Little Old Lady … in Waiting

Tag: joy

  • In Conversation with (Iwona) Maria Kubacki

    I first met Maria Kubacki when we were still teenagers.  She was a friend of my brother’s… think artsy, intellectual, an outsider, by choice or design. Recently arrived home to Saint John from a Toronto private school, she was the iconic, underground campus ‘it’ girl, a ‘Lit chick’- all cat’s eye eyeliner, black tights, and arthouse lipstick.  She was clever and cool, straight out of a Sally Rooney novel, this quixotic mix of edge and vulnerability that was foreign and familiar all at once.  Her style acumen was just the pretty wing man for her real talent, an unpretentious academic mind, a well-spoken confidence, and a reverence for the written word.

    Fast forward 40 years, Maria, a fellow little old lady in waiting (possibly in denial) forwarded her initial remarks with a disclaimer: “I’m a little embarrassed and intimidated by this. I don’t want people to think, ‘who does she think she is?’ I have no particular accomplishments. I’m just answering these questions as a fellow little old lady in waiting who is in the thick of middle age and thinking about how to make the most of the last third of life.” This same little old lady in waiting, earned a Master of Arts degree in English Literature and has worked as a book reviewer and freelance writer as well as an associate editor, and editor.  Currently she lives and works in Ottawa as a communications manager for the federal government. She took up writing fiction a few years ago and has published her short stories.  She is married to a lovely man named Ken and has two twenty-something children, Jane, and Mike. She sidesteps the 7-sentence limit of the first interview question so adeptly, using a series of semi-colons, dashes, and ellipses, that I had to allow it. Maria Kubacki is still very clever…and cool, maybe even more so as a little old lady…in waiting.

    Tell me your life story in seven sentences or less? 

    I was born in Warsaw, came to Canada when I was 4 ½, lived in Quebec City briefly and grew up in Bathurst in the 70s, where we were one of the few immigrant families, but it was pretty idyllic …double-dutch in the street with my friends, summers at Youghall Beach. I went to high school at a girls’ boarding school in Toronto where I was more focused on smoking, drinking and New Wave music and fashion than on my education, and where I started going by my middle name, Maria, instead of Iwona (my actual first name, pronounced Ee-vohn-ah and mangled by nearly everyone because of the “w”), or Yvonne (what everyone called me in Bathurst because it’s the French version of Iwona) – it was fairly common back then for immigrants to change their names to something easier for Canadians to pronounce, but it was weird and embarrassing to me to have all these names, and sometimes still is, as my parents, Polish family and friends still call me Iwona (or Iwcia, the diminutive, pronounced Eef-cha)…Bathurst friends and some cousins call me Yvonne, and everyone else calls me Maria.

    I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I loved reading – my parents were and still are big readers so we always had lots of books in the house, and also I learned English the summer I turned 9 from a British family from the Isle of Man who had all kinds of children’s classics all over their house, the Narnia series and that sort of thing – so I ended up getting a BA and then MA in English at UNB.

    I was quite lost in my twenties and dragged my MA on for many more years than I care to admit, but during that time I started doing freelance writing as a way to earn a bit of money and avoid my thesis – art reviews for a magazine called Arts Atlantic, and book reviews for the Telegraph Journal, which eventually led to a job as associate editor and then editor of the New Brunswick Reader, the Telegraph’s weekend magazine.

    I got married and had my two kids in Saint John before moving to Ottawa where we have lived for 22 years and where I wrote for the Ottawa Citizen and worked as a writer/editor at what was then Canwest News service (now Postmedia).

    For the last 16 years I have been working as a communications manager for the federal government and recently I started writing and publishing fiction, which I had never even thought about doing until I turned 50.

    What is the best thing about getting older?

    People always say things like not caring what others think anymore, or not sweating the small stuff. Sadly, I still sweat the small, medium, and large stuff – I sweat all of it. I haven’t yet reached the part of getting older where you’re relaxed and just flowing and enjoying life. I’m still in the thick of it – middle age, work, responsibilities. I think the “best thing about getting older” hasn’t come yet, or maybe I’m just doing it all wrong.

