2020 hindsight

 

Oh, people are longing to be shot of 2020. 

"2021 has got to be an improvement," they say. 

I say, "Shhhhhhhh!"

Actually, things could be so much worse.

A couple of years back, there was an article at the end of what was being described as "the worst year ever" -  I think it was 2018; what happened then, anyway?  I can't remember.  Anyway, the article listed about half a dozen years that were infinitely worse.

This article isn't the one I saw (the other one had horrific illustrations), but apparently 536 AD wins, hands down.  As I recall, the year the Black Death reached its peak (about 1351), and 1942, when the Nazi killing machine was really hitting its stride and the war was looking bleak for the Allies, were also in the list. Not to mention 1918 and 1919, when something like 50 million people died from influenza.

Our best hope?  That, as bad as 2020 was (ie. not that bad in the grand scale of things), 2021 will be better.  My New Year's wish remains much the same as always, but rather more fervent this evening: the best possible outcome for as many as possible.  Also, that I do no harm -- maybe even some good.

Goodbye, you strange, unloved year.  Sleep with your annual siblings.  Live only in our memories, so that we learn from you.

We'll have to muddle through somehow

Have you noticed how when people sing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" this year, they revert to the original lyrics?

Someday soon, we all will be together, if the fates allow.  Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow...

Our Christmas Day may have been similar to other Christmas Days, but it's the line of days between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve that emphasize how this holiday season is like no other in peacetime.

I get poignant reminders, through my journals and via the FaceBook "On this date" feature, that our usual second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth days of Christmas were usually given to visiting and being visited, of seeing the movies most likely to be nominated for Academy Awards in the coming year, of making our annual trek to Butchart Gardens for the Christmas afternoon tea, even the occasional concert or play.

Yesterday, I had a series of tiny triumphs.  The current situation has slowed parcel delivery, so a handful of love offerings have not yet arrived, making the line of daily small gifts for the Twelve Days of Christmas rather sparse.  I grabbed a rare moment on my own to quickly hit a couple of downtown shops, and located a Doctor Who calendar for the Resident Fan Boy for the Eighth Day of Christmas, and a much-coveted video for younger daughter's Fifth Day of Christmas.  My finds were made all the sweeter, being from local businesses.

After lunch, we perused one of the sites for the annual Habitat for Humanity Gingerbread House contest.  Normally housed in a hotel lobby, they have been spread out to a number of different venues, where you view them through glass from the sidewalk.  A bit bleak, but better than nothing.

One of this year's candidates - yes, it's gingerbread

This morning, I awoke to "gremlins", resulting from a disturbing and accusatory dream of younger daughter's being back in school (thank god she isn't).  And as I lay there, fighting off the feelings of panic and failure, I also struggled with the recurring question that assails me every damn time:  Are these gremlins a delusion of the dark -- or an epiphany of waking clarity?  I fervently pray it's the latter.

Of course, then I checked my phone - big mistake - and encountered the doom-scroll of the situation in Britain, their hospitals with lines of ambulances outside, waiting for unavailable beds, and the country finally toppling into Brexit.  Of course, now elder daughter lives there.

Next year, all our troubles will be out of sight.  Because it will too dark to see them?

Something lost and something gained

The few hours of daylight have slipped away, and there are things that need doing before I sleep. 

 

I'll leave you with this. 

Boast of Christmas presents

For the past four or five years, I've been taking an annual snap of selected Christmas presents. 

I resisted this for years -- Christmas isn't about the gifts, I told myself.  

However, when I try to remember Christmases past, I find I have little memory of what I received.  I tend to write the lists of what I intend to give in my notebooks, so, with a bit of digging, I can find those, but what did I get?  With a few rare exceptions -- usually the occasional fulfillment of childhood or adolescent longing, I've forgotten what was presented to me.

The gifts we receive are little snapshots of who we were, or thought we were -- or who other people thought we were.

This year, I seem to be a music-lover with an interest in social history and marital law, living in a cold climate.  

A chilly genealogist.

Sounds about right.

Naturam erante

Cineplex has just charged me $33 to view, within 48 hours, a National Ballet Production of The Nutcracker. From 2008. (I thought it looked familiar.) 

Compare this with the Royal Ballet, which is charging anywhere between $5 and $25 (depending on how recent the production is, so far nothing older than 2017) for viewing within three weeks. 

Oh well. I guess the National Ballet is probably in more serious trouble, and I want to encourage Cineplex to "live-stream" ("live" clearly being a relative term) more theatre and ballet, so I'll swallow my indignation and irritation and watch free stuff on YouTube. 

When the King's Singers came to Chamberfest a couple of years ago, elder daughter got every one of them to sign their latest CD for me. 

I've been a KS fan for a long time, through several personnel changes. That Christmas, two of the singers were singing their last concerts with the group. This is the latest line-up, four of whom elder daughter has met. They're singing one of my favourite Christmas pieces, "Gaudete", which dates back to the sixteenth century. They could give Steeleye Span a run for their money. It was "Gaudete" that first introduced me to Steeleye Span. Here they are, back in the days when Maddy Prior could sing very high:

Boxed in

Moka House opened later this morning -- 8 am, so when I arrived, about half an hour later, the baked good shelves had little on them.

