The end of 'The West Commences'

For the past few days I've been thinking about sitting in the sunroom and writing my blog but I have not done it. Finally today I realized why. The west is no longer commencing. I have lived in Vernon for ten years, Jay, May and the girls have lived here, with me and in their own house, friends and family have visited me and I've made new friends. I'm here. 

Since the beginning of Covid, that's over a year ago now, I have been Kakaoing with Jay every evening and keeping in touch with distant family and friends in other virtual ways more than I did before this virus forced us into bubbles of various sizes, shapes and capacities to stretch. I started the blog to keep in touch and I'm doing that now more than I did when we could literally touch. I also wanted to create some kind of concrete proof that I was here. When you are alone after years of being with another it's a bit like being a helium balloon adrift with no string or anchor to keep you from blowing away, as Joni Mitchell said. There's no longer anyone there you can count on to confirm that things really happened. By writing down bits of my life I seemed to be anchoring them, making them real and maybe even meaningful. But I've lived in Vernon for over ten years now. I have real friends. I have a life. And my distant family and friends seem almost closer now that everyone is really separated by the virus and at the same time virtually united by it. 

I have not touched another person since March 14, 2020. That's hard to believe. And yet I can't say I really even mind that. I was never one to hug people in greeting. But I have wanted to put my arms around someone once in a while: if I see Jay on a Kakao video or a friend I haven't seen in a long time either virtually or in real life. The expression 'virtual reality' used to seem laughably oxymoronic to me, but in the last year it has become a fairly accurate way of describing much of my life. But as I do real things like: walk, bike, kayak, have dinner (outside except with Mo and John and MIriam and Bill) with real people almost once a day, my life goes on in a way I cannot complain about at all. And the virtual connections with Jay and distant family and friends are almost as good as the real thing. The operative word of course is almost. I'm too old for virtual reality to ever be able to create a whole world for me, but in this time of Covid it has augmented what would have otherwise been a bleak time of no touch and few contacts. 

The first rose of summer 2021

Nature carries on into the real world of 2021 in Gardom Lake

Indigenous humour lives on. This sign which I saw when biking through the First Nations Reserve near Enderby reminded me of Ron Noganosh. 

The sky is blue

The sun is dappling every surface in the sun room where I'm now relaxing. 

The washing machine toiled away at the laundry while I stretched and crunched through physiotherapy exercises and some new isometric exercises that Jay suggested I try after I told him that I had not been able to do a push up the other day. My legs are strong but my arms ain't. However, I should be able to do a few push ups, at least from the knees. 

Jay's image of me lifting weights 

I hung the laundry on the line outside for the first time in 2021.

Albert and Caroline bought and installed that line for me when they stayed here a few years ago. I have enjoyed using it ever since. Fortunately the the horse chestnut tree is almost fully in leaf so I don't think my new back neighbour, her son and male friend were able to see me. I hope not because I was wearing my pyjamas. I still jsometimes forget that I have neighbours who might see me when I'm out in the yard. I've never been a quick study. Anyway, one of the things that I like about living on this street is the contact I have with young neighbours and their children who visit me and play with some of Jay's old toys. So maybe I'm just doing my part by being the elder ( I prefer that to old lady) who entertains them in her turn by wandering around the yard in whatever she happens to be wearing. 

My laundry. It's a long way from meeting the standards that Miche told me the women of Hull were held to when she was young. 

Since I bought my inflatable kayak about six years ago, I have always launched it in May in the Gorge near Terry and Barbara's.  Sadly, Barbara is no longer with us. I miss her. Terry and I have kept in touch through email, and he invited me to visit and stay in the flat this May, which I was going to do until Bonnie Henry lowered the boom. BC residents are not allowed to leave their health district unless absolutely necessary until the end of May. The police are enforcing the mandate with stops on major routes between health regions. The one that would get me is at Boston Bar on the Coquihalla. So l will be inflating the kayak for the first time in 2021 on the shores of Swan Lake tomorrow. Since I bought it, four women I know have bought them. We plan to try different lakes in the area this summer. 

