Beth Kaplan's Blog, page 60

honouring and missing Patricia Jane Ludwick

So much to tell, it's hard to know where to begin. I will talk about the CNFC conference, which was a stunning success, tomorrow. Today I want to talk about Patsy.

Patricia Ludwick, whom I met at Halifax's Neptune Theatre in the summer of 1970, who became my housemate in Dead Man's Cove, who threw my 20th birthday there. Who remained a passionate friend and correspondent despite living eventually on the other side of the country. She and I started in the same place, tall, dark-haired, well-read, fiercely opinionated actresses in Toronto and Vancouver. I ended up a divorced writer, teacher, and editor with two kids in downtown Toronto. She ended up a single poet, editor, dramatist, and script doctor in a small house on Gabriola Island. We went in different directions but also the same direction. The bond, despite bumps, endured for 51 years. 

Patsy was diagnosed with ALS a few years ago. She died at 11 a.m. her time on Saturday May 15. 

For months before, she prepared in her serene Buddhist way. She talked and laughed at length with everyone who called, and there were many. She sent packages back to friends; I received two big envelopes with writing and photographs I'd sent her, of her and us but also of my kids - she was godmother to my son Sam. I looked at my Patsy file on this computer to find not just long personal emails between us but very long and intense edits she did of drafts of my books and essays, which would have been far poorer without her valuable input. The world is far poorer without Patsy in it.

On Saturday afternoon, I received this from the friends who were with her at the end. I share it with you because I want you to get a sense of who she was, of what we who knew her are missing now. 

Patsy died peacefully in her home this morning, and asked that we send the message below along to you after she was gone. Jane & Jessie

dear friends

 

this is just to say thank you for being my friends, through all the seasons of our 

lives, in so many places in this wondrous world, on the rollercoaster and the 

roundabouts, in all kinds of weather.

 

Friendships have supported me all the way to the end of this particular road,

lucky me! It’s a glorious spring day outside my little house that friends helped

me build, and friends are coming to see me off. 

 

if you would like to do something to honour our friendship, plant a tree — a tree

native to the place in which it is planted so it has a decent chance of surviving, 

and to continue to nourish the Earth with its marvellous gifts – photosynthesis! 

carbon sequestration! flowers, fruits, leaves, communication through mycelium, 

and such rooted presence. 

 

It’s easy to die —

just give your breath back

to the trees and the wind

 

I’ll be sending you loving kindness through all forms of life but no more emails!

 

patsy

 

from gabriola island in the Salish Sea, May 15, 2021

In "The Donnellys"
With Jerry Franken, the love of her life
I called her Tudwell, I no longer remember why, and she called me Bee. 

A photo I took on Chesterman Beach, Patsy with, of course, notebook. Loved and missed forever, dearest friend.

last day

There will be weeping today. It's my friend's last day on earth. One of her oldest friends wrote to say she and her husband and daughter are going to the island today, to spend the day with her, and will be organizing a kind of shiva. Someone else wrote that another friend, who makes costumes for films, has made her a beautiful shroud.

Her doctor and a nurse will come to her house at 11 a.m. tomorrow. 

I am trying to imagine — they give you this exercise as a psychological tool, but I never thought it could actually be real — what it would be like to know this is my last day on earth. It's stunning here today, hot and bright. I sat outside, taking in the lilac which has just come into full bloom, above the viburnum which scents the air. The cardinal came to check out the deck for the water dish but I've moved it nearer the feeder. The holly for the first time has clumps of yellow sweet-smelling blossoms. The mock orange glows bright yellow-green. It is paradise. 

Another dear friend is having breast cancer surgery today. 

Last night for the first time Uncle Sam had the two boys for a sleepover at his small apartment. His dad wrote that his theatre-turned-medical clinic has just issued its 10,000th vaccination. 

And yet, as the virus still rampages, people filled with hatred are slaughtering each other. 

