TECHNICAL TREPIDATION

I sit here today – a quiet Sunday afternoon – and worry about what tomorrow will bring.

I don’t mean to make light of other people’s problems; there are some truly awful things happening in this world right now and by no means are my worries anywhere close t theirs.  I have a roof over my head, a predictable food source, safe water to drink, and have never heard an air raid siren except on TV.  My life is blessed in these ways.

Neither do I, or anyone close to me, have a deadly disease.  The sun is shining and the sky is blue.  I even have the menu planned for supper ... I tell you, life is good.

And yet, tomorrow has me worried.

You see the computer I am writing on, my old friend and colleague, has been telling me in not-so-subtle terms lately that she is ready for retirement.  I hate to say she is getting balky about doing her work, but she certainly resists the tasks I ask her to do.  She drags her feet through even the simplest things like opening up my email.  Sometimes I have to ask her multiple times, and just when I think I will never get email again she relents and comes across with what I’ve requested. 

We go way back - I think nine or ten years, which let’s face it, in computer years is significant.  I’d like to say that we’ve learned much together but of course that’s not the way it works.  She came out of her box knowing everything she’s programmed for.  I, on the other hand, have learned about 50% of her capabilities over the decade we’ve known each other.  Oh, who am I kidding? I’d be stretching it to claim 33%.  Gotta say though, what I have figured out I’m pretty darned proud of.

I have taken better care of her than any of the previous models I’ve owned.  I know the trauma of facing the Blue Screen of Death.  I learned the hard way the importance of keeping virus and spyware detection up to date.  That’s not this gal’s problem; she just says “enough is enough” and wants to quit.  She has been laying down lots of hints since last summer, insisting I ask too much of her.  The final straw was when I tried to watch a live stream event in January and she just up and quit.  On the one hand, I am very proud I managed to get her up and running again all by myself (with a little bit of help from Google) but to say that I wasn’t shaken by the episode would be an outright lie.  I purchased some memory sticks and did some serious saving after that scare.

The writing was on the wall though.  I had to start thinking about what to do next.  It might have been ten years since I had to get my head around a new computer but the trauma of that time was still with me - I don’t adjust well to change.  Apparently, neither does this computer.

I’ve begun receiving notifications that there is a Windows update I need.  Now, at first I thought that this was going to be my savior.  That’s what the problem was!  All I needed was a free update and we’d be off to the races again.  Sadly, the opposite was true; the needed update WAS the problem.  When I tried to install it I immediately got a message that “This computer cannot support this update.”  I understand that you can’t teach old dogs new tricks but who knew that computers don’t have unlimited new trick capacity?

So, the matter was put in the hands of my computer guru son-in-law and a new tower/mouse/keyboard was purchased.  Due to computer chip availability I have had a full month to get used to the idea but I now have multiple emails from DELL and Canada Post saying I will have to step up my game tomorrow. 

I’ve been promised all kinds of technical support to get it all hooked up and any glitches worked out.  I’ve been at this computer thing for almost 30 years so my anxiety level isn’t as high as it once was, but I can’t say I’m looking forward to the next few weeks either. 

Meanwhile, this afternoon, my old friend and I are saying goodbye.  Her files are overflowing with stories, news articles, letters and eulogies we’ve composed together. We’ve written and published one book together and have a first draft of a novel to our names as well.  If the gods are with me this new model will sport the kinds of bells and whistles that make a writer’s life easier.

Wish me luck.

 

HOUSEBOUND

Okay, this is an apology for the whining I did six weeks ago.  The beginning of February is always a low point in the year for me and I couldn’t help myself.  I succumbed to the dreariness of endless, drab winter days and long, featureless nights.  Menu planning offered no excitement, food preparation lacked lustre, even going to town for groceries seemed more trouble that it was worth.  I ask you: why can’t we be a species who hibernates?  Think of the food bill savings!  And, I would wake up skinny!  Talk about win/win.

