Beth Kaplan's Blog, page 69

body blow

My body hurts, as if I've been pummelled, kicked in the gut, in the head. Well, maybe that also has to do with chasing my grandsons around the playground, growling loudly. That's our game - I'm the wolf, trying to eat them. At one point I growled so fiercely that a little girl nearby started to cry, so we had to temper our game.

It was a balm for the soul to be at a playground, a place of fantasy and fun, in High Park which was shining gold today.

After a sprinkling of snow a few days ago, today was almost hot - well, it was hot in the sun, though windy. A beautiful day in which to reflect on the fact that this planet is fucked.

Excuse me, but it's true. If millions of citizens cannot tell the difference between decency and gross, unspeakable evil, or, worse, they can tell the difference and they don't care, then we are fucked as a species and as a planet. As Anna said today, we'll be okay, it's Eli and Ben and their children who will really suffer. And it's true. 

I still cannot believe it. As Frank Bruni wrote in the NYT today, it's soul-shredding. It's a body blow. Even if Biden wins, it will be impossible for him to accomplish anything; they've been emboldened. My god, even the disgusting Susan Collins got back in. 

Anyway, I did get a break from it all, growling in the park. I've been joking about slitting my wrists. But the sun was shining and the boys were grinning and running and I got through. Now to go drink wine with Monique. And maybe cry a little for poor stupid, unbelievably stupid, greedy, selfish, blind, appalling humanity. My species disgusts me today.

11 p.m. wanting to puke

Had to turn it off, hours ago. I put on the (Dixie) Chicks and then watched another episode of The Queen's Gambit. I turned it off when Mitch and Lindsay won and then the QAnon woman. Unbearable. Unfuckingbearable. How is it possible? I want to throw up. 

So, to bed, to read for hours perhaps, to try to release the tension in my shoulders and stomach and heart.

Profound sadness. People are so fucking much more stupid than is comprehensible. 

Election night

7 p.m. I know as soon as I turn on the TV I'll be flung into the pit of wondering and fretting, so I'll wait a bit longer to turn it on. Because we probably won't know for sure for a long time. But the indications are clear - millions and millions of Americans have had enough. 

May the nightmare end. May decency return to that benighted land. And even so, poor Biden - as a NYT columnist wrote today, Why does he want that job??

However, let's make sure he gets it first. 

Monique and her American boyfriend Ron are coming at 8. I'll turn on then. In the meantime ...

Mayor Pete slays the Fox dragons

I can't stand it any more! My eyeballs are roasting in my head! Let's survive tomorrow somehow, and then Wednesday will be a major detox day, no social media, nothing, no no no. Got to stop this obsessive scrolling!!

Wait - who am I kidding? Think he and his goons are going to slink quietly into the night? How will they try to throttle democracy? Jesus, does it not feel as if we've been enduring this election battle for years? In the middle of a pandemic? Enough, the entire planet cries. MAKE HIM GO AWAY. ALL OF THEM. 

What cheered me up today was Mayor Pete. His appearances on Fox have been going viral, one after the other - they set 'em up, he knocks 'em down. Phenomenal - all done smoothly, with prime articulacy and not a hint of condescension. Here's a short bit. Do yourself a favour and find some of the others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQAuuVBFi6I

Today's treat, besides a long visit and a bowl of my just-made leek and potato soup with my dear friend Jason: an hour and a half Zoom call with Trevor, now living in a town near Copenhagen, whom I met a few times in the seventies. He was a post-doc of my father's and spoke at his memorial event in 1988. He has ordered my books and is apparently reading them all, when they arrive in Denmark. We got caught up about our lives and talked about my mother and father, who were, he said, like parents to him. Did you know that biochemists are supposed to be boring? Trevor told me there's a true story about a woman who put a personal ad in the paper "seeking an educated, intelligent man. No biochemists." 

"But your dad was trained as a biochemist," he said, "and could not have been less boring." 

