Covid: Last weeks of Summer

August 31, 2020

Life this summer has been full of contrasts. We have divided  our time between our house in Victoria and our off-grid cabin on Valdes Island. We won’t remember this summer for the time spent in our garden, or for the adventures and projects that filled our days at the cabin. Instead, 2020 will always be remembered for the global pandemic that arrived and put the world as we know it on pause and rudely delivered a new and unwanted reality. After reading Bruce Grierson’s recent article in the Globe & Mail, I keep returning to the idea of shadow time and how it relates to my world of contrasts. 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-why-the-pandemic-has-played-havoc-with-our-sense-of-time/

According to the Bureau of Linguistical Reality,

Shadow time is: 

A parallel timescale that follows one around throughout day to day experience of regular time. Shadowtime manifests as a feeling of living in two distinctly different temporal scales simultaneously, or acute consciousness of the possibility that the near future will be drastically different than the present.

I have been sitting on my deck watching a kingfisher chatter and then dive for its breakfast. I’m not quite close enough to see whether or not it has the rust coloured belt indicating it is a female.  Sitting here quietly I watch August drain away with the tides and I am pulled towards September and the opening up of schools. Looking at the ripples on the water I wonder about my future place in this experiment. 

Two days ago Gord and I jumped into our double kayak and paddled in pursuit of a closer look at some humpback whales fishing off shore. With the Vancouver skyline just barely visible in the distance, this wild stretch of the Georgia Strait bucks any attempt to be tamed by it’s close proximity to the big city. Even on a calm day, the waters boil with seals scampering off the rocks as we pass the safety of Canoe Islet. Heading out into the Strait, we pause to listen and look for the blows of the whales. We make it to within about 300 meters of them before I lose my nerve about venturing any further off shore.  The breeze is materializing and out in the Strait things can change quickly. When we turn back towards Valdes, the humpbacks just continue with their fishing and we slip away undetected. 

Valdes is always a place for shadow time, even in years without Covid. We live in a place that is simultaneously a world away from everything and only 40 kms from downtown Vancouver. 

I hope that shadow time is not a one way street and  that I can conjure up this beautiful life on Valdes as I mask up for teaching. 

Covid 19: Harold & Maude

Ruth: When I’m not working online in my office at home, I’m joining the new Covid craze for self-sufficiency. Once enough toilet paper and food stocks have been secured, I turn my attention to gardening, making masks, knitting and baking. Other than the making of masks, these are not new  hobbies for me, but the daily routine of working to produce what our house needs needs feels different. 

Somewhere in the twentieth century, urbanites like me, lost the need to be self-sufficient. Our Covid isolation has brought this very human need back into our lives. Our neighbourhood bakery has remained open throughout the last two months and yet almost everyone I know is baking.  There was a two week period when flour and yeast shortages  appeared in the grocery stores, but they are now well stocked again. On certain days, there are more articles on facebook about sourdough starter than the virus. 

As we begin to broaden our social circles, our home has  welcomed in two new members: Harold and Maude. Maude was my first sourdough starter followed by Harold, a back up housemate,  in case it didn’t work out with Maude. I am happy to report that  Harold and Maude are both thriving and were recently married in a quiet garden ceremony with only immediate family members present. All goes well if I feed them daily and the bread that they offer me in exchange has been amazing. Their offspring have moved out into kitchens of their own. With such limited connections with other people, I love knowing that Harold and Maude’s second generation are happily bubbling in kitchens I still can’t visit myself. 

Covid 19: Chicken Little

Our Garden


Our beautiful cat Russell Street

I have been working from home since Spring Break ended, and face to face classes were shut down for all, but the children of essential workers. I’ve been tuning in to listen to our Chief Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry for her daily updates. I am now  hyper vigilante about following social distancing and hand washing rules. Non-essential travel is still off the table, and our tickets to France for this summer are now just a sad reminder of how our lives have changed. 

Working from home means lunches on the deck with Gord and a very happy cat. Spring is in full bloom and the garden looks amazing. Without commuting time to work,  I can start bread in the morning and be there to bake it after it rises. Everyone is a baker now, and flour and yeast are coveted shopping finds. Most days Gord and I head out for a bike ride or walk before dinner exploring all the many beautiful  places we can get to within an hour or two. We are very lucky to live here in Victoria. 

