wear your helmet

It's hard to believe that a minor fall on a ski hill could wipe out a beautiful talent like Natasha Richardson's. Perhaps this senseless death will have an unexpected benefit - an only benefit - in convincing people to wear helmets. My son, today, was talking about buying a bike and assured me he'd wear a helmet. Normally, a young man of his ilk would never wear something so humiliatingly safe and therefore uncool. I think that our new awareness of the lethal fragility of the head is due to Ms. Richardson. 

To tell you the truth, I don't wear my helmet much either, and will now. This would be no comfort to her family now, but truly, her death may save many lives.

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Further to my Mike Harris rant, columnist Jim Coyne in the Star contributes a glorious rant of his own. "To read the names," he wrote on Friday, "of the hacks and schemers resurfacing along with Harris is like an appalling acid flashback to a period of reckless and ruinous excess ... We had a government of the angry inspired by every half-baked, right-wing quick-fix drifting up from the U.S., aspiring to the sort of greed-fuelled deregulated free-for-all that led that nation (and the world) to its current state."

Wish I could write like that. Elegantly put, Jim. Many thanks. Keep the skewering coming.

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I am spending a great deal of time saying good-bye - to family and friends, and also to students, who feel like family and friends. Carpentry teachers must grow fond of their students. But my job is to ask my students to hand me their hearts. They're not only learning to write but to tell the truth, to delve deep for the most important, in some cases the most painful stories. "The hot bits," as says my esteemed colleague Wayson Choy.  So by the end of one term, I know them well, and those who continue working with me become even closer. Once again, I can only celebrate my luck - to love my work and those with whom I work. A rare privilege.

It's officially spring - today was the spring equinox. Toronto was frustrated because it's bloody cold and no one wants to bundle up. Everyone was shivering in too-light coats. But spring is coming, we can all feel it. It's coming - and I'm going.