A New Lens

I know I said I was going to write about the screaming trench at Beaumont-Hamel but I have decided to move that to another day.

I want to share some of my “ah ha” moments which most likely will be “no brainers” to military historical buffs but for me have become moments of clarity which have shifted my whole perspective on all of my WWI interest. 

My passion for the conflict and the Canadian involvement in this has been focused on something beyond the loss and the grief and the pain and I have Norm Christie and Scott D. to thank for that.  Their perspectives and searches for the names of the missing and nameless soldiers have re-framed my experience of this time period and those who lost their lives in the horrific conflicts..

Let me explain:  Norm has made a career about increasing the visibility of the sacred places, not only here in France and Belgium, but around the world for the major 20^th century conflicts in which Canadians have found themselves.  He has made it his mission to put a name on every nameless grave marker, a face to the name, and a soul to the stone.  He works tirelessly to make sure the world understands the details of the battles, yes, but more importantly, he impresses upon us that we must find and tell the stories of the men behind the markers.  We must tell their stories over and over and over to give them the immortality they deserve.

We must be servants to life not messengers of death.

Scott, a fellow traveler who had done this same tour six times, has learned well from Norm and also collects metals, postcards, letters, and pictures and also searches for the men behind the effects.  He has even placed a name to an unidentified airman (to name just one) of the Great War.  Now this once anonymous man has his name back and will not be forgotten.

That is really what all of this is about for Norm and others, like Scott, who have learned well from Norm:  tell their stories AND HAVE CLARITY OF PURPOSE FOR DOING SO!  Just collecting metals and such to have or viewing the memorials to go there is not enough to free the lost from their purgatory of anonymity. 

Every time I thought about doing a tour to these sacred places, I really believed I would be crippled with grief and weighed down the whole time by the pain and anguish of the place.  I believed that the ghosts would constantly scream, and I would have little or no way of drowning them out in my head.  I honestly thought I would be depressed for the entire trip.

Thanks to a few incremental, but profoundly important little “light bulb” moments, despair changed to hope.  Not only that, the story of the battles has come to life because Norm taught me how to listen to the stories as told by the cemeteries.  The gravestones tell us who was there, when the devastation took place, and which groups worked with (or against) each other.  Through the examination of the grave stones, you can tell if tanks were there, airplanes, infantry, cavalry, and so on.  

For me, the most freeing lesson has been two fold: 

       1)    Contrary to my assumption, not all memorial sites are stained with grief.  Some sites are still grief-filled for sure but some are horrified, angry, and even resigned.  Some sites are peaceful and free.  I would never have anticipated this, but some sites have released its sadness and have moved on to peace and maybe even pride.

I have visited some exquisitely beautiful cemeteries (out in the middle of nowhere) which are utterly peaceful.  Those souls are perfectly ok with where they are.

Hedge Row Cemetery

(2)     After a very philosophical discussion with Scott – after a lesson-filled day with Norm – I realise that should I choose to locate the names and information of the people whose post cards and pictures I have, they will not be nameless either.  When one hunts down the names of the men who earned the medals, or when one discovers the name of the “Soldier of the Great War,” life is breathed back into them.  As I have said before, the process becomes more about remembrance and honouring the dead and less about mourning them.

(3)     I was helping Norm locate a couple of stones and, while he was off photographing the one stone, I located the other.  The inscription on the stone, as placed there by the family was as follows:  A. A. Briggs  2^nd BN. Canadian Inf.  26^th April 1916, Age 23

                                                            All we had.

                                                            Loved and Deeply Missed

                                                

                                                             By Father and Mother

            

              Both the inscription and the age of the soldier when he died hit me hard.  My oldest son, Dylan is 23 years old.  And “All we had,” is eviscerating.  How many mothers and fathers lost all they had?

When Norm came over to take the picture and read the inscription, he also commented on how moving it was and shared the inscription which always moves him:  O for the touch of the vanished hand or the sound of the voice that is still,  as found on F.J Jones’s grave.  I agreed with him that this inscription is moving and added that what got me was that Briggs was the same age as my oldest son.

  

Norm’s reply:  “Oh…you can’t go there.”

He eloquently described how this whole process of naming the unknown soldiers and looking around the cemeteries would be unhealthy if a person “went there.” 

