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| Living in the shadow of Sumas Mountain just South of Abbotsford, British Columbia, I can look out my window most anytime clear weather permits and see its three thousand foot height reflected in my pond. It is a euphemistic reminder of both Grandmamma and Mama in whose shadows I was born. Ducks, both wild and domestic glide across the smooth surface of my pond, among the water lilies. I cannot avoid seeing them as though they are soaring in the sky above me. It is as if I were dreaming of the past, my imagination stretching to perceive that like lesser dragons, they sail and writhe in pursuit among their clouds and the Mountain top, of the flaming pearl of ancient Chinese metaphorical Terra; wisdom. There are Great Blue Heron and Beaver here, green and blue dragonfly conceiving on the wing for long motionless moments. Too, Canada Geeses as one Dutch Dairy Farmer local calls them and throughout spring, sweet song'd nesting Red Wing Blackbirds. But the great dragon above is to me the unavoidable main feature. Yes, certainly to me; maybe to no one else. I started out life w/a respect for Dragons understanding from the first they were real, for although Mama no disciplinarian tended to let her interests move her along like a languid summer conversation washing against the edges of her own and the lives of those who touched her, she nevertheless was always determined to have her own way in what mattered, permitting the 'smalls' to fall where they may. If I was not a 'small' that had more to do w/Grand mama's hand than the happenstance of Mama's good intentions. 'Take the roses, darling and leave the thorns,' was her maxim. Grandmamma who owned one rule only. "If you put in good, what can be bad' practiced it in business, social obligations, child rearing, cooking and even in her own diet, refusing to eat anything that came from a garden, unless it was canned. Concerned at Grand mama's worsening anemia Mama advised her Mother to eat more vegetables. "You eat em," the old woman groused. I've seen what they put on em out there." She was referring to the buckets of night soil the Chinese carried out each morning as fertilizer. Now while Mama let me join her in the company of her lady friends because they apparently found me amusing in the way adults will toy w/a precocious child so long as he is entertaining and unless through long use, he becomes cranky, Grandmamma believed children should be seen and not heard. "Let him stay, Mama," my Mother cajoled as Grandmamma led me from the room replying, "He oughtn't to be here where such thhhhings are talked about." Her eyes indicated Mama's Boudoir at large and nothing more was said. 'Things', the word itself was mysterious, drawn out, becoming longer and more important than other words. I sensed that in this word were messages and it must have been here too where I learned that passive people were people led to destinations over which they had no control. At these times under intense stares and chins raised sternly in visual sotto vocce I sensed the presence of fire being breathed and fierce battles that were greater than the imaginary ones read to me from books about Princess's and noble knights. This was the stuff not of fairy tales, but of life and the world. It was where self found invention and determination was defined. This was Tea, adventure, cucumber sandwiches, jelly's, adult cakes of half suggested secret romances and the comings and goings of handsome men. Although scales are designed to give the appearance of balance I understood from an early age that if you failed to join the fray, those scales will inevitably tip against your wishes if not your best interests and will seldom even accidentally work in your favour. The weight of justice, I quickly grasped was relative. “Come, w/me, little minsck.” Grandmama said. So weeping on the inside because I knew even then (for I have always known it), as did Mama, that decorum would be given its due if not immediately, then later, at the receiving end of a hair brush. I left w/Grandmama as w/an actor’s melodrama, Mama gave up the battle I’d begun & whispered w/a kiss as she wiped hair from my eyes, the dictum, “No crying now, someone’s always watching darling.” Inconveniently Mama & Grandmamma agreed as adults will occasionally that character was fortified whenever a child was obliged to do something he didn't want to do. It was always w/a surprise beginning at that time that I discovered and found myself frequently being reminded that I was a child. And while stubbornness wasn't a quality that was encouraged, tenacity was inbred in me. I decided to try reason. "I'd rather like to stay," I said ingenuously. "HHHHAH," answered Grandmamma who when angry had a tendency to aspirate her h's as if they were hhhhisses. "I know that one young minsch and it won't work." "Really, Grandmamma, can't I?" "Go put't in the bank," Grand mama instructed, which council I learned later in life referenced the fact that Mama's 'society' needed all of Grand mama's management skills and that although she wasn't the only one who understood that Mama's acumen wasn't entirely of the colour that was considered acceptable in polite society she at least had it under control and the three of us survived on it. Though I have never been able to plumb the greater depths of the business