Belonging

I went to the Writers Festival at Granville Island on the professional day.  This is my favourite of the professional days because the writers you see discussing their books are so inspiring and compelling, it carries you through the rest of the school year with thought provoking ideas and ways of looking at what we do and how we live

The session on "belonging" was great.  All of us want to belong and most of the time, we question whether we do or not.  Most of us feel "weird", like we don't really fit in.  But, in fact, no matter how "weird" we are, we share more with other people than the things that separate us.  All the writers (Brian Brett, Michael V. Smith, Camilla Gibb and Charlie Demers) felt that they were the "other", especially when they were young people -- but the experiences they describe in their books (and this is why books are so great) make you realize that we all share these experiences, especially the feeling of being outside looking in.

Brian Brett spoke about his most recent book, Tuco, which is about his 25 year relationship with an African grey parrot named Tuco.  I bought the book, but haven't read it yet (and I'm always nervous about reading a book about an animal, because they are often terribly heart-wrenching and I don't need my heart wrenched, especially not now.)  He talked about how Tuco taught him lessons about how we "other" the natural world, the landscape and wild creatures and we do it at our peril, because we live in the natural world and if we don't realize we're part of it, then we will destroy it.

I just finished a book called The Theory of Clouds and part of it focused on a Victorian scientist who travelled to Borneo ostensibly to study cloud formations and weather patterns.  He felt frustrated because the world was so different there and the jungle was so oppressive and unrelenting.  He was left alone by his companions who were big game hunters and encountered a female orang-utan with her baby at a stream.  She looked with curiosity at him and he returned her gaze and they had one of those moments of unity, where you realize that these connections are real -- that we share a great deal more with other living creatures than we are "other".  Then the hunters crash out of the jungle and kill her and her baby and celebrate their victory over the dangerous creatures of nature.  It seems to embody those two ways of seeing -- that we are all part of a great whole . . . or that what's not with us is against us.  I wasn't crazy about a lot of the book, but this particular event will stay with me.

As far as school goes, the theatre is going to be a scary place on Thursday and Friday.  Instead of its usual friendly atmosphere, it will be decked out as Charlie's Frightful Funhouse.  A group of children is lost and the last time they were seen, they were going into Charlie's Funhouse -- come in and see if you can locate them!