Weightless

I did something I’ve never done before. I booked a one-hour time slot to experience a float tank and what is called “Floatation Therapy.” Why? Life is a relentless rush, steams of light and fury, full of intrusions and distractions and constantly DOING. I was open—searching?—for a relaxing, therapeutic experience to calm my rapidly firing nervous system. Additionally, full disclosure: I booked an appointment at No.9 North Float Centre and Wellness Spa in Peterborough because I know the owner, and I wanted to support her small business.

I went into the experience with zero expectations; I didn’t anticipate how fully the immersion would be into dreamy wakefulness; did not expect the euphoric sense of calm and peacefulness that I walked away with. In other words, floatation therapy bordered on being a religious experience for me—a communion with the sacred— and you’re hearing back from the converted.

What is a Float Tank and What are the Benefits?

I’ll give you my non-technical description. A float tank is a huge tank (laying on my back, I could stretch out my limbs in both directions and barely touch the walls) filled to about knee height with a briny water. The water is heated to near body temperature. The tub is enclosed, making it a tank, with a door that you can easily push open. But once that door closes, there is an absence of sound and light, a sort of sensory deprivation.

According to WebMD, here are some of the health benefits, including relaxation, migraine relief, stress relief and detoxification, as well as improved sleep:

“The main benefit of using a sensory deprivation tank is to ease mental anxiety and muscle tension. Due to how buoyant the Epsom salt and water solution is, you can fully relax all of your muscles when floating. This is similar to experiencing zero gravity.

Floating in a tank can also relieve migraines and provide stress relief and detoxification since Epsom salts are high in magnesium, which can remove harmful substances such as free radicals from your body.

Free radicals are small particles that can damage your cells and increase inflammation, resulting in the development of conditions such as cancer and autoimmune disorders.‌

Magnesium can also promote bone and heart health, and even improve insulin sensitivity, which can help prevent diabetes.”

I didn’t know, specifically, about any of these studied health benefits before I booked my appointment, but here is my honest take on the experience (and why you should try it!)

My Floatation Therapy Experience:

Cleanliness is important to me, especially when my skin is going to soak in somebody else’s tub for an hour. The entire process was sanitary and clean. Earplugs were provided to block the water from getting into my ears. I was in my own private sparkling room that contained the tub and a shower for pre- and post-rinsing, as well as soap products to use. I was provided with clean flipflops, fresh towels and a robe for afterwards. You can wear a bathing suit if you want, but I decided to strip down for the full constriction-free experience (and I recommend this.) There is a light inside the tank, but it’s only used to bring you back at the end. Yes, I did say bring you back, because the sensation I felt by about halfway in was that of being elsewhere, in a dreamlike meditative state.

First Impressions:

Closing the door to the tank was a bit scary at first, because it’s completely DARK, and you’re naked, and the surroundings are unfamiliar. I was extra cautious not to get the salty water in my eyes when I first laid back, but once I got myself in the star fish position, I began to relax.

The first thing I noticed, once I got beyond the absence of light, was the tickling sensation of the salt. If you’ve ever been in the salty ocean, you know that salt can burn or leave the skin with an itchy sensation. I tried to resist the slight itchiness, which is also, in part, my own itchiness at being still. Eventually, I succumb to the sensation and any discomfort from the salt content fell away. I stopped noticing the physicality of my body.

The next demon to content with was muscle soreness in my neck. I had done a strength workout that morning that involved overhead presses with heavy weights and push ups, and my neck and shoulders were unhappy. When I first laid back, my head felt too heavy, like I was going to sink down too low, and so I initially put both my hands behind my head to cradle my cranium for extra support. But around the time I accepted the itchiness of the salt content in the water, I realized my neck pain wasn’t just lessened but gone completely. If you’ve ever experienced muscle soreness, I cannot recommend floatation therapy enough. In speaking to another friend afterwards, she mentioned a friend of hers with chronic backpain finally achieved relief in this way.

The Squirrels of the Mind:

And so once I’d dealt with the squirrels of the physical: itchy skin and body aches, all that was left to contend with were the squirrels of the mind, chasing their own tails.

Thankfully, I am a person who likes being in her own company—ha! And so I floated there, like resting on a bed of Jello, occasionally dropping my arms and legs down into the thick water, like slicing through butter, making slight movements to keep myself entertained, like a slow motion water dance, and I let go of all sense of time. I was told the Spa manager would knock when my time was up. That did not stop my brain from saying: I wonder how long I’ve been here? Has it been 20 minutes? 5 minutes? 40 minutes? Will I hear him knock? Of course I’ll hear him knock. I wonder what he’s doing out there right now? I wonder what other people do in here? Look, I can feel the wall. Here’s the top, here’s the bottom. There’s a side, and the other side. What’s the best way to pass the time…how long has it been? And on and on and on…until eventually, I stopped caring, and I felt a sort of tingling sensation all over, and I thought of being in the womb, and I felt held and cared for. I experienced an overwhelming sense of wellbeing. I was also overjoyed at the idea of having an hour to myself, a complete hour, where no husband or animal or child or phone would ding at me, demanding my attention. I don’t think I realized how completely trained and owned I am by my phone.

