I am truly grateful for these lazy winter holidays when nothing happens. Although, truly significant things do happen, of course, like Sunday morning crêpes. I started making them in the fall, for those special days when my kids didn’t have their swimming classes. This year swimming starts an hour later, so I can make crêpes every Sunday. I serve them with homemade chia jam – just whatever frozen berries that were on sale the previous week, boiled with a spoonful of sugar and some chia. It is delicious and, I want to believe healthy. I also want to believe that when my children meet up with adults, they will reminisce the time mom was making crêpes. Maybe, Élise will say “ I don’t think you remember, you were too little.” And Julien will reply “Of course I remember!”

In an attempt to remove myself even further from emotional turmoil, I started reading Thomson Highway’s Permanent Astonishment. So far, it consists mostly of descriptions of endless wintery sub-Arctic landscapes, with interjections of surrealism and some Cree humour. It is wonderful. When I was a teenager, I used to love Jack London’s northern stories. Highway’s writing is just as good, minus the greed, colonialism and toxic masculinity that permeated London’s life and art. I now want to buy Permanent Astonishment as an audiobook, to enjoy Highway’s description as a grounding tool, just as I do with Robian Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass.