Until Further Notice by Amy Kaler

Author:Amy Kaler [AMY KALER]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of Alberta Press

Winter 2021

Time of Trial

When the first heavy snow fell and winter started closing in, I started to wonder what the loneliness and isolation would be like during the dark months ahead. I recognized that it’s really not good to be at home without other adults and working all the time, especially because “all the time” feels quite different in month eight than it did in month one or two. I know I’m lucky that I have work that can be done at home, and that there’s no foreseeable change in my salary. I have the luxury of contemplating what enforced solitude will be like, because I don’t have to contemplate instead where the mortgage money is going to come from.

Moving into winter this year feels like plunging into a tunnel, or being engulfed by a tunnel that comes up strong and fast. I’m preparing for a solitary time of trial, fitted out with winter gear scavenged from Goodwill and Value Village, because this has to be the year that I finally get past my horror of being cold. For the past twenty years, I’ve fostered the conceit that I can never really get warm in Edmonton in the winter, that I have to stay homebound most of the time because there’s no way I can tolerate thirty degrees below zero. Time to get rid of that conceit this year. Time to do battle with the cold.

An absurd image floats into my mind from a childhood book about medieval Europe and chivalry, of knights preparing themselves for combat with midnight vigils of contemplation in the chapel, followed by armour and weapons chosen the next day. On second thought, perhaps not so absurd, given that I’ve started referring to Covid as “the plague” or “the pestilence,” my attempt at sardonic irony that’s also redolent of antiquity.

Once winter really sets in, I don’t want screens and social media to become my lifeline to the outside world, yet I fear that’s going to happen. These technologies are bare threads, all the texture stripped away. The ties that connect during normal times weave in and out, braided and coiled ropes like the ones that hold dinghies to the dock, or connect fishing boats rolling on the waves.

The connections in Covid time, parsed out through blinking lights on little screens, do not feel like ropes at all. They have the paltry width and heft of the loops of jewellers’ wire I bring back from the craft store to string beads on, all surface shine, but so frangible and easily snapped.

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