the bliss of a Sunday routine

I've often said we are so blessed to live in Canada that if the weather were better, this country would be overrun. For many years, my family and I were lucky; my uncle by marriage owned a small hotel in Barbados that was paradise on earth, and then my mother bought a little condo in Florida. Most years we used to go after Xmas or in the March break; that moment of walking off the plane, embracing the sudden hit of soft warm moist air - bliss. 

But not now. We had a record snowfall last week, still mountains of snow everywhere, it's very cold, the sidewalks are icy. Staying home is the best idea. That's why I am beyond grateful, once again, for my bright house and new gas fire. And routine: today, Nicky's dance party at 10, exercise class from B.C. at 1, at 3 listening to Eleanor while roasting a chicken and making leek and potato soup. I fed the birds, watered the plants, took my bi-weekly (yes, once every 2 weeks) shower, will try to clear my jammed inbox and desk. Big TV night, as always on Sunday: at 7, 60 Minutes then 3 hours of PBS, except at 10.30 I'll watch the next episode of Somebody Somewhere discovered yesterday, very good. 

Do I have anything to complain about? Most definitely nyet. Am I incredibly lucky? Da. Si. Oui. 

The other day, watched the boys stagger with their hockey sticks around a big skating rink, created and maintained by volunteers in a local schoolyard. O Canada. 

Dropped a lot of food off for Sam, who's still very sick, and spent the rest of the day with the boys. I'd bought The Christmas Pig by J.K. Rowling, a lovely book with vivid short chapters, a boy protagonist with difficulties my boys can relate to - that woman can write, hope she gets discovered soon. Sitting with a grandson on each side, Eli with his head on my shoulder, reading them a good book: a first, they've been too restless until now. Nowhere I'd rather be.

Except, perhaps, Barbados. Reading them the book on a beach in Barbados. Yes. 

Thomas helped me put up the hooked rug from Nova Scotia that Anna gave me for Xmas. Some old bag took a photo of it. No idea who she is.

Recently two huge sparrow hawks swept through my yard and perched on a nearby tree. Suddenly my feeder was vacant. Everyone is cold and hungry. A friend wrote from Mexico yesterday about eating huevos rancheros under the hot Mexican sun, and I wrote back, STFU! We don't want to hear about it. We've got months to go.

Finally, a perfect description of the writing life. Happy Sunday routine to you too, my friends. 

The essay book goes out

The New Quarterly asked for a short blog post about writing the Neel essay; it went up today.

https://tnq.ca/finding-the-form-with-beth-kaplan/

And on Feb. 10, an interview about writing memoir will go live. Letting you know so the excitement builds. I know you CAN'T WAIT! 

Still Snowland out there, and now because the temperature has gone down, the sidewalks are sheets of ice. O Canada.

The big thing to tell is that I emailed a draft of the essay book to my editor today. On Tuesday we had a great Zoom meeting for the first time, editor Ellie Barton in Kingston and I, discussing what the project might entail. I thought it would take longer to get it together, but after days of sitting and sitting and sitting, I just sent it to her. 53 essays, 58,000 words. Maybe not worth the effort. We'll see. 

I need to move my body but have just had dinner and much wine, and soon it's Bleak House. So another day of, as the Jews says, sitzfleisch - sitting meat. Last night my eyes ached from so much screen time. But tomorrow I'm going across town to see the boys; it'll be sunny but minus 12, so my fleisch will not be sitting. Sam has just contracted Covid and has a terrible headache, so I'll be bringing freshly made stew and soup to my poor son who's in desperate need of food. As Anna said, how many women do we know who contracted Covid and had nothing in the fridge? None! Men! 

Last night, the Toronto Public Library sponsored an interview with the writer and intellectual Lydia Davis. Normally I wouldn't have watched; she's obtuse and not of much interest to me. A writer friend wrote a poem called "I hate Lydia Davis." But Lynn in France is studying her, so I watched and took detailed notes for Lynn, who in any case was able to watch the interview today. I was impressed at this beautifully run event with a terrific interviewer. Davis spoke at the end about how much she cares about libraries. Me too, Lydia. I was at my local today.

