Caged

 

Caged 

 

It wasn’t a gilded cage 

It was a cage forged of expectations 

She pushed against the bars 

But they did not budge. 

 

She couldn’t remember how  

She got locked into the cage 

Or when the bars went up 

Or when she realized she couldn’t leave. 

 

She was a good girl. 

Except when she wasn’t.  

Don’t be so loud, so passionate, so confident, so strong. 

Boys don’t like girls who are smarter than they are. 

 

She learned to tuck herself away. 

Good girls don’t upset anyone 

It is unladylike.  Serve the coffee.  

Paint your nails.  Smile. 

 

Go to work, but be careful 

Even if you rise to the C-Suite, don’t get too big. 

Plan the parties.  Stroke the egos. 

Serve.  Be a good girl.   

 

It got harder as she aged. 

And stopped being pretty.   

Lipstick and painted nails don’t hide wrinkles. 

Hair dye doesn’t hide a thickening waist.   

 

She paced inside the cage. 

And thought about how to break the bars 

She pushed and pushed,  

But it was futile.     

 

Years passed and she grew old and became invisible. 

She was no longer strong enough to push against the bars 

One afternoon, she unlatched the door  

And walked into the sun.   

 

One More Time

And here we are again.  New Year's Eve 2021 and once again, not in a place we could have predicted.  A year ago today, we finished the year with great optimism.  The vaccine had been invented, we would all get our shots and life would return to some semblance of normal but, of course, it didn't work out that way.  Our Covid numbers are at an all time high.  Many of us have had our third vaccine shots and our provincial government announced yesterday that fourth shots will now be offered to some residents. We've been warned that even double-masking in public places would be insufficient to protect us from the Omicron strain of the virus that is ravishing the world.  A few days ago, a kind friend, who is a doctor in another province, sent me a box of N95 masks with strict instructions to wear them at all times in public places.  She is worried about me and I am grateful for her care.  

 

Our Christmas gathering was small but at least we had a gathering this year.  It still isn't safe to travel but we have a couple of days booked next month to stay in a small hotel out of the city where we will have a chance to walk around, and take drives through the beautiful countryside and view the sights from the safety of our car.  It's not Europe but it will have to do.  Perhaps it will renew my spirit which is flagging a bit at the present.  

 

Yesterday, I watched the funeral of another friend, live-streamed from the funeral home.  Another loss in a too long list of losses this year.  In any year, this would have been too many losses to bear.  In this one, it has been too many losses to bear without even the chance to find comfort in the rituals of grieving.  Live-streamed funerals or no funerals at all.  I would never have imagined that as the new normal though I suppose there is little in the world that seems normal to me now.

 

I start 2022 with no resolutions, no intentions, no plans.  We will see how it unfolds, day by day.  Tonight I'm going to drink prosecco, watch a movie and relax.  The rest of life, I will try to figure out tomorrow.  Happy New Year to you all.

Not Just a Jar of Jam

 

 "Happiness is like jam.  You can't spread it without getting some on yourself."  - Anonymous

 

I make a lot of jam, pickles, relish and assorted goodies.   In these summer weeks when fresh local produce is in abundant supply, my kitchen is often a hotbed of activity.  Some days I swear I can hear my canning pot sighing from feeling overworked.  I don't stop until my shelves are loaded to capacity and I am sure that everyone's favourites are on the shelves to be handed over on request or left on neighbourhood doorsteps or delivered to friends around the city.

 

Some things take longer than others.  Jam is labour intensive as are my, often requested, bread and butter pickles, pickled beets and all my relishes.  There are days my arms and shoulders ache and my legs and back scream for rest from long hours spent standing at the stove.  Lately, I've been putting in only two or three canning hours at a time.  My aging body can't sustain long hours at the stove anymore or the lifting of heavy pots.  

 

By the end of this season, there will be a couple hundred jars on the shelves, all carefully labelled so as not to confuse the regular dill pickles from the hot dill pickles or the brandied peach jam from the plain peach jam.  Visitors to my kitchen often comment that it looks like a store.  A contractor who was here  this morning to arrange some construction we are having done, even asked if he could buy some pickles.  It made me laugh.  I told him what I tell everyone, "help yourself to anything you want".  My kitchen isn't a store.  I make everything on the shelves to give away.  There are, after all, only two people living in this house.  We couldn't eat all those preserves in five years and many of those jars  contain things we don't ever eat.  I don't make them for us, I make them because they are what others want.