Llamas we biked by the other day

Throw open the windows!

Today was brilliantly sunny and the temperature rose to 24c. For the first time this year it was warmer outside than in, so I threw open the windows in the afternoon. But it's still dry. The established trees and shrubs are fine, but I have watered things I planted last year twice already. 

Miriam and I had a good walk along the Grey Canal above  Bellavista this morning. The hills were decorated with bouquets of bright yellow Arrowleaf Balsam Root. 

On Monday and Thursday I went bike riding with the VOC in Lake Country. A woman on one of the rides told me that it's the fastest growing industrial and residential area in Canada. I can believe it. When we visited Jim's parents in Kelowna in the 80s and 90s, it was called Winfield and the only reason Jules drove the single lane highway there was to buy the cheapest gas in the Okanagan. Now there's a two and in places three lane highway between Kelowna and Vernon, and right in the middle is Lake Country with a huge industrial park, hundreds of big new homes and many thriving wineries. The industrial park is fascinating to bike through, if you like looking at construction sites, the preparation of marijuana growing and processing plants and work sites in general, which I do. All this is hardly visible from the new highway which gives spectacular views of Wood Lake, Kal Lake, vineyards, orchards, hills and the whole north end of the Okanagan Valley. 

One of the impressive works of Indigenous art that have been installed along the Rail Trail that circles Wood Lake. 

Life for me in Covid times is revolving into a predictable round of doing physiotherapy exercises, walking, biking, reading, writing, practicing a bit of Spanish and trying to perfect a recipe for real juice and gelatine gummies that my neighbors' little girls will like and that I can eat to build up my bones so that I will pass the bone density test that I hope I will be able to get soon. My chances are slim, but I am trying to avoid having to take osteoporosis medication. This pandemic limits so much (travel, social life, work, play) that life seems almost static day to day.  But there seems to be a lot happening (socially,environmentally and politically) that is going to lead to real change on this planet. I'm inclined to wonder if it will be for the better, but that's probably because I'm too old to do much about it. Youth always seems to be able to take the world it's given and to have the energy to do whatever it deems necessary to grow and develop there. That has been the challenge for youth in every age, but (again it might be just because I'm old) the unconscionable gap between rich and poor people and countries, the inescapable threat of largely man made climate change and now the pandemic mean that young people today are going to have to swim against a current that is stronger than the one I was launched into. Everything springs into action each year and generation, but as you age and become more of a spectator in the great play it's hard to imagine where the energy comes from. One thing I'm pretty sure of is that it won't be from fossil fuels in the future. 🤪

Thanks to Jay and Nahlah  Ayed

The Bluetooth speaker Jay gave me and the CBC program 'Ideas', eased my way into this Sunday morning. I took an audio voyage from approximately 600CE to the present/future. Jay gave me the speaker just before he returned to Korea, and soon after that I downloaded the CBC Listen app. Since then I have used both to provide an alternative to the repetitive soundtrack of my mind while doing necessary tasks. 

This morning I did physiotherapy exercises first thing as usual; if I don't, there is little hope I will do them later in the day. 'Ideas' transported me back to Old English poetry via a programme, 'The First Good Poem in English'. I took one course in Old English at university, so had a limited introduction to 'The Wanderer', the poem referred to in the title. I was entertained so thoroughly that I frequently lost track of the only thing I have to do, keep count of repetitions. The scholars interviewed read extracts from the poem either in Old English or contemporary English and spoke of their interpretations of it or of the beauty of its language and alliterative style. It tells of an aged warrior, an exile lamenting the loss of his lord and land and the past. Most seemed to think that a few lines suggesting a Christian tone at the beginning and end of the elegy were probably added by the presumably Christian scribe when it was first written down in the Exeter Book long after it was originally composed. It's not a long poem, so I am going to read it again. The work of an aging poet who lived perhaps over twelve hundred years ago, an exile from the time, place and friends of youth, seems timeless and especially apt at this moment. 

