Paying Homage to Vera Jacyk: Ill Remember Vera

Bohdan Sirant May 10, 2012 I was moved to write a poem about Vera Jacyk. It follows at the end of this essay. There are few people for whom I would ever write a poem, or even dedicate one, and Vera is among them. Ironically, I think I never really knew Vera that well, but she certainly made an impact on me. I was fortunate to cross Veras life path more than once and was lucky to walk along with her for a short, little while many years ago. In this essay, I have dared to share my thoughts and memories to give the poem some context. I remember Vera from my youthfrom my Plast (Ukrainian scouting movement) and high school days. I only knew her from a distance. She was about three years younger than me. We went to different schools, and had different circles of friends, with very little overlap. We lived literally and figuratively on different sides of the tracks, but I was aware of her she was striking-- and I would sometimes hope to coincidently meet her; but that never happened, and no one ever thought to introduce us, so if I was ever going to get to meet her, it would only be by chance, possibly at a dance, at some community or church event, at some wedding, or by crashing parties that she might attend, and hope for the best, the way a shy person like I would. I did coincidentally meet her over 20 years later, in the early 1990s, one day in a grocery isle, in the yogurt section. I mustered up the courage to ask, Are you Vera Jacyk, the artist? and then introduced myself. She said she knew who I was, which I found heartening. I had been taking evening classes at the Ontario College of Art and I knew we had a common interest. I thought myself very lucky that day because, without any prompting, she said she would be interested in seeing my work. I had been studying human figures and portraiture at the time --- perhaps she sensed my passion for art and a beginners need for encouragement. I was thrilled we had finally met. About a week later, she called to say she was in my neighborhood, and came over for a coffee to see my portfolio. I remember she found my somewhat embarrassing works, about thirty of them, rather amusing, and I still laugh, when I think about it, because I remember her chuckle as she pondered my painting class nudes, and portraits, as well as a few extracurricular landscapes. Among other things, Vera genially pointed out some flaws in anatomy, various disproportions, problems with perspective, and as well, my immature use of color. She chuckled good-naturedly all the while she was critiquing my work. Having finished her critiquing, she promptly left for another meeting. I knew there and then that Vera had priorities and a good sense of humor. Every time we met after that, I tried to have a joke ready, or something I had painted, for her amusement. The first part of my poem reflects back to the time around 1990 about 22 years ago, when we chummed for a few months. We were what I would term platonic pals, and a lot of our get-togethers involved art and discussions about art, life, philosophy and psychology at cafes, often after meeting at art shows and openings where she exposed me to her world.

I in turn exposed her to mine, and I especially remember one day we spent together back then. It was a bright, hot, and breezy summer day. Vera came up for the day to our family BBQ and bonfire at my Uncle Denys farm near Dundalk, in the Grey County highlands. It was one of my favorite places and retreats, and I wanted to share that experience with her. Vera got to meet my parents, sisters, and nieces, aunt and uncle, and my three kids. It was harvest time and I remember the sweet smell of freshly mown hay. It was remote, lush, hilly and forested rolling country up there, with artesian wells, ponds, and trout streams lacing the area. Shortly after she arrived, I remember Vera standing in the shade of a giant maple in the yard near the homestead, and I remember being struck at that moment by her remarkable beauty and vitality. Later we went for a long hike to the highest hill in the area that had a great panorama of the farm, the surrounding countryside. Vera was very athletic and I remember her long, curly glossy, raven hair, and her bangs, and how fit, strong and toned she was. I was in to hiking and canoing back then, and believe me, Vera could pull her weight, and could hike with the best of any hikers I knew. She was the kind of person one would want on long portages. I remember my dad was thrilled to meet her. He took to her immediately. He was taken by her good looks and intellect and he was a very discerning man. He referred to her as an Amazonka, an Amazon, and boyova, a fighter. Ale vona fayna, My, she is fine, he would say after she had left. She was clearly his type. Thats how I still think of Vera. Very sadly, not too long afterward, our relationship took a turn and our intensifying friendship ruptured it seemed inexplicable that it should have happened --I think it was regretted by both of us. I certainly deeply regretted it. Fyodor Dostoyevsky said: Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid. And I have always suspected that was truly the case for us. After that, I only met her fleetingly on several occasions at her shows or by chance doing errands. In spite of that, I still had affection for Vera and held her in the highest regard, and continued to follow her career. I put on a few small shows of my own, and was happily surprised to learn that she had come by to take a look, and to read her encouraging comments in the guest books candid comments like Youre getting better now. Keep at it --but dont quit your day job. --Vera The later part of the poem refers to her art and, in particular to her show Chysto, Chysto, Chysto, that had been curated by Olex Wlasenko. The title literally meant the adjectives Clean, Clean, Clean, but also connoted something clear or pure, or cleansed and cathartic, sterilized, sanctified, unmixed, purged or sanitized, The words chaste, caste and chysto have the same ancient Indo-European root. I was anxious about meeting Vera at the opening, because I had not seen her for a few years, so it was a somewhat tense reunion for me, and I think for Vera too. I was an active volunteer at the McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa at the time, and had been well-briefed on her work. I had a lot of time to examine the work, as I often led tours and

