Call the Midwife: sob! And Shelter.

It's possible the stressful tenant situation has begun to be resolved. My stomach was heaving again today, until about an hour ago. But I won't hold my breath until I'm sure.

Let it be so.

Last night, Call the Midwife - and as usual, I wept. I mean, they showed us a baby born with a terminal heart condition, not to mention the on-going plot points, the good-hearted handyman with his Down's Syndrome son who's one of the stars, the sweet nun midwives and the sweet not nun midwives, the final tableau of all the recently delivered babies arrayed on a blanket, and in the middle, placed carefully in a pot of flowers, a picture of the dead baby.

It's not maudlin, though it may sound so, just very real. But still, every week, Heidi Thomas the writer makes me - makes all of us, I'm sure - cry.

And then the second season of the terrific TVO show, First Contact, about a group of ordinary Canadians who have prejudices and preconceptions about Indigenous people being taken into First Nations homes and communities to meet individuals and hear their stories. It's superb.

It's destination television, at 9 on Sundays. My tech guru Brad wrote to say, why don't I show you how to access the shows you want to watch on HBO and Crave so you can watch them whenever you want? But I don't want to watch them whenever. With a few exceptions, like a few things on Netflix, if a show I want to see is on Sunday at 9, that's when I'll sit down and watch it. I won't sit down at 3 on Monday afternoon, it just doesn't occur to me, and so I just won't get to it. That's the kind of dinosaur I am.

I think things are different for couples; they need to find things they can do together, like watching shows whenever. But I am happier reading - these days, too much online rather than books or mags, but still, the solitary act of reading - than tuning in to something that aired 6 weeks ago.

Tonight, the finale of My Brilliant Friend, which has been renewed for another season. On Mondays at 10.

My friend Julia sent me this: Shelter. Beautiful. Dancers. She's a former student who just had a great piece in the Globe about the importance, especially now, of birds.
https://vimeo.com/413660247/2c1378a80c

Today, I finally started work. That is, not editing and teaching, not running this complicated house and garden, not keeping up with friends and family and the world, but writing work. IT'S ABOUT TIME, a mere 7 weeks into this thing. But everyone is saying, cut yourself some slack. It's stressful. Yes, it is, and I the lucky landlady had a little bit extra just to keep me on my toes.

But it's spring, and today another heavenly day. Here, from today's walk by the Necropolis, an amazing magnolia:

And here, Anna's 39th birthday party, the usual feast only with a small, select crowd, including Sam and friend Nicole. It's Eli's birthday in 3 weeks, and I want to be there. I need to hug those boys. Or at least sit 6 feet away and gaze. A destination birthday.

Forsythia

It's 20 degrees - a heavenly day, almost too hot, an explosion of green. I'm listening to Eleanor Wachtel interviewing Hillary Mantel. Just had a book club Zoom meeting about Deirdre Bair's Parisian Lives, which ended up with another discussion about how far memoir can stretch the truth. I have a great deal to say about that, as you can imagine.

Answer: quite far.

Yesterday, during a walk, I ran into a neighbour who said, "Beth, you have the best forsythia in the 'hood!" Another of my many claims to fame.

It should be the Forsythia Festival today, with a parade and a fun fair for the kids, but not this year. This morning's adventure was a quick early trip to the shops on Parliament St., in mask and gloves. Still, after all this time, bizarre. But so great to have avocados, a mango, Quebecois goat cheese, fresh bread.

Some recent viewing: the National Theatre's Twelfth Night, which had the interesting idea of turning the hapless Malvolio into a lesbian called Malvolia, whose cross-garter outfit was beyond preposterous, with yellow twirling things on her nipples. The gay sexual hijinks continued, with men kissing men and women women and a ridiculous scene in a gay bar. Give me a break. I watched because there was lots that was original, but the play's plot is absurd and shockingly cruel. I'm done with Twelfth Night now.

On the other hand, yesterday a documentary about making the series My Brilliant Friend, primarily about the two astounding young stars, one just out of theatre school and the other who had no notion of being an actor at all before being cast. What's especially wonderful is that we see that the two women are almost exactly like Lenu and Lila, the characters they portray. Somehow the casting people saw right through to their souls, their essence. And oh, it's Italy, we see the cast, we see the set and their families and the country.

My daughter's 39th birthday today. Next year I will have a child who's 40. Surely impossible for one so young. And yet true. Happy Birthday to a wonderful human being. Hope to see you soon.

Beth_Kaplan is Wiki'd!

I think the tension around here will lessen by the middle of next week. That's the hope. In the meantime, I will be listening to a lot of Johann Sebastian Bach.

A great pleasure, however, today: I am on Wikipedia! My friend Sophie prepared the post and waited a long time for it to be vetted by the Wiki folks. But there it is. She sent a picture too, but pictures have to be taken by the author of the post, so she has to take one herself when we next see each other. Which will be whenever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beth_Kaplan 

Went for a walk this morning down the Don Valley trail, which was too crowded - hard to keep distance on narrow paths. One startling thing - there has always been a vague homeless presence down there, but this time there were two encampments, one with about 10 tents and one with 2 or 3. Though some of the tents were big and looked new, others were little more than tarps. We have to do better.

