There's still room in the writing workshop. Termites not invited.

Write in the Garden - August 19

WRITE IN THE GARDEN:

A one-day writing adventure.

Inspiration, structure and support for those with lots of writing experience and for those with none.

Spend a summer day learning to trust your voice and tell your stories. Listen to your creative self. Gain confidence and perspective from friendly contact with other writers. Write in the garden and enjoy positive feedback, bushy perennials, and lunch.

Who: Writer and teacher Beth Kaplan has taught writing at Ryerson for 18 years and at U of T for 6.

When: Sunday August 19, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m

                                     

Cost: $155 for the day, including food for thought and actual food, and wine. Register early; limited to 10.

Where: Beth’s secret garden in Cabbagetown.

Laughter, camaraderie and insight guaranteed.

For more information - www.bethkaplan.ca/coaching

To register – beth@bethkaplan.ca

“I’d like to express my deep appreciation to you, Beth, for making your garden workshop so memorable. You have a special gift for creating a safe learning environment, with a well of positive things to say without passing judgment. It was a joy to be there with you and the others. Your garden is magical, and you created a magical day for me.”  Ann C.

the 10 most difficult books, and a few of the easiest

A literary website called The Millions has compiled a list of the ten most difficult-to-read English language books of all time. Here it is:

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes;
A Tale of a Tub by Jonathan Swift; 
The Phenomenology of Spirit by GF Hegel;
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf;
Clarissa, or, The History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson;
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce; 
Being and Time by Martin Heidegger;
The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser; 
The Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein; 
and Women and Men by Joseph McElroy.

Their question was, How many have you read? Well - this coming from someone with a B.A. in English literature - I had a plant once named Djuna, after Djuna Barnes. I have read some Joyce, though not that one, and "Mrs. Dalloway" and a bit of Swift and "Clarissa" - yay! - for English 201. At least, I'm pretty sure it was "Clarissa," though maybe it was "Pamela." I've walked by Gertrude Stein's house in Paris and have heard of Hegel, Heidegger and Spenser but have no idea who McElroy is. Though I do have a lot of opinions about women and men. 

Not so good a score. How did you do? 

Dear Wayson was just here. "Love your mother utterly," he said, "even when you want to push her down the stairs. Love her utterly - and THEN push her down the stairs."

I have read all of Wayson's books. But then, they're not hard, they're a pleasure to read. I get 100% on the Choy test.

Another article explores the value of children's books to adults. The writer looks at one of the easiest to read, and also best, books ever written, "The House at Pooh Corner," and analyses the lines that express my philosophy of life. 
"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," Piglet asks him as their adventures near an end, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" Pooh answers. "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" responds Piglet.
Pooh thinks it over. "It's the same thing," he says.

more

The stunning garden created by a volunteer couple, Bob and Leona, below Mum's apartment building

 My office, filled with the stuff from my bedroom. I swear that I will get rid of half of what I own.

My bedroom now - rotting wood, sawdust and termites. Otherwise, pretty as a picture.

Ottawa

 Swimming in the Ottawa River

 The cottage in on a Quebec island

 My terribly sick mother

 Out for a walk with her "husband"

1/100th of her recipe collection

swamped

Where to begin? Your faithful correspondent is submerged, with arms flailing - HELP! Au secours!

Melodramatic as usual, Kaplan. So there's a tiny bit of stress - suck it up. As my friend Wayson says, Onward.

Just back from Ottawa - one wonderful Saturday at my friend Geoffrey's 70th birthday at a cottage on the Quebec side, swimming in the Ottawa River and eating lamb that had been roasting on a spit all afternoon. Then to Mum's, to spend 3 days at her side in the Ottawa Heart Institute. The last time I saw her there, 2 weeks ago, she could hardly stand when held up by 2 orderlies. This time, when I walked into the room, she was in her chair, dressed and reading the newspaper! I could hardly believe my eyes. Truly, a miraculous comeback.

But we mustn't get carried away. She is better and will get out of the hospital soon. But she is still weak and confused and her memory often vanishes. After I'd left her one evening - I'd told her I was going back to her place to have dinner with her sister Do - there was a message on the answering machine when I got home. "I'm so sorry I can't join you for dinner," said a wobbly voice. "They won't let me out of here." She often refers to my brother as "my husband."

But with her walker firmly in both hands, she marched around the ward.

I am getting to know my 92-year old aunt for the first time, outside of my mother's shadow. What a lively old bird she is, her mind and humour sharp though her body is bent sideways. My brother and I are trying to sort out Mum's affairs, went to see a lawyer, her accountant ... and daily, living in her flat, I try to get rid of stuff. Her recipe collection - a million clippings, stuffed into baskets and files and bags - she would have to live 3 lifetimes, cooking 3 times a day, to have made all those dishes she so carefully read, cut out and stored.

Home late last night, to utter chaos. My bedroom has been emptied, the ceiling and a wall ripped off, a mountain of garbage bags in the front yard. The termite/carpenter ant guys have been called. John and Kevin and John's son Johnnie - and my real handyman, whose name is John, soon to come - are working up there now, ripping and cutting. It's a horrendous mess. I have a call in to my insurance agent, and the roofer who did a huge job one month ago, right over the spot which is falling in.

The garden needs watering. The cat has no food. Mum wants me back in Ottawa as soon as possible.

But I know where I am. Battered as it is, I am home.

PS And the neighbour with the howling dog wrote to apologize. She didn't realize her pup was so unhappy. Now she knows.