Beth Kaplan's Blog, page 107

a visit with Isabel

At the Montpellier Sud train station on a dark, chilly, wet day - a good day to travel. Here's how travellers end up with heart attacks: Lynn and Denis live five minutes from the main and I thought only Montpellier train station. When we were booking my ticket to Marseilles, the train I wanted, the cheapest and most direct, left at 12.50. It was only when we were partway through booking that Lynn noticed - it left from the brand new station on the edge of town, to which there is no transit. I would never have noticed, would have gone to the old station, would have had a heart-stopping and probably unsuccessful attempt to get to the other on time.

Instead, I had a ride from M. et Mme. Blin, got here nice and early, to find that the train is an hour delayed. This might mean another heart attack - I need to get a bus from the train station in Marseilles at least half an hour to the airport for my flight to Milan - but luckily, again, I left lots of time. At least, I hope so. Nerves quiver.

As I said to Lynn this morning, I am not a relaxed traveller. Luckily my friend Bruce is not either. When we travel in Italy, we always arrive really early at the station. And Lynn too. I much prefer to kill time waiting than to have a frantic rush. Which happens anyway, of course.

A lovely last day in Montpellier yesterday, a gorgeous sunny day, and we drove an hour and a half north to Isabel Huggan's beautiful house, Le Mas Blanc near Tornac, where she offers a writing retreat and editing services for lucky writers who go there. We had a long walk through her property while she and Mme. Blin discussed writers they like and do not, and I listened to birdsong and smelled the sweet air of spring.
Have not downloaded my own shots yet - this is Isabel's, the usual hideous shot of me. Some people smile, I grimace.

We had strawberry shortcake while admiring her artworks from around the world, and set off home in the early evening. After a simple supper, we watched an animated film, Dililly à Paris, that Lynn bought that morning - absolutely gorgeous, funny, moving, tender, with stunning art - real views of Paris in the 19th century with the characters transposed in front.

And then a night on the very comfortable sofa. Now - in the gloom and rain - onward. To BROOZ and Italy!

PS/ We finally had an announcement - the train is now 1 hour 10 minutes late. I think he said it hit an animal. A big groan in the waiting room. My feet are freezing. Life is always interesting. Glad to share it all with you.

strolling the narrow streets

Again, a quick post as I'm drooping. I slept late this morning, which was a great blessing, so it was a slow day. Madame Blin and I did what we love to do - talk, eat, drink, shop. We went to Galeries Lafayette which was having a SALE - sales are rare in France and very worthwhile - and managed a few small bargains, including a warm bright pink scarf and a lovely blue nightdress my friend bought me as last year's Xmas present.

I have to constate - a satisfying French word for which there's no satisfying English equivalent - state, I guess - that the French are all amazingly well and tastefully dressed. Even the very old and the very young, even the angry, revolutionary youth and even, yes, some of the homeless, seem to be well dressed. Walking around is surreal, thinking of what a city street in Toronto looks like; here, it looks as if every person has been styled to step out of a magazine. It's the men who get me, with their little scarves, their stylish glasses and shoes, their pants that fit. This afternoon, I saw a very old woman in a long skirt, sneakers, a little top, a terrific bag - something you do not see chez nous, malheureusement.

We returned for lunch prepared by M. Blin: lentils with carrots and chicken, followed of course by salad and cheese and fruit; these people eat so healthily, it's mind-boggling. They almost never eat take-out or in restaurants, they just cook delicious healthy meals twice a day. God bless.

Then Madame and I went for a long walk around town in the sun. She and I, we discovered again, have very different tastes in many things - in literature, for example: she has little time for non-fiction and I for fiction. But we laugh, oh my god, we laugh. And we remember. 52 years of friendship - a treasure.
Following Madame up the medieval streets -
- a cathedral rebuilt in the 17th century
the ubiquitous alleys of plane trees

Dinner: white asparagus in vinaigrette and chicken breasts in a cream sauce. With Cotes de Rhone and followed by cheese. Meal prepared by Madame in 15 minutes, while Monsieur and I discussed why I liked H is for Hawk and he did not, and why we both loved Elena Ferrante but Lynn did not. Fascinating.