Trevor is an immunologist, a growth profession these days. I hope some day he'll explain a few scientific things to me, like what exactly a biochemist and an immunologist are and do. Next time, we're going to Zoom in Pam, who lives in Amsterdam, another former student of Dad's, the woman who did not have his baby and whom I've never met. What an adventure! Trevor told me it has meant the world to him, because of my call getting in touch with his own past. He has been contacting old friends and remembering. 

That's something else we do, we memoirists — in our search for our own story, we reconnect people with theirs. 

Trevor sent this picture of my parents — a new favourite. Dad mixing drinks, I assume, Mum in one of her 46 white blouses. How happy this image makes me.

a gathering of indie writers and more sweet words about the book

It was a cold but sunny ride to the market this morning. All day the yellow leaves have been showering from the neighbour's tree. But next week we'll have a few more warm days, they say.

Two more blessings today, two reviews (edited) from friends in B.C. David wrote Really beautiful and courageous writing... As of 1976 I was one of the people at the Arts Club bar trying to find my place, not fitting in. Those sections were really poignant for me, as were many others. Really well done. 

And Theresa: How beautifully you've woven the strands of your early life--the uncertainties of finding a way to live in the world, the attractions and dangers of that world ... This is such a richly-textured book and I loved the details: the landscape of southern France, Greece, the Vancouver theatre scene in the 1970s. I admired your younger self, her bold spirit and her curiosity, her loyalty, and her willingness to open the door to the community at the Moulin. 

Admiration, and gratitude, because you've made something fine and beautiful, and it deserves to be read, to be savoured, to find a place in the cultural conversation.

Again, thank you friends, not just for reading, but for making time to make this writer very happy. Tears in the eyes happy. 

Yesterday, another great writer experience - the Writer's Union of Canada ran a Zoom get-together for "Self-published writers." Some 35-40 of us were there in our little boxes on the screen, and after an intro, were divided into breakout rooms. My first breakout room! What amazing technology - there we were, six of us, from B.C. — Gibson's and Hornby Island, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, Toronto and Yellowknife ... Instant friends, advice and ideas exchanged.

The first thing we decided, thanks to Gwen, is that we will no longer call ourselves "self-published," a tainted word. "Indie movies are movies the directors produced themselves, and there's indie music," she said. "We should call ourselves indie writers. Independent." 

Yes! INDIE is who we are. We discussed various issues including the problems of marketing before returning to the main group where a summary of each breakout room was given. Superb!

I sent Gwen a private birthday greeting, with another moan about marketing, and today she wrote back, At its best, marketing is just another word for connecting with like-minded people. It needn't be salesmanship or pushy. If we try to reframe it as a positive connection to another human being, one curious or compassionate soul at a time, then it has the potential to expand us. Easier said than done, of course.

Given the heart and subject of your Loose Woman memoir - woof, it should speak to and reach many thousands. They just need to know it is there, waiting to fill their hearts and mirror their sorrows. Believe in your book's power and potential to shift lives, Beth, and then perhaps the 'marketing' may not feel so onerous.

Now that's sensible and thoughtful and wise. I will try to take your advice, Gwen, and I thank you. 

The most important thing, today, besides Hallowe'en - the kids are gathering for a private party - is that it's 3 days until, we pray, the world changes. Last night, Bill Maher had on a cybersecurity expert scaring us by wondering what manipulative damage the Russians or Iranians are going to do before or during election day. And his panel discussed what will happen to the Repulsives after the election, if Biden wins. "It's Trump's party now," said one. "There is no moderate wing. It's the party of white grievance, racist and misogynist."

An article on FB today about the appalling things Steven Miller has in mind for immigrants if Trump wins. Imagine, this disgusting man is so utterly without redeeming qualities that Trump hasn't found a need to fire him, one of the only rats to cling to the sinking ship. May these foul creatures vanish. 

