Beth Kaplan's Blog, page 13

A bunch of birthday presents

Got the best birthday present this morning! A few days ago, despite the great joy Kamala’s rise is inspiring, I was feeling down about life, or at least about my writing work. Just uninspired and lost, spending far too much time reading FB, Twitter, IG, and various newspapers online and on paper. One of the toughest things about this job, about being an artist generally, is that you have no idea when it’s working and when it’s not. Not long ago I sent an essay I’d spent months honing to a literary magazine calling for work by women over 50. It wasn’t accepted. I feel in my gut they were wrong, it’s a powerful story, and, yes, I think it’s well-written.
But maybe I’m wrong.
No. I’m not wrong. They turned it down for their own reasons, and now I need to find another home for it.
Yesterday morning, I went up to my desk. Decided to write something for Brevity Blog, a great website for short pieces about the craft of writing nonfiction; a piece of mine was published there last October. Got an idea, started work, spent all day on it except for the usual Wednesday trip to Carole’s class at the Y. Finished in the evening and sent it in. The website says it takes from one to four weeks to hear back.
Had a reply first thing this morning from Dinty Moore himself, the founder of the site and a superb nonfiction writer and teacher. “This is an excellent teaching essay, well illustrated. We’d love to run it.”
Thank you! Validation from Dinty could not have come at a better time.

Another kind of validation, on FB this morning, from my daughter: Happy birthday mum/glamma! You are among our greatest blessings, and we thank the universe daily for your continued good health. Thank you for all the big and little things you do to make my life, and your grandsons lives, so much more fulfilling. Thanks for teaching through example how to welcome folks warmly into your home and life, how to care for those you love, and how to stand up and use your voice when you need to. We love you times infinity !

Does it get better than that? It does not. Sam is coming tomorrow to make me lunch. The San Miguel Writer’s Festival launched their website today, and there I am. Keynote speakers including John Vaillant and Ruth Reichl. Hope to meet them.

I love birthdays in this modern era. Although I’m spending the day alone, until Toronto Lynn comes to get me for a swim in her glorious pool and dinner, I am surrounded by love through FB and email and even cards in the mail. A gift on my bed this morning from Carol in the upstairs suite, and soon, I know, a birthday poem from dear Nick Rice, who never forgets. The gift of the garden is in full bloom; many perfect cucumbers are arriving but although the bean plants are enormous, there are no beans. Too much heat, perhaps.

Fabulous memes pouring in about the rise of the Dems and the sinking of the Repugs. The rise of the angry childless cat ladies, OMG, what a welcome miracle. Stay the course, Kamala!

It’s another scorcher. Time for a nap.

PS. In the recent NYT Book Review, a review by Mary Gabriel of The Long Run: a Creative Inquiry, by Stacey D’Erasmo. The review starts, “I do not believe there’s an artist in history who hasn’t asked themself — at least once — ‘Why do I do this?’ The designation of ‘creator’ may make for a glorious calling card, but as an occupation, it involves a disproportionate amount of spirit-crushing struggle and relatively few rewards.
And yet, day after day, year after year, century after century, we do it. We closet ourselves in our studios and workrooms and thrust our vulnerable selves on stage in order to produce art in the hopes that, to quote the poet Frank O’Hara, “someone, some day, may find it beautiful!”
And if that “some day” doesn’t come? We do it anyway. That doing — that creating, that wrestling with ourselves to exceed our limitations while, simultaneously, bracing to be ignored, misunderstood, and possibly ridiculed by a public we long to reach — is quite simply, who we are.”

Sing it, sister.

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birthday dinner, Michael J. Fox’s “Still,” Paris

“One day,” I whined to my son, “maybe you can throw a surprise party for me?”

I love celebrating my birthday, but it’s a lot of work. It’s always a dinner in my garden, which means I cook, clean, prepare, and buy or bake the birthday cake. This year, both — I made a peach cake but also bought a chocolate mousse cake for the boys. (Well — and for me. It’s rich and divine.)

Two invitees had to cancel so there were ten of us, family and old friends. Matt, Ben’s dad, brought the boys from a weekend with him and stayed. It was wonderful. Sam came early to help cook; among other treats, he made grilled peaches on skewers with prosciutto and basil. We started on the deck and moved to the back forty for dinner. Much rosé was drunk. So much, in fact, I was woozy and off all day yesterday.

