the cassandra pages

Mourning, remembering, and hoping

Today is a day of reflection for me. I am mourning every single life that has been lost or shattered because of the senseless, cruel violence of the past year, and I am reflecting on our part in it. I am thinking about the great frustration and helplessness that so many of us feel who have protested government policies, not just now, but going back thirty years and more. These policies have contributed to a war that now seems to be spiraling out of control, harming any chance for a lasting peace, making the entire world less safe, and harming the reputations and integrity of all the countries that are involved. What a complete tragedy. Although I have strong opinions, as well as fear for our own family members in Beirut, today is a day to reflect on man's inhumanity to man, not to point fingers. Why are we the way we are? How do these same tendencies affect life here in Quebec - because they do? What can I, as an individual, do better? How can I amplify my power as an individual to encourage the institutions to which I belong to stand up and speak out for justice and peace, when so many are being silenced? And finally, in such a world, with so much suffering, fear and darkness, how can I be a person who gives hope?

So here are some flowers to lay on this makeshift, virtual altar. They were a gift from close friends on our birthdays, have brightened our home and our days, and last night I finally painted them before their petals start falling. The beauty of the earth stubbornly persists, and if we look, we find it everywhere. Thank God for that. And I'm thankful for every way in which I'm able to experience such things and mirror them back to the world.

A year ago, I was in Edessa, Greece, a small city in a mountainous northern border region that has been torn apart by ethnic warfare for centuries. After reading the news, I went into a large Orthodox church to light a candle, and sit quietly for a while with the icons and the smell of melting wax and incense. Later I walked in the church garden, and looked out over the valley at its orchards, vineyards, and fields. I no longer pray to God to end human wars and suffering; I haven't believed in such an omnipotent deity for a long time. I pray for us to come to our senses. I pray for strength, and to see what I need to do.

View southwest from the old city of Edessa, Greece.


Today, as I look out my studio window here in Montreal, the trees are beginning to turn to their fall colors, and the dark clouds to which we woke are giving way to sunshine and blue sky. A light wind ruffles the leaves of the plants on our balcony. I can hear faint sounds of construction in the distance, because here, homes are being built, not destroyed. For today, for right now, this moment, I am secure and aware of how fortunate I am. I can use this moment to become even more aware, to tune into all of my senses and consciously take in their input. I need to do this several times every day: otherwise I might miss the gifts that are still part of the reality and mystery of being alive. 

 

Reading Can Be Difficult

Montreal metro, last winter.

If our attention for long-form reading was already faltering because of texts, social media, and the delivery of online reading material to us in shorter and shorter bits, not to mention our often-frenetic lives, the pandemic drove a decisive nail into that coffin. During those difficult years of fear and isolation, I heard many people say that although they wanted to read books, they found they simply couldn't. They attributed some of this perplexing inability to an overall attention problem, but also noted that their increased level of anxiety and stress was getting in the way of their ability to relax, concentrate and forget about the outside world through a book. Paradoxically, a pastime that had once been a comfort became tortuous. They'd sit down with a book and try to read, but realize that they weren't absorbing the words in front of them. Having to repeatedly backtrack became a chore, and added to the stress. Worse, they weren't enjoying the content of the book either. With their minds already filled with a muddle of anxious, chaotic thoughts, it was hard to get into the book, and hard to lose themselves in its story or ideas. Eventually, many people gave up on long-form reading, and still haven't reclaimed the practice that once gave them so much pleasure. 

And reading a book, especially reading it closely, requires focus and effort. When we spend a lot of time scrolling through short-form info, whether it's news blurbs, social media posts, Tik Tok or Instagram reels, or Twitter/X feeds, what we're doing is essentially consumptive and passive. The constantly changing texts and topics, often accompanied by images, entertain us. We take them in, on a mostly-superficial level, and quickly move on to the next. We have control over the speed of our scrolling, knowing we can always bail out of one thing because it will be followed by an endless supply of alternatives. We don't have to engage in depth with anyone, although we can if we want; we don't have to concentrate any harder than we want to. We're given an easy way to respond to things we like, whether by emojis or a simple click, and we can share those things with others. But our minds don't have to work the same way they do when we read a lengthy essay, article or book -- we're not working the way we do when we're trying to engage deeply or learn something comprehensively.

