested for running a brothel that we meet someone named Jean. She was the whorehouse’s Weather Eye. She was the Lookout, alright, just not for my mom.

Inspired by Spring Rituals. Clipping from The Windsor Star, March 15, 1946.

Spring Rituals

I knew I was in the wrong job when a month into my (very short) stint as an editor with Chatelaine, I heard a colleague talk about Spring rituals. Her mind went to pedicures. Mine went to birdwatching. In fact, soon, we’ll drive two hours to Long Point, on Lake Erie. And we’ll park at the edge of a farmer’s field, stand out in the wind, and watch at a very long distance through binoculars a white blur of tundra swans, pit-stopping their way north for the summer. They look majestic. They honk majestically. It wouldn’t be Spring without them.

Inspired by Spring. Photo by Nancy Kay Clark.

A Bright and Future Home

Songs of a bright and future home settle in
Are these shores reachable beyond the beckoning of war drums and convulsions of paroxysmal gods?
May we not be sullied by malignant stains nor reach for transient temptations
This time may we accept grace
May we anchor in safe harbour
Here, pain is tempered; we are healed
Here, we lay our foundations down
Here, here and here are where we grow, let our roots entangle, branches entwine
Every spring is a spring to relearn the lesson
Hate buries the hater
We only rise through love
And everything that rises will converge

Inspired by Be Still. Photograph by Fred Ni.

Be Still

In her four walls, mortality whispers in her ear. Moments are ever fleeting. The child she was is gone. The young woman from oh so long ago, she still wants to be. The regrets swirl. It is her own private torture chamber. But then, she steps outside into the early March morning. Frosty white roof tops steaming, robins whistling. Air cool and fresh.

The sun is peeking through the semi-barren trees, warming her eyes. She walks, into the woods, and inhales the intoxicating smell of new muddy earth. The four walls of her mind collapse around her. Presence is everything. 

Inspired by March Approaches. Photo by Andi Edwards.

Mrs. Eva Doughty

In 1908, Eva and James Doughty, purchased a brand-new house in Parkdale, just off Roncesvalles Avenue—$2850, $800 down. They moved in with James’s son, Howard (from James’s first marriage) and their two-year-old daughter, Melba.
      Although the family followed James south in 1915, to a new job in Cleveland, it seems Eva never really gave up on Toronto, because, by 1939, after renting it out to a string of year-by-year tenants, she was back in the house, her house now, listed in the City Directory as the widow of James, even though he was very much alive and living downtown.

In the years that followed, she would open that house to her far-flung family and uncountable lodgers—her only child, her dear darling Melba, after the second divorce—her elderly mother, Emma, when running her own household became just too much—her granddaughter, Barbara, when she was busy getting her own family started.
      Mrs. Eva Doughty lived to 101. There’s a picture of her in the Toronto Star, celebrating her 100th birthday. She lived in that house 50 years.
      Eva and I aren’t related, but I wish we were. Our only connection is that I now live in her house.

Inspired by Les 18 (1898-2024). Photo of Eva (left) with her 100-year-old friend, Nellie Sims by Mike Slaughter.

Les 18 (1898-2024)

Les deux Marguerites, vieilles belles sœurs 

Les deux Thérèses, plein de bonheurs 

Léocadie sauvegarde à nos racines 

Suzanne prend bien soins à sa poitrine 

Ma Tante Alice, en plein aire 

Était devenu la bonne chasseuse 

Ma Tante Eileen, la malheur si proche 

Vécu en vie de grandes douceurs 

Ma Tante Marie, Mère secondaire 

Ma Tante Simone, tenait ma Cœur 

Rolande, Fernande qui prient toujours 

Envoient le Seigneur ses laine nounours 

Gentille Madeleine, la femme qui rompe 

Bluffant Lillian, la femme de trompe 

Jeanne, Yvonne, les peu connues 

Yvette, si jeune pour sa perdue 

Finalement Anne-Marie, rossignole-ardu 

Toutes Mes Tantes ont disparu

Inspired by Anne Marie Leclair Armstrong, 1935-2024.
Photo: Mes deux grand-mères, 1954.