Beth Kaplan's Blog, page 127

feedback

A conference hangover - moving very slowly today. Luckily it's a stunning day so I can move slowly outside, listening to birds. Wayson is here. He has been asking to take me to dinner to repay the meals he's eaten here, and I called him and said, Today's the day.

People have been sending me ecstatic emails about the conference and there are lots of postings on FB. Best of all, we had a fantastic farewell event here last night, a dinner with champagne and lots of toasting and rehashing of key moments. We like each other really a lot; they are just fine fine people, a great group, a pleasure to be with. And we created something powerful and fine for more than a hundred others; that means a lot.

I spent the morning transcribing my notes and will write more about specifics; I'd like to share some of the best thoughts and moments with you. But I'm still digging out after four intense days, and a nice man is waiting to take me to dinner. And then I have to get ready to teach Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. So, for now, some pictures and an email from Mary, who wrote, today, "I so enjoyed it all! It was exhilarating and it was a special bonus to spend more time with you, sharing stories and our craft. Beth, thank you so much for all the work you put into this weekend and mentoring your many students (this one in particular). The confidence to celebrate my efforts by sharing them with others last night was wholly due to the encouragement and guidance you have provided. Grazie mille."

You could not be more welcome, dear friend.
Patty, who took my course years ago, with Margaret and Mary, who are working with me still. This is in the great Hogwarts-like hall where we had dinner and the Saturday cabaret.
The old bag introducing Dinty Moore.

When I got home Friday, completely spent, there was a letter in the mailbox addressed to Glamma. It was from Eli, hoping I'd had a good weekend and asking when he could come over to play. "I love you," it ended. I showed it to my colleagues at dinner here last night, saying, "I just spent four days with some of the most gifted authors in the country, and this is the best piece of writing I've ever read."

Not a sentimental bone in my body.

PS A post on the CNFC website just came in: "Great conference. Exceeded my expectations. Fabulous presenters. Came away thinking about writing, and life, in a very different and inspired way. Thanks everyone!"

U of T and Ryerson courses are both a go.

I will write more about the CNFC conference when I've had time to ponder and process. So very much to process. The main thing for today is that not one single thing went wrong. It all worked and was magical.

But more importantly, right now, I'd like to trumpet this: BOTH COURSES ARE A GO. And there is still room in both.

Life Stories I at U of T starts tomorrow at 12.30 in the OISE building, and True to Life starts Wednesday at 6.30 p.m. in the VIC building at Ryerson. Please get in touch if you have questions. I will be bubbling with excitement because of all I learned this weekend. A good time guaranteed. Hard work, but good.

conference high

10.15 Saturday night and I feel as if I'm emerging from a long tunnel. A long beautiful stimulating life-changing fabulous exhausting tunnel.

The 14th Annual Canadian Creative Nonfiction Collective's conference is nearly over - my bit IS over, ended an hour ago. Tomorrow morning there's the AGM, then a literary walk around the Annex, and then I've invited the conference committee and board members to my house to decompress - and to drink the bottle of Veuve Cliquot Kirsten kindly bought for us.

It was a triumph. It was fantastic, all of it, the presenters, the venue, the down time, the food - but mostly, what was discussed and the people who discussed it. I don't know how we did it, but the most fascinating warm clever knowledgeable writers, one after the other, came to speak to us. My notebook is so full, I don't know how I'll ever transcribe all I have in there. But I'll try.

Cannot write more or my head will explode. Here's something the wonderful Elizabeth Renzetti said to us today: "The voice is your head is an asshole."

And other words of wisdom.

I connected with loads of former and current students, including Hyacinth, who took my course at least 20 years ago and told me I changed her life. This beautiful woman is a grandmother many times over, believe it or not, and she wrote a story, at least 20 years ago, about making love in an elevator, that is with me still.

On my bucket list.
And now to bed. More anon. It was so so so so so so so so so worth it.

onward!

