Isolation 2020

A white feather floated down past my balcony railing, on a early morning rise. The sky was a ghostly blue, it would prove to be a blissful summer's day not too hot. Crows are hanging out on the hydro wire along with the smaller birds, I think they are grackles, they have such a lovely song. The crows are hoping for some peanuts, which I have none. A little yellow bird with a hint of black, came to visit my bird feeder one day, it was hard to get the photograph, as the wind was blowing the feeder gently back and forth and I had to still hide from the bird noticing me watching it eat. My garden is blooming their fruit, though the feed of peas are done for the year, while  the tomatoes are growing larger, strawberries reddening,  the spices ripened for picking to cook with, as are the peppermint chard leaves.
The dynamo crane went up the day before the high winds and thunderstorms that had awoken us up at 6:30am. The metal tapping from the work men's tools and the building that houses me, shutters from the dynamite exploding. Will be my constant companion for the unforeseeable future. Wellington South will have a new life when they are all done.
The click from a can opening of soda or maybe it's beer, has been a noticeable  sound now for 5 years. I don't know where it comes from but it's familiar. Same for a neighbor that has a scooter you can clearly hear it coming from any direction. 

The rain pelting the window panes, the wind collecting the loosened leaves and flower tops pushing it around like dust, catching some sand in your eye is very familiar.,
 I haven't had a human hug since Christmas.2019  Thank goodness for Marley my cat, I get her hugs and kisses.  It's been a blessed summer so far. I'm still alive.
A little video...

I've been designing digital patterns to put on masks, using my original art designs to make them with.  

It's been a long road to get here, where isolation, is still a thing. Now that masks are mandatory again, I feel a little better. I was mocked on the street not just two weeks ago. By a young man coming towards me, I lifted up my mask off my chin up over my mouth the nose and stepped on the road. He said in french ''oh I am so scared to get the virus.' I retorted, as I pulled down my mask, ' with respect this doesn't protect me it is to protects you. Since you have no respect, I won't bother' and I left in a huff. The cheek of him.  My friend had been sneezed on, she ran so fast with her grocery cart from the sneeze, she didn't have time to retort, she wished had. I have been coughed on. It's a mind field..

This my understanding of the science behind this virus. A breath and a cough contain 5000 droplets. A cough contains 50.000 droplets and a sneeze 300.000 droplets as it travels and lingers in the air as some fall to the ground, some large, some small. Now a sneeze with the virus is 200 million droplets and it travels far and fast, it also lingers in the air and then falls to the ground. Your shoes, your clothes, your hair, your eyes, are all exposed to getting it on you.  If you are unlucky in receiving this awful gift of a life threatening virus. You will suffer, your lungs will weaken, your body may produces blood clots and cause heart attacks. You may never recover your loss of smell and taste. You may physically never recover and continue to feel discomfort and suffer. Or your demise. Why would anyone want to risk quality of life for ...?? I believe that they should find a way to communicate with citizens and educate them in way they will understand the seriousness of this virus. 

They have been gathering since I think May, to protest the Law enforcing Masks before entering enclosed spaces. and the Law asks that we distant ourselves from one another when we socialize. Now this protest group against Masks, have recently joined forces with the protest groups against Vaccinations. Both groups think we are being lied too and free will is being stripped. So Vaccinations Group, they are teaching the No Masks group how to protest and get attention. I can only answer, that those who seek to understand threw knowledge, and if science is where ones information comes from, then you decide to you trust this information or one doesn't. Do I disagree with a group that decides to protest, whether it’s climate or vaccinations or restrictions? . Good luck, and yes free will…one has a choice, to believe or not believe…

My birth mom back in last March was finally isolated by my half sister's. She was still going out shopping up untill then. With an invalid at home still convalescing, it quite worrisome me that she was out there at 79 yrs old, being too far away I couldn't help her. I was facing my own obstacles, up until late March when I no longer needed to get on a bus to go to work. I was so relieved to be isolating, the whole thing was making me so anxious, and the medications I was on was exacerbating the symptom. I was battling pre - pneumonia and bronchitis during February, march and April, I soooo badly wanted to believe that this was all a horrible hoax that went viral and any day now these lock downs and death counts would be non existent. What it would turn out to be was far worse than anyone can imagine, a nightmare for so many families in the elderly care homes, persons stuck in other countries unable to get back home.

