It’s been less than two days since my counsellor and Mrs Blackbird both agreed that I need to take a month’s stress leave to buffer my depression, but I already feel like the ice beneath the fine powder of yesterday’s first snow – cracking. Having to take ‘stress leave’ is
It’s a bit of a rough time. I just spent some time outdoors in the chill air, which I love, and got to thinking a bit about my walking meditation of last winter. I thought a little about my dreams of the labyrinth too, but sensed the ambition too great,
After a lot of soul-searching, I found a blog title that said something of what I wanted to say about a life with invisible illnesses – autoimmune disease, pain, depression and dissociation. For the first time in weeks I’ve found a moment of strength to say something. While I want
I am the part of me I can’t accept. I think of dark things. I am twenty-five years old. I live behind closed doors, afraid of who might come to call, afraid that I will have to speak. Sometimes when I go outside. I cross the road so I don’t
I made a snow labyrinth in our garden today, in too-thin boots, with my bare arms to the world, while starlings, juncos and red-winged blackbirds chittered in the trees, waiting for me to relinquish their frozen world again. It wasn’t my initial design. I was just taking scraps to the
Lately, I am happiest in those moments I spend outside. There is something about the chill air that shocks my system, pulls oxygen into my brain and makes me feel glad to be alive. There may be a scientific basis for this. At the moment, however, it’s an observation. It’s
I’ve long known intuitively that walking in nature heals me. I woke late after a morning nap today (on occasion, my body demands further rest after rising, and I’ve learned to listen). I decided to go into the back yard to clean up after our beagles. This is not a
A friend of mine is fond of the saying: “The only permanent thing is change.” That maxim has been true of my life recently, and will be for some time to come, I am certain. Words have circulated in my head. I have planned journal entries that flow seamlessly while