Exile

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acadia# 

Acadians from Nova Scotia have a saying about their people who live in different areas: that we've been "away" for awhile. Certainly, with a small settlement of houses still in Doucetteville, it has always felt that way to me. I tried to describe it as a feeling to a work-related acquaintance from years past over a few drinks (with his own engaging immigrant story about emigrating from China through Cuba), but instead of sounding poetic, I found that my words didn't quite match the concept, sounding trite and hollow to my ears instead. Unlike, say, a communist country, Acadians do not consider each other "foreigners" because, by necessity and social engineering, we were forced out of our homeland centuries ago.

It's a strange thing to be considered a "stranger" in your own land, especially in a huge city like New York, a place with actual foreigners. If you think Rockland County is hard to explain to native New Yorkers and out-of-towners alike, try explaining "Acadia" to someone with a more recent grasp of the English language. It just doesn't fit into their pop cultural constructs about America, derived mostly from years of fine fictional programming and Crash!Bang! movies with subtitles. There's something about me that defies their new idea(l)s, like maybe they fit in here a lot less than they fucking thought, based on a false picture that they made in their heads, greatly assisted as they were in their delusions by so many advertisers. Fantasies will do that to people.

You try introducing the idea that they stand on your soil, as land ripped (or bartered) away to Europeans, with real estate being the game that it is in the city. People have died for less. Still, I wanted to tell this designing pop culture "guru" about my travels out west, and what it means to have a far-away view of the world, because just like any other Mac-drooling hipster deeply indebted to the latest fad(s), he will never know what it's like to be outside of his very small circle. Over drinks and the time of our reacquainting, he finally confirmed for me his truth: that his Adult ADD/ADHD and sexual dysfunctions (mother-obsessed) keeps his reach just within his easy grasp, and so I knew that, too.

Like that <snap>, his former status as "the" hot book designer in our industry vaporized, so powerfully does he monitor adherence to his cult of personality. It's a daunting life to live. Still, he feeds off the newer fresher energies of the younger talents dependent on him, and even though he viciously guards "promoting" anyone he feels he can't pull into "his" scene, I used him as my industry earpiece for awhile, knowing that I can exert a stronger influence than him when I need to, not that I particularly wanted to. He occasionally professes to have a deeper spiritual side. I wanted to preserve that for him and encourage it.

So, I told him about it: how I could feel the touch of the brick walls lining my subway commute seated within the car, as a material I knew in a visceral sense, passing under my hand like the passing born of many times. I knew the stones of the area, and the plants, the trees, the birds, and the animals. He squirmed a little in his small bistro seat at the tiny table, and then casually dismissed it, for its discomfort to him ("Yeah...I get it..."), as the son of Chinese laundry workers who'd played the oppressed minority card "to the hilt" in exchange for tuition, jobs, industry contacts, or a design strategy in company meetings...so easily did he feel pressed against a wall he didn't make, nor did his ancestors.

Still, he had to go on singing the song that paid for all those after-hours "business" dinners he could comp with the creative accountant he wanted me to use, so he could get free services with each referral. Over one of the loudest dins I'd ever heard in a restaurant in my life, his small voice popped in-and-out of focus to me, bustling as the trendy Korean chicken joint was, during the time of our talks. "You know, Marie..." Ugh. He talked to me like I was a Midwestern ingenue right off the bus working my very first "major league" design job, and I had never been that. "You should 'take advantage' of living in the city now!" Uh, what the fuck did you say to me? I'm a native, yo! Not some out-of-towner. What an ass.

He persisted, like the pushy grad from a slick school he is. "I mean, you should, like, go to more design shows and openings and museums and stuff!" Right...so I can kiss your ass to get cover design work out of you, work that he always failed to give to me out of a misplaced loyalty to his precious alumni network of self-feeding cannibals stuck in the same loop. Yeah, native here? Remember? He pressed on. "You know, to 'make it' here you really have to work all the venues, Marie." Sure. Like a coke-sniffing Art Director with lots of fancy awards from his network coupled with a serious case of manic depression? That way, I can stay up all night to roll into work like a diva at noon. Sounds great! Sign me up! When had I ever been that vulnerable?! 

