Time

The time before

/ edebock / 10 Comments

It’s been over ten weeks since the World Health Organization officially declared the worldwide outbreak of Covid-19 a pandemic and countries began to shut things down. More and more I hear people expressing nostalgia for “the time before” and wondering when, if ever, life will return to normal. As I’ve mentioned before, I feel fortunate that my life has not had to change as drastically as many others have. As a retiree, I don’t have a business to close, a job to lose, or children at home. Nevertheless, life is different now and I’ve been pondering the things that I miss.

In the big picture, most of the things I miss are small, but small things are often what bring interest or significance to our lives.

I miss browsing our local thrift stores and perhaps finding a treasure or two. After cleaning out our storage room and kitchen cupboards as well as doing my seasonal wardrobe switch from winter to warm weather clothes, I also miss being able to donate the items I no longer want to keep.

I miss impromptu lunch dates with my husband at The Wooden Spoon, our favourite local eatery. We usually go at least once or twice a month.

Although I enjoy being at home with hubby, I miss spending time with other women. Whether it be dropping in for a cup of tea and a chat with a friend, a morning coffee time with women from my church, or sipping wine and visiting with my “craft night” friends at our monthly get togethers, I need my girlfriends. Thankfully Zoom has helped, but it’s not the same as being together in person.

Though we’ve been enjoying online services from the comfort of home, I miss gathering together with our church family on Sunday mornings.

We don’t live close enough to see our grandchildren on a regular basis, so two months without seeing any of them hasn’t been too hard to handle, but there are babies close by who are changing so quickly that I’ll hardly recognize them when I finally see them again. And then there’s the one that was born late last week. How I’d love to visit and hold her!

Though I’ve learned to live one day at a time, I miss being able to plan ahead. Not knowing if or when we’ll be able to travel internationally again is especially difficult for a wanderer like me. Half the fun of traveling is the planning that goes into it.

Perhaps more than anything else, I miss having things to look forward to. Never before has the calendar page been so blank! In fact, the only thing I’ve written in for the entire month of May is the morning that the nurse comes to give me my monthly injection! I don’t mind life slowing down a bit, but at the moment it seems almost to have stopped and there’s a sameness in our days that’s getting rather tedious.

Perhaps when life finally returns to normal, or the “new normal” that everyone is talking about, we’ll have a greater appreciation for the things that we’re missing right now. Or will we quickly get back into routine and begin to take them for granted again?

What do you think? What do you miss the most from the time before?

closed-world-kies

Obstacle or opportunity?

/ edebock / 5 Comments

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Before the onset of Covid-19, we had planned on leaving on a spring vacation this week. We were going to walk the historic streets of Boston, explore some family history, see the sights of New York City, and visit friends who live in the area. Instead, we continue to shelter at home waiting for our province to gradually begin lifting some of the restrictions that have been put in place to protect us and to keep our health care system from being overwhelmed. There’s absolutely no question that for most people on the planet, the Covid-19 pandemic has been an obstacle to living life as we knew it before the middle of March, but has it also been an opportunity?

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“Even in the darkest experiences we can uncover creative options.” wrote Samuel R. Chand in Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth.

On March 18, the day after Alberta declared a state of emergency and started shutting down non essential services, I wrote that I didn’t want to look back on this as time wasted. That was seven weeks ago. Rather than lamenting over a vacation lost and other obstacles to normal living, I’d rather look at opportunities seized. I truly believe that a positive attitude is vital to maintaining good health and overall well-being. That’s proven to be true throughout my journey with cancer and I think it’s just as true in present circumstances.

So how have I been using the unexpected extra time that I’ve been given by the pandemic shutdown? Here are a few of the ways…

  • Cleaned and reorganized the kitchen cabinets and set aside a number of items to take to our local thrift store when it reopens.
  • When I could no longer find the mixes that I’ve been buying for years on the grocery store shelves, I reverted to making my own pancake mix and baking biscuits from scratch. I doubt that I’ll ever go back.
  • Experimented with adapting a bread recipe until it turned out just the way I wanted.
  • Read several books.
  • Wrote more than usual including 11 blog posts in April as opposed to the 6 or 7 that I usually post.
  • Used Duolingo to study Spanish every day learning more than 1000 words so far.
  • Enjoyed several Zoom chats with family and friends.
  • Walked over 80 km (50 miles) partially on the treadmill, but mostly outdoors.
  • Found 7 geocaches.
  • Played a lot of 7 Wonders Duel.
  • Completed some yard work that wouldn’t have gotten done if I’d been busy planning and packing for a trip.

Does all this mean that I’m happy to have been essentially shut in for the past seven weeks? Does feeling positive about how I’ve been using my time mean that I’m oblivious to the effects that this period of time has had on the economy, on businesses, on the lives of others? Of course not, but neither have I been anxiously straining at the bit for it to come to an end. I’m happy that the health authorities in our province feel that we’ve reached a point where we can cautiously and carefully begin reopening, but I also realize that it will be some time before things are back to “normal”. I sincerely hope that we’ll be able to reschedule our trip someday, but I know that it won’t be for quite awhile.

So, how have you been coping during these most unusual days? Have you been focusing on obstacles or looking for opportunities?

Living in unusual times

/ edebock / 10 Comments

We are definitely living in unusual times. We’ve watched as COVID-19 swept across the globe and now it’s reached our shores. I’m tempted to sit at my laptop hour after hour watching and reading updates. Things are happening so fast! Late Sunday, it was announced that schools across our province were closing. Yesterday, the province declared a state of emergency and non essential services began to shut down. Recreational facilities, museums, libraries, art galleries, community centres, children’s play centres, casinos… all closed until further notice. Gatherings of more than 50 people are prohibited. Even churches are closing their doors. I’m sure it’s much the same where you are.