 A post from a summery Toronto before I vanish into Conferenceland in a few hours:

It's my daughter's 37th birthday today, and I won't see her until next week. I'd considered various presents for this kind, generous woman, but what she wants, especially this birthday, is money. Since getting her driver's license in January she has been happily renting cars on the weekends and scooting about town, so last weekend, when the only vehicle left was a truck, she took it and chauffeured her family to the country. At one point there, she backed up using only the truck's internal camera rather than also looking out the back window. Mistake - there was a storage container behind the truck the camera couldn't see - big crunch. Big big crunch. And it turns out her credit card company "does not cover luxury vehicles or trucks."

So what she's getting this birthday is money.

My son, too, had an accident - playing baseball with his new team on Sunday, he twisted his ankle, which is swollen, black and blue. It's only a sprain but he won't be able to work for a week. Luckily, the last time this happened, about a decade ago, he was given a special crutch for someone 6'8", and I kept it. So his special tall crutch is here waiting for him. The trouble with Swedish death cleaning: it means you probably shouldn't keep your son's special tall crutch for ten years in case he needs it again.

And then, something happened to me. I met with a former student yesterday, who's a successful editor now retired and learning, with trepidation, how to become a writer. I asked if she'd read my memoir and comment, and if she liked it, possibly mention it to a publisher. My fantasy: she'd say, I adore this book, don't touch a word, I have contacted all my friends in publishing and said, you MUST publish this.

You know where this is going, don't you? That is not what she said. She had many things to say, but none of them were about getting the book in its current form published. I have to digest what happened, which will take awhile, because I'm always ready to hear negative things about my work. So now I don't know if she's right and I need to start the book all over again, throwing away two years of work, or if I need to ignore her. Or something else. No idea.

Yesterday, my friend Judy, now Acting President of the Canadian Creative Nonfiction Collective, arrived from Vancouver and came for dinner. We sat outside on the deck, still hot at 7 p.m., and while we ate, I watched a pair of sparrows mating on my neighbour's roof. Every day the garden is more green, more full of life exploding.

We're a bit battered today, here in this corner of the world, but full of life too.

PS I just sent Anna a text: Happy Birthday you wonderful glorious woman.

And she wrote back, "Thank you to the wonderful glorious woman who brought me into the world and survived raising me! I am eternally grateful to you for always being my biggest supporter in literally every way. I love you so much Mum." Heart emoji.

I think I'll make it through the day.

U of T course Life Stories I is a go!

Good news, students: my U of T course is a go. A small but valiant band will start meeting Tuesday May 8 at 12.30. Please get in touch if you want more information. So far, my Ryerson class is still capped at 12, but I'm hoping they will find us a larger room. If not - if you really want to take my course this term - there's room at U of T! Come on over.

It's incredible outside. As usual, we went from winter to summer in seven and a half minutes. It's 28 degrees out there, stunning, very hot. I just went to the basement to try to find some sandals, and the great wardrobe transfer has begun - woolies out, sleeveless tops in. But it'll get cold again, and then we'll be confused, not knowing what to wear. But then it'll be hot for good.

Right now I'm waiting for my soup to be delivered. This is something new - a Cabbagetown restaurant is experimenting with making two different kinds of soup a week and, for $9, delivering them to your door on Tuesdays and Saturdays. I'm going to try today only and see how it feels. I think it will probably feel pretty damn good to have soup appear magically on my doorstep. Even if 28 degrees is warm for soup.

Yesterday, I took the gentle art of Swedish death cleaning to heart and started. Anna's friend Nicole came to help. She's invaluable - I talk to myself, I pick things up and question whether I need them, and then if I hand them to her, they vanish. If she puts them outside, they disappear in seconds, it's magic. I tidied one small section of the living room, that's all, but it's a start. My GOD there's a lot of stuff in this house. Horrifying. But then, it's not just my lifetime's accumulation, it's my parents' and grandparents' and even a great-aunt or two.