Thank you, cherished guests, and to the powers that be for a perfect summer day. The actual birthday isn’t until Thursday but I feel it’s done and dusted. 74, here I come. Like it or not. So — I like it.

Before cancelling in a few days, I wanted to make use of the AppleTV+ subscription I got to watch Slow Horses, so was glad to see Still, a doc about Michael J. Fox. As you may know from Loose Woman, MJF and I were in a play together in Vancouver in 1976; although a teenager, he was skilfully playing a 12-year-old because he looked much younger, as he continued to do. The doc tells the story of immense success and huge tragedy — his first years in L.A. when he had little work and no money, and at the last minute, was cast in Family Ties and shot to instant fame and wealth. He talks about when he was shooting Family Ties during the day and Back to the Future at night, getting a few hours of sleep in the limos that drove him back and forth.

At 29, the devastating diagnosis he managed to hide for seven years, Parkinson’s. It hurts to watch as he struggles to walk, falls down, confesses the pain he’s in. Luckily, he’s married to a wonderful woman who’s stood by him all the way. He’s a good man, and it’s a moving doc. My only criticism is that not enough is said about his Canadian roots, particularly the magnificent show he did at the Arts Club Theatre in 1976, with such amazing talent around him that he was inspired for the rest of his life.

LOL.

Also watched two episodes of Ted Lasso, because everyone else has, and can see why people like it so much, with its open-hearted hero, an innocent like Candide, and an entertaining clash of cultures. Two episodes were enough, though. Watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and felt sorry for all of them in the ceaseless downpour. I don’t get why there’s been so much bitching about the production, except, of course, for Céline Dion, who was fabulous. I thought the rest, though a bit of a dog’s breakfast, also had lots of spectacular bits, like that stunning horse galloping down the Seine. It was too long and all over the map, yes. But let’s face it, what a backdrop, the most beautiful of all cities. Made me want to immediately get on a plane and redo my disastrous visit in early April. Getting sick in Paris — what a @#$# waste.

It’s nearly August; time to regroup. I have over a month with no teaching work, just editing and chores. Summer vacation: for a writer, that means, Time to get to work.

No rest for the wicked.

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Blue Jays, La Bohème, and Kamala as Wonder Woman

A quick word about how friends and family enrich my life, leading me to two diametrically opposed cultural experiences within 24 hours.

Even on the subway to Union Station on the way to the Blue Jays game last night, I was enveloped in team fervour, lots of excited people in the jerseys and caps. As were my grandboys, fully decked out in blue merch, with a mitt in case an errant ball came our way. Anna wore her Jays jersey beneath her keffiyeh, as is her wont. Grandpa Ed and I had bought good seats at vast expense for Ben’s birthday, as both boys love baseball. Ben was especially excited as he thought that somehow we were going to get him to the bullpen to get his cap signed by the players; he was disappointed to learn this was not possible.

More than 36,000 people joined us. It was Looney Dog day, it turned out – hotdogs for one dollar, so Ben ate 4 or 5, and I’m ashamed to say I ate two, which sat heavily in my stomach for many hours afterwards. (Over 65,000, they informed us, were sold.) Anna bought us some beer, and we were ready for the game — us versus the Tampa Rays.

It was dull. Long patches where little happens — umpires consulting, pitchers stretching and spitting, the Jumbotron exhorting us to “Make Some Noise,” so 36,000 people did. There were some thrilling catches, and two Jays home runs leading to roars of joy, but the other team was more solid. By the 8th inning, Ben was writhing, and we left. I was surprised thousands were also streaming out before the end. Final score: Rays 4, Jays 2.

The game may have been lacklustre, but the event was fiercely tribal; all those people in uniform belong to the tribe. Anna and I do not. Glad to have been there, done that, but would not see another professional game, unless one of my grandsons is playing.

Today, as an early birthday present, Ken invited me to lunch and then to the Met Live in HD at Cineplex to see their production of La Bohème. I’m ashamed to say that at nearly 74, I’d never seen La Bohème. And now I’ve seen the definitive production — stunning, every bit of it. Directed by Zeffirelli, incredible sets and direction, fabulous performances and singing — opera singers who can act, Sonya Yoncheva as Mimi and Michael Fabiano as Rodolfo, but they were all great. Miraculous, that on the screen we see close-ups of those faces, ordinary faces with ordinary-sized mouths, emitting the most spectacularly perfect sound.