Book a Full Hour:

The dark and quiet held me there, suspended, and the sensation of joy, peacefulness, and relaxation inside me was deep and complete. The Spa manager commented beforehand, “Some people can get claustrophobic.” But I did not feel that once. He also told me that “an hour is a long time for a beginning,” but I’m really glad I booked an hour because it took me a while to get over my squirrel brain and shut the noise from the outside world out.

Probably by halfway into the experience, I stopped feeling anything at all, and experienced a sort of weightlessness. How good it feels to be carried in this way without placing a burden on anyone else.

Altered State of Consciousness:

At the end of the hour, I did hear the Spa Manager’s gentle knock on the door outside my room, but the sound came from far away. Simultaneously, a gentle light came on inside the tank and filled my eyelids with a sort of peach brightness. I hadn’t been sleeping, exactly, but the sensation then was of waking up. I woke from a dreamlike state, and I was sorry for the experience to be over, while simultaneously grateful to have found myself coming back from somewhere. My body tingled, radiated, in a pleasant way. I stepped out of the tank. Turned on the warm shower. And tried to process where I went in that headspace. An ‘altered state of consciousness’ may come the closest to finding the right words.

Helpful Tips from the Converted:

Don’t touch your face or your eyes once your hands have gone in the salty water! And wear the ear plugs. Salt water can burn. When you first get inside, leave the door open for a minute or two and trace your hand along the edge of the tub to get your bearings. Close your eyes. Use the floatation head ring to support your head and neck. Make the time your own.

Be gentle with yourself if it takes a while for the squirrel brain to settle in its nest. And then, simply, let go.

How To Skip A Stone

How to Skip a Stone

Thoughts on Writing & Teaching Creative Writing

My family once spent a magical week at a cottage in Amberley Beach, doing almost nothing. It was springtime—the water too cold to swim. The two big kids were smaller, and our baby was a toddler. I say I did “almost nothing” because the one thing I did do was read voraciously, as though a day unfolded by turning pages. The other thing I did do was spend time hanging out with my family. Around sunset, we would walk along the Lake Huron shoreline as the sun melted into the horizon and dissolved into a pool of glass. The water, come sunset, became subdued, almost reverent and obedient to the disappearing sun as if this might be the last day—this could be it.

We walked and talked and somewhere along the way, Dan stooped over to pick up a stone, which he then skipped across the water in a graceful arc. I joined him. The lake was quiet, only the gentlest mewl, like a kitten lapping milk from a bowl. The kids’ job was to locate the flat stones and pass them to daddy or mom, and then of course, they wanted to do their own throws as well, make the stones ricochet off the mirror the way Dan or I could. Admittedly, Dan was a better stone skipper than I was. His throws would go farthest and skip many times, while mine fell short, jumped with less enthusiasm. He had better technique.

With inexperience, and lacking any technique beyond “chuck it”, the kids’ rocks unceremoniously arced into the air and then made a plunk and a plop as they careened through the surface to find their new home on the lake shore bottom.

I picked up stone after stone, attempting to best my husband’s records, but his distance and amount of skips doubled or tripled mine every time.

“How do you do that?” I asked him.

“Practice.”

He confessed that, as a child, he used to skip stones with his dad.  “When at the beach, you skip rocks,” he told me, and he lived close to shore. Stone after stone of his, gliding across the water like a flying saucer, like a gull touching down for little sips, before gliding back up. Dan skipped stones like a form of meditation; he skipped stones as though the act were greater than the sum of its parts, an impulse that cannot be taught and comes from within. He skipped stones for the joy of the game.

I, on other hand, had thrown rocks here and there, but I had never been intentional about improving my stone skipping skills. But intentionality is the key; not only the act of throwing the stone. Intention and repetition—the intention to improve. I could likely improve on my own after many hours of practice, but I could also have asked Dan to critique my stance, my grip, my force. I could have turned to him as someone who has figured something out about the art of stone skipping—but I didn’t. My nature is too competitive. If I had listened to him, I might have made adjustments that could have led to better stone skipping not according to his standard, but against previous versions of myself.

Some instructions are more easily explained between parent and child than between husband and wife.

Dan passed Ariel a stone. He taught her how to balance the cold weight in her hand just right, held flat like a pancake between thumb and forefinger. He adjusted her grip, and she let the pebble fly. Plop, plunk. She picked up another stone and chucked it. Plop, plunk. Time after time. The sound of failure—No. The sound of working one’s way to success.

We cheered every time, anyway. She didn’t need to be told she was doing it wrong; she needed to understand that she was on her way and see her dad’s example of what was possible. She needed to form the memory of a fire burning so that later she could reignite.

Everything I’ve written here, on the magical shores of Lake Huron, can be applied to teaching creative writing and encouraging writing students (stay with me here). Students need loads of writing practice and a multitude and variety of writing examples. Students need to read good books. Every student will benefit from knowing what they’re doing right; and where they can further improve. The teacher’s job is to provide models and offer suggestions for improvement; the student’s job is to listen and learn. And practice. Practice without the fear of the plop and plunk.

