yesterday

finding solace in cousins and cats and tulips

Yesterday, I met a cousin for lunch. She moved here from England a little less than two years ago, and now her visa is running out and she’s heading back, so we were having a last lunch together, for a while at least. “How’s your week been?” she asked, as we huddled under a shop’s awning, avoiding the rain as we waited for the light to change.

“Hell,” I answered without hesitation, “utter hell.”

She laughed, and then I laughed, because that’s what we often do in our family - laugh when there’s really nothing else to say - and then the light changed and we charged across, aiming for the cosy restaurant on the other side of the street.

I’ve always marvelled at this feature of the cousin relationship, how easy it is, even if we only cross paths once a decade, there seems to be an almost effortless familiarity. I have reflected on this even more so with this cousin - my first cousin once removed, to be precise. She is my cousin’s daughter. We are from different generations, grew up in different countries, and yet there is still so much common ground, so much shared understanding about how our family works (or doesn’t work).

I had a matcha latte and tempeh tacos and she had a matcha latte with the mac and cheese bowl. It was warm inside, the windows had steamed up, the music was soothing and the rain pit patted on the skylight above us. We talked about the logistics of moving a cat from Canada to England, and just as I was beginning to wonder, silently, if it all sounded a bit much, I remembered how in 2008 my husband and I drove eight days across Canada with three children and two cats in the back of a Chevy Suburban, all to spare our aging cats the discomfort of flying, so really who was I to judge this somewhat convoluted plan to fly from Vancouver to Amsterdam with a cat in the cabin and then continue by ferry back to somewhere in the north of England, hundreds of miles away from their final destination? The things we do for our pets.

My cousin shared news from far-off family, in particular some kind words sent to me from another cousin in England and for some reason this is what finally undid me - this expression of care and concern from a long lost cousin I hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years but had spent quite a bit of time in childhood with is what made me cry for the first time all week, and she reached out across the table and held my hand for a while.

It has been a hard week. Maybe it’s been a hard week for you too? It does appear to be increasingly hard across the board. I try to maintain perspective, have awareness that people are suffering everywhere. Sometimes it helps but sometimes it makes it worse. The eternal question: why must there be so much suffering?

Amidst all the hard stuff there were still some bright spots: a choir rehearsal, a library program with fifteen babies in attendance, a day spent planning with fellow union activists, working together towards some positive change, a text exchange with my son on the other side of the country while he was out for a walk in the snow, an afternoon trip to the stationery store with my fourteen-year-old.

And this: halfway through lunch I realized that I had neglected to pay for parking. This happens on occasion, I’m so completely absorbed in thought when I get out of the car that I forget to take notice of the stall number and fail to open up the parking app on my phone and plug in the number and make a payment. So it felt like a small gift from the universe when I got back to my car an hour and a half later and found that there was no parking ticket tucked under the windshield wiper. I bought some tulips to celebrate.

When I got home I put the tulips in a jug and baked a banana bread with the three tired bananas that have been waiting all week to be put to use. It’s hard to despair completely when there are cheerful tulips and warm banana bread on the counter.

What helped you keep going this week?

Sending love,

Rebecca