A Saturday Afternoon with Emily

At the risk of embarrassing my almost-14 year old granddaughter, Emily, I would like to recount some anecdotes from our get together on Saturday. There had been an attempt at a meeting the previous weekend but Emily had seriously overslept and, as we say, “tempus fugit”: the best before time had elapsed. And so a second plan: for the next Saturday’s meeting Emily would set an alarm on her cell phone to ensure availability. It worked; she arose at 9, but alas, having stayed up until 3 watching TV with her brother, was too tired to attempt anything more taxing than a mope around the house. OK. I understood, having indulged myself in a similar fashion when younger, and, certainly knowing the feeling of just being too pooped to participate. But maybe later? I called her about 3:30: wha’s happenin’? She’s feeling alive and ready to roll. “Do you have 75 cents for a bus ticket to get over here?” I query. “I can get it somewhere,” she responds. This is a yes. Alright! We will meet at the Christie subway station, visit the Vietnamese fruit market for produce, and walk back here. She has to wait until she receives a text from her dad but that ought to come soon and she will let me know when she is leaving. I get the text soon after: I am leaving now.

Then I have a flash: we could still make it in time for the late afternoon showing of the film we had intended to see earlier. But – time is of the essence.  I text her: meet me instead at the St George subway stop. I walk over there and wait for about ten minutes, then realize that in the meantime she has texted me that she has decided to dry her hair a bit more before leaving. NO, I texted immediately, leave now and meet me at the Bay St subway station. I hot-foot it over to Bay and Charles to order hamburgers at an incomparable joint called SlabBurger (go figure!). I do so and tell the lad that I’ll be back in a few minutes. Passing the Manulife building around the corner, I nip in and purchase our tickets to the movie on a machine on the ground floor. I hasten outside and up the block to find Emily waiting outside the subway station. Hooray! All of the texting worked. Modern communication: it made me feel that I was getting hip to the ways of the young.

We picked up our hamburgers and a drink for E and headed into the movie, arriving in time to see a few trailers for up-coming shows but mercifully missing the pre-show advertising for cars and bank accounts. (When theatres began placing ads before films, my friend Martha and I would loudly boo and hiss at this intrusion, unfortunately to no avail.) The theatre was fairly crowded as it was the second day for a much advertised feature called in Canada “The F Word,” F being understood to stand for friendship. For release in the USA the producers were obliged to change the title to something less inclined to provoke commentary. In Canada we seem to be less touchy about such things. (?) I picked this film because it starred Daniel Radcliffe, the lad who grew up playing the role of Harry Potter. I figured that Emily would find it interesting to see him in a more grown-up movie even as she herself is showing all of the physical and mental signs of leaving childhood. It was light, funny and delightful in parts, silly in parts, overall not at all bad. “Cool,” was Em’s sole comment.

She herself was looking cool, beautiful, in fact, in her band-merchandise T-shirt, cut down at home to feature her lovely arms and shoulders, and her hair swept over her forehead with a hint of purple streaking, held in place by her ubiquitous winter hat, a clear fashion statement all her own. We walked around Chapters/Indigo looking for a book called The One, actually the third book of a trilogy by a lady named Cass. We located it in the Teens section and purchased it as an advance birthday gift – her birthday is about three weeks away. “Cool,” was once again her comment. This and her grin showed that she was happy. Emma (there are various versions of Emily’s name) told me that her current main interests are books and band merchandise, and, as both are costly, she wants in a year or so to land a part-time job. Very sensible.  She chatted a bit about starting school on Tuesday; their board begins a week early and gives everyone a week off in November to break up the semester; school grades have gone up since they inaugurated this stress-reducing measure. Recently Emily made two friends by spontaneously commenting on her liking of the band shirt one was wearing. They all acknowledged loving one another’s hair and clothes and generally were pleased with one another. She sees this as a good way to meet people and make friends when she begins at her new school. I couldn’t agree more.

