the superb "Sutra" - and mothers

My beautiful mum in early 1985, at 61: musical, generous, and soft, also manipulative, difficult, and demanding. Thank God for mothers, so writers always have something to write about.

Spent the day on the playground with my grandsons yesterday while their mother signed up her soccer team. Constant motion and activity, and with Ben, constant talking and questions. Glammglammaglammaglamma! He's obsessed with transit: busses, subways, trains, trucks, and best of all, streetcars. And also with his uncle Sam, who played foozball with his nephews at his restaurant last night, while we waited for a grand repast.

And then I dashed off, through the choked madness of downtown after a Blue Jays game, to see "Sutra," a dance event featuring 19 Buddhist monks flinging their bodies about on top of 16 huge rectangular boxes. Haunting images - the boxes like coffins, piled like Stonehenge, lined up like sentry boxes, stacked again like shelves for bodies, reminiscent of concentration camps - and the men, all phenomenal at kung fu as part of their religious practice, like Olympic gymnasts mixed with daring parcour kids, doing flips and leaps - amazing.

And now - happy day to all of you who are mothers and all who had mothers. The sun is shining. I'm going out for a bike ride.