attended meetings at the gallery several times a week back then. I returned to look at the installation many times, and discussed it with fellow docents, and some of the visitors who came to see it. I remember looking at it very closely, and inspecting it with more attention than usual. I even looked up from under the table in one of the works. It was meticulous, and was conceptually very powerful. I looked for clues that I thought were hidden in plain view. I wondered at the motivation behind the works, and its deeper meanings. It was very coherent and I thought it probably had a strong autobiographical aspect to it. I wondered what the story behind it was, and what story I could create from it for myself. Of course, everybody interprets art differently, and some artists are reluctant to discuss the personal meaning of, or thinking behind, their works, but for me the show expressed emphatically the idea in the first line of Charles Bukowskis brutal and rough poem, Melancholia, that the history of melancholia includes all of us. It reminded me that people gradually sterilize and sanitize memories, prune them, embellish them, selectively remember some and forget others, inflate or deflate them, suppress, or invent and insert new memories, reshape memories, or confabulate. Some like snaps in a photo album stay vivid, others become vague. Memories are dynamic. Why? Theories suggest various reasons: to confirm biases, to help cope with traumas and losses, to help make sense out of chaos, confusion, and suffering, to build resilience, to avoid pain, and to help heal. At the same time, Veras work reminded me of the sadness of growing up, getting older and all the necessary losses that entails loves loss, regret, guilt, shame, homesickness, sentimentality, and nostalgia. Such necessary losses account for the universal appeal of much popular and great poetry, verse, and song. The poetry and verse of Robert Service and Robert Frost, of which I am fond, are good examples. For me personally, among other things, Veras work was a therapeutic form of prolonged exposure and cognitive processing that rekindled in me memories of our common postWWII baby-boomer experience. The Ukrainian community, and the mainstream community of Toronto for that matter, included Displaced Persons (DPs), genocide survivors, veterans, former slave laborers and prisoners of war, political refugees, and shared the common experiences of many Canadians whom had suffered losses because of the war, including the loss of loved ones. Many were suffering (unbeknownst to them) from what we now call Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), or at least a sub-syndromal form of PTSD, a disorder characterized by re-experiencing, flashbacks, hyper-vigilance, and avoidance. In our parents generation sometimes referred to as the finest generation, (a term coined by Tom Brokaw)-- it typically went untreated and often resulted in maladaptive and dysfunctional behavior, overcompensation, over-achievement, workaholism, and other forms of avoidance and escape. Self-treatment with alcohol was common, and so were the consequences. Instead of sharing and speaking out about their traumas which would have been therapeutic, many chose avoidance and a willful silence. This made it hard on families, especially when both

parents suffered. William Tylers classic film The Best Years of Their Lives of 1946 dealt with and illustrated some of these darker issues. The war didnt really end in 1945 for many of them. Some stayed in DP camps until the early 1950s. Some fought in other wars and conflicts of the late 1940s and 50s that followed. For example, many signed up with the Foreign Legion and went to Algeria and Vietnam, some fought in Cuba and other lesser known conflicts. Many had feared forced deportation to the Soviet Union, or worse. Many became separated from their wartime friends and comrades, and many never saw their relatives and families or loved ones in Ukraine again. Those who came to Canada traveled very light, often with only one piece of plywood luggage. They carried intangible things that Tim OBrien, one of my favorite authors, described in his classic novel about the Vietnam war, The Things They Carried1 (pp. 18-24): They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe of the terrible power of the things they carried. They all carried ghostsThey carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do. I shared Veras experience of growing up in that first generation Ukrainian-Canadian community in Toronto of the 1950s and 60s. Toronto was not yet the cosmopolitan, multicultural town it is now. There was a lot of prejudice and racism, and antipathy towards DPs, which was a perjorative epithet back then, usually accompanied by various expletives. The community had many members who experienced intergenerational trauma and war-related PTSD. It was menaced by the Soviet KGB that tried to subvert it and to defame it. It was immersed in Cold War and liberation politics and had its political and religious divisions. It was a community trying to preserve identity and save a culture that was under siege. It was trying to integrate with the older pre-war Ukrainian community, build a new society, integrate into the Canadian mainstream, and tell its story, and to speak out about the unspeakable horrors of living in a Garden of Evil under both the Nazi and Bolshevik regimes. It was the first atomic generation, and for it, the risk of nuclear war was palpable. I was not easy growing up in that environment, and for me, Veras work is loaded with references to that as well. For me, Veras show also made me think about acceptance, extinguishing bitterness, and letting go of the hurts through forgiveness and detachment, --and that such cleansing could be therapeutic to the traumatized psyche. Veras works told a story, and reminded me of the many war stories I used to hear at the dinner table, Ukrainian school, or by a campfire, during lunch and coffee breaks on my summer construction jobs, when I was growing up. And that makes me think again of
1

