Jocie's Blog

 

  I had the opportunity to sketch a naked man last night on Zoom.  It is what we do during these days of Covid- find ways to connect with people and challeng ourselves.  This one was Paula and Caran's idea.  I watched a young man take off his robe and choose a position he could hold for the next hour, under the close scrutiny of a group of women all watching him on their computers, from their homes.  An hour.  He hardly twitched- just stood there perfectly still, even in expression, while we studied him in enough detail to note the shadows between his fingers and the slope of his jaw, among other things.  How is that for grit? Standing there naked in front of prying eyes.  I could never do that.  Or, could I?  As people we are capable of so much more.   Given enough, encouragement, we can look intimidation right in the eye and just 'Man-up'- just do it.  I am drawn to the NT, and chosen to spend a lot of...

  A road trip for me is a large part of life.. it is life.   When I was a kid, we went on road trips all the time.   Short ones, but long enough to get me excited. Then when I got older, they got longer and longer, until lately.     It was cool driving from Darwin to Alice, in a rental, in March two years ago.   By ‘cool’ I mean.. far out.. groovy, because actually it was pretty hot.   Darwin to Alice is 1496 and a half kilometers of almost straight highway from the Tropics to the desert.    I had rented a mid sized car, because when I booked it, it was just going to be Paula and myself.   But, I found myself, four other women, a s*&t load of luggage making the journey,   and there was not a word of complaint!   My almost-in-law family is pretty amazing. Years earlier I had driven from Darwin to Cairns, alone, only to find the man that I thought was waiting for me there, didn't actually want me in h...

  Getting old ain’t for sissies.   But some of us carry it off pretty well.   For example, I have these friends in Mexico.. an older, gay couple.   They are a couple of older ladies, as a lot of us are living around the lake in Chapala.   Living in the interior of Jalisco,   is lovely, but it does beg a trip now and then to the busier, touristier places with a beach.     Things have changed since we were young.   We don’t look quite the same in our bathing suits, our memory is often not what it used to be, but it is still lovely to feel the hot sand on our feet, and the taste of a margarita is still magic.   And while at home we most often have a routine to protect us, out in the wild there is the ever-present worry over losing stuff.     We can walk into a room and forget why we are there.   Once in a while we put our shirt on inside out.   But the most frustrating thing is how often we...

 So.. I have spent a lot of time in my new house, thinking about what comes next.  I decided I need to make it more of a home, and started looking for a dog.  However, it isn't easy during times of Covid.  So I put an ad on Facebook for a room mate, and got a few inquiries.   I love adventure, but meeting new people is hard for me.  On-line a couple of people asked about it, but one person kept coming up and so we agreed to meet, for coffee.  Well, the coffee shop was closed when we arrived.  I looked at the fellow.. a bit older than me, and a real person, not as scary as I always seem to imagine strangers to be, and invited him back to my house.  After all, that is what we were discussing.  And it wasn't so bad.. he got me looking at ski boots.  It has been years since I have tried on ski boots.  But listening to him talking about the nearby hills, and the possibilities, I decided to give it a go and headed to Kamloops....

 I would say Happy New Year but really?  It is just a new year this go round.  Not that I am unhappy, just not expecting much for these first few months of 2021.  I was chatting with someone on New Year's Eve when they signed off with a 'Happy New Year'.. I say it back but thought.. ya ya and hung up.  Then it dawned on me.. it actually was New Year's Eve.. so I called back and returned the greeting a bit more enthusiastically.  A new year had been promised for so long, I hadn't realized it had actually arrived.  But here we are. Fingers crossed.   My usual 'Canada' thing was to take down the tree, the decorations and clean up.  But I had already done that.  My usual 'Canada' thing was to start to put into place all those resolutions.  But, I don't have any.  It is not that there isn't room for improvement, it is just that I don't really feel I have any control over it.  2020 stripped that away.   I continue...

 Well you can almost here the collective sigh of relief as Christmas came, did its thing, and has now left us .. for many... alone.  And that is okay.   I read somewhere that 'Christmas' is a full time, temporary, job but one we love.  Putting up the lights in preparation for for shortest day of the year.  Putting up a tree to bring the light inside the house.. decorating it to bring even more sparkle to the long nights.  I have two televisions now.. and regret nothing.  I watched a White Christmas yesterday.. The Grinch the week before.  I could have music going upstairs while Gabe was able to binge on some Netflix (or Prime) series downstairs, where it was cooler.  It was a good Christmas for me.  Since leaving Jaffray I have spent a lot of Christmases on my own, so this year was rather special.  Not the case for many though.  But it seems people figured out how to have a good time and still obey the rules of the day....