Thinking About My Grandfather...

I love these words from the novel The English Patient:

“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography – to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience. All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps…. into the desert, where there is the communal book of moonlight. We were among the rumour of wells. In the palace of winds.... where there is the communal book of moonlight. We were among the rumour of wells. In the palace of winds.”

The sentiments in these words are that I want to get at, to understand when it comes to Andy. I think because it is what I want to know about myself or what I want, “…marked on my body when I am dead.” So, I am looking to my Grandfather and particularly in the ambiguity of his story, the missing pieces that I want to colour in with my imagination to help me to understand myself. Some sort of parallel space we both inhabit through a contiguous history of the possible and a shared horizon of the moment.

I remember when I first read Michael Ondaatje’s novel and was so struck by the parts when Count Laszlo de Almásy was in the bombed out Church in Italy with the Canadian nurse, Hana. She was caring for him as he was enduring his last days of life and together they explored his memories.

Then when I saw the movie adaptation those poignant scenes of Laszlo in bed, with his pain only alleviated by morphine and yet his mind and heart floating to what made his life beautiful in spite of the horror of what he knew was also part of it.

While watching these scenes in the theater my first thought was of Grandpa Andy and what went through his mind as he lie dying in a bed in Laurentian hospital? I wanted to capture those thoughts, to know them cinematically, poetically – the images of his youth, life in Poland, the lovers, family, friends, experiences, conversations and journey to Canada. The smells, tastes, emotions, realizations of what it all meant - his human tactile self reverential expressions manifested in his actions – his story.

I believe we are all texts that can be interpreted – a text is like a body, a country, a language. You can know it on the surface, what you see at first, how it is first read. There is the literal text/body (story) that you encounter - yet, to see the literal is not to know it in it itself. It must be explored and journeyed over and the heart must fall in love with the story - the metaphors and symbols becoming intertwined with the imagination. Then there is the punctuation within the story that gives it form - defining the parameters of souls and existence.

What is the text of his body – what did the marks of living represent? I suppose in many ways we are the living expression of those marks, the living text of his footsteps – the embodiment of his imagination and hopes?

Hmmm…so many questions that haunt my imagination...