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)

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY
AND I'LL CRY
IF I WANT TO

Usually on my birthday, I feel happy content frivolous. I tell myself that nothing negative can touch me. The important thing is that I let myself be, feel what I feel, don't chastise myself for anything.

And if you know me, you know that I'm a pretty harsh judge of myself. Everything has to be examined for an ulterior motive.

"You're not going to fool yourself - let alone anyone else - that you're a good person, kind, and generous," that horrible demeaning voice whispers in my ear.

And the child within me says that it isn't fair, that really she is good and kind, and yes, she did trick her young friend once, told her that a quarter was a nickel and then talked her into giving it to her. (See the guilt written all over the face of the child, lower left - that was the day.) And over fifty years later, she still feels guilty.

How in the world could such a little girl feel so bad about such a small crime? She who tried so hard to please, to be good because she won her mother's affection by being well-behaved - or so her little brain thought

But somewhere around the age of forty, my definition of good changed. That was the time where I felt my life such a sham that I had to do something extraordinary or kill myself - and so I came to France with three children. And during that year, I discovered that writing was my true love. Through writing, I began to like the person who was once a guilty, careful, little girl.

Susan was my main support during that year. She wrote me, after one evening where I made a complete fool of myself, that the courage to be a fool is what she wants... this is what happiness is all about. Another time, she said that she had never met a person like me. How that filled me with happiness.

Again, I think of the line about not worrying about the good opinion of others.

I met a poet once who said that when she was young, she felt that anything that happened in her presence was hers to tell. As she grew older, she had become kinder.

One aspect of writing non-fiction is that it usually involves betrayal - an often discussed topic among writers. It's fine to expose oneself to ridicule but how dare one expose others, especially loved ones, to the same fate? But isn't everything deciphered, interpreted through the writer's heart and brain? And shouldn't everyone who is human realize this and not be offended when she reads about herself in another's story?

I have always admired Mordecai Richler for his blatant telling of the misadventures of others. Even his closest friends are not spared. Some call him cruel or worse, a user. But I call him a damn good writer.

And so it is my fifty-eighth birthday and I ask the heavens for more courage and endurance when I sit my self down to write because it is here I feel most free and excited.

But I love also the frivolous moments like one the other day when I went to Toulouse with Bedding and Hero and bought myself a pair of hot pink dancing shoes (that Bedding hated.) And with part of Gill's gift, I bought a hot pink scarf and silk stockings. I shall wear them this evening.



Early this morning I opened Gill's card and CD, filled with such admiration and love, I cried. And then I opened a number of emailed birthday messages and cried some more. It's my birthday.



And continuing in my self-indulgent mood, here's the beginning and middle of a poem that I found by accident in a drawer this morning - so perfect. (Sunset Draws Sophia Down by Joan Logghe)

"It was the most beautiful spring,
the spring she couldn't decide
if she were happiest or saddest....

Some days she woke up a teenager
others, a grandmother.
She struggled between passion and despair
sadness that comes down
straight from the ancestors."

I AM SINFUL
I AM OVER INDULGENT

Okay, I exaggerate a little though I feel like a glutton. This past weekend has been a time of feasting. On Friday night - in honour of Makiko's mother, Hero (or so Susan has shortened Heriko) - Susan and David prepared a roast leg of lamb dinner. On Sunday morning, we all went to Bedding's for a breakfast of museli, yogurt, eggs, toast, served with homemade preserves and steaming coffee. On Sunday evening, I made a beautiful salad (similar to the ones Ursula made several summers ago) with endives around the edge, filled with lettuce, red and green peppers, red onions, cucumber and tomatoes, followed by fresh pasta with a hearty vegetarian sauce. (Why is eating and drinking abundantly deadly? Why is gluttony linked with pride, sloth, wrath, envy, lust, and greed? Aren't all of these is some context good for a person?)





And so I entertained for the first time in our grand new space. Susan thought it a crime that I was going to remove the "beautiful" old door between the kitchen and dining area and removing the "beautiful" old stone sink (ugly and useless as far as I am concerned) was practically a sacrilege; but when she came for dinner, she announced that she likes the new room with light from both sides and thinks the new brass faucet "a beauty". David appeared more reluctant to give his approval: he asked who was to get the "beautiful door". I responded "the most deserving."

I really truly love this other family of mine. I feel my world would be less rich without them. Last night Susan asked what I would like to do for my birthday. I said I didn't know but that it is always a special day for me. She then said "Fountainebleu" and I was filled with delight. I have always wanted to go there to see the art gallery and specifically one painting... but it is more complex than that... I cannot tell you why... suffice it to say, that being there would make my day extraordinary. (And then I worry. It would cost money to go and we don't have any at the moment. We're living on credit. Do I want to add more to our debt? Why do such opportunities arise when one is least able to afford them?)

And I really don't know if Susan was serious but even if it doesn't happen, I am pleased that she remembered this old desire of mine.

I have woken several mornings feeling so anxious that I want to cry but the strange thing is, I'm not sure what in my life is causing the anxiety.

A New Space



The builder's work is done and mine begins. Not magically but through a lot of hard work and a lot of patience on my end, the kitchen is linked with the dining room and we have one large room with light coming from both sides. The heavens know if the ceiling will fall. The builder said the old beam is solid. The architect said beware. But I love the space and only wish that the cleanup was easier. Rob spent his last few weeks here last fall, clearing the rooms for the demolition. I will spend the same time cleaning the dust off and putting all back in its space. I only hope it is done for my birthday next week.

I am tired. And unhappy only in the sense that I have not been writing for a few days. Ruth, an extraordinary musician just dropped in. This evening she is playing Don Giovanni in Castres. She says she would like to be one of those women who can work at what she loves and feel sane in the rest of her life. Is sane the right word? Balanced may be better. She wants serenity in the same way I want serenity. (We both need a muse.) She says that she can only do one thing at once. And though she loves her music, when she is concentrating on it, the rest of her life goes to hell. I feel much the same. Write and write only. Clean and clean only. Who are those writers who say that they are religious, that they sit and write 500 or 1000 words and then stop in mid-sentence and pickup where they left off the next day? I hate them. I told Ruth that we should just accept the way we are.

For several nights, I've slept at a friend's house - Bedding for those of you who know her. Her place is lovely, perfect, clean, warm. I woke several mornings ago and looked out the window. The largest snow drops I've ever seen were falling. It's freezing here. Today, I learned how to use our wood furnace. Rob and I replaced our old one last fall and this one is so much better though still it demands attention.

A DREAM BECOMES A REALITY



I had this dream long ago of creating one large room from the kitchen and dining room in our French house in which the light would warm the enlarged area from both sides, the fire in the dining area would heat the kitchen, and the space created would be large enough to dance in. I smile when I remember Marlene, Ursula, and I dancing from one small room to the next before dinner. The space has been created though the new sink has not been installed. This is a more difficult task than I imagined as the wall is a foot deep. Still the Dane that offered to do the work said it would take two men a week to complete the job. The problem is that they do not show up everyday and so I have been living without a kitchen and worse still, in a house full of dust. My eyes become redder and redder not from tears of frustration (though I have been on the edge more than once) but because I am allergic to dust. This has not won the sympathy of the Dane because, after the first day, he vanished, leaving only his workmen.

As I have had no kitchen, I dine in the evening with the Reids but last night, I felt I had worn out my welcome. This, I know, could just be me but I have decided, after tonight, I will eat in the local restaurant.

Three workers have just show up. Thank the heavens, I might be free of them soon... though I shall not get my hopes up.

Last night at Susan's we celebrated her eldest son's birthday with tall glasses of champagne and cake before a dinner of spicy lentil stew. Eating the sweet before the savoury felt rather decadent and child-like.



It is tradition in Susan's family to make a crown of laurels for the birthday person but when Miki saw her father's crown, she wanted one too. (Justin, Makiko, and Miki have just arrived from Japan. Makiko's mother arrives Wednesday - all the more reason to leave the family alone for a while.)



One good result from waiting for the workers every day is that it keeps me at home and so I have finished the bookkeeping for our company and done more than a little writing... some journal, some novel. And though I was going to copy some thoughts from my journal, I am distracted by the noise below and will continue at a later date.

"How Green is My Valley"

I am still recovering. Traveling for ten hours - first leg of the journey from Vancouver to London - in a confined space where one pays over a grand for the privilege is exhausting. All the airlines that I have traveled within the past few years - Air Canada, Air France, British Air, and KLM - have condensed the space between rows so even I who do not quite reach 5'2" feel cramped, especially when the person beside me is large and even more so when the person in front of me reclines his or her seat.

I arrived at Heathrow exhausted, went through a second security check, and then caught the short flight to Paris Charles de Gaulle where the seats on this shorthaul were leather, spacious, with ample leg room. (If only I could have had this plane for the first part of my journey.)

I thought I was smart reserving a room in an airport hotel - I am a little timid of Paris since I was robbed a year ago - but even though the hotel was luxurious (ordered through Hotwire) I was not able to sleep. In the morning, I lugged my suitcases down to the train for the journey into the city where I had to change to the Metro (several flights of stairs) and then catch the TGV to Toulouse.

Groan, groan, grumble, grumble.

Was it worth it?

Yes.



I'd forgotten, though it has only been three months, just how lusciously green the valley surrounding my town is. This picture, with its white spots - soft raindrops - was caught as I walked down the hill to the little store where the woman who runs it is always the same - without a smile, she lifts her head from her laptop and utters the standard greeting "Bonjour Madam."



Though I've spend many hours trying to catch up on my sleep (Rob says this is impossible) and cleaning and clearing our house for the renovation that is supposed to begin Monday, I have spend my evenings with the Reids. David, in the photograph is proudly showing me his sleek new MacBook. Susan and David, who have both recovered from their fall operations, always make me feel welcome. Susan was disappointed that I wasn't staying with them (she misunderstood my request to stay for a week when the house is rented) and has invited me to share all their evening meals. (Gill you would be jealous of the salads and artichokes, peppers, leeks, lamb and duck I've been consuming with our friends.) The produce here, even during the winter into spring months, is so fresh and good...

So here I am once again and though the house is not toasty warm - it's even damn uncomfortable a lot of the time - I have nearly recovered from the travel and am beginning to jot down ideas and write. (I told Marlene that I was afraid I wasn't going to get down to it but I want to stop being a scaredy-cat or is it a lazy-bum and simply write... cause I have friends who love and encourage me to pick up my damn pen because they know that I am never content unless I am making love... with words.) (Only words, dear Rob. But damn it all anyway, they can be pretty damn potent.)

"There is no fence or hedge around time that has gone. You can go back and have what you like if you remember it well enough." -- from Richard Llewellyn's How Green Was My Valley.

"I'm late. I'm late..."

I didn't forget my middle child's birthday on March 3rd. Rob and I sent him, via FedEx, his guitar in a new hard case with a new set of strings so he could continue to play his music, sing his songs. He is a good musician and often - when he and Mackenzie were living with us - we would watch him from a window as he sat on the lawn, strumming this guitar and singing quietly.



Michael is "special" as he describes himself in a poem he wrote when he was around ten or eleven. Last night Rob and I watched the "Young Home Movie" that includes scenes from Michael's first birthday to his sixth. He was so sweet with his big glasses. Watching him on the television screen, along with his brother and sister, brought back so many memories. At one year, he wasn't walking. At three, he was break-dancing. By five, he had developed a love of magic (remembered by the really bad magician we hired for one of his parties.) He loved performing. Rob often recalls his devil sticks and how Michael played with them in the main square in Sienna and was filmed by a number of tourists. Perhaps it was in Italy that he developed a taste for fine cuisine.

By the time, he was into the two-digit numbers, he had perfected his father's caesar salad recipe and dreamed of making it, for one million bucks a bowl, for the rich and famous.

In his mid teens, he fell in love with our fancy computer, demanded his own, and taught himself computer animation so well that his art teachers in high school and later at Cap College, applauded his talent.

After college, he left the country, went to Europe and back-packed around for a while. When his parents ran out of money, he found a bar in England where he could work, travel, work, travel.

When he returned home, he found a job, moved into an artist's building, and started painting again - another love of his from high school. After meeting Mackenzie, he decided to hit the road again. They bought an old station wagon and drove to Montreal where they settled for a year before returning home.

They have since returned to Cobourg, Ontario, Mackenzie's home town.

Michael became angry with me not so long ago. He said that I was always pushing him to return to his art - in whatever form - and not loving him for who he is and what he is doing. He is both right and wrong. He has always brought his own unique vision and vivid imagination to his artistic endeavours - noticed by those more capable of judging than his mother - and I felt that he was letting himself down not pursuing his former passions. I thought perhaps he lacked self-confidence and needed encouragement.

Now I see that perhaps it is me who is passionate about "the arts" and that one can be creative in other ways, in other kinds of work. When it comes right down to it I know in my heart that it doesn't matter what he is doing, I love him for who he is - an extraordinary young man, with a big tender heart who has always loved animal; and wherever he's employed, works hard.

When I think of Michael, I think of the Steve Miller Band and the lyrics to "The Joker":
'Cause I'm a
picker, I'm a grinner
I'm a lover and a sinner
I play my music in the
sun
I'm a joker, I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight toker
I sure don't want
to hurt no one'

"Others are impressed with your inner beauty." I just read Gill's latest blog and smile. She is so colourful, so full of life, and, at the moment, I feel black and white as I sit at my computer screen inputting figures until my vision blurs. I'm trying to do a year's bookkeeping in five days and it isn't easy. For the past two years I've had a friend do this work but this year, we can't afford it. Rob hasn't worked for five months and I haven't worked since June of last year - though that's a lie. We both have been working but not at work that pays.

I sigh as I tell myself that I should be doing the accounts all year so I don't have to do a marathon before tax time. But I didn't and know next year, I'll sigh again and think the same thing. And what right have I to complain I ask myself. On Tuesday of next week I'll be on my way to Paris, my favourite city in all the world. And I'm staying at a fancy hotel at the airport because Hotwire gave me an extraordinary deal and then I'm catching a train down south to our house.

We have a house in France, I whisper to myself and smile. We have a house in France. Sometimes that's all I have to tell myself to feel good.

I do feel good. This morning I had a tender moment. I lay in bed and watched Rob sleep. And now I find myself humming: "And even though we ain't got money/ I'm so in love with ya honey/ Everything bring a chain of love/ And in the morning when I rise/ Bring a tear of joy to my eyes/ And tell me everything's gonna be all right..."

Everything is going to be alright. I will finish the books. I will leave for a seven week writing marathon in the quiet of the French countryside. I will meet with friends occasionally and drink some lush and thankfully cheap red wine of the region. I will hopefully oversee some work on our house - my reason for going - and will return- "all being well" as my father says - to my love and then worry about money and finding work.

I am so blessed.