Let plop, plunk become the mantra for learning how to fail.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, besides reading, skipping stones was the experience I most recalled from that week. The activity we engaged in together created memorable moments of joy. In this way, writing can also be a collaborative effort, when we think of writing as a chorus of human voices humming the sounds of our collective experience. The teacher’s job is to help students hear that sound, to teach them how to listen and then find their voice, and encourage them to keep singing. Keep singing.

Teach your students to write as the water on that calm day, come sunset: reverent and obedient to the disappearing sun, as if this might be the last day—this could be it.

Summer Hours

What is a summer for?

This question is reminiscent of a series of questions Mary Oliver asks in her famous poem “The Summer Day”: “Tell me, what else should I have done?/ Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?/ Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

What’s a summer for? Poetry, books, literature. Reading.

Summer is for the senses: smells, sounds, taste, sights. Touch. Yesterday, I watched a baby bunny skirt its way around the edge of our pool, sample the greenery. A pileated woodpecker, with its red-headed cap, sat nearby the bunny with its two teenage fledglings. The three of them pecked and dined on the ants crossing our cement pathway. Two cardinals, a male and female, flashy crimson and a dull brownish-grey, fluttered in the nearby branches. A summer is for rebirth and reimaginings of the self. Those who know how to summer will know how to winter.

I spent two weeks at my cottage with family and in the final moments of our stay, with the heavy rains at bay, the tang of damp earth and rainwater charged my nostrils as I made my way toward the end of the dock for one last jump, wrapped in my towel, flecks of cedar tree bits plastered to bare feet, the elongated hillsides in the distance. As I approached, the dock heaved with the lake’s gentle ripples while the grey skies held themselves back, like overstuffed bellies. I dove in and the black wetness coated my skin and held me like a baby seal. Misty pines sat perched on the horizon in my field of vision, as I bobbed there, and a trail of fog traced its way across the surface of the water like the finger that drags across the lover’s nude body. I stayed that way a moment, in my selkie state, admiring the view, and hanging in the limbo of vacation mode. The return home, to my real life, would mean otherwise. A summer is for recovering the senses, immersing oneself in the natural world and stripping down to only what is necessary.

And what of summer’s taste? Waxy green beans with their downy skins, steamed only a minute or two to limpen their bodies and then douse in butter, salty with a hint of sweet. Ontario corn, peaches and cream, grape vine tomatoes, baby tomatoes, snap peas, snow peas, cucumbers, zucchinis, purple potatoes, red potatoes, fingerling potatoes, white potatoes, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, cherries, plums, carrots, beets, watermelon, apples, lettuces plucked from the garden like sheaths of nature’s mane. The Niagara peaches, succulent nectar, their juice drips down my chin, eyes closed in pleasure. If the sun abandoned its way of being a burning gas in the sky and moved to Earth in search of its solid yet liquid sugary form, I believe it would choose to embody the peach, recognizing itself instantly in the heavenly taste of its origins. A summer is for devouring.

I’m sitting outside right now and the leaves on the maple trees are floating—I don’t know how else to describe them. Tree petals that rise and fall like breath, such is the gentleness of the wind, nothing more than a deep sigh, a honeyed caress. The birch leaves flutter like confetti high above, and the sun, which touches everything with its spotlight, pierces their tender skin, illuminating their insides as though studying the inner workings of life itself. The sky is clear and blue blue blue, the blue of pale irises and our faded patio umbrella. Summer is for skies and creation.

The onset of August marks a turning point in the summer season. I feel the shift in the air first thing on my dog walk in the morning. The air has a crispness that wasn’t there before. The tree frogs sing into the heat of the afternoon, with long sustained foretelling notes. Fall is coming…fall is almost here. And I will mourn summer’s departure, in the quiet moments, while steeping myself in her dwindling light every day that I can. Summer is for carrying with you, a heat that settles in the tan of your skin; a heat that’s meant to last through the rest of the year.

The House of Dreams

The House of Dreams

The house of dreams is a place we seek that also seeks us.

Once you step inside, you won’t want to leave—but know there is no returning.

Fear is the main reason most people won’t arrive there. They don’t believe that they can.

You will know when it’s time to enter; you’ll feel a pressure in your bones, a flexing in your fascia, the tipping sensation in your guts. Because that’s what it takes to step inside the house of dreams: a fortitude of will.

In the house where you used to live, the mirror on the wall held an image; you’ll stop looking at her and cease all chatter pertaining to what you are, are not, and could never be. Because in the house of dreams, you become who you are. All that you already were and always will be. You are no longer the person looking in that mirror and peering into an absence or a deficit. The ‘you’ in the house of dreams is fully present and resplendent and shining in her glory of oneness and selfhood. The ‘you’ in the house of dreams is not a reflection of anyone else—any other man’s greatness—the triumph is completely her own.

In the house of dreams, there is a threshold, and once the line is crossed, where you are standing now—among your fiercest dreams—the sensory experience is a hurricane of magnificence, a glittering room of spring blossoms. An invisible door shuts behind you into a white mist. The room you came from ceases to exist. Your trepidation is no longer fear-based, it’s…anticipation.

