"HOME AGAIN"

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm ever gonna make it home again
It's so far and out of sight...
I won't be happy till I see you alone again
Till I'm home again and feeling right"

I made it - home that is - in my little house in the garden right now. Rob is a yell away in the big house. And I am happy. I feel as if I have been traveling forever. No complaints. I have had some extraordinary adventures (with Gill as my companion most of the time.) But I want to settle and write. My eyes and ears have been over stimulated - so many riches - and I'm aching to get them down. I want time to slow down. No, I need to slow down.

This just might turn out to be a long and winding blog so if I bore you, just skip through and look at the few pictures I've added. (I always say I hate description. Give me action. But so much has been happening that I don't know what to edit.) I will try to recapture some moments from the past week, going backwards.

LAST NIGHT IN TORONTO



I went to Hugh's Room to see Ursula and hear Ron Nigrini perform. The last time I saw Ursula was, I think, in Toronto, when we went to see her daughter perform. (We decide this evening that our musical evenings should become a tradition. There is something about listening to live music with a friend that makes me feel good, quickens the heart - maybe it's the company, maybe it's all that foot-stomping and shoulder swaying, maybe both.) The last time I saw Nigrini was around 35 years ago during my Ryerson days when he was young and gorgeous. He is still gorgeous - tall and lean with a boyish smile but now he has an easier way with his audience, goes around between sets and shakes hands, smiles, says a few words...

Before the music starts, I go outside for a smoke and run into an old friend, Patrick Spence- Thomas. I recognize him from a picture Rob took on a recent visit. I can't remember the last time I saw him. He looks older but so do I. I call his name. He looks at me puzzled. It's Yvonne, I say. He still looks puzzled until I shake hands with his wife and say I'm Rob's wife (oh I know I hate this possessive word but it helped.) Patrick smiles and says I haven't changed a bit. He's such a liar but I love him anyway. He's always been a charmer and one of the kindest and most generous men I know.

I return to Ursula, dinner, and music. Eugene Smith begins the set. He is black with long white dreadlocks. He laughs a lot, is real casual, and I especially like his rendition of Lay Lady Lay - that has been one of my favourite Dylan tunes since Rob and I bought an old brass bed... think I have sex on the brain.

Soon Nigrini takes the stage with four musicians, one of whom is a young woman, Anne Lindsay who plays the violin and fiddle beautifully. I love the music - sort of country folk - and lyrics that tell about love, freight trains, and Indians. I worry that Ursula is bored but am reassured when I see her body move to the beat. She tells me later that she did enjoy the music - she likes musicians who have a social conscience. I believe her because Ursula, though always kind, doesn't lie.

SECOND TO LAST NIGHT IN TORONTO

Gill and I go to the restaurant where Gill used to work, and sit on high stools, sipping a martini (Gill) and margarita (me) watching Sex in the City while her chef lover prepares us a surprise meal. Gill told him that I was disappointed that I didn't get to experience the ten-course feast in Paris and so he decides to make up for the missed meal. We start with prawns wrapped in prosciutto on a skewer on a bed of crispy spicy noodles. We move on to roast duck sitting on layers of sliced beets and potatoes, followed by a white fish smothered in white sauce atop fresh baby asparagus. All is amazing but by this time, we're both full to bursting and decline any more courses, even his famous creme brulee.

As we walk down the street towards Gill's apartment after the meal - Gill's arm linked to the chef - I think perhaps my daughter has found her dream man. He can definitely cook. He's quiet and thoughtful. And he doesn't demand anything that she doesn't want to give.

EVENING IN PORT HOPE



I still find it strange that my youngest son has made his home round the corner from my parents. But it is convenient - for them and me - though I know that is not Michael and Mackenzie's reason for being there. They were living in an itsy-bitsy apartment in Cobourg and made the move when they found their present place - a spacious apartment in a house - with turn-of-the-century architectural detail, wide hallway, and separate bedroom plus an office for Michael. Every time I see these two, they seem happier. Mackenzie made a shephard's pie (with vegetarian substitute for meat) and a Greek salad and heaped our plates so high, I doubted I could finish it. I did. As much as I like gourmet feasts, I love good old-fashioned cooking - comfort food. And it was comforting and reassuring to sit with these two, and eat and sip wine, and catch up.

THE NIGHT BEFORE PORT HOPE

I can't believe the quantity and quality of food I've eaten this past week. My parents picked Gilly and I up in Massena where we left the rental car and we drove back over the border to Kingston and stopped for a meal. After a lot of discussion and wandering, we ended up at The Keg where my father treated us to the meal of our choice. Gill had a green salad and a shrimp cocktail appetizer and I had a steak and garlic mashed potatoes. (No wonder, I'm feeling pleasantly plump. Until I wrote this, I didn't know I had eaten so much.)

THE WEDDING DAY



I said I would continue my story about the wedding but now it seems more like a month ago rather than a week. The ceremony was lovely as was the reception after in the white-domed training rink. There were around 170 guests - many of whom contributed to the feast. More good food. (I think I have to be alone so I won't eat.) And lots of wine. And then the dancing began. Gill made me dance with her and Ayah captured us on the dance floor in the picture above. It was a good night but I felt a little lonely - knew so few people - and most were couples. I stuck around till midnight because I had to find a moment - when they weren't surrounded - to speak to the mother and father of the bride. Although some might not believe this, I'm very shy with strangers but I gathered my courage and spoke to them a little about the wedding - the scenes and words that appealed to me and thanked them.

So much to think on and be thankful for...

Vermont Wedding



The bride Mariah, her father Scott, and Bella (daughter of Thomas) approach the altar from across the meadow while horse in blue bow-tie and friend in blue dress watch.



Simon (Thomas' brother), Thomas, and Miranda (mother of Thomas' daughter, also one of Thomas' "best men")wait for ceremony to begin.



Richard, beloved partner of Kathy, and Kathy - Thomas' mother and Rob's sister stand with Sarah and Rene (Thomas' sister and her husband/lover.)



Thomas and Mariah at the altar. At one point in the ceremony, Thomas becomes teary. He, as the bride's father said, "wears his heart on his sleeve."

Thomas wrote the vows that were said by both (and I became teary too.) They begin:

"Today I give myself to you in marriage. I fell in love with you for the qualities, abilities, and outlook on life that you have, and won't try to reshape you in a different image. I promise to give you the best of myself and to ask of you no more than you can give. I promise to accept and respect you the way you are as a person with your own interests, desires, and needs, and to realize that those are sometimes different but no less important than my own."

(I am a little overwhelmed with all I have done and seen in the last few days.)

The wedding day was beautiful - blue skies and a warm breeze - and the trip across rolling green hills, past ranches and farms, to the ceremony made me feel as if I were in a country and western film. We arrived at the Pease Harrower ranch shortly before the ceremony, took our offering of Vodka and couscous and tomato-and-basil salad (made by Gill) to the large white-roofed training "barn" that looked more like a enormous modern tent where round tables and long serving table, white clothed and surrounded by wild flowers, were set for the feast.

We climbed another slight hill to the meadow. I followed a woman with flowing grey hair past her waist, dressed in an Indian sequined skirt and gypsy blouse with incongruous ankle socks and Birkenstocks on her feet. She is a beauty but so is the young slight woman from New York, walking beside her, but so different in her designer dress and heels. Over to the side, in one of the pickup trucks, sat a tall, pot-bellied man, beer in plastic cup (never saw him without it all day and night long,) wearing jeans, white shirt and a jaunty white cowboy hat. (It was a great day for people-watching.)

Two horses in blue ties stood guard. Two young women - one with a violin, the other with a cello - played music by Wagner, Mozart, Bach.

Gill and I sat with Ayah - my niece - in front of an flowered arbour and watched the wedding party proceed to their places. The mother-of-the-bride, a slight pretty woman in a silk gown walked with her dog (also adorned with a blue tie.) I am told that mother and daughter love animals.

One of the loveliest moments in the marriage ceremony was when the bride and her father and flower girl appear in the distance and begin their long walk across the meadow to the altar.

to be continued...

On the road again...

Gill and I arrived in Montpelier last night after yet another adventure. My father had lent me his older cadillac and GPS so I left Port Hope feeling fancy with my bottom sinking into leather and my daughter manning the computerized dashboard. We both looked at each other sighed and Gill spoke my thought "I now know why people like fancy cars."

My father's mechanic had given the car a thorough tuning and swore all was well for an eight-hour journey along highway 401 to Cornwall across the American border and south/east to Montpelier.

The car did make it across the border and through a few country towns but when we rounded a bend in the middle of nowhere a warning message flashed across the dash: Battery low. And then something about immediate care required. We drove several more miles until we found a rustic clapboard garage - the kind you'd expect to see in a period film - and spoke to the owner/mechanic. He tested the battery. Fine. Pronounced the alternator the problem-maker. (What's an alternator?) (Or is that alternater?)

