COVID CHRISTMAS

And so, this is Christmas ...

Here we are in mid December in the unsettling year of 2020, coming to acceptance that just like everything else this year, Christmas will be different as well.  This may sound weird, but I can’t help but feeling that a regular Christmas – even if we could manage it – would not give what we’ve been through a fitting ending.  Maybe I’m just looking at it from the perspective of a writer, but stories need balance.  After what the world has been through in the past twelve months a ‘normal’ Christmas just doesn’t fit.

In a way it seems much longer than a year since we first began hearing about a virus problem in Wuhan, China.  In truth, we were much more focused on the fires in Australia – remember those?  That was only a year ago.

The story grew, expanding to a problem on cruise ships.  Scientists were sounding alarms but the rest of us were still thinking about taking our usual winter holiday.  That was back when being in our own ‘happy little bubble’ meant we were oblivious to what awaited us.  The word ‘bubble’ has a whole new meaning now.

2020 has enriched our everyday language with many other words seldom used previously.  Words like ‘cohort’ and ‘pandemic’ and ‘nova coronal virus’ are all words we’ve heard thousands of times since February.  We’ve also learned about PPE and respirators and essential workers.  And, lockdowns don’t always apply to a prison’s response to rioting.   And there’s a difference between ‘self isolation’ and ‘quarantine’.

The big one, though, was the implementation of the term ‘social distancing’, quickly revised to ‘physical distancing’ to try to soften the emotional isolation humanity began to feel.  In such a time of fear and sickness and so many deaths, not being able to meet, to be together to mourn, to celebrate times – both happy and sad – to share meals, to enjoy sports or movies or concerts all began to take its own toll. 

By March our world was turned upside down.  Schools – on the whole planet – were closed.  People worked from home ... if they could work at all.  Some had no jobs to go to.  Some had to quit jobs to stay home and home school their kids.  Some tried to do both.  For months we banged pots and pans to thank health care workers for their work and sacrifice.

Travellers were trapped in foreign lands with no flights to get them home.  Some were trapped on luxurious cruise ships, Covid stalking them from cabin to cabin with no port of call willing to let their ship dock.  Hospitals over flowed.  Field hospitals sprang up.  Morgue trucks lined up to store the daily tragedies.  Weirdly we all became avid fans of government announcements – who saw that coming?

Our shopping habits have changed.  Our holiday plans are different.  Visiting family and friends – especially out of province – is totally modified.  The ‘old fashioned’ pastimes of baking and gardening have gone through a huge revival.  Golfing and fishing are in and baseball and hockey are out.  2020 has tipped us out of our comfortable boat and made us learn to swim in these uncertain waters.

And so, this is Christmas 2020.  Our bubbles are smaller than ever.  There will be no big turkey dinners or family get togethers.  Our Christmas Eve church services will have to be online, and carolling only outside and far apart.  Zoom will go from work to play as we ‘meet’ over the holidays to share our stories and offer virtual hugs to our loved ones.  A ‘normal’ Christmas it will not be.

But whatever we do with this season will fit our story.  Personally, I have just finished decorating my house – it doesn’t look like any other year.  My tree is smaller and the decorations I used are much less than usual, partly because we will be the only ones to see them, but also because why not try something new?  Our menu will be different too – who has ever heard of a turkey for two?  The important thing is that we will stay safe until our turn at vaccination and the return to a time when Christmas can indeed be ‘normal’.

 

REASON FOR THE SEASON

The whole world seems a little bit wonky at the moment.  We head toward the holiday season unsure of how that will look by December 25^th.  Will we be able to celebrate with our families?  Or will 2020 be a quiet affair, each of us celebrating in our own homes and hoping that the Internet can handle all the Zoom calls?  The happy, sweet innocence of Christmas 2019 seems so much longer ago than a mere twelve months, and the tantalising promise of a safe, vaccinated celebration in 2021 seems too tenuous to trust at the moment.  Here we are – stuck in the middle.

Some things never change though.   This past week or so I’ve started seeing Facebook memes asserting that everyone must say “Merry Christmas” because any other greeting this time of year are fighting words.  This implies that Christians somehow own December, and I think to myself that this whole our-way-or-the-highway attitude is a most un-Christ-like way to treat our fellow men and women.

