Beth Kaplan's Blog, page 57

my essay about Chris

 My essay about Chris appeared in the Globe and Mail, August 15, 1997

news of Chris of the Chris Walks blog

Oh the miracle of our wired world: I just heard from Carole, one of my blog readers who lives in England. She wrote to ask what has happened to my friend Chris, whose blog appears here to the left. I follow his blog through yours and he hasn’t posted since last week, as he was feeling unwell and he posts every day I am fearing the worst. I’ve never met him or yourself, but I feel I know you both. The connectivity of social media. I do hope Chris is okay.

Isn't this a wonderful thing? A stranger across the ocean feels connected enough to two strangers in Canada to write an anxious note. 

I too was worried about Chris. I called but he didn't answer his phone, so I called our mutual friend Bruce in B.C. and asked him to contact Chris's friends on Gabriola to find out what was up. First, he tried Chris's home number again. It was answered by Shelley, one of Chris's neighbours, who must have been there to see to the pets; she told Bruce that Chris is in hospital in Nanaimo. He went on Thursday to his local doctor, who insisted on getting him into hospital on the mainland immediately. They thought he was having a stroke, but that turned out thankfully not to be the case. He will soon be taken by ambulance to Victoria for more tests and probably to have a pacemaker installed. Bruce talked to him briefly; he doesn't want to talk to anyone but knows we are thinking of him and sending love.

Another advantage of a blog for people who live alone: readers notice if suddenly you're not there burbling about your life, and they care. 

I don't know anyone who has had more disastrous life experiences or health issues than Chris, including three heart attacks, HIV, and a nervous breakdown that led to muteness. A most dramatic man, the most creative person I've ever met, every nerve end quivering without stopping. I just tried to upload an essay I wrote about him in the Globe in 1997, but it won't work; I'll try again later. It's a fascinating, unparalleled story. We are thinking of you, Chris, you amazing man. Get well. Come home. We need to read more about your adventures in island living at Pinecone Park. 

Nothing new here in the metropolis, except the good weather has gone for the week, a cloudy grey day. Anna's cat Naan is here beside me. It's so difficult; she has a tumour or something that causes her to throw up her food regularly or attempt to, with much heaving; sometimes it seems the end is nigh. But her fur is luxurious, her eyes are clear, and she is fierce in her relentless concentration on acquiring more food. According to her purring, she enjoys life a great deal. What to do?

Luckily, for once, it's not my decision.

confessions of a cheese junkie

A stunningly perfect day after a week of extreme heat and then constant rain, with a week of rain forecast for next week. So everyone was out today. I walked around the 'hood, marvelling as I always do at our diversity; the park by Riverdale Farm was packed with families originally from all the nations of the earth, picnicking under the big trees, couples, old people, children, in one corner a big party of gay men... 

And then I walked in the tranquil Necropolis among the old dead and the recent dead, every gravestone a story. Stopped at the spot where I scattered the ashes of my parents and Uncle Edgar and told them I'm fine for now and glad to be alive. Very glad to be alive, walking in the sun and under the trees.

Had a great talk last night with my friend Stella Walker of the bright red hair, a most interesting woman, comedienne, singer, and artist who speaks Yiddish and Cree and is about to discover if she has Métis status. We've often helped each other with our work, though we rarely get together in person because she lives to the west and north of the city. At one point, I was telling her about my appendix and how vulnerable the hospital stay made me feel, how old I feel sometimes. And she said, "Stop that right now. People start talking about how old they are and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can talk about how old you are when you're 95 and not before!"

How right she is! Thank you, Stella. It's just, as my same-age friend Judy and I were saying today, that 70 sounds so old. It simply does not compute that we are that age. And it's true things have started to go wrong in a way they did not when I was 69. But then, as Stella pointed out, lots of young people have appendix attacks. It's not because I'm old. 

I'm not old. 

On the other hand, I'm not yet my usual energetic self, have lost a lot of muscle, can feel it when I take a simple walk. Important work to be done to regain strength. Have not touched the piano for months, haven't been at my desk for weeks, everything ground to a halt. Time - gradually - to gear up again. 

Brad sent me this, from Twitter, that I read as I nibbled a nice Brie: A 2015 study found that cheese can trigger a response in the same brain receptors activated by heroin. 

I knew it! A cheese junkie, that's me.

The Summer of Soul

Received a note this morning from the Executive Director of my union. "On behalf of the Writers' Union of Canada, I am writing to congratulate you on your nomination for the 2021 Whistler Independent Book Awards for your book Loose Woman: my odyssey from lost to found. It is a great thing in a writer's life to receive such recognition. May it be an unforgettable boost to your spirit. Again, congratulations and best wishes for your future successes." 

Isn't that lovely? How kind. Yes, the nomination is a most definite boost to my spirit, and I hope to be able to boost that spirit right back to my desk soon. 

