A Lively Spring

So many interesting events in the spring that it’s hard now to keep track of them all. There were many questions from an attentive audience after Olive Senior spoke at the Heliconian Hall on April 7 about her recent book Dying to Better Themselves, West Indians and the Building of the Panama Canal.

On the 7^th Olive introduced the prolific Pam Mordecai at the launch her first novel, Red Jacket at Ben McNally’s.

And on the 10^th Marilyn Luciano and I ventured forth to the Pia Bauman Studio on Noble St to watch the dancers in Flight. New choreography fascinated and the young dancers were entrancing as always.

I had a minor accident in April that kept me out of commission for many weeks. Sitting and driving are especially difficult, but thanks to the kindness of friends, and equipped with cushions and braces, I was able to enjoy many plays during the month at Tarragon, Soul Pepper, The Alumnae Theatre and concerts with Tafelmusik, the Toronto Consort and the always amazing Opera Atelier.

The Long Dash Poetry Group and the Women’s Art Association of Canada outdid themselves on April 26 at Eyescapes, their 8th ekphrastic reading and exhibition. Since then I have been immersed (it’s a big book!) in The Art of Poetic Inquiry, one of whose editors is the group’s Sheila Stewart.

April 29^th saw the first of Innana Publications spring launch at the Supermarket. Four wonderful readers, Gail Benick, Vivian Demuth, Renate Krakauer, Katerina Vaughan Fretwell – and talking with old friends was a great way to finish the month. I am excited to be launching my 5^th book, Laundry Lines, a Memoir in Stories and Poems, with Inanna on October 21.

The Heliconian Club held it’s own ekphrastic event, Encounters with Light on May 2, reprised on May 23^rd in two sessions at Doors Open to a satisfyingly large audience who took the time from visiting the many venues on offer to sit, listen and watch. 

In between, two wonderful plays, Hamlet and The Physicist, at Stratford on May 12 with Mairy Beam, who put up with my injury-provoked wiggling and seat changing with admirable patience and aplomb.

 

June always brings a flurry of sorting and packing as I get ready to move to Manitoulin Island for the summer. But I couldn’t miss Martha Baillie’s amazing exhibit Erratics at the Koeffler Gallery showcasing her new book The Search for Heinrich Schroeder. 

Finished the city season seeing Mairy Beam’s excellent play, A Matter of Safety, part of the 50+ Festival at Ryerson.

Meg and I set off on the 11^th for Petrel Point, their place on the Bruce. Our annual spring dinner with Sophie Champagne that night and then up early (and none too bright) to drive to Tobermory and the ferry on a mizzly day. We always have a full-out unpacking, shopping and settling in that weekend. This year the ground was so wet that you could see standing water, even in the meadow (So much rain-you still can). The new owner is so busy getting the cottages ready for July guests that he had no time to repair and install the dock (which was wrecked in the fall when he took it out of the water).

We decorated it with a pot of geraniums and then Meg installed a chair for me at the waters edge so I can listen to the waves. It’s too cold to swim now, but I look forward so much to when the water is warm enough and there’s a way to reach it.

That injured dock, and a series of first week glitches (still limping, dead car battery, ceiling leak, emergency dental work, eyes sore and tired- just for starters) seem to be a metaphor for the stepping back I need to do to open a space for whatever creative impulse is waiting to happen. Time for evening bonfires and walks along the country roads to pick wildflowers.