Beth Kaplan's Blog, page 8

lovely San Miguel de Allende

Sunday Feb. 9

Finally, a glorious moment of tranquillity; it has been a busy few days. We are settled in the home of Annie’s friend Jim, who, like many people here, spends his winters in San Miguel and his summers in Toronto. He has a lovely big house high on a hill above the city, with a quiet, pretty garden in which I’m sitting under an umbrella right now.

Almost as soon as we arrived yesterday, we set off again. Jim was billeting an opera singer  appearing that night in a local production of The Marriage of Figaro, so we all went. It was thrilling to see one of the most famous operas of all time with an entirely Mexican cast, and superb they were, too, the voices spectacular. The small orchestra of music students was good. However, a huge problem — we were seated on the side balcony of the old theatre and could see almost nothing. The worst design of any theatre I’ve ever sat in; everyone around us was as furious as we. We tried moving one row back where at least we could stand up and peer over the side to try to catch a glimpse.

Luckily, the music is so sublime that it carried the day, and much of the action is static anyway, someone stopping to sing something heavenly straight out to the audience, enacting this most incomprehensible and ridiculous of plots. It feels still, after these hundreds of years, that Mozart was touched by god; the sweetness and power of the music is undimmed. Too bad we had no idea what was going on in the convoluted plot and couldn’t see anyway.

I confess, there’s an odd thing about San Miguel, which is crowded with people like us — old white gringos. But they — we — bring much needed work and money to this pretty town with its tiny twisted streets, and many are artists. It feels like a kind of colonization, but one in which everyone gains. I hope.

Today is our day off. We’re unpacking, finally able to figure out what we’ve brought and what we forgot; I left my water bottle on the bus. In Mexico City, we both began to feel we’d not brought enough warm clothes; it was so chilly, one morning I put on the down coat I wore to the airport in TO. But yesterday by mid-afternoon, San Miguel was broiling. And then cool again in the evening and this morning. So layers, taking stuff off and putting it back on.

Church bells, twittering, the cooing of doves. I’m surrounded by big pots of oleander, cacti, succulents including huge fat jade plants, poinsettias, geraniums, and all the electric shades of bougainvillea. Jim made a frittata for breakfast. We’re feeling at home.

Monday Feb. 10

The excitement of Sunday evening was taking Jim out for dinner. We arrived at a lovely courtyard restaurant at 5.30 – as I’ve written, Mexicans eat lunch at 3, so Jim felt 5.30 would be after the lunch crowd but before the hordes of gringos. Unfortunately, on Sundays this place closes at 6. So we simply had guacamole — Annie and I have had guacamole everywhere we go — and our first margarita. Delicious. Then a short jaunt to the only Japanese restaurant in San Miguel, where we sat on a rooftop with young Mexicans all around us, under a nearly full moon.

Today Annie and I walked down the extremely steep hill leading to Jim’s — good walking shoes essential — to town. No wonder people flock to San Miguel; it’s a beautiful place, narrow cobbled streets lined with houses and shops in the deepest ochres, yellows, oranges, reds, browns. Ornate churches, leafy squares, many courtyards with flowers and fountains, to sit and rest from the heat.

We wandered and explored, poking into an occasional shop, stopping for coffee, before meeting friends of Annie’s for lunch. As one of them said, these are “social justicey” people from her work, lovely folks. We had guacamole, of course, among other things. With shopping to do for Jim, we went to the market, first the tourist market full of silver, mirrors, tin, weaving, many lovely things hard to resist, but resist we did. Then to the Mexican market for vegetables, where I bought a colourful woven lidded basket as a gift for Jim, who’d mentioned he thought he should have a laundry hamper.

Tonight, he cooked a superb meal, and now they’re watching a series and I’m writing to you and getting ready to depart. Tomorrow is jam-packed; we’ve booked a car and driver to take us to two picturesque small towns outside San Miguel, but as soon as we get back, I have to move out of here, take my books down to the conference hotel where they’ll be for sale, and go on to the place where I’m billeted.

Tomorrow afternoon, Phase Two of my trip, mucho Conference, begins.

Sorry, I’ve pictures but the internet is very slow tonight. Tomorrow.

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Saturday Feb.8First, the good news: my workshop at the co...

Saturday Feb.8

First, the good news: my workshop at the conference is sold out.

Annie and I are on the bus to San Miguel. It took an hour or so to get out of vast Mexico City, but now we’re looking at dusty fields, many cacti, small concrete houses climbing up hillsides. Superhighway choked with trucks but the air is a bit clearer, after the dense smog over the city.

Yesterday, a huge treat — the National Museum of Anthropology. A magnificent building with an exhaustive collection of artefacts illuminating the history and creativity of the Mexican nation, with its many eras, ethnicities, and languages. Beautifully laid out and immensely impressive, especially that these early people carved sacred sculptures of their many gods out of massive hunks of stone – and that somehow those immense creations were moved to the museum. We were in awe. But also the delicacy of other art, pottery, sculpture, and especially for me, the papery Codexes of written records, some in hieroglyphs. An advanced and complex civilization, decimated in the 1500’s by the Spaniards.

One of the things I couldn’t get over was the similarity in some cultural traditions, despite those cultures being thousands of miles and often centuries apart. Mexicans built stele, big pointed slabs of rock stuck in the ground, like those found all over the world. They made pyramids and filled them with food and treasure for the dead in the afterlife, just as the Egyptians did. One of their foundational myths, we read, is that a flood wiped out all life on earth and the gods had to start again, and that the earth is carried on the back of a turtle. And much else, in this civilization thousands of years ago, in common with every culture on earth: warfare, constant warfare and violence, young men raised to fight and die; class distinction – royalty and the rich, civil service and merchants, peasants. The power of masks, the importance of precious decorative objects, jewelry, gold. The need for drugs like fermented drinks and a supernatural explanation of life and death – here, as in ancient Greece, many gods; for us, only one. The importance of story. Sport, dancing, musical instruments thousands of years old – flutes, drums. And much more.

I wondered if Mexicans are more preoccupied by death than other cultures. The ancient culture celebrated human sacrifice; still today,on the Day of the Dead, they celebrate their dear departed, and much Mexican art depicts skeletons and skulls. And why, Annie and I wondered, are there no cats depicted in the art, despite many dogs and other animals.

Also amazing – I’m paying to have internet and data during my trip, so was able for the first time to use Google translate, to hover my phone over explanations in Spanish and instantly read a translation. Miraculous. We sat outside for a bit and heard an interesting birdcall, so I checked my Merlin app: a long-tailed grackle.

It was all fascinating. We explored the gallery about what used to be called the Aztecs but are now the Mexicas, stopped for lunch, and went to the Mayans. By then we’d been there four hours, enough, although there was far more to see. We wandered in the giant park that surrounds the museum – hilarious, on the entry to the park there are, of course, many rows of vendors shouting for attention, and at one point an untended boombox bellowing at us at top volume to buy a hot dog. Noise is constant here. We sat in the Botanical Garden, a respite, and took a very crowded bus back. No more taxis.

Our host Jorge told us about a bar on top of the nearby Sofitel with a great view of the city, so we went there for an aperitif. But this highrise hotel had been taken over by an Indian wedding; half the rooms in the hotel were booked for three days, if you can imagine the cost of that. The bar was full of women in glittering saris. But we found another bar on a lower floor and had beer and guacamole in a site of unaccustomed luxury, and on the way home bought buns, again, for dinner.

The city is a madhouse of museums and people struggling to survive. Unimaginable what will happen if Trump’s tariffs take hold, on top of what the government has already done to its people. I feel more fortunate than ever, though perhaps briefly. Last night I read that Trudeau feels we should take seriously Trump’s threat to annex Canada, and could not sleep. The ghastly, incomprehensibly bad news follows us everywhere.

This morning, up early and to the bus station via another miraculous app, Uber. The adventure continues. Out the window – more dusty gold fields of low bushes and cacti, distant hills. After the crowds of the city, almost nothing but cars and trucks — and us — moving through.

Pix: The massive Aztec calendar. The god Chac Mool, possibly a rain god – so Egyptian, no? Hand carved stamps, used for fabric, pottery, and also for the human body. The god of music. Lunch at the museum – hibiscus flower juice, enchilada with molé, quesadilla with cheese, and Mexican hot chocolate. MMM. Codexes. Annie on the 14th floor of Sofitel with a Mexican craft beer in a photo for her son Nick, who has a craft beer website. Onward!

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Mexico report, days one and two

Wednesday Feb. 5, 25

Annie spent the night. We were wonderfully organized this morning, up at 5 a.m., car arrived at 5.40 to pick us up – sailing to the airport in a nice warm car while it’s minus eighteen outside = priceless. Seamless flight except for giant snafu at the airport, baggage belt stopped moving, no human beings behind the counter to help, long line-ups – but Annie and I were noisy and got through and so did the bags. I watched Conclave which I loved, fabulous film, beautifully made and acted.

Taxi through unbelievable traffic into the city. Casa Gonzales an oasis, lovely courtyards filled with flowers, birds – a lime tree outside my window. We went out for lunch, found a small local place, sat outside, had tacos and beer – divine. A nap, we were woozy after our early rising. Then I suggested we walk to Chapultapec Park, only it was impossible to get to with a giant highway in the way, unbelievable traffic at rush hour, the air thick with smog. We should have planned the route. So we walked back, wandered in the ‘hood including to a Walmart to get Annie’s special oat milk, then had soup, salad and wine at the hotel, quiet, making friends with Maggie from Boston. All wonderful.

