the Grateful Living

Saturday afternoon of a heavenly long weekend - and it's so quiet! No one is hammering, sawing, leaf blowing - no one is even talking, right now. It's just ... still. Nooooo! The second I finished writing that, some infernal, unbelievably loud machine started. Shouldn't have said a word.

I'm gradually amassing the Thanksgiving necessities - not easy to gather large quantities of potatoes, sweet potatoes, turkey etc. without a car, so I do it in stages, with my backpack. It's hot out there - people out in shorts, tank tops and sandals. I've got all my mothball-y sweaters out in the fierce sun, to steam away the smell.

The noise stopped. Will it start again? What the hell was it? How can people be so thoughtless? Don't they know a highly sensitive person - MOI - is sitting on her deck enjoying the silence?

Ah well. I'm spending this entire weekend giving thanks. For health, for beloved family, for beloved friends, for eager students, for the joy of words on paper, for the house and the garden, for intelligent Ontario voters, for the divine Honeycrisp apple I just finished eating and this heavenly day, even for the crabby pussycat with her perfect white boots: I am grateful. Thank you thank you thank you.

PHEW!

Do people still say, "Phew!" to express relief? Or am I once again advertising my extreme age?Anyway, thank you, Ontario voters, for ignoring the ignoble Hudak. May he vanish into the mists, along with his wife, once assistant to the hideous Mike Harris. And I thank Rob Ford, the ham-fisted, ham-faced mayor of Toronto, whose right-wing blunders I'm sure were extremely helpful in making sure the same thing didn't happen on a provincial level.

I don't envy McGuinty his minority for the next few years, as the world economy teeters on the brink, and the divide of rich and poor, of right and left, becomes ever wider and more acrimonious. But at least we won't have chain gangs on the highways, one of Hudak's better ideas.

It's absolutely heavenly out there - 22 degrees today, Sunday going up to 26! - and continuing all next week. I spent the morning in the garden, cutting back and pruning, with the birds waiting impatiently for me to go away so they could get back to the feeder. What bliss, the birds and I in the hot sun. W*son just came for lunch; we sat eating cauliflower curry in the garden and discussing the lawsuit that he and fellow Chinese-Canadian writers have launched against a writer who, they claim, has stolen from their books for her own. Exciting - newspapers are calling him every day for a quote.

And now - to my other work, the one that doesn't use secateurs. Well no, writing does indeed need lopping off and judicious pruning, no question, and sometimes, the cuts go deep. Invisible, but deep. The back door is wide open, with the crabby cat somehow, mysteriously, parked beside me, Steve Job's beautifully sleek computer on my lap - thank you so much, Steve, you have given the world a great deal and will be missed. The cat and I survey the tidy garden, the busy birds. And now, time to delve into my soul and coax something out.

It doesn't get better than this.

October lament

This is a strange limbo season - one minute freezing and wet, overcoats and gloves, the next, hot and bright, light sweaters if that. Yesterday, ghastly. Today, heavenly. And I, the lightoholic, rush to stick my face in the last rays from that hot yellow thing in the sky. Because soon, those rays will be pale and distant, barely felt on the hungry skin.

Thus, the Canadian preparing for winter: bit by bit, putting away the cotton and linen clothes and the sandals, getting out the woollens and the boots, the hats and gloves, overcoats, shawls. Bit by bit, shutting down the garden, picking the last green tomatoes, bringing in the outdoor plants to winter over, sealing the windows. Sealing all the windows - oh, that hurts.

Because my bed is next to a window. It's a great blessing - I can push the curtain open when I wake, and look out to see the ivy and the giant maple tree at the end, in my neighbour's garden. The open window brings me the smells of the day, and of the night. But soon it'll be closed. Soon I'll open the curtains and see the maple's naked limbs. And soon, I'll open the curtains and see those white flakes tumbling down.

And then we're in for it, my friends. Then we shut down.

Must See: "His Greatness" at Factory Theatre

Again ... so soon! Reporting on yet another fine Toronto day - a great play, an interesting

soiree ... W*yson and I saw a matinee at Factory Theatre of "His Greatness" by the marvellous Daniel MacIvor, who also stars, along with an old actor friend of mine, Richard Donat, and a terrific young actor. At the end of Tennessee Williams's life, in 1980, he spent time in Vancouver as the Vancouver Playhouse produced one of his last plays. The play is set in his hotel room on opening day, where he and his assistant and former lover bicker and chat, and where a young man, a gay hustler hired by the assistant as Tennessee's escort, both encourages and interferes with the familiar patterns of the two older men.

