And then there was Hallelujah. 

After so, so long, the deep and resonant music reverberated through the house.  Our house.  The three of us together at last, the piano come alive as if it had been waiting, silent, patient all this time.  As if just yesterday it had carried this music through our rooms and into our hearts.

Just like that.  Together once more with Leonard Cohen the soundtrack of our holiday.  

Families are hard.  They take work and sometimes they take a toll.  But then Hallelujah surrounds us and it's impossible to think of anything better.

I've never been more filled with gratitude or grace.

Hallelujah.

Greetings from Ground Zero - April 1

Breathing deep and taking stock.

Every day feels like a week; every week like a month.  Time grinds to a standstill.

We are all figuring this out, day by day.  The hardships are clear and obvious, so there's little point in diving into them here.  It's hard to be home with your partner day after day.  It just is.  Love is love, but constant togetherness is something else entirely.

But, we are discovering silver linings.  We are seeing the Italians singing from their balconies, our FB friends showing us how they "gather" at cocktail hour in front of their houses with their neighbors.  It is amazing.  Nothing short of awe inspiring how we humans circumnavigate this new world, find ways to connect, apart.  It is beautiful, and terrifying, and poignant.  We are us.

I am working, hard.  Full days, and effectively.  But.  I am also baking bread, I am sowing seeds.  I am orchestrating our food garden.

I have missed this.  More than I realized.  Am I grateful that a pandemic swept over us so that my life was transformed?  No.  The devastation this event will leave in its wake is unimaginable to us, even now, but there are, truly, silver linings.

Moonrise over Stop Sign Farm

With hiccups aside, my husband and I are rediscovering each other.  I am reclaiming my greenhouse and the joy that growing food from practically nothing brings.  We're baking bread and trying to remember what we did right so many years ago.  

My staff is coping, it's not all good.  But we're doing our jobs and trying to figure out ways to help our colleagues do theirs.  We want the taxpayers to be proud of us.  We want to be a part of the COVID19 solution.  

Be well.

Today was a good day.  A day when I felt some control over my own destiny.  Got up, showered, got cozy in my car for a video therapy session.  Drove down the way to pick up another 5 packs of amazing food plant starts, checked in with my daughter, then came home to a house generously gifted to me for alone time by my husband who went for a 5 mile walk.

Cleaned the kitchen, got shit dealt with in the garden, then came inside to watch food shows and get this dough going.  First try in quite some time, so it needs some improving, but today's loaf was still gone in an hour.  Then onto a dinner of spicy prawns with garden chard and onion tops over spaghetti.  On a micro scale, life does not suck.  We are privileged and fortunate and grateful.


Hope this weekend finds everyone well and coping.

Amazing bread - really in 5 minutes once you get into the rhythm

I used to bake bread every day for sale and I could not keep up.  This is what I baked - it's not like any other bread you've ever baked.  Ridiculously easy and so, so amazing.  Fantastic flour available from Bakers Authority (thanks Karen!).

Here's the recipe:

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Greetings from ground zero – March 24

I did not write yesterday.  I just wasn’t there.  Thanks for understanding.

So, my father died suddenly almost a year ago and I am Executor of his estate.  Sounds straightforward enough.  Grief aside.  I had started to spend some much-delayed time with my dad and we were bonding and discovering each other in unexpected ways.  I really liked his girlfriend.

Then his heart exploded in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and that was that.  He was gone.  But everything he built remained and it was my job to steward it.

Did I mention he lived in Canada?

Yeah, so that’s been fun.  Managing an estate with multiple beneficiaries as an Out of Country Executor is not something I would wish upon any of you.  Also, we Americans think of Canadians as Nice.  I am here to tell you (and I am, technically, a Canadian b/c I was born there and retain rights of citizenship – why I’m not living there now is a fair question but not one I’ll be addressing here), they are not as nice as you think as much as they are polite.  We Americans have forgotten manners so nice and polite look very, very similar.

Anyway, that’s all background.  Several weeks ago, we (the Estate) received an offer on my father’s condominium that we accepted.  And the closing date is nowish.  It’s actually March 31^st.  There was a fair amount of drama around that date, but that’s what we decided, ultimately.  I was to go up there, be in Toronto for the closing and probate, see Sue, see my father’s home for the last time, yadda yadda.  Maybe even inter my father's ashes.

Two and a half weeks ago, I said, um.  I think we might need to explore a remote option.  Is that possible?  They humored me.  And I said, no, seriously, I’m pretty sure your country will not be letting me in in two weeks.  More humoring.  But, no matter, they did in fact humor me and we pivoted from an in-person scenario to a remote scenario.  And here we are.

