lots of satisfaction and a quibble or two

A car alarm is buzzing up the evening - in case it was just too quiet around here for a bit. I do not understand why car alarms go on for 20 minutes. Do the designers of these things really think a car thief is going to stand around for 20 minutes waiting for the noise to stop? Don't they think he'd take off in, say, the first two seconds, and so the next 19 minutes and 58 seconds are just designed to drive the neighbours mad? Hmmm?

We've had beautiful days, getting hotter - very hot tomorrow - and rain at night. There I was today in the garden, worrying about the health of the roses, fussing about whether this plant is in the right place, that one needs fertilizer ... and I realized that the garden is just another kid.

Monday was staff assembly day at my house: my fantastic cleaning lady Marisha, who comes once a month and pulls me from the mire, arrived, and the two of us were slogging around the house when John, the invaluable handyman arrived, to do various manly chores, and then reliable Dan, the painter, arrived to finish the holes in the basement where the plumber, who did not appear, had put in the new pipes. All I needed was Bill, the homeless guy who cleans the downspouts, and sweet Scott, who helps sometimes in the garden, and I'd have felt like the Queen of England.

At the end of the day, the house was sublime. I left a note for my dear son: "The house is CLEAN." This is not something a 27 year old young man who's six foot eight notices. Things like kitchen counters are too far from his eyeballs. In memory of the old days, he woke me up when he arrived home Tuesday morning, after much celebrating, at 3.30 a.m. My God, it took me back - more than a decade of disturbed sleep, thanks to my children the party animals. But in the end - I was always glad to know they were home. As I was again last night.

The shrieking just stopped. It should be illegal, that kind of blasted noise.

I had to take Keith Richard's "Life" back to the library today, again before I'd finished it. What a surprise - it's a great book. He's honest, vivid, funny, surprisingly generous and sensitive, and it's a lesson in the music of the time, on and on about the blues, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters ... and about the Stones being the anti-Beatles. Which they certainly were. Try to imagine Paul McCartney singing, "I can't get no satisfaction." Paul was getting lots of satisfaction, thank you very much. I didn't get to the part I've heard so much about, where Keith apparently denigrates Mick's private parts. That must be hard on a band.

In other news, I wrote a letter today to the GM of the Y about the bulletin board. I can't help it - it's important to me. There's a nice preamble, and then ...

I wonder if you understand what that bulletin board means to us. As a freelance writer, I go to the Women's Health Club as an oasis of sanity and a place where I have made invaluable contacts through the years, including some that have led to work and others to lasting friendships. The women there are of great interest to me - what they do and who they are. We are a vibrant, fascinating, talented bunch and have a great deal to offer each other.

If you insist on mashing that energy down, squashing it and blanching it and squeezing the life out of it, I, for one, can tell you that the Women's Health Club will have lost what makes it unique and valuable to me. Many of my friends have quit the Y to join trendier clubs, fancier clubs, ones, simply, closer to their homes. Before, I wouldn't consider doing that for the world: I adore the Y and everything it stands for, and have often written about this in my blog and in newspaper and magazine articles. (If you'd like copies, please let me know.) But if the Y is starting to make petty rules that take away our connection to each other - to the community, ironically, that we are - then I too might just as well go somewhere else.

All this for a bulletin board? Yes. I am a firm believer in the messy democracy of bulletin boards. It's an important way to communicate with strangers. With each other.

My parents worked for world peace and I, for free-ranging bulletin boards. It's Tuesday night, the house is still clean and I've done my little bit for humanity. Satisfaction.

Sunday in the sun

One of the best days of the year in Cabbagetown, this Sunday when the Ride for Heart fundraising event closes down the nearby Don Valley Parkway. First thing, as I woke up, I could sense the stillness, the absence of gasoline-powered behemoths. I could hear the birds more clearly, smell the sweeter air.

So the important thing to do this Sunday, every year, is to get down to the Don Valley Trail, beside the Parkway which is usually flooded with speeding cars and becomes instead a pathway for bicycles. I walked beside the muddy river, where in past years I've seen deer and beaver - today, only mud. But so many birds chattering, so much green, wildflowers, such quiet in the heart of the metropolis - pure joy.