    What is the worst thing about getting older?

    Becoming set in your ways and more reluctant to try new things, acting and thinking like you are even older than you are. You’re drunk and high a lot more when you’re young, maybe that’s why you’re more open to new experiences then.  Children are like that naturally…they’ll be friends with anyone, they’ll try new things, and as we age, we tend to stick to what’s familiar, what we know we will like, people like us etc. Our world can get smaller and smaller.

    If you could retain or retrieve one quality from your youth, what would it be?

    Being open to life, people, and experiences.

    What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far?

    Children and dogs have it all figured out – be in the moment, and enjoy every little thing, every day. Our beloved golden doodle, Tippy, who we had to put down a few years ago, was still chasing rabbits, making new friends, and wagging her tail the night she died.

    Do you have a favourite quote?

    Does anyone actually have a favourite quote or do they just Google “famous quotes” when asked? I don’t have one off the top of my head, but whenever I see one from the Stoics, it resonates – like the Marcus Aurelius one at the top of your blog, which I love and need to meditate on every day, because I don’t think I am living my life this way now: “Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what’s left and live it properly.”  I have lived a pretty cautious, small life. My anxiety, a lifelong affliction, has always held me back in life, even when I was younger. I would like to become a more fearless or at least less fearful person. Do more, see more, travel more. One of the reasons that it’s fun to read and write is that we all only have one life to live, and we have to make choices, and for some of us fear holds us back, but through writing and reading we can vicariously live many lives. 

    Do you have a favourite word?

    ‘Actually‘ – with index finger held up, because I’m a bit of a know-it-all, as my family and friends will tell you. One anecdote: on a family trip to Florida we took a drive through a ritzy area in St. Petersburg where there were big mansions…so we’re driving around  and all having a nice time, and we drive by this house that has these ornate pillars and my sister-in-law says ‘oh look, there are statues of dolphins on them’ and I was trying to fight the reflex and telling myself, ‘don’t do it’  and then it just came out, ‘Actually, I think they’re manatees.’ Everyone just rolled their eyes at me but they actually were manatees! It’s become part of the family narrative. 

    Describe your perfect day.

    Any day when I’m on a beach anywhere, in almost any weather, or just somewhere near the ocean or near water. It could be Venice, or Seven Mile Beach in Grand Cayman, or Bar Harbor, Maine. Or Brackley Beach in PEI, Sandbanks Provincial Park, Saints Rest in Saint John.  I think it connects back to happy memories of growing up in the Maritimes, spending a lot of time at Youghall Beach in Bathurst every summer throughout childhood and my teen years, and then living in Saint John for many years going to places like Cape Spencer, the Irving Nature Park, St. Martin’s.  I guess to me water also feels very open to possibility.  I think I like imagining what’s on the other side of the ocean. I also love the feeling of being on the water, I love kayaking… it’s just very freeing. 

    If you could have tea with anyone, real or fictional, dead or alive, who would it be and what would you talk about?

    I know people often say Jane Austen, Shakespeare, or Churchill but I can read them, no need to have tea with them. I love Jane Austen, but I think she would be really catty and judgmental in real life – I would be afraid of her. Maybe hanging out with Churchill while he sat around in his pink satin undies and robe while drinking and trying to figure out how to defeat Hitler might have been cool. But I think what I would really like is to have tea with both my grandmothers, although separately. I would ask them about their lives in Poland. My mother’s mother had a farm outside Warsaw and raised 5 children during the Second World War. She was not educated but was very smart, wise, funny, kind, and resourceful. She was milking the cows at like 4 am, made all the kids’ clothes by hand…during the war, German soldiers took over their farm and the kids all had scarlet fever as well …and somehow, she managed to keep everyone alive. And found time to make beautiful hand-embroidered tablecloths.

    My father’s mother was very ahead of her time.  She went to medical school in the 1920s when there was a “numerus clausus” – a quota that only allowed 10 % of the students to be women, and she was smart and tough enough to be one of the 10%. She did a PhD and was a specialist in internal medicine. She also loved to travel and trying new foods and was sporty and adventurous – she would rent scooters for her, my dad and his brother and they would all go adventuring together.

