It rained relentlessly, without stopping, without a pause, all day long. I was home alone with my older child who was bored and lonely, as most of her friends are gone or safely tucked in their own homes. If you’d asked my predictions, I’d say from experience that it would be awful. she’d whine and I’d get frustrated, repeating that I am busy that I don’t have time for her. Instead, I have somehow managed to access that kind and accommodating part of me, the one that as soon as she’s done with the hour’s tasks rushes upstairs to spend a few minutes with the child.

We talked, we played, it was wonderful. We continued playing all evening, simply grateful to be together. Today, it was easy to love. It didn’t feel like too much, didn’t feel like a sacrifice. It felt like being in perfect balance. If there was a day I could repeat over and over, today was a good candidate.

I woke up many times from strange, unsettling dreams filled with urgency. I remember at some point the thought: it’s better to believe in God, or else I can’t ask Him to fix it.

Then it was seven thirty in the morning and I was wide awake, not at all tired. Just before that, on the edge between the dreams and wakefulness, I saw myself going through my old pictures kept in my parents house, one by one, remembering the details, tracing trauma to its context, making sense, healing.

The way my body felt in the morning has confirmed that I had pushed myself too hard yesterday. Had I been running, I’d be nursing another sports injury. I gave a quick thanks for swimming being such a gentle sport. Under the influence of Gabor Mate’s book, I decided not to treat my tiredness as an obstacle or a punishment and instead position myself in it, explore how it can nurture my body and soul. The result was pleasing. Only a mild FOMO about missing the last opening day at the pool. Instead, I did things I almost never do without obligation: cook, clean out the dark corners of the house. It felt good. Children have played outside for almost the whole day and I barely had to check on them – another blessing after years of relentless parental control and helicoptering.

I felt very calm today. Deliberate and spacious. Not tired as in hitting the wall, but tired as in letting my body take control over my relentless sense of not being enough. It felt wonderful.

I overdid physical exercise today – something I haven’t anticipated, at least not with swimming. Around three pm, just as the brief episode of scorching heat ended with the arrival of have clouds, I suddenly felt deeply physically tired. I dragged this tiredness for the rest of the day, as I was watching my children on the playground, collected scattered toys and objects around the living room, made myself a rare second mug of coffee, went to walk outside with Gabor Maté’s book in my ears and played a card game with kids before sending them to bed. It was while playing cards that I realised how the rarely I felt tired this summer and by contrast how “normal” the feeling was for me before. It was so normal, that I repeated my two favourite phrases: “I’m so tired” and “I don’t have time” almost impulsively, without thinking. Tonight, I am grateful for being tired from the water, the physical effort, from the heat and humidity, from being outside, not from the emotional drama and mental load.

As I was walking today, I realised, looking at the trees, that I can no longer see them as simple objects. I see them as individuals, complete with their stories and memories. Similarly, I no longer simply endure the weather (although I am still not a fan of the heat). It is no longer something external, happening to me. I see myself as a part of the process and it makes everything better. And I wonder if this is what it means to have agency, this putting myself in the equation. If I was speaking about the weather, or nature walks or tiredness in a holophrastic language like Mohawk, the weather would be a verb complete with a subject and an object. There would be no way to describe it in neutral terms, to exclude myself from the process. In everything that is happening, I have choices, I am active, I exchange energy with the world, I occupy space and leave my footprint in the universe.

Days in the office leave me unfulfilled and craving more authenticity. Good thing I live next to a good sunset watching place. There should be stars falling tonight.

I start appreciating how the taste and feel of summer changes with the progression of time. From tingly excitement of June, peaking at the solistice and the beginning of vacationtime, to the heady enjoyment of July to the semi-nostalgic joy of August, like a late-night part of a party, when only the closest and the most intimate remain, like pronounced tannins in late-season wine. August tastes sweet and bitter, heavy on the tongue and I love it more with every passing day.

I am always the one to get excited about sunsets, the one who listens to the music playing in the background. The one who smiles and lipsyncs to a song playing in my earbuds then stops when she realizes that someone is watching. Who do you do? You’re too old for this. What will they think? Today, I stopped myself and then carried on. What will they think? I don’t know, but the joy and pleasure I feel is more important than how this joy will look like to an outside observer.

I was late for a meeting today. Not my day, I said when finally jumping on a Zoom call. I lied. It was totally my day. From waking up from a good dream, morning yoga and walking my kids to their activities, a good working day, a lunchtime swim, a conscious decision of letting go when my daughter refused to go to her soccer practice and then a wonderful walk with my children full of rainbows, ice-cream, flaming red sunset skies and loud laughter. It was totally my day. It totally was. I am grateful.

The pure goodness of tonight’s sunset.

I’ve taken four photos today documenting progression of my day. What surprised me was how little I worked and how much I accomplished. How easy it was to reach out to people, to make decisions, to make progress when anxiety was not part of the game. How connectfull I felt. Not just connected, but connectfull.

