I do not know how I am going to survive today.

It is barely 8am and I am already crying. I am watching a groundhog trying to cross the road, but the traffic is too dense and the energy of it feels violent and uncaring. I scream to her (silently, in my head) don’t! You won’t make it. It seems that she hears me and retreats, but then comes back to her crossing point. Don’t don’t don’t don’t. I feel related to her. I feel related to the dying world. To the critters suffocated by the asphalt. To the creatures not finding their home that’s been turned into condominiums. I feel that sadness is going to crush me.

Worst of all, I do not know how to spend my day around people who don’t feel sadness, who don’t understand it. I’m bad at putting on armour, I’m good at vulnerability, but there are days when vulnerability is the worst possible choice. If there is a third option, I need to find it. What can you be, if you can’t afford to be vulnerable and don’t have the privilege of emotional detachment ?

For now, I am trying to breathe. Breathing is good. Inhale on four, hold on four, exhale on four, hold on four, repeat. The tears are inside me, very close to the surface. I am back again in that same damn place, feeling too much, saying nothing.

The day of heavy heat ends with thunder. I feel heavy too, tired, disappointed with the conversations that don’t go far enough, with relationships that don’t seem to work. I am waiting for rain. I am thinking of adrienne marée brown’s « adapt to pleasure » Sometimes pleasure is the hardest to find.

It’s here. I hear the heavy drops falling and the rumble. It’ll be alright.

There is a tenderness about the city in the morning after a long weekend. There is slowness. The air is dusty and sweet, the streets are emptier than usual. I am thankful to be outside of my usual routine, to take a little time for a coffee in a company of strangers. I feel good about my upcoming day, just the fact to have a day to look forward to. I am wearing a dress, something I rarely do. I like the feeling of this morning. Warm, of but not yet hot, summer, but not quite.

My leg hurts worse than it did during the weekend. I can’t walk fast, I can’t run, I can’t move swiftly about the city, so I make my peace with being late, with accepting my limitations. It’s not that bad.

There are days when my work life feels natural and there are days when it doesn’t. Today the corporate world feels fake. All those high-speed elevators and panoramic views on the city: buildings, buildings, buildings, buildings and a bridge across the river.

I am glad when I finally get home. The town is quant, it smells like rain, there are toddlers rushing to McDonald’s in their soccer T-shirts for a post-game snack. There is homeliness and familiarity that makes me feel strangely tender.

Maybe, that’s what my body is trying to tell me through all these injuries. I am slowly weaning off adrenaline. I am getting better, but I still need help. It’s the same message I heard in January. The same I heard a month ago. I need to find a way to stop doing adrenaline-fuelled work. I need to find my way around oxytocin.

For the past three days i’ve been feeling a pain in my sheen that was first not that bad, so I ignored it, buy now got to the point where I can not walk to pick my kids from school. From the google search, it looks like I have a sheen splint. The idea of it revolts me. I feel betrayed by my body. I feel frustrated because I will stop my activities and rest. I don’t like this idea. For me, at least in my current state, running, dancing and walking are forms of rest. If I can’t do that, just as the weather becomes nice, just as the forest blooms to life, just as the evenings become long and sunsets over the lakes become irresistible, then what on earth am I going to do?

Yet, there is something else that bothers me. In winter, when I was feeling really tired, angry and disillusioned, I hurt my back. Now, I have sheen inflammation, just as I realized how frantic, unsatisfied and confused I am. And tired, so tired. What is my body telling me? I thought I was in a better place, but am I? I am waiting for a response from the therapist. I need to figure this out.

I am so proud of myself today. For sending an inquiry for therapy sessions. For deliberately slowing down: as I slowed down my work rhythm, I noticed that the frantic pace of my thoughts and emotions also slowed and I am able to breathe again. For taking time to imagine what the new me may be like in a playful manner. For asserting my boundaries in small ways. For looking out for myself.

There is always a way

To do things lightly

To walk with ease

Not quite touching the tips of the grass

To abide in silence

To enjoy the transience

To go to bed early

To be the healer.

Yet, I always seem to chose

To rush head first

To ask too much

To dig through the dirt

And break the parts of me that can’t be mended.

