We celebrated Scout’s adoption day last month, which for us is more significant than a birthday… because we don’t actually know when his birthday is. He was brought in as a stray, so his age was estimated based on the condition of his teeth, and the day he was brought in to the shelter was designated as his birthday. We still do some special things for his birthday, but his adoption day is far more important.
After all, that was the day that he adopted Birdie!
Scout has grown and flourished so much since I first brought him home, and we’ve both felt even happier since moving to a new apartment together where we have more space… and sunbeams! Scout never had sunbeams to nap in at our old apartment and always seemed to dislike the heat in general, but it seems he’s a typical cat after all, getting in at least a little bit of sunbathing every day.
He’s also completely fascinated by new our record player and loves to sit next to it to watch the vinyl spin when one is playing… or to stretch up on his hind legs to take a look. I finally finished building my first Gundam and its stand recently, and I wanted to display it on the record cover when it wasn’t being played… but Scout was way too interested in trying to steal the Gundam’s gun or tail parts, so I moved Aerial onto a high shelf in my bedroom instead lol.
After that dinner with my brother, I finally decided to do my research and found a great refurbished Audio Technica record player so that I could finally play the records I had preemptively bought in my own home. I really do love selecting a single vinyl to play the whole way through — even though I still love streaming services and my digital music player of choice (itunes) for creating playlists and discovering new songs. It’s just really satisfying to intentionally play music album by album again… and of course, to collect favourites.
This morning, we’re listening to the latest vinyl I’ve added to my collection: White Buffalo by Crown Lands. I’ve listened to this EP over and over since it was released and it’s utterly awesome every time. Highly recommend.
I write this entry before preparing to head out to the Writers of Ottawa meetup, coffee currently brewing. I’m about to make myself a mocha of sorts — my parents accidentally bought chocolate milk, and I have inherited it. They found out when my father went to pour milk into his cereal and got an unwelcome surprise lol. I find it too sweet to drink on its own, but it’s quite good when you add a bit to coffee, so that’s how I’m using it up.
Yesterday, auroras were actually visible all over Canada, and even further south into the States; I told my team at work that that would be the case… and then it completely slipped my mind to keep checking the sky after nightfall to catch sight of the lights. I’m a bit disappointed in myself for not setting alarms to remind myself, but there’s nothing to be done about that. I still remember seeing them once from my bedroom window at night when I was a teen. I’ll never forget that feeling of wonder…
Instead of watching for the northern lights, Scout and I took a bath. Well, I took a bath and Scout guarded me. He stayed at a distance at first, but curiosity got the better of him and he came up to the edge to look at the water, then spent the rest of the bath prowling along the edge of the bath, sitting up next to my shoulder like a little sentry upon a castle wall.
Ah. Coffee’s ready. I’ll end this entry with some recent photos of myself with and without makeup, and head off to do some writing/editing before the meetup. Take care, reader!
Above 20 degrees yesterday, it felt like the first proper day of summer, and so to take advantage of the good weather, I headed into Chinatown in order to meet up with my friend and fellow writer for a bit of an adventure.
Our first order of business was lunch at a panini restaurant tucked at the back of a building that had once been a coffee shop. According to the shop owners they had bought out the coffee shop’s space and were in the middle of renovations, which was why they were serving paninis out of the back door of their kitchen.
As we arrived, Sandstorm by Darude started playing over the speakers.
What a vibe lol.
We lined up and just before taking my order, they made the announcement that there were only 5 sandwiches left — we’d made it just in the nick of time! They make their bread fresh daily, so when they sell out, they just close up shop early for the day!
When we got our paninis, we were astonished to find that they were essentially the size of two regular-size sandwiches.
We sat on lawn furniture under the shade of a tree and chatted while we ate. We were discussing (among other things) how we want to enjoy aging, and find relative happiness (or at least fulfillment) at every new stage of life we attain. Growing old isn’t guaranteed for anyone. It’s a priviledge, and neither of us want to spend the latter half of our lives complaining about being one year older. Complaining about aches and pains? Of course! Grieving when we inevitably have a major change in mobility or life situation? Of course. But never complaining about getting to live a little longer, getting a bit more time to find moments of relative happiness within the life circumstances that we have on that day, for that moment. It’s not about forcing happiness or forcing undue, toxic levels of positivity. Never that. It’s about understanding that happiness looks different throughout your life, and that it’s something unique to you. A good life, or a good moment is defined differently for every person (though I think generally in great romantic relationships, partners generally agree on what a good life, and a moment of happiness feels like).