I am snug in my hotel for the last night; tomorrow I'll spend my last night in Montpellier on my friends' sofa. Never before have I been so extravagant in my travels - five nights in a hotel. It's reasonable and the breakfasts are enormous, but still, it's money I never used to spend. But it's heaven - privacy, bothering no one, doing my own thing. Like now.

a perfect day in the Cave of Forgotten Dreams

A quick post - it's 9.30 and I'm in bed, I think jet lag finally hit tonight. Or maybe it's daylight savings time which just arrived here or the sun. In any case, I'm woozy.

But today was sublime; I am such a lucky woman. I mentioned to Denis that I'd loved the doc The Cave of Forgotten Dreams about the Chaumet paleolithic cave drawings, that I'd actually seen the cave at Lascaux as a young child on a visit to France with my parents; and Denis discovered that the replica of the Chaumet cave they've created so people can visit without damaging the art is a two-hour drive away. He booked our tickets, and we were off at 10 a.m. He had of course also found a well-reviewed little restaurant nearby, so we arrived at noon and had lunch first. Outside in the sun. On March 31. Yes, I know it snowed in Toronto today. I'm so sorry to hear that.
Our hors d'oeuvre - warm chèvre in a sauce of bacon (lardons) and cream. To die for.
I had aioli - a dish of steamed vegetables and fish that you cover with a thick garlic mayonnaise. With  the first rosé of the year. Divine. It could not have been nicer, the ambience, the food, everything. People kept arriving with their dogs and sitting outside - by the time we left, there were about 8 dogs. Ah, France.

And then we headed to the Chaumet replica, where we were part of a timed tour. It's an extraordinary experience, unforgettable. What you see inside they call "the first human masterpiece" - cave drawings 36000 years old, magnificent drawings of animals - cave bears, reindeer, lions, drawn on the walls largely with charcoal. They have reproduced the layout of the cave, stalagmites and tites and low ceilings and undulating pits and paths, and the drawings exactly, apparently. It was particularly moving for me - because this was the first form of storytelling and memoir: I was here, and this is what I saw! The artistry is stunning, especially when you imagine how dark it must have been deep inside, lit only by torchlight.

We were not allowed to photograph. I just took one shot of Madame Blin in the gallery afterward where they showed us some of the animals. Look up Chaumet cave or the film to find out more and see the art for yourself.
We drove home late afternoon, still in the hot sun, through the winding mountain roads, passing the magnificent Pont d'Arc, a natural bridge formation.
The trees are just starting to bloom here, the bright magenta redbuds are everywhere and delicate green glowing on branches. Beauty for a Canadian hungry for colour.
Throughout, incidentally, I was receiving texts from the house about various tenants coming and going.

Home by 7 after a day of superb driving and shepherding by M. Blin, a simple dinner of salad, ham, and Cotes de Rhone, and I left for my little hotel room. Where my cell rang; it was my first cousin once removed Rob, whom I've met twice, calling from Virginia. His mother Caryl is the last remaining grandchild of Jacob Gordin, Rob's and my great-grandfather the playwright, the Jewish Shakespeare. Rob called to say he and his cousins had been to see one of Gordin's plays produced in Washington and loved it. He was ecstatic and wants us to meet again.

What a treat, on top of this delicious day.

