about privacy and the new kind of grandmother

I've just come back from my regular Wednesday runfit class at the Y, or, as it's better known, Carole's class. Carole is a remarkable woman who travels all over the world to run marathons. Today there was a lanky girl in the class who's never been there before; Carole asked her to lead one of the runs, which is an unusual honour for a stranger.

After class, Carole introduced us. "This is my granddaughter," she said, "the youngest of the three." Yes, the remarkably fit Carol, in her early sixties, is a grandmother. I thought of my grandmothers - Nettie in New York, who wore shapeless dresses and big black shoes and whose favourite sport was kvetching, and Marion in London in her sensible blouses and skirts and brooches, and laughed. It was unthinkable that those grandmothers would walk fast, let alone run. One of the good ways in which the world has changed.

And back to the weekend, which showed us another good thing: everything taking place on television or on cellphone videos. The events on late Sunday afternoon unfolding on CP24, a channel I usually only watch to see the weather, were amazing - in real time, we watched as the police boxed in that group, let people out only to be arrested, moved them from shelter into the middle of the street to be drenched in the downpour. We heard from some guy called Sammy, who was caught in the middle and sending regular phone reports to the station. And we heard instantly when the ordeal ended; Sammy went directly from his place of detainment to the station, where we got to see him at last, wrapped in a towel and talking to the camera about what it was like. He was so level-headed and reliable throughout, they should offer him a job.

The politicians may have granted the police too much power, but these days, because there is no privacy any more, we are all aware of exactly what that means. Sometimes that lack of privacy feels intrusive and annoying. But on the weekend, it was a godsend for democracy.

What do the rest of us think?

What I'm wondering, on this very fine if chilly morning, is what the rest of the country has made of all the G20 protest hooha. Because in this fairly liberal bubble of downtown Toronto, it's easy to forget the voters of Truro, Riviere du Loup, Moose Jaw, Cowichan Bay, and especially anywhere in Alberta. I wonder if they agree with many of the citizens of this great city, that it was strange how freely and for how long the hoodlums were allowed to roam and destroy; how conveniently the police cars appeared, ready to burn. All of them, ready for their close-ups.

I would think that those far-flung citizens do not.

My concern is that they saw the cars burning, that shot of the masked guy trying to smash a window which played over and over and over, and were glad that our Prime Minister spent more than a billion dollars protecting us from such people.

They don't know what really happened in Toronto, that our city was turned into an armed camp, that thousands lost their livelihoods for days or weeks - including my own son, whose restaurant on the island was closed down since no one could get there - because of Harper's decision to hold the event in the heart of the city, instead of somewhere which could have been protected more easily. They don't know about the hundreds illegally, unfairly detained, including the bystanders boxed in in the pouring rain on Sunday, for hours, without water, information or release.

They just see the photo ops of Harper smiling with Obama - do you detect, incidentally, the slightest true warmth emanating from our P.M., despite the smile he has finally learned to slide across his face? Not one iota, because the eyes still give him away - and not what it cost this city and its people.

And for what? So that Harper could push his conservative financial agenda on world leaders, including, unbelievably, Obama. Who, of course, is perfectly free to agree to something and then forget all about it. So what, what, what was the point?

I'm playing a game these days and I urge you to do so also: let's spend the billion some other way! Wheeeee! Yesterday, I waited 15 minutes for the Carlton streetcar at rush hour, had to shove my way on, it was so crowded, hot, antiquated. Hmmm - a billion would have done a lot for transit. Or how about for our hospitals and health care, or day care, or the arts, or to help people laid off by "austerity" measures aimed at the poor? Imagine, even - dare I? - a billion for schools. I think if I could spend the billion, it would be for our children's schools - the arts, sports, books, gym equipment and pools, teaching assistants.

What would you spend your billion on?

Sigh.

Okay, enough. I keep saying that, but it's not going away. Not for those of us who live here.

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I am reading a book called "Insectopedia" by Hugh Raffles, in an attempt to rid myself of a lifelong curse: a phobia of insects. I'm way better than I used to be in childhood - don't scream out loud any more, usually, unless it's a big insect. I speak nicely to the small spiders that live in my house; I admire webs. But big ones ... terror. I dislike that about myself, that the phobia affects travel decisions, and want to get rid of it.

This book is "a stunningly original exploration of the ties that bind us to the beautiful, ancient, astoundingly accomplished, largely unknown, and unfathomably different species with whom we share the world." I hope by the end to be able to look at bugs and see their extraordinary uniqueness, not to recoil in fear.

An early chapter is about Cornelia, a woman who goes to sites exposed to nuclear waste, like Chernobyl, to collect and paint the malformed insects she finds there. She keeps a journal of her encounters with insects, people, places. "The books are beautiful objects, and the journal is relaxed and personal, full of anecdotes, reflections and asides," writes Raffles. "She recalls how in Moscow, Idaho, two teenage girls in town for a football game entered her room, examined her microscope and collecting equipment, one of them asking if she were a witch, taking her hands, and sensing an intense vibration, a vibration that Cornelia sensed also.