Unfortunately, there were not over 36,000 people to see it. Maybe 30 for this revival, and almost all of them old.

And finally — Kamala! Suddenly the spirits of many millions, perhaps billions, of the world’s citizens lifted. She is utterly transformed, at least, so far. Where was this sparkling, spirited, dynamic, hard-hitting, joyful woman as vice-president? For some reason, hidden, but now emerging, like all the memes of her as Wonder Woman, to save the planet.

I’m With Her!

On the other hand, Netanyahu can go to hell. And definitely will.

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Garden workshop recap, and Joe, thank you for giving the world hope.

This past week was about as busy as I get. My ex was visiting all week, staying here, so much time with family, including a sleepover here with our energetic grandboys.

I posted this on Facebook and received over 80 warm replies:

“At the start of my memoir-in-essays “Midlife Solo,” there’s an essay called “Announcement,” about the devastating moment my husband of ten years and I decided to end our marriage. And at the end of the book, “Coffeeshop Agreement” illuminates the moment we came to an understanding about contentious matters, fired our lawyers, and continued as co-parents and allies. Year by year, our friendship and mutual support have grown. I think of him as one of my dearest and wisest friends; we agree about so much. When he visits, staying here in what was our marital home, we talk endlessly about old friends and missing friends and family – our parents, his brothers. Our children, now nearly 40 and 43, come across town to their childhood home to be with both their parents. Decades later, this still astounds me.The love he and I have for each other is one of the greatest gifts of my life. At this dire time on our planet, every bit of kindness and forgiveness and love helps. So he and I are doing our bit.”

As well as family duties, I was trying to keep up with the garden, watering, pruning, fertilizing the sprawling bean plants with nary a bean in sight, the constant battle with slugs. A keen student arrived from Edmonton to take the writing workshop and stayed here. The woman from whom we bought this house in 1986 dropped in for a visit. I went briefly to enjoy chic cocktails with my talented friend Alanna and her partner Myles in their artist loft-type space.

The day-long garden workshop involves a huge amount of prep: making lunch for eleven people, gardening, getting out and scrubbing the spare chairs, cleaning and setting up the house, preparing the prompts.

The workshop launched at 10 a.m. yesterday. There were supposed to be 12, including a 17-year-old boy, but he was ill and another couldn’t make it, so there were ten. Three of them brought their published books to show and to sell. And as always, it was a joy to hear minds at work and pens scratching (devices are forbidden) at first on the deck, and then spread throughout the garden. The weather was perfect, mild and a bit cloudy. And much good work was done. We finish always with a glass of wine and discussion; one of the participants suggested they establish a Zoom link and continue to get together, to support each other’s work. Nothing could make me happier.

And in the middle of it all, the news that Biden had resigned. Thank god! I don’t know if Kamala Harris is the right person to succeed him, there are stronger candidates. But at least now there’s hope the unthinkable might be averted.

Now, today, silence. Regrouping. Taking a breath. On Tuesday, to a Blue Jays game with Anna and the boys for Ben’s birthday — my first time at a professional baseball game, to the disbelief of my family. And this coming Sunday, my 74th birthday party. So I will enjoy this last week of 73. And perhaps not do much.

We’ll see how that plays out.

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weathering the storm

Kind friends have been writing to ask if all is well here, after the severe flooding yesterday. It was an incredible storm, quite terrifying for a homeowner whose basement has flooded in the past. Sheets of pounding rain, deafening cracks of thunder — a month’s worth of rain in three hours, but luckily, nothing in the basement. Praise the lord for sump pumps! Friend Annie’s basement — a foot of water.

My ex is staying here this week, and we were supposed to take Anna and the boys to see a movie. Many texts and phone calls as the situation grew more dire; even one of the downtown movie theatres was flooded. Finally, they managed to make it over here on a functional bus, to hang out as the rain stopped and helicopters and sirens sounded. Went for a walk and found Riverdale Park, usually a big baseball field, was now a swimming pool. Dogs splashing joyfully in the water, people wading, the water nearly waist deep.

Anna went home and we watched a Netflix movie: Orion and the Dark, a lovely film about a boy facing his fears, written by the marvellous Charley Kaufmann. Then a huge bedtime snack, more chapters of Holes, and bed for the boys, with subsequent squeals and whispers and the pitter-patter of not so tiny feet. But eventually, peace. Grandpa meanwhile was already asleep, exhausted.

