This book dug deep inside me and has held on, thanks to the wonderful characters of Hattie, Logan and Thebes. Their road trip is as much a journey to find themselves (certainly in Hattie’s case) and each other as it is to find the kids’ long-lost father, Cherkis. And while the characters are unusual, they are drawn with great compassion and realism – I found myself comparing my own children to the kids in this story. Miriam Toews is one of Canada’s very best authors.



I joined Goodreads a few months ago, but haven’t taken advantage of its many features yet. This morning, just as a warm-up before a long day of research, I gave five stars to The Flying Troutmans. If you are a reader and haven’t yet checked Goodreads out, click the link and try it for yourself. I’ll bet you find a few more books to put on your “want to read” list.

“Jacob goes, ‘So they eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and the best they can do is figure out they’re NAKED?  They get knowledge of CLOTHES??’ ”

Stevie is just as irreverent as Jacob – that people would actually take this “Bible stuff” as literal truth is a completely foreign concept to him.  And yet, I still have a guilty twinge at all this mirth at the Bible’s expense.  I know that no bolt of lightning will slice through the roof of the car to smite us, but it’s still weird for me not to treat the Bible as a – no, THE Holy Book – the literal Word Of God.  I grew up with literal bible believers, went to school with them, hung out at their youth groups.  I was a teenage fundamentalist – or at least doing my best to play the part.

Kelowna, BC, is a pocket of religiosity in an increasingly secular Canada.  The churches are big, especially the evangelical ones.  In my teenage years of the late 1970s, Kelowna was smaller, more remote, less sophisticated.  It was a bit like the town in the movie Footloose, where youth weren’t allowed to dance, so some of them snuck out to do more risky things, like drink in the bush.  As an insecure, bookish teenage girl, I knew I didn’t want to go to those parties.  Why stand by a smoky fire in the cold, just to get drunk, throw up, ride in a pickup truck with a driver almost as drunk as you are, and risk ending up in the hospital, where my mom (the emergency nurse) would probably disown me?   Or risk getting arrested and fingerprinted by my dad, the cop?  Let’s not even entertain the thought that I might end up dead, or worse – pregnant.  So if I were to have any social life at all, I should probably hang out with those nice kids, the Christians.

My best friend, Lori, beat me to Christianity by a few weeks when we were both 14.  She had gone with her mother to a Pentecostal women’s dinner, and came home speaking in tongues.  Church was suddenly the best place ever, particularly the Young People’s group, which had older teenagers and really nice leaders that treated you like a real person and listened to what you had to say.  What’s more, Jesus was real, and Lori had given her heart to Him.

When Lori asked me if I would come with her to the Presbyterian Young People’s I was happy to go along.  Bible study was actually a natural fit for a book reader like me; we looked in-depth at individual verses, like “If I have the tongue of men and angels, but have not love, I am nothing”.  We sang songs like “Peaceful, Easy Feeling”, only the words were changed to be more Christian.  We had intense conversations about the nature of evil.  Christianity was actually getting me to THINK.  I have the Presbyterian Church to thank for that.  And it’s a good thing, too, because the Cool Church was one of the big churches down the road, and things were a little different there.

At the Cool Church, they showed films about the Rapture, and how scary it would be to be left behind while the plague of locusts rained down on apartments and cars.   Kids from the Cool Church played Led Zeppelin songs backwards so we could hear Robert Plant sing “My Sweet Satan” and be thrillingly horrified.   At the Cool Church, they lifted their hands and spoke in tongues after just about every song.   The Cool Church had about 70 teenagers in their youth group, and concerts, and really good looking guys.  And those really good looking guys hugged everybody, even me.

I tried being baptized in the Holy Spirit, but he was stingy with me – my speaking-in-tongues attempts just came out like “Hey, Shondala shondala”, and felt completely stupid.   I also had trouble believing that everybody was born in sin, and doomed to hell unless they believed in Jesus Christ As Their Lord And Saviour.  I mean, I came from a family full of dead people.  My older brother died as a baby.  My mother was in a car accident when she was 13, and it killed most of her family.  Would Oma, Opa, Hans, Leen, and my baby big brother Stephen be in hell because they weren’t Christians?  Still I straddled these two worlds of Christianity – one cerebral and folky, the other glitzy and mind-bogglingly scary and literal… because either you were in or you were out.  I wanted to be in.