At any rate, that was six weeks ago.  Now, here I sit ... inside my house ... listening to the wind howl ... knowing that the roads are absolutely blocked because I barely made it home yesterday before this latest gale blew in ... fondly recalling the quaint days when winter had just arrived at its ‘boring’ stage.  Since then there have been all kinds of positive steps toward spring: we have noticeably gained more daylight, the Tourism committee has managed to find enough faith in spring to believe having a meeting is worth it, and I got a seed catalogue in the mail.  One would think things are looking up, but no, it still feels like winter will never end.

My Facebook memories page  greets me every morning with pictures of the past two years when I was already BBQing suppers on a sunny deck and the snow was down to a few patches scattered around the yard.  This was sending me into serious depression until this morning when the aftermath of the 2017 storm showed up and reminded me how fickle the month of March really is.  It’s given me the will to go on for a day or two more.

I tell myself that life is better now that it’s light out while we eat breakfast and supper.  I tell myself how much cheaper it is on gas when there is no grass to mow.  I tell myself that with all this snow we won’t have to worry about water shortages this year.  I see that the temperature in my greenhouse is plus 18 on the sunny days and I tell myself to go out there and soak up some of that sun.  Myself immediately tells me “Forget that! We dug our way out there in January and you can’t even tell where that trail was!” She’s right of course, the snow is up past the door knob at the back of the house. Myself is a pretty smart gal.

Besides, if I was going to tunnel anywhere it would be out to my clothesline so I could hang socks and face cloths out there.  Nothing else would fit between the snow and the line.

I’ve done all the winter things I usually do – even the tax books are ready to go.  I pretty much follow the pets around with my vacuum cleaner because their way to greet spring is to cover everything in hair.  I’ve even started some cuttings to fill my planters this summer.  It feels wonderful to see the color green in my window.  I’m even psyched to go weeding because at least that means being outside in the sunshine.  Myself tells me that will wear off, she knows me so well.

Heck I’ve even finished round one on a book I’ve been writing.

All I’ve got left is watching TV but these past days I’ve been struggling with that.  The scenes from Ukraine are humbling me, and breaking me, and leaving me sick at heart.  How I wish I could transplant some of those forlorn women and children to my big, rambling farm house. 

As much as I want my winter doldrums to be over, as I do every year, watching this horror unfold shrinks my petty wants and needs to nothing.  Being housebound is suddenly a luxury.

 

 

Cause, Courage, and Consequences

February 24, 2022 I found myself sitting in the dentist’s chair enduring that period of anxiety between when they give you the freezing needle and when you get to find out for sure that it worked.  It’s time spent alone to think your own thoughts and listen to the high pitched whine of drills being used on other patients. The dentist’s chair is not my happy place.

But this morning there was lots to think about.  Putin was on the move. His plans of war had been put into motion during the night. Cities full of people were being bombed; hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians were on the run. By nightfall, how many innocent people would be dead because of this evil man’s ego? And this was only day one; wars don’t end in one day.

The office where I sat was warm and safe; Garth Brooks sang The Dance on the music system. Soon that nasty cavity would be a thing of my past and I could go have lunch and visit with a good friend; plans we made weeks ago.  And yet I couldn’t get the news video of almost deadlocked traffic trying to escape Kyiv out of my mind.  Those poor people had made plans for February 24 as well ... every day things like dentist appointments, dance lessons for their little girls, soccer for their boys after school ... and now, here they were crowded into their cars with everything they could squeeze in, not knowing where they were headed, watching their gas gauges go down and distressing about being able to buy more. 

My generation is acquainted with war ... or I should say stories of war.  We have heard about our grandfather’s Great War (although I’ve never felt that any war should be given the designation ‘great’), we’ve watched countless movies of the second world war, and our window into the Korean War was the show M*A*S*H  on TV.   We see war through the safety of a camera lens.  We don’t know the smell of death in the streets.  We don’t know the terror of running for bomb shelters or the sick feeling of living through the attack to find our house is nothing but rubble when we try to go home.  We can’t imagine what it would be like to be stopped by soldiers and asked for proof of who we are, knowing that this man has the power to decide if we live or die.

