started sunny, then clouded over and rumblings of thunder in the distance. warm. temps 26
Another lovely summer day. Michael and I sat on the porch and wrote. Michael's still at it...I've decided my cadence is to write/edit from 9am to 3pm - without break except to walk Trudy and make lunch. Then stop...and spend two hours doing the 'business' - returning emails, doing mail, organizing things. And try to be finished for the day around 5pm.
I've found I have to keep up a certain pace or I get swamped - and then its no fun.
Have a pre-interview Friday. A researcher from a prominent Quebec television show on literature will call, to see if my French is good enough to do a live interview in August. It's a terrific opportunity to promote the French version of Still Life - En plein coeur. But honestly, I'm not sure my French really is good enough. It's ok for social situations, and even meetings etc...but this demands expressing complex and nuanced thoughts. I realize my French probably makes me sound like a 14 or 15 year old. That's about the level of my complexity and subtlety. It's frustrating...to have deep thoughts and feelings, and not to be able to properly express them. Gives me a little insight into how stroke victims might feel - having all these thoughts and unable to express them except in the most blunt way.
But - we'll see. Perhaps a miracle will occur. Zoot alors. (see what I mean?)
We heard the fabulous news yesterday that our friend Mike Finnerty has been confirmed as the new host of the Montreal CBC Radio morning show, Daybreak!!! He resigned a couple of years ago to head back to London to work at the Guardian. But he missed live radio and Montreal. So now he's coming back!!
He's a magnificent journalist and wonderful host and we are beyond happy - as friends, and CBC Radio listeners. Yay!
OK, off now to reply to some emails and get some books ready to mail.
Showing posts with label Mike Finnerty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mike Finnerty. Show all posts
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Thursday, 7 February 2008
In the mean time
overcast, light snow, highs minus 4
The reason I know the forecast is because I listen to my friend Mike Finnerty on CBC Radio One in Montreal. Mike and I worked together in Quebec City centuries ago, when he was just starting and I was a senior journalist. I moved to Montreal and when he came too a year or so later we re-established our friendship and became quite close. Even, dare I admit it, collaborated on a script for Star Trek: The Next Generation. The agent who sold many scripts to the programme read it and took us on, but sadly the show was cancelled shortly afterward.
Mike and I began working together on the same radio show, and as can happen when two strong willed people come together at work, we had a falling out. It was an excrutiatingly slow process. We'd pretend all was well, but quietly hurt each other. we'd have periods when we didn't speak (on a team, that really isn't good). It was unbelievably painful to lose a friend like that, and in so public and obvious a way. And to have to still work together so closely every day.
Horrible.
Eventually Mike quite and I followed shortly afterward. Mike went on to a fantastic, stellar career at the BBC in London. I, of course, was consumed with jealousy. Not only was my sworn enemy doing brilliantly, but he was doing a job I'd have loved to have had in a city I adore.
But with the passage of time something happened. We both grew up. I can't remember whether he contacted me or I contacted him, but when I was in London a couple of years ago promoting STILL LIFE we got together for lunch. I was very afraid. Afraid perhaps I'd buried my putrid emotions rather than letting them go. So easy to mistake the two. Afraid of being alone, over a long, long meal with someone I no longer had anything to say to.
But there was something I wanted to tell him.
He met me at Broadcasting House in London. I was curious to see whether my envy had followed me there, shadowed me. But I felt nothing, except unease at seeing him. And wondering if I'd turned fat, drab, dull in the meantime. He showed up, and was all bright and smiling and wonderful. The Mike I'd loved as a friend so many years ago.
He gave me a fascinating tour of the BBC and his offices and the programmes he oversaw, and with each step my dread lessened.
Then over lunch I said the one thing I'd wanted to say to him for a long time. I told him I was sorry. I'd been a horses ass, and behaved very badly. And I wanted to apologize.
It was a lovely, quiet, peaceful moment in a frantic London lunch hour restaurant.
He smiled and said he was sorry to.
And we left it at that. No need for a catalogue. But it was clear we both felt differently. The old resentments had been let go.
I remember reading somewhere, and probably writing, that time doesn't heal old wounds. Time, on its own, does nothing. With some people (and all my books are based on this) time makes old wounds fester. I write about it because I've seen it in people. People who let go of nothing. They might think they have, they certainly claim to have. But it's still there. One resentment piled on others, because if you hold on to one slight you hold on to many. Until finally resentment turned to bitterness and bile.
No, time does nothing. It's what we do with time that matters. If you want to let things go, heal, move on, forgive and be forgiven - then time is your friend.
I know that about myself. I feel things deeply, perhaps too deeply. I get my feelings hurt. And sometimes I hurt others, by mistake or on purpose. But I never hold on to anger. Sometimes it takes minutes to pass, sometimes decades. But with each moment I'm working to let it go. If only because I don't want to be shackled to that person for the rest of my life.
It was a moment of great grace, in that London restaurant, when Mike and I started on the long road back to friendship and trust.
