the cassandra pages

What My Teeth Have Taught Me

 

 

 

In bed with an ice pack, Thursday afternoon.

In my mother’s desk, she kept a small, round tin that had once held mints. Inside were all my baby teeth. I used to love to take it out and look inside at those tiny perfect teeth; I can remember the sound they made rattling against the side of the tin as I carefully placed them back in the drawer. Although her desk came to me after she died, it arrived empty. I found that tin inside a dresser when I was cleaning out my parents’ house last year. I looked inside once more, but didn’t keep it.

Little did I know that those shed teeth — which once lived inside my body — would be prophetic.

I grew up in a rural American town in the 50s and 60s, where there was a lot of poverty, not much higher education, and limited health care. My dentist was not the best, but he was a caring person who recommended to my parents that I get braces, because I had inherited a too-small mouth that gave rise to a lot of crowding, and crooked, overlapping teeth. But my parents didn’t have much money in those days, and I of course didn’t want to get braces, which would have meant frequent trips to a distant city — and put me, who already hated wearing glasses, in a very small minority. I only knew of one child in my class of 125 who had had orthodonture. That is not a decision to be left to the child. In my case, the adults should have prevailed and found the money, but… they didn’t. Several people in my family had lost their teeth and had dentures. It was common in our area to see people with missing teeth that were never replaced.

But that was not true in university, and in my subsequent life, first in university towns in New England, then in Montreal, and among our acquaintances in major cities. It is still the case in rural Quebec and many parts of America, as well as in many other countries with poorer populations and limited access to dentistry. But within a certain demographic, tooth loss carries stigma and judgement, and creates shame in the person who has it. Even when it is hidden, we don’t talk about it. In my case, I experience my lifelong dental saga as a chronic illness about which I rarely speak.

My dental problems started in my twenties. Ironically, I have few cavities and my teeth have always been strong. I’ve never even needed a root canal. The problems stemmed from the crowding, which gave rise to periodontal pockets. In spite of my diligent twice-daily brushing, flossing, water-picking, dental cleanings four times a year, and many gum surgeries — this eventually led to bone loss in my upper jaw, necessitating the incremental removal of most of my upper teeth and the placement of various restorations, from bridges to surgical implants. I’ve been going to periodontal specialists and oral surgeons as well as general dentists for 40 years, and although I’ve never totaled the money spent on my mouth, it has been huge.

 

The surgical suite of my periodontist in Westmount, QC

The latest and most extensive of these surgeries happened last Thursday, when I received three titanium implant posts in my upper left jaw. A loose bridge, and two old implants that had been placed too close together and had become compromised, were all removed six months ago, when I also received bone grafts to help support their replacements, which will hold a fixed bridge spanning the space of five teeth, including a front one.

Fortunately, dental science, techniques and technology have advanced tremendously during my lifetime. Since moving to this city, I’ve been able to receive state-of-the-art care, and, thankfully, to afford it. The spaceship suite where I had this most recent surgery is equipped with lasers, CT-scanners, enormous viewing screens, and all the latest equipment, but the primary differences are the highly-trained and continually-learning professionals who plan the treatments and perform them. I’m working with a team - my general dentist, my periodontist, and a prosthodontist who is responsible for the restoration work and who has made me temporary fixtures to wear this year during the various stages of treatment and healing.

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I decided to write about this because I am tired of minimizing it, and because I know that many people deal with similar issues but are, like me, reluctant to speak of them. Unlike some chronic conditions like, say, asthma, certain others carry stigma in our society — mental illness, obesity, and physical disabilities are prime examples — where the sufferer tends to be judged and blamed. I would put serious, ongoing dental problems in a similar category. The affected person can feel isolated and shamed, particularly when there is disfigurement, even if it is mostly hidden. I will never forget opening my room door in a European hotel some years ago to the insistent knock of a maid. It was early morning, and I hadn’t yet placed a temporary tooth in the front of my mouth — I was in the middle of one of these long multi-stage implant procedures. The young woman literally recoiled when I opened my mouth to answer her question, so unexpected was my appearance. And there are other effects: what and how one can eat is affected; the possibility of new problems is always in the back of your mind; travel creates disruptions in the maintenance routine, so that you’re always worried about a flare-up. I always travel with antibiotics and a special kit of tooth-care tools, and investigate where I could get emergency care in foreign countries if it became necessary. It’s also very, very costly to go the higher-end route of bridges and implants, rather than partial or full dentures.

Many friends don’t know what to say, while some are very empathetic. It doesn’t help that I tend to downplay what I’m going through; I’m stoic and want to live normally, and people tend to expect that of me. I actually received several phone calls while I was still being stitched up on Thursday, which I later discovered were from a friend who I’d told about the anticipated procedure the previous evening. In subsequent messages they never mentioned my situation at all, in spite of the fact that I explained why I hadn’t answered their calls. Other friends sent me supportive messages before and afterwards, and have kept in touch, which of course I greatly appreciate.

On the other hand, I’ve learned to live with it. My husband also has some chronic conditions, including some dental ones, and he has helped me see how to gracefully manage my own. I tend to heal quickly, and am grateful for the advances in care which minimize pain, swelling, and discomfort during the treatments, and allow me to function, for the most part, normally.

