It's been five months since I last posted, which is a record for this muse. Don't assume it was because I had nothing to write about, because nothing could be farther from the truth. The pandemic provided altogether too much fodder for my brain, and I was doing my best to not be driven crazy by too many big, serious thoughts.
Covid 19 came along just as I was emerging from a prolonged funk. I felt a little aimless again, without exchange students to "mother." Still adapting to my husband's role as mayor of our community, I often felt more than a little thin skinned. It's difficult to "share" a spouse with an entire municipality!
Winters always hit me hard, and this one was a doozy. There was a lot of drama playing out under my roof - a blog post for another time. Covid hasn't been easy for any of us, and it's been especially hard for those of us who tried to be diligent in obeying the guidelines. I'm probably not the only person who felt that they had too much time to think, and not nearly enough to do to distract me from uncomfortable thoughts. Too often I went to bed at night with a brain that felt like it was about to burn a hole through my skull. My thoughts exhausted me.
It hurt to think.
I used to love using long walks by myself as uninterrupted thinking time. I worked through difficult conversations that I knew I had to have, I planned blog posts, wrote poems in my head, and memorized speeches as I walked at a brisk pace. For several months I couldn't walk by myself. I had no speeches to learn, and didn't want to think about the craziness of a world where so many rejected scientific evidence in favour of YouTube conspiracy quackery. I didn't want to think about missing the people I couldn't see, missing things I couldn't do, or feeling incredible anger with those whose continual flouting of restrictions prolonged lockdowns. I didn't want to think about police brutality, about bigotry, or about Trump worshipers who hailed him as some kind of new Messiah as he preached his unending sermons in praise of misogyny, capitalism, greed and ignorance.
I became very disenchanted with large sectors of my fellow beings. That's ironic, because through every difficult period of my life, prior to this pandemic, I have always been buoyed by a belief that humans are mostly good, kind, and pragmatic. Now I'm not as certain of that.
My dabblings kept my thoughts from imploding and melting me down to a puddle of goo. It was calming to string beads, link chains, put stitches in Aida cloth, try new recipes...it all made me feel useful and productive. The world around me made no sense, but I could hold on to my marbles by making things, and thus make my locked down life bearable.
It Hurt to Think - by Sharon Flood Kasenberg
I couldn't write
because it hurt to think.
I lost the fight
to put my thoughts in ink.
I can't explain
how much just thinking hurt;
how fierce the pain
my own thoughts could exert.
To find relief
I beaded, stitched and baked,
linked chains in grief
until my fingers ached;
rolled cookies out,
x'd patterned onto cloth,
and gorged on doubt
while feeling like a sloth.
Fanatical -
my fear to look within -
sabbatical
from my internal din.
I could be calm
when quieting the mind,
creation's balm
helped me contentment find.
I can at last
put writing on a page -
now time has passed,
and with thoughts I'll engage.
Time doesn't heal as quickly as it grants perspective. I'm not as okay as I used to be, but I'm coping. As some aspects of life return to normal, other details emerge that make me ponder whether our old "normal" was mostly an illusion. Capitalism, running rampant and unchecked, is the cause of most of the ills of the world. I mind paying taxes, for services that I require, a lot less than I'm bothered by skyrocketing housing costs, an underpaid work force, a lack of manufacturing in our country (that has allowed our neighbours to the south to vaccinate at a much more rapid pace than us!), and a lack of mental health services that we are REALLY going to notice a few months from now!
A lot of people are unhappy. They've realized that they hate their jobs without the water cooler chats that made them tolerable. Some are finally having to acknowledge that they have troubled relationships, difficult children, messed up priorities, and a serious lack of contentment in their lives.
A lot of people are confused about how they should treat others, and about what constitutes "truth", "freedom", and the North American "way". The arrogance of those who think they know better has always been with us. The emerging news stories about bodies being located on the grounds of former residential schools are an uncomfortable confirmation of past wrongs that many of us have long suspected. We wish we were more surprised....
Haunting - by Sharon Flood Kasenberg, June 2021
Their voices call out from the ground,
and we are haunted by the sound -
a sad and longing, keening song
from children who did nothing wrong.
Don't block those cries with hands on ears,
like others did for countless years;
this haunting we cannot forget -
unless we have learned nothing yet.
Some say we should cancel Canada Day celebrations this year to demonstrate our sorrow. It's nice to think that denying your community a few fireworks will somehow atone, but grand gestures mean nothing when they don't initiate change.
I'm celebrating a Canada that has come a long way - a country that no longer kicks over the traces of its ugly past, a country that I believe will use these gruesome discoveries to fuel positive change. We have textbooks that need to be rewritten to portray the past more accurately. We have a nation to re-educate. I'm going to spend part of my Canada Day reading documents about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I want to learn how I can change my behaviors and take action to make my country a more equitable place.
I'm going to end this post with an attempt I made to write an additional verse to our National anthem. Some might disagree with me but I think, as my husband once said, "Diversity is our strength, not our weakness." I'm still learning, after years of negative conditioning, and stubborn, wrong headed thinking, that nobody has to look like me, believe what I believe, love the same way I do, or be of the same political stripe as me to deserve kindness and compassion.
Another Verse - by Sharon Flood Kasenberg
O Canada! We must atone for past,
look to the future, making changes vast.
We must begin to reconcile
all that has gone before -
the value of diversity
no longer we'll ignore.
May we begin, thus to create,
true equity in land devoid of hate.
Take your own hurting brain, and apply it to righting a few of the ills of the world. Let your localized actions fuel global change.
Happy Canada Day from the Muse!