This morning, pancakes outside for breakfast as the city dries off and recovers.

My social media feeds are all pointing out that our current government cut the budget for flood preparedness, and the paving over of so much of the city leads directly to flooding. Thanks again, Ford and his gang of idiots.

Speaking of gangs of idiots, I’m truly depressed about the U.S. What strange force is protecting one of the most evil men on earth? The spectacle of his gang of lying lying liars, sensing victory — horrifying, terrifying, nauseating. It once seemed impossible this fascist airhead, eager to destroy the world, could be re-elected, but not any more. And now has beside him another fascistic bully. And a memoir writer, to boot! How extremely sad.

Today is Ben’s ninth birthday. Grandpa and I gave him four tickets to see the Blue Jays next week. After opening his present, he said thank you but his favourite sport is not baseball now but hockey. However. I think he’ll manage to have a good time. And then he and his brother played soccer and tag and jump over the furniture and create chaos, as is their wont. Though I did request that Eli and Grandpa assemble something for me, and in minutes, they did.

The hurricane has just gone back across town with Grandpa, and I will put my house to rights before joining them. A busy week. Trying to shut out the horrors south of us and focus on what matters: family, love, kindness. Birthdays. The fact that one of my dearest old friends is visiting from his home in the land of the crazy people.

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The writer as mother: confronting Alice Munro

Yesterday was the day to post a new Substack essay; I post once every two weeks about writing and the writing life. I had topics in mind, but top of mind, although I also want the subject to go away, was Alice Munro. I wanted to contribute to the agonized reckoning. Some of the discussions have turned vicious, with a writer on CBC radio calling Alice a sociopath and many others calling her a monster; anyone with anything but a black-and-white viewpoint is accused of condoning child abuse.

It was with trepidation that  I spent the day writing this. Let me know what you think.

TOUCHPOINTS: A WRITER’S TRUTHThe writer as motherConfronting Alice Munro BETH KAPLANJUL 14, 2024

In 1980, after a decade as an actress and pregnant with my first child, I went back to university to earn a Master’s in creative writing. My thesis was completed the day before I went into labour with my second child. By 1990, I was a single mother with an MFA and two small children, wondering how to begin this solitary new career.

I looked around for role models, women raising happy children while publishing successful books. There were few, at least that I could see. Something I’d been told burned into me: of the three things a female writer might want — marriage, children, and a successful writing career — she could have two of the three, but not all three. Virginia Woolf — marriage and career. Margaret Laurence — children and career.

Mary Cassatt’s Breakfast in Bed (1897)

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Is it simply impossible, I wondered, for a writer mother to devote much of her soul to her work and have enough left over for the demands of her family? Years later I found out Carol Shields had managed the feat, with a supportive husband and five, count them, five children. Margaret Atwood too, though with one child and also with a husband whose career took a back seat to hers.

These days, of course, there are many examples.

Through the nineties and beyond, I floundered, immersed in the exhausting business of raising kids and keeping an old house going. What launched me was writing personal essays, and then teaching others to do what I was doing — excavating daily life and the past for the short pieces I had time for. It wasn’t until my kids had left home that I was able to turn to the immersive project of books. My children came first, always. I felt guilty, in fact, that I didn’t and couldn’t tell them no, felt I was lazy and scattered and letting down the feminist side that urged women to prioritize themselves and their careers.

I did not want to turn into my own mother, a clever housewife with frustrated ambitions. But for some years, I did. For better or worse — better for my children, perhaps, and definitely worse for my career — putting my work first was out of the question for me.

I do not regret my years as their fulltime caregiver. Well, yes, as a more or less unknown writer whose books have barely made a dent, a bit of regret. But very little, because my children, with all their issues, love me and each other and the world.

I’ve been thinking of all this in light of the horrifying revelations about Alice Munro — that, after finding out her husband many years before had sexually abused Andrea, one of her daughters, she left him briefly but went back and stayed with him, lovingly, until he died. How could she do something so heinous? How is it possible to write with extraordinary, brilliant sensitivity and depth about the lives of girls and women, and yet have no sympathy for your own daughter?

The answer, as far as I’m concerned, is that Alice didn’t try for three out of three. She chose career and marriage, and let her responsibilities as a mother go. What she did to Andrea was devastatingly complicit and wrong. But nonetheless, she will always be one of the world’s great writers, a woman who saw the frailties and evil, blindness and desperation in the human soul — surely, in her own soul — and wrote it with extraordinary clarity and courage.

We can condemn her for validating her own needs over the needs of her child, absolutely, especially when dealing with something as appalling as child sexual abuse. Women since time immemorial have turned a blind eye to the misdeeds of the men they love, even at the expense of their children. This in no way excuses them. But if we only read books by stellar human beings, we’d not read at all.

No matter her grievous sins as a mother and a woman, her books are part of the world’s artistic treasure.

I write this in the hopes that people disgusted by the story will consider nuance and context before throwing her books into the garbage, as they are now doing; before hurrying to cancel one of our country’s superb creators.

Male artists have chosen their work over their families forever; being a great writer and simultaneously a good parent is rarely expected of them. But we do not want women, mother artists, to do it. We do not want icons to do it. Alice did it.

There’s a price for great art. Because she was selfish, we have her brilliant, bitter, terrifying stories.

Andrea and her siblings paid a terrible price for our reading pleasure.

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The Pigeon Tunnel, and breakfast

A  lovely moment – soft rain after a hot day. I can smell the cedar of my deck, jasmine, phlox. Life.

Spent Thursday waiting for my new plumber to bring his very heavy equipment to check for tree roots in my drainpipes. The silver maple at the front is one of the biggest trees in the hood, the pipes are only a few feet away, and twice, a long time ago in a nightmare scenario, my basement filled with sewage because of roots in the pipes. The good news is, no problem right now, and Chris the plumber is a really good guy. The only problem – he’s so good that he’s always busy. It’s comforting, however, to know a good plumber.

Just finished Yellowface, by R. F. Kuang, and though I couldn’t stop reading, can’t say I enjoyed it. It’s an exposé of how vicious and isolating the world of publishing can be, how corrosive are literary jealousies, how desperately some writers struggle to make it to the big leagues. It’s a feat of writing to propel us through a novel with such a flawed narrator. Depressing, though. Especially this week, when the world is looking at the flawed genius Alice Munro through an extremely critical magnifying glass.

Made me glad I’m not more ambitious, to tell you the truth.

Won’t write anything else about Alice. Why isn’t there good news about our heroes? Wait — I’m sure we’ll learn that Paul McCartney has given millions to good causes. No scandal there. Fingers crossed.

I got AppleTV+ temporarily to watch the rest of Slow Horses, which as far as I’m concerned went off-track in the last episode, from spy thriller to shoot-em-up slaughterhouse with a TRULY unpleasant protagonist. But entertaining. I also watched The Pigeon Tunnel, a doc about the great John LeCarré, aka David Cornwell, talking about his life, his abandonment by his cold mother (he cannot remember her ever touching him), and especially his felonious, often-jailed father. A true story of surviving parental neglect and misdeeds and making good. Though the interviewer does say the writer seems to evince profound self-hatred, which LeCarré agrees with. Such a thoughtful man, with a beautiful shy smile. A spy, through and through.

Who said writing was easy? Nobody.

Saw a NYT article I object to: Over 60, Single and Never Happier: “People in their 60s and beyond who are single and flourishing is an untold story,” said Bella DePaulo, a social scientist who studies single life (and is a single 70-year-old herself). “And it’s a feel good story that shatters all of our stereotypes.”

BUT IT IS NOT AN UNTOLD STORY, NYT! It’s very clearly told in the feel good stories in Midlife Solo: writing through chaos to find my way in the world. Give it a try!

Speaking of which, a reader sent this nice note: I have finished MidLife Solo, dragging it on as I didn’t want it to end. I enjoyed every essay and I’m sure everyone has different favourites. My faves are: Reading Harry Potter, Mother+Son #1, and Secret. I think, in Status Update, you sell yourself short … the ripples you send out travel far. Keep on being brave!

Thank you, dear reader. I will try.

A bon mot that made me laugh: “Kitty Carlisle’s mother said that the best thing about being older is that, every 15 minutes or so, it’s time for breakfast again.” A kindred spirit, who agrees: breakfast=joy.

Here’s an essay written by one of my home students for class, which I suggested she send to the Globe. When I congratulated her on publication, she replied, “Let’s face it—it’s your painstaking guidance to get me out of an academic writing style that made it possible. ”

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/33424a063dfef4b3222251173da2673688c105c2a2e8bd1782a4a0f2f686cfe5/KMCMP6IHFJD5FCEJGM7AU6K4KQ/

Keep those cards and letters coming. Well, those essays, anyway. More thoughtful words, that’s what the world needs now. And forever.

But for now I sit, looking out at the rain …

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A gratitude call

A great gift yesterday — I made a gratitude call I’ve been wanting to make for many years.

In 1974 I was a young actress in Victoria hired to do a three-month school tour. The play we were touring turned out to be a jumbled version of various Greek myths; the production was badly directed, garbled, and in some instances, ridiculous (described, briefly, in the essay on my acting career in Midlife Solo). I was appalled, not just that I’d have to tour this thing for months, but that we were taking it to schools; I thought we’d turn kids off theatre for life.

An older actress named Kim Yaroshevskaya was working in Victoria and came to see the preview. Afterwards, I took her aside to ask her advice on how to survive the next months. She thought for a long while, and then she said, “Think of this production as a cruel and ugly child that has been entrusted to your care.”

That advice saved my skin then and for other shows. In my career I encountered several cruel and ugly children, but they needed me to give them what tenderness and skill I could, and I did my best. I’ve wanted to thank Kim ever since and have tried to find her. Recently, my friend Kathleen in Montreal posted an old picture with her, and when I asked, told me she’s a hundred years old and blind and sent me her phone number. I called with some trepidation.

What a wonderful chat we had. She kept saying, “Thank you, thank you!” And she told me if I wanted to know about her life, to read her book, which I have since ordered from the library.

The warmth from this encounter carried me through yesterday, as the country and the world was and is still dealing with the fallout of the Alice tragedy. As usually, the condemnation is harsh and unforgiving, without context. This is what I posted on FB and IG today:

Another article about Alice and Andrea in the Star this morning, which ends with what is to me a horrifying image: someone posting a picture of Alice’s books in a garbage can. Once again, we rush to condemn, unwilling to grasp nuance and context in a painful story. Fact: a woman born in 1931 who, years after the events in question, refused to deal with her daughter’s abuse by her husband; she left him but returned and lived with him until his death. Context: When and where Alice grew up, no one protected children or dealt with any form of abuse, and a woman needed a man. Alice loved Gerry, but also, she lived in his house, in the country; she didn’t drive, and as Margaret Atwood makes clear in today’s article, she had few practical skills. Gerry took care of daily life while she wrote. She needed him to survive and to work, and she chose him. She chose her work. We can condemn her for validating her own needs over the needs of her child, absolutely, especially with something as heinous as abuse. But nonetheless, she will always be one of the world’s great writers, a woman who saw the frailties and evil, blindness and desperation in the human soul and wrote it with extraordinary clarity and courage.Women since time immemorial have turned a blind eye to the flaws of the men they love, even at the expense of their children. This in no way excuses them. But if we only read books by stellar human beings, we’d not read at all. No matter her grievous sins as a mother and a woman, her books are part of the world’s artistic treasure.

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Today’s shocker: Alice Munro. Sheesh.

Another one bites the dust. Opened the Toronto Star this beautiful Sunday morning to a shocking article, alleging that Alice Munro’s second husband Gerry sexually abused Alice’s youngest daughter Andrea; that both Andrea’s father Jim and eventually her mother were told, and more or less nothing happened. The family protected the reputation of their famous mother, who needed and loved her husband, at the expense of a daughter.

To be fair, Alice apparently didn’t know about the abuse until Andrea told her at age 25. Alice left Gerry for a few months but then went back to him, and that was that. She described him as the love of her life. Andrea went to the police in 2005 and Gerry was charged, but nothing was ever made public. Andrea and her mother were estranged for the last years of Alice’s life.

How is it possible to write with extraordinary, brilliant sensitivity and depth about the lives of girls and women, and yet have little empathy for your own daughter? I guess geniuses need to be selfish. We knew that already, but here it is again.

There are many sad and appalling things about this story, one being the notes Gerry wrote about the event, in which he casts Andrea, who was nine when the abuse started, as Lolita, a seductive temptress, and himself as a hapless Humbert Humbert. I guess that’s what a lot of men tell themselves: they wanted it, they enjoyed it, what could I do?

But what’s hard to get our heads around is the brilliant Nobel prize winner choosing this man over her child. Bewildering and tragic. Her stories will of course live on, but now, I think, there will always be a taint.

