Life as a university student is an absolute, never sleeping, always studying, where is my caffeine, level of chaos. As a first-year university student, adjusting to this lifestyle was much more difficult than I had first thought. My first semester came with the thrills of new freedom and an expanding perspective of life and all it had to offer. With these highs came the lows, where tears accompanied thoughts of giving up in the face of midterms, labs, and the never-ending stream of assignments and studying. First semester finally ended, and I had learned so much about myself as a person and as a learner. I had gone through the ringer and came out with better studying habits and was fully prepared to conquer second semester head on.
Second semester was going well, not a 4.0 GPA well, but well. I felt like I was finally starting to realize how this university thing worked. I remember when I started seeing news articles and push notifications about COVID-19. In the beginning, it never crossed my mind how impactful this “foreign” virus would become. As the first case crept into Canada, and then eventually Alberta, the magnitude of the situation seemed to increase with every day. Suddenly, going to campus became a major anxiety in my life as every desk, every door handle, and every person in the hallway became a potentially life-threatening suspicion. I remember talking to my friends during lunch and laughing about how the university would never shut down, because how could they? Two weeks later, at 3am in the morning, I get an email from the University saying classes have been suspended. I read the email and smiled, because it meant I could sleep in for once, but little did I know that I would soon be begging to go back to school.
Doing your classes online is not easy. I had labs this semester that suddenly ended, clubs to go to that were no longer, and friends that I longed to see. To be at home every day and only have that space to do schoolwork is more exhausting than going to campus. I am stuck in my bedroom reading off lecture slides, completing my assignments, and more recently, studying for finals. Most universities in Canada have now implemented credit / no credit marks for courses this semester. Suddenly, that hard work in January through March disappeared, and it was difficult to cope with the fact that I did not need to try so hard anymore. I went from going a mile a minute to practically stop, and that made me spiral into this state of sadness and loss of identity for several weeks. I lost the motivation to study and to even reach out to the friends I was so desperately missing. Finally, I had to tell myself that I needed to find ways to keep myself busy, even if it wasn’t school work, so I could maintain this level of normalcy and structure in my life that I realized I needed.
COVID-19 has already been a life changing event. I did not realize how important school was to me and how going to campus everyday was one of the biggest blessings in my life. I do not see my friends and I have lost the ability to go out and to be social. All those things I took for granted. I have lost both my summer jobs because of COVID-19, and I am now concerned about how I am going to pay for my schooling. All these things have taught me something about myself, but I still worry about the future. There is talk about fall courses being online, and social distancing to continue much longer into the future. As a developing young adult, I feel the need to interact with people and to get outside of my house to grow. It goes without saying, but in times like these, all we can do is learn to adapt.
Evenings of board games and laughter, intellectual discussions over dinner, days of drifting from reading to knitting to cooking elaborate meals and baking beautiful bread. Walks in the woods with my dog, the odd bike ride with my husband. Gardening in the sun. I had unrealistic expectations, perhaps, but this is what I dared imagine life in self-isolation might be, the four of us all together for the first time in years.
There have been elaborate meals—nettle risotto, roast leg of lamb, slow-roasted vegetables, homemade pasta. The bread has indeed been beautiful, thanks to the plethora of no-knead recipes out there now, and I’ve also made hot cross buns and nut loaves and cookies and yogurt. But discussions over dinner have often disintegrated into nit-picking and arguments, conflict over the Netflix account, and whose turn it is to walk the dog. Ah, the children are both home. Except they are no longer children.
I get it, life changed practically overnight for them, but also for us. The global pandemic caused us all to come to a pause and rethink our future in two-week blocks at a time.
Our daughter, at twenty-one, was in her last month of classes at university, about to graduate. The world was full of possibility. She had a few leads on jobs, a budding romance, and was looking forward to crossing the stage in cap and gown to collect her well-earned degree.
Our son, at twenty-five, was working and living with his girlfriend at a resort in the Rockies. It had been a cold winter and he was looking forward to spring skiing. They mapped out future adventures and dreamed dreams, their world full of possibility too.
And then, the new coronavirus we’d vaguely heard about became more prominent. It was proving to be more virulent than expected, more deadly than anticipated. The world reacted. We became familiar with terms like physical distancing, self-isolation, quarantine. Stores closed and we lined up for groceries, stocked up on hand sanitizer, Lysol wipes and toilet paper. The shortage of flour and yeast would come later.
There was the email from the president of the university—in-person classes were cancelled, graduation postponed indefinitely. Our daughter would finish her term, and write her exams, online. She and her friends lost their part-time jobs and, unable to pay rent, many returned home to different parts of Canada and the world. They didn’t have a chance to say good-bye in person. Some of them will likely never see each other again.
The budding romance came to an abrupt halt, the boy returning home to Ontario for the foreseeable future, our daughter staying in Vancouver with us. Now they talk and do crosswords and even workouts, all on Facetime. Love in the time of Covid.
The resort in the Rockies closed and staff were laid off. Our son’s girlfriend headed east, on a flight back to Ontario, to spend time with her parents. He drove west, to Vancouver, piled his stuff in our garage, and reclaimed his old bedroom. Their plans for another year or two of the wanderer lifestyle up in the air. Now they too are together but apart, connecting on Facetime. How to plan when he is here and she is there and everything, absolutely everything, is uncertain? Love in the time of Covid.
For my husband and me, life hasn’t changed that much. We are newly retired and had already learned to slow down and spend days together. We walk the dog, go on the odd bike ride, garden when the sun shines. Sometimes it feels like we will run out of things to talk about. Yesterday, we danced in the kitchen. Love in the time of Covid.
I love that our family is together again. And yet, I know it is not the adult children’s first choice. We are lucky and we know it—we are healthy, we eat well, and we have a comfortable home near the woods that makes self-isolation bearable, even pleasant. But we are getting cranky. It’s raining today and we are all inside. Whose turn is it to walk the dog?
In the year 20/20 our vision cleared. The fog of hedonistic narcissism that had covered the earth during the last century lifted with an unprecedented suddenness. Robed gladiators donned their masks and shields, and their gloves came on, as they prepared to protect the innocent victims who had been stripped naked and thrown into the centre of the ring. Spectators sat glued to their sofas in the global colosseum, eyes affixed to screens, mesmerized by the indestructible, impenetrable enemy that had taken the entire globe by storm. Some remained indifferent to the suffering, perceiving themselves to be invincible. Others shivered in their seats, petrified they would be in the next wave of sacrifices. The gladiators valiantly formed the front line of defence.
As the far-off battle became a global war and casualties grew exponentially, a new haze began to blanket the populace. Ennui took hold of the masses and manifested itself in anxiety, depression, and boredom. Days passed without name, weeks flowed into months, and time stood still while the clock ticked.
And we, the collective known as humanity, found ourselves immersed in a science fiction novel in which humanity faces an alien invasion—not just as readers, but as characters, unaware of the plotline or our role in it, much less the ending. Waking one day to find the world we knew unrecognizable, the setting strangely familiar, yet unworldly, we were thrust into the role of authors of our own story. The theme, at least, was a common, well-known one—good vs. evil. With the crisis predetermined by a force unknown to us, we were left with no option but to use improvisation to forward the narrative.
Even as we struggled to put words to this fictional account that was apparently now our reality, we found ourselves knocked sideways by twists and turns in the subplot. Floods, cyclones, and tornadoes ravaged the land, while the earth quaked and volcanoes erupted. Locusts devoured the crops as wildfires destroyed the forests. Amidst an increase in domestic violence, a senseless mass shooting shocked a nation.
The greatest author in the universe would need an extraordinary imagination to bring this tale to a satisfying conclusion. Regrettably, we are all amateur authors, each of us obligated to contribute a line or two to this sorry story. How then, can we aspire to collaboratively bring a happy ending to this convoluted tragedy?
This is where the writer’s block hits full force. With so many of us sitting at home, waiting this out, we wonder what we can contribute to this global epic saga. The prose flows so easily for some—those who take it in their stride to serve and protect, those who swear to heal and comfort, those who research to find answers and solutions, those who lay themselves on the line to provide the necessities of life. They are the true heroes in this tragic adventure. They are the Nobel prize-winning authors of this inspirational memoir. But what do the rest of us have to offer?
More than we think, that is the power of the majority. As we set the pen to paper, our fingers to the keyboard, we, the masses, begin our chapter’s title with two words: Stay Home. Ours won’t be the most exciting chapter written in this account that will go down as one of history’s classics. It will, however, be the greatest influence on the outcome of this drama.
