Four walls around me

We had a disaster in January.

Not fatal, not tragic, but it may take me some time to go into it, to touch where it hurts.

But this morning, this song turned up on my YouTube feed.  It's not new, but in that way that life has, the lyrics have changed their meaning for me.

I sat in front of the computer and sniffled a little.

You might, too.

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?