But I digress. The couple behind us had brought their tiny dog to the panini restaurant and the dog kept giving us the cutest little stares.
The next leg of our adventure featured a new vintage clothing store called The Last Unicorn which was run out of the back of an equally new place called Miam Miam General Store that sells vintage clothing along with home, grooming, and gourmet items made by local artisans.
I bought a cameo print fitted blazer with a skull and crossbones pin from The Last Unicorn, and I bought a see-through white linen dress with lace detail from Miam Mian General Store (it made me think of fairies, witch forest rituals, and 70s vampires so I had to have it).
Absolutely no way I can wear it out anywhere without some sort of slip underneath… and that made me love it even more. It’s the polar opposite of a black mesh and lace dress that I have!
Meanwhile, my friend bought two hand carved wooden vases, a handmade candle holder, and some locally roasted coffee beans… and pointed out an adorable candle in the shape of an open can of sardines that I think we were both tempted to get! Definitely a place we’d both like to go back to again.
Happy with our purchases, we then sought out a coffee shop we could relax in, opting for Art House Café, which neither of us had yet been to (surprisingly). The walls were filled with art absolutely everywhere, and each piece by a local artist was for sale; everywhere we turned, there was gorgeous art to look at. And the coffee was good too!
We talked excitedly about her upcoming first trip to Japan with her husband (which they have been eagerly planning and anticipating for years) and was so delighted by all the things they have booked to do (some michelin star restaurants, gourmet coffee tasting experiences, and a hidden speakeasy with coffee cocktails that she booked as a surprise for her husband lol!). I also gave her a few tips (use Seven Bank ATMs because they’re international card-friendly, go to Book Off, hunt down the cat museum in Nara, and go take a walk around Enoshima to spot some cats if you have a free afternoon you can’t decide how to fill)! We then spoke extensively about how much we love writing, but how gruelling editing and the subsequent querying and publishing process can be. She is going through it and I’ll be wading into those waters this year or the next. No matter how grueling parts of it can be, though, there was no question for either of us that the most important thing is being able to share our imagined worlds and characters with others through writing.
And if no one will give you a seat at their table, or if you realize that sitting at the table you’ve been invited to might not actually be best for you, you build your own.
While we both intended to leave a bit early to get some errands done (and for me to give Scout an early supper), once I’d walked her back to her car, we decided to sit in there and talk for “a few more minutes”… which ended up being nearly two hours.
We covered a ton of topics, but the one that stuck out in my mind was about unconditional love. She was explaining how someone she knew asserted that unconditional love doesn’t exist because it was impossible to love someone forever no matter what happened. We both agreed that that wasn’t an accurate understanding of what unconditional love is, and it took us a while to figure out how to articulate how we each conceptualize the difference between conditional and unconditional love.
She pointed out that unconditional love happens in the present. You don’t consider the past or future when you give someone unconditional love. You love them as they are, in the moment. I agree with that. Logically, you can’t promise you’ll love someone forever. But you can honestly tell someone that you truly love them as they are in that moment, on that day. And you re-confirm your love for them every day, and in every moment. It’s not something fixed or restrictive, it’s a living, breathing emotion that ebbs and flows, and adapts throughout your life. You’re allowed to change and grow, and you can fall out of love… sometimes that happens naturally, and it’s sad, but it’s okay. But that’s exactly what makes staying in love so particular a state of being. You don’t make one rigid promise or make one rigid decision or realization. You make countless tiny decisions, countless tiny affirmations, countless tiny shows of affection, countless tiny promises, countless tiny shows of support… and you freely choose to give that person love over and over again. That’s far more meaningful than one grand declaration or promise.
I added that unconditional love and conditional love start in different ways. Unconditional love is freely given at the outset and encourages a person to be who they are — it is love for who a person IS. Conditional love requires that certain conditions be met at the outset and throughout a relationship in order for love to be given, and it is love for what a person DOES or provides. The love can be withheld as a bargaining chip, almost. Didn’t get straight As in school? Didn’t buy them expensive enough jewelery? You get no affection until you get better grades, buy them something expensive enough, etc.