Last night was the first event of the CNFC conference, a talk by two journalists at the top of their game, Johanna Schneller and Ian Brown, who are married, on "writing about other people." They were hilarious and informative. "Sometimes your take on the story IS the story," said Ian, talking about flashes of discovery. "There's a difference between confession and candour," he said. "Trust the physical and the concrete," he said. It was fascinating and beautifully run, not a glitch in sight. Today, our first long day, from noon to 8.30, 3 workshops, including one moderated by me, and a big panel tonight. 

Looking at my garden, I said, if I were to know I'd die tomorrow, what would I ask myself today? And the answer came instantly. Have I given enough? 

Have I loved enough? 

in the midst of grief, a great blessing

A last word before I go under for a few days: the CNFC conference starts tonight. I'm moderating two presentations and an event where a group of eight writers read from their new books. Have tried to stock my fridge with food so I won't have to think about much else till Sunday night, and Monique just sat me down next to the bird feeder and cut my shaggy hair again.

Yesterday was a vitally important day. I am already devastated by the upcoming death, on Saturday, of a beloved longterm friend, who is using MAID to take her ALS-ravaged body from this earth. She's the most efficient person; I just received a second packages from her with printouts of our correspondence, photographs and writing I'd sent her through the years, a poem she wrote about me. 

Then I got an email from another close longterm friend, saying she has breast cancer and is being operated on tomorrow. They've only just discovered it and are operating already, so my guess is there's some urgency. 

I remember a writer, I think Jane Smiley, writing about "arriving at the age of grief." Here we are.

I realized I had friendships to mend, no time to waste. My friend with ALS and I used to exchange long emails and phone calls regularly; about 6 or 7 years ago, I felt her pulling away, and our correspondence and bond dwindled. I never asked her why. Yesterday I wrote to say, I must have done or said something that caused offence, and for that, I'm sorry. I know I can be condescending, impatient, dismissive. Whatever caused the gulf, I'm sorry.

She sent back the most beautiful note, saying no matter, in any case we'd simply been moving in different directions. And then she wrote, I’m nearly home now, and one day you’ll come to this place, too 

 As Ram Dass, or someone wise once said: We’re all just walking each other home.

Or, as Dr. Bonnie Henry would say: Be Kind. Keep calm. Stay safe.

As John O’Donohue would say: May you be blessed with good friends and may you be good to them

It’s spring, amazingly, once again, despite covid, and all the flowers are blooming, though the garden has gone a little feral, and all the birds are singing - enjoy your time on this astonishing Earth

Such beauty and serenity. May we all feel so, dear readers, when our time comes to go home. 

So then I wrote to two other once-close friends with whom I'd lost touch, one because we're busy and preoccupied and the other through a misunderstanding that has gone unresolved. Both sent back kind, warm notes. So much was fixed. I went to bed feeling I'd done very important work that day.

I know it could not be more of a cliché, but ... life is short. Love is long. Get in touch. Tell them you love them. 

It's hot out there; I just got out the sunscreen and am going to work in the garden. May you all be blessed with good friends and may you be good to them. 

May you enjoy your time on this astonishing Earth.

venting is good for the soul

Busy week: gearing up for the CNFC conference that starts Thursday evening and goes till Sunday late afternoon. My last hurrah with the organization - after 2 years on the board and 4 on the programming committee, I'm leaving Sunday. I'm glad. It's about time, in more ways than one. I love the CNFC and will be happy not to feel responsible for it. 

Mother's Day was a joyous gathering and feast at Anna's, just us and my daughter-by-another-mother Holly who bought me a sumptuous bouquet and bottle of wine. From my children, promises of lovely things, just as good. How incredibly blessed I am to have my family near; to be able, at this time of isolation, to spend a day with my children and grandsons. Below: much-loved Uncle Sam and nephew.

