Quaffle and Contrast 

It’s been thirty-five years since I have been on the McMaster University campus. This day, it is the site of the 2019 Canadian National Quidditch Championships in which my younger son is playing, with the UofT Centaurs, so this day holds a trifecta of draws for me: I get to see my son, I get to learn about quidditch, and I have the opportunity to see how I feel about being back here. 


It is early spring, and the day, weather-wise, is one of my least favourite types. It is cold as ice–a hard cold that tastes of sidewalk and iron; clear and sunny, but with a wind hinting that winter can still step back in and get up your skirt in a heartbeat. I’d rather the snow. These high-pressure days, and all of this landscape bleakness–grey trees as yet unleafed, makes me nuts. Before leaving, I throw my warm winter jacket into the van and I am grateful of this when I arrive at the campus. I wear it all day, much of it with the hood up against the wind and then zipping and unzipping  the jacket part in response to the fickle temperature; when the wind dies, the sun is warm and calming, but when the wind rises, it is like the playground bully who pushes you off the swings. What a complete bastard. 



I arrive on campus and promptly lose my way. Nothing is familiar. If the expansive green lawns are still here, I don’t find them. All I see are buildings crammed in next to each other and more being built. I am mildly disappointed, but frankly, this feeling may be influenced by my relative indifference about my university years, threaded as they were with an unhelpful sense of bewilderment. I had not come anywhere close to figuring out myself or other people, and the experience here represented more of a holding pattern than anything serving to catapult me ahead in a direction. I was still reeling from my early years and still, to this day feel that I would have been farther ahead and better grounded if I had been raised by wolves. 



I find the pitch where my son is playing. His team, as most of them do, looks to be possibly a random selection of passengers on a bus. Attire for all teams today is a smart uniform, but often tweaked against this bitter cold with long johns, or some type of leggings, under shorts. There are all different body types which is part of the glory of quidditch–there are many different abilities required, plus, the general vibe is chill and inviting. I speak with one player who played in Australia, France, Switzerland and, I think Sweden. I mention this in case you foolishly surmise that the game is not popular.



Quidditch is a running game. Better put, it’s a fierce haul-ass, dodge-and-sprint game for most positions. There sit three hoops on standards at either end of the pitch. Players run with brooms between their legs–a standard length of plastic pipe I think, held in place with one hand.  The intent is to put the quaffle, a slightly underinflated ball close to volleyball-size, through any of the opposing team’s hoops to win ten points. Each team has a keeper and three chasers who are charged with running down the field, passing, dodging, weaving and being generally keen to accrue points. Their damnation comes repeatedly at the hand of one, or both of the opposing team’s two beaters who throw their bludgers at them. A  bludger is a softer, more rubbery ball similar in size to the quaffle. Once the player is hit, he or she (yes this is coed) must immediately disengage from play by putting their free hand in the air, dismount from their broom, run like hell to their end and touch a hoop before they can remount and run back into play. To be clear, a beater can hit a keeper or a chaser, but he can also hit an opposing beater who might be winding up to hit one of your chasers aiming to score. Anyone is fair game, and therein lies the strategy and the finesse; the flow can change in a blink. This is very much heads-up ball. 


There is more:


At the seventeen-minute mark, a player walks onto the field dressed in yellow. In any other sport, you might consider him an attention-seeking fan intent on disrupting the game in some way. You would be incorrect here. This jaune player, the only one not riding a broom, is the elusive snitch runner. He has a snitch tail–a yellow ball in a sack that resembles an unfortunate scrotum–hanging from the back of his shorts. The snitch runner belongs to no team, no land, no country.  He, or she, is, quick, stealthy, and/or inhumanly mighty. His task is to defend his snitch tail from being deftly plucked by either seeker from each team. While regular play is going on, these three players are lost in their own drama, scrutinized by their very own referee. Grabbing the snitch tail wins you thirty points for your team and typically ends the game. The overall scenario is like having a rugby-basketball-track meet on the field with a separate, exhausting  wrestling match thrown in. 