In my thirties, it was hard-to-excruciating for me to pretend a fake naivety that had never really existed. Now, with someone that mentally disordered, I just leave the room or hang up the phone. No point. Not enough brain matter. But back then, I thought I still needed someone like him to talk to, as an excuse to find out why the fuck "show ponies" hated me so much. It didn't take long for me to find out. I tried again. "Yeah, Henry, but here's the thing." He looked up at me unhappily, finally pulled away from his all-engrossing food and drink. Wha...? Talking to me? What an act! It was insufferable to me, so I just pulled the safety, loaded the gun, and fired away, speak loudly and clearly the words that would ever deflate him, just when the club music cut out.

"I already made it!" Oops, that came out louder than I thought. In the uneasy lull that followed the awkward cutting of their annoying house music, I adjusted for volume and continued. "Henry", and this I spoke gentler to him, "I knew I 'made it' when I got into RISD. That's how I know. I've already done it." He shoulders sagged. And that was his biggest fear: failure. Of being all talk and no action, of being a slick hack who couldn't really deliver without better artists and designers to pillage from. What could we do? Sue him? He had all the money and power. Right? Wrong! You, my dear readers, are the proof of my greater success, because show ponies tend to forget who actually sits at the top, and it's not them. It's me. The publisher. So, you tell me: who's on who's turf now? Yeah. That's what I thought back then, too. Like the trendy eatery we were in, it was finally silent. And static-free.

Trail of Tears

http://bit.ly/1OtyMcW

I heard about a lot of holocausts growing up in the New York area: the killings during World War II (naturally), which led to my schoolmate's telling of her family's Armenian genocide, but the only story of mine I knew was in a book, albeit infamous epic form*. The grandeur and longing for home and love is something that never leaves you, even when my family left it out of family gatherings, the way my parents hinted at darker histories by naming our cousins "Dark Irish"; an apt way to describe the twin horrors of deliberate starvation through The Potato Famine** in Ireland, and the marking of Métis children by the darker color of their eyes, which must have sank a pit the size of the Atlantic Ocean in both of my parents' stomachs. Who would see it? Would they know the story? Who can they tell the knowing of it all? What would happen to us, in any time period, given the collected badness of centuries past?

And so they sank it way down deep below, like a hidden headdress fitted for a beautiful little girl, or a pair of handmade Baptismal moccasins that may be tucked away forever; two sharp shooting pains forever felt by burying it within, like a treasure chest to be discovered by someone strong enough to survive its' telling. And so I leave it to you to gather up all of our fallen tears, on a trail that leads the way back home, through a river journey I can feel like the wetness shed by the cries of so many parents who felt their beloved ripped out of their arms, in an act of murder so painful***, I can't really wrap my entire consciousness around it, let alone take on the pain of a mother and father who did nothing wrong in G-d's eyes but love each other willingly and with open hearts (http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/11204).

Today I give thanks to the loving qualities we have present in our free society, ones that many people have fought and died for. May we love each other always, with gladness in our hearts.

For My Beloved

 *     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangeline
**    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29
***  http://bit.ly/1QmerFQ

Piano Jimmy

"Piano Jimmy" and Eunice, back in the day.

By now you know that my dad is a "one of a kind" sumthin' you don't wanna mess with. It's disconcerting for newcomers and out-of-towners sometimes. White, with flava, tho?! How'd you do that? How'd that happen to y'all? Yeah, I know. It don't wash off me neither, yo.

Well, squirrel friends, it's called "Old School", and it ain't exactly learned on your particular mean street. Yeah, those streets are mine, too. No, amigo, it's way back time. You see, when I was a kid, my father didn't even know where his father was, or what name he used, because my Ole Grandad didn't just hand out info like that, not even to family people, because in my line, family might be the first fellow who do you wrong, know what I mean?