Our contribution isn’t as visible as that of the gladiators who stand steadfast in the ring against the invisible enemy whose weapons take no concrete form. As we sit on the sidelines observing the fight, and waiting for the last chapter to be written, we come to the realization that our seemingly inconsequential chapter will impact the conclusion. And so, we cheer on our frontline warriors, thankful for their bravery, and encourage them to keep up the good fight in the face of the despair that surrounds them every day. We pray for and hold out hope for those innocents who have been randomly selected to fight in this life-and-death battle on the open stage, with neither weapons nor defence shields. We practise social distancing and handwashing to keep ourselves and our families safe, and to protect our neighbours, friends, and those we don’t even know. With this simple plan, this meagre outline, we steer the plot toward that happy ending we would all love to read.
In that fairytale ending, we would see our malicious foe unceremoniously ousted from the arena by our collaborative efforts. Our frontline gladiators would be decorated not with glory and prizes, but with marks of honour and badges of courage. The victims who had been sacrificed would be remembered with love, and those who were fortunate enough to be rescued out of the ring of fire would be given a fresh outlook on life.
That final chapter we write together with a common goal—to close the book on Covid-19. We hope to once again return to some semblance of the life we had and took for granted. We vow to never again be ungrateful for the gifts that have been bestowed upon us.
For now, we can only use our imagination as we envision that Utopia where we leave our homes to go to work, to run errands, to do our shopping, without fear. What if our dreams came true and we could see and speak to our loved ones in person, not through technology? What would it be like, we wonder, to wander through a mall, to go to a movie theatre, to eat out in a restaurant, surrounded by other people, be they friends or strangers? Is there a chance we may get to attend community events, celebrations, ceremonies, concerts, games, and share special moments with our fellow human beings? How wondrous would it feel to go to the beach, walk on the trails, go to the playground, without putting ourselves and others in danger? Will we ever again be able to experience all nature has to offer, the wonders of the world, other cultures, without the worry of bringing back with us some unseen killer?
Out of our imagination, onto the page, and into reality, we aspire to bring an end to the dystopian novel, Coronavirus, with an ending that satisfies all of us. Out of the ruins of the colosseum, let the victors arise above the villain, humbled by the strength of their synergy—stronger together.
Upon publication of our joint heroic epic, renamed, We Got Through This Together, may we shake each other’s hands and hug each other as we did once upon a time. May we banish the term ‘social distancing’ and replace it with ‘social embracing.’ And most importantly of all, may we learn, may we remember, may we know that we were not meant to live in self-isolation. No man is an island. All mankind is in this together.
To everything there is a season and fall is Canning Season. Surplus in the summer garden goes into jars to nourish us through those long winter months. The pop of a well sealed Mason jar brings a smile, a taste of work accomplished, a memory of warm soil between the fingers, bird song and sunshine, in those barren months to come.
I am a compulsive canner. If it is edible it must be eaten. If not eaten immediately, it must be preserved for future consumption.
Is this a hereditary trait? I stem from a long line of farmers but are we not all the progeny of hunter-gatherers? Of course we are—or humankind would not have survived. Yet so few today, here in Canada, have knowledge of the growth and source of our daily food.
For example, our cottage property on a river bank beside our farm was rented one summer to a family for their weekend retreat. Highly educated were they: she a professor, he a lawyer. My kitchen garden, between the cottage lawn and riverbank, was large and highly productive that summer.
“Help yourselves to the green and yellow beans and some carrots,” I said on their arrival one Friday evening in July. On Monday, it was apparent nothing had been taken. The following weekend the couple admitted they did not know what beans looked like.
“Do they grow in the ground or above?” asked the wife. “The carrots, I did recognize them, they sometimes leave the tops on in the grocery store, but I found them too hard to pull from the ground.”
Astounding, I thought, not having the strength to pull a carrot, not knowing beans grew above the ground! It is true, beans are shy, one might say. Shy of the pod bursting in the sun. That is why they hide behind their leaves. Mine, now overripe, had to be dried and shucked from their pods to save for the winter soup pot.
In the late eighteen hundreds, my maternal grandparents had to move off the farm, due to my grandfather’s allergies. They bought a hotel in Guelph, Ontario, and purchased their dining produce from relatives back on the farm. There were no freezers in those days so my grandmother preserved. She made all the pickles, jams, and jellies for the hotel, put down peaches, applesauce, rhubarb, apple butter, chutney and the like.
