Successful aging

By chance, I turned on TVO's "the Agenda" with Steve Paikin tonight; I rarely watch though it's always interesting - and it was about successful aging. His panel of experts told us that the curve of life satisfaction dips in the thirties and forties and then climbs again, to the happiest time of life in middle and old age. That is, of course, for those who are relatively healthy, not too isolated, not too poor. Who are curious, resilient, resourceful, connected.

I concur. They pointed out that we elders adjust expectations, we have perspective, we've achieved a kind of serenity and acceptance and compassion for others and ourselves, and it's true. A younger self can't imagine the kind of peace and wisdom possible later. The stress of the thirties and forties - when kids are growing up, parents are aging, you're still wrestling with job stress and ambition and sexual needs - all subside, leaving someone who can relax into the smallest moment, grateful to be alive.

He interviewed Daniel Levitan, whose new book "Successful Aging" is now on my must-read list. They showed a quote from Jane Goodall, who, as Steve said, is 89 and "still kicking ass and taking names." She said that as you age, because you have less time to make your mark, you need not to slow down but to speed up. Levitan spoke of his new hero, an American woman who took up competitive running at age 100 and at 103 is breaking records.

HOORAY! When I look back at my fraught years, I feel sorry for that poor overloaded distraught woman. But here she is. Tranquil at last.

Speaking of tranquillity - yesterday we smudged my house. My son has long felt that there's something dark here, and recently a few strange things have happened. I don't feel it myself, but I wanted to do this for him, and a friend of a friend whose husband was Indigenous and is "accredited" to smudge by an Ojibway elder came over with sage, cedar, and sweetgrass. She shredded it into a bowl, we spent some minutes meditating and/or praying, and then she lit the grass and we wafted it about. It was wonderful.

Until my smoke alarms went off, screeching sirens and blinking lights. We had to move the smoking bowl to the deck. Ah well. It was well worth it. My house is cleansed.

In other news: Okay, I was wrong about Billie Eilish, whom I dissed in the last post after she won innumerable Grammys - I just watched James Corden's carpool karaoke with her, and she's adorable, even if she does have a pet tarantula. She and her brother have been writing songs together since she was seven. Extraordinary.

Last night, went with my oldest friend Ron to the Canadian Music Centre, to see a modern composer's concert and CD launch. I was particularly interested because one of his pieces was named something like, "What the wall sees as it watches Rob Ford in his office." Sounded funny and interesting. He's an exponent of "minimalist music," and it was indeed minimalist - as Ron said, where's the melody? There was a great video component that went with each piece, but half-way through, rather than waiting through a half hour intermission, my friend and I escaped. I'm very happy to know composers and videographers and musicians are out there doing their thing. Sometimes with greater success and sometimes, not so much.

There's a problem with the gang in Florida: they don't want to come home. After seeing the pictures, I don't blame them. However, they need hugs from their loved ones, including Glamma, and they need to go back to school. So home it is, tomorrow night. Re-entry might be difficult. Here they are, still suffering, with Greta, my ex their grandfather's daughter, so their ... 9-year old aunt? Too complicated.

Beethoven's piano

A former student with whom I worked for a few years on a memoir, now a beautiful book, gave me a gift certificate to Koerner Hall as a gift. Yesterday afternoon, the first concert: Louis Lortie playing Beethoven piano sonatas, including the Hammerklavier, a virtuoso feat of physical and emotional strength, breathtaking. It's really something to walk off the street into a concert hall to encounter a few of the geniuses of western civilization: the composer, the pianist, the person who invented the piano —according to Google, Bartolomeo Cristofori, around 1700, who said to himself, we could stretch strings across a sounding board and have black and white keys and soft little hammers hitting them at various frequencies. Astounding. And then that a nearly deaf German musician would hear music in his head and translate it into a million little black dots on paper, and more than 200 years later a French-Canadian would work for a trillion hours to translate those dots back into music for us ... It's good to remember, in this time of despair, how magnificent human achievement can be.

Sunday night, a feast of television: three hours on PBS with the Grammys in between. Howard's End, Jane Austen's Sanditon, and Vienna Blood, about the crime-solving friendship between a detective and a Jewish-Viennese medical student - all terrific, though Howard's End is by far the best. How do the British do it, line up these stunning casts, one actor after another perfect for the part?

