Running with Dante

I've spent an enjoyable few months running with Dante. He and The Divine Comedy kept me company while jogging in four countries and three seasons. 

Dante's novel-in-rhyme features himself, the poet Virgil, and a woman named Beatrice, modeled upon a girl whom Dante Alighieri, the author, fixated as a young man. Today he would probably be called a stalker. Beatrice died young, poor thing, of unknown causes. (It is also unknown whether Dante had an alibi.)

For me it all started when I bought a recent novel called Dante's Indiana (which I enjoyed, and reviewed for Amazon if anyone is interested) written by a University of Toronto English prof, Randy Boyagoda, an acquaintance of my husband. The three of us happened to meet at an outdoor literary festival cutely called 'Word on the Street' last May. I asked him whether I should read his book first or Dante's. "Well, Dante's, of course," he said, generously. He told us that he himself reads a canto a day. I learned that cantos are the segments into which The Divine Comedy is divided. There are 34 for Inferno (hell) and 33 each for Purgatorio and Paradiso. (It's all very numerological, Dante's masterpiece.) Inferno gets an extra canto for an introduction, in which the author, Dante, finds himself confronting wild beasts on a mountainside and is rescued by the poet Virgil, an excellent example of the pen being mightier than the sword. 

I checked out the audio version of The Divine Comedy from the Toronto Public Library, plugged in my bluetooth earphones, pressed "play," and started running. It is a long story, and I do not run long distances, so it took some time to get through it. I began in late spring and finished early in autumn. I ran through Inferno in Toronto and on a visit to Los Angeles. I ran through Purgatory and some of Paradiso in Cambridge. I ran through more Paradiso in Copenhagen, where husband and I spent a happy long weekend. I ran past dogs and pheasants and rabbits and herons. I learned that I have the stamina to run approximately 4 or 5 cantos. I learned that poetic prose is a perfect accompaniment to running, combining as it does narrative and rhythm. 

Running in Toronto's laneways

Running in Woodland Hills, CA
  

Running near Clare Hall, Cambridge

Running on Amagerstrand, Copenhagen

  

Back in Cambridge a bout of covid caught me just as I was in the farthest reaches of Paradise, so as I recovered I demoted myself to walking (cautiously isolated, alone, across fields) for those last few cantos. 

I learned that while Hell--Inferno--was horrifying, Heaven--Paradise--was rather dull, even though the characters were zipping through outer space; too full of saintliness (and saints) and goodness. Give me Purgatory any day. The people there told tales of struggle and yet seemed to enjoy themselves. In fact, Purgatory was a lot like life. 

And like running. 

Husband on the run

Ode to the Buttery

I love cooking. I love recipes. We collect cookbooks, husband and I. He likes cooking too, and baking, as do our children, often quite adventurously. During lockdown we established a rota whereby everyone in the household cooked at least once a week. Who did not cook, cleared up. Some of us cooks made more of a mess than others, but I shall not name names. (Okay, one was me.) 

Recipes galore

Now here we are in Cambridge, empty-nesting in our airy Clare Hall flat with its small but perfectly formed kitchen. The cookware is shiny and new, the stainless-steel serving spoons hang from a snazzy utensil tree, there is a dishwasher, a kettle, a French press and a teapot, we have six plates, four very large wineglasses, an oval dining table, and comfortable chairs. All the appurtenances required for the preparation and serving of delectable meals.

However, we don't. Not this year.

Part of the reason is practicality. The kitchen is, as mentioned, small. It is pleasant to look at and to make toast in, less so really to cook in. The largest saucepan holds enough pasta to serve one of us. "May we have a bigger pot?" I asked the people who provide such things, and a new one promptly arrived. Its sides were taller, but its base narrower than our current one, so that its capacity was exactly the same. (What would Piaget say?) If water splashes onto the swish glass cooktop, the electrics short out. Our fridge is old-style British, fitting under the counter, and not terribly cold; the milk keeps going off. The dishwasher does not quite live up to its name; it offers more of a strip-tease than the full monty of washing. We finish the job by hand, so to speak. Cooking and cleaning up are time-consuming activities, and both husband and I have a lot of work to do this year. We are eager to get on with it. 

I am not complaining, though. We have the Buttery.

It took us a couple of weeks to discover the Buttery, but once we did, we became converts. It is a marvel. Talented chefs prepare meals for us every weekday. Today for lunch I had minestrone soup, chipotle chicken with quinoa, and lemon poppy-seed cake for dessert. Yesterday the main was lamb pilaf with pearl barley, or a vegetarian option with butternut squash. Service is cafeteria-style, lunch and dinner, bar Wednesdays, when there is Formal Hall: a four-course evening meal with table service and wine. You have to dress up. So far husband and I have attended three of these events and I have now worn all my dresses.  

