It’s interesting, the way we associate the holidays with “joy” and “cheer,” but sometimes those emotions do not predominate, despite the blessed abundance we enjoy. Recently, a writing prompt said “write twelve segments based on past memories of the holidays, eg. The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Obviously, those celebrating Hanukkah, Diwali, or other events could adjust as they wished. For me, a few of the memories that came were strangely dark, despite all the feasting and gifts and cookies and music. Like attending a birth, which I did for many years, the assumption is that the holidays are a happy time, so everything will be perfect.
 
1)  I’m a young child, maybe six or seven. My father loves to watch Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” on TV, and his particular favourite is the old black-and-white version featuring Alistair Sims.

November 15, 2024
First of all, about the poppies.
Every year, I buy a poppy and make my donation to the Legion, and within about an hour–what with seat belts and purses and backpacks–the poppy has disappeared, to be found a month or a year later on the floor of the car, or when I stab myself on it at the bottom of my reusable grocery bag. As a result, I look like I don’t remember or don’t care, when I actually do. Surely, there’s a better way to construct poppies and/or raise money for the Legion, although I suppose if the poppies are designed to fall off and disappear, we need to buy more of them. I’m not sure how I feel about this business model. Why not make them hardier, and wear them all the time?
          The important part, of course, is the remembering. On November 11, when the wreaths are laid and the bagpipes and last posts are played and we have moments of silence and speeches and elderly veterans, we are supposed to do two things: honour those who gave their lives or fought for our freedom, and remember the World Wars so that they never happen again. The hatred, the greed, the senseless loss of life and destruction of entire cities, entire populations, in the name of what? For what purpose? We are supposed to remember history, so that it won’t repeat itself. And yet, all around us, it feels eerily like the fingers of history are reaching up from the ground to grab our feet.

In the Netflix show Loudermilk, the main character (a man in his forties), holds the café door open for a young attractive woman, then complains loudly when, now ahead of him in line, she gives a long, complicated coffee order.
“I held the door for you!” he gripes.
“Yes, but just because I’m hot.” she replies.
 
Is chivalry just another word for patriarchy? Pulling out the chair, holding the door, carrying the bag…is there not a suggestion of weakness, fragility, disability? “That looks heavy, let me get that for you.” Insert optional bicep flex. Or, as insinuated in the scene above, is it all about “If I do this, I’ve got a chance?” Either way, I don’t like the implications. Of course, if my arms are full, and someone holds the door, that’s great. But shouldn’t we do that for everyone, regardless of gender? Isn’t everyone equal?

Awake. Again. Still.
Overwhelmed with heat: tossing off covers, sticking out one arm, one leg, unbuttoning pyjama top, flinging it off, groping on the floor for it an hour later, repelled by the dampness. Vowing not to check the time.
Checking the time.
Feeling the need to pee but not wanting to get up. Knowing that now that I’ve noticed my bladder, no sleep will come. Getting up to pee, tripping on the jeans discarded on the floor, the ones that I knew I should put away because I’d trip on them in the dark.
One more attempt in bed: stomach sleeping, fan directly on me, neck too tight on the right, switch face to the left, nothing is working, now calf muscles feel tight and twitchy.
Giving up: retreat to the guest room with a book. Vowing not to check the time.
Checking the time.
Thinking, always, of the irony: how many people over the course of my career did I counsel regarding insomnia? All those handouts on sleep rituals, stimulus control, tests for sleep apnea, screens for depression and anxiety, discussions about pain and caffeine and exercise and naps.
And here I am, at 3 am again, wide awake. Well, to be specific, lately it’s 2:20 am and 4:40 am. Which at least has a nice mathematical symmetry.

How do we avoid scams? Why are there so many out there, so many people spending their time preying on others?
Easy answer: it's lucrative, obviously. Those letters about the remote family member who died and left you money, the fake banking calls, your package held up at the border needing duty fees. It's easy to be deceived. And the scammers have upped their games: the phone might display the actual business name (like the Canada Revenue Agency), the website might look completely legitimate unless you check the URL. Artificial intelligence can now be used to imitate voices--your grandson, your spouse, your parent. Many scams prey on the elderly, people with disabilities, those who are lonely. People who sometimes have very little to begin with, or who have saved their entire lives to have a nest egg, a home, a car, only to have it all pulled out from under them. It feels unfair. How can we avoid it?

Being September, I’m thinking about teachers.
          I was at a medical conference and the speaker’s topic was clinical teaching. Most of us in the room were world-weary medical teachers, but some were bright-eyed new grads looking for ideas, inspiration, or advice. The interactive question posed by the speaker: “tell the people at your table about a moment when a teacher made a big difference for you.” You’d think the incident would be a life-or-death situation, a huge, serious event, but immediately I thought of Dr. Hope.

Two things triggered this line of thinking for me:

1. Hearing about the swimmers who helped to save their friend from a shark attack in San Diego last month
2. Watching the series “Station Eleven” (based on the novel by Emily St. John Mandel)

     In the shark attack, two men—in the same ocean-swimming group as the attacked swimmer— responded to his cries for help by swimming toward their friend and the attacking shark. One was an untrained rescuer who said on CBC he was “going on instinct.” The second was a trained ocean lifeguard who had been taught, like all first responders, not to enter an unsafe area…yet also went to assist. Along with another swimmer and a surfer, they were able to get the victim to safety and he survived the attack. The shark had left the area, and no one else was hurt.
     In the series (the book was written in 2014 and I’m watching on CBC Gem), a deadly global pandemic occurs, and in today’s episode, a plane is left on the tarmac at an airport because the people inside have been exposed to the disease. When one character expresses his distress at leaving them to die, another character asks, would you die for a stranger?

I've been thinking about spies. Likely (spoiler alert) because of Elizabeth from the Thursday Murder Club series (see book review, July 6 2024). The only true spy that I've ever met was a friend's grandmother, who apparently was a spy in WW2, but I didn't know that at the time I met her and therefore couldn't ask her about it. On second thought, maybe she isn't the only spy I've ever met; by definition, I shouldn't be able to tell, right?

For those of you living in a cave/under a rock/taking a news break and therefore don't know: Alice Munro recently died at age 92. Shortly thereafter, her daughter Andrea Skinner wrote publicly about sexual abuse by her stepfather (Munro’s second husband), and Alice’s failure to support her, or even acknowledge her daughter’s trauma.
     Full disclosure: despite being a short story writer and admirer, I’ve never been a huge Alice Munro fan. Of course, she undeniably has tremendous skill and has won every major literary award including the Nobel Prize for Literature (2013).

Right now, our city is infested with caterpillars.
It’s Northern Ontario, and it’s June, so there are always black flies and mosquitoes at this time of year. Now, we have to add caterpillars?
For a while, they were hanging from the trees on cobweb-like strands, and we had to dodge them when cycling or running. They took over the deciduous trees in our yard, and their droppings are covering our deck (who knew caterpillars generated so much poop?). In the last few days, predictably, there are cocoons forming in every windowpane and doorframe, after which I guess we’ll have a lot of moths around. Wherever I go, in addition to “hot enough for you?”—which briefly replaces “cold enough for you?” at this time of year—people are talking about the caterpillars. Spraying trees, pesticides vs garlic concoctions, foil around trunks. My one neighbour just laughed and said “It’s nature. What’s the big deal?”