Long Nights (Eddie Vedder)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlFhbUCk5kw

Corpus Christi Carol (Jeff Buckley)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgc6-rgA16k

Holly

God bless Holly Gushue. Holly was a friend of Ryan's back in Halifax. I got to know her on visits to Ryan's apartment. I believe she was a Micmac but I'm not sure. She had AIDS and many addictions...and barely a tooth in her head. Still her smile was warm and intelligent. Her mind was sharp and her wit was quick. She shocked me frequently with the things she would say. We sat and listened to her one night chatting with a guy on a date line. I almost fell off my chair when he asked her what her best qualities were and she responded, "I'd have to say my t*ts and my c**t." Holly was a piece of work. But she sold herself short. Her best quality was her heart. She said she had a bunch of kids and that she did time in prison for killing a guy...stories we found out to be untrue. Holly was warm and kind.

Before I met Holly, I always believed in aspirational living...and part of that philosophy is making a point to spend time with people who can teach you and help you. Strictly applied, this means people you aspire to be like....mentors. My initial reaction to Holly was that people like her didn't belong in my life. They were a distraction, a stain. And yet, I found myself fascinated by her and, despite an obvious instability brought on by years of self-abuse, and no doubt abuse by others, she taught me that everyone deserves love, respect and dignity. She also taught me that aspirational living was not always about emulating others whom I admired, but rather seeing the good in all kinds of people. Ultimately, I learned that it was about who I wanted to be as a person. Holly taught me to aspire to be a person who could accept and love anyone, regardless of their station in life, what they looked like, how they talked, what their job was, or how many degrees or teeth they had. I did love Holly but I didn't express that love, and my love didn't mean anything because it didn't manifest itself in compassionate action. We left her behind.

When we moved to Toronto, we fell out of touch with Holly, or as Ryan called her, The Gush. She was more or less a transient and difficult to track down. We tried but maybe we could have tried harder. But she moved around amongst the homeless...living in squats and shelters. When she and some neighbours were booted out of a squat, she became a bit of a media darling in Halifax. She spent time volunteering with anti-poverty groups and the AIDS Coalition. She connected with people and made an impression. She had friends who loved her.

In 2006, Holly died of pneumonia at the age of 37. We just found out.

I'm still processing what Holly meant to me and what her death means to me. I wonder if we could have helped Holly. She was a little on the crazy and unpredictable side. And there were the addictions. My natural orientation is to think that people need to just avoid addictions and get a job. I'm still not sure that isn't the best way to approach life. But it feels arrogant maybe. A bit of empathy causes me to ask "what if Holly had been born with the advantages I had?" And "if I were in Holly's shoes, how would I want people to treat me"? If I had been born Holly, could I have done better with my life?" I think not. And besides, notwithstanding many barriers to what we traditionally view as "success", Holly had friends, purpose, love, and goodness. You could do worse.

At the end, Holly was not alone. She had lots of friends and people who loved her. I wish I had somehow managed to do something to show her that I loved her too. And I wish I could become that person I aspire to be...the one who doesn't have to spend so much time writing about people who meant something to him after they have died...the one who has the courage and class to show love, even to the people who don't "fit".

Finally, I have come to believe that dignity and love are inalienable human rights. Everyone is entitled to them regardless of anything they may do or omit to do with their lives. Implicit in this is a roof over their heads, food on their table, and a kindly word...at a minimum.

I will work to perfect this blog entry as my thoughts and emotions become clearer. But in the meantime, please click the links below and read about Holly. She deserves your attention.

Rest in peace and love, Gush.

http://www.streetfeat.ns.ca/Issues/sf060305.pdf

http://www.streetfeat.ns.ca/Issues/sf060302.pdf

On Giving (Kahlil Gibran):

You give but little when you give of your possessions.

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?

And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?

And what is fear of need but need itself?
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that is unquenchable?

There are those who give little of the much which they have - and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.

And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.

And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.

Though the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.

It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;
And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving
And is there aught you would withhold?

All you have shall some day be given;
Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors'.

You often say, "I would give, but only to the deserving."
The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.
They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights is worthy of all else from you.
And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.

And what desert greater shall there be than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?

And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?

See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.

For in truth it is life that gives unto life - while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.
And you receivers - and you are all receivers - assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.

Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings;
For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the free-hearted earth for mother, and God for father.

The Mud Floor

“The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple” Oscar Wilde

“Everyone is in such a hurry to go nowhere”, my father used to say. Cars that raced by us on sleepy old Nova Scotia roads were the bane of his existence. He never understood the rush to get from one place to another. My father loved to drive, and would often take me around the villages and countryside surrounding Glen Haven, where we lived. He was a real estate agent. He would show me houses he had sold and tell me stories about the people who lived in them. “Everyone has a story”; that was another thing my father used to say.

