In 1978 I read Women and Poverty, a thick brochure by a Quebec feminist lawyer, OH DEAR I HAVE TO CHECK SOME FACTS, NAMES AND DATES....

Well, that took a while. All my notes and files are in the archives of the University of Manitoba, so i had no way of retrieivng them - well, there is a way, but it would take too long. I muzzier and googled poking around the history of the (initially) Advisory Council on the Status of Women and the National Action Committee that attached to it later, trying to remember the name of the French-Canadian feminist lawyer who became the first president of the NAC and who wrote that little booklet that influenced me profoundly: "Women and Aging" or maybe it was "Women and Poverty". Her name was Louise Dulude. She's gone now, died in 2013. This was a long time ago so perhaps I can be forgiven for my faulty memory.

I do remember putting the brochure down and realizing what my next project would be. I decided that I was going to go and live on the Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security (which is what I'm doing now, with more than a little help from my savings, begun in earnest at that time. I'm not sure whether I'll outlive them.) I approached the Toronto Star's editor of the "Life " section (it used to be the Society Page) and proposed my idea. She agreed to a series, stipulating that I should wait until it was colder so that I should suffer. (I bought a winter coat at a Salvation Army shop.) I left home looking for a rooming house and ended up the first night at Nellie's Women's Hostel where I received some essential advice. Look for a place, I was told, with a smoke detector and with the landlady living on the premises. That way I wouldn't die in a fire caused by someone smoking in bed and setting fire to the place, and I wouldn't get raped by one of the other roomers. I was, however, courted by one of them.

I called that first piece of investigative journalism my Old Lady Caper. The second one came unplanned after the first one was published, suggested by a politically minded woman who couldn't get anyone to pay attention to the plight of mentally ill patients released from hospital with inadequate housing and care. For that one I was coached by a director friend on how to shuffle my feet, droop my shoulders and never meet anyone with a direct gaze. I found a place in a boarding house, sharing a room with three other women, having always to act, 24-7. That one I called my Psycho Trip.

I had two major revelations, one per project, not revelations but temptations, both unexpected. The first was The Temptation of the Hermit. I was living a pressured life at the time, supporting two children still at home, one of them challenged and requiring a lot of extra time (more so that ensuing year, when he had a psychotic attack), and my widowed, failing mother about to come and live with me after several episodes (presaging a stroke). The temptation was to disappear, just to melt into the streets, and fade away, my only concerns being to keep fed (vegetables especially, hard to get), keep warm, and keep off those attractively anonymous streets.

The other experience brought me The Temptation of the Impostor. I told you I had to act full-time, playing a role alien to my self. I had an assumed name, a bottle of Valium or some such thing, with my fake name on the label (i didn't take them, but they vouched for my authenticity,) and suitors for the taking (very dangerous). I was 50 years old at the time but I looked late 30s, early 40s because I'd had a much easier life than my Queen Street contemporaries.

It didn't occur to me until later that I should write a play about each of these adventures. A Place on Earth, about an old wman in a room, has won awards and is my most performed play all over the world. (There are old women in rooms all over the world.) The other, Time Bomb, has never been produced in Canada, but mention my name in Iowa. Both are available from Playwrights Press.

There, Marla, is that enough?

I still haven't solved my problem, just maddened a human voice in California who was trying to help me - didn't work. So I quit for the day and read a new-to-me book given to me as a birthday present from a dear friend. it's a novel, All Passion Spent, by Vita Sackville-West, (1892-1962), first published in 1931, my birth year. It's important you know that date because it's the reason for my one criticism of the book, The protagonist is 88 years old and still functioning, sensitive and acute, butt very frail. Very. Worse than me. I'm stiff and careful and slow and I do sit down "to admire the view" or "watch birds or children" or whatever is an excuse for sitting a while, but I'm not as fragile as this woman is.

But the characterisation is good and the book is beautifully written and I noted some words to look up. Some of them I already knew but needed poliishing. Most are new to me.

myrmidon(s) noun: a follower or subordinate of a powerful person, typically one who is unscrupulous or carries out orders unquestioningly: one of Hitler's myrmidons. ORIGIN late Middle English: from Latin Myrmidones (plural), from Greek Murmidones, a warlike Thessalian people who accompanied Achilles to Troy.

brunt noun: (the brunt) the worst part or chief impact of a specified action: education will bear the brunt of the cuts. ORIGIN late Middle English (denoting a blow or an attack, also the force or shock of something): of unknown origin. THERE! I KNEW THIS WORD BUT WONDERED WHERE IT CAME FROM. "Of unknown origin."

truckle noun: a small barrel-shaped cheese, especially Cheddar. ORIGIN late Middle English (denoting a wheel or pulley): from Anglo-Norman French trocle, from Latin trochlea ‘sheaf of a pulley’. The current sense dates from the early 19th cent. and was originally dialect. truckle 2 |verb : no obj. submit or behave obsequiously: she despised her husband, who truckled to her. DERIVATIVES truckler noun: ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: figuratively, from truckle bed; an earlier use of the verb was in the sense sleep in a truckle bed. THAT'S ALL I KNEW, THE TRUCKLE BED. (Do they sell them at IKEA?) I LIKE THE VERB.

rugosity rugose: adjective, chiefly Biology: wrinkled; corrugated: rugose corals. DERIVATIVES noun ORIGIN late Middle English: from Latin rugosus, from ruga ‘wrinkle’. I DON'T THINK I CAN USE THAT.

cheiromancy chiromancy noun [ mass noun ]: the prediction of a person's future from interpreting the lines on the palms of their hands; palmistry. GOOD ONE

peripeteia noun : formal, sudden reversal of fortune or change in circumstances, especially in reference to fictional narrative. the peripeteias of the drama. 1936 is the peripeteia, the point where the action turned. ORIGIN late 16th cent.: from Greek peripeteia ‘sudden change’, from peri- ‘around’ + the stem of piptein ‘to fall’. ONE COULD SOUND VERY KNOWLEDGEABLE IF ONE USED THIS WORD.

ophthalmia noun: Medicine innflammation of the eye, especially conjunctivitis. ORIGIN late Middle English: via late Latin from Greek, from ophthalmic ‘eye’. WE COULD HAVE GUESSED THIS ONE.

leveret noun: a young hare in its first year. ORIGIN late Middle English: from Anglo-Norman French, diminutive of levre, from Latin lepus, lepor- ‘hare’. NICE

And here is the last one, that I think I know, but not the origin:

bedizened bedizen verb (with), literary: dress up or decorate gaudily: a uniform bedizened with resplendent medals. ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from be- (as an intensifier) + obsolete dizen ‘deck out’, probably of Dutch origin.

That's it for Vita Sackville-West. I enjoyed the book.

I feel better.