Pickles by Lynette Richards
Winter found apple, cherry, pumpkin, and green tomato mincemeat pies on the hotel menu, along with baked beans, cabbage salads, sauerkraut, headcheese, heart soup, smoked sausage, chops, and hams. Apple and tomato juice was bottled and capped. When the hotel was sold and my grandparents retired, my grandmother still preserved: stirring, tasting, adding to the vegetables simmering in giant cauldrons; bottling, capping, and stocking shelves in the basement. The surplus was always given by the box-full to the church for distribution to those in need.
In the 1940s, when we visited relatives in Burlington, we always stopped for dinner at the renowned restaurant The Estaminet. Why, one might ask? For the preserves made by the establishment’s owner, Mrs. Byrens. Unique and spicy they were and done down every year for the pleasure of her guests. Too much unnecessary work one might think, with a cannery short blocks away. But no, that extra effort, that special taste is never too much work. That is what moves food from mere need of sustenance to pure delight.
During the Second World War everyone had a garden, a Victory Garden they were called. The whole family participated. It was fun and a way to feed ourselves and store for the future, whatever that uncertain future may be. No matter how small the yard there was always room for herbs and vegetables to grow.
As an adult with my own home and garden, I preserved to feed a growing family. There were wild strawberries in the fields, raspberries and blackberries in the fence lines, leeks in the woodlot, all free for the picking. I purchased Mason jars by the case load, filled, capped, and sealed in the copper boiler my grandmother had once used. Vegetables were pickled or stored. Nothing was wasted; overproduction was given away as grandmother had done.
Once, during a renovation in our farm home, a plumber asked me to stay in my kitchen while he went to the basement. He would call to me when I was to turn on the kitchen faucet. I waited and waited and waited for that call. When none came I stood at the head of the basement stairs and called to him: “Is something wrong down there, it’s been a long time….”
His reply, “Do you know you have 149 jars of jam down here?”
Five pounds of yellow onions sit beside my cutting board. I hold a large dull chef’s knife. The cutting board is wooden and scored by years of use—a haven for E. coli, surely. The alternative is one of the large plastic boards, also rutted by use. Which is the dangerous one: wood or plastic? I don’t remember and there is no wifi here at Hope Kitchen.
My task is to chop onions, sorting through the pile for spots of mold and “squishy bits.” Because I wear glasses, the kitchen wisdom is that I will not be reduced to tears while I sort and chop. The cooks want as much as I can salvage, for the soups, the meatloaf, and the salads. While I work, Shelley brings me another two or three pounds of onions found at the bottom of a box of vegetables donated by the Co-Op.
At least now I have an explanation for tears.
After Roger died, I discovered I couldn’t cook. I did not know how to make soup, stew, paella, rice pilaf, stir fry, potato omelettes. He cooked these meals. When we knew he was dying, he asked me to promise I would prepare, cook, and eat “proper” meals every evening. I promised. Of all the promises I made during the last six months of his life—to ensure he was dead when they cremated him; to burn his gi; to sell his dress blues; to save his medals for our children; to read War and Peace; to keep his ka-bar—promising to cook a proper meal was the least of my worries.
After the first shock, when my life without my partner of thirty-five years began, I discovered among many harsh discoveries—I couldn’t start the chain saw—that I was clueless in the kitchen. I found jars of sauerkraut, hot sauce, raisins, a tiny foil slip of Spanish saffron, his favourite Uncle Ben’s converted rice, smoked paprika, packages of frozen chorizo. I did not know what to do with any of it. I did not know how to cook the meals he made for us over the years. His recipes were in his head, departed with him. Recipes on the internet did not yield the tastes, the smells, the textures of the stews and soups he had produced. I didn’t feel like eating anything I cooked.
I had to learn to cook to keep my promise to my dead husband.
I fetched up our community soup kitchen, where hot meals were prepared and served at 12:30 three days a week. When I called the coordinator to volunteer, she asked me about my specialties and I replied, “I can do what I’m told.” She assigned me to the Monday crew. I arrived for my first stint three months after Roger died, so stunned with grief I was speechless and often motionless. I had to be escorted to the grocery store, or I would forget what I was looking for and leave with random items, such as popcorn.