Did you know that December 25^th is a made up birthdate for the baby Jesus?  People in the Roman Empire picked that day to celebrate the Christ child’s birth almost 400 years after the fact, and not because they were making an educated guess about when it actually happened, but because all the pagan peoples they were trying to convert to their Christian beliefs already had a huge feast and festival at that time of year.  It was proving to be much easier to insert themselves into the pagan celebration than it was to try to banish it.  True story.

Bringing a tree into the house?  Decorating?  Feasting and gift giving?  Lighting candles?  Burning a Yule log?  All of these things were ways humans celebrated long before Christianity came along.  And what they were celebrating, you ask?  Why are there so many ‘competing’ holidays at this time of the year? 

The answer is something every civilization in the Northern Hemisphere has had in common since the dawn of time: the winter solstice.  Imagine living at a time when the daily loss of daylight was unexplained, when you had no supply of artificial light like we do today, when your very food sources – life itself - were directly tied to the sun and the seasons – would you not celebrate when the days began lengthening out again? 

The whole point of celebrating is to be joyous together about something special we believe in, even if our beliefs aren’t exactly the same.  And yet, here we are in the 21^st Century exerting exclusive privilege on a date and a season we borrowed from others.  It seems like a most un-Christ like thing to do.

It’s not the baby Jesus himself that is the ‘reason for the season’ but what his birth symbolized – the beginning of the New Testament ... forgiveness ... love of our fellow man.  Arguing over the proper response to seasonal greetings cheapens what should be Christianity’s most sacred duty – to love our neighbours as ourselves.

If we need something to say that conveys the real meaning of Christmas, let’s follow the angels’ lead and simply greet people with a smile and say “peace on earth!”

It works for everybody.

TOO MUCH COVID TIME ON MY HANDS

 It is said that there are two universal languages in this world: music and mathematics. I can do neither. I can’t read a note of music – all those lines and dots and artistic symbols. I know they tell a story but I can’t read it. I am confined to just listen; that’s why I play the radio, not the piano or guitar.

 It’s even worse with math. There was no one slower at speed math quizzes in Grade one. There was no one more devastated in Grade three when we were told we were about to up our game and meet multiplication and division. And I can scarcely find words to describe my dismay the first day of Mr. Johnson’s algebra class – as if working with numbers wasn’t bad enough! Now they wanted to throw random letters into the mix. 

 The moment I heard tell of a thing called calculus where what I had learned in Grade one – that 2 plus 2 equals 4 – wasn’t necessarily true, I quit school, got married and raised children. You know; took the easy way out.

 It’s strange how things come back at you though. All this Covid alone time has got me contemplating things like the meaning of life, the insanity of U.S. politics, and the space/time continuum, to name a few unknowables. This mind journey seems to have jostled some long unused brain cells into activity.

 

It was probably 1970 when Mr. Johnson began his quest to teach me algebra, something I was certain I would never use again in my life. Karma, of course, has a very long memory and these past few days I’ve been trying to come up with the terms he tried to plant in my memory banks. According to him the language of algebra provided a way to express mathematical ideas in the same way we used English to tell stories. Obviously I prefer writing stories to anything to do with numbers so I ask you, why am I trying to recall algebra terms in 2020? And what on earth am I going to do with them if they do come back to me? 

 I think it started one day when I was trying to describe how this prolonged Covid tourniquet on our lives felt. Something like: “It’s just one long constant. What we need is more variables.” (Well, actually, I would have used the word ‘variety’, but it means the same thing). No doubt it was the use of the words ‘constant’ and ‘variable’ in such close proximity that stirred the algebra class memories. From that point on it became a challenge to see what else I could unearth from those dusty memory files. What else had Mr. Johnson managed to get through my math fog? Turns out not much: I had to ask Google to shine some light on the rest.

 Apparently ‘variable’ is an algebraic term but it doesn’t mean variety, it means an unknown – those nasty little ‘x’s and ‘y’s that really represent a question mark. A ‘constant’ on the other hand, are numbers that we do know, unless of course they are right beside a variable in which case they become known as ‘coefficients’. My former distrust of algebra instantly re-gelled.

 There were other terms too: monomial, binominal, trinomial, and polynomial – all sounding like some kind of sketchy living arrangements if you ask me.