It's amazing how much better you feel when the shadow of a cancer diagnosis passes you by. Also amazing, just how many people know about that particularly intimate procedure yesterday and have sent congratulatory messages. No secrets here! 

So, feeling almost myself again - not quite, but getting there. This afternoon Anna, Thomas and gang are going to my neighbour Monique's cottage for the weekend, so I went over this morning to help Anna get ready. Which mostly meant keeping Ben out of her hair. Ben has received an informal diagnosis of ADHD from his pediatrician, which will, Anna hopes, get him some extra help when he goes back to school. Today, he wanted to play hockey with me in the laneway. And Glamma did spend some time whapping a tennis ball back and forth with a hockey stick. Ben was San José and I was Montreal, he dictated, and before playing, we had to skate to centre ice to receive applause while our names were called. He is always saying, "Imagine ..." At lunch, he said, "Imagine the floor is covered with bird-eating spiders!" 

Yikes. Where do these things come from?

How happy I was to be able to play with this soon-to-be six-year old. She's coming back to life, folks. For those who are interested: I see two doctors, one on the 19th and another on the 23rd, to get two opinions on the future of my gut and its exploding appendix. Stay tuned.

Last night, still dopey from the sedative, I watched "The Summer of Soul," a documentary about a fabulous music festival put on in a Harlem park in 1969, with footage ignored until now. What a huge treat, this celebration of black music and of black culture generally. When early in the film the Fifth Dimension started to sing "Let the Sunshine In" - one of the anthems of my youth - my tears started and kept going. The showstopper is the magnificent Mahalia Jackson singing gospel with a very young Mavis Staples; if there'd been a roof on the park, they would have blown it right off. The power of those voices is deeply moving. Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, B.B. King, Gladys Knight and the gliding, finger-snapping Pips! And the clothes - so much dripping fringe and psychedelic colours, spectacular. Highly recommended. 

It's gloomy and damp for the third day in a row. I went to the back and lo, for the first time ever, a lot of raspberries. I first planted these raspberry bushes decades ago with a cutting from my mother's bushes in Edmonton. Voila, after at least 25 years: the triumph of Farmer Beth. 

health report: all good

Dear friends, those of you of a certain age - my age - will remember the TV show Laugh In, which had many clever features, one of which was the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate. It's a concept I've never forgotten. It hovers, ready to point. YOU. 

Today, the FFF of F passed me by.

Colonoscopy done - all clear, no problems at all. Incredible relief. There was concern about something they'd seen on the scans, and in the back of my mind, I thought of my dear Uncle Edgar, diagnosed with colon cancer at my age, 70, and dead two years later after a terrible struggle. 

But no. Not me. Not today. 

It was funny; as I entered the operating room, the nurse said, "Hi Beth, I'm Suzanne, a neighbour, I've met you a few times at Mary and Malcolm's." I recognized her behind the mask and we had a great chat. And then the doctor doing the op came in and said,"Hi Beth, I'm your neighbour, I live three houses down from you. You say hello to my wife all the time." 

Old home week at St. Mike's! 

Sam met me, got me home in the rain, installed me on the sofa and brought me tea and quiche, and I felt human again. Will take it easy today; because of the sedatives, the hospital instructed me not to operate heavy machinery or sign any legal documents. Done. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you, powers that be. This might have been a very different post. But the finger of fate has been busy pointing at my appendix and left the rest alone, for now. 

Yesterday was torture - fasting and glugging vast quantities of that disgusting stuff. Luckily there were some good documentaries to take my mind off it all: one about "The architecture of Fogo Island," the woman who developed the famous hotel and art studios there - how I'd love to visit it. And "Cheese: a love story," in Greece eating mountains of feta as I glugged. I weighed myself this morning, after a day of fasting and clearing myself out: four pounds down! Not a recommended diet, no. 

I also passed the time yesterday reading a long encyclopedia excerpt about my great-grandfather that someone sent me. Here's a page of his writing in Yiddish, an excerpt of a one-act play.

Delicate swirls and slashes, like hieroglyphics.
Here's my handsome son, wearing a rain jacket and hat his dad left here by mistake and now his:

And here is an unfortunately close to the bone exposé of my working method:

Yahrzeit

July 6 is the yahrzeit, the anniversary, of my father's death in 1988, thirty-three years ago. Almost my son's entire lifetime; Anna remembers him but Sam does not. Though I'm in no way a religious person, I love the Jewish tradition of burning a special yahrzeit candle on these days; I think the myth is that while the candle is burning, the person is with you. This one is burning for Dad, and he's here. He's always here.

In fact, I'm trying to place a 2500-word essay about writing to the FBI for his files and them sending me 60 unbelievable pages detailing every time he was followed and reported on through the fifties and early sixties. The Walrus, the ideal spot, said no without even reading it. The weekend editor at the Globe said, "The writing is great, it’s just not a fit." 