My whole social life came to revolve around being a Christian.  I sang and played piano in the church young people’s music group, Koinonia.  We actually made matching skirts and toured churches around the Interior.  A few times a year, we went to a retreat where we’d study the Bible and impress each other with the verses we’d memorized.  We’d sing and sing, and have our own dances, and flirt, and laugh, and stay up all night, lying in big puppy piles and listening to Christian rock… or the B-52s and the Moody Blues.  I got to know the Bible very, very well.  And I still had trouble with this whole “saved” thing.  At least with the Presbyterians, who believed in Predestination, being saved was all up to the Grace of God.  It was up to Him who was in and who was out, and God’s Grace was surely enough to be merciful to a few innocent babies and grandparents I’d never met.  And Gandhi, I decided after watching the movie about him.

As I was thinking my way into ever-more-liberal Christianity, and heading off to university, some of my high-school friends who stayed in town were dating the guys from the Cool Church, and going to Bible School.  I could feel the gap widening between myself and them.  One Christmas I came home, and the drummer from Koinonia announced that he was throwing out all his rock albums because the rock beat is from the Devil.  Right.   Another friend stopped cutting her hair or wearing makeup, because long hair is a woman’s adornment, and pleases the Lord, and her husband.  We lost touch.

When I was 21, I took a wonderful course in “The Bible and English Literary Tradition”, which finally opened the doors and let me breathe, and figure things out for myself.  We discussed allegory, Dante, Milton, Mithraism and pan-Hellenic gnostic sects.  We looked at the puzzle of Paul the Apostle, and how messiahs and virgin birth stories existed in many faiths.  We were introduced to Northrop Frye’s The Great Code, and the work of the Jesus Seminar.  Wow, I thought.  A group of Christian scholars that actually respects Jesus enough to try and figure out what really belongs to him, and what is just stuff that grew up around his reputation!   By this time, I knew much of the Bible by heart, and knew that many parts of it just didn’t hang together well enough to take literally.   It had to be a series of documents that reflected their time, written by people who created God in their image.  I no longer wanted to be in at all costs.  I just wanted to find out what was real.

The rest of my story is about leaving and coming back to my faith, as an adult.  I may get to writing that down, eventually.  For now, let’s go back to the car, with Stephen, because I think it’s important that as Canadians of European descent, my kids know the biblical references in their cultural background – the stories in the Bible, the basics of mainstream Christianity, and where people have made God in their own image.  I want them always to be able to know what they believe, and why.  Even if it’s just to say “I don’t know the answer.”

I know that Christianity comes in many flavours, including Quaker.  We don’t have to accept – or reject – all of it, in order to be “in” or “out”.  I find that even though I count myself among the Universalist Friends, I understand both historical and current Christocentric Quakers.  Their turns of biblical phrase often resonate with me deeply.  I can laugh with my kids at the absurdity of taking creation myths literally, and be thankful that I know the stories anyway.  I’m thankful that I grew up Christian, even though I’ve left both the extreme and the mainstream forms for a version that is both more open and more challenging.  As a Friend, I can be both who I am and who I was.

Today, my oldest son turned 18.  For him, it was not a big deal.  ”It’s not like I can do anything different,” he said.  But it’s an anniversary for me too, because on a grey, rainy day much like this one, I became a mother.

Birthing Daniel was the hardest thing I have ever done.  Early labour began Wednesday morning Dec 7th, 1994  two weeks past his due date of Nov 26th..  My contractions were about 10 minutes apart, so I could play game after game of Scrabble, and walk down to Jericho Park, playing the waiting game with my husband and the doula, who came over.  Wednesday night, I thought for sure that things were kicking into gear.  We checked into BC Women’s Hospital, and expected to see the baby by the morning.  Instead, just wave after wave of nauseating contractions, never really kicking into heavy, productive labour, but not going away, either.