Lunch with a divinity scholar

The Buttery, with Richard presiding

The Buttery is as different from the dormitory dining hall of my undergraduate days as it is possible to get within the genre. The main difference, I suppose, is that not only students but staff eat here. The college president, who is a professor of architecture, attends meals most days. Other distinguished fellows (in the academic rather than the gender sense) from numerous departments dot the tables. You can't serve them the slop that I was given as a student back in the day at Berkeley. They would not return. And the college wants them to return, because its raison d'être is the intellectual richness created by the members' presence. In the past week we have dined with--to name only a few--an expert on the history of terrorism, a scholar of English and Roman law, a former director of the British Museum, an advisor to a previous Parliament on science and technology, a neuroscientist, an engineer-turned-venture capitalist (he was nice! really!), a materials scientist, and a groundskeeper. To call the conversations scintillating would be an understatement. And all I have to do to join them is a) not cook, and b) walk about fifty yards from my front door. That's the other and better reason to abandon recipes for a year. 

We dine at home occasionally, of course, especially at weekends, on cheese and crackers and sliced tomatoes, or a quick omelette and salad. Nothing that requires a cookbook or makes a big mess. Recently our delightful neighbors in the next flat expanded our horizons and took us to visit nearby Selwyn College. Another buttery! More choices! We continued our tour and eventually this evening settled on Darwin College, whose buttery served a lovely filet of trout smothered in a piquant tomato salsa. Darwin's dining hall also has the advantage of a distant river view (and stays open later than Clare Hall's).

But we did not know anyone there. Husband and I talked to each other (always a delight of course:)--and to daughter, who called us mid-meal--but we did not find our peeps. 

We are Clare Hallers now. 

I look forward to lunch tomorrow. Who knows what they'll serve or who we will meet. (Actually I can find out what they'll serve--there's a weekly menu posted online--but I prefer to be surprised.) 

I still love reading the recipe inserts that arrive with our Saturday Guardian and Sunday Observer (especially Nigel Slater). When I finish, I add them to the stack on the bookshelf, ready to bring back to Toronto, where I will use them---next year.  

Empty-nesting in reverse

Here I am, on the other side of the Atlantic. It's déjà vu all over again. This year, or much of it, husband and I will be based in Cambridge, England, at Clare Hall College, where husband has been awarded an international visiting fellowship, and I have been awarded 'partner' status (someday I want a tee-shirt depicting an ivy-covered wall that reads 'trailing spouse'). The college's motto is "a place to think". 

"I think we're mad," I said to husband as our preparations for departure ramped up. It was a lot of work. Saying goodbye to home, friends and neighbors, the garden, the pets--the dog and two cats--heart-rending. 

Clare Hall. Our flat is somewhere in the middle. 

At least we were spared saying farewell to our children as we left Toronto, because they had flown to London the week before, in order to spend several days with their grandfather. Among other activities he seems to have set his sights on teaching them the rules of cricket. As far as I can tell, he very nearly succeeded. Mercifully, just as they were on the verge of understanding such concepts as leg-before-wicket and 110-not-out and 7 ball over, and were consequently at risk of suffering the nefarious neurological changes such an inculcation might entail--the three kids took themselves off for a siblings' jaunt to Dublin for the rest of the week. They had a blast. Cricket must wait.

 

Meanwhile, Heathrow welcomed husband and me to the best of its 1950s brutalist ability. There have been upgrades. The automated passport control system worked well, and our luggage arrived promptly. In fact we spent more time in Toronto checking in the two massive suitcases than we did collecting them at the other end, because the conveyor belt at Toronto's Pearson Airport had broken down. Even that glitch offered a little serendipity: while we twiddled our thumbs waiting for the bag-drop to return to service, a friend and colleague whom I had not seen in person since pre-pandemic, and whom I had very much wanted to see before leaving, just happened by ( YouTube star Andrea Furlan, the pain doctor). We did a little reunion dance involving elbow bumps. It was the perfect send-off. 

Arriving in England after a two-and-a-half year absence has felt both momentous and ordinary. There have been moving moments: the covid-postponed stone-setting or unveiling ceremony for my mother-in-law, Rochelle, who died during the pandemic, the reunion with my father-in-law, my sister-and-brother-in-law and niece and nephew, as well as other family and friends. There have been wonderfully ordinary moments: shopping at Sainsbury's and popping a box of their own-brand Earl Grey tea into the trolley. Knowing that next week we can go back for more. 

Rochelle's beautiful gravesite

We crafted a mini-holiday for the five of us, fun family outings in Cambridge, in London, in Brighton and Lewes. Our children are sheer joy to travel with. What luck for us.

