| Volume 3 of Still at Home: February 1960 - June 1961 | work & days: a lifetime journal project |
photo by Reiner La Glace School, Zion Gospel Tabernacle, the Bakstad place, Wings cafe in Dawson Creek, Levelton's Lake, Sexsmith, Calgary, bible camp in Okotoks, the Smoky River, Credit Union meeting in the La Glace Hall, Banff School of Fine Arts. songs: Connie Francis Souvenirs, Pat Boone Welcome young lovers, Dinah Washington What a difference a day makes. The diary of Anne Frank, I'ts tough being a teenager, Seventeen magazine, Redbook, Photoplay, The Virginian, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Lorna Doone, The Spirit of Saint Lewis, Mary Stolz Seagulls woke me, Youth for Christ meeting in Grande Prairie High School, Pat's Great Hits, Varsity Guest Weekend, Sexsmith Music Night, Pearl S. Buck, Beethoven Sonata in C minor, War and peace, Titanic, Career Day at Hythe High School, Walter Nagel of the Grande Prairie Herald, Exodus, Complete works of Robert Frost. |
|
15 and 16. This volume begins late February 1960 when I get back home after the hospital - begins with the first poem worth recording - and ends in June 1961 at the end of grade 10. Ordinary family and school time, writing to Reiner, 'having a boyfriend.' My parents offered to give me a watch for good grades in the grade 9 provincial exams, but I asked for a camera instead, so there are more photos from this volume on. The camera was a Bella 44 mail-ordered through the Eaton's catalogue. notes: Elsie Oakes Barber The trembling years, Epictetus, Kate Seredy The good master and The Chestry oak, Beverly Gray on a world cruise, Maureen Daly Seventeenth summer, Jessamyn West Love is not what you think. mentioned: Peter Dyck, Bessie Blask, Reiner Koblotsky, Henry Whilms, Janeeen Postman, Bernice Alstad, Adrienne Morrison, Myrtle Torgerson, Lorraine Torgerson, Rudy Epp, Judy Epp, Paul Epp, Walter Webber, David Mann, Jimmy Creighton, Gail Angen, Judy Strand, Lloyd Alstad, Al Morrison, Sharon Schwelmler, Currie Hoflin, Francis Walle, Ken Driediger, Carol Osborne, Delbert Ray, Eunice Boyd Powell, Faye Olson, Elizabeth Voth, Albert Lapointe, Mary Dyck, Mary and Henry Sieburt, Elizabeth Friesen, Violet Whilms, Verna Driediger, Melita Toews, Helen Heidebrecht, Nettie Berg, Bill and Alice Epp, Peter and Luise Konrad, Anne and Harvey Dyck, Henry Olidam, Gerald Student, Donna Berg, George Block, Martha Friesen, Buck Thompson, Madeleine Friesen, Anna Driediger, Mr Andruski, Mary Siebert, Burt *, Cornelius Wiens, Faye Bolt, Pauline and Frank Kinderwater, Edna Weibe, Dave Leonard, Karen Petersen, Jake Kroeker, Raymond Gilkyson, John Jentink, Martin Nijland, Karen Gunderson, Marlys Postman.
