New Season

I’m heading into a new season this fall, beginning my two-year full-time MFA program in Creative Writing at UBC. We’re meeting in person, which will be a huge change after moving online for the the last 18 months of my BA. With vaccinations available to everyone aged twelve and up this summer, it seemed possible for a “return to normal” in September, but classes begin next week and the variants are still spreading at alarming rates.

If we’ve all learned anything during this never-ending pandemic, it’s to expect change at a moment’s notice. We plan, and we hope, getting vaccinations when they are offered, wearing masks indoors to stay safe, thoroughly washing our hands, and trying not to take unnecessary risks. We have no guarantees, and we try to manage our fear.

In any new season, I usually feel a mix of joy and dread. This fall, I have lots of different emotions crowding to the surface. I’ve loved my five month break from academia. I’ve read loads of mystery and crime novels, slept in, watched some great TV, played cards with Jason and the kids, walked, practiced some yoga and wrote. My three guiding words in this season were: rest, relax, rejuvenate. I wanted to be prepared and ready for the new challenges of being a full-time MFA student.

Part of me mourns the end of the summer. The other embraces it with open arms, as I feel like I prioritized rest and leisure, so I hope I’ll see the rewards once I jump back in to classes and assignments. I’m also going to be a TA for the first time for an undergrad writing class. This both excites and scares me. We never really know if we are up to a challenge simply by thinking about it. We have to jump in and do it in order to really find out.

We have another unexpected change in the form of Ava taking a gap year before starting at University of Victoria. For an entire year, I’ve been emotionally preparing for her to leave home, grieving for her while she was still here living with us. And then at the end of July, we found out that she wouldn’t have a place to live on campus, so after a flurry of searching for off-campus housing that didn’t exist or was ridiculously expensive, Ava made the decision to defer her admission for one year. So she remains at home, working a couple of part-time jobs to save more money for school next year.

A lovely surprise because I don’t have to let go of her quite yet, but still a change that I wasn’t expecting. Next week, William starts grade 10 at a new high school in our district, so for him it’s a new season as well. Something in my nature loves predictability and certainty, but too much stability becomes stale. We do need a bit of variety and spontaneity to keep us engaged and growing.

The older I get, the more I understand that I can’t think my way through change. I just have to walk it out. Trying to forecast exactly what will happen is a fool’s errand. Situations are too complex for that type of guesswork. As we say in the recovery movement, an expectation is a premeditated resentment. I’m trying to “cherish no outcome” as a friend of mine says. Instead I choose to believe I’ll have what I need for the challenges ahead at the moment I need them. Not before and not after.

Tomorrow the calendar turns over to September and a whole new season begins. What’s in store for you this fall?

Endings and Beginnings

We are in a time of transition, with seasons ending and new ones beginning. This pandemic, which has dragged on forever and a year, is entering a fresh stage with our province announcing a re-opening plan. All four of us in my immediate family have been vaccinated with our first dose, providing hope for a return to normalcy.

But what the hell does that even mean? Almost fifteen months into this thing, we have adjusted to masks, social distancing, staying at home, being extra cautious all the damn time. This weird version of life now feels normal to us. I can’t quite imagine getting on a plane again, going on vacation and out to restaurants, socializing with others, and speaking to a crowd of real live human beings instead of through a screen.

I’m reminded again of how strange and unsettling change can be. I know it’s good for me, like eating my vegetables and flossing my teeth, but I really hate not knowing what to expect. For this whole pandemic none of us were able to make any real plans, because staring into the future was like peering at a giant question mark. But now it appears hope is on the horizon, and yet I find myself still feeling cautious and uncertain.

Every ending has an invitation to a beginning built into it. I’m trying to focus on that as we move into the summer. Ava graduated this week from grade twelve and we’re preparing for her to attend the University of Victoria in September. She’s enrolled in the theatre program where she’ll work toward a BFA in acting. Another rough ending, when she moves out of our house, with an exciting beginning just after the tears have dried.

Perhaps the key is to make room for all of it. The sadness when one thing ends, then the vacuum of the liminal space where we feel unprepared and afraid, and finally the rejuvenation of a new experience. As Anne Lamott wrote, “My diocesan priest friend Terry Richie says the thing is not to try harder, but to resist less.” I’m inherently bad at resisting less, but it’s something I’m working toward. Flowing with the current instead of against it.

Each of us is at different stages of change, but when it comes to the pandemic we are all experiencing some of the same growing pains. We’re like butterflies emerging from the chrysalis, flying into the sunshine, freer to move around than we’ve been in over a year. Who knows what will happen next? Maybe that’s part of the allure. To allow ourselves grace when we feel timid, and to celebrate together when we feel brave. When one season ends, another one automatically begins. It’s hopeful and scary at exactly the same time.

Happy 18th Baby Girl

Of parenting, Gretchen Rubin said, “The days are long but the years are short.” This was a guiding principle for me when my kids were young. Now that they are both teenagers, I find the days to be as short as the years. Once they were out of the preschool season, time seemed to speed up, like it was set to fast forward.