Les gilets jaunes

Saturday afternoon is when the demonstrations take place throughout France. Apparently, today the big one was in Avignon. The one in Montpellier was much smaller than when this all started, Lynn told me.
What I saw was a disparate group of discontented people without direction. They say most of the gilets come from the country, from small towns left behind by globalization, but I saw a lot of what looked like middle-class people from the sixties, comfortably-off people my age, who just love them a good protest. Without a leader or a focus, what is legitimate about these protests has been taken over by the anarchists, the men in black who just want to smash and destroy.
A new Canadian restaurant here. Our claim to fame - French fries drowned in gravy.
 This - believe it or not - is a trompe l'oeil - painted on both these houses on the corner.
A bank near the city centre with windows boarded up and closed on Saturday, as were many shops today, still, though more than usual were open, Lynn told me. The small hotel I'm staying in had a big glass door broken. Lynn has no patience with the demonstrators. She understands Macron was ham-handed in lowering the speed limit and increasing the tax on gas; rural people depend on their cars and trucks to get them around, and fast. As Lynn said, they are not ecologists. But still, she points out, in this country, health care and university tuition are free; there is free all-day schooling from age 3 (with free 3 course hot meals) and a huge social safety net. And still there's so much rage. What is the answer? She has faith that Macron is smart and trying to fix things. But - looking at Trudeau, let alone the rest of the world - except New Zealand - there's no sense that an answer to society's many problems is forthcoming.

I'm happy to be far from the news.

marketing with Madame Blin

A typical humble little Montpellier abode. (click to enlarge)
Lynn is standing in line for cheese. I said to Lynn, this is the pinnacle of French civilization.
Behind this woman, on the top row, are seven different kinds of Roquefort. She is slicing the eighth kind for Lynn. It brought tears to my eyes. I was also channelling my Francophile father, who was with us in spirit, smelling the Roquefort.
 The produce.
Le pain, outdoors on the market square.

All of this equals one happy camper. Incidentally, all is well on the home front. Thank god for texting.

Montpellier report, a mess at home

6.15 a.m. and your faithful correspondent is in bed in a small hotel room in Montpellier, after a delicious 8-hour sleep. To deal with jet lag, I try to stay up as long as possible the day of arrival, take a sleeping pill, and wake up on local time, if a bit early. And that's it, it's done.

And now the travel blog begins. What a strange person a blogger is - the first thing I want to do, on waking in an exotic new place, is write to you.

A bit of surreal bliss at Pearson - the noise-cancelling headphones the kids gave me for Christmas were playing Bach, so I wandered and sat for hours in the surreal purgatory of the departure area enveloped in a cloud of sublime music.
The miracle of modern technology - I was reading the New Yorker as we boarded, and was able to take a picture of this cartoon and send it to the kids.

Whoever designs the seats for Air Canada overseas flights should be forced to sit in one forever. I'd paid extra for an exit row, had the huge luxury of room in front and even a protruding door bit that I could put my feet up on, so I had far more comfort than the sufferers squashed in around me. But the seat was hard, extremely narrow, and rigid, didn't extend even slightly back, so, even with my headphones and eyeshade, a night of writhing. And the food was execrable.

However, the flight left and landed on time and expelled its huge crowd of bleary Canadians into a gorgeous Parisian day. During the hundred mile hike to the other end of this vast airport to find my Air France flight to Montpellier, I slipped outside for a few minutes to turn my face to the sun like a starving plant. Everything is now automated in France, it seems; there was an issue with my suitcase, but luckily an actual French human being appeared to help me work things out. I found the next departure gate and had breakfast - a spinach and brie quiche which, though just in an airport dive, was absolutely delicious. And a yogurt "bio" in a glass jar. Bamboo cutlery.
French people all around. One thing about the French - even when they're just chatting, they sound like they're arguing or complaining. It's just the tone of voice. Though probably they ARE arguing or complaining. Another seamless flight, and there were my dear friends waiting at the airport.

But as I got off the plane, I turned on my phone. Mistake. It's hard to believe, but disaster had already struck at the house; there was a long series of panicked notes from Nicole. Something happened to the sump pump in the basement, it exploded, there was water shooting everywhere like Niagara Falls, the frantic tenant woke her at 1 a.m., she called the fire department ...