When I arrive at the pitch and began watching the game, I think the whole broom thing is goofy and makes players look silly. Within fifteen minutes, I don’t notice brooms any more. I am caught up in the strategy and how physically demanding the game is. Having the broom requirement is actually kinda neato because it forces players to use only one hand to manage the quaffle, the bludger, or any tackling they intend. This takes the very big, and the very strong down a notch and allows for anyone to flourish with speed and dexterity. There are turnovers, outs-of-bounds, and penalty cards¬–referees are serious and unforgiving about proper contact and behaviour: Absolutely no neck-or-above contact, or tackling from behind. Players can sub out.  No helmets, but mouth guards for all.



I am completely caught up in the action–holding my breath, leaping and cheering at a gain, or kicking the ground at a close throw. When this match is over, my son and I go into one of the main buildings to get something warm to drink, and I find a remarkable display of contrast laid out for me: Here in the expansive atrium of this building are close to three hundred young adult males seated around endless lines of computer consoles. They are players in a Mario Cart competition, and in my usual, slightly judgmental form, I am horrified. I immediately make grand, sweeping assumptions about each player’s poor diet, complete lack of exercise, linty hygiene and minimal social skills. I want to grab them all by a collective ear and drag them outside to the athletic fields to challenge a snitch.  You are invited to roll your eyes. To be truthful, I still have not played a proper video game. I know they are not the worst thing ever, but when I consider them along with the shock of meeting anyone who does not know how to throw a frisbee, I am certain of the apocalypse.  I know my assumptions are flawed, but the dissonance between the good quidditch, and the bad video game paradigms I find comical. Whoops, I did it again. I wish I was sorry. 



I leave before The Centaurs play their last match of the day, because I am frozen. They are going to be playing as the sun tags out leaving only the stadium lights for comfort. They are tired but clearly still having a blast and that’s the best. Mario Cart is wrapping up just in time for none of the pale players to have to see or name the sun, –but all of  the coffee places are closed. Maybe that’s what I get for being dismissive. That’s okay, I will survive. The day is a win: I am always happy when I’m hanging out with either of my two sons, so this is a delightful given. I discovered that quidditch is fun, fierce, and is a thrill to watch.  As far as being back on campus is concerned, I find that I have no strong emotions. It was a nebulous time and my studies kept me busy but ignited no passion or fire. Yes, I got a degree in English here, and yes, I am a writer, but my passion for words and the craft came not from the classroom, but from life events–the hardest ones. Was tuition a waste of time and money? I can’t answer that. Taking the money and traveling the world might have given me more spine and grounding, but I’m not sure that back then I had the courage for it. The wolves were no help. All we can do, I suppose, is keep our heads up wherever we are.

Night-think

It is 2:30 in the morning. I wake up fully, as if an alarm has gone off, but there is none. A flurry of hard energy runs through my whole body and slams into the top of my head like a car hitting a wall. I look at my clock. I see the fierce digital numbers lit, as I consider them, by demon-stoked fires. 

“What the hell,” I think. 


I remember the coffee I had had late in the afternoon, and blame it for destroying this sleep. I vow to become loyal to herbal teas somehow, at least in the afternoons. Coffee never used to bother me the way it does now; my system, evolving into age–devolving is a better word, no longer tolerates the caffeine delivered in that sensuous, warm, rich flavour. Now the relevant parts turn the once clarifying energy into anxiety. I am betrayed and lost forever.



I look around my room. My thoughts begin to run, and I notice my inner bastard wrenching up the boards of my self-confidence. We talk:

“So, computer trouble yesterday, eh?” he says.


I groan. I feel a fleet of rototillers in my stomach, grinding me from inside. Cortisol shoots through my veins. 


“Yes. Odd password trouble, but the nice person at Apple fixed it, mostly,” I mutter.

“But after, that thing happened on ITunes where it…”

“I know, I know. It wouldn’t accept the new password, OR the old password. Thank you  
very much for reminding me,” I snip.   


The bastard continues pulling up the boards. With each one, I grow more anxious.


“You’re going to deal with it in the morning, right? ‘Cause you couldn’t go ahead and 
just reset your password last night. ‘Fraidy cat,” he chides.


“Look, I’ve done just fine in the past, but I’ve also had things go south, so I’m a little
apprehensive about the process now,” I say defensively.

“Well you’re older now, and likely…”

I cut it off. 

“Don’t even start.”