For those of us who had the kind of education where we were asked about what we read and were expected to be able to talk about it, have an opinion, and summarize the ideas or incorporate them in writing of our own, reading now can be accompanied by a self-critical internal dialogue: "I ought to be absorbing this better," "Huh, I don't remember what I just read, or what I read yesterday," "I'm not enjoying this book at all." That's not much fun. It's far easier to look at a lot of stuff that changes all the time and doesn't challenge our minds to pay close attention. And after a while, that's pretty much all we want to do...maybe even all we are able to do.

I listened to a podcast recently with a woman who now studies attention and works on developing new forms of education designed to foster students' ability to focus. She had been an English literature major, but her comeuppance arrived after she admitted to herself that she hadn't read a novel in years. Sitting down with a book of literature she had loved and written about, maybe fifteen years before, she expected to fall into the rapt spell she remembered. But she was stunned to find out that she simply could not focus, and could not read with anything close to "attention" for more than five to ten minutes. She was so alarmed and shocked -- she "had known her attention was bad" but not how bad -- that she set about to re-train herself. She set aside the same time every day, and read for a little bit longer each session. I can't remember how long she said it took her -- several weeks to a month -- but she did regain her former ability, through painstaking, deliberate effort. From that personal experience, she went on to work on attention as an educational issue, developing new curriculums for children that help them learn how to read attentively, and to absorb and enjoy long texts. Needless to say, smartphones are not allowed in those classrooms.

I'm grateful that I didn't have problems reading during the pandemic. It continued to be the pleasure and solace it's always been for me, but I did feel the isolation very keenly. When I was approached in the spring of 2020 by an online friend about reading Haruki Murakami's IQ84 together, via Zoom, I was immediately interested. We invited some other people from all over the place - I think our locations ranged from India to Arizona -- found a time of day that worked for everyone, and agreed to meet weekly. Many of the original people dropped out after a while, including the person who had invited me initially. But I continued to facilitate the group, inviting some other friends. Today we have a core of seven people who have continued to meet every week, reading and discussing long complicated books. Many of the books are works in translation, set in non-English-speaking parts of the world. I know for a fact that I would not have read or re-read as many of these books without the company and encouragement of a group of equally-committed readers. I'll put our book list at the bottom of this post for you to peruse -- and we can happily recommend any of these titles to you.

Most of us don't think of reading as a communal pastime, so much, but why is that? Yes, you still need to sit down with the book and read the pages, or listen to an audiobook version, and that is usually a solitary act -- though I have one friend who has read books aloud with her husband every night for years and years, and loves to read this way. During the pandemic, I knew of transatlantic couples who read to each other daily, via phone or zoom. I was part of several memorable online events where the participants gathered to read a novella or a play aloud, taking turns and passing the text to each other over and over again, like a baton, over a period of hours. In our group, we often read passages aloud. I suspect there is something powerful and even primal in human beings about animating the word, and hearing it out loud.

Most book groups assign one book per session, and then meet to discuss it just once, before going on to the next one. Our group is more like a seminar. We read 60-100 pages each week, discuss that portion in depth, then move on to the next section. Some people take tangents that they share with the group, such as doing research on an author, historical periods or events. Others are interested in the structure and development of the writing and where it fits in the arc of the author's work. We compare translations and even go to the original languages if one of us knows it well enough. We've astonished ourselves at the places these discussions have taken us, as well as the sheer volume of pages we've read -- it's a perfect example of how doing a large task bit by bit can lead to success. For a whole variety of reasons, this interplay of solitary reading and serious, communal discussion, within the context of friendship, has worked very well.