One bright, cool day in early October, when I was fourteen, he and I drove out of town across the Bass River Bridge. We passed cornfields, small farms with red barns and goats, and Pot’s Dairy, where we often stopped to get ice cream on the way to the beach. Pot’s was closed now for the winter. Then we came upon Robert Haverstock’s house. Robert Haverstock was an antique dealer who lived with his mother in a beautiful home. I was intrigued when we drove by his house, hoping to hear an update on his strange tale. As on previous days, I saw the old spinning wheel in the window and the painting on the wall behind. Beds of dwindling summer flowers adorned the lawn in front of the house. A magnificent oak was bravely fighting off the encroaching Fall. It was losing the battle, for its tenants had turned a deep red, glowing brilliantly in the late afternoon sun. Before long, they would succumb to autumn fire. I wondered who would pick the flowers when they died, and burn the leaves when they fell from the old tree. Robert Haverstock was missing.

My father told me Robert was a quiet, effeminate man. When I asked what effeminate meant, he said Robert was a sissy, a mama’s boy. He also told me that he was a gentle man who always had a kind word for everyone. Robert was in his mid-forties and had never married. He had impeccable manners, drove a tan Cadillac, traveled widely to antique shows, took his mother grocery shopping, and preferred to be called Robert. In a fusion of small town informality and subtle effrontery, most local men called him Bob anyway. Others were less kind.

He had a distinguished style of dress, perhaps a little too splendid for rural Glen Haven. He bought his clothes on frequent business trips to Boston, Chicago and New York. When he stopped at the gas station, the men at the lunch bar would share a chuckle over his finely cut trousers and polished shoes. “Hope the fairy doesn’t get his fancy wings dirty”, thinking themselves clever in their greasy overalls. When they were boys, they would tie young Robert Haverstock to a post in a field, call him names and pummel him with cow shit and acorns. Through his tears, he would try to remember his mother’s affirmation that names could never hurt him. But the acorns stung. Robert had a hard life growing up in the Glen Haven countryside.

I once heard people in a shop talking about Robert Haverstock. Beneath their expressed contempt for the man they shamelessly called a queer, there seemed to lie a sense of bewildered fascination. “God knows what he gets up to in the big city”, they would say, shaking their heads. Deep down, I suppose it hurt them that they would never get up to anything in the big city.

Robert Haverstock had exquisite taste and a discerning eye for quality. Several times a year, he would drive out of his yard, past the old oak tree, and down the road to the antique shows and auctions in New York, a big wagon hitched to the back of his Cadillac to bring home his ancient treasures. Upon his return, he and his mother would host an open house, inviting the more discriminating collectors in the community to view, and hopefully purchase, their wares. “I thought of you when I bid on this chest, Janet”, he would gush to one of his well-heeled benefactresses. “It belonged to Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney”, and Janet would pretend to know who that was.

For the ladies in his life, he exuded a sort of mysterious and certainly non-threatening glamour. Robert Haverstock was an exceptional salesman and a wealthy man by Glen Haven standards. His mother had a full-time nurse and every winter, he took her, the nurse, and a handsome colleague from Chicago, to Fort Lauderdale or the Caribbean for a month.

Just over a year before that sunny autumn day when my father and I passed his house, Robert Haverstock kissed his aging mother on the forehead, got into his Cadillac, drove to New York, and never came home. Glen Haven was rife with speculation about his fate. Some guessed that Robert had decided to move to New York or Chicago to live with his young antique dealer friend. But most people, remembering his devotion to his mother, feared that the quiet man with the polished shoes had been the victim of foul play. One rumour had him being robbed, murdered and thrown into the East River. If only it could have been so pure and simple a tragedy. Still, the entire community - his mother, his friends and customers, even the men at the gas station lunch bar - hoped that, one day, he would return safely from wherever he had gone.

As the fine house disappeared into the distance, I asked my father what he thought had happened to Robert Haverstock. He didn’t answer. My father never said much about Robert. Mostly, he just listened as other people made their judgments. My father did not judge people. Like everyone, he had his own demons, but he seemed to understand that people were never simply good or bad, strong or weak. He understood that they struggled each day, like he did, to be the best they could be, and more often than not, failed.

