the cassandra pages

Hermit Diary, Montreal. 12. The Spice Cabinet

I don't know if "corona-guilt" has become a catch-phrase yet, but there's plenty of it going around. Faced with these vast expanses of time and solitude, we're supposed to write novels and compose music, establish yoga and meditation practices, communicate effectively with everyone we ever knew, become bread-bakers and sweater-knitters and Great-Book-readers, and finally tackle all the leaky faucets and crammed closets -- not to mention the interior organization of our computers -- that we've put off forever with the happy excuse, "Oh, I'm too busy." Every day isn't Groundhog Day, but instead it's an endless succession of January 1sts, with lists of New Year's resolutions staring us in the face, day after day. Worse yet, with all this communicating, and everyone asking each other, "what did you do today?" it's hard to hide the fact that most of us have been so blindsided by this thing that we've gotten very little done, and suspect that we may continue that way for a long time.

So far, I'm no different: other than these blog posts, I've barely drawn or sewn or done any of the things that first came to mind as possibilities. I've spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get our food delivery together; that's been a priority and it hasn't been easy. But the other preoccupation has been our living space. J. and I live in a very small apartment, and after closing our studio and bringing the cat and a bunch of work-supplies home with us, we've had no choice but to try to better organize our space. There are still boxes and bags and storage bins stacked on the floor and in the hallway, awaiting further resolution, but we've managed to do quite a lot. We installed a new kitchen light, and cleaned the stove and fridge and kitchen walls; every inch of valuable closet space has been reorganized and a lot of things thrown away or recycled. Part of this is practical, but another part is psychological and relational. Things we barely noticed have suddenly become sources of annoyance as we both use our shared spaces more -- shall we say -- intensively. Rather than getting worked up or defensive, as we once might have, the very act of cleaning, organizing, and fixing has been a source of considerable psychological comfort -- I'm doing something for myself, but also for him, and vice-versa.

Yesterday, after J. announced he couldn't find anything in it, I tackled the spice cabinet. The small space you see in the picture above was overflowing with bottles and boxes, tins and packets; I don't think I'd given it a real overhaul since we moved to Montreal more than a decade ago. I knew what was in there, but nobody else could have, since nothing was labeled. In another cabinet, below, were three plastic boxes filled with whatever wouldn't fit into the designated cabinet itself: one labeled "seeds", one for "spices," loosely defined, and one for "leafy herbs" -- but they had all become mixed up, and filled with small plastic bags from Montreal's spice stores, or ziplocs full of dried herbs from my window boxes and pots, plus little clear plastic containers in various shapes, as well as round and square tins, some full, some nearly empty. And besides all this, there was a large beige sac with bay leaves and oregano bought in an Athens market; tzatziki mix and cumin seeds from Catania; and a red plastic mercado sac full of various ground chilis from Mexico.

The task of organizing all of this didn't really take that long, just a few hours. I emptied all the cabinets and boxes; threw away everything old, duplicated, or unidentifiable; washed out the good containers, consolidated and refilled them; made labels. It was a small, manageable task, with an end in sight, and the only disaster was when I spilled a broken packet of Persian saffron onto the counter, and had to carefully gather up every tiny, dark gold stamen before doing anything else.

Cleaning is what I do when everything else feels out of control. My parents used to ride on me unmercifully for my reluctance to clean my desk, my room, my dresser drawers -- I always had something more compelling to do, and it just didn't feel important; besides, *I* knew where everything was. Oddly, once I had my own spaces and shared them with a partner, I got neater -- though there have always been neglected areas. But when unhappiness or chaos or uncertainty seep into my world, I've noticed that I instinctively look for things to do that feel ordered, methodical, and incremental: making a patchwork quilt, knitting stitch after stitch, practicing music or a language, following a complicated recipe, taking the food out of the fridge and scrubbing the shelves. There's a quiet satisfaction today in opening the door to the spice cabinet and seeing the neatly-labeled jars and tins; maybe today I'll do another drawer of my desk. It's all easier than staring at a blank screen, wondering what I can possibly write to make sense of this thing that's happening to all of us -- but, ironically, that time spent doing mundane tasks is when the ideas come, and I've learned to trust that, too.

Hermit Diary, Montreal. 11. What to say?

Olive prunings, Roman Forum, Rome, Italy.

 

Writers write.

