The Year I Discovered Nina Simone

New Year’s 2019. I was driving my son to the Edmonton airport for his trip back to Fredericton for his final term at UNB. We were planning a graduation trip for the summer of 2020. Where should we go? I was planning on attending a conference in Portugal in July, my hope was we’d start in Portugal and then . . .

The news on CBC radio in the car mentioned a new virus in China. Then Begonia was the host of My Playlist (they must of been replaying it, because it had originally aired earlier in 2019). She played Lilac Wine by Nina Simone. I was driving back on my own, it was late at night (Leslie was taking the red eye back east), I was sad to be parting from my son (it doesn’t seem to matter how old they get). I must have heard Nina Simone before? But that night, driving across the Low Level Bridge, her voice just hit me. I knew (and loved) Jeff Buckley’s version of Lilac Wine. When I heard Nina I had that “I know that song but what is it?” feeling. I’ve spent the year obsessively listening to Nina Simone, reading about her, watching the excellent documentary about her life (What Happened, Miss Simone). Maybe Nina came into my life when I needed her?

Somewhere in the dark days of the fall of 2019 I had booked a trip to Cuba for my daughter and me for the February 2020 reading week. On a Sunday evening late in January my phone rang. It was my daughter. She needed me to pick her up in Ponoka. I won’t go into the details here, but for my daughter, the first few months of 2020 were pretty rough. We were excited about our Cuban vacation. But what about this Wuhan virus? We went and had an awesome time. We flew back and connected in Montreal. During the week we were gone the news went from novel coronovirus to Covid 19. We had that surreal feeling upon reentry into “normal” after an all-inclusive Cuban vacation. I’m very glad we had that vacation, but in hindsight it feels so reckless (and precious). In mid-March my daughter came over for a walk and ended up living with us for 6 months. I am so thankful for our time together (and thankful that we ended up with a house in Edmonton way too big for two people!).

We went to see the Bros. Landreth on February 7, 2020 playing at The Arden Theatre in St. Alberta. My husband is an old friend of the Bros’ father and watched the boys grow up. Always a thrill! My sister took us to “As You Like It” at the Citadel Theatre at the end of February. It was the musical version based on the Beatles. It was fantastic!

In the beginning of March a COPPUL meeting was scheduled in Surrey (which is not Vancouver, don’t make that mistake to someone from Surrey). Should I go? One of my librarians was scheduled to go to New York for training in mid-March. Should she go? I flew to Vancouver. The New York training went online. On March 6, I remember sitting in a meeting room in a hotel near the campus of Kwantlen Polytechnic University. The final part of these meetings is going around the room and sharing updates (actually in my opinion the best part of these meetings). From UBC we heard that in ARL circles (Association of Research Libraries – the biggest university libraries in North America) all the talk was planning for the pandemic. Really? I thought naively.

After that it is just a blur.

This is the message I sent my staff as I signed off before the Christmas break.

Good afternoon,

I’m about to add my “I’m going offline” message to Outlook. I’ve taken this week to start to go offline (cold turkey is hard!).

Depending on when you’re reading this email . . .

I hope you have a peaceful and relaxing holiday break
I hope you are having a peaceful and relaxing holiday break
I hope you had a peaceful and relaxing holiday break

future
present
past

past
present
future

This year has been (I suspect) the most challenging one for all of us! Time seems a slippery thing. I think it is like when you’re travelling to a new destination and the trip seems longer the first time. I think because we don’t exactly know when the end of coming.

My Dad (John Dyck 1924 – 2012) had a couple of sayings I’ve been thinking of lately:
It is always blackest before it goes completely dark
You’re not lost if you haven’t run out of gas.

Dad, were you an optimist or a pessimist? On the one hand with the vaccine, we can feel optimism, but there are still some dark months to get through. Isn’t that what these holidays around the shortest day of the year are meant to convey? You’re going to make it! Some of you have heard me say recently “I feel like I’m running on fumes” and then “I’m completely out of gas”. But not lost.

For those of you grieving the loss of a parent (or parents), my heart goes out to you – especially this year when the “normal” rituals we have are not available to us.

A final thought about the vaccines. That we have competing (a choice) vaccines speaks to the importance of open science and access to peer-reviewed literature. That we have trained scientists at all speaks to the importance of the work we do every day to support our students and faculty.

I’ve said thank-you often over the last 9 months. I hope it still sounds sincere. Thank you so much for your support and all the things you do to help me, each other, our students, and our faculty.

Please (I insist) have a break!

Regards,

Karen

I am not one for New Year’s resolutions. But for 2021, I can make a exception. In July, Rod got me a Celestron NexStar 8SE telescope. I don’t actually know much about astronomy and I have no idea how to use it. But we have a rooftop patio and I’m interested! So in 2021 I’m going to learn how to use my telescope. Who doesn’t need a little perspective?