|
February 29 1960 Ellie was in a remote sort of mood - the kind you can't concentrate in - and was feeling insignificant and dull - lusterless .... So she got out a sheet of paper, and wrote down, in choppy sentences, her thoughts, and impressions. Gradually, after snipping, some of these thoughts evolved into a sort of abstract poem. I called it
March 16 1960 Doesn't everything always come out? And isn't there in everything unpleasant, always the certain amount of drama that makes up for doubts and my small despairs? April 19 Once Peter asked Kathy what she wanted from life - what do I want? That's not really a hard question - But is my answer going to be sincere right to the bottom? This is it, as best as I know, now. Adventure - that comes first; Accomplishment - books - perhaps just a dusting of fame - not necessarily much; Acceptence - being liked, sought after among people I like and admire, a fitting in; a Beingness - what I mean is, a uniqueness, a personal self different from anyone elses, continual learning of spirit through people and places and experiences. Selfish, a little bit - but fairly true. May 29 I think Mom and Dad must have been quite "in love" judging from all that gooey jazz in their poetry (they wrote all their love-letters in German!!) and in her diary, mom gassed about "Ed's nobility." Whatever happened? That's why I just can't believe it I can think of few people I know who are less noble right now. So how can I believe that it could possibly last for me? - I have a lot less of what it takes than she had - and she was so sure it was God's will June 21 Another rain and stay home and no study and fight day. What if it rains so I can't go for the test on Friday? The creek is rampaging, its as high as the bridge!! July 1st School ended yesterday. A lot ended with it. Mr. Dyck will never come back, and Mr. Mann will never again stand in front of our class, telling us about living .... I felt so forlorn yesterday, at eleven just before the buses came .... happy, but feeling the beginnings of this summer's loneliness. The last day is one I want to remember a long time because it was the end of a significant Time. I remember the feel of the concrete steps, warm and dusty, underneath me, and the sweep of my newest dress over a hoop and my pink net as it spread around me, and the coloured little pin-points of light that were reflected on the wall by the stones in my necklace and I was, maybe, a little bit pretty I was glad for that. July 7 An enormous Eatons order came - for me - a Bella 44 camera. July 10 Henry Seiberts brought a watermelon for us and Miss Dyck came with them so there were 12 for a melon fiesta. July 12 Sewed a very splashy white skirt with green flowers and blue leaves on it and a blue-striped blouse. July 15 Went swimming in the creek. August 20 "Its part of the bowing and scraping," I said in an undertone to Judy. He couldn't possibly have understood me. He turned his fury on me then. I felt no fear, no awe, no respect. Only wonder at such a revelation of such incongruence. And amusement. "You - you," he went on to tell me all about my sins, the greatest of which is having independence of thought, I suppose. Actually, I can't remember what he said, besides that if I don't stop having the last word all the time, he'd take me out to the woodpile and hit me until I am black and blue - not for discipline, but pure rage, I know; and "Who do you think you are anyway?" - that's his favorite question. I remember thinking, detachedly, You have so very little. and now you are losing your athority on all things. It is painful, isn't it? And you will fight, childishly and desperately, anyone whom you can, who is young and weak enough not to count. And not only do you have so little, but you are so little. How can I fear you? How can I love you? September 4 Mr Block's first sermon on Loving God - the choir didn't sound awful bad. Evidently I stare at the ceiling too much - "... show too much of the whites" of my eyes. September 13 Recently, there is something new in me, somthing too big and alarming and aggressive to be ignored. It is not good. I resent being bossed. I hate rules. I hate it when Mom says "don't ever do it again". I don't like Mr Block. I don't like rules. I don't even like school. I loved school, last year. Now I am listless all day. Bored. Lazy. I can't seem to be interested or enthusiastic. I can't want to do my best. I just don't care what I get, even tho' I still dis-like being beaten. But most of all I resent and struggle against being bossed. September 19 Indian Summer. September 22 Gobbled up a whole half jar of blue-berries (half to Judy) while we were home alone. (Top Secret) I wish this pen wouldn't blur so. Pop's in a raging mood. September 23 We practiced our thanksgiving song today in Choir practice - One to-be-thankful-for-item is - we have a radio battery at last, music and new voices. September 24 I rode to L.G. to get the mail, and the wind was West and very windy! Oof! But today, we've been listening to real music again! October 7 "Elfreda Helen Epp! Your official name!" Mom said. I ripped off the end of it, slowly, calmly. "It's to say that I'm second best," I said, but hoped silently. I stared at it, not reading intelligently, until Mom took it away and glanced over the first paragraph. "You did it!" she said. "You got it!" There was just a small bedlam then. So there