Beth Kaplan's Blog, page 6

Reading Garp, finally, and celebrating Jean-Marc

So the orange blowhole actually managed a civilized conversation today with our prime minister, while all around him, his band of incompetent fascists are tearing civilization apart. So proud of Canada — just watched Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew chant an Indigenous song for the father of Ashlee Shingoose, whose murdered body was recently found. Read that three prominent American scholars are leaving Yale for the University of Toronto; one, Jason Stanley, who studies fascism, said, “The U.S. is turning into an authoritarian country, and it’s targeting Canada. Canada is standing up for the Canadian values of freedom, freedom of inquiry, of tolerance and equality.”

We’re privileged to welcome these brilliant American academics. And more will come. Exiles from their own country, as was my American father in 1950.

On the other hand, my daughter is distraught about her sons’ school, which has cut out the snack that used to be given to the children during the day; the hot lunch provided to some now needs a voucher. We may value freedom, but our provincial government does not value the education of schoolchildren or care about their hunger. Shame!

Okay, a story to lift my spirits: Last night I was invited to dinner with John Irving and his wife Janet. As you might know, John and I got stuck at the airport in Mexico City, our flight to Toronto cancelled after the plane crash at Pearson. John was sick, and although we hadn’t met before, I did my best to look after him for the two days we were there. I wasn’t expecting further contact, but John got in touch and wanted me to meet Janet.

She was his Canadian publisher and is now his agent and first reader. She’s beautiful, warm, lively – and what joy, loves Paul McCartney and the theatre, two of my own great loves. The three of us are aligned politically and it seems in just about every other way. Vivid conversation, over a bit too much pinot noir.

I confessed to John I’m perhaps the only person in the western world who had not read a single one of his many books, because I read almost entirely nonfiction. But I’ve just devoured Garp. I loved it. I told him it’s like getting on a train hurtling forward — powerful, confident writing, rich characters, humour, tragedy. He was far ahead of his time — the book was published in 1976! — in bringing to life a trans woman, Roberta, a former star football player, the most sympathetic character in the book.

He gave me a gift — Trying to Save Piggy Sneed, his only memoir writing, with a dedication: “To Beth Kaplan, who saved me in Mexico City, with my gratitude.” Oh my.

He’s a generous man and an extraordinary craftsman; no wonder he’s one of the best-known fiction writers in the world. And very disciplined, I gather — even now, a fit 82, he writes seven days a week.

Puts me to shame. I haven’t written for actual publication in months. But I did post a Substack essay the other day about my neighbour Jean-Marc, one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. He’s moved and thrilled by the piece, sent it to his family who are sending it further afield, as is his partner’s family. My writer self was able to give a gift to this fine man. Means a lot. We need to celebrate kindness and generosity wherever we find it — now more than ever.

https://touchpointsawriterstruth.substack.com/p/putting-your-core-values-to-work

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Trial by fire: Smart, The Commandant’s Shadow, and Mark Carney

I’ve been reminded what a bitter wind feels like. It’s sunny out, so, riding my bike to and from the theatre this afternoon, I wasn’t prepared for the wind. Bitter. It hurt.

But the show I saw was a triumphant tour de force — Nicky Guadagni in Smart, a one-woman show about Canadian writer Elizabeth Smart of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept fame. I wrote to Nicky before I went that I’ve been unable to read the book, finding Smart’s emotional excesses … excessive. One reviewer wrote that it’s “a howl of a book, shot through with vivid imagery and ecstatic language, alternately exasperating and invigorating.”

Definitely not my thing. So despite the rave reviews, I was dubious about the show.

Well, here’s another rave. Betty Smart was a difficult and, yes, excessive woman; she had four children by her inamorato, the British poet George Barker who never lived with or supported her and eventually had 15 children by 4 women. She lived in poverty and obscurity in England and Ireland, her book unknown for two decades — her snobbish mother in Ottawa arranged for all local copies to be burned — until it was reissued in the mid-sixties, and Smart became something of a feminist icon. She was an alcoholic, hungry for attention, whose youngest child died of heroin addiction. And yet, in Nicky’s brave and brilliant portrayal, she’s also magnificent, a free spirit who lived on the edge of madness, who loved nature and babies and words, as well as an utterly unworthy man.

We need more stories about wild and crazy Canadian artists. May this show go on to the brave and brilliant future it deserves.