Punting on the Cam

 

Palace Pier, Brighton

Then, on a sunny Sunday, we drove them to Heathrow and said tearful goodbyes. Our three nestlings returned to Canada, the country their father and I chose to make their home twelve (12!) years ago. Back to their jobs, university, friends, pets. 

Heathrow farewell (followed by a parking ticket)

Husband and I stayed put here in England, sans enfants for the first time. We are empty-nesting in reverse. We will parent remotely. We will enjoy our adventure as a twosome. Letting go is meant to happen. We know that. And yet...

So far, I am loving Cambridge and our flat and college life and new friends. Clare Hall is indeed a good place to think, and I have much to think about: work, writing, reuniting with old friends. 

But when I pause to think about the ocean between me and my three children (and the pets), I confess I think about crying.   

Heigh-ho. We shall see how it goes. 

Guns N' Roe

I woke my daughter up the other day because she slept through her alarm. I meant to give her a gentle shake and a little kiss but instead I found myself tearful as I leaned over her. The New York Times had circulated a headline: "In a 6-to-3 Ruling, Supreme Court Ends Nearly 50 Years of Abortion Rights".

"What?" murmured my daughter, blinking at me. "Why are you crying?"

"They overturned Roe."

"Just now?"

"Yes. Sweetie, get up. You and your brothers and all your friends have to fix the world. Come on. Up."

My Grandma Ruth had abortions back in the 1930s, in Brooklyn. They were illegal, but a progressive doctor named Sarah Greenberg saw the procedure as essential healthcare and offered it to her community. She gave public talks in schools and community centers and conducted research on birth control. On Wednesday, June 11, 1919, for instance, the New York Evening Call reported that Dr. Greenberg would speak about "sex hygiene...All women welcome." She continued giving talks for more than a decade. In 1934, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Monday, March 19, 1934), Dr. Greenberg spoke about sex to parents at PS 230, Albemarle Road and McDonald Ave. (In addition, says the item, Mrs. Lucy McDonald, chairman of the school board, presented a Bible to the school in a special assembly that morning.) I do not know exactly how my grandmother came to know Dr. Greenberg--maybe through attending her talks--but my mother remembers the doctor well. 

Abortion happens. It always has. It always will. It happens in spite of the Supreme Court 'decision' that it won't. What the court struck down was the nation's right--its mandate--to ensure access to legal abortion. In the same session the court struck down New York State's right to control laws about handguns. 

Forced to carry-- or to break the law

So hard to believe Roe vs Wade is no longer the law of the land. Jane Roe, I recall, was the pseudonym for Norma McCorvey, whose 1970 fight for the right to a legal abortion in Texas spawned  the court ruling that has just been overturned. (Who was Wade, though? Must check.) McCorvey spawned not just the ruling but a child, since by the time of the decision in 1973, she had lost her personal battle to abort the pregnancy. She gave the resulting child up for adoption, and later adopted an anti-abortion stance. Still later she changed her mind again, reasserting her belief in a woman's right to choose.

Fine. It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind. A man's too. It's also a woman's right to make up her mind. A woman, the court needs reminding, is a person, not chattel. Her body, womb, brain, and all, is her own. The overtly partisan jurists responsible for the overthrow also seem to have changed their minds, clearly reneging on their statements, made under oath to Congress, that they regarded 'Roe v Wade' as 'settled law' when they were confirmed. The Supreme Court may need renaming in light of such shameful, possibly illicit behavior. I've looked for antonyms to 'supreme' and can't find much. "Inferior" or "subordinate".  The Subordinate Court of the United States? Perhaps even the Suborned Court. 

I am very glad I never found myself in want or need of an abortion. I had a scare once in my twenties, and knew instantly what my choice would be. The anxiety I experienced for those few days of uncertainty, while unpleasant, remained tamped down because of Roe. Because there existed healthcare intervention to avoid continuing a pregnancy I absolutely would not want. Many of my friends have sought--and gotten--safe and compassionate terminations. Some of these friends were young and unready to carry a pregnancy to term, while others were married and unwilling to do so. Not my business. Not the court's business. A woman's business. 

Abortion was not legal when Grandma Ruth had her abortions. She and her family--my family--had the good fortune to be acquainted with Dr. Greenberg. Abortions have always, will always, occur. The demand will not disappear because Roe v Wade did. Safe abortions will diminish across much of the US. 

I hope and fear for today's Sarah Greenbergs.

People are talking and writing about a "post-Roe world", one in which not only the right to this aspect of healthcare has been abrogated but as well other rights to choice and privacy. At risk, broadly, is individual decision-making around who gets to have sex with whom and why. The "American obsession" is what Marlene Dietrich called sex, way back in the middle of the the 20th century. Now add guns.

