Born to Blog by Beth Kaplan

Romneymania!

2012-01-31T19:31:00.001-08:00

This week's "Onion," a hilarious satirical newspaper, has as lead article:

"ROMNEYMANIA SWEEPS AMERICA."

... Millions have been captivated, and even moved to tears, by Mitt Romney ... "The raw energy and enthusiasm Mitt Romney stirs inside people is like nothing I've ever seen," Youngstown, Ohio auto mechanic Chris Ritenour said Wednesday. "Everything he says resonates with Americans. His moving story of growing up privileged, his inspiring rose from moderate wealth to overwhelming riches, his thrilling work in the highest echelons of corporate finance - he really speaks to the heart and mind of the common man."

As Romneymania has grown, the Republican candidate has crossed over from political figure to cultural phenomenon. Countless reverent portraits of Romney have appeared in storefront windows throughout the country, often accompanied by one of the candidate's signature inspirational phrases, like 'Let Detroit go bankrupt' or 'Corporations are people, my friend.'

It goes on this delicious way. What a fine bunch the Republican candidates are. I would have liked to hear more about Newt's plans for the moon.

Yesterday, a blizzard - beautiful fresh snow on my way home from Ryerson. Today, 10 degrees and sunny, like spring. Very confusing. Where am I?

the Shafia aftermath

2012-01-31T06:29:00.000-08:00

We are digesting the verdict, first degree murder and life in prison, of the hideous Shafia trial - a couple accused of murdering three young daughters and the second wife, their son of helping to kill his sisters - a so-called "honour killing." The concern is that this ghastly event will fan more anti-Muslim prejudice. The fantastic Steve Paikin hosted a show last night on this issue with members of the Muslim community, including an imam and a professor from Boston who lived in Afghanistan for many years.

There is nothing about this kind of killing in the Koran, said the imam, which in fact emphasizes an individual's responsibility for his or her own actions. He cited an event in the Koran; when Mohammed's wife is accused of adultery, he takes no revenge, just sends her home to her parents until the issue is resolved - in her favour. A lawyer who grew up in Afghanistan said he had never encountered this kind of "honour killing" until he came to Canada.

The professor said that, rather than a religious issue - in fact, the family were NOT observant Muslims - this is a cultural and geographic issue. He pointed out that the issue of "honour," like the blood feud, still exists strongly in a swath across the Mediterranean. "This could have happened, and does still, in non-Muslim Sicily or Greece," he said. And it's also an immigration issue - parents with the values of the old country, horrified by the behaviour of their children in the new. This is a universal problem; my Russian-Jewish great-grandfather in New York in 1895 hated American values and fought to stop his 11 children, going to school in Brooklyn, from adopting them.

In this particularly dysfunctional family with a violent and viciously patriarchal father, archaic values and extreme fear and hatred of new ways led to murder.

But this case was not about Muslim extremism and is not an excuse for Canadians to judge or fear their Muslim neighbours.

P.S. Friends have been sending me various reports on "honour killings"... including the fact that there are many in Afghanistan. Another sent a link to a wikipedia site on violence against women. What a horrifying list. What an insane world.

Macca does it again

2012-01-30T13:52:00.000-08:00

My friend Margaret just sent me a link to Paul McCartney's new CD. She knows me well. You must think I do nothing but moon about and cry - but yes, I just listened, misty-eyed, and at one point, I did cry.

With its iffy title Kisses on the Bottom, this CD gives us Paul singing covers of standard old crooners. It's very moving, at least to someone of my age and my background with this man, to hear that familiar voice doing something so very different, in a whole new register, with a whole new level of humility. On the website below, you can not only hear the whole CD but also read the thoughtful Guardian review and follow the impatient, judgmental critiques of many listeners. Others have done it better, etc.

But you know, Macca at nearly 70 - 70! - is allowing himself to do something he has wanted to do for many years - pay respect to the songs his father used to play for him when he was a boy. Sometimes, it sounds like he is singing, not to his new wife, but to his little girl, his eight year old daughter Beatrice. There is much tenderness and sweetness in this album, and a great deal of naked honesty. It's done so simply. I hear him saying, "I know my voice is not what it was. But I give you my best anyway."

It was the song "Inchworm" that made me cry. My childhood record collection included one by the great Danny Kaye, and my favourite was "Inchworm."

Inchworm, inchworm,

Measuring the marigolds ...

I've hung onto this lovely song all my life, and here it is, sung by my favourite singer with a choir of children. No choice but tears.

The CD is beautiful. I will buy it for my mother for Valentine's Day.

Paul McCartney - Kisses on the Bottom: exclusive album stream

www.guardian.co.uk

listening and watching

2012-01-29T19:53:00.000-08:00

Went to a fine free event at Toronto's airy Reference Library on Friday night - a celebration of this year's Canada Reads contestants. NON-FICTION contestants, hooray. I went with my friend Annie, who works on social justice issues with the Jesuit Forum and who went specifically to hear the powerful Marina Nemat speak on her book Prisoner of Tehran, about being imprisoned and tortured at the age of 16 by the ayatollahs. We are very proud of her in the U of T writing department - she did the first drafts of her book with us.

And speak powerfully she did, about how she put what had happened to her away for years, refusing to face it - because then, she could pretend it would all just go away. "Trauma leaves terrible wounds," she said. "Acknowledging them brings responsibility." Finally, after a psychotic episode, she realized that either she would jump off a bridge or face her past. Through writing the book, she said, she found herself.

And then she spoke about two innocent Canadian citizens in Evin Prison right now, in Tehran, facing execution, and urged us to get involved, sign petitions, do what we can. The men's wives were in the audience. It was a fierce and very moving moment. An admirable woman.

Before that, we heard Dave Bidini on his book about touring Canada with his band, an animal advocate speaking about John Vaillant's suspenseful Siberian tiger book, Carmen Aguirre who has written about returning to Chile as a girl, with her mother, to fight against Pinochet, and Ken Dryden, goalie extraordinaire, about his life with the game of hockey. Nemat was stirring and the others were interesting, but it was Dryden who made me cry, writing with such warmth and detail of the winter ritual of the backyard rink, and how he played his first professional game in the Montreal Forum, in front of his father and against his own older brother, in the opposing net - just as they used to play as boys.

Thrilling stories, true true true. May they all win.

Tonight, Downton again, and again, I am desperate to know what happens. How do they keep all those balls in the air, all those complex plots spinning away up there? It's extraordinary writing and directing, sets, costumes, music - but most of all, those actors, what actors. Professionals like that can do more with a tiny eye movement, a small twist of the mouth, or even a motionless silence, than lesser actors can with an hour of wailing. Stunningly good work. Jean-Marc, Richard and I sat on the sofa, huddled together near the box of Kleenex, which I needed during William's wedding - and if you were watching, I'm sure you did too. Unforgettable.

A thrilling story, completely made up, not true at all - and yet, of course, it is.

Be still, my beating heart

2012-01-29T19:48:00.000-08:00

GEORGE CLOONEY! There's hope for us all.

It's on a site called Rare Photographs of Celebrities. Cheer yourself up and take a look.

Monday: It was there yesterday - a shot of a geeky boy with an appalling haircut and bad glasses, and they've taken it down. Ah well - perhaps you can find it yourself.

it's a jungle out there

2012-01-26T13:55:00.000-08:00

Wild animal alert: As if it's not strange enough to hear raccoons fighting and screaming in my backyard at night, and that coyotes are attacking pets in the suburbs, last night my friend Suzette and I saw a white-faced OPOSSUM scurrying across the street in front of my house.

Suzette was driving me home after a wonderful evening of wine, food, nostalgia, gossip and intense talk. Isobel, Jessica, Suzette and I have been friends since our first year at Carleton University in 1967, and we gather twice a year or so, with another great friend Elke, to get caught up. We did spent a bit of time, yes, talking about miracle creams, aging and health, but mostly - books, movies, travel, friends, love, art, sex, how to live with men. And work.

Continuing my dive into boxes of the family past stored in my basement, I had taken hundreds of slides to be made into prints, and brought a few to the dinner - the ones that show my 21st birthday in August 1971, which Suzette attended. What joy to have old friends. Especially such young old friends.

P.S. An article from last year's "New Yorker" quotes Charles Dickens on what he saw during a visit to Washington, D.C., where he watched a congressional budget debate. He speaks with disdain of "coarse and brutal threatenings exchanged between Senators under the very Senate's roof - the intrusion of the most pitiful, mean, malicious, creeping, crawling, sneaking party spirit into all transactions of life."

Little did he know he was describing American political life in 2012, as well as in 1842.

much better, thanks

2012-01-24T18:41:00.000-08:00

Winter gloom, getting over a nasty cold ... not much stirring in these here parts. Here are the highlights: my Friday French conversation group, who are so smart and have so much to teach - last Friday, about the place of China in the world and why the prospect of an all-powerful totalitarian China is frightening for us all - as opposed to the relatively benign democracy flourishing in India;

- "Downton Abbey" - so good on Sunday night, so utterly delicious and exciting, I would have paid a great deal of money to see the next episodes, rather than wait a WHOLE WEEK;

- two wonderful classes on Monday and one tonight;

- and especially, this morning, meeting my friend Ken at the AGO to see the Jack Chambers exhibition.

I'm ashamed that I knew very little about this unique Canadian artist, who so loved light, and whose style changed extraordinarily throughout his career. We kept bending to read his writings about art, intense and thoughtful. Here's what the gallery says about him:

There were many sides to artist Jack Chambers. He was a passionate defender of artists’ rights, an experimental filmmaker with an international reputation, and a painter who continually reinvented his language of expression. Chambers initially created dreamlike surrealist paintings during an eight-year stay in Spain. Back home in London, Ontario, he developed a strikingly realistic style he called Perceptual Realism. He would focus his camera on his family, his home or on favourite places around the city, and then painstakingly recreate the photographs in paint.

Four recurring themes in Chambers’s work – light, place, spirit and time – are reflected in the layout of this exhibition. Collectively they open our eyes to new ways of seeing both his world and ours.

What a pleasure, to discover an artist in the company of a dear, dear friend. We then went to the Member's Lounge for lunch and chat. I adore Ken, a man in his seventies with the bright open face of a small boy. He was wearing snazzy jeans and pea jacket, the provenance of which he explained thus: he received a notice on his computer saying there was a 30% off sale at Banana Republic, lasting three hours. He rushed down on his bike, picked out the jeans and coat, and was asked, at the cash, to produce the bar code of the ad on his computer. "I'm sorry but I don't have a printer," he explained to the kid.

"No problem - just download it to your phone," he was told.

"Young man," said Ken, "I'm a senior citizen without a printer - do you think I comprehend the technology of a cell phone?!" The manager was happy to give him the discount. And man, he looked good.

And on the way home, I saw Toronto and its light in a new way.

I have been reading a lot, as befits January. Two excellent books about writing: "Tell it Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Non-Fiction," by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paolo, and "Keep it real: everything you need to know about researching and writing creative non-fiction" edited by Lee Gutkind. Inspiring, and, believe it or not, quite different. A quirky and highly entertaining book called "The Chairs are where the People go," by Misha Glouberman interviewed by Sheila Heti, an interesting thoughtful man expounding on his views of the world, of group interaction and this city - and I promise, he looks at things in ways you won't have thought of before. One chapter is entitled, "Making the City More Fun for You and Your Privileged Friends Isn't a Super-Noble Political Goal."

And "Making Toast," by Roger Rosenblatt, an article in the "New Yorker" turned into a book - a masterpiece of heartbreaking restraint, about a grandfather who moves in to help look after his grandchildren after his daughter dies.

In only 3 weeks, my life will be turned upside down, with my house rented out to strangers. Right now, I'm finding unbearable the thought of Newt Gingrich winning a coin toss, let alone a state. I marvel that here is a man who actually, I think, is worse than Mike Harris and Stephen Harper. In my life, so far, I do not think that a more loathsome human has run for public office. Truly, he draws on the absolute worst of human nature. If he wins -

No, it's bleak and January. That's enough to cope with today.

P.S. Sudden thoughts of Richard Nixon, George Wallace, others. Newt does have competition. But not much.

Merrijoy's hip

2012-01-20T13:36:00.000-08:00

I'm proud to say that my longtime writing student Merrijoy Kelner has an essay in the "Globe" today. She's an extraordinary woman, accomplished, hard-working, strikingly beautiful and brave at 84. Her piece was cut, but you can't miss her fierce resolve and backbone. It was hard for her to move from impersonal academic writing to personal essay, but as you see, she now manages both with ease.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/facts-and-arguments/the-essay/why-my-hip-replacement-was-so-humbling/article2308343/?

tapes of treasure

2012-01-19T07:10:00.000-08:00

Still in bed, today with a head like a bag of thistles. The cold I've been fighting arrived and planted itself inside my head. I worship at the altar of the great god Benadryl.

Last evening found me sitting beside my music machine, sobbing aloud. I'd put on the recently-acquired CD's of the old family tapes, actually listened all the way through, and discovered there's far more there than I'd realized. What made me cry was, first, my realization that, on the first CD, the annoying fooling around that goes on and on by some Americans I don't know - reading poetry, saying and singing funny things in weird accents - was in fact a group of my father's best friends in New York, sending him a tape to cheer him up while he recovered from polio in 1951. "This is for you, Gordie, and you too Sylvia and little Beth. You'd better not get sick any more, Gordin," says one. "Speedy recovery."