All of this is to say: there's hope if you've had a hard time reading books in recent years. You might try finding a partner, or a group to join -- like exercise, reading together seems to work. And you might try reading the best books you can find. By that I don't mean only books in some offical "canon" of literature, or that contemporary novels aren't worthwhile; many of them are. Do try looking at the Booker Prizes, PEN award, National Book Award shortlists, books by Nobel winners and other major award recipients. I am no fan of "best books of the 21st century" lists and their ilk; better to me are lists of writers and books from countries new to me. I've read a lot of novels, both new and famous older ones, by writers from India, Africa, Japan, Korea, South America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Russia, and Scandinavia that have opened my eyes, not only to those cultures but to different ways of working with language to tell a story. During those years when I couldn't travel, these books took me on their wings.

So don't be discouraged - you aren't alone, and you can actually get your reading chops back. The woman I described above did it a good way, sticking to a few minutes each day, and gradually increasing. We lose practice gradually, and we have to regain it gradually, so be patient. And again, I would love to hear about your own experience: are you reading as much as you used to? What makes reading challenging, and what works for you?

 

Our Book Group List, 2020-2024

2020

Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez 

To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf

2666, Roberto Bolaño

1Q84, Haruki Murakami

 

2021

Arturo's Island, Elsa Morante

Beowulf, Seamus Heaney, trans.

Anil's Ghost, Michael Ondaatje

The Laexdal Saga (from Sagas of Icelanders)

Under the Glacier, Haldor Laxness

Milkman, Anna Burns

O Pioneers, Willa Cather

Agamemnon, Aeschylus 

The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

 

2022

The Eye of the Rigal, Roy Jacobsen (Barroy Chronicles 3) 

White Shadow, Roy Jacobsen (Barroy Chronicles 2)

The Unseen, Roy Jacobsen (Barroy Chronicles 1)

How I Became a Nun, Cesar Aira 

An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, Cesar Aira 

Several short stories, Borges

The Reluctant Gaucho, Roberto Bolaño

Recitatif, Toni Morrison

The Birds, Aristophanes 

War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

 

2023

Pig Earth, John Berger (Into Their Labours, Vol 1) 

Moby Dick, Herman Melville 

Three Short Works, Gustav Flaubert 

Shared Silence, Lalla Romano

The Sleeping Car Porter, Suzette Mayr

Just a Mother, Roy Jacobsen (Barroy Chronicles 4)

Nights of Plague, Orhan Pamuk 

Night Train to Lisbon, Pascal Mercier 

The Books of Jacob, Olga Tokarczuk

 

2024

The Magic Mountain, Thoman Mann (in progress)

James, Percival Everett 

Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain 

The Covenant of Water, Abraham Vergese  

Don Quixote, Cervantes 

The Fraud, Zadie Smith 

Lilac and Flag, John Berger (Into Their Labours, Vol 3)

Once in Europa, John Berger (Into Their Labours, Vol 2) 

The Silent Walk

A path at Parc Angrignon, Montreal. Watercolor, 6" x 9".

Attention -- our loss of it, our lack of it -- seems to be on many people's minds these days. From Ezra Klein to close friends of my own, it seems that more of us are acknowledging that sustaining the quality of awareness and focus we call attention has become a significant problem, not just for young people who've grown up tethered to their devices and the internet, but for most of us.

In today's New York Times, there's an article titled "The Beauty of a Silent Walk." I go for lots of silent walks and always have, almost daily...you know, just ordinary walks in my neighborhood, walks in nature, walks to and from the metro, walks in the inner city. I don't wear headphones and I don't take out my phone, I just...walk. Look around at the plants, the trees, the people, the dogs and cats, the buildings going up -- or, if I'm in a more natural setting, at the natural world, the water, the sky. There are smells and sounds to notice too. I see a lot, I think thoughts, and I also don't think. I just walk and enjoy being alone and quiet with myself. So I was sort of incredulous, even though I shouldn't have been, by what the article said. Here's the beginning, with the line breaks eliminated by me:

In a TikTok video that has now amassed nearly half a million views, the influencer Mady Maio describes taking a walk. But not just any walk: a silent one. For her, the 30-minute stroll was revelatory. No podcasts, no music. Just “me, myself and I.” She was resistant at first. (It was her boyfriend’s idea.) “My anxiety could never,” she said in the video.