 For most people—for you—reaching the house of dreams takes time. Decades. Even, millennia. Lifetimes. You continue to knock at the door until you land your knuckles right, and now you have. You will. The house of dreams is the destination sought by the brave.

What is the house of dreams? Where are you now? It’s as much a feeling as it is a place, or a fourth state of matter…When you try to grasp an image in your mind’s eye, you picture the lip of the doorframe, decorated white and silver, the smoky mist ahead and at your back, and the anticipation of having…arrived. You are here. Where you are meant to be. The place you were headed but didn’t truly know it. Until now.

Now that you are here in the house of dreams, welcome. (One would never feel unwelcome, in the house of dreams.)

The house of dreams is where dreams are born and get lived out. To be invited in means you have worked hard. You have likely suffered, lost, grieved, sacrificed. Those knuckles may be bloodied. Your place in the house of dreams is earned.

 The house of dreams belongs to you and you alone. It’s your house of dreams. And it was your work that got you here. No mirrors hang in the house of dreams. No pictures, either. Only your smiling face right now. Here. Present.

 Only you—living out your dreams.

Your friends—your true friends—will be there, right beside you, patting your shoulder and prodding you forward on your way to the entrance. They make it safer to go inside. They give you their wisdom like fairy godmothers bestowing gifts, but you take only what you need and leave the rest. Every decision in the house of dreams is yours.

Now, you have arrived. But I don’t have to tell you that because you already know. You feel the pulse under your skin like the fever of desire. The sweet brow beads of sweat gathered, now dry, bone dry. Whisked away with every doubt. Every denial of self.

The house of dreams is where she steps into her full power.

Take off your shoes. Stay a while. Curl up on the lilac sparkly rug that has suddenly appeared. Let your breathing slow, steady.

If you find yourself, standing on the threshold, deciding whether or not to go in, take a deep breath and please, believe in yourself. Once you decide to take that step—once you step through that door—there’s no turning back. You will be standing in the room in the house of your dreams filled with wonder. And that wonder—is you.

SMILE

The girls’ school photos came home in their backpacks. My oldest has a closed-mouth smile, she’s wearing her navy school uniform sweatshirt and has her hair pulled back so that it appears she only has poofy bangs, nothing else. She says she likes her picture, that this year’s school photo is her favourite one, which for a preteen—or for anyone, really—is a win. Her lion eyes shine. The youngest’s portrait is a sly cheeky smile, round baby cheeks, with her chin slightly tucked. She’s feigning shy. Her pearly white teeth flash, and a turquoise flower she chose from the drawer is pinned to her mane, couched in a bed of curls that pulls her whole look together. She is a picture of innocence. And then our middle child, Elyse. Her smile is glittery, glasses mostly straight on her face, and she’s leaning back slightly, her shoulders pulled up by her ears as though bracing herself. Her beautiful smile is punctuated with holes where teeth still need to grow and oversized teeth in the places they already have. Her smile is perfect. She’s plucky and super cute, and behind that grin there’s a spark. Each of their photos brings a genuine smile to my face. They each smiled for the camera in their own way, in a way true to their individual personalities.

It’s a quiet and sunny Sunday morning, a chill in the air, and I’m walking my dog with Dan down the street in a huff, ranting freely about something I care deeply about, but that doesn’t pertain to the folks in my neighbourhood—so I’m really letting loose. I am angry, genuinely angry, and expressing my genuine anger to my husband, my confidante. The idea of expressing the anger on the walk is to process and eradicate it in a productive manner, i.e. non-violence. Well. At the peak of what was supposed to be my private diatribe, an older woman across the street happened to appear from her car, catching me off guard, and immediately picked up on my saltiness.

            “Smile!” she calls out, with an easy laugh, hands on her hips. Smile.

            Smile. I repeat the word under my breath with venom. Did she just tell me to smile?

Words cannot adequately express the rage I felt billowing out of me like a thick cloud when she goaded me on with that word, and told me how I am supposed to act. Smile. Women, especially women, are told to smile. Conceal your discontent, your ill-will, your heartache, grief, rage, sense of injustice, fear and just…smile. Well.

I threw the dog leash to Dan and stormed down the street, afraid that if I paused to look back I might say something to the woman about minding her own goddamn business that I would instantly regret. After all, she was only trying to be nice, right? WRONG. She was enforcing the rules. What rules? The rules of engagement. Society’s rules that hold women to a certain impossible standard. The rules of female decorum. She wasn’t telling me to smile for me. She was telling me to smile for him. She wasn’t listening to my true feelings like Dan was perfectly capable of doing on his own, she was telling me how to feel, to BE NICE like her. To be fake. Smile. Keep those messy feelings inside of you, tidy them away with the stupid grin on your face. Be a good girl. She was looking at me through the eyes of the patriarchal gaze, the one that seeks to control women and how they behave both publicly and privately. She was likely brought up under the male gaze and is only enforcing and preaching what she knows, what’s been stamped into her without her even noticing the pressure.

