Beth Kaplan's Blog, page 56

fan mail

Proud mama here - I'm watching the young male cardinal who fledged in my garden as he inspects the offerings. The bird feeder is full but he just checked out my spices on the deck, landing with no trepidation a few feet from the kitchen door. He's soft brown streaked with flame, with a bright orange beak - gorgeous.

And more proud mama - for any of you worried about keeping the bee population alive and flourishing, I have 3 words for you: rose of Sharon. I have two big trees, and they're stuffed with bees rolling around or splayed out on those long exposed pistils, coating themselves with pollen in such a languidly sexual way, they almost make me blush. 

So much going on. Still no word on a CT scan, so my health is in limbo, but I'm feeling better. Watched a doc on Chuck Berry and another on Buddy Guy, a brilliant but shy musician finally getting his due. It's interesting that he first found acclaim in Britain in the sixties - the Beatles, Stones, and other Brit bands revered black American music in a way the Americans did not. 

Yesterday, a busy day: I went up the street for a therapeutic massage with Laura, because she's leaving the business. So skilled, those fingers! Then a few blocks west to get my hair cut with Dianne, my first cut with a professional since last January - so skilled, those fingers! And then next door to a restaurant called Noushe to get Persian takeout: chicken-pomegranate stew with saffron rice, sublime. All within a few blocks of home. I love my 'hood.

When I got back, I tried a selfie - slightly retouched, I confess. The magic wand, wiping out a few of those tiny lines. If only we had one in real life. If only my chin were a little smaller, my eyes not so hooded, the lines beside my nose not quite so engraved. But - as Dianne said - enjoy what you have now, because in five years, you'll miss it. Wise words.

In the nice words department, Ruth just wrote, I finished All My Loving, and loved it. So much going on in your young life, and so well depicted in just the right voice. And of course, your rich vocabulary and your imagination at that young age is "awesome", even "gear". 

And Anne wrote,  re my fervent recommendation of Late Migrations a few days ago, "In case you don’t realize what an influencer you are, I put a hold on this book within a day or two of your recommending it.  At that time, there were no other holds. Today there are nine for the ten copies. Good job!!"

OMG, I'm, like, an influencer, just like all those 18-year olds on Instagram and TikTok! The big bucks will soon be rolling in! 
LOL.

Hooray for beautiful Mary Simon our new gg.

I turned on CBC yesterday morning by chance and realized it was the investiture of our new governor-general, so went to my computer to watch as well as listen. It was extraordinary. Mary Simon is an inspiring, beautiful Inuit woman who gave an inspiring, beautiful talk. Imagine, she said among many other things that working to de-stigmatize mental illness will be one of her priorities! She spoke in lyrical English, fluent Inuktitut, and brave French about her childhood in the Arctic; "Canada is an Arctic nation," she said, and went on at length about the crisis of climate change. She spoke about the generous hard unsung work being done by Canadians in communities across the land and specifically thanked frontline health care workers. And of course, most importantly, she spoke about reconciliation with the Indigenous first people of this country. 

Such a warm, welcome presence in our land. Long may she reign!

I was invited out for lunch yesterday - another first after many months - by Ron Hume, a member of the men-only book club who are such vociferous fans of "Loose Woman." Ron, who's in his eighties, was an entrepreneur who once marketed books and had marketing ideas for me; he said the memoir is so good, it should be much more widely known and wants to try to help me get it into book clubs. "A superb writer like you shouldn't waste a minute on marketing, you should be writing," he said, music to my ears, but unfortunately not possible. His ideas are interesting but do involve time and effort and are a long shot, so we'll see if anything works. 

It does make me sad that although the reviews have been uniformly positive, my book, without any media coverage, is relatively unknown. But not sad enough to make me spend hours a day burbling on social media, which is the job. 

At lunch, during which lively Ron, his interesting poet wife Babs, and I consumed a bottle of Pinot Grigio and delicious lobster ravioli, he told me their Covid ritual; at 5 every day for an hour they both have a glass of single malt Scotch and listen to jazz. He curates his favourites for her with the help of Spotify. She has learned to love jazz too though she grew up in Liverpool and is a huge Beatles fan and invited me over to their house to dance. 

Also heard a fascinating CBC interview with James Nestor, author of a book called "Breath," about the importance of breathing through your nose and other facts about breathing which should be self-evident but aren't. 