I know from experience that many of the Danishes and croissants are being baked -- well, heated, really - in the back, but the barista on duty seemed hesitant, so I was just ordering my usual mocha, when the proprietor appeared, bearing a hot tray of my very favourite cherry and yoghurt Danishes (which aren't nearly as good for you as they sound).

I broke into a very strange little dance.  "Oh-oh-oh-oh!" I squealed, before getting myself under control and murmuring:  "I'm so mature..."

"It's like Christmas," said the barista soothingly.

"The second day of Christmas!" I burbled through my mask.

Outside, the patio filled steadily.  People keeping their distance -- sort of.  They clustered at tables and sat on ledges.

On my way home, I mused about how dogged Christmas traditions are.  In Victoria, certainly, and probably elsewhere, Boxing Day is the day you visit, and people are loathe to let go, saying that "Christmas isn't Christmas without . . . (insert your tradition, habit, or practice)"

In the couple of days before Christmas, there were huge line-ups of cars to the Cypress Mountain Resort in West Vancouver, containing people for whom Christmas isn't Christmas without skiing or snowboarding. I understand, but have little sympathy.  Definitely a First World problem.

Christmas was Christmas for us, but we're introverts, and our party included someone on the autistic spectrum and Demeter, whose deafness rules out overlapping conversations, and even music.  

The extroverts were on ZOOM, which, mercifully, got cut off early.

Next year, we'll be dealing with them in person.

In the meantime, I have warm cherry and yoghurt Danishes.

Lettuce, carrots, and ranch dressing

I set out early this morning to do some last-minute Christmas "burgling", crossing the quiet streets and singing this carol to myself -- although not quite these words, nor this rhythm.

Just another day in paradox

The light is ebbing from the westward horizon, and outside, vehicles, clearly with somewhere to be quickly, streak eastward.

We in the middle, with just a few small tasks to do, are finding the stillness.

The Resident Fan Boy is on his headphones, attending Christmas Eve services at the Cathedral virtually.  

Elder daughter has wished us good night from London, where it has been Christmas Day for a quarter of an hour.  Just before we turn in this evening, we will join her again as she wakes at seven in the morning to open her stocking.

Younger daughter has stashed away the cat's Christmas stocking that she assembled this afternoon.  I can hear her warning him away.  He can smell the catnip.

Demeter dropped by to deposit her Christmas packages at the base of our tree, hurling them from her walker with soft plops on to the aluminum foil we've put down to discourage the cat, so I'm guessing we're not getting breakables.  She'll be back for Christmas lunch, ordered from the local Japanese restaurant, probably the one eatery staying open tomorrow.  (Christmas dinner, our usual tourtière, is waiting in the freezer.)

It's a Christmas like no other -- which is much like other Christmases.  

Christmas is kinda like that.

Misalignment

The Resident Fan Boy and I ventured out on to the roof between laundry room visits, and there, dangling above the western horizon, just clear of wispy bands of clouds, was Jupiter, and the pin-prick of Saturn hanging to his upper right.  It wasn't the climax of the conjunction, but it wasn't bad!

As the RFB and I returned to our apartment, he muttered: "A conjunction, a comet, and Mars - what's going on?"

"'S'plains a lot," I replied.

We had no idea.

Settling into the couch, I checked my messages and found an e-mail from our sociable neighbours upstairs.  They had been out for their morning walk, when a slippery patch left over from Monday's sloppy precipitation caught the wife off-guard, and they spent the bulk of yesterday in emergency.  Multiple fractures to both wrists.  Surgery in the new year.

This morning, elder daughter texted from South Wimbledon.  Her COVID app informed her that she had been in contact with someone with the virus.   (Hardly difficult in London at this moment.)  She's now required to self-isolate for five days.  Her plans to spend Christmas with her second cousins in Greenwich are out the window -- probably not a bad thing, considering Tier Four.  A comfort is that one of her flatmates and her husband had to abandon their plans for a holiday hotel stay, due to the new restrictions, so at least elder daughter will not be alone.

These darn things usually come in threes,  don't they?  Should I stop the star-gazing?

A room of one's own

When Virginia Woolf was speaking of "a room of one's own", she was, of course, speaking of women.

The need for men to have such a room has been acknowledged for centuries, but I won't begrudge the Spooky Men's Chorus in this dreamy celebration of the man-cave, which, somehow feels "Solstic-y" and Christmassy.  It's probably the candles.

The "Spooky Men" are Aussies, if you didn't pick this up from the visuals.

Snow glob

It's the shortest day of this benighted year.

There's a Great Conjunction tonight, not seen since the 13th century (the one in the 17th century was apparently not visible at night), so, of course, we've been socked in by a relentless grey sky pelting us with heavy rain and fat mashed-potato gobbets of snow.  

The ground was already saturated when the snow plummeted, and so the white stuff is not getting much of a purchase on the soggy ground.  It has managed to accumulate not far north of us; the buses in and out of the Saanich Peninsula have been cancelled, as have several sailings of the ferries.  

A friend of Double Leo Sister, whose only crime was venturing from Parksville for a medical appointment, and dropping off Demeter's gift, has spent the better part of the day trapped on the Malahat Highway, a road that follows the south-east coast of Vancouver Island through the Cowichan Valley, and by some heart-stopping chasms, and. if blocked by snow or the resulting accidents, is practically inescapable.