Mostly, these days are about preparing for the conference, which will hit with a vengeance on Thursday and take over until Sunday night - total immersion in creative non-fiction. Many emails are flowing. Much planning is happening. And in the middle of it all, my daughter turns 37. I will not be celebrating with her this year, at least, not on the day. Another day, to honour her 37 years on this earth and my 37 years as her mother.

There's a New Yorker cartoon I love - a woman is watering a couple of little plants and a man is saying, "Do you think we'll ever regret having two plants and a bowl of pebbles instead of children?"

Yes. The answer is yes.

P.S. Curried zucchini soup. To eat outside on the deck in the sun with some fresh Blackbird Bakery sourdough and a salad. The air is full of birdsong and the trees of buds. Yes yes yes.

"The Whirlpool"

At the Y on Wednesday, my locker mate Tina, who changes next to me and whom I have never met outside the Y, said, "Welcome back. I followed the blog and feel like I was in B.C. with you."

I didn't even know she was aware of my last name, let alone the blog.

Today, in the Sunday morning class at the Y, I realized how out of shape I am. Forest bathing and wrestling with a wooly puppy over her favourite slipper do not a fitness regime make, and let's face it, I was mostly sitting in Chris's studio fussing over words or cooking or eating Chris's baking. So the legs, arms, and heart need some upgrading. How - my usual cry - how to find time to do everything that needs to be done, including fitness? I am still overwhelmed, though gradually feeling more in control - finally got some groceries, that helps. But the house - the house needs so much time and tending, and each time I enter a chaotic room, especially my office, I am tempted to turn around and walk out again. So I do.

Yesterday's treat: a student's book launch. Laurel Croza took my course many years ago, transformed one of her class exercises into the picture book "I Know Here" which won many prizes, put out a second picture book, and, now, a book of stories for pre-teens. She sent all of them to me to edit in the early stages, so it was a huge treat to read them again in a beautiful little book, "The Whirlpool," put out by Groundwood. Laurel had never done any creative writing before coming to my class; she's tenacious, hardworking, focussed. Very proud of her. (And grateful - when she gave her speech, she thanked family and friends, then turned to me and said "Beth is the best writing teacher in Toronto." And I didn't have to pay her much to say so.)

To be honest, I would give my eye teeth for a book launch here, at the offices of acclaimed Canadian publisher House of Anansi.
From there to the Emerson, a great little restaurant nearby that happens to be where my son works. We had time before his shift for dinner together; I haven't seen him for months. The owner, who's a high school friend of Anna's, bought me a glass of champagne. It's amazing how good the service is when you're dining with someone who works there. Beef Wellington, tomato salad, champagne followed by a Cote de Rhone, with a charming beloved companion - I'm a lucky woman.

Today it's chilly but the sun is strong. I have to say, I'll take this over mild and dark cloudy grey. Now to write a list and get moving, figure out what's most urgent. Top of my list: centipedes. There are always a few around, but they're moving up and out: there was one in the bathtub last week and in my bedroom last night. Not welcome. Must kill.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline. -Duke Ellington, jazz pianist, composer, and conductor (29 Apr 1899-1974)

the little battles of life

An extraordinary day yesterday, battling both of the academic institutions for which I work, where my courses are due to start in two weeks. It seemed, yesterday, as if they were both out to make sure I can't do my job, which surely - don't you agree? - is counterintuitive.

As I've written, the numbers for my Life Stories memoir course at U of T are strangely low this term; I couldn't figure out why, so I went on the website. And found to my disbelief that they are running another memoir course, taught by a better-known writer, at exactly the same time on the same day. I've been teaching Tuesdays 12.30 to 3 at U of T for more than a decade, and that is the day and time they decided to give to another teacher of memoir. When I wrote to ask, they replied this was a mistake and apologized. Nothing to be done. My class will either be cancelled or extremely small.

Hey ho.

