“Forested Properties”
phone photo DS
Artist and writer Douglas Coupland has come into view in my life a couple of times. The first time was at a talk at the Vancouver Art Gallery when he had installed his work, “Bubble Gum Head”, on the gallery lawn. I too bought gum, chewed it, and stuck its colour on the large head sculpture along with the others. I observed his patience with the staff struggling to get things set up late.
The next time was an arts and culture course through Regent College online in the pandemic with Prof. Mary McCampbell. He observes and engages with people in a comfortable way; although his work can be discomfiting. In him, in his work, the viewer can see themselves.
Here are my explorations:
Coupland, Douglas. Girlfriend in a Coma. 1998.
925 words
I believe that unless a person passes through some great experience, that person’s life will have been for naught. *** Road signs blister and rust. *** My friend [ ] grew old while I got to remain forever young. *** Fate is for losers. *** Karen and I deflowered each other atop Grouse Mountain. *** Karen had been off kilter all afternoon . . . *** I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you with that. *** Russia isn’t our enemy any more. *** All of the girls who once mooned over Jacob began mooning over me . . . *** He’ll eat cat food by midnight. *** It’s a girl thing. Drop it okay? *** How was I to know that time was now different? *** Mrs. McNeil gives them to her. *** I felt as though I was a jinx of a friend. *** Karen could notice [ ] weird little things like the color of mandarin oranges. *** The five of us had already realized we were never going to finish school in a normal way. *** I was no longer just like everybody else . . . *** Why would she leave me? *** Only years later does it dawn on us that Mr. Phillips is a manic depressive wife beater . . . *** He returned to us with maddeningly obscure information. *** Let’s not give each other presents, okay? *** No. This child must be born. *** Often in midweek, George and I never talked much . . . *** I experienced what was to be the only vision of my life. *** She was a kinder, softer, feminized version of me . . . *** Thus my own mother was able to experience the flush of grand motherhood dauntingly early . . . *** We were so young that we didn’t even know what unhappiness could be. *** Karen was then moved permanently to a room of her own in a local nursing home then called Inglewood Lodge. *** Meghan knew from the start that I was her father . . . *** I thought of what life ought to have been as opposed to what it had become. *** With savings I bought a Kleenex-box house in North Van where I lived alone . . . *** I maintained a good front while inner deterioration grew. *** I would have to be calm now. *** No one is there to witness. *** His years away were treated as though he’d popped out to get a pack of cigarettes and returned a few minutes later. *** She provided a platform on which people could hope. *** I want to be where Karen is. *** I’m worried that we might not be able to change. *** A tiny patch of blue sky allowed was seen to sparkle the light meter that hung around her neck. *** I liked its vibe and it was the most polite set I’d worked on. *** I’m not sure. *** We have an acceptable level of affluence. *** It seemed a typical enough rebellion. *** Skitter was every parent’s worst fears of a daughter’s dream date. He loved in a mass-roofed 1963 cereal box in darkest Lynn Valley. *** I just don’t get Trekkies. *** I saw trees the color of Karen’s eyes. *** A bird trilled above. *** Then the nurse hears a voice, gentle, husky . . . *** Instead, they discuss the commonplace. *** Linus is on the chair by the bed, happy. *** Lois threw on a twin-set and pearls. *** Her jaw hurts and she feels like a chopped-down tree. *** The world doesn’t like simplicity or relaxation. *** This geography of their lives became the same as when they were teenagers. *** For you, the Moon. *** And now there’s only the system. *** And then came the collapse on the football field followed by the thousand passionate nights that never were to come. *** I think we should all know by now that Meghan is not and is unlikely to ever be college material. *** And suddenly she is lost in a blast of white light. *** She’s too confident to follow the crowd. *** I dreamed I was telling you the world was going to shut down. *** Guest hear a galvanizing crack crack! On the living room window, where an ostrich pecks the glass with a cruel, hilarious beak. *** Traffic controllers there have requested we stay aloft for half an hour or so while the situation down there is rectified. *** They hop into the boat, which jolts away from the shore like a knife tugged by a magnet. *** I don’t know. *** Lois was at Super Valu in Park Royal striding purposefully amid the store’s glorious isles of glorious food all gloriously lit, when the sleeping began. *** Lois thought of Karen and the children who grew up so wild inside the forest. *** The scene continues. *** Nothing was known about this new sickness, not was any treatment available. *** She crosses over and reaches home through the dark forest she knows by heart. *** Is this a joke? *** What other place can there be? *** She will build a nest of ferns to keep her warm until daybreak. *** Linus places a mohair blanket over her, and Wendy flinches at his touch. *** Could you all put your personalities on hold for just two minutes? *** You, you’re finally here. *** I know. It’s cool. So beautiful it almost hurts.***
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ShellseekerReflections 