Everything Breaks

First the watch stopped keeping time. 

You ordered a new one but it wasn't a priority item, so it would take over a month to ship. Time didn't seem to matter most days anyway so you just got used to never knowing the hour or even the day.

Then it was the "n" on the keyboard. It just stopped working. Funny how often you use the letter “n”. But the Apple store was closed so what could you do. The laptop seemed almost useless now. 

"You don't know what you got till it's gone," played in your head.

Then the dishwasher stopped on one cycle, re-setting itself when it got down to "0". Then it just stopped altogether. Finally your husband reached the helpful local appliance guy over the phone. He said the machine wasn't worth fixing. You needed to buy a new one. He said they were easy to install by yourself but you knew you couldn't. So you started washing the dishes by hand. It was weirdly satisfying, your hands in the hot water, the grease and food residue disappearing in the suds. Like you were cleansing more than the plates and bowls. Something you could DO. Something tangible and familiar in the face of so many unknowns. 

"It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine” was your soundtrack those days.

You had to cancel your trip to meet your daughter and son-in-law. Would you get a refund? Right now, that seemed like the least of your worries. You just wanted to be safe. You wanted your family to be safe. Even if it meant you couldn’t see them.  

Morrisey’s “I Will See You in Far-Off Places” kept running through your head.

Things started running out in the stores. Toilet paper. Hand sanitizer. Flour. Yeast. Eggs. Beans. Pasta.  Things you couldn't predict. The outbreaks at meat packing plants caused shutdowns in production. And there was no accounting for what people were hoarding. It was like people were going back to their pioneer roots but without being self-sufficient and suddenly you realized how not self-sufficient you really were. How dependent you were on people you don’t even know just to get through every day. 

The internet was slow. Other times it was the cell service- your life-lines with the world.

People all around out of work, living off savings and credit cards and loans and government promises. First it was no one you knew, and then it was.

And still the COVID-19 numbers were moving up and up. First creeping and then ballooning and there was nothing to do but watch and wait and hope. Hope that people would follow the instructions. That there would be a vaccine. That science would win before someone you knew died. You avoided the elderly and your own family and friends and for a long time, it was no one you knew who got sick. And then it was. 

Nat King Cole’s “Smile” was your theme song. Because you tried to smile, even though it felt like everything was breaking, including your heart.

You prayed those tax dollars would hold up and that single payer public health care system you believed in would be enough to save you. That the "economy" would hold. That property values wouldn’t collapse. That decades of savings would not be wiped out. That already high rates of inequality wouldn’t lead to greater disparity. In your heart, you knew that wasn’t true.

Flatten the curve, you were told. Social isolation. Herd immunity. Physical distancing. The r-factor. New terms you tried to learn. New rules you tried to follow, counter intuitive as they seemed. Science you tried to understand. 

The one thing you did understand was the fear.  Fear that someone you loved would fall ill and there would be nothing you could do to help. That they would die alone and all you could do was weep. Fear for yourself. Fear for those with mental illness. Fear your country would be the next Italy. 

In the middle of it, conspiracy theories. That China deliberately planted the virus to dominate the global economy. That your government was trying to screw you over. That your rights were being stripped away. People wanted someone to blame. They wanted to be angry. Because anger somehow felt more productive than fear.

You watched the news from south of the border. Lineups for food banks. The homeless sleeping in parking lots. Armed people on the steps of the legislature, demanding their “freedoms”. Demanding an end to the lockdown so they could get their hair cut and walk on the beach, regardless of who they infected, including themselves. “Give me liberty or give me death,” they said and where would that end? Then the news that the sale of guns and ammo was at an all-time high. You were afraid there would be some kind of anarchy. A fear that had you wishing you had been in that line up for a gun at Cabela’s before it got shut down. Fear you would be the next U.S.

Fred Eaglesmith’s “Time to Get a Gun” started playing in your head.

Your Special Day

Yesterday was my birthday.