It's odd, I've spent the past weeks with my younger self, the writer of the essays, a single mother of teenagers gearing up for them to leave home. As I sit here in the silent tranquillity of my kitchen, it seems eons ago, the constant activity, the noise, the pressure and tension of two difficult teens. It's hard enough to parent teenagers, but doing it alone is brutal. I wish I'd been stronger. 

All right, no more regrets and recrimination, soon it'll be time for Bleak House by the fire. WeTransfer just let me know that Ellie has downloaded the document. What a grand life of adventure! Stay tuned. 

Portrait of the Artist: my article on Alice Neel

The New Quarterly is posting my essay on Alice Neel openly for this week only, though without the portrait. Here it is, only this week.

https://tnq.ca/story/portrait-of-the-artist-my-visit-with-alice-neel/

And a short piece on how the essay came about that they've titled "Finding the Form with Beth Kaplan" will be up on the TNQ site on Thursday.

Major snowfall last night, the first this winter. School cancelled. Blessed Thomas shovelled and is now going across town to play in the snow with the boys. The world is muffled; there's not a sound, nothing moving except - how glad I am to see the flurries at the bird-feeder, luckily filled not long ago. Because it would be quite a slog to get out there now.

Grateful Thomas is here!

The trench. They expect between 15 and 25 cms. 

Last night the whole of 60 Minutes was devoted to The Betrayal, a new book by Canada's Rosemary Sullivan about the search for whoever betrayed the 8 inhabitants of the House Behind, Anne Frank and family and friends, all of whom died in the camps except Otto Frank. A retired American FBI agent took on the job with a huge team of experts. Their conclusion, though of course there's no forensic evidence: it was a prominent Jewish businessman who survived the war by giving the Nazis addresses in Amsterdam where Jews were hiding. 

There was concern anti-Semitism might rise as a result of this discovery, but the team hopes it shows how totally the Nazis dehumanized the Jewish people. 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/17/anne-frank-betrayed-jewish-notary-book

Anne has haunted me all my life, as she has everyone who's read her unforgettable Diary. I wonder about this man, how he lived the rest of his life, especially as the Diary became one of the most important books in the world and its author the most famous martyr of the war. How would it feel to know he had condemned her and many others to death?

I spent most of yesterday working on the essay ms., and the evening watching 60 Minutes and PBS while also reading by the fire, to the point that a blood vessel in my right eye exploded. Too much screen and too many words; today I'll read and edit the long essays sent by my Tuesday U of T class. Two treats yesterday: an hour and a half Skype with Lynn in Montpellier, best friend for nearly 55 years and one of the best-read people I know, and, speaking of best-read, Eleanor dropping the new David Sedaris diary compilation with the marvellous title Carnival of Snackery by the house as a gift. 

Deeply grateful there's food in the fridge and freezer, including Christmas dinner. I don't have to go anywhere. It will be a long quiet snow day. Now, back to reading. Forgive me, eyes.

on writing

The most fun! As I've reported here, I decided to explore the possibility of a compilation of my essays through the years. I find writing the first drafts of anything hard, a slog, but editing, cutting, shaping, moving this word here and that paragraph there, is joy. That's what I've been doing, and now I have a manuscript of 56,000 words.

Let me repeat that: in a week, I've compiled a manuscript of 56,000 words. 

That's not to say those are all GOOD words. So far it's 47 diverse personal essays, starting in 1994 when I began to publish in Facts and Arguments in the Globe - about half published or read by me on CBC, the rest dug up from my files. Some I think are good and others probably too weak to include but there for now, aiming for variety in tone and subject. All are the solipsistic reflections of an aging woman. Me me me: that's my subject and I'm sticking to it. Well, me, my children and friends and city and colleagues and loves and distresses and travels and thoughts and realizations. 

Fun.

