Why Moiya Watches the Opera

Moiya said that she especially liked 
the opening ballet sequence in Tannhäuser

I have been watching the opera streaming from the Metropolitan website every night for 2 weeks now.

I think Leo Brooks and Moiya Wood are keeping pace with me.

Maybe even ahead of me, depending on how much pre and post-reading they have done.

Johan Botha and Eva-Maria Westbrock

I have been thinking about Moiya, since we talk a bit after each opera. I have been wondering why she gives up so much of her spare personal time to watch this art form. So tonight I asked her if I could interview her about this.

Here is what she said:

I have a love for the opera, for the symphony and for the ballet.

I think this is because when I was a child my mother bought season’s tickets to all 3 of those art forms.

We lived 2 ½ blocks away from the Jubilee Auditorium and we could walk over to the performances.

My mother had 2 tickets. My dad did not like to go to those events. She would take one of her children with her each time. I have fond memories of walking over to the Jubilee with my mother. Before the event began, my mother told me to look at all of the beautiful clothing that the patrons of the opera wore to these events as they walked in the foyer.

... scene from Wagner's Tannhäuser ...

As a child, when my friends were listening to pop music, I would lay on the big beautiful area living room rug and listen to symphonies and opera that were being played on our stereo system which had a record player inside of it.

I would close my eyes and groove out to the symphony and the opera and I would think I had gone to heaven listening to that music. Popular music didn’t mean that much to me.

I couldn’t understand the words that were being said in those songs. I may have missed a lot of words in the opera too.

When Moiya is not watching the opera she goes to the pile
of snow under their house and takes shovel fulls of it
and throws it out onto the lawn so that it will melt faster.
She doesn't want that mould on her lawn that will grow
when the snow stays well into spring.

My mother did me a favour by raising me on beautiful classical music. My brain just turns to that music now.

I also used to sing around the house a lot.

I started taking singing lessons with Mr. Chapman when I was in university.
He was a well known conductor in Calgary. He told me he wanted me to sing in his choir, the group that was called the Bel Cantos.

Then when I was in university, part of the physical education programme which was mandatory, was four different quarters of dancing. 

One session was ballroom dancing. 

One session was square dancing. I made a special skirt and a beautiful yellow blouse to dance in for our performance.  I have a picture of that which brings back fond memories.

Moiya

Glimpses of My Home at the Shuswap

... dying clump birtch to the left and a struggling pear tree to the right ...

I have been plotting a way to get out to the Shuswap.

I am not alone in this venture.  I think Mary and Rebecca both have the same idea cross their minds.

I can’t find a way to see me there yet. I can continue to visualize ways to find myself out there, and who knows, that dream might come true.

... an forest anomaly at our place, a yew tree left of centre and middle ...

I have never been there for an extended amount of time at this time of year.

That is why I enjoyed having Moiya send me a few pictures from her view of it on the road as she drives down to the lake.

I am curious about what is going on in the garage for I see the garage door is open.

I don't care why the door is open.  I just want to know who is having fun in there.

I look at the stairs and remember weeding them last year.

They had been neglected for a season or two and the clover roots were deep enough that I had to take a screw driver and slip it way down and then wrench them out of the dry earth.

That too me two full days, a bucket by my side to put the clover in, and pads in the middle of my legs so that I didn't drive too many rocks into me knees as I knelt there.

I have a lot of broken boughs to pick up beside the stairs.
And I think I can see the pool Glen built in the stream at the far right middle.
The two brown stones give it away.
I wonder why there is so little snow here.
This is not the sunny side of the house.

I can’t believe that thinking about that gives me so much pleasure now, since it was so much work then.

At any rate, I am having the feelings that I have always imaged were felt by the man who wrote “Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam.”

The first line of my song would be “I’m thinking of that home, where the clover grows in the loam”.

Now that was really bad.

Please, no one comment.

Arta

*Upon reading the comment below by Bonnie, and her generous supplying of the link, I add it here for easy fo viewing.