Thursday Feb. 6

Breakfast at a communal table with other friendly guests, including Jorge, whose grandfather founded the hotel. Annie and I set off bravely, down streets crowded with people eating breakfast tacos on the street, to wrestle, first, with the machines at the metro that sell bus passes. Got a double-decker bus to the Palacio de Bellas Artes, then to the historic old town, the House of Tiles, visited the ornate, baroque Cathedrale in the Zocalo – the vast public square – and on into the rabbit warren of streets around, all packed with people selling stuff outside, shouting for attention, and/or eating. Got completely lost once again, as we were over and over, all day, asking directions, pondering the GPS on my phone, asking again. The streets are a jumble; I’ve never been so confused in a city, and that includes London.

Walked and walked, interested in it all, but finally got so lost, hot, and tired, we decided to get a taxi back to the hotel. Mistake. We expected to pay about $10; the guy told us we owed over $55! We gave him what we thought was reasonable while arguing; I got out, but he protested so loudly, Annie gave him more. Infuriating. Jorge told us it happens all the time and the police do nothing; we should in future get an Uber. Checked online, and everyone says DO NOT GET A TAXI HERE. Who knew? Now we do.

But that, and getting lost, were brief issues in an otherwise lovely day. We took another long walk to meet Alberto Ruy Sanchez, my editor in Banff in 2001, and his wife Magui, who for 36 years have run Artes de México that publishes a beautiful magazine. Alberto has also published 32 books! He’s as warm and dynamic now as 24 years ago, Magui too, so connected and lively. We met them at their office at 1.30, talked for over an hour, then they took us to lunch, starting at 3 in the Mexican way, and lasting till 5.30. Not the kind of lunch date I’m used to. We went to a new, ornate restaurant serving very good Mexican food, and talked and talked until we couldn’t hear ourselves over the mariachi band.

Another walk home, a brief rest, then back to Walmart for more special milk for Annie, as the stuff this morning was no good. And then unbelievably, after a brief detour to a drugstore, we got completely lost again. We couldn’t stop laughing at how absurd it all was. We bought some buns on the street, and when we finally made it back, we sat outside, ripping hunks off the buns with more laughing. That was dinner.

The street life here is phenomenal, especially coming from snowy Toronto in February! Especially, little booths or tables or even just cloths on the ground selling everything, everywhere, plus stoves making tortillas, people sitting on stools or fences or standing to eat lunch and dinner. So much street life. People working hard, long days – how they survive trying to sell with so much competition, hard to comprehend.

Many armed police, everywhere, all the time. We learned the current president, Sheinbaum, is just a puppet of the previous guy who’s a crook, in bed with the narcos, siphoning money from health care, the arts, museums, and even medicine for children with cancer, to give to his cronies. Horrifying.

Today, the famous, stunning Archeological Museum. Report next time, but some photos here.

Below: 1. flowers, everywhere, birds, butterflies. This is a stunning display of bouquets for sale. 2. One of the courtyards of this oasis of a hotel. 3. With Alberto and Magui. 4. With the goddess of death at the Anthropological Museum, an incredible sculpture, massive. 5. The building itself is spectacular, with a kind of cantilevered roof and a giant fountain. 6. Annie bought us churros. Delicious. 7. A big display in the museum of ancient Mexican life.

Exhausted. Happy.

 

 

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Here comes the sun, and I say, it’s all right.

Sleet outside, fresh snow, more expected. Inside, a sleeping cat and a crazy woman. Somehow, I’m trying to visualize a place where it’s 9 degrees morning and night and 25 by day. Makes for interesting packing. Sweater, jeans, tank tops, light linen pants. Layers.

My to-do list is long: rustle up snacks, earplugs, reading material, and notebook, water plants, feed birds, put out recycling etc. Oh, and my lecture for the San Miguel class that I’ve been trying to work on, because I have to print it before I go – when will I get to that? Tomorrow sometime, I hope, after the bank and Star Nails, to get my poor battered feet into shape to be witnessed by human eyes.

A reprieve from the tariffs of the sociopathic lunatic, a tease which almost certainly was to be expected. Grotesque. But perhaps what’s happening there will rev up the Dems as never before. Please god. People are sending me extraordinary stuff, excoriating, petrifying. Like this, by Timothy Snyder, superb.  https://thehobbledehoy.com/2025/02/03/move-fast-and-break-things-acting-deliberately-to-destroy-the-nation/

And this – long, but violently clear. https://youtu.be/eVAQoLZKSRw?si=Vwy3j5A7BWoMSY2Z

Yesterday, went across town to see the boys. Eli is taller than ever, and both, I say with entire objectivity, are handsome. Here they are playing soccer.

