230523 "The moment was gone."

 May 23

Eddy Izzard: You may know him. He is a comedian, out of Britain. I first encountered him in Glastonbury at my cousin's house. My cousin's house was four hundred years old, flagged with great slabs of black - was it some sort of slate? The walls were several feet thick, of some sort of plastery cement. Windows were tunnelled through to the outside. The door tipped one straight onto the street. My cousin played us a video, in the days of VCR machines, and I was an instant fan. That was twenty five years ago. I saw him, Izzard, live, recently (well, sometime, just before the pandemic), in Toronto and I absolutely fell in love, though I loved him already. Izzard draws out the humour in grocery stores and the universe. But he never uses racially hurtful material, never sexist,"aren't women a drag?". On the contrary he promotes peace and inclusivity, and shares his love of the sciences and of history, humanity. 

Stan Rogers: I have known of Stan Rogers less than a week, introduced by a facebook friend. His music fits into my head like a virus into a cell. I am chagrined, is that a verb? I am chagrined that I have not grown up with this musician. But (!), perhaps I have. His voice comes through Gordon Lightfoot's music. He has a perfect, lovely singing voice and an amazing poet's voice too, taking the fabric of folk songs and Canadian lore and weaving songs that sound like they were born of the Canadian persona. He reminds me of Phil Ochs, whose voice is amazing in its perfect sound, like Ochs in his originality and creativity, as well.

*****

Birders will perhaps connect with this: that every year I have to re-learn the birds and flowers. Does the knowledge ever stick and last the winter? It is true that in the middle of a cold week in January it is impossible to remember what it is like to stand outside in a t-shirt, and that it is equally impossible to imagine, on a summer day, the air cold and a coat and warm hat must be had. When a grey sky after several days becomes normal and then the sun shines - oh! that is new and lovely! It was the same for me in the swamp of depression, to be unable to remember, to envisage, the solid ground of mental health. Conversely, the swamp was unfathomable in the coloured assurance of happy competence. On the other hand is the expression, "like riding a bike", which suggests, and which my own experience confirms, remains a skill always with you. It is, then, the mental that is ephemeral. In LeGuin's  The Dispossessed, the protagonist, a physicist, after many years' work, has developed a unified theory of time and relativity and he sees it, but even as he is seeing it, it begins to run out of his mental grasp. *

"The moment was gone; he saw it going. He did not try to hold on to it." (Chapter 9). Perhaps that last sentence is key. One should not try to hold on to a state of mind or an idea; once there it will be there again, when needed. In this way, I could try to let a depressed mood be and let peace and self-confidence run away for a while. I could move ahead, do all the things that need doing, live day by day, and know that solid ground will return. Why is that hard to trust in? Why does it scare me and worry me?

******

I have begun to reconnect with the hill, its flora, pathways and rock knuckles bare on the forest floor. It is helpful and soothing, when I am harried by worries and burdens of the future. Today in the sun, I was able to draw hope from the infinite that is the universe, that is the diamond at the heart of me. This sounds like magical thinking, but I think that there is something in the wide, wide universe and in the spark of life in a seed. 

*****

Blue cohosh, used in herbal and indigenous medicine, has tiny unremarkable flowers, much less noticeable that the dark purple of the early spring leaves. I missed the early growth this year, arriving here after the purple had faded to the dark green of summer, but last year I missed the flowers, with the other spring blooms so bright. 

A yearly remark, that the red trillium is common here, while in southern Ontario whose woods I am familiar with, the white trillium is the norm and the red is rare indeed. 

This year I am treated to the painted trillium! 

This is foam flower, a prosaic name: it should be called "fairy wedding flower". 

Squirrel corn is a bleeding heart relative. 

Crinkleroot has not attracted my notice before this year, perhaps because it is so unassuming, or uncommon, or because at a glance it is a tallish white violet. But its four petals are unusual and its flower is bigger than the white violet, which is quite tiny, though the plant itself is taller than some violets. The crinkleroot is much taller than any violet at 12 to 15 inches.

The apples are in blossom. Standing under the trees you can hear the buzzing of dozens of bumblebees. 

This is the jack-in-the-pulpit. Mostly green with its flower parts hooded, it blends into the undergrowth and goes almost unnoticed at first. I rarely saw it in Ontario, but it grows here in particular niches, two or three in an area: I love to see it! 

Velociraptor! 

*****

Rocky is calm and content here. Like most dogs, he considers it a job and a privilege to sit, alert, and guard the house. 

I often leave Rocky at home, now, when I am going to town. He doesn't like it much but I hope he can understand. On a cloudy day (so, not hot in the car) last week I invited him along and he jumped into the car gratefully and settled for a little nap as we headed to town. He was completely unanxious when I returned from shopping and turned casual eyes to me before lying down again. 

He does not like the rain and curls up to sleep the afternoon away rather than urge me out for a walk. 

*****

The World Health Organization has declared that the covid pandemic is over. It is as if everyone got tired of it and wants to go back to life as it was. Except that ship has sailed. The inequalities of society have been more blatantly exposed, inflation has exploded and does not seem to be slowing, health care is broken and democracy is on the wane before it even came into its own. People are getting covid at rates as high or higher than in the first year, but they are not getting so ill, because of the vaccines. Yet the scientists know that even if the initial infection was mild, this nasty virus can leave long-lasting damage behind, as it attacks not just the respiratory system, but any other organ that it might migrate to. I fear that we will be living with post-covid ailments for generations. I want to go back to life as it was, too, but we can't. There is so much that was broken. I wish that we could re-build anew, bring fresh eyes to the future. 

Mumma Yaga

Ursula K. LeGuin, The Dispossessed.