One Small Bite

Simultaneous coincidental gifts (one by mail) of some marvellous dark roast coffee beans from two loved ones yesterday. One is called "Toothless Shark" out of Nova Scotia, the other "Roma" out of Italy.

This is one of the toughest lessons of my life. Not that I haven't had tough lessons in the past. When you begin training for a walk around the block when you're carrying massive extra poundage and graduate to a marathon a couple of years later, there's some serious learning curve in there. And I did that.

So sitting down and reflecting and bemoaning the fact that I have only two speeds - full tilt and reverse - I decided to map out my days differently. Into tiny bites, not tubs.

So if I have, say, a grocery pickup, the dishes can lie down for a while, the library can wait. Groceries require carting a huge distance with my trolley in tow and then need putting away. Action for the day is done just with that. I am wiped.

If I am visiting or going out, showering is enough. The bed can stay unmade that day. Who's to see it? Also dishes can continue to lie, they are going nowhere.

I am such a MORE person, always tweaking more out of life. This has to stop. I can't cheat my limitations and meddle with my mental health and outlook.

Today I managed some work and a Zoom meeting which I hosted and doing up dishes. End of. No more.

It was ENOUGH.

I am fortunate in that I have meals for 3 days in the fridge and more in my freezer.

An enormous sense of relief descended over me when I realized that I was fooling myself badly with the amount of energy I thought I had and the pathetically little standing I can manage.

It was playing havoc with my outlook. If I have to take the garbage out - this is a ginormous trek - that's it for action for the day. No going on to visit or a side trip somewhere.

It's ENOUGH.

A belated wee birthday party for me yesterday evening.

A New Life

A photo of my beautiful city, St. John's, Newfoundland.

The skin of all this politicism and activism has peeled off me and I am as newly re-birthed.

I am no longer gripped by Facecloth and all its doings or Twister and its evil manifestations and counterpoints scored and activists removed without apology if they don't toe whatever is the party line of the day.

I honestly don't care.

One thing still lingers in that tomorrow the newspaper is publishing what I wrote in my fit of disdain on the weekend and tossed off in a blast of the last volcano ashes of the rage I was feeling. That should bring out the pitchforks for me. But a staff member did call me today and assured me that, contrary to all Twister and Facecloth feeds, the journalist in question had not been fired but as personal threats had been made on him and his family he chose to fade into the background of other responsibilities within the newspaper's framework. Par for the course here, I have been attacked for speaking my truth and I fully anticipate this will happen tomorrow when the paper hits the stands or the devices. Negative opinions are not tolerated here. Critical thinking is unheard of and everyone knows someone employed by government. The smallness of the place can be such a negative. The record breaking show "Come From Away" tells one side only. There is a darker side. As there is in all places.

Enough on that.

The novel I am working on has come to life marvelously well. There is so much time to reflect on it and sit and be still and play music and think and reflect some more. I no longer have distractions so I can place myself in sixties Toronto and breathe in the aroma of that narrow wood paneled coffee nook with the huge spitting urns and the fresh pastries stationed in the lobby of the building I worked in and say good morning to Brenda the elevator woman (called "girl" in those days) who wore white gloves and never smiled but nodded politely at all of us as she pushed her lever and only asked for visitors' floors as she knew us all and our landings. All day, she sat like a queen on her green leather stool.

Every morning at eleven, one of the servers in that standing room only coffee corner would wheel up a trolley in that very same elevator and bring coffee and tea around to all of us with real mugs and small plates, along with more pastries, and pick our detritus up an hour later. A silent, cheerless grey haired woman ("tea girl"). None of that British lovie-have-a-cuppa stuff in her. I did wonder if she was related to Brenda.

So there you have it.

As one of our wise ones commented "Enough".

I have taken it to heart.