Family

 It’s been overcast today.  When I first moved to Canada, I remember walking to church and I met an older woman, also heading to St. Patrick’s, who told me that it must rain on Good Friday to have a proper spring.  We chatted briefly about the weather (it was drizzling that day) and since then, Don talks about how it always rains on Good Friday.  Well, today, it drizzled a bit, but it wasn’t what I would call a rainy day.  Yesterday now, but today was just grey.  Jerry spent the day hopping from one lap to another, while Don was napping.  I had some extra energy today and I made a small batch of salt fish Accra this morning.  That was great, and I enjoyed them tremendously.  Then I had a lovely video chat with my family in Trinidad and Toronto, which made for a great afternoon.  My dad, of course, was delighted to see us all on a single chat… I’m amused, but he refers to video calls as “visits” because he says it’s like we’re in the room with him.

So I was briefly on Facebook today, and the memories portion scrolled back many years.  It seemed that I used to travel a lot at this time of year.  13 years ago I went with my sister and one of her friends to see Wicked in London, England.  6 years ago I was in Cuba, relieved that my friends weren’t fast enough to take pictures of me dancing… although there is one of me doing the Macarena in a club.  5 years ago, my sister and I were visiting my cousin in Virginia, as I did again the following year.   And 17 years ago I was in Trinidad being godmother to my niece.  There are other fun memories, and more trips, but for the last 2 years I’ve been here, and unable to travel — except to the hospital, where they, ironically, ask me “Have you travelled outside of Canada in the last 2 weeks?” 

I am looking forward to travelling again, and I have these lovely friends who have extended invitation for me to spend time with them.   I’m making plans to be able to visit people, once things permit.  I’m going to go dream of what things I could do and so on, not giving in to despair and hopelessness.  Good night, my friends!