a cafe au lait, in a bowl with a chocolatine, svp

mainly sunny, mild, temps 21

Well, this is just heaven...and so like heaven, it is unexpected. I'm sitting on the terrasse of Le Cafetier in Sutton, having just ordered a ... well, I think you know. Accessing their high speed, which makes me giddy with excitment. And now, at this moment, two huge draft horses are walking by, pulling a cart filled with kids. And down the street I can see our little VW.

I was supposed to meet a friend - Susan - for coffee...but she called to say she was under the weather...so Michael's having a coffee with a friend - Tim - and I decided to come in and sit at another table...and just relax.

Doesn't happen very often where I suddenly find I have an hour or so 'free'. And I have to say, as most of you have experienced, it is glorious to sit on a terrasse in summer, watching the world. And, as an added bonus, a Leonard Cohen album is playing.

Spent the morning and most of the afternoon doing more editing/writing. Had a few ideas and am pursuing them. Thank you for all your encouraging words.

Again, as a sort of gift from heaven, a young neighbor dropped by about 3pm. Eugene. We saw him grow up but hadn't really seen him in a few years...and now he's a young man with a beard!!! But he was talking about his older brother, Amos, who's a muscian...and how much respect he has for Amos. He says he thinks of Amos as a soldier. Strapping this huge backpack on, called his career, and marching ahead. No matter what happens.

I felt like crying.

What a powerful analogy...and coming from this remarkable young man, who has such admiration for his brother.

And I dare to think maybe that's a little of what I'm doing. It inspired me....to keep going.

Fortunately, we are not soldiers...in that what we do might be difficult, but no one is trying to harm us. And when we reach the summit, what joy!

Am going to sit back, relax, sip my coffee, eat my chocolatine, and and wave to the kids going by.

A Deeply Cracked Easter

Sunny, cold, highs minus 9

Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen

How can you not love a guy who wrote that? Actually I used that quote in A Fatal Grace – as part of Clara’s art.

Happy Easter.

I once said that on air at CBC radio and a listener called in to lambast me and point out that this is not a happy day. Christ was crucified on this day. I was about 21 years old and deeply sorry I’d offended someone. So I apologized on air. It was only decades later I realized I didn’t agree with that assessment. But I believe what makes this holiday so special isn’t that Christ was crucified, but that he rose.

This is a holiday of hope. And how can that not be happy?

Indeed, it’s such fun to be speaking to you on this day. This is exactly the time when my latest book, The Cruelest Month, is set. Over the Easter holiday. In my book it’s a very late Easter – being a movable feast I did my goddess thing and moved it to late April. So that the spring bulbs would just be poking out. A promise. But fragile, vulnerable. And in the book we find out what happens to anything that exposes itself too much and too soon.

In the words of Shakespeare’s Wolsley’s Farewell (a wonderful speech): A killing frost. It nips his bud. And then he falls, as I do.

In the book there’s a killing frost – both physically and psychologically. Aimed at a villager in Three Pines, but also at Chief Inspector Gamache.

Spring is an unsettling season – and Easter an unsettling time. As one of the characters says – not everything is meant to come back to life. Not everything that rises up is a miracle.

I hope you enjoy reading The Cruelest Month as much as I enjoyed writing it. It’s about murder, of course, being a murder mystery. But at its heart it’s about second chances, and redemption.

Here’s to our cracks, and the hope and compassion that springs from them.