Betsy Warland - Oscar of Between: A Memoir of Identity and Ideas

Oscar of Between

A Memoir of Identity and Ideas

Betsy Warland

an imprint of Caitlin Press

Copyright 2016 Betsy Warland

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, .

Caitlin Press Inc.

8100 Alderwood Road, Halfmoon Bay, BC V0N 1Y1

www.caitlin-press.com

Edited by Barbara Kuhne

Text and cover design by Vici Johnstone

Cover image shutterstock_91134623

Printed in Canada

Caitlin Press Inc. acknowledges financial support from the Government of Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishers Tax Credit.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Warland, Betsy, 1946-, author

Oscar of between : a memoir of identity and ideas / Betsy Warland. ISBN 978-1-987915-16-7 (paperback)

1. Warland, Betsy, 1946-. 2. Gender identity. 3. Authors, Canadian (English)20th centuryBiography. I. Title.

PS8595.A7745Z53 2016C811.54C2015-908100-9

• Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing (essays). Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2010.
• Only This Blue (long poem and essay). Toronto: The Mercury Press, 2005.
• Bloodroot: Tracing the Untelling of Motherloss (memoir). Toronto: Second Story Press, 2000.
• What Holds Us Here (poetry). Ottawa: Buschek Books, 1998.
• Two Women in a Birth (poetry and prose with Daphne Marlatt). Toronto: Guernica Editions, 1994.
• The Bat Had Blue Eyes (poetry and prose). Toronto: Womens Press, 1993.
• Proper Deafinitions (creative nonfiction). Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1990.
• Double Negative (poetry and prose with Daphne Marlatt). Charlottetown: gynergy books/Ragweed Press, 1988.
• serpent (w)rite (a long poem). Toronto: Coach House Press, 1987.
• open is broken (poetry). Edmonton: Longspoon Press, 1984.
• A Gathering Instinct (poetry). Toronto: Williams-Wallace, 1981.

Oscar of Between began when I flew to London in 2007 to celebrate my sixtieth birthday. As a complete draft of Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing (2010) was in sight, I could entertain what my next manuscript might be. On the flight, I realized I wanted to combine the personal essay style of ideas used in Breathing the Page with the memoir style and form I used in Bloodroot: Tracing the Untelling of Motherloss (2000). However, I wanted to challenge myself with one new wild card: the use of one fictive device. Once in London, I followed an odd compulsion to see the Camouflage exhibit in the Imperial War Museum.

There I experienced a revelation, and I was off and running. From the beginning, I reserved judgement as to whether Oscar of Between would ever be a print book. Although I adore print books, I had become disenchanted by my five-year-long experience of being turned down by publishers who loved Breathing the Page but whose marketing departments nixed it. So, I just enjoyed writing Oscar of Between for a number of years. In 2012, I got the idea of creating an online Oscars Salon, where I could publish short excerpts from an abridged version of the manuscript; curate a wide variety of Guest Writers or Artists who would send me a piece of their work that bounced off mine; and re-activate my visual art training and incorporate images. In addition, I invited readers to post their comments. I relished salon readers riffs, creative responses and insights that werent critiques, book blurbs, reviews nor blog opinion posts. They struck me as a kind of new sub-genre form. Oscars Salon felt (and continues to feel) as close as I could get to real time exchanges with an audience, readers, and with sister and fellow creators.

In March of 2015, I wrote the final part of Oscar of Between, read the entire manuscript for the first time, and realized it should be a print book too. I posted a comment on the salon and indicated I wanted to have it published within a year so that it could interact with Oscars Salon. In todays publishing world, this timeline was almost unheard of, but a staff member of Caitlin Press (who had been following the salon) emailed me and asked if I would be interested in meeting with her publisher. I am pleased to say its a good fit, and the complete book is in your hands a year later.

Oscars Salon at www.betsywarland.com/excerpts-from-oscar-of-between will be live with monthly postings until early fall of 2016 and will remain up after it is finished. I urge you to travel the arc between book and digital salon as each possesses it own vitality, surprise, appeal.

Betsy Warland

Vancouver, BC

Oscar.

Inexplicably entering the Imperial War Museum. London. 30.3.07. Sodden gusting air (outside). Atmospheric twilight of Camouflage Exhibit (inside). Oscar, having quickly walked by permanent collection (its secrets intact).

Oscar.

Last time travelled alone: 1992. Amsterdam. Wrote the Van Gogh suite:

to see so vividly be seen.

Oscar.

Now rummaging through satchel for ear-length pencil. On exhibition ticket
scribbling quote from first display case:

Art alone could screen men and intentions where natural cover failed.

S. J. Solomon

British artist and camouflage officer

Oscar : neither man, nor marked with natural cover.

That leaves her with art.

First display case. Dumbstruck. For all her notable difference, this one had eluded Oscar. This unidentified force. Shaping her life. Had thought it had nothing to do with her. Until. This moment.

Camouflage : necessity of.

Oscar : lack of.

Oscar at odds.

Bewilderment exiting her body last grains in hourglass gasp.

Sixty years to get here.

At a slant. Dickinson knew. Glimpses of a narratives ghosts. Most a writer can hope for.

In the deep of night swell of sadness.

Oscars son. Absence. Asunder. Ache of it. In the wake of numerous challenges, survival instincts intensify: devotion is not enough. After seven years, determined. Done. Only one real mother.Done. How could? It was. Is. Will be. Oscar. Two provinces away. Training herself. To change without him. To with her self.

In restaurants: How many?

Just one.

Brenda Hillman: the word and the sentence share custody of the phrase. Her young daughter ferrying back and forth. No more mom and dad. (Now you have TWO homes!)

Hillman : my writing was falling apart. Rupture everywhere.

The sentence in denial.

Word and phrase make do.

Oscar. Drying. Her then three-year-old son walked in. To pee. Peering. Expecting a penis. On her. Trying to make sense of it. He signed: Youre my dad. Began after Oscars surgery. Double mastectomy. Oscar more than ever in between.