When the snow blankets the earth oh-so completely there is this deep pocket of softness, of silence. It is deep below the surface. I feel it gently rising to greet me. Or maybe I ground into me and meet the silence. This wintered silence is a welcome delight to my overstimulated system. I feel space inside of me that is eagerly filled by my breathe and then it dissolves. Waves of inhales and exhales. Have you ever sat on the edge of the sand? Where the sand greets the waves and the waves meet the sand? I have.

My mind has taken over this past year, and maybe the year before that. I find that when I am in my head the whole world feels awful, and more often than not, my mind takes me down rabbit holes, great rabbit holes of despair. Often my mind tells me that no-one really likes you and even if people do now, when you show all of yourself they won’t. Those pieces that you try and hide that come splattering out in front of someone, they leave their mark all over the place. And there is no hope of picking up the pieces or covering them up. There are too many shattered, fractured.

I will die on a Sunday
in Santa Fe
on a gorgeous
sunny day.

When I was a wee one back in England my hair was at the mercy of me mum and whatever hairdresser/chopper she chose.  Now, I don’t remember if my mum actually placed a yellow plastic bowl on top of my head to cut my hair or an actual hairdresser/chopper cut my hair in such a way on purpose, but when I moved to Canada, I was twelve, I did look like a member, or a jolly good fan, of The Beatles. And because of this rather unfortunate haircut and the fact that I loved sports, the students of my grade seven homeroom were lead to believe I was something I was actually not.

I don’t know about the stars and the trees and the leaves. But really I do. When I gaze into something, give it my sweetest, deepest attention, I learn so much. Nature, our greatest teacher is always there for us. The spider shows us patience creating her web and then hanging, waiting oh-so patiently. I breathe with her. And please let me be clear, this is not a massive black or brown hairy spider, this is a small, under the size of a quarter, spider. The bigger aforementioned spiders can teach us about fear.

My family moved to Canada from England when I was twelve years old.  I could have started in grade seven or grade eight. Mum and Dad wanted to start me with my age group , so grade seven it was. And, all the other children in grade seven would be starting a new school also so they thought this would be good too. I was about to tell you about my first very scary day at school but I want to tell you about something else.

Sam was standing in front of me holding a stubby, AKA a bottle of beer. I don’t remember what kind, I just remember the short amber bottle, and feeling extremely nervous. Her parents were not home. She had grabbed two bottles from their fridge and we were standing in the finished basement. Both of us were not old enough to drink. Well, legally, you know.

I’m one of those smokers that actual smokers don’t particularly like. Well, I don’t smoke anymore, but randomly I could just desire one cigarette, or ciggy, as we used to call them. The first time I tried a ciggy was back in England. My family were visiting my cousins and me mum’s sister and hubby, the Hursts. Sally, Clare, Auntie Sheila and Uncle Keith. We had moved to Canada about four years prior and this was our first visit since then.

I’m looking at everything all at once. It’s totally possible! I’m looking at a great fir tree holding its balance in the howling wind. I’m looking at another tree with golden leaves twinkling in the wind. I see the top spindly branches of another naked tree, naked except for four rusty golden leaves still holding on. And I wonder, what am I still holding onto?

We were all gathered in my cousins’ home. My Auntie Sheila and Uncle Keith’s home. There was Uncle Albert wearing his brown suit, brown tie and cream shirt as he always did. And Auntie Maud with her big brown framed square glasses rounded at the corners, which made them a bit softer. They suited her very much, or maybe it was just that I was used to her in them.