Yesterday they went out to play hockey in the backyard for nearly an hour, whacking a puck at each other as hard as possible and arguing about the score, as always, then retreating to wrestle inside. Anna and I argued about China, which she sees as a benign force that has done a great deal of good in its own country and abroad. Perhaps not so benign, say I.

So, my friends, if I can get out of this house, I will post next from the great land of Mexico. Hasta la vista, baby!

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battling through winter

Hard to believe – I’m now getting out summer clothes to pack for Mexico, leaving in five days. Fresh snow outside, minus two with the wind chill, and I’m looking in disbelief at little tops and sandals. Glad to report, my class at the San Miguel conference is all but sold out – there’s one spot left. And this despite it being at 9 a.m. on Sunday morning, after a big fiesta Saturday night! Welcome, writers.

A word about the Aura Hotel, which as I said is a bare bones but clean and reasonably-priced hotel in a superb location, at least, if you want to be near Times Square – I hit the roof when I saw on my Visa bill the huge sum they’d charged me and wrote to them in high dudgeon. It turned out, part of that was the security charge, which they took off next day. But even so, there were seven separate taxes on top of the room charge for each night; they should warn us about that. So it was not as reasonable as I’d thought, not to mention the thermostat of my room stuck at 63. But for me, a mere brief walk back in the cold and dark from the theatre and the Century Club – priceless.

The hideous news continues to pour out. We thought the monster had hit rock bottom quite a while ago, but he was only getting started. The sheer inhumanity, not just of him but of his entire band, is hard to fathom; I think we on the other side are all simply bewildered, finding it impossible to process. My ex’s daughter in Washington, who’s a figure skater, lost a dear friend in that tragic plane crash, only to hear her president blame DEI and Biden. It tears the gut.

And this stupid Ontario election, that crook versus three centre-left parties battling each other to ensure a Con victory … heartbreaking also.

Teaching twice this week, sheer pleasure. Going to the Y, not so sheer a pleasure as my creaky old bod heaves around, but I’m there. Plowing through the to-do list – today, looking fruitlessly for comfortable slip-on shoes for travel, only to find most stores do not stock over a size 10 for women. I of course take a 10 ½. I’m now looking at men’s shoes, which are usually too hefty for my dainty self. The curse of the big-footed woman! But I’m not my mother, who took size 13. Now, that was a curse.

And another treat – I called Rogers a few weeks ago because I didn’t get MSNBC and thought a little Rachel Maddow is a necessity these days. After a long chat, the Rogers guy set me up with a new cable package at less than I’m paying now, with more channels including Rachel – whom I hardly watch, it turns out, because I just can’t bear it. However, I just got the first Rogers bill after the change and it’s enormous, more than double what I usually pay. So today, another long wait on hold and battle with the behemoth.

First world problems.

Cousin Ted just sent the photo, below, taken maybe 25 years ago. After my grandfather’s brother Bill’s funeral, we went to the cemetery, and Leo, the youngest brother, (Cousin Ted’s father), said his parents were also buried there, we should try to find their gravestones. We scattered to search, and I was the one who shouted, Here they are! Yetta and Jacob, immigrants from a shtetl near Minsk, who raised 7 children, including Bill, Leo, daughter Belle, and my grandfather Mike, in a small cold water tenement flat on the Lower East Side. Here’s Lola – Belle’s daughter – me, Becky – Lola’s granddaughter whom I just had lunch with at Balthazar in NYC and who lives on the Lower East Side a block from where her grandmother grew up – another relative, and Leo. Invisible here behind Leo is my beloved Uncle Edgar, the world bridge champion.

Family. Roots. Remembrance.

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New York report

Thank you, Jesus. You have never seen someone move as fast as I did to get out of the island airport and into a cab home. Driving along Queen’s Quay beside the glittering lake, I had tears of relief in my eyes. Home. No matter how bad it gets here, it will never come close to how bad it is down there. So so grateful to Canada.

Where to start? The oversaturation of NYC. It was hugely worth it, the trip, very glad I went. And, as always, only more so than ever, very glad to leave.

I got up at 5 a.m. Friday for the painless journey down. Last time at Newark Airport, my reception was deeply unfriendly; this time, the guy looked at my passport, asked a few questions, smiled and said, Have a great weekend. Okay then. The train in to Penn Station, as was all the transit I took all weekend – numerous busses and subways too – was wonderful, efficient if battered, got me there cheaply with no problem. Walked to little Aura Hotel which is bare bones but in a great location right off Times Square.

Set off immediately, the bus up Madison Avenue to the Met to see the Siena exhibition. Magnificent, all those Madonnas – maybe a few too many Madonnas, but that’s what they were painting then. A favourite by Martini in 1342 – a surly teenaged Jesus being scolded by his parents. The woman behind me laughed and said, Where’s his phone?

