Happy Labour Day! Hope you are not labouring too hard during these beautiful days. It’s hard to stay inside, knowing what’s coming — although for the first time in months, I did turn on the heat, briefly, this morning. Mornings chilly, days lovely. I wander in the garden every morning, checking to see what’s still flourishing and what’s fading. The rose has come out for a last burst of glory, still lots of bloom elsewhere; there’s a bowlful of cherry tomatoes to eat and a last cuke or two growing.

Thursday Anna brought the boys over for the day while she went to work. They immediately curled up on the sofa and went back to sleep for a few hours. I love that although there are two sofas, they squash onto one. They fight all the time and are as close as brothers can be. Although their genetic differences are clear: Eli, at just 13, is now five foot eleven, and Ben is small.

After a considerable breakfast, we went to Little Canada, miniaturized dioramas of Canadian cities and famous spots. I was dubious; it’s not cheap, and I thought it’d be a cheezy rip-off. But it’s quite extraordinary, phenomenal in its detail, with lots of humour and whimsy, like a fishing wharf where tiny people are fishing, and at the end, a fish fishing for people. We travelled from Newfoundland — Signal Hill, where I was in July — to Victoria. I was thrilled to show the boys the Arts Club Theatre on Vancouver’s Granville Island, where my acting career ended for good in the mid-nineties. There were trains, cars, and trucks shuttling through, and periodically the sky darkened and the lights in the cities came on; fireworks exploded over Ottawa as the national anthem played.

I liked it. If you have tourists to Canada visiting, even without kids, I think they’d really enjoy this. It’s amazing.

Above: Signal Hill in St. John’s, and the Arts Club Theatre in Vancouver.

I read a beautiful book from the library, Clear, by Welsh writer Carys Davies, a hauntingly spare tale of a very unlikely friendship between two men on a remote island in the 1800s. Not the sort of thing I’d usually read, recommended by my dear writer friend Isobel Huggan.

Also read Monkey Grip by Helen Garner, given me by Nigel in St. John’s. It’s apparently a classic in Australia, but is an unpleasant read, about a woman in the nineteen-seventies obsessed with a junkie and other men; about her hippy friends and their communal houses. What’s horrifying is that she has a six-year-old lost in the melee. I knew the book is autobiographical — Garner confessed she transcribed her diaries directly into the narrative — and I Googled her daughter to see if she was a homeless addict living on the street. No, she’s a successful actor and teacher with three children, which is miraculous, as she seems to have been more or less abandoned as her mother went off with various men and did lots of drugs. But then, they were living communally, so everyone was looking after the children.

The book talks a great deal about what they call fucking. There is a lot of it. Really a lot of it. So yes, I did not enjoy reading the book, but she’s a good writer. Terrific dialogue. Her diaries must really be something.

Sunday night, PBS’s British treats, Professor T and Unforgotten.

Today, Labour Day, Carole gave a special class at the Y at 10, and then I did a webinar from Lockdown University with Denis Hirson about memoir. As I’ve said, he doesn’t teach anything I don’t know, but I’m interested anyway.

Another writer friend, Rona Maynard, came over for apéritif; periodically we meet to exchange survival stories of the writing life. She recommended the app Scrivener to help organize my next book. I know many writers use it, but I’ve resisted because there is, as everyone says, “a steep learning curve.” However, I bought and installed it, and now the curve begins. Rona did a stern edit of a recent essay of mine, and I hope soon to do an edit of one of hers. A mutual editing society.

I had a lazy summer, as detailed in my latest Substack essay, but I think my energy is coming back. Just in time, as there’s a lot going on this month and next. Lunch at the Beach tomorrow with dear friend and superb editor Rosemary Shipton, and it’s the Cabbagetown Festival this weekend, the short film festival on Wednesday, and the whole ‘hood swarmed on Saturday and Sunday, including the mini-marathon on Sunday morning that I always do, lumbering along.

Then real work begins: U of T, Tuesday Sept. 9.

The horror continues out there, this time of evil white fascist men. However, in the Nice Things department, Anna sent me this. She was recently having a very bad day and found this on the kitchen table, from Ben.

The $2.25 was his entire fortune.

Love is. I will sit on the deck and, like the Little Prince, contemplate my rose.

The post Labour Day: moving right along appeared first on Beth Kaplan.