writing in the garden

Pretending to be Boston St. John’s, jellybean town

writing in the garden

Saturday July 20. Glad to say I had a letter to the editor of the Star published this week. My usual rant, which I know will incite the population of Ontario to rise in revolt against our crooked premier! Nice to feel so useful.

LOL. Still, it feels good to have my opinion on paper. And one whole person emailed me in response.

“Carney, please don’t turn to Ford for advice

Bonded by crisis: Inside the alliance between Mark Carney and Doug Ford, July 11

This article states that Prime Minister Mark Carney is apparently a fan and confidant of Doug Ford’s. Perhaps Carney doesn’t know that this premier, once a great admirer of Donald Trump, is under investigation by the RCMP for dodgy dealings, like when his pals the developers happened to buy land in convenient places. Is the prime minister aware Ford has slashed budgets for public education and health care, starved universities and colleges, and is encouraging private clinics? That he’s ramming an Austrian spa and parking behemoth into the public land of Ontario Place, has shuttered the Ontario Science Centre for spurious reasons, wants to tear out bike lanes and spend billions on a tunnel under Highway 401?

Many progressives in Canada had high hopes for Carney, the calm, sensible grown-up in the room. We understand he’s a new politician dealing with the lunatic-in-chief to the south and many national and international crises. But please, prime minister, do not turn for advice to a folksy shyster like Ford, who, yes, sounds great defending Canada, but most of whose policies are a disaster for the city of Toronto and the province of Ontario.”

Waiting for the world to change as a result.

Exhausted. Prep for the garden writing workshop tomorrow has gone on for days, shopping and planning. Yesterday, my young tech helper came to help make three big salads, with a fourth to come. Today, Jannette came to help prune the wilderness in the yard — with the unusual heat, there’s a lot of dried out and dead stuff — and Sam came to help sweep, rake, and tidy. I need twelve chairs on the deck, plus others in the back. Still more to do — the house to clean, the deck to sweep, watering, tidying, preparing prompts.

But right now I’m drinking rosé, grateful for this extremely quiet day; considering that the Indy race is going on somewhere in this city, the mosquito whine of powerful motors is inaudible. Tomorrow morning, eleven writers will appear at my door and spend the day writing, eating, and I hope receiving inspiration for future creative endeavours.

My daughter keeps sending pictures from Nova Scotia – and a recent trip to PEI – of ecstatic children splashing in various bodies of water. I’m so happy they are so happy. Today, as Sam and I worked in the hot sun and the latest picture came in of them all in a very big swimming pool, I wrote back, You are a cruel cruel woman.

I’m also nearly packed for Newfoundland, because Monday will be very busy – including a trip to the doctor to discuss the results of my x-ray, though I assume it’s a waste of time; even if my ribs are damaged, which they almost certainly are not, there’s nothing to be done. However. They want to see me. Otherwise, my wounds are almost completely healed. Thank you, fine old body. I have to get up at 5 a.m. Tuesday to get to the airport. Groan.

Something came to me in the night and luckily I wrote it down, because otherwise I would certainly have forgotten: possible first lines for the book about my parents that I’m avoiding. The lines would be: “How many of you know your parents’ nickname for your father’s penis? I am one of the lucky ones who do.”

Is that a grabber? Certainly unusual.

Answer: It was Barkis, the character in Dickens’s David Copperfield whose famous line is “Barkis is willin’.” And I gather my fathers’ Barkis was too.

Unusual is right. But that’s why I think it’s a story worth telling. They were an unusual couple. Lucky me.

Sunday July 20

Sadly two people had to drop out due to illness, so there were nine writers here for the day, ranging in age from a recent high-school graduate to an artsy business owner in her eighties. We had perfect weather, some cloud, not too hot, and it was very quiet. Much intense discussion about many things. Careful listening, powerful writing, laughter, camaraderie. One of the writers mentioned his book, to discover that another person there was on the team that published it. Other bonds: small towns, English parents, anxiety, difficult mothers, fathers who died too young. And more. One made a startling on-the-spot discovery about her mother’s sexuality. We all exclaimed with her.