on not watching the big game

It's dusk; I was just outside checking the garden when I heard neighbours on all sides shrieking and groaning. Ah yes - it's the big game tonight between the Leafs and the Habs. It matters deeply, apparently. I wonder what character flaw has allowed me to escape any interest in any team, except, at one point, the Blue Jays when they were winning the World Series. For some reason it was 1 a.m. when they won; the kids and I were huddled in my bed with the TV, and we cheered and listened to the whole city erupt - honking for hours. It was wonderful. My daughter follows favourite teams and cares, which is a good thing, because her sons do too. My own son, however, does not. 

I do not understand why these sports events matter so much but they do, if not to me. Now, Alice Munro winning the Nobel Prize - there should have been thousands dancing in the streets and a ticker tape parade. 

I guess they don't have ticker tape parades any more. I'm dating myself. Again.

Today was sunny but with a chill undertone - tonight down to 5, tomorrow up to 19. Bizarre, as the weather has been for months. Tomorrow, three of my oldest friends are coming for a get-together. Long ago, Nancy White pointed out that someone - Nietzsche? - once said that women go through 3 stages: virgin, mother, and crone. Since at that point none of us were either virgins or mothers, we must be crones. Thus, Crone Power was born. Tomorrow, three Crones will be here. Nancy I've known since childhood in Nova Scotia, Terry and Annie since the early seventies when we all worked at the Canadian Conference of the Arts. We are all a tiny bit older now, and much much wiser. 

I doubt they're watching the game either, have to say. I'm reading "A swim in a pond in the rain." What a thrilling book. George Saunders for the win. He shoots, he scores!

And it's possible Anna also isn't watching. She is in deep mourning, consumed with grief and rage, with the announcement of the bodies of over 200 children found near a residential school in B.C. It's hard to countenance the extent of the murderous injustice done to Indigenous children in this country. How do we atone?

shopping with gun

If you want a picture of the criminal insanity in the country to the south of us, look no further. 

Okay - it's a picture of a nice blonde woman in a green t-shirt grocery shopping, looking at loaves of bread, with an enormous revolver strapped to her side. Blogger won't allow me to upload it. "Sorry! An unexpected error occurred while processing your selection. Please try again later." I wonder why.

It's chilly! Beautiful in the sun by day, going down to 7 tonight. I've changed the bed covers three times, from a very light one back to winter weight. Not a problem, not complaining, oh no, nothing to complain about. Canada in spring. 

I'm going to a dinner party tonight - so exciting. Mind you, it's next door at Monique's, and it'll be outside, so I'll be bundled up in sweater and jeans. But ... people! Conversation! Food cooked by someone else! Can life be more exciting? 

not dead yet

I read the obits these days; what an old person thing to do. So interesting, what those writing choose to focus on and remember, the life we try to spy through the flowery prose. But today, something else: I found a death certificate with my name on it. 

My aunt Betty - my uncle Edgar's wife - born in Hungary in 1914, was, after marriage, Elizabeth Kaplan, as am I. I have a badge she wore at bridge tournaments: "Elizabeth Kaplan, Press." My husband once was also Edgar; we marvelled there were two married Edgars and Elizabeths. I was pregnant in 1984 when I went to New York to visit Edgar and Betty; when I saw her, we both recoiled in shock. Her swollen belly looked the same as mine, only mine was a baby, and hers was uterine cancer. She was 72 when she died in 1985. 

I am digging into the boxes about my uncle. Much dust. And what is wonderful about the dust on my fingers is that it shows that I'm alive. My fingers are dusty and so I'm not dead yet. Also planting - today planted Swiss chard and spinach, more parsley, and a pumpkin seedling John gave me. I'm looking out now at a forest of green. The garden is life.

And I'm reading George Saunders' "A swim in a pond in the rain," his analysis of the short stories of Russian masters Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev, Gogol, and from that, a deliberation on writing. Beautiful. 

After getting trimly through the past year, I have recently gained five or six pounds. There's a belly. Perhaps a little too much life.