The Abandoned Dock

David has been working on this dock for about four days.

He was down there working on it again this morning.

It was pouring rain so I went down to take pictures of him working in the pouring rain.

I told him he should probably come up.
He said, no I think I’ll stay and work.

So I left.
I was walking towards the car he said maybe I will come up. 

His coveralls are soaked right through.

He did say that he was warm.

You can see our new generator in the back of the truck. 
He has been using that for some of his power tools. 
He is sure glad that we got that!

This rain is helping to melt the snow.

Photo Credit and Text: Moiya Wood

Creative Cheese Bread

... cheese bread rising at Moiya's ...

Moiya saw some delicious cheese bread at Askews.

She held back from buying it, thinking she might be able to produce something similar at home.

From her shelves she took a jar of cheese sauce purchased some time ago.

The sauce said that it was to be used in place of the small packets of dried cheese sauce that comes with Mac&Cheese. 

Alternately, … to be used anyplace one would wish.

She wished it right into some loaves of bread.

Can you imagine the smell of the bread coming out of the oven when that ingredient has been added to the dough?

... Wyona asks for a slice to be served virtually ...

She called Michael, Alice and Betty to come down to her house to pick up some of the bread.

When they rang the doorbell, their noses were pressed up against the stained glass window.

When they saw her coming down the hall they jumped back – they just haven’t heard the words, social isolation, they know how to practise it.

All part of their 2020 spring-summer adventure at the Shuswap.

Arta

Always #2

Why didn't I just take a minute
and adjust her shorts when I was
talking this picture?

All of us who have access to a newer phone have better cameras than we have ever had in our lives.

When Catherine posted this photo and text on Facebook, I was reminded of the old cameras we used, of the cost of the film, then the cost of developing, the lag time between when the photo was taken and when we saw it, and the time it took for pick-up and delivery.

For some reason thinking about that made the photo all the more precious to me.

Here is what Catherine says about the picture:

Looking through old photo albums. I’ve discovered that since a young age I’ve been #consistent Love this photo my mom took of me in elementary school after sports day. Came second in everything. “I’m number 2, I’m number two.”

.National Theatre Streaming Live in April.

James Corden in One Man, Two Guvnors
© Johan Persson

Here is the link to the four shows that the National Theatre is streaming live through You Tube.

Amazing shows.

The first is April 2, One Man, Two Guvnors.

On 9 April there will be a streamed performance of Sally Cookson's Jane Eyre, Bryony Lavery's Treasure Island adaptation starring Arthur Darvill on 16 April and Twelfth Night with Tamsin Greig on 23 April.

Further titles are to be announced.

Something to mark on your calendar.

Times of the streaming are on the link.

Arta

Practising New Words

Photo Credit: Met Website

Three Nornes weaving the rope of destiny

Catherine called tonight to ask which opera I am going to see this evening.

When I tried to tell her, I found out that  I can spell Götterdämmerung , but on the phone I couldn't say the word out loud.

A lot of stumbling from me.

I could hear Eric in the background coaching me, but I still couldn't get it right.

When I was through with the phone call, I practised some of the other words I wasn't going to be able to say outloud as well, hoping that I could at least identify them when I heard them in the opera.

-my hasty notes drawn up in preparation to watch the opera-
-in the end, these notes keep the plot going for me -

a genealogy of the new characters I was going to meet in
Land of Gibichunga

Now I have finished watching another modern day technical miracle, at least as far as the cinema is concerned.

I am sure Rebecca is still going to be entranced by Robert LePage's direction.  And that Moiya will have loved the music.  That Bonnie will have tried to stay awake for some of it.  And that Catherine and Eric will not find the energy to turn it on.  So many of us with different lives doing our best.

Thanks to the Met for another evening of good entertainment.

I couldn't help but think of the importance of contracts, again, Rebecca.  Even blood contracts.

Or maybe especially blood contracts.

