Tomorrow is my therapy appointment. In only three session I have learned to check with my body and the way it reacts to different triggers. Today I learned that grief lives in my chest, right in the solar plexus. It makes me feel short of breath, as if my lungs are failing me. By the end of the day, it rises in a dull ache at the back of my head. It squeezes me from inside – I feel smaller. It makes it hard to talk, to swallow, everything tastes awful. All I wanted today was a hug. To feel someone’s warm body next to mine, holding me. There are so many people I could ask for a hug and so few of them are in physical proximity to me. There are so many people in physical proximity and none of them is emotionally close enough for such gesture. I couldn’t wait to pick my kids from school, so I can hold their little hands (my son’s hand is warm and still a little chubby, my daughter’s long-fingered, slender hand is perpetually cold) and hug them. Someone said today that it must be difficult to parent while grieving for one’s friends or country and I realised that parenting is the easiest thing to do right now, because it’s the only one that makes tangible sense.

Oh, and something else, I think I started hearing my own voice. Not the alter-ego voice accusing, belittling and picking me apart, but my own voice telling my story.

We’ll have to be very careful how we allow our needs to shape us.

Octavia Butler. Parable of the Sower

There are so many things to carry. Some are small things, some are big, ugly, unbearable things, some are distant, guilty, brittle pieces of someone else’s burden. Together, they make a load. A swarm of angry bees in my head. A reason why a cool sunny day seems dim and an Air quality index 2 air seems unbreathable. Everything is ok, everything is not ok, there is no way to speak about it without sounding dramatic or seeking attention or… so, the best thing is to walk, to step carefully, to concentrate on carrying myself and all I carry inside me, carefully. The best thing is to care about someone, anyone – a child, a friend, an animal, a stranger, oneself.

So many small and big things: leaving my child at school today almost made me cry, the news about Poltava, the news about German elections, the utter fragility of absolutely everything. No, I am not putting anything on a scale. No, I refuse to compare and compete. A heartbreak is a heartbreak is a heartbreak. A heart is big enough to carry it all.

I thought Parable of the Sower would depress me further, instead I find it comforting. Or maybe I just got to a better place in the book. I like how true it feels – at the same time beautiful and utterly cruel.

I am thinking about Shesheshen, the shapeshifting monster. Although I disliked the book, I am grateful I read it. I loved the descriptions of how Shesheshen moulds her physiology to accommodate her needs and limitations, how she forms her body around her wounds – the metaphors no doubt borrowed from author’s therapy sessions, but nonetheless true. We all shapeshift our bodies around our wounds, we all are sensitive objects ready to break at any moment.

It is the start of the apple season – for the next month or so we will be biking to the Mont Bruno to pick up delicious apples as they ripen. The wet heavy heat is gone, the mornings are cool, the shade is even colder and now we welcome direct sunlight instead of fleeing it. Evenings are beautiful. I can’t get enough of the forest. I hurry there at every possibility – it is never enough, it is always enough, always more than I asked for. I feel overwhelmed with all this beauty, all this change, I feel simultaneously in it and outside of it. The one thing I absolutely hate right now is the thought of the coming winter.

MA brought me sunflowers as a thank you for dog-sitting Luna. Real sunflowers, half my height with thick tree-like stems and meaty leaves. They smell wonderfully un-flower-like, like food and comfort. I wonder if those sunflowers are an accidental gesture or if she knew. Sunflowers are the symbol of my home, of my identity. My mum says her folk planted sunflowers and corn along the fence, so that no space gets wasted.

We had another rainstorm today. After the rain, the forest was dripping with fresh water, the clouds were golden, the air tangy and pure.

An 18 year old budding illustrator was killed today in Kharkiv by russian shelling. No matter how much you let yourself feel the pain, it’s not enough.

First day of school always fills me with giddy energy. I always loved school, loved university, loved learning and I am grateful to relieve the excitement of going back to school through my kids. I wonder why I never ever considered to become a teacher. Maybe because I grew up in Ukraine in the 1990s, during the times when we were freezing in school in winter and our teachers were either starving or hustling to survive (mine were mostly hustling).

During my walk tonight, I saw a spider weaving her web. I could have looked at her forever, how delicately she was pulling her barely visible thread, how even she made every section, how she alternated her long legs. It was magic. I looked at the surface of the lake, where from time to time the had or the back of some fish broke the surface and made circles run through the water.

I continue listening to Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower – it is beautiful, but I wasn’t prepared to the amount of violence and gore and try hard not to let it get to me. I keep listening, hoping that at some point there will be some ethereal wisdom that will make it all worth it.

What a day.

My first thought upon waking up was gratitude. I thought about gratitude during a frisky morning walk, trying to repeat in my head all the parts of the Haudenosaunnee Thanksgiving address. I thought about it throughout the day. How grateful I am to be home, for the last day of summer holidays, for yesterday’s storm and the cool weather it brought, for my kids, for being healthy (I still shudder remembering how sick we were at this time last year), for good books, for good energy, for neighbours I meet as they walk their dogs and I walk myself.

It was a very very productive day. I don’t remember ever feeling so calm and in control at work. It felt good. It felt powerful, the good kind of power, the one you don’t have to fight for.

The evening run felt very good too (except an unexpected knee pain and lightheadedness after K4). At some point during the run I thought about water, about being like water. If I become water, if I find my flow to carry me through this autumn, where will I end up?

I am trying to compassionately inquire why I feel so bad on the office days. Although I have to admit, it’s getting better, I am now able to go through a day in the office without too much damage to myself or others. Strangely, the only thing I like about my office days is the first part of my morning commute. It is such a versatile time: I mostly read, sometimes write, sometimes think or just stare out of bus window. I also like the last part of the day, the coming home to familiar trees, dogs and faces. I dislike the city, I dislike the stress and urgency of being on a schedule and above all I dislike myself the way I am or try to be in the office. I dislike the insincerity, the insecurity, the constant feeling that I am too much or not enough, that I do not belong. This never goes away. The only time I feel well in the office is the times when I moderate conversations and hold space. Then I can relax, because I know that in trying to hold a safe space for others I myself am safe.

I was feeling unwell today, struggling with fatigue, bouts of indigestion, muscular pains and lightheadedness. The tops of my thighs hurt as is from strenuous muscle training and my calves feel tight and heavy. I forgot and confused simple things, made silly mistakes. It would have been easy to say I don’t feel like myself today, but the truth is, I do feel like myself, a version of myself, at least. I feel like I am no longer willing to deny or push away the weaker, more fraught sides of me. I feel stronger because I am ready to accept myself more fully.

In the meanwhile, my friends have spent the day hiding from the air raids and this is a particular kind of heartbreak.

Sometimes I am afraid that I will get used to it all and life will become ordinary, my skin will become thicker and gaze unfocused. But so far, it doesn’t. Every time I step into the forest, even if it’s multiple times a week, a day, I expect a miracle. Every time I step outside, especially on a summer night, something happens. Pink clouds, rainbows, the smell of red apples, rotting in the high grass, the abundance of goldenrods and some other flowers people call weed, small and big animals. Nothing happened today, nothing of significance, I feel as happy and alive as ever.

Misty sunrise this morning.

I went to bed around ten yesterday, so I wake up rested and do some very slow restorative yoga. But the rest of the day is filled with snappy, restless energy. I say wrong things, I speak too much, buy too much, I worry about money and about life in general, I feel out of place. In the evening, I take a walk, trying to bring myself back to my essence. I am not particularly successful. But I keep reminding myself that that’s alright, there is always a way back. This shall pass.