entanglements of those two women, I nevertheless have grasped the basic fact that they loved one another in the same way that all Mothers and Daughters; the second could never get out from under the first, nor could the first get off. And so a kind of loving war existed between them which I imagined was all about me, little knowing that I, proxy more often than not was only the excuse not the reason in the same way playmates will battle over a toy favored or not, simply for the sake of suzerainty. Now, although I loved my Mother, Grand mama was the apple of my eye, and I hers; for good reason. "And who gives you chocolates," she inquired once we reached the sanctuary of her rooms as pulling from a drawer a box of delicate French candied chestnuts, and stuffing one after another Marrons Glace's into my waiting mouth? "Only you, Grand mama," I answered dutifully. "Does them other ladies give you chocolates?" As I look back, the consequence of this battle for the control of their world, between my two dragons taught me that nothing was more important than a sense of the ridiculous. It gave you the ability to laugh at yourself, for the raging product of the conflict between these two women permits my dual personality to see the one I am and understand the lunatic he is. Privilege as a consequence of living in the shadow of the mountain provides leisure and w/that comes the obligation to remark not only upon your own situation but in performing the function of a still body of water, you may reflect the majesty of the mountain itself. Upon reflection though, having larger than life opinions of themselves I realize that neither Mama nor Grandma would consider me even remotely capable of telling their stories. So saying, I will stop. But not before mentioning Aunty L- who, though not an aunt at all helped us exchange jewels for food during the Japanese occupation. When later in America attracted to the remnants of Mama's old sometimes shadowy connections and falling upon hard times herself Aunty L- sold among others, at least one large karat Square Cut Emerald to a Nevada Casino owner. She watched w/ apprehension as it walked back in the front door of her Powell Street, San Francisco dress shop, a few weeks later in the pocket of a thickly muscled man who thunking them all down on her glass countertop said tonelessly, "Mr. X would like his money back." "Why," Aunty L inquired. "Mr. X had someone look at dem. He don't think it's what you said it was." Dahling, I don't know how that could happen." "Just so," And although of course Aunty L- didn't have the cash in the store the matter was settled apparently for she sometimes slips a Mumu on her now ample frame and sports four or five enormous emerald rings, at least one of which she claims was bought from a Reno Casino owner. "One of them darhlings. I don't remember which." Picking up where my dragons left off in 1978 and 1992 respectively many of my friends tiresomely think it important to point out that I have a lot of baggage and although I don't entirely disagree w/them I have travelled alone now for 13 years and have arrived in 2009, after a 34 year relationship having dropped off a few pieces of luggage here and there. That doesn't mean I think I'm travelling light, only that having more than I started out w/I have less now than I once had. So my friends don't know as much about me as they think they do. Those who have known me for a great deal of time, have in common w/family the fact they also now no longer know the me I have become. For that matter neither does anyone know the full length of anyone else's supply train. And it has been my experience that none of them cares much anyway either. Our side of the family never owned personal worth but we were fortunate enough to've been associated w/it through my adoptive Grandfather, Mr. Jack Spunt who flatteringly was called the Cotton King of China having emigrated to Shanghai in 1915 at the age of seventeen to escape the twenty year Austrian conscription which for a Jew at the time was tantamount to a death sentence, being considered less useful, by the then Austrian High Command than canon fodder. In common w/him as well as the rest of the planet I was once younger than I am and am now smarter than I was. I have always liked Gilbert & Stuart, Ragtime, a lot of people,(just not around me very often nor too close), classical music, Chinese food, (the only good restaurant w/in reach is 'China Wok' in Burlington, 60 miles South of here), and I can tolerate the American Musical' venue. I like to write, read, to play chess and adore Rolls Royce, Jaguar and Benz automobiles, although only once ever have I owned a broken down one of each. I sing a little, play on the radio as part of a company known as 'The Midnight Mystery Players' whenever they let me. Of the 20th century, I'm fond of old black and white films especially Sherlock Holmes, but only w/Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce judging the more recent versions rather effete. Three of my favorite films are 'The Remains of the Day', 'Gosford Park' and 'My Fair Lady'. But like any reasonable product of the previous century, I like several hundred others very much. Still, since one must draw lines, they being impermanent things, might as well not argue and say there are more w/out listing them. One of my favorite books is, 'A River Runs