I wandered through the Impressionist section, stunning, so many Cezannes, Manets, Monets, Pissaros, Van Goghs, and more. It’s a superb, expansive museum. There was a bit in the New Yorker about a retired couple who decided to spend a day a week visiting each gallery, one by one. They’ve just finished, seven years later.

The bus back downtown to nap before the party at the Century Club. Which was wonderful. Cousin Ted is a lawyer mostly for artists of various kinds and knows interesting people all over the world, and Henry is a sweet-natured polymath, so together they have an assortment of fascinating friends. There was schmoozing over cocktails, then a sumptuous dinner. I was sitting with Ted’s sister Susan and her daughter Rebecca and Rebecca’s husband Luke, a money manager whose company has been bought by CIBC, “my Canadian overlords,” he calls them. Susan used to be anxious and thin; now she has Alzheimer’s, is on anti-anxiety meds, and is chubby and serene. Her fulltime caregiver was there with her. Below, Rebecca, Ted, Luke, some beaming Canuck.

At the end, while New Yorkers were fussing about Ubers or trains, I walked a few blocks to the hotel. It was really cold all weekend but I had enough layers, including long-johns, to get through.

Saturday, more than a bit hungover I’m ashamed to say, up to Ted and Henry’s for lox and bagels with Henry’s family and a few friends, including a journalist who lives in Lisbon with whom I connected immediately, hope to meet her again. Straight down on the 6 train to lower Manhattan – twenty minutes to span much of the length of the island, amazing. I get way down there rarely and am always glad when I do – much more human scale, few skyscrapers, packed narrow streets. Mind you, the city is packed everywhere, with no sky; I kept thinking about my friends with anxiety, what hell it would be.

Lunch with Patti and her daughter Becky. Patti’s mother Lola, my father’s cousin exactly his age, was one of my favourite relatives whom I visited every time I came; she was an artist and jeweller – I never take off one of her rings – and lived independently in her studio apartment until just before her death at 98.  Her life gave me a lesson: get old in a city. Not only hospitals nearby, but museums, concerts, theatre, films, company – she was busy till the end, getting around easily. Patti is an art restorer in New Haven; Becky, who’s in her forties like my kids, does the finances for small films. The restaurant Balthazar was a zoo, very crowded, but fun. Good to get to know them both. Becky and I resolved to go to the theatre together next time I come. Which probably will not be for another four years, with good reason.

The subway up to the Morgan Library to see the Kafka exhibit and read, again, my great-grandfather’s name in connection with Kafka’s. They showed Franz’s notebooks – he wrote in bound notebooks with barely an edit. A strange life but not as isolated and lonely as we believe, a few women loved him and a devoted sister too. He wrote a lot of postcards and was good at his job at the insurance company.

Down to an exhibit about Belle da Costa Greene, an amazing story. She was black but passed as white – Portuguese – and became the chief librarian and purchaser for J.P. Morgan’s collections. What a job – she got to buy rare works and beautiful things costing millions and was powerful and famous. The exhibit dealt with the injustice of “passing” – there were others like her who could never have achieved what they did had they looked more black.

One of her purchases – a manuscript by Honoré de Balzac. If you can imagine trying to decipher that!

That evening, English, a play about an English class in Iran. The characters pondered if they became someone different in another language, what was lost – homeland, tradition, roots – when emigrating. Though there was lots of humour, it was profound and moving. The playwright and all the actors are Iranian.

A small issue: I’d brought a little Clairefontaine notebook where I jotted all the info needed, addresses, timing, transit, hours open etc. Before the play I got it out in case I wanted to note something — and forgot it. This morning, I went back, located the maintenance woman who said she’d found it and thrown it away. What kind of person throws away a notebook filled with words?! We even went to the garbage bin, to see a pile of black garbage bags. Goodbye notebook. I asked ChatGPT to fill in information about few issues and luckily checked its answers, which were all wrong.

The bus to MOMA, another spectacular museum full of treasure. Somehow I ended up first with the French again, like at the Met, but branched out and found a great Alice Neel and much more. A giant spectacular Jackson Pollock. What courage, to do something so bold and new.

Two favourites: Louise Nevelson, and Alice Neel.

But by then I was desperate to get out of New York. The madness, the excess felt more overwhelming and heedless this time. I think just about everyone in my New York family is on Xanax or something similar. Read that Trump has ended American funds used to locate and dismantle landmines. It’s all wrong, wrong, wrong. Horrendous.

I got to the airport two hours early – found a secluded spot by a sunny window, put my feet up, read the Sunday NYTimes while eating a sandwich. The flight left early, due north with the setting sun on the left. My Kuwaiti cab driver home was hilarious – turns out he’s famous as Mr. Geography. We agreed about the state of the world and Trump. “He is the devil,” he said. “I have never hated anyone so much.” Me too.

Final issue, at home, checking my Visa bill, I discovered nice little Aura Hotel overcharged me by $130 USD. Have written to request explanation and a refund. Stay tuned.