I laughed. It was like the house saying, You think you can get away, bitch? I'll show you.

Remembered my former handyman Len, who - as I've recounted here before - said to me once that I must have offended the water gods in a previous life, because the house has had so many problems with flooding and leaking. Once more, the water gods are on my tail.

A long series of emails later, the scene came clear - something had come loose, somehow, in the sump pump, and it did indeed explode. All the carpets in the basement are soaked and the walls and floor in the area are damaged. The tenant and Nicole dealt with it, the firemen gave advice, Kevin came and fixed it. There will be a lot more fixing when I get home.

The plane hadn't even landed before something major went wrong. And here, at this distance, I am thinking, once more - do I really want to cope with this enormous old house for the rest of my life? Is a nice kitchen and a lovely garden and now a renovated upstairs worth the constant, constant stress of all the things that go wrong?

If you hear of a nice bright friendly quiet condo or apartment or townhouse in or near Cabbagetown, please let me know.

Had dinner and much much talk with my friends in their apartment; Lynn, who pointed out that some restaurants in Paris don't even open till 8 p.m., kindly agreed to eat early for a Canadian visitor who hadn't slept the night before. She made her delicious hachis parmentier, an exotic kind of shepherd's pie, with Roquefort afterwards, accompanied by a nice light Brouilly.

It's 7 and I can go down to breakfast. On the way here, Lynn showed me all the destruction caused by the gilets jaunes, who erupt in violence every Saturday and smash windows; banks, hotels, stores here in the town centre - all with boarded or broken windows. Montpellier is one of the hardest hit, so I'll be able to witness it tomorrow.

On the other hand, she was happy to tell me that there is a big sale at Galeries Lafayette, one of our favourite places - their sales are rare and legendary. Today my vacation begins.

hasta la vista

This is the last thing I'll do on this computer today, I think. It's 2 p.m. Thursday March 28, and in about 20 minutes, I'll leave for Anna's across town, for a farewell dinner with the family and Sam before I head to the UP train to Pearson, which isn't far from their place. The suitcase is closed and I'm in my travel gear - stretchy pants and stretchy bra, with headphones, eyeshades, a travel pillow and two empty water bottles in my backpack, to be filled on the other side of security.

In an amazing coincidence, the final city inspection of the house was an hour ago. We passed, and the white sign came down from the front window. Our work is officially done and approved. Even though, of course, it isn't, there are still myriad small details and even bigger things still to deal with. But the construction is done, the destruction too, thank God. When I write the story of this renovation, I'm going to call it "Men in my House." Even now, Dan the painter arrives at 9.30, Kevin arrived to do stuff today before the inspection. I won't know what to do with myself when I get back and am alone, without forty-two men charging about making noise and dust.

LOL.

I am as usual nervous and speedy; wish I had my daughter's phlegmatic disposition. Nothing fazes her or disturbs her sleep, except of course her children. Whereas Sam and I are the anxious type. He, incidentally, cooked me a divine dinner of rainbow trout in sauce with potatoes, mushrooms and green beans, and then suggested I watch some of last season's Game of Thrones with him. It's stunningly beautiful to look at and the acting is fabulous, but it's just too violent for me, a murder, a battle, a horrible thing happening every few minutes, and I with my eyes and ears covered. Finally I couldn't take it, spectacular tho' every shot is.

The fridge is nearly empty. The dishwasher has run. Nicole has been briefed about every conceivable thing. All the men have been paid. My bank account is not to be thought about right now. The sky is grey, though the sun came out briefly, and my upstairs hall was awash in sunlight. I will eventually get used to that.

