dealing with the crazies

Another day so beautiful that I had to go for a walk; the soft air felt like silk, caressing my arms. Soon, rain and colder. But how we've enjoyed these heavenly days.

So this morning I mailed my new bestie Abigail a copy of "Loose Woman;" she emailed me a short essay, and I emailed her a long one. I loved hers, the way she captures a moment and a feeling with so few words, and the way she and the reader are in the past and the present simultaneously — vivid, powerful. And she responded with praise to mine. A friend, a kindred spirit, down in Woodstock, New York. 

Here's her most recent online essay, not the one she sent me. Uncompromisingly honest and very short.

https://oldster.substack.com/p/an-interesting-question?r=3d8wo&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=email

It's voting day here. I'll try not to check in till it matters - at 9 or later. Nerve-wracking. There should not have been an election, but I hope the Canuck electorate doesn't punish Justin because of it. Because then we will all suffer. There are worse sins than an unnecessary election. May sanity prevail. 

Speaking of sanity, my heart broke a little today. A dear friend came over, a man in his late seventies. His younger wife is a rabid anti-vaxxer, and so he is not vaccinated. I found out their daughter, who's 16, has never been vaccinated for anything, even as a baby, and now has to attend her high school remotely because of her vaccination status. His wife is losing her job because of hers. 

I said to him,"You're a free agent. Just because your wife is a lunatic doesn't mean you have to put your own life at risk. The hospitals are full now of unvaccinated people; if you get sick, you can be sure both you and she will be very sorry. Get vaccinated and don't tell her!" 

"I can't do that," he replied calmly. "It would damage my marriage." I urged him to find some sites that educate anti-vaxxers about what vaccines really are and do. "It's infuriating," I said, "that someone who spends 15 minutes on Google thinks they know more than scientists and researchers who've spent their lives focussing on these issues."

We parted as friends. He feels he has no choice. But I see him as a man with a target on his back. If he ends up at risk, I will never speak to his wife again. 

How have vaccines become a huge wedge issue here? Trump, Fox "News" and its ilk, millions of disaffected people seizing this as a cause to rally around, because anger feels better than pain? I celebrate Maxime Bernier and his PPC, which will I pray siphon far-right votes from the Cons. But it's sad his party of xenophobes, crazies, and anti-vaccine fanatics exists at all in this country.

Ah well. Human beings always have been incomprehensively flawed. There's comfort out there in the real world. The sun was shining today, and the air felt like silk on my arms.

one of my favourite writers gets in touch

This is a cup runneth over kind of night. As I've probably bored you by saying, the weather has been sublime, perfect, sunny but not too hot and the evenings brisk. A gift. The garden is shutting down in its gentle way, though there's great beauty and a few cucumbers and much chard still to come. Made pesto yesterday to finish the basil. 

Anna, Tom, and Willow were wonderful guests. Next week Tom will resume teaching at the Toronto School of Art. He takes the train in from Stratford early Thursday mornings, teaches all day, comes over here late, sleeps in my spare room in the sleeping bag that's always parked under the bed, and leaves early next morning for more classes. A visitor I rarely see. 

The other day I posted a query on one of my Binders groups. It was Mitt Romney, I think, who wanted to prove his feminist bona fides by saying he had "binders full of women" as possible candidates. The Binders groups were subsequently formed on FB to provide mutual support for women writers; I belong to the Binders groups for creative nonfiction, memoir, writing teachers, personal essay, and the Canadian binders. 

I wanted advice on placing an article called "The road to a book," originally published in 3 parts on the CNFC blog and since rewritten, which details for newbie writers the long journey to getting Loose Woman into print. Several people replied, including one of my writing heroes, Abigail Thomas, a superb memoirist and very funny and honest writer who these days has been writing a lot of short essays for online magazines. I wrote back to thank her for her suggestion, and today she replied that she'd been looking for the essay and could not find it. 

Abigail Thomas was looking for an essay by me.

I wrote back, here's my email address, I can send the piece to you although you have a million things to read and anyway, if anyone knows about the difficult road to a book, it's you.

An hour later, there was Abigail in my email inbox. So I sent her a note and the essay. 

I am such an admirer of her work. To me, it's as if I'd sent a letter to E. B. White and he replied instantly. The miracles of the internet.

Also today, there was a note after my last post: Beth, I discovered you through Theresa's blog and love your writing voice - which I suspect is your own real voice ... Wry humour and teasing were part of my upbringing so I recognize myself in your style. I'm enjoying your blog hugely. Thanks! 

Usually we writers send words out into a silent void. Please, readers, when you enjoy what a writer does, write to them and say so. How much it means! 

OMG! A few minutes later - Abigail and I are corresponding, and she has asked me to send her my book. Truly, my cup is spilling all over the floor. 

Your warm fuzzies of the day: here's Willow. I've offered to keep her for them when they travel, and that's quite the offer, considering that she likes to go outside at 5 a.m. 

the beauty of the fall

It's a stunning day, has been stunning all week but today is prime - very hot. It's so much more delicious when we know it won't last, impossible to stay inside and work when it's like this. I just went for a long bike ride down the Don Valley Trail - well, long for me, an hour and a bit. I have to carry my bike up and down various steep hills to get there and now have legs of rubber. Worth it, as you can see.

Beautiful downtown Toronto!

On Thursday, took my bike on the streetcar out to the Beach, to go for a ride by the lake with Annie. Also glorious. 

Marilyn rides the streetcar.

Not downtown but still, the Beach is in the metropolis. 