Speaking of doing better, my friend Chris sent me this link to a beautiful little film. May it prove to be true. https://youtu.be/Nw5KQMXDiM4

However, another frustration: I was just checking a book online and came across this infuriating thing: a used hardcover of the Jewish Shakespeare for $6, a used paperback for $63.62, a new paperback listed at $99.30! Oh yes, that makes a lot of sense and really helps book sales. Thanks, Amazon.

Finding the Jewish Shakespeare: The Life and Legacy of Jacob Gordin (Judaic Traditions in Literature, Music, and Art) by Beth Kaplan (2012-04-30) Paperback – Jan. 1 1688

by Beth Kaplan (Author)

4.8 out of 5 stars    6 ratings

---

 See all 4 formats and editions

• Hardcover
  CDN$ 33.95 
  14 Used from CDN$ 6.0011 New from CDN$ 33.95
 
• Paperback
  from CDN$ 63.62 
  1 Used from CDN$ 63.621 New from CDN$ 99.30

TRUE TO LIFE: Chapter Two

2

Allow yourself to begin

_

What makes a writer? Simply, the need to process thought and experience by putting words on a page, and the discipline to sit until the work is down, reworked, and finished. And something more: not just the courage, but the craft and technical skill to make the words meaningful to others, whether they find an audience right away or not.

In Amsterdam, in 1942, just before the Nazis drove her family into hiding, a thirteen-year-old girl was given a plaid notebook for her birthday. Anne Frank made sense of the insanity of global conflict and the hardships of her daily life by scribbling in that notebook. She wrote with the passion, clarity, and insight of a born writer; she edited her work, too, with an eye to publication.

Anne Frank changed the world. When the diary was discovered and published after her death in Bergen-Belsen, her words forever altered the way the world looked at the Nazi atrocities of the Second World War. Six million Jewish men, women, and children died in the Holocaust, but one of them was a child with a name, a face, and a wise, unforgettable voice. In 1999, Time magazine published its selection of the “Hundred Most Influential People of the Twentieth Century.” Along with great world leaders, scientists, warriors, movie stars, and artists, the list included a girl shut in an attic with a notebook.

A writer is someone who needs to write, who finds a way to get the words onto paper, and who works to make those words tell a living story. And sometimes a writer is a person who changes the world with words.

Do you feel that this definition leaves you out? What would it take for you to consider yourself a writer? Untamed Margaret Atwoodesque hair? A garret in Paris? A literature prize? If you set the bar too high, you’ll never start. How about seeing your name in print somewhere, above or below a piece of your writing? Would that be enough? We’ll work on that.

In the meantime, how about a notebook full of your words? They’re written, aren’t they? So didn’t a writer write them? Don’t cut yourself off and count yourself out. Every writer has to start somewhere.

CBC Radio host Eleanor Wachtel interviews writers from around the world for her superb program Writers and Company, a must for anyone interested in literature (broadcast on Sunday afternoons on CBC Radio One; available as a podcast at cbc.ca). She was once asked what, if anything, the hundreds of writers she has talked to have in common. She replied, “They all define themselves as outsiders.”

Haven’t you always been something of an outsider? So you fit the bill. And if you don’t define yourself as an outsider, you fit another bill.

Enough with the self-doubt. You’re going to write. Let’s get to work.                       

The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature; only then can he see clearly.

julian barnes

Why shouldn’t you have the right to become who you are?

wayson choy

seven long weeks now

Wonderful response to the True to Life chapter! I will post another tmw or later today. And also, soon, a few paragraphs from the new memoir, which is still working its slow sweet way into the world. Stay tuned.

Taught two classes yesterday. Last term's U of T class has continued to meet and asked me to come back periodically to critique, so there were five of them in the afternoon, and then last night, seven of my longterm writers. Zoom works extraordinarily well. Not the same as being in the same room, but still, we're together. Grateful for that.

Otherwise, a very tough time is drawing to a close and I hope will be resolved by this time next week. I have been living in a near-constant state of tension for two weeks. We never know what surprises will be coming down the pike, do we? And we never know who will support us and who will not. Thank heavens for surprises, so we always have stuff to write about.

It has been seven weeks since the lockdown; my last public event was the home class here, Thursday March 12. And then the door slammed shut. I wonder what we will take from this experience. A woman wrote in the Star today that she can't wait to go shopping for new clothes again, shopping is her hobby and her drug, and my heart sank. Surely, I've been thinking, we now realize how stupid and wasteful all that is. Who cares what fashion dictates? Surely that industry will have to slow down. Surely cruise ships are dead in the water, and if nothing else, we've realized we need vast improvements in animal management and the care of the elderly and health care generally.

Maybe not. Humans have short memories. But I can't believe we won't carry the effects, the memory of this crisis for a very long time.

But here's joy: it's spring, and the varieties of green in the garden are astounding. Canadian poet Lorna Crozier titled a book, The garden going on without us, and she certainly does. Long may she thrive.

For anyone who loves the theatre, or just enjoys a really good series, CBC Gem is showing the fabulous Slings and Arrows. I can't wait.
https://gem.cbc.ca/season/slings-arrows/season-1/30d4351b-f5af-4b8e-a313-a84ec02e96bf

And more cheer for today, here are two of my favourite men, a tall one and a famous one. The tall one is closely connected to me.

One of my favourite pictures of this complicated brilliant man.