We turned up Old Schoolhouse Road and drove towards Pine Valley Junction, stopping at the cemetery to look at my grandfather’s grave. It was an impressive stone of shimmering black granite. The rosebush, planted by my grandmother years before, still bore blossoms from the waning summer, despite the recent frost. “You know, eight generations of your family are buried here”, my father said. The cemetery, so quiet and green, was comforting. We returned to the car and drove on.

Crossing the Pine Valley Bridge back over Bass River, we came upon a lovely place called Harmony. What a beautiful name, I thought. It wasn’t a town or a village. It was just a place in the country…a place to drive through. I imagined that it had been named by a poet for its rolling hills and gentle waters. It seemed so peaceful. And yet, the early flash of passionate colour emanating from the forest in the distance gave the appearance of silent rage.

My father stopped the car and stepped out to smoke his pipe. I got out too. He pointed to a pale yellow farmhouse sitting on a hill among the trees. It was an impressive home with outbuildings and several acres of land. “You see that house up there?” he said, “I sold it to Tyler Montgomery fifteen years ago. Made his money mining nickel in Ontario.” My father took a long, slow drag on his pipe. “As nice as that house is, would you believe it has a mud floor in the basement?” The sweet cherry smoke encircled my father’s head, then wafted into the sky. “Bob Haverstock is buried in that basement.”

My father was suddenly pensive. He stood gazing up at Tyler Montgomery’s house. I sensed that, whether he wanted to or not, he needed to tell Robert Haverstock’s story. And at fourteen, I guess I was old enough to hear it.

It seems that Robert had indeed driven to New York the previous year. But he had not gone for an auction or an antique show. In the seventies, revolutionary medical advances in the science of gender reassignment - sex change, my father called it – had made hormone treatments and subsequent surgery popular among men who wished to be, or believed themselves meant to be, women.

Robert Haverstock had confided to Helen Montgomery, his best friend, that he had always felt uncomfortable in his body. He said he knew somehow that he had been meant to be a woman. He told Helen that, on his many trips to cities in the States, he frequently posed as a woman. He said these were the only times that he felt truly himself, truly alive. He had not told his mother…he didn’t know how. She had tolerated the young man in Florida because she loved her son. He was all she had. But how would she ever understand this? Helen Montgomery did not understand either. But she was a caring woman who had known Robert all her life. She listened sympathetically.

On his recent trips to New York, Robert had secretly consulted with a specialist in Brooklyn. The doctor started him on a regimen of hormone treatments. As the therapies progressed, the drugs were not having the effect Robert had expected. At times, he became violently ill. At others, he was faint and confused. He had not even begun to come to terms with the impact his altered state would have on his life in Glen Haven. Robert was frightened. But every morning, he put on a cheerful face to greet his patrons and sent them off with the perfect addition to their stately homes. When they left, he would often double over in pain. At first he thought he was feeling the normal repercussions of the reassignment process. But over time, he began to fear something was wrong. His agony seemed to grow with each new day.

By the time Robert Haverstock left home for his last trip to New York, he was in a very bad way. He was nearly broke from the exorbitant cost of the treatments and the advance payments for his pending surgery. The drugs were devastating him. He was coughing blood. There was not a doctor within a thousand miles whom he could trust to help him through this nightmare. And none of his calls to the specialist in New York had been returned. He imagined, with terror, the inside of his body. He need not imagine the horror of his outer self. The effects of the mysterious hormone treatments were becoming increasingly difficult to conceal. Upon arriving, in a hard rain, at the office of his specialist in Brooklyn, Robert found it locked and empty; a condemnation notice posted on the side of the building. You see, this was 1980 and gender reassignment was not a perfect science. Robert Haverstock was in trouble.

He found a telephone booth and made a collect call to the only person he could think of who may be able to help. Helen Montgomery heard his desperate story, his voice hollow and unnatural. “Come home, Robert. Just come home”, she said gently. It was an instinctive response. For Helen Montgomery, who had spent her entire life in Glen Haven, even while her husband slogged away in the nickel mines of Upper Canada, home was the answer to all one’s problems. Home was where people loved you and would support you. Like the name suggested, it was a safe haven from the cold, hard world. Despite everything, this was Robert’s instinct too. Without a second thought, he got into his car and left the city that never sleeps.

Helen Montgomery had no choice. She had to share Robert’s story with her husband, Tyler. Having told him to come home, she didn’t know how to help Robert. She guessed he would need money, medical attention, and eventually, a place to hide his wrecked body from his mother. From everyone. She could not deal with this alone. Robert’s story, as told by Helen, threw Tyler Montgomery into a fury the likes of which his wife had never seen. “Jesus and Mary, that sick bastard!”, he shouted, “I knew he was queer but this is just hellish and evil!” Rage is the mask of many a man’s fear. Helen fixed him a whisky and soda. It did not calm him. “I’ll not have that freak anywhere near my home! Do you understand?” Helen understood. She made herself a strong drink and went to bed. Early the next morning, Saturday, she and her husband quickly packed the car and drove to their cottage on the north shore, hoping to avoid an ugly scene. As they sped by Robert Haverstock’s house, Helen briefly glimpsed his mother, looking out the window by the spinning wheel. Then she noticed the clouds on the horizon.

