MY OTTAWA ADVENTURE DRAWS TO A CLOSE
As I sat down to write this week’s blog, I wondered if I had anything to write. Before I knew it, the words gushed out. I felt good about what I wrote. Reorganizing a few paragraphs, then adding photos, I went to “Preview” before clicking on “Publish” just to ensure everything was correct.
OH NOOOO. The picture of me beside the blog title was there, but nothing else!
I contacted a tech person at the site where I publish my blog, but they could not retrieve the text either. My chest feels like it’s churning, but I’ll do my best to try to reconstruct my story -here goes:
One of the few things I had to do this week was to get a seniors’ flu shot followed two days later with a Covid shot. I wanted them in lots of time before I leave for Manzanillo to ensure I didn’t experience any side effects. So far, so good.
Friday evening Dee and I were invited to dinner with a couple she has known for over 30 years and are her very close friends. Dinner was delicious and the conversation stimulated my brain. We exchanged email addresses and promised to continue conversing digitally over the winter. It was a delightful end to the week as my circle of interesting friends continues to grow.
The weather has turned from a glorious Indian Summer last week (can we say Indian now with all the political correctness?) to rainy and very cool days. Not having anything else on my calendar this week, I turned to sorting and packing my things – clothes, medicines, electronics, etc., going with me to Mexico - from the items being left behind in Dee’s basement.
I thought it wouldn’t take long but I was wrong. Piano keyboard, stool, painting supplies not going with me, fall/early-spring clothes, good wine glasses and copper mugs (for Moscow Mules that don’t taste right if not in a copper mug), plus my desktop Mac that I can’t seem to part with, a printer, a few books and other odds and ends. How can a nomad have so much stuff?
That question brought to mind a disheveled-looking homeless man I saw when I went for my flu shot. He was pushing a filled-to-the-brim grocery store shopping cart – not with groceries, with ‘things’.
Every day I leave my condo to walk somewhere downtown, I see many homeless people. Some lying on the bare concrete sidewalk, fortunately unconscious to their surroundings and to the world. Small groups sitting in a circle as inconspicuously as they can, trading what looks like drugs. Others, alone, are talking or screaming to someone or something only they can see.
One time, directly beside the front doors to my building were two men sitting on the sidewalk with their drug paraphernalia spread out in front of them, injecting something into their arms. Other times, while walking, I have an empty coffee cup thrust in front of me, with a voice asking politely, (they are always polite) “Do you have any change?” I pass by, answering, “I don’t carry change.” I suspect what they would probably do with cash, so I give to the Mission on my street where they can get a meal.
The man with the shopping cart was wearing a long, old winter coat and the grocery store cart was filled to overflowing with a bulging old suitcase, several boxes filled with who-knows-what, dirty old blankets draped over everything and shopping bags, also full, hanging from the sides of the cart. I realize that he has everything he owns, that he won’t part with, in that cart. That cart has to go with him no matter where he goes.
He has left me with an impression I won’t forget. As the saying goes, ‘There, but for the grace of God….”
How fortunate am I that I can leave the few things I treasure in my daughters’ basements, both in Creemore and in Orleans.
I am so deeply thankful that life as a nomad is something I chose to do, not because some dreadful misfortune in my life forced me to.
I'm sorry I don't know the photographer who took the photo below in order to give credit. It shows the lagoon on the left and on the right is the bay where Club Santiago is located about half-way along the crescent of the bay. This is where I am spending the coming winter, starting in two weeks, Nov 2.
