My Facebook feed has lately included several ads for Tai Chi walking for people of a "certain age," and one of the phrases they keep repeating is that I'll be unrecognizable by next month. As if I have a need to go incognito or something.
Do you think if it really works, I could slip out the back door and make a run for it without anyone noticing?
The wind woke me at three a.m.,
squeezing the house until its joints creaked,
stripping the yard of last year's leaves, scraping it clean.
I wanted to run out into it, stand with face upturned and arms out,
to let its buffeting scour me too, blast away my melancholy, anxiety,
to remind me how puny the world's worries are, compared to its glorious might.
I yearned for the wind to strip away all but hope, leave me fresh and clean, empowered.
But it was dark and cold, and everyone else slept, so I retreated
back under the blanket, curled, clenched like a fist,
and just listened to its roar.
On the weekend, I performed with the Welsh choir I joined, as guests of the Burlington Welsh Male Chorus. It was held in a beautiful United Church with amazing stained glass windows. We took turns singing (shuffling on and off the stage), and did three songs with both choirs together.
It's a wonderful thing to sing with the men, those wonderful Welsh tenors, plus the sternum-shaking organ and the multi-coloured light streaming in the windows. So satisfying to be able to use the language again and to sing the Welsh national anthem at full volume with other people.
I'd been practising diligently since Christmas to get ready, since we have to sing "off book" (no sheet music to cheat from). I'm pleased to say I remembered everything, it all went well, and we got a standing ovation at the end.
Tonight is our next practice, and I have 8 new songs to learn, in addition to a handful of familiar warm-ups. Whee! This choir will be a test of my memory skills, I see.
Three friends to the rescue the other night. I was invited over to someone's house to play a card game and eat muffins and cookies and fruit smoothies, and it was just an evening of laughter and good-natured ribbing and constant interruptions of the game to discuss cooking soup and sprouting seeds and setting goals for the new year. I managed to get through the whole evening without curling up in a soggy mess over Brio, which is an improvement. Reminded me that the world is still turning, and people are kind.
Tonight is the Lunar New Year celebration at church, where there's always heaps of good food and a musical program. Another thing to draw me out of myself and force me back into the flow of life. I'm trying to go work out my grief at the gym and remembering to go for walks (weird to walk without him!), but also reminding myself that it's been less than a week and there's no timetable to any of this.
I mentioned that I was feeling very disoriented, not having Brio following my every move. Son #1 offered to sit and stare forlornly at the bathroom door while I'm showering, if it would make me feel any better.
Somehow, actually, it does.
A friend asked me today what my plans are for the vegetable garden this year. I suspect she probably meant it as a distraction from my sorrow over Brio. I've been trying to reconcile myself to not having him here, but it's hard. He was so entwined with everything I did! I can't open a can, slice cheese, put on my shoes to go out, come back indoors, go upstairs...without expecting him to appear, to stand on his hind legs trying to see on the counter, to come running at the sound of the can opener, to curl up against the backs of my knees on the bed. I sit on the couch and have nowhere to put my hand, because it always used to rest on his head.
Anyway, I grabbed hold of my friend's question as a gentle reminder that life does indeed have to go on. And here is my list of what I'm planting this year: various tomatoes, three kinds of cucumbers, zucchini, kale, lettuce, spinach, onions, sweet potatoes, Shishito peppers, basil, parsley, garlic, and chia (and raspberries, strawberries, and rhubarb). Every year I also like to try new things, and this year there are three: black lentils ordered from Nova Scotia, Delicata squash, which is sort of like butternut, and Good King Henry, which is a perennial green.
I'm planning to build some frames to fit over my raised beds to make it easier to toss insect netting or shade cloth over them. I anticipate this summer will be extremely hot, which seems to be the norm, so shade will probably be necessary.
