the renovation blues

So okay, it was a nice idea while it lasted, my renovation plan to create an apartment upstairs in my house. As I've said, John has already punched holes in the walls and ceilings, locating beams and plumbing. I had to clear out a little storage room for him to do so; boxes of files and photographs are crammed into my office. Chaos. Well, yesterday a man named Brian came to take a look at my brilliant ideas. His job is to take people's reno plans to the city for approval, so he knows all the city regulations. Hello, wakeup call.

Immediately, Brian told me a city inspector would say the spiral staircase to the third floor, which we've used a million times since moving in here in 1986, would not pass code and would need to be replaced. Every single wall between what would be my home and the new apartment would have to be lined with fire retardant and "sound attenuation" baffles, including my living room ceiling, which would have to come down. There would have to be fire dampers in all the ducts. And more, much more. As he spoke, I felt weaker and weaker until I had to sit down.

The cost would be astronomical and the disruption enormous.

So. Not. Though Anna did suggest, if I decide to do it anyway, that I wait till next year when I'm not working and simply go away for 4 or 5 months while they do the work.

I don't think so. Time for Plan B, only I'm not sure what that is. Maybe trying to do something much less there, a much more basic space, which would be far less expensive to create - and also, of course, bring in far less income.

I don't know. I'm confused. Because to tell you the truth, part of me is relieved. My childhood friend Ron, a lawyer developer who knows all about real estate and city regulations, is coming over on Saturday (after he spends the morning riding his horse, which is boarded north of the city) to chew it over with me. In the meantime, my walls are full of holes and my office is full of boxes.

But I'm feeling human, at least, after more than a week of feeling lousy - fighting a bug, and winning. Yes! I hardly did anything physical, sucked back soup and juice, slept in - and it didn't get in. Though just saying this makes me nervous. These things hang around waiting for their chance. Anyway, that's why I don't have much to tell you.

As a recovery treat I bought some organic Irish salmon from the new fish store on Parliament Street - so expensive, it's like caviar - and my own personal tall tattooed chef is here preparing us dinner. I've been going through old papers, trying to throw stuff out and get my office back in order. Threw out an entire file marked "Indignant Letters;" there were many, and indignant they were. Took all the photos out of two battered albums - put the pix in a box, threw away the albums. This work is going to take a long time.

Found this photo of my dad. Who could resist him?

Found my identity card from theatre school in 1971 - such a serious young woman.

So yes, this work is hard, but fun. Going backwards into memory, and forward into the next adventure. Whatever that may be.

Pepperland

Oh Rogers, my internet provider, for this I pay you hundreds a month? Last night, Jean-Marc and Richard were due to come over to watch the final episode of "Victoria" - not a great series but entertaining with the usual amazing sets and costumes. I had a few other things flagged to watch, including the end of the Olympics, and then I was going to blog to you. Luckily, I turned on the TV in advance to check - no TV. Black screen.

And then I saw - no internet. Unplugged the TV, unplugged the modem and replugged both - nothing. My cellphone wouldn't pick up messages; this is the problem when everything - internet, TV, cellphone - is with the same company! Completely out of touch, except for the archaic technology of the telephone. I called my neighbours to say don't come, and sat in tech-less silence. Read the newspaper. Read my book, Rachel Cusk's "Transit" which I am enjoying far more than I'd expected to. Went to bed. This morning, still nothing. A Rogers message says work is being done and this neighbourhood is down. I am sitting at Jean-Marc's dining-room table drinking his coffee and using his wifi while he works in the next room.

So lost without the 'net.  Imagine, we all used to live that way once. The Dark Ages!

Saturday I went to see Pepperland, Mark Morris's dance tribute to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album, fifty years old now. Very entertaining and lively with gorgeous music, some a distillation of the album, and some completely new. The composer's name is on the program which is at my house. Take my word for it - it was good, especially with the theremin wavering away like an unearthly human voice.

I'm sure there's more to say - mostly, that it's beautiful and warm out with bright sun, so very very welcome. The snow is almost gone. Winter's not over, says the newspaper - of course not, it's February. But we need to feel warm air, even temporarily. I am sleepless at night, tossing, and sometimes I think about the pioneers in February. Unimaginable.

Hope to talk to you again soon, when the gods open up the magic portals again.

the love of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir

I don't watch the winter Olympics - or much of the summer ones either, for that matter. Not out of any ethical objection, it's great that there are magnificent young people out there making magnificent use of their bodies and their equipment, but I have other things to do. As opposed to my dear Aunt Do, who at nearly 98 spends much of her day watching young athletes exert themselves.

But this - I just watched Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir's ice dancing gold medal performance online, and then a tribute to them through the years, to the music of my beloved Jim Cuddy, and - of course - wept. The lives of these two are unimaginable. They say they are "not a couple," and yet they must have spent countless hours together, since childhood, learning everything about each other's bodies and minds - more intimate, trusting, and connected than any married couple. Deeply moving. Ours.

Great artists make what they do look easy.