Buchart Gardens

My work itself is stressful as I try to simultaneously master and teach the new technology that we are using to deliver instruction remotely. Video meetings, emails, phone calls and chats with students and colleagues fill the time. My priority is connecting to the students who are really struggling at home with mental heath or home challenges. Lock downs are dangerous times for at youth at risk. Most of my students are also struggling with the technology needed to video conference. Even with a laptop loaned from school most prefer just a phone call. 

When I need to, I can get up walk into my garden to pick kale for dinner or just take a break in the sun. In many ways these are the most enviable work conditions, so why am I more stressed than ever?

The Corona virus has robbed me of a sense of predictability, safety and control. I say “sense” because I really am safe,  and within each day there is a certain amount of predictability and control. I know I am extremely lucky and much less impacted by the epidemic than most people in the world. I have a safe job, home and city.  The curve of cases has been flattened,  and our province now has no new community outbreaks. Vancouver Island’s numbers are even better, with only a handful of active cases.  

It’s the worries about the future that keeps my gut clenched and body braced against a multitude possible catastrophes. And the news is always there to ensure that I have a high definition image of my fears.  Usually at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning I do an inventory of all the scenarios I fear the most: a second and more severe outbreak in the fall, the opening of the Canada/US border, someone I love getting sick or dying , economic collapse, ongoing and more severe lock downs well into the future, and the colossal loss of lives in developing countries and among the poor and vulnerable in our own. 

Yesterday I received an email from our superintendent  that pricked a hole in the bubble of safety I have been trying to maintain. Teachers will all be called back to our schools in two weeks. I have learned the rules to avoid others and stay isolated at home and now I truly fear  returning to any situation where I am in close contact in enclosed spaces.

The Corona virus has made me into chicken little,  and it really feels like the sky is falling , even though,  from my privileged little corner of life, it really isn’t. 

Covid 19: Leaving Paradise

This morning we are packing up to leave paradise and return to a changed city. Living in the moment has always been easier on Valdes and yet even here I have been navigating intense emotions. 

I received an email from our friend Paolo in Northern Italy to let me know that he is safe. His only advice, echoed voices broadcasting from all over Italy: “follow the isolation rules, we didn’t.”  

I am left with the unsettling realization that I cannot convince even some of my close friends to do this. So many people bend or break the rules that don’t work for them. 

At least our small community on Valdes has been social distancing well. Each afternoon, if the weather permits,  a small group of us meet on the beach at a safe distance to drink a beer and listen to the daily briefing of the provincial Health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry. Dr. Henry, we are listening. 

 There is such a close relationship between fear and anger. When something feels wrong, and it definitely does, I want to blame and become  enraged by the actions or inactions of others. Underneath the anger, I am anxious and scared of what is to come. 

As Dr. Henry says, “Be kind, be calm, be safe.”

Nettle Soup and homemade bread. 

Rough skinned newt

Covid 19: Social Distancing

March 17, 2020

The last rays of sun are illuminating the Straight of Georgia between Vancouver and Valdes Island. From my chair in our cabin, I watch a ferry gliding along in the pink light that bathes the coastal range. Mount Baker looks simultaneously solid and ethereal.

We we’re supposed to be on route to Moncton to visit Gordon’s aunt and uncle who are 96 and 93 respectively. Yesterday morning we made a quick decision to pull the plug and avoid any risks to Herman and Doris. When we made the decision there were 46 cases of Covid-19 in B.C. and only one on Vancouver island. The risk seemed low, but out of an abundance of caution and a sense of responsibility we cancelled the trip. 

Other than stories of hoarding shoppers racing to buy all the toilet paper and hand sanitizers, life seemed fairly normal here. 

Today there are 187 cases and seven deaths in the province. A public health emergency has been declared in BC  as in many other provinces across the country. The stories coming out of Italy and Spain are a scary warning of what is yet to come. 

Schools have been shut indefinitely for in-class instruction but I have been told to report to school on Monday after spring break ends. We will continue to work but may have new and different duties.  

We are all practicing “social distancing” now even on Valdes. We are meeting our neighbors each day at the beach but saying 6 feet away from each other at all times. We are feeling very fortunate to have this place to hold up in