Many others were also walking (or biking or running) on the trail, including a couple with their baby in a pram - he in cap and long embroidered shirt, and she in a hijab, covered head to toe in black except for a small slit for her eyes, which were beautiful. As I passed, the couple was talking, in English, about hummingbirds.

A Muslim friend of mine was offended not long ago when I wrote here about my objection to the hijab - but I have to tell you, today again, out in the brilliant sunshine and glorious air of June, to see a woman shrouded in black cloth, a woman with no face - again, I found it extremely offensive. I'm sorry if my finding it offensive is offensive. I have absolutely no problem with nuns in habits or women and girls who cover their hair or their bodies. But covering the face goes against everything our society is about, the freedom to communicate and to be who you are. It says, I am the property of this man. He owns me, and he wants to hide me.

I think it's horrible. But then, I think kosher food, too, is ridiculous, and all restrictive archaic rules. Particularly ones which I see as woman-hating.

Okay. Let's let this one go.

I returned home from the walk to find that my son had brought home my favourite meal from his restaurant, a gift from Karen, the chef: meat loaf, mashed potatoes, veg and mushroom gravy. Divine! And then, more food. I took the long streetcar ride out to the Beaches for an Indian lunch with dear old friends Terry and Anne-Marie and a walk on the beach. A heavenly, perfect day, sunny with a breeze, and every single person in Toronto out playing a sport, walking, biking, running, shopping, drinking beer, celebrating Vancouver's win yesterday, mourning Federer's loss this morning - well no, perhaps that was only my mother, such a Fed fan. Anyway, you get the idea - we were all out there, in the sun.

Later, at home, I received a phone call from the woman at the Y who rejected my writing workshop flyer. She's of course very nice - she works at the Y, after all - and explained that there's a new policy preventing solicitation for any "for profit" enterprises. Ads are allowed on the bulletin board only for "community-based and charitable events."

It's not often that I feel like a base capitalist peddling my suspect wares, but I did then.

I suggested a "Wild West" bulletin board, in which those of us struggling to make a minuscule (shudder) profit could at least display our goods. The chances of that, however, are slim.

It's dusk, the birds chatter, my laundry is drying outside, the garden is as lush as can be. Though the Parkway is open again and the vroom of cars competes with the birds, still, I celebrate the community's, and my, morning of blessed peace. I celebrate the woman with the beautiful eyes and hope that one day, she will be allowed, she will claim the right, to walk out into the world with a face.

A perfect Sunday in June

The Don Valley Parkway this morning - it's the Ride for Heart.

Along the Don Valley Trail, ten minutes from my front door.

The Don River, barely visible,

in brown

Toronto's Beach - no swimming allowed but pretty great nonetheless; it was actually packed but I couldn't shoot that direction, into the sun.

My feet, which may be slightly too big but which take me everywhere in their perfect Mephistos, my favourite sandals ever. Thank you, feet.

boringly normal with a hint of battle

Nice to have a rainy day today - lets the plants relax, and us too, a day to sit inside and vegetate. And hope my very expensive drains and pumps are doing their job.

A most satisfying day yesterday - got up at 6.30, got to work by 7.15, wrote till 10, began to edit the pieces of a student coming later, did Tony's class at the Y midday, bought a book at Doubletake that I can't tell you about because it's the perfect birthday present for a friend who reads this blog. More editing, then the student and I sat in the garden delving into words and thoughts. And then next door to my French friend Monique, who holds a francophone salon on Friday nights. This time, two members brought dinner for us all with them, and we talked and ate till after 10.

We have had, sadly, to consider the distinct possibility that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, despite the fact that his financial savvy apparently saved the euro, is an abuser and crazy man. In the old days, men like Jack Kennedy could have sex with movie stars with no one any the wiser, except, perhaps, his wife. And now, a politician blows his nose and it's all over the Internet in minutes and on Jon Stewart that night.

