COMMUNITY DISPATCHES

June 17, 2020 Various Authors

FROM MAY 2020 ISSUE OF WEST END PHOENIX

Neighbours across the country offer insight into the ways life in lockdown has changed them

If you had asked me a month ago, I’d say I was doing everything right for my age. I was a full-time media and public relations student; I had two jobs, one of them with the government. But both my jobs have disappeared on me and I still have to pay rent. I might have to pass up an internship at CBC, even though I’ve spent the last two years saving up, hoping that I could do it. I wake up and don’t know what to do with myself. I’m getting into fights with family and friends that I normally wouldn’t. I’ve never been depressed in a way where things don’t have meaning, but now I’ll be doing homework and think, ‘Who gives a shit about my homework?’ I know my profs have more important things going on in their lives. If everything can fall apart so quickly, why does any of this matter?

Nina Jeffrey, Ryerson student, Toronto

The other day, I went to take my dogs for a walk, and as I journeyed out of town I came across what appeared to be a 200-metre strip of perfectly Zambonied ice on a meandering river. I had been passing the same spot for days and the river had been covered in snow and ski tracks, so I was more than a little surprised to see it this way. The weather had been warm enough to melt the snow on the thick layer of river ice, but had the nights been cold enough to freeze it hard enough to bring back Canada? I tested it. Yes! I raced home, grabbed my skates, gloves, stick and a puck, made a quick post babbling ecstatically about it on Facebook, and hurried back. Have you ever heard the sound skates make on river ice in the middle of nowhere with no one but you to translate what they’re saying? It got even better when my best friend’s son, who saw my post, showed up wearing a vintage Canucks sweater and a greasy Auston Matthews moustache. We skated for what seemed like hours, passing the puck between us, and filling the space in between passes with lip-jacking, just being kids again. And for a few short moments, everything was right with the world.

Joe Urie, Jasper, Alta.