I need to figure out

Who is this hungry part of me

Where she lives

What she wants

What she eats

So I can feed her

And hold her

And reassure her

So she can finally let me go.

Mama, I have something for you !

It’s a very detailed picture of him, his friend and Echo, our late cat.

Who is this? I ask, pointing to the tall figure, expecting him to say it’s you, mommy!

Instead, he replies, it’s a statue.

So, I am not in the picture. Apparently, I left. It’s a very good picture, although I am not in it.

It was a good day too, an eventful and successful day by all measure, but I feel spent, unmoored and extremely vulnerable. I feel like parts of my life don’t sync. I feel lonely and longing for connection. I feel like some parts of the conversation are always left unsaid. I feel like I’m not enough and I will never be enough.

Louise asked last week what is worse, the pain of change, or the pain of status quo. Honestly, I do not know how to answer. The problem is that the change is unknown, and the status quo is not all bad either. There are good moments, bright conversations, sunsets, cardinals and a dance class. The problem is, I don’t know what I will choose and I desperately want someone else to do this work for me. But there is no one else, not at the moment.

Monday is a contemplative day. I gave up the idea of being productive on this day. I gave in to my natural tendency to wander, fiddle, jump between ideas and occupations, talk to myself out loud. I fell in love with Kai Chang Thom and spent some time obsessively reading about her work and searching for her podcasts. I spent time reading up about the patterns on vyshivankas. I do not blame myself for being unproductive, neither do I feel bad. Instead, I feel the length of the day, the passing of time, the way things fit together, the echoes of Rosie’s drumming.

On the way to and from school we stop multiple times to perform the sacred ritual: pick up the ripe dandelions and blow their seeds in the wind. We are strategic, we try to blow near the grassy patches, choosing the ones untouched by the mower. When I was a child, I used to blow dandelions for luck, my kids do it with solemn trust that the seeds will give new life. When I was a child, I used to weave dandelion crowns, wear them, the leaves the wilting flowers to die. My children would never pick a yellow dandelion, they let them to the pollinators. But the magical ritual of the ripe dandelion preserves itself through the cultures and generations.

On our way to and from school we are stopping to listen to the tiny peeps of the nestlings. Then we notice a bluejay defending her nest against a crow and worry helplessly, wishing the crow to fly away, but not willing to offend her by throwing stones or sticks. Finally, the crow flies away. Then we look at two robins collecting food for their offspring.

The greatest gift I gave myself this spring and am now giving my children is learning to recognise and name the local plants and birds. I have always truffled with loneliness and lack of belonging, but now, as I step outside and see them, and know them: colt’s foot, dawny yellow violet, bloodroot, eastern phoebe, song sparrow, I feel that I belong.

The sky looks like a giant painted dome of an orthodox cathedral today. Of course, it’s cathedrals that look like heaven, populated by saints and fantastic creatures, winged angels and various representations of divinity.

I had a calm day, which made me restless. It’s hard to lean in to the calm after an adrenaline filled week. I realize that regardless of how hard I try to distance myself from the greedy, adrenaline-dependent part of myself (let’s call her Ego), I’m still drawn to speed, pressure, thrill and the feeling of constantly being at the edge of something. Like most people, I am drawn to self-destruction.

Here is to the dancing at the edge of the crumbling world

Because this is who we are

Because our ancestors danced

Under the stars and under the canopy of the thousand-year old trees.

They danced because they didn’t know any other way to feel alive.

They danced because they just started realizing that they were alive

And it was all too much.

And now, what we have left is concrete and partly defaced murals

What we have is a lack of space to exercise our humanity

What we have are the cracks between the asphalt and more asphalt

Where we grow dandelions, fern and tiny seedlings of trees.

We must dance, no

We must choose to dance

Because there is still no other way to feel alive.

Children dance when they hear the music

Hunters dance for good luck in their hunt

Warriors dance to give themselves courage to face death

Women dance to please ancient goddesses whose names they’ve forgotten

Lovers dance for each other.

I like to imagine that we are flying in space, in an ever-expanding universe, still propelled by the force of the big bang that dragged us all from nothingness into being. And because we will never be able to possibly even remotely make sense of it all, because we will never be able to put it in words, we let our bodies do the speaking and the comprehending. We dance. We make love. We dance.