The empty shirt in the empty chair

Those of us who live in British Columbia have much cause to observe Overdose Awareness Day. Over the past months, more people in our province have died from using drugs than from the much-more-publicized COVID-19. 

During July of this year, 175 such deaths were reported. That's over five a day. If a similar number of deaths were the result of car accidents, plane crashes, or drownings, everyone would be screaming at the government to do something about it. 

But no, too often the person who died is someone who lived in poverty, eking out the best they could to get by, one of the people who have become invisible. 

For the most part, I prefer to call these deaths what they are: deaths by poisoning. Too many of them are the result of a person using drugs that have been cut by unscrupulous entities, often with fentanyl or carfentanyl or their even deadlier cousin, isotonitazine (iso).

Yes, Vancouver has long been home to safe injection sites, but during these 'virus days' with rules about social distancing and staying home, too many people are using in isolation and as a result, not only using alone but dying alone. 

The city has several memorials to those who've been lost to this latest spate of drug-related deaths, including murals in the Downtown Eastside, and an array of shoes fastened to the Burrard Bridge. 

While I don't have anyone's shoes to mark the day, I do have a shirt from a friend who died a few years ago. To the best of my knowledge, his case was not yet one involving fentanyl, but was blamed on a batch of overly powerful heroin that had made its way into the city. 

Because I recently had to write a piece about grief, I did a fair bit of research. One of the expressions I kept coming across was that of 'the empty chair' -- the place at the kitchen table that will never again be filled by the person who has died. 

And yes, the green shirt hanging on that empty chair is in fact a shirt that once belonged to my friend, he of the unexpected death one Easter weekend. Yet another person who erred in thinking he could use alone. 

Over five deaths a day?? That's completely unacceptable. Our laws need to change -- and soon. 

Small perfections

Okay, it's just a little plate of tomatoes. But they're still warm from picking. Come winter, I'll be grumbling, and probably ready to pay whatever it takes for just about any kind of tomato I can find. For now, they're free gifts from the garden. And yes, the yellow and orange ones are exactly the colours they're supposed to be. Golden and delicious. And just right to eat right now. 

Berry hopeful

That's how I've been feeling this week, even on those days when it rained. This has much to do with the fact that I spent at least two of those rainy evenings watching the Democratic Convention from the US. Wow, some speakers!

And because I am, in addition to being hopeful, feeling pretty lazy, the link above not only tells you about the event, but provides links to excerpts from some of those outstanding speeches (see especially those by Michelle and Barack Obama). 

Besides, I've just spent nearly an hour picking some of those wonderful blackberries -- now at their peak of sweet ripeness -- so I reckon I now need to do something with them. Maybe even make a pie to keep in the freezer for a wintry day when we need a shot of summer, even if it's only a taste of it. 

Lazy days of turning pages into new worlds

Summer days can be an excuse to be lazy (though I'll admit, I can probably find an excuse to be lazy during any season). 

One of my happiest ways to be lazy is to hide myself away in the pages of a book. And this summer has brought me some fine hiding spots. 

I suppose the string of great reads started some weeks back, with Marion Toews' powerful novel, Women Talking. It's not a happy book, but the facts behind it were important to reveal. From there, quite by accident, another library book came my way and, oddly enough, it seemed to link up to the Toews' book, even echoing small details. That one, The Grace Year, though classified as YA didn't really seem to be very YA -- just a terrific and memorable book. 

Without really meaning to, I moved into books about trees. The atmosphere for reading was probably enhanced by the fact that our house is surrounded by a miniature forest. I keep meaning to post something on Goodreads about these (more of that laziness keeps winning out), but they are The Overstory and Greenwood. 

The Overstory by Richard Powers won the Pulitzer Prize, so I'm not the only person who wants to sing its praises. It's broken into two main parts -- the first introduces readers to the cast of characters, the rest unfolds all that happens to (and with) all of them. It's very much related to The Hidden Life of Trees, but the humans and their complicated interactions make the science so much more real. 

Likewise, Michael Christie expresses a similar deep understanding of the nature of trees in his novel, Greenwood. It's a sprawling book, spanning the breadth of our continent, time-travelling to the past and into the future. There were times I wasn't quite sure who was who, but it gradually unfolded, like leaves on the page. 

And now, I'm doing another kind of time-travel, as I've just started David Mitchell's Utopia Avenue, a trip into the Sixties and its music. No comments on that one yet, as I've only just started it, though I suspect I'll enjoy it, as I've read and liked all of his other ones. 

I've got a nifty outdoor living space, with a comfy old couch, a great place to curl up with a book. 

I hope your summer reading has been as pleasurable as mine. And remember, I love hearing recommendations. 

Midsummer Bee-yoo-tee

Perhaps it's just part of being a contrarian, but I can't help wondering why today (or maybe tomorrow) isn't the day called 'midsummer' as in Midsummer Night's Dream. After all, August 4th is pretty much midway between solstice and equinox -- in other words, the middle of summer, i.e., midsummer. 

The midsummer festival is apparently a very big thing in many places, especially in Sweden, with much in the way of eating and drinking and even doing a sort of 'froggy' dance as part of their celebrations. 

This year, as part of my trying to learn more about this observance (as truly, it has puzzled me a long time, at least as far back as Woody Allen's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy), I poked around and even found a novel The Hidden Beach. 

The book is set in Sweden, and the festivities feature prominently. Unfortunately, I only made it about halfway through, as the sub-plot proved to be overly romantic for me. Maybe I gave up too soon, but really, an awful lot of other books are always calling to me. 

As for me, I think I will do my own celebrating tonight. The moon is nearly full, and we're just about exactly halfway along the path from summer solstice to the arrival of autumn on September 22nd. Until then, I'll keep picking blackberries while the bees buzz their work-songs in my ear, and be glad that we're all still able to spend so much time outside.