March 15, 2010

Readers, friends and family have asked, “what was it like?” What did it feel like to be there during the Olympics?

Already it feels like a bright banner waving in the distance.

Memories are such elusive things. They deserve a Rowlingesque magical device, some kind of kaleidoscope that you can shift to represent all the versions of one single memory as it is refracted and rearranged by time, perspective, narrator, emotion, our senses.

I remember the feeling on the city during the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. Mine was a child’s perspective, a street level sense of camaraderie. The boundaries between people, between Anglo and Francophone, between street and front steps dissolved for a while. There were languages everywhere. All of Montreal felt like it was on holiday. The hum throughout the city when Nadia Comanici won her gold medals was indelible. She was everyone’s favourite sister.

What will my daughter remember of Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Olympics? The Canadian flags that festooned cheeks, cars, homes and restaurants, high rises and hoodies? The edge-of-panic feeling of moving inexorably through a cowbell-clanking maple leaf-sporting crowd to enter Canada Hockey House for a game? Will it be the Olympic theme song? The ads? Her mother’s ready tears and Olympic enthusiasms? A slow-motion moment as a stadium held its breath and a puck traced its arc across the ice and into a net? Clapping in a pair of red mittens?

In the face of traffic limitations, parking restrictions, school closures, and seemingly random officiousness, many families chose to leave Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Games. Two weeks off school seemed an ideal opportunity to let the Olympics unfold in all their inconvenient glory while enjoying a quiet family holiday in Hawaii.

We stayed. Not even remotely a sporty girl, I am nevertheless a sucker for stories and spectacle of the Olympics. My husband wisely pointed out that despite stratospheric ticket pricing, the Olympics don’t come ‘round often. There would be public events, accessible opportunities, once in a lifetime experiences.

It is an interesting feeling, as a mother, to willingly choose to expose your kids to rowdy crowds and revelry, to situations you know are going to be chaotic, to hold hands and plunge anyway into exuberant masses of strangers and long lineups. I had moments when I had to fight my protective instincts to stay home, safe in front of the TV coverage where there was no need for security, where the view would be good, bathrooms available, and the food dependable.

One night we gathered the Auntie and the teenagers and intentionally walked the length of downtown. Yaletown felt like the French Quarter in New Orleans without the stench and debauchery. Jazz spilled out of open patios bars overflowed onto the sidewalk, there were hawkers and revelers, people walking, dancing, lined up, high-fiveing each other, wandering aimlessly.

Granville Street was rowdy, a little more hockey-boisterous, the beer flowing freely and redneckery on display. Our teenagers watched, snapped pictures, tourists in their own town. They too were festooned, red-mittened and Canada-scarved, part of the Olympic kaleidoscope.

Robson Square’s nightly lightshow was far less exciting than the press and flux of the crowds. Babies, strollers, languages and flags, young old, Japanese, Russian, Dutch, costumes, cowboy hats, Canada everything. For a while, we quite literally could not move for the throng. Our little party linked hands hard and pressed through. I swallowed a moment of panic; the girls seemed much smaller inside this mass of bodies. They could so easily be separated from us. Determined, and borne along on the tide of people surrounding us, we carried on.

The evening got later, the partying downtown progressed. As we wound our way homeward the thuggery and stupidity that exists whenever competition and alcohol meet was beginning to surface. The officers on each corner were authoritative, calm, seemed entirely capable of managing to contain any small skirmishes. Vancouver’s was the biggest Olympic party ever, and almost entirely without ugliness.

So, what did it feel like to be in Vancouver? Like hands linked, like everybody’s palms were etched with maple leafs, like holding your breath and jumping in. Vancouver felt exuberant. Larger than life. Olympic. The flames lit our water and mountains and the spirits of our communities.

I am so grateful for our family’s Olympic experience and though I know I cannot control what memories stay, what lessons – like Alexandre Bilodeau’s humility, like Joannie Rochette’s courage, like Maelle Ricker’s sportsmanship – will sink in among all the memories, there is one which I hope will be imprinted on the consciousness of not only my child, but on a new generation of Canadians: the proud waving of an unabashed flag.

~ What is your version, your storiy & how do you choose to foster memories for your family? ~

Labels/Tags: EarnestGirl, The West Coast Chronicles, Motherhood, Vancouver 2010 Winter Games, Olympics, memories

Posted by CatherineJ at 16:05:28 View Comments | Click Here to Comment

March 05, 2010

I’ve come across a few pearls. One is strung on a fine strand of others like it, one is loose, hastily snatched up and offered to you haphazardly, the third, a beauty to tuck in your emotional jewellery box.

Unlike many bloggers who can render almost daily gems, I fuss over posts, turning them this way and that, editing and fretting until I am absolutely certain I can hit publish and not look back. I’ve found these pearls in the last week, and I offer them to you here as a bookmark (if you will forgive the lumpy mixed metaphor). They are to hold this place for you until I am ready to show you the other thing.

This may turn into the first in a series of occasional Pearl posts. Let me know if you like them.

Here is the first, from Michael Chabon’s gorgeous book called Manhood For Amateurs. The stories in this collection are like baroque pearls, all are linked more or less by the stand of fatherhood but each is different, some rough some smooth, some so beautiful you can’t help but run your fingers over them again and again. This is one such passage:

“Every day is like a kid's drawing, offered to you with a strange mixture of ceremoniousness and offhand disregard, yours for the keeping. Some days are rich and complicated, others inscrutable, others little more than a stray gray mark on a ragged page."

This one is a refrain from the end of the movie Crazy Heart – sung by Robert Duvall’s character in the bow of a rowboat at the end of the movie, lilting almost off key, prefect. I scrawled it on an envelope in the dark & maybe misplaced a word here or there but it went something like this and I loved it:

“Mothers and fathers try to raise them right
don’t make them feel forsaken
just lead them toward the light.”

And this last one is a beautiful, resonant post, by Mom-O-Matic. It was brought to my attention by my friend the lovely, talented, & blog-generous Sharon DeVellis (yes, she of The Inside Scoop) Just go. Read. You’ll understand why.

The Wisdom Of My 38.5 Years or Maybe Just Rambling

 

Labels/Tags: EarnestGirl, West Coast Chronicles, Small Pearls, motherhood, pearls of wisdom, Crazy Heart, The Inside Scoop, Mom-O-Matic

Posted by CatherineJ at 03:17:50 View Comments | Click Here to Comment

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