And now he's back in Montreal. He stayed in our apartment while getting himself sorted here and preparing to take over as host of the flagship CBC radio show. And he comes down to the country and stays with us, getting to know Michael and Michael him.
We feel a bit like a family, with Mike as a brother. In fact, he's almost exactly the same age as my beloved younger brother Doug.
And I'm genunitely proud of him and thrilled for him and his happiness is mine.
And it's a relief.
Michael and I are off to Quebec City today - 2 1/2 hour train trip - wonderful! Staying at a hotel in the Old City. Going out for dinner tonight with our great friend Susan McKenzie, then doing the national CBC Radio show, Sounds Like Canada with Shelagh Rogers tomorrow morning. If you live in the Quebec City area, come on by - it would be such fun to see you there. It's between 9 and 10:30 - in the Chateau Frontenac, overlooking the astonishing St. Lawrence river.
I probably won't write for a few days but will tell you all about it later.
Be well.
The reason I know the forecast is because I listen to my friend Mike Finnerty on CBC Radio One in Montreal. Mike and I worked together in Quebec City centuries ago, when he was just starting and I was a senior journalist. I moved to Montreal and when he came too a year or so later we re-established our friendship and became quite close. Even, dare I admit it, collaborated on a script for Star Trek: The Next Generation. The agent who sold many scripts to the programme read it and took us on, but sadly the show was cancelled shortly afterward.
Mike and I began working together on the same radio show, and as can happen when two strong willed people come together at work, we had a falling out. It was an excrutiatingly slow process. We'd pretend all was well, but quietly hurt each other. we'd have periods when we didn't speak (on a team, that really isn't good). It was unbelievably painful to lose a friend like that, and in so public and obvious a way. And to have to still work together so closely every day.
Horrible.
Eventually Mike quite and I followed shortly afterward. Mike went on to a fantastic, stellar career at the BBC in London. I, of course, was consumed with jealousy. Not only was my sworn enemy doing brilliantly, but he was doing a job I'd have loved to have had in a city I adore.
But with the passage of time something happened. We both grew up. I can't remember whether he contacted me or I contacted him, but when I was in London a couple of years ago promoting STILL LIFE we got together for lunch. I was very afraid. Afraid perhaps I'd buried my putrid emotions rather than letting them go. So easy to mistake the two. Afraid of being alone, over a long, long meal with someone I no longer had anything to say to.
But there was something I wanted to tell him.
He met me at Broadcasting House in London. I was curious to see whether my envy had followed me there, shadowed me. But I felt nothing, except unease at seeing him. And wondering if I'd turned fat, drab, dull in the meantime. He showed up, and was all bright and smiling and wonderful. The Mike I'd loved as a friend so many years ago.
He gave me a fascinating tour of the BBC and his offices and the programmes he oversaw, and with each step my dread lessened.
Then over lunch I said the one thing I'd wanted to say to him for a long time. I told him I was sorry. I'd been a horses ass, and behaved very badly. And I wanted to apologize.
It was a lovely, quiet, peaceful moment in a frantic London lunch hour restaurant.
He smiled and said he was sorry to.
And we left it at that. No need for a catalogue. But it was clear we both felt differently. The old resentments had been let go.
I remember reading somewhere, and probably writing, that time doesn't heal old wounds. Time, on its own, does nothing. With some people (and all my books are based on this) time makes old wounds fester. I write about it because I've seen it in people. People who let go of nothing. They might think they have, they certainly claim to have. But it's still there. One resentment piled on others, because if you hold on to one slight you hold on to many. Until finally resentment turned to bitterness and bile.
No, time does nothing. It's what we do with time that matters. If you want to let things go, heal, move on, forgive and be forgiven - then time is your friend.
I know that about myself. I feel things deeply, perhaps too deeply. I get my feelings hurt. And sometimes I hurt others, by mistake or on purpose. But I never hold on to anger. Sometimes it takes minutes to pass, sometimes decades. But with each moment I'm working to let it go. If only because I don't want to be shackled to that person for the rest of my life.
It was a moment of great grace, in that London restaurant, when Mike and I started on the long road back to friendship and trust.
And now he's back in Montreal. He stayed in our apartment while getting himself sorted here and preparing to take over as host of the flagship CBC radio show. And he comes down to the country and stays with us, getting to know Michael and Michael him.
We feel a bit like a family, with Mike as a brother. In fact, he's almost exactly the same age as my beloved younger brother Doug.
And I'm genunitely proud of him and thrilled for him and his happiness is mine.
And it's a relief.
Michael and I are off to Quebec City today - 2 1/2 hour train trip - wonderful! Staying at a hotel in the Old City. Going out for dinner tonight with our great friend Susan McKenzie, then doing the national CBC Radio show, Sounds Like Canada with Shelagh Rogers tomorrow morning. If you live in the Quebec City area, come on by - it would be such fun to see you there. It's between 9 and 10:30 - in the Chateau Frontenac, overlooking the astonishing St. Lawrence river.
I probably won't write for a few days but will tell you all about it later.
Be well.
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