Life These Days: A Chilly Forecast for the Weather and the Future

Life is busy these days, stuck gloriously in traffic with the turkeys strapped into the backseats, wading through the jungle of sweaters and mitts and boots and books at the front door, occasionally stepping on a cat, everyone’s noses running everywhere. It’s cold out and I’m a spring flower but the kids aren’t going to drive themselves to the pool. We’re drinking bubble tea like someone just bought a bubble tea business and no one is tracking the inventory. Bliss! Even as I feel all the hairs on my head rising from static and a manic hollowing of sanity. Bliss with a deep breath, that waft of babies.

When I arrived to pick up Caleb from his most recent cello lesson, his teacher raved (in some shock) about how much Caleb must have practised his cello over the Christmas break (the Vivaldi! The elbow! The F#!), when he had had no lessons. I had to look sideways at Caleb to see if there was some sort of elaborate ponzi scheme I was being hijacked into, and he gave me a solemn nod, smart enough not to make actual eye contact with me in case we both burst out laughing. On the way out to the car, he told me that this is proof that one needs to practise less in order to play better. Well, I guess that’s one strategy I don’t have time to dissect.

We got a big box of clementines from Costco, and they were gobbled up within days, everyone scared of scurvy and also scarce resources, with too many children in this house. I’ve been wandering the house finding orange peels in hiding places and in the big bed.

It’s been a crazy time, and the news is heady, and the news from the south headier still. It’s unreal to watch it all unfold, here we are in this brave new world. Kevin O’Leary negotiating for Canada? Using a Sharpie to sign executive orders? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark/Canada.

We continue on, one day at a time. It’s funny and interesting and weird to see how our conversations with people we know have a different tenor depending on if they have a job dependent on the economy or not (ours being one that indeed does depend on the economy). There’s a shared panic, a desperate gauge of information-seeking, wide eyes looking around like we’re making some sort of exchange of contraband in a dark alley, discussing how to cook the books. We’re not cooking the books. As if we could! Who would believe a stationery shop could make money? We’re cooking chicken nuggets in the air fryer. All of our Asian elders are clucking and tsking and saying “aiyah” and “you should’ve become a doctor look at your cousin.”

How does a stationery shop stay solvent in this economy? Who knows. But we plod on, squeezing our turkeys, clutching our notebooks, burying ourselves in the books and stories that tell us it’s possible.

Junia got a walking rope for Christmas, because she’s been obsessed with it in her preschool, and now she’s been taking her brother and sister on very slow walks around the neighbourhood. Junia, with all of her ideas.