But mostly – I reconnected with my roots. Like it or not, New York was my father’s world, his people, a place I visited almost every year through my childhood. My family are all kindred spirits, leftie Democrats heartsick at what’s happening. I invited them all to come live in Canada, said I’d put a big tent in my yard for displaced Americans. Because what has happened so far, in one week, beggars belief.

There’s a giant disgusting ad in Times Square for a new “good for you” drink called Unwell. Says it all.

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Noo Yawk, January 2025

Every day, I hope, will produce new heroes, battling the lunacy. Bishop Marian Budde: what a magnificent, brave woman, speaking of mercy and compassion to the foul creature glowering in front of her. Brava!

And I am off, tomorrow, to that benighted (online dictionary: in a state of pitiful or contemptible intellectual or moral ignorance) land. I always think of New York, however, as not the U.S. but as somewhere else — fiercely Democratic, its own place. But no, the creature rules there. The excitement: I am flying in to Newark Airport. Last time, I was pulled over and sent to the suspicious immigrant room, because I was travelling with a Canadian passport that said I was born in New York. Imagine, the nerve! If you’re American, even as a dual citizen, you must use that passport. This time, I’ve the same passport and a piece of paper that says I AM NO LONGER AN AMERICAN CITIZEN. Hooray!

Speaking of passports, a few days ago I went to the shelf where I keep all my important papers. But the passport was not there. I looked and looked, panic rising — not there. It’s always there, but it was not. I remembered I had to bring it downstairs when I was booking flights, as they require the number. What if I’d put it on a pile of paper to go back upstairs and it got lost in the shuffle? I’d never find it, and I was travelling in four days! I looked through many piles of paper, and even downloaded how to get an emergency passport, anticipating chaos and tension. The emergency page asked for the number of the old passport, but, I thought, it’s lost, how can I give you the number? And then I saw in my papers that to be safe, I’d xeroxed that page.

And then I saw that I’d xeroxed that page, and lifted the lid of my printer, and there it was, the little blue book.

No matter how organized you think you are, life can always throw a little scare your way, just for fun.

I need to get up at 5.30 a.m. for the very early flight, booked on Porter points, that lands at 9.15. The train in to Penn Station, then I walk over to the hotel on W.44, where I’ve booked their smallest room with a Black Friday price. Usually I stay at Cousin Ted’s, but his spare room is full because his husband Henry is celebrating his 70th birthday, so Henry’s family are in my room. Phooey.

The plan is to go to the Met to catch the exhibition about the art of Siena, and then to rest before the big event, to be held at the lovely old Century Club on 43rd at 5th. Cocktails at 7, dinner at 8. When will I next have a chance to do something like this? Maybe never. And I can walk there and back. I have long johns for under my pants, because although it’s warmer, it’s not warm.

Saturday morning, bagels at Ted and Henry’s on East 77th with Henry’s family, and then the 6 train all the way downtown to Spring Street for lunch with cousin Patti and her daughter, who lives on the Lower East Side and works in the film business. Family. From there, to the Morgan Library. I’d seen there was an exhibition about Kafka so resolved to go to that lovely place, even before I received word from an acquaintance that my great-grandfather is featured! In 1911, a Yiddish theatre troupe performing Jacob Gordin’s plays arrived in Prague, where Kafka went to see them. He was especially taken with Gordin’s work. There’s a passage in my book about that event and my pride that Kafka was a fan.

“…his plays were the most popular and dramatically innovative…” Agreed!

That night to the theatre to see a play called English, about an English class. It won the Pulitzer.

Sunday will probably go to MOMA, maybe try to get to Central Park, the expansive green sanity at the heart of the frantic metropolis, until it’s time to walk back to Penn Station and get the train to the plane. Two days is about right. I love New York, my birthplace where most of my remaining family lives. But I also dislike New York, its sunless concrete canyons, its overwhelming hustle and consumption – “a concentration camp built by the inmates,” as Dinner with André put it. Maybe another blessing of the trip will be, I’ll be too busy to watch or listen to the news. I’ll celebrate what I can and shut out the rest.

Luckily Carol my upstairs tenant is here on Tiggy and mail duty. When I get back, there’s only a week and a bit to get ready for Mexico. Never a dull moment. Onward!

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this dreadful day, and Winter Solstice

I just have to write to you on this nauseating day, when hell is literally freezing over – it’s bitter bitter bitter out there, in more ways than one. Media is vomiting forth endless coverage of the day, of the creature, to our immense disbelief and dismay, returning to the White House to helm the most powerful country on earth. When you think of what needs to be done to fix our world, and the time and money and effort wasted on this most appalling human being, who for some incomprehensible reason keeps being rewarded for disgusting, illegal behaviour – and escaping an assassin by millimetres – how is it possible? The worst people are boosted by his rise; the tech bros, white supremacists, and billionaires rejoice. I just heard Matt Galloway bravely interviewing a Republican politician, talking about how Biden had destroyed America and how his guy would bring prosperity back for everyone.

