Covid Journal, Day I've-Lost-Track

Rainy and low 70's every morning this week. Soggy ground, tomato blight, but signs of fall everywhere.

I know I've been MIA this past week. Busy seems to be my best excuse; I've been trying to get back to ebay listing, something I've neglected in the past month. And booths have kept us running as sales continue to be good and we're scrambling to get things ready and buy more pieces to prepare for sale.

The gardens are doing well despite the rain that has been with us off and on all week. Humid doesn't begin to describe the air--most days it's in the 80-90 percent range. Yuck. But green beans, peppers, tomatoes and squash are coming in steadily, and new plantings of lettuce, radishes, peas and other things are all up and growing.

I haven't been canning too much--another batch of pasta sauce is about it, I think. But that will change this weekend as the late cabbage is ready to make into slaw, I have about a peck or more of peppers to deal with and the late green beans are ready to pick. So it will be back in the kitchen come Saturday.

This is always a hard time of year for me, as tomorrow would have been my son Jon's birthday. So I often find myself on the edge of tears and the least little thing will bring them on. Which makes me careful to try to avoid sadness or even joy because I hate to cry. I did do something today that, while it brought tears, made me feel some peace--I ordered flowers over the phone to be put on Jon's grave. Why haven't I thought of this in the past 10 years? It's a seven-hour drive to his grave, so I can't go very often, and this year it's not possible with this virus. The florist said they can set up a schedule to automatically put flowers on his grave on certain days, so I will call them tomorrow and set that up. It will be a blessing to know this will be done, even if I can't get there to do it.

I've been doing more cleaning out, too, trying to clear out things we don't use. I tend to be one of those who thinks I should keep, say, an electric skillet because if the gas should go off we might need it. But honestly, I haven't used the skillet in at least 10 years. Same with the large group-size coffee percolator. So those, along with a lot of other things, left this week to a reseller. And I have more space for the things we do use. I'm thinning out some of the furniture in this house too. I like a piece and find a place for it, but really we have too much furniture. So 3 or 4 pieces will be going to our booths--after I paint them, of course, because I seldom paint pieces I keep.

Another cause of tears this week was the loss of West Virginia singer and activist Elaine Purkey to COVID. Elaine was a powerhouse, a lady who took no guff from anyone, and who wrote songs for labor movements in our state. I met her only once. She was singing at an event and I talked with her later and told her how I liked and sang old ballads. She said, "Sing me one." So I did, a little tentatively because we were standing in the middle of a hall full of people. Elaine said, "Sing, girl. You got the voice. Use it." Those encouraging words helped build my confidence in my singing, and we later became Facebook friends. She was a force for good in her community in southern West Virginia, teaching songwriting and singing to children and singing for many events. What a loss.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.