I
was not surprised when I heard that Gord Downie died, I mean, he had
terminal brain cancer which he publicized extensively in the 18 months
before his death. But it shook me. He's not my one-true musician, but for
most of my life, he's occupied my domain. I remember the first time I
heard the Hip on CIUT when I was 15, his strange voice, set to bar guitar,
was the musical equivalent of a frayed nerve. The band really hit
in the late 80s - back when I would visit friends at Queen's (in
Kingston, Downie's hometown, where they often played). Of that era, there are few hits I
dislike more than Blow at High Dough - a song I always thought was irritating and played in such high-rotation that one could
scarcely scan the airwaves without landing on it (in Toronto, that is).
But the sound was easy and jangly, very of the time.
When
I was at university, an acquaintance got a sweet gig taking photos at
concerts and she needed some extra assistance. We were scheduled to
shoot the Hip at the Horseshoe only, somehow, wires got crossed and we
ended up seeing The Grapes of Wrath instead. I was so disappointed -
though I do recall loving that gig. I felt very Rolling Stone that
night. I finally saw the Hip in concert in my 20s, where I don't even
remember...
No
doubt, Gord Downie is part of the Ontario lexicon, but he's also a
trade-marked creature of Toronto-proper. I remember, after M was born,
the first time I left the house to go food shopping. We'd been having groceries delivered because I was a total mess but finally Scott convinced me
to walk the 3 minutes to the Dominion (yes, we used to have a grocery
chain with that hilarious name) where I promptly proceeded to run into
GD in the most literal fashion. He was quite gracious and I was so
sleep-deprived that I didn't notice it was him until he walked away with
his two young children and Scott said, way to smack into Canadian royalty.
I remembered thinking, if Gord Downie slums it at Dominion with his
kids on Sunday morning, then so can I, not that I made another trip of
that sort for many months afterwards.
Our
paths were interwoven though he hadn't the slightest idea of who I was.
My daughter parties with his older son. My oldest friend's son is
his son's best friend. He was always on the radio, supporting a cause.
He was a facet of my locale. Take that Sunday I went to get yarn at the
now-defunct Lettuce Knit in Kensington Market. The streets were closed
while the band played an impromptu concert, and one that was dearly
embraced by a pop-up crowd.
The
last time I felt this sort of shaken was when Natasha Richardson died. I
was not a particular fan but I was so horrified by the pathos of it
all, that a woman in the prime of her exciting life, could be cut down
by something as moronic as a bunny-hill ski-fall. This was no Michael
Shumacher event. A young woman took a silly tumble, while holidaying
with her teenaged son, and then she freakin' died. I obsessed about this
for weeks. I was vaguely afraid to walk down stairs for a month.
Here's
the thing: we're all very here until we're not. I think about this
often. I think about it as I walk to work and I see the quotidien vistas
that define me. This place is my village and I'm watching it age and
change - and, some things, die. Every day I walk past Hart House, where I
got married in the chapel. I walk past the building where I was meant to
have an economics exam but, traumatically, messed up the timing. I walk
past the restaurant where my parents met the first guy I lived with (I
still go to that restaurant, albeit infrequently). It was also the place
that my child last saw a de facto uncle, sacrificed at the alter of
divorce.
I
can't take a step without inhabiting this place. I mean, when Scott and
I met on the streetcar (do y'all know that fun story?) Day for Night
had just been released and we bonded over (the truly brilliant) Nautical
Disaster. There's a reason the media refer to the soundtrack of one's
life.
When
my grandfather died I was in my early 20s. He died quickly and I didn't
know what to make of death at that point. At some sparky philosophical moment
in my thirties, I decided that he was effectively still alive because I
am alive (as are all of his children and grandchildren). We recreate him
in our activities. We're guided by his former methodology. In some
empiric way he's with me when I drink Cinzano, when I eat certain food,
when I craft. During a conversation, in my teens, I completely horrified
him, an old, traditional southern Italian man, by disclosing that I would
never change my last name if I got married - because my last name is
mine and why on earth would I give it up for somebody else's? I stood by
that pledge. But what about when
I'm gone? How will he be here? (Note: I'm not so meta that I can get
with the idea that every generation justifies the last. My child never
knew my grandfather, just as I never knew countless family members of
the recent and distant past. I cannot vouch for them. I don't know how
or if they live in me.)
I
didn't know Gord Downie but he knew me. Sure, he didn't know me - he
got me, like he got millions of others, through the mystical lens of
poetry and music. He got me in that he was a dyed in the wool southern
Ontarian (and it's hard to make this sound epic or deep but, much as
Billy Joel has elevated the bridge and tunnel set, Gord Downie gave us
sonic credibility - a way to grasp our dangerous landscapes and
emotions). This morning, as I walked to work, I saw the remnants of a
bakery, twenty years gone. I got coffee at Sam James where everyone knows
me. I took pictures of more homes being demolished and rebuilt, and I
listened to Gord Downie's posthumous release, a love letter to his
family and band mates, to his dog, to Lake Ontario. I cried and cried,
not because a mortal person died of illness too soon, but because this
world is ever-changed for every such loss.
I really don't know what it means to have been here and I wonder if I ever will.
Posts