Through It'. I'm partial to the internet believing, that its invention is probably greater than the wheel and supersedes even flight. Two of my favorite short stories are Brokeback Mountain and The Gift of The Magi; either because they're populated by people I'd like to've been or to've known, or think I am. I'm partial too to King Lear's dilemma and crème brule. * Of they whom I sometimes confuse myself with, I live here in the Pacific Northwest in a small brick house w/four cats, three white duck hens, two drake Milliards, one 26" tall Giant Schnauzer all of whom accompany me on one part or another of my early daily morning six acre garden walk. Three of those acres have been mown into an hour long maze, some of it thicketed w/summer's six foot tall canary grass. fewer than seven miles from the Canadiensky where I go periodically when the need surfaces for Canadian food vexing our American Border guards who upon my return nosily inquire the purpose of this American-w/an-accent's trip to a foreign country. "Lunch," is my reply and once was asked by a clever & smug, muscle-head who wouldn't recognize humour if you spelled it for him, "Don't you know we have restaurants in this country?" Euphemistically smiling and trying not to condescend is as convoluted an accomplishment as saying yes while shaking your head no; a skill learn'd while having lived in a semi-monogamous relationship for 34 years and from which I learned how to hold-up my end in terms of the how and why they work, speaking of relationships as though they were mazes. Now in yet another shadow, the shadow of 70, I am no longer young enough to have a long term relationship which being single again, I would like. I am less than half what I once was and have forgotten how to be whole in the first person singular. As certain as I am that I will never again be the most important person in the world to anyone, I am unable to accept spirituality or believe in those religious ballet's so populated w/imaginary friends that they leave you stunned, speechless & silent as Ramon Navarro before his pre-talkie film career collapsed due to a squeaky voice that was thrust on his unsuspecting yet adoring and finally horrified worshipers. In the same way that the knowledge there is no god will be sprung on the religiously impaired of this world and in spite of not liking a lot of people, in common w/that pretty man, like him, I am who I am, and I feel certain that like me, he knew and we both always have known that life's obstacles are really no more significant than a Marrons Glaces which can only temporarily suspend one's quest for independence. I reason that the infantile public displays of affection in common w/excessive emotional outbursts, and the inane habit of a man signing off on his sell [sic] phone in public, w/the coerced, "I LOVE YOU TOO", are not characteristics you find in the able or intelligent male. He will never know the joy of heading off at the pass before it materializes, any problem. Ever! He is incapable of thinking a thought clear through to the end and as for self-determination, has no idea the value of being sure-footed as an important skill to own while trying to avoid the euphemistic potholes that his managers, his spouse also has not seen. It can safely be said in my opinion that anytime you hear anyone responding so, there is no more profit to be had in friendship w/him than there is in accepting the premise that the cell call being answered by the person on the opposite side of your lunch table isn't a signal that you're lunching w/a witless dope. Run!!!! I was born under the determined and steady sign of the goat who compliments a practical highland Scot blood-line and so I would never ever stoop so low as to beg for the boon of a little sex. So, being decidedly difficult, I probably will remain a bachelor for the duration. Almost as if they were hungry, my sight as well as the other senses seem overly cranky from day to day. As an end approaches I hope my friends (those who can tolerate me) will take w/the proverbial grain of salt any opinions I offer this late in the day w/the exception of an occasional request to be fed. I won't always be as entertaining as I think I am, and pulling expressions out of my hat when I need them, won't be so easy as it still is, but whether or not the rabbit or the expression is in his hat, the magician worry's that the skill might not always be there. Ditto. I view conversation w/friends as one of life's great pleasures which is never even occasionally achieved w/relatives, for prophets are never that in their own land. Lacking recognizable qualities to our families, change has the effect of changing us like nuts which go rancid when not stored properly; long separations from our family leave them w/a bad taste when next we're sampled. For we remind them that nothing remains the same, that change is life and w/out it life stops, metaphorically as well as literally. And the unasked questions remains; how could we go on w/out them. It is difficult if not impossible for 'them' to recognize us once we've parted company from them for the purpose of morphing w/time, and the freedom from prejudice family represent into the Crème Brule we are. For policy; I limit to friends, the periodic re-invention of myself in which we all engage, and advise everyone similarly to speak to relatives as seldom as