Monday Morning Musings

Posted on October 12, 2020 under Monday Morning Musings with one comment

Thanksgiving rocks!

 

“If you can’t be, with the one (s) you love, love the one (s) you’re with.”

Love The One You’re With – Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Thanksgiving.

Giving thanks.

Yes. It is that time of the year when we stop for a few moments, somewhere between the main course and dessert, and ponder our good fortune. This is a Thanksgiving Day like no other in recent memory. At a time when mingling with family and friends is the focal point of the holiday, we are been urged in some provinces, begged in others and even mandated by a few, to stay home and keep away from others. It just doesn’t seem right.

Covid has interrupted the flow of life in so many ways. Some of my readers lived through the Great Depression. They understand hard times. They couldn’t get take out food  or groceries delivered to their doors. They couldn’t sit in the comfort of their homes and stream movies. No. They were scratching and clawing to simply survive. These same readers also lived through WW11. For these people, Covid places a distant third in terms of life altering events.

Some would call this “perspective”.

I was speaking to one of my daughters on the weekend. She asked me how things were going, my plans for this holiday, and for Christmas. She even asked me to gaze into my crystal ball and look a year down the road. Never in my lifetime has it been so difficult, if not impossible, to make plans any time in the future.

While I would love to have been home today with my family, that simply wasn’t an option, but I can assure you that I haven’t been hard done by. I had Thanksgiving dinner this past weekend along with some social events, with colleagues from work. Christmas looms and will be tricky for anyone planning to travel elsewhere. If the Atlantic Bubble stays in place, going back to N.S. is not a great idea. Self- isolating for another two weeks with a two- foot artificial tree probably wouldn’t fill my heart with the joy of the season. Only a fleeting appearance from Santa would break the monotony. If I travel somewhere else in Canada (Victoria is at the top of my list), I face the prospect of yet another quarantine when I return to Northern Quebec unless the long awaited miracle touted by POTUS appears on the scene and Covid is eradicated along with poverty and greenhouse gases. And racial discrimination.

Plan C might entail spending Christmas right here in my newly adopted home. It would be very interesting to witness some new Christmas traditions. A polar bear dip may be something with a very different connotation than the New Year’s Day plunge in the icy Atlantic! I spent one Christmas in India in 35 degree heat. I might as well add a -35 to the tally.

Long range planning is even more precarious. It’s hard to imagine what things will look like next summer.

Only one thing is certain as far as I can tell. With good health, anything is possible. With poor health, a person’s choices become very limited. I believe we would all do well to try our best to stay physically, mentally and psychologically well until a vaccine is found and we can return to some form of normalcy.

This will not be easy, but neither was fighting in the trenches or riding the rails looking for food during the Depression.

More than ever, we need friends and lovers. We need to lean on each other and pick each other up when spirits are flagging. We need to reach out and touch someone even if it’s only virtual. We need to be especially attentive to those who suffer from mental illness and loneliness. These twin evils (evil twins) often occupy the same space.

If you feel grateful, articulate this. Show your gratefulness by doing something for someone else today and every day.

Be kind. Be gentle.

Be giving. Be thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S. I know many of you have been waiting anxiously (?!) to hear the latest chapter in my telephone saga. I received an actual bill from my service provider. I have an actual account and they are threatening to take an actual payment from my bank account any day now. Thanks Ma Bell!

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