I was, nibbling foolishly on my bread and butter, in the midst of Saturday night chaos with Mr Mann leaning, as he used to lean against the register in our room, against the cupboard and Mrs. Mann perched on the arm of the big chair beside Mom. The cat chose this exact time to glide into the house through the hole in the window, looking as regal as if it had been a gold plated cat-gate. The lamp was in a half bright, half-dull mood, and all of supper was still on the table. I was in my blue jeans and black sweater, that, because of some improvement in my figure, gave me a young-girls-body look. The thing I remembered best is the taste of the fresh bread with its crisp crusts, sogging with yellow butter. October 22 I'm quite disgruntled because we had baked apples with whipped cream for supper and an ultra-special desert yesterday and Pop never said a word about it. October 23 Even tho' Mom came home and I wrote Reiner, this was a miserable, I-hate-Father day. I made cracks. He got mad. My pie crust was tough. Bawled once or twice. November 12 Judy and I nearly drove Mom beserk from exuberance! November 13 Wore my new blue and brown plaid almost-shag skirt to church to show it off in choir. Mrs Nick Siebert wears such exotic perfume. November 21 An executive meeting at noon - I''m afraid my committee is a bit dull-minded. Jim told me Gerald said "and she's got a damn good figger on her"! That's me! December 12 For these past few days, maybe weeks, I have felt more tranquil, happier, more sure. At school, I can feel my self and my relationship to the people there evolving into something new and satisfying. I feel relaxed, easy, friendly, in my contacts with nearly everybody. It's not so much just an evervescent mood or day, but a longer, lasting-er, easier relationship to everybody. Boys in particular. February 5 I got a letter from Mr. Mann yesterday, that he wrote the Tuesday after last Saturday. (On Monday morning, he called Mr. Block to tell him that as far as he was concerned, it was all "water under the bridge." When Mr. Block stopped in on Monday evening, he asked to see me, and when I stepped over to our door, he was standing there, and he pulled his collar up around his neck, and smiled at me, and told me about Mr. Mann's call. He smiled so "deeply" and so warmly then, that I felt shaken, as tho' I would drown in the abundance of it. I resented him before because he wasn't Mr. Mann, and maybe even more, because I thought he wasn't interested in me, because he seemed so far from being the kind of friend Mr. Mann and Mr Dyck were. But I was wrong. He is a friend now! Whenever we see each other, theres a more warmness about everything, and a small knowingness. We like each other, and know it. I could be glad for this upheaval, because it has been so good for and to me, but I am only sorry it hurt him. I dreamed about Mr Mann too - can't keep away from it. He was driving through a city, at night, and I was in the car with him, sitting way over on his side, and his arm was around me. The windows were frosted, and the neon on the outside was blurred into lights only, smudges. It was very nice, and I don't know if I like anyone as much as Mr. Mann. February 26 Spent 7 hours on writing my story. It's good at the end, bad in the beginning and dull in the middle but maybe I can fix it later. Maybe not. March 2 It snowed and there is lottsa mud, like fudge under icing under the snow. March 3 Sexsmith Music Nite so our choir sat on the platform and I could stare to my hearts content. March 18 Saturday night Nothing particular to talk about, but that, too, is something to record because it is a part of my new sixteen-ness. I've been sixteen for 13 days. I don't feel any different, or look any better, except for the improvement due to my newly bought eye-lash curler. (birthday present to me) happy but broke birthday. It cost me one dollar and twenty-five cents. March 19 This was a golden day. I did things I wanted to do and nothing I had to do. The sun was shining. In my last Reiner letter I described today, altho' it hadn't happened then. I said, "I just got home, all wind-blown and giddy When I went for the mail, the sun was shining wildly and everything - the splashy puddles, the drippy, swishy sounds, the intoxicating smell of new sawdust, the glint of sun on the sloshy snow - was shouting "Spring! Spring! Spring!" I sketched Honey when she was lying on a cushion in the sun, I ate cake with jelly on it and lots of chicken, I wore socks to church instead of nylons and wouldn't talk to Verna, I said "Happy birthday Mr Weins" to the dear old man and loved him a lot, feeling strange and abstract when I was staring at the stubby white bristles under his lip and holding his hand and he said "I'm seventy years old. I am an old man." I wanted to get a book from Voth's. I wanted to walk too, in the outside and the Spring with my coat sliding off my shoulders and my summer petticoat swelling my shadow on the ground into a balloon silhoette. I walked down the roads to Voths; the heat of the sun on my back was a pleasant sensuous pressure and I was light as air. The sky was polished and crystal. At that place by the bush there is a dead tree with bare branches and a magpie sitting in them. The branches etched into the sky were Japanese art in blacks and greys - detailed and intense and simple. When I walked towards their house the chickens