Voices in My Head

Exploring new ways of working - just like Dad

Big excitement today when the reading list for the fall semester hit my inbox. (If you missed the news - I was accepted into the General Liberal Studies MA program at SFU!!) Suddenly, everything got very real. The semester is short and the list is LONG!! And, my brain is not that of the spring chicken I once was - I read more slowly and retain less on the first pass. Solution? Hunt down as many titles as possible - ASAP! And get reading!

As I was downloading digital editions and placing library holds and finding audiobook versions of various titles (SCRIBD rocks!!!!!!) and placing online orders for the rest (some new, some used) I was struck by how very different this return to school is to my last go-round. Back in the day, the only option was the campus bookstore - or, possibly, a freak encounter with a buyer who had posted a scribbled message on the bulletin board offering up a battered and heavily highlighted copy of something I was trying to get my hands on. Second-hand copies of critical textbooks, even with all the question marks and notations in margins, were usually ok as long as the edition hadn’t changed from the previous semester.

That’s how I found myself strolling along the riverbank this evening (oh, what a glorious evening - pleasantly warm, no smoke, the river running high but not too high) listening to the first book on the list, Abelard and Heloise: The Letters and Other Writings (translated by William Levitan). As I sauntered along, listening to the tortured tale, I thought of my father and how I had often told him how envious I was that he was able to draw and paint while listening to audiobooks. Writing, alas, uses too many overlapping synapses to attempt such a feat and so for years, whenever I’d pass his closed studio door and hear the storyteller’s voice reading to him while he worked, I’d feel more than a little jealous.

I am training myself to always go out with a sketchbook and drawing implement tucked into my backpack and today was no exception. I decided to see what would happen if I sat on a bench (more or less facing the view captured in the photo above) and drew as I listened.

With no particular plan, I scribbled along to the words, capturing some snippet (no doubt misquoted - this is NOT an academic paper) of text alongside the drawings. Above is Abelard, feeling sorry for himself. Not unreasonably - he had just had his delicate bits lopped off and been banished after knocking up the local lovely, Heloise.

Suspicion - one of those words I usually misspell. Eunoch - a word I don’t think I’ve ever written before…

Abelard’s wife is somewhere among this group of nuns.

I had taken a moment to stop and try to sketch the outline of Ha Ling (one of my favourite mountains) when the narrator read the line, The worst of things is a woman who is rich. Of course - dreadful situation - why would she need a man if she had scads of cash??

That line (along with various others spouted by Abelard, the eunuch) irritated me no end, so when he once again found himself in yet more trouble I took perverse pleasure in drawing this next one…

The history of his calamities goes on and on and on… Until, thankfully, we get a chance to hear from Heloise (lover, wife, whore, concubine - her words, not mine). By this time, though, I was up and moving again, strolling along Main Street on my way to pick up some milk on the way home. Though I’ve barely had a chance to get to know Heloise, I can tell I’m going to like her. Maybe tomorrow I’ll take her on a walk and see what comes out of my pen…

I’m a tad horrified to realize that the only title on the list that I’ve read is Frankenstein. Then again, I suppose that’s why one goes to school, to learn something new. [In my defence, my undergrad degree was a BSc - so I had to read a lot of biochem, physics, and neuropsychology texts… Though, that was decades ago and I suppose I could have found time to make the acquaintance of Heloise and Abelard and some of the other characters on the list before now…]

This evening I learned that I was right to be envious of Dad listening to all those books while he painted. Maybe that’s why my interest is turning towards visual expression - so I can catch up on my reading…