I limited my forays to miserable short slogs, and spent the morning taking advantage of the Resident Fan Boy's ill-advised trip to a shopping mall.  I slipped my treasure trove of presents into bags, and emptied the contents of the "rehearsed" Christmas stockings into old purses, suitable for hiding until Christmas Eve.  

Last week, I made a careful inventory of the RFB's collection of Doctor Who novels, and slipped into Russell's Books for four more to fill out his stocking.  I discovered a few days later, that the RFB, having run out of space in his designated and sacred Doctor Who bookshelf, has been adding his novels to a lower shelf in the dining room.  I checked today to see which books I'd duplicated.  All four, dammit.  Now I've got to sneak into Russell's with only three shopping days left - something I'd hoped to avoid.  (I'll stick the four duplicates into one of the many "little libraries" in my neighbourhood -- perhaps the one on my old street.)

On a brighter note, yesterday, I prepared the Christmas tourtière for freezing, so I rewarded myself this morning with an account at the Globe Theatre, in order to live-stream (Snow) Globe, this year's version of the annual Christmas play for children at the famous venue for Shakespeare's plays -- closed for business, along with all of London's theatres, by this new plague.

It's snippets of Shakespeare, snatches of modern Christmas songs, and written and performed by Sandi Toksvig, and contains wry wit, in-jokes, and much of the longing for contact that has beset rather more of us than usual this year.  I enjoyed it very much.

I'll go to the roof tonight.  The forecast is for clearing skies.

Foggy finances

Thinking back to a December memory which is about nearly a quarter of a century old:

In those days, I caught a lift to the Unitarian Church every Sunday, sometimes accompanied by elder daughter.

I don't know how the subject came up but I was telling my lift about about flying to San Francisco in my pre-child days, and my growing terror when the plane took an eternity to rise through a bank of clouds.

Elder daughter, then four, listened gravely from the back seat, and announced: "My cloud-people get cloud-money.  They get it from the cloud-bank."

Turning a wonderful season like Christmas into a problem

Last night, I made what seemed to be an obvious decision.  

Hermann's Jazz Club is featuring live-streamed concerts, and last night featured three local musicians (two of them UVic professors) interpreting the music of "A Charlie Brown Christmas", which the pianist insisting on calling "the movie".  (I suspect he doesn't watch the television special much.)

I tuned in, poured myself a modest cup of brandy and egg nog, and settled in front of the computer with the Resident Fan Boy. To my horror, instead of the quiet glow I usually feel, listening to Vince Guaraldi's music played by jazz musicians,  I felt an increasing weight of sadness as the hour went by.

The trio, a pianist, bassist, and drummer were masked in the nearly empty club, the only other people present being the camera crew and a handful of Hermann's servers.  The pianist spent part of the time between numbers asking for donations for the club, the livestream, and the servers.

It was so bleak and joyless.  I fought to enjoy the music, but eventually turned off the computer in defeat.

At this time of the month of December, we've usually put up the tree, and put on Vince Guaraldi.  This is because it's usually around December 17th to 20th, that elder daughter flies in to join us.  She's not coming this year; she's living in a flat in South Wimbledon.  

I knew she wasn't coming, but I think, last night, it really hit me.  This is our first Christmas without her.

It had to come some time, but it's extra tough in a year when so many holiday joys are being stripped away.

I really can't blame the musicians; they were doing their best.

I'm better today.  We'll put up the tree tomorrow.  Younger daughter is with us, and much is at stake.

Difficult December people

There have been a number of key December birthdays, in my family -- none of whom are living now.  It occurred to me this morning that my grandmother would have 120 years old today.

Heavens, she would have been annoyed!  Towards the end of her long life, she was getting weary of living, as piece by piece, like books being removed from a shelf, the things she enjoyed were taken from her: reading, knitting, music...

Mind you, my other grandmother would have been a bit over 123 years, had she lived to today, but I never knew her.  It's odd, thinking how people I actually knew, who were parts of my life, would be impossibly old now.  It's even worse for the Resident Fan Boy, whose parents were well advanced in age by the time he was born.  My late father-in-law, another December birthday would be 111.  My father, also born in December, would be well into his nineties.

Evocations of these difficult December people glow like the Christmas lights, not bright enough to read by, but strong enough to draw me to a standstill.

Re-view, re-watch, reaction, re-visit, repeat

This morning, I made my daily mistake of checking my Twitter feed before rising.  I follow Colin Mochrie (which isn't a mistake), but he was commenting on a status by someone named J. Kelly Nestruck, who, as it turns out, is a theatre critic for the Globe and Mail.

Nestruck thunderstruck me with the following observation:

 

Actually, I'm not sure why I was thunderstruck. I've seen debates elsewhere over the years about the use of re-reading books, for heaven's sake. That really knocked me sideways.  Re-reading books?  Of course, you re-read books.  You re-read to review, to pick up the details you missed while rushing to the climax the first time, to re-visit in order to bring your older and - please gawd - wiser, better-informed self back to see how your reaction has changed.

You re-watch movies for the exact same reasons.  Now, some films (just like some books) are not worth a subsequent airing.  And some films, entertaining enough on the first or even second viewing, lose their charm with repetition - Love Actually (sadly, a favourite of both elder and younger daughters), Elf (still beloved by younger daughter), and Bridget Jones's Diary spring to mind.