 

A former dental implant, now residing in my mother’s desk.

One result of my hundreds, if not thousands, of hours in dental chairs, is that I no longer feel fear. First of all, dentists do not want to hurt you, and modern dentistry shouldn’t hurt. My best advice is to communicate. If you are apprehensive, explain your feelings in detail to your dentist and they will do what they can to help. My American friends are surprised that we seldom have general anesthesia for major dental procedures here in Canada — maybe it’s a toughness legacy from all the teeth knocked out by hockey pucks! Some dental offices offer gas, but mine generally prescribe Ativan for those who are apprehensive. Local anesthesia injections, which can be the worst part of a treatment, are lessened by topical gels and acupressure applied by the dentist to the lips or gums - it’s over in a few seconds.

I always end up with good relationships with my practitioners, and that’s helped by my curiosity about what they’re doing and how they do it, and about who they are as people. This also lessens tension during the procedures, on both our parts. It’s good that we can laugh together, even if it’s sometimes black humor. Pain medications and steroids help a great deal afterwards, as well as knowing I can contact my practitioners easily.

Meditative techniques are the primary key I’ve found to surviving in the chair. Breathing deeply through your nose minimizes the chance of gagging, and helps to calm the entire body. I try to set up a rhythm and keep to it, breathing mindfully and taking my attention away from what is happening by focusing on something innocuous in my field of vision. Sometimes I “play” music in my head. If there is any hint of pain, I always ask for more anesthetic.

Over my life, I’ve also changed my relationship to time. Last Thursday’s surgery took three hours, using only local anesthetic, which was exactly what I had expected. I’ve learned that time is something quite relative. The traffic light will eventually change, you’ll get to the end of a queue, the bus will arrive — there’s no point getting upset about waiting. As in music, time spent waiting proceeds linearly, from a beginning to an end — but there will always be an end. Knowing this, I’m better able to put up with a short-term ordeal to get to a new point where we can, in the words of one of my former dental surgeons, “let the healing begin.”

Report: A Brief Cross-Border Excursion

 

For someone who’s made as many trips across the Canadian-US border as I have, it’s been strange to feel not only constrained, but apprehensive about the prospect. During the pandemic, we didn’t go to the US for more than a year because we couldn’t — the border was closed — but that felt totally different. More recently, in December and early January, we took trips to visit family and friends in the US. But after the inauguration, the threats against Canada, and the reports of people being hassled, intimidated or detained at the border, we have deliberately stayed put.

I received a document last week — a final piece of my father’s estate — that had to be notarized and returned to the US. I called the US Consulate here in Montreal to make an appointment to see a notary there, and was told that they no longer offered that service. My choices were to go to Ottawa, a two-hour trip each way, and pay something like $70 for the service at the US Embassy, or drive to the town clerk in Champlain, NY, where I’ve been before, and have the document notarized for free. Yesterday, that’s what I did.

 

The reward was a beautiful drive on the day when the leaves were coming out. I enjoyed seeing the flat fields awaiting spring planting, some with their incredible, black earth just plowed, and the tender yellow-green and reddish haze of tree buds just beginning to burst.

I took my regular phone, thinking the chances of it being examined or seized were pretty small; I’d looked through it pretty carefully ahead of time.

At the border — this was the Champlain crossing — there were no cars. Literally. I saw one or two others coming behind me, but that’s unheard of — often the lines have stretched half a mile back from this major crossing into New York State. I pulled into the NEXUS lane, which has an automatic scanner, rolled down my window. The border agent, a woman, asked me where I lived and the reason for my visit; I said I was going to the town clerk’s office in Champlain. She said, “Thank you, have a nice day,” and that was that.

Of course, on her screen she can see that I’m a dual citizen, born in America, and have a record of hundreds of crossings with no red flags. But the main thing she sees and hears is an older white person with an Anglo name, speaking unaccented American English. I’m not proud of that privilege. I’ve always been aware of the profiling that happens at the border. Now it can be a matter of freedom or detention, imprisonment, disappearance, or even death.

At the town offices, the clerk used my American passport as ID, and when she’d finished she quietly asked, “How was the border?” “No problem,” I said, “but there were basically no cars there.” “Yes, “ she said, pursing her lips in concern. “They say the traffic is way down.”

 

Yesterday was also the day that Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi was freed on bail by a federal judge in Vermont. After mailing my document at the post office in Champlain, I almost drove across the bridge to Vermont, just to stand in my former home state for a moment or two. I hadn’t heard the good news about Mahdawi yet, but I’ve been proud of our congressional delegation and of the thousands of Vermonters who’ve been standing up strongly for democracy and free speech, and against the cruelty of these kidnappings and detentions. I turned around to head home straightaway instead, knowing I’d probably get hung up in Montreal’s rush hour traffic later on — which I did.

At the Canadian border, after our inital “bonjour-hi”, the agent asked me why I’d been in the US and for how long (“less than an hour”), and whether I’d bought anything (they are charging tariffs on everything purchased in the US now, including gas). I truthfully answered “no” — usually I’d have a full tank of gas and a bag of groceries, but all I had bought was a doughnut, which was long gone, and not worth mentioning. He asked me to roll down my back window, took a cursory look from his booth, and nodded an OK. Then he told me they had had reports of a car driving the wrong way on the highway ahead, and to please be careful. “Merci,” I answered, and went on my way.

 

I didn’t even pull off to take any pictures, although the landscape was particularly beautiful. This morning, though, I pulled out some images from a year ago and did the quick oil pastel you see here, which captures some of the tremulous quality of yesterday’s early northern spring in the countryside. No wonder the student protests in Egypt some years ago were called “The Arab Spring”: that’s the hopeful energy you feel in nature right now. I wish we could harness it! Resistance is definitely growing, though, as more and more people wake up to reality and realize they need to do something. Opinion polls show negative approval now among a majority, regardless of party affiliation. The courts are holding firm in most decisions, as are more institutions. Still, the damage is rapid and massive, and the pushback agonizingly slow.

I’m relieved that everything went so easily on my short trip, though I don’t take it for granted; if we need or want to visit our American friends and relatives I’ll feel less apprehensive about it. The reticence remains, however. In the grocery store this morning, like everyone else, we read the labels and chose products from Canada, Mexico, and countries other than the US.. We’ll spend our vacation dollars elsewhere. How sad it is to feel slapped in the face by your best friend — and, in my case, by my own homeland! Let’s hope this state of affairs gradually resolves, though the sense of betrayal, loss of trust, and anxiety will linger, I’m afraid, for a long time.

A Walk in the Woods on Election Day

 

I wanted to get away from screens and the news today, so I left on the metro early this morning for Parc Angrignon, and took a long walk along the ponds and in the woods, with my sketchbook and watercolors. Didn’t end up doing much sketching, but the walk did me worlds of good. This is the first day we’ve had that’s well above 60 degrees F. On Sunday I walked through sleet to get to the metro. Montrealers are so ready for spring!

 

There are no leaves out yet, on the trees, so there’s lots of light on the forest floor. This is a veritable carpet of dog’s tooth violets (or trout lilies, or adder’s tongues - depending on where you’re from).

 

The same wildflower, up close.

 

Dog’s tooth violets and red trillium (also known as “wake-robins”).

 

We’re in Canada, after all.

 

Sketching the bloodroot leaves.

 

And a patch of bloodroot, seen from above.

 

A brief encounter. (He/she didn’t want to move, and I didn’t want to disturb). Besides this fine painted turtle and several others of that species, I saw and heard many songbirds, a pair of ospreys, geese and ducks, and a grebe, and resolved that I will try to visit this park much more often than last year. It’s wild enough that you don’t feel like you’re in the city, and at an early hour, it’s just you and a few joggers and walkers, and the wildlife, trees, plants, water and wind.

I never want to forget that we live in a world like this, among creatures that know nothing of our human preoccupations. The paths were muddy and mucky, the sun warm on my face, the smell of wet earth and waking plants strong; nesting blackbirds scolded me from swaying reeds, and song sparrows and white-throated sparrows made music as beautiful as any I can imagine. I will miss going to the lake this year, so it’s important to me to find places and time closer to home where I can leave urban life behind for a while, rest, and recharge my senses and spirit. Meeting that turtle’s beady eye renewed my faith in nature, if not humanity, and that was enough for today!

Now I’m back home, awaiting the results of our Canadian election. Turnout has been heavy, and I feel confident that the result will be a strong, positive decision for the country.

Nature and Nurture

 

My cousin, on the left, holding the black rabbit, had a birthday recently and I sent her this photograph of the two of us. It’s a slide my father must have taken in the 1950s. We’re standing in front of my aunt and uncle’s house, on their dairy farm in Smyrna, New York. I loved animals, but because of my mother’s asthma I couldn’t have furry pets, so I liked visiting the farm animals. I remember various pet dogs and cats, the chicken house out back, occasional pigs, and the huge herd of Holsteins, but not these rabbits — the fluffy white one one I’m holding looks slightly demented. But my attention was caught by two other things in this photograph as well.

One is the pair of pants I’m wearing, with their design of palettes and brushes and paint. Did I choose them or did my mother or someone else in the family give them to me? Did someone find the fabric and sew them? I was born into a family of makers; my father and grandfather were excellent woodworkers, all the women knew how to sew, knit, crochet, embroider, cook, grow a garden, and some — my mother and aunt — painted pictures. On my father’s side, everyone was musical, and my school had an active music and drama program. I had an easel and art supplies from the time I was very young, and always liked to draw and paint — but would I have discovered this if I hadn’t been encouraged? Would I have asked for a musical instrument on my own, without those external factors? And would I have persisted, without watching the adults around me, observing their enjoyment and satisfaction, and how they dealt with errors, mistakes, or making a dress or a chair that was harder than anything they’d tried before? What if I hadn’t had good teachers? What if all the music and arts programs at school had been cut, as is the case now in so many places?

The other thing I notice in the picture is my calm, direct look into the camera, and a sense of the person behind her gaze. It’s uncanny, how much of myself I see in that little girl, already.

