These December Days

December 4, 2024

One of the things I wanted to do when I moved to Nova Scotia was to return, in some way, to telling the story of my life on my blog. To steer my writing more memoirist and less analytical.

For a couple reasons.

Analytical writing, most of which has found its expression in my writing for grad school but has bled into every nook and cranny here on the blog also, has sucked the joy out of writing. And by extension has sucked the joy out of some not insignificant part of my creative spirit.

I have gained so much from sharpening my analytical and critical mind. And I have lost things.

It remains to be determined if what is lost can be recovered. Also, we can’t ever go back to some previous state of ourselves or the world. Which is not to say that humans are on some inextricable path of progress and its always best to keep oriented to the future. That’s a worldview, not a “reality” (there goes my analytical mind again).

I’m not going back. I can’t go back. But I do have some ideas about what I want for my life, for my days.

And to have my words always stuck in my throat or in my analytical mind is not what I want.

I said there were a couple reasons. The other reason is that I live in a place with so many stories (of just life) that I want to tell. I want to tell them with video production. But also words and photos.

The state of my personal writing, the absolute dearth of publishing anything approximating even a smidgen of my vision for my creative, familial, and homemaking life on this blog has grieved, vexed, and tortured me too long.

The enjoyment, beauty, joy, delight and wonder of my life matters more to me than my analysis. Now, if all my analysis increased the enjoyment, beauty, joy and wonder in my life I might be more sanguine about that labour. As it is, it’s not contributing these things to my life.

So I’m taking a little action. This is not a new start, or a beginning or an ending. It’s not a commitment to a practice or a publishing schedule. It’s just life, rolling along, telling me things about how I want to live. Prompting me, and not always very gently, to attend to the wonder. To share that in a very deliberate effort to disrupt what has become a vicious cycle for me of overwriting and overthinking and never publishing anything.

I will end the what’s this all about of this post here.

I turned 49 two days ago.

It wasn’t a particularly momentous day and I didn’t need it to be. We celebrated the night before at Mom & Dad’s with my brother and nephew Joah. (I could be tempted at this point to tell the long story of how there are 6 Toews family members at the Sanctuary this fall, but I think it’s better to just state what is and fill in the blanks as I go forward, if I decide the blanks must be filled.)

We had tacos and creme brulee. My mom made it, and that is a birthday right there.

I got really sick almost two weeks ago. The night I came home from going to Toronto for Taylor Swift I got the chills and descended from there into full blown flu. When I started to feel physically better, approximately 6 days later I got struck down again, this time with some of the worst anxiety I’ve had in years.

The pages and pages of journaling I’ve done, the soul/mind/body searching (WTF? Why Now? Not this again!!), the body wracking angst, all of that will remain outside this narrative. The analysis, should I ever publish it, will not be today. But honestly, I’m so tired of analyzing, so maybe never.

I don’t want to write about my life like it should be something, or for it to be perceived as something. It just is. And I just am. And I’d like to just not get so hung up on the whys so I’m just going to tell what is.

So yeah, I went to Taylor Swift with Brienne. That will be a life memory. As I am doing everything I can to not get hung up on all the words I’ll just say it was incredibly meaningful.

Came home. Got really sick and seem to have lost all my defenses to the anxiety that always exists subterranean and generally stays put. But not this time.

And it’s December. And everything is beautiful. Truly beautiful. And there’s woods behind my house and I’ve been walking out there like my life depends on it.

And we have a sauna! And now it’s time for Christmas movies.

I won’t start decorating till next weekend as I am very busy right now with school. (Which is part of the reason for my raging anxiety, but not in the way you might imagine, which makes me not want to even mention it because you’ll make the wrong assumptions… letting that one go.)

I adore where I live. I love living by my parents. I love these woods. And this sky.

I feel held by this land and the people on this property. I feel nurtured by my home, especially next to the wood stove, which I am sitting by right now.

The days hold so much wonder and beauty and must be recorded as such.