Rest, at least for me, is still a contested territory. It is not something I am claiming for myself with ease as of yet. Rest, or even a slower than usual rhythm (and who said that our usual rhythm is natural or good for us) comes tingled with guilt, with a sense of truancy, it tastes of stolen chocolates that I am trying to eat so quickly I choke. Worse, it comes with it’s own countdown. What I want for myself is rest as practice, not as concept. Rest that is guilt-free and resentment-free. Rest that is it’s own space, not squeezed to the margins. Rest that is not limited by the ten percent overhead rule. Rest that is not a luxury item, but a basis of a healthy life. And have you noticed how the healthy life has become a capitalist luxury item?

What I want is to deconstruct in my own head the false dichotomy between rest and work. Work as something productive, useful, selfless and good. Rest as withdrawal, selfishness and refusal. I want to define rest by what it is, not what it isn’t. Rest as yes. Yes to what? If I had a choice, a real unconditional choice, not determined by capitalism, not tinged by trauma, free from the voices of my parents, my bosses, my lovers and my haters, free from self-doubt, what would I say yes to?

The song playing in my head this morning was To Let Myself Go by Ane Brun that slowly transformed into her cover of Big in Japan. Those are the two only Ane Brun’s songs that I know and I love them dearly.

I was getting ready to go to the office after two weeks of not leaving my little suburb and having minimal interaction with my colleagues or anyone in the outside world for that matter. It felt as if the weeks of summer, of daily walks and swimming in the pool and limiting work to the work hours have washed off all my acquired reflexes. The ritual of dressing up, putting on make-up, checking in the mirror whether the combination of flowered pants, a light green t-shirt and a jacket in a different shade of green was presentable enough to be considered professional – all of it felt bewildering. Felt like I was putting on a mask, a camouflage, someone else’s skin. I have never experienced the constant dissonance between who I believe to be and who I present to the outside world in such a strong somatic way.

The six hours in the office were the most unproductive of my day. I typed, I gossiped, I argued, I chatted about things I deeply don’t care about, I was constantly hungry (I am always hungry in the office) and uncomfortable, I shopped and drank too many too expensive caffeinated drinks. I left the office with the sense of finally getting set free. I came home tired, but relieved to see my children. I went for a forty minute walk towards the forest and then finally I felt at peace. I don’t know how to tell anyone any of this without sounding whiny, too privileged or simply pretentious. But the truth is, when I am at home, even when I am angry or upset or worried, I feel whole and myself. It’s when I am at work, not just at work, but at the office, physically, is where I feel the furthest from my authentic self. It may be the result of repeated traumas experienced in the workplace, it may be the fact that authenticity is punished in most corporate environments. It may simply be the fact that human beings cannot be happy or productive whilst surrounded by gray carpets, concrete walls, dirty windows, parking lots and dying baby trees in their asphalt prisons.

Maya said that space was my medicine. And space is such a wholesome, multifaceted experience: the cool air on my naked legs and arms, the sensation of moving, the complex soundscape blending the chirps of tree-frogs, the cries of distant crows and a mallard, the triumphant trills of cardinals, the sounds of feet and bicycle tires on gravelled walking paths. The familiarity as one often-walked path crosses another then opens into a sidewalk that in its turn leads to this one particular spot from which one can see the sunset over a water reservoir. The joy from seeing someone who is watching the sunset on that very spot. Which reinforces my belief that humanity will continue as long as some of us keep the ritual of watching the sun set somewhere over the water.

The hot spell broke and the weather went right down into high tens, bringing me back to live and in semi-productive mood. I was the only person in the pool for most of my swim today, feeling almost guilty about it, as if being the only person in the pool is somehow selfish and privileged. Or maybe I just felt self-conscious of being alone in the pool, while three lifeguards had to stay around and watch me in case something happens. I am getting better at naming and facing this recurring feeling that good things, like swimming on a weekday, taking time for myself, going to therapy, eating out are not meant for me. I can pinpoint one particular memory related to this feeling: I was in my early teens and we just started having foreign ads on TV – the first ones were for chocolate bars: Mars, Snickers and Bounty (there were also Skittles and Coca-Cola and Pepsi ones). I especially remember the Bounty one – it was beautiful, with unnaturally blue sky, palm trees, fine sand and a woman in a very white sarong who was eating a Bounty chocolate. I remember the feeling I had watching this ad over and over, the feeling of how inaccessible, impossible the experience of eating that chocolate bar (that is, let’s admit it, not so good) was to me.

As I was taking a short walk today, I saw a black cat with white paws crossing the boulevard. From a distance, he looked exactly like Echo, the same heavy-set frame and mostly black fur with some glimpses of white. I caught my breath. I know it cannot be Echo, but in a way, at that very moment, I would have preferred to believe that it was his ghost than another cat.