Why, I wonder, do some children seek to emulate certain adults in their families or close circles, while others are rebellious, wanting to do just the opposite? What about a sensitive creative child, like my husband, born into a family that was not artistic at all, didn’t know how to encourage it, and had a much narrower bandwidth about what constitutes a valuable use of one’s time? Nobody was dressing him in clothes with prints of cameras and film, though I can imagine those existing in the funky design world of the 1950 and 60s. He and I grew up in such different environments, and yet ended up in similar places, partly because of discovering our natural talents and desires, partly because of encouragement from older people — outside the family in his case, inside the family in mine — and partly because of innate determination, persistence, and a basic tendency toward non-conformity.

Somehow we get launched on our particular paths, through some combination of nature and nurture, but then we encounter obstacles that can hinder progress. These can range from lack of education, money, or opportunity, or running into a destructive teacher, to basic character traits like lack of the necessary drive, stubbornness about fixing problems, or inability to take criticism.

In my case, my biggest problem has always been impatience. In music, I never wanted to play scales and exercises, and my teachers didn’t insist. I didn’t learn music theory. When you have a basic natural facility, and good skills like sight-reading, and you aren’t in a highly competitive environment, you can coast along for a long time. The same is true in studying, in art, in writing, and even in relationships. I’ve become a much more patient person over the years, willing to step back and analyze a problem and figure out how to fix it — which may require a lot of work — but that kind of patience wasn’t natural to me. We’re born with certain character traits. I doubt that anyone could have trained me to be a patient child; I would have rebelled. As an adult, I’ve had to make up for those omissions later on, but sometimes my impatience still gets the better of me.

I’m working on a new oil painting now, and it’s reached the stage where the decisions are on the fine-tuning level. Lots of stepping back and looking, not too much brush-on-the-canvas. In the days leading up to yesterday, the process has gone well, and I’ve been pleased to be able to keep the brushwork loose, the forms somewhat abstract, the colors within a range I had decided upon earlier. It’s close to being finished.

But yesterday, as I looked at the painting and felt like I should work on it, I just didn’t really feel like it was going to go well. Sometimes, starting to work breaks through that kind of psychological barrier, whatever it is, and I find myself able to focus. I knew, instinctively, that it wasn’t one of those days, but nevertheless, I put on my apron, took up my brushes, and began. Sure enough, it went badly, but I kept going. I started watching myself, kind of standing outside and observing myself over my shoulder, as I made mistakes and poor decisions. It was almost amusing. Once in a while this happens when I’m sewing, knitting, or even practicing the piano. I’m just not concentrated, I know I should take more time, but I plunge ahead carelessly, impatiently, without measuring when I need to, without correcting the perspective, without mixing the colors carefully enough — there are a million ways things can go wrong and errors can be compounded. Inevitably, I make a mess that requires going back and correcting, taking out seams, ripping out rows of knitting, or having to rub out hours of brushwork with turpentine. It’s such a waste of time — and I know better!

Having basic facility come easily is actually a problem; getting to the next level requires a lot of patience and work. Fortunately my parents were able to recognize this tendency and help me through my frustrations as I learned difficult skills. My father was extremely impatient in nature, but also a perfectionist when it came to skills; he would practice a sports skill for years, fuss over a piece of woodworking until it was perfect, or spend weeks fixing an antique clock. My mother was very patient in nature, but never spent the time to figure out why a piece of knitting or sewing didn’t fit properly, or why a recipe had failed. She liked the process, but perfection didn’t matter to her. People did. She’d patiently hold wires for my father as he tried to repair something, or sit beside the piano night after night to help keep me at my practice.

The girl in the photograph above doesn’t look impatient; she looks calm, but I remember the conflict between my desire to do things well, and my impatience with how long it took. This isn’t a question of talent; it’s a question of mental and emotional self-recognition, learning to focus and analyze, and cultivating self-discipline. As an adult, there have been many stages in my life where I reached plateaus, and had to figure out what I wanted to do, what the problems and obstacles were, and how to go beyond them. I don’t think that process ever ends, if we’re honest with ourselves, and if we want to keep growing.

It was enlightening to me to watch that innate impatience take over yesterday. There’s no parent or teacher anymore who’s going to correct me; it’s entirely up to me to listen to my mood, realize what’s likely to happen, and master myself. Realize I’m too tired or distracted, take a step back and breathe, or put down the brushes and go for a walk. Then come back and, without touching a brush or a keyboard, figure out what’s causing the difficulty, and make a plan for dealing with it.

The girl with the paint-and-palette pants didn’t know where she was headed; she just knew she had some raw materials and some things she especially liked to do. I’ve been lucky to have had people throughout my life who encouraged me, and the strength of character to move beyond the ones who didn’t. Later, when most of our mentors and guides have left us, we have to find out how to continue on our own. It helps me to have internalized what these people lived: that the process is always more important than the end result, that pushing forward into new terrain is more satisfying than repeating yourself, and that patience with yourself and others is a virtue worth cultivating.

Paul Revere and Me

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On the 18th of April in ‘75

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year

of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.

These words from Longfellow’s poem came back to me this morning, as I read the speech that Heather Cox Richardson gave last night at Old North Church in Boston, commemorating the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride and the start of the American Revolution. I didn’t have them quite right - the poem actually begins, “Listen my children and you shall hear/ of the midnight ride of Paul Revere” followed by the first three lines I remembered. That’s OK. What interested me most were the memories that flooded back as I thought about the poem.

