Boxing Day: The Denouement

Hello Gentle Reader and a very Merry Christmas one day late and a Happy New Year six days early to all of my readers in the many diverse countries where my blog is being read today: France with 824 views this week; Canada with 78; the United States at 43; eight in Germany, eight in Ireland, 7 in Portugal, four in Poland and one in China.  This blog has been around the world many times over in three years: here are some other countries where I have been read: Mexico, Peru, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Ecuador.  Across the pond I have had readers in Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark, the UAE, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the Philippines, Turkey, India, Vietnam and more.  There is something gratifying about reaching an international audience when you are an anonymous blogger who doesn't always know when to shut up.

It's been a snowy day but it seems to have turned into rain.  I went out shortly after ten this morning with the intention of buying tofu, a 2017 Calendar and two pale aqua green pencil crayons, as well as stopping in a café for some time to work on a drawing in my sketchbook.  My other objective was to log five miles of walking while attending to my errands.  The objective today, this holiday following Christmas Day, called Boxing Day, or St. Stephen's Day, or the Feast of Stephen (Good King Wenceslas looked out...) It all looked like it was going to work beautifully.  At first it was just raining then suddenly there was a wonder of frozen white plummeting from the sky.  In the café I was the only customer.  It was quiet but for the music, which was generally enjoyable, and I passed more than a good hour to an hour and a half in there, nestled in a comfy chair as though I were the only person on earth.  Here is an image of the bird I am working on:  It's a yellow oriole from Central and South America.
I walked over the Cambie Bridge in the snow storm, taking care to use my big black and blue umbrella as a walking stick, as the snow was building up already and in places it was slippery.  At Broadway and Cambie I stopped in the bank to take out five hundred dollars, then walked to No Frills to buy one brick of tofu.  Suddenly, my knapsack slid off my shoulder and fell on the floor, the strap cleanly torn where it was once attached to the bag.  I McGivered it by tying it onto one of the front buckles, an awkward fit but it would have to do.  While paying for the tofu I imagined I would have to hop on the Canada Line and head directly home to fix my bag and make alternate plans.  I still wanted to get the calendar.  I clenched my teeth and walked the three blocks to the Book Warehouse where I found a beautiful overpriced calendar featuring the paintings of Jessie Arms Brocke: http://www.jessiearmsbotkegallery.com/jessiebotkebiography.html Here are some images of her work, including the white peacocks with delphiniums I once adorned my apartment with on a poster I bought in 1987, when I knew absolutely nothing about her:
I would love to be able to paint the way Jessie painted.  I already accept that it is not going to happen but at least her images are there to inspire and teach.  A bloody expensive calendar, more than twenty bucks!  By then I decided to tough it out with my disabled knapsack.  I managed to fit both the tofu and the calendar inside and decided I'd continue walking.  I managed to reposition the bag so it wasn't cutting into my shoulder.  While continuing along a quiet side street I heard the song of a male Anna's hummingbird hidden in a fir tree. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEbcSbBiyZk During this kind of weather I am always mentored by the small birds, that continue to fly and search for food and sing even when it's snowing.  Lately, outside my apartment I often hear the song of a white crowned sparrow (did I tell you it's December 26?)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEbcSbBiyZk  Among other things they encourage me to press on, regardless of difficult circumstances or of how incapable or weak I feel.  This mentality has been invaluable to my mental health recovery and continuing wellness. The little birds remind me not to be a whining wimp, to brave the cold, embrace the snow, and carry on.  It always works. I saw a man pouring salt on the sidewalk and stopped to thank him, and mentioned that I often walk this way to work during the week.  He was very gracious and we stopped to chat a little bit.  As I was waiting in line to pay for the pencil crayons there was a man waiting behind me.  I would need a bit of time and space to find room in my awkwardly jerry-rigged bag, so I made him some room at the counter and invited him to go ahead, please, with his transaction.  He looked a bit perplexed that a stranger would speak to him as though he already knew him, but you know something, Gentle Reader?  That is how I speak to everybody.  Like I already know them.. And in a way I do because God fills my heart sometimes with such love as to want to fill it and welcome all whom I see.  Other times, of course, I want to smack some of them upside the head but we won't talk about that right now, will we, darlings?  I got on the bus and two young people got up simultaneously to offer me a seat in the front.  Of course I accepted, though I didn't have the nerve to tell them I had just been walking for five miles.  Perhaps they might have assumed that after five miles the old guy would be needing a seat.  When I got off the bus I bought milk at the local Shoppers Drug Mart.  The Filipino trans-boy who works there is nice with a peppery sense of humour.  He was busy with a customer slowly writing something out for her lottery ticket.  I put down my big judge of milk next to the woman, citing my sore arm.  The trans-boy offered to check me out at another stall while waiting for Ms. Slowpoke.  The tall young Sikh security guard gave me an exceptionally warm smile.  He seems like a gentle soul.  I really like Sikhs, by the way, especially the old men.  They are so sweet! I've been home since around one thirty.  I made a pot of cocoa (fair trade, natch) while listening to a Baroque cd and a friend and I visited on the phone while I was making the cocoa, then drinking it and sewing the strap back onto my bag.  My friend and I go back many years, since the eighties.  I mentioned to her that she and I and many in a huge network of persons we are connected to have all fallen through the ever-widening cracks of a system that has relentlessly failed us.  We all have needed supports to help move us forward, and we are all particularly gifted, if wounded and damaged people making supports all the more necessary if we were to flourish and if the rest of society were to benefit from our talents and gifts.  Only in recent years are some of us surfacing again, moving towards wholeness and finding ways to offer our lives and gifts for the greater good, in ways that will not compromise our integrity.  It is a slow and grueling march forward in small steps.  It is always in small steps.  So we keep moving forward. The snow has turned into rain.  I don't think it's going to stick.