We listened to  a “relaxing” Loreena McKennit CD over and over… I don’t think I’ve listened to it since.  Thursday was tough – including vomiting with contractions until there was nothing left to heave, trying showers and hating the tingly feeling of the water hitting my back, trying walking and listening to the moans of the other labouring women – women who were entering the labour rooms and leaving with their babies while I paced and puked, and waited.  This baby just wasn’t coming.  By Thursday night, I had dilated to 5 cm… but on Friday morning, I had regressed to 3 cm.  Seems my cervix was swollen with the pressure of the baby’s head – and the head was probably stuck on my pelvic bone, to make things worse.

That morning, we talked about a C-section as I was “failing to progress” and showing “uncoordinated labour” (that was an understatement).  The epidural (something I tried very hard to avoid, since I wanted a “natural” birth) was one of the last tools they had in their bag; it actually made things a lot better for the morning and afternoon of Dec 9th, 1994.   I still remember the name of the anaesthetist, Dr. Ross, and how much I loved her.  For those hours, I could relax and let my body do its work.  I could feel everything – even get up and go to the bathroom – but I couldn’t feel pain.  The nurses did a test with an icecube, where they would run it up my pregnant abdomen until I felt the cold.  Below the “epidural line” it felt like a toy wooden block, that became cold as it reached my chest.  Perfect.

Finally around 5 pm, I was fully dilated and ready to push.   Except that every time I did, the baby’s heart beat would slow right down to a dangerous 70 beats or less.  I couldn’t get on my hands and knees, I couldn’t squat, I couldn’t stand. All those positions put the baby in grave danger.  Finally, we found a position where I laboured on my left side, with my husband and the doula taking turns to hold my upper leg in the air.  And with every contraction, we had to monitor the hearbeat of the little person trying to get out.  My memory starts clouding around this point… I was pushing, things were tense.  Every push put baby in danger – he needed to come out, and it was too late for a C-section, since he was halfway through the birth canal.  Afraid for his little life, one of the medical staff said “Can you push – hard?”  I let ‘er rip, and felt like I was splitting my self in half (apparently this was pretty close to the truth, too).  At some point, the attending doctor reached in and slipped a loop of cord from around the baby’s neck, while I was asked to do “butterfly breaths” – keeping my body, and hopefully the baby’s, still, while he performed this procedure.  Another push, and out came a big, blue baby – too still to be good news.   Someone picked up a phone on the wall, and called “Code Blue” in my room.

My birth plan said “place baby on mother’s stomach”, but they whisked the round, blue doll over to a table that came in the room with a bunch of people from Children’s Hospital.  Now there were 13 people in the room. I counted. About 8 of them were huddled around the table where they had placed the baby.  Another three were tending to me, and then there was my husband, who was pacing around with this hands in his hair, and my mom, who excused herself to go for a walk. Nothing seemed real. Every second was a question mark.  Why were all these people here?  What was going on with my baby?  When could I hold him?  Why did mom leave the room?  I never asked myself if he was going to make it.  My brain didn’t want to go there.

I don’t know how long it took for the “infant resuscitation team” to do their work, nor could I see what they were doing.  Thinking about it, they were probably doing baby CPR, and giving little Daniel oxygen.  But in the end, another life entered the room, and not by the door.   In the end, I was ecstatic.  Not relieved, because I didn’t want to think about almost losing him.  Just ecstatic.  When he was finally placed into my arms, around 20 minutes later, it didn’t matter that it had all gone sideways.  He was my baby, and he was here.

Happy 18th birthday, Daniel!  I’m still so glad you are here!

Looking through the text, a major problem that I have noticed is that, in order to try and build in some distance and objectivity, and put an emphasis on procedure, the authors often strip out the people carrying out an activity.  In the social sciences, where people are the active ingredients in an experiment, this is just crazy.  Can you imagine describing a chemistry experiment without the chemicals?  I have had it with these kind of sentences: “lesson plans are then reviewed”, “stakeholders must be consulted”, “a needs analysis was carried out”.  Who do the authors think is running around doing all this activity?