I am looking forward to tomorrow night -- the last of an intense week of Wagner operas!  For a while I thought they might do me in.  But no!  I am going to have watched The Ring Cycle, as I did last night, right to the immolation of Valhalla.

Goodbye to the Gods!

Hello to more opera.
Arta

Creative Art Metal Class

My final project.

I took a an evening class through the Okanagan Community College night classes program.

It was taught by Mitch Milgram. It was the last time he plans to teach it.

We got to observe demos of him working with pewter, brass, copper, silver, and steel. 

We could try one of the projects he modelled, or come up with our own ideas.

For Arta

I got to use many tools I hadn't used before including a dremel, a blow torch, a buffer, a huge metal cutter, an anvil, and more.

I tried my hand at enameling and  etching. I made some wax models to create silver earrings, but ran out of time to finish them.

For Mary

I did get a pewter necklace finished. I learned that it is not fun to wear a necklace with sharp edges.

I hope I run into my teacher and fellow students once the Provincial State of Emergency due to Covid-19 has ended.

I miss our weekly work together in the metal shop at one of the local high schools.

Bonnie

Two More Opera Evenings

Photo Credit: Met Website

... the Wanderer and Siegfried ...

I don’t know how I lived without opera every night in my life.

The only downside to filling my evenings this way is that I am noticing it is a time bite of 3 to 4 ½ hours out of every day.

Thank goodness I don’t have travel time to add in, or dressing-up-for-the-opera time, or time buying tickets on-line.

And thank goodness I can begin by tuning in any time in the early afternoon, evening, or even the next day. No having to stand out in the lobby and missing the first act because I was late.

I listened to “Die Walküre” last night, a repeat for me, well worth a second look. I enjoyed every minute even though I knew what was coming next. I just love that first act, the story of Siegfried and Sigmunde.

I started to watch “Siegfried” earlier this evening than I have been starting in the past, and that was the right move. Having never seen “Siegfried” before, I was listening to new Wagnerian strains for me. Part of the gift of watching earlier in the evening is that I can eat my supper, have my triple decker Chapman’s cherry ice cream cone, do the exercises for my hip, and lift some weights as I watch the opera. Oh yes, I take notes as well.

I wondered where my energy was coming from and why I was able to stay awake. My best guess is that it was from the walk in the fresh air I took today, my first time outside in 11 days. The temperature was 9 Celsius and there was a strong Chinook wind blowing, one that was unravelling the scarf around my neck so that it was flying Isadora Duncan like in the wind. No chance that it would wrap in the wheels of the walker and strangle me. I wasn’t going that fast.

Richard bought a new used-car for me this month. I hadn’t seen it, so I walked to the parking stalls in his back yard to check out the colour of the car: green – which isn’t all that important to me. I just wanted to know. When I saw the iridescence of the colour I thought, good, I will be able to find that car in a parking lot. I looked at the front end of the car to check the make: a Nissan. No sign of its age. Licencing will come later when there is a place for me to go in the car.

Right now, I am content to spend my time at home, watching the opera every night. If someone had suggested that doing 6 nights a week listening to opera would be possible, I would have been suspicious of the suggestion. But it is working for me.

Photo Credit: Met Website

Mime and Siegfried

Tonight, during “Siegfried”, I couldn’t take my eyes off of Gerhard Seigel who was playing the part of Mime, the evil elf.

His glasses were a focal point – maybe a metaphor for both his dullness and the evil he personified.

There was a loupe clip-on device on his spectacles.

He moved that off of the lens, then back on, swinging it out a number of times with good effect.

And at times he would just take a finger or a knuckle and adjust the glasses.

Such little touches that those close-ups in the film give us, which we would never get if the opera were live. As well, I laughed out loud one time when Mime snapped his head and the glasses that had been resting above his forehead just fell back on his nose. I watched the interviews at the end of the opera, wishing that I could have heard more from Seigal. Sweet that he thanked the people at the Met for saving his life when he had experienced a heart attack while doing one of the roles there, I think he said in 2009.