One other school-related comment: “If I get good grades this year my mom said that I could get a face piercing; probably it will be the standard side of the nose ring, not one under the nose for sure.” How the times do constantly change. My kids simply went out and did face piercing once they reached an age to afford it. I didn’t like it but had no actual control over it, something my own mother was hard pressed to understand: “You are their mother! Tell them to get rid of those horrible things!” I could tell them that if I wished but it would have no effect whatsoever. I had no control over their bodies and we all knew it.  When I was a teen, the prevailing societal wisdom held that only cheap girls had pierced ears! (What would mothers of that era made of the piercings and tattoos of today’s youth? Disbelieve I imagine.)

But, back to Emily: when after desert I was driving her back to her dad’s place, I mentioned a memory that had come to me the day before as I walked by the former location of the day care that her bro, Theo had attended 15 years ago. I went in to pick him up. Not able to walk yet he was sitting at a small table in a tiny chair having a snack. When I entered the room he turned his head and smiled upon me in the sweetest way imaginable. Emma was quiet for a few moments and then said, “Yes, I can see that sweet smile of his right now.” They are teens and they squabble but deep down their love for each other is unshakable. And that’s how I feel about them.

Some Thoughts on Addiction

Since I inherited a few of Elizabeth’s clients, my practice has been considerably more focussed on addiction. I can’t help but notice how much love plays a part the addict’s prognosis. Of course, this holds true for all of us: being loved and being able to feel, accept, and return that love is likely the core component in anyone having a productive and happy life. Looking deeply at and working with the distinct pieces of this equation then is an essential part of any therapeutic process. An initial “contract” with one’s counsellor involves a particular kind of love: I, the counsellor, will hold you within a space of non-judgemental acceptance and of encouragement of your strengths and your efforts. In a sense being in loco parentis for the “adult child” who seeks help, one must be kind but also firm, not shying away from difficult questions about using nor accepting the sloppy excuses anyone accustomed to self-abusive behaviour will proffer in order to side-step responsibility. This is not an easy relationship for anyone afflicted with the scourge of addition to maintain. It can only be attempted at the point when he or she has gained some knowledge of him/herself and some repulsion for the dire realities of a life progressively centred on the addictive substance.

That substance has over time become the source of “love,” in the sense that it is the place of comfort and solace, the reliable friend that eases pain, tension, anxiety, and the seemingly irresolvable conundrums of life. But, of course, that friend, that lover, gives with one hand and takes even more with the other, exacerbating one’s troubles even as it seems temporarily to solve them. Coming to the counsellor the struggler attempts to reach out with one hand for a different connection while the other is still quite firmly held by the addictive substance. And so the dance of therapy begins.

Many questions need to be answered to fill in the background of the current situation: preferred substance(s)?; beginning of use?; current usage?; source of substance?; source of income for substance?; triggers and cravings?; familial relationships?; work history?; general health?; mental health diagnoses, treatments, and/or medications?. These and other threads of the story emerge over time in regularly held meetings that establish a rapport and connection within the therapeutic dyad. This engagement can form a bridge enabling the client to consider the possibility of life without the crutch of his or her addictive substance. Like all therapy, it is in its essence, relational. Its success or even relative success depends not only on the willingness and capacities of the client to make difficult changes but also on the therapist’s ability to be engaged with another in an authentic fashion. If we come to our work cloaked within a “professional” aura, rather than as another human who lives and struggles with the realities of her life such as they are, no sense of “us” working together can be imparted to the client. Rather he or she can never overcome a sense of inequality in our relationship, or for that matter, the inherent shame about addiction that consciously or unconsciously is suffered. These two conditions alone constitute insuperable obstacles to the client’s progress, replicating as they do so many earlier unhappy and discouraging involvements.

