Gratified Desire

From my living room, from the time I was 5 until I left home at 16, I could see the outline of the Rocky Mountains puncturing the sky behind the provincial city called Calgary.

In my Grade 10 classroom, the enterprising teacher had printed a few lines of a poem by Wordsworth and stuck it up all around the room, above our heads:

"The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours"

The rest of the poem describes the Romantic's dilemma: that we have removed ourselves from nature, and that removal has cost us dearly. Wordsworth was writing 200 years ago; how much more we are getting and spending now!

The young romantic in me escaped the banal ugliness of a soon-to-boom oil town and ran to the mountains. I spent days in the Rockies, observing the slowness of so-called "Mother" Nature as the seasons ground from one to the next. I met animals, marvelled at wildflowers, grieved for my young friend who died from hypothermia during an ill-timed May camping trip.

City life intervened, as it does, and I spent years in cities doing city-like things like work, study and city play. But in 1985 I moved to rural Italy and there I learned about living in and with nature.

Farming is hard work, especially when you don't know what you're doing. We had a big stone farmhouse, 7 acres of land, a wheat field, a vineyard, a huge vegetable garden, a muddy pond, many poultry, a dog, a cat, and four small boys. There was a spring down a muddy green path where I would go every day and collect my 18 litre jerry-can of water for the day. There was a big grass snake who lived under the wall. There were wild boar who trampled the vineyard until we put a radio down there and played opera at night. There were badgers, porcupines, foxes, weasels, nightjars, cuckoos, and peasants who surrounded us and wanted to teach us their trade.

Nature isn't unforgiving, or gentle, or kind, or threatened, or dominated, or forgiving, or logical, or chaotic, or female. Nature is beautiful. Nature couldn't give a rat's ass about you. Nature doesn't care. Nature does what it does. It is unknowable, and mighty, and extraordinary. Nature wastes: things die all the time, unnecessarily. Nature attacks: weird bacteria, viruses, and prions love to inhabit their hosts. Nature kills.

But, of course, we are part of nature, and nature has taught us over the years that it is a good idea to respect the immutable laws that nature dictates. If you're going to say 'aw this is airy-fairy leftie bullshit', might I remind you that even the most powerful human has a maximum 10 degree centigrade window in which to survive. And that most powerful human, even if he did survive birth, fever, hypothermia, infections, accidents and so on... will still be completely absorbed by nature in the end.

That teacher also introduced us to Shelley's Ozymandias: "Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!" The will to power, domination, kingship, command... it's all horrible if you're one of the dominated, or thrilling if you're the king, I guess, but you'll die like the rest of us and be buried in the sand. As will your great achievements. So, then, what's a thinking teenager to do? Nihilism was an option, but I had a handicap there, and I shared that with William Blake.

In The Tyger, Blake suggests that something so beautiful, ferocious, complicated and confusing had to be created by a higher power. Well, even though I was brought up by a communist artist and a scientist, neither of whom shared my deep-founded belief in The Divine, I was pretty sure Blake was right. How else could you explain that I had miraculously survived all of the shenanigans that I took part in as a young teenager in the 1970's? How to explain why that big mama moose and her baby walked beside me for a few kilometres and didn't attack me? How did I stare down that pack of dogs in the middle of a snowy night on a field in Calgary? Why wasn't I one of the young people who went missing or died during those ridiculous years? Not because of nature, or luck. Not due to atoms, molecules, or any number of metaphors. But because my path wasn't that one. The tapestry that was made before any of us was born included me living at least for 62 years.

I was making our bed a few weeks ago and was brought to tears because I felt the enormity of the failure of our task. I thought to myself that I might as well just go shopping.

My life has been a life lived in the physical world. I farmed, I carried water, cement, and wood. I birthed babies and breastfed them, and held them, and fed them. When it was time for me to work, I worked as a farm labourer, picking peppers and tobacco, and as a domestic, cleaning peoples' houses and washing dishes in a cafe. Then I learned to attend births, and I rubbed feet and backs, held women as they birthed, cleaned messy pads and bedding and clothing, ... and then caught babies as they slipped from their mothers' bodies.