At the beginning of March, when we cancelled our trip and it became clear that the virus was coming to North America, it was natural that I -- like so many others -- would turn to the written word as a way to think about, work through, and share my experiences. I began on the following Monday, March 8: "So I thought maybe I'd keep a diary of these unusual days." I kept it up daily for a week or so, and was surprised by the number of comments and the amount of traffic on my blog, greater than it's been for years. I was happy to hear from thoughtful friends and former bloggers who were coming out of the woodwork, and dusting off their literary chops. And of course, on social media and in the news, the torrent of online words became unrelenting. I began to question myself, and what had felt facile for those first days became considerably harder. A few others were having similar thoughts; here's an entry from Nick Cave's Red Hand Files that expressed what I was feeling:

"The Red Hand Files has always been a space in which I could offer dubious existential notions, religious meditations, unsound advice, millennial senilities and general annoyances, while hopefully simultaneously extending a little human kindness and compassion. However, these sorts of ruminations came from a more privileged and fortunate time, when we had the oxygen to muse and to play. Things have changed, we are faced with a common enemy — impartial, unfeeling and of immeasurable magnitude — and it is no longer a time for abstractions. Now is the time to be cautious with our words, our opinions."

"Now is the time to be cautious with our words, our opinions." Twenty days have passed now since I began writing, and the gravity of the situation is such that I cringe at the casualness of those first words: "I thought maybe I'd keep a diary..."  What, indeed, can I say, can any of us say? And yet there are plenty of people, most notably in the U.S., who still don't get it, who are ignoring the science, and arguing about things that don't matter and ignoring things that are literally a matter of life and death. They are not just the leaders, but ordinary people too. And all the while, in places closer and closer to home, the bodies pile up, like the facts that we are beginning to understand about this virus, which will one day come together into a solution for this particular threat. Heroes, both likely and unlikely, emerge. Every one of us, no matter how limited by isolation, fitness, or age, is presented with opportunities to be of service to others. But the looming question is what we will learn in a larger sense: as the human race, and societies, and as individuals.

The most-read article in The Guardian today is a letter from Italian novelist Francesca Melandri to her fellow Europeans, and to the United Kingdom. In it she says "we were just like you," and traces the pattern I've alluded to here: the progression from the arguments between those who say "it's just like the flu" to those who know it's not, to the early novelty of self-isolation, the focus on food, the fleeting attraction of apocalyptic books and films, the obsessive fascination with online connection and video meetups, the online fitness workouts and virtual cocktail hours, the fights with our elders to try to get them to stay home, the ways we buoy each other with songs from balconies and rooftops, the dark humor, the growing awareness of domestic abuse and the divisions of class -- and the gradual falling away of the superfluous and superficial, the transparency of our friends' and families' behavior, the sleeplessness and anxiety, and the sense that nothing is going to be the same ever again.

So, yes, writers write, some better than others.

The advice I'm giving myself today, from decades of writing and editing, and after thinking about the words of Cave and Melandri and others, is: write what you know, and then ask yourself if it feels necessary to say out loud.

Sometimes the best thing a writer can do is listen.

Hermit Diary, Montreal. 10. Grief, Resistance, Acceptance.

A number of years ago, when I was talking about the grief and anger I was experiencing when my mother was ill and dying, a wise person told me, "It's our resistance to what is that always causes the most pain." I'd never thought of that before, and it immediately struck me as true. First of all, that's exactly what I was doing -- I was trying to put everything back into a box labelled "Before." In my experience since, this remark about resistance has continued to be true. When we resist the situation in which we find ourselves, and try to make things go back to "normal" -- when "normal" is what we're wishing for, and it doesn't or can't happen -- we feel a lot of pain that comes out in a variety of ways. But when we can move toward accepting things as they are, and stop trying to insist that they change, suddenly there's some openness and softness in what felt like a hard, fixed, frightening trap. We begin to see what we can control or change, alongside that which we can't, and we also begin to see some new possibilities about how to engage with the present and the uncertain future.

I've lived through a number of personal crises, and political/national times of war, tension, and uncertainty. But I've never experienced something like the present. It's hard. There's a state of dread as we watch the case counts rise, and I feel enormous grief at the suffering the world is going through. I'm literally enraged at leaders and parties who refuse to listen to science and reason, and who care more about wealth and the economy than people's lives -- which makes me angry all over again at the people who elected them. That anger has made me pretty cranky sometimes, which I'm trying to notice and overcome, occasionally with limited success. I'm appalled at some of the cruel comments about older people that I've read on social media and in the news. And I simply fail to understand how some people in all of our communities can be in such denial of reality, or so selfish as to put others at grave risk, even though I understand the characteristics and beliefs that make people that way. Finally, because my husband has an immune issue, I'm trying to make sure I've done enough to disinfect whatever enters the apartment, from the grocery delivery to my own hands when I've gone to the basement with the recycling. It's stressful.

None of those negative emotions do any good, frankly. I've tried to turn my annoyance and fear about other people into action; I've written to the mayor's office several times about situations observed here in Montreal, and received quick, satisfactory answers that were followed up: for instance, the large children's playground nearby was being used by several clueless families on Saturday; now it's closed and has police tape around it, along with all the other public playgrounds in the city. Not my doing, I'm sure, but I know from the reply I received that my letter was read. For my own sanity, I'm trying to limit my time on social media and news-reading while staying informed. Fortunately, we're quite contented being here, engrossed in things we like to do. I remind myself that what we're doing -- staying in, not seeing others, washing our hands, getting groceries delivered, washing produce, disinfecting hard surfaces -- is following the best advice we've got. Each week, we get more used to doing things this new way, and it feels less strange.

Beyond that, it's a time to keep busy, to check in with others, to reach out when we feel weak as well as when we feel strong, and find and share the beauty that still exists everywhere. On my short walk yesterday morning, the sky was blue, the snow brilliant white, and I stopped to watch three large flocks of Canada geese flying overhead. Spring is coming, time's moving forward.

It's unlikely we'll ever go back to what was once "normal". Moving through this over the weeks and months ahead is going to take courage as well as patience, and cost us dearly in innumerable ways. But we can either ride that road rigidly, and feel every single bump, or we can let go of a little of our resistance, and soften into what is, and the journey will be easier not only on us, but on the people around us. It's also important not to be too hard on ourselves. This is rough. We're all going to fall apart sometimes, lose our tempers or patience, confront a sudden wave of anxiety. It's OK. The next breath, the next hour, the next day are all fresh chances to begin again.

Illustration: Grave stele, 5th C BC, National Archaeological Museum, Athens

 

Hermit Diary, Montreal. 6. Tranströmer plays Haydn.

Yesterday Teju Cole asked his Facebook followers a simple question: "What's helping?" As you can imagine, the comments included a wide range of answers: everything from "the stillness" to "connecting with others." In addition to "talking to friends", a lot of people (including me) mentioned reading and music. I've been playing my piano much more lately, and I'm going to miss it badly because we are seldom going to our studio, where it lives. The cathedral, where I've been involved in music for more than a decade, is closed, and there will be no choral services for a long time. I'll have to sing to myself, or get out my flute, because there's a music quotient in my life that can only be satisfied by making music, not just by listening.

So here is a poem by Tomas Tranströmer, the late Swedish poet and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2011, who also played the piano. After suffering a stroke in 1990, his right side was paralyzed, and he taught himself to play with just his left hand. He is quoted as saying that playing was a way for him to continue living after the stroke -- though he did go on to write poetry until the early 2000s, publishing his final book, The Great Enigma, in 2004. He died in 2015, just weeks before his 84th birthday.

Allegro

I play Haydn on a black day
and feel a simple warmth in my hands.

The keys are willing. Soft hammers strike.
The resonance green, lively, and calm.

The music says freedom exists
and someone doesn't pay the emperor tax.

I push down my hands in my Haydnpockets
and imitate a person looking on the world calmly.

I hoist the Haydnflag--it signifies:
"We don't give in. But want peace."

The music is a glasshouse on the slope
where the stones fly, the stones roll.

And the stones roll right through
but each pane stays whole.

--Tomas Transtromer

 

Hermit Diary, Montreal. 5. Age and Wisdom

Two friends in Mexico City, 2016

I'm sure that most of us who are older have been dismayed by incidents and expressions of ageism since this epidemic started. To have to add these micro- and macro-aggressions to our own sense of increased vulnerability seems particularly bruising. When a friend told me that he had heard a young person calling the virus the "Boomer Remover" I literally felt like someone had just hit me. I was also dismayed, this past weekend, to see bars and brunch spots teeming with young people who either hadn't gotten the message about social distancing, or were deliberately flaunting it. And that wasn't just here: a friend in Europe wrote that there had been a moral outrage directed at his country’s "urbanized under-30 cool set, when it was revealed that lots of these people flaunted the curfews with 'F*%# Corona' parties in bars that were ordered closed."

On reflection, I've tried to temper my own instinctive reaction by thinking about the kind of world an under-30 person has inherited. While we praise the idealism and activism of many young people, there are some who are in it merely to maximize pleasure and profit for themselves, and still others who cannot make sense out of a world that, even before the present situation, they perceived as hopelessly polarized, dangerous, disintegrating, and devoid of opportunity. Drug and alcohol dependency is one possible reaction; nihilism is another; despair, depression and even suicidal thoughts are others.