Tonight one of the news stories is not of Ukrainians fleeing but of Russians protesting against their government, against Putin himself, for starting this war. Imagine that. Standing up and saying “NO” to a man who poisons and imprisons and murders anyone he sees as an obstacle to his plans. They know that being arrested – even a Russian arrest – would be the lightest penalty they could hope for.  And yet they came and marched and sang their anthem in an effort to stop the war and save both Russian and Ukrainian lives.  The stakes couldn’t be higher.

Their cause is larger than just themselves, they show great courage in the face of real peril, the consequences of their actions could well be fatal, and yet they make their stand.

These are people who recognize they have a responsibility to humanity to stand up for what is right.  They want Putin to stop and they want the world to know that they don’t support his actions. As I sit in my safe dentist chair on the other side of the world I feel humbled by their sacrifice and pray that some good will come of it.

 

 

So much to think about ...

It’s been such a week I don’t even know where to begin.

First it was all the news and anti news over what is going on in Ottawa.  I am a self proclaimed news nerd and I cannot watch anymore.  One side shows videos of model citizens picking up garbage, clearing snow, cleaning the Terry Fox statue and kneeling before the Cenotaph while the other side talks of Ottawa residents afraid to go outside in their own neighbourhoods and businesses who were looking forward to opening up this week staying closed because they feel intimidated by the protestors.  I know a photo op when I see one – those Facebook videos are staged. And I also know that the news reporters can chose their stories.  I feel that maybe they should talk to each other in front of the cameras to keep both sides honest, but the one time that a press conference was arranged the protestors walked out after just one question.

So I’ll take it back to the one thing that both sides’ media coverage agrees on – the non stop blaring of their air horns for ten full minutes every half hour. We hear it both on the newscasts and in the Facebook videos.  That horrendous noise does not constitute a peaceful protest; that is premeditated torture.  In my mind it conjures up a picture of a bunch of bullies picking on innocent bystanders.  I’m not one to side with bullies.

By Wednesday I needed a break so I arranged to have lunch with a close friend in Brandon.  As I drove to and from the city I met a lot of trucks. The highways weren’t the best and it was incredibly cold but they were out doing their jobs – earning the hero status the guys in Ottawa honking their horns, wasting fuel, and polluting air were claiming. It felt good to know there was still a real world out there where people went about their business.

Lunch and conversation with my friend was refreshing. Among the many things we talked about was the need to take care of your own sanity.  I came home and did some serious weeding on Facebook. I hope a month long snooze will find us all in a better place.

The real clincher, though, came Friday when I found myself on the sidelines during a medical emergency. I am humbled and amazed at the dedication of that short-staffed rural hospital, overwhelmed and trying to treat two crisis patients at the same time. I can’t help thinking of the doctors and nurses in the city hospitals who work flat out like this every day as the Covid cases keep coming at them like a runaway train. I am in awe of their dedication and although it was a small thing for me to give,  I offer my full vaccination status and my mask wearing as a sign of respect for their work.

What is going on in Ottawa is no longer a demonstration, it’s an occupation.  Driving into a capital city and making everyone’s life hell to get your demands met happens in poor, third world countries, and it’s called a coup.  You can’t have that kind of turmoil and still retain the stability, education, health care, rule of law, public infrastructure, and stable economy that we take for granted in Canada.  The protestors are schoolyard bullies drunk on their five minutes of fame and those cheering them on from the sidelines are pouring fuel on a dangerous fire. There is a lot more to be lost than to be gained from this.

 

2019 JOCELYN v 2022 JOCELYN

I had to go to town yesterday; just a short jaunt in with a visit to my mother-in-law being the only necessity. But since I was going anyway I added a couple more stops to make it worthwhile ... the Credit Union, Coop Hardware for water, Post Office, and a few groceries.  By the time it was time to get ready to go I realized how my life has been altered over the past two years.

I recall 2019 Jocelyn. She made a lot of trips to town, probably too many. She was gregarious, and friendly and engaged in her community. A trip to town for her usually meant stopping in at a friend’s place for coffee. She attended meetings, stopped to chat with folks on the street, made lunch dates with her favourite people. Ah, those were the days.