 By chance last night, I turned on a documentary called The Commandant’s Shadow, guessing, given the title, about its subject. I missed the beginning and hope to catch it again. Because, although I do my best to avoid films about the Holocaust — just don’t want to put myself through it — this is a profoundly moving film. It brings to light the actual people behind the film Zone of Interest, which depicts the happy family life of Rudolf Höss, the architect of the gas chambers of Auschwitz, who lived just over the wall from the slaughter. Höss was hanged in 1947 for crimes against humanity.

Höss’s son Hans Jürgen has struggled all his life to remain ignorant about what happened, but his own son Kai, a pastor, forces him to see the truth. As Kai says, “My grandfather was the greatest mass murderer in human history.” Yet Hans recalls his “idyllic childhood” and his father’s loving, tender last words in a letter before he was executed. The banality of evil.

An extraordinary Jewish woman illuminates the film — Anita Lasker-Wallfisch survived Auschwitz because she was recruited to play the cello in a band that made music as Jews were marched to their deaths. Now 98 and as sharp as a teenager, she chain-smokes as she remarks caustically on the world. Her daughter connects with the Hösses, taking them for the first time to Auschwitz, and then to London to visit her mother. The encounter of the Holocaust survivor and the son and grandson of the mass murderer is breathtaking. There is forgiveness, as much as there can be. There is humanity. They eat a torte together. These people are innocent of any wrongdoing, but the shadow of a hideous past has shrouded their lives.

Anita is asked if the Holocaust could happen again. She replies, “Look at the world,” and speaks about the rise in anti-Semitism.

Indeed, look at the world. Today’s paper reports that Israel has bombed the only cancer hospital left in Gaza. Over 600 people, mostly women and children, slaughtered just in this last round of bombing. Netanyahu and his far-right team are single-handedly bringing back a resurgence of anti-Semitism. Not that this ancient hatred needs their help.

Pundits like Bill Maher, who condemns the campus anti-Israel protestors as misguided pro-Hamas terrorist-lovers, seem incapable of understanding that you can be ferociously against what Israel is doing to the Palestinians and also anti-terrorist and anti-Hamas.

The conflation of loathing Netanyahu and his gang, and being anti-Semitic — that is, hating all Jews for the unforgivable sins of the heedless, corrupt, far right Israeli government — is wrong, although increasingly, sadly, more and more ubiquitous.

And finally, our brand new prime minister has begun his own trial by fire, submitting to stupid, hostile questions from a hostile and often stupid press. They’re all waiting for him to explode; apparently he has a famous temper. A vicious far right “journalist” posted gleefully about one of Carney’s children, who’s trans. Right after being sworn in, Carney flew to Paris and London to cement relationships with Canada’s allies, a perfect move, and at a press conference afterward was asked by a hostile “journalist” if he was going “to repay the taxpayers of Canada the cost of the trip.”

 I’d have told the “journalist” to fuck off, but Carney answered at length, with patience and clarity, about the necessity of shoring up allegiances.

A grownup. Very few around these horrifying days. Godspeed, Mark. This will be a rough ride for you, a dignified man surely used to being treated with respect.

Get through, please. Hang in there and save us.

Tiggy know where her food is kept, though out of reach. But she checks anyway. Hope springs eternal. For cats and for we human beings. Hope.

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The saga of the earring, and “A Side of Rice”

A lovely warm day – there’s hope! My backyard is a sea of mud – hooray! That means melting snow. Bring it on.

A funny thing happened. Yesterday I took two gold hoop earrings to a local place for a quick repair, which they did on the spot. I put the earrings in a plastic bag and took them home. They’re already strange – they’re quite different, because with both, I’ve lost the other of the pair. No one has ever noticed I’m wearing two differently shaped earrings. Anyway, at home, when I went to take the plastic bag to my room, there was only one earring inside. Impossible! I looked on the floor, dumped out my purse, rode my bike back to the jewellery shop, checked the street where I parked the bike – nothing.

I lose things regularly, but this was just crazy — the earring was there, and then it wasn’t. I thought, I’m losing my mind!

This morning, Sam called. He and Bandit had come for a quick visit yesterday. He asked, Mum, have you lost an earring? I shrieked Yes, and he laughed. Bandit was in pain making his morning deposit, and once he’d done so, Sam saw something glittering. It was an earring. It must have dropped on the floor here, and Bandit thought it was a tasty little snack. Good thing it didn’t perforate his gut.

Sam has washed it. I’ll get it back soon. Ha!

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Yesterday, something lovely — was riding away from the grocery store when someone called my name. I stopped. A woman told me she came to the free writing workshop I gave at the local library, bought True to Life, and was immersed in writing her family history. She’d traced it back to enslaved people in South Africa, to the Caribbean, then to Toronto and Regent Park, where her father was born. She told me I’d inspired her to write this saga. I said how pleased I was and to keep in touch. So pleased!