So then Ryerson's turn. My course there is almost always too full - the cut off number is 18 but I've had 19, which is absurdly big. The time, they wrote to say I'm at 12 and the class is full. What? At Ryerson, if we have fewer than 10 students in a class, we're paid less, so with only 12, with a few no-shows or dropouts, I'd end up with fewer than 10 and less pay. When I wrote to enquire about this strange cut off of 12, they replied that they've put the class in a "breakout room" which only seats 12 so they've cut off registration.

Let's get this straight: Ryerson is a vast sprawling campus through the downtown core of Toronto, and they cannot find a single room for my class that holds more than 12? Plus I've already battled them about breakout rooms - they're tiny glass boxes designed for a few students to sit and work alone, completely wrong for a memoir writing class.

Still not resolved.

So on top of the other stuff that was already roiling in my gut, I felt as if the world was conspiring to keep me from doing my jobs, the jobs that help pay my considerable bills. Phooey.

First world problems. I have a job. I have a roof and bread on my plate. Nothing to complain about, but it makes a great story. I love to whine.

And then my home class students arrived, writers who've been working with me, some of them, for years, and what fabulous stories, what skill and focus and honesty. Bad day forgotten. And now the sun is shining again. Only one thing to say: onward!

my Beatles talk at Miles Nadal May 24

An absurdly difficult day, to be explained some other time. But the sun is pouring in, and this just arrived, and soon my home class students will too. So all is well.

ode to chocolate

During Monday's visit. What Glammas do best - help smear chocolate on the face.

I'm down, I'm really down, as Paul McCartney sang

Your cheery correspondent is despondent tonight. The world is too much with me. Sometimes reading the newspaper is unbearable, and today in particular, after my own city was attacked and ten people slaughtered by a young man who, it now seems, was enraged because no woman would sleep with him. It seems that his loathsome assembly of Incel friends used to meet on Facebook to celebrate the murder of women and men who just might be sexually active. No, it's too insane, what's happening in the world is beyond comprehension. Syria, the Iran nuclear deal, climate change, immigration and refugees, increasing income disparity, ghastly Doug Ford looming in this province, every single thing that comes out of Trump's mouth, much much more. Sometimes, it's unbearable, just rubs me raw.

And then today, on that same FB, an intelligent woman who used to be a friend posted a racist comment by Winston Churchill with a diatribe shouting that he was "a mass murderer," and I made the mistake of asking for a bit of restraint, for us to be conscious of the mores of his times, as we will surely be harshly judged for our follies in times to come. Followed by a series of even more violent comments in rebuttal. Did Winston Churchill make a racist comment about black people being an inferior race? It's possible he did; he was born in 1874, a product of his times, for better or worse. Did he also help win the war against the Nazis? I guess that doesn't matter.

And then deciding not to wade further into that swamp, I read my dear Chris's blog, where he indicates that he's having a breakdown perhaps because of too many visitors staying too long. That means me. I know he was not blaming or accusing, but still, it hit hard.

Plus I spent the afternoon doing grunt work for our conference, fiddly work which needed to be done, and we were a great cheerful team doing it, but truly, that shouldn't have been the sort of thing we were called on to do.

Plus with two weeks till it starts, my class at U of T is very small so far. Though we did have a good meeting there yesterday and I got to meet some of my colleagues, that was nice.

I'm overwhelmed by all I have to do here, an endless list in this house plus the renovation to come. I'm sad and deeply concerned for a family member who is making what I think are poor, self-destructive choices, plus after two days of hot sun, it was grey and damp today, plus ... maybe I'm still jet-lagged and will cheer up tomorrow. I'm sure I will. I bet you are also hoping this sad sack will.

Plus my printer is out of ink and I have to go remember how to wrestle the new cartridge in.

First world problems, all. But tonight, not even wine helps.

PS Within two minutes of my posting this long self-pitying whine, dear friend Nick sent a kind email. What a blessing are friends. Now, time for peanut butter. That always helps.