As I was writing down notes, I was wanting to capture Mime’s thinking about the uselessness of spending time learning. He said, “Many hoard useless knowledge. I know all I need to know.” I have never heard anyone articulate that position before. I am curious why Wagner put that piece of dialogue into his opera.

The show was really easy to watch today. I think it is because I have that note book with all of the characters and am now able to follow them as I easily as I can follow the characters in a Net Flicks series, for example. At one point in today’s story I was wondering if I were watching opera, or a German fairy tale aimed at a 17century family gathering around a flickering fire.

Either way, enchanting.

Arta

Dear Fellow Travellors

Dear fellow travellers,

... water colour by Wyona Bates ...

My mind has wandered away from my task at hand, the task of postponing or cancelling travel.

Instead it's meandering though memories of travel. Memories of the places I have visited in my 53 years on this amazing planet.

I decide to write down the locations. I begin.

- Grande Prairie, Alberta
- Annis Bay, British Columbia

But by the time I write the second one down, I am already editing. Do I list them chronologically or order them by how deeply I feel rooted in that location?

Perhaps I will list them categorically, by how I got there. I have travelled to places by foot, ferry fishing boat, bicycle, moped, motorbike, plane, gondola, train, car, kayak, canoe, but not yet by cruise ship. I return to the list and add more places.

- Belgium
- England
- China
- Catalunya
- Venice

I see there are decisions to make
around whether this list will be
at the level of continent, country,
region or city. Do I list in geopolitical boundaries or length of time I was there?

- Kansas City
- Barnwell, Alberta
- Regina, Saskatchewan
- Urban, Illinois
- Montreal, Quebec
- St Albert, Alberta
- New Market, Ontario

I think of loved ones in quarantine and the limits they are accepting to keep others healthy.

- Salmon Arm, BC
- Calgary, AB
- Callelia, Spain
- Gainesville, FL
- New York City
- Italy

And I stop. I take some deep breaths. I recommit to trusting we can do this as a community. I can stay home. I can wait to travel until it is safe to do so for me and for others.

I got this.
We got this.

Your travel-loving friend,

Bonnie W Johnson

Just another night at the opera

First of all, I am really late to the party here.  There is a wealth of information on the Met website.  All I had to do was click on Learn More and then find my way to A Guide to Wagner Week.  So much that is fascinating to read.

Other people may not be having as much fun at the opera as I am.  Or maybe they are having more fun.  I am taking on the project of watching it every night, having been faithful to the metopera.org series so far.

But I must do my homework before I watch tonight.

At least I had the characters straight and a brief outline of the plot  of Das Rheingold yesterday.  I need to be triaged into Wagner's story line sometimes, even though I made a project of watching the Ring Cycle when the Met performed it a few years ago.

Front Row: Froh, Donner, Wotan, Erda
Photo Credit: Met Website

I loved the crazy costuming last night: Loge's gloves that made objects glow, the flashing light behind Erda's broach, Albrecht's dread locks were fabulous, and all hail the shock of hair over Wotan's eye (so that we don't have to look at how his eye was damaged in battle).

A big thumbs up to the costume of the God of Thunder (Donner -- those metallic looking muscles) when placed beside the costume of the God of Spring.  I was processing the fact that Wotan is the God of Contracts and thinking a lot about "business".   I wondered why Rebecca didn't ever mention him in the Business Associations Class I audited from her.   I noticed did notice Rebecca posted pictures as she was watching on her Facebook page so she was thinking along the same lines.

And I had some deeper thoughts when Freia, the Godess of Love and Beauty, was in captivity and so those who had known her began to wither.  Plus I had to practise saying her name many times so that I could pronounce it right.  This may not be the way other people watch the opera.  Just my way.

A person doesn't have to commit to watching the whole opera.  If you can stay with it for 15 or 20 minutes you will have visited an art form that has never been so widely accessible before.

