Old Woman in the Retirement Building Across the Street

April, 2022

Her bedroom curtains are always open and I can see when the light beside her bed is off

or on.

5:00a.m. Her pillow askew. The sheets thrown back. The slippers gone: I know that both of us are once again awake before dawn.

Then I get sick.

I’m sleeping around the clock. Until one night, I get up a lot to have a pee or take a pill.

I see her light is still on, her white head asleep on her pillow, curled on her side towards the window.

And I still don’t stop to wonder about her because I’m so sick.

Maybe the day after or the one after that. I finally stop and see she’s gone. Along with everything in her room.

The windows are open.

The light of the sun sweeps across the bare floor.

Until someone comes, and her curtains for the first time, are drawn.

It’s Going to be Uncomfortable Not Impossible.

And is that going to be what decides how we respond to the challenges we face? I worry that we are getting tired and want comfort above all.

I’m tired.  But I am also clear eyed. Some where recently I read, when we are uncertain of the future, take smaller steps. The truth is we are always uncertain of the future. If someone tells you they know what it holds be clear enough to see their self-delusion before you make it your own.

I take smaller steps because I am older, my knees are bad and I am not as fast as I was in catching myself from a fall, but I am clear eyed and I am accustomed to what is uncomfortable. I also have a history of what seemed impossible becoming possible.

I have an idea of what the world can be because I have known love, I have witnessed courage.  So my small steps remain on a path towards a world we can live in because it’s possible.

I am hopeful that what I am seeing is a good response

I wrote the following in response to a friends utter despair over the lack of concern for the plight of Syrian refugees before this Covid19 shook the world.

Now, more than anything, I am glad to see that we are voluntarily self-isolating, and socially distancing–lessening the impact of this virus. And more than this, we are doing it with humour and love for one another.

It is a good sign. I hope too that it registers in the hearts and minds of us all that we are capable of more than we think. That not being self centered and selfish can actually change life for the better, even giving rise to real economic activity. The sort of economic activity generated by working to protect the well-being of all beings instead of just inflating imaginary numbers for the benefit of despots. Anyway, my friend just reminded me of this conversation recently and I post it here.

M:  Here. These are some of our fellow humans. Their displacement has been enabled by our collective unwillingness to confront Assad’s Atrocity, Russia and Iran’s regional aspirations, the USA’s famed proclivity towards abandoning its allies, and Turkey’s Machiavellian maneuverings. It has been enabled by Fortress Europe. And it has been enabled by our utter global lack of outrage, which has given tacit permission for the Atrocity to continue, for nearly ten years, in the face of incontrovertible proof of war crimes by a variety of parties.

M:This is Orwell’s moment: surveillance, disappearances, detentions, torture, cluster bombs, the use of prohibited weapons (including gas), against civilian populations, the targeting of hospitals and first responders and medical personnel and doctors, perpetual war, all tools of Big Brother. Power for its own sake, twisting and shifting, old enemies becoming friends, old friends betrayed. Newspeak scribbling over the most well-documented betrayal of a people in history.

And we have responded with, “Do it to Julia. Not me.” The rats are coming for you all.

Rio: I think I read or heard that Hitler was emboldened by Europe’s lack of response to the genocide of Armenians, so much so that he said, no one will care if we get rid of the Jews…it is normal again to turn a blind eye. Have no doubt that there are Evil minds watching and waiting to put that into play for their hateful advantage in your own countries people. But going further, it was also considered that the grinding debt forced on Germans by their enemies for the ridiculous hubris of blue bloods, namely the first world war, created the the dish of slop in which Fascism grew…So, in my opinion, the only way forward and off this wheel of pain is to focus on stability, moderation and a preparedness to sacrifice for the benefit of our neighbours, even if they might be inclined to hate us or take advantage, to care for the weak and have that care entrenched in law. Here and now in Canada.

I am guardedly hopeful.