Plenty of young people are not like that, and are certainly not wishing for this virus to cull everybody they consider "old." Maybe they were brought up differently, to be less self-centered; maybe they've been blessed with greater emotional stability; maybe they've had older family members, teachers, mentors and friends who took a genuine interest and helped give them the vital grounding anyone needs in order to become a full and responsible adult, taking their place in a world that has never been safe and secure for everyone. I'd fervently like to hear from younger people who may be reading this: please tell us how the world seems to you in this precarious moment.

Like Premier Francois Legault -- who spoke out to young Quebecers, saying he remembered being young and not wanting to listen to older people, but that this was not the time to have a party, it was a time for all of us to consider one another -- I too thought back to my own childhood and young adulthood. My father was a veteran of WWII, which had ended only a few years before I was born; every adult I knew had lost friends and family in that conflict. I grew up in America during the Cold War, when civil defense drills were a normal occurrence; I was completely convinced that my life would probably end in the blast of a nuclear bomb. After that came Vietnam, which tore the country apart, saw college students my age shot on campus, and had every young male in the country eligible to be called up in the draft. Many who served died; others were left with varying degrees of trauma; others left and went to Canada, or went to jail, or maimed themselves; some (both veterans and not) fell into the same despair and dead-end solutions as I mentioned above. There was a massive "generation gap." During those same years, many of us became early activists for the climate and ecology, choosing to live alternative lifestyles to try to maintain some integrity with our beliefs. And right after that came the AIDS epidemic, which cut down some of the brightest and best people we had known... Since then there have been more wars, leading up to 9/11, and the political, ecological, and human morass in which we find ourselves today. People who grew up in India, or Africa, or South America, or other places on earth, were all shaped by different cultural and political experiences, often much harsher than what I've described.

The thing is, anyone who's older now has seen and experienced a particular version of human history, as well as countless personal traumas, health scares, disappointments, losses, and deaths. Yet we've somehow survived, and a good many of us have actually gained wisdom about life, and being human, from what we've lived through. That wisdom seems sorely needed now, just as much as we older people need the energy and vitality of the young who will carry our hopes for humanity into the future. I'm going to try to share some of that wisdom in these posts, not just in my own words but through the writing of some of my friends.

In conclusion for today, then, here is a short recent social media post from Dick Jones, a former teacher, and continuing poet, musician, and father, who lives in London and is an old and dear friend of mine:

Sometimes I find myself just stopping half way across a room & standing still. I'm not really thinking or reflecting; I'm just feeling worn out, defeated & terribly sad. We've only just rocked & rolled our way out of 3 years of Brexit & climate crisis conflict with all of its attendant disillusionment & disgust - that final exposure of the ethical & ideological poverty, the sheer malignant, self-serving stupidity of power politics across the board. And now some half-biblical, half-shit dystopia movie plague has come rolling in like an invisible fog to gather us all up as if in reckoning for our moral failings.

Well, whatever the clichéd symbolism of Covid-19's busy, relentless work across the small, synaptic gaps between us, it brings with it one equally platitudinous requirement: that we be kind to each other. If 'only connect' now has grim connotations of infection, 'long-distance love' must take its place. The immediate casualties of this silent plague are those whose day-to-day welfare was entirely dependent on the physical proximity of others -- from the barrista dispensing a skinny rush-hour latte, to the elderly emphysema sufferer in the doctor's waiting room. We have to look after each other across the old social, political & cultural barriers. As the traditional transactions become redundant, we have to share -- mutual aid must define the way we live against the temptations of the survivalist siege. It's a choice, but surely an inexorable one...

Hermit Diary, Montreal. 4: Shakespeare

                    But when the planets
in evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents, what mutiny,
What raging of the sea, shaking of earth.
Commotion in the winds, frights changes horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixure!

William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida

It's probably not surprising for me to turn to literature during times like this, as I search for historical patterns and the meanings that past writers have found in similar events. In The Atlantic, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a professor of English at Linfield College, writes "Shakespeare wrote his best works during a plague:" an article about present and past theatre closures due to epidemics from bubonic plague to AIDS, and the dramatic literature that came out of those times.