Chaos in my office, open file cabinets and paper everywhere. But also I was just asked by Queen's Quarterly to send photographs; this spring they're publishing an essay about my British penpal Babs who died at sixteen in 1966. So there are also photos everywhere. 

Babs on the left, aged 12 in 1962 when we began writing, and her little sister Penny, who is now a good friend and new penpal living in Liverpool. 

Me also 12 in 1962

The letters 1962-1966

Teaching 3 classes this week, stimulating and exciting. It's been really cold; heaven to earn my living sitting in the kitchen in slippers. As always, too much to read. A new library book: Elizabeth McCracken's short stories The Souvenir Museum, wonderful. And of course Macca's two extremely heavy books. Be still my beating heart.

Maybe this will be my winter - compiling old stuff and filling in the gaps with new material, for a book of essays that - with my usual stellar track record - almost nobody will want to read. And what publisher wouldn't be keen to jump at essays by a middle-aged, middle-class white woman, the demographic everyone is most interested in right now? 

But I'm doing it anyway. Because it's easier than writing, for one thing. 

All true.

PS. I just skimmed the manuscript, and it's sure that many of those 56,000 words are repetitious or turgid or boring. Maybe it'll be a SLIM book of essays. 

StoryCorps, Matt Galloway, Macca's "The Lyrics"

First, may Djokovic go home and shut up. I never understood why I instinctively disliked him so much; he's just a tennis player, after all. But Federer and Nadal are clearly fine men, generous, open, honourable. Nothing about Novak is like that. And now we see him clearly. @#% him. 

Second, on the other hand, I'm writing a love letter to Matt Galloway, anchor of CBC's The Current. Does radio get better? The other day, I listened to an in-depth feature about Kazakhstan. Do I know anything about what's going on there, or care? I did not, but now I do. Matt Galloway is one of a kind, the best radio host I've ever listened to except for my beloved Eleanor Wachtel, the best of the best. 

The other day, I was flipping around on the TV when I stumbled on a documentary about Lady Bird Johnson. Like Kazakhstan, nothing could interest me less than this president's wife with her stiff dark helmet of hair, until I was caught by something and watched. It turns out she was a phenomenally strong, empathetic, wise woman who pushed through an enormous number of environmental bills; her husband, who would have been lost without her, was responsible for the most progressive legislation since FDR. Who knew? Thank you, TVO. Brava, Lady Bird. 

Sunday night, thanks to 60 Minutes, I also discovered StoryCorps. I'd heard of them, but was riveted by the piece about a project dedicated to listening to ordinary Americans and recording their stories. Be still my beating heart; listening to and validating stories is what I do, what I did on Tuesday as the U of T term started on Zoom and will do in two more classes tomorrow, what I've done since I started teaching memoir writing in 1994. Story! Tell all the truth but tell it slant. How much it matters. 

Anna is not sending her kids back to school on Monday. She doesn't think the government has done enough to protect kids and teachers, so she's taking time off work to be home with her two. Brutal decisions are being made in the most confusing environment possible. 

But for me, resident old fart, these are good days, interesting, driven. I'm not writing, I'm compiling - going through old files to find and edit essays written but not published for a possible compilation. I have over 45,000 words so far. It all may come to nothing, a document too flimsy, too solipsistic. But I'm giving it a go. And today, I was asked to send photographs for the article dear to my heart coming out this year in the Queen's Quarterly. 

On this mild day, I rode to Ben McNally's Books on King Street East. It's a wonder, this bookstore jammed with fascinating stuff, but I was there for one reason: Macca's huge bestseller The Lyrics, an expensive two volume collection, his ruminations on his songs, how they came to be, what they meant and mean. My Christmas present to myself. Joy. 

I also bought J.K. Rowling's The Christmas Pig for my young friends, grateful to live in a world with books, and bookstores, and writers. And radio interviewers and story collectors who care. Behind me, as I write, a pot of hyacinths is wafting the sweet smell of spring my way, reminding me that winter will end. This pandemic will end. 

Blessings.