My daughter dislikes change and letting go of things. I don’t know if this is a common thing among most girls, but it is the case with ours. That is why, I was surprised when she instigated the reorganization of her room. I very much like reorganizing things, but her reluctance on this front has held such an impulse at bay.

Her room looks quite different now, “more ‘grande fille’” as Christian put it. It made me think of a quote by Antonine Maillet's character La Sagouine. La Sagouine in one of her monologues, as it was read to us by an Acadian teacher in tenth grade, had been in favour of the Second World War, to shake things up, as I remembered it. I was sixteen I think, and I didn't grasp the satire.

Listening to that monologue now, I understand instead that La Sagouine is grateful for an event which relieved the poverty her community lived in. It brought, as she explains it, attention to her otherwise forgotten corner of the world. “Thank goodness the war happened” she says, and this line that jolts the listener isn't about appreciating the drama of an upheaval, as I thought I remembered it. Rather, it's a commentary about how the upheaval forced the government to take into account all its citizens, even the poor ones.

Since staying safe at home, we’ve gone into our house’s corners to exploit their dusty spaces and take stock of things forgotten in storage. I sent my sister's sewing machine back to her. I sent baby items to my brother who's a new father now. We might have done these things without a pandemic to spur us on, nonetheless, I'd like to consider it a small ripple in the wake of a much larger reorganization.