    Tell me three things that bring you joy.

    My family and friends. Walking/hiking/kayaking. Travelling almost anywhere, whether it’s a day trip near Ottawa, a road trip to New York or New England, or Europe. I’m going to cheat and list way more things because many things bring me joy. Going to museums, big or small, almost anywhere. Cappuccinos and spritzes. Chocolate. Music. Going to movies at the Bytowne, our local rep cinema. Conversations about life with my kids, Jane, and Mike. Family dinners with the kids and my parents. Rewatching favourite movies and TV shows with my husband, Ken – Remains of the Day being the movie we rewatch most often, because it’s perfect in almost every way – from the writing and the acting to the period costumes and interiors and the incredibly sad but beautiful score.  Ken and I also like making up our own words to songs and making ourselves laugh. Sometimes we also meow songs – we don’t remember why we started doing that, but I think it was when our kids were little, but anyway it makes us laugh. It’s not possible to list just 3 things.

    Name a guilty pleasure.

    Taking a day off just for myself to do whatever I want. Or years ago, when my kids were little, Ken and I would sometimes take an afternoon off work to go to a movie just the two of us.

    Do you believe in life after death? What does it look like?

    I don’t really think about it. It’s probably just oblivion – we probably just get reabsorbed into whatever the universe is made of…ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But if there was some kind of life after death, it would be nice if it were an eternal sleep where we dream forever and get to be with everyone we loved and experience everything we ever wanted to but did not get to experience in life. In this eternal dreamworld I hope I get to fly, and look down over the earth, like Google Street view, but better.

    What would you like your eulogy to say?

    I guess my kids would be writing my eulogy. I hope they say I was a decent human being who taught them to be decent people. I think they might say that I gave unsolicited advice very freely, but I hope they feel that sometimes it was good advice. I hope they also remember our Amazing Race-style family trips where I made them see and do everything, even if we were exhausted and our feet were sore from walking 20,000 steps a day.

  • On the Merits of Becoming a Maker

    “Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” – Pablo Picasso

    “When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me what I did at work.  I told her that I worked at the college – that my job was to teach people how to draw.  She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, ‘You mean they forgot?’”     – Howard Ikemoto

    On the recent occasion of my 59th birthday I signed myself up for a workshop on the ancient art of Japanese book binding. I’m not what you would call ‘crafty’, at least not in that sense of the word… a maker of things. I’ve never successfully knit a whole sock, my Christmas decorations come from Canadian Tire, and my sour dough starter-baby died of neglect…twice. I thought it might be the right time to reawaken my inner maker and so, accompanied by my daughter, an artist with a defined skill set, we entered a beautiful old heritage building, the library of my youth, and found seats on the second floor, which once housed the reference section. (For my Zoomers, I refer here to a time before almost every academic question could be answered with a thumb scroll on your smart phone, from the comfort of your couch.)

    We little old ladies in waiting may not have had to walk 10 miles to school through drifts of snow as tall as we were (Boomer narrative), but we did have to leave our homes to look for the answers. We juggled 50-pound encyclopaedias searching for the illusive truth or some reasonable facsimile.  We took notes in an ancient script called cursive.  It was the dark ages kids, before the information age and the internet, before group work started trending and you could pawn the research part off on the kid who would rather disembowel himself than speak in public. 

    But I digress…awkward segue back to the book binding workshop, the setting for a timely and reflective lesson in humility and a powerful endorsement of the restorative power of making art. We were provided with all the necessary materials including what looked like a small ice pick or a long sharp little doorknob. I believe the proper term is an awl, and we were advised not to use it if we weren’t confidant in handling the tool.  ‘Look for a helper’ the instructor advised, making direct eye contact with me as she did so.  I tried not to take it personally, but it did take a little of the glitter off my crafting confidence. I’m happy to report that I wielded that awl like a card-carrying Cape Breton craft guild member.  No blood was lost, and at the end of the day, my paper was pierced to a standard capable of being assembled in a perfectly adequate journal.

