celebrating men

It is a perfect summer night, and I am swamped with emotion. Everything made me cry today. Of course, I saw my shrink in the morning; that helps. We are trying to figure out why the fantasy figure of Paul McCartney not only loomed large throughout my adolescence but has continued to do so. Well - he's extremely talented and musical and brings back a time, and I love him. Will that do?

Plus, of course, a mention or two of my mother, my father, my children ... a tear or two.

Went directly from her office to see "An unfinished song" across the street. I suspected that the film itself would not be great but that the performances would be, and I was right - Vanessa Redgrave and Terence Stamp as an elderly British couple are unforgettable, incandescent. You could watch their faces all day - her smile, his frown, her concern, his bewilderment - heartbreaking and glorious. Forget the flimsy film around them. Just watch them.

And then I cycled home to my garden, which makes me weep in its own special way. My aunt Do told me on this trip to Ottawa that my mother was thrilled I'd become something of a gardener. "You showed no interest when you were a child," Do told me. How many children embrace gardening? At least, as it was done in my family, by my mother. As was everything else. Today, my new gardening friend Dan came over and did a massive prune on the curly willow, which takes over everything. We decided to transplant a rose that was shrivelling with no sun, and the poor lost raspberry bush too. That bush was grown from a cutting from my mother's garden in Edmonton, carried back on the plane in 1989, after my father's death. Its survival matters. The climbing rose is drooping now and does not look good; I've been chatting with it. You'll be happier here, I say. Buck up.

More reason to love Ryan Gosling, Canadian superstar and sexiest man of the year - an op-ed piece in the "Globe" today about the cruelty of gestation crates for sows. The minute I saw a picture of how pigs are treated, about five years ago, I stopped buying pork except from small local farms. Canada has moved to rectify the situation, slowly, but Ryan points out a loophole. Imagine - he's majorly talented, handsome and has a great heart. Like a certain musician I am fond of. God, there are many fine men on the planet. Let's celebrate them. We don't do this often enough.