So True triumphs and Mrs. Hughes finds love

So it's official - that was the coldest February on record. Hooray for us, heroic Canadians, shuffling through the snow coated in fleece - we survived. As always, I think about the pioneers, who had to find food and wood for warmth, who had no medical services, supermarkets, central heat. Their legacy is why we're so tough today.

Yesterday - our So True readings, a wonderful event, the best yet. Have heard from both audience members and participants:

Thank you for your part in the superbly honest presentations this afternoon....truly touching stories. 

I tossed my essence out into the universe at "So True," and felt that room full of people put out a hand to help me land on my feet. 

I appreciate you organizing this forum for creativity. My brother Matthew, a journalist now in NYC, responded to my invite to this event by saying he was proud of me and that he has come to believe that happiness lies in being creative, and I agree. Thanks for sharing your enthusiasm and the happiness which written expression evokes, whether it serves as a  cathartic exercise, a memory or a tribute. It unites us.

Thank you, amazing and powerful mentor. I hope YOU are proud of what you are doing through this inspired forum and through your work.

Yes, thank you, I am. Very very much.

And then - the Downton finale. We were going to drink champagne as we watched but were too tired. Thank God Julian Fellowes will stop torturing Bates and Anna from now on - won't he? Must we survive without Tom's sweet face? Wait a minute, isn't Tom just a bit too perfect? Mrs. Hughes and Carson - woo hoo, get it ON! The crabby Jew has a heart. A challenging man with a nice car for Lady Mary, a weedy one for Edith, and is Hugh Bonneville going to keel over? And, as my screen writer friend Suzette said - and by the way, Suzette won a Canadian Screen Award last week, BRAVA! - "The Dowager and Mrs. Crawley - the best couple on television right now."

How can we wait a whole year to meet them all again? Oh well, something to look forward to next January.

Saturday night, I was at Koerner Hall to hear the African musicians Vusi Mahlasela and Hugh Masekela celebrate the 20th anniversary of the end of apartheid. They made jokes about the cold, about spending the day at the beach - ha - and then they rocked the roof off. There were many Africans of all colours in the audience; Vusi started off with a talk in Zulu, and a man in my row of the audience shouted greetings back to him. How grateful I was that night, I am every day, to live in a city as culturally diverse and as full of artists - and appreciative audiences - as Toronto.