voice

Spent the entire morning with my handyman friend John, winterizing. A new verb - to winterize. That is, sealing windows, finding a place indoors for many plants, squeezing garden furniture into the shed, turning off the water. And of course, because this is not only an old house, it is MY old house, everything took twice as long as we thought it would, because nothing worked - the windows were buckled and swollen, the furniture disintegrating, the spigot unmovable. The job's not done yet. People who live in the Southern Hemisphere should come north and watch, for fun, the fascinating, tortuous process of winterization.

On Sunday I went to a meditation session at the Y, led by friend Judy Steed. What a luxury, no, a necessity in our busy world, to sit in silence. Judy gave us a wonderful visualization: you're on a beach, and in the distance, someone friendly approaching - "It's yourself when you're old," she said. "The two of you greet, hug. And then coming from the other way, another friendly person - it's your young self." I watched her come, the 80 year old me, calm and smiling with white hair. And the 30-year old me, so fraught and intense, I wanted to hug her and say, relax, sweetie, really, it'll be fine. It brought tears to my eyes, the three of us there together, old, middle-aged and young. And then I channeled really young me, the 14 year old of the memoir. A very interesting exercise - highly recommended.

When I told W*yson about it, he said, "Doesn't work for me. Wheelchairs aren't good on sand."

On Saturday, the city was littered with people in those heat-catching aluminum capes, having just finished the fall Toronto marathon. I clapped and shouted Bravo! to each one I saw. Imagine, people do that as recreation. Crazy. The idealists of Occupy Toronto could use some of those capes; they are still camping downtown despite the cold, police choppers still hovering constantly. They haven't changed the world yet. Always worth a try.

W*yson came for supper Sunday, and as we talked about work, he told me to send him ten of my best pages from the memoir. Those of you who've followed this blog know how painful that process has been in the past - receiving my precious pages back, slashed and annotated, so marked up they're unreadable. Many exhortations with exclamation marks - Unpack! Raw! Muscle and bone! Don't explain or romanticize - show!

Monday morning I picked out what I hoped were my ten strongest pages and sent them. Tuesday morning, I gritted my teeth as I clicked open the reply. "Congratulations!" it started out. I thought, maybe there's hope here.

There is. He liked it. He really liked it. The voice works, he said. I have some suggestions, but it works.

I realized what voice is. Students ask all the time about voice - what is it, how can I find mine. I realized: your voice comes when you develop profound confidence in your words, in your right to tell your most important stories truthfully, in your own words, with your own innate rhythm and emotional truth. And also, of course, when you've simultaneously developed enough technique and craft to tell your truthful story vividly, economically, powerfully. That's voice.

Onward, she said.

I'm with the 99% - at home

Those poor protestors - I gather from watching CP24 that a thousand or more have gathered downtown to protest corruption, inequality and "global greed;" it's a cold day, and a cold rain has just started. The helicopters have been buzzing all day, presumably both the police and the media, who are waiting for something exciting to happen - though all's peaceful so far. I watched footage of protests around the world - Rome, London, Hong Kong - and there are scores more. Amazing how these events now spread instantly from one end of the planet to the other.

My daughter called to find out if I was there. I've protested and marched with the best of them for my entire adult life, starting with the Vietnam War at 17 and continuing through every single one of Mike Harris's policies - school cutbacks, the megacity, the G20 etc. But this protest is a bit loosey goosey for me. I'll admire from afar. And, yes, it is warmer in here.

Margaret Atwood said that apparently the percentage they're protesting today, the 99% stuck in poverty or with stagnant incomes versus the 1% whose profits and incomes have soared, are the proportions that provoked the French Revolution. So - who knows what awaits?

Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.

Victor Hugo.

Now here's something to protest -

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Brace yourselves, peanut butter lovers -- prices are set to spike following one of the worst peanut harvest seasons growers have seen in years.

AAAAAGH! I LIVE ON THE STUFF.

don't shoot the viola player

Confession: your faithful correspondent developed a big crush yesterday evening. Oh, I'm such a groupie. Last night, I went to hear the Jerusalem Quartet, a superb Israeli string quartet, and fell in love with the viola player. He was adorable, and he played like an angel.

I grew up with chamber music - my father played second violin in an amateur string quartet made up of colleagues and friends, which met regularly in our home, strains of Beethoven and Mozart emanating from the living room along with explosions of swear words as the players got lost, while my mother baked their break snack in the kitchen. (Though not to be outdone, she played in a recorder group.) I thought all that long hair music was incredibly square; it embarrassed me.

