Coming Ashore
Page 33
It was the first time in my life that I knew what contentment meant. I had no desire to move on or plan the future. I realized that I had come full circle. One of the conundrums of life is that it takes so long to figure out what it is supposed to be about. I thought the goal was getting as far away from my childhood as possible, seeing the world and finding the right career. I had done all of these things. They were all great adventures, but they didn’t add up to what life was about.
As I lay there, I realized what I had been looking for. Really, the first experience of childhood love is what we look for until we have replicated it as adults. I thought of the cold days when Roy, my dad and I worked in the store, all doing our jobs with quiet affection for one another. We marched through the snow, united and undaunted. It was our faith in each other that got those deliveries out on time, even in six-foot snowdrifts.
I thought of my mother, so much like Michael, who loved to talk about ideas and share information no matter how esoteric. That was our bond. My father’s unfailing kindness and generosity were also reflected in Michael. I was able to resuscitate the deeply buried joy of unconditional love. Once I’d found that dormant inchoate feeling, the search was over.
Roy used to say when we were planning deliveries that you had to plan for the round trip. Never get so far out on the road that you can’t find your way home, and plan deliveries on the way out and on the way back. He was right. It was far easier to get out than it was to get home. Finally I’d gotten there.
PERMISSIONS
Quotation from the song “Blue Suede Shoes” by Carl Lee Perkins reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
Quotation from the poems “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” and “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas reprinted with permission of David Higham Associates. All rights reserved.
Quotation from the poem “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber. All rights reserved.
Quotation from the song “Let’s Do It” by Cole Porter reprinted with permission of Alfred Publishing. All rights reserved.
Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders; in the event of an inadvertent omission or error, please notify the publisher.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my first readers, Jon Redfern, Janet Somerville and Linda Kahn. They have an unerring nose and hopefully have saved you from a snorefest of four hundred pages.
My thanks to my husband’s extended family, notably the three Hilf sisters and their families, for allowing me to write my impression of my first Passover over forty years ago. It takes a secure and generous group to say whatever was my reality at the time is fine with them. I don’t know if I could have done the same thing. I perceived them as so different from me almost half a century ago, but now I see them as the siblings I never had.
My admiration goes out to Alina and Karol Gildiner for letting me use their family in my memoires. Alina, special thanks for letting me describe your teenage years. I would also like to pay a tribute to my recently deceased father-in-law, Chaim Gildiner, who helped me with some of the details of the book, and who was the most admirable man I have ever met.
Speaking of admirable men, I want to thank Michael Gildiner, my husband of forty years, for allowing me to interpret his past, his family, our meeting and engagement (using the term loosely) and marriage. What was surprising to me was how similar our memories were given that it was so long ago. However, I’ve decided not to push my luck, so relax, big guy, this is the last volume.
I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge David, Sam and James, the progeny of the McClure-Gildiner union. Boys, you were always encouraging, and Sam, thanks for telling me to just “let it rip.”
I would also like to thank Jack David, my publisher at ECW Press, who has always been there for me since I published my first book, Too Close to the Falls, in 1999. He picked me out of the slush pile and will forever be my friend. Jen Knoch did a meticulous editing job in record time and smoothed my historical timeline with a hot iron. Tania Craan has done all three of my memoir covers and interior designs. She has done a remarkable job making all three covers relate to one another, yet each is so evocative of its own era. Thank you to Rachel Ironstone for the typesetting, Crissy Calhoun for the proofread, and publicist Sarah Dunn for spreading the word.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Catherine Gildiner’s childhood memoir Too Close to the Falls (1999) was a New York Times and Globe and Mail bestseller. In 2009, she published the sequel, After the Falls, also a bestseller, followed by the final volume, Coming Ashore, in 2014. Her novel, Seduction (2005), was an international bestseller. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.
ALSO BY CATHERINE GILDINER
Too Close to the Falls is an exquisite, haunting return, through time and memory, to the heart of Catherine Gildiner’s childhood. And what a childhood it was…
In 1960, Cathy McClure, age 12, is thrown out of Catholic school. Her father’s drugstore, faced with a superhighway and encroaching chain stores, has fallen upon hard times. So the family decides to leave Lewiston, New York, for a fresh start in suburban Buffalo. But even as Cathy embraces the tumultuous sixties and throws herself into a new life as cheerleader, Hojo Hostess, and civil rights advocate, trouble — as usual — isn’t far behind. After the Falls is an evocative portrait of a young woman, and a country, finding its way.