But we know they won't. As someone said last night, "Remember, he can run again in 2024. And then Don Jr."

The sun is shining. Let's hang onto that, for now.

Anna in a past life, as Amy Winehouse Where Anna's heart is today - and mine.

"No nation should kill children," said my dad.

A lovely moment the other day - As it Happens speaking about Joey Moss, a man with Down's syndrome, the brother of Wayne Gretzky's girlfriend of the time. Wayne got him a job as a locker room attendant with the Edmonton Oilers where he remained until his recent death. Gretzky's voice quivered as he spoke about Joey, what he meant to the team, and so did that of another hockey insider. At the end, they played Joey singing the Canadian anthem at a game - at the top of his lungs, tunelessly but with so much enthusiasm and joy. 

I thought, as I wiped away tears, how foolish it is to be as self-conscious as we all are. My friend Judy, whose beautiful book Writing with Grace is about her friendship with a young woman with Down's syndrome, tells me that because of extensive genetic testing, people with the condition are becoming an endangered population. They have a great deal to show us, to teach us, to share with us.

That, too, is the subject of my new book. 

Speaking of which, a few more reviews: From Karen: Your book is brave, honest, touching, funny, very well written and -- above all -- real.  While reading it I felt as though I were right there with you, inside the print. What I particularly like is the way you lead the reader through your train of thought, rather than from event A to B.  You are a terrific writer and a remarkable woman. 

Wow! I'll take it.

And from Isobel: I think you capture the zeitgeist of that era perfectly, especially for young women -- the naivete, the incomplete, just-forming notions of feminism, the trying-it-all-on, the forging ahead on headstrong yet flimsy aspirations.... which don't turn out to be so flimsy after all!

What struck me in Loose Woman is your great flexibility with different situations. A little like a chameleon, you moved through different worlds, leaving one for an entirely different set of others, yet with energy, enthusiasm and a lot of curiosity and compassion that made each transition and new experience really live for the reader. Your writing is full of love. 
Oh that's good to read: Your writing is full of love. Many thanks to you both! 
Had my flu shot yesterday, so sore arm and a bit wonky today - but how well organized it was, everything in the clinic wrapped tight in plastic, almost no chairs, alone in a room for the shot, which I hardly felt, by a doctor also so wrapped in plastic, I could hardly see her face. And then dinner with Monique and Cathy, with a great deal of Beaujolais Nouveau. Perhaps that's why I'm wonky. And about to teach a Zoom class.
But mostly - I've realized how glad I am to have started this new book about my parents. The other day I opened another box left by my mother, which was overflowing with paper, including scores of newspaper clippings about my dad, who travelled the country for years speaking against nuclear proliferation and the war in Vietnam. There are reams of his writings, including essays he wrote for his BA in 1942! A lot to take in. But there's my story - these people were extraordinary, engaged, making a difference, admirable. They were also, much of the time, terrible parents. 
Stay tuned.

a prayer for Joe Biden and the Democrats - save the world!

Dear God, the nightmare - at least one of the nightmares - will be over in a week: the US election, even if it'll drag on while the orange blowhole makes trouble with his criminal friends. I'm terrified in the next few days the Reprehensibles will pull something out of the hat - or out of Putin's hat: a war, perhaps. A huge terrorist event to scare people that will turn out, later, to have been engineered by them. Like Hillary's emails last time, a false alarm sounding the knell of doom for our planet.

Those people are so evil, it's hard to believe they are flourishing in our world. And yet they are. I think of my friend, my former friend, who wrote to me that his bottom line looks good these days so he's voting for Trump. And I thought, of all the hideous things this man has done, pick ONE. For me, children in cages. Ripping children from their parents' arms, putting them in cages, and then losing track of who goes where. That's enough to send this man and his team to the burning pits of hell forever, let alone everything else, the hundreds of other appalling, unforgivable, inhuman things.