Au revoir, my friends. Happy spring. I look forward to writing to you from France.

speeding toward the finish line

Crossing things off the list. Today, after about 5 hours sleep, I: got in touch with PEN Canada for the second time about my tax receipt from them, finally got it emailed and printed, got all my tax information to wonderful John, who will transform all those bits of paper into something the government will accept. Wrote to Kevin about various last minute things still undone. Met with Dan who's going to finish the painting - three days, he estimates, and here I thought it was nearly done. We had to choose colours. Met with Jean-Marc, who has been away for the whole last part of this project, though I've been sending him pictures. He went into raptures about his design work - as well he might. So much of his vision has worked out brilliantly.

The first tenant Leonie moved in last night; she lived for a year in the basement and when she left she was pregnant, so at breakfast I looked at pictures of her adorable son, now nearly 3. Took two library books back to the library. Got to Carole's class at the Y where I was even slower, if that's possible, but I was THERE. All my friends there wished me bon voyage and Debra had advice for Milan, so kind. Got to Shopper's for last minute things, travel sized toothpaste etc. Got Sam to get delicious Ontario peanut butter at the health food store to take to Lynn, along with Shredded Wheat. Got to Star Nails to have my toenails trimmed because the big toes get ingrown and I can't cut down the sides myself. (TMI?) Corresponded with Jade, the tenant who's moving in April 1. Corresponded with Gabriel, the tenant who's moving out April 15. Corresponded with my dear ex-husband, who's probably coming to visit in May, so realized I need a bed asap for the spare room, trolled about online and ordered a twin extra-long frame and mattress from Amazon, to be delivered next week. Charged up my headphones. Did two loads of laundry. Paid some online bills. Skated over the backyard ice to fill the bird feeder. Made a list of phone numbers to leave for Nicole who's living here while I'm gone. Edited a eulogy a friend asked me to look at. Showed the house to my oldest friend Ron, who said, "It worked out really well." Wrote to Pella Windows to complain that after installation they left the windows smeared and dirty.

It's 4 p.m.

Still need to: Renew our family membership at the AGO which expires soon. Pay the Enbridge bill which just came in. Check in online for both Air Canada to Paris tomorrow night and Air France from Paris to Montpellier Friday morning. Have dinner with Sam who's here to cook me some rainbow trout.

Pack.

PS. Parliament Street news: There's a new restaurant at Parliament and Gerrard for "Japanese street food," whatever that is, also a new hookah bar, and a small hairdresser on Parliament St. that has a sidewalk sign advertising its wares and has added "We have private room for women in hijab."

I love my 'hood. That's why I went through all this reno hell - because I want to stay right here. So here I am. And I'm leaving tomorrow.

NYTimes obituary of Peter B. Kaplan

This is the New York Times' obituary for my father's cousin, mine once removed, Peter B. Kaplan. One of the words they use here is "relentless," and he was - a difficult, noisy man, a gifted and passionate photographer. I was at his first wedding to Harriet, in Great Neck; he took his own wedding photos with a tripod set up behind the rabbi - "I do," click click click. It was thrilling to visit his loft in the Village, where the bathroom was papered with photographs he'd taken of animals and insects copulating, and his African grey parrot Kosuku dominated the conversation. The world is quieter but diminished without him.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/obituaries/peter-kaplan-dead.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Beth's courses at Ryerson and U of T and upcoming nonfiction conference

Just a reminder for any of you considering coming back to, or coming for the first time to writing school: Ryerson's True to Life, CWWR 336, starts Wednesday May 1. Registration will soon be open or maybe is already.

And U of T's Life Stories, running Tuesday evenings this term instead of during the day, starts Tuesday May 7. Please get in touch if you have any questions.

Oh, and I forgot to let you know that last week, my longterm student and dear friend Ruth Miller had yet another piece in the Globe - her fourth, she thinks, but who's counting? Ruth has also read at more So True events than anyone else. She's a treasure.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/first-person/article-i-keep-losing-stuff-but-i-havent-lost-my-sense-of-humour-yet/

And this is coming up, for any of you in Vancouver who want to be dazzled, stimulated, and informed. I wouldn't miss it.