Another treasure: my second birthday party, in Halifax in August, 1952, my father healthy, my mother buzzing around with presents - "Ooo look, a lovely dolly!" she says, and I say, "Dolly," and much else, in a firm voice. Also there are Berna and Unkie, our landlords who lived downstairs. I became their surrogate grandchild, and they became for me a forcefield of love that I feel to this day. Listening, I thought, "No wonder I became an actress - to replicate the pleasure of four big people focussing on me, applauding my every word and move." Halcyon days for the first-born.

A fake, funny interview my mother did with "the famous ballerina Beth Kaplan" in 1960 when I was ten. I tell her, "Ballet dancing is not permanent, it's temporary until I can gather enough money - $5000 - to start a publishing company. I am hoping to be a writer, to start a good business in writing and publishing my own books for a good price. I'll call it the Sylvia's Publishing Company. As a ballerina I'll go to Czechoslovakia and Poland and then I'll be in England, studying English and writing."

She seems quite focussed on making money, that girl. Wonder what happened with that.

Also in 1960, a speech my dad made in Vancouver about the deadly effects of nuclear radiation and what the reality of nuclear war would mean. He was far ahead of his time, speaking with humour, authority and passion about ecological damage, making fun of politicians who were advising citizens to build fallout shelters. Hearing his eloquent speech, often interrupted for applause, made me very proud. As I listened to his hour-long talk, I was sorting out a jumbled box of our old family slides, which I'll have made into a DVD or whatever they do with slides nowadays. That's 3 old boxes of memories dealt with, these past weeks. I'm building a solid portrait of our past. My past. Treasure.

If you have boxes like these in your basement, why don't you get them out now, before it's too late?

Today I give thanks, as I snuffle in bed with snow swirling outside the window, that I'm no longer an actress. I don't have to get up and do a show. I'll teach a class tonight with no problem, and in the meantime, I'll eat the Daniel and Daniel butternut squash soup I picked up on my way home from the Y yesterday. Yes, I went to Carol's class though I didn't do much - but you know, it was Wednesday, I had no choice.

And I give thanks that you are out there, reading. You may not be my parents and Berna and Unkie, delighting in everything I say, but for me, you're close.

Take THAT, Fat Fords # 1 and 2!

2012-01-18T13:50:00.001-08:00

HOORAY! Nasty cuts defeated at City Hall, including the library ones! Take that, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, twin bully boys from Etobicoke. Fords, Fords, go away, and don't ever come back.

And ... while I'm raiding the "New Yorker" website, here's a beautiful poem/song from this week's issue.

POETRY

GOING HOME

by Leonard CohenJANUARY 23, 2012

I love to speak with Leonard

He’s a sportsman and a shepherd

He’s a lazy bastard

Living in a suit

But he does say what I tell him

Even though it isn’t welcome

He will never have the freedom

To refuse

He will speak these words of wisdom

Like a sage, a man of vision

Though he knows he’s really nothing

But the brief elaboration of a tube

Going home

Without my sorrow

Going home

Sometime tomorrow

To where it’s better

Than before

Going home

Without my burden

Going home

Behind the curtain

Going home

Without the costume

That I wore

He wants to write a love song

An anthem of forgiving

A manual for living with defeat

A cry above the suffering

A sacrifice recovering

But that isn’t what I want him to complete

I want to make him certain

That he doesn’t have a burden

That he doesn’t need a vision

That he only has permission

To do my instant bidding

That is to SAY what I have told him

To repeat

Going home

Without my sorrow

Going home

Sometime tomorrow

Going home

To where it’s better

Than before

Going home

Without my burden

Going home

Behind the curtain

Going home

Without the costume

That I wore

I love to speak with Leonard

He’s a sportsman and a shepherd

He’s a lazy bastard

Living in a suit

Audio: Leonard Cohen sings “Going Home.”

Awake

2012-01-18T13:28:00.000-08:00

SHOUTS & MURMURS

AWAKE

by Jenny AllenJUNE 2, 2008

I’m up. Are you up?

I’m trying to go back to sleep. But I’m awake. Awake awake awake.

That’s what Buddha said. Buddha said, “I am awake.” Buddha got that idea, that whole concept, from a middle-aged woman, I’m sure.

Not that this sleepless business ends after a certain age. I think you have to die first.

If you added up all the hours I’ve been awake in the middle of the night, it would come to years by now. Fifty may be the new forty, but, for the sleepless woman, fifty is the new eighty.

Thank you, that’s a very good idea, but I already took a sleeping pill. I fell asleep right away—it’s bliss, that drugged drifting off—but now I’m awake again. That always happens! I fall asleep, boom, and then, four or five hours later, I wake up—like it’s my turn on watch, like I’ve just had a full night’s sleep. But if I act as if I’ve had a full night’s sleep, if I get up and do things, I will be pitiful tomorrow. I will confuse the TV remote with the cordless phone and try to answer it. I will not notice any of my typos—I will type “pubic school” this and “pubic school” that in e-mails to people whose public schools I am looking at for my daughter. I will say, “I saw store at the Shelly,” and then I will have to make one of those dumb Alzheimer’s jokes.

I could take another sleeping pill, but I worry about that. I worry about liking sleeping pills too much. Sleeping pills always make me think of Judy Garland. Poor Judy.

It’s funny about the name Judy, isn’t it? No one names anyone Judy anymore—do you ever see five-year-old Judys?—but half the women I know are named Judy. You would probably be safe, when meeting any woman over fifty, just to say, “Nice to meet you, Judy.” Most of the time you would be right.

I am going to lie here and fall asleep counting all the Judys I know.

Thirteen Judys. Including my husband’s ex-wife. Who’s very nice, by the way.

I’m still awake.

in bed with the sun

2012-01-18T06:56:00.000-08:00

I'm in bed with my face angled to receive the rays of sun sizzling over the roofs of the condos to the south, into my bedroom window. Last night, my most extreme insomnia yet, spectacular - woke up at 1.30 a.m. and fell asleep again from 6 to 8.30. And after I'd spent hours that morning with my face planted in front of a little light box, designed to combat Seasonal Affective Disorder. I'm also fighting a cold and my throat hurts, plus dizzy eyeballs and achey body - welcome to January! There have been perkier times, let's put it that way. Please don't invite me out dancing tonight.

My friend Anne-Marie and I went dancing on Saturday night, however. Our friend Nancy White's daughter Suzie was part of a Spice Girls tribute called Wannabe at El Mocambo, and what fun it was. They had the hair, the makeup, the outfits and extreme platform shoes - all the girls good singers, and a great back-up band, everyone, stars and most of the audience, under the age of 30. Suzie in a dark angular wig looked just like Scary Spice, only prettier and friendlier. "Do you remember the 90's?" asked the MC, and everyone roared. "What do you remember from the 90's?" he asked and people shouted out answers. "Tupac!" said one.

Forget the 90's, I thought. My husband and I separated in 1990, and I, without a single practical skill, became the unemployed single mother of a 6 and a 9 year old living in a disintegrating old house. And then, just for kicks, I began psychoanalysis four days a week. There went the 90's. Not my favourite decade, not one I conjure back for joy, though all that pain was vitally important in my life's journey. Obviously a good time was had by all those kids, who were in their teens then - as was my daughter and her best friend Holly, who were there, dancing, too.

I've been doing some excavating these days - getting all the family 16 millimetre film and home videos transferred to DVD, and, last week, taking a box of messy reel to reel tapes to a sound studio called Number 9 - how can you tell the owner is a Beatles' fan? (Another clue - his son is named Jude. We had a long heart to heart, as you can imagine.) The box had been sitting in Mum's basement and then mine for decades, the tapes marked tantalizingly - one that indicated a recording of the family in the early Fifties, and another that I hoped was my father talking about his life. $500 later, yesterday, I brought home seven CD's.

Much disappointment. The family had been taped over with Beatles music - aaagh, my brother! Nothing of my father, just scientific conferences he'd taped, and programs of CBC's Rawhide, who was my parent's friend in Halifax in the Fifties. I was heartsick. But then, two treasures. There's an excerpt from a musical I was in in 1977 called "The Club" - we taped a few songs for the CBC, including my (untrained but enthusiastic) solo. And then, my mother's terribly British voice saying, "Beth, New York, at two and a half months," and some brilliant cooing and gurgles. Later, a meal in Halifax in 1951 with my parents and American grandparents, me at 10 months banging on a child's piano. It's almost worth $500 for that alone. "That's it, play the piano, sweetheart," says my Jewish grandmother anxiously, my grandfather in the background complimenting my mother, perhaps insincerely, on her hamburgers. (She never got the hang of hamburgers.) Nettie and Mike had driven from New York to Halifax to see their first grandchild again. Moi. A much-loved baby, playing the piano.

It's Wednesday - will I drag myself to Carol's class? We'll see. In the meantime, don't move, little sunbeam, there are two enjoyable books to finish: "The chairs are where the people go," a series of thought-provoking chats with Misha Glouberman, and "Pulphead," a superb book of essays by John Jeremiah Sullivan. More coffee.

Take heed.

2012-01-14T21:01:00.000-08:00

Bobby and Peggy and Heather ...

2012-01-14T07:14:00.001-08:00

It's winter! At last. Lots and lots of snow out there, deep footsteps leading to the birdfeeder. The city is, briefly, lovely and muffled. As someone said at the Y yesterday, "Great, we get it, now that's enough."

Some fun for you today, wordsmiths - there's controversy brewing. Margaret Atwood published a story in a recent "New Yorker" called "Stone Mattress," in which a conniving murderess meets her high school tormentor on a cruise ship. I didn't like it much, finding it, like so much of her work, mouth-puckeringly snide, with clever, fluid writing but nary a believable character. I hugely admire Atwood's activism, her humour and passion and commitment to the arts in this country, but most often, strangely, not her writing.

Robert Fulford, august critic, didn't like the story either and attacked it in his "National Post" column, accusing it of being man-hating, clichéd, simplistic and unworthy of her. Though I rarely agree with Fulford these days, in this instance, I do, except that it's not so much man-hating as homo sapiens hating. Now Heather Mallick, esteemed firebrand columnist at the "Star," has come out today with a furious piece showing that Atwood once skewered Fulford in a short story, so accusing him of delivering, not objective literary criticism, but petty revenge.

You too can follow this trail of literati hijinks! Read the story in the "New Yorker" on-line, find the Fulford review, read the Mallick critique of the review. I just wrote her a note on why I didn't like the story myself - why don't you make up your own mind? A perfect way to pass a snowy Saturday afternoon.

here and now

2012-01-12T12:45:00.001-08:00

Unfortunately, I learned last night that foregoing an afternoon nap does not necessarily help with January insomnia. As I lay thrashing about at 4.30 a.m., I thought about the blog post I'd just written, burbling (that word again) happily about seeing a movie with my friend, going on and on, as I do, about my ordinary days. People who read this blog must think I'm a Pollyanna, I thought, always beaming with cheer.

And I thought about my emphatically non-Pollyanna times. In my 25 1/2 years in this house, I have lived through the worst experiences of my life, right here, in this kitchen - the too-early death of my father in 1988; the agonizing end of my marriage not long after that; the even worse early days, early months and years, of the divorce - my sheer terror and endless guilt. The years of my childrens' adolescence, which were so difficult and exhausting, I don't even want to begin to recall them. The fire in 2005 - the house a smouldering charred wreck, me imagining us wandering and homeless. No wonder I marvel all the time at the tranquillity of a settled woman with grown children and a fine, solid house.

And I thought, who knows what's coming down the pike? All I can do, all we can do, is remain open to right now. Right now, a dark, dreary day which started with sleet and will lead to snow - it's almost night out there at 4 p.m. A quiet day; a dear student came this afternoon, a friend is coming for dinner, at Doubletake, I bought a funny sweater with Scottie dogs all over it. Right now, the paperwhite bulbs a friend gave me for Christmas are growing up straight and green; the cat is crunching her food, the furnace rumbles, and in the middle of it all, right now, I am alive. Not only alive, but well.

Not sleeping well, but otherwise, this minute, pretty damn well. I, Pollyanna Kaplan, celebrate that.

here goes # 1013

2012-01-11T19:20:00.000-08:00

This is my one thousand and thirteenth post. FYI. I'm amazed. What have I found to tell you more than a thousand times? God knows.

Stuff like this - My Wonderful Wednesday, by Beth Kaplan. A beautiful day for January, mild and sunny, then getting colder. How long can this idyll last? Working in the morning, then rode my bike to Doubletake where I found a beautiful part-silk Vietnamese jacket with red embroidery, and new socks for my son; on to the Y for - it's Wednesday so you know - Carol's class, inspiring and hard, as ever. My legs hurt. Swung into the library on my way home - three of my "holds" waiting for me, plus two books on writing creative non-fiction that were on display. Just what I need - five more books to read!

Mr. Choy came over for supper, and while he was here, Sam called. He'd just seen "The Descendants" and was very impressed. W*yson and I had been meaning to see it. "Let's go right now," he said, so we jumped in his car and there we were, in Hawaii with George Clooney. A marvellous film, subtle, moving - we both loved it. The script is exemplary, acting, direction - and the set - Hawaii itself - a treat. W*yson especially liked the film's steady pace, and I especially liked the film's gorgeous star. What an extremely handsome man and a fine, brave actor. In fact, that's my main criticism - Clooney is so utterly divine that, despite a great performance, it's hard to believe him as an ordinary Joe. But we'll live with that. And maybe it's a tiny bit tear-jerky.

Highly, highly recommended - a film for grown-ups, quirky, sad, tender, and wise.

And now - writing to you for the 1013th time and then some reading while waiting to spend half an hour with Jon Stewart, another smart, handsome man, like Mr. Choy and Mr. Clooney. Three in one day - what a lucky woman.