I find myself grateful that my husband, children, and I can call Canada home. It feels like a safe or at least safer haven, although I know that there are some places here in the True North where abortions cannot be easily obtained. I know there are guns around. There are, worst of all, extreme conservatives, some of them in high office. We have to remain, as the national anthem exhorts us, on guard. Thanks for the lesson, USA. 

How to fix this sinking world? What weapons have we got for the fight? How to contain the American obsessions? How can the next generation get back what we had, what Sarah Greenberg and my grandmother paved the way for us to have?

And who the heck was Wade?

Bedside Manner

Creature comforts

It can be a little dodgy writing about beds. Racy, even. But I'm going to do it. I don't mean to brag or anything, but our beds keep breaking. In the past two weeks we have acquired two beds and returned two beds. 

It started, as so much in our lives does, in England. The nice sturdy double bed with the gracefully curved headboard that husband and I acquired at John Lewis after our elder son was born served us well for a few years. It held the three of us comfortably; he was a tiny mite. But he grew. Also the second baby came along, and things got snugger. Still manageable, though. With the arrival of the third child, we gave up. A double would not do.

Mind you, each child did have a bed of his or her own. Most nights they spent at least a few hours on their own there. But at some point, in darkness or creeping dawn, for many years, our offspring opted for a change of locale. They headed for the master bedroom and clambered under our duvet. Waking up in the morning, with my eyes still closed, I used to reach out both hands and count heads. 

So we bought a bigger bed. A European Super-King it was called. Back then, in Durham, we had a massive bedroom and plenty of space, and it never occurred to us that in future the size of the bed might be a constraint. We loved that bed. Everyone fit, even the pets when they came along. There was a children's book we used to read to the kids called The Biggest Bed in the World by Lindsay Camp which could could almost have been modeled on ours (in the first few pages, anyway). While we hoped not to find ourselves floating out to sea one rainy night, as happens in the story, we felt confident that if such a thing did occur, this bed would see us through. 

The bed survived moving from Durham to Brighton and from the first to the second house in Brighton. On the way to Canada, however, it hit a snag. The mattress made it over the Atlantic, and the pieces of the bed-frame arrived, but the hardware to hold them together did not. We learned that bed hardware is very location-specific. I visited specialist stores in every part of the city and across the internet. No luck. Always some reason. "These are metric measurements. Ours are imperial." But... this is Canada, right? Isn't metric the standard? Well, yes and no, it turns out. Or I would be told the exact piece, with a diameter of 3.14/8 inches, had been out of stock since Einstein died. For months after our arrival in Toronto we slept on a mattress on the floor with the pieces of the frame stacked in one corner. Finally, some new (and now good old) friends took pity on us; he is a master woodworker and maker of fine furniture. Bring me the bed, he said, shaking his head. I'll see what I can do. We dragged its poor battered carcass to Gabhan's eye-poppingly wondrous workshop (Gibson Greenwood) and submitted it to his tender mercies.

He examined the corners and crannies as a neurosurgeon might a brain scan; then he pored through catalogues and found, finally, in an Austrian collection, screws and bolts and nuts that very very nearly matched. "I can make it work," he declared, and he did. A week or two later, he brought it to us and supervised the final assembly. Hallelujah! We began sleeping above ground level.  

The bed, alas, suffered again in our next move, from the university's rental accommodation to our current house 700 meters down the road. The movers bodged it and we made do, but eventually going to sleep every evening took on overtones of an extreme sport. The gaps between frame and headboard widened. The structure shook even when our tiny cat leaped onto it. The creaks and groans reverberated. The mattress wobbled. That first pandemic summer we were lucky enough to be able to rent from a friend her charming cottage on Red Horse Lake in eastern Ontario. The bed we occupied there was solid, sturdy, and stable, and the mattress so thick that actual climbing was required to attain it. I was stricken with bed envy.

When we returned home the deficiencies of our own bed taunted us. It groaned and complained and so did I. In addition to the depredations on the frame, the mattress had valiantly withstood almost two decades of occupancy including somersaults and bouncing and wrestling matches-- the kids' I hasten to add--and had shrunk into a pancake of its former self. I could hear it pleading for retirement. 

So I started shopping for beds and mattresses. Online only, at that point, mid-pandemic. "Let's get the kind of mattress they have in fancy hotels," I suggested to husband, on the theory that if Mohammed could not go to the mountain, his mattress could come to us. It turns out you can buy that kind even if you are not a Hilton or a Fairmont or a Sofitel. Eventually pandemic restrictions lifted enough for us to be able to visit a shop and test out various possibilities, while masking of course (no handcuffs though). Slightly weird, but it worked. 