I have since also come to the conclusion that if I “go there,” I am just piggy-backing my own grief/pain issues on to them…and that is blatantly disrespectful.  I need to keep my shit straight.  To be moved by the beauty of the words is one thing, to borrow sorrow because I need an excuse to feel sad is another.

The dead who feed this land deserve better than to have someone steal their spotlight.

I am leaving here soon and when I go, I will leave with a focus on life and leave death to the dead.

Finally. Again.

I have written a couple of times about my connection to the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, but what I have never written about is how I continued from AQWF and tried to learn as much as I could about the Great War…which led me to Pierre Burton’s Vimy. 

Vimy brought the battles for Vimy Ridge in April of 1917 to life.  The stories of the men involved were vivid and riveting.  The overlapping story structure allowed me to get into and stay in the action with the men.  I learned so many more stories; learned about their lives and their deaths.  The more I read, the more I reacted strongly to the stories of valour, horror, and grief.  I learned, quickly to love the men on the Ridge and to feel a profound sense of pride in their ability to take the Ridge in a little over 8 hours when no one else could in 3 years. 

The soil of the Ridge had been fed with French blood since early days in the war during the fall of 1914 and into 1915.  The Germans had this territory and they were not about to give it up. 

The view from the Ridge is for tens of kilometers in all directions.  It is a plum military position.

After reading of the new tactics created by Canadians, executed by Canadians, and mastered by Canadians, I felt a sense of pride I had not really experienced in that way before. In addition, I had become very curious about military tactics and wanted to learn more.  Of course, the thing about the Great War, once you slip down the “rabbit-hole” that is the Great War, you find out very quickly that this war is all about catastrophic loss of life.  

A solder at the time went so far as to describe the feeling of the age, especially on the front and in the military culture, that life was cheap…humans were completely expendable. The job of the army was to win at all cost and the job of the soldier was to die for that victory – to pay that cost.

Hundreds of thousands of lives have been spent for small parcels of land. 

Seeing it 100 years later, in the form of graveyards, is life altering.  There are millions of grave stones and every stone symbolises a life lost.  Every stone has a story – compelling, intriguing, and very often heart wrenching. And thanks to Norm Christie, our tour meister and Canadian Great War guru, those stories have come to life in the cemeteries.

The monuments and the cemeteries are necessary to compel us to remember those stories; those men whose lives were treated so cheaply.  In these monuments we see the perfect marriage of the power of Art, symbol, and ritual to salve a grieving heart.

For me, no monument has had a more impactful presence than The Spirit of Canada Grieving for Her Lost Sons which is the statue on the front of the Vimy Memorial, looking out onto the Douai plane.  She is the quintessence of maternal grief.

I would stare at her for seconds into minutes into hours.  She was my focus for getting to this place of mud and blood.  I would focus on the iconic image of her looking over the Ridge and force myself into the picture.

On Sunday night I was in the picture, gazing at her over the Douai Plane during the purple Magic time of twilight and had one of the most profound religious experiences I have had in nearly twenty years.

We were supposed to be going to Vimy yesterday but one of my tour mates decided she wanted to see Vimy at night – it could be done…it is lit.  She wanted to experience this.  At first I was cursing her keenness because I was so tired from travelling for days.  In the end I relented, she won us all over, and I am so glad she did.

We stopped at a crater cemetery prior to our stop at Vimy so that by the time we arrived, the sun was perfect. 

I immediately felt in awe of the fact that I was there at all.  This was a life long dream and I was walking in the purple magic of it. 

Each step brought me closer to her.  Closer to that iconic image/location. 

I stopped to capture the grieving mother and father in pictures and I climbed the stairs to the front of the monument.

When my feet hit the top platform, time slowed to near stillness.  I rounded the top of the platform and saw her.  I was actually in the place I had wished myself to be for 22 years and the whole realization completely overwhelmed me.

There she was.  My muse.

I walked up to her and reached out to touch the hem of her tunic as though I could grab a handful of fabric out of the marble.  My fingers slid over the ripples and I realised I had been sobbing since I reached the top of the platform.

I don’t remember much about being up there with her except I kept whispering: “I can’t believe I am finally here.”  I believed in everything in that moment.  All miracles were possible always.

Upon review of the pictures, I found that I had not only captured her image, but my love for her was also what was being captured.