There are even a small group of films that I feel require rewatching, because I didn't quite get them the first time.  Alone in Berlin is in this group; I didn't think much of it at first, but have watched it twice since and my appreciation has grown.

Some years back, I devoted an overlong, and rather too labour-intensive post to films that I like enough to watch repeatedly.

I think, given it's been eleven years, that I should add a few -- but only a few.  Once again, this is not a "best films" list; they are simply films I enjoy, and, so far, have not tired of.  There were 35 films in my 2009 list, so I'll just pick up where I left off:

#36. They Might Be Giants 

George C. Scott, Joanne Woodward, Jack Gilford

This should have been on my original list.  I stumbled across it on television when I was a teenager, and fell in love with the music, and the quirky story.  Viewed as a grown-up, I find some of the dialogue cringey and sentimental, but if you love character actors, the performances by Jack Gilford and Oliver Clark are particularly beguiling.

#37.  The F-Word

Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Adam Driver

This is sort of When Harry Met Sally for millennials, but manages to avoid the cookie-cutter plot of your average rom-com.  The script is by a fellow who went to my university, and the setting is a fairy-tale version of Toronto, where somehow, it's never winter -- yet I recognized the city perfectly.  The cast, a blend of Canadians, Brits, and Americans, is delightful.

#38. The Lady in the Van

Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings, and pretty well the entire cast of The History Boys

Based on Alan Bennet's play about an old homeless woman who really did live in her van in his front yard in London for several years.  A beautiful and messy mixture of humour, pathos, tragedy and mystery.

#39. Boyhood

Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke

I first saw this at the soon-to-be-lamented Bytowne Cinema, and remember thinking at the time:  I have never seen anything like this.  Director Richard Linklater, filming in short spurts over about thirteen years, told this story of growing up in real time.  It's a childhood in Texas, so a little foreign to me, but I still recognized many elements of my own children's younger years.

That'll do for now.

It's a big enough umbrella

There were people with way too much time on their hands before this pandemic, y'know. 

 I don't know how I managed to miss this YouTube mash-up from ten years ago (which explains, in part, the misty quality of the video, I suppose). 

I've posted this type of Peanuts thing before; it seems to lend itself well to pop songs, but when this transformation of Linus into an early eighties reggae-rock-pop stylist turned up on my YouTube feed today, younger daughter hooted in delight. Near the end, she queried, "Who's the lead singer of The Police?" and I felt the weight of the years. 

I've just discovered that this video is "YouTube only". If you click on the "Play on YouTube link", it'll work. 

 (Good Grief.)

Though I’ve tried before to tell her 

Of the feelings I have for her in my heart 

Every time that I come near her 

I just lose my nerve as I've done from the start 

Every little thing she does is magic 

Everything she do just turns me on 

Even though my life before was tragic 

Now I know my love for her goes on 

Do I have to tell the story 

Of a thousand rainy days since we first met? 

It's a big enough umbrella 

But it's always me that ends up getting wet 

 I resolved to call her up 

A thousand times a day 

And ask her if she'll marry me 

Some old-fashioned way 

But my silent fears have gripped me 

Long before I reach the phone 

Long before my tongue has tripped me 

Must I always be alone

Because I knew you

I sent the Christmas cards early this year, and felt that now annual pang, editing the list, sometimes removing a name, sometimes reducing the names from two to one. 

I met Caitlin in university, through a mutual friend.  She had a thoughtful energy that fitted her in well with our circle, which, up until then, had been mostly made up from those of us who had attended the same high school. She was slightly older, but looked younger.

As we drew closer, she had a front-row seat to the very beginning of my relationship with the Resident Fan Boy.  On the day I married him, she drove me to the church, because I didn't want a fancy car, just a sensible, kind, and dependable friend.

She moved miles away, up to the northern coast of British Columbia.  She married a younger fella, and I was delighted to attend her wedding in Victoria.  They set about building a home in the small community where she taught, and having two carefully-spaced children, as blond as her husband and herself.  I saw her every couple of years, as long as she had family in our area.

After I moved to Hades, I saw her once, when she accompanied her son on a school field trip to the Nation's Capital.  I had lived there less than a year, and was still in culture shock.

I did not know then that I would not see her again.  Not long after her trip east, she developed ovarian cancer.  She'd caught it early and fought it off.  A few years later, it returned, and once again, she prevailed, taking advantage of early detection and good medical advice.

About two years ago -- dammit -- it came back.  My heart sank, but hers didn't.

She set up a blind e-mail for those of us who wanted updates, always written with cheerful and realistic optimism, detailing the latest treatments and giving family news.

Finally, the message I'd been dreading:  her physician was discontinuing her medication because it wasn't adding to the quality of her life, nor to the length of it.  Even then her quiet buoyancy tempered the news.  The cancer was slow-growing and although the prognosis was a couple of months, she had hopes of making it to her daughter's wedding in the spring.

She was gone within three weeks.

I found out in that twenty-first century way; I opened up Facebook one evening, and saw a beautiful recent portrait of her, then realized it had been posted by her family.

