After a month of tireless efforts, Siri finally started sending me nightly reminders to open WordPress. I see it as a personal win. If Siri thinks I’m in a habit of journaling, it must be true.

Today was an annual village fest and truly gorgeous weather, which, if I were alone, I would have rather celebrated by a long walk in the forest and around the lake. Instead, I spent the day walking between food stands, a mini farm and bouncy castles planted right in the middle of a frozen pond. In other words, I spent the day with my family and that’s a blessing to be thankful for. The other blessing was, of course, the weather: sunny, crisp delicious air with no humidity, no wind, gentle cold, just enough to colour the kids’ cheeks, but not to freeze their noses.

The reason I like village holidays is because they give me a reason to remember what the weather was like that particular year, how did it feel like outside of the daily routine. Today was beautiful.

I gave up, well, almost gave up social media because I got tired of finger pointing and constant us vs. them rhethoric. But now is a good time to reflect how this rhethoric has been showing up in my life for years. The war is an obvious example. It is so easy when your hate is legitimate, shared and justified. It is so easy to hate the bad guys, it’s what all Marvel movies are about, but then Marvel movie becomes your life and all of a sudden you’re no longer clapping. It is when the same rhethoric permeates your personal life when it becomes truly really problematic. And, I have to admit that the lines get blurred because have I truly never hurt anyone and am I hurting myself by holding on to this half-truth that it is us on one side and them on the other. So, what I want to do tonight is let them go. Them, whatever side they are on and whatever truth they are holding on to, I will let them go. I wonder how and what kind of ceremony one needs to do that. I remember, vaguely, a year ago Melanie Goodchild was speaking about letting go ceremony. I don’t have anyone who could perform it for me, so I’ll have to figure it out by myself. I have better things now, better company, including my ancestors and friends I have not yet met, I no longer need THEM, the enemy, the other side to exist and advance. I no longer have to hold on to my pain, it’s been over a year now and in kairos time it’s been so much longer. I can be on my own now. I know I can step in these boardrooms and no longer wonder if I’d ever be one of their own. I do not belong in boardrooms. I know I am there by accident and they know it too. I do not belong on the streets either. I know, I have tried. During the months of cold winter, outside, right downtown, part of the chanting crowd. I was so darn sincere, but I was never the one climbing the barricades and facing the guns, I knew I couldn’t. So, who am I? Not a soldier, not a rebel, not a corporate, not a faker. Who am I? I don’t know, but I know that when I go to the forest, it never asks me questions. It never questions my belonging. I am not a hunter, not indigenous, yet it never asks. And by the way, I hate the pronoun it. It doesn’t exist in my language. In my language, everything is he, or she, or it, but not the same it as in English, more like the German das. River is she, Earth is she, Ocean is he, Sea is it and so is the Sun. Star is she and it is also a woman’s name. Moon is, you will never believe, he. Forest is he. Mountain is she. Road is she. I often make mistakes in other languages, because it seems that one can never unlearn the gender of things one learned as a child. These things matter, because by digging deep, deeper to the roots and the mycellial networks around your roots, and to the quality of the black earth, the topsoil that in Ukraine is over one meter deep and rich enough to feed and sustain one even across the ocean, one can define oneself outside of the corporate food-chain. I just need to remember, on Monday and in two weeks that it is not us against them.

Let me just note that this week I

Got a call from the daycare that my son almost broke his nose

Asked my boss for something I really needed and trusted her to understand and respond to my need

Signed up for an amazing community of practice

Kept up with my coursework

Went back and forth with a bank about a mortgage

Went to massage therapy first the first time in years

Had to call 911 for someone close to me

It’s ok to feel tired and overwhelmed. It’s ok to feel like I’m crushing it, but also like things are getting too much. It’s ok to give myself a break.

I start realizing that my well-being depends in no small measure on the moments of flight, when I feel free, creative and powerful. Today wasn’t it. Today felt ordinary. The office was hot and dusty. Outside, there was a heavy sky and rain.

But when I look back on this day, I see a half dozen micro-dozes of happiness:

An invitation to Sanctuary Sangha

A reiki prayer that Rosie sent me this morning

A picture of Griffin and rainbows

An impromptu conversation about past and future with colleagues

A meeting with little girl named Jeanne in the library, who introduced herself to my son: j’ai quatre ans. Personne n’a quatre ans comme moi.

And most important of all, the light is returning.

This is enough. This is more than enough. As Rosie says in her prayer: just for today.