My first Ryerson class of the term on Monday night and my new home class again last night - a fresh crop of eager writers, delicious. My daughter over for a visit on Monday (getting her 2009 income taxes done on Parliament Street...). She's starting to walk like a pregnant lady now, belly thrust out in front and a bit of a waddle. Beautiful. The cat has almost been affectionate. And my friend Alannah had some advice for me today at the Y - I told her about my chronic January insomnia and she told me I must NOT NAP. That'll do it, she said. So I did not, and we'll see.

Also listened to CBC news and read newspapers. Unfortunately.

A winter walk

2012-01-09T09:39:00.000-08:00

The Don Valley trail, Sunday.

Hot sun, bare trees. Amazing

that all this is barely a fifteen minute walk from my front door, in downtown Toronto.

I sat here, in a bed of dead stinging

nettles, watching the river flow, and especially listening. 'Burbling' is a good word.

A beaver was swimming here

once. And another time a deer,

wading. Not in winter, though.

Downton

2012-01-09T09:25:00.000-08:00

Just heard the end of a terrific interview on CBC with P. J. O'Rourke, funny American conservative columnist. He said that watching the Republican candidates, it's like the varsity team got food poisoning in the high school cafeteria, and so the equipment manager and the water boy and the drum major are all out in the field. That left-wing parties field better political candidates because their people believe in the efficacy of government and so run for office, whereas intelligent right-wingers don't and so don't. And that he is a Republican because right-wingers tend to have fewer "Big Ideas" than left-wingers. Big Ideas are almost always a expensive and sometimes dangerous, he said. I vote Republican due to their lack of ideas. Romney is very satisfying in that regard.

Mind you, he went on, George Bush had the big idea to invade Iraq, so - so much for that notion.

Santorum, he said, would make a good president of the student council or maybe mayor of a medium-sized city, but not a president. With you on that one, P. J.

Heaven - the new season of "Downton Abbey" last night. Just the best cast, gorgeous costumes, wonderful rich story on so many levels - TV drama at its best. Maggie Smith is having the time of her life. When her granddaughter announces that she wants to help the war effort by driving a tractor, Grandmamma drawls, in horror, "Drive a tractor? My dear girl, you're not Toad of Toad Hall!" My neighbours Jean-Marc and Richard came over to watch it with me, and for two hours, we shrieked with laughter, moaned with delight - the costumes! the sets! that glorious library! - and gasped with anticipation at plot twists. They are sorry that Thomas, the conniving butler, is gay. But even the villains, such as they are, are completely fleshed-out, understandable, delightful.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility. -James Thurber, writer and cartoonist (1894-1961)

Save Our Libraries!

2012-01-09T09:07:00.001-08:00

URGENT! City budget meetings are next week, and our libraries are under the gun. Please go to this website and sign the petition.

http://ourpubliclibrary.to.

Thank you. I can't imagine life without my local library. As you know, every time I hear of a book I want to read, I log in on-line and order it. There are ten books on hold there at the moment. Especially looking forward to the book about willpower, and the one by Adam Gopnik about eating in France, which is waiting for me today.

The boys of my youth	4 of 7	Parliament Street	15/8/2013	Active
Getting things done : the art of stress-free productivity	97 of 99	Parliament Street	7/1/2014	Active
I feel great about my hands : and other unexpected joys of aging	27 of 30	Parliament Street	17/12/2013	Active
Making toast : a family story	6 of 7	Parliament Street	7/1/2014	Active
Mothers and others : the evolutionary origins of mutual understanding	2 of 19	Parliament Street	30/12/2013	Active
Paris revealed : the secret life of a city	51 of 96	Parliament Street	26/12/2013	Active
Slice Me Some Truth. ; An Anthology of Canadian Creative Non-fiction		Parliament Street	24/9/2013	Active
Tell me why : a Beatles commentary	4 of 5	Parliament Street	19/11/2013	Active
Why be happy when you could be normal?	54 of 83	Parliament Street	1/1/2014	Active
Willpower : rediscovering the greatest human strength

the presence of still water

2012-01-07T09:13:00.000-08:00

My customary January insomnia has begun, but I'm combating it today, as I write, by sitting in the hot sunlight pouring through my bedroom windows. It's a gorgeous day, 8 degrees, as it was yesterday, when I saw a young man walking along in shorts and a hoodie. In January. In Toronto.

Still, January is tough, with months of dark winter to go, and for some reason, my mind decides this is the time to lie awake and worry. Something else to combat it - yoga, later today at the Y, and a meditation session with Judy later in the week. Let it go, let it go.

It was a wonderful week, both home classes up and running, the new one and the old one, always a joy. Ryerson starts Monday and U of T soon. A visit from my daughter, whose belly is growing big and hard; she can eat now without problem and does so joyfully, as is her wont. And a visit right now from my son, whose belly is always empty, as evidenced by the rapidly emptying fridge.

I'm preparing for my March trip - yesterday, booked the Eurostar from London to Paris after Easter, and spent time on-line looking at bed and breakfasts in Lyon, where I'm spending two nights in March visiting a young friend who will just have had twin boys. I didn't book anything, and last night, at Monique's usual Francophone soiree, I found out that her boarder Alexandra is from Lyon. If it's okay with her fiancé, she's going to give me the key to their downtown flat. Talk about harmonic convergence - I've met Alexandra a number of times, but the first time the name of her home town came up was the very day that I started looking for a place to stay there. Sometimes things just fall into place.

And my beloved Patsy just sent me a poem, just the right poem at the right time, from Gabriola Island, so I share it with you. After absorbing it, I've decided not to go to yoga but for a walk in the sunshine instead. I don't know how many wood drakes I can find downtown, but I'll do my best.

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

P.S. Biked to the St. Lawrence Market instead of a walk, so no wood drakes, but some meat from a small farm for a stew. It's colder than it looks out there, so I'm heading to yoga anyway. May you all have a marvellous Saturday, not forgetting that above you are the day-blind stars, waiting.

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

2012-01-04T17:58:00.000-08:00

An old friend came for dinner tonight. She has always been vegetarian but is now vegan. I had smoked salmon for an hors d'oeuvre and then vegetable lasagna ready, forgetting that she doesn't eat cheese, no fish, no butter, no milk. I rushed to the fridge, said, "I'll make a veggie omelette!" Of course, she doesn't eat eggs. There was some pesto I'd made in the summer in the freezer, so I made pasta, though she hardly ever eats pasta. About to bring out the parmesan to grate on it ... no, sigh.

She had two sips of wine, some hummus, a bit of salad. For dessert, I produced some delicious homemade Xmas baking Wayson had given me, but she wouldn't eat it because there was no list of ingredients. Luckily I had some good chocolate; she checked to be sure it was pure chocolate and had no milk products. She doesn't eat honey, because bees may be harmed in its production.

She cited The China Study, which is about all the health benefits of a vegan diet, and told me that if I went vegan, my body would thank me. But, I said, my body is always thanking me. My body is happy. I love my body. She and I get along extremely well, just as we are.

My friend looked dubious. I know she just wants the best for everyone and is positive that her way is the best way. That we are all killing ourselves with our diets and will one day wake up and see the light and toss our brie to the winds.

But I'd go mad having to be that particular; it's a world of NO to me, though to her, she's saying a big YES to health. Just being sensible is enough for me - except for wine and chocolate and cheese, of course, nothing sensible there. After she left, I did check online about the China Study, which has been made famous by Bill Clinton and his marvellous weight loss. Lots of good points, I'm sure. A refutation of the study points out that the healthiest people on earth are the Scandinavians and people from Iceland, who have a diet heavy in dairy and meat.

Maybe all that cheese is piling up inside me, ready to strike me down at any minute. Let's hope not. I don't eat much red meat, but I do occasionally. Occasionally, I eat just about everything, except tripe and Ding Dongs - whatever they are. My friend has a garden and is generous with her produce, and bakes and gives people her baking. She is saving the planet in her way. But I confess that it's exhausting to have her over for dinner.

After she left, just for laughs, ha ha, I watched a DVD of the film "Gods and Men," about French monks in Algeria in the 1990's, who face a terrible choice when terrorists threaten them and the villagers they serve. It's difficult, it's exquisitely beautiful and moving and profound, about community, faith, love, courage - unforgettable. In the end, we are still left with the question - Did they make the right choice? And I have to say I think they did not. But then, I don't really understand why Jesus had to die either.

Too bad I'm not hungry; I'd like a nice big hunk of cheese right now to cheer me up.

What I bought second hand last week

2012-01-02T12:31:00.000-08:00

Yes, a walker thingie -

a light-weight trainer machine,

so that I can watch Jon Stewart and sweat

at the same time. At least, that's the plan ...

$40.

Fabulous jewel. Real diamonds, or close. $4.

And - Scenes from a writer's life.

For your edification: these are old drafts of the memoir, about four year's worth.

A whole B. C. forest of words, and I'm still

working.

Keep on keepin' on.

happy happy

2011-12-31T14:39:00.000-08:00

My son called from work this afternoon to wish me a happy new year. I told him I was on my way to a theatre matinee. "With a friend?" he asked.

"On my own," I said. "You get great tickets for one."

There was a pause. "All by your lonesome?" he asked.

Oh my beloved boy. There is nothing lonesome about going to the theatre by yourself. I got ready and left when I wanted, enjoyed every minute of a superb play - Parfumerie, a jewel of a production directed and designed by my friends Morris Panych and Ken MacDonald, and a more talented pair would be hard to find anywhere in the world - and bicycled home on a mild, spring-like afternoon. It's now New Year's Eve, and I am, indeed, all on my lonesome. Tonight I won't even turn on the TV to watch the ball fall. There's so much reading to do, let alone writing, let alone everything else. I did rent a DVD, "Of Gods and Men," in case I feel like vegging out. I've had a glass and a half of red already, and it's not even six.

And I've had a little weep already, too. The Globe had an article about a kindergarten class that is bussed regularly to an old folk's home, where the children flourish under the attention of the elderly. It works partially because so few of the kids have regular contact with a grandparent.

It hit me hard - next year I am going, I pray, to be a grandparent, one with regular contact. I want to be with this child, to read stories and put together puzzles and go to Riverdale Farm to look at cows. It's hard to believe that someone as incredibly young as I will have a grandchild, but it seems it will be so. I can't wait. I can't wait. I'm waiting.

I was an impatient distracted floundering mother, and then a single mother, going mad. The kids were given love, no question about that, and I did squeeze in time for stories and puzzles, but on the verge of exhaustion and hysteria. I decided once that we should all make a gingerbread house for Xmas, that could be a wonderful family tradition - and ended up screaming at a nine-year old Anna because she wasn't doing it right.

I realize that I was almost exactly as pregnant with Anna on New Year's Eve 1980 as she is tonight with her boychild, thirty-one years later. Next year, I will hold that small person in my arms. Nothing matters more. The child of my child.

It's silent in my beautiful house. I'm not putting on sparkling clothes to go out and get drunk, as I did at one time on this night. I'm not preparing a family meal or taking care of anyone's needs but my own. All on my lonesome.

Happy New Year to you all, dear friends and readers. May you find great joy in 2012.

P.S. Here's Randy Bachman playing "Rock around the clock"! Dancin' time. Joy. "Tutti frutti"!

Wop bop a lop mop a lop bop bom!

The Star tells me, "'Nesting' key trend for New Year." I'm already all over that.

PACE Jack Layton. We miss you so very, very much.

playing with yourself

2011-12-30T19:49:00.001-08:00

Woody Guthrie's New Year's Rulin's

2011-12-30T14:58:00.001-08:00

bits and bobs

2011-12-29T12:12:00.000-08:00

A great New Year's message, from me to you, or rather from Pico Iyer to me, to you:

OPINION | January 01, 2012
Opinion: The Joy of Quiet
By PICO IYER
Trying to escape the constant stream of too much information.

And a dramatic bit of advice from an on-line writer, about writing:

Writing a first draft is like hitting the beach on D-Day. You don't stop to tend the wounded or mourn the dead. If you don't get off the beach, you'll die there. Which means: the point of the first draft is not to get it right, but to get it written. Don't go back and rewrite the first chapter until you've finished the last. Get off the beach. Otherwise, you may never get past page twenty.

the Barbarian Invasions

2011-12-28T20:05:00.000-08:00

Received this happy note today from a student and friend:

I just wanted to share the news that a story I wrote about making soft boiled eggs with my grandfather has been selected for publication by the CBC as part of their Edible Nonfiction challenge. I came up with that story in your garden last summer!!! Thanks Beth!

If you check the Canada Writes page at cbc.ca, you'll be able to read her piece.

Just watched the Quebecois movie "Les Invasions Barbares" again, on TV - what a superb film. I saw it when it came out in 2003, but its exploration of the meaning of life and death, love and friendship, means much more now, only 8 years later. Haunting and rich.

Spent much of the day reading "Rewriting Russia: Jacob Gordin's Yiddish Drama," by an American "Associate professor of Russian literature and Jewish studies." I've been asked to review her book for an American academic journal. It's an odd assignment, because the author is not only writing about a once-famous Yiddish playwright, but about my blood, my family. The lucky woman went to Russia to dig through Gordin files there, which has not been done before.

She thanks six different fellowships and granting agencies for their help in funding her work; I thank my ex-husband who provided enough child support that I could spend time reading and writing. It's a miracle my book ever emerged from my cluttered life, that's for sure.

