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.

The photo is actually from yesterday. I felt so tired today, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I think I’ve accepted that these days are inevitable, that my battery is bound to run low at some point, especially if I don’t recharge by being outside or physical activity. And even if I do. I think I found a better way of making through these days by being very gentle with myself, breathing, making every effort slow and deliberate.

I also noticed that when I’m tired, I fall back onto my old automatic reactions. I whine, blame, snap and forget little gestures of self-care. I scroll, mindlessly, repeatedly and unnecessarily. It is as if I was disconnecting from myself. Maya would say: when you notice that you do this, call yourself back home. Breathe, stretch, walk, stop, run. Running helped tonight. The pure heady joy of moving through darkening evening, of hitting the ground, of feeling my limbs, light and strong, of feeling my arms, propelling my body forward, my back – leaning forward than leaning back, making space, my lips stretching in a grin, head jerking when a good song comes up on the playlist. I am back home, baby, I feel lighter. I can’t believe the streetlights are already on at eight o’clock. We are dressing into darkness, baby, into long twilights and early bedtimes, into another winter of waiting for another spring. I felt it tonight and I accepted it.

The phrase that keeps circling in my mind this morning: soft around the edges, breathing into it.

It is raining. Almost raining. Barely raining. Just about to rain. Raining again. Again. And again. I am waking up at the first faint trill of my alarm, sometimes seconds before it. I open my eyes to the nuances of grey. I step into the world without hard angles and edges, all soft and soggy. I am stepping into it full of kindness. I feel attentive these days, full of intention and through this intention I feel alive and more powerful than I’ve felt for a long time. The days are busy, but don’t feel rushed, every moment feels full and meaningful. Just the physical sensation of living every moment: the surreal homey feeling of sitting in the kitchen with Marta and Anthony. The acceptance of every moment whatever that moment is feels like a warm drink in my belly. Surely, this is for real? The good times may be passing, but the acceptance is mine. Maybe, this is what courage is: facing every day with kindness.

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.