Hibernation

This time of year, when the darkness increases until we reach Solstice and can see the return of longer days, I find myself thinking of hibernation. The increasingly tightened Covid regulations intensify that desire. I want to crawl under my big green Hudson’s Bay blanket and sleep for a long time.

Apparently, bears don’t technically hibernate, but rather they enter a state of “torpor” which seems to describe something of what I feel these days. In torpor, according to Science World, bears can sleep more than 100 days without eating, drinking, or passing waste. The remarkable thing about bears is that in this state they are able to turn their pee into protein. For some of us who need to get up two or three times a night to pee, this sounds like a very clever ability:

https://www.scienceworld.ca/stories/do-bears-actually-hibernate/

Bears figure prominently in children's books. From Winnie the Pooh, to Rupert the Bear, Aloysius, Paddington Bear, and so on, children have been entertained for generations by bear protagonists. 

For adults as well, bears figure in our literature. In The Winter’s Tale, one of Shakespeare’s most famous stage directions is “Exit, pursued by a bear.” Rafi Zabor won the Pen/Faulkner award, for his novel The Bear Comes Home, a brilliant work of jazz fiction which features a saxophone-playing bear as the protagonist.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-393-04037-1

Marian Engel’s novel Bear, about a woman who is empowered as a result of her sexual relationship with a bear, won the Governor-General’s Literary Award. Rudyard Kipling wrote about Baloo, the bear who is an important teacher in The Jungle Book. Bears provide great inspiration for fiction writers.

And bears are also subjects of interest for non-fiction writers. UBC Professor Emeritus Dr. Margery Fee recently wrote an important book about the majestic and iconic polar bear:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/polar-bear-margery-fee/1130783744

My friend Liz has said that we need happy songs to cheer us these days, and writing about bears reminds me of Teddy Bears’ Picnic, one of my favourite songs as a child:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAKcqXA-EQs&list=RDIrvkHAxnjzI&index=5

I used to sing this to my granddaughter when she was two and three years old. She loved the song and ask for it to be sung. again and again, but at some point, just before the line about Mummies and Daddies taking the little bears home to bed, I would see large tears rolling down her face. There's something about happy songs, I realize, that can also make us feel sad, perhaps because of the recognition that happiness is often followed by sadness or disappointment.

There were many bears around the North Vancouver home of my daughter and son-in-law, and my granddaughter recalls seeing a bear and her two cubs on her school grounds. The children backed away cautiously! There was a bear outside our bedroom window one night when my husband and I stayed at their North Vancouver house, and one day a bear broke into their shed to get at some garbage. My son-in-law figured out how to deal with that problem and created a short video to teach others:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAilTfoUfC4&t=2s

Many homeowners and the bear protection people were pleased with his video. It has now had 19,000 views!

There’s lots to learn from and about bears. 

I’m trying to emulate them through torpor. It’s said to help animals survive difficult periods, and I think it a little suspended animation can also help humans at this time.

What’s important, though, is for us to emerge from brief states of torpor with more energy and greater determination to do whatever it takes to see us -- and to help others -- through the darkest days of the year.

Note: Is you want to write to me with comments about any of my posts – or with suggestions for happy songs – please write directly to me at wayword@telus.com. Sadly, replies to Carol Matthews These Days don’t reach me.

 

Bubbles

 

When I was young and all too free, and living in Montreal, my roommate and I often would jump into a cab to go to Whitey’s Hideaway where we’d drink gin and listen to an excellent jazz jukebox. A couple of young men we would meet there were impressed with the largesse we demonstrated with taxis and with heavy tipping. They said we were like characters from Guys and Dolls and dubbed me “Peaches” and her “Bubbles.”

I thought of this the other day when a friend phoned and sang me that old tune, I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles. It’s a song with a century-old history.. Written by Nat Vincent, John Kellette, James Kendis and James Brockman, it was first sung in 1918 and was a major Tin Pan Alley hit. Since then it has been sung by Dame Vera Lynn, Doris Day, Dean Martin, and many, many others. I find it a sweet song, a kind of cheerful ditty, although the verses are poignant:

http://mountainstatescollector.com/im-forever-blowing-bubbles-will-never-fade-and-die/

The song quickly became the club anthem of the English Premier League team West Ham United and it has been sung at their games every year up to the 2019 game in Olympic Stadium.

https://spartacus-educational.com/Bubbles.htm.

