Erin's Journals

Just a thought… Our most basic instinct is not for survival, but for family. [Paul Pearsall]

Huh. And so here we are again: many of us self-quarantining (except for the tiniest family bubble) and trying to close the door gently and step back into a life of care, caution and compassion. Our hearts are with our neighbours south of the border, those hundreds of thousands of families with an empty chair at a smaller Thanksgiving table this year; the millions more who are paring down their celebrations as per the guidelines and advice of those in the know.

Right now, US Thanksgiving 2020 is shaping up to have the potential to become a super-spreader event. Yesterday, flight patterns showed more planes in the skies over the continental US than on the day before Thanksgiving in 2018 and only slightly behind last year’s activity. It’s like an awful lot of people either don’t know that there’s a pandemic, or are willing to take their chances. (And how many stories are there about travellers refusing to wear masks on the plane, I wonder? The poor flight crews.)

Such is the pull of family, of tradition, of the need for humans to gather and celebrate and rekindle the hearth and heart fires after such a difficult year. But how is it human nature to turn our backs on danger? I can’t speak to that.

The “lizard” amygdala part of the brain that I learned about in addiction counselling tells of a fight, flight or freeze mentality, but there’s nothing I could find in our need to survive that tells us to turn our backs on a killer – unless, of course, it’s to run. I wish I could understand the logic of what’s happening, but I do comprehend the emotion of it. I mean, who isn’t dreading not being with family next month?

It’s empathy. We feel for them. We know this is a holiday that for many is bigger than Christmas in terms of gatherings, as more people have (or take) more time off with the four days over Thanksgiving than at Christmas time, when Boxing Day – a month today – is not a statutory holiday (as it is here).

This week I had a chance to talk with David Coletto of Abacus Data, as part of an upcoming CREA Real Time podcast, in which we look back at 2020 and ahead to 2021. And he pointed out to me that while Canada was supposedly built on the tenets of peace, order and good government, the US has always been about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

I get that. But what if that liberty in their pursuits of happiness is actually causing death to others, themselves and/or their loved ones? Where does that come into the equation? It’s beyond me. The ICUs in several US cities are filled to capacity; the death tolls keep rising and yesterday’s case count in the US was its highest in one day since back in the spring.

Canada has its problems and we’re not in the clear – not by a long shot: our heretofore healthy and smug Vancouver Island now has the highest per capita new case rate in all of BC. But to hear President Obama name-check our country in an interview the other night in terms of how a pandemic could/should be handled, it made me thankful. We’ve got a long way to go before we’ve got this thing under control and we can safely gather for our own big celebrations again; right now in many parts of our country most of us are trying to obey rules and adhere to guidelines in an effort to save Christmas.

Will it work? We can hope. There’s still a tsunami of misinformation and deceptive news being circulated online in attempts to thwart the efforts of actual experts to keep us safe, healthy and alive. I mean, why believe actual scientists when you can listen to crackpot theories about the vaccines, the efficacy of masks, etc.?

It all becomes an awful lot to take if you stop and think about it for too long. But when the big picture becomes overwhelming, what do we do? The best we can, one day at a time.

Stay safe, stay sane and stay healthy. And to friends from the US who are here today, I wish you a Thanksgiving that includes gratitude for your good health, memories of gatherings past and hopes for celebrations – joyful, bountiful and boisterous – in years to come.

I’ll be back here Monday.

Just a thought… …and the Three Bears. No one ever questions why Papa Bear and Mama bear slept in separate beds. What was going on in that marriage? More backstory needed. [Jim Gaffigan]

I was going to call this “The Pinky, the Puppy and the Conjugal Visit,” but, a) I don’t title my journals, b) Rob cut his ring finger and not his pinky – although the alliteration floats my boat and c) there is no “c” but things are better in threes.

So having said all that, here goes.

We’re three weeks and one day from Rob’s near joint-deleting finger injury, and my flight to Kelowna to pick up a little puppy named Rosie. While we’re working on her outdoor training (our success rate depends entirely on how quickly we see her heading towards the door), she’s got a high-pitched “yip!” whenever I leave her sight.

So yes, we’re going to work on that a lot, so that in the not-too-distant future, she can be left alone for an hour or two. That will come as a great relief to us all; she yips and cries in her dog carrier (on my lap) when we take the car to do our meal deliveries. It’s enough to make our ears bleed, but hopefully that changes soon.

