The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

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Did not sleep well last night. There was such a wind...the kind that keeps you up with worry of falling poplars and peeled rooftops. The people who owned this home before M. and I planted trees all over the lot: poplars, maples, pear, as well as cedar bushes, lilac and honeysuckle. While I'm all about the lilac and the pear and the honeysuckle, I am mostly annoyed by the poplars. At this time of year the yard is covered in catkins, those caterpillar-like flower clusters which break from the tree and rain down to the world below. They stick to the windshield, they cover the deck, the neighbour's roof looks like it is being attacked by them. Also, poplars are quite tall and largely unreliable, meaning that they have a tendency to lose branches in a sudden gust of wind, and every time there is any kind of wicked weather, I sit up in my bed, wide-eyed, worried that one will fall on the house.

So, no sleep, then. Can't imagine living in tornado alley.

I do, however, live right next to an army base, and for the last three days they've been doing manoeuvres, most of which have been helicopter related. It's been like living in Nam. I hear that familiar buzzing and whirring of the props, and then I look out the window and see one coming right toward my yard, six to eight legs hanging over the side. They're learning about how to fly in them now, how to jump out quickly, how to perform in a warzone. Oddly, yesterday when watching the helicopter approach, I felt myself tense, and when it suddenly turned, I could make out the figures of three young men, all sitting on the side in their fatigues, doing their training. Then, the tears came from nowhere and started to drizzle down my face. But, why? I thought about this and I guess what it amounted to was that I knew I was watching a bunch of men train for something they'll never be completely ready for. They are young, they are full of bravado and testosterone and they don't know what it's going to be like. What the media tells us and what is real are two very different things. These boys are coming back, if they're lucky, dealing with the weight of unspoken damage. They return with the ghosts of the dead in their kits. They'll never be free of them.

Today, just three kilometres from where I type, there is a funeral taking place. A young female soldier who died in Kandahar. It was her second tour, not a new setting for her, but somehow, mysteriously, she ended up dead in her very own room. No one is saying what really happened, except that it was non-combat related. Somehow, this does not make me feel better. I suppose the roads will be closed soon, as they are when there is a military funeral in the area. I can't deny feeling choked up whenever one of the bodies comes home, how they are driven in an official vehicle down the main highway which has now been unofficially dubbed 'The Highway of Heroes', and on every overpass there is, without fail, hundreds of people standing solemnly, saluting the vehicle as it passes. That kind of thing always makes me cry, mostly because no matter how I do not agree with war, I can't take away the courage of those who gave their life for what they believe in. The living, too, are not left unscarred. These people are not being treated properly for their post-traumatic stress, as my friend C. who works with them will tell you. They are not being properly prepared in any way for what they will be dealing with emotionally, she's said. She has also said that there are not enough beds, at any time, to handle the numbers of soldiers who come to her hospital looking for help. Once, the psychiatric ward was for geriatrics, schizophrenics, drug users and the depressed. Now, she's said, it's coming close to fifty per cent soldier. This is upsetting.

Also: swine flu. While I am someone who routinely panics over things like going to a part of town I don't know or having to engage in conversation with strangers, I am really, really annoyed with how the media is dealing with this H1N1 'pandemic'. 250,000 to 500,000 people regularly die annually from seasonal flu. The death rate of this one, by comparison, is nothing. Now, obviously there is cause to wash our hands frequently and thoroughly, but it was there before this new bug showed up. I read somewhere yesterday that WHO has said that reports of death tolls in Mexico are exaggerated, and that while there have been deaths attributed to the virus, it's nowhere near as fatal as other strains of flu we've been dealing with over the years. I hate that we are always being manipulated by stories that don't stick to the facts. Sure, I think we need to be cautious, and yes, if there's a potential for a widespread plague then I say let's go get our masks and stay in our own houses, but it's NOT 1918. We have medicine now, we have information. Be smart but don't be Chicken Little, I think. All of this 'Cry Wolf Reporting' is going to cause greater problems later on, because no one will listen when there really is something to worry about. It's like we've replaced logic with flagrant sensationalism, as though news is no longer about information but also about entertainment. I find this strange.

I guess my hormones are acting up. I really feel nothing but anger, sadness and incredulousness.

Off to computer class. We're going to be talking about digital cameras today. Perhaps I'll take a better picture than the one I've painted here.