Life As Performance Art, 18

Yesterday wasn't bad for an Easter Monday, despite the rain. And the cold. I don't think the mercury went above nine degrees yesterday, which is unusual for April 22. It was also Earth Day yesterday, and we are all singing before the abyss. We have no idea how it is all going to look, but it ain't gonna be pretty. We are living these days, as they say, in very uncertain times. Dramatic climate change from human caused global warming is already becoming the norm. Governments are scrambling to make cosmetic changes to environmental policies while still performing the same obscene acts with fossil fuel corporations. It doesn't look pretty, and no one is wearing protection. But yesterday was still nice, despite the rain, and the cold temperature. After doing some work at home I managed to drag myself outside for a good seven mile walk underneath my big black and blue umbrella. The trees are luminously green in their unfurling spring foliage and flowers and blossoms splash colour throughout the streets, yards and gardens. The robins and finches are still singing, the Steller's jays are still screaming, the crows are still cawing and the wealthy neighbourhood burghers are all frightened and bunkered into their electronically monitored and barricaded palaces, counting all their laundered money while their queens are in the parlour eating bread and honey. I try to ignore the people who live in these obscenely wealthy neighbourhoods. At those moments I simply don't want to care who lives there, or why those expanses of quiet streets are so peaceful, green and fragrant. I don't even want to see the inside of their mansions, or, not most of them, anyway. It is an extended and gentle labyrinth of curving streets. Eventually I have to come off the magic mountain, walking back into the common overpriced neighbourhoods where even well-incomed professionals struggle to pay the mortgage. The houses are smaller, closer together, but old and charming. The gardens are wild with the joy of the new spring. The air smells like fresh new soil, new leaves, flowers and tree sap. In the No Frills grocery store I am reminded again of that mad scramble we call life, as shoppers compete and have to scurry around each other for products, perhaps budget priced, but still costly. My reusable bag is heavy with bounty, and I easily find on the bus a seat, because standing with heavy groceries and a big umbrella is not easy on the bus, but younger people usually don't have to be reminded and usually give up their seat without being asked. In the safety of my small subsidized apartment I have to shuck off the anxious fear that is often a byproduct of a crowded bus ride following a shopping trip in a busy supermarket, because dodging the oblivious can induce panic attacks. But in less than a minute I am fine again, as I put on a CD of the Mozart Requiem, followed by Charpentier's Te Deum. I resume work on my laptop, this time research on Mexican painters. Then I get up to make a pot of hot cocoa from scratch.