Being with another in an open and encouraging fashion will most often lead the therapist to genuine feelings of caring for the client. When it doesn’t, the work is unlikely to be successful or prosper. Neither party will find the meetings satisfying and the relationship will in some fashion be terminated. So, starting from an assumption that the therapist is able to develop this form of “love” toward her client, what are the difficulties to be overcome in the process of their work together? In essence I believe them to be those to which I alluded at the beginning of this post: whether the client, the one who is bringing his or her self to the therapeutic endeavour, is able to feel, accept, and return the love of others. This is no simple matter. Standing in the way of the human experience of love can be a host of factors. Early childhood trauma, abuse, rejection, or betrayal can immunize a person from any belief that he or she is loveable, or, that there exist people who are capable of unself-motivated caring. As well, serious mental health issues that confuse one’s thought processes and emotions are enormous obstacles to love. Also, the impact on one’s entire physiological being by the protracted use of alcohol or chemicals cannot be discounted as a powerful inhibitor of the flow of healthy emotions.

I don’t mean to imply that the relationship with the therapist (or the AA sponsor in many cases) is in itself sufficiently stable ground for someone struggling to free themselves from addiction. But along with other pieces of this complex situation, over time it can provide a major assist. The work in which therapist and client are engaged encompasses many areas of concern because the whole person is involved. It spans all the various elements of being human: physical and mental health; work and leisure; friendships, family, and/or lovers; the past and its ramifications, dealing with the ever-constant present, and what of the future? Those who have the consistent backing of others who care about them and who have pursuits or interests that are important to them are the most likely to persevere in their quest for a life free of addiction, not a life free of the temptation to use which rarely happens, but a life in which choices are more properly their own.

A Day Illuminated by the Globe Focus Section

I had a great day on Saturday, filled with events of no particular import, but satisfying in each detail. After breakfast Mark and I drove out to the Leslie St Spit; for you non-Torontonians, the spit is a peninsula of land jutting out from the eastern Toronto waterfront created by the dumping of excavated materials and soils from sites in Toronto over the past decades. Over time nature has claimed the area, filling it with flora of all descriptions as well as the distinct fauna that follow along. It has been given definition by the judicious arrangement of pebble-stone trails as well as a central asphalt road for bicyclists. We walked for about an hour and a half along the lovely side trails lined with common summer road flowers and “weeds.” A mature bunny leapt out of one path and darted quickly into the undergrowth. We had spectacular views of the lake. Neither of us had visited this storied site and we found it wondrous.

Next, a visit to the Loblaw’s on the Queen’s Quay. Loblaw’s have upgraded their stores in the past couple of years and they really are a delight to the eyes and to the palate. We picked up several staple items as well as some salmon and veggies for our supper. Back at home we got ourselves organized for lunch on the deck with the Saturday papers – the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star. Some fluff but lots of content as well – but more about that later.

In the early afternoon we walked along Bloor St to our local documentary theatre, the Bloor Hot Docs, to see a recommended film (by the Globe and the Toronto Now), called The Dog. The Dog was a nick-name assumed by John Wojtowicz after his six year term in prison for a 1972 failed bank robbery in Brooklyn, undertaken to pay for the sex change longed for by his male lover, Ernie. While Wojtowicz was imprisoned, the story of the robbery was made into the feature A Dog Day Afternoon, starring Al Pacino. I remembered the film very well; it was one of Pacino’s earliest and best films, but I had not known the origin of its story line. The Dog laid out the events through interviews with Wojtowicz (who died of cancer in 2006), his mother, Terry (who was an interesting Brooklyn/Italian character in her own right), his wife Carmen, the lover, Ernie (who was enabled to have his/her sex change through moneys received through Wojtowicz agreement with the producers of the feature film), another, post-prison lover, as well as with witnesses, police, and a reporter who had had direct telephone access with Wojtowicz and his accomplice Sal, during the robbery and the subsequent hostage period. Post prison Wojtowicz, always a flamboyant person, seemed to inhabit the persona created through the feature film chronicling his odyssey toward incarceration. He enjoyed and profited from the notoriety that the exposure had brought to his experiences. An interesting element that stands behind the story itself: one can clearly see the gulf between the manner in which gay and transgendered people were viewed and treated four decades ago in contrast to where they stand now within our somewhat more inclusive society. Ernie, Wojtowicz’ lover, who had attempted suicide in his desperation for a sex change, was placed in a mental hospital with no foreseeable opportunity for release, not because he was suicidal, but as one official delicately put it, “because he wants to cut off his dick.”

