Take me to church…for a sick-ass choral performance tonight!

Let’s hope I’m not at my halfway point. My dearest grandmother stuck it out until she was something like 94 years old–basically deaf, blind, immobile, yet entirely and maddeningly lucid, at least for her–and complained that she was just “loitering” by that point. At least she had the greatest finale to her life that a person could ask for, in that she woke up one day in late 2018, calmly agreed to have a little bit of breakfast and lunch, went back to her bed, and never opened her eyes again. I don’t think you can have a more peaceful, better end-of-life experience unless you’re Maude, who refused to budge past 80 on her own terms.

It was my birthday today, and unlike many self-obsessed creatures who insist that their particular day of dawning is worthy of applause, hosannas, global attention, formal attire, and deference from their questionable subjects, I have never quite cared about my birthday too much. Today was a beautiful day, however, and I realized that what my parents have been hammering into my stubborn brain for so many decades is entirely true: family is the most important thing. It’s all you have, if you are fortunate to have it at all.

This also includes those who you manifest into family, incorporate into your clan, and with whom you feel total kinship despite not being of blood relations. Family is precisely what you make of it. And I am a very lucky woman to have a crew that is tight-knit and close–never mind our differences of opinion, personality, or lifestyle–and a community of loving individuals whom I wouldn’t trade for anything. There once was a very toxic individual in my life who did his best to attempt family ruination upon me because I realized that he was, well, damaged and poisonous, and I had to break away from him. When I say “family ruination,” I mean a very long-winded, shocking, devastating email sent to my parents immediately after I dumped him that detailed painful personal goings-on between us, self-pitying and self-victimizing scenarios in which he was subjected to my alleged horror-movie-like behaviour, sniveling pleas for pity, and various attempts to garner their favour so that they would swiftly abandon me as a daughter, sister, aunt, and loved one.

It must be known that this guy had met my family exactly once for a mere few hours, and they had lavished their characteristic love and generosity upon him, which is something they do for absolutely everyone they meet, and especially towards those strangers who are supposed to be important to a fellow family member. I won’t detail how utterly kind my family was to this total stranger.

His crazed email only served to bring us closer together (“Who is this guy, and why would he write this to us because she broke up with him?!” was the general consensus among us). I will also not say anything beyond this; it all speaks for itself.

Thank you, ex, for showing me–and for showing us–how utterly broken a great deal of humanity is, and how fortunate any of us are to have iron-clad bonds and unconditional love and backing. My family and I love and support each other more than ever now. While the last year has been challenging–and not just for me, but for nearly everyone I can think of–I am a stronger, happier, more blessed girl because of my clan, my Doukhobor community, and those who have been incorporated into it.

Today everyone seemed to be in a good mood despite the grey and soggy weather; even here in the notoriously grouchy West End. I received numerous birthday well-wishes from family and friends near and far, both in text and email format (I couldn’t care less about social media kudos, and don’t think I even indicated my birth date when I resurrected the dreaded Facebook last year….if I use it, I only use it for self-promotional purposes). Went to New Westminster to meet up with Charles, did a thrift-store run, had the best Mexican food in the Lower Mainland at Taqueria Playa Tropical, then we headed back downtown to immerse ourselves in a performance by Chor Leoni at St. Andrews-Wesley Church, just a few blocks from my apartment.

I’m so glad I did. I saw a brief advert for the choir online a few weeks ago, and something seized me: for whatever reason, I needed to see them. They were putting on their annual Christmas performance very soon, the prices were beyond reasonable, and after looking them up online, saw that they were staging their debut holiday performance on my birthday. Charles sent me some cash, calling this show (among his other vast displays of kindness) my birthday present, and I immediately bought us a couple of tickets in a good coupla seats in a good row.

It was a stirring, beautiful, mesmerizing performance by something like seventy talented, passionate choir members, with arrangements I had never before imagined of songs both familiar and obscure, a violinist who made the hairs in my ears jump to attention, and a rendition of “Angels We Have Heard On High” that actually had tears streaming down my face rather quietly…but insistently enough that my mascara ended up leaving impressive patterns on my cheeks. Lo, it was a glorious performance.

A few minutes before Chor Leoni blew our minds out in a car church. I did indeed notice that the lights had changed. (If you don’t get the reference, click elsewhere, kid)

A lot of things went through my little brain today.

And I’m still working on my Taylor Swift piece–I became outrageously ill immediately after her taking-over of Vancouver a couple of weeks ago, rendering me exhausted, unmotivated, and wondering if she and the CIA brought some kind of weird juju to this hapless little rain forest–and while my heart isn’t exactly in it, I’ll just do it. I have lots to say, as always.

Much love to you and yours at the tail end of a year that took most of us by the hair, crumpled us into a ball, threw us into a dirty washing machine, banged us about, didn’t give us a final rinse, and left us a soggy and washed-out heap. If you live in Canada, you also know that the only thing to do now is laugh and wait for this absolutely indescribable clown car to crash into a wall. It could not get funnier than this. Because no matter how bad we think we have it, we’re still better off than probably half the planet. I’ll take a self-important, idiotic, Fidel Castro-sired, delusional, universally-mocked, utterly-despised nepotism baby in Canada over countless countries where things could get really, really bad just because I’m a woman. I’m not linking to the Jyoti Singh case as an example, I’m really not going to, I promise.

Merry Christmas. God and sinners reconciled; joyful all ye nations rise. Let’s hope that happens at some point.

Love

Nadya