More nice: a note from an older American reader, who started reading the print book. I read the Preface and The Break and I had to give up because the type is too small for me. But I was interested and so, yesterday, I ordered it from Audible. I’m now now up to Are We There Yet? Beth, I love this book. I love your world and your sweet Canadian accent and your openness and your humor. Viva Audible! Viva you!

How nice is that? My sweet Canadian accent indeed! I do wish the print in the book weren’t so small, but that’s life. And I wish more people knew about the audiobook, read in my adorable regional accent.

On Sunday, went with Monique to see my dear friend Nick Rice’s one man show, A Side of Rice. Nick and I acted in a bunch of shows together in the seventies and never lost touch. He’s the only person in my life who still writes, stamps, and mails letters. He sends a freshly composed poem every birthday. A lovely man in a terrific show, very moving, telling stories from his life. He told a tragic story I knew well of his first baby, who was born severely disabled and lived only six weeks; how he and his then wife struggled to have a second child and were ecstatic when their daughter arrived. Now in her late thirties, she was sitting in the audience, listening, it was clear, for the first time. She now has a non-binary name, uses “they/them,” has a shaved head. Loves her dad, who adores her.

And one more thing: a former student who works for CanadaHelps asked me to be in a video they were making, asking people to speak about generosity. I went to a studio, and on camera, said the fact that we look after each other, that we can be kind and thoughtful and generous, is one of the reasons we’ve thrived as a species, although all that is in danger right now. I spoke about my neighbour Jean-Marc, the kindest, most generous man I know, who helps for the joy of helping and beams out light.

Nothing needed more right now than kindness and generosity, in this cold dark time when unfathomably evil men have taken over the world. Netanyahu, Trump, Putin — what did we do to deserve them? Oh yes, over 70 million people voted for Trump! Talk about unfathomable.

How long before those three monsters and their acolytes are cast back into the pits of Hell from whence they came, O lord?

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surviving the flood in Flow

Tuesday was sublime, a warm sunny day, sorely needed at this dark time. It’s March break, so Anna brought the boys over. As soon as they arrive, they always find the squishy soccer ball, push around furniture and rugs to turn my living room into a stadium, kick the ball as hard as possible from one end of the room to the other, and argue whether that was a goal or not. (Are there goals in soccer?)

I cruelly forced the poor creatures outside, to walk down to St. Lawrence Market — here’s Ben with his peameal bacon sandwich –

and then to the cinema close by – where the seats are soft recliners, you can lean back and put your feet up – to see Flow, the animated film that won Latvia its first Oscar. There are no human characters, no dialogue; it’s about a cat who survives a massive flood, and the companions who join her on the boat she manages to scramble onto – a yellow lab, a capybara, a lemur, and a large white secretary bird. Where in the world is this collection of beasts? Does it matter? At one point, the cat and bird are definitely in Tibet.

Obvious references to the biblical flood and Noah’s ark here, beautifully done with inexpensive software. The animals are not anthropomorphized but realistic, uttering actual animal sounds. When I got home, I saw Tiggy in a different way, as the fierce little individual she is. I also saw online that apparently people who watch the film at home notice their pets are mesmerized, posting videos of cats and dogs motionless in front of the screen.

I don’t think my boys enjoyed it as I did – it’s slow without car chases or shootouts. But highly recommended nonetheless.

Tuesday night, the last U of T class of term; they have plans to continue as an ongoing writer’s group, which makes me happy. I’ve just reapplied to teach in San Miguel again; hope it’s a go.

One of the great bonds Anna, Sam, and I share is our love for the Travelling Wilburys. We’d put on that music and dance around the kitchen, even though their mother’s dancing embarrassed them. Sent them this joyful video about the birth of the Wilburys, George Harrison’s idea with an unbelievable constellation of stars, and the miraculously fast making of their first record. George says at one point that all he wants to do is keep the family they’ve created together, and I couldn’t help but think of his previous musical family, the one that sadly did not stay together.

Go to Youtube and input “Traveling Wilburys – The True History Of The Traveling Wilburys Documentary.” It’s wonderful.

On Sunday I watched some of the Liberal convention, posted about it on FB. Just to say – Go Mark! And on Monday, apéritif outside on Monique’s deck with her and our friend Kathy. We remembered five years ago, at the start of Covid, launching this tradition  – I sitting up on my second-floor deck, and they below, drinking wine and chatting. Five years.

In three weeks, I leave for France. Hard to believe I’ll be travelling again so soon after Mexico, but such is my fate. Monique has just come back from a week at her sister’s apartment in Paris, where I too will be staying for a week. She’s full of talk of museums and restaurants. I may just be required to enjoy this trip.

Still spending far too many hours scrolling the NYTimes, Globe, Guardian, FB, Twitter, not to mention the Substacks that pour in, to process the latest outrages. We’re all trying to comprehend living at this surreal time, watching a madman and his billionaire henchmen destroy the world as we know it. And target Canada most of all! He keeps talking about the border separating our countries as if he’s going to erase it, just like that. Absolutely insane and beyond loathsome. One day, this era will make a great story, and we’ll all laugh in disbelief. Right now, not so much.

Sheesh – a large raccoon just lumbered up onto my deck, stopped when it saw both Tiggy and me staring out the back door, stared back, turned, and lumbered off back down the yard. No raccoons in Flow. But I’m sure when the flood comes, if there’s one species that will survive, it’ll be the raccoons.

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the peanut-butter dilemma and other musings from a horrified Canadian

What to say? The attacks against my country from the lunatic and his vile team continue. And although we should not compare too much with Germany in the thirties, still, watching the Repugs during the State of the Union (the few minutes I could bear to watch) stand and cheer for a stream of lies, self-aggrandizing boasts, schoolyard taunts, and bullying – it must be what most Germans felt watching their politicians cave to Hitler, no? No, Trump’s not targeting Jews, in fact the reverse, sending billions more in arms to Israel to smash Gaza while ignoring Ukraine. Instead, he’s targeting Canada, top of the list, and immigrants. His enemies.

           On FB, I shared an excerpt of a superb, must-read essay, The Rise of Corporate Monarchy, by Shane Almgren, illuminating what’s at stake here – that the billionaires and tech bros, Musk, Vance, Peter Thiel, and a shadowy monster called Curtis Yarvin, are absolutely out to destroy democracy and its governments. They see themselves and their goal of domination as the future, and we the people are in their way, the useless lumpen past.

            Elsewhere, Canadians are taking seriously the possibility that Canada will be invaded, either by the Americans or the Russians. And that Trump’s empowering of Putin will lead to more Russian incursions into Eastern Europe.

            Okay, on that cheery note, let’s move on. To escape, I am burying myself in rich and rewarding reading. You know about my time in Mexico City with John Irving. I did not confess that I was perhaps the only person in the western world who had not read a single one of his many bestselling books. It wasn’t a deliberate oversight — it’s just that I read mostly nonfiction. But now I am reading Garp and loving it. What a delectable book, what a skilful, imaginative writer; he plunges us in from the first paragraph and never lets up. An exhilarating joyride.

            But now a challenger: a friend sent a Guardian article about Helen Garner, an Australian writer famous there and not well-known here, so I ordered a volume of her published diaries and Everywhere I Look, a book of essays, from the library. Instant bond with a kindred spirit; she’s marvellously honest, self-deprecating, funny — wise and all-too-human. Inspiring.

            On top of that, another library book came in at the same time: 25 great sentences and how they got that way, by Geraldine Woods. So much reading, to take my mind off the horror of world affairs.

            I’m glad our prime-minister has had a chance to show the world, and Canadians, his best side during this last crisis. He has many flaws, but it’s incontrovertible that he has a good heart and has done many good things. And he’s not bad to look at, either. If only he’d taken speech lessons and not indulged that annoying breathiness, he might have endured less ridicule.

            Grocery shopping the other day took ten minutes longer, checking each label to be sure it’s not from the States. I do have a moral dilemma though – the peanut butter I adore, Adams, is American, a former family company bought by J. M. Smuker. I’m a connoisseur of pb, was such a fussy eater throughout childhood that pb kept me alive and has continued to do so — I have a piece of pb toast each night before bed, a final comfort. I do not want to give up my Adams and have decided some American products are produced by GOOD PEOPLE who should not be singled out by boycott. Anyone who produces a product this wholesome is a good person, I am sure of it, and in fact just checked: J. M. Smuker scores high in initiatives for employee fairness and racial equity. Phew!

            But everything else is up for grabs.

            And finally – I was in the gym as usual on Wednesday, in Carole’s class; she does something different, with new music, each time. We were doing lunges when I had one of those moments of blinding clarity — how glad I was to be there, lunging to music in my stretchy clothes in the big bright shabby Y gym, surrounded by a bunch of sweaty fellow exercisers I’ve known for years and in some cases decades. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” I thought, tears prickling my eyes. Ridiculous, I know. But not a bad thing to be grateful, often, everywhere, even in the gym.