 The one word that felt like I had hit pay dirt with though, was ‘exponent’. Now here was a term that did indeed seem useful in expressing life with Covid. An exponent is when they put that tiny little number at the top right hand of either a constant or a variable. It expresses how many times you have to multiply the number or letter by itself to get the value it represents. And although I do grasp this concept and could even articulate it on paper, don’t go getting the crazy idea I will ever use this knowledge in my daily life. I do concede that rocket scientists may feel differently. 

 On the other hand, the language of algebra has given me a way of expressing the Covid Effect – a term I have just coined. It is a way of describing how our world has been altered since Covid came along. Remember the regular level of frustration back in the old days at not having anywhere to go? That was just plain old-fashioned frustration. In 2020 we are faced with this same frustration, but now we can’t go anywhere. No shopping, no leisurely, luxurious restaurant dinners, no tropical holidays or even weekend getaways – this is frustration to the power of, oh I don’t know, maybe 10? 

 Likewise, it can describe stupidity ... you know, toilet paper panic with the exponent of at least 7. 

 Or planting your first, or the biggest, garden you’ve ever planted because of food insecurity – something you’ve never experienced before but reached an exponent of 5 by May.

 I sure hope Mr. Johnson is proud of me, unearthing all these terms after so many years; and I was so sure I’d never have a use for it! I wonder if I can come up with a few chemistry or physics principles too? You know: and put Mrs Mitten in shock.

FANCY SCHMANCY If you could see me now! I sit in a pretty, tidy, organized office the likes of which this place has never known before. What started out with the solitary job of changing the flooring in this room but ramped up to it-could-use-a-coat-of-paint-too-while-we’re-at-it kind of adventure, finally morphing into an all out makeover with beautiful new office furniture and organizers, compliments of my two daughters who did their Christmas giving early this year. I surmise that the cramped space and towering clutter that I normally work in got to them, and my desire to get rid of filthy carpeting was their chance to redo the whole room. I appreciate the gesture, truly I do, but I have serious trepidation that my personal Muse might actually be powered by clutter. What then girls? What if I can’t write with a clear desk? What then? I enjoy sitting here, though. The walls are a muted yellow that amplifies the light from the north-facing window and sets off the dark wood of the furniture. The floor looks and feels clean – I’m sure it’s been a decade since that could be said. The few papers that are out at the moment have a place to go back to, the pens are in a pen holder, the scissors and stapler in another, note pads in a third. The most valuable book on the farm, the one I call my ‘Sh*t I’ll Never Remember Book’ stands at the ready to tell me what my Wayfair password is. It used to take me a five minute search to locate that sucker. Mind you, it is so scribbled up that it still takes me so long to find the right page that the webpage shuts itself down before I get back to the buying business. Sometimes I think I should copy all that info out nice and clear, and then I think that would be too easy for anyone who wanted my secret information. The way it is now, it’s pretty much written in code. Better to leave it that way. In a way this is an example of clutter working for me, not against me. It remains to be seen if this clutterless environment will inspire me to get more done. So far I have managed a couple emails – but they had a deadline. I usually do okay if I have a deadline. And while I’m waiting for replies to those communications I’ve spent a few minutes scrolling through Facebook and played a game or two of Mah-jong ... that’s totally standard office activity for me, too. That’s a good sign. And, I am catching up this poor neglected blog. I tell you, this past month with my computer in another room and unconnected to the Mother Interweb, life has been very detached. Typing on an iPad screen is not optimum, I’m so glad to be back. I guess that’s a good sign, as well. I have my Christmas letter nearly written – that’s on course with other years. I’m working on the local Tourism update for the Provincial Tourism guide for 2021; another annual project on track. Although there was near record turnout for the RM election for Reeve last week I was not the winner. Part of me is still dealing with disappointment, but another part has already moved on. I have this book I’m going to write. This will be the real test. I seem to be able to manage short term tasks in a non-clutter environment, but what about a whole book? Maybe I need scraps of paper scribbled with ideas for plot lines or character flaws? I defiantly require my name and age index to keep my minor characters straight. And how many times have I worked out the timeline to make people fit their history? You have no idea how tricky fiction is until you start writing it! Thus are my worries. My hope is that my Muse and I can cope in this pretty, tidy office until either we get used to it, or just like the Charlie Brown character Pigpen, the clutter follows me around and settles where ever I am. Give me a month and we’ll see if I just end up in a classier case of clutter.