Through the years, the word “bubble” has come to mean many things: A sparkling drink, something rising to the surface or, more negatively, a place inhabited by someone who is overly sheltered. Living in a bubble has been a criticism of daydreamers or people not open to new ideas.

Bubble was a charmingly ditsy character in the TV serious Absolutely Fabulous and a rather unsavory chap in Trailer Park Boys. Bubbles was also a fish in Finding Nemo.

However, since the virus began the word “bubble” is mostly used in reference to the restricted number of people one is limited to seeing. That’s a total of six. Fewer, if possible.

Although most people are trying to live in tiny bubbles, we notice that there are still a fair number of big bubbles around. I think of them as Bubbles of Privilege or Bubbles of Entitlement. They’re inhabited by people who think the rules don’t apply to them. People who think that their wants and needs are more important than those of the rest of us.

The precise meaning of the term seems to be lost on many people. I’ve heard people say things like, “They are sort of in our bubble,” or “She is in one of my bubbles.”

A bubble is intended to mean a fixed number of people and an exclusive membership, i.e. just one bubble, and you can’t move from one bubble to another.

Sometimes people say the regulations are confusing, or that that they don’t know what a “bubble” or a “household” is, but I think in our hearts we all know what a tiny bubble is meant to be, and the rules seem pretty clear to me.

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/emergency-preparedness-response-recovery/covid-19-provincial-support/restrictions

I’m hopeful that by next summer a vaccine will become available and everything will begin to look brighter. In the meantime, if we follow the regulations and keep our bubbles tiny, we may be able to flatten the curve again.

I believe we can. 

We must!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remembering

Remembrance Day was different this year. With no public gatherings permitted, only a few people congregated at the citadel. But, from a safe distance, on front porches or in our homes, people still observed the two minutes of silence and thought about the wars in which so many young people risked their lives. So many were killed or crippled for life. Six members of my family as well as my husband’s father served in the military in two world wars. They showed remarkable courage. In different ways, they also all felt lifelong effects from that service.

A friend sent me the link to   Joh McDermott’s song “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvmOWBanX-s

I find it one of the most moving and poignant of the many songs that decry war. Buffy Ste. Marie’s The Universal Soldier, for which she was apparently blacklisted when it was first performed, also never fails to bring tears to my eyes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6imjvgJFvM

Although we don’t want to glorify war, we rightly celebrate the courage and sacrifice of the young soldiers who gave their lives to the war effort. And we also recognize the contributions of the people who stayed at home, waiting for their loved ones to return. We heard countless stories of hardship during the blackouts. People endured the absence of parents, spouses and children, the fearful times in bomb shelters, the rationing, and all the many losses, small and large.

They endured. They put up with a lot of limitations to their freedom. I never heard of anyone saying, “I have a right to refuse to pull down my blinds.” They knew they were all in it together and they followed the rules.

Sometimes when I think of the word “remembrance,” I think of re-membering – putting things back together. Putting things back together.

We will put things back together when the Covid crisis lessens and we move on to what people are calling “the new normal.”  In the meantime, we must all do as our parents and grandparents did in those hard times before us.

Remember the people on the front lines, our health care and other essential workers.

Endure. Be patient. Think of others. Follow the rules.

And then, if we’re lucky, we’ll have things to remember.

And re-member.

Fantastic Fungi

 

One year, when I was five years old, my family lived across the road from a farmhouse in which a woman grew mushrooms in her basement. I loved going over there, descending the stairs to the dark room within which tiny white mushrooms sprouted. There was something eerily magical about these round white beings emerging from the darkness.

My mother disliked the fact that the mushrooms grew in manure, and she insisted that I wash my hands carefully after I’d been there. Mrs. P., the mushroom grower, also insisted that I wash my hands when I returned upstairs before she gave me one of the little marzipan mushrooms she produced in her spotless white kitchen. The contrast between the light and the dark, the pristine and the murky -- what was above and what below -- was remarkable.

Similar contrasts have come to mind these last few days while awaiting the results of the election in the country beneath us. On election night I did not watch the news but instead rented the video entitled Fabulous Fungi: https://fantasticfungi.com/watch/ and learned about the extraordinary world of mycelium, the variety of mushrooms that grow above the ground and the intelligent network of communication that takes place below.

It made me feel hopeful.

It looks like the United States will have a new President, for which I am grateful, but it’s clear that difficult times are ahead. Not only is there the spiralling Covid crisis with more than a thousand people dying there each day, there’s also unemployment, increased violence, long term inequities of race and income and a host of other pressing issues. Half the people will be glad of the election result and half will be furiously angry. And, of course, all of those problems, inequities and divisions exist in our own country.

Around the world, the Covid numbers rise and lockdowns increase. The months ahead look dark and I as myself: how can we best carry on?

Well, then I think about the modest mushrooms. About trees. About connections. About that invisible self-learning underground network which is all about communication, cooperation, collaboration, connectedness, community. Once again it is all about the C-words! I think that they are the reason that  the next US President had the momentum to win the election. Those are the things that he’s known for.

And the fantastic fungi have even more mysterious things to teach us. I’d like to know more about psylocibin and I hope it’s available to me if I succumb to dementia or the virus.

There’s a peaceful feeling of oneness when one thinks of the threading branches that decompose, stabilize and recycle everything around them. It may be, as Fantastic Fungi suggests, that the answers to our most pressing problems are very close to us.

Perhaps they are right under our feet, in the deep ecology of nature.

Givers and Takers

 

I’ve been thinking about what makes us happy in these dark days. I used to be happy on Halloween when I gave out candy to the little creatures who came to our door, dressed in their colourful costumes and carrying their large candy bags. This year, there were no kids coming to my door -- which was good because, anticipating that would be the case, I’d bought no candy to give out. No givers, no takers. It felt a bit sad.

Giving and receiving can create a mutually beneficial transaction that results in a continuum of positive energy. Maya Angelou has said, “When we give cheerfully and receive gratefully, everyone is blessed.” Some people refer to this as the “cycle of giving and receiving.” The sacred wheel.

It’s a cliché to say that it’s better to give than to receive. Often receiving is more difficult, especially when we don’t want whatever we’ve been given. Yet receiving is equally important as giving, and it’s timely to think about what we’re receiving these days.

I agree with our Prime Minister declaring that “Covid sucks.” Yet I’ve heard people speak about “silver linings” and “unanticipated positive outcomes” because of Covid. Many people are experiencing great gratitude. They say things like:

·       * My family is enjoying discovering beautiful places close to home

·        *We’re appreciating the outdoors and we’ve taken up birdwatching

·        *My husband and I are much closer now that we’ve had so much uninterrupted time together

·        *The time away from the office has helped me to rethink my priorities.

 

Some cite such practical achievements as

·        *I’ve had time to paint the living room

·        *I finally cleared out that storage room.

As Covid-hibernating continues, we may find that such “gifts” offer more meaningful satisfaction than those which come from our more usual pursuits of happiness. I’ve been thinking about Dr. Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning and about the distinction he made between finding meaning in life as opposed to seeking happiness. There was a discussion of this in an article in the Atlantic Monthly:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/theres-more-to-life-than-being-happy/266805/

Maybe if we looked for possible benefits in unwanted occurrences, we’d find meaning in them -- meaning that would lead us to a sense of purpose.

Frankl, while experiencing brutally inhumane conditions as a prisoner in a Nazi death camp, was able to find an internal strength that allowed him to survive.

“The last of the human freedoms,” he said “is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

I’m going to focus on what I can receive from these Covid times, and then try to choose my own way to respond in the best way I can.

As Frankl said “When we are no longer able to change our situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

That message is a challenge to me, and also a gift. One that I’m going to accept gratefully. And I’ll try to give back. 

Try to keep that sacred wheel turning.