By late Sunday evening, the storm from New York had reached Glen Haven – and so had the tan Cadillac. When Tyler and Helen Montgomery turned into their long road and drove towards their home on the hill, they could see Robert Haverstock’s car parked beside their house. The fierce rain had pasted the roof and sides with a crooked collage of leaves and branches. “Stay in the car. I’ll deal with this”, commanded Tyler. He disappeared into the night. Moments later, Tyler Montgomery staggered out from behind his house and returned to the car, soaked to the bone. He was breathless and overwhelmed. Helen saw his wild eyes and looked away. They drove next door to the Bains. Janet and Ed Bain had also been Robert’s friends and customers. The two couples shivered by a raging fire as Tyler explained that, when he reached the back of his house, he found Bob Haverstock, dressed as a woman, hanging from a tree.

The four drank heavily and discussed the possible implications of this horrific calamity. If the police were called and the normal course of action taken, the whole community would know Robert’s humiliating story. His mother, who had done nothing wrong, would surely die. People would wonder about their involvement. Yes, people would talk. It was decided. The normal course of action was not in order. Tyler Montgomery and Ed Bain put on their jackets and silently left the house.

When he finished the story, my father emptied his pipe of its coals. We got into the car and drove home in silence. I wondered if Helen Montgomery knew where Tyler and Ed had buried the body of Robert Haverstock. I doubt she ever asked. I suppose she believed that her foundation was fixed and solid. But how are the acts and omissions reconciled with the intentions? I barely know for myself. But I do know this – the truth, for better or worse, has all the patience in the world.

Twenty years have passed since Robert Haverstock disappeared. My mother occasionally sends me copies of the local paper so I can keep up on the news from Glen Haven. I often come across an obituary of a person whose story my father told me. He died ten years ago and I miss him very much. Robert’s mother died a few months after her son was laid in his lonely grave beneath Tyler Montgomery’s mud floor. Prior to her death, she could be seen, everyday, looking out the window by the spinning wheel, waiting for Robert to come home. In the last batch of papers my mother sent, I read that Robert Haverstock’s rusty old tan Cadillac had been pulled from Bass River in a place called Harmony.

Universal Copyright 2003 John David Phillips

Sunshine in the Sky

No bitter rain
No desert dry
No crushing pain
Only sunshine in the sky

No old men wander through cold night
No sickly women wait to die
No war fires blaze brilliant and bright
Only sunshine in the sky

No lonely smoke in late night bars
No rabbit fear nor foxes sly
No strangers sit in steamy cars
Only sunshine in the sky

No oily shores
No hungry cry
No corporate whores
Only sunshine in the sky

Look up, look up
You children dear
And see beyond your frightened tears
Look up, behold the loving eye
Only sunshine in the sky.

Fool

I lie in bed
gazing out my window
at the pale full moon beyond
the windblown cowering spruce trees
clinging to the last moments of her rule
over night.

In the distance
the bells of St. Agnes
sing in a bright new morning
as the awesome sun rises
out of the dark, sea and mist to reclaim
his domain.

I remember
that I am a courtier
in this high kingdom of light
serving the ancient struggle
as a fool who dances and jingles before
the throne.

Do they not see
through power’s golden haze
this child, this pawn of ages?
for all my effort, my song,
my tricks, my jokes, my love, I am
forever alone.

Another start...entitled The City...

It has been said that God made the country and man made the town. Who then made the city? It is my contention that the city is the natural and highest format of human creation and existence. Humans are never more human than when they are in the city. The city is where the highest elements of human achievement – art, science, poetry and politics - converge in a symphony of creativity, instinct and will. The city offers up every form of being and expression, a mother nursing her baby, a CEO firing his vice president, two boys in a schoolyard learning each other’s language, a pimp cutting his whore’s throat. With this comes every venue, the church, the crack house, the high court, the back alley, the hospital, the library, the art gallery, the brothel, the butcher shop, the crematorium. The city forces us together to confront, celebrate, disdain, and perfect our humanity everyday........................................................................

Get Up

Get up

Get up

Why?

Get up, he whispered again

This is your time

So I got up

It was my time