So what do we do in such unprecedented and uncertain times? How do we cope when the calendar is suddenly blank? Self-isolate and social distancing are new additions to most people’s vocabulary, but I have a little more experience than most with these concepts. Over the past six and a half years, I’ve had 14 PRRT treatments and I was required to self-isolate for one to two weeks after each one. The present COVID-19 crisis will likely last significantly longer than that, but this too shall pass and when it does, I don’t want to look back on this as time wasted.

We’ve just been handed a lot of extra uninterrupted time, something most of us never seem to have enough of. What will you do with yours?

Here are a few suggestions:

  • Declutter. Clean out a closet, a drawer, the kitchen cupboards. Start your spring cleaning early.
  • Try some new recipes. This one might become a necessity. We visited five grocery stores today only to find the meat departments almost empty. I’m definitely going to have to be somewhat creative with meal planning over the next while!
  • Prepare and freeze some meals for when life gets busy again.
  • If you’re able, get outside. Self-isolating doesn’t mean you have to stay inside. Go for a walk or, depending on where you live, do some yard work, ride a bike, go snowshoeing, paddle a canoe. Fresh air and exercise are essential to maintaining a positive outlook in trying times.
  • Check out Duolingo and start learning a new language.
  • Keep up social connections via phone or video chat.
  • Play board games.
  • Do jigsaw or crossword puzzles.
  • Finish the craft that you started some time ago and never completed.
  • Start a journal or a blog.
  • Read all those books that you never had time for.
  • Enjoy virtual tours of 12 famous museums from around the world.
  • Attend the opera online.

Whatever you do, don’t panic and don’t just sit around waiting for this to pass. Take wise precautions, be safe, but also seize the moment. Choose to do something worthwhile in the midst of these difficult and uncertain times. Make it a time worth remembering!

And one final bit of advice… assuming that you don’t live alone and that no one in your household is sick, remember that hugs are healthy! The thing that I missed most during my periods of post treatment isolation was the comfort of physical touch.

It’s a matter of time

/ edebock / 5 Comments

Though China stretches almost as far from east to west as Canada does, it’s exactly the same time in every part of the country!

Canada spans six time zones. When it’s 4:00 o’clock on the BC coast, it’s already 8:30 in Newfoundland. China used to have five time zones but the Communist Party established the country’s present time system shortly after it founded the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Apparently it was supposed to streamline operations and make the country appear more unified.

Personally, I have a problem with this! Dalian is on the east coast where the sun rises earliest. This morning, it came up at 4:36 a.m! I’m not really a morning person but when daylight arrives, I wake up. I’ve done my best to darken our bedroom by taking curtains from the computer room to double the thickness of the ones in the bedroom. It helped a little but not enough and it did nothing to shut out the noise. As soon as it’s light out, vendors begin to set up the morning market below our windows and before long the sound of cars honking and people shouting does away with any chance we might have had of getting a few more moments of sleep.

Of course, the sun also sets earliest here. As Canadians, we’re accustomed to long hours of daylight at this time of year. Back home, the sun isn’t setting until almost 10:00 p.m. but here, it went down at 7:05 this evening.

Apparently China tried Daylight Savings Time from 1986 to 1991 but it was deemed inconvenient and was dropped. Inconvenient for who, I’m not sure. Since the warm weather arrived, we see lots of people out and about enjoying their evenings. Many families from the neighbourhood gather on the plaza in front of the university administration building. Parents and grandparents sit around the perimeter relaxing and visiting while laughing children play. I’m sure that lots of them would happily give up an hour of daylight at 4:30 in the morning in exchange for longer evening light. I know I sure would!

Time flies!

/ edebock / 6 Comments
Melaina's watch

The watch we gave our daughter for Christmas!

I recently read an interesting quotation by inspirational speaker, Michael Altshuler.

The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.

It seemed fitting for this time of year.

Every pilot needs two things, a destination and a flight plan. According to a 2007 study conducted by author and psychologist, Richard Wiseman, only 12% of the participants successfully kept their New Year’s resolutions and achieved their goals! The other 88% knew where they wanted to go but they didn’t get there. Perhaps they didn’t have a flight plan.

Did you make any New Year’s resolutions this year?

Whether your destination is a cleaner house, a lower number on the bathroom scale, a college degree or a new job, you need a plan.

Wiseman suggests six ways to actually keep your New Year’s resolutions:

  • Be specific. Make sure your resolution has a tangible, achievable outcome.
  • Write it down. Outline the small manageable steps you’ll need to take to achieve your goal.
  • Make time. Establish a realistic schedule for accomplishing your goal.
  • Move past doubt. Don’t listen to negative self-talk.
  • Find a supportive partner, someone who will keep you accountable.
  • Be still. Spend time every day doing something to relax and let go of stress.

Sounds like an excellent flight plan to me!

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions but we definitely have a destination this year! China, our next big adventure!

The flight plan is a work in progress. Right now we’re working our way through a lot of little steps while we wait for the documents that we need to apply for our visas to arrive. This morning, I made numerous calls figuring out how to suspend telephone, internet and cable TV service while we’re away and notifying our credit card companies that we’ll be out of the country. Next week we have appointments to make sure our immunizations are up-to-date and will have photos taken for the visa applications.

I’m sure the next few weeks will fly by but step-by-step, we’re getting closer to our destination!