            I’m grateful Canadians are banding together as never before and that perhaps this is a wake-up call about the fascists billionaires aiming to kneecap our world. A sea change. Will we be able to fend them off? Stay tuned.

          This is from one of my favourite writers, Oliver Burkeman’s book Four Thousand Weeks, which I loved, as I loved his new one Meditations for Mortals. Four Thousand Weeks is urging us to make good use of our limited time on earth. Bone-chilling though — I’m in the second-last row. Quick — the comfort of peanut butter!

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the trade war blues

God forgive me, I cannot help myself, as the trade war against our country begins, I am spending this day endlessly scrolling online and listening to CBC news. Heroes are emerging. Our prime minister, at his finest, has just delivered a blistering speech. Charlie Angus! Timothy Snyder! Even our ridiculous premier Ford is saying the right things. And fiery Andrew Coyne just wrote on Twitter, “If such a thing were possible, I think Musk is more loathsome than Trump, though not as loathsome as Vance. Trump is simply disturbed: extremely dim, and suffering from multiple psychological disorders. Musk is still in control of his faculties, though rapidly deteriorating under the combined influence of too much money, too many drugs and too much time online. Mostly, however, he suffers from tech-bro disease: extreme ignorance … combined with maximum hubris. Vance, on the other hand, is just stone evil: a bright mind, zero character.”

Tell it like it is, brother!

A sick feeling in my stomach. Today is cold and wet and grey, with melting snow. Netanyahu has blocked aid to Gaza. Putin is feeling triumphant. And the cuts made by Trump and Musk are harming children everywhere. Never has our world felt more vulnerable, prey to evil.

But – BUT! We saw those people lining the road in Vermont, shouting at Vance to go ski in Russia. We are watching the town halls in the US, with people so angry the Repugs are deciding not to hold them any more. Americans are waking up.

I think about Dan S. Dan and I went to high school together for a year, the private boys’ school in Halifax my father founded for my brother, which had just started accepting girls. Dan was a macho right-wing bully then, loudly in favour of the Vietnam War; we used to argue endlessly, although, as I’ve written, neither of us really knew what we were talking about. He moved to the States, of course, has remained right-wing, and we have continued to argue. Before the election in November, he sent me a triumphant email; he knew Trump and the Repugs would win big. I could not believe it. I sent him an editorial by Andrew Coyne, decrying everything about Trump. Dan wrote back, “TDS. Trump Derangement Syndrome.” I decided not to reply. Ever.

He did finally admit he was wrong about the Vietnam War, although it took many years. I wonder what he’s thinking now, how he’s justifying his guy. How it’s possible to grow up with every privilege and still be selfish and blind and mean. So many like him – heedless white men, threatened by change, celebrating the bullies.

To cheer me up – my boys. They came over for Sunday dinner; we went to the toboggan hill, but it was sheer ice, too dangerous even for them. When we got back, I lit the fire and they cuddled under a blanket while I read more Percy Jackson. Of course they fought about who got more blanket and everything else, because brothers. But I prepared a meal and served it to my loved ones, something I did for many years and do rarely now. It’s what I can do in this time of madness.

This too shall pass. I believe that. Some of the damage, of what they have smashed to oblivion, may be permanent, but we will come through. Those hideous men will go down in flames, in infamy. History will judge them. May they rot in hell.

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From the hideous to the sublime: this week in the news, and A Complete Unknown

Anna called me yesterday. “I just watched what happened in the Oval Office,” she said, “and I need to talk to someone!” I did too; after watching it myself, I went online to read the countless condemnations from around the world, to hear Timothy Snyder detail “five failures” enacted by two juvenile bullies. It was a spectacle so disgusting and unbelievable – yet of course it wasn’t unbelievable, just another day in our new world order, where the U.S. president and the murderous dictator of Russia are best buddies, and Canada and Ukraine are the enemies! Bill Maher, last night, said, “We elected the bull in the china shoppe, and now Americans are realizing, they are the china.”

Or, as the brilliantly articulate Andrew Coyne put it in today’s Globe, “The U.S. has handed the nuclear codes to a madman, a criminal, a would-be dictator and a moron.” Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Write on, Andrew.

A good point was made by Fareed Zakaria on Maher’s show — that Zelensky made the mistake of expecting a rational discussion on national TV. Instead, he should have begun the interview by raving about Trump’s brilliance and presenting him with “a giant Ukrainian medal of honour that no one has ever won before.” He’s right. Flattery matters more than anything else.