My grandmother, Elizabeth, and her two sisters, Inez and Minerva, were all schoolteachers. They were all lovers of American history and proud of their early American heritage. I have Adamses on both sides of my family, maybe distant relatives of founding fathers John and Samuel Adams, or maybe not, but we do know that some of our ancestors were Revolutionary War soldiers.

My great aunt Inez never married, and taught American history in a high school in Endicott, New York, all her life. She loved words, music, and art, and could recite many poems and speeches by heart. Whenever she visited, I would sit with her in her favorite chair and she’d read to me, and tell me stories about the poems or prose and their writers. Sometimes we looked at art books, and often she’d set up her easel in her bedroom and work on a painting during an extended holiday stay with my grandparents and us; I was learning to play the piano and she’d often ask me to play for her as she read or painted.

When I was 9, Aunt Inez gave me a book of poems that she had written out, in her firm Palmer Method handwriting, or clipped from magazines. It was perhaps a peculiar gift for a nine-year-old, but she had seen me pretty clearly from the beginning. She’d be pleased to know that I’ve carried that book around with me ever since.

 

This morning I opened the book to see if Paul Revere’s ride was in it. It wasn’t, but there were others by Longfellow, Tennyson, John Greenleaf Whittier, Emily Dickinson. I had followed her instructions and added to them: in the back, written or typed out by me, were adolescent favorites: Frost, Matthew Arnold, Shakespeare, e.e. cummings.

Today I stopped on the page where Whitman’s poem, “O Captain, My Captain!” was affixed, with ancient glue stains that looked like blood, and my great-aunt’s note at the bottom:

 

“The ship is the union, the prize is victory”, she wrote, meaning that the prize was the preservation of the Union, at a very high cost.

My great-aunt also gave me a series of books about American history for young readers, adding to them each birthday and at Christmas. One was a biography of Paul Revere, and I remember being fascinated by the descriptions of his trade as a silversmith. There was a story in it about how he suffered a very bad burn on his hand when he was an apprentice: I seem to recall binding up my own hand in rags, wearing a makeshift three-cornered hat and pretending to be him… Of course the main focus of that book was Revere’s role in the uprising against the King, unfair taxation, and colonial rule, that eventually became the American Revolution.

So I grew up, steeped in this history, as a little patriot, and not many years later became a vocal dissenter when Nixon tried to subvert American democracy. Similarly, I became a critic of Christianity when it deviates from the central original teaching of the Gospels: “love your neighbor as you would love yourself” and the State, as it has always done, co-opts and twists Christianity to suit its own purposes and power.

I am glad that my great-aunt isn’t alive to see what’s happening today, but, like me, she would speak out.

Earlier, I wrote here that I always hope for some clarity during Holy Week. One insight that’s strongly coalesced is this: it is primarily the responsibility of straight white citizens like me to carry the current resistance forward. So many members of minority and marginalized groups are terrified right now — and why shouldn’t they be? Should my friends who are people of color, obvious ethnicity, or of non-binary gender be expected to risk everything by signing a petition or a letter, or being identified at a demonstration? Do Black women have to continue to be the staunchest supporters and workers for the Democratic Party, when people of color are being axed from one federal and military position after another? Can we expect Hispanic people or Muslims to speak out when ICE agents are breaking their car windows with hammers in order to arrest the wrong man? The answer is no. Those of us with more security and less risk have to take up this cross and carry it, for all those who cannot.

You may think, well, that’s easy for you to say, you’re in Canada. It’s true, I am a dual citizen and I live here now. I have many ties that make me want to be able to travel between the two countries freely again. But it’s more than that: I care. A lot. The current trashing of democratic and human values is horrifying, even if the racism, misogyny, hatred and cruelty they represent have been predictable and brewing for decades. The whole world is affected: a world that has seen American excesses, wrong decisions, and hypocrisy, but has also admired the brightest and best aspects of the country, and expected the US to continue to lead and to be their partner. When I think of my family’s history as American pioneers, through centuries that include my father’s survival at Normandy and service during WWII, I am filled with shame at the present travesties, and feel a great sense of responsibility. I’m also, for better or worse, an optimist. It’s an American trait.

I’m proud to live in Canada, which will have a much greater role now in championing democracy and freedom — values we must protect at all costs. But, encouraged by the pushback I’m starting to see, I don’t think it’s too late to fight, not just to preserve 250 years of American democracy, but hopefully for reform that results in a better and fairer system for all the people. Each one of us who can needs to do our part, and that will be enough.

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Wanting to Fly, but Sitting Still

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Our weather is changing toward spring, at least, and that means windy days. The other morning when I got up, I noticed a gull playing with the wind off the top edge of the building next to ours, two floors below my window. There must have been a strong updraft, because the bird was able to stay nearly motionless until it decided to soar, which it repeatedly did, balancing in the draft, then soaring in a circle, coming back over the roof to catch the updraft again and play with it.

From our tall perch in this high-rise, we see a lot of bird activity — migrating hawks and geese, herons with their outstretched legs moving from an inner city pond to the river, peregrine falcons hunting the pigeons that sweep in flocks around the tall buildings, and many many gulls. It’s their flight, their speed, and their freedom that fascinate me the most.