Would it ever occur to her that maybe I don’t want to smile if I feel shitty inside? That smiling would only make the feeling ten times worse. That smiling a fake smile is for the people on the outside, not the person within. That men are never told to smile, especially not when they are raging. Did it occur to her that my actions and behaviours are purely my own to dictate? That I’m pretty sure, when it comes to smiling, I was an early bloomer, and that I don’t require reminders on when a smile should occur. That being told to smile rises violent thoughts inside of me. That being told to smile makes me want to rage.

My girls know it’s okay not to smile if they don’t want to, if they don’t feel like it, if they’re having a hard day or whatever the reason may be. No reason or explanation needed. I tell my girls they don’t have to pretend to like someone either, but I do ask them to be respectful. I try to avoid asking them to “be nice” except, please, with each other, and I focus instead on “be kind,” which I would teach any child of mine. And while I may have asked them to smile for the camera in the past, I don’t anymore, or at least I’m working on it. Not because I don’t want them to be happy­—I do, I very much do want them to be happy. On their own terms. Real smile, real happiness.

By the time I rounded the bend, and Dan caught up to me, the number of swear words in my head was already diminishing. I could see the whole situation for what it was: ridiculous. I will not be told how to feel. Especially not by some stranger on the street. As the walk continued, the physicality of movement and fresh air calmed me, as I hoped it would. By mid-way home, having adequately expressed my vehement disgust and other feelings of anger at being told how to be in the world, I let out a laugh, in spite of myself. A feeling of joy erupted; it was the sound of being listened to. I felt heard, which allowed me to genuinely smile and enjoy the rest of my walk with my husband.

I didn’t even need to fake it.

Summer’s Embers: On Getting A Book Deal

Summer’s embers. What does that mean? It means summer is burning down, petering out, ending (it’s done)—but what do we know about embers?  Embers smolder, they keep burning even when the fire is mostly out. Embers glow in the night, in darkness, hot coals in relief. Embers hold on to their fire.

This summer, I had my ember moment.

For ten years, I have been writing a book in one form or another. Ten years of lighting the pages and then burning myself down. Ten years that resulted in the completion of an unpublished memoir and a second memoir, I DON’T DO DISABILITY AND OTHER LIES I’VE TOLD MYSELF, a complete new book, in the form of a collection of essays. Art feeds on art, and so fanned the flames.

In the dying days of my summer vacation in Greece I knew this: my manuscript of essays was complete. I read the book twice over before I left, having written and polished the individual essays over years. I spent two weeks prior to the trip feverishly sending out queries to desirable publishers. Their responses could take months, years even. I wasn’t sure if I could wait. But of course I could wait; I’ve been waiting for ten years.

The email came in Greece as I was sitting in a chaise lounge on the beach reading a book, the day late, the sun winding down, the waves calm and rhythmically lapping the shore. I reached for my phone, opened my emails, and saw the new message at the top, the one from the publisher. I read the first two sentences and burst into tears. I could barely contain my emotion to read through the rest of that email. What did it say? It wasn’t a book deal, no, not yet—but the editor’s words held the real promise of one. And I knew, full stop inside of my being, that I DON’T DO DISABILITY AND OTHER LIES I’VE TOLD MYSELF was going to be published. I felt this truth burn inside me.

Several months prior, I was talking to a literary journal editor about my book. I was so certain about the need for my work on disability parenting and motherhood and being a woman, and my determination to make myself and my daughter seen, that when I paused, the editor looked me in the eye and said, “It’s already done.” I didn’t have a book deal or a connection or anything tangible to know for certain that publication would happen, but I believed in the work. I believed fiercely in my work.

What that email on the beach said was I SEE YOU. Not in those words, but in how the publishing editor described my book, in how she wanted to take my project on, in how she wrote, “Can we talk?” And isn’t that what everybody wants? To be seen and heard for their ideas and who they are? To be understood?

And so in this quiet and intimate way, I am sharing with you the story of how I came to get my first book deal. I DON’T DO DISABILITY AND OTHER LIES I’VE TOLD MYSELF has found a home with Dundurn Press, a Toronto based publisher I deeply admire. Release date to come, stay tuned.

I am no longer that ember, close to burning out.

I am pure celebration; fireworks, shooting across the sky.

Poseidon’s Handmaiden

I want to tell you something about Greece. I’m here for two weeks, and this place has made an impression, taken hold. I will start with right now, this moment I’m in.

I’m sitting outside in a bamboo chair on a white linen cushion, my feet rest on the cool stone slab flooring of my white adobe style home. Bamboo shoots create a thatched roof overhead, dappled sunlight filters through. It’s 1:00 p.m., seven hours ahead of home time, which means it’s hot, too hot to be out walking around on the scorching sand that forms the dusty road that leads to the beach, only five minutes away on foot. I’m listening to “Summer” (The Carters), the happy cries of nearby children float in on the persistent breeze that blows through the open patio. My view is of Agios Prokopios, Naxos’ most famous beach, arguably one of the best beaches in the world. My hair is damp and dry salty strands fall in my field of vision as I type. A yacht and a handful of sailboats hover on the horizon. Mostly what I see is blue blue sea. Fifty shades. A scattering of umbrellas along a golden stretch of sand that reaches 1.5 km. Directly in front of me, bunches of green grapes with a blush of red attached to a sprawling vine rest on the seriated roof of my neighbour below. Two bright blue towels, hung with care on the chair behind me, flutter like beating hearts. Our door, painted a pale blue the exact colour of the sky, hangs open. If I were to invite you in, we could admire the marble countertops in the kitchen and bathroom commonly found in Greece, and feast on the rich colour of the bougainvillea bush outside my bedroom window or gaze longingly at the sea. I could explain how long it took me to understand that nothing but human waste goes in the toilet—no, not even toilet paper.