    There were a few challenges of course. The eye of my sewing needle was too small to see, my thread refused to cooperate, I may have been overzealous with the glue, and at one point I fell so far behind in the binding instruction I was forced to go freestyle.  I looked over at my daughter for clarification but, after accurately assessing the situation, she shook her head and whispered “I can’t help you” with a smug little art-savvy smile on her face.  I sensed some residual anger about wasting a high UV summer afternoon in musty smelling rooms. There was definitely a mean-girl twinkle in her eye as she effortlessly wove her journal together, her hands adept to any artistic enterprise.  In the end, the teacher took pity on me and salvaged my journal.  I was… accommodated.  It was my birthday after all, and I wasn’t leaving without a finished product.

    A few hours later, sitting by the sea with my bestie, a very successful artist herself, attempting to salvage a little birthday esprit with a few pre-dinner cocktails (code name beach walk), I began to unpack the experience and consider the merits of engaging in art for its own sake, process over product.  How did it feel to create something ? I hand crafted a beautiful journal, with complete artistic control over design and construction…well, maybe not complete control… but every choice, every small flaw or mistake, was my own. It felt…nourishing, making something from scratch, even with unpracticed, non-nimble hands. Cultivating your inner maker feels a lot like play. It’s like leaving your mind for a time and living only in your hands. You spend a few hours purposefully, intentionally, unplugged and unreachable, and when playtime is over you have this lovely little objet d’art, perfectly imperfect, bespoke, hand crafted, and all by you, a maker in the making. 

    In today’s highly specialized world, unless you work as an artist or maybe an entrepreneur, we have, as individuals, lost touch with what it feels like to conceive, design and produce a finished product completely on our own.  Most of us are cogs in the machinery of industry.  We contort ourselves to fit the spaces defined by the job market.  We make ourselves small to succeed as cogs and move up the ladder to coveted cog spots, perhaps with a corner cog office, but in the end, unless you are designing your own work and workday, whether your uniform is a set of scrubs, a pair of overalls, or a thousand-dollar suit, it still says cog in the small print of your contract.

    In Ancient Greek mythology, Procrustes was a thief who offered travellers a bed for the night and then stretched those too short, or cut off the limbs of those too long, to make them fit the bed’s dimensions.  In many ways I feel like I’ve been sleeping on a Procrustean bed my entire working life, perhaps earlier if we consider the public school system as pre-employment prep, conditioning children to conform to an unnatural or arbitrary standard, “a veal-fattening pen” (Copeland) for the cog culture.

    As a quasi-retired, little old lady in waiting, I’m more than ready to embrace the artisan in me. I’m interested in work of my own choosing, designed, and created entirely by me. While I may never be a master book binder, I’m not ready to abandon the maker mindset quite yet. I think a fiber art class in the Fall might suit, or perhaps a creative writing assignment to chip away the icy cold months of the long, reclusive Canadian winter.  I remember enjoying drawing and painting as a younger woman and I may still have all the tools needed to make a cosy east-cost hooked rug, art to keep out the cold. 

    The experience of engaging in making art is tremendously satisfying, especially if your inner maker has been starved to the point of mummification.   I propose making artist dates with yourself: writing morning pages, evenings of experimental cooking, or maybe even acquiring a knitted sock mentor.  Treat the artist within like an honoured guest who inspires and delights and brings out your highest self.   What I’m suggesting is pursuing a path of gentle exploration to set you inner maker free.  Above all, and this is crucially important, never… ever allow your left-brain critic to cut its razor sharp teeth on your vulnerable right-brain art, with its practiced vivisectional rigor. 

    Making art is a clarifying experience.  It opens us and illuminates everything we are inside. The art we produce as little old ladies in waiting may never pay the electric bill, but becoming a maker is an investment in yourself that pays incalculable returns. For me, good art elicits emotion and deals with questions of meaning.  Likely too high a bar for evaluating one’s own artwork.  I’m pretty sure none of my experiments in becoming a maker will ever garner any critical praise. What I do know is that consummating the creative impulse is an immensely pleasurable and stirring experience and one this maker in the making plans to chase habitually and unreservedly.