Earlier in the day, I had had a physical assessment at the gym. The trainer was kind, but where I used to feel mighty and fit, I now felt invisible. He considered me as just another gal in that age group that struggles with physical decline. He didn’t even hint at the fact that, before menopause, I had likely been this close to actually flying!  Now it was time for me to step aside and suck it up as nature deconstructed me–stripped me of my tone, and by the way, nobody really cares; there’s hockey on tonight.  


I’ve been noticing my shoulders wrinkling like overripe mangos. I feel thickening around my middle like I’m wearing a subcutaneous corset of cheese and not in a good way. Everything seems to be giving up and giving in to gravity–racing for the ground. 


        I am a walking glacial meat avalanche. 


To be clear, the trainer wasn’t a bad person. He was young–an innocent. He simply said the words describing my new paradigm. What the hell was I expecting?  There was no way he could feel the degree of my disappointment. How could he? He saw the external me, sitting in a chair nodding, smiling, and answering his questions. He couldn’t see what was going on inside–the Greek chorus commentating on my wretched, howling inner shadow, clawing at the hem of time, hissing at Sharon, the harpy goddess of wrinkles and dry skin, and vowing a comeuppance to Allistar, god of weakening muscles and disrupted sleep (the beating I will give him when I see him in hell)!  What I wanted right then, during the assessment, was a moment of silence or some kind of ceremony that would ease my pain: a shot of whisky, the slaughtering of a goat, or perhaps a demand from him for me to wax about the days of party-lines and carbon paper. I was tempted to describe some of my experiences goddamn it:

Do you know that I held a dying woman at a crosswalk? Do you know how fast I used to be able to ride? Do you know that I can curl my tongue into the shape of a cannoli? 

 I abstained though. I realized at a gut level, that it wouldn’t change anything except launch me into membership with the pathetic. And do I really want to have that jacket in my wardrobe? So now, in the middle of the night, my already delicate psyche shrinks before this slaughter of my self-worth. 


                      I feel under siege.


The bastard is relentless and quashes any attempts I make to calm down. I take a deep breath but the rototillers are many and I am denied ease. I think about turning on the light and reading, but doubt that I can concentrate alongside this internal tear-down. I get out of bed and go sit cross-legged on my couch to meditate. I focus on my breath. I refocus on my breath. My mind keeps pinging back to that fucking jacket. 

       “Look at where you are living and how much your life sucks,” says the bastard.

I ignore him and concentrate on meditating deep enough that I can lose track of this reality. No luck. I open my eyes and stare at my salt lamp. 

Yeah, that salt lamp really changed my life! Thanks for nothing!  

I give up and go back to bed. I am angry that the computer dealio upsets me so much. The bastard is still pulling up boards. I let him. 


“Do your worst, you meddling asshole. I hope you get a sliver,” I murmur. “And blisters.”


He bangs and pries and wrenches. I begin to fall asleep, wondering why the bastard, or any voices that I hear in the middle of night are always whispering doom and demise. Why is it always bad, dark, entropy-inspired cranks that take the night shift? Why the hell isn’t there a brigade of outrageous unicorns that gallop into my head and sing about how wonderful I am so that I awake refreshed, happy, humming show tunes? Do they not have my address? Is this a union thing? Jesus.


 Morning comes and with it a slathering of dread, but the good thing about having your inner-self reduced to a pile of wood and old nails during the night is that  it provides a boundary to navigate from: 

If you’re at a point where things couldn’t get much worse, why be afraid? 

     "You're aging–big whoop. Everyone does, so get over it. And why are you letting a stupid computer problem terrify you–you with your cannoli-tongue!"

 This is a better voice–like waking up with Samuel L. Jackson beside me. I leap out of bed and walk to my computer. 


      “Bring it on,” I think. “IT’S JUST A THING! IT’S JUST A GODDAMNED THING!” 


I turn on my computer and get myself a drink of water while the screen comes alive. I tip the glass toward the back of my teeth and feel the water run down my gullet–through my inner hallways and rooms where the boards and rototillers were during the night. 


“Let’s get this over with, shall we?” I say.

...And...everything...is...fine. There is no glitch. My computer acts as if it doesn’t know what I was talking about. 

Problem? No problems here! We’re all shiny and keen to compute for you all day long! 


Life is a ridiculous joke. I am taking my mangos to the goddamned gym.

