Canada Day 2020

It's 16c. and cloudy in Vernon, the bleakest Canada Day I can remember, in the wettest spring in this part of BC since I moved here in 2010. Yesterday we had buckets of rain with even a bit of hail, and the forecast predicts more storms this afternoon and evening. But I'm warmly wrapped in a blanket in the sunless room, unbothered by the fact that my bike is still in the repair shop. I'm not missing any rides. As it's a Wednesday, my only outing was a walk around the very soggy Polson Park with Lusia followed by coffee at Ratio, my favourite coffee shop. I bought us each a celebratory maple cheesecake topped with a strawberry 🍓and two raspberries to accompany our Americanos. That brightened our Canada Day. 

People are turning to art in this time of Covid. I haven't progressed beyond Google collages, but I love making them, for the moment. Part of the attraction is the fact that once I opened the app, which had been on my screen unlooked at since Jay gave me the phone years ago, I discovered that it held all my old photos, which is probably why I finally had to break down a while ago and buy space in the cloud ☁️or rather gigantic bunker. I always delete most of my photos and assumed that by doing so I was sending them into the ether, but no. They cannot escape. Google is capturing them in its cloud. I couldn't understand why I was always getting messages telling me my space in the cloud was almost full. Finally I broke down. There's stuff on this iPhone I don't want to lose and I began to fear that one day without further notification the pearly gates would be slammed in my face and all would be lost. So now Google is withdrawing $1.35 from my VISA every month. It's beyond me, but the fear of exclusion was more real than anything the United Church of Canada was able to instill in me. As it turns out, I'm quite happy to access these banished photos. Now in my idle Covid times I am making collages from old photos I had forgotten about and new ones I haven't yet consigned to the concrete bunkers. 

The flowers were in the front yard this spring. The flag was in an email my high school friend Maggie sent me recently. The other is a photo I took of a painting by Mr. Brainwash that was in an exhibition called The Anthropocene that I went to when I was in Queretero, Mexico. "Follow your dreams" is an expression that has become a bit tired, but this painting made it jump to life for me. The graffiti artist ape has such a matter-of-fact expression on his face as he turns his head after completing the writing. I just loved it.