And so out onto the street, a walk along post-raining Bloor St, the air lovely and soft, people bustling along in all their many varieties; I love it all. Home for an afternoon nap, more newspaper perusal, followed by dinner put together by the expert endeavours of my in-home chef. The cap on this very enjoyable day, was the win by the Blue Jays over the Chicago White Socks, snapping an unfortunate seven-game losing streak.

And now to Sunday morning and to the Focus section of the Globe, a piece that I have always reserved for Sunday AM reading. I suspect that I do so as the Focus is chock-a-block with items of true significance, well-written pieces about issues that provoke thought and internal comment. Yesterday’s was consistent with this pattern. I will point out just three of the several articles that I read closely as they are of particular interest to me. The first is a long essay by novelist Michael Crummey about a relatively new divide in his home province of Newfoundland, now oil wealthy and with money-engendered sophistication, a hit spot for worldly tourists. The benefits of this transformation of Newfoundland from a “have not” to a “have” province have not trickled down to the out-port communities that dot its circumference, however. Crummey envisions the loss of much of the essence of Newfoundland life as lived by its fishing villages over the next decades. Few of these will be able to weather the imperative of relocation to areas where roads allow the transportation of the necessities of life, in other words, to the interior. The provincial government while not requiring communities or individuals to relocate, is offering sweet incentives to do so.

A second long essay by Nathan VanderKlippe outlines the increasing pressures upon the Uighur (pronounced We-gurr) people in the north-western province of Xinjaing in China. As in Tibet, the Chinese government has sponsored the colonization of this area by Han Chinese, giving them preference in locations, jobs, and in positions of governance and policing. The Uighurs, resident for centuries in this section of the fabled Silk Road, are Islamic in religion and have their own language and customs. Governments may trumpet multi-culturalism in festivals, but the truth remains that the organization and control of a diverse population is considerably more difficult than of one that is homogeneous in language, values, and religion. We have only to look at the responses of our own government over the past two centuries to the differences between the Metis’ way of life and its project of settlement by Europeans. The government’s inability or unwillingness to grasp and to respect the human condition of the Metis (as well as that of our native indigenous peoples), and to work in good faith with all concerned for compromises that would allow for a “commonweal,” a system of governance that would nurture the purposed development of each component group. Our Canadian experience continues into the present, littered with tragedies that stem directly from “rational” decisions made from Ottawa to “deal with” those pesky groups that don’t fit into the easy norm.

In China the government does not exactly forbid religion. Rather, it denies an expression of religion that in any fashion might cause public disturbance. This approach disallows the wearing of veils except for a marriage ceremony, and the growth of any kind of beard. Traditional practices like these are viewed not as ethnic or cultural symbols but as politically provoking activities, punishable by imprisonment with beatings, sometimes with absolute disappearance. Religious instruction to children under 18 is forbidden and education, euphemistically entitled “bilingual,” is in reality conducted in the Chinese language. The squeezing of the Uighur people over the past few decades has led, as in Tibet, to progressive radicalization. Protest of any nature is used to substantiate the government’s proclaimed “war on terror,” a war prosecuted with incredible violence.

In 2005 Mark and I travelled by train across Kazakhstan and into China, traversing Xinjiang. We disembarked in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital and were taken by van to Turfan, an ancient town in the desert, a few hundred feet below sea level. There we spent a couple of days at the Grand Turfan Hotel, not terribly grand in fact, but our opening into Uighur culture. We dined in restaurants owned and operated by Uighurs; these were entirely family-run operations – the cooking, the serving, the taking of money. Young children played about our feet; one young maiden of about eight years was persuaded by her mother to do a traditional dance for us, their only patrons. One evening I went by taxi with another women from our tour to the main square. We had no Uighur and our driver certainly had no English. We communicated entirely by gestures; we all laughed a great deal at the silliness of our efforts, but we did get there. Families were enjoying the evening air; there were toy machines available for the children; an open air film was playing. A student from Urumqi came up to speak with us. He was studying English and Russian and planned to work as an interpreter. He dreamed of plying his trade In Germany and marrying a German girl. He said that my companion look German (some flirtation there) and that I looked like a Russian ballet teacher. He was funny and very cute. Other young people approached us and despite the language barriers, we had some lively exchanges with them. All of us on the tour enjoyed the friendliness and hospitality of the Uighur people whom we met. I am saddened to realize how their condition has deteriorated since our visit.

The third article which caught my attention this morning is about psychopathy, a topic which has been of interest to me for decades. As this post is already very long, however, I will write about that piece at a later date. You can hardly wait. One last word: Alas, the Jays lost again on Sunday.

Books, Life, and the Unexpected

I had lunch yesterday with my buddy ever since our earliest days together at 32 Admiral Rd, Martha Chase Jackson Pagel. We had a great time jawing about our kids, my grandkids, and Martha’s expected grandchild (due in October to her older daughter, the lovely Christina.) Speaking of books we are currently reading, Martha waxed eloquent on the virtues of e-books. I doubt that I will ever be able to make that leap. I did buy an e-book device a few years ago but returned it within a few days. I realized that though the selection of books available for purchase through this medium is vast, that it was not satisfying to me. I don’t tend to read the latest titles that come out. Usually I will come across an author or a book in a serendipitous manner, from an article in the paper, or more usually, from browsing the offerings at a garage sale or in the bins out in front of local book emporiums.

For years I have purchased books inexpensively through the on-line used book site abe.com. Often the price is just $1 US plus postage; many of the contributing stores are in the USA so I have been able to further reduce my over-all cost by routing them to the home of my long-suffering brother-in-law, Terry Hall, in Portage, Michigan. He stacks them in a corner until our next visit, when I open my packages with all the glee and happiness of a Christmas morning.

It’s not just the text that attracts and satisfies me. I like the feel and the heft of the book, its overall shape and even its smell – excluding, of course, those that have spent too many years in someone’s garage or basement. Many, especially books related to history or biography, have photographs and maps to which one can easily refer throughout one’s reading to put the people or the places into sharper focus.

Last Friday on our lengthy and circuitous drive to Ottawa we passed through the lovely town of Tweed, north and slightly east of Belleville. On its main street the yard and sidewalks of an older house, now a designated heritage centre, was covered with shelves and boxes of used books. How could we fail to stop and peruse such bounty? We came away with roughly ten selections – several classic “therapy” books that I pick up and keep to give to appropriate clients, and, a set of five Time-Life books published in the 1970s in a series called The Old West. Each is filled not just with information about the western territories before and during the age of expansion by European settlers, but just as importantly, with maps, photographs, paintings, and the stories of explorers, pioneers, and the aboriginal peoples with whom they alternately collaborated, fought, and subdued. These materials flesh out with great immediacy the books Mark and I have read in the last year or so about the settling of the American west and more recently about Louis Riel and his “general,” Gabriel Dumont.

I was thinking this morning about a conversation I had with my granddaughter Emily as we drove her down to her dad’s place in Toronto on Monday night. Emily will be 14 next month. She is having many of the kinds of exciting, perplexing, and painfully difficult experiences of adolescence that we have all been through, albeit within the strictures and possibilities of our own particular era. Apropos of nothing particular I said to her that when you live as long as I have you have actually experienced many different lives. She wanted to know what I meant by that so I tried to explain that it seemed to me that I have many times lived in different places or circumstances each of which seemed to me just to be my life, without reflecting that the life that I was living could at some point be materially changed or even finished. There was my life as a kid with my family; my year and a half as a nursing student; my four years as a religious sister; my undergraduate and teaching experiences; working for three years in the recreation department at Sick Children’s Hospital; my 17 years as a part of the Therafields community; my 14 years with her grandfather, Maurice, as his girl friend and then wife, and the mother of our children; my years as a graduate student, teaching at Ryerson and at York U, and consultant work; establishing my psychotherapy practice and becoming registered as a psychologist; being with Mark these past 22 years; having grandchildren and growing up along with them, and etc.

I don’t think I went into as much detail as I’ve just outlined above, but I was trying to say something to her about the fact that life (and everything else) changes all of the time and often in ways that you really can’t foresee or imagine. Looking back we can trace the elements of our passage through time and its connecting threads, but rarely can we see ahead with anything like that kind of clarity. To me it seems of a piece with the collecting of books: you just don’t know what interesting pieces or people you might run across or in what unexpected directions they might take you.

On the Importance of Having a Balcony

It’s early morning and I’m sitting on a balcony overlooking a small courtyard at the back of the Byward Blue Inn in downtown Ottawa. Mark and I have come here to our nation’s capital to visit for the weekend with our niece Tracey, her fellow, Andre, and their two irrepressible boys, Thierry, age 7 and Etienne, age 5. We were welcome to bunk in with them at their house in a subdivision in the far western extremes of Ottawa, places that were, I presume, still farmers’ fields when I last lived in Ottawa. But, being of advanced years and able to recognize and articulate what would work best for a pleasant and leisurely visit, we chose to find our own digs at the centre of the metropolis, right in the heart of the storied Byward Market. What a great place! This area has the panache of Toronto’s St Lawrence market but is spread over several city blocks in century-old buildings and in the streets themselves. It is considerably upscale from our Kensington market (and in the main, more expensive); you can get almost any desired delicacy in these shops, and browsing about one is easily drawn into desiring many of them. We had fun there in the late afternoon gathering food to take to Tracey’s place for a barbeque.

But to get back to my balcony: I’ve recently been viscerally impressed with importance of a balcony for anyone like myself who lacks a garden. And not just any balcony. It must be one which overlooks a setting of natural beauty, capable of nurturing the citified beasts that most of us have become. In Puerto Vallarta our balcony opens us up to the ocean, the palm trees of the malecon below, and to the vision of the birds that soar overhead in the breezes coming from both the ocean itself and from the mountains behind. Our deck off the kitchen on Major St looks into the forest of trees and gardens that fill the expanse of yards between Major and Brunswick. In the early morning with even some traffic hum from nearby Bloor St, the sense of tranquillity in this spot is deeply nurturing. As in Puerto Vallarta I enjoy breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, and sometimes supper taking in its beauties, listening to the birds and watching the athleticism of our resident squirrels. Just being there gives a meditative quality, a depth, to one’s experience. I recognize that wherever Mark and I decide to live after we leave our rented apartment on Major, an essential feature will be a balcony that opens out onto nature.

Bette Davis is reported (possibly) to have uttered the famous phrase, “Old age is not for sissies.” Alright, there are attendant difficulties: the periodic or chronic aches and pains, the death of loved ones, losing one’s nouns (where DID I put them?). But there are wonderful things as well. I find myself able to enjoy simple things that I might have simply run past without notice in earlier years, too busy, too taken by various pursuits to savour. Even in what I think of as the young elderly years, those around and for some time after turning 65, in which one’s energy and pursuits don’t differ greatly from pre-senior existence, I continued a quite full-time therapy practice with three on-going groups, spent weekends at our cottage in Orillia, often with Theoren and Emily in tow, and, indulged in the buying and selling of antiques and other curiosities obtained at the local Dubeau’s auction house. So much fun!

