February 11, 2021

Slippers

I bought slippers on Monday, and they have improved my life exponentially, except that my feet are now so perpetually warm that when opportunity arises to leave the house (not that it comes up often) I almost want to pass it up, because then I’d have to take off my slippers, and whoever would want to go through that?

Not that we go anywhere anyway, except on walks around our neighbourhood before and after virtual school, and we’ve really exhausted every single alley way, running out of diversions.

Thankfully, the children are heading back to school on Tuesday after six weeks of learning from home, which has been great, actually, because their teachers have created an excellent program and they’re both at the right age and have the appropriate learning style to engage with it properly and without me having to be very involved at all. But I’m beginning to see the toll it’s taking on them, being home all the time, the stimulation they’re missing.

I’m finding mid-week difficult, was the thing I kept saying last week when it was Wednesday and I could not bear to cook, so we got take-out instead, and I was strung out on sadness and anxiety, and why do I keep falling apart on Wednesdays? It was curious. It’s happened every single Wednesday this year, except the day of my Toronto Library event (which is a good thing, really!) and I’d supposed that maybe that fun and exciting thing to do was a distraction from the curse of what Wednesday had become to me, the toll of a pandemic in winter heavy to carry through an entire week without me collapsing into a wreck.

But no. What if Wednesdays keep being hard because hard things keep happening on Wednesdays? Or even good things (Inauguration Day) so packed with feelings and the weight of the nightmare we’ve been living through that celebrations become a mix of emotions. Last Wednesday it was the announcement of school reopenings, which took me by surprise. Schools had been scheduled to reopen on February 10, but for some reason I’d decided that was a far-off date in the future that I’d never actually have to grapple with, and so the news it was imminent spiked my anxiety, and of course that so very little (nothing?) was being done to ensure that these reopenings were something parents and teachers could have confidence in.

Yesterday, however, was okay. I ventured into the day very carefully, but sailing ended up being fairly smooth. I realized the problem was not with Wednesdays in general, but possibly particular ones.

One thing that is definitely making my life better in general is another session of my blogging course, the second February in which I’ve run an intensive version with a fabulous group of writers. I love it so much, which I say mostly because this fact continues to surprise me—I started an online course because teaching in person made me uncomfortable and I wasn’t craving the engagement, really, but then a guided course proved more popular than a self-directed one, so I made it happen…and it turned out to be one of the most delightful projects that I’ve ever undertaken? I feel very lucky that this gets to be my work, and grateful that my ideas resonate with so many smart and wonderful people, and happy to be contributing in my own little way to smart and thoughtful people taking up space online.

I also like the framework and momentum that it adds to February, a season that sometimes seems to stretch on forever.

Every post, every day, every step (in my cozy) bringing us a little bit closer to springtime, to crocuses in bloom.