Not Traveling in my Traveler’s Notebook

Not traveling much these days! I miss the excitement of even shorter road trips, but this is its own season of life, and not without its moments.

And the season seems to be rapidly turning over on itself. It seems a bit unfair the way things have snuck up on me, but I suppose the time warp of the pandemic (without our regular weekly events that keep us a bit more grounded on the calendar) has made me sleepy.

Without warning, preparations for school and plans for the fall have taken over, a many headed monster looming, taunting us with doubt about the wisdom of the decisions we make for our children. Every new school year brings stress, unknown, changes, but of course this one has also brought the surreal experience of watching clips of dynamic duo Stephen Lecce and Doug Ford, our Education Minister and Premier, on the news (But...? Did he just say...?). Late at night, I’m down deep rabbit holes on the internet, looking up things that lead to other things. The later it gets, the more unhinged I get, and in the morning I’m closing tabs for Angela Merkel’s hiking outfit.

I’m listening to audiobooks as I make masks for Caleb to go back to school. He is in Grade 1, so in Ontario it will not be mandatory for him to wear a mask, but I’m not sure if that makes his masks more prone to being lost, sometimes on his face, sometimes flung about somewhere at the bottom of the dreaded shared coat cubby area. Trying hard to not think too much about the coat cubby area, as I recall them from my time in the classroom. In any case, extras for his backpack, extras to share.

In any case, my Traveler’s Notebook has been resurrected from those early pandemic months of blank dated pages flying by as if in a bad dream. Now, as we enter deeply into August and we look ahead to September, appointments, errands, plans for get things back up and running. With everyone putting new safety procedures and processes in place, things take longer, the checklist to get out our own door also longer. It’s been many months since a trip to the No Frills across the street was just a casual jaunt.

It’s been nice to intersperse the erratic and doomsday googling with some washi tape, some organizing, real paper between my fingers instead of words floating around, along with advertisements. No longer planning faux exciting trips to pick up take out, the comic books we ordered for Caleb, the whole family piling in the car for the short ride over to the next neighbourhood, the only excursion of the day, the week, just to give us something to look forward to interspersed with shipments from Japan, or skids of boxes wrapped up in plastic dropped off outside our shop door to be lumbered in a few a time. Looking ahead to plans that, while are maybe about as firm as firm tofu, at least exist, at least give some shape to the days and weeks and season ahead.