The car was going nowhere, he told us.

His name is Lee and he is married to Sue who didn't say much at first except ask us where we were going in our fancy clothes. (We didn't tell her they were casual.) Five minutes later she described her trial with leukemia. Lee was her rock. She has been clear for three years. And then we learned about her triathalon endeavours. And finally she introduced us to her children - Midnight, Pee Wee, and Bouger (2 cats and a dog). And then Lee ran to the house to get a picture of Pee Wee (or was it Midnight) to show us.

The garage was immaculate. Lee had his hourly rate noted above the desk (32.50) He said he meets a few characters in his businesss. And has many loyal clients. One old lady who has little money pays him with hugs and homemade bread.

He let me use the phone to call my Dad. He called a rental car place - around 20 miles away - and asked if they could pick us up and rent us a vehicle. No problem. He assured my Dad that his car was safe until he could move it.

After Sue helped us move our suitcases to the rental vehicle, commenting "la de dah" because the cases had handles and wheels, both Gill and I hugged her. (Lee was busy with a client.) We waved.

And so we finally made it to Montpelier in our not so fancy Taurus.

Now, I am sitting on a rocking chair on the porch of Betsy's Bed and Breakfast, linked to the internet, thinking about travel. I've heard it's good for the soul, takes you places where you are out of your element, tests you. Some might get angry if their car breaks down or there's no room at the inn but what would it achieve? I'm learning and I think it important your choice of traveling companion.

After leaving the garage in our rental car, Gill smiles at me and says she's happy. The only thing that pisses her off is that we are whizzing by too many good pictures and her momma won't stop.

Like a Bird on the Wire

Yesterday I flew from London to Toronto. As we were approaching TO, the captain came over the loudspeaker and said it was a special flight for him - his last. He had lived his dream of flying a large plane for 35 years and he was retiring.

When the wheels touched the runway, the co-pilot's voice told us not to be alarmed by the fire engines on each side of the plane. They were there to salute the captain bid him farewell. Firemen aimed their hoses at the windows and sprayed water beginning at the front and working their way down to the rear of the plane. As each section was sprayed, the passengers applauded.

I thought it a fine send-off and was happier still that once again I had landed safely. (Will I ever get over my fear of flying?)

I stayed in London one night at an airport hotel so didn't get a taste of this fancy city but I did have a few days in my beloved Paris with my beloved daughter. This has to be the most extravagant, luscious, beautiful city in all the world. And I oh so love to hear French spoken with a Parisian accent and watch the smart Parisiennes with their stylish scarves and fancy heels kiss cheek to cheek by the Seine or the Sorbonne or Cafe Flore or anywhere that my favourite authors - Beauvoir and Colette and Nin - lived and wrote.

In the evening of my only full day in Paris, Gill and I were to dine at "The Hidden Kitchen" that has had rave revues. It is in a private apartment where two young chefs create and serve a ten course meal. Unfortunately the man of the couple mistook the day or was it the month and we were out of luck. But the woman was very apologetic and directed us to a Moroccan restaurant on a small street that we would never have happened on without direction.

They were full but Gill with a big smile and sweet words got us in. The owner, his staff, and the chef (who kept sending his big smiles my way... yet it's Gilly who has a thing for chefs) were great but the food was superlative and we were content - so content we danced down side streets on our way home and forgave the hidden kitchen.

Tomorrow, Gill and I leave for a horse ranch in Vermont. My nephew is getting married.

I feel light and happy... and in a week or near enough, I will be home in Vancouver. And the only thing I dread is the plane ride.

Birthday Celebrations







Susan's 80th birthday was celebrated August 24th at Chateau Couanac. As usual David created a crown for her - this one very beautiful with flowers.



Brendan's 29th birthday is being celebrated - perhaps even at this very minute - somewhere in Los Angeles.

I love these two people.

No time for many words as Gill and I leave for Paris in a few hours and I must finish cleaning and clearing the house. Rob will arrive sometime in October and November 1st a massive restoration and renovation will take place. I will return sometime in the spring to paint.

And so I leave - sadly - as I am always sad when I leave this ancient village: I will miss everything and everybody but mostly Susan. And after Paris, I will spend a night in London and then on to Toronto, Port Hope, Middlesex Vermont, and finally back to Vancouver September 8th because I miss others there. Always this tug of war within my heart.

Mother and Daughter Travels



Traveling with Gill is a delight. She too loves adventure and does not turn sour when things do not work out as planned.

We decided to take a little trip to the Mediterranean. Narbonne Beach is only a 2 1/2 hour trip so we set off early, planned to find a hotel for one night and bath in the sand and sun. Although we did the same trip with Shirley and Rowan, without reservations, all went well even though the first night's hotel was a touch sleazy. This trip there were no empty hotel rooms in the seaside towns.

No matter. We rented comfortable beach lounges and an umbrella, I read, Gill walked, and we both enjoyed the sights - a lot of beautiful people (many bare-breasted women) cavorting and relaxing. Around six, we headed into the nearest city, Narbonne, and walked for two hours looking for a hotel - still no luck - even at the less desirable hotels. We drove to Nissan, found a quaint inn, where we were lectured about dropping in at 7:30 at night and not making reservations six months in advance. We drove to the next large centre - Beziers - and tried more inns - again no luck finding a bed for the night. (At this point, we were not fussy.)

So we laughed and decided to take care of another need - our stomachs - found a good outdoor restaurant, shared a salmon salad, ate a good meal of fish and steak, had one glass of wine, and hit the autoroute planning to drive home. But it was dark and I was tired. We pulled off at a rest stop that had a hotel (but again full), parked our car in a dark spot, put down the seats. And laughed some more. (This was definitely Gill's influence. Without her, I would have been in tears.) Gill used a towel for a blanket. Me, a shawl. We wiggled around, trying to get comfortable, thought sleep impossible. We woke at 3:30 in the morning and headed into the restaurant for breakfast that was surprising good - fresh coffee and tea and a plate with croissant, roll, butter and a small jar of gourmet jam.

Although the sun rises late in this part of the world - around 7 - we returned to the autoroute where I pretended I was part of the convoy of trucks, moving at around 80 kph, and watching cars whizz by at 130. We arrived home before 8 in the morning.

Gill laughed as I climbed into bed, groaning with pleasure, kissing my pillow, and thanking the heavens for a good bed... and a lively, fun-loving travel companion who kept the mood light, at no time complaining about my haphazard take-what-comes approach to travel.

When I described our adventure to Frances and Carole - two friends in our village, Frances groaned and said she'd never travel in August in the south of France, without a reservation. Perhaps we will plan better in the future - but I love spontaneity too much to organize too much - but even my daughter agreed that it would have been more comfortable with blankets and pillows. Next time, we will bring some... just in case.

Village Life

I am thick into Tête-à-Tête, loving the play by play of Sartre and Beauvoir’s lives.

And so I read and read and then write and from time to time, devour a cheap mystery that somehow does not seem such a sin as Sartre and Beauvoir loved mysteries. And my novel sometimes appears a joke but I persevere and am allowing myself all kind of liberties. Somehow the discussion with Susan about this being only a draft and lazy writing has made a difference. It has slowed me down but I think the text richer...

Several nights ago, Gill and I went to the village fete that was rather corny as it was a band with an accordion lead. How the villagers loved it - especially the older folk who danced and twirled - often women with women. And how I wanted a dancing partner so Gill and I got up and danced a few numbers and then a very tall lean man asked me to dance and I did and I loved the movement. We danced well together though he was much too tall and I had to stay on my toes so it wasn't altogether agreeable.

Last night Gill and I went to the village feast that takes place every August 15.
See her blog for an account and pictures: “join me at the table".


I'm feeling like a fat slug I sit so much so I agreed to water David’s garden, as he and Susan wanted to escape the five days of music. Their garden is outside the village, down a steep road that isn’t much fun walking back up but I do it stoically. Once there, we follow David's regime of checking out the zucchini and cutting the big ones and putting them in a basket, and then picking up the yellow plums and apples that have fallen - so many and though yummy, I am growing a little tired of them. And as Susan so eloquently says "They make you shit but it's worth it." At this point, I have to pull the cover off the well and toss the bucket down - wiggle it around until it is full and then pull it up hand over hand, pour the water into a watering can and water the zucchini, tomatoes, and cabbage. The rest - onions and beets and lettuce and herbs, he says do just fine without water.

***
Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre and Loves



For those who are interested in Beauvoir and Sartre (if you are not as fascinated as I am by their lives, don't read this long rambling account): I just finished Tête-à-Tête and then immediately sat myself down and wrote about it to assimilate the information. I am not checking details so don't quote me.