Now, periodically I have a fierce hunger for a good string quartet, which was amply satisfied last night with a giant helping of Beethoven, Shostakovich and Brahms played by what has been called the best quartet in the world. That powerful, intelligent, rich music felt like food, filling my soul. It's fascinating to watch four people, in this case four nice Jewish boys in their early thirties, who enjoy such a bond with the music and each other that they play as one. I thought - of course I did - about the Beatles, and what it is that works so well when 4 compatible men play music together. And then, I got the crush on the baby-faced one - of course I did. His viola was like dark honey, liquid, reverberating through my body.

Bet you didn't think Shostakovich was such a turn on. The funny thing is that the fierce, violently jagged piece of his they played - Quartet #6 in G - he apparently composed on his honeymoon. But you couldn't tell.

There was a demonstration outside the theatre before the show - people protesting "Israeli apartheid," accusing the Quartet of "fiddling while Gaza burns." The audience was largely Jewish, and as they walked by, many were riled by the protests. I talked to one young protestor - not Jewish, just felt this is an important cause. As do I, though so complicated, so rooted in ancient hatreds, it's hard to imagine it will ever end. But it's unfair to implicate and accuse musicians, who are in another realm.

Speaking of musicians in another realm, tonight I went to my friend Anne-Marie's, to lie on her comfie sofa and watch Scorsese's documentary about George Harrison on HBO on her large screen TV. We watched the first half, beautifully done - about so much more than the Beatles, it's about the Sixties, that whole crazy time, what happened when drugs hit the scene, and then Ravi Shankar and the Maharishi, George searching desperately for his place in the world. Very moving. The film shows clearly those twin opposite poles - John the bad boy, Paul the good boy - and in the middle, George, the quiet centre that made those extremes possible.

Indian summer seems to have deserted us; it's definitely fall now, we're ankle deep in leaves and it's getting colder. Time to bring all the plants on the deck in for good, find a place for them somehow, because they're huge. I've already brought in the nine foot tall hibiscus, outside thriving, inside desperately unhappy with wilting pale green leaves. Hope they all pull through the move, the plants, so we can keep each other company while waiting to get back into the sun.

Here comes the sun. Something in the way she moves. Thank you, George.

The Life of Flowers

We've been in full summer mode for days - yesterday, everyone out in tank tops and shorts, after Thanksgiving! Mind-boggling. Weird, to tell you the truth, though I'm not complaining. But today, a bit colder and rainy. We're getting back to normal, grateful for that marvellous aberration.

Here's a stunning little film about flowers, almost embarrassingly sexual. My only complaint is that it cuts each one off a bit too soon. But wondrous. Enjoy.

Click here: Life of flowers

One person named Chris Tyrell

Tonight, there's an important event at the Performing Arts Lodge - PAL - in Vancouver. PAL provides housing for artists in the performing arts - actors, musicians, dancers, who have little money later in life. It provides a rent-controlled apartment and an understanding community of fellows, and the buildings - there is one in Toronto too - hold gallery and performance spaces, so the artists can continue to ply their trades. It's a godsend for many, who are poor despite - no, because of - having given their lives to art, and who can live with dignity into old age.

Years ago, my beloved best friend Chris Tyrell set as his goal to fundraise for PAL Vancouver, though he does not live there; he just wanted to honour and assist those who do. Through the years, he has organized fundraising dinners and other money-making events. His walk through France, which I wrote about last year, was another fundraiser - he was sponsored to march so many kilometres and would raise over $17,000 when his walk was completed. Unfortunately, the trip turned into a medical disaster for him, and he could barely begin the trek, let alone finish it. (Above, his first day.)

So he finished his journey by train, flew home, saw his doctors, and simply picked up where he left off, by walking in Vancouver. He wrote to all his sponsors explaining that the number of kilometres would be the same, only he wouldn't have a heavy backpack and would be able to return home at the end of each ramble. He accomplished his goal just the other day - 1,205 kilometres walked, over $17,000 raised. This puts the total he has raised for PAL Vancouver in the last eight years at $82,500. One man, singlehandedly.

Tonight they are honouring his efforts, though he has asked that the spotlight not be on him but on the photographs he took as he walked in France and around Vancouver. But I hope their cheers are loud and long. In his self-deprecating way, he told me a bit about what's planned. He wrote: The last slide says: One person can only do so much."