Yeah, you do. It's like that with my folk, and so it is with me, too. 
Oh, I can keep a line on 'em any time I want to, because this New York-grown girl knows how to keep a light touch on her folk without putting too much pressure on 'em (because they sure as heck can't handle that, yo), but I didn't learn my all my skills from that paternal girl you see next to big Jimmy, mes amis.

No, my Grandma checked out young, too. But what my dad did have for me growing up was a little black book, the kind that he showed me once in awhile, because he taught me where to find it in his closet. 
It was in the front pocket of one of his suit jackets that I gathered for my mom to go the dry cleaners every week for his Mad Man-style job. 

You know, the kind tailored at "Wallach's" in the old Nanuet mall, 
made just for him off them measurements cards in the leather-chaired back of the store, girl. Yeah, but that was just another one of my many, many jobs, too, along with gatherin' up the wash, takin' down them clothes pinned to the line before it storms outside...there ain't nuthin' this ole girl don't know by now, feel me on it?

'Course you do, 'cause you been through it, too. And that's how me and my people did it: sometimes poorly, but always with great heart and soul, because we managed to survive without entirely cutting the cord to the mainland, you know? 

When we wanted to get a bead on our old Acadian boy, the one who knew how to play a reel or two for you at midnight on the "piana", drunk but still way betta than you'd ever be, we knew what to do. 

You'd go get lil' Jimmy's black book and look for "J", because that's where it was written for me to see: Piano Jimmy, under the letter "J" in my dad's old black phone book.

Come on down and see me when you want to, mes gens. I ain't forgot them old ways any day of the week we got, at any time that's good. "Happy Father's Day" to you, as well.

Street Art: Disco Sucks

 

Slayer Rules in Rockland County, or at least it did.

When I was a young teen, there were two camps in the tri-state area: rockers and disco-loving Guido's. I actually love to dance to a strong beat, and I love the sound electric guitars make, so I didn't have tribal affiliations to either side. Nonetheless, the divide was deep. You were either a dance "fag" or a rocker, and kids were forced to choose sides in my house to avoid taunts. 

Ice cream, rock tees, boat rides, and family history

My brothers were (naturally) metal guys in their teens, sensitive to hints of "gayness", so it was a powerful card in my back pocket if they got out of line with me. If I wanted to get under their skin quickly, all I had to do was tune into to a "gay" disco station and turn it up. We had cheap doors with easy locks that could be turned with a thumbnail to open quickly, and that's exactly what they did if I dared to play offensive music; open my door and forcibly turn the dial on my old stereo I inherited from my godfather, complete with 8 track player.

I see Doucettes (live and dead) everywhere.

In retaliation, I had to do pathetically little. I loved their t-shirt collection (I still love mens' shirts) because their boxy square cuts went great over 80s clothes, like leggings and tight jeans, and I would often take their shirts out of their drawers to wear when they weren't around, which infuriated them. The one musical tradition we all agreed upon as siblings (and still do) is that the Stones rule. I mean it. We believe in The Rolling Stones the way a guido needs hair gel before leaving his house. Yeah, that badly. And we were right. They've withstood the hands of time to dominate the rock scene the way few other rock bands have, except for U2, another band I discovered foraging through record stores on trips to the city. I grabbed a single to their first hit "Gloria" because I knew I was hearing something powerful and raw, and I was right about that, too. I would go on to design CD's for musicians and bands in a post-production studio in Colorado, that's how good an ear I have for audio. I know quality when I hear it, and I know shit, too.

Acadians in Nova Scotia.

