I don’t think I will find the words.

Sitting cross-legged with my head swung back, staring at the tree leaves trembling to the rising beat in the last rays of the setting sun. Do you call that a meditation?

Walking along the shallow brook. “Your ancestors are walking behind you.” I can almost hear their steps. Two Viras. Both stocky, with broad round faces, high cheekbones, clear eyes, strong hands, thick calves. Beautiful, strong like the earth. Slavic women, made of the most fertile soil on Earth. Everywhere I walk, they walk behind me. “You can lean on your ancestors. How does it make you feel?” Less than alone. The opposite of alone. I have heard this message twice in the past two days. What are you saying, ancestors?

I turn right, I cross the bridge, then, on the other side the song begins, unbidden, catches me unaware. У мене немає дому. I start crying, harder and harder, trying to loosen the tight knot of grief, rage and desperate longing in my throat. I am trying not to sob, not to attract attention. If someone asks me, I would not be able to explain. I am crying for my lost home. For my people. I am crying to let go, to free myself from the things I will never be free of. Обійми мене. I am raising the volume all the way up, until my ears hurt. The voices of my youth are screaming. So much bass in their guitars, so much pathos in their vocals, the generation that never stopped hurting.

I guess I found the words, after all.

What I want remember from today is sitting on the floor in my therapist’s room (the word cabinet sounds much too formal, masculine and colonial and not at all fitting her), inhaling a faint smell of burning sage and telling my life story, year by year, milestone by milestone, piece by tiny piece. The parts I experienced, the parts I remembered and the parts I did not know as facts, but as some intergenerational knowledge. It felt powerful, just to hold those pieces together, to lay them out in the open, b ‘cause once I was able to hold them, I knew they were mine. I could look at them without pain, without shame or regret, but with recognition and acceptance. They are mine. And once I held them, once I claimed them, I knew I could do something with them. I can’t do anything about them, but I can do something with them. And this, I believe, is healing.

I don’t know if it’s my body’s way of processing this past week, or the first signs of the sickness my daughter had been spreading around the house, but today I feel heavy, slow and sleepy. I gave up on going for a jog. I may give up on my walk as well, or shrink it down to a stroll around the village pond around sunset. I had to go to the library, but the thought of biking felt like too much, so I walked.

I feel heaviness at the back of my head, around my nose and jaw, my arms and legs. I don’t like the idea of getting sick, because it will come with the imperative of rescheduling meetings and the next therapy session. Still, whatever the cause may be, I decided to lean into the way I feel. To embrace the heaviness. To lay back literally and metaphorically. To learn whatever it is I need to learn. To treat myself with sleep, slowing down, doing nothing and tangy herbal tea. To rest.

I wish I knew the language of change

The kind of subtle change that creeps on me on my weekly walks

That drives me mad with desire and anticipation

With fear and unarticulated longing

The kind of change I feel but cannot quite grasp.

Fall could be a word to describe it.

Today, as I was sitting by the lake

In a state that I hope one day will become a meditation

But for now I’ll call it not fidgeting and not checking my phone

I noticed so many things falling

I heard them before seeing them:

Soft splashes in the water, thuds on the soft dirt of the bank

Acorns,

twigs,

berries,

crabapples

And leaves,

but these make no sound.

On the way home I was thinking about my grandmother

Of her soft, plump, wrinkly, dry hands

Of her dead siblings I have heard about just once

Of the quiet secrets she took to her grave

Then I thought about children who never came home from Kamloops

I cried

Then I thought about the crumbling coastline of California

Although I’ve never been there, never even wanted to go there

I held these thoughts, one by one

As they pushed me to the edge

Of my vulnerability.

Then I asked myself

Where in my body

I feel change:

The first place is at the base of my throat

Where too much emotion forms a tight lump

Then there is a place between

My left shoulder blade and my left breast

Where change produces a kind of tingling

Then there is a place at the very bottom of my belly

In my gut

Where change metabolizes

And finally in my hands

That my mama always said looked like my grandmother’s hands

Warming my palms

Dripping from the tips of my fingers

Falling.

Here was another day of throbbing headache, or wanting to curl in a ball and cry. But there were also glimpses of clarity and lightness. Two people told me I looked good and I chose to believe them and embrace this information, channel it from within.

Sunrise was beautiful.

The rest of the day felt heavy, uninspiring, like an unfinished, unloved project. Elise is sick with fever that wouldn’t go down, no matter what I try. I feel frustrated about work, about the lack of resonance, clarity and human connection. About the fact that no one effing cares. I wonder why I care, if I still care. I’m not alone, but I feel lonely.

It’s full moon tonight and the moon is beautiful.

My day isn’t going particularly well, so I feel that I need to take a pause, yes, right in the middle of my unhappy and unproductive working day, and write about the practices and things that keep me afloat at times like these.

Water: looking at it, listening to it, swimming in it

Walking

My children

Natural world

Writing

Music

Breathing, especially breathing through vulnerability

Reading books

Exercise

Being held (something I don’t really get)

Drinking (not in the meaning alcohol, just the action of sipping carbonated water, or tea or just plain water)

Drawing

Things rarely happen as I imagine them in anticipation, except for this time they did. Saturday morning in La Tasse Verte with a coffee and print-out copies of my readings for the Indigenous Spirituality course. Spontaneous trip to Biodome and breathless joy of being there, among the anemones and birds and sturgeons.

I am having a hard time adjusting to the shortening day, so when I set out for my Sunday evening walk to the forest, just as my kids settled to watch Pirates of the Caribbean for the first time, it was to let to get to the lake before dark. I realised it halfway and reluctantly turned back. It did feel easier this time. I smiled getting better of letting go. I walked back to the Clearview entrance, a little disappointed, but feeling light about making the right decision, and as I emerged from the forest onto the field I saw her looking at me. Big, almost full, pale yellow, low on the purple evening sky, framed by the old apple trees, like eyelashes, it looked as if she’d been waiting to reveal herself to me. If you asked me, I wouldn’t want to be anyone else or in any other place, than I am.

Universe is God’s self-portrait. Octavia E. Butler

So, looking at it, what is God like?..

Funny

Sensitive, even sentimental

Determined

Resilient

Resourceful

Cruel

Generous

Quiet

Fragile

Beautiful

Magical

Like red patches of evening light on the smooth trunks of the young maples. Like a soundless flight of the barn owl in the woods at dusk. Like the soft carpet of moss and lichen on the solitary boulder. Like songbirds flying south. Like red maple leaves falling on the layers of last year’s fallen leaves. Like …

I have never been good in setting boundaries. I have always left work encroach on my life, stealing minutes from me, while my children, my interests and rest waited. Now I let life encroach on my work. I leave 15 minutes early to pick up my children, I add 5 minutes to my lunch walk, I step out to stare at the sky or touch the grass. Of course, I discover that life gives back. It is a giver. It gives back in energy, clarity, concentration, calm, purpose. The more I let it take control, take over my schedule, the more free, creative and patient I feel. Work can only take until there is nothing left. Even the work I love dearly and care about takes and keeps taking. Life gives.