I have always admired the relationship between Sartre and Beauvoir - never marrying or living together (even when they spent their annual holiday in Rome, they had separate hotel rooms.) Still their relationship has been called a "marriage" but, after reading Rowley's biography of the couple, I would not call it one. Marriage, in my mind, includes sharing a bedroom and having sex but early in their relationship, Beauvoir and Sartre stopped fornicating. And what surprised me is that Sartre didn't even like sex. He admitted never being able to let go. It wasn't a problem getting an erection and ejaculating but he didn't like it much (or only for a second.) He said that he liked the touching and caressing of another body but the rest left him cold. He would complain to Beauvoir that his young women were too demanding. They exhausted him.

On his 74th birthday, he began a flirtation with Francoise Sagan. At that time, he boasted that he had nine women in his life. He loved the seduction of sweet young women of promise. He did not love them and leave them - true to his existential thought that freedom includes taking responsibility for one's actions - he took care of the women, giving them his time (carefully scheduled into time blocks of a hour or two; once, twice, or three times a week) and his money and sometimes even his talent - he wrote plays for several of his conquests.

When he traveled, he often seduced his interpreter - the best way to learn a language. All this action by a man who doesn't like sex surprises me. As does his lie-telling to his young women (that he admitted to, in an interview.) He'd say he was working in one place with someone - usually Beauvoir - and he'd be with another of his loves, somewhere completely different. He was often found out because his picture would appear in a newspaper with his traveling companion.

Sartre has been described as short, ugly, fat, poorly dressed, and smelly and yet women vied for his attention. On the positive side, he has been described as an extraordinary listener, sensitive, and giving - especially with his money. He was paid a bundle in royalties from his books and for his lecture tours and newspaper and magazine articles and most of it, he gave away. He was often broke. Money never swayed him. When he was won the Nobel Prize - which he refused for ethical reasons - he gave up a grand sum that he could have used.

And what of the "Beaver" which is what Sartre and her friends called Beauvoir? She too loved young women of promise - several of whom were her students - though for years, she denied their relationship was sexual. She also loved men. Her greatest love affair, in my mind, was one with the American writer and journalist, Nelson Algren. He wanted marriage. She refused. And when she published stories - one fiction, one not - about their relationship, he was furious and denounced, mocked, and criticized her person and her work. And still she wore his ring until death. Unlike Sartre, Beauvoir had a voracious sexual appetite that often drove her to despair. She would have liked to have been less passionate. As she grew older, she hated desiring and being, in her mind, undesirable.

Throughout her life, she adored, respected, clung to her genius Sartre. I see them as intellectual equals. They edited each other work, discussed ideas for hours on end, and wrote alone in the morning and together in the afternoon when in the same city. When apart, they wrote each other long letters telling everything about their work and love life. I now see their relationship as more of a rich friendship than a "marriage" - or perhaps one could say that they were like a close sister/brother duet. One of the things that I like most about their partnership is that they gave each other courage to be free and responsible. ("Screw up your courage," Sartre said to Beauvoir when she hesitated about writing her autobiography.) Each was like a mirror for the other. And when one was in despair about his or her love life, there was always the knowledge that someone cared deeply and understood.

I am shocked by some of their "antics" - both his and hers - but I am also impressed? touched? (I don't know the right word) by both their courage to deal with emotional upheaval and ostracization. Sartre might be a scoundrel as far as his love life - or should I say, sex life was concerned, but as far as his work went, he was fanatically true to his beliefs. I don't think it was easy for either Beauvoir or Sartre to share their personal lives with the public but they did. But here, Beauvoir ranks higher. She has been more than generous about sharing the facts of her life - even after death via her adopted daughter, Sophie Le Bon de Beauvoir; whereas Sartre and his adopted daughter have been less than generous. It is a shame. We have only Beauvoir's truths about their relationship. It would be good to read Sartre's to know if they truly were in agreement.

Gilly is here

and it's early Sunday morning. She sleeps upstairs. Bedding sleeps down. The village fete is happening and the band - Rock & Roll last night - plays until around five in the morning for five days straight. As Bedding lives on the Esplanade, directly above the music, she comes to our house late evening to sleep each night. As well as the music, there's a mini-carnival with several kiddie rides and a play-the-ducks for a prize and several other slightly more sophisticated games where it's easy to lose some euros though Gill and I have little interest in these. Last night, we checked out the music and as we were not overwhelmed came home for an early night. When she wakes, we will go to St. Antonin for Sunday market.



Time moves quickly. Gill arrived Thursday evening. We drive home from the airport and she tells me that some of the happiest moments in her life were spent in Castelnau. We have been coming to the village for seventeen years. This picture was taken our first year here when the villagers called her a "mignon" meaning adorable. (She was/is.) Many still recognize her and yell out "bonjour Gigi" when they spot her. My daughter makes me smile. We live easily together no matter where. It's easy to love someone who loves you.

Yesterday, Gill walked down to the lake, while I wrote. I have moved on from "A Dutiful Daughter" to "Tete-a-Tete: The Tumultuous Lives & Loves of Simone de Beauvoir & Jean-Paul Sartre." I like the biographer's - Hazel Rowley - style. She intersperses story with quotes. She too was greatly influenced by Beauvoir. She clarifies the Sartre/Beauvoir relationship, taking it from an ideal realm to a less-than-ideal one that weighed them both down, depressing one or the other - sometimes at the same time, sometimes at different times. From Beauvoir's memoirs, Rowley tells the underlying existential philosopy of Beauvoir's life and "marriage" to Sartre: We cannot expect another person to save us. "As individuals we are free, and we act in 'bad faith' when we try to avoid our feedom. It is not easy, freedom. It brings with it the anguish of choice. It comes with the burden of responsibility."

I am struggling with this novel of mine. But I am determined to write it. I remind myself over and over that what I am doing is still a draft and I can take any liberty I want - and I am. I have also slowed down a bit in an attempt not to be a lazy writer or a glib one. Beauvoir keeps me on track.

On Monday, I will receive the quote for the work that we want done on the house. Finally. And then there will be other choices to be made.

TOO HOT




Today is a little too hot for comfort and still, I drove in the heat, past field after field of grape vines (apparently they are suffering this year) to the small town of Cestayrols to enjoy a meal with friends. (Jean-Francois in the foreground of the first picture was my neighbour many years ago and he is one of the most joyful men I have ever met. And the kindest - though he insists I speak French in France. It's good for me although I have to simplify all my thoughts and sometimes feel like a child.)

I look happy in the picture. And lunch was a pleasure but as soon as it was over, I returned to feeling anxious, restless, frustrated. And unfortunately, I am unsure of the reason. Or perhaps I'm simplifying things too much and it's more than one thing that's bothering me. Last night I tossed and turned and got very little sleep.

I was able to find my last guests a hotel in the next town for the night that they wanted to stay chez moi and thankfully, they did not seem upset. I told them the truth - that this is the only stretch of time I have alone and I need it. Good lesson for me. Makes me wonder why I was in such angst about disappointing them - though 2 women I know said that they would not have had the courage to say no after they had said yes.

I have been working on my novel and lately am so discouraged that I want to throw it in the garbage. I was talking to Susan about it last night, saying something to the effect that the story I want to write has many levels and it's coming out too simple and worse, I'm using cliches.

She reminded me of three things: 1. This is only my second shitty draft. 2. Cliches can be effective. 3. Writing is hard work. She told me about walking with Lyn, a fellow writer in this town, and saying almost the same thing to Lyn as I had just said to her - that she felt she was simplifying her story too much. And Lyn asked, "Are you a lazy writer?" This helped Susan and, in turn, me. As much as I would like my muse to take my hand and guide the pen, it ain't going to happen: I have to do the work.

At present, I'm reading "A Dutiful Daughter," which is a delight partially because it fell into my hands by accident when I was sixteen or seventeen and is the first book that I am aware of that changed my world-view. I read it now from that perspective, trying to understand why it made such a deep impact on me. I am impressed that from an early age, Beauvoir believed in her own intelligence and uniqueness and was willing to defy her parents, or lie to them, to do as she pleased - whether it was reading forbidden books or strolling in the evening with a male companion though at the same time, she tried to keep the peace. I envy her industriousness and her curiosity. She never stopped working - reading and writing - and never felt less or inferior to fellow male students - more often, she felt superior. But what appeals to me the most now - and perhaps did in my youth - that she refused to be stifled or repressed, that she was working toward that moment when she would be free of restrictions of her original home.

In the foreward of my 2005 edition, Hazel Rowley discusses the difficulty Beauvoir had in writing this memoir. She feared the reaction of her family and friends. Sartre encouraged her, "Screw up your courage." And several weeks before it was to be published, Beauvoir wrote in her journal: "I do feel uneasy - almost remorseful - when I think of all the people I brought into it and who'll be furious." (According to Rowley, Beauvoir's mother was "hurt and mortified" by this telling of the family secrets.)