Since Rosie arrived that Sunday, Rob has been sleeping in the guest bedroom. Rosie dozes next to me, attached to a leash whose handle is tucked under my pillow, so if she tries to get off the bed (which is surrounded by throw pillows but could still result in injury), I feel her departure. So far she hasn’t tried to make an escape.

Rob’s separate sleeping (which has never happened regularly in our 34 years of couplehood) is to keep Rosie from waking when he gets up in the night, but also to let him try to deal with the pain in his finger, which strikes at various hours. I haven’t really minded the solo sleeping but have missed him, if that makes sense. Rosie? She doesn’t know anything different and as far as she’s concerned, she and I own that king-sized bed.

So…let me take you to the conjugal visit part of the story, and I’ll tell it in terms that I might use if I was relating it on the radio (don’t know that I would) and I knew that kids might be listening and would ask questions if I wasn’t super careful.

On Saturday, Rob expressed a wish to wander down the hall to my end of the house. (Despite his occasional hand pain and a sore lower lip that was bitten on Friday by an exuberant puppy, he’s still the boy I married.) I gave in relented wholeheartedly agreed and on we went with our day. Come evening, I started wondering about the logistics and just how realistic this visit was going to be. Then at 9 pm, Rosie was in a deep sleep on the floor, so I suggested we make a run for it. Or an amble. You know, we’re not teenagers.

And here’s where it gets weird (as if this wasn’t enough). In order to keep her from noticing we were heading out of the room, I found a file from the narration job that I’m still working on, and played my own voice from my computer. All she heard was Mommy talking and as far as she knew, I was still sitting in my chair next to her and not shutting up. You know, the same as usual.

All’s well that ends well and she was none the wiser, Rob slept well in the guest bed, and Rosie and I had a good night’s sleep, too.

I mean, I get why couples sleep separately, and usually working hours, sleep incompatibility or snoring are the culprits, but this is only a temporary measure (I keep telling Rob, and myself). In the meantime, we’re all just going with the flow. After all, isn’t that what we’re being called upon to do in 2020?

Just a thought… It’s hard to turn the page when you know someone won’t be in the next chapter, but the story must go on. [Thomas Wilder]

To Tree, or Not to Tree? That’s been the question. Until this year.

This week, our daughter-in-law Brooke, who is exactly for whom Hallmark makes all of those holiday movies, my pumpkin-spice-and-everything-nice girl shared progress reports of her Christmas decorating with me. And it has occurred to me that it’s time to dig way deep and find the boxes that got taped shut in early 2015 and haven’t been opened even once since.

Christmas of 2014 was the best of our lives. Our daughter and her husband brought their beautiful two-and-a-half month old son to our home, where we had a ten-foot real tree decorated and lit for the holidays.

My dad came from BC to be with us; Lauren’s cousin and her husband and baby boy came for a visit, as did my sister and her husband, and members of Rob’s family, and it was grand. Perfect, even.

I pulled out my late mom’s china so she would be with us during our dinner celebrations and we had a marvelous family gathering, delayed a day so that Lauren could be with her in-laws for Christmas Eve and part of Christmas Day. I am so grateful for the memories of that week, those not-so-silent nights, the music we all played together and the laughter. Oh, the laughter.

Well...mostly grateful.

I have pictures I’ll stumble upon from that time, but never on purpose. In my computer there’s a file marked Xmas 2014 with videos, carefully posed and lit family shots – all things that I just haven’t been able to look at, never mind dive into. Except for a few short videos that are on my phone and some recordings of her singing, I haven’t been in a place where my heart felt ready to go back to being in the midst of her joyful, funny alive-ness.

Honestly, what kind of mood do you have to be in to consciously choose to be sucked down into a dark hole? There can be no other outcome than sadness, and as you know, I’ve very consciously chosen not to look back, but to be present in our happiness and point my attention to a future we’re building every day.

So what to do about those boxes and boxes of decorations? I’m not going to donate them and start fresh; there are too many silly traditions therein. From a little sewing mouse ornament my grandmother gave me to some macaroni angels I glued and painted (that are actually a lot better than they sound!) and countless remembrances of family Christmases past. I’ve simply erased any inventory of what else might be there, and not by accident.