Today, I've another podcast interview on Zoom. I will be breathing through my nose. 

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/the-sunday-magazine-for-january-17-2021-1.5874646/how-we-breathe-has-major-impacts-on-our-body-james-nestor-has-recommendations-to-improve-it-1.5874681

Yesterday evening a walk in the 'hood with my neighbour Gretchen, our first face to face encounter in many months. I spotted something in the grass: an angel mushroom. Not sure if it grew this way or is a regular mushroom damaged, but it's a magical thing, don't you think?

definitely not my Salinger year

Had a disturbing email yesterday from the director of the Whistler prize: she'd heard from the other finalists but not from me so was trying from a different address. It turned out that 2 weeks ago, her first email had for some unknown reason gone to my Yahoo spam file. She'd asked if I'd send 3 books immediately to B.C., plus a bio, a picture, the book cover etc. It was all supposed to have been done by last week.

Panic. In my haste I addressed the heavy parcel of books with the wrong address - the Whistler Writers' Festival not the Whistler Book Awards, they're different, who knew? When I got home and found out my mistake I rushed back to the post office to rewrite the address, to be told that because I'd sent the parcel Express - at a cost of $50 - I could neither take it back nor change it. 

Panic. However, luckily, once the books arrive at the wrong address, the director will get them forwarded in time for the judges to read. And judge. 

Do we need a little more stress in our lives? Emphatically no, and yet, there it is. A few months ago, I sent an essay to a friend who's an editor at a literary magazine. After a few weeks, I wrote, sorry you didn't like it, I'll try again with another. She wrote back, Didn't you get my email? I love it and want to run it!

That email, and the one from the competition, are the only ones that have gone to my Yahoo spam folder; I checked. Weird!

If possible, the awards people would like us to be there in October when the winner is announced. I can get there on points and am considering doing so. Any excuse to visit dear friends, including the mountains and the ocean. 

The other evening I started to watch "My Salinger Year," about a wannabe writer who quits university to work for an eccentric, old-fashioned literary agent who handles J. D. Salinger. Sounded great. However, within 15 minutes, I'd given up; the heroine, a dewy 20-year old without a single interesting feature, tells the agent that her poems have won a literary prize and been printed in "The Paris Review." Oh sure. And I'm Imelda Marcos. 

I went through an obsessive Salinger period in Grade 13, read everything, wanted to sound like Holden - finished every sentence with "and all" - revered the Glass family. Don't do it, Seymour! But nowadays, Jerry has been tarred with the #MeToo brush. 

Saturday was shopping day - at the market, corn and peaches are in, hooray! And then to Doubletake, a shadow of its former self. However, I saw something in a bin and fished it out: a red leather wallet from Liberty of London, fabric by William Morris, for $1. I'm a simple woman. It takes so little to make me happy.

celebrating a good book, a good writer

This is as close to perfection as any experience can be: on the deck on a perfect summer afternoon - a lone cicada, a cabbage butterfly and a bee nuzzling the lavender, a cardinal fledgling alighting briefly in the lilac, and here, a wonderful book that I've just finished. It was a joy from beginning to end. Here are a few bits of Margaret Renkl's writing:

(She's writing about how despite cruelty, human beings are an empathetic species.)

In 1988, during one stop on our honeymoon, my husband and I visited the San Diego Museum of Man. On display at the time was an exhibit of ancient clay figures. The human figures were all visibly different in some way: people with dwarfism, people missing a limb, people with severely curved spines or extra fingers. An informational placard explained that these figures had been fashioned by members of a tribe who revered physical difference. What we call a disability they had considered a blessing: God had entrusted to the care of their community a rare treasure, and even in their art they strove to be worthy of that trust.

That is at least partially what Loose Woman is about. 

Another, from a chapter called "While I Slept":

I stood at the window in the dim kitchen and watched the snow pour from the sky. I don't know how long I stood there before something just outside the window began to take shape in the dawn light, something alive with movement and still somehow immobile. Finally a bird feeder untangled itself from the limb of a hackaberry tree, and all around it cardinals were jostling for space. The snow was falling, and they were falling too, and rising again — a blur of movement within movement against the still backdrop of fallen snow and black branches, a scarlet tumult reeling from feeder to spilled seeds and back, again and again and again. I stood in the window and watched. I watched until I knew I could keep them with me, until I believed I would dream that night of wings.