Here she is.

 

And here is the poem I wrote last year.  I think I need to change the title from August 2015  to July 2015.

August, 2015

I will sit at the feet of the marble mother, 

Frozen with grief,

And I will weep

And grieve so deeply as to crack her marble heart.

I will stand among the Kinderkorp ,

In the cemeteries of the "children corps,"

And see the faces of the boys I would have sent away -

Inspiring and shaming into action

A generation of  youth

And beauty

And truth;

Sacrificed to the dogs of war - 

Grizzle for them to gnaw

And bones with which to pick their teeth.

I will lie on their graves - 

The mother on train,

Staring into space,

Counting on her fingers:

1

2

3

4

5  

Silence

1

2

3

4

5

Counting the sons I've lost

Counting in the train on the way 

To the asylum.

My husband takes me there.

I will dream I am dead

A muddy, 

Bloody boy of 21.

Marching on the Marne,

Ypres,

Verdun,

The Somme,

Vimy,

Passchendaele,

Drowning in fatigue.

Too cold to be hungry.

Too hungry to be afraid.

Finally out of the greasy,

Foetid 

Crater water

Dry enough to smoke

                               -but only in a place hidden from snipers' eyes.

I will dream I am dry

And home

And loved

Forever.

Be ready for me ghosts!

When I come to you,

I will weep

And grieve so deeply,

That my gratitude

Will wake you from the dead.

-R. Elke

August 23/14

Keep in mind that this happened on the eve of the day I found Arthur’s grave. 

Yeah.  Crazy.

And, I have to tell ya, this isn’t even all that happened that day.  The next post will be about the screaming trenches at Beaumont-Hamel.  That will finally take me out of the first day.

God, how am I surviving this?

…and today was the Menin Gate…

Fuck.

Finally...

It is 1am in Arras. 

I need to be up at 6 am but I have to write this out.  I have been holding this for 45 years.  Looking for 45 years.

When I was very, very young (2 or 3), before my sister was born and made him disappear, I had a friend (what we used to call an “invisible friend” back in the day) named Arthur.  Arthur went with me everywhere.  Arthur walked with me, played toys with me, and ate at the table with us.  If you ask my mother today, she would tell you that I would vehemently insist that Arthur have a place set because he needed to eat.  Every meal a complete place had to be set for him by my mother.  At first she was annoyed but after a while, Arthur became a regular part of our dinner routine.

I remember talking to him for hours on my toy phone.  He would tell me stories about his travels.  From time to time he would go away and have adventures and then he would come back or call me and tell me all about them. 

He was my best friend.  I loved him very much.

Then one day my mother brought home a squalling bundle from the “hospital,” where-the-fuck-ever that was, and Arthur went on an adventure and never returned.

I searched for him for days. 

The receiver on my toy phone was dead.

Silent.

Even now as I write this, 45 or so years later, I feel the pain of loss – my heart was broken.  Where was Arthur?  Where could he have gone?

Why didn’t he say goodbye?

The receiver stayed silent until my first day in Arras, when I was in the threshold between asleep and awake, and the young man stood beside my bed asking me to find him.

I should have known, when I looked in my father-in-law’s war graves book, and found an Arthur Rutherford in it.  Rutherford is my Granny’s maiden name and it was at my Granny’s where I would have the best talks with Arthur.  I think it was at Granny’s that he spoke to me for the first time.

When I found an Arthur George Rutherford in my father-in-law's book, I had a feeling it could be him.

Yesterday, as we approached the Sunken Road Cemetery, I had a feeling it could be him.

When I opened the “cubby” to read his name on the list of the dead, I had a feeling it was probably him.

I stepped into the grave yard and turned to my right to walk over to his grave and the second stone in the grave yard was engraved with the last name Dewar – Dewar is one of my daughter’s middle names.

This meant I was in the right place.

When I stepped in front of his grave stone and read his name.  I felt a sigh of relief ripple through me…

I found him.  

Again.

There is a link death cannot sever

Love and Remembrance live forever.

Zen and the Art of Touring...in France

Travelling in France, I am learning very quickly, is a game of hurry up and wait.  No one is any huge hurry to complete tasks.  All in good time.  All will be well.