all took a step towards me, raising their voices. March 28 I have been listening to Beethoven. It was a 10:30 radio broadcast. A chinook is billowing outside, whipping the draggled edges of spring. There is a fire in the heater, just a small one, but it throws crooked flickers onto the ceiling and into that dark place where the stove pipes go into the attic. The lamp is in the bedroom and the door is half open. It is on the dresser and reflects into the room. Mom stands in front of the half open door, silhoetted. Dad leans against the wall with his back to the fire and me. He listens and looks at Mom outlined against the light. April 17 Monday and a day of wild wind and abandonment among trees, and roarings and rattling of the tin on the roof at 5 a.m. April 28th Its almost full moon on a night with cold that makes a winter jacket like my favorite one of daddy's, ineffective. I wizzed down the driveway on the bike, with the cold air sliding right through me, and masses of light and shadow fading past me on both sides, indistinctly and mysteriously. Because it was so cold I went to sit in the car and listen to the radio. There was a warm spot of light where the radio dial was. The sky-blue moonlight came through the windshield and glinted in patterns when it passed through the cracks in the glass. May 25 Everything is lambent and wildly green. Outside the flowers are beginning to bloom - caragana, saskatoon, violets, buttercups, strawberry. June 9 Last night was our grade eleven grad party. My dress was nice. I thought it was. A glowy blue-green-mauve dress with period ruffled sleeves, a scoopy neckline, a blue nylon overskirt, 2 crinolines, starched. Nylons - one tan mesh, one reddish mesh. Couldn't find mates. Don't care enough either. My hair was okay. I looked okay. But maybe I was the only one to think so. That would be sad. O.K. say it. You thought you were pretty. - Then!! There was Friday. I didn't get on "our" bus, and ride home with it down the hill. Home wasn't there. the House was planted forlornly on mover's skids on a sidehill across the road from Nick Seiburt's, a small house in the bare, endless, tufty grass. No trees by the window. I trudged across the grass, climbed in and grumbled, crying while I grumbled. I looked it over and was numb and homesick and thought poetically of roots and trees and memories and was grumpy and sentimental. But I switched furniture around feverishly to make everything different and now everything Is different. June 18 Pop has been making it a habit to have a few Satanic tantrums every day. Had a lovely one for me today. We're dreadfully poor these days - subsisting on bread, "spuds", turnips, and rubarb. June 18, Sunday He stepped closer, his eyes dilating wildly, his unshaven cheeks working as he screamed. He was angry, although his anger was more like something an old fashioned minister would call demon-possession. The reason was some lurking thing in his mind, but he acted as though it was the fact that I hadn't been at the table for breakfast and then stopped to eat a piece of platz as I passed. It wasn't "ordung." Then he became violent, and when he began he couldn't seem to stop, he just became louder all the time and I hardly knew whether he would ever stop. "You come to the table, you hear?" he howled. Then he stepped closer again staring into my stony eyes. (I wasn't afraid or awed at all - only like a statue - solid) It was as though he was driven. "Do you understand?" he roared, and his face came closer, desheveled and wild, not in a physical way but in a mental way. "Or do I have to say it again?" "I heard you", I muttered, and kept on rubbing the cupboard with my cleaning cloth. He strode across the room like a personification of Insanity. "I can lick you," he bellowed. "I can lick you yet. I can lick you and I can nail all the doors shut so you'll have to forage for yourself. I can lick you." And in that raging I could see fear and a kind of desperation. He isn't sure anymore that he really can lick me. He knows I wouldn't care if he did beat me up and that my contempt for his lack of bigness at a time like this will "lick" him more than any physical thing he could ever do to me would lick me. Maybe he heard what I was saying in my mind. "You can't lick me. You never will. I have what you could call spirit; I know I have. And it is that part of me that you can't ever lick. I'm a rebel. I'm tough. You've done this before and I'm still here and I'm stronger now than I ever have been. I'll stay on my feet, Daddy, and I'll keep a smile on my face, and now lets just see you lick me." He kept on. He'd be quiet for a moment and then the evilness would rise up and stifle him and the demons would shriek together again. "I've been fighting you for years," they said. "I don't want to fight with you any more." Their voices rose again and my father, the father I have rapport with, looked up at them anguishedly. This idea of mine about some outside force acting on him may be just a blind, a defence I have built up for myself. I don't want to believe that my father is that kind of a madman. I want to believe that he really is a "cher papa" whom I love and who thinks I am a little bit special, as the man called "Daddy" sometimes does. If I can believe that it is devils tormenting him and doing it against his will, that way I can still believe in him. June 21 Packing and chasing around.
|