A friendship is, by its very nature, symbiotic, though I can't say what my contribution to it was.  Steadfastness?  Loyalty?  I'm pretty good at those.

Caitlin was a model for me, of grace, good manners, and patience.  I bought an SLR camera when I saw her pictures of northern BC.  She guided me to a counselling centre, when I had the crushing realization that I was not what my future in-laws had in mind for their precious son, and there, I learned, at least intellectually, that this didn't matter.  Caitlin's acceptance helped enormously.

I listen to the words of "For Good" from the 2003 Broadway musical Wicked, written and composed by Stephan Schwartz (responsible for, among other things, Godspell), and based on Gregory Maguire's "origin" novel.  It's not a perfect fit; the characters of Elphaba and Glinda, the late-adolescent/young-adult versions of the Wicked Witch of the West, and the Good Witch of the North, are "frenemies".  Caitlin was my friend, period.

However, much of this song rings true. And I should have told her, while she was still on the planet.

In this version, Idina Menzal and Kristin Chenoweth, who created the characters on Broadway, are singing about a dozen years later.

Bright illusion

 This year, our online Advent calendar has a Nordic theme, so we're particularly aware of Santa Lucia Day. 

So, yesterday evening, after my daily drop-in to visit Demeter, I decided to make my way deeply into darkened Fairfield, the sun having vanished by 4:20.  

The further south and east I ventured, the thicker the illuminations, bright arteries of colour spreading out of both sides of Linden Avenue.

A fashion this year appears to be multicoloured nets of bulbs, draped over shrubbery, or the sides of porches.  Others have taken long strands of lights and wrapped them several times about bushes.

As I passed one house, I seemed to see an animation at the top of a side entrance -- a man of dots of light, rather like the final moments of Peter Gabriel's famous 1986 video of the song "Sledgehammer":

 

I soon realized it was someone hanging a criss-cross mesh of lights up, the colours following the contours and extremities of his body as he reached for the hooks.

After pausing at the intersection where Linden meets Chapman, I turned further east, passing simpler strings and angles.

Looping homeward, I encountered explosions of decorating dynamite. Here cars were stopping -- headlights, unfortunately, left on high-beam -- and children, barely tall enough to make a sillhouette, chattered excitedly and gazed.

Dazzled, I returned to the relative dark of Fairfield Road, where I was cheered to see our single string dangling above the patio.

Algorithm altercation

An old friend has been posting his response to Spotify's "Your Top Songs 2020", which purports to be one hundred of one's most-played tracks on Spotify during the last year (not counting December, of course).

I say "purports", but who am I to argue with an algorithm?  

Well, there is the small matter of "Garbage In Garbage Out".  

Not that I listen to garbage, but I often put a playlist on, then get to work on something, which means if a given track appears on a playlist -- which Spotify has generated in the belief that I'll like it -- it will get played, and racked up amongst my favourites, even if I haven't actively "liked" it.  It's more likely that I didn't dislike it enough to wipe my hands and press the "skip" button.

Nearly a quarter of the tracks on this so-called "Top Songs" list are items I haven't marked with the green heart to designate my approbation.

I don't think there's anything on the list I hate; I do recognize the tracks, for the most part.  In the "top ten", six tracks could be categorized as classical (early music, really), and of the remaining four, two are songs I do love, and the other two --- I'm okay with, but really, there's stuff way further down the list that I would think is more representative. (HAIM, Dawes, Mott the Hoople, Annie Lennox, Vampire Weekend and Mozart, if you must know.)

Of course, if you're dealing with algorithms, sometimes you do need to get hands-on.  Last Christmas, I made myself a Christmas playlist of about two hours' worth of songs that have special meaning to me, or call back specific memories.  One song I considered was the Swedish ditty "Nu är det jul igen".  My girls were fans of Arthur's Special Christmas when they were little, and it's a catchy little song.

Unfortunately, after listening to about a dozen versions on Spotify, I couldn't find one that wasn't a bit on the precious side.  After Christmas, I realized what I had wrought; I spent the next few months banning Scandinavian pop songs from my feed on Spotify, which had decided, based on my searches, that I was crazy about singers of whom I'd never heard, singing in languages I don't understand.  (My apologies to all you Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, and Finns out there; your mastery of many languages puts me to blushing shame.)

My friend, posting what amounted to an essay on Facebook (well, he is a music therapist and a professor, to boot), was perplexed to find Justin Bieber heading his list -- apparently his more recent stuff.

The trouble is, if you let any song by any artist into your Spotify feed, the algorithm will assume you must want more.  

I pray that Spotify never finds out that I rather like "What's the Name of the Game".  That's a Swedish invasion I can do without.

Good morrow, masters all

I don't remember hearing the carol "Past Three O' Clock" before 1991, which was the year I acquired The Bells of Dublin, an album supporting a Christmas special (or was it the other way around?) featuring the Chieftains and various guests, including the Renaissance Singers.

Demeter was surprised I hadn't heard it.  She was raised Church of England, and had encountered it many times.

I was charmed by it.  I loved the images it summoned up: a town crier, maybe a group of travellers arriving or leaving an inn in the early hours of the morning, lamplight and torches, the horses stamping in the snow.

I imagined it being a song from the eighteenth century perhaps, or even earlier. In many entries, the song is described as "traditional".

