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 ...)

 

 

CHRISTMAS IN THE AIR

I just stepped out onto the deck to sweep last night’s new snowfall away; it’s downright nippy out there.  Yesterday was a totally different story.  It was so balmy and bright I took a few minutes to sit in the sunshine and soak up the warmth.  The weather app on my phone says we will be back to that in just a couple days.  It kind of feels like Mother Nature has been partaking of fermented apples and can only manage a lurching stagger towards winter ... you know – one step forward, two steps back.

Eventually, though, we will all make it to Christmas so it’s time people start getting ready. By ‘people’ I really mean ‘me’, but go ahead and include yourself in this group if the circumstances warrant.

First on the list is gift shopping.  There are local trade fairs and craft shows to explore and home town businesses to support.  I’m not sure if it’s the age I am or that Covid restrictions have influenced what I think is important, but my sense of what’s necessary is not the same as it used to be.  Yes, there will still be gifts for everyone under the tree in 2021, but they will be smaller and more practical – no one needs more stuff for stuff’s sake.  The best thing about 2021 is that we will open these gifts together.  December 2020 was a very quiet day that gave us lots of time to think about what a dud of a day it is without the ones you love there to share it with.

The next thing on my list is writing a Christmas letter and getting it away to friends and family.  I know.  I know.  How old fashioned is that?  But, you know?  Everyone loves getting letters and the most effective way to get letters is to send letters.  Throughout my life I have transitioned from hand written pages to photocopied messages to the easiest form of all: a length-and-weight-doesn’t-matter email.  This year I am contributing to my Canada Post pension stability by snail mailing out 80 real, live, physical envelopes because there are photos to share.  They will hit the mail this week; another job done and dusted.

While I was grocery shopping the other day I noticed that eggs were on sale.  I immediately thought to myself that this was a push from the Christmas Baking Angels; it was time for butter tarts and poppycock and puff pastry lemon cheese tarts and mincemeat cookies and a bunch of other things with more calories than ingredients.  Also the boxes of chocolates, Turtles, Toffifee and all the other Christmas goodies are out.  I refuse to buy any of these until we are done the mini chocolate bars from Halloween ... another couple days should do it.

Decorating is done in stages.  On a beautiful day at the end of October I went out and strung lights through the branches of a huge evergreen tree, installed a set of lights around a pole so that it looks like another Christmas tree in the dark, and stapled my two deer to the ground so they wouldn’t blow over.  Everything worked 100% at the time but of course we’ve had that hurricane since then.  My looks-like-another-tree-in-the-dark illusion is half dead (broken wire somewhere) and there are several lights on the big tree that lost their coloured covers in the wind.  Because I stapled the deer in place they are still where I put them but I’ve had to go out and adjust wiring so the buck’s head lights up again. 

The next project will be the inside.  This may or may not be a big job depending on whether I can source a tree to decorate; apparently 2021 is not a good year to be looking for a tree.  It’s always a big job to fetch all the ‘trimmings’ from the attic, and even bigger if the grandkids are there to “help” grandpa discover treasures up there.  I may be getting too old for these shenanigans.

But, not all of the shenanigans.  Last year was a season of no shenanigans at all and once was enough for that.  I want the noise and confusion of five cousins over excited for Santa’s visit.  I want everyone complaining that there are too many goodies to be healthy – and eating them anyway.  I want the yard covered in toboggan and quad tracks.  I want the lights twinkling on the tree, and I want mugs of tea and quiet conversations after the kids have conked out for the night.

May we all be safe from illness, travel troubles, and whatever Mother Nature might throw at us.

Merry Christmas and Happy 2022!

 

SEASONAL DISARRAY

The days get shorter and the nights get longer.  Gone are the summer days so full of garden weeding and yard work that sleep comes looking for me, not the other way around.  These days the most exercise I get is vacuuming and letting the cat and dog in and out ... and out and in ... and in and out yet again.  I can’t decide if it’s neurosis or a compulsive disorder, or even who has it – the humans or the pets.

This is a time of seasons in flux.  There’s a little bit of everything out there.

Some days act like it’s still September and I can hang clothes out on the line to dry.  Halloween has come and gone but there is still residual candy around the place because, even though we haven’t had trick or treaters here in probably a decade I continue to buy the candy just in case.  Beginning earlier every year I purchase our supply, refreshing it as need be until the big day.  We wouldn’t want to be the household who hands out stale candy, after all.

So it is that in November there are still a few mini candy bars left – weirdly, the ones we don’t particularly care for – and I keep losing my favorite rockets candies under the wrapping paper as I get a start on Christmas gifts.

