Walking myself back into peace.
Returning from a summer of silence and reconciling myself to some of the realities of being back in Canada.
Well I guess I took the summer off from writing here. It wasn’t intentional, but it wasn’t really available to me either. I think that’s important to capture too (even if just for myself). One of my self kindnesses in these mid-years of life is to, as often as possible not force myself to do what I know I can’t without harming myself. It’s the side to the “if it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no” that we don’t really talk about. What happens when there are things you really want to do and in this moment can’t? How do you reconcile to that inside yourself and be ok? For me it is not easy.
I honestly had a great summer.
I spent time with my feet on the landscape of my youth. The place I learned to walk myself to peace.
I helped welcome a new babe to our family and other members recover from major surgery.
I visited with friends from afar, swam in new mountain lakes, and went to a new for me National Park (Prince Albert) with my nephew.
And, also…
I have struggled financially since coming back here last year and I hate saying that out loud. Everything is so much more expensive than I had been used to. What was able to sustain me on the west coast of Scotland doesn’t come close here. I’ve been fighting the reality of that a lot and have also been the recipient of so much generosity from friends and family. I am so lucky to be held with such care during this time. That’s hard in a way too for someone as independently minded as me!
I struggled a lot with what this return to Canada actually means for me. Seeing your homeland with new eyes is hard. Mine is a country powered by extraction. Everything else is a side industry. It’s been hard really looking at where I’m from and where our wealth comes from and the casual normal of some of the harm. (Please only eat organic lentils!) And there is lots of wealth and so much waste.
I have struggled with being in a coloniser body again. I think one of the reasons North Americans of European descent are so fascinated with an (commercialised and romanticised) idea of the ancestral lands is because when your body is on those places your cells remember. For many of us it’s only a few generations ago. The home countries were places many were driven away from as refugees of poverty, war, and persecution. In my experience it feels easier to heal yourself there. Instead when we stand here in these new places we are faced (if we are lucky) with the work of reconciliation for all that we have stolen and how we perpetuated those same conditions of displacement and disconnection on the indigenous people here. We literally did to others what was done to us and way worse. I’m glad to be here now to work on making amends and a better future, and that doesn’t mean it’s not hard.
And I’ve most struggled with not having a relationship with a piece of land again. To grow things and experiment with temperature and light that is familiar to me. To have investments in a landscape not the market. To be witness and support to the story of the more than human world in a committed way. I’ve been really transient since I’ve come back because I don’t know where my place is yet and there is disquiet in that.
I’m trying to figure out how to make my dreams for my life come true here. And it’s ok that it’s hard. I prefer that to not trying.
But the great news is that I feel like the barrier between all this and my writing is beginning to fall. I believe in this story and the ones to follow! I have decided to allow myself to also write here about where I am at while I write because I think that might be the key to not shutting down my creative writing.
Expect progress soon. I have walked myself back into the peace I need to write. I can hear the hull of a boat scraping along the rocks as it comes to shore on the island of Inchmarnock while I’m walking the dog these cooler autumn mornings in Calgary, Alberta so I know Erna’s back….
In the meantime why not try reading the three volumes of Letters From The Gardeners Cottage which capture my experience with the landscape of Argyll that told me this story in the first place. (Link behind the title and usually available most places you buy your books online).
Thank you endlessly to everyone who subscribes to read my words. It delights and encourages me. Please spread the word if you are enjoying yourself here!
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Susie