PRAISE FOR TOO CLOSE TO THE FALLS
“Richly detailed and absorbing. Too Close to the Falls has only one fault. It ends too soon.”
— Toronto Life
“Catherine Gildiner’s Too Close to the Falls supplies no end of mischief and delight… . Too Close to the Falls shimmies and shakes with Gildiner’s hilarious antics as an inquisitive, competitive school girl… . Like a good comedian, Gildiner has a split-second sense of timing. Her writing sparkles on the page and the episodes she recounts have the clarity of ice after a winter storm in Lewiston. This is a memoir that makes the world seem fresh again, and worthwhile.”
— Literary Review of Canada
“Hilarious and moving … Gildiner tells her tales with a sharp humour that rarely misses a beat and underscores the dark side of what at first seems a Norman Rockwell existence.”
— Publishers Weekly
“Memorable and skillfully told… . Anyone who ever was, or has, a child considered different will enjoy this book.”
— Globe and Mail
“Often dangerous, [Gildiner’s] experiences, as related here, are also amusing, charming, and relevant. Highly recommended.”
— Library Journal
“Gildiner’s writing is punctuated by both an eye for the absurd as well as her gentle appreciation of human frailty. Her vivid descriptions and quiet pacing carry the reader along without calling attention to her careful style, a fine example of creative nonfiction at its best.”
— Coast Reporter
“Anyone who appreciates a good story, well told, will find it in Too Close to the Falls.”
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch
PRAISE FOR AFTER THE FALLS
“After the Falls is a darker book than its predecessor, and a sadder one, but it too contains an abundance of humour and humanity.”
— The Wall Street Journal
“Downright irresistible … Gildiner delves into the bonds of family and love, all in a voice so infectious I’d follow it anywhere.”
— Boston Globe
“Entertaining portrait of a resourceful, smart, offbeat girl and the decade of upheaval in which she came of age.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“On the page as in life, comedy, tragedy, and elegy live right on top of each other, and as with most remarkable memoirs, the straightforward, honest voice and perspective are steady even in the most painful moments.”
— Publishers Weekly
“The author’
s offbeat attitude, born of her unusual upbringing and wide-ranging experiences, proves to be charming, amusing, and even inspirational.”
— Booklist
“Hard to put down… . One quickly feels an empathy and fascination with this frank girl whose radically changing life plunges her back and forth between child and adult several times. It’s no surprise she became a clinical psychologist.”
— Winnipeg Free Press
“Gildiner … is a born raconteur. Her writing style is lively and conversational; dialogue, which figures strongly, comes easily to her.”
— The Gazette
Copyright © Catherine Gildiner, 2014
Published by ECW Press
2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E 1E2
416-694-3348 / info@ecwpress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW Press. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
To the best of her abilities, the author has related experiences, places, people, and organizations from her memories of them. In order to protect the privacy of others, she has, in some instances, changed the names of certain people and details of events and places.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Gildiner, Catherine, 1948–, author
Coming ashore: a memoir / Catherine Gildiner.
ISBN 978-1-77090-633-4 (ePUB)
Also issued as: 978-1-77090-632-7 (PDF); 978-1-77041-225-5 (paper)
1. Gildiner, Catherine, 1948–. 2. Women psychologists—Ontario—Toronto—Biography. 3. College students—Great Britain—Biography. 4. Teachers—Ohio—Cleveland—Biography.
I. Title.
BF109.G552A3 2014 150.92 C2014-902529-7
C2014-902530-0
Editor for the press: Jennifer Knoch
Cover and text design: Tania Craan
Cover and interior images: Courtesy Catherine Gildiner
Author photo: M.K. Lynde
The publication of Coming Ashore has been generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $157 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. We acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), an agency of the Government of Ontario, which last year funded 1,793 individual artists and 1,076 organizations in 232 communities across Ontario, for a total of $52.1 million. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities, and the contribution of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.