Hang-Drowning

            On Monday I got the official notice in the mail that I had qualified for the Noah Meltz Grant to pay for my courses again this year. The refund would probably be deposited at midnight. I still hadn’t gotten a letter from the Toronto Housing Allowance program, though I was told that it should have arrived today.

            I read a few more chapters of Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening”. Edna moved out of her husband’s big house into a little cottage not far away. She began selling her artwork. The man she loved returned to New Orleans but behaved indifferently to her until his resistance fell apart and they ended up in each other’s arms. He hadn’t felt he could be with her while she was with her husband. She hadn’t officially left her husband though, other than to move out.

            I decided to take a bike ride since I would have classes from Tuesday to Thursday and wouldn’t be able to spare the time then.

            There’s a country singer with a long white beard that always busks at the corner of Dufferin and Bloor. He’s not bad but I’ll bet behind that thick cowboy accent he sings with is a Canadian talking voice.

            I rode to Victoria Park, north to St Bede’s Rd, across to Pharmacy and then south again. There’s a cute little red house on Pharmacy at the corner of Penaire that looks like it might be the oldest one in the neighbourhood.

            On the way back on Danforth I heard a woman shouting behind me, “You stay away from me!” I stopped and turned. It turned out that she was saying it to the big guy that was walking east towards her. They started talking, I think in Greek and then she was walking and arguing with him. I moved on.

            I got home a little sooner than usual because I didn’t have to stop to pee.

            I watched an episode of Maverick that was directed by Robert Altman. It was well realized but, though it was funny, there was nothing outstanding about the story. The judge though, while riding from trial to trial always sang, “The Hanging Tree” by Mack David and Jerry Livingston 100 years after the time when this story was set –

“I came to town to search for gold
and I brought with me a memory
and I seemed to hear the night winds cry
Go hang your dreams on the hanging tree
your dreams of love that will never be
Hang your faded dreams on the hanging tree.

I searched for gold, and I found my gold
and I found a girl who loved just me
and I wished that I could love her, too
but I left my heart on the hanging tree,
Left my heart with a memory
and my faded dreams on the hanging tree.

Now there were men who craved my gold
and meant to take my gold from me
Where man is gone he needs no gold
so they carried me to the hanging tree
to join my dreams and a memory
Yes, they carried me to the hanging tree.

To really live you must almost die
and it happened just that way with me
They took my gold and set me free
and I walked away from the hanging tree
I walked away from the hanging tree
and my own true love, she walked with me.

That's when I knew that the hanging tree
is the tree of life, new life for me …”

            I finished reading “The Awakening”. The lover that had returned to Edna’s arms left again because he loved her. She went for a swim out into the ocean until she was too tired to swim anymore. One assumes she drowned. My impression is that her swim was not deliberate attempt at suicide, but once she was out there she didn’t care one way or the other.