A sublime experience today. My friend Isabel Huggan told me she was going to a Women’s Musical Club of Toronto concert this afternoon, to hear the Maxwell Quartet, a string quartet she loves. So I went too, and was knocked flat by the exquisite musicianship of these four youngish men, three Scots and a Brit. They played Haydn, Brahms, and Scottish country dances with extraordinary sensitivity, one smooth unit, checking with each other constantly, smiling, perfectly in synch. Stunning.

We ran into the cellist at intermission, who told us they’re off to play Carnegie Hall tomorrow. Whereas we got to hear them in a small hall, sitting a few yards from the stage, for $30. And then take the TTC home. Isabel is of Scottish descent. When the dances came on, I could practically see her twirling.

If the Maxwell Quartet ever play near you, please do yourself a favour and go hear them.

More lovely music — this is my music week — on Sunday, the Trinity Bach Project in the Metropolitan United Church, Bach cantatas and a gorgeous modern piece called Earth Song, by Frank Ticheli. (You can find it on YouTube.) The singers in this group are beyond compare; the accompanying chamber orchestra is rough but ready.

I mentioned I was going to see Elizabeth Gilbert and wasn’t sure what it’d be like. Well — she’s pretty amazing. She stood centre stage in caramel leather pants and spoke for an hour and a half, with plenty of laughs, about the intimate details of her life that produced her latest book. She fell in love with Rayya, a powerful woman who was in recovery from drug addiction, and left her marriage to be with her. They had some months of excess — spending and sex, we gather, and happiness. Then Rayya was diagnosed with terminal cancer and fell back into serious drug addiction. Gilbert was excoriatingly honest about her own weaknesses, her co-dependency and enabling. Her lover died, and Gilbert is back in twelve step programs. She got preachy at the end, lots of higher power stuff, but the packed house was gobbling it up. I don’t want to read the book, but I do admire how she held that crowd by the sheer force of her personality, and her self-deprecating honesty.

In the middle of all this, we had a huge snowfall — in early November. It was an unpleasant shock; the leaves were still on the trees. But now the snow has melted, so we can get back to raking.

But my biggest news is this: I’m a writer again. I know, it’s strange to say, but for many months, I have done little writing, except this blog and my Substack and of course, countless emails and some editing of others. I think the weight of the work, the fact that it pays nothing, in fact costs money, and is so difficult to get published, just wearied me. Well, yesterday I drank coffee and ate breakfast while reading the Star, as usual, and then, instead of sinking down to a feast of online reading, I walked upstairs to my office with my computer. I wrote a proposal for a workshop for the next Creative Nonfiction conference, and I reworked an essay I’ve been tinkering with, draft after draft, for years. Suddenly I could see what was wrong with it; I was trying to do too much, squeezing in too much story, when what it was about was clear. I cut out all the extraneous stuff, filled in missing bits, and checked a list of Canadian online places for longform essays. This one had shut up shop, that one only accepts two months a year, and one asked for the writer’s pronouns, so I didn’t send there. I found a place and sent it off. I’ll wait a month and then send it somewhere else.

It feels good. I’m doing my job.

The work jag started with cleaning up and tidying my kitchen junk drawer. No idea why the need to do that suddenly seized me, but it did. Once that was done, I was ready to write.

Is this not a thing of beauty?

And one more thing: I am reading The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe to the boys. I inhaled the whole series as a kid, though Dad tried to stop me because it’s infused with Christian symbolism. “Don’t be silly,” I said to him. “Aslan isn’t Jesus, he’s a LION!” What pleasure to rediscover a delightful book I read over sixty years ago; I hope to entice the grand-boys into C. S. Lewis’s mystical world. Reading it now, I see the religious symbolism; yes, Aslan is Christ-like. But still, he’s a lion.

Very early Sunday, I’m off to Montreal, so next time I write, I’ll have enjoyed myself with dear friends in La Belle Province and seen my beloved Macca in concert. 83 and going strong! Inspiring. My friend Carol who lives upstairs will keep her Tigness alive.

Both my kids have had a hard time recently. Anna is devastated by the death of a dear friend from her university days, and Sam, sometimes, by the harshness of life itself. One of my best friends was recently widowed and is suffering terribly. Not to mention what’s happening out there in the world. And here I am burbling about string quartets and going up to my office. I wonder sometimes — is my cheerfulness simply unbearable insensitivity?

Don’t answer that.