I had a breakdown. It was one of those weeks when I feel like I am walking around with no skin on. Every thing, good and bad, rips through my tissue right to my heart. It wasn’t just this week, but the one before and the one before that. Creative fever, difficult conversations, trump, soul-shattering argument with an old friend, another old friend mourning the one year anniversary of her son passing away, her son was the same age as my daughter, a joy from an unexpected Friday email from someone I am afraid to care too much about, feeling totally and completely held by people I trust, having hard time getting up in the morning, falling asleep in the evening bus, feeling various degrees of loneliness, sadness, love, feeling so much, all the time that the feeling itself wears you down, yet being afraid to let go of that feeling because if I no longer feel how will I know I exist?

Saturday morning didn’t bring peace. In a short time between getting out of bed and rushing to children’s extracurriculars, my son cried because he absolute wanted to draw a picture with a black marker and didn’t have a black marker. When we found a black marker and he drew his picture, he started crying because it was all black. Isn’t this art imitating life? Then he cried because he didn’t want to go to karate. Then my daughter cried because I saw that she still didn’t brush her teeth and said « are you kidding me? » She thought I was screaming. Maybe, I was. Then we walked through beautiful sunny morning, sulking and keeping distance from each other. Just before separating in different directions, we held hands and said we loved each other.

After I dropped off my kids, I went to the coffee place where I read my Indigenous Spirituality course book every Saturday morning and ordered coffee. I just settled at a small table in the corner, when the young girl who works there on weekends came up with a big earthenware mug of latte snd said « here » putting it in front of me. This is what broke me. This simple gesture of care. The girl walked away and busied herself putting out Christmas decorations. Coldplay’s Hymn for the Weekend was playing. I was staring at the dusty pink earthenware coffee mug in front of me, my eyes burning and tears streaming down my face. I felt so full, so whole, so grateful, so surrounded by love, so heartbroken for the loveless world. The Hymn for the Weekend ended and The Fugees’ Killing me Softly came up and I cried again, because I love this song so much and because it always matters what music plays. I wish we payed more attention.