  • In Conversation with Dr. Margaret Anne Smith

    I sat down with Margaret Anne Smith at a local coffee house with a reputation for good lattes and a spectrum of social justice projects that support many marginalized members of our community.  It seemed a fitting setting for a conversation with a woman who is, among other things, an advocate for the disenfranchised, sitting on the board of a harm reduction enterprise that supports people living with addiction.  Margaret Anne Smith holds a PhD in English Literature, specializing in 20th Century poetry, and has taught her entire career in the post-secondary setting.  She is an academic, a teacher, a poet, and a fiber artist.  She is married, a mother of two, and has the sort of old-world integrity and essential goodness that makes you believe that we are not without hope, no matter what unbelievable chicanery we witness daily on the evening news.  As I listened to her speak, I couldn’t help thinking of the power of a single individual to effect great change in the world around her, especially one armed with a sharp analytical mind trained to notice what others do not see, and gifted with a clear, insightful voice to ask the right questions.  She is currently at work on a book of poetry that celebrates local coastal beauty and lure.  It is a collection I very much look forward to reading someday.

    Tell me your life story in seven sentences or less? 

    I grew up in Saint John and…same sentence… moved back here on purpose, after spending a dozen years away.  I love my extended family and friends. I have been married to David for 36 very good years. We have two great kids. I live near the Bay of Fundy. I am a teacher. I am a reader and a writer.

    What is the best thing about getting older?

    Learning…I was going to say discovering, but it’s not like a momentary discovery, there is no switch that flips, there’s no ‘aha moment’… it’s a gradual process of learning what I care about. And the other side of it, is learning what I don’t give a fuck about, and that list has changed with time.

    What is the worst thing about getting older?

    Joint pain and not being able to see as well as I want to in my 50s. That’s the part that surprised me, the pain came so much earlier than I anticipated.  I’m on the cataract waiting list which depresses me, but I look forward to losing the heavy progressive lenses.

    If you could retain or retrieve one quality from your youth, what would it be?

    My knees and my feet to be honest.  It’s not my optimism…it’s not my hope, it’s not my energy level I’m worried about losing …it’s my joints. I had envisioned at this age, those walking trips in Europe, but there’s no chance.  I couldn’t physically do it… it’s my knees. I want to be able to hike for ten kilometers and I just can’t.

    What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned so far?

    I think it’s probably learning the difference between spending your energy on things you cannot change and spending your energy on things you can.  And that exists on several levels   So there are things that maybe I cannot change about myself,… my feet hurt, I can’t take a walking trip across Ireland. Ok…goodbye to that idea, and now what can I do instead? Because I think spending your energy on things you can’t change makes you bitter, and we don’t want to be bitter little old ladies in waiting… because it would be easy, wouldn’t it?

    So that’s personal, so now let’s take it to the next level to the people in my circle.  There are certain things I can’t change, and you can invest in those relationships but there are some things you just absolutely cannot change.  I like Glennon Doyle’s Podcast?  It’s called “We Can Do Hard Things”.  It’s American and its funny as hell, and they interview  a lot of interesting people and one of the great episodes is about  how to fortify yourself for the holiday season in terms of dealing with your family and expectations.  A great piece of advice he gives is ‘Be not surprised’ because you know Uncle Bob is going to go down the same road he took last year, so don’t be outraged and horrified by it, just adopt an attitude of ‘yeah, whatever, I still love you,’ when people behave in ways they have always behaved, ‘be not surprised.’

    Jewel has a song I really like from 1998, I’m dating myself here, it’s called Life Uncommon. She says ‘no longer lend your strength to that which you wish to be free from.”  It’s about using your voice and that  speaks to me now…where do you use your energy… where do you use your voice.

