Ten Days Later...

I hadn't realized it's been ten days since I posted. My goodness! I've been busy. Moved five cubic yards of stone (with Son #3's help). Weeded and weeded. Transplanted some stuff. Levelled off the hill around the composters and laid down landscape fabric and gravel. Finished planting the garden. Replanted the garden after the squirrels had a hey-day with it. Opened the swimming pool. Went swimming twice. And, um, read a whole lot of books and did a difficult puzzle. And watched a lot of Merlin on Netflix. Oh, and of course, worked my regular 8-hour days on the laptop. Did some writing. Made homemade bread twice. So yeah, I guess it has been a productive ten days!

Time seems to zip by. I've been at home since March 13, and it feels like a couple of weeks to me. Not beginning to be bored or run out of things to do yet. The weather is finally warming up, and it feels like I'm unfurling to the sun like a flower. A wonderful feeling of contentment and security. I'm so grateful to have a yard to play in! It makes all the difference with quarantine.

The Garden is Finally Going In

We've finally gotten some warm temperatures lately, so I've started planting the vegetable garden. So far I've put in carrots, kale, green beans, cucumbers, zucchini, spaghetti squash, lettuce, and spinach.Still to go: beets, tomatoes, basil, peppers, hull-less oats, broccoli, potatoes, and dry beans. I've probably forgotten a few things in there, but that's the basics.

I'm also going to take my composting more seriously this year. I've levelled out the ground around them to put down a thick layer of gravel, to keep weeds down, and I'm going to build a larger collector for grass and leaves. Feeding your vegetables is really just feeding your soil, and while it is very healthy at the moment, with lots of worms, all the produce I take out of it each year depletes it of nutrients, so I need to be better about putting them back in.

I've also gotten better about incorporating flowers into the garden, so along with the patch of lavendar I now have allium, soapwort, sedum, and violets. I did have some lupine, but they seem to have died off. I found some beautiful tulips in the Breck's catalogue that I might splurge on too. Even though they don't last long, they add a nice punch of colour.

They are encouraging us not to mow our lawns for the month of May, to help out the bees, but I finally had to give in and mow yesterday. I wouldn't have been able to mow at all if I'd let it get much longer. No doubt the dandelions will recover! I also have a lot of thyme in my lawn, which is pretty.

We had a lot of pool bags spring leaks this year, so my husband is cutting them up and stapling them as a weed barrier on the back of the wooden walkways in the garden, which is a clever reusage of materials.

Lastly, I am going to lift my paving-stone path and re-set it in gravel to clean it up. Over the years the pavers have sunk into the ground and are slowly disappearing. When we're done, the garden will be rejuvenated and welcoming. And this year, with the quarantine, I'll love being out there more than ever.

Is it Wrong to Love Quarantine?

I’ve always known I was an introvert. I spent a lot of time as a child playing by myself, just enjoying my own company, lost in my own thoughts, which usually revolved around whatever I was reading or watching on TV at the time. After reading Snow Treasure, I was smuggling Jews out of the country during WWII by way of the secret door formed by the A-frame of my swing set. After watching Grizzly Adams, I was a boy named Jeck Rex who lived in a cave with a mountain lion. When I was in first grade, my teacher sent me to the school psychologist to explore why I preferred walking around the playground by myself instead of playing kick-ball with the other kids. (Um…because I fear pain, maybe?) I spent hours wandering around the wooded hillside near our house, observing nature and creating hidey-holes under the trees. I got very good at walking across the fallen log over the creek. Well, okay, it was an irrigation ditch, but it was overhung with trees and wild grapes, and “creek” sounds much nicer.

When I was about thirteen, my interest in writing blossomed into a real passion, and I spent hours every day sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor in front of my blue electric typewriter, swimming in the depths of my imagination. I had acquaintances at school but only occasionally enjoyed “hanging out” with friends, and Mom had to bang on the ceiling downstairs with a broom handle to summon me to family dinner. Church classes and school events were torments for me, and I avoided gatherings in general. When I was a Junior, my distant cousin (as isolationist as I was) who was a Senior asked me to the Senior Dinner-Dance. Mom bought me a long, pretty dress, and Cousin and I went to dinner, and then came straight home again. Neither of us even fleetingly thought of staying for the dance part. The dress was hung in Mom’s walk-in closet, where it probably still hangs to this day. I never saw it again.

When I was fifteen, I lost patience with high school, applied to university, and was accepted. We lived near enough to campus that I could still live at home, though I remember Mom threatening at one point to make me move into the dorms to force me to socialize. I entered a program that overlapped with the Masters program, so many of the students in my classes were older, married, some with children. I had braces on my teeth and wore my hair in two braids like Laura Ingalls. Not much social interaction there, and my peers were still in high school, so I felt removed from them.

A Bachelors degree in Linguistics (specializing in Welsh, of all things) did not adequately prepare me for any kind of career, and I sort of fell into working in administrative support (I had never taken a typing class, but as a banjo player, I could wiggle my fingers fast). I joined a Young Adult church congregation where I was assigned to teach the women’s class and everyone was older than I was. Little by little, over the years, I was prodded and kneaded and pulled into situations where I needed to act like an extrovert. And I could pull it off. I could make small talk and conduct meetings and teach and interact with work colleagues. And I would often enjoy it at the moment. And then I would go home and crash, exhausted and drained and feeling weepy, without understanding why.

Flash forward thirty-odd years. I was married with three kids and two grand-kids, worked full time for a medical regulatory body, was still teaching at church, and was giving gardening and writing workshops and seminars on the side. I’d written ten books and done some book signings and presentations to book clubs, but writing was no longer something I did for me; it was something I did for others according to external expectations. I developed a few small health problems (not surprising at my age), I was starting to slip into depression, and I just felt a deep need to change something. 