I made up a Christmas playlist on Spotify last Christmas, and this was an early addition.

This year, I've been making a few additions, and this morning, looking over my list, I found myself mulling over the lyrics. They are a bit odd: 

Past three a clock, And a cold frosty morning, Past three a clock; Good morrow, masters all!

Born is a Baby, Gentle as may be, Son of the eternal Father supernal.

Seraph quire singeth, Angel bell ringeth; Hark how they rime it, Time it and chime it.

Mid earth rejoices Hearing such voices e'ertofore so well Carolling Nowell.  

Hinds o'er the pearly, Dewy lawn early Seek the high Stranger Laid in the manger.

Cheese from the dairy Bring they for Mary And, not for money, Butter and honey. 

Light out of star-land Leadeth from far land Princes, to meet him, Worship and greet him. 

Myrrh from full coffer, Incense they offer; Nor is the golden Nugget withholden.  

Thus then I pray you, Up, sirs, nor stay you Till ye confess him Likewise and bless him.

So I looked it up, and the carol was published in 1924.  The tune itself is traditional, called "London Waits", but the words were written by an Anglican clergyman George Ratcliffe Woodward (1848-1934) and they do sound like the sort of thing someone educated at Cambridge in the 19th century would come up with.

Oh dear, sometimes finding out stuff takes quite the shine off things...

A most rare vision

 I awake some time after midnight, and the little girl is about eye-level, standing three feet away in front of our bedroom curtains.  She's leaning to her right, looking mildly curious, dressed in pink and turquoise - looks like windbreaker.  Small ponytails stick out from her brown cheeks. She looks indigenous, either North American or South Asian.

I can see her so well because she appears in a flash of daylight -- which tells me in a split second, that she's not really there.  I blink, and the room is dark again.  I know she's gone, and fight the impulse to reach behind me to wake the Resident Fan Boy.

What I've seen is not terrifying, but I'm startled, and as I settle my head once again into my pillow, I hear my heart hammering.

Leaning hard to keep from toppling over

 I'm having some doubts about today, which is slated to be a bit on the frantic side.

After a rough night, in which my body lodged some complaints with me about my benign neglect of it, I was ambushed while scrolling through my Facebook feed in the coffee shop. Apparently the guy the United States hired four years ago is, in his festive way of marking his approaching departure from the White House, fast-tracking about five executions, presumably because his successor is known to be against the death penalty.  

I've always been rather cranky about the way the BBC lumps Canada in with the US in its news categories, although scanning headlines on Canadian news web sites isn't any more cheering.

On the bright side, elder daughter's Christmas parcel, which cost a small fortune (well, a medium-sized fortune) in postal and customs fees, arrived in London yesterday, containing her filled Christmas stocking, a wrapped present for her tree, and an "ugly" Christmas sweater, purchased from the street racks in front of a Yates Street boutique.  Elder daughter tells me it has a "90's" vibe, which I gather is a good thing.  After all, she's a 90's baby.

Suddenly COVID

This has gone viral. (And should, if only for the play on words.)  

 I don't care. 

 I adore this.

   

A helpful YouTube commenter has listed the musicals being parodied. ("I Believe" was the one I didn't recognize, having seen The Book of Mormon only once. It's also the musical for which Andrew Rannells won a Tony):

"America" - West Side Story 

"Suddenly Seymour" - Little Shop of Horrors 

"16 going on 17" - The Sound of Music 

"Hello!" - The Book of Mormon 

"Defying Gravity" - Wicked 

"One" - A Chorus Line

 "Memory" - Cats 

"And I am Telling You" - Dreamgirls 

"Tradition" - Fiddler On the Roof 

"You Can’t Stop the Beat" - Hairspray 

 "Maria" - West Side Story 

"My Shot" - Hamilton 

"I Believe" - The Book of Mormon

Then we make poutine

 This is a joke about Canadian invasion -- probably only Canadians will get it.

I'm Canadian, so I thought it was a hoot.

Hurricane Stacey

So I nipped into Demeter's apartment to drop off her litre of milk, having forgotten that her cleaner would be there.  It's been a while since her last visit - Stacey was prone to not feeling well long before the pandemic reared its ugly head.  Still, she's capable of giving Demeter's place the kind of cleaning that would wipe my elderly mother out, and I prefer not to get in the path of the whirlwind.

Stacey, it seems, has been bored and she tells me that she's been educating herself about China.

"Yay," I say, in a bid to be supportive, although something deep down stirs uneasily.  Stacey is a bit out there -- even by British Columbia standards.

The conclusion Stacey has reached, based on her "research", is that Canada is heading the same way as China.  Communism, she clarifies.  She's searching out protest groups, to join in demonstrations against the measures the government has been implementing.

Demeter, whose hearing hasn't been the best for the past couple of decades, looks blankly at her.

"The Canadian government," Stacey emphasizes, for Demeter's benefit.

She tells us she phoned the Unitarians - our church, as it happens (not hers; she's Church of Truth) - in search of fellow protesters, and was displeased by their response.

"I thought the Unitarians were in favour of human rights," she tells us angrily.

Standing next to Demeter, I can't help myself.

"They are. In the human right to live."

She narrows her eyes.  "Oh. You're on that side."