I notice that the Met already has next week's schedule up, so I copied and pasted it below.  I have never seen Norma.  I missed Nixon in China when it was first performed and regretted that, so I am looking forward to it.  And I can't see the Pearl Fishers enough times, so I am glad that is coming back.

There is opera next week for everyone.  There has to be some comedy in the Barber of Seville. And since so much opera is probably a once in a lifetime event, I am going to keep watching.  And the funniest thing to me is that I don't even consider myself an opera fan.

Arta

Week 3

Monday, March 30
Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites  Starring Isabel Leonard, Adrianne Pieczonka, and Karita Mattila, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. From May 11, 2019. 

Tuesday, March 31
Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia Starring Joyce DiDonato, Juan Diego Flórez, and Peter Mattei, conducted by Maurizio Benini. From March 24, 2007.

Wednesday, April 1
John Adams’s Nixon in China Starring Janis Kelly and James Maddalena, conducted by John Adams. From February 12, 2011.
Thursday, 

April 2

Verdi’s Don Carlo Starring Marina Poplavskaya, Roberto Alagna, Simon Keenlyside, and Ferruccio Furlanetto, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. From December 11, 2010.

Friday, April 3
Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles Starring Diana Damrau, Matthew Polenzani, and Mariusz Kwiecien, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. From January 16, 2016.

Saturday, April 4

Verdi’s MacbethStarring Anna Netrebko, Joseph Calleja, Željko Lučić, and René Pape, conducted by Fabio Luisi. From October 11, 2014.

Sunday, April 5

Bellini’s NormaStarring Sondra Radvanovsky, Joyce DiDonato, Joseph Calleja, and Matthew Rose, conducted by Carlo Rizzi. From October 7, 2017.   

Moiya's Cedar Chest

... 40 years old and still unquilted ...

From Moiya Wood 

This vintage quilt has been in my cedar chest ever since I got “my very own” cedar chest.

I think mom and dad got that, probably for themselves but that was the time when Dad went out and bought new bikes for Richard and Glen, my two younger brothers. My parents didn’t get a two wheeler for me. I never ever even had a tricycle.

I got a cedar chest.

Of course I would ride my friend's tricycles and bikes.

My mom and dad could probably see that I was pretty disappointed with no bike.

A Modern Homemaker
Rebecca Johnson's version of canning
... layer veggies in a canning jar and then eat ...

So, my belief is that they told me the cedar chest at the end of their bed was for me. They had purchased it around the same time I think. Mom kept things of hers in that cedar chest.

Of course, I would rather have had a bike.

At that time of my life I was pretty darn agile and athletic.

I remember Dad having everyone who came to our house have them stop to see how well Moiya could do.

This is a true fact … I could have continued twirling that hula hoop for the entire day without dropping it.

I could also twirl a baton and throw it high into the air while spinning around before catching it.

I would practice doing those activities for hours on end.

I didn’t know what in the world I would ever use a cedar chest for. My mom explained how I could keep treasured things in that chest. They would be preserved there for me. In other words, she said, “The moths wouldn’t get into that chest”.

Moiya's cedar chest

She had me smell the CEDAR. It did smell good! Mom said it was my “Hope Chest”.

That is one of the conversations where I understood that I was to save things for my marriage. 

I kept my huck-weaved pillow and my first sewing project made in High School Fabrics and Dress class in that “Cedar Chest”.

I sewed an apron with my monogram “MP” stitched into the hot pad that was snapped onto the waistband). That apron rests on my shelf by the kitchen now.

Then, as a young adult, when all my other friends were getting married and I was not … I came to resent that cedar chest.

I had lots of friends – girl friends. I was a bridesmaid probably more times than anyone else in this world has ever been.

In fact, the guests at all of those weddings would come through the line shaking my hand with big smiles on their faces and say, “Always a bridesmaid – never a bride”.

I still have that Cedar Chest.

