It’s a year ago this week that things really started unravelling in my city of Winnipeg, Canada, with the COVID-19 pandemic.
By around Friday, March 13 of last year (and I am not sure I picked up on the significance of the date at the time…), most non-essential stores and venues were talking about closing. And I recall that day my sweety and I were in the Canadian Museum for Human Rights with her son and his family and had lunch there. When she and I arrived home, we saw an email that the museum was closing indefinitely at 5:00 pm that day due to the developing public health situation.
Yet after a year of being mostly locked down or significantly restricted, it is interesting to ponder those things we have been able to do all along.
One thing that’s helped me a lot has been connecting and meeting new friends in online gatherings with people I would likely not have met in a “normal” world but with whom I’ve developed some lasting bonds.
Today during a check-in with two men I recently met through a Zoom gathering, the common takeaway from what we three shared was gratitude.
“Thank You,” by English singer-songwriter Dido (born Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O’Malley Armstrong), is a song I remember hearing played at the home of dear friends who used to live next-door-but-one from us (I talk about them in my post on “La Lune”). We often got together as couples and enjoyed a lot of music together, and had loads of fun times including a road trip to see Sarah Brightman in concert in St. Paul, Minnesota, plus times spent at a lake Manitoba cottage that Sweety and I used to look after for owners who lived away.
Today’s song comes from Dido’s 1999 debut album, No Angel.
“Push the door, I’m home at last
And I’m soaking through and through
Then you handed me a towel
And all I see is you
And even if my house falls down now
I wouldn’t have a clue
Because you’re near me”
(from “Thank You,” by Dido, Paul Herman)
It’s hard to believe we’ve been living for a whole year under the restrictions brought about to control COVID-19. I’m thankful that the pandemic has been relatively easy on most of us, that we haven’t lost loved ones to it, and we have hopes of receiving scientifically-miraculous vaccines in the coming months.
Yesterday was International Women’s Day, a time to celebrate the resilience, care, strength, creativity, nurturing and play practised by women. In the official music video for “Thank You,” Dido plays a woman who’s not having an enviable day, pushed around by capitalism and greed that are enabled by cold authoritarianism. Yet, she persisted, as the saying goes. And her message of gratitude is unshakable and uninterrupted in the face of it all.
Now you know a little about why this is my song of the day for today. Thanks for joining me here, and please enjoy.
Here’s the video from Dido’s official VEVO/YouTube channel:
Full, unofficial lyrics are available courtesy of AZLyrics.com.
Song of the Day for Today 