Holly Go Brightly – A Covid Surprise
This collage is a reflection of new found friendship: our 1955 birth days are one week apart.
March 21, 2021
“I just did too much,” I said to my new friend Holly, …all I had to do was return a DVD to the library three blocks away - so naturally I decided that I might as well do this other thing and then, do this, and before I knew it - I had eight things on the list…”
Holly was laughing. She knew. She got it.
“Then it started raining and of course, I had to get my list done…and by the time I got home was drenched and wanted to strangle myself for being so OCD stupid.”
“I do that too!” she admitted, “we all do that. You kind of have to keep it small. If you do too much one day, take the next one slower.”
One can still be surprised by life - even in Covid lockdown. Surprised that someone who has lived in your apartment building for as long as the eight years you have -who you never talked to before - can become the-Walk-Around-Lost-Lagoon buddy when cabin fever hits since the winter.
Surprised you could bump into a creative soul who understands the ebb and flow of something you are writing that is not quite there, but like Alice Walker would say, ‘… just sit there and the inspiration comes.’ That kind of reminder from another in the same Cyclops eye of Creation Chaos means much in this emotional martial law that this pandemic dictates.
It was her father who introduced us. Stanley Burke was the CBC anchor on television when I was ten years old in the vast, bald prairie. Her last name prompted me to ask if that was her dad. He was perhaps my first inspiration to be a journalist. But then, so was The Untouchables, my own father’s favourite television vision program. That conversation about the whole father/daughter adoration thing prompted more conversations.
As a singer/musician-writer Holly and the Naturals was out there in the Vancouver clubs in the l970s. Soft, and soft spoken she is still writing and active - which can be a business hard and hard boiled.
One day she said she had one of those ‘big dreams’ that we all know can lead to a breakthrough. Dolly Parton was evidently encouraging her to sing again. “Robert DeNiro comes to me in my dreams…”
Holly was laughing. She knew. She got it.
“Then it started raining and of course, I had to get my list done…and by the time I got home was drenched and wanted to strangle myself for being so OCD stupid.”
“I do that too!” she admitted, “we all do that. You kind of have to keep it small. If you do too much one day, take the next one slower.”
One can still be surprised by life - even in Covid lockdown. Surprised that someone who has lived in your apartment building for as long as the eight years you have -who you never talked to before - can become the-Walk-Around-Lost-Lagoon buddy when cabin fever hits since the winter.
Surprised you could bump into a creative soul who understands the ebb and flow of something you are writing that is not quite there, but like Alice Walker would say, ‘… just sit there and the inspiration comes.’ That kind of reminder from another in the same Cyclops eye of Creation Chaos means much in this emotional martial law that this pandemic dictates.
It was her father who introduced us. Stanley Burke was the CBC anchor on television when I was ten years old in the vast, bald prairie. Her last name prompted me to ask if that was her dad. He was perhaps my first inspiration to be a journalist. But then, so was The Untouchables, my own father’s favourite television vision program. That conversation about the whole father/daughter adoration thing prompted more conversations.
As a singer/musician-writer Holly and the Naturals was out there in the Vancouver clubs in the l970s. Soft, and soft spoken she is still writing and active - which can be a business hard and hard boiled.
One day she said she had one of those ‘big dreams’ that we all know can lead to a breakthrough. Dolly Parton was evidently encouraging her to sing again. “Robert DeNiro comes to me in my dreams…”