And one more, writing about her sorrow as her sons grow up and leave home:

And yet I sometimes let myself imagine what a gift it would be to start all over again with this man, with these children, to go back to the beginning and feel less restless this time, less eager to hurry my babies along. Why did I spend so much time watching for the next milestone when the next milestone never meant the freedom I expected? There will be years and years to sleep, I now know, but only the briefest weeks to smell a baby's neck as he nestles against my shoulder in the deepest night. 

That one brought tears to my eyes. I have one word for her: grandbabies. 

I feel newly inspired. Her writing is, as one editor said dismissively about Loose Woman, "beautiful but tender." Very beautiful, very tender, in the simplest prose, clear, vivid, haunting. Something to aim for.

More treats: yesterday, a day in the Beach with Annie. We rode our bikes to her secret place in Ashbridge's Bay for a swim but it was too cold. And then we did something I haven't done since last March - we went out for lunch! We sat on a patio on Queen St. East and someone brought us food and beer! It was miraculous. And then I rode my bike home. Was ready for a swim by the time I got there. 

Today, for those of you following my travails, I saw the doctor at St. Mike's and am not much further ahead. He is ordering another CT scan and then we'll discuss. This may take up to 6 weeks. 

Yesterday my friend Jannette who helps in the garden said, "I hope when you sell this place, you find someone who's also a gardener." It jolted me. Someone else? Really? Yes, perhaps, one day. But not yet. Not now. Not today.

In love with Margaret Renkl

A quick note because I share everything with you, almost, to say that I am partway through the most exquisite book. I discovered Margaret Renkl through her op-ed columns in the NYT, so ordered her memoir, "Late Migrations: a natural history of love and loss," from the library. I've read 100 pages and find myself making a noise as I finish another short, gripping chapter, a sigh of wonder at yet another gorgeous piece of writing and thought. The chapters are quick snapshots of her childhood, blended with essays about her life now seen with a naturalist's eye, as she writes about the birds, squirrels, chipmunks, and snakes that populate her garden. With beautiful illustrations by her brother Billy.

It's rich and filling - a banquet.    

Yesterday's treat: the book club, six men who all LOVED MY MEMOIR. They wanted to talk about paths to publication, about what it was really like at L'Arche, about why I reveal so much of myself so bravely in the book. "Because that's the job of a memoirist," is always my answer, but we also discussed how doing such a thing is easier for women than for men, generally. We laughed and talked for an hour and a half. It was grand. And they say their wives also loved the book and want it for their book clubs. Wouldn't that be amazing? We'll see. Let us hope. 

Today's treat: on a perfect day, sunny but not too hot, I went swimming in my friend Toronto Lynn's pool, which is like a grotto. She has created a lovely garden which also has a small pond which, while we were eating on the deck, a young raccoon came to visit. We watched a father cardinal feed his youngster on one of her trees. And then we plunged into the cool water - my first swim of the year. She has been going through radiation treatment for breast cancer, but you wouldn't know it; her energy and cheer are unchanged. 

Blessings, all round, today. 

celebrating human creativity - Macca and my friend John

Bliss is ... hours of programming about Paul McCartney. Can you imagine, for an über-fan like moi? Six half-hour episodes of Macca being interviewed by producer Rick Rubin about his composing methods, how they with George Martin put together the tracks in the studio, and of course his band mates. I watched 3 last night, will watch the rest tonight. Simply hearing the man's music is heaven enough - Blackbird, And I love her, Back in the USSR, Lady Madonna, Hey Jude, Let It Be - let alone the songs of those genius others - George's While my guitar gently weeps, John's Dear Prudence, et al. 

Sublime. It's too bad the series is shot in murky semi-darkness, sometimes making the speakers hard to see, and Paul, wearing a ragged jean jacket, is chewing gum for much of it. And some of his stories we have heard many times before. But the relaxed nature of the banter and the extensive musical knowledge of Rubin make it a spectacular interview. 

Yesterday I saw the first of two doctors this week, this one at Mt. Sinai. She told me the doctor I'm seeing Friday at St. Mike's was her professor in med school, so that answered the question of which one to go with. She told me I need an appendectomy, and I assume Dr. Lawless will say the same thing. It was not fun being inside a hospital again.  Get me out of here, I thought. Keep me out of here. Please.