Any ideas where I should try next?

I finished Susan Olding's book of essays Big Reader yesterday, a huge pleasure. I now know a great deal about Keats, blood, Tolstoy, and many other things, as Susan's curious mind ranges freely and delves deep. Now another kind of pleasure: someone left John le Carré's A Most Wanted Man in the little free library; I read the first line and was hooked. Lying on the deck with a cold drink and a clever, snappy mystery = heaven. 

All peaceful on the home front. I'm hanging in there but still with roiling belly and not much pep. How much energy it takes just to keep the body alive with food! I have no interest in this particular chore so am surviving on sandwiches or ready-made; just bought a lasagna. Cannot stomach the thought of cooking or interesting fare. Plain and there, that's how I like it.

For tomorrow I fast. Yuck.

My furry companion is never far away from the source of food, aka moi. She thinks the footstool was created for her. 
A blog friend, after reading about our family crises last week, wrote this, and I agree 100%: I subscribe to the Calvin Trillin definition of successful parenting – my children never did jail time.

roses and thorns

It's not every blogger who divulges an upcoming colonoscopy, I'm sure. But you, faithful bloggees, know how much this one means to me: it's the beginning of a solution to my appendix problem. They can't decide how to fix me before they know what's going on, and in early June, on the scheduled date of a colonoscopy, I'd landed back in hospital. I can feel the infection is still there, am still shaky, just hoping nothing erupts before next Thursday. 

There. Now you know.

Also, I can report with the greatest relief that the family crisis has abated for now. Not crisis, crisES. It's been a hell of a few weeks. All that stress did not help my poor quivering gut. 

How glorious that the city empties on the weekend. I know, it's heaven to have a cottage on a lake, swimming, canoeing, listening to the loons. But you have to get there, packing up and driving for hours in heavy traffic. Whereas I sit here with no lake or loons but blessed miraculous silence and cardinals. Hard to believe, right now, that I'm at the centre of a metropolis. 

Today, perhaps I'll try to get back to my desk for the first time in what feels like months. More reading: two library books, Colum McCann's Apeirogon, and my CNFC colleague Susan Olding's new collection of essays, Big Reader. Enjoying both. 

Ben learned from somewhere to ask people, at the end of the day, "What was your rose and what was your thorn?" The best and the worst. My thorn, when my grandsons were here, was hearing myself saying, NO, not now. Be careful! Not so much noise! Only one cookie! Like an old grump. Which, on occasion — impossible to believe, for sure — I am.

In an animated film we watched, Luca, about sea monsters in Italy - hard to explain but it's a sweet story - they eat pasta with pesto, and both kids wanted to make some. We harvested basil, made pesto, coated some rigatoni. It was GREEN, so I assumed they wouldn't touch it, they don't eat much green. But they devoured it. "I'm eating the heck out of this!" said Ben. 

That was my rose.

a muted but beautiful Canada Day

It's Canada Day, and how lucky we are, the weather is perfect - breezy and a bit grey. The papers are full of Indigenous stories; we all wore orange today, as did much of the country. Canada, no question, has come to a turning point. 

Anna's boys have gone off with a friend till Saturday; she is at an Indigenous event and will go somewhere else afterwards. Her cat and some things are here for the next while, but after being full to bursting for days, my house is once again silent and nearly empty. Me, two tenants, a cat. Where am I?! 

No longer in the eye of a hurricane.

A friend who has two children about the same age as mine told me, "If I could do it over again, I would not have children." That knocked me speechless. Unimaginable. My adult children are immensely complicated, interesting human beings. I was just chatting with Cabbagetown neighbours, a writer and a painter, who said they don't understand why their children are "so conservative," meaning conventional, quiet, married, with regular jobs. And I don't understand why my children are so utterly complicated and interesting, so radical. But there you go. I think parents never do understand the human beings under their care. 

Raising children is incredibly hard work. But raising two very different yet similarly relentless young boys is another category of difficult altogether. My son was not like them. If I fed him enough spaghetti, he did sit down sometimes. 

Meanwhile he has made a huge and important change and will work out his new life. So will my daughter.

And I am sitting in the relative silence, listening to the swallows twitter, a neighbour a few yards over laughing with friends, the pop bang of distant fireworks, and the breeze in the trees, the wonderful huge Cabbagetown trees. Alive alive o. 

I was a note-writer - always left notes in the kitchen for my parents when they were out at night. Sam is a fervent note writer. Found this on my desk this morning, from Eli. It's genetic. (PS: cursive! Joy!)

tumult

Hanging on in the eye of a hurricane right now - Anna and her boys are living here temporarily while things sort themselves out, or not, in her life. It's complicated and difficult. They arrived Monday. My house is a shambles but that's okay; I'm overjoyed to provide shelter for my daughter, who moved into this house when she was five, and her sons aged six and nine. They're sleeping on mattresses on my office floor. Anna goes off to work in the morning, and Nicole and I man the fort to the best of our ability.

