NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE BOOKS

Pretty clear from whence I got my love of photographing flowers. This is a little montage my father put together of what he found growing atop the high-rise he lived in in North Vancouver. He never paid much attention to the equipment, but I think had a very good eye, and paid a lot of attention to composition.

That’s Grouse Mountain in the background. He loved the view. Used to sit out on his balcony every morning, drinking his instant coffee lightened with what we jokingly called ‘the white death,’ some generic brand of coffee mate I think it was. Probably did him in. He died almost two years ago now. I think of him pretty well every day. During the last three or four years of his life we used to talk regularly on the phone. He was hugely supportive of what I was doing with this blog and interviewing authors etc. We used to laugh ourselves to tears almost every time we spoke. I’ve never experienced quite such a connection. We were just able to crack each other up. This is why I like the Auden quote so much:

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator; but among those whom I love, I can: all of them can make me laugh.

I’ve avoided packing a good part of the day, spending the time instead enjoying all the photos I’ve found in various family paper filled chests. These require urgent scrutiny. Much more pressing a task than putting silly old books in boxes (not). Anyhow, I’m motivated, for whatever strange self revelatory reason, to post a selection of photos I’ve come across of my grandmother, and father, up here on the site, so stay tuned…

It took about forty years — enough time for me to experience and hence appreciate some of the challenges that my father had to face during his lifetime — but thankfully we were able to connect, during his later years, in a wonderfully profound way. Every moment of the last four or five times I visited him in his beloved Vancouver was filled with hurried, enthusiastic talk and most memorably, laughter. We loved many of the same things — found much in common funny. I’m reminded of one of my favourite W.H. Auden lines: "Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh."

In responding to Frank Wilson’s remarks about meeting me, Patrick Kurp sums up our kind of connection beautifully: "In the company of a friend I’m enlivened. I have a surfeit of thoughts and impressions because I know he will listen to them, appreciate them even in disagreement, and respond in kind. A friend encourages me to become more than myself. Blogging has given me friends, whom I trust and who offer reliably good company, I’m likely never to have otherwise known. We would have remained passengers on a train, departing from the same station, arriving at the same station, having never intersected, like parallel lines in a geometry text…"

Frank and I talked and laughed a lot. More than a lot. All the time!

This past week has been challenging on the blogging front, with hostile accusations, name calling and insults fired in my direction. Particularly irksome has been the sending of emails and comments to lit bloggers by unknown parties who have assumed my identity. I can’t believe that this criminal behavior is so easily practiced and yet apparently so difficult to stop.

Still, this mischief blows off like so much dust in comparison to the lasting pleasure experienced meeting and connecting with people of Frank’s caliber, and receiving attention and approbation from same. As a result, to quote Frank, "any lingering doubts I may have had about the value and the future of blogging have been completely dispelled."

Here is an obituary for my father written by Tom Hawthorn. It appears in today’sGlobe and Mail

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COLIN BEALE, 73 B.C. forestry analyst became a nude model TOM HAWTHORN Vancouver — Colin Beale, who has died at the age of 73, published a newsletter on the British Columbia forest industry. After retiring, he returned to an earlier calling as a nude model. Beale’s Letter, launched in 1972, provided reportage on the state of the province’s largest industry sector. The newsletter’s contents were cited a handful of times during debate in the provincial legislature, according to Hansard. After 20 years of publishing, Mr. Beale took up drawing and painting. One day when a male model failed to show for a class, Mr. Beale took his place on a lark. He first posed as a nude art model on completing service in the Royal Navy when he found himself without money in Paris. The experience left him with a desire to be on the other side of the easel, an ambition he put aside while earning a living. He took seriously his return to modelling, studying the classic poses and relying on yoga and meditation when it became necessary to hold a pose for as long as 50 minutes. He posed at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Mr. Beale was born on Jan. 8, 1933, at Tunbridge Wells, Kent. He hailed from a family of accomplishment. An uncle, Sir Louis Beale, represented Britain as general commissioner to the New York World’s Fair of 1939. Mr. Beale died of a stroke on Aug. 27 at his home in North Vancouver. He leaves a daughter, two sons, three grandchildren, a brother and a sister.