The American Psychological Association has tried to steer academic writing back into clarity, but even in their own publication manual, they are fighting a losing battle.  While some brave soul has written the chapter on style with great clarity, the rest of the manual tumbles back into obfuscation and passivity.  I guess it was a committee project.

Here is my bold challenge to all academics, especially those in the social sciences and humanities: put the people back into your work.  The words “social” and “humanities” are there for a reason!  Use the first person, the second person, the third person – whatever it takes to make that wonderful little construction, subject, verb, object.

#5: I might offend my family

Ridiculous, isn’t it?  Any writer worth her salt wouldn’t lose sleep over what Mom might think about what she writes.  Some writers mine their families for material for their stories.  But if I can’t imagine my mother reading it and feeling proud, I find it hard to get started.   I should probably get therapy for this.

#4: The topic has been done to death

Sometimes I go to the local newsstand and look at the hundreds of magazines sitting on the shelves.  All those words!  All those topics!  And yet, which articles actually have something fresh to say?  I heard once that if you strip every plot down to its barest elements, there are only seven stories, with endless retellings.  What could I possibly add that is new?  It gives me writer’s block just thinking about it (and that’s a shame, because look at all the space online and pages on shelves that need to be filled).

#3 I have trouble finishing what I sta

Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t be worried about this one.  I finish what’s on my plate at most mealtimes.  I get all the way to work every morning when I head out the door.  But as a writer, I can delay the end of a project just by looking for that extra detail.  I can fall down some very deep rabbit holes looking for the right facts, the extra information, or the perfect piece of colour to add to a piece. Maybe I won’t know when to say “I’m finished”, and shut the computer down.  Maybe one of those rabbit holes will lead me way off topic and I’ll end up writing three completely unrelated drafts for other projects, none of which have an editor waiting for copy.

#2 I’d have to be my own boss

I tried being my own boss once, and I was a lousy one.  I was a miserable employee, too.  I’m not happy administering my own work – all those quotes, invoices, spreadsheets, projections and business plans made me a nervous wreck.  On behalf of other people, the paper end of the job is just something to get through on the way to the real work.  Doing it for myself, it felt like being faced with a sheer black obelisk that I had to climb with my bare hands.

#1 Writing might change who I am

Let me rephrase that.  Writing does change who I am!  I go from being busy to reflective.  I question my assumptions and see things in a new light.  If I were to write full-time, I’d have to get over my other fears and be open to both praise and criticism, a risk-taker, an original voice, a finisher, a delegator and a confident manager of my own destiny.  I’d have to take responsibility for my own success or failure.   I’d have to cut back my hours at my day job, and call myself a writer.

Actually, it sounds like something I need to do.

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Let’s be perfectly clear here.  I have drawn the line under my work as of my last post, and this one does not count for any self-evaluation except the one that I am doing right now, as I type.  And frankly, I would have titled the post “I suck”, except that I am trying to be a bit kind to myself.

I want to and need to get my blog self-evaluation asssignment done and handed in two days early, so I can head off to Portland (Portlandia!!) with a clear conscience and one less thing on my plate. Now it is 8:34 pm. I have an outline, and I have some notes.  I *don’t* have printer ink, which is hindering me, and think that I may need to hop in the car and drive to campus if I intend to get much done tonight.

Do I stay and soldier on through at home, keeping my 12-year-old silent company and letting the empty coke cans from last weekend attract the fruit-flies?  Or do I ship out for a more intense and studious atmosphere?

What really sucks is that I have 23 more months of self-discipline ahead.  I am NOT on a boat.  I am taking two classes that I borrowed lots of money for.

For what it’s worth, just writing my little hissy fit down seems to have stiffened my resolve. I think after this self-pep talk, I’ll be ok tonight.

My tendency in life is to go boldly and believe that, for the most part, the universe will take care of me.  It’s actually kind of ironic that I am a Scout leader, because “be prepared” is not a motto that comes naturally to me.  I’ll make lists and tick them off when I am doing something “important”, like travelling overseas, or completing a large project.  But for a little jaunt on a well-travelled trail, I just throw on the helmet, the sunscreen and the backpack, and go.

So when I got to my bike after a long afternoon on the computer at Royal Roads, and found that my tire was flat, 14k from home, I thought “oh crap – now what?”

I had turned my bike upside-down to examine the tire and see if there was any obvious nail or piece of glass, while I pondered whether to phone my always-prepared sweetheart and endure the lecture as he drove me home.  Just then, some fella on a bike cruised up to me and asked, “Do you have a patch kit?”

“Uh, no, of course I don’t” I laughed sheepishly, feeling particularly foolish in my flip-flops.  My mom always told me never to bike in flip flops and suddenly I felt 10 years old again.

“OK, well, I have one and I guess we can use that. Do you know how to change a bike tire?”

“Um…. kind of…. 25 years ago…” I felt ancient and stupid.

The cyclist, whose name was James, proceeded to take me step-by-step through the tire-fixing process.  We took the wheel off the bike, and he showed me how to take the tire and tube off the rims, how to find the puncture, how to find the offending object (a tiny thorn was all it took), how to scuff up the surface of the tube, apply the glue, wait for it to get tacky, stick on the patch, pump up the tube a bit, put it all back on the rim, pump the tire, and get it back on the bike.  He also noticed that my front fender was missing a screw to keep it in place, so he tied it securely with a twist tie.

All the while, he told me, quite gently I thought, that he liked to be prepared for any eventuality, that it’s important to be equipped both to ride and maintain a bike, and where to get good parts and service.  James is hard-core about his cycling.  It figures, because he is in the Environmental Education and Communication program.  His helmet says “One Less Car”. I couldn’t have asked for a better rescuer and teacher.

As we were fixing the bike, we came across a couple of things he can still use for his “kit”.  One is tweezers for getting small, poky things out of tires.  The other is, he says, twist ties.  But I’m going to do him one better and get an assortment of those “zap straps” that do up tight and have to be cut apart.  I’m going to get some for me… and some for him too, as my way of saying “Thank you, I’ll be more prepared next time.”

I’m sitting in one of the computer areas at the Royal Roads library, with business undergrads around me, working on a group project. It’s nice to have a big screen and a mouse in front of me, since I mostly use my laptop and touch screen. The facilities here are fantastic.

Today I biked for the first time out to to RRU , taking Craigflower Road from my home in Vic West, and switching to the Galloping Goose trail where the road meets the Old Island Highway. I’ve been here many times, both as an instructor in Continuing Studies here, and as a Scout leader. Every spring, Scouts have a “Klondike Derby” on the grounds, making full use of the forested trails of Hatley Park to run a challenge competition. Lots of rolling hills both on-campus and on the way here – if I make a habit of riding my bike, I’ll be in great shape, and it sure beats driving for beauty and de-stressing.

The first thing I did was head up to the Learning and Innovation Centre to get my student card. Alas, it doesn’t save any money at Habitat – you have to be staff to get a discount – but it will be great for borrowing books from the library, and perhaps for scoring cheap bus tickets, should this bike thing get to be a bit much. From there, a quick lunch at Habitat, surrounded by learners. Try the falafel wrap – it’s delicious and vegetarian!

Now I’m at the library, which is also the bookstore. Just go up to the front desk and let the librarian know which program you are in. Not only will the staff get you your books, they’ll also let you know which ones are in the stacks and which ones are on reserve. We discussed whether I should buy the APA, as the Writing Centre has those resources online and close at hand. I’ve left it for now, with the knowledge that I can always buy it later if it turns out that we really need it. If it’s available as an ebook, I’d like that even better.

I feel very privileged to be here well ahead of our residency period – doing my undergrad, I always found that I studied better where other people were engaged in the same activity. It also means one less thing to find overwhelming when the residency period begins.

I’ve taken a picture of the study group, but it’s not loading onto Google Plus…. yet. I love technology, except for when it doesn’t work!

Here’s the quick version of what we are supposed to do between now and July 20th:

Read our assigned texts introducing various philosophies/theories of learning, and from this, write 900-1000 words describing the following: