What were we thinking?

It’s only mid November. Only!? By now I’d have charted multiple itineraries for the next year’s travel, after concluding the current year’s of course. Or I’d still be on the road. I’d be finalising my Xmas shopping, writing the annual Xmas letter filled with best wishes and photos from our travels. Instead I feel stuck on a track filled with uncertainty, suspended in air full of Covid news, warnings, lockdowns and projections for worse coming our way. It’s been a very long year. Still a month and a half to go. With governments on all levels chasing their tails, especially in Ontario, where public health is toothless, we have to be extremely careful. Testing is down, cases are up. Perhaps if they stop testing it all will disappear…

As was the nice dry summer and fall, November has been generous so far. At least for us in Southern Ontario. It’s just a week ago that we had our last outside physically-distanced (don’t you love this term?) get together with Stuart and Jane,

only one day after we had the neighbours in the back yard, each couple sitting 5 meters away from the others. Later that Monday, we’d learn about the new scary projections, the admission by Toronto Public Health authorities that it is practically everywhere, the possibility of a complete lockdown which, as every other time, many would ignore.

And the new colour scheme for closing businesses. So, we are now in a red zone. Or are we? And what exactly does this mean? Restaurants are open, but one is not supposed to leave their home except if essential. Kids are mingling with other kids at school, but one is supposed to only mingle within their own household. Can it get more confusing?

“It’s going to be a long winter”, Stuart keeps saying. In the summer, I didn’t quite get it. But then I kept busy with gardening.

My lettuces, my kale, my swiss chard, my zucchini… parsing my day plant by plant.

Water in the morning, pull the weeds, walk, cook, read, cook again, walk again, water again, post a recipe or something, sleep. Wake up to a new day. But is it a new day or is it the same day again? Are we in the “Groundhog Day” movie? Perhaps we will get it right this time, and wake up to a new day.

Soon it all will be over with. Soon? Time stopped in March. Then, we genuinely believed that it all would be done and over by the summer. What. Were. We. Thinking? I had even charted my plans for spending the winter in Portugal. Instead, our lives became a repetition. Walk around the same block again, order same food again, oh wine is gone, order the same again. Notice this dreaded word “again”? I’m not done with it yet!  Read the same news again (no, it is the media, not me) – numbers are rising again, Europe is on fire again.

Nice sunny day again (that is really great!) BBQ again. Call the same people again. Well, after a while I stopped calling. I felt good, wrapped in my solitude. To the point that I wonder will I ever meet people again, will I ever enjoy making dinners and having friends over again.

Our first “social gathering” was April 4^th with each of the neighbours sat it their own driveways, drinking their own wine, and shouting across the street to each other. Then sometime mid summer we got over the fear to the point we’d invite friends and neighbours into our back yard, chairs sat way beyond the recommended 2-metre distance. “Bring your own wine, glasses and munchies”, mind you.

Now that all the summer days are gone, I agree – it’s going to be a long winter. With no inside gatherings, no visiting friends, no Xmas shopping (I bet many who hated the “Jingles” played in every store will be missing the madness of Xmas shopping this year), no visiting popular Xmas markets, the darkness of the shorter December days will be looming over us. Our neighbours put their Xmas lights up last week. We’ll be doing the same this week (hmmm, how is it that I’m the one who puts up the lights, and didn’t know that I’d planned to do it next week? – A). However, I’ll miss my Xmas dinner preparation, running to the Bulgarian store for some specialties and Bulgarian dry meats, making the sour cabbage for my turkey dinner to feed 20+, decorating the Xmas tree and Xmas tables. I always wondered how and when would our big Xmas parties end. And I always imagined it would be because of travelling and spending the winter elsewhere.

It is November already, yet I still wake up to the same day again. As in March. As in April. (Just that my hair was shorter then). I will post some recipes made with produce from my Covid gardens in the next little while. A new pasta sauce? Or is it? What is ready for use today – the beets perhaps? Or the zucchini? And what do I have in the fridge to complement the sauce? And I’ll catch up with unfinished travel stories from the past. But I feel stuck in the kitchen (how many pasta sauces one can make from green tomatoes?) and stuck in life in general.

My Plants