All things considered, it was a pretty good day. I talked to all my kids and a few other relatives. I got many warm wishes over Facebook. Some cookies and homemade face masks were dropped off at my house by a friend. My husband made French toast for breakfast, barbecued steaks, made a cake and somehow even managed to procure gifts. Pretty good considering we’re stuck here with three feet of snow outside in the middle of a pandemic. It doesn’t compare to last year when the world was good and three kids were all in the same place at the same time and we went out for cocktails and dinner, but people made an effort to make me happy and it was appreciated.

Birthdays are funny things. No one asked to be born, yet we honour their existence with greetings and gifts on that one day. That one day when we are encouraged to be self indulgent, to celebrate our own uniqueness, rather than thinking about others.

I think back on the birthdays of long ago, those many birthdays of my childhood, a childhood where birthdays were big events thanks mostly to my mom. I try to find meaning. 

I am sure if she had been born in a different era, Mom would have been a career woman but she was a 1960s mom who put all her energies into home and community and family. She loved big projects and entertaining. She included everyone in these events. I wonder now if she had ever been excluded herself in her own childhood. Or if growing up in the depression  made her more aware of the suffering of others. She never talked about it, but I wonder. Or perhaps as a teacher in a series of small towns, she had seen the pain that exclusion caused. Or maybe that was just who she was. Whatever the reason, Mom insisted that every girl in my class got invited to my big day. She spent weeks experimenting with crafts and games and cooking and making goody bags and always seemed to pull off the big event effortlessly.  I know she wanted me to feel special and I did. And she wanted to be a good hostess by making all her guests feel welcome. These parties caused me stress. I was the centre of attention, something I have never enjoyed. I was a quiet introverted kid who mostly lived in a magical world of my own imagination and big crowds made me anxious.

Grade two me.

In grade two there were 42 kids in our class, half girls, and they were all invited to my birthday. Mom went all out. Goody bags were paper lunch bags decorated with bunny faces and bunny ears. Cookies were little nests of dough rolled in coconut and filled with jellybean eggs. Crafts were making our own decoupage brooches out of photos cut from magazines. I had a new dress for the day. 

Me with my best friends Patti and Vivianne

It was spring, most of the snow had melted, and I was on my way back to school after lunch on party day when I was suddenly gripped by such stomach pains I had to lie down on the side of the road-it was pure nerves. Eventually I dragged my way back home where I was put promptly to bed before the party.  On any other day, after school activities would have been cancelled. You don’t go to school, you don’t do anything else.  But 20-plus little girls were coming to a party, so the party was going to happen.

And so it proceeded. A lot of running around. A cake shaped like a castle. So many presents. Colouring books and crayons and paper dolls. Girls I barely knew dressed in their party dresses, standing awkwardly with other girls. Shy girls, poor girls, farm girls, daughters of engineers and teachers and truck drivers and the unemployed- I guess. I didn’t think about that back then. I didn’t know unemployment or poverty existed. All I knew was that I was at the centre of things and I didn’t much like it. I was supposed to be friends with kids I didn’t even know. I was eight. It was supposed to be all about me. And it wasn’t about me at all.

Girls and cake

It’s something I look back on and wonder about. I wonder what my mom was thinking. I know my grade three party was a lot smaller. And I think about how the most powerful lessons in life are not necessarily the intended lessons. My mom probably learned something about me that she didn’t know. I learned something about her. I also learned a little bit about what it means to be a hostess. Mostly what I learned was that nothing is ever all about you. Not really. Even when you want it to be.

Nothing.

As my big day unfolded yesterday, I read about impossible situations in our province, country, continent and globe. Layoffs and shortages and homelessness. Uncertainty. Homelessness. Hunger. Fear.

As I celebrated being me, I watched the coronavirus numbers tick ever upward, so many infected and the dying here in my own province and in the world at large. Almost impossible to imagine as I sit here in my comfortable house in my little town.

Every day we all go about our business, trying to fill our time, thinking about our minor inconveniences and our larger struggles but underneath it all, we wonder where things will end up when all is said and done. What will the world look like? How many will die? How will we live?

Yesterday was my birthday. It was full of well-wishes and phone calls and gifts and doing whatever I wanted. But it wasn’t just about me. It never is. Ticking away in the background is always injustice and inequality and uncertainty and people trying to make things better.

It’s a lesson that has taken me a long time to learn.

Thanks Mom.