 PROGRESS ... I THINK

It’s exactly one month since I explained how good I am at procrastination.  I’m here to tell you that I may take it to an art form.  Such is my talent.

As of yesterday I finally finished painting my office.  Except for the very heavy desk and two cabinets full of stuff which I cannot move on my own, the room is now ready for its new flooring.  Technically speaking this is only two coats of paint further along than a month ago, so nothing to brag about.  On the other hand I do have other irons in the fire at the moment.

I spent a few days cleaning up the yard and putting away all my planters once Jack Frost finished off the summer’s glory.  This year I decided to bring in a few of the prettiest plants in so I could start my own planter fillers in the spring.  All that green in my living room window is a real picker-upper on these dark, cold and snowy days.  The cat considers them his personal forest.

Another renovation project has come to fruition as well.  We are not sure if light fixtures are just designed to give off less light these days, or the older we get the more our personal dimmer switches take over, but it had got to the point where the lighting in our kitchen/dining room couldn’t be considered ‘romantic’ any longer.  Thanks to my brother-in-law’s ingenuity the glow from our kitchen window can now be detected from the Space Station.  I love it.  It’s so much easier to hunt down the gross and zombie-like flies that insist on moving in for the winter.  I get the ones above the two foot mark and the cat is on a ‘catch and kill’ mission for the rest.

I also tackled the IT job of moving the computer and desk out of the office.  There was a time when would have had to call in a kid to do this job ... all those wires and plugs and ports used to intimidate the heck out of me.  This time (because all my kids have grown up and moved away) I armed myself with an extra mug of brain stimulator juice, a roll of painter’s tape and a marker and spent the morning methodically untangling and labeling EVERYTHING.  Piece by piece all the components made the trip to another room where I reassembled them.  Correctly.  The first time.  I was feeling extremely accomplished until the very end when I realized I could move the machine but not the modem.  It’s attached to an actual cable in the office.  We have WiFi throughout the house but I sure will be glad to get hooked back up!

The other thing I’m working on these days is running for Reeve in our municipality ... think ‘mayor’ of the rural side of our community.  The election is on November 9, we shall see how this turns out.  My motivation is to give back to my community and I think I have lots to offer in that regard but it’s all up to the voters.  Like I said ... we shall see.

 

THE ART OF PROCRASTINATION

This is what procrastination looks like.

If you could see me now – sitting at my computer desk, typing merrily away – you would probably think I was ‘getting stuff done’.  This is not exactly wrong.  I am writing this blog, and that is legally ‘stuff’, but it’s not on my Things To Do list.  ‘Purge the office’ is on my Things To Do list, but that’s not what I’m doing, is it?  I am procrastinating.

I am not an aggressive hoarder.  I don’t go and purposely buy or collect objects that will need storage or dusting.  Actually, I am loath to buy anything because I will then be responsible for its storage and cleaning.  Stuff seems to follow me home anyway.  

My problem is that no matter how things come into my possession I am unable to discard them.  The reasons for this are many: I don’t want to be responsible for overflowing landfills, I don’t like to waste anything, and if I throw it away I will almost for sure need it within the next two week period.  I blame my parents really. This “waste not, want not” dilemma is a product of being raised by people who lived through the great depression and who never threw anything out.  I stand by this theory even though my own children don’t seem to have picked up the tendency from me.  Maybe it’s one of those things that skips a generation every once in a while.

At any rate ... the thing that is on my Things To Do list is to clear out this office and wash and paint the walls before the new flooring goes down.  There is a deadline.  I have a little over a month, and it’s going to take all of that because I keep finding more pleasant things to do.  When it comes to the tedious work of going through shelves of stuff I can’t even remember seeing before almost anything is more pleasant.  Oh yeah, that reminds me – I need to make a dentist appointment.

I have made some headway.  The filing cabinets now only hold stuff that pertain to our lives in the 21^st Century.  That required more than two days of my life and to celebrate that milestone I immediately took up garden cleanup because it was outside and the decisions of keep or discard are so much easier when the options are ‘weeds’ or ‘vegetables’.