Met up with the rest of the tour peeps today.  Waited for one member to find us because he went to the wrong gate.  CDG is huge and confusing.  No harm done.  Waited for an hour and a half to get the van we needed to make our trip north to Arras.  For the first 45 minutes or more during the wait, the line in which our tour guide waited did not move a bit.   Ok.  Gave me a chance to get to know some of the members of the group.  No harm done.  Breathe.  All will be well in it's own time.

The drive up was beautiful.  It was a lovely day - sunny and much cooler than it was yesterday.  The van had A/C, too, which helped a lot.

Mile after mile of wheat fields spread out across the undulating landscape, reminding me of Alberta and some parts of Saskatchewan.  The golden blanket immediately reminded me of being a small child in Saskatchewan, driving in the farm truck with my grandfather – and sometimes the giant grain truck – to take the wheat to the elevator.  There is really something breath taking about those fields.

One one thousand-

Two one thousand-

…holy shit!  These fields are full of century old war dead.  Their blood has, literally, fertilized this soil.  Their bones feed the corn and the wheat and those who consume the bread from those grains.  Those bodies nourish us – literally.  The nourishment of the sacrifice…no wonder so many poets, painters, and writers used Christ as a symbol for the Great War Soldier.  It makes so much more sense now.

We checked into our hotel and rested. 

While I napped, I had an interesting experience:  First of all, God help me, I am starting to dream in French.  That could be a good thing if I get separated from the group and need to forage on my own.  Secondly, during my nap I dreamed that someone was calling me, faintly, from far away.  As the voice got closer I noticed it was a young man.  He told me he needed me to find him.  He stood beside my bed in my dream for a few seconds.  He faded as I awoke.  All I was left with was this voice, softly pleading:  “find me.  Find me.  Find me”  Hamlet’s father’s ghost begging Hamlet to swear to avenge his death:  Swear…Swear…Swear.   The sacred three.

Problem:  I don’t know who this lad is.  I don’t know how to find someone who is nameless in a land filled with nameless someones.  Someone’s father, son, brother…  I did bring a list of names with me and I dreamed about someone named Nick Parsons before I left Mission.  I just didn’t look up Nick’s resting place. *sigh*  I guess I’ll have to just look.

Arras is a beautiful town.  The architecture screams Flemmish influence, as created by the one of the many original people to settle the area.  The facades crumble on some buildings but have been maintained very well on others. 

Cobblestone streets and squares are everywhere.  There is so much to take in.  I am glad we are here for three days.  I need some time to wander and take more pics.

The Grand Place

 Tomorrow is a tour around to some of the grave yards and memorial sites.  I guess it’s time to find the lad from my dream.

The Roller Coaster Ride That is not Paris Disney

My first day was really an emotional roller coaster.  I guess you could say it was my first day on the ride.

I should share that really, I am not under any circumstances a fan of roller coasters…like at all…so this whole business has been jarring for a non-roller coaster person. 

The first step into the “roller coaster car” (if we’re going to keep going with that analogy) was the whole anxiety thing I have about getting through security with ease.  Domestic travel for me is always about who is going to like my tattoos at security and who feels that I need to be a “randomly selected” individual for extra screening.  I was very anxious that this would be the case for international travel.  And that my liquids were not small enough. Or that the plastic bag was too full. Or that my electronics would take too long to turn on. Or…..

Security was a breeze.  My tattoos did not phase anyone (they were busy trialling a new scanner that moves the plastic bins without the helping hands of the screeners…and it was not cooperating), my liquids were fine (phew! I got to keep my hairspray), and I was super early with enough time to peruse the duty free stuff, eat, and wait for the plane.

Learned that leg room is more important than cramming a bag full of shit I didn’t even look at on the flight (note to self…on the way home check the suit case and put computer bag in overhead bin…have little bag for books and snacks for under seat ahead).  Oh, even more importantly:  AISLE SEAT FOR A 9 HOUR FLIGHT!!!!!  Waiting 5 hours to pee because the dude on the aisle was asleep for 3 hours is not a great way to avoid kidney stones.  However, I did learn how to live on the minimum number of sips of liquid so as not to overwhelm my bladder. I feel so much wiser already.