Without really planning it, one day I pulled the Bishop aside at church and told him I needed a break. I said I’d been going full throttle since the age of fifteen, I’d been teaching for over thirty years, and I needed some time to cocoon and just let my inner introvert rest from all this hard work and stress of being forced to act like an extrovert. He agreed and released me from teaching.

About two weeks later, Covid hit.

Suddenly not only was I allowed to cocoon, my political leaders and health authorities were telling me I had to. No interaction with extended family or friends. Work moved home, and I was told not to even shop for food or go outdoors unless absolutely necessary. My inner introvert perked up, blinked around in disbelief, and then broke into a gleeful dance. I couldn’t believe my luck!

And then I remembered that Covid was killing people, frontline workers were strained to the breaking point, the economy was tanking, and the world was in crisis.

But I was giddy with happiness.

What was going on here? Was I an insensitive clod? No, I knew I wasn’t impervious to the distress going on around me. I could feel others’ pain acutely, and watching the news moved me to tears. And I wasn’t just experiencing a shallow pleasure at no longer having to face a long commute or line-ups at the bank. After some examination, I realized I was happy because, at last, I had the chance to be my authentic hermit self without explanation or apology. No one would take offence if I crossed the street when I saw them walking toward me. No one would push invitations on me that I would have to scramble to tactfully decline, or end up having to reluctantly accept. No one expected me to show up at church unfailingly cheerful and friendly and ready to serve. No more face to face meetings. No more figuring out the logistics of travel. I didn’t even have to make small talk with my hairdresser. The relief was deep and visceral. Other people are struggling right now with isolation. I crave it like a hot fudge sundae.

Without enforced quarantine, I may have gone on---unaware---for the rest of my life, suppressing my true self and biting off pieces of me in order to force myself to fit with the world around me. But being granted this chance to slow down, be quiet, and listen to the voice in my head and the pace of my heartbeat has been an unlooked-for mercy.

Of course I want the virus to end. I want to be able to hug my grandchildren and have my kids over for dinner. I want people to be able to resume the lives that make them happy. But I am now acutely aware that one of the key things that makes me happy is solitude. Quiet days spent puttering in my garden. The sun slanting through the window. A good book and a blanket. My dog’s fuzzy head on my foot, under the desk. 

I know at some point I will return to my office. I will go back to the hairdresser and the dog groomer, and I’ll venture into stores---though probably not often. I can enjoy others’ company but recognize and allow for my limits, instead of pushing myself to emotional exhaustion. As life returns to some semblance of normal, I will be better about building into it frequent pauses, pockets of quiet, and opportunities to be alone. I've always known I needed them, but I hadn't realized how keen that need was, and I'd always felt guilty for taking them. Luckily, my husband is good at solitude himself, and he can recognize (probably better than I can) when I need it too. I know I’ll still need to stretch myself sometimes for my own good, like exercising a muscle so that it doesn’t atrophy. But with new awareness, I will also acknowledge what I need, without apology, and allow myself regular time to be a happy hermit.

What have you learned about yourself during the Covid experience?

Politics have Changed

In my scripture reading this morning, I came across this:

"...they began to be scornful, one towards another, and they began to persecute those that did not believe according to their own will and pleasure." (Alma 4:8)

I seem to remember it used to be that people allowed others to have differing opinions. We might argue and disagree and think ourselves superior and correct, but we allowed others the right to have their own opinion. It was understood that the freedom to believe whatever you believed was a privilege extended to all.

It seems more and more lately that what you see (at least as shown on the news) is people being angry that others have differing opinions. They are offended when someone doesn't agree with them. They hate people who see things from a different point of view. And they are dismissive of anything that doesn't corroborate their own view.

In Alma, this led to war and strife and death for many people. History can -- and often does -- repeat itself. I hope we come to our senses before that happens again. That we'll remember it's okay for people to be different from us, to have their own views and values. That compassion and tolerance aren't just pretty slogans on a mug.

Here in Canada, we have what's called the Opposition -- the party that is not in office but is there to provide balance and a differing view, to keep the one in office in reasonable check. Their official role and whole purpose is to be oppositional, to make the leading party remember they need to act in the best interest of all citizens, not just their own supporters. So the ones in power don't ever swing too far to one extreme or another, because the Opposition is there to pull them back and remind them that there are differing views and needs. I think it's a pretty good system -- not flawless, but the intent is right. It's good for all of us to remember to allow everyone to have a voice, not just those that agree with us.

Japanese Garden

The time has come to refurbish the Japanese garden we have in the front yard. Over the years the plants have grown a bit too large, the gravel has scattered or sunk into the ground, and the bamboo fencing has sagged. Last summer we removed the huge hedge around it, leaving bare ground four feet wide on two sides of the yard. So my husband has been valiantly pruning and trimming, and this week Son #3 and I are spreading five cubic yards of gravel and stone. I think it will end up quite nice, and definitely less work than the hedge was. I just need to figure out a "lip" to keep the stones from rolling onto the sidewalk.

And then I'll need to soak in a steaming hot shower for about three days. Stone is heavy!

I should have kept the dog in the attic

So we have a raccoon in the attic. And my lovely dog has hurt his back playing ball too vigorously in the yard. $$$ to get the humane critter-control people to come. $$$ for the vet bill. It seems I could have avoided both problems if I'd kept the dog in the attic.

Lunch in the Garden

This week I made a salad entirely from my back yard: lettuce, spinach, kale, onion, asparagus, radish, wheat grass, and chia leaves. A little homemade poppy-seed dressing. Yum! I love that I can just take a fork into the garden and eat.