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I was throwing out an old teaching notebook when I noticed some writing: I'd given an in class writing exercise, to write a piece in the voice of someone you detest or have had great difficulty with. I did it too. In Grade 5, in 1960, I'd skipped a grade so was a year younger and a stranger, having recently returned from living in England where I attended a terrific local school. At Tower Road in Halifax, we had a very old teacher with yellow teeth and yellow-grey hair who hated me. Miss Hewitt was so vile to me that my parents were concerned about my mental health and sent me to a child psychiatrist. Dad was convinced she was motivated by anti-Semitism. Here's what I wrote:

It's impossible. They give me far too much work. Thirty Grade 5 children, sometimes more! And some of them dirty and ill-bred, barely able to speak the English language! They say I have a favourite. Well of course I do. I like to reward the good children with treats, like helping me. I know it's a thrill for them, being allowed to clean off the blackboard or come in early from recess to plug in my kettle. They deserve it. They're no trouble.

And then there are the others. In every class, the troublemakers. And in this class, that little smartaleck girl. Thinks she's so smart. Of course, she's Jewish, with a smartaleck professor father who on top of everything is an American. And he waltzes in here to complain about what I'm teaching his precious daughter. Just because he founded a school - a private boy's school where all the fancy people of Halifax can pay lots of money to send their sons - he thinks he knows how children learn, and he wants to complain about me, I who've been teaching for 40 years. 40 years! I know how to teach, I know what children need. 

And what little smartaleck Jewish girls do not need is their important professor father waltzing in to complain about their teacher. I have to teach her a lesson. She needs to understand how the world works - that she's just like everybody else. Take her down a peg. I can see her looking at me as if I'm some sort of dishrag. Who does she think she is? Little brat. Little smartaleck Jewish brat. And so what's their solution? To send her to a child psychiatrist! What nonsense. I'm glad to be rid of her. I don't want her sort in my classroom. 

Do you think I captured her sweet voice? I did try to see the world through her eyes. That's the point of the exercise: villains do not see themselves as villains. Hitler, I like to tell the class, was a vegetarian. 

It was an interesting school, Tower Road, with a startling socio-economic mix of kids, though not of race - some really poor, some okay, some fairly well-off, but all white. I look back now and see which kids could barely afford clothes and shoes for school. I see Mabel, who was so savvy about sex at such a young age, with such a haunted, too-old face, I'm sure she was being abused. Of course I didn't realize any of that then. Miss Hewitt savaged them all, with a special edge for me. 

But I win. Miss Hewitt is dead, and I'm telling my truth about her. Dad got his revenge, too; the school he founded, the fantastic Halifax Grammar School - co-ed since 1963 - years ago bought and incorporated Tower Road. 

One thing we half-Jewish brats are good at it is humour.

Two Old Guys Talking to Beth

My old friend John Wade - a genius with dogs who tried to help with the two crazy out of control canines who lived in this house when the kids were young - and his friend Paul have a podcast called Two Old Guys Talking. They both read my memoir and set up an interview with me. It lasted an hour and was a great deal of fun. So far friend Lani and student Paula have watched and reported: I loved this interview. I was engrossed from the beginning. John and Paul asked great question and Beth, I could listen to you for hours. Your openness and honesty and wisdom shine through like a halo!

And: So glad to have listened to your chat with the not so old guys. Thanks for promoting your authentic self and your wonderful acceptance of personal journeys, big and small. 

Thank you, friends. I think it's the first time I've been mentioned in the context of a halo. Well, if not now, when? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD9yBDgHKYg&t=1s

A truly unpleasant experience today: I sat through a webinar from a finance firm called Moody's. The speaker was like a human shark, terrifyingly aggressive and fear mongering, touting himself continuously as the only possible saviour from ruin. Truly horrible; I realize how lucky I am that I almost never encounter hard sell human beings like that guy. 

A lovely day otherwise - chilly at the market in the morning easing into hot sun in the afternoon. Yesterday was delicious. I had a scheduled call from Dr. Lawless, the doctor at St. Mike's who oversaw my appendix crisis and got me out of there in two days. I told him how extremely impressed I was and delivered my only complaint - about "doctorese," jargon incomprehensible to laypeople. He was open, warm, sensible - this in a vast hospital in the middle of a pandemic. Grateful!