As I sit here, very late on this cold, snowy day, there's a furry beast squeezed in beside me, and when I put my hand on her back, lo, a faint rumbling deep inside. Amazing. My daughter cooked poached salmon for my mum and auntie in Ottawa this evening, and all is right with the world.

important message

2011-12-28T14:09:00.000-08:00

snow day

2011-12-28T07:10:00.000-08:00

There's nothing better than lying safe and warm in bed, watching snow swirling through the sky a few feet away. As I lay looking out the window this morning, I thought about life and work. My tombstone, I thought, will read "Published Little but Lived Well."

And then I thought - wait a minute, I'm only 61! I'm just getting started, with a manuscript taking shape and lots more ideas in the wings. The years to come will produce a flood of material, and I will have a smaller tombstone.

Today's most important job - to make sure the bird-feeder is full. And, of course, read, edit, write. The joy and pain of the self-employed - while there is no rigid timetable to get to work, there is also no time off. Carol's class at the Y, check in at Doubletake, talk to the folks in Ottawa. Tonight - the wonderful British series "Doc Martin" returns. Martin Clunes is my new favourite British actor - well, at least some competition for Ewan McGregor - and last night, I watched his great series about horses. He travelled round the world, exploring various facets of our relationship with these most trusting, valuable, companionate, beautiful beasts. Wonderful to see the real face of this fine actor, because he's so distorted - and hilarious - as the autistic doctor.

So tonight, full of yet more turkey and stuffing, I'll watch the show with one eye, while stripping the tree. Moving right along.

white at last

2011-12-27T17:32:00.000-08:00

We didn't have a white Christmas, but we do have a white Night after Boxing Day. The first snow of the season tonight, very wet, turning to slush. I just went for a sloppy walk under a big umbrella, to take in the profusion of Xmas lights twinkling through the falling snow - very pretty. My own house, with its measly row of LED lights around the eves, looks pretty drab in comparison with some. I'm proud of the wreath on my door, though - a circle of pinecones, decorated with anything I could find to cover the gaps where some cones have fallen off, and a blue Star of David hanging in the middle. A woman asked me yesterday what I celebrate.

"I celebrate everything," I said, "if there's food and music involved."

My daughter went to Ottawa today to visit her grandmother. "I just saw the picture of the baby, and I nearly cried," said Mum over the phone an hour ago. She says she wants to live long enough to hold this child in her arms. And then much longer, says her family.

A very quiet day, not moving much, eating leftovers - how the hell did I end up with that much chocolate? Thank you, my friends. And getting caught up with reading - I have a stack two feet high of magazines, six library books, twelve - yes, count them, twelve - NYT Book Reviews, and much else. My friend Annie gave me a long summary of a conference she organized recently for the Jesuit Forum, entitled "Cry of the Poor, Cry of the Earth: What has spirituality got to do with social justice and ecology?" The conference attempted, really well according to what I've read, to answer that question. One member quoted a priest called Thomas Berry, who described himself as an "ecotheologian or Earth scholar," as saying that we are now living in an age which is the transition from the Technozoic to the Ecozoic era. Love that.

If the planet is to survive, he says, three kinds of "turning" are necessary - cultural or spiritual turning, which means a fundamental transformation of values and priorities; political turning, to an emphasis on 'participation, diversity, sustainability and rational power'; and economic turning, to "an eco-economy which presents new models for extracting resources, producing products and transporting goods and people, with priority on equity and sustainability."

Yes yes yes. If only.

Another friend, hearing about my daughter's pregnancy, said, "I'd hesitate to bring a child into this planet now. We're so @#$#ed." True, we are.

But also, we are not.

Christmas report

2011-12-26T16:49:00.000-08:00

Wretched excess. That's a real living blue spruce in a pot. Now to put it somewhere outside and hope it survives.

Adorableness #1.

Adorableness #2.

Sister fell asleep with a pillow over her face, and little brother wrote "I am a butt brain" on it. Some things never change. Luckily.

MY best Xmas present. A very very small

and silent person, who made his presence

felt - his mother could hardly eat

her Xmas dinner. That's enough, young man - enough with the hormones. Let your mama eat.

Done and done

2011-12-26T13:31:00.001-08:00

It's finished; back to sanity. An amazingly mild Boxing Day today, with leftovers piled high in the fridge, turkey soup simmering on the stove, recycling bin stuffed with paper and ribbon, and the poor traumatized cat hiding upstairs. This morning, I went to the Y to sweat off a bit of the festivities, and then came back to share the meal all over again with friends Gretchen and Jack. That's the best repast, the first enormous meal that requires only the effort of lifting the food from container to plate and into microwave. Love that meal.

Beware expectations, is my mantra with my children, so I didn't mind when things did not pan out quite as planned. The plan was for both kids and my near-daughter Holly to come over Xmas Eve afternoon; we'd enjoy each others' company and then go to Mary and Malcolm's marvellous annual Xmas Eve party. They'd stay the night here and we'd get a fresh, early start to Xmas. Ha.

Reality: Sam came over late afternoon Xmas Eve exhausted, made himself a big plate of spaghetti and did not want to go out. Anna worked till late and vanished; her phone was not working. Holly decided to visit her family in Belleville and not come back till late Xmas afternoon. I went to Mary's and sat in front of her fire chatting with neighbours while

eating the best smoked salmon, Stilton cheese and baked brie in all Toronto.

When I got back, Sam went out with his friends. Xmas morning, there were shoes in the hall; I could tell he'd come in very late - or rather, early that morning - because the newspaper was inside. Anna arrived at 10, we forced Sam to get up at noon, my oldest friend Ron arrived for our traditional smoked salmon at 12.30, we finished opening presents by 3, Holly arrived at 5, we ate at 7 and then watched home movies and Harry Potter on TV. It was perfect - the most relaxed Xmas we've ever had, the first ever without a big crowd. We've made a point of always having homeless waifs at our table, and of course we will again, but this year, it was just us, and it was great.

The home movies were a treat, my father as a child, me as a child, my children as children. Such a rich sociological study, to watch what was going on back then. At the end of the long day, the kids went off in different directions and I went gladly to bed.

Now the recovery begins, putting things back and away. The new year is coming up. Time for some self improvement lists.

the eve of the Eve

2011-12-23T13:39:00.001-08:00

I'm enjoying a Sluggard's Christmas. Oh the shame of my sloth. Today, two presents were hand-delivered to my door; I will give these dear friends a present back sometime in 2012. Cards pour in, and I will reply ... sometime in 2012. Last week, every time the television was on, I kept one eye on it while decorating the tree, stuffing stockings and wrapping gifts. Now the twinkly tree is floating above boxes and bags, almost every single one of which contains something second-hand. Thoughtful, I hope, but second-hand. YAY!

Because I heard an interview Jian did with the author of a book called "To Die For," about the immoral slavery involved in the fast fashion industry. So that's why those clothes are so cheap. I'm glad they're not under our tree.

It's all done. Yesterday Wayson drove me to buy a huge load of groceries and even to pick up the turkey, which usually has to be heaved onto my back. Today, I did the final grocery and wine shop and wrapped the last gifts. I'm sure tomorrow I'll remember something, but so far ... everything is in readiness, even a can of turkey and giblets cat food for You Know Who. And that's all she gets, the ungrateful wretch.

I'm a lucky self-employed and single person, able to do all this on the off-hours. Pity the poor souls who have to hit the malls and grocery stores tomorrow. The pungent man today in No Frills, pretty close to homeless, I'd say, buying three small boxes of chocolates. Never have I felt so fortunate, with so many folks feeling the pinch of recession. And today, though sunny, it was very cold. Hunkering down time.

Yesterday's thrill - my mother had given me a box of my grandfather's 16 millimetre home movies, and last week I finally took them to be transferred to DVD. Yesterday, I brought the DVD home to watch. So marvellous - my father and his brother in Central Park in 1928, my dad six and Edgar three, then various summer vacations as the boys get bigger, other relatives dancing in and out of the frames, my dad so handsome and vigorous. Then a big leap through the Forties to 1952, there's my beautiful young mother, aged 29, and Moi, aged two, at Lawrencetown Beach in Nova Scotia, my grandmother weeping with laughter. And then, 1955, my baby brother appears, and finally, from 1960, a little segment I did for CBC television, talking about the show Razzle-Dazzle. A family treasure to share with my kids on Xmas Day, with another copy to send to Ottawa for the folks there.

On Tuesday my oldest friend Ron had an an open house in the chichi apartment he shares with his partner Gary, for friends to meet his daughter and her husband and two-year old twin girls. I brought them a gift - "I Know Here," Laurel Croza's beautiful, prize-winning book that was inspired by an assignment in a writing class she took with me. It's aimed at kids much older than two, and yet at one point, in the chaos, Ron sat with little blonde Emily on his knee, reading her the book, both of them engrossed. What a lovely sight.

Speaking of lovely sights - my daughter has posted her latest ultrasound picture on Facebook. This babe is four months old in utero and already has a Facebook page. I watched an extraordinary documentary the other night called "What Darwin didn't know," about thrilling new advances in DNA research and genetics; they showed how to a certain point, all embryos - humans, chickens, frogs - look more or less the same. But ours now looks like a real human baby. I thought of my father, a physiologist and geneticist, who would have been overjoyed at what is happening in science now, and even more so at the advent of a great-grandson, bearing his genes into the future.

This might be our last Xmas without a brand new small person in attendance, who'll remind us of what it's really about. I'll be rushing about buying Lego and assembling castles or trains. Back to the old busy Christmasses.

The Art of Time in Memoir

2011-12-21T12:23:00.001-08:00

Excitement on this bleak, rainy day: the 2012 catalogue arrived from Syracuse University Press. And listed there is the paperback of my book, with a few of the good reviews. Quelle joie! Kvell with me. Here's the link:

http://www.syracuseuniversitypress.syr.edu/spring-2012/finding-jewish.html

That's the boring old author's bio, by the way. I'm rewriting it as we speak.

Yesterday's excitement, the writerly kind - reading a wonderful book called "The Art of Time in Memoir" by Sven Birkerts. There are so many little Post-its now stuck in this library book that it's bristling; I'll go through and type out all the wise bits I want to save. His thesis affected me deeply. He writes that memoir must have a double track - the experience THEN that the writer is bringing to life, and the current voice NOW, guiding the reader through, making sense of it all. I realized that my memoir, as it stood, was all the first part, none of the second - because I was writing it all in the voice of the actual teenager in 1964, not the adult. The usual questions haunted me: Who is telling this story? Where? Why? I'd known there was a problem but hadn't known exactly what it was or how to address it.

As I wracked my brains, I did what I always do in times of stress - I called a friend. This time, my brilliant friend Patsy on Gabriola Island, who has edited a number of my essays and read and critiqued countless manuscripts. As she always does, she cut through my confusion, quoting from Michael Ondaatje's new book that she's reading right now, in which he writes as an adult using the simplified language of his 11-year old protagonist.

"What is the question at the heart of your story?" she said. "Let the question lead you. Your book is about an adult looking for meaning in the past. You're discovering as you tell. That quest lets the reader in.

"Let the reader be comfortable," she said, "knowing they're not following a 13-year old, but a grown-up recreating and making discoveries, with sensual details and flashbacks advancing the story."

Whew! For a heart-stopping minute there, I looked at my 194 page manuscript and thought, Do I have to toss all this? But no - I need a Foreword. A Prologue, setting up the voice and explaining my quest. And then just a few modifications, I hope, to the voice I've been using. I immediately cut the first five pages and put them somewhere else. Now the book begins quite differently, with a different journey.

This is the fun stuff of my business - scary as it is to suddenly say, Have I been going down the wrong road all this time? Can I ditch this and still keep the core intact? Dangerous fun, for a writer. We sure know how to have a good time.

What I want for Valentine's Day

2011-12-19T18:50:00.000-08:00

Paul McCartney performs Dec. 5 during his European Tour, his first since 2004. He has a new album out Feb. 7. (Joel Ryan/Associated Press)

What a guy! He never stops.

Paul McCartney has collaborated with Diana Krall, Eric Clapton and Stevie Wonder on an album of standards to be released in time for Valentine's Day. McCartney announced the project Monday, as he released the first of two original songs on the album to fans on his website. There are only two new songs on the album – My Valentine and Only Our Hearts.

But love is clearly in the air for the former Beatle, who married American Nancy Shevell in October.

His song list includes romantic works from the American Songbook, by composers such as Cole Porter and Harold Arlen. And it comes out just ahead of Valentine’s Day on Feb. 7.

McCartney says he and John Lennon were inspired in their own writing by some of the standards, which he first heard when his father performed them at home on piano.

McCartney worked with Vancouver-based Krall and her band in recording the as-yet-untitled album, and Clapton and Wonder also make appearances.

McCartney says he’s been thinking about the project for 20 years and, at age 69, figured “if I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it.”

Christmas week

2011-12-19T15:40:00.000-08:00

We're heading for the shortest day of the year on Thursday, the winter solstice, and yet it was mild today, bright and clear, not like December at all. Maybe we've simply abolished winter. It's hard to complain, because the weather is heavenly. But it does feel wrong.

At this time of year, more than any other, I am profoundly grateful. There were so many sad or difficult Christmasses - the ones when I was alone, the ones when I was struggling to be the perfect mother and wife, when my parents and other family members would come to stay and I had gifts to buy and food to prepare for everyone, small children and a wrecked old house to cope with. And then the worst of all, the early years of divorce, the struggle with my ex over where the kids would be, when. Devastating.