Knot

Recently, I had a friend take a close look at my left eye after noticing extra red near the lower lid. I had been out skiing in full sun that afternoon and was worried that I had somehow done damage– more than was already there. Initially, when I was around 10 years-old, I had burst a blood vessel in that eye. Here’s the tale of that:


 It was a summer night on the farm. Mom was sitting, smoking a cigarette in the enclosed porch that ran down a chunk of the side of the farmhouse. I was sitting with her. My father must have been away on business and my two siblings were away wherever. My grandmother, an ogre of solid and terrible mental brutality was staying with us as she did now and then. She was elderly and hunched, which doesn’t mean anything, except that it fit slim with her personality. She was never the sort you would look to for comfort had you skinned a knee, or given yourself a sliver during a noteworthy tree climb. This was in stark comparison to my other grandmother, my mom’s mom, who was kind, birdlike and delightful, so I knew nice was possible.  I don’t know what the hell my father was thinking, having the ogre stay with us. She wielded judgement and cruelty down on my mother like she had the right, which she didn’t, but my father didn’t stop her. He couldn’t. Or wouldn’t–I don’t know exactly. She was mightier than all. Yes, she was a lawyer, and a suffragette, but she was also a bully and an asshole. The woman had woven the limitless potential of her two brilliant, sensitive offspring into straight-jackets that imprisoned them in mere ideas of themselves–suffocating anything full and vibrant. She cheated the world on that one. I am told that even her husband, my grandfather, shrunk from her–walked a few steps behind in order to keep and hold the little bit of himself that she allowed. I wish I had met him. He died the year that I was born.


 It was quiet that night except for the frogs in the pond telling tales to each other. My grandmother was enthroned in the living room listening to the radio. There was a window into the living room at the west end of the porch, and light from it reached toward us. The wallpaper in that living room had repeated forest scenes on it, so you could think that my grandmother was a dark beast camped on a trail somewhere, collecting brittle bones, and throttling whimpers from unsuspecting prey, but the piano in the near corner of the room broke that image. It was mom who played. She could launch into some Gershwin, or Bach, and would often stop in the middle of cooking a meal, walk to the piano with her apron on, leaving whatever cut of beef she was busy destroying to roast or boil unmonitored toward its leathery end, in order to sate her desire for music. Mom wasn’t a great cook. She was a better pianist, and I was going to say that this wasn’t useful here, but really it is. I think her thriving, the creative arc that she had foolishly assumed that she could continue, was flattened when my grandmother got at her. The whole party seemed to stop–three great kids and a mother who all seemed set on having fun. 



This night, mom was clearly bushed and fed up with all of it. “I just don’t want to live anymore,” she said, to me, her young daughter who had no business fielding such a line. In those days, I was busy reciting TV commercials by heart, mimicking Don Adams from Get Smart–basically trying to be a kid. But I took the line, “I just don’t want to live anymore,” lofted without any reason for me to doubt. I stood and moved myself into the living room. I can’t remember if I walked, or ran–I just seemed to get myself there somehow. Then, up and out of me came a wash of rage and hatred more powerful than I felt my child-body frame could house. I was out of control, and hollering enough to bend the drawn trees on the wallpaper. I remember the look of fear on my grandmother’s face–that terrible, pruned face. I stopped when my nose started bleeding. I was crying so hard that I had difficulty seeing. The next morning, I noticed the knot of blood vessels in my left eye. 



Through the years, I would see the knot, remember that night, and then lean the memory up against other terrible events that happened through the years like records in a milk crate. Each one had a specific feeling to it, and each had been set in motion by the thoughtless, arrogant monster, even posthumously. I hadn’t thought of it much until the other day, flagged by the seeming ocular irritation. The beats of that specific night on the porch are still clear and brutal; those kinds of things live lush lives in memory, the body wrenched out of childish play with unfair emotional violence, and the experience stored and locked at a cellular level.



How idyllic and lovely would it have been to have had skiing in sunshine as the only scenario brought to mind by my concern.