Because as I've said perhaps a few times before, these boys don't stop, ever, except when we buy time with the television. Rambunctious was a word a neighbour used, a good word. Eli is strong, stubborn, relentlessly determined, and Ben talks nonstop about the most interesting things - today, the Titanic. His imagination is fabulous. We try to find ways to wear them out and keep them fed and ourselves sane.

Eli has lived all his life in a ground floor apartment, but he still draws home as a big house with a pointy roof and lots of windows, the way all kids do.

Uncle Sam is here now, a great blessing. If anyone can keep up with them, he can. 

It has been hot, though not nearly as hot as in B.C., my poor friends! I have A.C. and am using it a lot, unlike most summers. The rain yesterday was so violent, it ripped my umbrella right out of the stand and flung it on top of the pergola, to the delight of young eyes, who went out in the storm with umbrellas and got soaked and then into a hot bath. 

I'm still shaky but doing my best. Taught two classes in the middle of all this, but we moved the mattresses and the boys were instructed to be quiet and it was fine. No idea what's happening in the world, and maybe that's a good thing. Maybe, right now, I don't want to know. 

reflections on celebrating Canada Day this year

A sublimely peaceful Saturday, thank you lord. Anna, Holly, and the boys are at a cottage near Peterborough, kayaking, splashing, romping. I do not have a second infection and am feeling a bit better each day, just cooked for the first time in ages. The day began dark and stormy and has ended fair and bright. Before the rain began, I made it by bike to one of my favourite shops, Laywine's, the best paper and pen shop in town, to buy my new daytimer, the Quo Vadis Academic Weekly 2021-22. My life would fall apart without these, filled with scribbles and daily post-its; they end mid-July, and it's thrilling each year to get a new one, clean and fresh, to fill in some dates, including an invitation from my friend Ron to a concert in February 2022 and the CNFC conference in Edmonton next June. Can't wait!

As I rode along Bloor Street, I marvelled at one sight: a lineup of at least 40 women waiting to get into Zara. I wanted to shout at them, YOU DON'T NEED IT! GET A LIFE! But did not. Who am I to judge? 

And then, on my way to the library to pick up two books I'd put on hold, 

I saw that Doubletake is open for shopping again. My favourite store! I bought a lovely soft cotton nightgown and separate pyjama bottoms - what I need most these days, though yes, I could certainly live without - and the points on my account covered the $12 they cost. So much for judgemental me. 
And then to the hardware store, WALKING RIGHT IN, to buy velcro tape to keep my hydrangeas from toppling in the rain. Satisfying. Doubly vaccinated, still being careful, but with more confidence nonetheless.

Anna's cat Naan is keeping me company for the weekend. It's wonderful to have a cat again, particularly one so old she doesn't care about going outside and hunting birds. She's supposed to be dying, but obviously has decided not. She and I chat regularly; she doesn't let me far from her sight. 

I've not written anything in weeks. Maybe soon.

To address a painful issue: this country is reeling from the horrors being uncovered, the bodies of hundreds of Indigenous children buried outside residential schools - though as we now know, their people knew it all along. Many are saying we should not celebrate Canada Day, at least this year. A woman on a local website is vicious in her condemnation of anyone speaking positively about Canada.

I understand this country has blood on its hands, though I'd argue the Catholic church and its loathsome pedophile priests and sadistic nuns have far more. I mourn the infinite tragedy of those lost lives. But here are a few of the people and things I'd like to celebrate, very quietly, this year:

- my friend Diana, who came to Canada as a young boy with her family, refugees from Vietnam, grew up to be a happily out gay man and is now a beautiful woman who had absolutely no problem with her employer as she went through many changes

- the vast number of refugees this country has sheltered, including my father, and so also my mother and me - in 1950 he was unemployable in McCarthy's United States because of his leftwing views; the countless draft dodgers during the Vietnam War who have contributed enormously; the many thousands of Syrians who've made homes here in recent years

- my beloved friend Patsy, mortally ill, who had a peaceful planned death thanks to MAID - medically assisted dying

- the fact that gay marriage, legal marijuana, and abortion are simply not an issue, except for a tribe of evangelicals in Alberta

- watching the country to the south of us, with its dire health care, mass shootings, lousy public education, astronomical rate of incarceration, racism, voter suppression, police brutality, and now hoards of violent lunatic right-wing nutbars. We have a few of these things too, but not nearly to the degree they do 

So yes, I will be quietly celebrating the good that Canada is and does, which is considerable, and which in no way minimizes the bad.