The salvation was becoming the producer of the Xmas pageant at Riverdale Farm - if my kids were with me, they were in the show; if they were with their father, I was almost too busy to notice. Thank you, baby Jesus, Dusty the donkey and the rest of the menagerie. Since then, for years, the kids have been here for Xmas, dragging themselves over in the early afternoon, from their apartments on the other side of town.

This year, for the first time in a decade, both my adult children will sleep here on Xmas Eve - at least, that's the plan - along with Anna's best friend and my almost daughter, Holly, and the grandson sleeping in his warm invisible nest. We will go to friends and neighbours for their annual Xmas Eve party, and then the young will disappear to their own exciting lives for the rest of the night and wake up around noon on Xmas day. The turkey will be in the oven, and all we'll have to do all day is open presents, eat smoked salmon and peel potatoes. The absence of the usual stress is mind-boggling. Moving right along.

Last Thursday was the annual pot luck for my home class students, some of whom have been coming here for years. Wayson was our guest of honour for the sumptuous feast. Afterwards, he wrote about the respect, kindness and humour in the room; how privileged he felt to be there. "It was a glimpse of heaven," he wrote. Hyperbole, yes, and yet - being with beloved friends, especially around a table laden with food, is heaven.

On Saturday, meditating with Judy Steed at the Y - it's phenomenal, the power of this experience to go down, down deep into the soul. Then to a book launch - I was asked to contribute an essay to a compilation called "Letters and Pictures from the Old Suitcase." It turned out that one of the editors lives just at the end of my garden, I'd been hearing her voice for years. So I managed to totter over there in my best high heels to meet her in person and collect my two free copies of the book. And thence to Monique's for our francophone pot luck. This group makes me feel smart, provokes me into learning more - they're so learned about world affairs, history, philosophy.

Today - the lease is signed; my house is rented for three months, from mid-February to mid-May, so the weeks when I'm not in Europe, I will be wandering around the city looking for a place to lay my weary head. Not. Tomorrow, one of my oldest friends, from Halifax days in the Fifties, is holding an open house; I'm going to meet his twin two-year old granddaughters. He lives with his longterm partner, a young man from the Middle East, right opposite the Varsity Cinema, so I'll try to coordinate my visit with a movie. Brad Pitt or George Clooney - what a choice.

It'll surprise you to know that the crabby cat is sleeping. And that, these busy pre-Xmas days, her faithful servant is rapturous.

There are clementines!

Today's "Globe"

2011-12-16T13:31:00.001-08:00

A fabulous article by my hero Jeffrey Simpson, on our vile government:

Even with a majority, the bullying goes on.

And while we're with the august "Globe" - today I received a great kind of present, a note from a former student about publication. Brava, Anne. It's a beautiful article.

Hi there.

I love reading your blog as it reminds me of the wonderful voice that inspired me last year.

After a summer trip to Ireland, I have been hard at work this fall trying to find more spaces in my life to write.

I am busy sending this and that out but my first success was today's essay in Globe and Mail.

Thought you might be interested.

Warm regards,

Anne Langford

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/holiday/after-53-years-my-parents-annual-christmas-party-is-going-strong/article2272843/

And another stunning, very moving obit of Hitchens, by his friend Ian McEwan:

Consummate writer, brilliant friend'

R.I.P. Christopher Hitchens.

2011-12-16T06:24:00.000-08:00

Agreed with him sometimes, disagreed often, laughed a lot - God, the man could write.

Here's my favourite bit in the obit below:

He became a staff writer and editor for The New Statesman in the late 1970s and fell in with a literary clique that included Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, James Fenton, Clive James and Ian McEwan. The group liked to play a game in which members came up with the sentence least likely to be uttered by one of their number. Mr. Hitchens’s was “I don’t care how rich you are, I’m not coming to your party.”

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, 1949-2011

Polemicist Who Slashed All, Freely, With Wit

The Artist

2011-12-15T06:24:00.000-08:00

Dark and rainy, though still amazingly mild for December. The weather is not Christmassy but the city is, lights everywhere and that endless syrupy music and frenzied shoppers. This year, the commercialization of Xmas appalls me more than ever. When oh when were we shoved into the notion that the way to show love for our family and friends is to rush to stores and buy them things they don't need with money we don't have?

I ran into a friend on the streetcar yesterday, on her way to H and M to Christmas shop for her stepdaughter and 18 month old step-grandchild. I know she has very little money. Why are you doing that? I said. What I do, I said - and yes, how arrogant of me to force my opinion and ways on her, but then, l'arrogance, c'est moi - what I do is gather inexpensive things through the year so it looks like there's lots under the tree, but the real gift is either money or something I know they really need. I refuse, I said - Je refuse! - to go trolling around a shop desperately looking for something to buy. We've been brainwashed into thinking that's Christmas. But that's the opposite of the real Christmas spirit.

Thank you, she said. You're right, and you've just saved me a lot of time.

My kids understand the real thing; my daughter usually gives food she has made, or a gift card saying she will come over and cook, a post-Christmas treat for me. And my son gives an experience - last year, a gift card for a massage and facial at a spa. This year, along with an assortment of second-hand treasures, I am giving him a massage by a friend who's a massage therapist. That's a gift that gives two ways, to him and to her. I have not bought one single gift at a retail store.

Okay, that's enough, get off your high horse. Settle down. But it makes me sad and angry to see the pressure and the waste. Like the logo thing - how were we persuaded that wearing the name of some company on our clothing and accessories is a good thing to do? That we should volunteer to become walking billboards? What kind of idiots are we?

On that note, I actually went into Holt Renfrew yesterday - had a bit of time to kill before meeting a friend across the street. I lasted five minutes, wandering around. It's another planet, that big shiny store full of rich people buying very expensive things. The night before, I'd worked late and gone out with my recycling at 1 a.m. There was a tiny elderly woman across the street carrying six big plastic shopping bags full of bottles. I brought the wine bottle I was going to leave on the fence over to her. "This is how I get my streetcar fare," she said. "After work, I come out at night to find these." She was over 70, weighing about 80 pounds, wandering my neighbourhood at 1 a.m. looking for bottles to recycle for pocket change. "But now," she said, "they're putting up the fare."

I had to walk out of Holt Renfrew; it made me feel sick.

Went across the street to have tea (well, tea for her, wine for me) with one old friend (from 1967) and then to see a movie an hour later with another. Stopping the race to get caught up, to look at each other and listen and talk - what pleasure. And the movie was glorious - "The Artist." Highly original and surprisingly moving. The star, Jean Dujardin, has the most gorgeous smile, better even than George Clooney's - he's a mixture of Douglas Fairbanks and Gene Kelly, absolutely adorable. Do not miss this movie; it'll make your day.

And one more thing - the reason I was working so late the other night was that I printed out the current draft of the memoir in the late afternoon, and sat reading till I'd gone all the way through. I missed a documentary about Beethoven I was planning to watch, and I MISSED JON STEWART, that's how important it was to read without stopping.

Verdict: not bad. It's a solid draft. Time to write the next draft and make it better.

words

2011-12-12T14:18:00.000-08:00

A most stunning day - I was out without a coat for a good bit of it and was hot, at least in the sun. Blessed. Though weird.

A group of European researchers are doing a study on word association. There's a short questionnaire to fill in about your own word associations - quite interesting to see what flashes in the brain.

http://www.smallworldofwords.com

awkward family holiday photos

2011-12-11T17:39:00.000-08:00

Best laugh I've had since Jon Stewart on Thursday night - highly recommended. God knows where they found these - and thank heavens they haven't looked in OUR family files.

The Most Awkward Family Holiday Photos

www.buzzfeed.com

the tree man is here

2011-12-10T16:26:00.000-08:00

Very cold, at last - it really feels like a Canadian December. I was bundled to the eyeballs today when I rode my bike along Spruce Street, passing the Christmas tree man who has been setting up his tree lot on the corner of Spruce and Parliament for 58 years - living in a little trailer for a month, surrounded by evergreens, as if he's camping in a tiny forest of his own making. Every year, his arrival was a source of great excitement to my kids - "Here's here!" That meant Santa would soon be here too. These days, every corner store also sells trees, so I'm always afraid he's going to give up. But there he was, for the 58th time. And as I pedalled stiffly by, who did I see buying their tree from him, supporting tradition in the best way, but my neighbours Michael Ondaatje and Linda Spalding.

Speaking of Mr. O., apparently his new book "The Cat's Table" is marvellous. Eleanor Wachtel says so, and she knows her good reads. She was over for lunch this week, telling me how much she enjoyed taping tomorrow's show with Claire Tomalin talking about Dickens; how much that's new there is to learn about this famous novelist and personality. She also thought I'd enjoy her interview with Wim Wenders about his Pina Bausch film next Thursday, so I wrote it dutifully in my calendar, and won't miss it. We've been friends since 1975, and it's great to see her thrive.

That's a poem.

CBC radio, 99,1, Sunday at 3 for Dickens; Tuesday Dec. 20 at 9 p.m. for Wenders.

Speaking of German filmmakers, Mr. Ghomeshi interviewed Werner Herzog last week about his latest documentary. "We are looking, not for facts, but for illumination," Herzog said. "I try to bring something to the audience that illuminates them - the ecstasy of truth."

The ecstasy of truth! Love it.

Speaking of something completely different, you will be happy to hear that my house is rented. It's rented, in fact, a bit more than I'd planned - three young engineering students from Belgium are arriving mid-February and departing 13 weeks later in mid-May, whereas I'm only away for six weeks. That leaves quite a few weeks when I may be camping in my office - or maybe in St. James park, like the Occupy protestors. Hey, can't complain. The Belgians are paying to live in Toronto in the bitterness of March and April, when I will be swanning around the south of France, England, and Paris.

Nice work if you can get it.

saving the Farm: a proposal

2011-12-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday, I received a desperate email message from a neighbour - they were debating city finances at City Hall on Thursday, and one issue on the table would be charging $2 admission to Riverdale Farm, which has always been free. The Farm Committee needed volunteers to go down to City Hall and wait around, possibly for many hours, to give a deputation. I thought about it and decided I must do it, I feel so passionately about the Farm - and by that time, the deadline for a time slot request had suddenly been put back some hours, and I had already missed it.

The barbarians are truly at the gate. It's beyond disgusting, what they're proposing - cutting school lunch programs, swimming programs, ice time for kids, increasing the cost of day care, transit ... Every single cut targets the people who can afford it least. Makes me almost physically ill. And, of course, the thought of turnstiles and ticket-takers at the gates of my beloved Farm, because our wealthy city just cannot afford that kind of luxury any more - a free farm.

I was there today and, as I stood watching Rooster the Clydesdale munch his breakfast hay, I thought, I'd be willing to donate some money to the Farm, a contribution toward something specific, so the place remains open and free for those who can't afford it.

And then I thought - the Americans have Sponsor a Highway, for God's sake, where you pay to maintain your bit of highway. They have an Adopt an Animal program at the Zoo, I believe. Why don't we have a Sponsor an Animal program at the Farm? Figure out how much it costs to maintain Dusty the donkey, Rooster, a cow, a chicken, a duck - and ask people to contribute towards that amount. Get Cabbagetown itself involved - get a street to sponsor an animal. Amelia Street sponsors a goat!

There could be lists of donors in the barn. And a ceremony once a year, some kind of event, with city people thanking the sponsors, so that everyone feels warm and fuzzy, even if they've only given $5 or $20. That means everyone will feel they have a stake in the Farm. That day, maybe people could even be photographed with their animal. And then, the other 364 days a year, the Farm goes on as usual, only with a list of names on the wall. It sounds like a pretty easy way to raise money, to show the cretins at City Hall that the community, and indeed the entire city, is behind the Farm, and to make individuals and groups feel invested in its future.

What do you think?

*************************

I am on the mailing list for the Halifax Grammar School, a Nova Scotia private school focussed on excellence which was founded by my father in 1958, and am often very proud of what they accomplish. One of the great sadnesses of my life is that my own kids didn't get to attend this marvellous school. Today's news: the Grammar School won the Oxford Debating Cup last weekend in Toronto. Two HGS students, Debi Ogunrinde and Oliver Bjornsson, rose to the top of 50 teams in the country to win. They will now represent Canada at the British National Championships in Oxford. The final round debate focussed on what makes social action morally correct; the team had 25 minutes to prepare. Oliver's analysis centred on "a discussion of John Rawl's theory of the veil of ignorance," and Debi's speech, apparently, was a "tour de force."

I've never even heard of John Rawl, covered as I am by a veil of ignorance.

a warm sound on a cold day

2011-12-08T11:20:00.001-08:00

A miracle, my friends - I just lay down on the sofa near the crabby cat and stroked her head - and she started to PURR! Like a normal cat! I counted fifty purrs. This has never happened before; oh yes, occasionally through the years, a rusty sound has emerged from her throat, as if she's testing a mechanism she'll never use. But today, she allowed a spontaneous contentment to erupt.

Mind you, I kept expecting her to turn around and slash me anyway. That would be like her.

Found an old address book from a pivotal time in my life - the mid to late 70's. Fascinating, to see who has remained a constant, who has vanished, who I have wiped from memory forever. And at the back, I found something startling. My friend Judy Marcuse was going to Toronto one spring, and for some reason, I wrote down the address of where she'd be staying. It says:

April 1979, Judy Marcuse

c/o Plaxton

308 Sackville St.

Toronto

M5A 3C7

308 Sackville Street is where I am sitting right now. It has been my address (with the wrong postal code) and home since we bought the house from the Plaxtons in 1986. Cosmic.

What's wonderful about old address books is ... Google. It's possible to check up on all those names, see in seconds what they're doing now. I looked up my boyfriend Bill from the late 60's, a true hippy with a long beard who hitchhiked to Marrakesh in his Spanish boots of Spanish leather. Now he's a real estate agent in Nantucket. Sigh.