When that work stopped, I started to prepare and serve food. It's physical. Life is physical.... except. Except that so many people don't know so much about the physical world. There are fridges for sale for thousands of dollars, and people no longer cook and eat at home. People can't fix something, they buy a new one. Do you mend holes in your clothes? Can you light a fire? Can you distinguish dandelion flowers from coltsfoot? How does a duck look when it flies? What is the difference between Water Hemlock and Queen Anne's Lace? How do you mix cement? What berries can you eat? What do you do with a tree once it is felled?

Nevertheless. Nevertheless. The final poem that I only just figured out is this one:

What is it men in women do require? 

The lineaments of Gratified Desire. 

What is it women do in men require? 

The lineaments of Gratified Desire.

When I was in high school my teacher, my classmates, and every literary critic of the time thought this was all about sex. It's not. 

It is about being gratified. It's about living your life fully, as a life. As a life not dependent upon things, upon getting and spending. It's about loving someone who is happy, and having a hard time loving someone who is miserable and unfulfilled. 

We have been misled. Women especially. We've been led to believe that it indeed is a life-threatening and dangerous event (not to say an expensive one) to bring a child into the world. We've been led to believe that our children need to be socialized by someone other than ourselves. That our shitty job is somehow more fulfilling than caring for our offspring (I'm not talking about that fine mother who needs to work three jobs to support her family, nor the professional who loves her work as much as her children). That in the name of equality and because we are so damn exhausted it is fine to bully one's partner into folding baby clothes at 10 pm (who folds baby clothes anyhow? But I have seen it with my own eyes). That nature is something that needs protecting, and that weirdly we need to protect ourselves from it. That our bodies cannot be trusted. 

So I say to you: Take a hike. Say something controversial. Get off Facebook. Don't get the epidural. Stop folding laundry. Don't have a baby, if you don't want to. Think twice before buying a new thing. Be kind. Be sassy, or not. Be yourself. 

What am I gonna do? I'll keep on making food and serving it; I'll teach women about maternity care and childbirth; I'll think my thoughts and mostly keep them to myself.

I don't have a rootedness in a physical place. My mountain hideaway is mine for a while. My bungalow in the 'burbs as well. My rootedness is a long and straggly root that winds past minds, poetry, essays, manifestos, novels, long conversations, thoughts. The place of the thinking person. A place I've yearned for my whole life, and visited once in a while. But I always know its there, and it's home.

The other day I went for a 15 mile run. It was tough. My body was ploughing through some bad emotions. But when I got to Mont Royal, our lovely mountain at the centre of our city, I went to the trails, away from people, and ran. It eased my heart. Let us reconsider our relationship with nature, with each other and with ourselves.

Women's Bodies and Other People's Values

In Quebec, we are experiencing an interest phenomenon. A provincial politician is trying to be Le Pen. She is stirring up xenophobic and racist emotions rather effectively with some doublespeak that pretends to be about secularism and feminism. The target? Religious Muslim women. The fallout? Pretty well everyone who is not .. erm .. well, let's just say that anyone who looks a little different has experienced annoyance if not rage at this political acrobatics.

I am used to people using women's bodies as a battleground. From my days as a sexual abuse counsellor - and a direct action activist - to my days working in hospitals with birthing women, I have been witness to the phenomenon of the woman's body being argued over, manipulated, commodified, objectified, ground up and spat out.

And it has grown up, this violence against women. Back in the seventies, as a rape crisis worker, it was pretty clear what was happening. If you were a woman, and you were alone at night, or walking home from work, you were a target and you could be raped. If you were a prostitute or an indigenous woman, you could be raped AND killed. Simple. Violence against women.

But today, the violence is coated in pretty words. What do you call it when someone puts his hand into a woman's vagina without asking her or looking her in the eye? Its called rape. Birth rape. Doctors who manhandle and abuse women when they are giving birth say that they are saving lives. They are not. They are exercising their power.