Friday, I got the call from the attorneys.  They were shuttering the office.  “Oh, my goodness.  You were so right.  So right.  We are sending the documents this afternoon and then we are going home.  Good luck.”  Polite. 

So, yesterday I received the papers; today I literally video-notarized via Zoom the papers (a stand alone adventure), and tomorrow they should be back in Canada.  Will we close next Tuesday?  No idea.  I’ve come to understand that a week in our current world is an eternity.  Fingers are crossed.

Insert here:  BIG SHOUT OUT to my friend Jan who continues, day in and day out, to keep Vashon’s Country Store open, including its mail service.  Disinfecting constantly and now with social distending “markers” on the floor.  She and her team handled my international mailing crisis with COVID grace.  YOU ALL ROCK.

But it was a stressful, stressful day in the way that people, like me, who are super privileged in these times of intense challenge, need, and grief can be stressed.  I literally feel like I am surfing a wave and catastrophe is the giant wave looming right behind my right shoulder.  Privilege.  Absolutely.  But in my defense, I am responsible for a lot of people.  Want everyone to come out whole.

So, anyway!  After that intense exchange and a full day of work, woven inbetween, I headed to the greenhouse to see if I was up to the task of making a little headway on reclaiming it.  And you know what?  I was.  And I did.  And I’m super excited about getting that space back into production AND being a nurturing space to hang out in.

AAAAAnnndd.  My first baby seeds sprouted in their flat in the greenhouse.  So excited!

Life goes on.  Deep breath. 

Be well.

So, I had a weird day.  Well, we’re all having weird days, every day.  But, I am posting this soothing photo of my willow tree instead of what I actually experienced today.  Illness. Honest to goodness illness and then panic.

I have the chart of Covid/Cold/Flu symptoms but the problem for me and probably many of you is that I ALSO have allergies.  So, it’s not so cut and dried.

I was sitting in bed reading late morning.  I just had thin jammies on and the window cracked. I started to get cold but didn’t want to close the window.  I finally did b/c I was starting to shiver.  Then Mark came up to hang out.  I got up and went downstairs to grab a hoodie, then climbed back into bed.  Shaking so hard my stomach muscles were hurting.  Mark grabbed a 2^nd down comforter and then enveloped me.  Could not stop shaking.  But, no coughing.  No coughing.

I didn’t feel cold any more, just couldn’t stop shaking.  I told him to go on downstairs.  He took my temperature first.  Yup – fever.  He brought me tea and these things called Aussie Bites that we always have (had) around.  He insisted that I eat so that my body could try to stabilize.

By 2 hours into this, I honestly could not tell whether I was shaking from fear or an illness.  My stomach hurt, I pulled a couple muscles.  Still had a fever.  Called Virginia Mason then waited for the nurse to call.  Decided to get out of the sun for a while then check the fever again.  Lower.  The nurse told me I was doing everything right and to keep resting and drinking water.  If a cough develops or the fever spikes and sticks around for a couple days, call back.

Now, lower still.  Whatever this is, it’s hit Mark now.  I am downstairs for the first time today, and not for long, and he is collapsed on the bed. 

Send those good thoughts my way.  I think I’m better.  Could probably use a humidifier if anyone has one.  

Deep breath.

Greetings from Ground Zero - March 20 BRIEF UPDATE

March 20

Right now, probably the most important thing for our families is food supply.  For me, I've decided that ensuring some random awful glitch doesn't completely throw my planning off base is my Top Priority.  For me, I want to be sure my mom is comfortable, I am nurturing my seeds to grow into plants that will become food, and to make sure the food stock I have stored in my freezer doesn't accidentally rot b/c the circuit breaker blew and I didn't know it.  So, I decided to make this list and put it on the fridge where we can check things off each day.  

In what I consider a brilliant, albeit late, move, the Army Corps of Engineers will be commandeering and turning into makeshift hospitals all those empty dorms that universities have now that they've sent students home, as well as hotels and other venues.  THANK GOD.  One of the biggest challenges of this crisis is the lack of hospital beds.  So - GREAT IDEA.

Otherwise, a weird day for me.  May or may not write more later.  Beautiful day here and got lots of work done, but really had to cope with rolling waves of panic in a way that I haven't before today.

Probably no greenhouse shindiggy thing this weekend.  Let's see what the universe has in store over the coming days.  I will try to clean it out so that its potential is at least better poised.  I have flour coming in a few days and will start making bread.

Be well -