Incidentally, Chrystia Freeland was Maher’s interview guest, introduced as “the next prime minister of Canada,” which must have been a surprise to Mark Carney, whom Maher interviewed a few weeks ago. She acquitted herself well, and Ron Graham, also in today’s Globe, cautions the Libs against jumping too quickly for the untested Carney, “a knight in shining armour who has never ridden a horse.”

It’s bitterly cold and the world is full of horror. Luckily I took myself to a wonderful film today, though I nearly froze there and back on the bike: A Real Unknown. I’ve been looking forward to it, and rightly so; it’s superb. Chalumet as Bob Dylan deserves the raves, but Edward Norton as the gentle soul Pete Seeger is just as good. The film captures the early sixties when folk music was the insistent voice of an emerging idealistic generation – and then Dylan (and of course the Beatles, who are mentioned once) took over.

The film shows what it’s like to witness genius, up close, as it blooms. It reminded me of being at theatre school in London and watching a young actor called Ian Charleson, who was in the same year as Harriet Walter. Many were terrific, including Harriet, but young Ian was incandescent with talent, focus, and ambition. We all knew he was the one, the special one. And he was, working right out of theatre school and achieving stardom as Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire. He died of AIDS in 1990 at the age of forty, only a few weeks after starring in what was apparently the definitive Hamlet.

There are simply some people who are granted that glow of genius, although sometimes — often, as with Dylan —  at great cost to those around them. As we listen to inscrutable, self-centred Bobby Zimmerman from Hibbing, Minnesota pour out fiery poetry and haunting melodies, we wonder anew at how that happens. But praise to the gods, it does. I’ll get out my old albums and listen again, and my Joan Baez ones too, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Gordin Lightfoot, Ian and Sylvia — all those folks who sang the truth.

“She’s got everything she needs/She’s an artist, she don’t look back./She can take the dark out of the nighttime and paint the daytime black.”

If you’ll forgive a brief digression into the singing-my-own-praise department, I’d like to share a kind email a student from my San Miguel workshop recently sent. I’m far, far from a genius, but I work with what I have and hope it matters. And sometimes, I guess it does.

“I wanted to express my appreciation for the workshop you gave at SMA. It was an incredible experience. I learned so much, and the way you conveyed your thoughts and wisdom left an impression on me. Your approach is  humble, yet the moment you speak, it’s clear you’re a writer and teacher that has a lot to offer others. I appreciated the  knowledge you shared with us and found your workshop truly inspiring. I’ve placed an order for your book and am looking forward to reading it soon. Thank you again!  Your voice, insights, and guidance were all beautiful.”No, thank you.

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The sublime importance of being born

What with winter and Republicans, I’m overwhelmed and even depressed, which is not like me. This too shall pass. Watching Americans in town hall meetings shouting at Repug politicians helps a lot. The tide will turn, and perhaps all this will turn out okay in the end, if it forces people to realize how much true democracy matters, how vital it is to vote, how important to read real news and figure out what is actually happening. We’ll see.

There was a bright spot last week when Canada won the hockey game against the U.S. I wasn’t watching, can’t stand the tension, but I watched that final goal online over and over, rejoicing. God, we needed that, meaningless as it is. I also watched a bit of the English Liberal leaders’ debate last night, hoping Carney would hit it out of the park, and he did not, a bit solemn and wooden. But he’s solid and our best bet, though Karina Gould is a firecracker and deserves a big cabinet post. A bright future for an articulate, ambitious, idealistic woman.

My cat, after a $300 vet visit, has been declared officially diabetic. It means medication that will cost $150 a month, possibly in perpetuity, plus frequent expensive vet visits to monitor. In the meantime, she still often pees on the bathroom floor; I now have newspaper and plastic mats around her litter box, so I am frequently mopping up cat pee and my bathroom is not a pleasant place to be. I am feeling crabby about all this, a diabetic cat one more thing I simply do not want to cope with, as the snow melts and risks flooding the basement, and bills pile up. No choice, however.

Sorry. Perhaps I shouldn’t write when I’m feeling like this. But perhaps it’s good to share the fact that I’m not always perky; sometimes I sink.

This is a position, with no extremities showing, my daughter calls “the perfect meatloaf.”

Off to the Y soon, that will help.

Yesterday I spoke about the life of a memoir writer to the lunchtime chat group organized by Doug Fisher, whom I call Captain Cabbagetown. Before going, I dug out diaries and letters to show them an entire lifetime as a writing person, and unearthed my mother’s diary from 1944. She was not a chronicler, kept this tiny book on and off through the year, writing sometimes in illegible pencil – I read and transcribed using a large magnifying glass – and never wrote a diary again. But it’s a treat to read my 20-year-old mother, working at Bletchley Park with a world war in the background, going to dances, meeting Yanks and airmen, having “wizard” and “scrummy” teas. She reports on the D day landings:

“Tuesday, Tuesday, June 6, oh boy, insides all shaky with apprehension – invasion. We invaded near Caen and Cherbourg Peninsula. Paratroops and dummies with explosives on and minesweeping.