Moving to the here and now - I am a member of the Creative Non-fiction Collective, a group of non-fiction writers mostly on the West Coast. One of the other members, Theresa Kishkan, and I have started a correspondence, and I got her book, Mnemonics: A book of trees, out of the library. It's a beautifully written, thoughtful, profound piece of work, in which she links specific trees to times in her life, and writes about both trees and life with clarity and haunting depth. And again, those cosmic bonds - she writes about living in Victoria and Halifax, where I have lived, about la rue Mouffetard in Paris, where I walk nearly every day when I'm there, and about going to Greece in the mid-Seventies at the age of 22, ending up in a village on Crete called Agia Gallini. I went to Greece in 1979 aged 28 and stayed in Agia Gallini. Only she remembers a lot more than I do.

I feel I've a great new friend, though we've never met. Only she's not in my written address book, she's in my computer's address book. Won't be able to flip through that in thirty-five years, to see who's still around.

NEWS!

2011-12-06T14:46:00.001-08:00

My pregnant daughter missed one of the requisite ultrasounds, which wasn't needed, apparently, and so we decided to book a private one instead, to find out what sex child she is carrying. Several friends who heard about this were decidedly against. Ultrasounds are invasive, they said, and in any case, why not wait to find out, in the time-honoured fashion?

Well, because an occasional ultrasound isn't that invasive, and why wait, when you can know? My God, there's enough stress giving birth without the suspense about what the sex is. How great to be assured, one way or another, in advance. So off we went.

IT'S A BOY! In the first second, we saw proud and incontrovertible proof. The most thrilling and beautiful image - a swirling baby, his hand in front of his face, firmly attached to his mother. He's perfect, what Anna secretly wanted, and I too - because, as I wrote in the last post, the world needs more confident, loving, marvellous men. Women like that we have in abundance. Men, not so much. So we'll all do our best to make one, for the future. Well, I, Grandma, will do my best to help.

I know, we must not count our chickens, there's a long way to go, danger and who knows what. But right now, there's a bouncing baby boy in my daughter's belly, due to present himself to the planet on May 14th 2012. My mother's great-grandson. She just called. There is excitement in Ottawa.

Okay, I'll calm down soon.

As Anna and I were walking toward the ultrasound place, who did we see in the distance but a very tall young man with an iPod who is closely related, genetically, to us both. We stopped and had a hug in the middle of Yonge Street, and then continued on our way. He and his sister had lunch at her place yesterday - she told me he bought her a whole load of groceries - and he called me afterwards to leave a message. "I just want you to know," he said, "that your children love each other very much."

My cup is runnething over. And it's not a bad South African red.

Here's to you, boychik. Float, safe and warm, knowing that out here in the bright light and noise are quite a few people who want very much to get to know you.

P.S. All this bliss, while in my city, catastrophe reigns - the barbarians slashing everything in sight and making it impossible to register a protest. Not to mention what's happening federally, nixing climate change, native rights, the long gun registry on this December 6th - sweet Jesus.

Enjoy that dark, quiet place, babe.

O happy day

2011-12-03T17:51:00.000-08:00

"O happy day!" That's what I'm listening to at this moment, the gospel song from the late Sixties on Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap on CBC - this week, his "night and day" show. When I'm home, I spend my Saturday nights with the radio blasting, dancing around while doing mindless chores. It's a wonderful show, a tour of music through the decades with Randy's insider commentary - he seems to have known every musician of the past 40 years - and background guitar-picking. "When Jesus walks, O when he walks, when Jesus walks, he walks my sins away. O happy day."

Love it. It takes so little to make me happy. Thank you, Lord, for CBC radio. Randy's finishing with "Oh what a night," Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Excuse me, I have to get up and dance.

Okay, I'm back, out of breath. Nothing like the Four Seasons to get those toes tappin'.

This morning, I went to a Christmas bazaar at PAL - the Performing Arts Lodge, where artists can live in retirement with rent geared to income - and ran into Kenny Wickes, an actor friend who lives there. In 1973, I sublet his tiny apartment right at Cumberland and Yonge, an incredible location, while he was playing Rumpelstiltskin in Nova Scotia. During his very long career, he specialized in Rumpelstiltskin. He is now a gleeful 90 years old and told me he'd appeared in several television shows this past year. For one part, he was flown to Montreal.

The other night, I saw the extraordinary Betty White on Jon Stewart - she's a mere 89, with a new TV show. I want to be just like Betty and Kenny when I grow up. Oh, and speaking of wonderful elders - just got a call from my 89-year old mother, who wanted to tell me about a terrific radio show she has just discovered: Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap! She told me that as she listened, she was dancing around her kitchen. The apple does not fall far ... etc.

On a less jolly note, I watched something that disturbed me the other evening. George Strombo welcomed two of my heroes, Stephen Lewis and Michele Landsberg, now married 49 years; Michele has just put out a compilation of her feminist articles, and Stephen, as we all know, is an internationally renowned leader of intelligence and compassion. They were talking about the fate of women around the world, and how girls are now succeeding in so many fields which were formerly closed to them.

"And now," said Stephen, with a sarcastic grin, "we are seeing all those crocodile tears being shed for boys, because they aren't doing as well."

"Crocodile tears"? How could such a wise man dismiss so cavalierly the fact that boys, at least in our society, aren't doing well at all? That rates of unemployment and suicide have sky-rocketed, that young men have not found a place and are increasingly lost in our feminized, post-industrial world? Stephen and Michele have grandsons! They know we do not make life better for all by improving the lot of females at the expense of males.

Stephen Lewis made fun of himself as a "sexist pig" because as a teenager, he approved of a poster with a scantily-clad woman on it. Oh for God's sake. I was watching a documentary about prehistoric man with my 27-year old son the other day, when the scientist on screen showed us the black, decayed skull "of a girl, aged 18 to 25."

"Mmmm," said my son approvingly. "Girl 18 to 25." He was joking, of course, but there's no question that he enjoys a man's appetite. I love him for his manliness, for his appreciation and love of women, his grace and humour, his weakness and vulnerability, his struggles and triumphs, his anger and his tenderness. Even, yes, his tattoos.

I pray we have not created a world in which the strengths of women are celebrated and encouraged, and the strengths of men are scorned. Crocodile tears, indeed.

Come back, Randy. Let's dance some more.

student success story

2011-12-02T14:38:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago, Lisa, one of my Ryerson students, wrote a great essay for class about how scared she was of getting needles, and how a psychiatrist helped her overcome that fear. The class and I suggested some edits, and then I said, send it to Facts and Arguments at the "Globe." She did the edits, she sent the piece, it was accepted a few days ago and ran in the paper today.

Not only that, but John Tory called to ask her if she'd speak on the topic on his radio program this evening. I just heard the interview. Lisa was wonderfully relaxed, and Tory told her how grateful he was that she'd written with such honesty and openness about a problem many people share.

Hooray! The power of the personal essay! Brava, Lisa.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/facts-and-arguments/the-essay/i-had-to-confront-my-fear-of-needles/article2257043/

thought for today

2011-12-02T13:00:00.000-08:00

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

With respect to the number of deaths, arms manufacturers are charitable institutions compared to cigarette manufacturers.

Silvio Garattini, doctor, researcher, professor, and founder of the European Organization for Research on Treatment of Cancer (b. 1928)

And, I will add without mincing words, both are the scum of the earth.

Another lovely day, sun out, though cold. Great excitement - I went to the brand new Loblaw's in the Maple Leaf Gardens building and saw the great Wall of Cheese. It is indeed a fabulous store. I ate three different free samples of warm bread from the Ace bakery on site, went to Joe Fresh clothing upstairs and could not resist an inexpensive workout top, and then wandered the aisles of the vast store below, dazed. It sells just about everything, including cosmetics, all kinds of kitchenwares, tons of prepared food and many gourmet luxury goods. Quite overwhelming, in a fun way. I can certainly see myself popping in on the way home from U of T or the Y.

Really something new, for Toronto - a destination grocery store. People going food shopping, because it's exciting to be there. How times have changed. Long ago, I saw a great night of rock'n'roll on that very spot, for - Africa, was it? with Bruce Springsteen and Sting and K.D. Lang. And much later, with my teenaged daughter, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. And today, Mimolette cheese, Swiss biscuits and raspberries.

Went to a wonderful evening yesterday - my friend Mary took me to a fundraiser for Amistad, a Canadian organization that raises money to help the Mexican people, specifically in San Miguel de Allende. We saw a documentary called Migrant, about a Mexican sculptor who made more than a thousand life-sized statues, to honour the people in his village who had emigrated to the United States and never returned. A professor from York spoke about the migrant situation, considerably worse now after 9/11, except for one thing - cell phones have enabled families to remain in much closer touch than before.

Good to hear some good news, with the papers full of more devastating city cuts - swimming pools and rinks! - and dreadful financial news from Europe and the U.S. And from Canada - the shocking neglect of the people of Attawapiskat, living in squalor, ignored by their government. Perhaps the fundraisers of Amistad should concentrate closer to home.

blowing own horn, #6794

2011-11-30T12:31:00.001-08:00

Snow gone, sun shining. An email arrived today from a student in the U of T class that ended on Monday. It could not have come at a better time, as I nursed my tiny bruised ego, now completely healed. None of that petty stuff - who's teaching what when, who's famous, who's the best at this or that - none of that matters in comparison with the joyful contact in a classroom, that's of such mutual benefit. I am glad and grateful to have work I love and nothing to complain about. So there.

And, incidentally, I didn't get to the Great Wall of Cheese - there was a line-up waiting to get in. To Loblaw's! It does look like a splendid palace of food, that's for sure. But not palatial enough to line up for.

Here, if you'll forgive me, is the note from my student:

Thank you for the course. My writing really benefitted ... and that's exactly what I was after.

You are a wonderful teacher. I have a PhD in Adult Education and several years university teaching experience, so I know good teaching when I see it. I also know excellence -- and that is you.

You are inspired, inspiring, fun, warm, extremely knowledgeable, and you share your knowledge and passion freely.You are generous in all things, including inviting us to meet Wayson Choy (which was such a delight -- another master teacher and master writer).

Importantly, you are a masterful summarizer of each of our stories, getting to the heart of them. This makes your editing suggestions and critiques supportive, helpful, and in my opinion, right on the money.

In short, I couldn't have asked for a better class nor a better teacher. I took a chance on you by looking at the passion and professionalism of your website, and it paid off for me, in spades.

one of a kind

2011-11-30T06:46:00.000-08:00

My American cousin Peter B., a photographer who's known for his intimate shots of the Statue of Liberty - he climbed all over her many times and took an especially gorgeous close-up of her toe - sent a sad email today:

Kasuku, my 37 year old parrot, had a stroke on Veterans day and died on Friday the 18th and was buried the Friday after Thanksgiving with 15 of his human friends at the ceremony.

He was placed in an African Mahogany coffin, with a miniature rubber Statue of Liberty, his Nikon Professional Service membership card (he was the only bird that was a member since 1992) and some peanuts for his trip to the afterlife. The service was performed in the Jewish faith; Sharon and Ricki read from a prayer book that my Father used in 1916 when he was Bar Mitzvah, Ricki also used it for her Bat Mitzvah and Gabriel used when he was Bar Mitzvah and now for Kasuku's Funeral. A real family heirloom.

I met Kasuku in the Seventies during visits to Peter's loft on W. 22nd in NYC, decorated with photos he'd taken around the world of animals and insects copulating. Kasuku was an extremely intelligent bird with stern political opinions. When you said, "Nixon," to him, he replied, "Fucker!" Peter and Kasuku visited us in Vancouver in the early 80's, so my baby daughter made friends with her first parrot. You were one of a kind, Kasuku. And you still are, for that matter, Peter.

Speaking of one of a kind, an old friend and neighbour was over yesterday during Penny's jewelry sale, which went very well, and we got caught up on our children. One of her daughters was an awkward, unhappy girl, slightly developmentally delayed, who went through a long goth phase where she wore hideous black clothes - you know the kind. She met a young transgendered man turning into a woman; they fell in love, lived together for years and had a joyous wedding last year. They're now living in connubial bliss in Northern Ontario, which is a very tolerant place. Once upon a time, these two would have lived as pariahs; instead, they are a happily married couple. The story made me grateful for these modern times.

Today's excitement, besides Carol's class at the Y and a haircut: the vast new Loblaw's is opening in Maple Leaf Gardens. The ads for the place promise "A great wall of cheese." In downtown Toronto on a grey November day, it doesn't get more cheerful than that.

P.S. Two days ago, people out in shorts, and right now - the first sprinkle of snow. Welcome to Canada.

I'm down, as the Beatles say

2011-11-29T10:06:00.001-08:00

Chilly, dark and pouring. I'm watching a very wet sparrow hawk on a branch of the cherry tree in the yard, grooming himself - plucking at his leg feathers - in the rain. I'm about to put on my rain gear to go to the post office and mail off another long essay to a writing competition. Good to have deadlines and specific goals, not just "a book, one day."

My boss at U of T has just written to tell me he has asked two other writers to teach the Memoir component of the summer writing program, instead of me. They are both included in the Canada Reads competition this year for their memoirs, and so are famous and will attract lots of people to the program. It is 100% a sensible business decision and I understand perfectly why he has made it. Perhaps I'm feeling sad because of the gloomy day and the rain, and because it's the tenth anniversary of sweet George Harrison's death. Perhaps it's because the essay I wrote was about a difficult time when I was very small. Perhaps it's because Stephen Harper is about to renege on a commitment to the Kyoto Accord, and it's devastating to consider what Canada represents now, in the world. And Ford has just released his budget, cutting transit routes and increasing the fare, cutting shelters. Cutting shelters.

