Time, Warped.

A fall day in 2018.

I sit drinking my coffee, listening to the guy playing the fiddle in the square below as the tourists pass him by. His repertoire is seemingly limited. Or maybe he only plays what "works" for his audience of vacationers. Whatever his reason, this guy plays non-stop traditional-Québéçois-sounding fiddle tunes. The next guy who will take over that corner after him plays piano. Last week, it was non-stop Pachebel's Canon. The fiddle stops, and a kid is screaming.

Eight floors above, I take another sip of my coffee and type, still somewhat drowsy. I woke up at 11:36 a.m. The bedroom is dark with the blackout curtain closed; it's easy to lose all sense of time.

Icebergs.

Life is funny. I think it's the unexpected things that influence our life paths more than all the things we plan. Things like when I was placed in a French class (instead of my first choice of Spanish or second choice of Latin), or the chance timing of meeting someone and falling in love, or starting a new hobby. Sometimes change feels like a river whose path has shifted a little, and sometimes change is so dramatic that it creates a rupture, leaving behind only a Before and After.

I think about how my life's own Before and After as I stare into my closet and consider why I no longer wear certain outfits. Perhaps internal change is a lot like an iceberg whose only manifestation is the relatively small bit on the surface. We can grasp what's visible, but understanding its actual depth and nature is more difficult.

August and Everything After...Is Unknown.

Somehow the months since mid-March have passed in a blur. A good blur. Like bokeh. The day I last wrote, I did indeed end up making madeleines that I gave to a friend for her 51st birthday. That evening at her party, I had a long conversation with her son. He seemed to be enjoying our talk, and I wondered if he might be interested in me. No, I told myself, he's younger...of course he wouldn't be interested in that way! But several weeks later, his mom put us in touch with an email, and we started emailing. Some weeks after that, he asked me on a date.

Most of the way through Q1.

So far 2015 has included some of the busiest months I have ever had. But this time has been good, mostly because in all the busyness, winter has gone by with me often in a survival-auto-pilot state. That might sound negative, but not having time to think too much in the depths of winter has actually been a relief. Supposedly February was the coldest in over a hundred years, but I was so busy going from one job to another that I hardly noticed. In fact, I was often loosening my scarf or removing one mitten because I was warm from jogging to try to catch the next bus so I wouldn't have to wait 6 or so minutes for another one.

Advent.

I've always thought of Advent as some sort of merry, ascending on-ramp toward Christmas.

This year Advent feels like a descent into darkness.

It's a snowy deep winter night full of unknowing and quiet waiting.

5 Years.

Five years ago today I moved to Québec.

What my life is like now is nothing like what I thought it would be on that day I crossed the border and moved to Canada. I came here to be with the person I loved, and once I left my country, he became my home. It wasn't a conscious decision; it just happened in my heart when I displaced myself for him and we got married.

When that exploded and the ground beneath me finally stopped shaking, I realized that I would need to gently dust myself off and redefine "home" for myself. I had to figure out a path forward.

Because sometimes you have to throw your own parties.

I threw myself a birthday party. I knew the first part of this month might not be easy for me, so I planned ways to intentionally take care of myself. I wanted to feel surrounded by loved ones and welcome in a new year, and a birthday is a perfectly normal reason to have a party. (Unfortunately a I-survived-the-depths-of-hell party is a little less socially acceptable.) And since I didn't have someone to throw me a party, I decided to throw one for myself. This probably broke some etiquette rules, especially because I made it a potluck party, but I don't even care. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

Sage.

A year ago yesterday, my life was suddenly blown apart with one incredibly brief sentence. Tomorrow is a year from the day my now-ex-husband walked out of our home to be with his girlfriend.

If you had asked me then to imagine what my life would look like now, I would have been completely incapable of it. At that point, I could not begin to imagine my life without my ex. My mind couldn't even process what had just happened, let alone my heart. In the beginning, each morning I woke up from a few hours of sleep to re-remember what had happened, after having forgotten while sleeping. Eventually I began to wake up remembering. It took time to accept that things weren't ever going to go back to how they were before, and I don't think I will ever fully understand what happened because it was all so dissonant to absolutely everything I had believed.

Résilience.

This morning I watched this video about a goat that made me cry. The concern and commitment of the caregivers was moving, but it was seeing the little goat's determination that left me with tears running off my face and dropping onto my sternum. The goat kept going, despite adversity, with an attitude that I interpret as thankfulness. And not happiness, but joy. I was taught from an early age that joy is different than happiness because it is independent of external circumstances.