Is it possible to be a really good writer and also a really good mother? Asking for a friend. I’ve written before about a book of letters between Carol Shields and a dear friend, where it’s clear the friend is busy volunteering for various good causes in her community, and Carol, the mother of four, is writing. Focus, determination, and sometimes choosing the work over all other things, I’m sure are absolutely necessary. But to what extent?

Thinking about this especially because I’m reading the superb book about men and boys, wondering how well I did with my own boy. Good enough, I hope. He’s a man who expresses his feelings and talks freely and has close friends, so that’s a win. I wish I’d thought more about the specific needs of boys, though. The author writes that she just wants her three boys to sit still and read a book so she can too, and that’s what I wanted of my boy. It didn’t happen.

Startling revelation #639: It’s hard to be a parent. But the bottom line is, you always, always, protect your children from predators. Even if you’re married to one.

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Just One Thing: how simple changes can transform your life

First corn of the season at the market this morning, and for the first time ever, I bought beets. Because my new friend Dr. Michael Mosley told me to.

I devoured his book, Just One Thing: How simple changes can transform your life, quick chapters with sensible, doable advice. Much of what he proposes I already do: Dance, sing (loudly, often), read 30 minutes a day, nap after lunch, spend time in nature, get sun on skin, have houseplants in the rooms most lived in, learn something new (piano), brush teeth standing on one leg, exercise regularly including short daily bouts (cycling, stairs, gardening), eat dark chocolate,  eat an apple a day (for me, not quite but almost).

Some things I will probably not do, including eating sauerkraut for breakfast, playing video games, and taking cold showers.

But it’s the other things I’ll perhaps try – like delaying breakfast an hour, having nothing to eat in the evening, eating oily fish 2-3 times a week, drinking water with every meal, meditating. Etc. As he says, simple changes. (However, not enough about the importance of chilled rosé on a hot summer day, Michael.) I used to watch his entertaining program Trust Me, I’m a Doctor on TVO. Unfortunately, this bright, valuable man who lived a profoundly healthy lifestyle died recently on a Greek island, at age 67, probably of heat exhaustion after getting lost on a hike. But he left behind many good ideas and books, including this one.

He advised eating beets. So I’m going to try eating beets, previously used only in borscht. My mother loved them, grown in her childhood British garden, so a learning curve started for me with the bunch I bought today. Stay tuned.

Another book just picked up from Ben McNally: BoyMom: reimagining boyhood in the age of impossible masculinity, by Ruth Whippman, whom I heard interviewed on CBC. The mother of 3 sons, she is anxious about the many difficulties facing men and boys these days, and as the grandmother of two young boys facing a difficult world, I agree with her. Anna has been telling me horror stories about what some of Eli’s friends are up to, smoking weed and having sex at the age of twelve, and more; a friend of his just ran away and the police are looking for him. Most of these boys are without fathers. It’s the wild west out there; I hope this book will give me a guide map, so I, Glamma, can be helpful.

The boys and I just finished reading Michael Morpurgo’s Kensuke’s Island, another story about a boy surviving alone, with good sense, courage, and resilience, just as in Hatchet. A moving story from the author of War Horse. 

Today is my father’s yahrzeit; he died 36 years ago today. I burn the candle and think of him. He would be appalled by the world hurtling into fascism, and by the descent of his own birth country into absurdity and terrifying incompetence. We are watching a Greek tragedy in Joe Biden, destroyed by the very things, like his tenacity, that helped him be a successful politician and president. Enough, Joe. Give it a rest. Time to hand over the torch, the reins, the nuclear codes. NOW.

The good news is that the garden goes on without us, as poet Lorna Crozier wrote. The new milkweed is planted, I hope the monarchs find it. Soon there’ll be a lot of cukes, tomatoes, and chard. And the Annabelle snowball hydrangeas are ridiculous; I have to hack them back.

Another thing Mosley suggests is a gratitude journal. I am always grateful, as perhaps you know, but have started to keep one anyway, writing down last thing at night 3 or 4 things loved during the day. Today, so far, it will be running into Annie at the market this morning, the walnut raisin bread from St. John’s Bakery, and eating the stir fry my son cooked for me yesterday. My son the Viking, who just sent this from his gardening job, saying, “Greetings from sweaty work day! Love you.”

Men, including this one, may be having difficulties, but his sense of humour, kindness, and loyalty remain intact. And I could not be more grateful for that.

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