It's beautifully written, beautifully acted and directed and produced - sad, joyful and true. My friend and I loved it and were stunned that the theatre wasn't packed. It's really MacIvor's love letter to the theatre and to playwrights, and also to us, the audience. Don't miss it.

I was in Vancouver in 1980 and met Tennessee Williams, who came to my UBC playwriting class to talk about his work. I remember little about the event - pregnant at the time, I was always hungry and thinking of food - so what else is new? - except for suspecting that he was a little drunk and doing it all by rote. But I felt honoured to meet him. The Playhouse play, "The Red Devil Battery Sign," was pretty bad. Funny to go back and remember all that, and then see the man recreated with so much respect, honesty and heart.

This evening is Nuit Blanche, and though it isn't raining, it's cold. COLD. I went out on my bicycle wearing many layers and still froze. Downtown is jammed with hundreds of thousands of people, wandering around looking for art and trying to keep warm. One installation was perfect - it was a kind of ballet of fire, big machines spewing out flames in rhythm, funny and, as importantly, warm. At City Hall they were strapping people into wings and sending them "flying" between towers, with strange laser lights beaming about. I'm sure there are many fascinating things to see, but the crowds and the freezing wind did me in pretty quickly.

We're not ready for winter yet, Mother Nature - slow down a bit, will you, please?

getting cold

Dear bloggees, I apologize for having neglected you this week: teaching, the encroachment of chilly autumn, getting over my cold, all conspired to keep me away from my blogging duties. Sometimes, yes, I just need to live my boring life for a few days, without chronicling it.

Last night, old friend Suzette came for dinner and then took me to the Bata Shoe Museum for a media event; she's a very busy screenwriter on the board of the Canadian Film Centre, which was throwing a bash to launch their Nuit Blanche offerings - various interactive media projects. The average age at the bash: twenty-nine. Many little porkpie hats and tattoos, one man in an entire PeeWee Herman outfit. Watching the installations, I have to say that my bull@#$# o'meter was twitching vigorously; one involved putting on a headset that "reads your thought waves so you can control the activities in the video just by thinking." Hmmm.

But it was great to be with the artsy young things. And the shoes - took a little tour around the fascinating exhibits at the Shoe Museum and must go back. Especially as I was in a shoe frame of mind, or more particularly, since it's fall, focussed on boots ... I went to my massage therapist yesterday afternoon, and got there so early I just had to look around the comfy shoe store down the street, where I found the perfect pair of fall boots in my massive size yet very reasonable and comfy to boot. So to speak. They're soft-soled, made by Flexx - "Il Comfort Italiano," which sounded wrong but, according to Google translate, isn't. I was wearing my Flexx boots last night as I mingled with the hipsters. Not as fab as the boots my friend Tabatha Southey was wearing, a Chanel pair she bought many years ago. But pretty spiffy.

Am I shallow? is the refrain. Yes yes yes. Is the reply.

Massage therapist Barb used to give massages in her Cabbagetown living-room, in front of her fireplace - paradise on a snowy day. Now she's at St. Clair and Yonge, too near tempting shoe stores and with no fireplace, but just as skilled. I haven't been to her for years, but have had for months a dull, sometimes sharp pain in my upper left shoulderblade. She put her finger right into the sore spot and kept it there - oooooh. Pain gone.

It's an exciting life, n'est-ce pas? I hope yours is as thrilling. I recently watched a delightful CBC documentary about experts, which showed that most of the time, they have no better idea than the rest of us but sound as if they do. According to one study, the predictions of financial analysts over a decade were the same as the results of chimpanzees throwing darts at a board. The message: we need to do a bit more figuring out ourselves. And nobody wants to do that!

My son came over the day before, with a couple of his co-workers, to shoot a movie in the backyard. They make very short films and post them on YouTube; the last one was called Koats, about "coats who kill," starring Sam screaming, being devoured by his raincoat. This time seemed to be about two stupid gumshoes. In the meantime, pizzas were on sale at No Frills, so the budding Spielbergs were fed; Sam simultaneously did a quick load of laundry since he just happened to have brought it with him. The young men raided the fridge, watched some TV, and had a snooze before going off to work. And lucky moi cleaned up and went back to work too.

Oh - and I have to report my beloved Paul McCartney's first ballet score "Ocean's Kingdom" has received, shall we say, mixed reviews - but good on ya, Paul, you are a good sport and will try anything. I love that about you. Can we talk?

Today, Saturday, it's damn cold out there, the first real fall day. Unfortunately for Nuit Blanche, the entire city taken over for arts activities tonight from 6.30 till dawn, it's also supposed to rain. Ah well, nothing will daunt my fellow Torontonians on a hunt for art. I myself, however, might just be a little bit daunted.