Bypassing a tree again this year is not an option. We even have an artificial one somewhere from before we chose to go natural. Before COVID, Rob and I were planning to fly from Palm Springs to spend Christmas with our grandchildren in Ottawa but, of course, 2020 had different plans – wonderful ones, in our case, as they’re just down the road now – and we’re embracing these ones: Christmas Eve at our place, Christmas morning at theirs, and then Christmas dinner back here. Thank goodness they are our family bubble and we are theirs. Who knows what the situation will be come December 24th etc.?

And so, there will be a Christmas tree. We’ll puppy- and baby-proof it and make it as beautiful as can be for Colin, Jane and their parents. If Colin cared to (which I’m pretty sure he won’t) I’d invite him to decorate it with us. I’m not sure how or when we’re going to do this, but I’m making the silent pledge to us, and for that matter, to Lauren: “We Can Do This.” It all goes to that last part of Mourning Has Broken where I imagined her asking me what I did with my life after she left. “Cancelled Christmas forever…” is not an answer that would get a thumbs up.

Too many people are suffering the loss or distance of their loved ones this year. Who am I to turn my back on the gifts that have come our way in the past four months, in the form of a beautiful baby, her loving and funny big brother, and their mom and dad?

Life has too much pain. It’s time to rip off the Band-aid – and the packing tape – and get on with embracing that Christmas spirit, in whatever form it comes.

Have a gentle weekend, my friend, and I’ll be back with a journal for you on Monday.

Just a thought… Adapting does not mean permanent changes. It just means making small, quick adjustments. [Hany Kubba]

Today we step back into a little bit of normal as Rob returns to hockey after a two week hiatus to let his finger recover from its nasty introduction to a table saw. He’s due to get stitches out today; the plastic surgeon he saw said the ones put in temporarily were “fine,” so we’ll see. Rob felt he was treated rather dismissively because of the nature of his injury. It may have been Rob’s own sheepishness that was the filter through which he perceived that he was being judged, but however the doctor felt, let’s hope Rob’s recovery continues smoothly.

Meantime, I was feeling sheepish myself on Friday. The day after our first Zoom dog training class (which went amazingly), we had several setbacks in our puppy’s progress. More messes than successes, if you get what I mean. While she was relentlessly bugging Colin, jumping up at him and disturbing him while he tried to do one of his favourite things at our place: play games and do yoga with Wii Fit, he was getting upset, and I was even more so, as I began to worry that he might not want to spend time with us anymore.

What had I done? Had I upset a perfectly wonderful apple cart by adding a rambunctious little dog to our lives? How could I have forgotten how much work a puppy is?

I knew that Rob and I were doing all we could to make sure Rosie is the best dog (and we the most informed pet parents) possible. But had I made a huge mistake? I went to bed Friday feeling pretty despondent, even though a hiccuping little black and white furball was curled up next to my pillow.

On Saturday morning, after two successes in the outdoor toiletry department, Rosie and I were off to puppy socialization class. There, in one of two pens set up at a farm, she and three other pups ran and played, crouched and sniffed. While she was the only puppy who insisted on jumping up on the trainer to get her attention (which the trainer wisely ignored, telling us all she was doing so), Rosie also showed a lot of confidence in letting the other pups corner her and turning up her tummy to them.

I asked if that was submission and was told, no, that was confidence. She’s got a backbone without having to show her teeth (or, evidently, her back) and that makes me happy. We’ve got a little girl with character who would go right after the pups that had cornered her, to lure them into more play just as soon as they turned their backs.

That instructive half-hour in the 7 C sunshine was enough to raise my spirits and wear out Rosie, who slept most of the day. In a room with mats, a crate and blankets, where did she choose to nap? On a wood crescent, under an end table.

Yesterday morning she was there again. Okay, Rosie….

As for Colin (who thankfully sleeps in a bed and not under a table), he was comfortable enough in her state of lessened exuberance that he wanted to stay another night. I needn’t have worried, it seems. But it doesn’t mean we will stop learning how to make their time together as easy for them both as possible.

