Busy, Busy

I keep thnking it's Tuesday, and it turns out that it is.

Saturday, Anglican women's retreat, which may sound dull to some, but to me it's pure gold. Safe amongst the Feministi.

Sunday evening, Kevin's best friend, who, with his partner have become good friends of mine too, came to dinner and announced that they would be moving back to Ontario in the Spring. They're excited, we're pretty down about it. We want to be excited for them, but in fact, we feel dismal for ourselves.

Monday, Whisky's stitches came out, cone came off, and he had a bath. We have our happy little hound back.

Monday also was writers' group. An interesting conversation. The men in our group are ALL men I respect, and have a great deal of time for.
One of the women is writing a story about a woman in, I think, the fifties, who leaves her baby and husband and walks along the ice road until she arrives somewhere she isn't known.
Last night we were divided, men v women, the men all thought it completely unbelievable what the character had done, the women all thought it completely believable. Their reaction really made me think. On the way out, it occurred to me to wonder whether men in general, read books written by women. I mean, I have certainly borrowed a book written by a woman from one of the men in the group, but is this unusual? In the normal course of things would they read women writers?

Today, the church was open all day, a vigil to pray for Haiti. In the evening, a service, and I was asked to read a prayer in French, and in fact, to translate it. I would say that I 'interpreted' more than translated. When something is in poetic language, it's really all you can do, interpret the thoughts and images rather than render the exact words into the other language. But I like being in the church at night, and I like being there with candles and a small group of people.
It's odd.
My friend spoke about the people and places she visited in Haiti in November, and that made it real, but in general, even though, because of Canada's close ties with Haiti, it's on the TV all the time, I don't feel a great empathy. I don't want it to have happened, and I want the suffering of those people to be alleviated, but it doesn't touch my soul.
And yet one of the pieces of music that was played this evening was from Schindler's List, and even thinking very briefly about the Holocaust has me in tears, and thinking about it more than briefly is utterly unbearable, it can sink me into absolute despair.
So my prayers and my tears were for different things. I'm not sure it matters. I don't think either my tears or my prayers are of any great import.

And tomorrow's Wodin's day. Perhaps it'll bring some interesting-in-a-good-way news.