Cornelia wrote: "The girl asked me what she had to do to become a person like me. I told her that she has to always listen to her heart and never worship a human being. If she wanted to find solace, she had to turn to an animal or a tree for help."

Those of you who follow this blog know that for solace, I cannot turn to the crabby cat with whom I live, who'd rather slash and hiss than provide comfort. I am always calmed by the animals at Riverdale Farm, the goats and sheep, pigs and horses. But in my garden, in my neighbourhood and my city, are many old trees. Still feeling the aftermath of the weekend's assault, today I'm going to go out and hug a few.

calming down

Toronto has a hangover, and so do I. The city's is physical and emotional, mine just the latter. Strange to go about business as usual, passing stores and restaurants with boarded up windows. To read about Harper gloating. I could scream but won't. The garden continues to glow.

Apparently I was on the CBC this morning. I'd forgotten that I'd called the Vox Box of Metro Morning yesterday, about the police chief saying the black bloc were - such an interesting word - "co-mingled" with the peaceful crowd and thus impossible for the police to pick out. During the march and during the violence, they could not have been more visible, I burbled into the phone, my heart hammering. Friend Nancy White emailed this morning that she'd heard it. I'm amazed that it was in any way coherent.

That's enough activism for this week.

Today, a milestone: I spoke to a very nice civil servant, downloaded some forms, have to get a few bits of paper together, and soon will have applied to receive my pension. My old age pension. I, so incredibly lithe and youthful with lustrous brown hair, will be a pensioner! I'm not waiting till I'm 65; I need it now. If all is well, I'll start to receive a monthly cheque the month after my 60th birthday. How amazing that the government will reward me for staying alive. It'll be under $200 a month, but that's enough to make a difference. Thank you, tax payers of Canada, for providing more than $1 billion for Stephen's summit and an allowance for us oldsters.

To celebrate, I walked across the Don Valley to Loblaw's and bought $250 worth of groceries. Usually I buy from the No Frills nearby, but occasionally I need things they don't have there, some of that fancy stuff - I bought nine large bars of dark chocolate, for example. Two bags of reasonable free trade coffee. The vital stuff, in bulk. Took a cab home, and Mr. Choy came for lunch. It was so sublime on the deck, neither of us could move for a bit. Colour, breeze, scent. Life.

We're all coming back to life, after that nightmare. Now we just have to pay the bills.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it. -Lewis H. Lapham, editor and writer (1935- )

summit aftermath

Everyone was talking about the events of the weekend in Toronto today. I heard them on the streetcar, at the Y, on the streets, and was astounded that most people seem to think what I do: that the police allowed the violence on Saturday, to justify the billion dollars spent on security. In Doubletake, my second-hand store, Rusty who works there said, "They're saying that the cops left those cars on purpose so they'd be set on fire and make the protesters look bad." Now, if Rusty knows that, the sentiments must be pretty widespread.

The "New York Times" had an article Sunday about how horrified Canadians are about the security cost, which is vastly higher than any other summit. And there's a great picture of the peaceful march, the only one I've seen, with nary a word about the vile black bloc.

I'm in a bit of a stupor after all this, my activist weekend. I'm proud of the "Star" letter and so is my mother. But life goes on. Another U of T class finished this afternoon, and I was overjoyed when one class member, a professor, told me it was "transformative." She took the class just to learn how to teach writing, she said, thinking she had no stories to tell. It didn't take long before she was telling powerful and beautiful stories that moved us all.

Another nice tale - well, if I can't share these with you, with whom can I share them, except my mother? The woman who organized my speaking visit to Philadelphia told me as we chatted that she had always wanted to paint, but that need had got lost somewhere. I urged her to go home and get out her paints. "Don't waste time. Do what you love."

She wrote today to tell me she'd gone on vacation just after; while she was packing, she said, she went to an old cupboard, and there were her painting supplies, waiting. She took them with her and did some sketches and a canvas or two. "I'm rusty," she said, "but what's important is, I did it." Yes! Fist in air. Peaceful fist in air. Sometimes, I've found, people don't mind a little push, a giving of permission to become who they are.

The weather has been extreme this last while, as if sensing the turmoil below. Today was very hot and muggy, then a brief hailstorm, then mild with a breeze. I went for an evening walk in the neighbourhood, to visit my dead friends in the Necropolis, a beautiful, peaceful place to stroll. But suddenly, the light, the smell, the swish of the trees was so lovely, I wanted to be in my own garden. As I left, I felt a twist in my heart. One day, I'm going to have to say good-bye to this glorious, troubled world.

There will, I hope, be many perfect summer evenings ahead on this earth. It hurt that a time will come when I won't be there to enjoy them.

The black bloc are NOT protesters

REPEAT: THE BLACK BLOC ARE NOT PROTESTERS. I'm listening to the CBC and they keep saying it, over and over. They are hoodlums and thugs. As Miller said, they are criminals.

Okay. Moving right along to more important things. The mangoes this month are beyond heaven; I just picked 20 fat raspberries and 12 cherry tomatoes from my garden and watched a butterfly sipping rainwater from the clematis. The riches of planet earth; beautiful living things.

That the real protesters are trying to protect.

Help - I can't stop!!!