The other day I saw that a library in my town had added the word "résilience," written in huge silver capital letters, all across one side of the building. It's much larger than a billboard, and I took it as a message of encouragement from the universe to keep going. It is a reminder that that we can bounce back from adversity, that the human spirit is strong.

Making room for Style.

Often I'll come home from work and do some sort of household task as a way of transitioning from work to home. Many days it's dishes or laundry, but today I suddenly found myself switching out the books in the bookshelf closest to the spot on the couch where I most often sit.

My books were previously organized loosely by category on four bookcases, three in a row on one side of the living room and one on the other side, closest to my favorite spot on the couch. Tonight I came home looking for a place for The Chicago Manual of Style, which I just got in the mail today. I finally ordered it for myself after having it on my wish list and wanting it for 3+ years. The other day I just realized that I write, so I should probably own this excellent resource.

Anyhow, there I was with the thick style book and instead of just squeezing it in somewhere, I decided I needed to rearrange my books in that solo bookcase. Right then.

I bought a couch. It is not beige.

I bought my very first couch.* And I really like it. It's from Ikea, and almost the same as what my ex and I had (but that one was his from before, so he took it with him). Instead of a 2-seater sleeper sofa, I got the 3-seater regular couch. ('Cause that fold-out bed was not very comfortable anyways!) The 3-seater couch is long enough for me to sleep on, so I can sleep on it when I have guests who visit. And the color? White! And red! 'Cause, you know, the covers are removable...and WASHABLE!

Which is a good thing, because the white cover (I am in a white phase with decor) is not coping so well with my wardrobe chock-full of black clothing and Booboo's hair. I will need to buy stock in whatever company makes lint-rollers if I use the white all the time.

Anyhow. I am so thankful to have a couch again. Next up: painting a couple rooms (white, of course) and buying a vacuum cleaner. I am currently thinking it makes more sense for the environment to invest in a better one that will last for YEARS. I am pondering Miele (possibly a refurbished one???) because I had one years ago in a furnished apartment I lived in in Europe and never had any problems with it, and the reviews are really good for that brand. Do any of you have any experience with vacuums you love?

*I have owned one other super comfy couch that was given to me, and I loved it. But when I moved here, we decided my ex's couch was better than mine, so we gave mine to his friend (who was actually one of his ex'es). She loves the couch though, so at least it went to a someone who appreciates it.

Darkness and light and the belly of the whale.

I've been thinking a lot about darkness and light, death and rebirth, and the journey into the belly of the whale.

In writing about the monomyth, Joseph Campbell described three overarching stages of the journey: departure, initiation and return. The last step of the departure stage is the journey into the belly of the whale, where the hero seems to be swallowed up by death.

The boots are on.

Crisis: Dead-End or Transformation

This was in my neighbors' mail outside their door. I took it as extra motivation to fight my way through to the other side of this experience. I recently watched Under the Tuscan Sun, and it's just like when Patti says to Frances (whose husband left her for another woman):  

"You know when you come across one of those empty shell people, and you think 'What the hell happened to you?' Well there came a time in each one of those lives where they are standing at a crossroads... someplace where they had to decide whether to turn left or right. This is no time to be a chicken-shit, Frances."

Today my ex moved his stuff out.

Things Not to Say.

When someone tells you that their husband/wife/partner left them for someone else suddenly without any warning signs at all, here are some things it's probably best not to say out loud to that person.

"C'est la vie." 

Choosing thanks.

As I sit at home with Booboo in my lap, I look at the snow outside and think of life and it's unexpected turns. Sometimes life's surprises are exhilarating, sometimes they're excruciating, and sometimes they're just...different.

It's American Thanksgiving, but since that's not a holiday here, it feels like a normal day. Thursday. Except it's not just Thursday, so I am choosing to focus on what I am thankful for today. I have a purring Booboo in my lap, I have a home to live in that is within walking distance of most of what I need, I have a job I enjoy (and freelance opportunities I love), and family and friends that love me and support me. I am lucky...blessed...and thankful. I'm also thankful for hope that everything will be alright in the end and that life has good things in store for me in the future, despite the hell of these past months. It may not always feel that way, but I will choose to believe it anyways. Life does have a way of surprising us, after all.

Morning coffee.

 

As I was walking home from the grocery store the other day, I realized that I had lost track of how many times I have been to the grocery store since July. I suppose that is a good sign.