Then we chose a frame. We finally settled on one that looked beautiful and solid and, while costing more than any other bed we had ever bought, would not break the bank. It came from what seemed like a slightly edgy, funky but solid Montreal-based furniture chain called Structube.

Such a mistake. I advise anyone reading my words never to engage with this company. The only exception is for people who enjoy hearing apologies, because that is what Structube staff do profusely, almost joyously. For your added pleasure, they do it in French accents. They have been well-coached in Apology 101. 

When I ordered the bed they apologized because our choice was currently out of stock. Supply chain, pandemic, etc. I was gracious. Fine, I said; we could wait a while for this bed of our dreams. And wait we did, for many months. Seasons passed (though not the covid pandemic, sadly). Winter ended, spring arrived, summer approached, and so, finally, did the bed. With tremendous effort were the 300 pounds of sustainably-sourced acacia wood (heavier apparently than the environmentally-destructive sort) hoisted upstairs and assembled, at some cost, by a specialist recommended by Structube. While dismantling the knackered old bed, our hired hand asked me where my husband and I had been sleeping until now. 

"Here," I said. 

"That's not possible." He shook his head. "This frame is completely broken." 

I blame the dog and the children. The cats assure me they had nothing to do with it.

At last we enjoyed the splendor of safe sleep in the environmentally-friendly, beautifully finished, solidly-constructed new bed. We reveled (not a euphemism) in our new acquisition. I even bought a lap-desk large enough for my computer and a cup-holder, thus making the bed into a new workspace. 

Then one day, some months later, while smoothing the duvet and plumping the pillows, my fingers snagged on something. A crack. The solid-wood headboard had a long narrow crevice running through and through, from east to west. I contacted Structube and complained. 

The young man on the other end apologized charmingly. "I am so sorry for your inconvenience. I will send you a form to complete." The other thing at which Structube excels is sending forms to complete. 

They agreed to exchange the bed, but they refused to compensate us for the cost of hiring more help for disassembly, removal, and reconstruction of old and new beds. "I am very sorry for your experience. We do apologize," one young French-accented young man after another assured me. "Mais...non. It is not our policy. Tant pis pour vous." 

The replacement bed was, unsurprisingly, not in stock. They were sorry. I received periodic emails reminding me how sorry they were. Eventually, the new bed reached Structube's warehouse and then finally our front door (no further). More hired helpers hoisted it up the stairs and unboxed it. Et...quoi? The new headboard was damaged! 

I called Structube. They were, predictably, apologetic. Also predictably, a replacement bed would take some months to arrive. Again, they were sorry. Very, very sorry. 

"I can't wait that long for a new bed," I told the nice man at the other end, breaking into his apology. At that point I probably could have complained about anything, not just furniture-related matters--perhaps the existence of mosquitos in the world, or Vladimir Putin--and received the same response. They would be very sorry for my experience.

No more, I told him. This time I'm sorry. Assez. We are done with Structube. Take back your bed. Give us our money. Stop apologizing.

He said he would send me a form. 

Postscript:we have a bed! It's from Ikea. Recommended by our friends Pamela and John (their advice on putting it together: don't make mistakes). Generally I avoid Ikea like the plague but for our current purposes, it serves. As an added bonus constructing the thing provided a sweet father-son bonding experience. At least the quick snapshots I grabbed looked sweet. I high-tailed it out of there in order to make another bed, in the garden, for my new rosebushes. 

So far so good, says the cat

Spot the rosebushes

The zones of time

Saturday 26 March 2021

On Sunday at 2:00 a.m., Britain switches to daylight saving time. What a relief.

I remember reading Dava Sobel's excellent slim book, Longitude, many years ago, and being struck by the part of the story that describes how time zones even came to be necessary when travel-- specifically, train travel--got speedy. Communication too; the telegraph, I think made it possible and sometimes necessary to know what time it was somewhere else.

I sometimes feel I live in three separate time zones: Eastern, Pacific, and Greenwich (or Universal, as it has come, somewhat pompously, to be known).

Toronto is on Eastern time, though not by much. Toronto really does have delusions of east-coastness, while in fact being much more both by geography and character a midwestern city. For part of February and much of March, I was on the west coast, in British Columbia and in California. 

Whistler while you ski...

Cold and sonny, UBC

Berkeley bounty

Point Reyes

Campanile, UCB

Add three hours to figure when to chat with husband and the offspring residing in Toronto. For two of my western weeks I was working, and trying, if not to keep to then at least to overlap with office hours. I became an early riser. Now that I am back east--in what passes for springtime in southern Ontario (just add snow)--I subtract three hours for conversations with son in Vancouver or parents in Los Angeles, or for some work meetings with lucky colleagues based in the west (which I maintain IS best).

While I have not visited the UK for more than two years, since (just) before the pandemic, I surround myself with it in other ways. I study Hebrew "there" and for much of the pandemic, I have attended a choir "there": Polina Shepherd's Sing With Me. I chat with family and friends there, carefully calculating time differences to avoid waking anyone up. I depend for much of my entertainment and news on the BBC. I like to listen to The Archers in real time, when possible, in order to join in with the 'tweetalong', a group of folks who possibly take this long-running radio soap opera a tad too much to heart. "Eccentric but not dangerous" is how one of our number described us. So, I add five hours from Toronto; eight from the west coast.

Mother-daughter outing
Victory Trailhead

There comes a twist in the tale though. A week into my western travels, daylight saving time took hold. I love this weekend every year, especially since moving to Canada (and even more since clocks became connected and change themselves automatically). Losing that hour is a small price for the harbinger of winter's close, even though experience has taught me that the end of a Toronto winter brings at least two months of an English-style winter before actual spring bursts forth. Here in Toronto, March brings us tentative snowdrops and struggling crocuses, species that emerged, bloomed, and faded in England months ago. Not until mid-April and May will we see here the bright heads of daffs and tulips. 

Crocus coming up

Snowdroplets

The trouble is that the UK, perhaps happy enough with its early floral bounty, holds out for several more weeks before bothering to switch its clocks. In the autumn, it's the reverse. The two continents do not align on switching back to standard time. Thus suddenly the difference is four hours between London and Toronto and nine hours if you're in LA. No, wait. Seven hours. It's so confusing. I resort to counting on my fingers (or checking the 'world clock' app on my phone). I like to think that I am fairly decent at arithmetic-- I was in an honors maths program and took both calculus and statistics at university--but I find that as soon as numbers are attached either to time or money, my brain shuts down.

So, it has been a struggle, this time zone business. There are many things I would change in the world if I could. Most of them are a lot bigger and more important than my puny struggles to add and subtract hours. The war in Ukraine and the anathema of Putin. The ongoing uncertain landscape of the covid pandemic. The inability of the Academy Awards to run smoothly and peacefully. Even so, if I could humbly request that the UK and North America agree to change their clocks on the same days, twice a year, I would be very grateful for a positive reply.  

And Putin, begone. To a place beyond timezones.

Higher Resolution

My usual New Year's resolution is to make no New Year's resolutions, or at least none that require me to do make an effort. In the distant past I would resolve to make drastic changes in my character; for instance, to always be on time. (Given that today is January 26 and I am only just considering New Year's resolutions, it is safe to call that one a failure.) I learned to reach for lower-hanging fruit. I'm happy to resolve, say, to read more books. Piece of cake. My sister once resolved to drink more water. We were at a family New Year's Eve dinner in Santa Barbara, going round the table sharing our resolutions, and that was hers. I took note and used it the following year. It must have worked, because not long afterward my mother complimented my husband and me. "I really admire how much water you drink," she told us. We thanked her. Another piece of cake, so to speak. (Coffee with that?)

But this year, I'm tempted to try again, and try harder (even if later). It is not exactly an attempt at a character overhaul; it is more a matter of changing work habits. I am still thinking back to my wonderful writing residency at the Wassaic Project in November [https://transatlantictravails.blogspot.com/2021/11/from-window-number-3-to-studio-number-6.html] and comprehending how special was the ability--the mandate--to focus on just one thing, the writing project I've titled Asking After Alice. Sticking to one thing is very much not my normal life. It is not the normal life of any adult that I know. Normal life for me involves constant switching between work, household management, chores, parenting, pet-owning, writing, and leisure, with multiple items under each of those headings. I may be forgetting something. Self-care? Yes, that's it. Or maybe self-care is filed under 'leisure'. 

I don't want to give up any of it (well, maybe cleaning the cat litter). Even doing the washing up is kind of fun, since we all do it together, minus the person whose night it was to cook the meal. (It turns out, by the way, that I have been doing the dishes wrong, all wrong, according to my children. They are the experts. I don't argue.) 

But I yearn toward time management solutions. I no more than start one task than my phone alarm tells me it is time to begin another. I scribbled down little lists and schedules every day. By the time I've written one out, I am already off-course, although I will nonetheless do it again tomorrow a true expression of hope triumphing over experience. Sticking to a schedule is not one of my skills. I feel swamped by time and its passage, am surprised at the end of each and every day how little of it I have captured. And, too, I am surprised at how surprised I am. 

I have studied various time-management tricks and try to perform them, like our dog learning to roll over to earn treats. But I get endlessly distracted. Just now, in the midst of a sentence, I found myself peering out the window to watch a truck deposit a dumpster across the street (a complicated maneuver with all the snow).