Perhaps it's because sometimes, it just feels right to be sad, because the world is a dark and difficult place.

Luckily, I had decided a few weeks ago to get a pedicure at Star Nails sometime. Today would be a really good day to soak my feet and emerge with bright red toes. And tonight, my friend Penny is coming over to sell her bead jewelry here at my place, because it's more central than hers. Lots of women will come to drink wine and look at her lovely work, and my house will welcome them. On Sunday, during the guided meditation with Judy, she asked us to put ourselves in a place we love, where we are happy and comfortable. I jumped immediately to my kitchen and my deck, in summer, looking at the garden. How lucky, to love my home so much, my work so much. All this, and a crabby cat with white boots, too.

still warm

2011-11-27T18:57:00.001-08:00

It said in the newspaper today that Friday was the warmest Nov. 25 on record. Today, still mild; through the rain, I saw two men in shorts. That's the problem with global warming - in the fall and winter, it's harder to be outraged when the air feels so good.

On Thursday, I went first to a memorial event at the Y - a runfit instructor of many years, Len, died a few weeks ago when his car was struck at a train crossing. I knew Len only as an instructor, one who'd stopped teaching the classes I attend years ago, but wanted very much to go anyway - because we runfit nuts are a family. None of us had met Len outside the Y, and yet there we all were in a meeting room at the Y, eating pizza with Len's wife and son and watching a video about his life. Several people spoke about him.

How I love and respect the Y. It has been an important component of my sanity for most of my life.

I rushed from there to the theatre to see "Red," a play about the painter Mark Rothko. Funny, not long ago I saw "I send you cadmium red;" must be this season's theme. My friend Nicky Cavendish was given opening night tickets she couldn't use, so she kindly gave them to Wayson and me. It was a fascinating evening of theatre, no question, the portrait of the irascible, volcanic Rothko giving a powerful view into the life and process of a painter. I loved re-imagining the Rothko works I saw recently in the Abstract Expressionist show at the AGO, and thinking about the other painters mentioned, especially Jackson Pollock. But it was a flawed production - a director getting too busy with distracting, unnecessary stuff - bits of music, lighting changes - and good actors starting too high, so left with nowhere to go. Mr. C. and I went out to eat afterwards and gossiped about the play and the theatre. My idea of fun.

Friday night, my francophone group - two of the men are impossibly erudite, I often feel like a dumkopf. This time, a discussion of the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas, of whom I'd never even heard. They then discussed the perilous state of European finance, a conversation I could barely follow, and then we dove into genius and art, avoiding, for once, the divisive issue of Israel and the Palestinians. We ate chili, salad, cheese and pear-marzipan tarts and drank the Beaujolais Nouveau I'd brought. Gilbert talked about the first time he ate with a family in France, he from a Wasp Ontario farming family, tight-lipped and guarded. "They didn't stop arguing," he said. "The father and the daughter, screaming about Jean-Paul Sartre. I thought they were going to kill each other. And then suddenly the father said, in a normal voice, 'Cherie, could you get another bottle of wine?' and when she got back, they just chatted as if nothing had happened. I'd never seen anything like it."

Mais oui, that's the French family at mealtimes.

Went to the Y today, for a bit of a Zumba class - great music makes all the difference - and then guided meditation, a group run by Judy Steed. It's a wonderful experience to sit in a small group with eyes closed and be led on an inner journey. We spend a lot of time hanging out up in the right brain, the centre, she says, of creativity and emotion. My heart slows, and my breathing, and I relish half an hour of stillness and contemplation, led by Judy's voice, just listening to my own body, my own life. I'm spending so much time inside there anyway, with my memoir work. Tonight, I saw the last few minutes of a documentary on memory. "Your memories are you," it said. "Your memories are who you are." Especially interesting for someone who's actively working with memories, to get them down and true and vivid.

Floating around in the past. On a warm November night.

two clips

2011-11-26T06:57:00.000-08:00

Two things to watch:

Here's a clip of an extraordinary light project art piece in Germany. Unfortunately an ad, but let's pretend it's just art.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=XVTga6GmbGw&vq=medium#t=74

And here's a very moving ad disguised as a movie.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/11/cool-.html

My friends at the Farm

2011-11-25T13:37:00.000-08:00

Today was so mild, I went for a jogette in a t-shirt. A woman beat me - she was at the Farm in a tank top! On November 25th in Toronto!

Here are my friends at the Farm today - coming into the barn time for the ducks and feeding time for the pigs. What a noise. And then there's the beautiful Necropolis to the north.

RIDE THE CYCLONE, asap

2011-11-23T08:23:00.000-08:00

Quick, my Toronto readers, pick up the phone or go to your computers and book to see "Ride the Cyclone," at Theatre Passe-Muraille. Though it may already be completely sold out. This summer, when I spoke with my friend Janet Wright after her star turn in "Grapes of Wrath" at Stratford, she told me to be sure to see the show. Her son Jacob Richmond is the writer and co-director.

And what an extraordinary talent he is and has. It's a superbly imaginative production - about a choir of high school students from a small Saskatchewan town who die one night on a roller coaster and come back for one last concert, to sing about their own lives. The music goes from gospel to hip hop to a pure Kurt Weil. I saw it with my daughter Anna, who's a hip 30, and she loved it too. A true inter-generational masterpiece. I'm sure it will end up in New York, and you know my theatrical predictions - "War Horse," "Jerusalem" - almost always come true. So see it locally, now, I urge you.

Before the show, Anna and I had dinner at the Epicure nearby; what joy to see my daughter eat. She has always had a hearty appetite, unusual in a young woman from our society - once on a dinner date, she told her beau she was sure she could eat more than he could, and she did. But she has been afflicted with terrible morning sickness for many weeks, almost unable to keep down water, let alone anything else. It has finally passed, and she ate with gusto, looking - yes, radiant, so extremely beautiful. Inside her is my grandchild, a little bigger, now, than a peach. We love you, little peach. I hope you too enjoyed the show.

a grown-up, singing with love

2011-11-21T19:59:00.001-08:00

Just back from an exciting night - an event called "Grown-ups Read Stuff They Wrote as Kids." Apparently, this is the 11th such night, in which several hundred people gather to laugh at their own young selves and each other. I'd heard about them but had been unable to attend because they were always on Mondays, when I teach. But my Monday class ended last week, so a few months ago, when I heard about this date, I signed up immediately. It is what it says - adults reading their childhood writings, from sentience to age 18.

Huge problem - how to narrow down my choice of reading material to five minutes, considering that I started writing stories and letters at six and a diary at nine? The mass of paper from my youth is never-ending. I finally picked, of course, my Paul McCartney material, to see how it worked with what I suspected would be a much younger audience.

It was - one woman read from the 70's but everyone else, except me, was a thirty-something, reading diaries and stories from the late 80's and early 90's. And then I appeared, saying, "Let's go back to the magical year 1964." I read a diary excerpt and one of my fantasy stories about my relationship with Paul ("The Orphan", in which he accidentally knocks me, a lonely orphan, down with his Aston-Martin, and, because I'm left crippled, adopts me - but we fall in love and ... ) I ended with another diary entry, written at 2 a.m. in June 1965 after I'd seen the Beatles in concert twice in one day.

They liked it; they really liked it. One young woman, who read a very funny will she wrote when she was nine - "And my clothes should go to the poor" - came up to me after and said, "You were the best." Not so, at all - some of the others were wonderful, moving, honest, and absolutely tears in the eyes hilarious. But perhaps my presentation was the most polished, because I am an actress and couldn't help it making it a show. And also, I realized afterwards, the gift of comic timing, which I was lucky enough to inherit from the Jewish side of my family. Dealing with laughter for a story-teller or actor is like surfing in reverse - you feel the wave coming in, crashing over you, and the trick is to catch it as it starts to ebb, and plunge in again, to keep it rolling and rolling on.

A woman my age, the mother of one of the readers, tapped me on the shoulder during the intermission, after I'd read. She exclaimed at how articulate I was at 13. "Have you heard of the Nun Study?" she said. She told me about a famous study of the brains of nuns, invaluable because they all lived the same way, ate the same food etc. Before they became novitiates, the young nuns-in-waiting were asked to write an essay about why they wanted to enter the convent. It was discovered, after their deaths, that the ones who were most articulate in youth had lived longer or were afflicted with Alzheimer's later than those who were not as articulate. Certain parts of their brains, it was discovered after their deaths, were actually denser.

I thanked my new friend profusely for this information, because, I said, "My grandmother had Alzheimer's, so it's something I fear."

"Well then," she said, "I have given you a gift, haven't I?"

She certainly had. If youthful articulacy is anything to go by, I have a nicely dense brain. Woo hoo!

Here, for your entertainment, is a bit I did not have time to read last night, the beginning of a story about my life as Mrs. Paul McCartney, written when I was 14. Luckily, my view of marriage changed somewhat - though, thinking of the beginning of my own marriage, not that much, I have to say. Oh, there are so many wonderful, sweet tales to share. You'll just have to wait for the book.

October 1965

“I love him, I love him, I love him,” my heart sang as I washed the dishes, polished the floor and made the beds.

“He is the sweetest man on earth,” I repeated as I folded his clothes, washed his socks and tidied his papers.

Work goes fast that way, when one’s whole person is singing with love.

down and up

2011-11-18T05:04:00.000-08:00

Zero degrees - it actually feels like November. Outside, as much yellow and brown as green; leaves tumble, squirrels frantically search and bury. Soon I'll get to use my sexy blue snow shovel. Teaching is winding down for the term too - two Ryerson classes and the home class ended this week. Each class has its special dynamic, each student his or her particular kind of growth and courage. How I love my work.

Spent time the other night exploring the last century's heart of darkness - a documentary called "The Rape of Europa," based on a book of the same name - how the Nazis pillaged Jewish art collections and museums everywhere they went. It showed how nations tried to protect their priceless treasures and monuments, not just from the voracious Germans, but from Allied bombs. A group of American G.I's, called the Monuments Men, travelled with U.S. troops in Italy, fighting to preserve art and architecture - and yet so much irrevocable damage was done. We watch young American airmen prepare meticulously to bomb the train hub at the centre of occupied Florence, so that none of the nearby buildings is damaged. Then the Nazis, as they are driven out, blast and destroy the city's ancient bridges and surrounding buildings. Sickening, vicious destruction.

After the war, we see the liberation of bunkers and mines, overflowing with the greatest art in the world. "I could not understand," said one Monuments Man, "how these people had the humanity to appreciate masterpieces of art, and at the same time were mass murderers, slaughtering millions. And I still can't." No one can, sir. The shots of G.I.s, in amazement, holding up canvasses by Vermeer, Raphael, Michaelangelo - tears in the eyes.

The documentary ends now, with a German man whose job is to trace the owners of Jewish religious artifacts unclaimed after the war. With one pair of ornate silver caps for the Torah, he manages to find the family of the murdered owners, and travels to suburban New York to bring the caps home. We see these beautiful objects with their delicate bells being put into place, the Jewish community dancing around with their Torah, the young German, kippah on his head, watching and clapping. We learn that most of the reclaimed art work is now back where it belongs. Over the final credits, though, we watch a parade of magnificent paintings lost, never found. An incomprehensible, hideous savagery. In this story, the Americans are the heroes of civilization. It made me proud of one side of my heritage, of my father, a G.I. in a MASH unit in France.

Luckily, this powerful heartbreaking film ended at 11; I was able to switch immediately to the Comedy Channel and lighten my heart with Jon Stewart. He is having such a marvellous time with the Republican presidential race - comedic gold, each candidate more impossibly idiotic than the next. Two nights ago, he had a hilarious interview with Diane Keaton, and last night, with Martin Scorsese, who, it turns out, is an extremely funny man. Or else, he is with Jon, as is almost everyone. The show is on late, and often I'm drooping, and yet cannot resist a hearty laugh with a smart, handsome man - a smart, handsome man proud of his Jewish heritage - before bed. Especially after watching something like "The Rape of Europa."

November sun

2011-11-15T13:14:00.001-08:00

Am I living in Canada? It's sunny and unbelievably mild - I was just out raking leaves wearing a light spring coat. Torontonians are looking around in bewilderment, congratulating themselves. "This just means it'll hit us harder later," said one cheerful soul. And another cheerful soul, my handyman John, stopped by with a reminder of what's to come - a new snow shovel. It's gorgeous, almost ... sexy, bright blue with that new kind of bent handle that makes it easy to lift. "I can't wait to try it out!" I exclaimed, and then thought again. "No, actually, I'll be happy to wait," I said.

Air fares plummeted over the weekend, for some unknown reason, so I jumped - booked my flight to Charles de Gaulle airport and back 5 1/2 weeks later. I was given the option of booking "premium seats," and went for it, so I'll have a bulkhead window seat both ways, quelle luxe!

Here I stand, old rake in one hand and new snow shovel in the other, ready for the next four months. I will deal happily with ice and snow - if there is any - until March 18th. And then I will get out.

remembrance

2011-11-13T04:48:00.000-08:00

Home - to bushels of yellow leaves littering my new front walk and my own lengthy List of Things to Do. But the crabby cat actually, perhaps, allowed a momentary flicker of affection in those green eyes. So you're back, she says. About @#$# time.