Shakespeare's work is full of references to the plague, which took the lives of several of his young brothers and interrupted his own life several times. Productions had to be halted, theatres closed, and Shakespeare, as actor/producer, was left to go back to writing. In 1593, he wrote poetry during the closures, and in 1606, he wrote King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. The plague also figures in a number of his plays. Here's a quote from Pollack-Pelzner:

"In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, written just after the end of the 1593 outbreak, the friar who’s supposed to tell Romeo that Juliet is only pretending to be dead gets prevented from delivering his message because he’s quarantined with a fellow priest who’s been helping the sick: “The searchers of the town, / Suspecting that we both were in a house / Where the infectious pestilence did reign, / Sealed up the doors and would not let us forth.” Romeo never gets the message, of course, and he kills himself before Juliet revives."

Shakespeare was just echoing prevailing beliefs when he blamed plagues and earthquakes and violent storms on "planets in disorder" or the wrath of God. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would still do that, if they couldn't conveniently blame this particular horror on "foreigners." What I noticed particularly in the quote from Troilus and Cressida was the wonderfully-stated and apt comment that these disasters "divert and crack, rend and deracinate/the unity and married calm of states" from what before felt firmly fixed -- just as we now witness the world's most successful economies, and supposedly top-drawer health care systems, cracking apart and tearing up the roots of the seemingly-solid states themselves. What is new to us was not new at all to a keen observer like Shakespeare, who never stopped at the event itself, but sought to look underneath and behind and beside it, as well as having his characters predict possible futures that could result.

In watching Trump's pathetic, deluded performance during this crisis, it seems as if we're seeing a drama unfold in the same proportions as some of Shakespeare's history plays or his immortal tragedies: a tragedy that will go down through the ages in history and in literature. The king blusters and blasts and blames through the first act; in the second he concocts fantastic schemes; but by the third, he's relegated to one side of the stage, where he sits, defiant, his jaw set, having lost every shred of our sympathy, while the disaster he's failed to prevent swirls around him, his toady-ing ministers desert him, and once-minor characters begin to take the reins or emerge as heros.

What we can't see yet, of course, is how it all ends.

"Woe to that land that's govern'd by a child!
All may be well. But if God sort it so,
'Tis more than we deserve or I expect."

William Shakespeare, Richard III (II.3)

---

(Portrait drawing by me, in pencil, 3.5" x 5")

 

Hermit Diary, Montreal. 3

Manon always thinks she is being helpful!

This quilt project, a riff on the traditional bear-paw pattern, is perfect for incremental work: doing a little bit every day adds up quickly. I started it over a year ago and put it aside, then took it out last week when I knew the meditative, repetitive work would be helpful, and began again. The central part of the top is almost finished now, and tomorrow I'll finish sewing these blocks together and begin a border and edging. I'm looking forward to doing the hand-quilting, and hope I have something in my stash that will work for the backing, if not, I'll try mail-order and hope for the best. Most of these fabrics are William Morris prints, collected over the years or purchased specifically for this project a while back.

I didn't sleep well last night. After a solid four hours, I woke up (as I usually do) and couldn't get back to sleep, so I got up, made some of my favorite Chinese calming tea to which I added a little valerian, and curled up on the couch with my knitting. I was determined not to read any news or social media, but did see that I had a message from a close friend, and when I checked that, it reassured me and I was able to go back to sleep. I'm sure many of us are having disturbed sleep, and what could be more normal? Usually I can put myself back to sleep by following my breath or reciting familiar poetry or psalms that I know so well the words are almost automatic. Once or twice through usually does the trick. But when that doesn't work, and I've been awake half an hour or more, it's better to get up and "change my head," as my father-in-law used to say. Insomnia used to bother me a great deal. Lack of sleep was more of a problem when I was young and had business appointments in the morning, or was traveling, and I also needed more of it. Now I can function quite well on six hours for a day or two, and rarely get more than 7 1/2 - it's when low-sleep days accumulate that most of us run into trouble. On the occasional night when I do get up, knitting helps, or looking at an art book, or reading a bit if it's not too active or disturbing a book, and I can usually go back to bed in an hour or two.

The good part about this changed routine is that sleeping later in the morning is not a problem! Have you been sleeping well or not, and how do you deal with it?

Montreal is shutting down. There was little traffic today, though lots of people were out walking in the cold sunshine. Premier Francois Legault has ordered all non-essential businesses to close, including bars and restaurants. I think this is necessary, because today the brunch spots were still full of young people who don't seem to understand why social-distancing is important; last night the same was true for the popular bars. There's been inconsistency of messaging at the airports, too, and supposedly the provincial government will now send officials to make sure that every traveler is screened and told to self-isolate if they've been out of the country. I was invited, this evening, to join a solidarity group in my arrondissment; people are offering services and requesting help. I'm always impressed with grass-roots initiatives and how helpful they can be; in this case I feel like Quebec is working both top-down and grass-roots up to do the best we can in a difficult situation.