My latest effort is inspired by author Karma Brown's The 4% Fix. Ms. Brown points out that one hour is 4% of a day. This feat of calculation is not the main thrust of Brown's book, which instead is about what can be accomplished by putting that hour to work (writing a book, for instance). But the bigger takeaway for me was something else to do with 'four': the focused four. Choose 4 tasks a day to accomplish, Brown advises. Focus. She echoes Susan, my supervisor and friend, whose mantra to her students is 'Focus and Finish'. 

I can do that, I thought. Four tasks. How difficult can it be to get four things done in a day? I found a tiny notepad in which to pen my four daily tasks. But, like time, I find it difficult to manage. Maybe I needed more space. A bigger notepad. A longer day. 

And there is the rub. Or as my high-school French teacher used to say: voilà  le hic. You just get those 24 hours. No more.

How to cultivate a shorter focal length? A higher resolution? To focus and finish. To bring the lessons of the residency back here to my residence. But first, I think, a quick game of Wordle. And then a fresh cup of tea, if the cat allows me access to the water jug.

What was I saying? Oh, right. Right. Yes. Focus and fi

Wordle 220 4/6

🟩⬜🟨🟨⬜

🟩⬜🟨🟩⬜

🟩⬜⬜🟩🟩

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

PS Favorite Twitter catch from last week: @alexhanna writes "I have a feeling the next variant will be transmissible via Zoom."  Response from @Barmijo: "Well Teams will still be safe. Nothing transmits well via Teams." That is my experience too--apologies to friends and family who work for Microsoft! :) 

I Come in Peace

I have been saying for the past few years that once I achieved Canadian citizenship, I would no longer need to post in this blog. (Also, I hoped someone would come up with a better word than 'blog'.) The point of starting it had been efficiently to update friends and family on my transition to this new world, and the motivation for maintaining it included both the fun of writing about what I noticed in this long-drawn-out transition period, and the mental health benefits to myself of carping about what I noticed in this long-drawn-out transition period.

But here I am, a bona-fide card-carrying Canadian citizen, and still writing.

Perhaps the mental health benefits accruing to me now are those necessary to counter the ongoing impact of the pandemic. Omicronitis, we can call it. Here in what Theo Moudakis, my favourite of the Toronto Star editorial cartoonists, labelled OmicrOntario, we are again locked down this month: gyms, indoor dining, theatre, cinema, all closed. Limits on gatherings and customer capacity. Schools and university courses (most of them) are online. It's like 2021 all over again, with added vaccinations. By a combination of luck (husband's and mine) and intrepidity (daughter's) all five of us are now triple-vaxxed. We are grateful, but still wary,  trying to live defensively. Socializing occurs online or outdoors--in below-freezing weather: locked down by winter and by pandemic.

Crossing the border from the US to Canada in early December, just ahead of the omicron 'tsunami', I used my new Canadian passport. It was, I have to say, an unanticipated thrill. I drove over the Peace Bridge from Buffalo, NY to Fort Erie, Ontario, after a long day's drive from Manhattan. My PCR covid test results had reached me in the nick of time--negative, although I had been living fast and loose in those post-vaccinated, pre-omicron, halcyon days--eating with friends! Going to museums!--and I had the screenshot ready to show on my phone. It was early evening on a Thursday, and there was no queue. I rolled down my window and greeted the Canadian immigration agent with enthusiasm, which seemed to surprise him.  I brandished my passport. "This is my first time entering Canada as a citizen," I told him. "Would you give me a stamp?"

"We don't usually do that with Canadian or US passports," he said, and asked me the usual questions. Where had I been, why had I gone, where did I live.

"But it's my first time," I reminded him, boldly.

"Do you have a PCR test to show me?" 

I did. He examined the screenshot and perused my passport. Then he looked at his own computer. "Did you complete the ArriveCan information?"

Uh-oh. I had not. Although we had managed the procedure only a couple of months earlier, in August, to return to Toronto from Los Angeles, I had entirely forgotten to fill out this electronic paperwork now necessary to enter Canada (possibly because the 'we' who had done all the work in August had been my husband and my younger son). "Whoops. No," I told him, now meek. "I'm sorry."

"Oh well," he said generously. "It's fine. I'll let it slide this time. Why don't you give me your phone number?" I wasn't going to argue even if it seemed a little odd. 

So I did. When he gave me back my passport, it had been stamped. A fair trade.

To misquote Fay Wray, though, he hasn't called, he hasn't written...

