201201 Shake the Etch-a-sketch Upside Down

                                                                                                                     

Snow, snow! December the first and a winter storm. An excellent start to the season! How many of you have already cleared the driveway in true Canadian fashion? Shoveling the drive is a sacred ritual for us: I am always amazed and amused at the rush to unbury the cars and put the nasty winter genie back in its bottle. We must like it, the sense of small victory, overcoming nature. Snow-blowers are an even bigger thrill for some: machine against nature, the noise, the power, the gorgeous, even, powdery drifts in contrast to safe black asphalt.

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Here are the children in class. This is grade 3 for Indre, senior kindergarten for Robin, far outside the frame of normalcy but quite workable and the daily routine for these two.  Don't look at what's missing from "normal"; look at this as a different world. 

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The pandemic looked bad from the start, but we managed to "flatten the curve" and I thought we had tamed it. Now, however, since we let down our guard we have seen a massive resurgence of covid-19, surpassing even our worst numbers in the spring. We are at the beginning of winter so, with the holidays and people's reluctance to be careful, the infection rate, already out of control, will grow exponentially like a snowball tumbling down a hill, unstoppable. It has looked like a plague can't compete in a modern civilized world, but unless we take it very seriously we could get in too deep really fast. The US border isn't far away or impermeable, and Canada's caseload though better is not good. Most of the world is experiencing new or worsening waves of covid-19 and the world numbers sound very small but they are not slowing down. The words "post-pandemic" have popped up in the news this week but I think we need to rein it in and remind ourselves that though prudent planning is a good thing, we must put effort into getting through the pandemic safely so plans for the future will be achievable, so there will BE a post-pandemic world. Let go the status quo, "make a new plan, Stan"*, see everything as if for the first time, pilgrims on a new shore. Shake the etch-a-sketch up-side-down.

The year 2020 has seemed like a sci-fi novel from the start, its very number seeming futuristic to those of us who spent most of our lives in the twentieth century. I dreamed the other night about being somewhere where there was no covid-19, an alternate reality in which I described to the people there our pandemic world, masks and social isolation. Here it is, the end of a novel year for the whole world, a year in which,  as one, we joined in an experience, a fight, a fright, bigger and more unifying than anything seen before. We are still in the middle of it, a long way from an end. Let's stop running, rushing headlong into tomorrow, into next year, and rest, just breathe, while the snow falls. Unwrap Christmas from the ribbons and shiny paper, leave the champagne in the cellar and instead of blindly shopping, grabbing and rushing, go for walks in the snow, breathe, have a pajama day and watch old movies. Light a candle for sun-return and let the world sleep, let yourself sleep. Time will bring tomorrow to us, we don't have to do anything at all but breathe.

Keep safe. The sun will return. 

Thank you for visiting.

Mumma Yaga

* Paul Simon quoted.