Hermit Diary, Montreal. 2

Girl Decorating an Altar. Drinking cup from Athens, c. 460 BC. Altes Museum, Berlin, with apologies for the blurriness of my photograph. The drawing is still exquisite.

 

Saturday, March 14, 2020

In the dream I stood facing a window in an empty house, arranging some plates that were not mine in an unfamiliar room. I turned, and saw our late friend Jenny, sitting on a couch or bench, dressed in white, her hair long and wavy as it was many years ago. She smiled her inimitable smile, and we talked, but I can't remember our words or what they were about -- what I remember are her face, the whiteness and emptiness of the room, and its calmness.

After I woke up, I knew this dream had something to do with the virus and our fears of death, but that it also had to do with the endurance of friendship and love. Today I called several friends and wrote to others; my father and another friend called us; I made soup and cornbread for lunch and sent some across the city to a dear friend who's been sick with seasonal flu. I thought about our cathedral and its motto, "An Oasis in the Heart of Montreal," and what that could mean not just to our community but to the city at large, if we can manage to be creative and innovative in our outreach even while regular services are suspended. It was a sunny day, a bit warmer than usual, and my husband and I went out for a long walk. This evening, in the new, longer-lasting light, we ventured out onto our nearly-snowless terrace with our gin-and-tonics, and toasted each other and the coming spring before scooting back inside.

In all of these conversations, of course, we spoke about what we were doing to prepare or take precautions for the coming days. Quebec Premier Francois Legault today asked that all persons 70 years and older stay in their homes as much as possible -- this in addition to all the other closures and directives already in place. My husband and I aren't quite at that age, but many of our friends are. Two of our younger friends have already offered to shop for us or do errands if needed, and we were both surprised and appreciative; I felt sort of the way I do when someone gets up and offers their seat on the bus or metro, because I feel so much younger than I probably look. I usually decline, but I appreciate the gesture, which always comes from someone who's aware of what's going on around them, unlike some of the passengers whose faces are buried in their phones. I won't be riding on public transit for a long while, but what we need now is a lot of that sort of awareness -- people looking out for each other, and functioning as a community rather than individuals concerned only about themselves. In Canada the majority of people, including the young, are polite and pay attention to others, and I think this crisis may bring out the best in us as well as teaching some, who don't realize it yet, the virtue of being that way.

A typical and funny Montreal moment from our walk: a young girl, maybe ten or eleven years old, ran up behind us and asked a question in French. Neither of us had heard her clearly, so I asked, in French, what she had said. She tilted her head, touched her finger to her chin, and said, "Anglais?" I nodded helplessly -- once again found out, and this time by a child! -- and she asked, in perfect English, "Could you please tell me where the dog park is?" I'm so envious of this seemingly effortless bilingualism of the young, which is the norm all across this city.

--

Though I won't be with them for a while, our choir will sing Evensong tomorrow as a radio- and live-streamed broadcast from the cathedral. If you'd like to listen, it's at 4:00 pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time on Radio Ville-Marie, here. The meditative hour-long program, with readings and prayers in French and English, is as follows:

Prelude: Chorale Prelude on 'Eventide', C Hubert H Parry
Introit: Call to remembrance, Richard Farrant
Responses: Bernard Rose
Psalm: 40
Canticles: Blair in B minor
Anthem: Wie der Hirsch schreit, Felix Mendelssohn
Postlude: Prelude & Fugue in C minor BWV 546, Johann Sebastian Bach

Hermit Diary, Montreal. 1.

Friday, March 12, 2020

What a changed situation in just a few days. From Canada, we've watched the disarray and slowness of the U.S. health care response to COVID-19 in dismay, as the reported number of cases keep rising, surely far more slowly than the real count. All worldwide evidence has pointed to the fact that the sooner countries act to limit transmission, the slower the infection rate, and the lower the mortality, because the health care system will be less overwhelmed -- the opposite of what has happened with such tragic results in Italy.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Trudeau and Quebec Premier Francois Legault both announced sweeping measures designed to isolate returning travelers and create social distance: from airline controls to school and public facility closures and bans on large social gatherings. Churches, including our cathedral, have cancelled weekend services and masses. Hockey will be played in an empty arena. Today Trudeau said that the government is considering closing the border with the U.S. or enacting other, tighter controls; it's impossible to know exactly what we'll be dealing with in another week. I'm surprised at the range of attitudes I've heard from friends and family in the U.S. and elsewhere. Some people clearly get what's happening and what they need to do, others are still in denial. Unfortunately, a large majority of us need to get on the same page. Here's a good link to what social distancing actually means in practice, with clear recommendations for different risk groups.

There are 17 reported cases in the province of Quebec right now, and will certainly be more. I'm completely in favor of immediate, strict measures to limit social interaction.  The federal government will also be helping people who are out of work or otherwise impacted by the closures, and, thankfully, everyone in Canada has health coverage.

On the home front, I was glued to the computer much of yesterday because events were moving so fast; that day was the tipping point when "what if" debates turned into decisions and actions. We received a grocery delivery last night; the delivery person said it was busy but not crazy. Today we heard that people are flocking to stores, even lining up in the early morning before large stores opened, and that many essentials are sold out. Canadians aren't quite as panicky as some people, though, and I think and hope this will settle down. I'm grateful and proud of the government here for taking a strong proactive approach, and fervently hope it helps protect both the people and the healthcare system and workers.

Today I've tried to mostly stay off the internet. I've corresponded with friends, done some cooking, walked up to my studio in a blustery wind, worked on a quilt project, practiced a Scarlatti sonata. There's evidence of spring not only in the March weather, but in bulbs sticking their noses out of the earth, buds beginning to swell on magnolias, stems of hardy roses turning green, even though the sidewalks are still lined with ice and snow. My mood is mostly calm; we're doing what we need to do personally, the government and institutions are acting, and much of the rest is out of our control. The tasks ahead will be to make positive use of this very un-ordinary time and to try to help others for whom it's more difficult, devising ways of communicating and connection that may be different or new, as well as keeping myself as calm as possible, still with eyes wide open.

Here's a previous post that I didn't publish, from earlier this week, with questions for you:

Mexico City interior, two years ago.

Monday, March 8, 2020

We were supposed to be waking up this morning in the warmth and color of Mexico City, but instead, I'm looking out the window at wan sunshine on melting ice, and the grey snow that lines the streets of Montreal. Like many other people, we reluctantly cancelled our travel plans at the last minute -- in fact, half an hour before we were going to call the taxi to the airport -- and have been trying to re-set our heads as well as our clocks, and adjust to an unpredictable and uncharted short-term future.

The flight south was to have been last Tuesday, which probably would have been all right, but we were more worried about getting back home on March 20th, and I was concerned about the effect of the air pollution on my lungs, which were not particularly happy the last time we were there. Coming back with even a slightly compromised respiratory system didn't seem like a good idea. There are few confirmed virus cases in Montreal so far, only four as of this writing, and few in Mexico, but Montreal is a big international city with a large airport through which world travelers are moving, especially to and from Europe and the U.S., every day. It's the airports and air travel that worried us, as well as the fast-moving situation of both the virus, and the unknown governmental responses to it.

Then too, we're both over 65, with some underlying conditions. In spite of the fact that we're both generally quite healthy and vigorous for our age, all the best advice and evidence pointed to one conclusion: that we should avoid unnecessary travel, definitely not take airplanes or public transit, and stay at home maintaining "social distance" as much as possible. Since we made that decision, which was somewhat of an educated guess a week ago, our certainty has increased; now I wouldn't hesitate to cancel and stay home.

Over the past few days we've bought basic supplies so that we won't have to run to the stores every day, but I wouldn't call it stockpiling; we live a couple of blocks from an area of small market shop that are likely to continue to serve our neighborhood. There are few shortages here so far. We should have no trouble continuing to walk (or soon bike) back and forth to our studio. Other than that, we won't be going out much at all. We mostly plan to live a hermit-like existence while this thing plays out however it does, minimizing our exposure as much as possible. Maybe we'll get sick anyway, but we intend to try hard not to.

So I thought maybe I'd keep a diary of these unusual days. I'll write a bit about the progress of the virus in a city where we're starting practically at zero, but I'd also like to write about what far-flung friends are saying in other parts of the world, since one thing this situation has done is prove precisely how interconnected we are. (And I'd like to hear from you if you're reading this blog!) I'd also like to write about staying busy and sane in a slowed-down, quieter, more inner state of existence over the next weeks. Living that way is not particularly foreign to me, or to us, but I know it will be unfamiliar and difficult for many people. There will be art happening, and music, and cooking, and textile work, language study, reading, and correspondence with friends. Spring will slowly arrive, and I'll be happy to be outside more. But I won't be singing as much, if at all, or going to services at the cathedral or concerts or social gatherings; I probably won't be traveling to the U.S. for a while either. I'm lucky that I can even make these decisions; a lot of people have a much more complicated life to juggle, or are living in situations where they have very little control. Having to cancel a trip may be the least of the disruptions many of us will face. But I don't think it necessarily has to be onerous to live differently for a while; it could even be a time of reassessing some of the behaviors and patterns we've taken for granted for years.