 

Recipients of these goodies often assume that I really enjoy canning but the truth is, I don't.  There are days it can be satisfying or even to some extent soothing when I watch beautiful fruits turn into beautiful jams but there are lots of less rigorous activities that I can engage in to give me those same feelings.  It's not the making of preserves that gives me joy.  My joy is realized in giving people all those jars of pickles and relishes, jams and jellies.  It is in knowing they will think of me when they are spreading their favourite rhubarb jam or grapefruit jelly on their toast in the morning or setting out a dish of beets or pickles on their dinner table. And while I know they could go to the grocery store and buy those same items for less money than it costs for me to make them, without hours of my labour, I also know those purchased preserves won't taste like mine.  Heinz, Bicks or Smuckers might use essentially the same ingredients (though they add preservatives I never use), but they don't add the one thing that is in everything I make - the one thing that makes the difference between Smucker's jam and my jam, between Bick's pickles and my pickles between Heinz relish and my relish.

My jars aren't really jars of jam, pickles or relish.  They are really jars of love.

215

 

 

215

 

They are my children

Blood of my blood

Bone of my bone.

They dwell in my skin

They live in my DNA

They are of me as surely as if I birthed them.

 

Their bodies in the earth now

Their names unwritten

Their stories untold

Far from home but not from hearts

Of those who birthed them and loved them

And named them.

 

Will we say their names

Learn their stories

Summon the will and courage

To have an honest look at ourselves

Or will we sigh with shame

And move on?

 

They are our children

We belong to them

And to their land

And they belong to us

It is time to learn their names

And bring them home.

Congratuations Mr. Ford

 

 

"The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.  Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.  One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking the law." - Ayn Rand

 

It is May 17 and in Ontario, we are still in lockdown.  Those of us who live in Toronto, have been living under stay-at-home orders for months.  The pandemic is more than a year old.  We are in wave three but it seems we haven't learned a damned thing.  We know a lot more now about how Covid 19 is transmitted than we knew a year ago but our government hasn't been able to create a plan to get us out of this mess.  They just keep ordering the same old restrictions, the ones that didn't work in the first place - the very definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  But this time, it's truly crazy.  In the world according to Doug Ford, we all need to just stay home.  No leaving our own homes unless it is for an essential reason - grocery shopping, medical appointments or trips to the pharmacy or the liquor store .  The other stores are all closed except for curbside pick-up from employees who still have to go to work to walk the merchandise outside.  If you work at Amazon, the bank, a law office, an accounting firm, a medical facility or any store or factory or food services company, you are still allowed to go to work.   Ditto, daycare workers, special needs teachers, media workers.  The rest of us can't go into an almost empty store to do our shopping where our risk is low and easy to mitigate but we can order most anything on Amazon so their workers can crowd together to serve us in unsafe conditions where they've been dropping like flies.  Meat packing plants have been petrie dishes of infection as have been factories and high density apartment buildings. 

 

In this latest lockdown, Mr. Ford decided that he would also stop access to outdoor facilities and activities.  No outdoor visits or interactions with anyone outside our homes, no golf, no tennis, no basketball.  His original list included playgrounds and gave the police wide sweeping powers to stop anyone outside their home at random to question the reason for being out of our homes.  The playground and police pieces didn't even last a day.  Parents objected loudly and police forces across the province refused to accept their new powers.   Medical professionals have spoken out strongly about the other outdoor restrictions.  Stopping people from golfing or playing tennis is just stupid but Mr. Ford and his band of covidiots has not been dissuaded from holding fast to a position unfounded in science.

 

I am a senior citizen and like most Canadians, I have been pretty law-abiding all my life.  I will admit that I sometimes exceed the speed limit by five or ten kilometers an hour when driving on the 401 but that is pretty much the limit of my lawlessness - or at least it has been until now.  But this last round of nonsensical restrictions has pushed me beyond my limits.  For more than a year, I have obeyed all the rules.  I don't go into anyone's home or have people in mine.  I have not attended any illegal gatherings.  I patiently waited for my vaccine appointment - even though I had been advised by several people on how to jump the queue. I am waiting patiently for my second appointment - now in serious question because I got the AstraZeneca shot.  I double mask in the grocery store and stay six feet away from the people dropping my art supplies in bins to retrieve for contactless delivery.  But enough is enough. Concern for my own mental health and wellbeing won't allow me to isolate from everyone I love.  I break the law when I walk over to my sister's place to have coffee and talk in her yard.  I break the law when I have tea outside with my neighbour.  I break the law when I stand on the walkway and speak to friends who are standing in their doorways accepting my small gifts of pickles and jam.  And here in Ontario, those things make this old lady a criminal.  So Mr. Ford, congratulations for pushing me to the dark side.  Have me fined or arrested if you feel the need.