possible and then w/the greatest care for they are incapable of imagining that although they knew us when we were pretty, that was before we were smart and being younger than we are, had not yet formulated the rule; when re-inventing yourself, stay as close to the truth as possible in order not to trip yourself-up w/unnecessary baggage, of which clearly we all, including myself have a few pieces still.... Even so, like merchants selling the product that we are, we are known by our merchandise and are the baggage we carry around w/us! This is me. I was born and lived briefly in a small province in the South of France until when as Hitler marched into Paris, like Rene Lalique who in closing his glass factory said, "Jackboots and fragile things do not go together", my Mother packed us up and brought us to Plymouth enduring a little of the Blitz (oxymoron notwithstanding), whereupon trying to simplify her life, she then took us to Shanghai which the Japanese promptly occupied upon our arrival. During the war, because Mama had unknowingly married a secret Nazi, we were not incarcerated like the rest of the Allies. W/liberation, at Wars end we were repatriated to America where I was educated; but flavoured as we are by the fashion of those around us I speak w/a slight British Public School accent, w/out having had benefit of a British Public School education which explanation would satisfy any muscle-headed border guard even if he could read. Having studied literature @ Berkeley, while living w/and understudying the writer, my cousin, raconteur, gourmand and boulevardier, Mr. Georges Spunt, I then decided to become finally who I am, wishing there were some reasonable and presentable younger person available to carry on my traditions. Barring that likelihood, my family heirlooms are now for sale. There are lots and lots of them; but not as many as there once were for in order not to have to collaborate w/the Japanese enemy, we sold off the collections one by one; our tastes were eclectic. First out the door were the Ivories, then the Porcelain, next the Bronzes and Jades, most of the Jewelry but not before Aunty L had made paste copies and finally much of the Furniture. And there still reside in a bank vault, shares of Nationalized Chinese railroad bonds which have not yet been redeemed by that Government. When I left w/my Cousin Mao's Communists troops were shelling the airport. We used the race track as a runway. As if on a sightseeing tour, my cousin pointed out tufts of sod exploding on either side of our careening plane "They want us to go," he explained. "Then let's not come back," I suggested. And we did not. There you have it. I think. But of course in writing as in life, nothing is ever really finished. Why just two days ago a young computer genius looking at an old passport photo of my younger persona remarked, "Very Full of himself." I would respond but there always being time for a second draft, that's enough for now. Give the me of who I am the product a look; which is to say, look if you will at the things of which I am comprised. I'm not even half so affected as this makes me sound or the photograph below makes me look. And I'm an awfully nice person who's rather desperate or he wouldn't be advertising here where, in common w/her roses, a carbohydrate is a carbohydrate is a carbohydrate and by any other name too, to mix two of Miss Gertrude Stein's metaphors. We brought w/us from China the remains of our collection of Chinese Export Silver a few rugs some suspicious Satsuma from a mysterious Japanese connection and having spent a lifetime collecting even more I remain a widowed bachelor w/out heirs and have grasped the concept that where I'm going they don't allow carry-on. This shadowy realization prompts the selling of an elegant birthright, this Place in Time I am the 90 parts water, 10 parts carbohydrate and other miscellaneous chemicals known as Edward Franklin Kesselring Spunt nee Davidson and this my website is my life photographed in metaphor as best as Mr. Sean Head, a young computer genius I know can make me look in spite of thinking me full of myself. ~~Edward Davidson * From my Cousin's book 'Memoirs & Menus, this recipe for the otherwise complicated, Crème Brule has its roots in many countries. The Spanish call it flan (w/out flaming sugar topping) and the English call if custard. Although in this particular representation the origin is supposedly Creole, it is a very popular desert w/the French. The egg custard mix makes the recipe foolproof. 1 4 1/8 oz pkg golden egg custard mix 1 tbsp sugar 3 cups light cream ½ cup brown sugar ¼ cup cognac Blend custard mix w/sugar and cream in a large saucepan. Bring quickly to a boil, stirring constantly. Pour into a 3 cup flan mold or soufflé dish. Chill until set. Sprinkle brown sugar over cooled crème and place in an ice-filled pan under the broiler. (This is so the custard will stay cold.) Watch carefully to see that the sugar does not burn. When the sugar has hardened (this should take a few minutes), remove from the broiler. Have the cognac warmed in a small saucepan and pour it over the sugar. Ignite and serve at once. I do not care for the business of the hardened sugar topping and prefer to leave the crème and sugar under the broiler only long enough for the sugar to melt and become slightly caramelized. Suit yourself. Enough for 6. |
