Remembering beauty in the complexity of life

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted. In the meantime I managed to finish my MA degree in one year and start a PhD program.  Now that I’m settling into a steadier pace in my life in Toronto I want to begin posting again. This post is different from the first four, as it comes from some old journal reflections.  I may return to writing about patriarchy in future posts, but wanted to also share a another side of me.

This first one I wrote upon a return visit to Washington, DC in 2008, and specifically to Rock Creek Park, where I used to spend time during the two-and-a-half years that I lived in DC (from 2002 – 2005).

Rock Creek Park – sitting after a trip down memory lane. I forgot my digital camera, so a journal entry will have to suffice. Everything is green and flowering. Spring is in full bloom.

I look back on my time here with gratefulness and love and a bit of a lesson to be, as much as I can, in the present moment. Two-and-a-half years in DC now seem so short, like I only got a glimpse of the true experience. I never really felt connected and didn’t call it home until my last few months. Now it feels a bit like a homecoming with missing pieces.

A bit of poetry for my trip down memory lane:

That’s the spot

Where John and I picnicked

Watching the dirty water of Rock Creek

While we ate our cheese sandwiches

On organic whole wheat bread.

Life is constant change and I still struggle with that change. Breathe into it. There are no answers, no simple answers. We all make it up as we go along, answering based on what we’ve read or observed or learned through experience. But it’s all too limited.

The next was something I wrote in the summer of 2008, during a camping trip next to a lake in Minnesota.

As the muskrat eats, I sit and watch and try to stay present. But even here my mind carries me away. The calm beauty of the lake in the early morning gives me life. And then I’m back in my mind in St. Paul, with my ex, questioning myself and my interaction with a friend and thinking about the dreams I’ve had lately.

The mosquitoes bring me back to the present moment with a buzz and I return to the appreciation of all life – even that life that stings and sucks your blood sometimes.