And then my son came over and made a delicious dinner and we talked and talked and watched Stanley Tucci extoll Italian food. Grateful AND lucky. All that and spring too.

anticipating a terrible loss

Just went for a stroll on this lovely mild evening - the magnolia, the tulips, the chartreuse buds on the trees - and stopped at one of the 'hood's Little Free Libraries, of which there are many, mine being one. There inside was my book "All My Loving." Looked like the donor hadn't even opened it - phooey. I just had to re-read it for a copyright issue and have to say, as objectively as possible which isn't very, I liked it a lot. It's a humorous but also serious exploration of the world in the early sixties from a 14-year old point of view, with a particular focus on that teen's huge, life-saving love for Paul McCartney and the Beatles. 

I left the book there for the next reader. May it bring you pleasure - and perhaps a memory of a distant time. Or not so distant - it's my hope that young people would pick up the book to know what it was like to discover that brand new English group for the first time. But as usual, in the absence of marketing, no one knows the book exists. Except whoever up the street opens the door of the little library. 

Yesterday, as I sat here looking at the garden, Madame Cardinal flew down to the big plant base filled with water I've put on the deck. She sipped and then bathed, splashing about, ruffling her feathers. Monsieur Cardinal flew over with something in his beak, fed it to her, and flew away. She went on bathing and he returned to feed her another treat. It was like watching a pretty lady at the spa being fed chocolates. Since they were both out and about - they're inseparable - I assume the eggs aren't laid yet. Unless they hired a babysitter for their big night out. More cardinals please!

It's the Hot Docs festival, a scintillating presentation of documentaries from around the world. I've watched a few, the most interesting so far "Dirty Tricks," about cheating in the world of bridge, especially absorbing because of my uncle the famous bridge player, about whom I want to write next. It turned out one of the players interviewed is the son of my friend Ruth's friend. We arranged to talk today; he was in Las Vegas where he said it was nearly 100 degrees. Edgar Kaplan, he said, was one of his heroes from an early age. He met and played with him several times at the end of Edgar's life, as he was dying of cancer at age 72. "He was one of a kind," he said. "There was no one else like him." I agreed, as I wept to remember him. To work!

Have been busy with other things, however, as is my wont. The Creative Nonfiction Collective's conference is coming up on May 13 and there's stuff to be done. Teaching is gearing up again, two classes Thursday, a new term starting next week and another the week after. 

And always - life. Something unusual and very difficult this week: one of my oldest and dearest friends has a fatal disease and has picked the date she will use MAID - medically assisted dying. With her doctor's help, she will die on May 15. Everything is arranged, though she says the timing is not ideal as her friends can't gather in large numbers because of Covid. She lives on the other side of the country; what can I do to say goodbye? I wrote her a letter about what her 51 years of friendship have meant to me. Her courage and grace are extraordinary. More weeping. 

This is something new in our world, picking the date you will, with the help of medical science, die. What a gift for her, a fiercely independent woman who did not want to become helpless and dependent. She will remain in control of her destiny until the end. 

It's hard, though, to feel that date approaching, with its terrible, unimaginable loss for the rest of us.

my baby turns forty

Today my daughter, Anna Elizabeth, turns 40. She was born at 2.30 a.m. May 3 1981 in Vancouver's St. Paul's Hospital. Her father and I arrived there May 2 at 9.30 p.m., telling the staff that since it was three days before her due date, what I was feeling was false labour. It was not. We were ushered into the brand new birthing room which looked, said Ed, "like an imitation Holiday Inn." And there the hard but amazingly fast work began.

Someone posted this on FB: the ten stages of dilation during childbirth. As my friend Hal Wake wrote in reply, "Yikes!" What a @#$ miracle is the female body!

And so 40 years ago today I became someone's mother, and next Sunday and again in 3 weeks, that someone will celebrate her own motherhood, her first son born May 21 nine years ago with his grandmother - me - in attendance. And on and on goes the human race.

