Gina Ochsner

The author of People I Wanted To Be and The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight explains why she won't be mountiing a horse anytime soon.

1. When were you happiest?

Some of the happiest memories I have of growing up were those spent at a little Presbyterian church, a two story brick building with an immense basement floor kept at all times in a high state of waxy shine. This basement housed Christmas, I was sure.

2. What is your principal defect?

I think I oftentimes don’t really hear what people are saying to me. It takes several passes before I get it and I know that this insensitivity is the source of no small amount of pain.

3. What do you most dislike about your appearance?

My two front teeth. I’d really like to trade them in for a new set.

4. What is your favourite word?
Propinquity

Quotidian

Any word with a q in it gets a smile from me.

5. What is your most unappealing habit?

I like to talk to myself. I also answer myself. This I frequently do while I’m in the car with the kids. I think it embarrasses them. Lately they’ve not wanted their friends to ride along in the car if I’m at the wheel.

6. What is your favourite smell?

The smell of a pine forest and the smell of a freshly ground coffee beans.

7. What is your guiltiest pleasure?

This will sound extremely silly, I know, but I love to watch an old detective show called Perry Mason. My great grandparents watched this show—it was one of the first full hour programs they could get on the first TV set they owned.

8. Who are your favourite writers?

I am utterly amazed by Ota Pavel, Milorad Pavic, Halldor Laxness, Bohumil Hrabal, Andrei Makine, James Joyce, Flannery O’Connor and many many others.

9. What is the worst job you've done?

From the time I turned fourteen I worked in the family business, a small auto parts and service and sales company. My dad has always been a big believer that children learn how the world works only if they work in the world. By the end of my week as his personal assistant, Dad fired me and then, because he was so short-handed-- re-hired me. This he did three times, which spoke, I think, to the measure of our collective desperation.
After that I worked strictly “off premise” at the detail department where the worst damage I could do was overwax a car. All in all, I found these summers a completely formative and illuminating experience and I don’t just mean because of all the chemicals I inhaled while working around vehicles. I think writers write from the fullness of their lives, not from the void or the emptiness. Contemplating the undercarriage of a car did as much for my imagination as anything else has. I think if I had waited for huge blocks of time to open up for me to write, I’d still be waiting today for the muse to tap me on the shoulder. So work has been valuable and failure at work valuable, too. I would not trade these work experiences because nothing worth anything happens without effort and usually this spells several failures along the way.

10. What do you most value in you friends?

Kindness

11. What gift would you most like to possess?

Wisdom. Oh, if only they would sell it in three pound buckets at the grocery store!

12. What was your most embarrassing moment?
Once I was with two friends, Lara and Jared on their parents’ farm. They were seasoned horse back riders who were graciously giving me a lesson on how to ride. They put me on one of their gentlest horses, a fat slow moving animal named “Gert.” I had read up a little on horses the night before in a book from the library and wanted to impress my friends on how much I had learned, which wasn’t much. At some point we climbed a gentle rise to stop and admire a sunset and let the horses relieve themselves. I don’t know how it happened exactly, but I slid backward off the saddle, headfirst, and down the rear end of Gert and into an enormous pile of manure. I rolled out of the manure and into brittle grasses, which stuck into my now fragrant hair. This gave me the look of a porcupine. To their credit, Lara and Jared waited a full two seconds before they exploded with laughter. Jared reached a hand down and helped me up.

“Nice dismount, Shithead,” Lara said. “Did you learn it from that book you read?”

13. What is your greatest fear?

Falling through ice and freezing to death.

14. What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

Never give up hope; there’s always tomorrow. The prophet Jeremiah, a man I imagine knew every crease and wrinkle of depression, said: “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:21-23