A quick book report: JoAnn Beard's new collection "Festival Days." Her essay "The Fourth State of Matter" is a brilliant classic, as is the whole book it comes from, "Boys of my Youth." But this one is problematic. There's no question she's an extraordinarily gifted writer. But her style - the tumble of words and ideas, seeming to go in all directions before she pulls them together, sort of - plus a really weird horror-type story in imitation of George Saunders - put me off. There's a sameness to the voice that I found got tiresome. Once again, I longed for a good editor to curb the excesses of this fabulous writer.

Yesterday another thrilling hit of creativity: I told my friend and handyman John about a problem with my bed. Two years ago I found the Ikea frame on the street, put out by some neighbours, and assembled it for myself. It's a platform bed, no box spring, just a mattress, which means it's low - not only for a body heaving herself up and out in the morning, but also no room underneath for storage. I've been looking at new bed frames, expensive and ugly. John took measurements and appeared the next day with four wooden risers. We slid them into place and voila, I'm eight inches higher off the ground and can store suitcases below the bed, solving a storage problem. Human creativity at its finest - as is usual with John. Genius. 

Today I have a Zoom meeting with a book club, all men. I'm delighted to report that men like my book as much as women do, at least according to the ones I've heard from. Max Beck, a book club member who happens to be the husband of Barbara Hall, former mayor of Toronto, emailed, "I loved your book!" 

We'll see what the others say.

a Zoom memorial for Patsy

An extremely moving event yesterday: a Zoom memorial for Patsy Ludwick, who died with the help of MAID in May. We were almost 50 people from Australia to California - a great many from Nova Scotia, where she spent her early career, and B.C., from her later life. It was wonderful to see her brother and sisters at last - she was the eldest of 7, and many of her sibs were there, people I'd heard about for 50 years. Her sister Julie, a dancer who lives in New York, had put together a slide show of Patsy's life from childhood to the end, reminding us of how spectacularly beautiful she was - sharp cheekbones, flashing eyes, regal stance. 

One of her friends said, "She gave us a master class in how to live and how to die." 

Julie said, "She never gave up on wonder," and told us that one year, Aunt Patsy gave Julie's 15-year old son a membership in "The Cloud Appreciation Society." "How many people even know there IS a cloud appreciation society, let alone give a membership?" she asked. 

As one of the speakers I read an excerpt of a letter of hers to me, pulled at random from the hundreds I've kept on paper and online - so powerfully written. She was both a magnificent actor and a magnificent writer. And friend too. And aunt. 

She would have been overjoyed to see so many beloved faces, including a friend from when she was two, all the way to her caregiver in her last days on Gabriola. Jane Heyman, who organized and stage managed the event, was with her as Patsy died and was buried the next day. Throughout the green burial, she said, an eagle sat on a nearby tree, watching. It gave a cry at the beginning and at the end of the ceremony, and then flew away. Patsy always made sure things were done correctly. 

Here's another kind of gathering: Ben's birthday. He asked as his special birthday treat for McDonald's, so the usual cavalcade of children enjoyed the treat. And Ben with a small friend.

controversially in praise of Facebook

Sometimes Facebook is a wonderful place. I know Zuck's creation is reprehensible in many ways. But yesterday I posted about my finalist status, and before day's end there were over 50 messages of support. Such a diversity of people, from high school, the neighbourhood, family, people I've never met, former colleagues, fellow writers - friends from all phases of my life, saying Congrats! Used that way, FB does what it's intended to do: create a warm community in the ether of the internet. Let's not, for now, think about all the other horrible things it does.

Chris is having a pacemaker installed today and will be going home tonight. He's got the fantastic Gabriola community supporting him; apparently, people have cleaned his house - the door was not locked - cleaned the old stuff out of his fridge and put in a lasagna and salad for his homecoming. He will weep, I'm sure, especially when he holds Sheba in his arms once more.  

I'm always alert for absurdities of language. Was reading about a new kind of vibrator today; the company CEO said, We always seek to provide pleasure for vulva-havers, and for people of all sexualities and those with varied familiarity with sex toys.”

Vulva havers. That's us, girls. Like "menstruating persons." I do understand there are trans men with uteruses who give birth or menstruate. But I wonder if it's worth twisting our language into such preposterous knots to avoid acknowledging billions of women, in order to accommodate that incredibly small population. If I wrote this on Twitter, I would be besieged with hate mail as a TERF. My daughter would say, Who is hurt by being more inclusive with language? I'm excluding or hurting no one, I just wonder about excluding the word 'women.' It's a fine old word, better I think than 'vulva havers.' How do we solve these dilemmas - inclusive versus ridiculous? 

My good news: John drove me to Home Depot today. Haven't been there for 18 months or so. Thrilling. Barbecue briquets! Sheep manure! Dustpan! I went nuts. Later today - Ben's sixth birthday party; Glamma will be bringing Hot Wheels. And more good news: the rose of Sharon came out last night. Yesterday, just buds; this morning, covered with pinky-mauve blooms. Beauty. 

FINALIST!

The six finalists have just been announced for the Whistler Independent Book Award, three fiction, three nonfiction.

I'm thrilled to say that "Loose Woman" is one of the finalists. Very exciting! It means so much to be seen, to be read, to be recognized. 

The non-fiction finalists are:

Elke Babicki for Identity: From Holocaust to Home
Fran Hurcomb for Breaking Trail: Northern Stories from a Simpler Time
Beth Kaplan for Loose Woman: My odyssey from lost to found

The other two finalists look like fascinating and important books, one a Holocaust journey, the other about living off the grid in the far north. I congratulate both writers. 

To celebrate, I was picking dead leaves from my favourite geranium, an incredible colour I can't find the right word for. Crimson? Ruby? 

No name does its incandescent vividness justice. Anyway, somehow, to my horror, I knocked it off the wide railing where it lived and watched it smash on the basement stairs below. I've repotted as best I can and am praying it survives.

Win some, lose some. Sigh. 

However, happily, I will soon be a millionaire.Yes! This kind stranger is giving me a wonderful gift. 

Congratulations 

I'm Charles W. Jackson Jr, the mega winner of $ 344.6 million dollars
Is donating $1,000,000 Dollars to 20 lucky person's
And your email was randomly picked.
For your claim contact: 

Lucky moi! Mr. Jackson Jr. could use a lesson or two in grammar, but am I going to look this generous gift horse in the mouth?

Well, actually, unfortunately, yes. 

Spoke to Chris in hospital yesterday and will call again today. He's just waiting to get home but is in pretty good spirits, his rude, absurd sense of humour intact. We laughed a lot. I told him we miss his blog! 

Here's another possible photograph of Dad and me for The New Quarterly article. My eighteenth birthday, August 1 1968. Oh the unlined skin, the glossy hair, the adorable dachshund! Double sigh. (It looks like I have a chin rash but it's something on the print we can photoshop out.) Love Dad's face. He must be looking at my brother. LOL.

status update

First, most importantly, I spoke to Chris today, in hospital in Nanaimo. He was not perky, but he was okay. They checked his heart, but his arteries, he says, are beautifully clear, so no stent. It's the electric impulses that make his heart beat that are wonky. On Friday he goes to Victoria to have a pacemaker put in and then he goes home. In the meantime, a neighbour couple have been taking it in turns to sleep at his house and care for his pets. What good friends!

I conveyed to him the best wishes of the many fans he has made through my blog, from England, Sechelt, Paris, Nova Scotia, and more. What a year so far - Patsy, me, Toronto Lynn, Chris, all of us stricken, not one of us with Covid.

Spent most of today right here in this chair, which eventually will grow around and envelope me so I can never leave it again. Taught the last class of the U of T term, a wonderfully positive group, a real pleasure. Spent time before and after cutting 175 precious but expendable words from an essay I'm considering for a competition with a 3000 word maximum. Yesterday, after a mammogram that took all of ten minutes and then teaching the seniors group, I spent the rest of the day dealing with an edit of the piece that'll go in The New Quarterly in the fall. How I love the work of fiddling with each word, with rhythm and spacing and pace, colons and semi-colons and commas. Much more fun than the actual writing, for sure. My last pass at it involved inspecting the sentence "She had just said the same things" and cutting the 's' from 'things.' And then it was done. 

Today the estate of Alice Neel in NYC gave me permission to use the image of Alice's portrait of my father in the essay. That will make a huge difference. They've asked for photos of Dad at that time and a pic of me and him, so now I have to go through the mountain of family shots. More fun. 

One possibility:

My most urgent task, though, is to find a present for Ben's sixth birthday on Friday. The stores are open. I can go shopping! The most fun!