Since I did not, unlike my parents, live through a world war and did not myself experience the massacres in Rwanda or Bosnia or other places, this election is the clearest battle of good versus evil that has touched my own reality in my lifetime. Staring at evil evil evil evil and more evil. Mitch McConnell's repulsive face. And that new woman, I won't even be able to look at her. How did these people without the tiniest speck of conscience or decency or honour come to hold so many millions in thrall? 

It's dark and chilly and raining, perhaps that's why I'm feeling apocalyptic. It's so dark in the mornings when I wake, I'm not sure if it's morning or the middle of the night. I was up at 7 Sunday, 9.30 yesterday. Today, taught a class at noon and now need to get myself back to work. But I find myself dragged back into frantic updates on FB and Twitter and the NYT - what's happening now? How will our planet be destroyed today? 

Go Joe go. I beg you - save us. 

Even if he's elected with a landslide, even if the country gets through all the obstructions the Reps will throw at them - how will he ever dig out from the heaping piles of steaming shit Trump has created and is creating right now? 

Take a breath. Friends are helping. JM appeared at my door with Sunday's NYT - he brings me his, neatly folded, when he's finished. John appeared with chocolate cake and crabapple jelly from Sylvie. Gretchen brought me the most delicious dark chocolate biscotti that vanished in seconds. But now those gifts, too, are problematic: the Y is closed, all I do all day is sit with the new book, and people are bringing me chocolate treats! 

Ah well. Life is short and there's horrible stuff out there. Another slice, please. 

health report: all clear

So many of you have been emailing and texting in concern about my possible exposure to Covid that I need to post immediately: Holly just tested negative, so we are all negative too. Incredible relief. Sam would have had to quit work for weeks; Anna, to isolate with sick boys, or even more difficult, healthy, bouncy boys, while sick herself. Horrendous.

Whereas for me - well, yes, I'm old(er), a senior, definitely in the AT RISK category. But if I had to isolate, not that much would change in my life, because these days especially, I live in solitude. I'm so drawn into this new book, delving into the past, that I do little else but sit all day - what a privilege! Today I had to force myself to do Jane's Zoom class at 1 and then to have aperitif with Monique at 5 - and later to watch 60 Minutes, gazing in fascination at close-ups of one of the most repulsive faces on earth. 

But otherwise — with what hours I can spare from teaching and editing work, housework, trying to get the memoir out, and of course too much blasted social media — I spend my days now fiddling with letters and paragraphs for the story of my parents and their offspring. My mother working to resettle Jewish refugees after the ship the Exodus landed in Germany in 1947. My father nearly dying of polio in 1951, the miracle of him picking up his fiddle again. Mum writing to Dad, a few months after they'd met in France and spent four heavenly days together in Paris and Brussels, about having to have an abortion - in war-torn Germany. 

At the moment, I'm following their love affair just after the war, back and forth, she in Germany, he in New York - in their letters you see them hesitate, then go for it, then pull back again. There was love and desire, but also fear on both sides. And they express it all through the mail.

There's a remarkable confluence here - me, the chronicler, the memoir writer fascinated by family story, helped by my mother the packrat, who saved every letter, every scrap of paper. How many people can delve deeply into the inner lives of their parents before they were born? That's what I'm able to do, thanks to Mum, and it's remarkable. Because luckily, they were fascinating, complex people, and even better - THEY WERE GOOD WRITERS. The letters are amazing. My problem will be cutting. I'll need help with that. 

In other news - I opened the blinds this morning to see a big skunk strolling along Sackville Street. Oh - and I don't have Covid. Otherwise, onward. 

a marvellous review brings the sun on a chilly grey Sunday

Started a quick scroll through FB this bleak Sunday morning, to find this. Happy and beyond grateful. It's all worth it! I had many doubts about this book because it was turned down by every publisher and agent I sent it to, save one who rejected it in the end. I decided to publish anyway, to clear it from my life and move on. The fulsome praise from readers has filled me with astonishment, wonder, and joy. 