Sartre and Beauvoir spent a great deal of time discussing their friends, dissecting them, noting their moments of rebelliousness and compliance - "They saw these as defining moments, which reflected fundamental choices." According to Beauvoir and Sartre, choice necessitates action. (As an example, Rowley says "it is not interesting to want to write a book: you have to actually write one."

I like this idea of action - have believed in its necessity for a long time. And yet I am often too afraid to act. Sometimes I conquer this fear. At other times, I make excuses for myself. But I'm getting better at it - often with a little help from my friends. (I wonder if Beauvoir would have written her autobiographies without Sartre's encouragement.)

Enough. I'm tired. Or perhaps it's the heat.

"Silence"

I wish I were a poet. Marianne Moore's poem "Silence" says so beautifully, without apology, what I would like to say to my visitors: She quotes her father - “'Superior people never make long visits,/ have to be shown Longfellow’s grave/ or the glass flowers at Harvard..../ they sometimes enjoy solitude...'/ Nor was he insincere in saying, 'Make my house your inn.'
Inns are not residences."

My second set of visitors departed yesterday. As soon as they left, I washed their sheets and towels and spent the rest of the day writing. Oh glorious solitude. I truly like showing family and friends my town. I enjoy their exclamations of awe and appreciation as if I were personally responsible for creating this heaven. But I am not good at having company for long stretches.

On Friday, the last evening of their stay, the woman of the couple asked me to invite a few friends over to celebrate her partner's birthday, which I did and enjoyed immensely especially since she and he did most of the cooking. (For Gill, I shall tell that we had roast turkey with peppercorn sauce, potatoes roasted with olive oil and herbes de Provence, green beans, tomato salad with fresh basil, mozzarella, cucumber and avocado, and a fresh fruit flan from a Gaillac bakery.)

Still I sighed with relief when they left as I was anxious to get back to my writing. I was feeling good about my progress when the telephone rang. It was my guests asking if they could return for one night a week from now. Not knowing how to say no - though I groaned inside my head - I said yes but the more I think about it, the more unhappy I become. This is the only alone stretch of time I have to write and I need this time to please myself and not worry about being interrupted. A smart friend suggested that I book them into a hotel for the night and this I'm going to try to do although August is a busy time and I may not be able to. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Having said all this, I know that each visitor is unique and also the number of visitors I've had makes for my warm or lukewarm reception. When Rob's sister came - my first visitor of the season - I was pleased. She said that she never stays anywhere - even with her children - more than three nights. When she left with her partner, I felt the time was too short.

My second set of visitors arrived a day later. And they were kind and helpful but I did not know them well before the visit and so it took more energy to entertain them. I wished Rob were here as he knows the man better than I do. I found myself lacking in graciousness.

My sister tells me that it's in our genes - if we think unkindly about someone, we blame ourselves. We are the ones lacking in generosity. It's never another person demanding too much from us.

Enough. No, one last word. With every guest, I learn how to be a guest. This is good.

And now I shall close myself away for as long as I can and write my heart out. I am determined to make some more headway with my novel.

Seeking Sleep in the South of France





Sunday July 22, 2007: Sitting outside the Toulouse-Lautrec Musee while Kathy (Rob's sister) and Richard check out the short guy's art. I am yawning, not out of boredom but because I have not slept through a night since I came to France over a week ago. And last night, Susan and David came for dinner and I served two chickens, potatoes, garlic buds, green beans, salad with endive, a selection of French pastries, and cheeses accompanied by a bottle of Brut bubbly and red wine from Chateau Mayragues that we had visited earlier that day. Oh la la.

And still I did not sleep the night away.

Since my arrival I have bought a 1996 Renault Clio diesel with low mileage so I am now free to buzz around. I have also shown the mason, electrician, and builder around the house and wait anxiously impatiently for a quote on the work Rob and I want done to this house. Will we be able to add a few extras or will we have to subtract some of our ideas? I should know this week.

Kathy and Richard arrived Friday in Toulouse after a few days in London and a few more in Paris where Richard was attending a conference so they are happy to relax, do their laundry, and see a few sights but not rush insanely. Kath and I have caught up on our children and our lives and I have learned about Richard's family. He's an interesting and interested person - asks many questions about the region - most of which I can't answer and though I have had pangs of feeling like an ignorant fool, I have been able to sweep them aside. (I have spent most of my life feeling deficient and I'm tired of it. I am who I am though admittedly I have to remind myself of this at times like this.)

This morning we went to St Antonin market - the best in the area - with its spice and olive, fruit and vegetable, sausage and cheese, wine and handicraft stalls. In summer it is especially voluptuous and reminds me of past writing workshops when Marlene and I, often Gill, sometimes Ursula and Shirley have gone and gathered simple but beautiful fare for our opening feast. Hopefully next year we will resume this tradition.

I am so lucky to be here, I know, I know but if I could just sleep a long stretch - I don't care if it's day or night - I would be able to think more clearly and get to my writing work.

A Week of Many Happenings

The past week - what with celebrations and travel - has been so busy that I've barely had time to think, let alone digest the many happenings. After my sweet Gill arrived at the airport, we returned home to my brother, niece, and Rob. At the same time, another sister arrived and several cousins from Connecticut who stayed at other sisters' houses. On Saturday, a number of them left for Whistler and Gill and I were able to have a day to ourselves. It felt good walking down the street arm in arm with my baby. We pampered ourselves with manicures and pedicures, stopped for a lunch of salads (I always eat healthy with Gill), and walked some more. We talked. We shopped a little and kept on talking, catching up on how we feel about our lives. I love the ease and openness of our relationship. I love how my daughter loves me.

The next evening, when all had returned from Whistler, we went to my niece's - the eldest grandchild of my parents, the daughter of my older sister - for a barbecue. It turned out to be an emotional evening, a sort of "Home for the Holidays", where I found myself thrown back into my nuclear family's dynamics where voices were raised and tears flowed. And it was my brother who saved the evening. He is a quiet man who feels comfortable putting his arms around his sisters and mother and telling us that he loves us.

I have not been around him for any length of time for years - I am nine years older than him - and I was glad he stayed at our house. He is a gentle man, thoughtful, easy-going, and listens to his daughter who, for most of her years, has been raised by only a father.

I always find myself lost in large groups of people, even family. There are just too many people to talk to, too much stimulation, and I retain little. It's like going to the Louvre and looking at art. By the end of several hours, I might remember one painting or statue but, come to think of it, it doesn't really matter: I am happy to be overwhelmed. The evening of my parents' 60th wedding anniversary celebration felt something like this. There were around forty guests at Anatoli Souvlaki, a Greek restaurant that turned Irish for an evening with the help of the Celtic trio, Ballyhooley - who were quite wonderful, playing nine different instruments: my mother hummed and sang along to many of their numbers.

As I was the chief organizer, at my father's request, I had to stay on my toes - arrive early and help arrange the tables, welcome the band, cue them when to play and when to take a break, make sure everyone knew where to get a drink, where to sit, exchange words with the head waiter about when to serve the food, the champagne, and cake, collect money from my siblings, and pay for the music and food at the end of the evening. Rob thankfully set up the projector and screen and played the slide show I had put together of my parents' 60 years together, featuring as many of the guests as possible. I was definitely overwhelmed and relaxed only for short periods of time during the evening.

My mother and father appeared to enjoy themselves. (I hope they did.) They arrived after most of the guests, looking like royalty as they were escorted into the room on the arm of the head waiter and hostess. Everyone cheered. And the conversation and drinks flowed. And the food came. And the music played on.

And then the entertainment began. My baby sister (with the help of another sister) had cleverly written a rap song incorporating many of my parents sayings when we were children - like "just wait till your father comes home" and "if you mum me one more time" - and so the six of us got on stage, caps on backwards or sideways, and happily made fools of ourselves.



My Mum, Dad, Gael then made speeches and since all three are or were involved in politics, they are easy on a stage with a microphone and spoke well and were applauded but... I don't really know how to explain this. The evening somehow became public as if for a general audience which seemed strange to my ears as all present were family... and even I, who hate to stand in front of a crowd of people and speak and yet did to present my mother and father with my labour of love of the last month - a bound book that included photographs and stories of my parents' marriage - forgot that I was speaking to my beloved nieces and nephews and children and friends and felt awkward. Perhaps this is just me?



The evening went so quickly. What do I remember of it now? Dancing with my father who looked very dapper - like a rich tycoon. Looking at my mother and thinking how beautiful she was in a shimmering top that we chose together. Talking to my eldest son. Missing my younger one. Watching my daughter, happy, arm around her "lova". The music of Ireland. The chatter of voices. My two little nieces observing the family from the stairs.



The next day, I prepared for France. The next I flew to Toronto. The next a full day of travel to my small village. So here I am, sleeping strange hours but feeling content, enjoying the solitude.

Family

Friday, July 6, 2007

Today my daughter arrives. I haven't seen her since Christmas and how I have missed her. My world seems quieter without her - not that she is noisy but we would often meet at four, five, six in the morning - both insomniacs - and say a few words as the coffee brewed or the kettle boiled. I miss her dragging me to the grocery store that I hate and she loves and watching her fill a cart with fresh fruit and vegetables - always the right amount, nothing goes in the garbage - and such stuff as couscous and tofu that I haven't a clue how to prepare. (On the odd occasion, when I have tons of time, I do enjoy preparing a feast but not often. I say it is because I had to feed children for over twenty years and now it's my time to be served but I'm not even sure this is it. My mother and father just left for my sister's house and over the past week, I've watched my mother lingering over cook books. She'd call me over from time to time and say "doesn't this look delicious?" and I'd say yah or doesn't excite me. And she'd shake her head. She oftens wonders aloud where I came from. "You're different from your sisters.")

She adores her granddaughter who is more like her than her daughter. Why am I thinking of food? Perhaps because I just read Gill's latest blog: Confessions of a Young Woman. I love how she describes family meals. I've forgotten the time when I insisted that dinners had to be an occasion, how I'd light dozens of candles, and Rob would play music.

I love my quiet house now without children. I sometimes forget that I am a mother. I go about my business - usually out in my little house, writing or whatever, and am rarely called from the big house. Hours drift by and I can follow thoughts to conclusion. But there are moments every week when I miss my kids. I am happy that they are creating their own lives but I love it when they call me just to talk or make the time to grab a cup of coffee with me.

Food also reminds me of Marlene who came to dinner last night and brought most of it with her - curried lentals, potato salad with olive oil and feta, stir-fried vegetables - and muffins for breakfast the next morning. She's amazing in the kitchen. (She cooks in quantity so she won't have to cook every day.) But then she's amazing at everything she does. I remember when I first met her in a classroom a UBC. I walked into the room and there is this author of a book I had just finished and loved, sitting quietly, hands together on the table, with the loveliest of smiles - might sound corny - but I knew immediately she was someone special. And then, quite unlike myself - I am usually too shy and intimidated to speak in a university classroom, I began to talk fast, told her how I loved her book, how I was overwhelmed by the women (I think most are women) she had quoted - even Marion Milner who I arrogantly thought I was the only one who had read her in North America. And her smile widened.

I was simply trying to find my way back to writing, had started one autobiography class and dropped it, and thought this one - on journal writing - would be light and easy. I didn't know that it would change my life, that somehow this author and teacher and the women she attracted to her class (Vaughan, Wenda, and Shirley - my plums - to name a few) would touch me so deeply. (Shit, I don't know how to describe the immensity of what happened to me and what evolved from that first exposure to Marlene... how I kept taking her classes though I was often terrified of the secrets I would spew out and how her quiet acceptance and those of many others over a long period of time gave me courage to be truer to myself in my writing and in my relationships with others.)

It still surprises me how I start writing about one thing - food, here - and end up somewhere totally different.

***

I wrote the above at a leisurely pace then drove to the airport and picked up my brother and his daughter who I adore, brought them back to my house, and then headed to the airport again for Gill.

I find it difficult describing love because I don't want to sink into sentimental cliches - and love... it's impossible. I went to the airport, stood watching the people come through the door from the restricted area - looking for a tall blond beauty. Gill always stands out - appears one of a kind - and there she is. I want to observe her before she sees me. Is it just because I'm her mother that I find her so stunning? I think not. People keep telling me how beautiful she is. And I am in awe looking at her and then she sees me and comes running, throws her arms around me, hugs me tight, kisses me, keeps kissing me - even on the mouth that always surprises me - and I know she's my girl/woman.

We get her bag and drive home, calling bad drivers names or simply "stupid, stupid, stupid" as we always do when we're together.

(Gotta run to the hairdressers with Gill - hopefully will have time to add a few more lines later but it's a pretty busy household at the moment.)

Parental Control

I've spent the last week with my parents though my mother took off to Seattle with my sister for three days and though she's 78, walks with a cane, seems quite frail at times, she's a dirvish in a shopping or outlet mall. My mother loves clothes so much, she remembers every event by what she wore. She can truly shop till she drops - can outdo any of her daughters. My sister said that after a 7 hour marathon, Mum looked great: the exercise is good for her. Her doctor should prescribe shopping for health reasons.

My Dad and I are both restless spirits which makes it more difficult for me to get on with my writing and art projects, as I know he wants adventure so every day this past week, I've left time to take him somewhere. He is touching my heart. Several times a day he wraps his arms around me and tells me that he loves me. I don't remember him doing this when I was a child but I do remember the times he would recite little poems to his children at bedtime. Whatever my mother and father did or did not do, they created a family where love abounds. If one of us is in trouble, all the others are there for him or her.

Case-in-point: my sister who was locked out of her house. The drama continues. The man called her, said they must meet, and then played "I'm still in love with you." Why can't I help gagging? She agrees to meet him. He arrives with roses. He wants her signature. He doesn't get it. In my opinion, he is a manipulator. Reminds me of Pam Houston's "Cowboys are my Weakness." Houston was at some speaking engagement and asked the audience if they had any questions. A feminist rose and ask why Houston always puts strong women with weak men and then has the women make fools of themselves. Do you know any strong women in the real world who would behave in such a way, the questioner asked. Houston said the question did not deserve an answer.

Speaking of strong women, I met Marlene at Granville Island yesterday morning. She is back from Zurich. She, like all my best friends - and there is only a handful - does not indulge in small talk. She is blunt and honest. And oh so loving. What is it about best friends that creates such trust? Saint Teresa comes to mind, who with her circle of close friends used an expression "Disillusion me with truth." They trusted each other so much that if one unwittingly did something that the others knew that she herself would hate, they told her so she could catch herself. Marlene and I spoke of writing workshops in France and writing and chocolate and wine and all kinds of stuff that touches our hearts.

Kate, another of my best friends, left a joyful message on my answering machine. She has just won second prize in the Hertfordshire Writing Contest. Bravo, Kate. This young woman works hard at her writing and is becoming more and more successful. Nice to know that the deserving wins from time to time.

And today my man comes home from Toronto. I think he's written off Toronto as a possible retirement place - better to keep our money and drop into this city from time to time. I dream of a nomadic lifestyle in which we can roam to unusual places and then return to France where my heart is most content.

I really don't have time to write today as my parents arrive early afternoon and I'm up to my eyeballs in work and preparation for their stay and anniversary bash but I need to update at least once a week for me as well as my friends.

I have just read Marlene's blog and I love how she speaks of soul and its importance - too easy to forget - and her signing off thought - "don't forget to step into the garden of magical possibilities sometime soon!" This made me smile. I am reminded as my heart beats too quickly with too many chores uncompleted by my deadline that my soul needs time and my body needs food. I skipped dinner again last night (though I did serve myself some crackers and cheese) as I wanted to keep working on a big project and I had taken the morning off to visit with Vaughan and Wenda at our old sanctuary - The Grind. And then I drove over to my sister Bev's and then met my other sister Madonna for a quick lunch and took a minute to buy some lavender and black-eyed Susans for the entrance walk to our house which reminds me that Rob cut the grass before he left for Toronto and left a bed of dandelions at one edge because "it looks pretty". Though our aesthetics don't always agree, I love how this man can make me see something, like a dandelion that I consider a nuisance, in another light.

I just spoke with my friend Kate in Germany. How I love her. She too is working on a novel. I have a tinge of envy that she, at 35 with a young family, is doing now what it has taken me years to consider a possibility - though really I don't care that I am a late bloomer. I am more concerned with doing it, completing it.

I will just add a few unrelated notes on the past week as I must run...

My sister who was locked out of her house is being petitioned (is that the correct word?) for divorce and spousal support. How can an able bodied man, after two years of marriage, make such a demand? I am not being sexist. I would say the same thing if he were a she.

Photographic images have a strange power. A sister gave me her dying computer to burn her photograph files onto CDs as she's afraid she'll lose them. While doing this, I looked at hundreds of her family pictures and those of her - though her weight went from one extreme to the other - her body language didn't change. She is sultry, sexy even, and beautiful whether she is too skinny or too fleshy. I mentioned this to her. An hour later she telephoned me to thank me, said that even though she had a cold, she looked at herself differently, took time over her toilette, put on large gypsy earrings, a lacey skirt, a lower-cut top than she had originally planned to wear.

Her call reminded me that I too am too critical of my physical appearance. What the hell. This is what I have been given and I should be more respectful. Reminded me of Woodman stroking her belly and praising it. So before I left the house, I looked in the mirror, smiled at myself, and on impulse, tied a silk scarf around my neck - made me feel very French.

I'm hungry. Must end here.

CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED LOVE



It's our 37th anniversary today and I don't feel in the least romantic. I woke too early. Rob woke later, packed his bag, and left for Tofino for his last two days of shooting. Though I did get a few kisses and a big box of chocolates, somehow I felt let down. I wonder if he felt the same way. I gave him a gift two days ago. So what do I expect after being married this long?

What's it all about... this crazy little thing called love?

I was over celebrating a friend's birthday last night and one gift was a deck of cards with questions about living. Perhaps it's a way to get to know others. Or perhaps a way to get people to spill their secrets. Someone draws a card and then each person at the table answers the same question. The first card asked: Put in order of importance the words "love, money, happiness, freedom." I answered freedom, happiness, love, and money. Most people chose love as most important. But without freedom, I would feel trapped and this would make me unhappy and it would be impossible to love me let alone another.

After Rob left, I tried to catch some more sleep but I just lay there feeling lifeless.

At five the doorbell rang and outside was an enormous bouquet of exotic flowers. And seeing all that beauty beautifully presented made me feel a whole lot better. And I remembered the way Rob took my face in his hands the other night and just held them there a while. And how loved I felt.

"I gotta be cool relax, get hip
Get on my tracks...
Until Im ready
Crazy little thing called love"

Crazier is that Rob always describes our marriage as "living hell" and sometimes he even tells me that he didn't get much weight for his money - meaning he could have found a bigger, softer mama in his old New Brunswick home. Still can, he told me this morning. But a minute ago he called to make sure I received his flowers - the exotic ones arrive today that's why the delivery was late, he said - and so I told the old guy that I loved him. Couldn't help myself. And still I shake my head and can't believe that it's been 37 years with the same guy.

MARVELLOUS

Strange day - overcast and cool - and again I don't want to take the time to write here but will to remind friends and family to write their blogs. I love catching up on their thoughts and doings this way. But there isn't, I whine, enough hours in the day to do what I want to do - and I've been so busy this week with family. For the first time in a long time, I've been immersed in the lives of my sisters.

The one who was locked out of her house continues to be disillusioned by her husband. When he finally agreed to give her her mail, every envelope had been opened.

A second sister flew in from Toronto to help me organize our parents' anniversary party. She's the politician, great at brain-storming and writing speeches and it was wonderful to have her input. We now have some grand plans for our Irish celebration in a Greek restaurant.

In our last hour together - why does this always happen at the end? - we disagreed about an event and she, over-worked, began to cry. And her tears drove me to tears and so I agreed to handle the event her way because I didn't want to upset her over such a small matter - at least, to me. And then she gave into me. But the tears reminded me of family dynamics and how we are our most vulnerable within our nuclear family. I read somewhere that if we can be ourselves within our original family group than we have achieved some degree of separation and are more our own person.

A third sister had a special evening to celebrate the opening of her new business venture. As I was the designated driver, I did not enjoy the excellent champagne but did enjoy the festivities and learning about the sophisticated equipment for the clinic - all to do with dermatology. And then I met a writer who has just completed her first novel and has received her first rejection. I told her I was working on my first and she asked how long I had been working on it.

"Oh, around seventeen years," I answered, feeling foolish and dim witted.

Her mouth dropped open. She thought the two years she had taken to write hers excessive.

The next evening, one sister and a sister-in-law of one of my sisters (gets complicated) went to a reading, put on by Simon Fraser, where we met Vaughan and Shirley. There were four students reading their work and one published author - Sasha Su-Ling Welland reading from her non-fiction "A Thousand Miles of Dreams: The Journeys of Two Chinese Sisters" about her grandmother and grandmother's sister who were feminists way back in the nineteen twenties. One settled in San Francisco, the other in London. Sasha punctuated her reading with many asides and I especially loved it when she said that it had taken her seventeen years to write the book.

Today, early, I returned to my novel as finally I have a day - it's 2:35 p.m. and I have yet to dress - to immerse myself. The section that I am working on has to do with stream of consciousness writing which led me to sites on the internet about Andre Breton and his realization "that only the unconscious offers the marvellous." I want the marvellous in my book and so I sit with my journal and Mont Blanc and let the writing flow, hoping that my unconscious will provide some devilish text. I think it was Iris Murdoch who said that good saintly characters are boring. We need vicious vile villianous ones to make things interesting.

STILL CRAZY...

I sit in my house in the garden - unfortunately, the roof is leaking so I've covered it with plastic to protect my papers and books - thinking of the past week and Paul Simon and Bob Marley lyrics run through my brain. "Still crazy after all these years" and "No, woman, no cry... everything's gonna be all right."

It's been a crazy week. One sister called and asked if she could stay with us for a few days. She needed somewhere quiet to think. She left her husband a note saying just that. On the fifth day, he changed the locks on their doors, and the numbers on their alarm system. Now she can't get into her own home. The police said "No, he can't do that" - though he did - "Get a lawyer." I have to be careful telling this publicly because anything I say could be used against her in a court of law which seems as appalling as his crime.

I learned, a few days ago, that our next-door neighbour, who has lived beside us for 23 years, died May 13th. She had been in the hospital since November, suffering from diabetes. Over a period of time, the doctors removed her feet, then her legs below the knees. Rob visited her and said she was quite philosophical, had accepted her loss. She was 82 years old. Every Halloween, she would let her grey hair down and dress up as a witch. Every holiday - Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day - she would leave a little gift on our porch for "Silly Gilly." Somehow it seemed sadder her dying and not knowing.

Last weekend, the Globe & Mail featured Leonard Cohen whom I've adored through all his careers - as poet, prose writer, song writer and musician. I'd like to see his art exhibit in Toronto. Though he laughs when people call him "a lady's man," I used to dream of him as the perfect lover. I have never loved a poet in the flesh but did make love to a man who recited "My lady can sleep/ Upon a handkerchief,/ Or if it be fall/ Upon a fallen leaf..." and later married him.

Every time, Cohen appears to me - on television or in the paper, through his writing or song, I am drawn to him. In this interview, when speaking about his current situation - living in an old house in Montreal with his 48-year-old love: "This isn't very different from the monastery... It's the same kind of life, which is sometimes difficult, like everybody else's. It's a struggle for significance and self-respect, and you know, for righteous employment, to be doing the right thing."

What is the right thing, I wonder. I have such battles inside myself. I do everything around the house that I can possibly do so I don't have to pay someone else for labour though when I tried to prune the cherry tree - sitting precariously on a ladder and sawing at a branch - I realized some things are best left for professionals.

My life now consists of home-work and writing. I have slipped into writing mode this past week and can't seem to stop. I write a paragraph or two - sometimes only a sentence - and when what I'm writing reminds me of another writer's words on the subject, I stop and find her (or his) text. Sometimes I quote her (or him.) Sometimes not. I am also referencing my journals and old letters. I appear to be creating a system that works for me. I whisper to myself to not get too cocky, too excited - though sometimes I can barely contain myself, I'm so pleased. I remind myself over and over that this is not for publication - at least, at this stage - I can do what I damn well please.

The books that have pleased me the most in recent years are those that don't follow any set formula or those that speak about the unspeakable - like novels by Winterson, Duncker, Ondaatje. All three are way above my league but they give me courage to write what I please. Nancy Mairs, whose niche is non-fiction, is another author of whom I'm especially fond. I was leafing through "voice lessons" this morning and found many passages that I'd underlined. The one that applies to this moment, is a quote by Jane Tompkins: "I find that having released myself from the duty to say things I'm not interested in, in a language I resist, I feel free to entertain other people's voices. Quoting them becomes a pleasure of appreciation rather than the obligatory giving of credit."

I so seldom allow myself pleasure or rather, I struggle to allow myself pleasure which sounds mighty ridiculous when I see it on paper. Writing can be fun and if it isn't, why bother? And although I do struggle - sometimes for hours on end over one sentence - in the end, when I've got it right, I am so full of pleasure, the struggle appears as nothing - the means to an end.

A GIFT

Shirley gave me "Divisadero" Michael Ondaatje's new novel for my birthday late because I was not here for my birthday.

I read the first six sentences and am excited.

"When I come to lie in your arms, you sometimes ask me in which historical moment do I wish to exist. And I will say Paris, the week Colette died... Paris, August 3rd, 1954. In a few days, at her state funeral, a thousand lilies will be placed by her grave, and I want to be there, walking that avenue of lime trees until I stand beneath the second-floor apartment that belonged to her in the Palais-Royal. The history of people like her fills my heart. She was a writer who remarked that her only virtue was self-doubt."

I know, without doubt, that this is the way I want to write.

"Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it." So says Colette.