Pulse

This was a day of contrast, simple as that: two different scenarios–both could have tipped toward scintillating, or both a slog, but I got one of each. What was the deciding factor in each scenario you ask? Service and the people serving the service. I will tell of it here:


Today was symphony day. I had tickets for me and my mother to see and hear the Toronto Symphony play the goodly notes of Shostikovitch’s 5th at Roy Thomson Hall. The performance, stellar and moving though it was, is not the focus here except I must give a shout-out to the whisper-impaired couple two rows behind me who felt that part of my ticket price included the thrill of listening to them talk out loud during the delicate, sacred beginning of the Shosti piece. (I turned and silently summoned a world of misfortune and uncontrolled flourishes of skin tags on them and their progeny. I may have spit fire.) Aside from all of that, the afternoon was wonderfully enjoyable thanks to the legions of Roy Thomson Hall floor staff. Each one we came upon was eager, kind, and witty. Even the young man tending bar was in a good mood and played along when I asked him which wine paired with Shostakovitch. Our seats were on the third level, in section “C,” which I took to mean Celestial, and the journey to them took some doing: we rode two escalators, and scaled several small flights of stairs–all challenging for my mother so we took our sweet time. During that journey–that measured ascent–each attendant we came upon made us feel glad we were there. We had conversations by saying words and then listening. One of us would say something, and then the other person would reply. Together, we explored an idea or sentiment! You’ve likely seen this in movies or possibly experienced it yourself. It’s called communication I think. It was like we were human to each other! 

"Sounds fun," says my inner writing prompter.

It was!

"Then what happened?"

The symphony was a matinee, so we were ready for dinner when all of the applause was over. The area restaurants were all full, so we drove out of the city and ended up at a casual dining, cottage-themed, Turtle Jack’s . 

"And?"
…

"Well?"

You know, I’m not that hard to please. Show me that you’ve got a pulse, and I’m on your side, but Turtle Jack’s was somewhat…

"What?" 
…

"WHAT?"

DISAPPOINTING! We were hungry, happy initially, but also tired. We walked in the door and nobody was there to greet us. NOBODY for longer than was acceptable unless the deal is that you go for the fridge and help yourself. There’s casual, and then there's this. 

"So? What did you do? Did you hurl the bowl of mints into the fire, shake your fist and spit bees as you stormed out in a huff-and-a-half? Did you?"

No. Someone lovely showed up, so I figured it was simply a hiccup and everything else would be fine. That’s what I thought. But it wasn’t fine. We sat at our table, figured out what we wanted, sat for a bit, changed our minds, went back to our original decisions, wondered about the menu font, if there really was a person named Turtle Jack and what kind of terribly deformity might he have to deserve such a title. I think it was the manager, or someone appearing managerial who came to our table and lit the little tea light. Ambiance! We had ambiance now, so I figured that THAT was the sign that things were going to swing on track. There was fire on our table so our presence had been acknowledged.

"Keep telling it!"

Okay, someone young and dressed in waiterly clothing came to our table. He might have been on mushrooms, or had just woke up from a bonkers good afternoon nap. Turtle Jack’s is cottage-themed, as I mentioned, so perhaps he had just come in from water skiing in some of this March snow melt. We seemed to confuse him. Or disappoint him. I’m not sure which. When he approached, I said, 

“Oh, there you are. We were wondering when you were going to show up!” 

 He could have apologized with gusto here, and easily endeared himself to us, but he didn't. He did manage to take our order, but it was if he didn’t quite know what we were. Again, if he had been on some kind of psychedelic enhancer and was reacting to my mother appearing to him as a deck chair, and me having a head that was a trolley with people boarding but never leaving, well, I would have understood.  He served us our drinks, and then vanished. We never saw him again. Perhaps he left to go put the water-skis away.  I hope he’s okay.

"Really?"

I've served tables before and I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but Jesus!

"Did your food come?"

Yes, we had a new person bring us our food. Okay, I figured that THIS had to be the turning point. I did. 

"And was it?" 
…

"Well?"

Okay the food wasn’t the worst I have ever had. THAT was at Shoeless Joe’s where I had a California wrap that tasted like the floor of a bus. Now to be fair, mom loved her seafood chowder, and the Greek salad was fine. I'll come clean here: I was ready to complain about the veggie burger, but in my effort to be a better person, which is why I had ordered that burger in the first place, I realize that if the service had been at all reasonable, I would have happily eaten it and not given it another thought. I would have been in a good mood! But, since I was losing my happy-and appreciated-customer feels, I convinced myself that the veggie burger was wanting, and held together with ennui and sadness–it had no pants of its own, depending completely on the condiments. That's not fair to the kitchen staff, but that was how it seemed–it happened. 