Then, with the flimsy excuse of not having a ladder so obviously I couldn’t wash the walls, I ignored the office for another two weeks.  Two days ago the ladder came back; so much for that dodge.  I’ve spent this morning sorting through more papers, filling a box of ancient (at least 3 years old) electronics to be recycled, and pondering what to do with a whole stash of hockey/curling/karate/chess trophies.  I know their owners will tell me to throw them out, which lands me back in the landfill/waste guilt quandary.  Even I know that no one will ever actually need them.

I need a furniture trolley.  I need a drill to take down some shelving.  I need drywall tape and tools to fix cracks and nail holes.  These ‘needs’ are another clever device of the master procrastinator, meant to give the false impression that no work can progress without these items.  It’s pretty temping to let this job run on for even longer, but do I really want to be painting when I can’t open the windows?  And there is that deadline of early November ...

So, I will finish up this blog.  Then go make supper.  Then tidy up the rest of the house.  Then call it a day. 

But, I swear, on a stack of bibles, that I will be back in this hoarding center tomorrow morning to tackle the shelves in another cabinet.  If I do a couple hours per day for the next week I will eventually get to the painting part.  

If all goes according to plan you won’t be hearing from me in a while.  The computer will have to be unplugged and moved out of the way, thus removing the temptation to use it as a ‘reason’ to not complete the purge. 

In my next life I’m coming back as a millionaire so I can hire this done.

 

AND THE BEAT GOES ON

“Look at mommy’s sad, sad flowers.”

My three year old granddaughter and I were on a tour around their yard yesterday and she was pointing out items of note. 

She and her brothers had already taken me to see the chickens and we had watched as the birds revelled in the fresh green grass we had thrown over the fence for them.

From there we had wandered over to where their mom had plunked her newest planter – an ancient truck (well, it’s older than me).  To date, all she has planted there is a small maple tree but next year there will be all kinds of flowers spilling out of its box.  It’s the kind of thing you can do when you have a huge rural yard and an imagination.

Onward we had explored, through some trees to the edge of a pond where everyone had a turn at throwing rocks in to the slimy green water. The nine year old was the only one getting his rocks in far enough away not to get any stinky backsplash.  The six year old kept wondering why his rocks weren’t going as far and why he kept getting wet.  It generally took the three year old three throws per rock to even get it wet.  Grandma decided it was time to move on again before we all got too messy.

The next stop was down by their signpost and garden.  The little ones rearranged some of the rocks as the eldest and I reminisced about the day we all erected the sign and which pieces of machinery were needed for the job.  I trusted him on his list; he is definitely the expert in that field.

Then it was back to their dad’s shop to show all the improvements that have been made to it and how neat all the tools were arranged in the tool boxes.  I was also given an in depth report on what they were fixing on his dad’s quad.  It was way over my head but I have no doubt he knew what he was talking about.

That took us back to the house and as we walked by what had been a pretty garden full of flowers until Jack Frost had shown up, the little girl pointed out the sadness of what he had left in his wake.  I agreed with her.  I too have gardens full of this particular sadness.

Although there are some species that can handle a few degrees of frost, most of the beauties are done for the year.  The dantura leaves and flowers droop to the ground displaying the spikey seed pods they’ve been hiding all summer.  Marigold flowers retain their brilliant yellows and oranges but the leaves and stems go black.  Cosmos go from ferny and fresh to ugly skeletons, and dahlias transition from lush, blossom covered shrubs to ruined, blackish, rotting messes overnight.  On the other hand, petunias and asters would seem to have antifreeze in the veins – they are doing just fine.

 But, as my very wise granddaughter observed, summer is over.

All is not lost though, the beauty and fun of autumn has just begun!

We spent the rest of the afternoon raking up poplar leaves so that they could run and jump and slide through them with me videoing every single award-winning athletic feat.  The sun was warm on our shoulders, the leaves crunchy beneath our feet.  There was tree climbing and posed pictures amongst the bright red crab apples and a grand finale of the tree of them sitting in the pile of leaves and tossing them into the air, again to satisfy Grandma’s wish for photographs.  They turned out perfect – each of their faces showing the fun they were having – even once or twice in the same picture!

We transitioned back to summer once more to end off the afternoon and laid a picnic blanket out on the lawn to enjoy freezie pops and fruit before the evening chill moved in on us, something that September can do in the blink of an eye, and began the conversation on whose pumpkin was the biggest to carve for Halloween.

And the year moves on ...