the beauty that still remains

It’s raining. 

I made the mistake of tuning into the Canadian Public Health news conference this morning at 10am to hear the projections… bad idea. I was already feeling blah - now the blah is compounded by freak out anxiety. I know things are bad and that unless we get a miracle, isolation is going to continue for a while yet… but I can sometimes ignore those facts. This morning I was hit on the head with reality as the most optimistic timeline is sometime in the summer to start easing physical distancing… 

Surreal.

Today is Vimy Ridge day… 100 years ago today so many Canadians sacrificed their lives to protect our freedoms. Most of us can’t even fathom the horror... self-isolation is a small thing.

    visiting Vimy Ridge with my grandfather in the summer of 1974

With tears threatening to prick behind my eyes I decided on a course of action: music and dancing. Carm disappeared into the basement while I flailed around trying to get Adia to dance with me. A handful of kibble makes me a more interesting dance partner, at least in her eyes. Would a bag of chips encourage Carm to dance with me? My spirits were lifted enough that I was no longer on the verge of drowning, but my heart wasn’t really in it.

Next try, after lunch, was to cajole Carm into lighting a fire. The warmth was nice, but lets just say it didn’t trigger me into hypo-mania… April has historically been a hard time for me and it seems that this year will be no different. I’ll have to work really hard to keep from slipping into a terrible place.

A trashy novel kept me slightly entertained in the afternoon as I curled up in front of the fire, until finally the rain let up and for a few lovely minutes the sun’s rays beamed down from the sky. Carm helped with some food prep - he’s the best at peeling and cubing a sweet potato - our supper was a montage of roasted vegetables done up in the actifry with a side of lemon garlic sauce for dipping.

Headline tonight: Canadian government is suggesting that distancing rules will be in place until summer. Over 466,546 cases, with 16,607 deaths in the US. There are a total of 20,765 (19,438 yesterday) cases of Covid-19 in Canada today, with 509 (427 yesterday) deaths to date.

“I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.”

~Anne Frank