Ms. Maio described the first two minutes as mental “mayhem” that eventually gave way to a “flow state.” Her brain fog lifted. Ideas started popping into her head because she was “giving them space to enter.” The silent walk is TikTok’s latest wellness obsession, a blend of meditation and exercise that aims to improve mental health.

 

The scenes I observe daily in the metro should have tipped me off that things had gotten this extreme - I'm often the only person in the car without headphones on, or a phone in their lap; the only person who's looking around and observing my fellow human beings, apart from people traveling in groups of talkative friends. Yes, sure, sometimes I watch or listen to something, check my mail or read, but generally, I don't. I didn't realize that, for many young people, anxiety about silence and being alone with oneself extends even to the idea of taking an ordinary walk. I knew that many weren't doing it -- so many people on the streets are either absorbed in their headphones, or talking on their phones -- but I didn't realize how much was due not to habit, but to anxiety. So rather than scoff or dismiss what's being described here, I'm happy that some are noticing what's going on, and trying to do something about it. The author of the article goes on to talk about the longtime spiritual practice of silent walking meditation (which, Ms Maio's self-described "flow state" aside, is rather some distance from a regular walk) and then speaks about the research that shows how good walking can be for you and your mental health. Reading this left me feeling sad, a bit stunned, and wondering what, if anything, I could do about it.

 

Many, if not most, of my friends of a similar age still enjoy long quiet walks, swims, car drives or commutes, or time spent cooking, knitting, playing an instrument, or doing other non-passive activities that allow their thoughts to roam freely. We grew up before our devices took over so much of our lives and our mental space, so we know what it's like to be quiet, without music or podcasts or even a tv or computer in the background.  But many of us, too, have left that quiet behind, and with it, our true solitude. We know what it's like not to scroll endlessly, not to be addicted to social media, to write real letters or blog posts, but...we've joined in, and our minds have been shaped and changed by it. Is it any wonder? Not only have the devices practically become part of our bodies and indispensible to our functioning, the world they bring to us has become so much more fraught, so much emotionally noisier and more anxiety-producing, and delivered in smaller and smaller bits, that of course many of us can't concentrate on anything longer than a few minutes, and of course we seek ways to escape not only the inputs, but the resulting chaos and distress in our own minds.

 

I sense that perhaps I've been more stubborn and, as a result, less affected by these trends than some, while still embracing the technologies available to us. Most of what I've read or heard about attention has been written or produced by much younger people, but I think those of us who are older may also have a good deal to say, not only about ourselves but about our children, students, and younger friends. Rather than being critical, I'd like to explore this subject further in a non-judgemental way and talk with other people, of all ages, about how they see it, and then explore some ways to get our attention back.

 

My next post is going to be about reading books, an area where many people say they've found their ability to focus quite changed. If you'd like to share your own experience or converse with me about it, please leave a note in the comments or send me a message at cassandra dot pages at mailbox dot org, and let's talk.

 

 

 

Reality and Illusion

 

Parker Palmer writes, “The function of contemplation in all its forms is to penetrate illusion and help us to touch reality.” [1] I think he’s right and I would add that great love and great suffering are the normal paths of transformation. There’s an important place for practices of contemplation. I’m not throwing them out, but any practice of contemplation is for the sake of helping us sustain what we temporarily learn through great love or great suffering, whether it’s on a honeymoon or the day after a parent dies. When we’re in the middle of great grief or great love, we become a nondual thinker for a few days, weeks, or months, but we all know it doesn’t last. It doesn’t last—unless we put it into practice.  -- Fr. Richard Rohr

 

Awake in the night, three days after having extensive dental surgery, something that’s been planned for months in consultation with specialists, I find there is a lot to process. I’ve done well; I was brave and handled everything the best I could have hoped for. The specialists were excellent, and so were the medications: I’ve had a lot of swelling but very little pain. But now that the acute phase is lessening, I think it’s all hitting me a bit more -- as I would expect it would. I find my wakeful, restless mind going all over the place in the middle of the night. What have I forgotten to do, what needs my attention now, what do I need to communicate to whom, what should I do next? I thought I would have at least a week or two of exhaustion, recuperation, and being cared for, but the physical recovery is happening much faster than that; in a few days I’ll be almost back to a new “normal.” But what is that? Between the house sale, and all it entailed this summer, and the anticipation and actuality of this significant medical event which came right on its heels, it’s been -- a lot. I don’t think I can simply heal up quickly and hit the ground running.

