I live my life through the words I write
Observe how parts of you
shift,
ascend and recede like the tide,
introducing a new side of you
to yourself
every day.
Passions peak and wane
to our pleasure or dismay.
Try not to make meaning
of the waves,
for when at last you do,
they will already be gone,
leaving you in the still, shallow water
gently caressing your ankles.
Trees, forests, water
and time away from home
pulled my heart to the north,
to Waskesiu.
For years
I have heard, from people countless,
of Waskesiu being included in their summer plans
and each spoke of the place
with such fondness
that it made me want to stay away.
I did not want to find joy
in the same place as so many others
for fear that doing so
would render me ‘common’, ‘basic’,
or ‘just the same as everyone else’.
I fiercely believed
I needed to be different;
I needed to find a different place
to nourish myself
so I could stand apart from the crowd.
My mind told my heart
I was not allowed to go there;
I would not be happy in being the same.
With shifting priorities and family structures
this year, Waskesiu made sense
and yet,
I remained determined to spend the time
in a way that afterwards
when I shared my story
it would land outside what I assumed to be
the ‘typical’ experience.
We rented a cabin,
we brought our five-and-a-half month-old puppy,
we cooked our own food,
we hiked kilometers of trails.
We encountered hundreds of people
and dozens of dogs
and as I observed my surroundings
I saw people
laughing and talking and playing together,
running, reading, chasing after each other,
enjoying time alone,
in family gatherings spanning generations.
My eyes scanned the beaches
painted with rainbows of towels, umbrellas and bathing suits,
picnic tables holding families and food,
and hiking trails leading the way
deep into the forests
otherwise unseen from the main roads.
As I watched these hundreds of people
each in their own way
connecting with nature,
I felt my need for competition,
my need to be different,
my fear of fitting in,
fade away.
Instead, I began to think about
how many people
every summer
come to places like this
to be amongst the trees, on the sand, in the water,
away from home –
somehow
hundreds, if not thousands,
of people find some degree of reprieve and restoration
in coming here.
The unique becomes the universal.
I began to understand
the scenes before my eyes
illustrated a commonality
connecting us to our humanity –
that being in nature,
feeling the sun on our skin,
squeezing sand between our toes,
breathing in the pine of the forest
and living amongst the wilderness
are perhaps inherent needs
to us as human beings.
Perhaps it’s a need for me to wholly embrace,
rather than hold at an arm’s distance
in fear of this collective commonality,
what I need to nourish my soul.
Sameness is not always the enemy.
Standing in a river
waist-deep
feel the energy required
in your deepest muscles
to fight against the current
to stay still
where you are.
The river, the water, the current,
your life,
wants to sweep you away
in flow
but you resist.
Feel the energy required
to resist the flow of life.
You want to stay, here, or there,
but wouldn’t it be easier
to relax your muscles
lift your feet from the riverbed
and submit to the current?
Parts of the forest
can be seen and appreciated only
from the river’s view.
Relinquish control
release the past
and let the water carry you.
I will not swim away or under from
cresting waves of my own making
or destiny
but I carry no obligation to anyone
to accept and withstand
brutality of crashing water
of their own making
when only by circumstance do I happen
to be standing in the projected path.
When a tidal wave comes
I can choose
to cling to my surfboard
to dive beneath the wave
hold my breath
and emerge on the other side
where clear, calm water awaits me.
It does little good to plan out ahead of time
how events will transpire
when you do not know
outside of this moment,
anything.
Everything changes. Change is the constant.
From minute to minute
we are reborn.
We may look ahead to the waters we can see
on our projected path
but have you never seen
the unrelenting evolution of water,
its constant movement,
even when the surface appears to be still
enough to resemble glass?
The waters will change by the time you get there,
as will you,
so tell me, what the point is, in
trying to plan and control for things
that do not and may never exist?
Those who attempt this control
allow heartbreak and anxiety and fear
to anchor them in the water,
though the waves and currents and flow of life persist;
nature defies stagnancy.
Relinquish the need for control
and watch the anchors reel back up into the boat.
Allow movement and fluidity and
uncertainty to become your allies.
You can trust them, wholeheartedly,
they will not abandon you
nor lead you to harm.
Trust in the constant of change:
the only constant we know.
Every night,
once the sun has disappeared from the sky
granting space for darkness to expand
I free my body from clothing,
step beneath falling water.
Lights dim,
air moistening and heating,
steam rising as the water falls,
I release.
Wash away the thoughts,
the anxieties, celebrations,
feel them fall away
watch them swirl down the drain.
Sense the new, fertile ground
for new life to bloom from,
within, underneath, skin.
Stand beneath the falling water
eyes closed,
ritual of release.
An accidental, yet dramatic, spill
of water across the floor, the couch,
most of the living room, really,
included pages of notebooks.
Faint stains of pink and purple
enhancing the flavor of tap water
paint over the blank canvases of pages
seemingly waiting, longing, for color.
Pages adorn new textures from the places
wet, then dried.
A crunching sound with every flip
refusing to lay flat,
forever changed.
Does a blank page even exist?
Gift an accident the opportunity to be beautiful.
Every once in a while
things change.
The routine we once carried out automatically
requires revision.
Can we take the moment to appreciate
how nothing can stay the same
and how sometimes
it’s putting ourselves first
that invites the water to ripple?
Waters need to ripple
to help the river flow.
Wading through the murky waters
of words that don’t make sense together
but I write them together anyway
hoping they can make it work
but realizing on the second read-through
that no, it doesn’t work.
Wading through the muddy waters
realizing how muddy they can get
after spending time on dry land for a while,
I cannot expect to jump right in
to the crystal clear blue lake on the first page,
or the fifth.
Trudging through the mud and the muck,
the frustrations, shame and self-doubt
squish out from underneath my boots
to float up and around me in a haze.
At least I’m getting them up and out
to meet them in the eye.
With each step, the mud recedes,
and the clarity expands.
Just keep going,
just keep writing.
If I stand here,
still enough for long enough
and breathe,
I can feel the heat of the sun
penetrating my skin
warming me from the inside out,
I can feel the coolness
of the soft wind brushing
and sliding over me,
I can feel the solid, firm ground
unwavering beneath my feet.
I feel the heat and the coolness
at the same time,
inside and outside
my body.
Open my eyes to be blinded
by the sun
dancing across the water
and a new gust of wind
tousling my hair.
Heartbreakingly beautiful.
Dawning Words 