 I stocked up from a Costco run by a friend who was going, and used Kleenex as there was no toilet paper left on the shelves of the local grocery stores. I added rubbing alcohol in my hand soap and tiny drop into my dish washing soap. I am exhausted from being so cautious everyday. I declined an invite to go traveling to Gaspe, I haven't gone anywhere except for groceries as of late. Even that was a challenge avoiding people who relaxed on the lack of mask wearing, so you're zig zagging trying to avoid them. Once I ordered from IGA, and I got half my items with a note stating I ordered to many items, Okay?!
 I did walk along wellington with a friend from Sherbie about a month and a half ago, we were the only ones wearing our masks in late May; to look for hand made soaps of shampoo and body soap. Getting off plastic is still a challenge. Marley, my cat is back on fish can food. I invested in a new toilet box for her it  cost $45. on amazon. It's a 3 pieces, has a grate so you lift it up and shake, put the pieces in a bag. Done. Now more scooping...

Since May, I don’t know what day it is anymore, or the date. Unless I look at my phone to tell me. I decidedly will not stray far from home and all future work will be assigned to my home office.  For now I get the summer off, like I have been doing since 2016.  I quite like the freedom and delight it usually brings me. This year I opted to force the break until it’s a little safer to return to meetings and bus traveling. My only job is to self care, and I am sure trying. I just ordered off IGA online shopping.Without meaning too, but it always seems like I order all the heavy items to carry up, those stairs, like the kitty litter and 4 liter of vinegar, 2 boxes of 12 cans of sea food deluxe cat food. I decided to eat some of my feelings with some Mint chocolate shaving from Coaticook ice cream. Hopeful find something funny to watch

 

It's to me, a global sadness, that hangs in the air along with the blue skies, and matches when it is grey skies to the start of a day. There isn't a skip in my step when I wake up, although I say I silent thank you, for waking up and the other for no systems.The odd belly ache, sneezes and coughs. I find myself putting off shopping for the house hold needs unless it's for Marley. I stock up for her so that I don't have to go out so often, twice a month is all I an handle. My friend from Sherbie, is trying to get me to go with her to the Lucien-Blanchard Park, where there is a beach, canoeing, pedal boating and kayaking. Every time she gets a yes from me it's raining or she has to work or the water quality is low at the beach and it is closed. Now I don't want to go. So this wishy washy thing, has me wavering on the odds. Is this worth the risk ? for a few hours of pleasure. I so badly want to go for a swim. So it isn't meant to be yet.  A summer camp just shut down due the staff having tested positive for the Covid 19. Now all the pools have been shut down due to a staff member there having tested positive. 
A former colleague is trying to get me to go to the park and do yoga with her, she got her certificate and can now teach. Congrats to her. I will join her shortly, maybe, as I adjust my new phobia and lack of trust.
My daughter and grand children are and were still quite active in the activism taking place, for environmental climate rights and changes,  I follow them on an app and watch how they protest and I keep up with the 'Fire Drills' with Jane Fonda sharing information. 99%  I see pictures with their masks on, I wish they'd wear sunglasses and a hat too as they protest for climate change. The family did stop for a while when isolation was mandated. I just found the video that the young Greta Thunberg  did very powerful. 'your house in burning', I believe it was called. 

I don't' understand why the Government won't go after industry that packages our goods and get them to revolutionize a new system that is biodegradable and eatable to wildlife or at least not harmful, it always lands in our fields and in our waters. Why I am finding plastic on my cucumbers and zucchini? Try getting the label off a dish soap plastic bottles or shampoo bottles or even a small yogurt containers, that have aluminum on the inside lid, then there's the glue that doesn't come off, the paper doesn't come off, neither for some tins or Epsom salt containers and other products I try separating all the material too it. If the plastic or metal is not single, it contaminates everything in that box. So one has to break it down. It's not easy at all. It's a huge mess is what it is...It's time for the decision makers to start issuing fines and policies.  I had to see a video that made me realize I was doing my recycling all wrong.