She would have never had the argument I had with 2022 Jocelyn yesterday. 2022 Jocelyn didn’t want to change out of her sweat pants to make the trip.

Granted, she had valid points: she said they were warm and cozy, she assured me that she was only going to see a couple people, she insisted no one would recognize her anyway because she would be wearing a mask and so would they.  She even promised to only talk to people wearing glasses because between masks and fogged up glasses they would hardly know she was even there, let alone who she was. It was hard to argue with that one.

I stood my ground though. I told her she had to have some vestige of pride left in her, that she was just being lazy and to go change her clothes. I won that round but it’s getting harder every time. 2022 Jocelyn’s Give-a-Darn is pretty much busted.

Now, to be fair, this is a poor time of year for any version of Jocelyn. While I’m happy to live in Canada and sincerely love all the seasons, winter could be a little shorter. The shortness of the sunlit hours gets to me. I call it the Winter Doldrums. It’s cold and boring and monochrome outside and the most tedious job in the world –deciding what to make for supper - becomes ten times harder throughout January and February.

I don’t know if my Facebook memories are helping either. Every morning I’m greeted with scenes of other Januarys; camping in Australia, gathering seashells on beaches, palm trees, and rolling surf. On the one hand it helps to remember such places do exist, on the other hand they just don’t feel accessible right now. Yes I know, with both of my passports in hand (Canadian and Covid) it’s legal for me to go, but is the hassle worth it? So far the answer has been ‘no’.

And so I’m enduring my captivity with the Lady of the Sweat Pants.  I should have known better than to let her buy them in the first place. She’s been leaning more and more toward comfort clothing lately. Heaven knows all this alone time has seen a lot of her previous clothing mysteriously become uncomfortable. There is no denying that an elastic waistband is the best invention ever.

I should have known that these pants would only cause trouble; that she would never want to wear anything else.  She made me feel how soft and fluffy they were on the inside, and showed me that if she chose the right colours they wouldn’t show pet hair. I might not have given in if it hadn’t been such a good sale, but she got me there – we are both pretty cheap.

I remember 2019 Jocelyn with fondness. She had higher standards, she cared more about social norms. The only time she ever went to town in sweat pants was if the Farmer needed a repair and it was 20 minutes till closing time – and a two minute dash into Redvers Ag hardly counts as ‘in town’ anyway.

2022 Jocelyn is sliding down a slippery slope.  Some days she doesn’t even change out of her pyjamas until almost noon.

Oh wait: what year did I retire?  Heck, even 2013 Jocelyn did that.

 

PLANTING SEEDS

There is a meme circulating on Facebook this week that is stunning in its simplicity. In a few short words and cartoonish images it conveys more power and hope for the future than anything else I’ve seen.  If it’s come up on your feed you’ll know the one I’m talking about without me saying another word. 

For those of you who haven’t seen it I will describe it: two little cartoon characters are standing on a landscape labeled 2022. One of them is clearly very stressed about the future and the other one is happily preparing to garden.  The first says “Aren’t you terrified of what 2022 could be like? Everything is so messed up ...” to which the second replies “I think it will bring flowers.”  The worried guy incredulously responds with “Yes?  Why?”   and the calm, smiling little guy answers “Because I’m planting flowers.”

Such a simple exchange; such a powerful message.

And I’m not just saying this because I’m a gardener already dreaming about planting seeds into warm soil as my normal tactic to get me through minus 40 degree temperatures (although it is undeniably what I do every January).  The lesson goes so much deeper than actual seeds in actual dirt.  It speaks of hope, and faith, and taking responsibility for our own happiness and wellbeing. Not only that, it opens us to the idea that if everyone focussed on planting their own flowers – meaning spreading kindness and beauty within their own little circle – the whole world would be a much less scary place. 

As a writer I am always impressed when an author – or in this instance, an artist – manages to convey such a powerful truth with such a bare minimum of words or pictures.  In this case it’s hard to tell if there is more power in the message itself, or in the simplicity of how it is being told.  What I do know is that it strikes home with all of us.  It gets us right in our humanity.