My first time

Embracing the winter

Niagara Glen

Toronto

Niagara River, Whirlpool Beach

Puzzling

From Window Number 3 to Studio Number 6: Passport to Creativity

Wassaic Project HQ: Maxon Mill

I am spending November in Wassaic, New York ("Home of the First Borden Condensed Milk Factory"). Wassaic is a self-proclaimed hamlet nestled at the foot of the Taconics, a stretch of low mountains that stitch eastern New York to western Connecticut and Massachusetts. New England, effectively. I am a Winter Resident at the Wassaic Project. The place is beautiful; the whole idea is beautiful. I have 3.5 weeks to spend writing. Almost a whole month! I have a studio, a shared house, and no responsibilities to anyone other than myself. Well, I did make a plan with my housemate to cook some stir-fry veggies with rice. But otherwise, it's just me and my laptop and some index cards, the odd happy hour gathering, a  yoga class, a brief presentation, studio visits...a dream come true. 

I don't fully believe I got here. My original plan--to attend in October 2020--was covid-cancelled. This year, too, there were obstacles: getting the right travel documents, a negative covid test, updated car registration, leaving home. The travel documentation was a close-run thing. I knew I could cross into the US with no problem--I may be a new Canadian, but I am still an old American, with a valid passport to prove it--but getting back home to Toronto might prove problematic. Ironically, becoming a Canadian citizen last month made me a captive in the country. Part of being sworn in required that we chop up, on screen, our permanent residency cards, which had for 8 years allowed us legally to re-enter Canada. In fact one of the instructions about preparing for the event read, "Bring a strong pair of scissors." We did. Red-handled ones. 

"You don't need to travel anytime soon?" asked Christine, our citizenship doula, when we joined her on-screen, nervous and eager. "It will take two to four weeks to received your citizenship certificate. Then you can apply for a passport."

"I do," I said, and explained about the residency, less than three weeks hence.

"You can postpone the ceremony, if you prefer," she offered. 

No, I said. No. We had waited too long, and I could not bear the thought of standing on the sidelines watching the rest of the family become Canadian without me. Well then, said Christine, write a note along with your signed form explaining why you need to receive your certificate quickly.

I did that. I described the Wassaic Project and my heartfelt desire to be here. I could see that it did not exactly come under the heading of hardship: please, let me go away for a month to write without the distraction of home and hearth. But miraculously, my note did the trick. Perhaps that's something special about Canada, accepting that the urge to creativity can in fact be urgent. Within four days I had my certificate, with which I could request a speedy in-person passport appointment. First I had to request a phone call.

"Oh, dear, there are none available until the middle of next month," said the woman on the end of phone, worry in her voice. It was Tuesday. "Not even in Kitchener." I have been to Kitchener and had no desire to go back, but I would if it meant getting a passport quickly.

I explained to her about the writing residency. "You see, I will have almost a month to work on my project," I told her. "It's really important to me."

"Oh yes, I do see, my dear." We had achieved a 'my dear' relationship; I relaxed. "Let me send them a special request. Let's hope they will see you." I was not sure who They were, but I had confidence in my interlocutor now. 

Within five minutes of hanging up, Someone More Official called and told me to bring my application to the downtown Toronto office on Thursday at 2:45. I was not being sent to Kitchener.

I rode my bike to the appointment and stood at Window Number 3. The man on the other side of the plexiglass (in the U.S. consulate it is bullet-proof glass) complimented my hummingbird backpack. He took my application and my money. "Can you come pick up your passport on Monday?" he enquired.

I told him it would be a pleasure. And it was. 

Passport in hand, negative covid test achieved, car serviced and its lapsed registration updated, I headed to New York. To the Wassaic Project.

I have never 'done' a residency before, unlike most or perhaps all of my seven co-residents. I'm the oldest by far and yet the newest at this artist business. At the Wassaic Project there are no demands, plenty of space, lots of opportunities. Social intercourse without social pressure. Yesterday I toured the woodworking and metalworking shop in a big old unheated barn, full of loud scary machines. I have no intention of touching any of them, but you never know; I might write about them (especially if I take up the horror genre). 

View from the barn

A friend messaged asking if I were allowed to read during the retreat. I am. I am allowed to read, write, roam, run, ride, tack index cards right onto the walls of my studio. I have a studio. It is Number 6. The other residents here are all visual artists: painters, sculptors, workers in miscellaneous materials; I am the lone writer. I notice them wandering around the barn and the converted mill which houses the heart of the operation, fingering bits of wood and twisted wire with a strange gleam in their eyes. They seem much more at home occupying space and taking advantage of resources.

Studio Number 6

I am learning from them. Yesterday I commandeered a spare table on which to lay out index cards. I checked with Will, the project director, about it.

"Of course!" he replied.

He's the one who told me to stick push-pins into the walls. And I will. I just need a day or two to really get into the spirit of the thing. I had better hurry, though. There are only 20 days left. 

The library

Today's writing station: insanely warm. Have swapped sweater for sunhat.