Good days and not so good days

This is it, the postpartum slump has hit. I’m feeling sad and stuck. There are distribution problems with the book, which is not yet available on Amazon, for some reason, (we may hate it, but it does make book buying easier and quicker) and is held up at the bookstore. The few weeks after a launch is the crucial time for a new book, and people are having trouble finding mine. I advise to go through Mosaic Press, for now. https://mosaicpress.ca/products/midlife-solo

I know, not war. Not cancer. I’m in my warm kitchen with a cat on my lap, a roof, food in the fridge. So shut up.

This is when a nice person who loves me would be good, though. It’ll be okay, sweetheart, perhaps. Or, let me make you a sandwich. Or, I’ll rake the leaves, clean up this mess in the kitchen, get in some groceries, give you a hug. Here’s a fresh cup of coffee.

Swimming in self-pity, yes.

And yet, I know, I have nothing, nothing, to complain about. The friend of a friend, someone I hardly know, emailed after the launch, “Thank you for sharing the special evening with me. You are a rich woman – in friends, support, community, expression, humour … ”

I am extremely lucky in so many ways. Yesterday friends kept coming by out of the blue – my oldest friend Ron appeared at my door for tea, Monique and I sat outside on her porch (on Nov. 10!) having aperitif, and then Jean-Marc rang the doorbell, just in time for a bit of dinner.

Esteemed actor RH Thomson invited me to HIS book launch Tuesday, which turned out to be expensive but with a free copy of the book By the Ghost Light and an interesting discussion between him and fellow esteemed actor Eric Peterson. RH and I were the two Canadians to be accepted to the British theatre school LAMDA in 1971, and I’ve known Eric since Vancouver in the mid-seventies. It was fun to watch two great actors banter. But RH’s book is serious, about family lost in war and the importance of remembering and naming the lost.

And I finished two library books, well, I skimmed the Richard Grant one; an entertaining writer about the many famous people he knows in the biz, but perhaps a bit too much about his adored wife, who died of cancer. The other, Ordinary Wonder Tales, is a book of essays by Emily Urquhart, a very good writer who’s a scholar of folk tales and delves into her personal life a bit but has a restrained academic side that’s a bit less engaging.

Okay. So, a plan. Though I don’t want to move, because Tig is sleeping so sweetly on my lap  – my little grey visitor. I will go to the Cabbagetown Memorial Day event at 10.30. Then to the bookstore to make contact. Need to buy some food and do some cooking. More winterizing and clean up. Raking the front yard drowning in maple leaves will be good exercise. Get in gear.

Because although a little bit sad and stuck today, I am rich.

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