The Road to Iceland

A month ago I wrote about singing God’s song in a strange land. We lamented loss...how could we sing. Almost a month later, the land isn’t so strange. We’re more used to how it rises and flows from hills to valleys, optimism to depression...we are learning to navigate and maintain some equilibrium. Trips to the store become ‘outings’, to be done only when seriously necessary; in an effort to ensure no one gets infected by us and we don’t pick up something, we mask and glove. Gardening is at an all time high, as the weather improves. We can get outside the house and some of the pressure is lifted. For those of us who are lucky and privileged, that is. Life is a little restricted....but not enough to cause an issue.  And then there’s the ignorant white privilege which thinks freedom means it has the right to put others at risk. And force its own way. Then we start to look at the not so,privileged. It’s not new. It’s been around since the Civil War. For awhile, with the abolit...

We have been under lockdown here in Toronto for 48 days now. The days are settling into a kind of routine - we are up at about 9, have some coffee and a long talk about how COVID-19 is moving around the world. We both have work to do, and Zoom meetings galore. We spend most of the afternoons working, and then move to the basement family room for dinner and watch some TV together, often with a bottle of wine. I've ordered "Hello Fresh" dinners for some nights, and tried to find new and interesting recipes for other nights, and there has been plenty of baking. My husband is planning fall classes, and doing taxes. I am applying for Canada Pension, doing taxes, and organising immigration paperwork for study in Iceland in the fall. There is volunteer work from home, and art classes - books to read, too. The hardest parts in this self-isolation have been that our trips overseas have been cancelled, and that we cannot spend time with our grandchildren. We have worked on the th...