How I would like to do that, I thought, watching the gull that morning. And I immediately thought of the African-American spiritual, “I’ll Fly Away” -

I’ll fly away, oh glory,

I’ll fly away.

When I die, hallelujah by and by,

I’ll fly away.

and of Psalm 55: “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest.”

These associations told me I wasn’t thinking just of the pleasure of flight under one’s own power, but of that other meaning of the word flight: Fleeing. Escape.

I’m sure I’m not alone in this thought. However, there’s nowhere to go, since the entire world is being convulsed right now. I’m so fortunate to be in Canada to begin with, even with all the threats and tariffs. I still have the freedom to speak my mind, to move around without fear of being searched or stopped, or worry that this is happening to others, to live in a country where education and research aren’t under threat, where truth has meaning, and democracy is honored.

 

Christ before Pilate, Duccio di Buoninsegna

Holy Week began yesterday, with the observance of Palm (or Passion) Sunday. Many times, over this week, we will hear and reflect upon the events at the end of the human life of Jesus of Nazareth: a story of injustice, unfair accusation by the Roman authorities and a local populace clamoring, moblike, for a scapegoat; suffering and humiliation; abandonment by his closest friends; and finally an extremely cruel death.

It’s always been impossible for me to separate these events of 2,000 years ago from the modern world, but never more so than this year. I don’t need to name all the examples: you know them as well as I do. But I can tell you that, in spite of that longing for flight that I felt a few days ago, I’m aware that what I really have to do is simply sit with all of it. I will try to welcome the opportunities that this week presents for deep reflection and personal accountability. I’ve never felt I had to believe with absolute certainty all the theology surrounding Easter — resurrection, atonement and the rest — in order to let this story enter me and affect me. Easter, for me, is less about a promise of life after death, but about transformation in the here and now.

To me, that’s what this annual time is really for: to help us ask the question of who we should be right now, today, and in the days going forward. As we listen to the different characters in the passion play, are we a bystander who watches for a while and then goes back to our own life, unchanged? Are we a disciple who denies our relationship and runs away? Are we part of the rabble calling for blood? Can we imagine ourselves as a soldier, a judge, a high priest? The man carrying Jesus’ cross? One of the two thieves crucified at the same time? Are we one of the women who stayed at a distance, and then brought spices and ointments to anoint the body? Are we the empathetic man who offered the tomb? This week, more than ever, we may ask, what is our role in this story as it plays out today?

During Lent, I didn’t give anything up. I continued to eat sweets and chocolate, drink the occasional glass of wine, eat meat — it seemed like things were hard enough without beating myself up with disciplines like these. But I did take on an inner challenge: I tried not to hate. Whenever I felt those thoughts arising, I tried to notice them, take a deep breath, and stop short of hatred. It was, frankly, one of the harder mental exercises I’ve ever done. I couldn’t even say to myself, as Jesus supposedly did, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The people in question do know what they’re doing. They know it very well, and they don’t care. They have even said that “empathy is a weakness.” However, most of us know better. Hatred doesn’t do me any good; in fact it’s like swallowing a bitter pill that leaves a terrible taste, affecting me far more than its object. I haven’t achieved empathy for the perpetrators of so much destruction and cruelty, but I am managing to turn away from feelings of hatred and anger, and instead focus on love of those who are suffering, and on my own desire to serve. This is, I think, healthier for me, and more productive in general, and it keeps me from feeling like I want to fly away.

Whether you are observing Holy Week, or Passover, or just the arrival of spring, please use a little time this week to sit with the uncomfortable feelings as well as the joyful ones, and let empathy and service be part of what you search for.

One Brushstroke at a Time

 

Saturday street market in Buenavista, CDMX. Oil on linen canvas, 18” x 18”.

I don’t know what you’ve been doing to keep your wits about you, while madness rampages over the globe, but I’ve been painting.

Working on this painting of a Mexico city neighborhood for a few hours every day, over the past two weeks, has not only been absorbing and challenging, but has also plunged me back into the joy of oil painting. I love watercolor, but it comes with frustration and tension. Oil painting, for me, is a sensuous pleasure even when it’s hard. Unlike watercolor, it’s forgiving — you can always wipe things out, repaint, or make corrections, as I did many times in this painting. Here’s the process it went through.

 

This was the original drawing done on location, from a balcony on the top level of the Biblioteca Vasconceles in Mexico City’s Buenavista neighborhood. A garden runs along the side of the library building, which is on higher ground overlooking the city to the east. I took a number of photographs in the same direction as this drawing but taking in more of the city beyond. Those formed the basis for the painting, while the drawing was a touchstone for what attracted me in the first place. It came down to the unusual vista of the trees, especially the contrast between that tall cedar and the deciduous trees on either side; the white tents of the street market peeking through them; and the city buildings beyond, mostly white and grey and shades of pink, with that strong diagonal street running kitty-corner across the scene.

 

Here’s the initial monochrome drawing in thin oil paint on the canvas, indicating the basic values and structure.