One of Monique's regulars is a Russian Jew born in the gulag - in a village in Siberia where there were only women, children and the elderly, and Cossacks. "I grew up in the Middle Ages," he says, sleeping on straw in a hut with a dirt floor. Then his family was forced to emigrate, to Germany, Poland, then to Canada, where he became a millionaire and lived on the Bridal Path. He told us that Jewish children were not allowed to attend the Russian schools in his village, which was a blessing because the elderly Jews who taught in the Jewish school were so learned that he received a phenomenal education. He does not understand the modern world, though, the mores of today.

Write your story, I begged, as I always do. He looked dubious. I'll keep nagging.

Then home, to get into bed with Keith Richards and read his "Life," which is fantastic, beautifully written, hilarious, evocative.

No handbags on trains, Parisian goodies, excitement or travel. Just a good, solid, interesting, productive day. Sorry.

PS No, that's not true. I forgot that I had an aggravating encounter at the Y, of all places, where I go for tranquillity. The other day, as I have for years, I brought in a flyer for my garden workshop to post on the bulletin board there; several Y members have been happy participants. Usually, the woman at reception writes on your Y number and posts whatever you want posted. But now, it seems, anything to be posted has to go to the Program Director for approval.

All my bells go off; it's a short jump, for me, from having to have all postings approved to all out repression and fascism. Yes, I'm a bit melodramatic, as you know.

So off went my flyer for approval, and two days later, it came back with a note in the corner: "Can not post." My flyer was turned down for posting at the Y! Why? The receptionist had no answer. A few years ago, I would have melted into a frothing pool of rage. Now, though there were some hot bubbles in my gut, I just asked nicely for the name and number of the woman who had said no. I called and left her a nice message, telling her that I have posted this same flyer for years and that I would like very much, O so very much, to come in and discuss this issue with her. I'll bring another copy of the flyer - "to refresh your memory," I said.

But try to hold myself back as I did, full-scale war was breaking out in my heart. I was imagining rallying all my run-fit buddies for a noisy protest. Because, I realized, I would be unable to post a notice about my grievances on the bulletin board.

I am a huge believer in the messy democracy of bulletin boards. They tried once before to get rid of ours, because, I think the reasoning went, it was an eyesore. I was one of many members up in arms, and our bulletin board came back. People post cards, notes to each other, flyers about art shows, ads for selling stuff - all kinds of mess on that board.

But luckily, so far, members are being saved from the ravages of a dangerous writing workshop. Phew! Good thing that manager is on the case.

Stay tuned.

the best so far this year

Sweet sweet heaven, the most perfect place on earth - my garden on June 2, 2011, 5.45 p.m., sunny with a fresh breeze and birdsong. This was the first long work-in-the-garden day - Scott who helps me sometimes came in the morning, and we spent two hours transplanting and planting, tidying and edging and staking up and cutting back - yes, cutting back already, because in the last week, everything has gone mad. The roses are exploding. What's especially wonderful is seeing the plants who survived the dark, boring winter inside thriving in their bright new sky-blue room - the bushy hibiscus and geranium, the oleander now eight feet tall, the jasmine with tentacles reaching out everywhere, and the camellia, my gift from Mr. Choy, covered with buds ready to burst. I'm looking down the vista now at green, green, green with splashes of colour from the impatiens we planted today - and watching as parent birds feed their squawking young, who are hanging onto branches and electric wires.

In the middle of last night, there was a madness of sirens, for hours it seemed, screaming in the night, and so I awake with them. My son has moved in for a month, with his baggage literally and figuratively; he is a joy, he is very tall, he needs and takes a lot of room. There is shaving cream and Old Spice deodorant in the bathroom. How lucky I am to have this time with him, perhaps our last time of living together like this, the sweet young man who cooked me supper last night and cleaned the kitchen today, the very long tattooed person lying in my living room, eating take-out Thai food and watching 17 channels before going to work.

And in 3/4 of an hour, my Thursday class comes, we will sit in the garden and think about words. Last night at Ryerson, a class suddenly leapt into the unknown, took huge risks, one after the other, wrote so bravely and beautifully that we all gasped together.

Who could be luckier than a woman who loves her work, loves her children, has lived to see another June 2, and has a garden to sit in and celebrate her gifts?