    The other part of that question is what you do about the global piece and that is much more difficult right now.  I try to be selective and pick the bite-sized things that I can do.  I joined the Board of Avenue B that operates on a harm reduction model.  I have no lived experience with addiction myself, or in my circle, but I thought I can be on the board.  I’m good at policy and procedure…and I try to make choices with some integrity. I don’t live in a tent, I’m not a drug user, but l am devastated by the inhumanity that’s everywhere in our cities and small towns now and how people are being treated so badly and left out.  We talked about water fountains at the meeting last night.  If you were thirsty and unhoused…where do you go?   

    Do you have a favourite quote?

    Yes, it’s a quote by Vaclav Havel.  I like it because he distinguishes between hope and optimism. It’s a quote from his time in prison.  His language is beautiful of course, but for me the beauty is that he isn’t saying, it will all be fine…because so often it is not fine. He takes hope from being a big cartoony rainbow thing and makes it real.

    “The kind of hope I often think about (especially in situations that are particularly hopeless, such as prison) I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us, or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul; it’s not essentially dependent on some observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.

    Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpropitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from “elsewhere.” It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.”

    Do you have a favourite word?

    Sea…as in the ocean. The word sea represents all kinds of things metaphorically but for me it is both a personal, and local place of refuge…it always has been …since I was old enough to ride my bike off the cliff, which I did by the way…I was a free-range kid in West Saint john.  I might edit that out for my mother.

    There is something timeless about the sea… I love the rhythm, I love the sound.  It’s also a metaphor for connection, wrapping around the globe, and it’s a measuring stick for what we are doing to the planet which is a big concern for me.  I think because we can see the trees being cut down and we can see the trees on fire on tv, it’s a little harder to ignore, but we could go to Bayshore this morning and think all is well…and it’s not.  We need to pay a bit more attention… we need to pay a lot more attention. 

    Describe your perfect day.

    Sunshine. Great coffee. The ocean.  My husband and my kids and their partners and nothing planned. 

    If you could have tea with anyone, real or fictional, dead, or alive, who would it be and what would you talk about?

    Given the state of the world, I want to sit down with Greta Thunberg.  Three reasons.  She is young and we need to listen to the younger voices, about everything. I mean look at where the power is…still in the hands of old rich white guys and that has to change.  Secondly, she is willing to make incredible sacrifices for the future. I’m interested in asking her, why, what do you see, what do you envision, what are you giving up and what are you giving it up for?  Three would be the climate crisis, it’s going to cook us and were pretending it’s not.  I want to talk about that.

    Tell me three things that bring you joy.

    Real conversations.  Real, not honest, because even honest conversations have a few lies in them.

    David, Kevin, and Maureen …from the beginning all the way to this morning.  So much joy in that little family of mine.

    Time outdoors.  Some of it goes back to the free-range childhood.  Total freedom.  It might have been an illusion, or it might have been quite real, that no one was paying any attention to us kids.   We were free, and time outdoors reminds me of my freedom.  Also, as an artist I appreciate the changing light and the shadows cast by the sun and the changing colours of the season.  My shoulders lower when I step out the door.

    Name a guilty pleasure.

    Ice cream. Too much fat, too much sugar but it hasn’t made me give it up.  It’s a favourite treat.

    Do you believe in life after death? What does it look like?

    I do believe in life after death, but I don’t know what it looks like.  And I don’t even have an assumed visual. I think when I was young, I did have an idea that was based on a religious tradition…heavenly gates…clouds. So now I think there is so much beauty and goodness, despite the horrors, and I don’t think those things can just come to an end.  There has to be something else.  My sense of what that is has changed, because I think there is something else for the right whale as well, and for the pigeon on the roof… that we’re all part of this interconnectedness that we can’t really, fully appreciate now and maybe our great joy in the afterlife is coming to understand what that interconnectedness means.   

    What would you like your eulogy to say?

    I boiled it down to two things. First, I want my children to write it, and I trust them. Second, and how’s this for a mothers’ control, I hope they would say that they saw that I remained engaged until the end of my days.  I don’t like the word engaged… maybe passionate, passionate is better, engaged is so psycho-ed, or maybe that I cared, but that’s too Hallmark.  Passionate works, and passionate about what doesn’t really matter…maybe when I’m 80 I’ll be passionate about my pansy collection.