Come back outside with me for a moment, back to the Aegean Sea and the pale blue sky. Not 20 minutes ago, I had the best swim of my life. Ariel and I walked the length of the beach, about 25 minutes, to eat at a creperie in town, and then Ariel, who didn’t feel like swimming, took on the role of porter for our things while I turned in the direction of the sea.

Coarse sand balances my weight; the first step at shore’s edge, toes submerged, sends a chill up my spine, which is a relief because I’m sweating from the blazing sun. I pause momentarily, then a few more steps and I’m in up to my chest. I can see down to my toes. As I propel myself forward, an open expanse of crystal-clear water unfolds. If you are a person who loves swimming, as I am, then I don’t have to tell you there is no greater joy than the ‘good part’ of a body of water, the place best for swimming without obstacle. Here, the good part doesn’t end. No debris—seaweed or rocks or visible wildlife or otherwise. The water cool, but not cold—refreshing. No waves, save for the occasional gradual swell, a joyful rising, not unlike the feeling inside my body as I make my way down the coastline, waving to my daughter on shore who cools her legs in the gentle breaking surf. I swim and swim and swim, passing the occasional Greek or Italian, and swim some more for over a kilometer. A more gorgeous swim, I cannot imagine. The person who designed infinity pools has visited a Greek beach, perhaps this one, I am sure of it.

My eyes have grown accustomed to the salty water, and I submerge completely and stroke my arms one, two, there, four, five, six. Resurface for breath. Ariel beckons me back to shore. I depart, having completed my journey along the wide horseshoe. The sea’s fingerprints trace down the length of my body, leaving its salty residual, my hair crispy and clumped and wild. I walk to the outdoor shower to rinse off, slip on my flip flops, then clop the five minutes home.

I am Poseidon’s handmaiden now, lured into the sea’s cradle like men drawn by the sirens’ whispers. Poseidon, mighty Olympian who presides over the sea, I aim to serve. Even apart, the wind, its saline brine, carries reminders of the sea.

Likely I will make it back to Canada—likely. But if I do not, blame the gods.

Magic Tokens

I‘m writing this in Toronto, sitting at a picnic table bench, on a patio behind a modern café. Two magic tokens are tucked somewhere in my bag. Last night, I stood on a stage in front of a room full of people and read from my essay “Navel-Gazing, a Revolution & a Love Story: The Importance of the Self and Stories of the Marginalized” recently published in the Humber Literary Review where I argue for the importance of personal narratives. I point out that the dismissal of those narratives by the literary community, with insults such as “navel-gazer!”, is just another way of silencing marginalized groups. In the piece, I weave in the narrative of witnessing a female friend fall in love with another woman, and I mistakenly insert myself into their narrative. This is perhaps my way of saying just because you don’t identify or see yourself in a story doesn’t mean the story isn’t of value. Quite the opposite. The morning of the reading, I was paddling the 5 km perimeter of my cottage lake, my writing friend a distant paddle board dot. We spent two glorious days together writing, and during that time my friend received some difficult news.

The cottage lake was still. The air held its breath. And paddling in my kayak, I could see the rows upon rows of trees layering the hills, and I could see a specific cluster of towering white pines reflected in the water in front of me. That reflection, I thought, it’s real. The reflection in my computer screen less so. Real in the sense of nature; nature that is true and good and right and calming. No artifice. No tricks. Yet, infinitely more magical. I could see the benefit our surroundings were having on my friend. I could see that being together, when receiving difficult news, is better than being apart.

I believe in the magic of the natural world, but I also believe in other forms of magic, too. I believe in magical thinking. I believe in the magic of each other.

A long-time friend of mine showed up to my reading, along with her three kids—her youngest being three. When I posted the event and invited the world to attend, it somehow didn’t occur to me that I’d be reading in a bar. Bars generally being unwelcoming places for small children of which my friend has three. When she asked me if she could bring them beforehand I didn’t hesitate, “Looking forward to seeing you!” I texted back, oblivious. The alternative being that she didn’t come. My own kids wouldn’t be there. The bartender is thankfully gracious and inviting, the literary crowd friendly, the kids well-behaved, my friend a trooper.

Right before my reading, her youngest, hair combed and pulled into several adorable buns, gives me a thumbs up and an eye wink. “Is this the show?” she asks me. “Yes,” I tell her with a smile as the land acknowledgement is read. “She’s going to be so disappointed,” I whisper laugh with my friend.