I have had a busy day - making breakfast for my sister, driving old paint tins to a environmental disposal depot, showing a piano that I would like to sell, surfing for cheap flights to Europe, shopping for wine and groceries. On impulse - before I leave the grocery store, before I pour myself a glass of wine and open Ondaatje's book - I buy a bouquet of lilies.

At a 50th birthday party I gave for my friend Leslie, I asked guests to come as someone famous. Henri de Toulouse Lautrec came. So did J.K. Rowling. And Minnie Mouse and Walt Disney. Jane Austen was present. I can't remember all the celebrities. I was Colette.

Once on a train to Paris, I sat reading Colette. I wish I could remember which book. I was scared. I was excited. I imagined myself as a character in her novel. "You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm."

I worry too much about sounding foolish. It kills my writing.

Earlier in the day, I received a poem from Marlene. A deliciously wonderful poem by Oliver. It ends:

I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want
to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

I have read a lot of shit lately, looking for a way into writing a page-turner. And then a day like yesterday happens when friends hand me a poem and some prose and I find myself lustful - I pause here, search through my drawers for my Mont Blanc pen, the one that Rob gave for my 50th birthday, the one I hide every time I go to Europe, the only object that I own that is the best in the world - and know that I am now in a good place, space, to work.

Does that last sentence sound unnatural, too manipulated, like I'm trying too hard? I don't know. I will publish on whim, something I haven't done for a while.

THE GREEN GREEN GRASS OF HOME



I've been home a week. The grass is a rich green from all the rain I thankfully missed. I had to take this picture of how Rob cut the grass. He couldn't bear to cut the flower-weeds so mowed around them - you would never know that we live in the beautifully manicured, fancy area of West Vancouver - and, for some reason, his leaving the flowers endeared him to me.

I am still a little fuzzy after travel and doing my usual nesting and cleaning. Although I have spoken to a few friends and family members, I am most often alone (especially as Rob is working strange hours). As my trips pile up - last year I was in Europe for five months - I see that friends are in touch less often, not because (I hope) they've forgotten about me but because I am no longer a part of their day-to-day life. In some ways, I feel lonely but, in others, I am happy to have this time to think, to catch up on all the little things that gather - like dust and paperwork - when I am away from home.

I still think of Vancouver as home, as the place where I am most comfortable though Rob and I talk often about selling, about retiring east, about adventure, about being excited about the rest of our lives. Before we know it, we will be dead. I like the hardness of the word "death." It means no nonsense: it is going to happen and, like Oliver, I don't want to feel as if I've just visited this world. I want to roam, taste exotic food, drink wonderful vintages, dance to exhaustion, sing, write a book, love and be loved passionately. I want to die knowing that I followed my natural bent. I want to be at peace.

Wow, where did all that come from? My last day in Paris, I spent several hours roaming the Montparnase cementary where the remains of Baudelaire, Sartre, Beauvoir and many others lie. I wonder, in the end, how each felt about his or her life.









I love the last one that says "My work is my prayer."

Mother's day
Originally uploaded by Barbara Y.

Happy Mothers' Day to all the women who have mothered me from the time that I was a little girl to the present day.

And love to those who let me mother them though, at times, I am awkward and don't know how to express my love.

Home Coming

I'm in Paris, packing for home. At ten, I will meet a friend for coffee and then will trudge with my two bags to the RER to Charles de Gaulle, fly to Heathrow, and then the long long endless flight to Vancouver - though hopefully it will end and I will land safely in YVR. I am afraid of flying though Rob laughs when I say this. How can one who flies so much be afraid?

I had a glorious day in Paris yesterday, wandered till my feet ached - took a walk through the Montparnnase cemetary, up to near Pigalle to visit Gill's French/Turkish family who fed me at their restaurant and gave me a gift for Gill, then onto Galleries Lafayette, Shakespeare and Company, Le Polidor for dinner. By the time, I arrived back in my hotel, I was exhausted but couldn't sleep, kept turning the light on and off and reading. The last time I looked at the clock, it was 3 a.m.

Oh forgot something important - a Gill's bidding, I had my hair cut tres Parisienne.

I'm off.

Celebrating Bedding











On Thursday evening, family and friends celebrated Bedding's 70th birthday. She is as astonished as the rest of us that she is that age. We had a quiet evening of music and poetry, food and wine, to honour this woman who is one of the kindest, most loving and generous women I know.

She has an amazing aesthetic. Her home is beautiful. So is her garden. She paints, photographs, bakes, plays music. When I listed her talents on a birthday card, she said "I am not this woman." She is. And always, always when she helps me - whether she drives me to town, lends me a bedroom, repairs a table or window, wires a lamp - she says "It is nothing."

She is really something. So I brought her Irish linen napkins from Ireland, took her to lunch, and gave a party complete with balloons and candles. She smiles and says "This is my best birthday ever." It is impossible not to love her.

Room with a View




This is where I perch in the morning to watch the sun rise and write in my journal or return in the afternoon to edit sections of my novel. It's a rough old house - around 800 years old - though beautiful, it needs a fair bit of work to make it truly comfortable and functionable. Tomorrow a builder and architect are coming to have a look and give me an estimate. First on the list is creating a roof terrace to the left of this window - Rob's dream - and enclosing the rest of the space with double glass doors leading outdoors. And the room will be finished and full of light.

The other day, I was riding high, feeling good about what I had accomplished in the extra time I've given myself here. My final job was to meet a lawyer accountant in Paris and file French tax forms. All was arranged and then she sent me an email telling me that her fee was 265 euros a hour (around 400 CAD). My heart sunk. A lawyer friend in Vancouver charges $225 a hour and I thought that high but $400 to fill in a form? I ranted. I paced. I didn't know what to do. I know I can be unrealistic about cost sometimes but this seemed insane. Still if I don't see her I will have to scramble my last week to find another way to get the job done. I decided to scramble.

Right decision? Wrong decision? I don't know but I do know that I've been given contradictory information. One young woman, a Notaire - real estate lawyer - told me to file. I got in touch with an English/French accounting firm and the man I spoke to said that there's no need to file as there is a convention between Canada and France so people like me/us aren't double taxed (though the thing is that I wouldn't be double taxed - I would fill in the French form noting that I had acknowledged the house and paid my dues in Canada.) We've owned the house seven years and have never filed because we didn't know that we are supposed to file. Or are we?

I am angry at myself. I should be able to speak French better. I have to scramble here, there, and everywhere trying to find a person who speaks English. I have been coming here for seventeen years and still haven't mastered the language enough to take care of business.

Perhaps this is yet another wakeup call. Rob and I have had a number this year. We have put our business affairs in the hands of experts - or so we thought - and we have lost money and paid too much for services. The problem is that it takes time to manage one's finances. I've been taking the time and find that I have probably made more money for us than I would at a job. This does give me some satisfaction.

Rob and I have a strange existence. He has a house to himself in Canada. I have one here. We are both loners Even when we are together in Vancouver, we spend a lot of time alone. I am often in my house in the garden. Rob is in his office. We seldom eat breakfast or lunch together though we do come together for dinner.

I observe other couples' lives and to me they seem claustrophobic. One of my cousins is envious of Rob and my relationship. He says that we have the best of single and married worlds. I am grateful for the way my world turns.

I find myself alone discovering what I like, following my own rhythm, eating, sleeping when I like, sinking into the silence, loving myself and hating myself with no one to blame or praise except myself.

I find myself together with a person who gives me lots of room and trusts me to take care of our business affairs, and who has the warmest, sexiest, most enveloping arms I know.

I am ready to come home. Below: modern train in Gaillac station. I'll take this train to Toulouse next Tuesday where I will catch another to Paris, spend a day wandering (now that I am not going to see the lawyer/account - saving a bundle so I can dine well) and then catch a jet plane to London to Vancouver.

Time flies: I see another week has passed and I am becoming anxious about a number of issues. (I have changed my return flight to Vancouver to May 9th to try and deal with some.) I also feel guilt that I have not written a thoughtful blog for quite some time.

In a sense I've been hibernating - is that the right word? - perhaps better to say that I am on retreat. I wish to think about my life alone for a time. I do not want conversation. I want to leave "the argument and jargon in a room" and sit and think about "the many-lived, unending/ forms in which [I] find [myself]. (Transcendental Etudes)

Silence allows me to follow my thoughts more closely to their conclusion - or to see there is no conclusion. No one else is allowed a word. I want to know that what comes from me is truly mine. Though after writing this, I wonder if I have ever had an original thought. The majority of my ideas comes from books. (Or I only trust my ideas after I have read them by another author. I would like to stop this. I want to trust myself here and now.)

I find it easier to think clearly in France, outside my own culture but, after a week in Northern Ireland, I am reminded that I am a mix of two cultures. I have lived most of my life in Canada but I was raised by two people who still cling to the values of their native land. Although Maxine Hong Kingston comes from a more complicated background than mine, I feel as she does: "I continue to sort out what's just my childhood, just my imagination, just my family, just the village, just movies, just living."

