Seasons Turning

An ache blooms somewhere inside me as I see houses dotted with holiday lights and glass bulbs hanging on bare branches at the same time that I realize  it is time to move on. I pass houses and look at the sun lacing through the trees and wonder what it might be like to be here during the summer.  I pass a yellow van and think of how I told you last month  that it would be fun to have a van like that  and drive across different landscapes. I take pictures of the street using my new photo app  that doesn’t show me the pictures right away and allows them to develop first. I slip my phone back in my pocket hoping I caught the light just right. I return home through the front door and turn on the kettle to use the last spoonfuls of my coffee grounds. I am a jumble of longing, stillness, joy. As I pour the boiling water, I am grateful that I can choose to brew myself coffee in the late afternoon. 

 "I return to this point of wonder."  Last week I was at a coffee shop, catching up on some of my favorite writer's posts from the last few weeks. One of my favorites, Suleika Jaouad, has a prompt at the end of her piece that reads:  "Write about something that you find wondrous. Something strange, beautiful, unlikely, or all of the above. If you'd like, use this as an entry point: 'I return to this point of wonder.'" These past few weeks have reminded me that life holds many things, no matter where you are. Sometimes you have to have unexpectedly hard conversations with ones you love, sometimes horrible things happen in the world, sometimes you feel like you're not good enough at something, sometimes the idea that you are in charge of your future is too much to bear, and sometimes you miss your loved ones so much it makes your insides ache.  The words "I return to this point of wonder" feel almost tangible, like such wondrous moments w...

The other day, as I was taking an exit off the freeway in Portland, Oregon, I was almost surprised to see a set of small trees with golden leaves roll by my window. Normally during this time of year I am scouting for leaves, taking photos as I spot color changes happening, and feeling a sort of urgency to capture it all before the season ends.  But this year I am finding myself among a completely new landscape, with new people and new responsibilities. My focus the last couple weeks has been regulating my nervous system and feeling grounded among this ever changing season I am finding myself in.  Last weekend I wanted to check out Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland, but did not realize until I was practically there that it was in the heart of downtown. I broke down while driving through the busy street because I didn’t know where to park and suddenly all the unfamiliarity was just too overwhelming.  During my second day of fieldwork in outpatient pediatrics, I observed a six ye...

In the last three months, I have lived in three different places within the same city. And in a month's time, I'll be traveling across the country to live on the west coast for three more months. And then... who knows where I'll be! It's enough to make your head spin. Mine certainly has been in constant rotation this whole summer. I feel rootless, dizzy and a bit breathless. But there seems to be a consistent pattern of time when I feel the most grounded, content and grateful. This summer has been a string of moments of me thinking back on one of the many versions of my past selves. I think things like: "my past self would really love this" or "my past self would not believe all I've been through" or "my past self would be in awe of me right now."  Each of these past selves - let's call them "Bridges" - live in a different time of my life, and I like to think come to peek into my current life when I'm doing something I...

Over winter break I listened to a podcast called "How 'Wintering' Replenishes" from the On Being podcast, and just loved  it. A couple weeks later, I began my first occupational therapy fieldwork rotation in a hospital working with kids/adolescents who are admitted for severe mental illnesses. A few days ago I decided to re-listen to this podcast because I felt I could understand this fieldwork in a whole different way. I wrote the following blog post to connect "wintering" (quotes from the podcast are in italics) to an inpatient mental health setting.  __________ I walk down a long, cold, windowless hallway with white walls. To my left is a handwritten poster that reads life is tough, but you are tougher.  I reach in the pocket of my grey scrubs until my fingers find a cluster of metal keys. I let each fall through my fingers, running my fingertip gently across the cold ridges of the last key before it falls back down into my pocket.  "Have you ever b...

A few weeks ago in class, we had our weekly seminar to help prepare us to go out on fieldwork in January. That week's was with a counselor from campus to talk about managing stress. When I saw this on the syllabus, I almost rolled my eyes. Over the years I have come to know what my body needs under stress - if I need to be around people or to be alone, what type of music to listen to, what food to eat, etc. I prepped to listen to yet another discussion about mindfulness and deep breathing. Instead, I was enraptured the whole time, and even took notes on my laptop. One part in particular stuck out to me. The counselor talked about how, just like emotions, stress has a beginning, a middle and an end. And sometimes, stress gets stuck inside us. Then she had us imagine that (in "cave man days") we are running from a lion that is trying to eat us. We run and run and run, and finally make it to our friend's house. Our friend comes out, kills the lion, and then we fall into ...

 August 3rd will be the seven year anniversary of my last day of cancer treatment. This summer I have continued to embrace the idea of "bittersweetness" as discussed in my last blog post because I believe it describes me at my core. I recently finished this  book about bittersweetness, and the author writes about it as "a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow, an acute awareness of passing time; and a curious piercing joy at the beauty of the world." I feel fully understood by this word and this definition. I know I was definitely a "bittersweet" type before my diagnosis, but I also believe my diagnosis has further deepened this part of myself.  When I was going through treatment, I would praise and indulge my body for feeling "healthy" in the off week before the chemo drugs returned - drenching my days and reducing my insides to a nauseating mess. The chemo infusion was bitter; the music my mom turned on for me while I tried to ...