I spent yesterday afternoon admiring the energy of my grandsons. After supper they both slowed down briefly, Ben for a picture book and Eli for a few pages of Harry Potter, before careening out the door again. Thank God for the trampoline, the basketball net, the hockey net, the trillion bicycles and balls, and the alleyway outside their yard that provides yet another avenue to exercise lungs and legs. 

Memory lane: Anna aged 1 1/2, 13, 16, and 23. A certain force of personality evident, always. 

2004. About to separate, to the relief of us both - she to her own home, leaving me to mine. This picture was taken to go with an article about intergenerational marijuana smoking which featured us both, only the older of us tentative.  

One of Anna's friends posted on FB: "I hope you truly understand how important you are to so many people - the generosity, empathy, and kindness you show to literally everyone you meet is unmatched. You are a wonderful human and I am sooooo grateful to have you in my life!!!"

Me too, my love. Me too.

finding Alice Neel

I KNEW there was a reason it'd be good to keep old address books! Diving into the mountains of dusty papers in my office, I found the box with my old travel notes and address books and began a search. As I've written, my parents' dear friend Alice Neel the painter is having a huge moment in the limelight with a prestigious retrospective at the Met in NYC, and I've written an essay about my visit to her in 1980. It bothered me that I couldn't remember her apartment number and wondered if I'd jotted it down somewhere. And now in my address book from that time, I've found both that and her phone number. Hooray!

I just made the mistake of opening two big boxes of my father's papers and am swamped with admiration for this man. He was a scientist and professor, not a writer, but he never stopped writing - articles, letters to the editor, telegrams of protest, petitions. My mother even kept his City College essays from the early forties. Yet again, overwhelming.

I sent this shot to my kids, saying, Isn't this what Eli will look like in 10 or 12 years? In some pictures, the resemblance between great-grandfather and one of his great-grandsons is startling. 

Boxes of papers - on top on the right, Dad's article in Weekend magazine in 1958 about the dangers of nuclear fallout residue in food, with a picture of us eating Strontium 90-laced corn. 

Last week in an attempt to get a handle on all this, I ordered $140 worth of file folders from Staples, rode yesterday to pick them up, and spent the afternoon filling them with letters, which are now better organized. One file, for example, is marked "Mum's others," letters from men and one woman who adored her but with whom, I think, she did not have an affair except by mail, like a man named Gene who wrote passionate letters to her in March 1949, five months before she married my father. Interesting. 

At least I now have some idea where things are. Efficient writers must be good at organizing research material. I'm doing my best but feel like I'm floundering most of the time. But there's so much paper. And that's not to mention the many boxes of photographs! 

It's been grey and chilly the last few days but today the sun is out and cheer returns. Must leave behind these dusty piles and refresh my lungs outside. But first, another lovely review to share: Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed your book. I could relate as I worked at an intensive camp for autistic kids in the summer of 1979. Your story really was great and I did not want it to end.

Now that is what a writer with dusty hands is glad to hear. Thank you. 

today's heroes: Joe Biden, Mandy Patinkin, Pa Leadbeater

Gloomy, grey, very wet - ah, spring. Good for the flowers, but your faithful correspondent is not going out today. Yesterday, spent more time delving into the boxes of paper in my office and discovered that what I thought was my British grandmother's diary was in fact my grandfather's. There is definitely a diary-keeping gene, and I inherited it from Percy Leadbeater; he never stopped chronicling. One I found broke my heart: in 1980, after my mother had brought her parents, who were in their mid-eighties, from London to Ottawa and installed them eventually in a longterm care facility where they shared a room, my grandmother was taken to hospital one day. Two days later, Pa wrote MARION DIED. 

And then continued with what he was watching, eating, doing. Life must go on. They'd been married 62 years. 

And more tears - found a tiny daytimer kept by my mother in 1944, hardly filled out; my mother emphatically did NOT inherit the diary gene. But on Wednesday November 29, along with what I assume are her Bletchley shift times - " 4-12" - she wrote one word: "Kap," her nickname for Private J. Gordin Kaplan, whom she'd met the Saturday before. On Wednesday, they got together again, and with that one tiny word, my hope of life began. 