Victoria Day breezes

More nice words: from Lina, I just finished reading your book. I think it’s the best you’ve ever written. 

From Nicky, an actress: I've enjoyed the book very very much. It was unsettling and engrossing for how similar our paths have been.  

Many thanks to you both, faithful readers!

And two longterm students, Brad and Sam, had pieces published. Sam wrote, I wouldn’t write if it weren’t for your encouragement and feedback, Beth, as well as the inspiration you share in class. 

https://www.thestar.com/life/together/people/2021/05/16/the-mortgage-might-last-forever-but-so-would-the-lure-of-the-lake.html

Glad to celebrate your successes, friends, but I'm happy not to be teaching today. It's Victoria Day - people have the day off to celebrate one of Britain's queens, many fireworks popping until late last night. What a strange country we are. Another lovely day - the oppressive heat has gone and it's fresh and sunny, lilacs wafting in. The birds are noisy and everything's growing like mad. 

Especially my grandson Eli, who just turned nine but wears a size twelve. He's a shrewd planner who holds his cards close to his chest figuratively and literally - one of his birthday events was an evening poker party with his godmother Holly and his Uncle Sam. He won. I'm 70 and have never played poker. Eli has to laboriously teach me card games, even Go Fish, when he visits. 

On Saturday was his other party in the backyard with many of his friends. Anna, as you know from this blog, looks after a lot of children, including some who regularly arrive to spend the night due to parents' work schedules or crises. There is always room for one more. Eli and Ben are growing up in a very big extended family, almost none of whom are blood relatives.

Along with all the parents, Eli's friend and tutor Greg came from next door with his partner John and a cold bottle of rosé. The many children jumped on the trampoline and chased each other with the bows and arrows I'd brought - with a well-padded tip, you'll be relieved to know. There was of course - because Anna - a ton of food and TWO spectacular cakes made by Finn's mother Kat, cake-maker extraordinaire. 

When I left, exhausted, Uncle Sam was in the laneway behind the yard throwing a football to 6 thrilled, grubby little boys who'd scramble to catch and throw it back. He'd been doing this steadily for 20 minutes. And I thought, what many little boys need most is a kind, patient, funny person to throw a ball to them and then throw it back. Endlessly. Sam himself as a boy missed out on that, since his father was in another country and his mother was not, definitely not, that person. Now, reading stories - yes. 

Nothing much planned today beyond some work in the garden - lots to clean up since my helper, Bill, died last year and so it's all up to me. I just counted - it's 66 steps from my kitchen to the end of my yard. That's a lot of clean up. 

Have to say that as a half-Jew who has little to do with her Jewish heritage, still, the events of the past weeks made me sick. Devastating that a country created because of a murderous holocaust should be so utterly without conscience or humanity. As my friend Ruth points out, like in the US, the fanatical religious right has gained far too much power. How did our planet regress so? What kind of world will our beloved young ones grow into?

recovery

It's Friday morning, fresh out still but soon will be hot, far too hot for mid-May, record breaking heat. I brought the plants that winter indoors outside and then was afraid they'd shrivel in the relentless sun and set up umbrellas to protect them, especially the 9 foot tall oleander that's like a big green bushy friend. I'm smelling the lilacs and listening to the birds and gradually recovering from last week. 

Patsy is gone; there's an empty space where she used to be. My friend who had cancer surgery is recovering. The reports on the conference were all raves. I've seen my beloved Annie, had a glass of wine on the deck with Monique, called Ken, Skyped with Lynn, taught three classes. I began to deal with a complicated legal issue I'll tell you about sometime and spent much of Wednesday planting tomatoes, peas, cukes of course, lettuce, spices, and three dahlias that were a gift from my tenant Robin's mother - and really felt it in my grubby body at the end of the day. 

It's gradually draining away, the grief and shock and stress. As the earth moves on from winter and blooms under the sun, we recover too, I guess, and keep going. It is a gift to your friends to die in the spring, when the world as it opens is unbearably beautiful, and as the pandemic at last wanes and we begin to sense some kind of normal life may soon start again.