reaching October

This morning, riding back from the market in the glorious sunshine, my backpack heavy with Empire apples and a huge cauliflower, I started out of the blue to sing the September Song. As an actress, I had sometimes to sing in shows, so took singing lessons. The teacher worked with me on this one, and now I realize, I was 26, had no idea what it was about. Now I know.  

Oh, it's a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
One hasn't got time for the waiting game

Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few
September, November
And these few precious days I'll spend with you
These precious days I'll spend with you

When the weather is this beautiful, they do feel like especially precious days, and they do feel short. There's so much abject misery in this city on full display, poverty, addiction, homelessness, mental illness, I feel I should not celebrate my good fortune, my precious days, my few precious days. Yet I do. And I'm spending them with you. 

Blowing Own Horn department: my boss at U of T wrote to say that though my course is full and has started, there's a waiting list of seven, shall we start another class? We decided it's too late, but we'll run a new first level course in January. Not sure why so many people are suddenly so keen on memoir, but hooray! 

And a lovely note from a longtime blog reader who read Learning to Speak, my short essay on how nervous I was before delivering a lecture about my great-grandfather and my book about him. 

Your memoir piece about your experience presenting your book was so warm, and filled with humility and insight. To see you describe that experience I had followed on borntoblog, fleshed out so tenderly, was lovely. Somewhere, your ancestors are dancing! Take a bow, for the book and the memoir piece, and of course the lecture. 

Thank you! Love to imagine the Jewish Shakespeare dancing. Unfortunately, I suspect he never did.

Then my young techie Patrick put my podcast up on Spotify. Not quite ready yet. I'll let you know.

Sam and Bandit came again, this time to get heavy bags of birdseed for me. My handsome hairy grandson is gorgeous but a handful. As are my other two less hairy grandsons, for that matter. 

Dear friend Isabel Huggan came for tea and we shared a lemon tart and despair over the state of the world. And then I walked with Ruthie. They say the trees are especially beautiful this year. I have to agree. Perhaps you do too.