The Grammys, the little I saw - sheesh. Too bad I missed Bonnie Raitt, the only performance I think I'd have enjoyed; she stood with a guitar and sang the gorgeous "Angel From Montgomery" in a tribute to John Prine. The rest - the costumes, Jesus, the grotesque over-the-topness of everything - I don't get it. Not to mention the incomprehensible lyrics and names: YBN Cordae. H.E.R. FKA Twigs. Lil Nas X. No, he's okay, he's fun, and "Old Town Road" is my grandsons' favourite, it's just the names ... And the young singers, like the prize-winning, weird Billie Eilish, who sing as if they can hardly be bothered to move their lips or push the sound of the throat - hate it. I watch to try to keep up to date on what matters in popular music, but I think it's too late.

What would Beethoven think? Unimaginable. He'd have liked "Angel from Montgomery," though.

In other news, family friend Holly has taken Eli and Ben to Florida for five days. They are having a miserable time, as you can see. In celebration of their short vacation, Anna and Thomas are going to paint the apartment.

A sign held up in Washington: "Come on people now/ Smile on your brother/ Everybody get together/ And impeach the motherfucker right now." Right on. As we used to say.

Continuing this profane mood, a final word, sent by my beloved friend Patsy on Gabriola Island:

getting through

I often think of pioneer women, on the frontier 150 years ago, trying to raise families and feed their children during the long hard winters. How did they survive the isolation, the cold, the deprivation? Incredible fortitude, which helped forge this country.

I'm thinking of them as I do every winter, because it's winter, and I'm feeling it. I, in my centrally-heated house, with electricity and running water and a huge grocery store a block away, with my new winter coat and warm boots, with all the resources keeping me sane - the Y, the TTC, television, films and concerts and galleries easily available, and more - even so, I am feeling the winter. It's just tough, the lack of light and colour, the inability to go outside - at least for those of us who don't ski or skate or even hike in the snow, as does my friend Carole - and for me, the hideousness of the city with its icy sidewalks and filthy snowbanks.

So. That's all; moan over. It's not fun, and we get through. Because we're Canadian, and it's what we do. Reading David Sedaris helps — was in bed last night laughing out loud — and Joan Didion. Wine and soup. The sauna at the Y. Documentaries - just saw one on a controversial sawmill in Nova Scotia, and another, right now, called the Divided Brain, about the work of Dr. Iain McGilchrist. Very interesting - things I've never thought about. Why is our brain divided, why do we have two centres of consciousness?

Busy day yesterday - the first U of T class of term, the advanced class, students coming back for more detailed in depth editing. A nap, then the home class, the usual joy of stories with glasses of wine and piles of cheese - one student returning after 4 or 5 years, bringing back her unique and wonderful voice. Also re work: have been digging into old files and found stories, written 25 years ago, that I think are pretty good. Why didn't I do anything with them then? They're dated now - one mentioning the many AIDS deaths, another about a woman having an affair sneaking out to use a payphone - hard to deal with, though I hate to abandon. What a waste! So much written, so little published. Story of my life.

Today, watched the last ten minutes of the superb Adam Schiff addressing the Senate about the irrefutable reasons for impeachment. At last, an honourable, eloquent politician and a fine man. My God, we need to see that these days. Both sides of my brain salute him.

Anna disses this "vile" government

So despite the cold, my rabble-rousing daughter was on the front lines of the teachers' strike yesterday, at one demonstration and then another, with her boys and two kids she was looking after for the day. She was interviewed for the toronto.com website. She's articulate, my girl, and eloquent. One proud mama here.
https://www.toronto.com/news-story/9814531-striking-elementary-teachers-get-support-from-parkdale-rally/

Eli made his own sign. One proud glamma here.

On the other hand, if you want a glimpse of the end of a civilization, look at pictures of Monday's gun-rights protest in Virginia. Beyond belief that lunatics carrying those massive weapons, looking like they're on their way to war, are walking around freely and feeling empowered, egged on by Trump. Terrifying.

Back to civilization, in fact, its pinnacle: Gretchen and I loved the Mozart Requiem. We were on the mezzanine of Roy Thomson Hall, so the full power of the huge Mendelssohn Choir, singing from a level above the stage, blasted right out to us. It was magnificent. I did not weep, but the last chords made every hair on my body stand on end.

That night, I was awake for hours fretting about my organization the CNFC; sometimes problems overwhelm me, my heart races, my mind circles around and around. I almost got up and started emailing at 4 a.m. but was able to wait till 9. And then my colleagues wrote back to say, as my daughter would, CHILL. So I am trying to. I don't apologize for caring too much, but yes, chilling is not in my vocabulary.