Especially joyful to watch as we in Canada stomp through February; everybody is sick or fighting a cold - as am I - and tired of ice and bleakness. But then, there's this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmjsZLyn4aI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T_dqPeAZKg

Just heard a radio interview with an American who was on one of the planes that landed at Gander on 9/11 - his character appears in "Come from away," which has just opened here in Toronto and is still a smash hit in New York. He told the interviewer that he, a hapless American refugee, was so impressed with the people of Newfoundland, their incredible generosity and kindness, that when he got home, he changed his life, sold his business in Austin, Texas, and is now working full-time for the good of refugees everywhere.

As we read about the right-wing press doing their best to destroy the passionate, self-possessed, articulate, formidable student survivors of the latest U.S. massacre, and as another cold, dank February day winds down, it's good to be reminded of just how fabulous human beings can be.

Mr. Smith goes to Washington

Rode my bike to the Y this morning for the first time in at least a month; it was cold but bearable. People are talking hopefully about spring. Fools! How long have you lived in Canada?!

Today, a lull, the Sunday of a long weekend; the city feels sleepy and tranquil. But the world feels dangerous and torn and full of frightening upheaval. Perhaps this latest horror in the U.S. will be the turning point, we think. How can the morally bankrupt Republicans ignore the desperate, heartfelt pleas of teenagers whose friends were gunned down in front of them? And yet they can and they will. How can Trump lie and lie and lie again and get away with it? How can some countries be sliding backward toward dictatorship? And yet he does, and they are.

And here, in my house, is mess. John is here cutting through the walls of a big storage closet on the second floor which will eventually be turned into my bathroom; somewhere in there are plumbing pipes from many years ago - it was a bathroom when we moved here in 1986 - and he needs to find them. So I had to clean out the space, which was jammed full - of clothing, files, books, papers, family DVD's, years of research, boxes of letters and souvenirs - in short, a nightmare, a huge job that needs to be done. The whole reno will be like that, forcing me to make decisions and get rid of stuff. It's not just that I have a tiny hoarding tendency and a second-hand store habit, but also that I keep papers and books as research for future articles, and I inherited a ton from my mother, a champion saver, and other relatives. It's all here, under this roof. By the end of the year, my space in this house will have shrunk by half, and so much of this massive amount of stuff needs to go.

On a more cheerful note, I used my travel points yesterday to book my yearly April travel. This year, no Paris with Lynn, sadly, and no Italy with Bruce, even more sadly. But happily, I am going once more to Vancouver and then on to Gabriola Island, where my dear Chris now has a log cabin with two spare bedrooms and three adorable animals. We will walk and talk and cook and watch DVD's and sit in his hot tub, and I will fill my city soul with ocean and Vitamin G (for green). If it works out, I could alternate my late winter getaway - one year to France, one year to Gabriola. That sounds like a heavenly combo to me.

Last night I watched "Mr. Smith goes to Washington" on TCM. I saw it many years ago but was thrilled to watch it again - Jimmy Stewart delightful as a naive but passionately honest politician nearly crushed by a corrupt party machine and big money - but truth and decency win and he is triumphant. Particularly relevant today, it should be obligatory viewing for every politician in the world. From Wikipedia:
When a ban on American films was imposed in German occupied France in 1942, some theaters chose to show Mr. Smith Goes to Washington as the last movie before the ban went into effect. One theater owner in Paris reportedly screened the film nonstop for 30 days after the ban was announced.

Now that's a powerful work of art! And then I watched a documentary on Billy Wilder, Austrian Jew, brilliant interpreter of America, simultaneously with a doc on female sexuality and desire. A fun Saturday night.

In the random pile of papers on my desk are transcriptions from my early diaries, this one from when I was sixteen, in Grade 13 in Ottawa.

Feb. 16, 1967
Michael said to me today, "I wonder why daddy doesn't like you, Beth."

One day I will be standing, in the late evening, waiting for a bus. It will be winter, snowing but not cold. There will be a wall behind me, on a level below my shoulders, with a layer of new snow on top. I will begin smoothing the snow off, pushing it away, brushing happily. Suddenly a boy will come up to me and say, "Please don't do that, you're making it ugly again," and I will look at him gravely and say, "It IS ugly. It's black and hard and lumpy. I'm only expressing its true self."

And then we will both know that it's a beautiful wall, for it stops people from falling into the canal, and because it can be leaned on or over, and huddled against, and simply because it's there, to have snow brushed from it. And then the boy and I will not ruin our moment of perfect comprehension and love, and we'll get on our separate busses and zoom off. 

Will we ever see each other again? Will I go on brushing, every winter, hoping he will reappear?

Devastating to read what my brother said; this was not a happy time in my life. No idea what all the rest means. That same year, I wrote an essay for Mr. Mann's English class that he returned with "A wordy concoction of pseudo-philosophy - C +" written on it; it stings still. But this is why I keep paper. What a privilege to have a view of my thoughts more than 50 years ago.

So True coming up: Sunday March 4

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Put it out there. "When you are offered the chance to read your work to an audience, say 'yes.' Do it even if you feel anxious or would rather back out. Bring a friend along if you need moral support." Angela Post writes young adult and children's books when not working as a psychologist. Her story Changing Connections made the longlist for the 2017 CBC Nonfiction Prize.