Connections

Kismet, Serendipity, Karma and Happenstance 

It's been 94 days since the first Covid case was identified in British Columbia on January 26, 2020.  I've been in self-imposed isolation for at about half that time, sheltering in place just before the province made that recommendation.  We are many weeks into this journey and it still has a sense of unreality.   Sometimes I briefly wonder whether I've created this alternative universe completely on my own and it's just a matter of time before I wake up to reality.   If only.

I have it so much easier than most.   I retired almost at the same second that Covid made its debut, so I am not frightened by loss of income or worse, needing to stay behind my desk and continuing to risk exposure.  I'm entirely happy in my little condo and my loved ones are all healthy, so I can ride this out for the long haul.  And there are even perks.  Like, shopping.   I love on-line shopping.   For everything from groceries to wine to dog food to batteries, it's just a click away and they all offer delivery.  And if delivery is not possible, there are creative alternatives.  I emailed a children's clothing store in Comox, wondering whether I might purchase a couple of baby outfits on line.   The response was instantaneous - Absolutely!  How would you like to do a virtual shop?  They contacted me in real-time and together we looked at their sweet little newborn sleepers and I listened to their recommendations, all from the comfort of my armchair.   Within 10 minutes I had chosen the outfits and just 15 minutes after that I pulled up curbside to their store where a smiling employee tossed a bag through my passenger window complete with wrapping tissue and gay ribbons.  I felt positivity regal.  

There have been other connections, some hilarious, some a little circuitous, but all of them lighting up the days.  Like when I received a text from number I didn't recognize, asking me whether I'd like a little homemade chocolate square.  It could have come from the Boston Strangler for all I knew, but my answer was predictable and instant:  "Yes please!  By the way, who is this?"  Turned out to be one of my neighbours and we both snickered at my alacrity.   Chocolate is chocolate, after all.  

Yesterday, my hiking buddy and I were enjoying our daily text fest about everything and nothing.  She mentioned, not for the first time, how much she would love to find a Labrador retriever, being an avid hiker and camper, not to mention dog lover.  I advised her to put it out to the universe and see what happens, my standard answer when I don't have anything more salient or comforting to say.   But this time the universe really was listening, and this morning my Facebook feed featured a request for a home for an outstanding young dog - a lab.   I couldn't get the information to my friend fast enough, and she immediately contacted the owner.   They exchanged emails, photographs, details.   And before lunch even rolled around, she was celebrating, with sweaty palms and dry throat, the fact that she is now the new owner of a very lucky one year old dog - a perfect pandemic puppy.  This would not - could not - have happened without the connection from friend to friend to friend, and in these strange times.  

What is my point?  That this is a time that is also redolent with humour, camaraderie, friendship, hope and mustard seed faith.  Sparks that might not otherwise have been noticed.  It is my nature to grasp for the silver lining because I don't see a viable alternative.  I am so grateful for the comfort of connections and the empathetic direction we are heading.  May all of our choices reflect our hopes and not our fears.

Endurance

Mabel Jessie Corbett

On the fourth finger of my left hand, tucked right next to my wedding band is a slender gold ring with "Blue River" inscribed on the inside.  I have worn it since my mother gave it to me many decades ago.  It was my grandmother's wedding ring, worn by the gentle, artistic and enduring spirit also known as JM Burnet, the signature she used on the beautiful oil paintings she created in the last 40 years of her life. The ring never left her finger until the day she passed away, well into her 80s.

It was placed on Jessie's finger on her wedding day on July 29, 1912, when she was 23 years old.  Just two years later, World War One was declared and only four years after that, the Spanish Flu decimated the world's population.  At 29, Jessie already had three children and her husband, a quiet, shy man, worked at the Bank of Toronto.  They survived the influenza.   In 1929 the Great Depression arrived.  By then she was 40, with a thriving family of six children, including my mother who was born in 1922, the only child to be born in a hospital.  Her sons fought in World War 2, and all survived.  Smallpox ended in Canada in the mid 1940s, but between 1949 and 1954 the polio epidemic ripped through the population, the most serious epidemic since the 1918 influenza pandemic.  Measles arrived too, and chicken pox, and mumps.   Then, and for the next 40 years, the best thing to do was to expose your children to it so as to get them through it and confer immunity as quickly as possible.  Measles parties were popular and hugely attended, with the mothers quietly resolved to see the inevitable course through as it infected their families.   I myself did the same thing with chicken pox in the early 1980s and as fate would have it, our chicken pox course was followed almost immediately by mumps.   It was two months before we found our feet but at least I knew my children had earned lifelong immunity to both.