"What did you do, huh? What happened then? Did ya spike the plate of mediocrity on the floor, hurl the tea light at the bar and summon your inner demon? "

I was deflatedly unimpressed, if that’s a thing. Our second waiter brought the bill, and she seemed put out while my mother pulled cash out of her wallet. She stood back from the table as if mom was pulling bald kittens out of her purse as currency and was unsure of the kitten exchange rate. There was no polite discourse, no passing conversation about the weather, what we had been up to, or why the entry way was full of bees. I felt ignored. 


   I hate feeling ignored more than anything.


We stood, put our coats on and walked slowly toward the door, foolishly waiting for someone to thank us for enduring the disappointment, or fling even a timid, “Come again, won’t you?”

           There was nothing. Not a thing. 

The gang at Roy Thomson Hall would not have let this happen. 


                    God I miss those guys.

Thank You for Your Complicity



I am at the grocery store picking up fancy cheese and good crackers to take to a dinner, plus a new stick of deodorant so that I don’t get turfed out of said dinner. Only three items to pay for, so I head to the express lane. A sign on the near side of the belt says, 

            Sorry, please use another lane.

 I look around, wondering if perhaps I have arrived in the middle of a shift-change and the mighty-and-brave cashier charged with triumph in the speedy lane is on her way. I see no evidence of this possibility coming true, so I step into the closest line in a regular lane. The store is not that busy; the line I have chosen is not terribly long, and nobody in it has a full cart so I am not frothing-annoyed, but I do keep looking over at the express lane just in case. One or two people step into line behind me. A minute passes and one of the head cashiers comes toward us:

“Anyone paying cash or credit and not buying alcohol, I can take you over here,” she says. 

I assume that “over here,” refers to the express line since she’s standing right beside it so I accept the invitation and blissfully step toward her.

                          I am a fool. 

                              I am. 

  I think foolish thoughts, and I do foolish things. 


She leads me to the nearest self-checkout station–like you would a cow into a squeeze chute.

               I hate self-checkout stations. 

                          All of them.

                         Everywhere. 

                   With my all-of-me.

Why? First of all, the cold voice, smarmy and programmed, reeking of the psychological intimation, 

          Idiot human, how little you matter.

Second of all, and mostly, I want a human experience when I shop, and I get that here when I have a cashier. I know most of them and I like them. Plus, I often get into conversations with other people in line. The experience is pleasant. I also find it distasteful to think that I am bagging my own groceries, handling the payment on a machine that is reducing the data on all of my purchases to algorithms so that I may take my place as meaningless host; predictable, unremarkable–repeatedly offered purchase suggestions on the card loyalty site which I must always hurry to load because hell is missing out, right? And to think that I might eventually pay less if all of the cashiers were replaced with these robot check-out machines is laughable. I’m not that much of a fool.

Yet, here I am. I groan out loud, like a child,

 “I didn’t know you were going to bring me here.”  

She mistakes my displeasure for a blinkered inability to use the check-out machine. 

“Oh, it’s okay. I’ll do it for you,” she offers.

I sigh audibly and surrender my items onto the scanning platform–I am committed now. I take out my wallet. “Oh, it’s not that I can’t manage this on my own,” I explain. “I’m sure it’s easy.” I find my loyalty card, look at the screen and grok the whole process as, yes, straightforward, but I still hate it. The woman sees that I don’t need her technical support here and turns to leave.

“Wait. Don’t go,” I say with a tone of, you-got-me-into-this-you're-not-getting-away-so-easily. 

She stops and steps back beside me. “The thing is,” I explain, as the machine accepts me as a willing player in this mindless complicity of societal slaughter, “I’d rather have a human experience here.” I look at her while my data is being processed. “Tell me a joke,” I say.

 She laughs. “Oh, I don’t know any jokes. I can never remember any of the good ones,” she says. 

“I’m the same way,” I say. “’Drives me nuts!” She laughs again. “Being human is bonkers,” I add. 

With only three items to scan on the glass slab, my check-out process is quick. “You’re all done,” my kind task-minder announces. 

“I am, and thank you for adding humanness to this insanity,” I say, sincerely. I head towards the door. 

“Have a great evening,” she says. 

“You have a great evening too,” I say.

Yes, the machine took my data, but I did not let it take my soul.