Politicians who make silly rules about what women can or cannot wear may say that they are doing it "for the women" (yes, in South Africa they say that rape is "for the women" too, when they are raping a lesbian to convince her to change her preferences). They say they are doing it for the Muslim women's enlightenment and freedom. 

They're not. They are also exercising their power.

I suggest we ban the type of clothing that overweight, middle-aged Quebecoise women wear, when they should know better. Oh, the tight T-shirt over a middle-aged belly! Oh, the tight jeans over hips that should be covered! Oh, the dyed blond badly-styled hair! The polyester double-knit suits! The shoes that Cinderella's sister wore!

But it's different, you argue. Those badly-styled garments do not speak of a deeper moral code - a code that oppresses women (we are speaking of Islam here). They are just off-the-rack, cheap garments, bought without a shred of moral judgement or thought. Yes, you're right. It heralds the victory of the mediocre fat lady; the no-brainers; the thoughtless violence; the amoral assholes who parade as sensitive do-gooders.

I went to a birth once with a lovely student of mine who wore a see-through spaghetti strap tank top and a fake leopard-skin miniskirt. It was a Montreal summer - hot and humid. In the greyish hallways of the hospital she looked like an angel from heaven - hot, sexy, and happy. The birth was a lot of fun: the birthing mother didn't take any shit from anyone and she gave birth on her hands and knees, even if the physician couldn't handle seeing her vulva "upside down". After the birth we ordered sushi.

Another of my fondest memories was a birthing woman who was dressed completely top to bottom: hat, wig, robe, undershirt, bra, panties, stockings and socks. She removed the panties and stockings to give birth but everything else remained. Her husband, who was not allowed to look at her, sang throughout her labor, and told jokes. She laughed that baby out. The room was full of love.

I have seen women's legs held down, women's bellies jumped on, women yelled at and berated. I have listened to doctors, nurses, and midwives tell women what to do; what to say; what to feel; how to move.

When will we rise up against this banal mediocracy?

Refugee Babies

You decide to move to Canada, because in your country, you are hearing stories from neighbouring countries about chemical attacks, schools closing, medical care non-existent. Your friend's cousin's aunt married a man from a country where, ten years after she moved there, she is leaving everything and running to live as a refugee in a country she only visited once before, on holiday.

Your sister can legally sponsor you, and you move to Canada. You and your husband can find work legally, and the children can stay with your sister. You live together in a small apartment, smaller than the one at home but... the future looks good

Even the birth control pill doesn't work 100% of the time. The best way to not get pregnant is to not have heterosexual sex. But, you're in love, you're on an adventure...the sperm meets the egg, and you are pregnant.

You know you don't have medical coverage, but you don't care. You're young and healthy.

Then you find a doctor, who tells you that the birth will cost you at least $5000. If you have a cesarian section, or your baby needs care, it could go up to $10,000 or even $15,000.


I know some people think that the lady in question should "go home". But sometimes that just isn't possible. MBC has assisted women who have been living in Montreal as domestics, for years, and when they find themselves pregnant, they find themselves out of work and out of a home, and without medical care. Other women do not qualify as refugees, but they know if they go home they will be killed, or raped, or they will have to work as prostitutes. It's always easy for you to say, if you're a hard-working person with the good luck to be born into a place where hard work pays, and food is on the table, that "these people" need to act differently. But everyone makes love, and babies are conceived all the time. And sometimes a baby is conceived out of love - and when a woman keeps a baby in her body who is the result of violence and violation, doesn't that woman at least deserve our care?

Babies are being born every minute, and I believe we are ALL responsible for them. If we can assist a mother to have a birth experience that is full of love, and she can leave the birthing room knowing that she is capable of providing unconditional love for her baby, and knowing that she will be supported in this task, then we are paving the way for a better world for all of us: our children, and everyone's children.

Montreal Birth Companions doulas accompany women like these to the hospital to labor and give birth. Many of our clients are single, or apart from their families. Some have other children "back at home". Some have love babies, others have babies conceived during violence. Some have medical coverage, many do not.

If you would like more information about our program, please visit Montreal Birth Companions.