My reluctance to write regularly on the blog through this period seems both to be a direct result of all that’s happened to me, and is happening in the world. When I see how many people let everything in their lives hang out in public, it makes me want to be silent and private. My little dip into FB this week, because of birthday messages the day after my surgery, reinforces this aversion, but it’s also the news and the media in general, not just social media. The media's relentless invasiveness in their search for attention and detail, the more salacious or anxiety-producing the better, seems to encourage individuals to do the same thing -- “surely there’s something about me that I can use to get attention...and more attention...which will alleviate my own sense of anxiety, insecurity, insignificance, and helplessness about the future.” At the bottom of this, of course, is our fear of our own mortality. But of course the attention-seeking only works temporarily, and it is all ego-driven; it doesn’t help anyone else -- in fact, it has the opposite effect. This is often true even when the person who is writing or posting does so in the guise of “helping” -- leaving aside the blatancy of “influencer” culture and its proven deleterious effect not only on adolescents but many of us, there are many self-styled gurus out there, in every “wellness” field from therapy to spirituality to nutrition, exercise, health and beauty.

Even in my own field of creativity and the arts, where it's quieter, there are plenty of people clamouring for attention. The mediums are made for this, and with every click our preferences and data are used to direct more ads and content into our feeds and inboxes. Most of the time we don’t even think about it. But, if Parker Palmer’s insight is true: “The function of contemplation in all its forms is to penetrate illusion and help us to touch reality,” then the clear message to me is that it’s time to get back on the cushion, literally or not. Too much has happened to me personally, at the same time as the escalating din of war and politics in our world, for me to want to add to it except with a calm word or image now and then. Having some tools for dealing with times of personal and collective upheaval, developed through a lifetime of reading, artistic and spiritual practice, loving others, and observing and thinking about life, helps me to know when I need to step back and take care of myself. Only then can I have any hope of offering anything genuinely useful or helpful to others, which is and should be the goal.

At the same time, I recognize in myself a desire to communicate more with this community of readers and friends -- but quietly. So I will try to do that, while giving myself the time I need to set some priorities and think about the shape of life in the days and months ahead.

Permutations of the Same Thing

It's been two months since I last wrote here, the longest break I think I've taken in the twenty-plus-year history of this blog. During the summer, we cleaned, packed, and sold my family home at the lake in central New York. Since coming back to Montreal, I've needed some time to rest from that labor, both physically and emotionally, and reconnect with my life here. I feel like I'm still doing that.

Just recently, I got out my oil paints and began working again on a small painting I started several months ago. I hadn't been happy with it, but put it aside for a while, not being sure what was wrong. When I looked at it again recently, I realized that there was too much going on in the foreground, which detracted from the main subject - the white cliffs - and that the composition wasn't working, and needed to be simplified. The finished painting is above, and the video below shows the process this piece went through. This view of dramatic cliffs and and olive trees is along the road from Patras to Corinth, Greece, and I must have taken some pictures out the window of the car as we sped along the highway. 

 

 

Even though personal affairs have been in the foreground of my own summer, I haven't been ignoring the political landscape. Like so many American voters, I was dismayed by Biden's performance in the debate, and relieved when he finally stepped aside because I was certain he could not win the election. I will vote for Kamala Harris, but unlike many Democratic voters, and, it seemed, almost everyone at the made-for-tv spectacle that was the Democratic Convention, I am not jumping up and down with enthusiasm. I wish I could be -- a woman president, at last, and of a younger generation? And a person of color as well -- these are very good things, which I welcome. However, the picture that we have all been looking at, throughout Biden's presidency, needs a radical reworking. Only Bernie Sanders named the elephant in the room, when he called for an end to the horrendous war in Gaza; there were no Palestinian voices at the convention, which was deliberate of course, in spite of the thousands of protesters outside. I understand and share the relief that many feel in having a viable ticket with Harris/Walz; the alternative is unthinkable. But the problems America faces are so deep and so entrenched now, and these candidates, I am sorry to say, do not represent real change. I wish them well, I hope they win, but militarism, rampant capitalism, and a belief in American exceptionalism are not going to solve the problems facing ordinary people, abroad or at home, or save this fragile planet. 

