EASTER WITHOUT

They say it’s the period leading up to Easter, Lent, when you’re supposed to do without. You give up something. Drinking or butterscotch ripple ice cream or Ryan Murphy productions. 

Okay none of those is a sacrifice to me. No suffering involved. Do they even still make butterscotch ripple? I was always a bad parishioner. 

 

Too often for me, I give up something for Easter instead. Interaction, say. 

 

Normally, I’m good. I spent this long weekend hunting down cherry blossoms for photos while going on bike rides and a jog. I went to Vancouver’s Van Dusen Gardens to wander amongst early rhododendrons and other flowers. I did short writing sessions in cafés. I even had coffee with a friend I hadn’t seen in almost two years.

 

But it was Easter. BIG expectations. In Canada, it’s a four-day weekend for people who aren’t in the service industry. Good Friday is a holiday. Easter Monday is a holiday. No, there are no egg hunts on Monday and no special meals aside from leftover ham and maybe some colorful eggs reduced to egg salad. Or maybe just a chocolate breakfast, assuming the candy eggs and Costco-sized white chocolate bunny survived Easter Sunday. Really, who just eats an ear and says, “I’m good”? Even if it’s white chocolate, it is chocolate.

Okay, being Easter and all, I feel like I’m in a confessing kind of space. Not only did I NOT give up anything for Lent (other than nonexistent butterscotch ripple), I do NOT partake in tearing apart chocolate Easter bunnies, piece by piece. I do not even eat half the little chocolate eggs before the hunt and sit back to say, “I bought two whole bags. You’re just not looking hard enough.” Mean? Sure. But the neighbour’s kid screams through dinnertime every evening…and neither walls nor doors constitute an effective sound barrier.

 

I do not like chocolate.

 

Yes, go on. Gasp. Call me a freak. That gut reaction just cut you out of being on the re-gifting list for when people give me chocolate.

 

I do admit to one exception. I’ve discovered Trader Joe’s Milk Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Pretzels and I will NOT be giving them away. It will take me several sittings over a few weeks to get through them because the milk chocolate overwhelms the rest of the flavors. I have confirmed it smothers a teeny tiny pretzel bit but I have yet to taste any trace of peanut butter.

 

At any rate, I won’t be stocking up on my one chocolate exception since I am not making cross-border runs to Trader Joe’s due to Trump’s tariffs and his belittling references to Canada as the 51^st state. (Focus on Puerto Rico, dude.)

 

If Easter weren’t the only four-day weekend in Canada—our Thanksgiving is a three-day fete in October…when there is still a harvest to reap—I could let the occasion pass by without any big holiday expectations. Heck, I don’t eat ham either. Or any kind of meat. No one REALLY wants a vegetarian to crash their Easter dinner. 

 

I’ve had some bad Easters. In 2014, I spent the entire occasion in a psych ward where a patient kept getting put in the lockdown room (within the already locked down ward) since he kept getting into physical fights and threatened to kill “every fuckin’ one” of us. No egg hunt on the ward. The highlight was borscht for lunch one day.

 

Not a good time.

 

In 2019, I spent all of Easter in the eating disorder ward of the same hospital. No death threats, but we had to eat every bit of three meals and three snacks along with copious amounts of water while nurses observed and took notes from a mirrored room with staged seating so they could look down on us. I have never eaten so many apples or drank so much water in my life. May I never experience waterboarding but this felt like another kind of water torture. The highlight was ten minutes of fresh air on Easter Sunday in the rooftop garden which was a sadder space than the ward itself, a smoking pit for other patients where scraggly boxwood grew alongside dandelions and fresh pigeon poop. 

 

I am not spending this Easter in any hospital ward. That alone should feel like a celebration. Yippee! No death threats. No oversized cups of water. No plastic trays with soggy toast (or borscht). 

 

Still, it’s been hard spending Easter alone when I have a partner who happens to live 2,300 kilometres away in Denver. In a country that’s all about God and guns, neither the Friday nor the Monday is a holiday. Airfare was higher throughout the weekend presumably because retired grandparents wanted to fly places to watch one-year-olds cry as all the adults keep telling them to keep looking for foil-wrapped eggs that will become choking hazards if not found (or eaten by Uncle Ted or vomited up by Rex the Chihuahua) by today. 

 

Evan will fly to Vancouver this Thursday instead. He’s worked weekends to earn a little paid time off to create his own long weekend. It’s only a week later than the regular Easter celebrations. I will be thrilled to see him. 

 

If not Easter, then may we always have the weekend thereafter. Stooping and “hiding” eggs behind the sofa legs can’t be good for my back anyway.

 

 

TUNING OUT THE EXPECTATIONS

Today is Moldy Cheese Day, but few observe the occasion in a formal capacity. More people recognize the day as Thanksgiving (in Canada). Instead of thinking about gratitude, it is a time when I fight off pity. And, yes, I almost always win the battle with self-pity. It’s the pity from others that creates more challenges.

The good thing about Canadian Thanksgiving is there is no clarity over when to have the big celebration. When I lived in the U.S., it was always on the Thursday. Everything except Denny’s and 7-Eleven shut down. Here, some folks have the big dinner on Sunday, others on Monday. This helps as there isn’t one particular day to lump me with the sad sacks.

I am a vegetarian with vegan leanings so I am not missing out on turkey and gravy. In the past, I have picked at too many sides of heavily sugared sweet potatoes. I am not even a fan of thick pie crusts. (A pumpkin pie Blizzard at DQ suits me just fine.) Obviously, it is not about the meal. It is the expectation that eats at me.

Just before the holiday comes the obligatory question: “What are doing for Thanksgiving?” When I smile and say I’m repainting the ceiling in the basement, people respond with looks of deep sympathy. Oh, poor you. Yes, I shouldn’t have bumbled the first painting attempt. Of course, that’s not what they mean.

Sometimes I get an invite somewhere, but I have regularly declined over the past two decades. The host needn’t stress over making an entirely separate entrée—which he or she invariably does. “Oh, it was no trouble at all” is the standard line, but good hosts are bad liars. When I go to barbecues, I eat first or bring my own food, but it is harder to be inconspicuous at a sit-down dinner.

When I lived in Los Angeles, I hosted Canadian Thanksgivings. I could serve stuffed peppers without people feeling disappointed. They’d get a crack at a turkey leg at the end of November. In Vancouver, I went through a couple of years of inviting over others with families in Ontario or elsewhere. The Bailey’s chocolate chip cheesecake quirked things up enough to help folks get over the mindset that a plate of roasted veggies left a void. Over the past decade, however, friends have settled into marriages and young families. Thanksgivings are with the newly doting grandparents.

I could have gone this weekend to Tofino with my two remaining single gay friends. They’re great for shopping weekends, but not for holidays. Neither of them has ever (EVER!) expressed the slightest desire to find a partner. Indeed, they resemble a couple, well-settled in a sexless relationship. Their “children” are the latest techno gadgets, every conversation interrupted by an iPhone Google search or a quick check of an incoming text.

No, I am happy to paint the ceiling. I will walk the dog on the beach. I will hit the gym where others stumble in before that sleep-inducing turkey enzyme casts its spell. I am thankful for an extra day of sleeping later and letting the early morning ferry sail on without me.

Tuesday morning I’ll be hit with people asking, “How was your Thanksgiving?” I am prepared with a quick, “Fine. Wasn’t the weather wonderful on Sunday?” If we can leave it at that, I will be spared the looks. Can we move on? October 12 is Farmer’s Day, the 14th is Grover’s birthday and the 15th is National Grouch Day. October is also National Popcorn Popping Month, National Pizza Month, National Clock Month (huh?) and, best of all, National Roller Skating Month. These are just a few of the occasions I can celebrate on equal terms!