Rummaging through some photos on my mom's bookcase, I found photos of a story about my history that I tell sometimes to friends about how I wore a black and white-sleeved Stones concert shirt (which were all the rage back then) that my brothers outgrew on our history tour to Nova Scotia during the early 80s because we're Acadian (not my mom; too bad for her!). It was the first time I was there, and it was epic: just like one of my ancestors, I almost died on the boat ride there. It was a 8 hour trip across the Bay of Fundy from Maine, the roughest waters in the Atlantic. I threw up for most of it, and so did my mom, and so did many others because the bathrooms were outfitted with cots. I said to my mom "If this boat sinks, I won't even care", so bad was my mal de mer. My brothers sporadically threw up over the side of the ferry because my Canuck Dad (also ex-Navy) insisted that they would be fine on deck in the fresh air. At least I had some privacy in the ladies room.

Disco sucks and now you know, too.

These were some of the things I thought about when I saw rocker scratchitti in a bench in the local park, made years ago by boys not unlike the men in my family: tribally loyal, fierce, vulnerable, brave, rockers to the core, though now open to other music occasionally, two of them still playing guitars (both acoustic and electric) to rock music.  

 What do you see in your hometown that takes you back?

People of the streets, check this out: http://www.pinterest.com/mariedoucette/street-art-sacred-spaces/.

March Blows In

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot 
and the wind blows cold: when it is summer 
in the light, and winter in the shade. 

—Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Good morning, dear readers! March is a very exciting time in New York. The weather turns from winter to spring and back again in the span of a day, and this town gets ready for the biggest parade of the year, the St. Patrick's Day Parade.

Most importantly, I get to break out my Irish gear and post pictures of me sporting it, because as most of you readers know, I am descended from the Corbetts' of Galway through my maternal grandfather. Incidentally, he bought me the Greek fisherman's cap you see me wearing in my new authors' photo to the right because I loved his so much, bought when my grandparents travelled the globe after his retirement from ConEdison.

Those of us who are also lucky enough to be Acadian come from a beautiful island called “New Scotland”, or now commonly known as Nova Scotia. We are a wonderfully eclectic blend of the French, Native American, and Celtic, and this month's wild weather ride, with its' rough storms and pelting rains, only drives the point home further for island people of the Northern Hemisphere.

Change is coming. Are you ready? 

Sláinte

Sláinte (SLAHN-chə) is a word literally translating as "health"^[1] and is commonly used as a drinking toast in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man.

The Anchor House

Park Slope has a bevy of creative types with eccentric houses. The Pink House is infamous and currently under attack by the neighborhood watch for its blatant nonconformity. To the owner I say "fuck 'em". Do what you want with your property! I love your house, and so do many Slopers. As long as I've lived here, I still see new things that are old every day, and old things that are new to me. It is such a blessing to be around evidence of grand lives lived grandly everywhere one looks. 

I've seen much of America and the deserts of culture that are so many strip mall wastelands or hastily built cul-de-sacs filled with the same stuccoed McMansions, already crumbling after a few years on their shaky foundations. I've lived out west in places with completely abandoned, deserted suburbs because the housing construction bubble burst overnight to the ruination of many. Builders foreclosed without ever finishing these developments. It's strange and unsettling to see such newness already being eaten away by the elements, like a movie or t.v. set about the end of the world. 

All that time, money, and energy invested into cracking foundations that are slowly sinking into the swampy land that someone finally discovered made for a poor investment. It left me with a lifetime appreciation for great architecture like those in my town. I know it when I see it, I know the history involved, the life lived in our homes, and I know the sadness attached to buildings that never realized such purpose.

My partner for those western years worked as a master electrician, and he often told me the sad stories of the false American Dream—huge houses empty of furniture under foreclosure, with a fancy BMW car in the garage that stood mute as he cut the lines of their power for nonpayment, a set piece artificially designed to give the appearance of wealth by the inhabitants hopped up on meds as their phony dreams crumbled around them while they desperately propped up mythic ideas of themselves and their supposed prosperity at cocktail parties. All for show. What a fucking waste.

Luckily for me, I have an actual history, as it has been my pleasure to write about for you, my dear readers, here on this site. As the local branch of the Brooklyn Public Library underwent much needed refreshing after a hundred or so years, I took the spring and summertime to walk to the main branch, savoring the different walks and the character each one had. One day I would go through Prospect Park, another day down a block that seemed old and new at the same time, and always I was grateful.

One day I found a house I never saw before, that spoke to me from the past in a deep and profound way. I was walking back from the Central Library down a block that looked like classic Park Slope, a row of typically scenic and historic brownstone Brooklyn. In the distance I saw a large shape I couldn't quite make out and it was large at that, too. What is that?! Plunked down in someones' front garden was a huge, old anchor and not just any anchor but that of a sea captain, and not just any sea captain, but Le Capitaine.

Every male ancestor up to my father has been a seaman of sorts, either military or trade. The opening vignette for the movie version of The Perfect Storm shows just such a seaport town with a plague that gives homage to men lost at sea, and sure enough a Doucette is listed on it. The maritime province Nova Scotia has cemeteries filled with the names of our ancestors, and one tiny town named Doucetteville. Long after The Expulsion and the systemic degradation of The Acadians throughout our time here in The New World, I learned well from my father the symbols of our ancestors and those who bear our line. Such are the signs we look for in times when it is less fortunate to be who we are.

Everywhere on this house the inhabitant wanted to tell the story of who he was to someone who walked past and could decipher the signs. There's a fleur-de-lis and here is a trident! The first time I walked past it I knew it was a special place, but with neighbors miling about and workmen on the block, and my own crushing deadlines, I did not have time to take a good look. For the rest of the summer, I made a game of choosing a different block to walk past on my way home from the library until one day there it was, a few weeks before my local branch would be back in operation and my long walks to the main library would be over. Like everything that flows in my life, I found it again just when I needed to. An older man walked slowly past me with a cane and as a tourist asked him for directions, I waited my turn to engage him in conversation in the lingua franca of New York to assure him that I was no mere gawker.

He grew up a couple of blocks away and this was indeed the house of a captain. We talked about the wonderful artisans of our neighborhood who craft such details, not for the sake of showing off, though their talents are incredible, but to tell the story of who they are to anyone walking past in the future who can read them. What a worthy life these craftsmen lead, painstakingly making such works for us to behold in the future, like the time capsules they are. The man asked me if I was a Bourbon (a Québécois who considers themselves purely French, i.e. a "white" person whose ancestors never went "native") which bespoke of his knowledge about the area and the people who inhabit it. I said more slowly than I felt, "No. I..I'm...Acadian." The words felt so strange coming out of my mouth! I realized that here in front of this house was the first time I had ever said to a stranger those very words and through the special magic of this place built by a common ancestor, I felt emboldened to do so.

As so often happens to me, the time between now and then stretches, blurs, and thins. I felt very close to this man. It's an incredible gift from a French Canadian sea captain long dead, knowing that we are the rare and the few, knowing that few people would feel the import of such architectual details beyond the symbolic and the decorative. It was at once hidden and in plain site and I knew the man who had supervised such a construction had to be an educated genius, too. The anchor is huge, and the rest of the building stands in marked contrast to those around it which, though they are beautiful and subtly individual, make much less of a statement about their former owners than this house of Le Capitaine. Everywhere are touches of whimsy, humor, and pride. The tridents formed into the ironwork, the fleur de lis standing guard proudly above the front door, the small conch tucked neatly into the anchors' support.

It was done with such love and confidence and charm and wit! I felt less alone as people on the sidewalk streamed by me or around me, looking at my pictures over my shoulder or walking straight towards me, in that peculiar way that passes for confrontational to people who are not native to this area, in a show of false confidence, but for me here was a symbol of my person-hood in the form of a house. People search all their lives for the cure to their restlessness, but when I moved home from Colorado, I made a vow to myself and my family that I would no longer leave. I would plant myself here and grow roots that connected me back to the tree that already grew. And now here it is for you to see, too.

May you find what you are searching for, and some of the peace that I have found. May all your journeys and footsteps lead you back home. Blessings to you.