a mere 68

Tomorrow I turn 69. Hard to believe. What, lithe, youthful moi? The nice woman doing my eye tests this morning noticed the date on my chart and asked if I was excited about my birthday. Well - I'm excited to be alive. I'm excited my family is gathering tomorrow for a barbecue, plus a few beloved friends. This will be my first birthday in more than a decade without Wayson. He will be missed.

I have told the guests it will be a cucumber-based menu. Because just like last year, fat, straight, delicious cucumbers are dropping from the vine. I am definitely the cucumber-whisperer; there are five in the fridge right now. Not to mention Swiss chard, cherry tomatoes, and basil. I've got a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe for "Quinoa and grilled sourdough salad," and Nigella's recipe for "Chopped salad," both with lots of cukes. Sam is going to barbecue meats. There will be corn. And - because grandsons - cake.

The rose of Sharon has started to bloom just in time for tomorrow. Chris sent a wonderful YouTube interview with the cast of Grantchester - I could watch those actors forever, even without James Norton. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxbY_ngW1NI
Lani sent a hilarious card. Jean-Marc brought over the Sunday New York Times. Carole tortured us all as usual, nicely, at the Y. My second cousin, or first cousin once removed, I forget, in New York sent snippets of interviews with her mother Lola, my father's cousin who's now 97, as Dad would have been if he hadn't died 31 years ago. She told once again the story of being forced to go to her first prom with my father as her date; Ethel Merman was the entertainment. She also mentions chatting, later, with Bette Davis and Frank McCourt. An interesting life. What a great idea to tape her talking about her past.

So, dear friends, it's 5.45 p.m. so time for aperitif, a nice cold glass. My baby blue toes and I will forget for a bit about the horrors that are happening to our planet and simply celebrate being here, mid-summer, a mere 68 for the last time tonight. I will eat cucumbers and watch TV, including Samantha Bee, and read the new New Yorker. 

Gifts.

summer joys

 When I went down to the kitchen this morning, I thought about February. Today, the world was alive with colour, sound, and scent - flowers, birds, green, yellow, pink, red, purple, orange, and more green, the smell of lavender, phlox, gardenia, rosemary, jasmine. Sparrows and cardinals chatting. In winter, grey, brown, white, no smells, almost no sounds. Toronto in winter is a sensory deprivation tank. But we are Canadian, we get through, and here we are, in the richness of high summer.

Annals of aging # 647: two medical appointments this week, one with the supercilious and unpleasant Doctor Khan to check for glaucoma, and with the dermatologist to inspect and I hope remove white bumps on my face. Today's pains: the left foot, some ongoing unidentified ache; in the left side of my mouth, a nerve issue under the teeth getting more acute. The rest - back, hips - the same. Lucky. My friend John, who has hip and knee issues, goes up my stairs on his hands and knees. I went to a yoga class today to try to keep the joints well oiled. I'm reading the obituaries more regularly now - two deaths close to me so far this year.

Blistering heat - 29, feeling, they say, like 38.

Sent the manuscript to two other publishers today. One I sent to last month has already written a polite no - miraculous that it came so quickly. He wrote very nicely that the nonfiction at the press is mostly focussed on political and social issues, not on memoir. Phooey. To cheer me up I had a pedicure. My toes are now light blue.

Supper - the garden's cucumbers are beginning to pile up, so creamy cucumber salad. Fresh corn with lime. Salmon. Peaches. Rosé. Summer! Thank you.

The other day, I took a bunch of old books I wanted to sell to Acadia Books, a used bookstore on Queen Street East. What a lovely wonderful place. There are several homeless shelters nearby, so the street outside is very rough. Inside, a haven of old books, posters, maps, cherished paper of all kinds. It belongs now to Rochelle, the daughter of the man who bought the shop and ran it for decades. Can't imagine it'll last - who is buying old books on the roughest part of Queen Street East? And yet there she is, buying some of mine: a collection of the works of Edgar Allen Poe, ten small volumes, inherited from Great-aunt Helen; a Beatrix Potter from the 1920's, and more. My latest attempt to tackle debt.

If you're in Toronto or nearby, please make sure to visit Acadia Books. It's like the film Being There but in reverse. Peter Sellers leaves a sheltered environment for the madhouse of the real world. Here, you leave the madhouse and inside is tranquillity, books and art and kindness.

Grantchester last night: no one seems to note the absurd supposition that the handsomest young men in England in the early sixties are becoming vicars. Have you ever seen a minister as divinely handsome as James Norton? I think not. Now, the new guy, also a cutie though not quite like James. Absurd that these gorgeous virile studs would enter the Church of England to spend their lives as men of the cloth. But fun to watch. And then John Oliver came on at 11, excoriating Boris @#$# Johnson, a shyster since childhood. Ghastly. What did the poor planet do to deserve these guys?

Sweaty, very sticky and sweaty. Where is that lake?

peaches and time

Where does time go? Why do the days disappear? I saw an explanation on TV, where else? It said that when our brains experience something new, our neurons are firing and lots is going on in our systems, so as we process it all, things seem to take a long time. That's how life feels when we're young - when everything is new.

And then we get older. We've done it all before. No neurons are firing. And so time seems to vanish, because nothing is slowing it down.

Makes sense, no?