I was a dutiful daughter. (I thought this might be a good first sentence for my novel, inspired by Simone de Beauvoir's first autobiography. She was the first writer to put ideas into my head - in other words, to lead me astray.)

With this idea, I began to research "the beaver" as Sartre called her. I found some disturbing information. She and Sartre were not saints: they were mean-spirited, catty even. They used people. They had love affairs with many and told each other all the juicy details in accord with Sartre's "transparency" requirement for their relationship or "soul marriage" as one reviewer called it. But I am regurgitating his conclusion. He rejects the theory that their relationship was "a post-patriarchal partnership of equals... an open marriage" and insists that "[t]he affairs with other people formed the very basis of their relationship."

For the most part, Sartre went after pretty, insecure women and Beauvoir went after pretty, insecure women and strong men. And, shocking to me, they didn't always tell the whole truth to the other. So much for transparency...

Once upon a time, I knew a French couple who lived in a similar fashion to this famous pair. Perhaps they still do. I have no idea.

How do I feel about Beauvoir now? I'm not sure. She is more human, less an idol. And though I find both couples' meanness to their conquests cruel, part of me still admires all four. They lived their ideas, flaunted social convention, and pushed many - myself included - to think outside the norm.

Before I started this research, I was thinking about love. I quote from my journal: "I had a flash the other night. We don't, at this time in our lives, want someone to mirror us. We want to be magnified and still found beautiful. We want to be found even more beautiful than when we were young and firm. For now, our bodies have softened to a sweet ripeness.

"This is the way I think I should think and though, on rare occasions, I like what I see in the mirror, I am more prone to say not 'how beautiful' but 'not bad.' Now what does that mean? Not bad for a woman of 58 who has had three children? But I want to leave my children out of my thoughts about love. Not because I don't love them. I do. Not because they aren't beautiful. They are. But because they are not me - though the beginning of their lives are written on my body.

"One son, not so long ago, quoted a cowboy poem to me, "The Westerner" by Badger Clark. I was impressed by the words and my son's attitude to his life. Here's the first verse:

'My fathers sleep on the sunrise plains,
And each one sleeps alone.
Their trails may dim to the grass and rains,
For I choose to make my own.
I lay proud claim to their blood and name,
But I lean on no dead kin;
My name is mine, for the praise or scorn,
And the world began when I was born
And the world is mine to win.'

"How did this son become so wise so young?

"But I don't want to talk about my (oops, our) intelligent, talented, beautiful children, I want to speak about me. My favourite subject. (I wince when I write this.) A friend told me that I write well about myself and not so well about others. (I had just written a story about her.) A French friend once gave an article about a French male whose considerable contribution to French literature were his diaries and, I thought, I could do that but would I dare?

"I think I would be a better writer if I allowed my mean thoughts to appear more often. I admire MFK Fisher's writing so much. She does not apologize for her less-than-kind thoughts. She simply states them and moves on with her story. A good lesson."

Enough of my journal. Yesterday I picked up a book of Atwood's poetry and two lines stopped me short. "The desire to be loved is the last illusion:/ Give it up and you will be free."

I spoke to Susan about love. She said that she still has a desire to love as she would like to love. I read her Atwood's two lines. And she said, yes love's all nonsense really.

What I think she meant is that we get caught up in our own fictions and if Hollis is right in "Creating a Life" that's what it's all about. We have to create our own love story. Only problem is that we have to convince another to play their part.

Big smile.

The sun is shining. I'm going for a walk.

(oops, should have said that the old home is "falling down.")

Auntie Isobel's Children
Originally uploaded by Barbara Y.

Just a brief note to say that I'm in Northern Ireland with my large Irish family who are more than welcoming.

Kenneth, the fellow to the left, is like a brother. (He teases horribly and yet listens to my problems and takes me anywhere I want to go.) We have been driving around the last few days dropping in on our relatives. I've drunk more tea and eaten more oatmeal biscuits in the last few days than I've done in several years.

Ken lives a short distance from my grandparents old farm - now a derelict building - where my mother spent her childhood. I imagine sometimes that I am walking on the ground that she walked on, that I am seeing scenes that she once eyed. Except for one brother, all her family still live in the neighbourhood and so I wonder what I would be like if my parents hadn't emigrated. Most of my cousins live a short distance from their parents' home. Some even live next door.

How would my life be different if I was surrounded by family? Perhaps not all - Ken tells me that he's probably seen more of me in the last five years than he has any other cousin.

A GLIMPSE OF STOCKING



In a moment of self-indugence - on my birthday evening - I took this picture of my new shoes and shawl. I had a wonderful day, thanks in large part to my daughter. In the evening, I went to Puycelsi with Susan, David, and Bedding to the new hotel and enjoyed the elegant setting, delicious lamb, creme brulee (don't be too jealous, Gill), an excellent vintage from a local chateau, and my friends indulged me with poetry.

Since then I have been writing and cleaning - such a wholesome combination. My house is rented as of this evening and I am going to Northern Ireland to be coddled by my wonderfully warm, generous Irish cousins, aunts, and uncles. (There are now direct flights from Toulouse to Belfast with Jet2, a low cost airline. I'll report back later on the quality of service but for 119 euros return, I can hardly complain.)

This past week, I have also experienced a number of frustrations. At one point, I actually thought "fuck France, I don't want to be here any more." Oh yes, it is still breathtakingly beautiful. The food and wine are still superb. I still have friends who love me and I am still reminded daily of the kindness of strangers.

But to get anything done, when one doesn't speak the language fluently, doesn't understand the rules and legal ramifications of property ownership, is difficult and more - very expensive.

Although I had to go to Toulouse twice to sort out problems that could have been solved on the telephone but couldn't by me because I could not understand the list of instructions in the opening message of France Telecom's helpline, we now have hi-speed internet. I have not quite worked out how to go wireless but I will when I return from N.I. I will. Hopefully.

My major frustration has to do with the house, this house, with its beautiful new space.

We were offered another house on the edge of the village with a balcony and terrace and a salon (that is ideal for writing workshops) that is completely and beautifully finished at a good price. We - Rob and I have been discussing this by telephone and email - decided to go for it. Rob went to our bank in Vancouver and it is more than willing to lend us the money until our present house sells. We thought since the other house is smaller, we might have an even trade. We did not take into account the French capital gains tax.

I will not go into the amount of work that it has taken to understand our situation. I did find a French notaire (lawyer) who speaks English through a series of inquires and she told me that as our house is owned by our company (the worst possible scenario) that we have to pay 33.33% of the profit to capital gains tax. It gets worse. Because it is company owned, the house is depreciated by 2% a year so every year we own it, we pay more tax. And unlike personal owners, we cannot deduct the cost of improvements. As a company, we also have to appoint a tax representative who charges 1% of the profit. Or is the selling price?

I asked if the company could sell us the house and then we could sell it. No. We would still have to pay capital gains as we would have to charge ourselves the going price. I spoke to our accountant in Vancouver who had owned property in France. He said, "You have got yourself into a pickle. Sell now." He advised me to see an accountant and named the firm "KPMG" who he had dealt with before.

I found this accounting firm on the internet. It is international, offered a choice of languages, and looked highly respectable if one can judge by a website. I noted that they have a branch in Toulouse but the Toulouse website is in French. As I was going to see France Telecom in the city anyway, I decided I would drop into this office, compare it to its website, and hopefully be able to have a few words with an English-speaking accountant or make an appointment.

After walking miles to find it, I reached an impressive looking building, entered one stately wood and glass door, through a second, to face the receptionist who looked intelligent and efficient enough, sitting behind a long counter and who turned out to be one of the rudest people I have ever met. (If I were in charge of this firm, I'd fire her.)

She looked inquiringly as I approached. No smile. I apologized, in French, for arriving without an appointment but I wondered if it was possible to speak briefly with an English-speaking accountant. She did not respond. She took a white piece of paper, stamped it with the company address and phone number and told me, in French, to call for an appointment. I looked at the piece of paper - the address and phone number were blurred - and I explained to her that it was difficult for me to telephone as I didn't speak the language well. "English," she said. "Canadian. Could I not make an appointment now as I'm here?" "Non, telephone."

So I left, feeling insulted and thought I do not want to use that firm. I also wondered if I should contact the main branch of KPMG in Paris and then wondered if such a small matter as a rude secretary would matter to them.

I do not want to leave France without answers to many questions re the buying and selling of property, without making a decision one way or the other (with Rob, of course.) I had a real estate agent in yesterday so we will know better what to do.

I apologize for going on at length about this but it has been a major concern keeping me away from more important matters.

So wish me well. I will probably not blog again until I return to France.

(some friends are not getting my latest posts so I will try here to republish)