We are all captains of our own ships.  We all sail on the same sea of life where there are storms we have to weather, rocky shores we need to avoid, and shallow waters we can run aground in.  Whether we are dealing with these things on a simple raft or an ocean yacht, the only thing we are actually in control of is ourselves. 

We can choose to let our anxiety damage our chances of success and squander our peace of mind on circumstances we cannot change, or we can focus on the little things within our capacity to control: the kindness we show others, the humour we infuse into our daily lives, the human connections we make. 

Both of these little cartoon characters face the same future in the same uncertain world.  One of them is standing, petrified by his worries, his eyes on a horizon obscured by clouds of doubt and imagining the worst.  The other one is choosing to take an active part in his future, however small that contribution might be.  He is taking seeds (a perfect symbol for hope) and plans to nourish them until he has flowers – a reward for him, but it will also make the world a better place for everyone else at the same time.  Not only does he expect flowers but he plans to be an active participant in their growth.

So, first I praise the powerful brevity of this meme and then I spend multiple paragraphs probably over explaining it.  I hope I didn’t spoil it for you, but please think about what it says.  Do yourselves a favour, set your sights on something positive, take an active role in its fruition and make the world a better place.

Go plant some flowers.  I’m going to.

 

THE LONGEST NIGHT

Everyone has their own idea of what their longest night is.

Ask any parent of a teenager with a fresh new driver’s license out on their first excursion how long the night was.

Actually, turn the parenting clock back a bit further – ask a woman who spends a longest night in labour.  You know, to be rewarded with colic induced longest nights, and teething longest nights, and fevered longest nights, and first-day-of-school-jitters longest nights, and first-broken-hearts longest nights ... all marching towards the afore mentioned first-driver’s-license-night-out longest night.

Of course, this time of year we have the annual too-excited-to-sleep-because-Santa-is-coming string of sleepless nights.  It’s a good thing that kids are cute.

Obviously these are perceived realities.  Just because you are awake to watch the minutes tick by in slow motion on all of these occasions doesn’t mean time is actually moving slower, it just feels like it is.

On the other hand, they do say “perception is the reality”.

I was inspired to look up the word ‘Yalda’ this morning.  Despite my multi-faceted nerdiness in the fields of languages, and traditions, and celebrations, and the seasons of the sun (to name a few) I had never come across this one before.  Not that it hasn’t been around for a while; like maybe 8,000 years, or so Google says.

Here’s another word from the history books: Persia. For those of you not into historical nerdiness this is an ancient Empire that encompassed most of what is Iran today, and the religion they practiced was Zoroastrian, which if I’m not mistaken, was the one cited in the original Ghost Buster’s movie as the source of the evil entity trying to take over New York ... but, I digress.  We nerds do a lot of that.

According to facts that Hollywood hasn’t tampered with, the people of ancient Persia were the first to formally recognize the winter solstice with a ceremony to celebrate the Earth’s wobble back toward longer days.  Not that they would have understood the mechanics of planetary motion, but appreciated that this meant that the gods were giving them another growing season – something they were pretty relieved and happy about.

What caught my attention was that this eastern religious custom was to celebrate getting through the longest night, whereas in western culture we focus on getting past the shortest day.  Well, at least that’s what we do in this household.  I guarantee that by the morning of December 22^nd my resident wise man will announce that he has already noticed a difference in the rising of the sun.  Pretty good for someone who isn’t even up yet when that happens.

I know it’s the same thing ... both are customs acknowledging the winter solstice ... but somehow the idea of staying up all night to welcome the sun on that first day of lengthening light seems more optimistic  than the approach of putting the darkness behind us.  The first feels positive, the second seems negative.  I guess I’m just a ‘cup is half full’ kind of gal.

No matter, it doesn’t change a single thing. Tonight, December 20, will be the longest night, and tomorrow will be the shortest day.  From here on in the sun will climb in the skies and everyone (in the Northern Hemisphere) will rejoice.  It bears saying again ... perception is the reality ... and I perceive that maybe the Persians had it right.

(Note to self – I need to ask Google what ancient civilizations south of the Equator did with the summer and winter solstice ...)