Covid-19 (Day 31 of Self-Isolation)

Our prime minister, Justin Trudeau. And this is how I feel today.

The thing about being an elder is one can't let one's honest feelings out, right?

We're supposed to be strong and wise with the mellow of our years wearing a lean on me countenance at all times.

But that inner four year old resides within. And boy does she come out now and again. The impatience, the judgement, the no-one cares.

Today is such a day.

So I am throwing it out there. Easter Sunday.

Easter Sunday is the old pagan feast of Oestra, honouring Ishtar, the goddess of fertility and sex. My childhood religion, long thrown to the curb by moi, caught the fertility of the Oestra part but missed out completely on the sex unless it was their evil preaching hypocritical representatives stealing the spirits of innocent children, but I digress.

I am aware my world has completely shrunk, not that it was very large before, but now it is minuscule so I tend to obsess on unimportant stuff. Like tasks to be completed but then neglected. So I need to carve off some unpleasant wee tasks and just do them.

Many out here on the Edge are not gifted with a grasp of the seriousness of this pandemic and since their only hobby may be shopping and wandering aimlessly, indulge in that to the jeopardy of everyone else. I've been offered take out ("like a burger?"), etc, from these happy wanderers, oblivious to their own behaviours and its effect on their neighbours. They get very upset if questioned on how they are picking up such foods and I feel foolish for having prepped little care packages for them under the delusion of their following the isolating rules along with me. One took my gift of a hand knitted mask (not transmission approved, I view it merely as a warning to stay the eff away from me if I have to go in the halls for laundry or pickup) as permission to shop freely now.

So my isolation leads to despair and feeling quite solitary in my persistence of paying attention to all recommendations and wishing there were some real enforcement of them. I honestly believe we ain't seen nothing yet in the spread of this nightmare.
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Pretty hand knitted masks, (more material can be inserted in the inside pocket). They are merely a signal and protection of others from one's sneezes, etc., but most of all a reminder not to touch our faces.

May the goddess, Ishtar, be good to all of you today.

Emerging into Easter

I think we all need this. To be under the weather with all that entails, low energy, hacking, spewing, wondering where the hell so much moisture comes from, swigging cough medicine, Kleenex boxes the main decor in every room and avoiding all human contact. Many books, bits of knitting, Netflix, piles of unwashed dishes, a table so disorganized as to constitute a safety hazard.

And then today. It's like a cocoon has gently split and I emerge and put on some music and take a shower and change the sheets and catch up on a bit of knitting and open my windows and realize after a few hours that hey, I haven't coughed once.

And life looks sunny once more and if I could find some human company, I won't quite seek it mind you, but hey if I ran across it I might actually socialize. But meanwhile it's a walk by the lake and a drool at the dog park.

And my favourite Easter hymn to soothe you. I would sing this back in the day in a choir in my home city.

Our Lovely Humanity

It's never the perfect dinner parties I remember. You know, where everything is just so. Everything matching, flowers at attention, napkins crisp and clean and even, linen spotless, best silver aligned.

No. it's the wee touches of carelessness. Something the host/hostess forgot to put away or got thrown in a corner to be dealt with later just when the oven beeped.

I am included in these family get-togethers at friends of mine. All festive occasions. Between this couple they have 13 siblings plus their partners (or not), plus cousins and in-laws. I find it hard to talk about it without crying. Happy tears I should add as this huge family reminds me so much of my own when we all pile in together. And by now I'm like this stray sister as they tease me and ball-hop me to a huge degree. Acceptance.

And the food is awesome, this afternoon and into the evening it was all kinds of fish. Fresh crab, a clam chowder that would make you groan in pleasure, fresh cod, brewis, fish cakes and fresh baked rolls. And scrunchions. I don't eat desserts by choice but the selection would make you weep. Layered trifle in a huge bowl, 7 cup pudding with rum sauce, this fancy cinnamon roll that comes out like a swiss roll. And enough to feed hundreds. And masses of tulips and daffodils in jugs and vases everywhere.

The craic was 90, as my people say. But it was when I was in the bathroom that I smiled and felt so touched. We've all had these little slips, these forgetfullnesses. Like leaving the big tube of haemorrhoid cream beside the sink. I'll admit to walking around my own dining room serving guests with a trail of toilet paper floating behind me.

And them? Neatly arranged on three hooks at the back of their bathroom door were his underpants, her knickers and her bra.

Happy season of renewal and rebirth and re-invigoration to you all.

Taint

taint


/tānt/

Noun

A trace of a bad or undesirable quality or substance: "the taint of corruption".

Verb

Contaminate or pollute (something).

Synonyms


noun.

stain - blemish - blot - spot - smirch - smear - smudge

verb.

contaminate - pollute - spoil - corrupt - foul - infect

I was posting a link on FB to an article I wrote years ago. About Easter and Tenebrae and the old Irish traditions around this time, like my granny looking at the sun reflected in a mirror in an eastern window of her house to tell the future.

All the awe and mystery and ceremonies and darkness of Easter week. Like my mother hauling me outside on Easter Sunday to watch the sun dance 3 times, even it was only in our imaginations.

And now I find it is all tainted (the only word that came to my mind) with the shadowed abuses and perversions that were taking place just about everywhere the Catholic Church had stretched its obscene tentacles.

And I can't help but imagine what was going on behind the scenes in all the churches and convents and cathedrals and schools and hospitals and orphanages I was in, so many children suffering with no one to hear their anguish apart from their paedophiliac abusers.

Thank you RC church. For destroying my memories and those of so many others. And the lives of all you abused and tried to conceal with the help of your Vatican Overlords. May you all rot in hell, if there`s such a place, which I doubt, you corrupt, evil and perverted institution.