Happy Face 11

I am up and awake way too early, again Gentle Reader, having logged four solid hours of sleep followed by another hour and a half of light napping. Now it is just past 4 am and soon I will be putting my clothes in the dryer. I did make coffee (not decaf), but I haven't had any yet, will probably sip only a little bit, then after breakfast and putting my clothes away, go back to sleep for a couple of hours. In the small hours of the morning, as today, I am listening to the wealth of documentary programs that the CBC generally spares from enlightening the daytime working folk, who usually get a bland and diluted pap of political, social and community programming. The best stuff is saved for when most of us are sleeping and trying not to dream. There was one documentary from BBC, I believe, about the current refugee crisis in Venezuela, and the three million who have fled the country because of the disastrous government of Victor Maduro, who of course blames the economic crisis on the big bad and evil United States of America. No one is buying it, which isn't to say that they haven't played a role in disrupting things. When it comes to the Americas, Uncle Sam is a very nasty landlord, even over properties that are not under his purview. Even if they do play a role in undermining governments that are not friendly towards global capitalism, it would seem that Maduro has taken things to such an extreme where no one is going to pay much attention to his name and blame game. I am thinking of how I live in the first world paradise named Canada, where there is also poverty, but not widespread poverty, or at least not yet. We have homeless people living on the street, something that just wasn't occurring here thirty years ago, and we have hunger and food banks. No one is fleeing this country, and there is still a social infrastructure, however compromised, that enables us to cope. I am one of the lucky ones. Statistically, I likely would be homeless and living in shelters, but for eleventh hour interventions that I owe to the hand of God protecting me. There have been way too many coincidences in my trajectory to be easily written off as mere happenstance or luck, especially the doors that opened for me to get into decent and affordable housing. Despite my bitter complaining in recent posts, my life is pretty good. I am not wealthy, statistically I am actually considered very poor, but my rent is subsidized and indexed accord Even if I am relatively socially isolated, I have at least two close friends who try to stay in touch, persons I have known since our salad days many years ago. ing to my changes of income, with extra consideration and lower rent now that I am a senior getting early CPP. I have a full fridge. What's in it, you might ask? Unhealthy processed food that I bought on sale? Think again. There is a big cooking pot half full of a green lentil, tomato, mushroom, cheese and pasta dish. I will be freezing the rest of it tomorrow and for the next couple of weeks will likely be thawing and living on leftovers, since my freezer is already getting very full. There is a lot of fresh broccoli and green cabbage, some tomatoes. There is a small bag of onions, a couple of potatoes and yams. I have milk, orange juice and lovely aged cheddar cheese. There are eggs and there is butter. I have oranges,, clementine mandarins and apples. There is also whole wheat flour and brown rice in my fridge and home made bread. There is sunflower oil and soon there will be fresh garlic. I am eating very well. I didn't mention the lovely bananas in my fruit bowl. In my cupboards there is good natural peanut butter, honey, dried lentils and beans, whole wheat pasta, cocoa and brown sugar. I have another cupboard full of spices. I have marmalade in my fridge. And I forgot to mention the yogurt or my chocolate stash. I can live on what I earn and save money for a trip and to buy a new laptop, which I will be needing sooner than later. Materially, I have nothing to complain about, even if I can't buy the most fashionable or beautiful or expensive things, even if I can't afford a cell phone or TV on top of my other luxuries. Even if I don't live in a nice neighbourhood. Even if i can't expect the quality of retirement that many of my peers have accepted as their entitlement. When I think of the refugees fleeing from Venezuela and the people sleeping on the sidewalk outside of my building, when i think of those who actually do end up killing themselves because they are hopelessly lonely and have run out of hope. My life isn't perfect. But I am healthy. Even if my family has horribly damaged, traumatized me and robbed me of a better quality of life, there is healing and there arre people in life who care, and I actually do see this even if the pain of the past still blinds me to the new light that is shining my way.