This beautiful Saturday vanished. I'd done it all before. No, that's not true, let's slow down this narrative. When I got to the market on my bike, there was my dear friend and handyman John, sitting outside waiting for his wife to finish shopping. John spent yesterday morning lying on my bathroom floor with his head under the sink, replacing the faucet. Yes, another of the only things that didn't get renovated during the winter broke. Thank God for John. I sat with him awhile and watched the market goers. "There's peaches for the first time today," John told me, "and corn for the second week." I bought both. The first peach of the year! Took a long time to enjoy it properly. Neurons were firing.

Later I submitted my manuscript to a publisher; hadn't done it exactly that way before, so that was new. Made various arrangements for various social events and gatherings and a road trip, new but not really, have done it all before. Thus, my afternoon flew out the window.

I pruned my raspberry bushes, also something I'd not done before. I've been worrying they're not fruiting as they should, so went online and saw what to  do - prune the woody stuff. So my snippers went to work, clearing the underbrush. I love feeling like a gardener, though I hardly know what I'm doing.

And later I watched one of my absolutely favourite programs, Upstart Crow, a moving and very clever comedy that brings Shakespeare hilariously to life. I've seen most of the episodes twice but this one was new, starring the divine, the always sublime and very funny Emma Thompson as Queen Elizabeth I. Perfection. Now I'm watching a CNN documentary about films of the 2000s and making a list of ones I still need to see: Lord of the Rings, Almost Famous, Lincoln, Chicago. Black Panther.

Here, in photos sent by his mother, is what it feels like to be young, with those fresh neurons relishing every moment. 7 years old, on his way to the Raptors. Hope you had a nice slow Saturday too.

summer rhapsody

My heart overflowing this glorious morning - we've had a few days respite from the heat, it's fresh, light, clear. The garden is nearly at its peak; the pale mauve phlox are out, delicate and tall, and so is the jasmine, scenting the air. The raspberries are in profusion and the cukes too. It's quiet, and after a few busy days, I've little on today - an editing client coming at 2, that's it. My own very long list of things to do, of course, including, most importantly, my least favourite job, back to trying to find a home for my memoir.

Sigh.

On Tuesday, a shocking encounter; a woman I'd never met, an old friend of a recently deceased friend, came for coffee and told me that things I'd suspected but did not know for sure about my friend's living arrangements were true. That he lived, by his own choice, in a near abusive situation. The profound injustice of what happened. It made me sad and angry in equal measure. But when people make their choices, she said, there's nothing we friends can do. And I know that's true. Still. There are bad people in this world.

As if we didn't know that, with the spectacle in the news every single bloody day. Including a nauseating story in the latest New Yorker about the pillorying of Senator Al Franken, victim of the excesses of #Metoo, a principled hardworking man who lost his job for the flimsiest of reasons, while the pussygrabber-in-chief reigns supreme and threatens to obliterate Afghanistan. But stop. The morning is too beautiful to let him in.

Yesterday, a gathering here of runfit friends, the group of us who've been going around in circles together on Wednesdays for years, led by our inspiring Carole, the marathon-running grandmother of three adults who looks no more than 50. We had a potluck feast on the deck and got to know each other a bit better, as we have only the briefest of conversations as we puff and sweat. It's thanks to Carole that we're all even a little bit fit, though I least of all, the slowest of the bunch. And yet, as we always say in the gym, we're here. The miracle is, we're here.

I read somewhere that the main predicator of happiness is the ability to be grateful. I guess that's why, despite the news, despite Boris Johnson and global warming, despite my own debt and doubt and disappointments, I call myself happy much of the time. Right now, I am grateful for the sweet scent of jasmine and phlox, and much much more.

And now, up to the office, to work.

workshop heaven

Such blessings. My garden workshop today, thunderstorms predicted, and not only did they not come, the day wasn't even too hot - just breezy and mild until late afternoon. The whole day could not have gone better: a lovely group of 11 writers, interesting, brave writing, good food - if I say so myself - and good timing for the various prompts. By the end of these events, I am drained but thrilled, to share my garden and what there is of my expertise with a group brave and/or crazy enough to commit time and money to sit poking about in their own entrails. Some had been students, but half of them were strangers, and yet, by the end of the day, they were all almost like family.

 Before

During

What's so important is not just the writing, but the quality of the listening. We were all listening with careful attention to each other. How valuable that is.

Now to recuperate, eat leftovers, wonder what's the name of that bird singing such a loud song at dusk. I'd run these workshops more often, but they're exhausting - not just guiding people through the process of telling the truth safely, but the food and drink, making sure everyone is comfortable physically as well as psychically, and that the house and garden are in good shape.

But by the end they were all telling their most important truths, the stories that mattered to all of us. A treat and a gift.

Speaking of a treat and a gift, here's a photo that brings me joy - Macca played in L.A. recently and Ringo came onstage to play two songs with him. There was a rave, an absolute rave, of Macca's show in Variety, which is no humble mag. Reminder: he's 77, and Ringo is even older.

This morning I awoke to a brand new pimple on the side of my face and had to scrabble about for the Clearasil. The Clearasil. I'm going to be 69 in two weeks, and still with the pimples. Is that fair?

But the good news: my raspberries are overflowing. In all these years, this is the first time I've had a bowlful, with more to come.

Come on over and share. I promise,  I won't make you write a story. Or perhaps I will.

Now my summer really begins.