Valentine's Day

A day of love and massacres.  I find myself somewhere between the extremes; although if it weren't for the flowers the kids brought me when they came over for dinner last night, I'd be tilting toward the latter.  I'm still sick, haven't skied in twelve days and hardly have the energy to care.  What a lone lorn creature I am.  Miche was supposed to arrive for a week of skiing today.  I'm sorry she had to cancel her trip, but it's for the best because I still don't have the umph to ski and the weather forecast is for warming and rain all week.  There aren't even any cheery birds at the feeder, just a hunched up, dun-coloured wren with her back to me.

And Alaa just phoned to say her husband is sick so she won't be able to meet me for class.  We had a laugh last week.  I discovered that she can neither hear the distinction between 'b' and 'p' nor make it.  Her determined efforts brought us nearly to tears.  I thought of using a piece of paper between my lips to illustrate the difference between the breathy 'p' and the deep and breathless 'b' but the paper stuck to my lips.  We laughed so hard at that that everyone in the lobby of the Rec. Centre turned our way.  Today I was going to arrive with a feather that I have tested; it flutters out quite well.  Oh, well, next week.

My activity has been limited to walking, mostly to and from Tai Chi.  I decided to commit to it at an opportune moment; I don't have the energy for anything else. This Saturday I attended the three hour special session with a teacher who comes here from Penticton about once a month.  The instructors frequently refer in reverential tones to him, his classes and the fine points of positioning he has them work on.  From this I got the impression that either they were excessively awed acolytes or he was a piece of the real cross.  After one session I can't decide.  He definitely looks like the real thing, an elderly, lean oriental with an impeccably trimmed white beard.  That alone will bring me back for another look even though I sometimes got the impression that he derived subtle pleasure from watching his class of mostly occidental people furrow their brows and contort their bodies trying to duplicate the positions that after lengthy explanations he demonstrated and then tossed off with an enigmatic expression and a comment that it's 'natural', knowing full well that our desperate attempts to do everything right would doom us to being graceless, awkward and risible.  Even Sarah, my first teacher, who always seemed to flow like water when we did the set in our classes seemed to have been frozen into angular shards after being the focus of his meticulous attention. 

The tulips from the kids give hope of spring to come. 

Another flash of colour. 

I enjoyed reading Doug Saunders' piece in 'The Globe',one of my favourite sources of fake news, this Saturday.