June 7 hitch to town [London] on two lorries. Out with Peter Warren last night, super time, lunch in a dive off Oxford Street. Jean Gabin in Le jour se lève. More troops landed, more air resistance by Germans. Rodney and Nelson taking part in shelling.”

She meets, flirts with, and dates many men (“RONNIE. Oh gosh. Can’t eat – all het up inside. What a man. He’s grand.”) although she has a hapless fiancé training in the States; I think, any one of these guys could have swept her off her feet for good, and I’m toast. She drinks cider and lemon shandies and plays the piano in pubs, hitchhikes everywhere, is working 8 hours shifts, sometimes through the night. She stops writing.

And then, on November 29 1944, one word: Kap. She met my father at a Chopin concert in Oxford, and they went on a very successful date. To my immense relief, the life of Beth Kaplan will soon begin, and so, eventually, will the lives of Anna and Sam and Eli and Ben.

Now that’s something to be cheerful about.

 

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Final travel post from your trusty correspondent

Home, joy, perky again after a good night’s sleep in my own beloved bed. Looking out at the snow with Tiggy on my lap, I drank my morning coffee from one of the three things I brought back in my small carry-on: a bright yellow painted mug from the ceramic centre Dolores Hidalgo. (Along with a pretty piece of folk art and my new friend Jennifer Selig’s book on memoir.) Out later to buy birdseed for the poor birds, watched poor Canadians struggling on snow-lined sidewalks with bundle buggies or strollers — grateful I can walk, carry birdseed in a backpack, do not have an infant.

You need to be tough to be Canadian. And we are.

Have spent hours catching up with email and managing my household and work affairs after only two weeks away. But now I’ll review for you a few of the bon mots from the last day of the conference.

Margaret (aka “Peggy”) Atwood – as always caustic, brilliant, very funny.

What’s going on now politically is a way of killing poor people. Capitalism has decided it doesn’t need a workforce.

Authoritarian regimes always collapse from inside.

Rich people have more in common with each other around the world than with poor people in their own countries — why all the royal families of Europe are connected, why Prince Phillip was Greek. We are going back to the old days of royalty.

Nonfiction is one version of events. Fiction is THE version. People believe fiction more than non. They read fiction to get out of the real world and create their own reality. They invest in the story. [Author’s note: this nonfiction writer does not necessarily agree.]

The healing power of purring: It’s been proven that if you have a migraine and put a purring cat on your head, you’ll feel better. How you get it to stay there is the problem.

Canada has always been a place to escape to.

Asked about “tradwives”: Part of the endless cycle of people telling women what to do. It was a mistake of second wave feminism to downgrade women at home and accuse them of “sleeping with the enemy.” Many women like sleeping with the enemy.

Do not tell writers what to do. Or you’ll be back in the Soviet Union. Let them do what they do.

 

Plenary panel – many of the keynote writers on stage answering questions.

 Jorge Hernandez: I am always narrating. When I get on the metro, a voice says, “And then I got on the metro.” Then it says, “And then he got on the metro, and …”

I am thinking of writing a new novel called 100 Years of Solitude. But my agent doesn’t like the idea.

After writing memoir, I meet people who are already friends, even if I don’t know them.

 

John Vaillant: Air conditioning is the technology of forgetting. We forgot what it costs the planet to keep ourselves comfortable.

Go straight from sleep to writing. Don’t open email or read the paper first. Do yourself the honour of using that liminal space.

Clear the internal noise. It never gets easier. It’s a privilege to take on the hardest topic you can. It helps to have people who believe you can do it.

 

Someone: Liv Ullman once said, “Writing is a job. I have four hours, and I work.” Give yourself deadlines.

 

Percival Everett: celebrated American author, was supposed to be a keynote but could not come, appeared on Zoom.

The human being is the only animal that blushes. Or has any reason to.

Art is almost necessarily political. Any work that challenges the audience is important. Art can do a lot of work.

 

And finally:

John Irving – advice I give my students —

I wrote all my first drafts longhand. It’s a rhythm that slows me down.

 

Friends, my travelling is over, for now. (Am booked to go to France in April, though at the moment the thought of being in an airport fills me with trepidation.) Despite some difficulties, this journey was 100% terrific. The conference was a fabulous experience, beautifully organized, with talks by important and fascinating writers and with hundreds of fellow writers all talking about writing — marvellous and exhausting. I loved Mexico. However, I’m going take a short break from blogging to get groceries, pay bills, and shovel snow.