Rites of Passage

This summer, we're in the process of selling my family home, at the lake in central New York that I've written about and photographed for this blog many times over the years. My feelings about this change are too complex and too personal to summarize here. Some of them were expressed in my book, Snowy Fields, and others continue to emerge -- and I expect that process to continue indefinitely, though lessening in intensity as time passes. 

Over the past six weeks, I've given three book talks - two in central New York to audiences familiar with the landscape that was the inspiration for that project, and one at Christ Church Cathedral here in Montreal, in which I tried to give people some idea of how the rural place and people of my childhood shaped me and my creative life. I also spoke about the spiritual aspects of creativity, and how I believe that claiming  or reclaiming our creative selves is meant for all of us humans, not just those with a particular gift or inclination toward one of the arts. I've loved giving these talks and hearing what members of the audiences have had to say; that's one of the very positive aspects of this process that I'm going through. If you'd like to watch it, here's an audio/visual slideshow of the talk I gave at the public library in Hamilton, New York:

I've felt grief, poignant recollection, and, I admit, some frustration, as I sorted through the possessions of not just my parents, but my grandparents and their siblings. There are trunks full of photographs dating back to the late 1800s, objects, furniture, collections, baby clothes. None of these people did the work of sorting or letting-go: they kept everything, never downsized or moved but passed it all down, and eventually it became my responsibility. Like the previous generations, my cousins and their families remained in the same area, with houses that could absorb some of the objects of these previous lives, but my own urban life is very different. My task has been a triage of finding new homes for certain things, selling others, photographing some before relinquishing them, and keeping a very small selection of things that mean the most to me and are possible to incorporate into our own life and limited space.

The hardest part for me has been contemplating giving up the place itself - the land of which I know every inch, the view from the porch, the huge maple tree, the sounds of the birds that I've heard since I was five years old. Things have worked out in surprising ways, though. I'll be keeping the woods across the road from our family home, which gives me a foothold there as well as a continued vote on the lake association that was founded by my grandfather and father. I still have dear friends with homes on the lake who I can visit, and many of the places I've always loved will remain accessible. We'll be giving up the responsibility and expense of a property that's impossible for us to maintain well at this distance, and hopefully putting it in the hands of new people who will love and appreciate it, and care for it for a long time to come.

And finally, after the years of the pandemic, and especially the last two years in which we cleared out, moved, and downsized our own home, our studios, cared for and moved my father three times, and then dealt with my family's home, we'll finally be able to settle into our own life in Montreal and think about what we want to do. It's kind of astonishing, really: when the pandemic began, in 2020, we had barely retired from our professional work; I was still singing in the cathedral choir and chairing its music committee; we lived in a different part of the city and had a large separate studio; my father was alive and doing well, and we had a very different idea of what the next years would look like. So much change has happened, and we're also four and a half years older, which isn't insignificant at this age.

How do I feel? Somewhat battered, somewhat exhausted, sometimes sad, but mostly hopeful as I look forward to a new chapter. I hope I can be a better friend to my close friends, perhaps be able to do some teaching, resume more of a musical life, continue to do art and writing with greater focus, travel more, and embrace life in this fascinating multicultural city that has also changed a lot during this half-decade. Perhaps I'll also be able to write here more often -- I hope so! 

Happy Birthday

My mother would have been 100 years old today, June 9, 2024. I'm sitting in her dining room at the moment, looking out the windows of her house at the lake she loved, with my computer on the adjustable pine drafting table my father made for her in the early years of their marriage. Some of her own paintings hang on the walls here, along with mine.

How fortunate I was to have had the mother I did. 

