birthday

A special morning in downtown Toronto - the Don Valley Parkway is closed for maintenance all day, so it's mystically quiet. It's grey and raining, of course, as it has been for days - which means that things are coming up in the garden, green things - tulips nearly ready to burst, the willow branches covered with pale yellow. Upstairs in my bedroom, the outdoor plants that winter indoors are also trying to come to life; even the bougainvillea is displaying a few shards of pink.

On this morning of May 3, thirty-three years ago in 1981, I was in bed in St. Mike's Hospital in downtown Vancouver holding a small pink and white bundle. Daughter Anna was born at 2.30 that morning under exceptional and even hilarious circumstances which I will one day recount. Healthy and alert with a squashed nose. Perfect. I was lost in love forever.

This morning I'm going to go for a walk in the neighbourhood in the rain and count my blessings. And then across town, to see the girl and her family and to take my two children and grandson and whoever else is there out to lunch. And then back to work on the next book.

Got out three library books yesterday: "Telling True Stories, a non-fiction writers' guide;" "A Writer's Paris," by Eric Maisel; and Gary Shteyngart's memoir "Little Failure." I look forward to reading them. But I'm also neck deep in "The Goldfinch," which friend Patsy gave me for Christmas and which is as good as they say it is.

Someday soon, here will come the sun. And I say - it's all right.