Now in what I call the middle years of my seniority, I haven’t the energy, the opportunity, or my previously consuming interest for these activities. I have a small practice now – 6-12 sessions a week – and I enjoy it very much; my group work ended a few years back. The grandchildren are now teenagers; mommy no longer needs them to be cared for on the weekends that she is working, and, they are more focussed on being with their own buddies than with hanging out with the old folks – though we still have fun when we get together. Billie has moved westward with her mom, so she isn’t available to us as she once was. I gave up my buying and selling several years ago. So much energy needed especially for the organizing and selling part. The buying was always fun!

Spending a few hours with Tracey and the boys and then a few minutes with Andre after he returned from playing soccer, reminded me of the vast gulf in responsibilities and energies needed to manage daily between their generation and ours. Tracey had just finished a week’s work in a demanding and stressful federal agency. She picked up the boys from their day camp; still full of beans, they were romping about the house when we arrived. Andre plays soccer twice a week in the evenings as does Tracey. One of them feeds and corralls the lads into their showers and beds. Tracey was clearly pooped. We had supper together in the family room. I had one eye on the Blue Jays vs Detroit ball game on the large TV at the end of the room and the other on the antics of the boys, who are nonetheless responsive to Tracey’s definitively authoritative gaze. Etienne is a natural clown, an imp with a grand repertoire of faces and moods with which to cajole attention. He is very funny. Thierry, the big brother holds his own. Once they were in bed we sat about chatting briefly but then returned to our own place to let Tracey and Andre who had just returned, settle into their own end of the busy week relax. Work, sports, and kids: a full agenda to be sure.

I know from watching my parents’ experiences that in the later stages of real old age, that one’s world narrows as ones limitations increase. I will depend more in some ways on the care and judgement of my kids and maybe even of my grandchildren. But all of that is ahead. Right now I feel fortunate to be in what I think of as the golden years of my golden years. I am freer than I have ever been to make decisions about what I want to do and where I want to be than I have ever been. The brain still works; the body still works; I have a profession that I find satisfying but which does not absorb all of my time and energy; I am fairly financially independent; there are people whom I love and who love me too; I have a very fine husband/companion with whom to travel and who is always ready to try something new. So I consider myself to be a wonderfully fortunate person, one fully able to appreciate the joys of being in possession of a balcony.

Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and Us

Yesterday I went to the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema to see a documentary about Anita Hill. It focussed especially on her testimony given to a committee of the US senate responsible for the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court in 1991. Because Anita had held two positions working closely with Thomas, one as his assistant, a job which she had resigned seven years earlier, and later, as a colleague working on issues of equality, she was asked to appear before the committee as a witness to his worthiness as a Supreme Court candidate. Before receiving this invitation, Anita was aware of the likelihood that she would be called. Knowing the importance of the position that he would hold, she believed it her duty to speak of the sexual harassment that she had endured while Thomas’ assistant. Though she had spoken in private to colleagues at the time, Anita had not gone public about her experiences. In the mid-1980s cases of sexual harassment were not taken seriously; judges in general would not hear them; and, complainants were often tarnished and vilified. Anita saw that her only option was to resign. Later she accepted a position with Thomas, not as his assistant but working along with him and a larger team. In that role she was not subject to the former abuse.

Her testimony was given over one seven-hour day in a court room filled with spectators and media, before a panel of about twenty republican and democratic senators – all white and all male. She sat alone before them at a large table, without notes and without the usual legal counsel that accompanies witnesses at hearings of this kind. Her testimony was clear, intelligent, and patently true. The discomfort of the men before whom she spoke was palpable. She came forward not with an accusation but with a description of the actual experiences that she had endured while Thomas’s assistant. Taking turns the panellists asked her detailed questions in various forms about her experiences and about her motivations for testifying. Her poise and clarity of expression were wonderful. She spoke of things never before approached in a senate hearing: his references to women with large breasts cavorting sexually with one another in porno films that he watched; his graphic descriptions of the size of his penis and of his sexual virility; his throw-away remarks like, “Who put these pubic hairs on my coke can?”, and, his invitation for her to see him “socially.”