Then as I made and ate breakfast I listened again to 'Ideas', the first of a series of CBC Massey Lectures from 2020 entitled, 'Look at that device in your hand.'  presented by Ron Deibert of Citizen Lab. It was Miriam who mentioned this particular series to me last Friday on our walk. She was a mathematician working for Irish Rail at the time when it was beginning to move into computer systems, a bit later but like the women in the movie 'Hidden Figures' who worked for NASA in the early 1960s. She was reminded as she listened to the series of how energized she had been by the fact that she was contributing to advances in technology that would eliminate some of the most boring and time consuming aspects of the running of an efficient railway system. Now she sees so many of the unintended consequences of these same advances, such as those pointed out in the 'Ideas' series. Her youthful enthusiasm has been thrown into question lately. I tried to assure her that the positive intended consequences can not be ignored. They allow me to travel in space every evening to S. Korea without leaving the house and in time from about the seventh century CE to 2021 between getting up and eating breakfast on an ordinary Sunday morning. 

A drawing of Jay done by one of his students last week

Aside from that, l'm reading a very good book, The Sum of Us, by Heather McGhee. It's a carefully researched and well written study of the roots and continuing growth of racism at the heart of the limited democracy that continues to struggle to survive in the USA. My back continues to improve, biking has started and I can walk farther all the time. I'm also waiting for rain. The forsythia and crocuses are starting to bloom, but things would be more colorful if we had a good rainfall. 

On Monday, March 29 at 11:50 I get the Covid 19 vaccination. Yahoo! 

Tomorrow will be March 15, 2021. 

Jay will turn 40. 🎂For me, his birth is a wonderful moment to celebrate. He and I have had good thumb chats this week. They are the anchor of my every evening. 

But this past week has also been a time to remember less joyous events: 

On March 11, 2010, Jim died. "What falls away is always and is near,"

On March 11, 2011, I was on O'ahu with Caroline when the Great Sendai Earthquake rocked Japan causing a tsunami, nuclear meltdown and thousands of deaths. Fortunately, the waves that hit O'ahu were not deadly. When we drove along the shore the next day, the only evidence of them that we saw was at the mouth of a small river where ocean water was rushing in, pushing the fresh water upstream in big waves. Kids were surfing up river. 

And on March 11, 2021, Canada acknowledged those who had died this past year from Covid 19. 

I no longer even think of trying to ski or snowshoe this winter. It's spring!! We moved the clocks forward one hour last night, there's no more snow on the ground in the valley and I seem to be able to walk farther and farther without much pain. 🤞 

Miriam and I this past Friday on the first CFUW hike of the season on the Rail Trail along the shore of Kal.Lake

Last week as I walked on Kin Beach, this young woman rode by. I was impressed by the statuesque formation she and her horse presented and surprised when she told me that she had got the horse as a rescue only a year ago and trained it herself. 

Lake Okanagan is ice free. 

The geese are floating gracefully again over its surface. 

Vernon continues with its plan to spend an outrageous amount of money to kill a few of them. Although the number has been increased from 150 to 250 it still strikes me as wasteful in every respect. 

On Friday I had my third appointment with the physiotherapist since November 26. I intended to make it the last because $80.00 a visit seemed steep; I don't have any health plan beyond the provincial one. Also the pain had certainly diminished but not gone away, and I was beginning to think that after three months the same would have been the case even without physiotherapy. I entered the office for this last appointment intending to carry on doing the exercises I had been given and going on ever longer walks. But as Monty Python said, "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition."  And that's exactly what I got from Carey. His explanation of how bones heal laid bare my uninformed assumptions, his outline of new exercises and his unexpected use of needles in my muscles combined with the fact that this time the fee was only $75.00 crushed every aspect of my argument against continuing. I am booked for another appointment in early April. 