OBrien, Tim (1990). The Things They Carried. Houghton Miflin Harcourt 4

something Tim OBrien wrote that: a true war story is never about war. Its about sunlight. Its about the special way that dawn spreads out on a river when you know you must cross the river and march into the mountains and do things you are afraid to do. Its about love and memory. Its about sorrow. Its about sisters who never write back and people who never listen. (p.81) Veras art helped others think of stories, mysterious stories. Tim OBrien has said: Good stories deal with our moral struggles, our uncertainties, our dreams, our blunders, our contradictions, our endless quest for understanding. Good stories do not resolve the mysteries of the human spirit but rather describe and expand up on those mysteries.2 I believe Veras works expanded upon those mysteries. I was very happy to participate with Vera and other artists in 2008, in the Ukrainian Canadian Arts Foundation show One Root, Many Routes, curated by Olex Wlasenko. It was a chance to meet again, if only briefly, and as I stood next to her, was again reminded of how beautiful she was and how much beauty she created. Once again I found myself coming over to the gallery at quiet times to study Veras series of drawings titled Notes to (a) self and contemplate their mysteries. My last images of Vera, the ones I will carry, are from that show. I think I only saw Vera once after that, and then only from a distance. It was on a breezy golden afternoon, as I was driving by High Park. She was walking briskly, against a backdrop of brilliant autumn woods in which leaves were fluttering down and whirling about, headed the other way, and probably on her way home. I very much doubt she saw me. I learned of Veras illness and death from her sister, Sonia, whom I met by chance at a restaurant, shortly after the funeral events. I was glad I was able to share a few fond memories of Vera with her. I was very sad afterwards, and decided to write a poem to commemorate Vera. She was such a fine person. The last line in the poem alludes to Lord Byrons (George Gordons) immortal poem She Walks in Beauty She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies And all thats best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes I imagine that Vera would chuckle and chortle if she heard me read this essay, and I hope
2

OBrien, Tim (1998). BookReporter. Quote from interview re. Tom Cat in Love. Found and downloaded on May 10, 2012 from http://www.illyria.com/tob/interview.html 5

she would not be embarrassed. And I hope she would be happy that I wrote the poem.

Ill Remember Vera

--by Bohdan Sirant, 2012 (dedicated to the late Vera Jacyk) Ill remember Vera As a shimmering aurora Her radiant smile Her gentle aura Her dancing inner fire The squint and twinkles of her eyes And the lightness of her laugh The cute chortle and catchy chuckle (a gleeful quirk she could not stifle while glancing at my sorry work) Her sparkle and her style Her graceful and easy gait (She was statuesque and agile, sporting, slim and strapping And could go the extra mile) Her kindness and generosity Her willingness to wait (She cared, was courteous and Was almost never late) Ill remember her tenacity Her courage and commitment Her shyness and her modesty Her conscientiousness and Her endearing curiosity Her candor and integrity Her insight and intuition Her calm competence In fulfillment of a mission Her compassion Her independence And I will fondly Contemplate with reverence In the remaining years hence The poignant power of her art Its quiet purpose and intelligence Art delicate, austere and hard Clean, sleek, intense, and stark Profound and passionate Its whispers and echoes

Triggering thoughts of Distant shifting and Mutating memories Of haunting struggles and sacrifices Lifes lonely dead ends Barely remembered names Long gone friends And wistful longings Childhoods innocent games Near forgotten secrets Yesteryears faded oaths Perhaps not honored (Could they ever be?) And nave hopes That could never be met Chances never taken Unrealized dreams Smoky promises Near misses and foolish bets Pilfered family photo albums Dim regrets and lingering shames (I still have them-No, you can never go back To undo the blames!) The sacred calls of duty Ho! The sacred calls of duty That like bugled posts and reveilles And fluttering battalion flags Still move the mind and Stir the soul and Touch and tug and start Every teary-eyed veterans heart-The aging, but yearning, heart-Such was her mighty art And power to move --but never hurt But that was not all No, that was not all It was the beauty It was all that fresh beauty! She created beauty When she talked and When she worked and When she walked --And when she walked She walked in beauty too Oh yes, she walked in beauty too

Thats how Ill remember Vera