 

Working on top of that monochrome drawing, the first color strokes set the basic chromatic palette for the whole picture. I’m using a very limited set of pigments: Ultramarine Blue, Brilliant Green, Viridian, Yellow Ochre, Naples Yellow, Hansa Yellow, Quinacridone Red, Burnt Sienna, Indian Red, and Titanium White. The support is heavyweight raw linen that I stretched myself and double-primed with gesso — a lot of work, but you end up with a wonderfully receptive surface.

 

My goal was to capture the sun-washed, slightly hazy atmosphere of Mexico City’s urban landscape on that day, maintaining a palette of greyed greens and pinks, with touches of yellow and aqua. Almost all of the greens contain some ultramarine blue. All the shadows are based on a combination of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna. The sky is ultramarine blue and titanium white, greyed with a slight bit of quinacridone red. Using limited pigments in this way, and mixing colors very carefully rather than using them directly from the tubes, helps maintain color harmony throughout the picture.

 

In the stage above, the cityscape is filled in, the foreground is more defined, and I’m starting to work on the trees.

 

With the trees in this state, the painting felt close to finished. However, I decided to simplify and focus the foreground, taking out the bushes at lower left and lower right, defining the scrubby grasses and rocks and adding some to the left side. I also emphasized the diagonal which runs perpendicular to the receding street in the center of the scene.

 

This was much better. Eventually I deleted the right-hand bush, added a reverse-curve walkway in the shadowed right-hand area, and improved the dappled shade. (It was interesting to note, just now as I write this post, that the foreground diagonal and reverse curve are in my original sketch on the canvas, but had gotten obliterated as I worked.) I’ll leave it in the state below for a few weeks and then decide if I want to change anything else.

 

A few details:

 

 

Making something from scratch — whether it’s a chocolate cake, a poem or a plant you grow from seed — stands in opposition to those whose modus operandi is destruction and chaos, and heals our wounded spirits. This is where we have to start: with ourselves. The efforts to create, and to appreciate created things, bolster our recognition that destruction and its desired effect— paralysis — don’t have to prevail. Even in the worst situations, no one can take away our ability to look for the beauty and complexity of our world, and make something from it, even if it’s just words or a melody or the idea of a drawing that we hold in our head during a time of suffering or fear. I hope a lot of you are participating in demonstrations today. And I hope tonight, or tomorrow, you’ll write some words or play some music, read a good book, walk in a park or natural area or garden, or make a good meal. Let me know how it’s going with you. Sending love.

Mexico City Sketchbook - Part III

On the street and inside spaces

 

 

In this final post of sketchbook pages, I’ll share some of the drawings that didn’t fit into the previous two posts, and then share a few thoughts about where I am at the moment with all that’s going on.

 

In a Coyoacan market.

 

Almond croissant at a favorite cafe.

 

Interior of the second apartment where we stayed.

 

Another cafe breakfast.

 

Tall grasses in the garden of the Vasconceles library in Buenavista.

 

Dappled light and fallen bougainvillea blossoms.

___

Two weeks after returning home, I’m still working on this sketchbook, but thinking about doing some oil paintings of views from Mexican rooftops and balconies. This week I cleaned my studio and freed up my easel to make that possible, so we’ll see what happens.

In the meantime, in addition to daily life tasks and keeping in touch with family and friends (I spend more time on this than many people, I think), I’m reading, practicing my flute every day, and also the piano — this is sanity-preservation. I’ve also decided to make a serious effort to learn more Spanish. Language practice is one of the best ways I’ve found to keep my mind sharp, exercise my memory, and feel like I’m accomplishing something every day, even if it’s in very small increments. Duolingo isn’t perhaps the best way to learn a language, but after 1458 unbroken days of lessons, I’ve certainly made progress in Modern Greek, a difficult language to study, even though I still feel like a beginner. A month ago I switched to Spanish. It’s much easier, and knowing French and some Latin definitely helps. We’re hoping to resume the yearly trips we used to take to Mexico City, and I really want to have a better grasp of the language.

Does this mean I’m neglecting the news? Not at all. But these daily routines are helping me find a balance that works for me, and understand what helps and what doesn’t, both on a personal level and on a societal one. I’ll write more about that soon.

How are YOU doing? I’m always glad to hear from you, and I think reaching out and talking together is one of the most important things we can do for each other right now.

Reflections on an Anniversary

 

On March 20, 2003, deeply distressed about the outbreak of the Iraq War and intrigued about the new medium of blogging, I began my blog, The Cassandra Pages. Those two polarities — an abhorrence of humanity’s tendency toward destruction, and an attraction to all types of creativity — have motivated what I’ve posted here, as they’ve also motivated my life.

It seems like a good time to ask readers, some of whom have been coming here since the beginning and some of whom are quite new, what you find most valuable about this blog, what keeps you coming back, and what you’d like to see more of. The Cassandra Pages has changed over time, especially after I retired from fulltime professional work and was able to focus more on my own art, but it’s always been a personal space where I’ve tried to make sense of the world through a lens of creativity, as well as sensitivity to nature, place, spirit, and the work of both contemporary writers and artists, and those of the past.

