writing skills/profession

Transit Observations


Like the patterns my daughter is forever pointing out, the same people began to emerge as fixed features on my commute last week. The woman handing out the free newspaper in the station’s lobby. We spoke nearly every day. She was probably my age, but she was worn down by circumstances I could only guess at but wouldn’t be too far off the mark if I did. Life knocks people down in rather predictable ways, in my experience.

There was a young man dressed mainly in lack on the 4:40 train every evening. He got on somewhere before Enterprise/Bay Station. Often he was standing, wide-stance and slightly swayed back like Johnny Cash singing Folsom Prison Blues. His jacket, also black, was circa Members Only. Nearly every guy I knew in university wore jackets like that.

Frosted brown hair was combed forward from the crown to hide an expanding widow’s peak in that peculiar habit men employ when hair loss is noticeable enough that they feel the must take camouflage action. It never works. There was a practice stubble too, but whether it was a slight case of workplace passive-aggressive rebellion or an inability to grow a real man’s beard, I didn’t have any information to tell.

He got off at the stop before mine. Belvedere. Like the butler. And disappeared  with the unhappy looking Asian girl and the black woman who always sat back with her eyes closed until her stop was announced.

The school kids were long home by the time I left class and caught the train. I traveled with the work crowd. Jasper Avenue has a uniform. Black business chic. Men, in chronological age only, dressed like hip priests, and women in puffy skirts or clingy slacks wearing Victorian inspired blouses but for the excess of cleavage.

I am dowdy and maternal among them. Clearly someone’s mom, escaped from the sprawl beyond the city proper, posing among the child actors in their post-teenage visions of what a grown-up is.

On my last day, I encountered the Fat Girl. She morphed without warning into the seat across from me on my way into the city. Two-thirds of the seat vanished as her waist settled around her like a hen on a roost. The edge of her belly threatened to drop over her knees and drip to the floor and she was out of breath in a way that seemed permanent.

She cast a quick look at me that was not apologetic and maintained a stony visage clearly meant to show me that she would not be cowed by a disgusted glance.  I smiled at her. She blinked and then smiled, very tentatively, back. My smile was part instinct and part knowledge. Fat girls don’t get smiled at much if they are even acknowledged at all. I knew she didn’t get many smiles and wasn’t expecting one today – on the train of all places.

I thought about striking up a conversation but she was equipped defensively with earbuds and she was quite young though I’m not sure that would have been apparent to a casual observer as her features were swallowed by the puffy flesh that framed her face. Our eyes met again a time or two more and I smiled. I got off before her and looked back through the window. She was watching me go. Two smiles met this time, and then I headed to the stairs and the surface where the intermittent rain was now a drizzle. I hoped I was not the last smile of the day for that girl.

A Letter to the Editor


I’ve been published locally!! Well a letter to the editor in the Edmonton Journal anyway. I sent it in last Thursday and made the Friday edition.

Bill 44 is a religious right attempt to silence educators by threatening them with possible prosecution under the human rights act. Basically, schools here are free to teach religion, sexual education and about sexual orientation within the curriculum. I have not found it be something that is done outside of legitimate context. Having taught, I know that teachers are very aware of the volatile nature of such topics and they don’t simply work them into lessons for no reason.

The bill was rammed through a late night session of the legislature and the coercive nature of the vote was startlingly reminiscent of the “peer pressure” tactics I am familiar with from back in the States.

Anyway, take a quick peek at the link and let me know your thoughts.

POV


A woman in my revision class is writing a book about her experiences in Cuba. Her family spent two and a half years there for her husband’s job and she kept a journal to document their adventures. Her novel will be about the changes that occur in one’s perspective when one does more than merely vacation in another country but lives there life a native.

She was talking about the differences between Canada and Cuba and the subject of health care came up. She explained that Cuban’s have the best health care in Latin America but that it was years behind what we have in Canada. Facilities are antiquated and dirty by comparison.

I was telling this to Rob at dinner.

“What did you say?”

“I just listened.” And I did because the last thing I should do is get started on how horrifying I find Canadian medicentres and hosptials compared to the Cadillac health care I had through my employer back in the States.

My doctor, just as an example, places the instruments he uses for my (close your eyes if you are squeamish) pap test on a paper towel on top of a foot rest. When I go to the doctor – either mine or the at the walk-in clinic, I am not weighed nor are any of my vitals collected for comparison on future visits. There are, as far as I can tell, no real nurses outside of hospitals and even in hospitals, I can’t say for certain there are many nurses.

The hospitals are, um, not like anything I can recall experiencing in person. The closest comparison I can make are those old movies of English hospital wards. There is no such thing as a private room for the average Canadian. No one shows up if you press the call button and if someone does, likely they will have to go find someone else to take care of your problem.

And nothing would pass a white glove test.

Canadians should be proud of the access that everyone has because in the States, my health care and my access were not the norm by any stretch, but what they have here is a far cry from good. It’s bare bones and I understand perfectly why so many people I run into opt for natural medicine and holistic healers rather than brave the “system”.