Yes, right. Good luck with that.

To make my heart even heavier, I went to see a terrific production of Winter Solstice by the famed German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig (love that name!) at the Berkeley St. Theatre yesterday. It shows a cultured, educated, upper-middle-class liberal couple – he a writer, the book he’s writing entitled “Christmas at Auschwitz” – she a filmmaker of obscure films – bickering with each other about the unwelcome arrival of her mother for Christmas. There’s someone at the door, a stranger the mother has met on the train. He comes in and proceeds to charm the room, playing Bach and Chopin on the piano, gradually talking more openly about purity and homeland. He’s German, from Paraguay – where, we realize, many Nazis were welcomed after WWII. And we realize, as the writer does, that this man is a Nazi too. But he has embedded himself in the family and turned most of them to his POV. The writer, addled by the pills he takes to quell his growing fear, is too weak to throw the enemy out. He stays.

It’s a play about how we are sleepwalking into fascism. It chilled me to the bone, and let me tell you, it’s already bone-chilling out there. We are sleepwalking into fascism, with a huge boost in that direction today.

I filled the bird feeder and will put more change in my pocket to give to anyone who asks. What can we do? We can try to be kind. Because it’s sure many world leaders, including soon our own, will not.

I think this bit of Dorothy Parker holds true today, in terms of my own conviviality and good fun. It’ll return. But not today.

 

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Pacita Abad, Probus, Impossible Creatures

Thursday night, a lovely moment in my home class – Tiggy stretched out full length, belly up, paws splayed, in front of the fire. There’s nothing so relaxed as a sleeping cat; she relaxed us all. Ruth said she looked like a little grey rug.

Hard to relish those moments, with the frantic swirl of chaos in our country as we prepare for the arrival of a venal lunatic and his gang of billionaires and grifters. So many urgent intractable problems in our society, and instead our leaders are trying to figure out how to cope with the unhinged whims of one of the most unpredictable and loathsome human beings on earth. As he himself would say – sad.

Very very busy.  Thursday morning, up early to get the bus to the subway, to travel right to the other end of town to be picked up by the very kind Mary and driven to an Etobicoke golf club, to speak to the members of the Probus Club. In fact, to one of them, because there are three Probus Clubs just in Etobicoke, and many more around the province. Who knew? It’s a club for the retired and semi-retired, and I spoke to around 100 of them — an amazingly focussed and cheerful audience. They’d received a recommendation about me from someone at the Markham talk I gave last month. Apparently, I’m now on a list to give talks that tell people how important writing about your life is and urging them to do so.

Speaking of which, Tuesday was the first class of the U of T term, the advanced section — glad to be on the job again. That lunchtime, the Cabbagetown discussion group welcomed David Crombie, the former mayor of Toronto, a red Tory and articulate, fascinating speaker who knows just about everyone in Canadian politics and, at 89, is still at work, had been at a meeting the night before with other former mayors, trying to save the safe injection sites that our current provincial dinosaurs are shutting down. An admirable man.

On Wednesday, my front door lock stopped working, so there was a lot of hoo-ha to get it fixed. I’d paid for two writing webinars on Zoom that day but missed part of both as we fiddled with keys. Gleaned a bit of info, especially from Allison Williams on Organizing Your Writing Life, something I need to do. I was recently looking for an article in the big box of student work in my office, ended up taking it all out and marvelling — a huge pile of articles and books by students since the start of my teaching career in 1994. The trouble is, I took all of it out of the box and have not yet put it back.

Friday, a huge treat — to the AGO to catch the Pacita Abad exhibit before it closes on Sunday. Stunning. What a glorious artist, a Filipina who called herself, and was, an “ambassador for colour,” who made giant tapestry-like artworks with beautiful artisanal fabric she picked up on her extensive travels, but she also used paint, shells, buttons, sequins — riveting. She died far too young at 58, but left a huge gift for us all.

The second work, below, is a graphic portrayal of Ferdinand Marcos and his followers, but could also represent the grotesque incoming American administration as it devours its own.

Just now, Monique drove me to the local LCBO to pick up the case of wine I’d ordered. There’s no GST at the moment so it’s worth buying a bunch, and I did. One less thing to worry about, running out of wine on these wintry days.

What’s on my mind now is the trip to NYC next Friday, what to wear to a fancy event I’ll walk to – how cold? Snow? A family breakfast on Saturday morning on the Upper East Side and lunch with more family way way downtown in SoHo. Plus an exhibition about the art of Siena at the Met uptown and one about Franz Kafka at the Morgan Library midtown. How to squeeze the wealth of NYC into two days?!