I realize, more than ever, that I have an expiry date coming, it's the first time I am seriously facing mortality, and feel that I have to print that 'Will kit' and get it notarized or two witnesses. Finish my life's work and fill the books with those finished pieces. Since I have not been given a diagnoses of anything serious, yet...I have to imagine that it be could a day to 20 more years or so. Procrastinating the inevitable would only leave a huge mess for my loved ones or it could all go the government or all get  thrown out, which is a no, no, no... I have no idea how it all works, obviously for those laughing. lol xo

 I find myself crying often to tv shows or movies, these days, anyone with a heartbreaking story line my tears are flowing with theirs. I find myself looking for laughter, the Vinyl Cafe is back on Sundays on CBC radio and that is a belly laugh, much needed in a time when empath's like me pick up the underbelly. I found a bunch of sitcoms I collected over the years, and put on them up on the computer to play, I've heard these story lines over and over again and yet they still manage to erupt a  belly laugh from me. 

I've added and moved a lot of my furniture around, when I first was isolating, I was so used to a routine, I didn't know what to do with myself. I wrote a few poems. This past Christmas in 2019 I got a call, from a neighbor in my old neighborhood, one I have been acquainted with since I was 13 years old. She thanked me for my Christmas card and told me that this would be our last correspondence as she had stage 4 cancer. That her daughter would call me, when... That call lingered in the back of my mind the whole of my Christmas. So I had to write down how it made me feel. 
 

How do you say so long 

to the one you’ve know for so long?

Those greeting card exchanges,

filled with our family changes,

Our trials and tribulations offering

up hope and well wishes for a better year.

13- to 40 years or so between us,

celebrating in the winter solstice

Offering up the Yuletide cheer.

Fond keepsakes scattered in boxes,

as Father Time has called it,

a moment to say goodbye.

All my thoughts and prayers are with you,

Sending  all my love to you.

Thank you for all those years of being

such a thoughtful, friend.

Oh, how I’m going miss all those

 greeting cards to decipher. Bless

© LeeMarie’s

Every year a month before my birthday, 5 years now I get a little reminder that a date of someone's passing.  She was family to me, a mother foster figure, who died of liver failure due to alcoholism. It was heartbreaking, a tragic ending. 

Oh, how you are missed, in so many ways.
Your duchenne smile, your sharp tongue and quick wit,
and all your tales of adventure.
The one late night with a horse on the roof, you had us all picturing it, with such belly ache laughs by the end of it.
Your ever loving praises and shared stories of your loved ones near and far.
You showed so much courage, and so much generosity, towards anyone needing a helping hand. The narratives of brave rescues, giving people a second chance, at a new life.
No one could prop someone up better when they were feeling blue or confused, a gentle touch as you'd lend an ear.
There was no one who could challenge anyone more than you could, to have more faith in their own shoes as you did.
Nobody fought harder to protect and rise up for that loved one, who were so dear.
I still think of you, often, with mixed emotions.
I still miss you, and those Irish eyes twinkling ever so mischievously.
Your grateful friend
Love always

©LeeMarie

 I am all to aware that the only thing I can do hourly, daily, is to take care of myself, and fill my day with things to do. I remind myself to look around me, glance out the windows, view, see, only blessings and I count them, a silent gratitude. I send prays to all those struggling, I hope they get the help, soon. 

 Last year my friend from Sherbie and I, joined the climate March that was organized in Sherbrooke,  we were 10,000 strong. It was amazing hearing them chant their slogans in French. I carried my sign with words that said, ' stop the destruction- save us from you.' I took a video it. If you wait to the end of the photos you can see and hear their chanting.

We can only do our bit, fight for what we need, and let go of those wants, I've got my own list. We have created a world of immediate gratifications and narcissism, less courtesies, and more verbal and emotional abuse as a norm in an everyday interaction and it has come at a huge cost to society across the board. We need to come together and openly support each other as equals, no matter ones status or financial pedigree. I hope to see that shift in my life time and leave a better world for my grandchildren and theirs, so on and so forth.  
Like today, grey skies are in the forecast for next few days or so with thunderstorms, and rain. As those around us prepare for far worse. Bless 
Let's fight to do better, for ourselves, and uplift those around us. We are all worthy of better for one another.

A church bell was ringing out as the starlings twitter around circling the sky above me; it has become a rare sound these past few months to hear church bells ring out. A few moments later, a car, could be heard honking, over and over again. I recall that noise, a signal, someone had just been married. A car further away could be heard responding back to the joyful news of their nuptials. All the best...

That's it for now, Stay Active, Kind
 Self Care  Cheers xo 💜 Lee Marie