She's been gone for eighteen years now, and I still think of her every day. I wish I could celebrate this day with her, but at least I can celebrate her life and her continued presence in mine.

1955. My cousin Bucky, my mother, me, and my maternal grandmother. (The photos above were all taken by my father.)

2024. The same view today.

 

The Quiet and Wondrous Woods

World-weary, last week I took myself off one afternoon to Montreal's Parc Angrignon, wanting to walk along the water and hear some bird song and, I hoped, clear my head and lift my spirits. This is a park with a lot of water, and it also has large tracts of undeveloped woodland. I'd never walked in those woods before. They beckoned to me, though, and in I plunged -- and to my surprise found many native wildflowers, growing happily and undisturbed. (I was glad I visited when I did, because I also saw a lot of little poison ivy plants starting to unfurl in some of the same areas.) Since we all need some beauty and delicacy these days, here are some pictures of that afternoon -- take a few moments and walk with me.

White trillium.

Jack-in-the-pulpit

Wild ginger

Yellow violets

Bellwort - new to me. Thanks to G. for helping with the identification.

Red trillium.

--

I also spent some time sitting on a log, sketching a view across this channel of water. A day or two later, I made the much more satisfactory watercolor at the top of the post.

Spring has been very slow to come to Montreal this year. Finally, this week, I put the house plants out on the balcony and started potting some annuals and herbs to grow there for the summer. It feels like a huge relief to be able to be outdoors, and warm there, again.

A Word out of Silence

The reason I haven't been writing more recently is that I am sick at heart about Gaza. Now, as an invasion of Rafah begins, it's hard to breathe when I think of the Palestinians there - who are, in fact, people like me who once had families, dreams, lives, homes, and an idea of a future - but who now have nowhere safe to go. I am thinking of the courageous student demonstrators who are risking their educations, risking arrest, and, in some cases, bodily harm, in order to stand up for what is evident to most of the people on this planet -- that this extraordinarily disproportionate violence, that has already killed thousands and thousands of innocent women and children, is the moral issue of our time, just as the Vietnam War was the issue for my generation. I stand with them, just as I stood for peace back in 1968, and have done ever since.

But let us remember: there cannot be real peace without justice. Everyone on earth deserves a home and a homeland; this is not a right granted only to victors and conquerors. The current destabilization of the Middle and Near East began in 1948, when the state of Israel was established and over 700,000 Arab Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes; this led to the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 and to all of the subsequent conflicts, terrorist attacks, and wars. This terrible problem cannot be solved by rooting out terrorism, which is the symptom but not the underlying cause. In the decades since 1948, there have been genuine hopes for peace led by visionary individuals including American presidents and leaders of both Israel and Palestine. How many of us remember that in 1994, thirty years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and PLO leader Yasser Arafat were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the Oslo Accords peace talks? Rabin was later assassinated by an Israeli right-wing extremist who opposed those accords. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who signed the Camp David Accords with Menachem Begin in 1978, was also assassinated by an Egyptian rightwing extremist who opposed Sadat's progressive vision for Egypt and the region. And so it has gone -- high hopes after the Camp David Accords in 1978, witnessed by Jimmy Carter; high hopes at Oslo, high hopes under Bill Clinton, attempts by Barack Obama to bring the two sides together...but ultimately a failure to come to an agreement acceptable to both sides, while terrorist attacks, military reprisals, expansion of Israeli settlements and further loss of Palestinian lands, homes, and orchards have continued, and political leadership has hardened into the current extremes.

Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin at the presentation of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize. 

Most of the students demonstrating now were not yet born during the great expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, during the second intifada in the 1990s, during the war across the border in Lebanon, or even at the time of 9/11. All of these events are directly related -- including the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which killed hundreds of thousands and, instead of securing peace, created massive suffering, migration and displacement, as well as contributing to greater enmity and the rise of new terrorist groups. All were direct results of a long chain of political decisions and policies. Many could have been prevented, as some of us tried our best to say, and plead for, throughout these times. When I look back at this history from our present moment, I am filled with intense sorrow.