But as it turns out, my friend will text me the next day that they had a great time and “even the kiddos enjoyed themselves.” As it turns out, you can will an experience to bring you joy, even when it risks not being so, just by being together. As it turns out, there can be magic in a room, on the stage, and I’m talking about the magic of other people and their willingness to love you.

I read alongside a Giller Prize-nominated writer and spent a long time later talking to another writer whose short story collection was nominated for the Danuda Gleed Award. Both prestigious literary prizes in Canada. Maybe their sparkle will rub off on me? Does literary magic work that way? I hope so. Later, on my Uber ride home back to my friend’s where I will stay the night, I tell the driver all about the evening. I will then recall that I talk quite a bit, and that my writing friend and I had laughed about this at the cottage on our drive home. The driver will encourage me, “It’s okay, writers should talk a lot.” And that, in itself, will be a sort of magic. “Yes,” I agree, “writers need to have an opinion, something to say.” I recognize the difference between talking too much and having something to say.

And perhaps the thing I have to say is that when I’m done writing this post, I will be heading to the hospital with my daughter—again. This time, planned. This time, welcome. As much as a hospital trip can ever be. Dental surgery overdue. Dental surgery that we hope will bring her and us much needed relief. And there is a magic in the doctors who are magicians of life and there is a magic in relieving my daughter’s pain, which is real, as real as my own that transpires on her behalf. Because she is a part of me.

Before the reading, at my writer friend’s gorgeously renovated high park home, she will descend the staircase in a flurry and hold two tokens up in front of me. “These are for you,” she says. I am awestruck by the gift of these good luck talismans whose dulled shine have passed many hands. How thoughtful. I look to her, grateful. “For my reading?” I say in earnest, “for good luck?”

“No,” she says, “for the subway!”

My magic tokens, I will call them, clutching them both in my hand. Talismans of good luck. And when we arrive at the subway gates, on the way to my reading, the tokens are no longer accepted and the security guard magically opens the gates and lets me pass for free with a wave of his hand.

The night is a success; the reading goes off without a hitch. The children are mesmerized. The crowd a delight.

Simply by believing they would, the magic tokens hold their promise

Cottage Dispatches: On Making the Dock Whole

We’ve only owned a cottage since Covid, and after replacing the original sinking dock with a brand spanking new one, we’ve had to figure out how to manage the moving parts. The first winter, we were dismayed to find a part of our dock frozen close to the shore—not where we left it. The dock comes in three pieces: the weighted ‘island’ floating dock, which is supposed to stay in place and freeze into the ice; the ramp (middle section), which gets removed for the winter; and the stationary platform permanently connected to shore.

Last spring, we simply arrived at the cottage and voila, the island was rescued and the ramp was magically set back up thanks to the help of a rescue crew who retrieved the wayward floating dock, and put the whole thing back together for us. A hired rescue crew. I naively thought the rescue was part of the initial package we paid for because of how casually the owner responded when I phoned to tell him what had happened. “No problem,” he said, “we’ll come fix that for you.” Whatever demented part of my brain believed that a company of men would drive an hour to rescue a dock, install it, and drive an hour back is now forever cured by the hundreds of dollars we paid, rightfully so, in labour. And so this year is the first time we are on our own for dock reinstallation.

The chasm between the floating dock island weighed down by 1,000 pounds that freezes into the ice through the winter and the stationary permanent platform seems woefully far, standing back at the shore. Dan and I scratch our heads. Our job is to install the ramp, which consists of a metal base with a massive 250-pound floating device that sits in place with the careful insertion of four sturdy pins. Once the metal ramp is in place, we have to lay down four sections of wooden planks on top to complete the installation. Which end to attach first? How to not crush one’s finger or fling oneself off the edge of the dock into the frigid rocky depths? How to avoid slamming hundreds of pounds of expensive equipment and damaging said equipment essential to cottage life? How to avoid going into the lake?

Well, as it turns out: brainstorming, trial and error, problem solving, meticulous planning and generosity of spirit.

One of us would have to go in the May water. That person would be Dan.

After debating dropping the 250-pound platoon attached to the metal frame of the ramp off the edge of the stationary platform, we rescinded. The idea seemed both foolish and dangerous. We would have no way to control the beast from smashing off the platform and huge boulder below. Instead, Dan’s idea, we ferried the ramp out from shore, and this worked quite well. Point, Dan and Adelle.

Dan has a better sense of how things work than I do, so I listened as he problem solved. Sometimes his lengthy pondering can rub up against my let’s just do it! attitude, but I see the benefit of carefully thinking things through here.

The wind seems to be picking up, and while we do ferry the heavy ramp out with success, our attempts to line up the unruly ramp to install the two metal pins on each side is another story. The oversized pins serve as the dock’s hinges. We go along with Dan’s proposed solution first. Attach the two pins closest to us, shore side, then attempt to manoeuvre the other two in. But the dock won’t quite move that way. No matter how much we pull and prod, we can only get three out of four mental pins in place.