As my mother grows more frail and vulnerable, our bond grows stronger, to something primal - she is my mother, she is in need, I must help. There is a huge love. Hard even to write about. It meant a lot, this year, that we watched the Remembrance Day events together, the camera panning past the elderly faces of the veterans, and I sitting beside one, my mother, veteran of the British Land Army, then a code cracker at Bletchley Park. What stories she tells - thousands of people working there, cracking German submarine codes on the Enigma Machine, yet the place was top secret for years.

We salute and thank you, veterans. Like heroes in the Greek legends, you saved the world from a monster.

We took special note of that minute, eleven minutes past eleven, or 11:11/11/11/11. "Next year," I said, "I'll come for December 12 and we'll celebrate 12:12/12/12/12." Let's, Mum, okay?

Next year, she will be a great-grandmother. We're all rolling along on the conveyor belt of life. Celebrating the too-fast, never easy, ever-changing ride, as we head for the edge.

British cooking at its best

2011-11-12T08:27:00.000-08:00

I found a wonderful recipe book in my mother's bookshelf yesterday - her grandmother's turn of the last century, very British, yellowing and crumbling cookbook, that her daughter, my grandmother, used in her village kitchen. I'd like to share a few recipes with you; I hope you'll tackle them forthwith. These are copied verbatim.

POTTED TONGUE
Get's a pig's tongue, boil it gently for 2 hours till tender. Remove the skin and root and put it through a mincer; add 1/2 a teaspoonful of salt, some grated nutmeg, and pepper to taste. Melt 1 oz. of butter, mix one half of it with the tongue, press into mould or dish, and pour the remaining butter on top. This will be found a very nice relish for breakfast. Tested and found good.

The recipe SAVOURY SHEEP'S HEAD begins, Soak the sheep's head overnight in plenty of salt and water. The section on asparagus suggests boiling it for 20 or 30 minutes.

HAGGIS
Take a sheep's stomach bag along with liver, heart, and sweetbreads. Wash stomach bag and soak in cold salted water for 20 hours. Plunge into boiling water, then take out, and turn outside in to scrape thoroughly. Then put back in salt and water until needed. Wash liver, heart etc. and boil for about 1 hour. Grate half of the liver and mince the heart, cutting away any skin or gristle. Mince 1/2 lb of suet and toast 1/2 a pound of oatmeal before the fire. Boil 1 or 2 onions for 10 minutes. Chop finely and mix all of the ingredients, season with salt and pepper, moisten with about 1/2 a pint of stock or water, mix well together. Put mixture into stomach bag. Do not fill more than 3/4 full. Prick bag with a needle. Sew up and drop into boiling water. Boil for 5 hours.

MMMMMM.

I go home today. We've had a great visit; I have done a ton of cooking, though unfortunately not haggis or any other part of a sheep's body, and right now, we are sorting and organizing (and I surruptitiously throwing out) the toppling mountain of paper and bills. We've laughed a great deal and argued not at all. It has been a joy. Now I'm exhausted and need to go back to my own chaos.

Ottawa

2011-11-10T09:54:00.000-08:00

It's a bright chilly day, and I'm in Ottawa, visiting my mother and aunt. At 88, Mum is thinner again since I was last here only a few months ago; she uses a walker now and is more forgetful, but then she smiles at me with those bright blue eyes, and she looks 12 years old. Both she and her sister Do, who's 91, live in their own places and do their own shopping and cooking - though Mum has some help three times a week, as now she can't drive. Do still drives, though I'd prefer not to be in the car with her when she does.

Mum and I have spent the morning deciding what needs most to be done during my time here; by the time we came to a decision, which naturally was going shopping, it was lunchtime, and now it's naptime. It'll take us quite awhile to get dressed to go out, to get downstairs, to get the walker into the car, and then out the other end, let alone into the shopping centre to find what's needed - pants with stretchy waistbands that fit, for example. It will be slow, and I, a very speedy person, will need all my patience. Must go into a zen zone. There's a movie called "Poetry" playing here - I'd wanted to see it in Toronto, Wayson said it's a must, about the power of writing; I missed it there and, for a moment, had a fond fantasy that I could take Do and Mum to see it here. I don't think so. Just the thought of that much organizing is exhausting, plus Mum would fall asleep anyway. We all started watching "Born Yesterday" starring Judy Holliday on TCM yesterday after supper; what a pleasure, a wonderful intelligent movie starring a wonderful intelligent actress (she was, I must point out, the child of immigrant Russian Jews.) Do saw some of it before she slept; Mum slept all the way through, except to wake up periodically to complain about Judy Holliday's voice, and then drop off again.

I brought Mum a CD of Haydn quartets played by the Jerusalem String Quartet, the superb group I saw a few weeks ago. She knows a lot about chamber music, so I wanted to see if she liked them as much as I did. She did; she loved their musicianship, the romantic delicacy and yet power of their sound. We sat at the dining room table, eating a boxed pizza, listening to the exquisite strains of Haydn, and I thanked the powers that be, with all my heart, for the joy of this time with my mother.

Incidentally, just received an email from friend Ewa, who pointed out that in a recent post, I said that I "wrote my bike" to a movie. She said, even on your bicycle, you're a writer. Or simply careless, one of the two.

November pix

2011-11-09T06:25:00.000-08:00

Incredibly respectable new front yard

Incredibly respectable new

backyard - with fence

Autumn in Cabbagetown

Mr. Choy surrounded by eager writers

Gillers yes

2011-11-08T19:06:00.001-08:00

10.05 p.m. Just came back from teaching and wanted to watch the Giller Prize. But the CBC has relegated it to some obscure channel - tried and tried, couldn't get it. BUT - I finally picked up a live stream on the computer, just in time to see Esi Edugyan win against the formidable Michael Ondaatje. A young woman of Ghanian background, with a new baby, wrested this huge prize from one of the giants of Canadian literature - thrilling. She spoke with humility and sweetness about her editors, her publisher, and her family, calling a greeting to her father, who emigrated from Ghana in the 70's and who was watching the program.

Glad glad glad. I guess I'll have to read the book.

Wayson came to speak to my Advanced class at Ryerson tonight; students from all my other classes came as well. He was his usual eloquent, moving, inspiring self. "Think of your ideal reader," he told us. "The ideal reader is ... you."

"Pay attention," he said. "Look for detail. You're a writer. Writers, artists, are witnesses to the human drama."

"Your family has secrets," he said. "Your family is an epic. Find it out."

And he told us about his great luck as a writer, how everything fell into place for him. As everything fell into place, tonight, for Esi Edugyan.

At midday I played hookey and had a wonderful treat - wrote my bike down to TIFF to meet dear friend Ken, who rode his bike down to TIFF, only he is in his late 70's and in Birkenstocks. We saw "Le Havre," a beautiful Finnish/French film, a kind of fantasy and yet a powerful, real story about immigrants, poverty and love. About dignity and generosity ... and love. Wonderful.

I salute you, writers, Wayson, Esi, Aki Kaurismaki the writer/director of the film. Thank you for witnessing the human drama, and working so hard to bring us your version of truth.

the mystery in Scotland

2011-11-08T05:54:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I was standing in the garden with John, my dear friend and handyman, as he finished the fence he'd just built. It was an incredible day (sunny and 16 degrees! In November!), the trees flashing yellow and red, the birds ignoring us as they pecked at the feeder, the rest of the garden still green. (The former rickety bit of fence, incidentally, had been smashed by a crack addict trying to shove through, while being chased through Cabbagetown backyards by a store detective. I kid you not. So dull, my 'hood.)

I joked (feebly) that I'd be able to pay John for his work when I won the lottery. He stopped and looked at me. "You've already won the lottery, Beth. You have your health," he said, gesturing to the garden, "and this."

All this, and a lovely crabby cat. Yes, I am a lucky woman. And it's a mighty fine fence, too. That night, when I rode my bike home at 9.30 p.m. from Ryerson, I passed a young man walking home with groceries, wearing shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops. In November. We have all won the lottery, so far this fall.

Here's a link, sent by old friends and blog devotees Chris and Cathy, to a story about an artist who works in secrecy, leaving his/her work as mysterious gifts for the world.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/10/28/141795907/who-left-a-tree-then-
> a-coffin-in-the-library?ft=1&f=100

the chance to dance

2011-11-07T04:50:00.001-08:00

Woke up early this morning with a song in my head, one of the best from my favourite musical, "Chorus Line":

All I ever needed

was the music

and the mirror

and the chance

to dance

for you.

It was blasting through my brain. Must have had a theatre dream again. But it works for today - I teach two classes, and though I work differently now than when I was an actress, with ideas about words rather than with eyes and body, I will still do my best to lift the souls of my audience, to spirit them upward.

having children

2011-11-06T06:16:00.000-08:00

Sunday morning, and there's the treat of an extra daylight savings hour, most of which I've already blown reading the "New York Times." Not the news, no, I go immediately to the Style section and read the personal essays. Coffee, personal essays, bright sun outside as the orange leaves fall ... heaven. We have had a spectacular autumn so far.

The other evening I was doing my usual 11 p.m. TV shuffle - Jon Stewart, George Strombolopolis, and Steve Paikin, simultaneously - three handsome, intelligent, telegenic hosts. Steve won out with his hour on the future of marriage for women, with six weighing in, including the right-wing Danielle Crittenden, wife of David Frum, who is extremely happy in her marriage thank you very much, and wears her bangs so long, it hurts to watch the shafts of hair sticking into her eyes.

Meow.

The main interviewee was a thirty-something woman in California who has written a piece in "Atlantic" magazine about why so many women her age aren't marrying - are they too critical and demanding, too successful to "settle," too isolated and busy? She kept talking about being married versus being alone. I thought, that's not right, it's being married versus being single. Single means that you're not sleeping with only one person but are not necessarily alone. I'm single, I argued only they weren't listening, and I'm far from alone; my solitude is a treasure, except when there's a heavy table to move or I'm in Prague, standing outside an apartment building in the rain with a key that won't work. Then I'd like to wave a wand and have the handsome prince appear. But the rest of the time, I suspect, his needs would get in the way of mine. I just do not feel alone.

And then I thought, of course you don't - you have children. Yes, I have supportive and loving friends, but most of all, there are two adult children living nearby. That bond is greater than any other. I may be wrong, but I assume that in a time of great need, my kids would be there. Whereas, as my beloved Chris in Vancouver has pointed out so often, without immediate family, especially kids, it's tough for single people in times of need. So in that sense, yes, the childless woman in California is not just single, but alone.

I will do my damndest not to draw on that bond; to let them get on with their lives without having to deal with their decrepit mother. But I do thank the universe for this greatest of gifts. I'm getting pretty maudlin about all this bonding and inheritance stuff, because of the grandchild in utero. I was about to say, maybe you should stop reading for the next while because I'll be sentimental, but the fact is, I'll probably be sentimental for the next 40 years or so, God willing. You'll forgive me, won't you?

In fact, one of the aforementioned progeny just appeared, the taller one, the very, very tall one. He got home to his apartment early this morning, after a wild night out with the boys, to discover that the landlord is going to renovate his kitchen today. So he walked across town in the early morning, still a bit sloshed, to here. "Home," goes the famous saying, "is the place that, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."

It is odd, he says, to come back to the room he grew up in - he was 18 months old when he moved into that room, and here he is at 27.

How comforting, though, too - for us both.

the Peter Hessler Fan Club

2011-11-04T11:25:00.000-07:00

Just read the most beautiful piece of writing that brought tears to my eyes: Peter Hessler, writing about a small-town druggist in the U.S. He pays tribute to his subject with respect and without sentimentality - clear-eyed, vivid, unforgettable. I'd already cut out a "New Yorker" story of his about emigrating from China, and have now officially added Mr. Hessler to my list of great essayists. Click below and then on H for Hessler, and the story will come up.

newyorker.com/magazine/contributors

A bright sunny warmish day; the Japanese maples are stunning this year, the most startling red. After a morning sitting on my butt writing, I'm about to go for a walk and drink it all in.

Born to Blog by Beth Kaplan

Romneymania!

the Shafia aftermath

Macca does it again

listening and watching

Be still, my beating heart

it's a jungle out there

much better, thanks

Merrijoy's hip

tapes of treasure

Take THAT, Fat Fords # 1 and 2!

POETRY

GOING HOME

by Leonard CohenJANUARY 23, 2012

Awake

SHOUTS & MURMURS

AWAKE

by Jenny AllenJUNE 2, 2008

in bed with the sun

Take heed.

Bobby and Peggy and Heather ...

here and now

here goes # 1013

A winter walk

Downton

Save Our Libraries!

the presence of still water

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

What I bought second hand last week

happy happy

playing with yourself

Woody Guthrie's New Year's Rulin's

bits and bobs

the Barbarian Invasions

important message

snow day

white at last

Christmas report

Done and done

the eve of the Eve

The Art of Time in Memoir

What I want for Valentine's Day

External Links

Christmas week

Today's "Globe"

Consummate writer, brilliant friend'

R.I.P. Christopher Hitchens.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, 1949-2011

Polemicist Who Slashed All, Freely, With Wit

The Artist

words

awkward family holiday photos

the tree man is here

saving the Farm: a proposal

a warm sound on a cold day

NEWS!

O happy day

student success story

thought for today

blowing own horn, #6794

one of a kind

I'm down, as the Beatles say

still warm

two clips

My friends at the Farm

RIDE THE CYCLONE, asap

a grown-up, singing with love

down and up

November sun

remembrance

British cooking at its best

Ottawa

November pix

Gillers yes

the mystery in Scotland

the chance to dance

having children

the Peter Hessler Fan Club