We’ve put off Rosie’s meeting of our granddaughter Janey until we get our crate training established so that Rosie can have time outs without losing her mind. Jane is just starting to take lots of fast steps and the last thing we want is for Rosie to think it’s a good ol’ game of tag. We’re all learning here together. And while we can teach Colin to “be a tree,” Janey is just being a baby. So it’s a dance.

Please don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful to have Rosie in our home and in our family, even if it means there isn’t a rug to be found, the dusting and cleaning have taken a vacation (while the vacuum is going overtime), and we’re watching and following her around as though she might lay a golden egg every waking hour.

I’m luckiest of all that there are people around who understand what this ride entails: Rob for his patience with Rosie and me, Brooke and Phil for happily taking a rain check on a family dinner invitation and Colin for believing me when I tell him he will always, always come first. I don’t know that they’ll become close friends after a rocky start, but we can hope. It’s hard to imagine her sleeping next to him one night but you just never know, do you?

Have a gentle Monday as we embark on the second half of November.

Just a thought… When you learn, teach. When you get, give. [Maya Angelou]

Welcome to a Thursday that feels strangely like a Saturday or Sunday (a sensation of blursday that we’ve all come to experience in 2020) because we were treated to a bonus sleep-over with Colin this week.

He was off school yesterday for Remembrance Day, but proudly brought to our house a booklet he’d coloured and written in at school: a poem about the poppy. While it was a good first step towards learning the significance of November 11th, he didn’t really have any idea why he was off school for the day. At age six, I suppose I didn’t have a clue either about the day.

I remember being taken to the cenotaph in Ottawa, my Dad proudly in uniform, as we took in the ceremonies on more than one chilly November 11th. But really, did I understand even a little bit, what it meant?

Yesterday we watched out our window as a series of five Canadian Navy ships passed by, far below us on the Haro Strait. (Pardon the picture, it’s the best I could do.) Colin examined the boats through binoculars and then his attention was drawn to five warplanes as they lumbered through the grey skies over Sidney, BC.

The air and water displays happened to come just after we had watched two videos on YouTube about poppies and Remembrance Day, told from a standpoint to which a child might relate. He’s only just now comprehending the concept of death, a message that came through clearly the other day as he heard on the radio of Alex Trebek’s passing. Alex is, I think, the first celebrity (not of a Muppet genre) that Colin ever knew; as a toddler he loved to watch Jeopardy!.

He is learning what it means when someone dies: to not come back. And so, knowing he has that slightest bit of understanding, we related to him the plastic soldiers from Toy Story (Sarge being the one whose name we know) and the fact that yesterday we remembered real soldiers: people who knew that very bad men were trying to tell the grown-ups and children in Europe (where another favourite, Peppa Pig, comes from) what to do and were very, very mean.

So the good people of Canada – people his daddy’s age and younger even – went over to stand up to the bullies and to help our country’s friends. Many of them got hurt very badly; some died and didn’t come home to their children and their mommies and daddies.

And that’s why we remember them on November 11th: because we are so grateful. (Yes, there are a great many historical facts that are muddy or missing here, but work with me here.)

He stood quietly at our side while we watched part of the 11 am ceremonies on our local station. He listened as Rob and I sang “O Canada” along with the people in Victoria on the TV. We told him that through his parents, his school and us, he’ll understand what this day means when he’s a little older.

The task of trying to boil down the vastness of something like a world war, the incredible sacrifices and costs that were made and exacted, into a concept that a young child can understand is seemingly impossible.

How do you even begin to paint a picture that only truly became clear for me as an adult after visiting Vimy, France and nearby towns whose farmers had collected shells (some spent, some not) and placed them in a modest museum; where it took an elevator to get down to the place that soldiers survived in crowded, quiet, darkness, waiting to spring an Easter Sunday attack on the enemy. The memories of what I saw have stayed with me and I was merely a tourist!

How blessed we are, so many of us, to have no personal recollection of the horrors of war. At one time, nearly every Canadian knew a family that had lost someone in one of the conflicts where our young men, and later women, were called to fight. Today, merely being asked to wear a fabric mask is considered by some to be an affront to their freedom. One wonders what those souls who wore gas masks for weeks on end would think.

They might likely say how damned lucky we are to live in a time of such widespread peace. It is a gift to which we feel so entitled now – that explaining it is almost as hard as imagining life without it.

Have a peaceful weekend and I’ll be back with another journal on Monday.