Amazing, no, to have this light into the past? A blessing, but overwhelming too.

Speaking of shining light, one of my favourite shows is PBS's Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, an impishly warm and wise man. This week it was Audra McDonald and the wonderful Mandy Patinkin, who wept on learning how much of his family had been wiped out in the Holocaust, something he hadn't known. And he passed on a saying: "As long as one person remembers you, it's not over." He said he was going to treasure the memory of his family, even those he did not know. 

Mandy was performing his Yiddish songs in Toronto some years ago; the concert was expensive so I didn't go, but I did go to the Stage Door and leave a gift for him: my book Finding the Jewish Shakespeare. I wanted him to play my great-grandfather in the Spielberg film adaptation of the book. My great-grandfather died aged 56, so it's a little late now.

Sigh.

Great cheer however: I watched the last 20 minutes of Biden's speech last night with my mouth hanging open. Did he use a teleprompter at all, or did he simply pour out one marvellous ambitious project after another? The man, I texted my family, is a fucking miracle. 

As long as one person remembers you, it's not over.

The Oscars, and The Father

Yes, I watched the Oscars, sort of, while also reading, flipping to other channels, and finally with relief turning to "Couples Therapy" which provided more drama. I understand trying to keep the magic alive, creating an intimate space in a train station, but those enormous gowns looked absurd in a small space. Though Chloe Zhao and Frances McDormand paid no attention to the dress code, no breasts toppling out or un-walkable shoes for them. 

I'd seen a mere two of the nominated movies - "Soul" and "The Trial of the Chicago 7" - both terrific. Tried briefly but abandoned "Mank" and "Ma Rainey." I'd also seen two of the prize-winning documentaries: "My Octopus Teacher," which I loved, and the short "Colette," about an elderly Frenchwoman honouring her brother, who was in the resistance and died in a concentration camp - very moving. 

People have complained bitterly in past years about the lack of diversity of the Oscars. This year, they were as satisfyingly diverse as could be, both in presenters and winners; many of the speeches were about racial justice. So afterwards, people complained about the venue and the ending. I guess we just like to complain. Well, I can't talk, after my bitchfest.

Have to say, Brad Pitt is still one of the best-looking men on earth, even with a silly little ponytail. 

Last night, I watched two other winners: the best animated short, "If something happens I love you" and "The Father." Devastating, both of them, and brilliant, one about the aftermath of gun violence and the other about losing your mind to Alzheimers. Anthony Hopkins deserved that Oscar; he gives a master class in acting with truth and courage, showing what it's like not to understand what's happening around you, absolutely stunning, but then they all are, every actor, the whole movie. Florian Zeller, the very young, very handsome Frenchman who wrote and produced it as a play first and now this haunting film - what a blazing talent.

I read a funny article in the paper - there's a Frenchman in space, at the space station, so they had to create gourmet freeze-dried food for him, including boeuf bourguignon and lobster. Mais bien sûr! 

Yesterday I was on a Zoom call with neighbours I've known for over 30 years. Duncan Fremlin is creating a video memory of the Cabbagetown baseball league, which ran in the Sprucecourt school playing field every spring through the nineties. I told them it was heaven, going across the street twice a week to stand with other parents watching our kids play in a field ringed by forsythia in full bloom. How lucky we are still to be here, still to be friends. One of the father coaches - one of the best things about the league was the involvement of many fathers - said he had fond memories of "Beth's daughter Anna, so very outspoken." Anna had told me that though the fee to join was very low - $12, I think - some of her friends from Regent Park couldn't afford it, so she simply snuck them onto the teams, "got them jerseys and everything." 

Atsa my girl, the same at twelve as at ... nearly forty. On Monday my outspoken daughter will be forty. How is it possible that girl hitting a home run on a mild spring evening against a bank of forsythia is now 40, watching her own children play? And I am 70. 70. 

Luckily, so far I think my aging brain is still in play. More or less.