She continues:  "That big flu epidemic a hundred years ago, we got through that without restrictions."

She's talking to the wrong person.  There certainly were restrictions, but I go for the jugular.

"Millions died, Stacey.  We had family die in the Spanish Flu Epidemic."

"I guess you won't be protesting."

Damn right.

I avoid her for a while, shaken.  I'm not a fan of confrontation.  The next time I see her, we discuss the weather.  We don't discuss hurricanes.

Vancouver - October 2020 - Darryl Dick photo

Ghost of Christmas cats

A few months ago, a large lithe tabby joined our household.  Like Rum Tum Tugger, he's a curious cat.

Early morning, pre-dawn,  I'm standing by the bedside table, engaged in my morning routine. I'm applying lip balm, when I hear a strange noise.

The cat is crouched by the bedroom door, gazing out into the dark hall that leads into the living room.  He's giving that rising and falling growl that cats emit when threatened.

I peer out into the direction in which he's glaring.  Nothing, but it's dark.  I venture into the hall, turning on lights, and feeling rather creeped out.  Nothing.

I return to the bedroom, and the cat has vanished, except for irregular intervals, when I hear that growl.  I lie across our large bed, and hang my head over the edge to see underneath, where the cat is crouched, dead centre.  He's never hidden under the bed before.

I decide the wisest thing is to dress quickly, and get my shoes on.  All sorts of unpleasant possibilities race through my brain: an intruder, or some sort of feral animal - cats can see ghosts, can't they - and don't they sense imminent earthquakes?

I hastily insert my contact lenses and check the apartment again.  The Resident Fan Boy is bathing; younger daughter is in bed, reading her phone.  I retreat, and set to applying my makeup.

As I pull on my jacket, the cat emerges from under the bed by inches, slowly, slowly.  His ears are back, his spine is in a high arc, and his striped tail is like a bottle brush.  He creeps to the door, pauses, then crawls into the hall, smelling the floor and baseboards.  He continues in this fashion out to the living room, then returns through the kitchen, back to the hall, where he pauses by younger daughter's slightly ajar door to sniff some more.  I return to the master bedroom to collect my things.

By the time I depart to the coffee shop, the cat's body has relaxed, and I feel confident enough to stroke him.

Unnerving.

Fade to black

When I began my days in Hades, there were three cinemas remaining in downtown Ottawa: the rather drafty and smelly triplex in the Rideau Centre, the cluster of screens of varying sizes at the World Exchange Centre, and the Bytowne Cinema, the local seat of art films, which was housed in an old-fashion movie house which had blinked on Rideau Street for well over half a century.

After a decade of seemingly endless Ottawa winters, the downtown cinemas disappeared, chilled out by Netflix, I guess.  I've never seen the appeal of Netflix, and I rather like my films on a large screen, hearing the reactions of those around me.  The big-box cinemas were an eighty-to-ninety-minute round-trip by bus, so I purchased the yearly membership to Bytowne, which was a thirty-minute walk from my house, and near two bus-routes, if I didn't feel like the hike.

It offered a wide range of films:  Canadian, foreign-language, animation, classics.  It also featured a rather eccentric clientele at times, but a seat in the large darkened auditorium was a trip back in time.

It was one of my lifelines in a city that never became home to me.  Yesterday, they announced it was closing down.  The second COVID lockdown was the final straw.  A particular pity, since, as far as I can see, cinemas are not a source of spreading, super or otherwise.

Even though I don't have to live in Hades anymore, and have absolutely no reason to return, my heart is breaking.  Surely I wasn't the only person clinging on to the Bytowne for dear life.

Let the world turn without you

 In an up-Island hospital, Double Leo Sister was ministering to her best friend in all the world, smoothing the cracked skin of her hands and feet with lotion, while singing softly from Jesus Christ Superstar:  

Try not to get worried/ Try not to turn on to problems that upset you/ Don't you know everything's alright, yes, everything's fine?/ And we want you to sleep well tonight/ Let the world turn without you tonight/  If we try, we'll get by, so forget all about us tonight.

Sleep and I shall soothe you, calm you and anoint you/ Myrrh for your hot forehead/ And you'll feel everything's alright, yes, everything's fine/ And it's cool and the ointment's sweet/ For the fire in your head and feet/ Close your eyes, close your eyes, and relax; think of nothing tonight.

It was a song from their shared late childhood, a song as old as their friendship, begun when they were both twelve, continuing through adolescence, marriages, children.  Four weddings between them, one for each decade.  For each ceremony, one served as the chief attendant for the other.  Their lives were spent mostly in distant communities, the connection unbroken.

The Best Friend, always suspicious of mainstream medicine, finally was drawn to her local hospital by the belief she had COVID.  It turned out to be late-stage lymphoma.  Best Friend quickly deteriorated, as Double Leo Sister drove the 500 miles to be with her.  Well, her husband the Jolly Not-so-green Giant did the driving.  DLS was far too distraught.

DLS stroked on the lotion, singing, and was startled when her best friend burst out, with surprising force and energy (and on-key):

Woman, your fine ointment, brand-new and expensive/ Could have been saved for the poor/ Why has it been wasted? We could have raised maybe three hundred silver pieces or more! /People who are hungry, people who are starving/ Matter more than your feet and hair!

A few weeks later, the world turned without her.