I tried to sleep on the plane but my body is still set on BC time so it was only 11pmish when we landed at CDG airport.  I was pretty tired, though…sort of stumbled out of the plane with the rest of the weary travellers (almost literally – my ankle almost gave out on steel step three of the airplane steps – that woulda been cool….my hands full of suit case and computer bag).  Customs was a breeze and off I went to find my hotel…finally.

Got to my room and felt super overwhelmed.  The whole process of coming to the terminal where customs is was different – you have to take a bus shuttle from the plane to the terminal because at the economy flight terminal there is no disembarking connector to a building.  Ok.  Did that.  Didn’t know what to expect at customs (they just stamped my passport) and was anxious about having to speak French (it’s rusty…to say the least).  And when I paid for my room, it was a little more than I expected, even with the extra charge for early check in. 

Also, I’m travelling alone – kinda overwhelming when there is no one to bounce ideas off of.  Heightens my discomfort level so much and I have lived so much of my adult life trying to avoid discomfort – or creating it on my own terms…

By the time I plunked my bags down in my room, I was seriously ready to shut the blinds, have a shower and sleep all day…to avoid going into Paris alone and having to – gasp – muddle through speaking my shitty French. 

My anxiety nearly paralysed me.  I felt so overwhelmed with all of the stuff I had to do to go to museums, get a ticket for the train.  (Train?!  Fuck! What train do I take?)  I really couldn’t bare it.

Thank Goddess for computers.  I sat and looked up the shit I needed to know and just got the fuck on with it.

I am so glad I did because I would have not had the first of the “one of the most amazing moments of my life” I am sure this trip is going to offer me:

                I just grabbed a train ticket and a museum pass and trained down town Paris (same as skytraining/West Coast expressing…ok…cool – anxiety starting to lower).  I had followed the directions I researched and learned that my connecting train was out of order because of upgrades.  I had to walk from Notre Dame.  I had no map, no list of what building/place was what.  I just took my knowledge of Paris landmarks I learned from Assassin’s Creed Unity (who said video games were no good…)  and my art history classes and started walking.  My destination:  the Musee d’Orsay.  I decided early to avoid the Louver – too many people – and I had been to great antiquities museums in Berlin so...  Also, fin de cycle type art is more my thing – y’know impressionists, expressionists – that sort of thing. 

There is so much history here - and I forgot that feeling from when I was in Germany 30 (ahem) years ago – that I felt like my head was going to explode.  I kept walking.  I passed a statue I recognized (sorry – not great with statues…paintings are my thing…and found myself on the Pont Neuf – the place where people put locks on the bridge.  I must confess I don’t know why – I think it is a superstitious thing about locking the love you have for your lover forever.  I had no lock and my lover is at home so I kept walking.

Walked up the Siene and just kept snapping pics and … holy shit  … off in the distance is the Eiffel Tower!  My camera did nothing but make it look like a grey toothpick in the back ground.  I wandered some more and looked across the Siene to see a super impressive looking building (remember I have no map) and think:  “that looks important; guess I should check it out.”  I snap a pic of the façade of the building and walk through the arches into more amazing façade and breath taking statues at the top of the building and…holy shit, it’s the Louvre! 

Snap. Snap. Sn…

I stop dead in my tracks.  It’s the Arc de Triomphe. 

I really did not expect it to be in this place and I just stopped.  My eyes filled with tears.  The sight of the golden chariot driver caught my breath.  I couldn’t move for a few seconds…this thing is ROMAN…ancient fucking Roman!!!!!!

We poor Canadians, with our baby country, have little or no sense of history – grand ancient history – because we are only a little under 200 years old.  When you are in a place with thousands of years of history it is really a powerful experience.

Needless to say, I snapped a bunch of photos and kept walking on through the gardens and back to the Seine.  And found the Musee d’Orsay! 

There really is something spiritual about coming face-to-face with an art work that you have admired in your head for a long time.  Standing before works of art created by artists you have loved for a long time is intoxicating.  A friend of mine posted a special word for that feeling/experience and it was that word that I kept thinking about as I wandered the Musee d’Orsay.  Monet, Cezanne, Pissaro, Toulouse Lautrec, Gauguin, right before you. 

The most beautiful moment, though was walking into a side gallery and gazing upon a Bourgereau piece.  I have a poster of his Abduction of Psyche hanging in my house.  I love his work so much!  And here was this canvas before me…his brush touched this work!  I was enraptured! 