Today I read a quotation, attributed to Albert Einstein, via Fr. Richard Rohr, that says "no problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it." I think all of us understand the intense pain caused by violence and displacement, terrorism and war -- on both sides of every conflict -- and how this creates a desire for revenge. But that pattern, as we've seen throughout history, merely creates an escalating cycle of violence. As the great peacemakers have taught us, only love can overcome hatred and lead toward justice and reconciliation, and true safety and peace. Where are the true leaders when we most need them? Instead, children in tents are saying the truth that the world sees, and being punished for it.

So it is very difficult to write anything else, or to focus on art, or the coming of spring, or new wardrobe items, or the endless stream of distractions that flood the internet and social media and keep us consuming, complacent, and quietly complicit. Nevertheless, I am trying to be grateful as I look out my secure Canadian windows at the greening trees, the blue sky with billowing clouds devoid of bombers, an urban landscape that is vibrant and alive, not rubble, and home to a mosaic of people from all over the world. From my building I can see schools and hospitals and universities; buildings being used and built; unconcerned children and dogs playing on the new grass. I seldom hear sirens, or human cries; I have never heard a gunshot or explosion. I am grateful that my husband's parents  - Armenian and Syrian Christians - left the Middle East back in the 1940s for the sake of their children. Because of their foresight and sacrifices, I have a husband who has lived a full and normal life. We can imagine tomorrow, and next month; we not only have hope but the expectation of meeting and holding our friends and family again. How fortunate we are.

This is not a time to keep silent; if you are like me, you do not want to be on the wrong side of history and you don't want to make a grave moral error. So I urge you to write to your representatives, to sign petitions, to put your feet on the street, and if you are alumnus of a university where there is an encampment or ongoing demonstration and you support the students and their demands, please write to the administration. State your opinions, noting that you, too, are a potential donor, and that protecting all students AND their right to free speech and debate is not only vital, but the bedrock of higher education. And if you are a person who prays, please pray for peace, and that human beings can find enough love in their hearts for one another to stop killing. However, prayers and wishes are not enough when so many lives hang in the balance.

 

 

Snowy Fields, Taking Flight

As many of you know, my big project during the winter and spring a year ago was a group of twenty charcoal landscape drawings. They eventually formed the core of my book Snowy Fields, along with two essays, one by me, and another, about my work, by Michael Szpakowski. It's been a pleasure to send that book out into the world and to hear back from many of you with appreciative comments. I'm both grateful and encouraged by readers' reactions to both the artwork and the writing, since I haven't done a project like this before.

Some of you asked if any of the drawings would ever be for sale. I've decided to make most of them available following a small exhibition and talk in Hamilton, NY, on May 1. Some have already been spoken for, so if you're interested, please do let me know as soon as you can via email: cassandra dot pages at mailbox dot org. The grid above shows the drawings and their availability (red dot means unavailable). The drawings are signed and framed behind plexiglass with archival mattes, and are priced at $295.00, plus shipping.

I also have two oil paintings for sale that belong to the same series. This one is quite small:

Spring Thaw. Oil on board, 8" x 9.5". $325.00 framed.

And the other is larger, in a really beautiful gallery frame. (The color is more accurate in the top image.)

View of Chenango Valley, looking toward Sherburne from North Norwich. Oil on board, 12" x 16". $750.00 framed.

It's never particularly easy for me to decide to let my work go, especially when the pieces aren't prints but are one-of-a-kind originals. However, I'd much rather have my artwork find homes where it will be enjoyed than to have it sitting around in my storage drawers. I've tried to price these pieces fairly and reasonably so that more people will find them accessible. Shipping will be calculated depending on the destination but I'll do it as reasonably as possible.

The other very good thing about finishing a big project is that it clears creative space for new ideas. I'm not at all sure what will emerge next, but I plan to keep drawing and painting, staying open to inspiration without trying to force anything forward, confident that eventually the work will coalesce around a new idea, informed by what came before but not repeating it. Maybe Mediterranean, maybe Quebec...we'll see. I don't think the next body of work will be wintry, as much as I like the graphic qualities of snow. We are definitely ready for spring up here!