Speaking of vocabulary, a student at Ryerson last night told me my writing book, the textbook for the course, is "dope." "You have a good vibe, Miss," he said. Glad to hear it. A thrilling class, travels around the world, from a courtyard in Beijing to a remote community in Newfoundland, where the moose stew was bubbling on the wood stove. How I love my job.

I am trying to find someone to do a smudging ceremony here at the house. Do any of you know how this is done? I'd like to convince whatever it was that lifted the picture off the wall and threw it to the ground, smashing vintage Fiestaware on the way down, that this is bad behaviour and they should go somewhere else.

Today, a true winter Tuesday, cold, snowy, slushy. After a morning emailing and doing class work, I realized I'd spend the day in here alone and instead rushed out to the streetcar and fled to the Y, where I did an Arriba class with my friend Tina - half an hour of Latin music played loud, dance moves, FUN. Just what I needed. Now back to my lovely silent house. Where I must learn to CHILL and write some more dope stuff.

Cabbagetown Youth Centre crisis

10.20 a.m. Saturday morning, and it has just started, the snow, as they predicted. We'll get a lot today, so a hunkering down kind of day; it already feels muffled and shrouded out there, with less than an inch on the ground. Tonight a huge treat - my tenant who works at the symphony has given me tickets for Mozart's Requiem at Roy Thomson Hall. Shovelling, and then Mozart.

Yesterday, a P.D. day, Anna came over with her two boys and three siblings she was looking after for the day, including a tiny preemie sixteen-month old. Here is Ben with his best friend and schoolmate Ian. They are about to make a huge mess with Play Doh.

Eli and Ian's savvy, sensible older sister were building a fort upstairs with ensuing chaos. A great thrill, to see Eli carry the baby around with tenderness and care. And to watch the love my daughter puts into all children, not just her own. I truly do not know where that came from; certainly not from me, I've never had that kind of patience. It's miraculous.

I took the older four to the playground and the Farm; what a resource, this quiet place where animals are chewing. We watched the piglets snarling and snapping at each other, as siblings do. There were lots of eggs in the henhouse, and I remembered with nostalgia when I used to be able to buy them, still warm with feathers. Then the city decided it wasn't safe.

Speaking of unsafe: it looks like our Cabbagetown Youth Centre is going to close for lack of funding - private funding dropped off and provincial funding was slashed by the vicious, stupid, short-sighted, mean-spirited Ford government. A vital after-school place for local at-risk kids, it's at the heart of the community. Our GoFund me campaign isn't nearly enough; I've spoken to our MPP and wrote yesterday to Bill Morneau, our MP, pleading with them both to do something. No one cares. If only I could sic Anna on the case. But she is preoccupied with the school strikes, which will hit her local school Monday. She has offered free child care to anyone who needs to go to work.

As Krugman wrote yesterday in the NYTimes, Why does America hate its children?

Multiple studies have found that safety-net programs for children have big long-term consequences. Children who receive adequate nutrition and health care grow up to become healthier, more productive adults. And in addition to the humanitarian side of these benefits, there’s a monetary payoff: Healthier adults are less likely to need public aid and are likely to pay more in taxes.

It’s probably too much to claim that helping children pays for itself. But it surely comes a lot closer to doing so than tax cuts for the rich.

ARE YOU LISTENING, YOU MORONS?

Speaking of Americans: Bill Maher was back last night after a long break, and his interview guest was Nancy Pelosi. Now that is an admirable woman. "When you enter the arena, as I do," she said, ladylike, in an elegant pant suit and very high heels, "you have to be able to take the blows and also deliver them." And she does. She pointed out with great relish, "Trump is impeached forever. No matter what the Senate decides, he will always be impeached." YES!

And finally, my own two cents: Hooray for Meghan and Harry. It will not be easy to figure out how to break free of centuries of tradition, and for Harry to leave everything he has ever known, to find a new way to live. I salute your courage for trying. Let's leave them alone to make their way, shall we?

If only. As someone said on Twitter, Harry's mum died when he was a little boy. He had to walk behind her coffin and remain composed whilst people in the crowd, who had never even met her, were in hysterics. I am vehemently anti royal, but I hope he has a fucking great time forever with his hot wife.

And now perhaps a good idea to get dressed.

PS From across town: snow is falling, Dad and boys playing board game, cat keeping an eye on things. Luckily, there are lots of places where children are loved.