I don't know if it's the pandemic, ageing, living alone, recovering from injury or an ultimate submission to the unrelenting media exposure to Covid, Covid , Covid with its contemporary tendency to dwell on individual emotional and psychological reactions to this overwhelming external reality, but I have never been so conscious of and spent so much time on my own physical, mental and emotional needs, wants or whatever. It's crept up on me slowly. At first I fought it, thinking this attention to self was unnecessary and self indulgent. But as I don't have much else to occupy my time I carry on doing physio exercises with intention, walking ever longer routes, cutting my hair with unwarranted care, applying cream to face and body, making changes in my wardrobe and home decor that I would never have even deemed necessary before, hovering over house plants, writing and reading and all manner of self centred pastimes. 

My newly reorganized sun room

I'm beginning to think that the importance attached to self care these days is often warranted because the stresses placed on family and work life in this uncertain time of pandemic must sometimes feel insurmountable for younger people. I suffer little of that, but old age no matter the historical period makes its demands on the body, mind and spirit. And maybe at its best caring for the self makes a person more aware of the necessity of care itself and hence of the need to help others whose cares are much greater than our own. 

The pandemic is forcing Canadians of my generation and following to question the delusion of control over our personal destinies that some of us have basked in during 75 years of peace and prosperity. We are now facing uncertainty as never before in our time. But people through the ages have had their complacency ruffled. Plague, drought, flood, famine, corrupt governments and wars have regularly forced human beings to rework their systems, to return to struggling together against the odds and even to endure mass migration. Now it's our time to be compelled to accept the tenuousness of our situation. Perhaps we will even learn to appreciate the much more dire case faced by millions of people around the world and do whatever we can to promote greater equality and more sustainable sources of energy at home and everywhere. I'm thinking again about Rutger Bregman and how influenced I was by his books, Utopia for Realistsand Humankind. I probably wouldn't have read either of them if it had not been for lockdown which has made me pay more attention to many things that I  previously would have thought I didn't have time for. What did I have time for?

There's always time fora laugh. An old poster on the wall of a coffee shop in Lake Country. We went there after a walk on the rail trail. 

Winter Carnival is over. 

It survived Covid 19, a Polar Vortex and some vandalism. Two of the ice sculptures were smashed two nights before it began, but a local who had worked with the specialists was able to partly repair one and the ice blocks of other, a cowboy on a rearing horse, were turned into a mini Boot Hill. Lynne and John Young picked me up on Wednesday evening to drive through Polson Park and look at them. It wasn't what Ed Sullivan would have called, "A Really Big Show!!!", but it was an admirable effort. The group organizing the carnival this year was an enthusiastic bunch. They deserve a lot of credit. I went for a walk in the park this Tuesday morning just in time to watch the wrecking crew level the sculptures. It would have been fun to watch them slowly melt but I guess the city was afraid of litigation if someone got crushed by a heavy block of ice.   

A night shot of one of the ice sculptures

The smashing of the train

Geese walking awkwardly on the glass flat ice of Lake Okanagan during last week's Polar Vortex freeze. The lake had been ice free until then. 

We had a bit of snow last night. When I woke this morning and looked outside it was sparkling in the sun. I couldn't resist going out to shovel for the first time this winter. Ama, a teenage neighbour has been doing it. She does a fine job, but is not given to early rising, so after I had finished, I phoned and told her mother not to rouse her early because I had done it myself this time. It was an easy shovel, but I was happy that my back didn't ache at all after. It was still sunny, so I went for another first in a long time. I walked to the Black Rock and back, still very little pain. Then at 1:00pm I went to sort books until 3:00. Wednesday's are busy days. 🤪

But I'm really encouraged because this is the most I've done in one day with the least pain since November 26. 

In keeping with the Covid forwarding of laughs, I end with one of the funniest I've received lately.