Taught my home class on Thursday by Zoom, but in two weeks we'll do a hybrid class, some here, some on the screen. So good to see them after a few months - they're like family; how well we know each other after all this time. 

My dear friends Anna and Tom and their dog Willow are visiting from Stratford, staying in my basement suite which is empty for a bit. With Sam we had a vegetarian feast last night from the local Indian restaurant Haldi - saag paneer masala, vegetable korma, dal tadka, bhindi aloo sabzi, baingan bharta - even saying the names evokes the smell of those fragrant spices. And of course rice, naan, and mango chutney. We were celebrating their first visit to Toronto in some time, and Sam's new job with which he is pleased. 

I'm on a roll work-wise - finishing essays and sending them out. Was I complaining about something a few days ago? I wonder why.

PS I submitted an essay yesterday and had a No thanks good luck elsewhere today! That's a record. I may be on a roll, but perhaps editors are not as impressed with me as I am.

the joy of praise, and arguing about letters

What a welcome surprise! I was reading Theresa Kishkan's blog to the left of mine, as I always do with the greatest pleasure - she's an exquisite writer whose evocative language and thoughtful attention to detail are astounding - and found this:

Right now it seems to me that the conversation about nonfiction usually means memoir ... I loved Beth Kaplan’s Loose Woman: My Odyssey From Lost to Found, an account of how an aspiring actress finds herself, literally and metaphorically, living with and caring for a community of damaged men in France. It has a beginning, a middle, and a conclusion, a through-line, and it is both heart-felt and well-crafted. 

What can I say except how kind of you to write this, Theresa. I love your work too. May we meet one day. 

On Tuesday I rode down to Ben McNally's bookstore, which is where I'll buy Theresa's new book Blue Portugal next year. The poor man was renovicted from his stunning cathedral-like shop downtown, which turned out to be a blessing when Covid hit as he didn't have to pay a huge rent on a closed shop. He and his staff continued their mail order business and have moved twice, further east each time to my great pleasure; at the moment, they have a small shop on King St. East, due south of my house. They have such taste and such love of writers and their books, it's a balm to enter the space and meander, breathing in the smell of paper and print.

From there I went to another glorious shop - Staples. I needed post-its and bought a lifetime's supply. I use them every day. Happiness is a multi-coloured stack of post-its. 

Skyped for an hour and a half with Lynn in France. We had an interesting discussion about letters. I'd given her back her letters to me through the years, and she said she was going to burn them; she didn't want her children to see the negative things she'd said about them. I disagreed; her five children know she could be crabby and critical, as can we all — shouldn't they also have a chance to know who she was when young, including that she was a vivid, funny writer? But no. Her husband Denis found letters between his parents after their deaths and destroyed them all; he didn't even consider reading them and thinks I should do the same with the stacks of mail I inherited.

But I'm the opposite, I want to read everything. I'm a detective hunting for clues about the mysteries of the past and finding them in those old sheets of paper. To me, those letters are a banquet. Yes, reading the one where my dad called me a bitch when I was seven made me cry. But that series of letters illuminated a family dynamic I couldn't understand or articulate at the time. I am all for delving into whatever documents you unearth from your past. 

My daughter is like Lynn, utterly unsentimental and uninterested in delving. When I'm dead she'll throw it all away. Except if Sam stops her; he's the one who values stuff from the past. So maybe all that paper will live on. Or maybe it won't. I'm going to try, though, to get some of it published before I vanish. 

Here's the memoir writer, spying on the world, taking it in, checking it out.

autumn anxiety chronicle

I should have been in NYC on the weekend, celebrating Cousin Ted's 80th birthday. Instead, let's admire this photo of his Versailles-like birthday cake, meant to celebrate his country garden:

 It turns out, autumn anxiety is a recurring theme here. Perhaps it's the sense of impending winter— time to gather and bury nuts, quick, like the increasingly frantic squirrels. In September 2017, I see I also had an overwhelming list of things to do, including finishing my memoir, preparing various speeches, selecting and editing eight essays for the So True reading series, travelling to Ottawa to visit my aunt, the CNFC conference meetings, and preparing classes and the Xmas Eve pageant at Riverdale Farm.

Also: food clothing housing exercise health reading friends family and writing this blog.

Otherwise, nothing to do.

Did I mention finish the book? No question, the above list is one reason I've produced so few books. Not just that I was an actress for ten years and a stay at home mother for another ten, but that I get involved in so many things and can't imagine not getting involved. So - the output is slow, but the life is pretty damn interesting. Though it's true, last night I couldn't sleep, thinking of all I have to do. What I did on my summer vacation: worry.

What the hell am I complaining about now? No visits to Ottawa, So True, Babe, CNFC, speeches, and the book is done. Yes, still the worry of getting the book into the world and dealing with tenants, and the last line, the same. But much less. So shut the @#$ up. 

Had a long Skype talk with Lynn in Montpellier today - what a miracle that is, a free transatlantic face to face chat for an hour and a half. My friend was wearing a chic dress and pearl earrings; I'd just come in from gardening and was sweaty in a tank top. But we are soulmates, she and I, and have been since September 1967. We laugh, oh we laugh. One of life's greatest gifts - a friend who not only laughs at the same things you do but has done so for over 50 years.

And another note about the book, from someone I knew a long time ago: Have started Loose Woman. Had no idea of your career trajectory, so interesting to see how you have pursued basic human values despite (or perhaps because of) personal obstacles. Very entertaining, well written and with momentum. If I ever get the chance at the age of 77, with whatever good health and time I have left, to consolidate my thoughts into written form and express them as well as you have yours, it will be a miracle.

Go for it, my friend! And thank you.