Let's see how it goes. And please send me a note at cassandra (dot) pages (at) gmail (dot) com if you'd like to contribute a post or say something about what it's like where you are, and how you're managing the changes in your life. Staying anonymous is fine. I'd welcome a few regular correspondents from different parts of the world, and will be cross-posting from this blog to social media.

A Black Letter Day

Antikyra, Greece.

I just skimmed through the Guardian and the New York Times – I can only spend 15-30 minutes on the Times, in particular, or I get too depressed – and my husband asked, from the kitchen, “what are all those sighs?” It’s unbelievable, what’s going on, and the place that both the U.S. and the U.K. have come to, not to mention the world and climate change. And it’s difficult for me, sometimes, to understand my own life in this context. Everything I've based my life on and care about deeply feels irrelevant, and, at the same time, endangered.

I think it’s imperative that we try to talk about this aspect of being alive now, not just the issues that we’re all so concerned about and which are affecting us nearly every minute of every day.  So many of us are living with grief, pain, and helplessness, plus we’re being fed a steady diet of anxiety, but the message given by capitalism, advertising, entertainment, and even many of our spiritual and educational institutions, is to carry on as usual: don’t talk too much about it, do your work, shore up your own future, play with your friends and family, pretend this isn’t happening as long as you possibly can. Unfortunately, most people in leadership positions have little idea how to talk about such a dire psychological crisis. And in the U.S., the denial of interconnection of all the major issues in the world has reached epic proportions. Today we read that Greece is building a floating migrant barrier. It’s horrible, but far more understandable to me than a wall on the southern U.S. border. Greece and Italy have borne the brunt of the refugee crisis for all of Europe and the rest of the world, while the richer countries have set quotas and washed their hands. And America has the gall to criticize Greece? Or refuse to acknowledge whose policies have caused the terrorism and refugee crises in the first place? How can people be capable of such hypocrisy and poor thinking? And that’s just one part of the whole interconnected mess.

So we have a probable impeachment acquittal and Brexit coming on the same day. An American who I love very much recently said to me, “This country is really booming!” They meant it, and believe it. It's as if what that person sees, and what I see, are two entirely different views of reality.

As friends who share similar views, however, we have to find ways to talk to each other, and help each other not to be crushed by the weight of grief and anxiety about the future, our sense of the sheer wrongness of what is going on, and our utter fatigue at the rigidity of the current moral divisions in society. It’s extremely difficult. If you focus on your own personal life, or on pursuits like art, for instance, it can feel like putting your head in the sand even though those pursuits are vitally important for lifting the spirit. Writing about what is wrong can be cathartic, and make us feel like we’re doing something, but does it actually do any good when no one is willing to change their mind? Is there anything truly useful that any of us can do against these sorts of forces, other than doing our best to try to change the political leadership?

I think of people in concentration camps, or civilians caught up in wars. We in the privileged West are not being literally bombarded by explosive weapons, but we are being bombarded emotionally and psychologically every single day. We are not literally imprisoned in concentration camps, but we are actually imprisoned in a situation that is doing violence to innocent people and to the earth as we watch, and this situation of being a constant witness is draining and depleting to the point of paralysis, no matter how secure we are, how much money we give, or how many changes we make in our own lifestyles.

So I also remember the importance of people who have kept hope alive in the past, and who kept LIFE alive, by living as fully, joyfully, lovingly, non-violently, and wisely as possible while being absolutely clear about what was, in fact, happening. As Thomas Merton wrote, we need to become people who can hold the darkness and the light in our hands simultaneously. This is only possible through contemplation and a great deal of thought and inner work, but that is part of the work we are being called to do.

The other part of the work is to band together to take collective action -- together we can accomplish much more than as individuals, and we can do more to help one another through this extremely challenging period of time. Do something. Help build a house for someone who can't afford it. Work collectively to force institutions to divest of fossil fuels. Sponsor a refugee family. Send aid to imprisoned Hispanic children. Teach. Bring art and music into other people's lives. Start a group where thinking, caring people like you can discuss the challenge of being alive right now. Turn your own despair into someone else's hope.