It is in my bedroom, the same place where my mom and dad kept it in their bedroom. This star quilt in this post, is one of the things still in that Cedar Chest. I just don’t know where it came from.

Was is from a grandmother, a great-grandmother, or from my mother?

I guess I’ll never know.

Moiya

Alberta Chief Medical Officer Fashionista

Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta's chief medical officer of health,
speaks to reporters about the COVID-19 situation
 in the province on Tuesday, March 17, 2020. (CBC)

Mary told me that she was in great admiration of Dr. Deena Henshaw.

She said that her information is clear and powerful and there is something else about her that is fun.

She wore a dress with the periodic table silk screened onto the material.

"I know I shouldn't remark about people's clothing, but her dress was fabulous," said Mary.

For more fun about this trivial fact, go to  CBC News.

Fashion and medicine in one place.

Arta

Week 2: Tristan and Isolde through Metopera

A love stronger than death:
Stuart Skelton and Nina Stemme
in the title roles of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.
Photograph: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

I can keep up with the opera, usually.

The length is a little long-- 4 hours tonight. 

That is about a double feature.

Every note a pleasure.

In my note book there are going to be many pages devoted to Wagner this week.

Arta

Week 2 at the Online Opera: Wagner Week

I am doing a copy and paste from the Met site for those who are wondering what week 2 at the metopera.com site is streaming.  

A week of Wagner.  Fabulous

Eric and Catherine and George and Kathy Jarvis went to Germany to hear Wagner last summer.  Here is another chance to enjoy him all week.  

All week and in the comfort of your own home.

Already I can hear the thick harmonies coming.  Check out this Guardian Review as well.

Week 2: Wagner Week

Monday, March 23
Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde
Starring Nina Stemme, Ekaterina Gubanova, Stuart Skelton, Evgeny Nikitin, and René Pape, conducted by Simon Rattle. From October 8, 2016.

Tuesday, March 24
Wagner’s Das Rheingold
Starring Wendy Bryn Harmer, Stephanie Blythe, Richard Croft, Gerhard Siegel, Dwayne Croft, Bryn Terfel, Eric Owens, and Hans-Peter König, conducted by James Levine. From October 9, 2010. 

Wednesday, March 25
Wagner’s Die Walküre
Starring Deborah Voigt, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Stephanie Blythe, Jonas Kaufmann, Bryn Terfel, and Hans-Peter König, conducted by James Levine. From May 14, 2011.

Thursday, March 26
Wagner’s Siegfried
Starring Deborah Voigt, Jay Hunter Morris, Gerhard Siegel, Bryn Terfel, and Eric Owens, conducted by Fabio Luisi. From November 5, 2011.

Friday, March 27
Wagner’s GötterdämmerungStarring Deborah Voigt, Wendy Bryn Harmer, Waltraud Meier, Jay Hunter Morris, Iain Paterson, Eric Owens, and Hans-Peter König, conducted by Fabio Luisi. From February 11, 2012.

Saturday, March 28
Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von NürnbergStarring Annette Dasch, Johan Botha, Paul Appleby, and Michael Volle, conducted by James Levine. From December 13, 2014.

Sunday, March 29
Wagner’s TannhäuserStarring Eva-Maria Westbroek, Michelle DeYoung, Johan Botha, Peter Mattei, and Gunther Groissböck, conducted by James Levine. From October 31, 2015.

Another New Opera to Me

Photo Credit: Met Website

Dimitri Hvorostovsky and Renee Flemming

To my fellow opera lovers:

I missed seeing the Met’s production of Eugene Onegin back in 2007.

I couldn’t have been more happy to see it tonight.

I am a couple of hours ahead of Rebecca seeing it in Victoria. She texted me to see if I were watching.  I had already finished my viewing, having started it early. I like seeing these productions, and knowing my friends and family are watching.

Physical distancing is not social distancing in these cases.

I must have identified with the heroine in this movie, for I had a pen and pencil in my hand for most of the show.

Photo Credit: Met Website

Final Act of Eugene Onegan

Last night I went out to the internet, found a youtube of Renee Flemming giving a master class to a music student and I watched all of it.

I don’t know how I was thinking that would prepare me to watch the opera.

Maybe it did, for I was cognizant of the breathing technique that she was demonstrating in the class with a music student.  And that had some carry over to the film for me.

What I really liked about the opera was the Russian feel about it: the costuming for one thing, and another – the staging.  And I think it captured class.  In the first act, when I heard one of the women say "Heaven sends us habit in place of happiness", I knew there was a trope that was going to occur more than once in the show.

The feel of the grand space, and the lack of materiality was impressive.

Another great opera night.

I think my favourite quote, translated of course, was Titania saying, “We cannot bring back the past.”

Profound ... and surrounded by Tchaikovsky's music.

Arta

The New Word in Our Lives

Photo Credit: Miranda Johnson

... a close up of the downed boathouse ...
- too much snow on the roof; not enough strength in the frame -

Pandemic.

I didn’t ever think I would hear the word pandemic and have the sound be pointed at an actual situation.

Nor did I think I would be at home waiting for the corona virus to move through the territory where I live.

I can'thelp but watch it move closer as it circles the globe.

In the past, when the question has been asked, what have you seen that you never thought you might see, the answer my dad gave was “a man walking on the moon”.

My answer was “the Berlin wall coming down”.

Now I have to rethink my answer.

Only in a science fiction movie was I ever taken to an imaginary space of a pandemic which now is out of the realm of science fiction and into the real world.

Photo Credit: Miranda Johnson

... the downed boathouse framed by birch trees ...

In Alberta we have been a bit late to heed the warning. Our provincial government was not quite as quick as Quebec.

They were two weeks ahead of us at alerting its population.

But now Alberta has caught up, with most people voluntarily doing physical distancing from one another.

Here at my place – no visitors. Just those who deliver food.

And truly I have enough to take provisions to care for myself and some to share.

I have plenty to do at home.

In the past, I have been known to wish for the world to stop so that I could catch up to them. I feel as though I am in that time now, but it is not as I would have wished that time to be, with health and economic stresses everywhere.

For myself, I have been watching the metopera.org series every night, one opera after another – stunning performances.

They could only be better if I knew how to cast them up onto my TV.

Still, I am thrilled, seeing them on my computer.

When I am watching the opera, I wonder to myself, am I like Nero, fiddling while Rome burns. Then I throw that metaphor away.

I am doing what I can: leaning on the information from the best health authorities of my nation; social (physical) distancing; washing hands often with a good lather and for 20 seconds; wiping down areas that get touched; and helping others if the situation presents itself. In short, I am helping to flatten the curve.

Photo Credit: Miranda Johnson

... Betty and Alice walk around the downed boathouse ...

After all of that, with no guilt, I can watch this wonderful art medium that comes to my screen.

Long before the pandemic became evident, I had figured out that I wanted to write 80 memories that would take me to my eightieth birthday.

In the face of the pandemic, the exercise seems trivial. I am going to continue anyway, since it was just a way to help me celebrate the joy of getting older, which joy I shall continue to celebrate, even in hard times.

I think I have passed the hardest part of the curve of writing. For some reason, saying something about falling in love and then saying a few lines about my children was hard work. Frozen finger for a while.

Photo Credit: Miranda Johnson

... mystery spot at the Shuswap ...

I think we are west on Lot 4, looking at the Bastian Mt across the lake.

There may be a pear tree just behind us.

I don't think what we see now is the pear tree trunk, but look behind you.

But I am chattier now, and I still have 50 days to my birthday.

I do see the irony in me calling out ahead to everyone that I wanted my 80th birthday to be a big ice-cream party.

Social distancing is going to put a stop to that.

I can eat the ice cream by myself.

No worries for others.

I will do a carry over of my extravaganza ice-cream birthday wishes to my 81st birthday.

Arta