Here's the song, as performed in the 2012 "Arena Tour" revival, by Mel C., Ben Forster, and Tim Minchin:

A few heartbeats away

 

A few blocks from home, taking the scenic route, I look beyond one of the myriad "free little libraries" that are so popular in Victoria - you can glimpse it in the lower right hand corner of this photo, and see something else popular in the neighbourhood - red hearts. 

Since the pandemic started, red hearts are everywhere in Victoria: in the letterhead of local paper, painted on the manhole covers in Cook Street Village.

With the leaves blasted off the branches of the ancient twisted trees, these hearts pop, like living things against sleeping branches.

Seeing spots

To someone whose perception of time differs from most, this pandemic has been even more of a challenge. Earlier this year, as I removed laundry from younger daughter's room, I saw that she had filled in each and every square of her calendar, clear through to December: "VIRUS - VIRUS - VIRUS . . . ."  Like a flashing alarm, blinking repeatedly, world without end, amen.

At the same time, a friend posted this equally alarming animation on Facebook.  It covers the period between January 1st and June 30th, 2020, and it uses visuals and sound effects in a simple but unsettling way.

We start, seemingly drifting somewhere in space above China (which is unnerving in itself, to tell you the truth). One screen corner shows the date, the other the number of deaths -- not case numbers, deaths; that's important. It starts at 0, of course, but once the numbers appear, it will change every four seconds.

For the first few seconds, we have silence, until the first death, sometime in January.  A beep sounds, and a red dot ripples out, like a pebble hitting calm water.

The beeps come closer together, as the circle morphs into what looks like an angry scarlet pustule -- as the Philippines, with a beep in a different tone, joins in, and we float backwards and outwards, so our view takes in all of Europe, as Iran, Italy, France, and Spain become inflamed rippling spots, all beeping on different notes.

By March 11th, the day the pandemic was declared (and the last day I shook anybody's hand), we're viewing a flat world map. European countries are obscured by red welts. 

On March 16th, Canada gets a scarlet circle. That was the day that Sophie Gregoire Trudeau was confirmed as a COVID case, and things began shutting down in Canada like a row of falling dominos. 

By April 12th, the day elder daughter came from Hades to shelter with us in Victoria, the Canadian circle is large, and the United States is pulsing angrily. 

And so it goes to June 30th, spreading and spreading, the mingled beeps becoming a cacophony, as I compare my own personal timeline - I've kept one while all this has been happening. 

I understand there will be an update covering July 1st to December 31st. 

 I can hardly wait. 

Will younger daughter fill in her 2021 calendar with anguished repeating words, flashing like an alarm clock?  To her, it seems it will never end.  I can't convince her otherwise.

Some walk in the hollow

Back in the days when I had very small children and no computer, I'd huddle next to the radio speakers on cold Saturday evenings - our house was over a century old and very difficult to heat - and listen to A Prairie Home Companion, beaming over the border from the PBS feed at the University of Washington.    

One of the guests was a folk guitarist named Martin Simpson, singing a lyrical elegy on the tragedy of Icarus. I was in the habit of taping the show, and I listened and listened to this heartbreakingly beautiful song. 

Not long afterward, Martin Simpson himself was scheduled to give a concert at Camosun College, but it would be a long, dark bus ride there and back, with the complications of arranging child-care, and I lost heart. 

I also forgot, over the years, how the song went, and who the musician was, and even after I acquired a computer, I was unable to retrieve the memory. 

A few weeks ago, Spotify sent me its weekly offerings of algorithmic suggestions, and while listening to it, I recognized Martin Simpson's unmistakeable voice. Spotify also offers playlists of individual artists, so I checked the one for him. 

And there it was. Not only that, I found a YouTube recording, something that has eluded me for years. 

The song itself is the work of Welsh songwriter Anne Lister.  

I never wanted to fly high. 

I was too fond of walking 

So when you said you'd touch the sky 

I thought it was your way of talking 

And then you said you'd build some wings 

You'd found out how it could be done 

But I was doubtful of everything 

I never thought you'd reach the sun 

You were so clever with your hands 

I'd watch you for hours 

With the glue and rubber bands 

The feathers and the lace and flowers 

And the finished wings glowed so bright 

Like some bird of glory  

I began to envy you your flight 

Like some old hero's story 

You tried to get me to go with you 

You tried all ways to dare me 

But I looked at the sky so blue 

I thought the height would scare me 

But I carried your wings for you 

Up the path and to the cliff face 

Kissed you goodbye and watched your eyes 

Already bright with sunlight 

It was so grand at the start 

To watch you soaring higher 

There was a pain deep in my heart 

Your wings seemed tipped with fire 

Like some seagull or a lark 

Soaring forever 

Or some ember or a spark 

Drifting from Earth to Heaven 

Then I believed all that you'd said 

I believed all that you'd told me 

You'd do a thing no man had ever done 

You'd touch the stars to please me 

And then I saw your wide wings fail 

Saw your feathers falter 

And watched you drop like a ball of gold 

Into the wide green water 

Now some are born to fly high 

Some are born to follow 

Some are born to touch the sky 

And some walk in the hollow 

But as I watched your body fall 

I knew that really you had won 

For your grave was not the earth 

But the reflection of the sun