The hearing became a far from subtle case focussed, not on the candidate himself, but on the character and veracity of the witness called to speak about him. Her motives were questioned: was she a woman scorned? Did she seek some preferment or notoriety through her testimony? Why did she not come forward publically seven years earlier when the experiences she was describing were happening? Her examiners did not or would not understand the climate within which women worked in that era. Had she spoken to others at the time? Four witnesses came forward, all lawyers or judges, friends and colleagues of hers during the period under examination. All recalled the concern with which she had spoken with them about Thomas’ behaviour.

The following day Clarence Thomas was called to give testimony. He began with a powerfully indignant statement of total innocence of the events that Anita Hill had recalled. He characterized her entire story as an attempt by powerful entities to undercut and to destroy, to symbolically lynch any black man who had the temerity to try to raise himself to a position of influence in the United States. Following his brief declaration a profound silence temporarily reigned in the committee room. After a few perfunctory questions, the chairman, Joseph Biden, called the hearing closed. Within a few days Clarence Thomas was confirmed by the senate committee in his appointment by George HW Bush to the Supreme Court. He presides there still, now the chief justice, the head of what is called the Thomas Court, handing out judgements that confirm and further the republican agenda – recent judgements, for example, that legitimize the expenditure of the so-called C-Pac unlimited moneys on the support of candidates for public office.

Because Anita Hill’s testimony about Judge Thomas and her experience at the hands of the senate committee were televised, that seven-hour day had broad and deep ramifications not just for Anita herself but for the climate within which all working women had been living. Her testimony so truthfully and courageously given touched and liberated others who recognized experiences of their own in her words. Women journalists, congresswomen, women of diverse backgrounds and situations began to speak openly and publically of the issue of sexual harassment as it was lived at work, at school, in any situation where power could be brought to keep women in positions of vulnerability.

Anita herself though broadly supported by her wonderful and loving family and her colleagues and students at the college where she was then teaching contract law, was so harassed and vilified by letters and in person when she was out in public, that she eventually was forced to resign from her tenured position and to move away from her community. One of the things that fortified her during this difficult period was the steady stream of letters that she received from men and women about the influence that she had had upon their own convictions and behaviour in working for a healthy climate for women. She also received thousands of hate letters and threats. From contract law, Anita gradually moved into the area of equality rights. In the USA in particular she holds a special place to this day among the women and men who advocate and work for gender and racial equity.

Lost in the senate committee’s embarrassment over Thomas’ blatant use of “the race card” in his defence, was any sense of shame at the manner in which they had tried to cast doubt upon a young black women who had come at their invitation to speak truthfully of her experiences. The Bush White House and the Republican Party had groomed Thomas for this position. He would be appointed. There might be a racial difference but they were all men and they would stand together, a new twist on The Old Boys Club.

I remember clearly a newspaper story in 1984 which reported on the reaction in our House of Parliament when a report was tabled indicating that one out of every ten Canadian woman was physically abused by her husband. The mostly all-male members broke out in hilarity, tossing jokes back and forth about their own possible aggressions. Three decades later this scene could not be replicated. All of us, men and women, boys and girls, owe much to people like Anita Hill who in both Canada and the US have had the courage to speak about circumstances that could cast doubt on them personally. In doing so they have been part of our on-going understanding that health and happiness for men and women alike necessitate mutual respect and decency. Power politics and harrassment are not dead among us by any means but we have developed and are developing clearer articulations of their instances and of their destructive effects. Anita Hill remains a heroine of this process, a woman who at great personal cost was willing to speak truth to power.