I realize that I am tired. Not the end-of-the-day tired, although that too. I no longer feel ready to engage, read every article, pick every battle, voice every opinion. On the bright side, my FOMO is finally getting better. I’m ok with letting things go, because they never belonged to me in the first place. I’m ok with not being in the spotlight, but also I am learning to insist I be given credit when I deserve it. I’m ok with the fact that slowing down means I can’t have it all and the thought that I will never have it all is so liberating.

I was raised to be an overachiever, to work ten times more, to shoot for the stars. I always thought it was a good thing. And maybe it is, but sometimes good things destroy us. When I try to visualize this belief in doing more, being more, always fighting for something, I see a nstive weed with roots so deep, it will take tremendous force to pull them out.

It was cold and sunny today, the world is still going to hell and I had a good day. I’ve been taking care of myself in small ways, like taking a walk during my lunch break and going to my dancing class in the evening. I don’t think that the world needs more broken people and maybe I can contribute more from a place of balance and self-care.

I am truly grateful for these lazy winter holidays when nothing happens. Although, truly significant things do happen, of course, like Sunday morning crêpes. I started making them in the fall, for those special days when my kids didn’t have their swimming classes. This year swimming starts an hour later, so I can make crêpes every Sunday. I serve them with homemade chia jam – just whatever frozen berries that were on sale the previous week, boiled with a spoonful of sugar and some chia. It is delicious and, I want to believe healthy. I also want to believe that when my children meet up with adults, they will reminisce the time mom was making crêpes. Maybe, Élise will say “ I don’t think you remember, you were too little.” And Julien will reply “Of course I remember!”

In an attempt to remove myself even further from emotional turmoil, I started reading Thomson Highway’s Permanent Astonishment. So far, it consists mostly of descriptions of endless wintery sub-Arctic landscapes, with interjections of surrealism and some Cree humour. It is wonderful. When I was a teenager, I used to love Jack London’s northern stories. Highway’s writing is just as good, minus the greed, colonialism and toxic masculinity that permeated London’s life and art. I now want to buy Permanent Astonishment as an audiobook, to enjoy Highway’s description as a grounding tool, just as I do with Robian Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass.

Today my mom told me that she’d been waiting for the results of a lung cancer test. Thankfully, they are negative. She only told me after she received the official clearance, and I feel so grateful that she hid it from me, because frankly, I don’t think I could have carried it.

My daughter has been suffering from stomach ache for a few days and my little son is now carrying the bag with the library books all by himself. The sight of him, so small, with canvas bag over his shoulder, makes my heart swell with pride.

On the drive home after dropping off kids at school and daycare Sia’s Unstoppable played in the car, so I put the sound all the way up and hollered the words with her. It didn’t feel enough, so I found the same song on my phone, put on the headphones and made a brisk walk around the block.

As I was walking around the block, I got a text from Monique, my old boss and mentor, my safe person, my unfailing support system. We haven’t talked for many months, almost a year, entirely by my fault. When I get overwhelmed, tired or depressed, I withdraw, even from the people who I trust. I stop communicating. I stop writing and answering texts. Afterwards, I feel guilty and agonize about contacting them thinking that surely they would not want to hear from me again. I cried a little, when I got Monique’s text, from the sheer momentary bliss of knowing that someone loves me and never stopped thinking about me. From knowing that all this time she was there for me.

When I came home I got a text from Rosie “Just sent loving kindness blessings after my meditation, have a blessed day Vira, you are loved”

I’ve been feeling it for some time, but today it crystallized: I feel at peace. Something in me finally shifted and although I still feel every crack and fault line in the surrounding universe, I no longer fall through the cracks into the abyss. For the past several day I felt the peace growing in me, like a moon grows on a night sky, until today I felt finally at peace. I felt like I knew my place in the world, knew what connects me to my human and more than human kin. I just knew.

The energy was different too. I felt this calm awareness that allowed me to do things I’ve been putting aside for far too long. As usual, the hardest part of human-ing for me is communication: connecting with people and soliciting their attention. Today it felt easy and efortless.

Then, as I was running my evening errands, I realized something. All my life I’ve been craving people’s love and attention, but when some people gave it to me, it always scared and overwhelmed me. I shunned away from romantic advances, just as I did from deep friendship. Deep down, I wondered what people who loved and admired me saw in me. Today, I finally felt being able to give myself the same loving kindness I’ve been given by my generous friends all the time.

I have learned how to be a good ally to others, how to show them my admiration and support. Now I am learning how to be my own ally. And I can’t wait to see where it will take me.