Now Ava is about to turn 18. I’ve been sad about it since September, when I found a new counsellor to work with as I attempt to prepare for her to move out of our house. It takes me a long time to manage change. When she leaves for university in late August, I want to be past my own complicated feelings and into excitement for her as she launches into her own life. I can glimpse this possibility, but I’m not there yet, so I’m glad I started a year in advance.

All I know for sure right now is that I will really, really miss her. We all will. On the weekends, I listen to her and William laughing from the basement as they play Jedi: Fallen Order on his Xbox. Each interaction with Ava feels more precious now. Sharper, more defined, and meaningful. Our house will have a gaping hole in it when she’s not here every day. I find it really hard to even imagine.

At the same time, because life is endlessly complicated and nuanced, I’m thrilled to see Ava inching into her own independence. It’s an exciting time, with university acceptances and academic excellence scholarships and a new driver’s license and a sneaking sense of pride that maybe we haven’t done too badly after all in raising her. My best friend’s mom always said that the goal of parenting is to take a dependent baby and turn them into an independent adult. By that measure, I’m incredibly proud of Ava on this milestone 18th birthday.

She’s fun, warm, smart, responsible, goofy and empathetic. Our lives are so much better because she’s in them. I try to remind myself that she’s not going into outer space, only to university, but it’s still a massive sea change for our family. And I know that many other families have done this and survived it, but thinking about your child moving out one day in the future and walking through it are two different things. But we are right on the edge of this change, peering out at it, and I feel so many things at once.

You are so loved, baby girl. Watch out, world. Ava’s finishing up grade twelve, in this never-ending groundhog day pandemic, and then she’s jumping into her adult life with intense enthusiasm and spirit. It will be a fascinating adventure, and we are here for you always. Happy 18th birthday!

3 Words for 2021

Every year I choose 3 words to focus on. For 2021, I picked peace, priorities and potential (can you tell I’m in a poetry class in my final semester of my undergrad and we are focusing on techniques like alliteration?).

Living into these words looks different from year to year, but I like the process of noticing how they filter into my life month by month, and then reflecting on them at the end of the year. This is what I’m hoping to discover with each of these words:

Peace

I think of peace not as a permanent state of being but as a worthy goal to aim for. I long for peace in my relationships, within my own mind and heart, and for my words and actions to reflect peace toward others and the larger world. For me, peace is best achieved through controlled, deep breathing and meditation to slow my thoughts down. When I fail to achieve peace by speaking rudely to others or thinking violent thoughts, I try to centre myself, apologize, and try again to promote peace from the inside out.

Priorities

As Queen Oprah once said, “There’s no such thing as balance, only choices.” In 2021, I want to make better use of my time by better managing my choices. I try to remember Annie Dillard’s wise words, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” Years ago, I practiced saying no to what I didn’t want to do in order to have more time for what I really wanted to accomplish. Now, it’s much harder than that, for I have to say no to things I like in order to make space for what I love. My key priorities this year are writing, speaking, graduating university, resting and nurturing those I’m closest to (and being nurtured by them in return).

Potential

Late last year, I heard Rob Bell say in one of his RobCast’s, “As writers, we have to make peace with unrealized potential.” I loved this quote so much that I wrote it down and stuck it above my writing desk. Potential has long been the bane of my existence. For decades, I felt like I wasn’t doing enough. The fear that I was wasting my potential dogged me every single day. I’m exhausted by fighting with my own “unrealized potential.” This is the year I’m determined to lay down this endless grudge match with myself. I’m going to struggle with this concept until I’ve made peace with it.

What are your words for 2021? What areas of growth would you like to focus on in the coming year?

Feel Through

“You know how to push through, now it’s time to feel through.”

I’ve been seeing a new counsellor for the past few weeks, and in my last session she suggested it might be time to start feeling my way through instead of putting my head down and trying to power through like I usually do. The simplicity of the phrase “feel through” has been helping me slow down and stay in the moment more.

We live in the information age, where logic is worshipped above all else. My counsellor has this visual of a line drawn with her finger across her throat and then her hand raised to the top of her head. She does this when I’m processing a thought verbally but I’m staying completely in my head instead of moving down into the heart space where my feelings are stored.

She repeatedly says, “Stay quiet for a moment and notice what is happening in your body.” This is so new for me that I find it uncomfortable, but simply breathing and feeling gets me much closer to the breakthrough I’m looking for. Getting out of my head is critical for this process to work. Now, when I’m talking to her or to others, I’m likely to stop mid-sentence, draw a line across my throat and indicate my head, and then start again from a soul place rather than a brain place.

This feel through stuff is powerful. It’s the engine of our lives. The pain and grief I’m wanting to work with doesn’t dwell in my head. It’s in my body. Ditto for the memories I’m trying to access in order to understand where some of my faulty coping mechanisms originated from. I have to go below the line of my neck to find those, and I know I’m close when I start shaking or crying before speaking about them.

We’ve all been through quite a year in 2020. In these quiet days before Christmas I like to spend time with my journal, reflecting on what happened while looking ahead to a year with fresh possibilities. There’s a lot of sadness to feel before moving on to more pleasant emotions like hope or joy. The only way out is ever through.

I wish you peace and rest this December, along with space to feel through instead of simply pushing through. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.