IBY

When Knut Hamsun said, “I write to kill
fime,’’ he couldn’t have had a six-year-old
daughter. When the poet John Berryman, however,
wrote “Life, friends, is boring,” he’d probably
spent the morning making ogre-noses out of
modelling clay instead of working on his Dream
Songs.

My daughter is bored. I tell her “to be bored
means you have no inner resources” and take her

to the library where she chooses, among others, ~

the encyclopedic Book of Games and Pastimes.
Together we come up with a list of “Things to
Make”. I suggest she begin with the wormery, and
send her to the garden to dig for worms.

This could take time. While she’s occupied I
take out my old nib pen and a sheet of blank paper
and try to begin a poem on the theme of immortal
love. I haven’t got past the immortal longing stage
before she’s back inside. She’s decided she'd
rather make invisible ink.

IT relinquish my pen and the sheet of paper,
which is still blank. Together we squeeze a lemon
into a jar and I show her how to dip the nib into
the juice and write her message. Back in my
office I decide to forsake the poem and instead do
some fine-tuning on my latest novel.

“Mum,” I hear after a short interval. “How do
you spell “summer holidays’.”’ I close my file
marked CHAPTER ONE, DRAFT TEN. I'm
already past my deadline anyway.

When her message is dried we hold the paper
near the flame of a candle. “I love summer
holidays because I get to stay home with my Mum
and we do lots of things together” appears as light
brown writing. “It is magical, isn’t it?” I say,
genuinely touched. “No, Mum,” she replies. “It’s
because lemon juice has a lower combustion
point than paper, that’s all.” My daughter already
believes in reason over passion.

But even passion has limits. I don’t want to
create an Underwater Volcano out of milk bottles
and poster paints this moming any more than |
want to play Old Maid, do crossword puzzles, or
watch Fred Penner. My hatred of all board games
is on par with that of bingo and bowling, an
admission that caused my therapist to conclude
my “problem” is I’m indifferent to the formalit-
ies. He charges $36 an hour for revelations like
that.

Graham Greene, in an autobiographical essay,
tells how he used to play Russian roulette after a
course of therapy left him “‘correctly-oriented”
but totally bored with life. “I think boredom went
far deeper than love. It had always been a feature
of childhood. For years...I could take no aesthetic
interest in any visual thing at all; staring at a sight
that others assured me was beautiful, I would feel

Becoming fully aware

nothing. I was fixed in my boredom.”

Greene took his brother’s revolver, loaded one
chamber, pointed it at his head, and pulled the
trigger. When the hammer clicked on an empty
chamber, he experienced a sense of release from
the tension.

When my daughter announces she is bored with
Games and Pastimes, I experience a sense of
tension that goes far deeper than either love or
boredom. “Come on,” I say to her, “I’ll race you
to the beach.” I’m determined she’s going to have
a normal childhood and not develop pastimes like
Graham Greene’s.

As she washes out to sea on her inflatable
alligator, I put on my dark glasses and indulge in
some light summer reading. “How contrive not to
waste one’s time?” queries the protagonist in
Camus’ The Plague. “Answer: By being fully
aware of it all the time. Ways in which this can be
done: By spending one’s day on an uneasy chair
in a dentist’s waiting-room; by listening to
lectures in a language one doesn’t know; by
travelling by the longest and least-convenient
train routes, and of course standing all the way; by
queuing at the box office-of theatres and then not
booking a seat. And so forth.”

By the time my daughter has washed in again
I’ve gained a whole new perspective. When I
suggest we go home and play Monopoly, she
looks at me as if I’ve had too much sun. Testing
me further she says why don’t we do the
5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle I’ve been saving for
“the right occasion.”

While she’s tuming the pieces right side up, I
make a mental list of more things I can do so. as to
be fully aware of time. I can take the slow route to
town. I can spend the afternoon sitting in my
therapist’s waiting-room because I haven’t made
an appointment, and when he fits me in, finally, I
can fire him because I have solved my own
problem.

On my way out — if I still need reminding that
time is passing — I can speculate on the sex lives
of people in the elevator.

I concentrate on the jigsaw puzzle. Getting an
edge on it should use up most of the afternoon;
later we can catch a political debate on the French
language station. After watching me for a long
time my daughter, with a concemed look, brings
me another of her library books, Having a Baby.
She presses it upon me saying, gently, “Here,
Mum. This is how it’s done. I think you need
something to keep your mind occupied.”

I help her put the puzzle back in the box, and
suggest we play Tiddly-Wink Golf instead. That
would be too boring, she says. We settle on
Ropeless Tug-of- War.

e e = &
Opinion TheReview Wednesday, August 8,1990 — A16
e-

OPEN FROM 11:00 AM
DAILY LUNCH & DINNER
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SIDNEY’S
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both with
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Port Sidney

The Bear Pub
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Sunday 11 am - 2 pm
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Hash Brown: isis5-3icsccae ie eee ee $2.75

* Monthly Prize Draws This Month
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(Drop by for further details)

* Featuring “Molson Indy Races” Monday, August 20th }
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Come on in and join the fun.

Sos SS SS

MARKETING
CO-ORDINATOR
MARINA BERTHS -¢
SIDNEY PIER MARINA

The new multi-million dollar Sidney marina
will be completed this month.

We are looking for a semi-retired sales-
oriented individual to oversee our marketing |#
program.

Opening available immediately

Call Mr. Martin
1-800-663-1428

Interviews on Thursday P

GROVE OF TREES provides a perfect frame for fishermen in Saanich Inlet Saturday. The pair
kept pulling dogfish out of the water, however, despite using gear designed for salmon.

ENJOY THE

WORKS OF 200
SOUTHERN VANCOUVER
ISLAND ARTISTS

SHOW: 10 a.m. - 10 p.m. Daily — AUGUST 4th to 12th

One of British Columbia’s largest juried art events.

A ‘MUST-SEE’ <
SOOKE, B.C. f
Sponsored by the Sooke Region Museum re

[ Information: 642-6351 | oon

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