I’m sure you can use a break too.

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The climate refugees make it home

Forgive me, please, if I ramble incoherently; I’ve had one hour of sleep in the past 30 hours. The goal, as with jet lag, is to make myself stay up as late as possible and then crash, and all will be well tmw. (Right after writing that, I had to go take another nap. So, two hours of sleep.)

First things first – my God, you have to be tough to be Canadian. Toronto is a snowscape, mountains of the stuff everywhere, uncleared sidewalks nearly impassable. Jean-Marc came over and we dug a tunnel to my back gate. And now it’s milder so it will turn to slush and muck. Mexico it ain’t. However, as promised, I am not complaining, because I am so very happy to be here.

Tuesday was a long day. I awoke in my hotel room, turned on my computer, and discovered my emails were not downloading on either computer or phone. No idea why; the hotel tech guy said it was my problem, not the hotel’s internet. Why suddenly would that happen? I thought I’d go crazy, but Anna texted, “Think of it as a retreat.” And I thought, I can survive without email for a day, for God’s sake. But it was hard, especially as I had to cancel my Tuesday U of T class and was corresponding with students.

At noon, I checked out and moved into a corner of John’s room. He was still feeling poorly, coughing a lot, poor man. After lunch I went to the Air Canada office in the airport to check the reality of the story we’d been told, that after a further delay we’d leave, now, at 2.45 a.m. The official, who spoke little English, assured me that was the case. So we both slept on and off through the day, or at least John did, and I tried to on the sofa. We read, and talked, and had dinner, and waited for time to pass.

Way too early in my estimation, but John was nervous, we checked out of the hotel and went to the airport check-in counter, then through security, then to crowded noisy waiting lounges to wait for four hours. It was long, but we got through, and at last, Air Canada personnel arrived at the gate, and the plane arrived, my God, it looks like we’re really going to take off! Many sleepy people boarded at 2.15 a.m. I said goodbye to John, because he’d be in Business Class and I would not, and at the other end, in Toronto, we would no longer be joined at the hip. As we sat in the lounge, I asked him about the movies of his books, and he told fascinating stories about Harvey (Weinstein), Charlize (Theron), Clint (Eastwood), and more. He told me what it’s like backstage after winning an Oscar – you can’t get back to your seat so you mill about with all the famous people. When will I ever get to hear again about backstage at the Oscars?

We were loaded onto the massive Boeing 747 and sat for a long time. I had of course a nightmare image of them telling us there was an engine problem, we’d have to wait another day or two. I think we all would have gone crazy. But after a long delay we did take off and had a smooth flight to the frozen north, landing just after 7 our time, 8 here. I took the UP express to Union; John had a driver waiting and is home, I hope resting, eating soup, and recovering from his bronchitis. He had the copy-edit of his new book Queen Esther to approve immediately and the French translation of a previous book. Several people who know this story have told me he’s their favourite writer; my U of T boss Lee Gowan wrote that he decided to become a writer after reading Garp. Imagine being that inspirational. What a gift.

I had to laugh; one of the things that had worried me about the trip was that I’d be returning on the last day of the Family Day weekend, so the airport would be jam-packed. Instead, at 8 a.m. midweek, the airport was nearly empty. Win!

The giant machines were scooping up the snow on Sackville St. when I arrived. Carol had kept plants and cat alive. And as always, the joy of my own things, my own kitchen. I relished a piece of sourdough toast with Adams peanut butter. Later, plowed through the snow to No Frills to buy fruit and veg – one avocado, $1.99, expensive little tomatoes, both from Mexico. What a difference in every way this winter country is to that vibrant, exotic country with its smells, sounds, colours. But this is home.

Luckily my dear tech helper Patrick came over, looked at the email situation and said, Let’s call Rogers. He spent an hour on the phone with them — something about Apple Mail, which I used, no longer being compatible with Rogers Yahoo and also needing second-factor authentication — issues they just dumped on me in the middle of my trip, with the only solution a very lengthy phone-call. If I’d still been away, it’d have been a long distance call. And if Patrick hadn’t been available, I’d have been my woozy, half-asleep self struggling with complicated tech. Infuriating.

More anon about the conference, especially Margaret Atwood’s hilarious and insightful interview with Wayne Grady. Peggy, as she is to my new friend John.

Below: the view from the plane; my garden and the trench to the door in my front yard; a shot posted on FB. Welcome home!

 

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