There is no comparison to Covid with those diseases of yore and although I hate to use the word unprecedented  - I am so heartily sick of hearing that term - there is no other way to describe it. Our current challenge is unmatched because of  its novelty, giving it an extra springboard of threat.  And truly this is the first global systemic scare to come our generation's way.  911 was terrifying and violent but it was not global and it did not threaten our elder population or occasionally our young, healthy people.  Of course the past two or three generations have fretted about climate change, economics, politics, social disruption and personal implosions but nothing has ever given us a gut-punch like this. We are also blessed and cursed with a barrage of media, unlike the pandemics before.

In these poignant and reflective days I often look to this ring for comfort, and I spin it around my finger searching out the history locked within the muted glow that saw Jessie through so many threats, so much worry and dread.  I pray it will also protect my family through this perilous time.  Then, as now, those who endure, conquer.

Strange things

Just your average cloud of locusts

For a person who does not normally remember very many dreams, I seem to have arrived in a new realm.  Of late these dreams are vivid, repetitive and disturbingly memorable and they range from terrifying home break-ins to finding myself skiing down an endless mountain slope, something I have not done in more than 40 years.  Last night I dreamt my husband bought "cantilevers" for his car and tried to mask the expense by bringing me ice cream.  I was so incensed that I threw canned tomatoes at him. The only take-home logic to these dreams is the fact that I am remembering them and that sometimes, just before my head hits the pillow, last night's dream surfaces like a long-forgotten memory.  Weird.

Last week we had unexpected snow that came in sideways and lasted for all of ten minutes.  Parts of the sky were brilliant blue and I am not exaggerating when I say that the snow arrived horizontally.  I have not seen this before, not even in my Calgary years.  And over at Lisa's house, she has been dismayed by a crazed bird that has tirelessly and repetitively bashed itself against her windows.   Once or twice is alarming, but this bird spends hours every day attacking its own image in an effort to establish territory.  It's been four days.  The blinds are closed and stickers have been put up, all to no avail.   Like clockwork this demented bird arrives to relentlessly kamikaze her windows, leaving feathers and bird snot behind, knocking itself silly then rallying to repeat the performance for hours at a stretch.  It's distressing and disquieting and nothing seems to deter it.    It's hard not to believe this is just another example of a world gone mad.

Yesterday, the sun got serious and the temperatures really shot up.   I had the doors wide open and the fresh breeze was blowing through, mostly to dissipate the bleach fumes. Then Mickey alerted me to the fact that we had several uninvited guests coming through and under the screen door.   Revenge of the ants!  They spilled onto the patio with a flash-mob held under the hummingbird feeder, dancing around in the spilled syrup.   From there they decided to wander into my place to see if I might be making fudge.  I met them with my new hand-held Bissell steamer.  Blew the advance guard to smithereens and accepted the declaration of war.  But I did feel sorry.  I had been greatly admiring their orderly society but, like all successful nations, they had obviously decided to cede more territory.   Game on.  I Googled them.  Then I wondered, shit, did they Google me?  God, that would have been freaky.   Anyway, I blitzkrieged them with boiling water and soap, right on the top of the metropolis.  It was like 911 for them, probably worse, and I felt like crap.  So much so that I wrote my strata and pleaded a Hitchcock clause and asked for help.  The pest control guy should arrive soon and I really don't want to witness the annihilation, even though I'll be glad not to hear the crunch as they march into my living room.  I really do feel a bit guilty about this so maybe I'll pretend they are Covid ants and that will justify the means.  War is war.

Easter is nearly upon us and I would normally be enjoying the traditional Easter egg hunt with Ben, but that is not likely to happen this year.   Nor will his much-anticipated 4th birthday party.  Nor a treasured visit from my son and precious grandson, Will.   Nor will a baby shower for my baby granddaughter, due to arrive in just 8 weeks' time.  But all of these steep costs are worth the price of stopping this relentless and dangerous virus.  My eyes are on the future, not the present, and I'm in for the long haul to ensure that none of my beloveds are in danger.   Dreams, birds and ants be damned.