Finally, I’ve almost finished reading Impossible Creatures by Katharine Rundell to the boys. We stopped at a dramatic moment, and after hanging up, I had to read to the end to find out what happens. It’s a superb book exactly tailored to my boys — not easy to find something for a pre-teen who pretends to be bored by everything and a nine-year-old exploding with enthusiasm. But this one is it. I recommend it even if you don’t have kids to read to, it’s that good, with a profound message — that the world is full of horror and grief but also beauty and kindness, and that it’s more than worth fighting for. No more important message for our young than that.

So much to do, four library books — all my Holds came in at once — to read,

a doc about Bhutan at the Hot Docs cinema that I will have to miss, a bunch of great plays on, and stew to make for the week. Deeply grateful to live in this flawed, marvellous city and to have a roof. A roof, a warm bed, and a functional front door lock, which unfortunately — in our uncertain, hungry world — is necessary.

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A snowball’s chance in hell!

Hard to believe this is even a discussion, let alone worrying our entire nation — a felonious sociopath muses about taking over our country, and we have to respond. The very notion – ye gods. Yet at least one pundit in the New York Times today has taken the suggestion seriously.

Why in the name of god, looking at what is happening down there, at the relentless slaughter of schoolchildren, the debasement of science and education, the heedless cancellation of women’s rights, the viciousness of social division which we’re aiming at but not nearly there yet, the triumph of fanatical evangelicals, not to mention no to universal health care and yes to the death penalty …

Shut the @#$#@ up, is my suggestion to the orange blowhole. And Greenland’s, and Panama’s. Go away!

I apologize to my American friends and family, some of whom I’ll be going to visit in a few weeks. There are many fantastic things about being an American, much to be proud of. We celebrate those things with you. From a safe distance.

Fresh snow out there, in my pretty Canadian landscape.

An interesting experience that turned out well: in a recent Facebook post, someone complained about being turned down by the summer nonfiction program at the Banff Centre, did anyone have any tips about how to get in? Among the replies, a long note caught my eye, from someone saying she’d been part of that program, a terrible experience. She’d been “shamed” for her work and could only remember a few of the writers in her group, whom she mentioned.

I was part of that very group, although obviously forgettable, and my experience was the opposite, I loved every minute, so much so that my fellows made fun of my ever-beaming face. What’s not to like? They paid our way to Alberta, gave us a dorm room for sleeping and a serene studio in the woods for writing, three editors, limitless food, artists of every genre from around the world, mountains and elk outside the door, and then paid us for the finished essay! Sublime.

I replied that I was one of those boring people, sorry she’d disliked her time there but I’d enjoyed it all. She responded, she hadn’t said boring, just that the writers had no conversation, and repeated that she’d been shamed. I told her I remembered her vivid writing, that there was a serious, difficult discussion about it, as there was about mine — after mine, I retired to my studio to weep and drink quite a bit of wine. And then I started to rewrite. She, on the other hand, vanished and never came back.

After that exchange, I got out my Banff scrapbook, because of course I have a Banff scrapbook — July 2001, a time of innocence just before the towers came down. Although it was marvellous there, it was also hard. The editors chose some of our essays afterward to put in an anthology, and mine was not chosen; that hurt a great deal. Other things hurt. But mostly, I was in heaven.

I wrote to the only member of our group I’m still in touch with, and we reminisced. And then I thought – Alberto! Our head editor was a Mexican writer, Alberto Ruy Sanchez. I adored him – wise, kind, funny, generous, knowledgeable. He lives with his family in Mexico City, where I’ll be in February. I tracked down his email, wrote to him, including a photo of me because I assumed, 24 years later, he’d not remember. He wrote back of course he remembered and would be happy to see me when I’m in the city.

So that’s good. Alberto gave us the concept of “wounds and scars” I’ve used in every class I’ve taught, an invaluable way to explain that though we all have wounds, to write successfully for others, they need to be scars — healed enough, with enough distance and clarity, that they become a story, not a howl. Eternally grateful for that succinct explanation.

Below, a happy camper in her studio, and most of the group at the aptly-named Emerald Lake.

I don’t know what the situation at the Banff Centre is these days, but if you’re a nonfiction writer with some credits to your name, check out the July program, though it’s now two weeks instead of four. If nothing else, you have mountains, music, elk, and a studio in the woods. Doesn’t get better than that. In fact, before all this, I’d applied to go back on my own this summer, to work in the studio for a few weeks of peace. Have not heard back yet.

I am teaching myself “Für Elise” on the piano. I know, every schoolchild plays it and here I make a stab at 74. Better late, etc. I love you, Ludwig! Watched TVO about ADHD – no question there’s a gene in my family, as several have it. Good to have a diagnosis, symptoms, a sense that this is why things happen the way they do – an imbalance in the brain.

From my superbly balanced brain to yours, onward, into the brisk Canadian winter and the brand new year.

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