In 2003, I had recently turned 50. I hadn’t gone through the deaths of all of our parents and their generation. We hadn’t moved to Canada. I hadn’t yet written a book, though I was working on it. I hadn’t had the experience of singing in a cathedral choir, or of riding a bicycle for most of my transportation in an urban environment. I hadn’t met all the people who’ve become dear friends of mine either in Montreal or online, all over the world. I was doing very little artwork, and hadn’t even thought about starting the publishing company that would become Phoenicia Publishing. We’d never travelled to Mexico City, or Greece, Rome, or Portugal. I hadn’t had two decades of dental problems, and didn’t yet understand, on a personal level, the complexities and challenges of aging…one could go on and on.

Over those years, I’m not sure it would be right to say I’ve “changed” as much as that I’ve become more and more myself. Some of that experience is valuable, and it’s both a pleasure and serious responsibility for me when younger people ask my specific advice, which is the only time I venture to give it. And even then, I think we, as elders, do best to talk from our own experience rather than saying “you should…” As my old New England friend Jerry Burt used to say, “be careful with your ‘shoulds’” — which also applies when talking to yourself.

Here, in March of 2025, we find ourselves in a particularly dangerous, draining, and anxiety-filled time, and it’s hard to know what to say and what not to say. From my perspective as a dual citizen who spent the first 50+ years of life in the U.S., there’s a lot I see that many Canadians may not, and it’s clear to me that many Americans have absolutely no idea what it’s like to be a Canadian right now. Protecting democracy in both countries has become a top priority for many of us, and obviously I intend to do whatever I can toward that goal.

How this blog fits into that current reality is a question I’m mulling. One thing I know for certain is that many readers have told me they come here for quiet, solace, beauty: some moments of sane respite from the craziness of the world. Even if I write about politics, I don’t want anyone to come here and leave feeling worse — I want you to feel better, more hopeful, and with some renewed energy for living your own life.

For me, balance comes from the spiritual wisdom of Contemplation and Action as two sides of the same coin. “Contemplation” is a broad term that comprises many forms, from sitting meditation to knitting to walking in nature, but it is not quietism or turning away from our own problems or those that surround us. “Action” also takes many forms, suited to each individual, but always stems from the recognition that we do not exist alone, but in an interconnected web of relationship and responsibility for one another. Achieving balance —whether in one’s own personal life or in the more public ways we interact with the world — is not easy, and especially not in times like these. To the extent that I can help others, I want to try.

Thank you so much for visiting these pages over the years, whether as a longtime or relatively new reader. I’d be very happy to hear your comments, suggestions, or requests.

 

Mexico City, February 2025

A Mexico City Sketchbook - Part II

The Quiet Lives of Objects

 

 

Sculpture by Gabriel Orozco at the Museo Jumex, Mexico City.

Because I was dissatisfied with the first page of my sketchbook (oh, that first blank page! No wonder it stares at us!) I was reluctant to do another landscape right away. On our first full day in the city, we went to the Museo Jumex, a relatively new contemporary art museum in Polanco. We had visited it seven years ago, not long after it had opened, and loved both the building itself and the three floors of related shows. This time, after a good lunch in the small ground-floor restaurant, we spent most of the afternoon looking at a retrospective exhibition of Gabriel Orozco (no relation to the muralist, though his father worked with David Siqueiros). His work is inventive, often humorous, wide-ranging in both subject and media, and original.

 

One of Orozco’s carved river rocks in the foreground, with distressed soccer balls beyond the glass wall.

In one gallery, hundreds of distressed and altered soccer balls filled a corner and were scattered along a corridor, while inside the glass walls where they rested, a giant skeleton of an invented whale-like animal hung from the ceiling, while carved river rocks — echoing the soccer balls nearby — provided grounding.

Orozco’s creations make the viewer question the notion of time and creation — what creature’s skeleton is this, hanging here like a dinosaur in a museum? Who made it? How did these pieces of rounded stone that look so familiar become carved with natural forms? What are they doing here?

 

River rock carved by Gabriel Orozco. Watercolor, 5 1/4 x 8”.

I was very taken with these altered rocks, and that evening, I did a painting of one of them. It was the first detailed, dry brush watercolor I’ve done in a long while, and it led me to make several others over the course of the two weeks. I also did one pencil drawing, of a bottle brush tree flower.

 

These pictures feel appropriate, not just because flowers and fruit are common subjects for me, or because I’m drawn to natural forms. Orozco’s soccer balls and rocks felt like still lives. They made me think about a more expansive definition of “still life”, especially in Mexico where color and form are omnipresent.

But they are also quiet. “Still.” Now, these drawings and paintings punctuate my sketchbook, providing moments of reflection for the viewer between busier scenes.

 

The hyper-realism is a way to remember that goes beyond photography…

 

…and the study that’s necessary to do one of these paintings means that I’ll never look at an citrus peel or a bougainvillea flower the same way again.

 

Or a cut pineapple, for that matter.

 

Looking back, remembering myself making these small paintings, I realize that they were important meditations for me at the time. Our days were busy, and full of intense sensory impressions. Sitting down to make one of these paintings was a way of centering myself and concentrating with focus and intention. And, for me, they were a witness to beauty that, belying their subjects’ fragility, stood as a bulwark against the daily onslaught of news from the north.