Lynn's Reviews > Loose Woman: my odyssey from lost to found  ReadRate this book1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 starsLoose Woman: my odyssey from lost to found
by Beth Kaplan (Goodreads Author)
Lynn's reviewOct 20, 2020
it was amazing
The Oxford Dictionary gives 10 definitions of the word ‘loose’. Beth’s memoir takes the reader along with her on her odyssey through 8 of those definitions. From her growing up with fabulously glamorous but complex parents from whom she strives to break loose, on to the joys and heartbreaks of her years on the Vancouver stage as a very talented actress tasting the sometimes bitter delights of the sexually liberating loose 70s, and through to her stay in a L’Arche community in France, this fast paced, very funny, and poignant account will stay with the reader for a long time. It is thanks to her contact with the mentally handicapped men at L’Arche ( the most gripping moments in the memoir) that Beth - a self described half-Jewish atheist, will slowly discover a looseness that sets her free. She is particularly good at capturing a moment, a character, and a whole ambience in a few quick phrases. You will never encounter a cheese platter in the same way. Not only a Goodread, a very Excellentread. Highly recommended.

a beautiful day, with sadness

Just had to let you know that it's the most stunning day of the year here: 22 degrees feeling like 25 - radiant. The sparrows are splashing in their dish of water on the deck bannister, rainbow drops scattering as they bathe and drink. Awhile ago there was a blue jay at the feeder, then the cardinal family. I'm finishing the ceremonial taking in of the plants, washing geraniums and coleus, taking them to their winter home upstairs. 

Because tonight there'll be a thunderstorm and it's going to feel like 2 degrees, with possibly a tornado further north. The temp is dropping over 20 degrees overnight. Ah, autumn in Canada. The ground is thick with leaves. The burning bush in the garden is glowing yellow and red. 

Yesterday, I went across town to celebrate Thomas's birthday. It probably wasn't a great idea Covid-wise - Ben is now back in school, and though Anna is very careful, the whole family is out and about. But there was no way I'd miss my son-in-law's birthday and Anna's roast beef and Yorkshire pudding followed by chocolate cake made partly, or at least the crunchy sparkles added, by Eli. And, mostly, to see my boys. I will say again, with complete objectivity, they are the finest boys the world has ever seen. They were throwing themselves, shrieking with laughter, at their dad, and he was carefully tossing them upside down and sliding them to the floor. If that's not what fathers are for, I don't know what is. 

Words are starting to escape me. Earlier today I couldn't remember the word 'bureaucracy.' And now I can't remember the word for the sparkly things on the top of cakes - no, not candles, like tiny smarties. It's pathetic. 

I just Googled: sprinkles. Oh oh. Worrisome. Brain disintegrating?

Very sad news: the other day, a lovely young man I knew from the Y was murdered. Shane Stanford was a calm, kind presence in the gym, smiling, helpful; he was hoping to become general manager. Instead, as he sat in his car on his way home, he was victim of an apparently random gun attack. Horrifying and tragic. Far too many guns and gangs, angry young men with no future.

Speaking of angry men with no future - watched the last US debate last night. May we never have to confront that hideous orange human being again, except as he howls on his way to jail. 

Friends, now that I've opened the last bottle of rosé of 2020 and had a glass, it's time to go for a walk in the sun. 

Your smiles for today: The kids are going to do Hallowe'en with friends. Holly and Eli made his Bart costume themselves, with yellow cardboard, styrofoam, and ingenuity. 

And ... my Macca has a new solo album coming out! 

Happy to end with something cheerful.

PS Now not so cheerful. Anna just called because Holly, who works in the school system, just called her. A co-worker of Holly's, someone she works with in the lunchroom, has just been diagnosed with Covid. Holly's going for a test tomorrow morning. But this means I should isolate at least until Holly's test comes back. She and I were side by side last night, inside, without masks. 

Suddenly scary.