The floating dock is immobilized by four 250-pound weights. Each of those weights is attached with heavy rope to an anchor accessible by unscrewing its respective wood panel. We hate messing with the ropes. That’s how we lost our floating dock the first summer, the ropes came untied in the waves and loosened all the way. This past winter, we added a heavy metal chain from floating dock to land for extra security.

Three out of four pins in place. What to do? What to do? The partially installed ramp is getting hammered with waves, the wind is matting my hair, the black flies making their presence known. We are now two hours into problem solving Dan’s way. We’ve tried installing the pins in from both sides first—same problem. “We have to loosen the ropes,” I say, “The water level’s raised; it’s got to be that.”

Dan isn’t quite sure, but it’s my turn to problem solve. He wades through the cold water, past his hips, with a drill in hand, and carefully removes the wood panel to access the rope to one of the weights. He loosens the rope all the way. There seems to be some give. He opens up another panel. Loosens the second rope. Now the dock is malleable and receptive to our manoeuvring, and Dan easily slides the posts into place to install the pins. Success!

“Hey! I was right!” I cannot resist gloating somewhat over having figured it out.

“You were. You were right, good job.”

From there, the four sections of boards fit on top, no problem. Dan didn’t even need me for that.

And while I wasn’t the one who went in the water, and I did not use the power tools, and I did not do the bulk of the lifting, and I definitely would not say I could have done the job on my own—it was my solution that achieved the desired result. Dan couldn’t have done it on his own, either. He would have figured it out eventually, but the job was done faster with two heads instead of one. So much of our life together is like this. One person taking the lead, and then the other stepping up to fill in the gaps. To make the dock whole.

Beers and cheers at the end of our finished dock? Definitely. We christened our work as the sun sank lower in the sky and kneeled down on the shadowed hillside.

Next up, time to fix the water line…

Curiosity Over Fear

What is it that your heart desires? I think about this question often. I check in with myself to see what are my goals and am I on track to reach those goals with how I’m living my life?

I am convinced that saying what we want for ourselves out loud is one of the hardest things to do because then we have to decide whether to follow up on those desires. We have to act to lead ourselves toward the life we want. To follow up on our own dreams can mean to risk disappointing the people we care about. But if we don’t follow up, we risk disappointing ourselves. To act can also mean to risk failure. We might not make it. Nobody likes to experience failure. The alternative is to do nothing, say nothing, and live the life that comes not necessarily easily, but the life that already stretches out before us. The life we have curated for ourselves, either deliberately or by default. It’s easier to continue moving forward on the set path than it is to admit the life we really want, and risk failure. But in the same breath, if we continue on the set path then aren’t we also risking growth? Self-fulfillment? A meaningful life?

After a late night spent watching an episode of The Last of Us, Dan and I jog Atlas on the nearby cinder trail. On these runs and dog walks, we talk about our family life and our children, but more often we find ourselves discussing our professional lives, conflicts, aspirations, and fears. On this particular morning, I was talking about job prospects with him. I’m a teacher and a writer, but how to hold space for both of these work identities? Which opportunity is the right one to pursue? Which way is the right way to be, I am perhaps really asking. “I know what I want,” I suddenly say to Dan. And I pronounce the words out loud. He nods his head; he already knows.

That afternoon, I’m running late taking my kid to a friend’s kid’s birthday party. We burst through the gymnasium doors hand-in-hand, her and I, my hair soaking wet and dripping onto my florescent pink sweatshirt. I squeezed in a quick shower after the run and was predictably running a few minutes behind. My daughter runs off to play with the other six-year-olds. I squeeze my friend tight, mother to the birthday girl, and she introduces me to another parent, a mom of four kids whose daughter attends ballet class with mine. The mom and I fall into easy conversation, and she tells me she’s an employment counsellor. She helps people find jobs. “I’m talking to someone about a job this week,” I tell her, and we talk about building careers after motherhood and stay at home parenting, and the sacrifices and the getting to what it is you really want. “I basically had to shut out my family life for two years to do my Masters,” I admit. Building a career does not come without sacrifice, and I’m striving for balance. I tell her how I know, from talking to hiring managers and listening to TED talks, that men often apply for jobs for which they are underqualified, and women often won’t apply at all unless they have every qualification listed. “But why not just go for it?” I offer.

“My uncle once told me,” she says, “that you should apply for jobs where you only have 50% of the qualifications listed. That way, you leave yourself room for growth.” Wow, yes. Room for growth. I find this to be true of myself. I’m rarely interested in jobs I already know how to do easily; I seek a challenge. Leave room for growth.

That day, I come across a reel posted by novelist Gwen Tuinman who says, “Creative living is any life that you live where your decisions are based more strongly on your curiosity than your fear.” As she arranges stripped-down, windswept sticks and feathers in an interesting pattern to be photographed, Gwen suggests that when we make decisions “based on curiosity rather than fear, you will be engaging with creativity; your life itself will become a work of art.” I do want to live my life guided by my curiosity, that which I do not yet know how to do, rather than by my fear. The fear of getting it wrong, of losing what I have, of not being enough. The fear of failure. And it’s a decision and commitment I have to make over and over; curiosity over fear.

What is it that my heart desires? A creative life.