I am a Monday's child. That is the day of the week I was born on in 1956. According to the old nursery rhyme, I am "fair of face", which is interesting since (as mentioned recently) I never thought I was beautiful. I finally do, now. This Monday has dawned cold (below freezing) and extremely windy. I feel the need to check in, even though I have no idea what to say.
This was one of those weekends when I was super conscious not only of the onset of winter, but also of not being with my tribe (if I have one...) or in my preferred country, where life interests me so much more. In an effort to do something different, I decided to go to a church harvest fair in a relatively unfamiliar part of town. I couldn't think of any friends who might be interested in this, so I took the bus. The event was in a stuffy church basement, and the people running it had it pared down to the bare bones, perhaps because of lingering COVID concerns. The items on offer were: beef pasties, apple pies, doughnuts, preserves, cookies, and a select few knitted and sewn goods for winter. I bought a pasty, a small jar of jam, some cookies, and a dishrag. Then (it being Saturday), it was an uncomfortably chilly half hour wait for the next bus, but I'm still not doing a whole lot of random sitting around indoors with other people even for the sake of warmth.
A cold Saturday morning in October made clear one thing -- this looks like it will be a hard winter on Duluth's streets, and on the bus lines There are already so many people "sleeping rough" as they say in England, and I know every day of my life that I am on the verge of being one of them. I'm finally at the point where I believe that this is not about anything that any of us have done "wrong", it is about a system that can't help but create massive inequality and need, and push aside people who are different in any way. I am grateful for a roof over my head this minute. I'm not as compassionate as I should be, I think out of my own fear. I don't think of myself as fearful, but when I see a woman carting all her belongings in a baby carriage, or a man lugging an impossibly heavy backpack, I shiver. Literally.
On Sunday, I made a so-so stew. Next time, I am not going to add tomato paste or tomato sauce, as it turns the gravy too orange! I listened to a Q and A session with one of my favorite authors, but wished the questioner had also been female. And I watched three "Masterpiece" mysteries (so much for having set this form of entertainment "violence" totally aside! But I wanted to see if any of these new series were worth watching, and the third of the three looked most promising, in part because the woman detective is so engaging.)
So it was a weekend, not so much of distracting myself, but of treading water. There has to be a way for me to expand, beyond this blog, my expression of my gifts, thoughts, and passion for England/English church music and the Goddess, but, even reborn, I can't yet hear a specific call. For today, this Monday's child is just thankful to be alive, warm, and fed.