I am sure the Monday crew were hoping for someone with experience and skills. They got me instead. I remember the lead hands, Michael and MaryAnn, looking with interest turning to apprehension when I appeared in the doorway asking if they needed any help. “What’s your specialty,” I was asked again. I looked around the large, ramshackle commercial kitchen, figuring “oatmeal porridge” was not the answer.
“I do what I’m told,” I replied. “I can also peel and chop.”
“Can you open jar lids?” they said, eyeing my stocky late-sixties body.
“Yes.”
Michael waved me forward with his formidable chef’s knife. “Put on a hat and apron. Wash your hands. Don’t sneeze into anything.”
And we laughed, me with my pathetic imitation of person who is not so overwhelmed with grief she can’t breathe.
It became obvious I was not being modest. I didn’t know how to do anything. Chopping enough carrots for a soup to feed forty, asked to cut them in coins, I produced cubes. Prepping ten pounds of broccoli into florets too large to cook quickly in the stir fry. Cutting the bad bits out of eight red and orange peppers and missing the labels. Salvaging “vine-ripe” tomatoes so moldy they poisoned the pasta sauce. None of the peelers worked. I couldn’t get any of the can-openers to open cans. Every knife was dull except the set Michael brought to the kitchen every week, which we guarded with our lives.
I chopped. Not quickly or efficiently. For weeks, every Monday at ten, I arrived and chopped. Onions. Potatoes. Celery. Carrots. Turnips. Parsnips. Cabbage. Apples. I did not have much to say. I suspect someone told Michael and MaryAnn I was a new widow, and while they understood, they did not mollycoddle me. If I started leaking tears, no one rushed to rescue me.
Sweet Spanish by Shirley Harshenin
Our local radio station DJ played music for us. Michael, a musician as well as a cook with years of experience, would heckle the play lists. I tore up bread for his bread puddings, prepared apples and plums for cobblers, formed hamburger into meatballs, cracked eggs, sifted flour.
When there was nothing else I could chop, I washed prep pans, stainless steel bowls, and the massive cauldrons that accumulate in a commercial kitchen. I cleaned the fridges and freezers, opened unlabelled jars and peered into mysterious plastic buckets, sorted vegetables, inspected packages and cans for best-before dates, set rat traps.
While I did what I was told, I also listened. Michael and MaryAnn would inspect the boxes of surplus produce from the Co-op, our only grocery store, discuss what to make with what we had, and do it. It was magic, to make something out of not enough. At ten o’clock they would be looking into the boxes and at 12:30 we had two mains, two soups, side dishes, salad, and dessert. My talent for finding random things in the fridges began to come in handy. We rarely had enough of anything. Every meal was an improvisation. Making do. Without the essentials. Such as husbands.
Early in the morning, men would start the fire in the wood stove in the dining hall, which was otherwise unheated, put on the coffee, and ask about milk and canned milk, sending me into one of the fridges to see what hadn’t curdled. Shortly after ten, men and women would come in, seeking warmth, and I would hear their voices. Sometimes there would be bursts of laughter and I would look up, bewildered, wondering what anyone could find to laugh about.
When serving time came, we lifted large trays onto the counter, Michael and MaryAnn served, and I hung back ladling soup. Those coming for a meal lined up, patient and expectant. Some had not eaten since their meal on Friday afternoon. After about ten minutes, “so they won’t ruin their meal,” I would carry the dessert into the dining hall. I couldn’t look at anyone. People smiled. Scowled. Argued with each other about conspiracies. Complained about their teeth if we served coleslaw. Complained about the free trade agreement if we served beef.
In our small community, many are inadequately housed and suffer food insecurity. That is city-planner talk for cold and hungry. Yet here they are always ready to lift down the chairs, carry the dishes back into the kitchen, make small talk, check on each other, pitch in. I wore my grief like a flag, but no one referred to it. Men and women gathered at the wood stove, coffee or tea in hand, in the simplicity of warmth, conversation, and a comfort-meal in the offing: thick soups, sausages, mashed potatoes with kale, carrots and turnip mashed, beets—buttered if we had it—vegetarian gravy or light cream sauce, and cookies. Warm food and a brief release from cold and damp. From sorrow.
I came to know, though no words were spoken, we all carried sorrow into that kitchen, set it down for a time, and then picked it up as we went back into the world. I went home to my waiting dogs after each Monday meal, apron wet, often with a yogurt container of soup, returning to the grief I set aside while I learned to cook.