I took down the skeleton and spiders a week after I put up the outdoor Christmas lights.

Last week I stuck a poppy in my lapel and wondered how many of them I will lose before Remembrance Day, and how many times I will stab myself when I replace the lost ones.

The lawn mower is finally stored away but the snow blower hasn’t been attached to the tractor yet. 

My flip flops are still out and I don’t know where my snow boots are.  Do I even have some?  Didn’t I throw the old ones away because I decided I needed a new pair this year?

 I should go look.

Nah! I like living on the edge.

Even my flower beds look undecided with where we are at in the year.  Some of the tougher plants still have green leaves and flaunt their hardiness in the shortened hours of daylight while the more delicate babies are covered in straw and await a good covering of insulating snow to help them make it through the night.  Already I dream of what I will plant next year ... because I just really can’t help myself.  (There’s that neurosis vs. compulsive disorder question again.)

Yesterday I sat down to compose the 2021 Christmas letter making it the fourth writing project I have on the go at the moment ... what could go wrong with a scenario like that?  Let me know if this starts sounding like blurb for a vacation guide, okay?

For the first time in my life I am seriously considering buying an artificial Christmas tree.  Is this a sign that I am becoming being frugal? The price of real trees gets crazier every year; it will only take three Christmases to pay for the fake one I have my eye on.  At the moment I am stalled out wondering if Christmas will ever be the same if I can simply plug in the tree and the lights just come on?  It’s a long standing tradition in my family for the mom to go off the deep end trying to get all the lights to work at the same time. 

And, what will I do with all my lights that (mostly) work?  As you can see, this is not a decision to be taken lightly.

Meanwhile I continue to deal with my jumbled seasons.  I will honor the Remembrance Day services, if only on TV, but will also review my Christmas card list.  I’m fighting the urge to buy Christmas chocolates when the Halloween candy isn’t quite gone yet and it’s almost time to start Christmas baking.  On the other hand one needs to think about having all those calories in the house and how it leads to the same old New Year’s resolution I’ve made and broken for decades. (Again there’s that mental stability concern – doing the same thing over and over yet wanting a different result).

Well, enough of that, it’s supposed to snow tomorrow.  I think I’ll go hang out in my greenhouse for a bit, the remote thermometer says it’s plus 16 and I know it still smells a little bit like summer.  

 

((HUGS))

The best gifts are the unexpected ones.

I was having a busy day yesterday - company coming today, floors to wash, arrangements for supper to be made – when I got a text that threw one more thing into my afternoon. I was now going to a funeral too.

In the morning I had considered attending this service, but things got busy and with Covid one is never sure whether you should add to the crowd inside a building. As luck, or Fate, would have it the oldies channel I was listening to played My Ding-a-Ling, a novelty song by Chuck Berry from 1972 and I had to laugh out loud. This was the era I knew David from and this song never failed to remind me of him. I think he sang it as his theme song for the better part of a year. There is nothing better than happy memories, no church service was going to do a better job of honoring him so I decided I would carry on with my day and bake cookies.

But there was another unexpected gift to come. My high school girlfriend – the reason I knew David – texted me saying they were on their way to the funeral, was I going to be there? This altered everything again.

Although it’s impossible that this is true, it has been a half century since our high school days. We live way too far apart. Facebook keeps us informed of what’s going on in each other’s lives but that is no replacement for spending time together, laughing together, and sharing hugs. On the rare occasion that this can be arranged we are literally the girls who can sit down and take up conversation like it’s only been a week since we last talked, even if it’s been more like a decade.

The cookies would have to wait.

I may be wrong but I’ve always thought that the most important part of a funeral is the time of fellowship afterwards. We gathered outside the church and in the fresh air could put our masks away and smile and laugh and talk. It wasn’t just my friend, but her brothers and many other faces from a shared past. People who I hadn’t seen in a coon’s age – or several coon’s ages, as was pointed out.

We stood across the street from the school where we all began our lives. So much has happened since we walked those hallowed halls ... higher education, jobs, marriages, kids, travels, and now retirement too. There have been good times and bad, divorces and deaths, celebrations and struggles. One would need a full three day reunion to even scratch the surface on catching up with everyone, but all we had was a few minutes out in a chilly breeze on an October afternoon.

They were precious minutes.

How do you cover all the time that’s passed? The experiences we probably have in common, how we’ve been shaped, how we’ve grown, how lessons we learned together so long ago may have influenced decisions we made later on. There just isn’t enough time for all of that – so you distill how you feel into one, single act – a wordless, yet enormously powerful, bear hug.

Man, it was good to see you guys!

And I was right, waiting didn’t hurt the cookies at all.