I’d like to share the following notes/quotes, some attributed some not, found in a little notebook my lovely father kept, written in his impeccable hand:

"Mindfulness The great spiritual teachers of all religions have themselves practised and taught mindfulness. To be mindful is to live in the present moment, not to be imprisoned in the past nor anticipating a future that may never happen. When we are fully aware of the present, life is transformed and strain and stress disappear. So much of modern life is a feverish anticipation of future activity and excitement. We have to learn to step back from this into the freedom and possibility of the present. " Unattributed

Truth Beauty Health Happiness Light "A sense of wonder so indestructable it lasts a lifetime as an antidote against boredom and disenchantment. " Unattributed

"A mind always hopeful, confident, courageous, and determined on its set purpose, and keeping itself to that purpose, attracts to itself out of the elements things and powers favourable to that purpose. " Ralph Waldo Trine

"People bring to what they see and feel, the inner weather of their souls and complexion of their minds." Han Suyin.

"Stand in awe and sin not: Commune with your own heart, and in your chamber, be still." Psalm 3 v. 4.

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed." Albert Einstein.

"When you change the way you look at a thing, the thing itself changes…By mastering feelings, she had come to understand the meaning of discipline and its reward: freedom and power. " May Sarton.

THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear the water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

1892 By William Butler Yeats

When You Are Old

WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

By William Butler Yeats

O let me hear thy loving-kindness betimes in the morning, for in thee is my trust : shew thou me the way that I should walk in, for I lift up my soul unto thee. Psalm 143

Cultivate compassion Cultivate loving kindness Protect safety and integrity of others Cultivate loving speech and deep listening Cultivate good physical and mental health Speak truth Veneration and reverential wonder Unattributed

"The most necessary thing is contentment under all circumstances…. Yield not to grief and sorrow, they cause the greatest misery. Jealousy consumes the body and anger burns the liver…Avoid these two as you would a lion." Bahá’u'lláh

"Suffering can be turned into achievement tragedy into triumph. A capacity to be worthy of suffering helps people transcend their own outward fate. People can preserve an independence of mind and spiritual freedom even under terrible conditions. The kind of person you become is the result of an inner decision, not simply the product of an environment. The fleeting nature of life can drive people to take responsible action. Love is the highest goal to which humanity can aspire. Practice a ‘tragic optimism’ that makes the best of any situation, even the most miserable." Unattributed

"I have to remind myself that being alone, the total silence has a great resonance for me…I find other parts of myself that can be nourished…listen to sacred music…get to work on my art…concentrate on my modeling. How I can help the artists…" Colin Beale

"If I have a secret at all its that I do just what I want. I think that stops the ageing process as much as anything." Cary Grant

Father was taken by Tamara de Lempicka. Particularly her still lifes. This one entitled Still Life of Fruits and Silk Drape, 1949, image from here

My father died on August 27 of a stroke. Looking through his various possessions and papers I found this poem by Emerson pasted into one of his commonplace books. We read it at his memorial service on Saturday:

Good-Bye!

Good-Bye, proud world! I`m going home:

Thou art not my friend, and I`m not thine.

Long through thy weary crowds I roam;

A river-ark on the ocean brine,

Long I`ve been tossed like the driven foam;

But now, proud world! I`m going home.

Good-bye to Flattery`s fawning face;

To Grandeur with his wise grimace;

To upstart Wealth`s averted eye;

To supple Office, low and high;

To crowded halls, to court and street;

To frozen hearts and hasting feet;

To those who go, and those who come;

Good-bye, proud world! I`m going home.

I am going to my own hearth-stone,

Bosomed in yon green hills alone,

- A secret nook in a pleasant land,

Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;

Where arches green, the livelong day,

Echo the blackbird`s roundelay,

And vulgar feet have never trod

A spot that is sacred to thought and God.

O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,

I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;

And when I am stretched beneath the pines,

Where the evening star so holy shines,

I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,

At the sophist schools and the learned clan;

For what are they all, in their high conceit,

When man in the bush with God may meet?

This poem suggests with some bitterness that our world is difficult. My father faced hardship at an early age: abuse, war, the death of a dear friend. It took him much of his life to overcome it. But he did. The last ten years were his happiest. He absolutely loved the life modelling he was doing and was in good health. He loved the forest and trees, and stones and leaves. Wrote and published a newsletter on the forest industry for 20 years. W.H. Hudson said "The sense of the beautiful is God’s best gift to the human soul." Colin had a sense of the beautiful like few others, as evidenced by the hundreds of lovely photos he took and cards he made and sent to me and my siblings, and other family members and friends. He used to love placing pictures and objects on the walls where he lived, spending hours moving them millimeters until their positions were just right. I went for a walk this morning along the canal and marvelled at how many beautiful things I saw…berries, ducks, rain droplets…all seemed so wonderful. Also got a real sense that all of us are connected somehow. I think that he’d reached enlightenment on earth. He’d figured it out, and so it was time to leave. To go to a place where perhaps he could do more for those he loved. But he remains here too on earth in me, and in his other children, so that he ‘ should live twice.’