And in this state I wandered the rest of the museum and across the street to a little military museum. 

I decided it was time to wander back and catch a train to CDG and my hotel.  I wandered passed a boulangerie and decided to get food for my dinner at my room and…y’know…it’s Paris so that’s what you do.  So I sucked up my terror of having to speak French and I ordered a sandwich I knew would survive the 35 degree heat on the trek back to the airport.  Jumped on the train to learn that the terminus was not the airport and nearly had a heart attack…oh, and my phone was dying – of course – so any call to a taxi would be out if this train didn’t hook me up later with a transfer zone.  It did, thank the travel gods.

I found my way back to my hotel room, the dust of the Arc de Triomphe still on my feet and my sandals, exhilarated from my communion with art and history and, after a shower and organizing my stuff, I finally got to enjoy the best fucking sandwich with the best fucking bread I have ever eaten.

I was so happy that I hadn’t let my discomfort with the unknown keep me in my airport hotel room for the day!  I would not have had this amazing experience – and sandwich…seriously…the fucking bread!!!!!!   I would have regretted missing that day for the rest of my life!

Holy fuck!  That was day one!  Today I meet up with my tour group and we go off to Arras.  More amazing shit to come.

One wish from yesterday:  I was more organized.  And I would have liked to have had a drink and the pub/restaurant named for Voltaire on the road named for him.  Would have been cool. 

Next time.

And so it begins.

And so it begins.

This morning I lovingly taped together my well-loved, battered copy of All Quiet on the Western Front.  This is the very same copy of the book which started me on this journey in the first place.  It is the copy I borrowed from a school 22 years ago.  I was looking for an interesting read at the time. 

Last summer I described the impact of this book on my life and it was last summer when I began to meditate upon the anniversary of the beginning of the Great War.  I wrote poetry about the Vimy Monument and mused about the pull of our ancestors from the dusty past.  I dreamed of columns of men marching out of the fog toward the killing fields of France.  I dreamed of standing on that holy ground, shedding tears for the dead sons of mothers who would never see their boys again as they remembered them: alive, happy, or whole.

In one week, I will be in Paris. 

One week tomorrow, I will be on my way to Arras.  

And in many ways I just cannot believe it is happening.  In a week I will be standing on sacred ground.  I will be running my hands through the soil enriched by the blood of men who never, truly understood the horrors they would have to endure.  I will be living a dream I have had for over 22 years.  A miracle, really.

I have decided to make this a blog post because a friend and fellow student of the Great War asked me to blog my trip.  I thought I would start now because I want to capture all of it: before, during, and after.

Honestly, part of me is afraid that I have hyped this trip so much for myself that I have set myself up for disappointment.  The other part of me tells myself not to be such a downer and to just relax into the experience.  What if they, the spirits, decide not to talk to me or to not reach out?  I do not have any ancestors in those fields that I can confirm for sure so I am reaching out to the souls of others.  I know I have ancestors on both sides who fought and died but they are untraceable to me because my paternal great-grandfather changed his last name to make it easier for the bureaucrats to spell when he arrived in Canada. 

I can’t find my Prussian dead.  I don’t know their names. 

So what I’ve done is I’ve chosen some names.  Names that could have been my mother’s mother’s family.  Names from my childhood – an “invisible friend” named Arthur who had to sit at the table with us at meal times…who disappeared after my sister was born. 

I’ve chosen some names from my father-in-law’s book of names of the Great War dead, complete with a description of where they are buried so I know where to look.  I have found an Arthur Rutherford…who knows…maybe he’s related to me through my Granny, Eva Rutherford.  I will look for him.  Who knows, maybe he is my war dead.

This trip feels so heavy already.  I think mostly out of sheer gratitude to the universe, and my husband and daughter, for their encouragement and help to make it possible.  I never actually thought I would ever get to make this trip.  The weight of this realisation overwhelms me.

But I am grateful.

And anxious.

And excited.

I am preparing for whatever comes, or doesn’t, during this trip – this pilgrimage to this soul-soaked land; this land watered with tears and blood.

Now that my battered copy of All Quiet… is patched up, I am ready.  Paul and I and the boys will wander the fields of France and I will know that I am not alone.

 

Ghosts.  The Vimy Memorial