Unconditional love ends when there is a hurt too great to be mended, or when too big a boundary is crossed. The love is never withheld, the relationship just ends.
The nuance is small, but important.
Then again, the concept of love itself is so deep and nuanced that our species will likely never stop examining it in art and conversation. How I understand and describe it now will undoubtedly change ten years from now, when I have even more life experience to drawn from.
Uncontitional love and the realistic romance of countless tiny choices, affirmations, and shows of support is what I aim for though. A love breathing, in flux.
We always talk each others’ ears off when we meet up, and this day was no different! But at last, we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. I hope she has an incredible trip, and I imagine that, like me, she’ll just end up wanting to go back!
I went to visit my brother for supper yesterday bringing homemade chocolate chip cookies (his request), a new bottle of whisky (Toki), and the t-shirt he had left at my apartment back in February when it had gotten soaked with sweat and he’d taken it off to dry. Scout wasn’t too pleased that he’d had to stay home and miss the get-together, but he forgave me when I got home later that night and set out a delicious supper for him.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I went to see Miss Pearl as soon as I got there, who was snoozing on top of the bed instead of hiding under it, and who was just as pleased to see me as I was to see her.
My brother made a very tasty roast with mini potatoes as a side and we sampled a range of whiskies while discussing his upcoming wedding, and how we each felt very at home in our new jobs, all the while listening to a bunch of his records (too many to remember all of them properly, but to give a general sense of what was playing, we started with a Led Zeppelin record and later switched to one by Gordon Lightfoot).
He brought up the DNA results we got earlier this year as well (40% French, then English, Scottish, Germanic, and Irish, in descending order), and we ended up both agreeing that despite living in Ontario, we both identify not as Franco-Ontarien, but as part-Quebecois due to the dialect and culture that we grew up with. Of course I experienced selective mutism for almost all of my childhood and part of my adulthood where speaking in French was concerned, but my brother didn’t have that issue, and I’m slowly recovering my communication skills in part thanks to my new job. He lamented the fact that his kid(s) wouldn’t get to grow up visiting a family farm the way we did, and I reminded him that they’d get to have new traditions (like visiting a cottage) — and assured him that I look forward to being a Weird Aunt in the future.
Inevitably we strayed into more serious topics (I educated him on on the genocide unfolding in Gaza), and he got me to open up about a few personal things I hadn’t yet told him, offering both emotional support and advice that came very clearly from the heart.
He made me a latte as the night wore on, and then we had a bit of a laugh recalling the time our parents had discovered my brother smoking weed and the absolute meltdown that had ensued in the house. He looked over at me with a bit of wince and a chuckle, held out his fist for a fist bump and said, “thanks for the assist, sis.” This was referring to how I had educated our mother at the time on all the latest research about how weed was said to have the most benefits with fewest side effects of all the drugs my brother could have chosen to indulge in. Because my brother had been absolutely baked outta his mind when he’d been “discovered” that evening and hadn’t been able to advocate for himself. I was annoyed with him for causing such upheaval in the house… but I was even more annoyed at how illogical and disproportionate the crying and yelling itself was, considering the fact that weed is relatively safe. And now that it’s entirely legal, the whole drama has grown even funnier in memory.
I also explained to him that throughout my childhood, I was terrified of flushing the toilet because of a scary flushing incident (air in the pipes one day caused water to gurgle and spew upwards after I flushed) when I was about 5 or 6 — which he hadn’t known about. Obviously. Back then I definitely didn’t go around telling people that I had flushing-phobia and imagined the toilet roaring to life and gobbling me up as a child! He didn’t laugh, he just stared in disbelief and raised his eyebrow as I described my old process: close the toilet lid, wash hands, unlock the door, open the door wide, shut off the light, flush the toilet and — DASH AWAY!! Yeah… that’s not an exaggeration lol. I did that routine for years until I became a teenager and finally conquered the irrational fear.
My brother and I are two incredibly different people, but as I always say, he truly is a good man. Surprisingly old school and crotchety in some respects lol, but a good man. I’ll never forget that when we were kids one year, he insisted to our parents on using some of the money he’d saved to buy me a birthday cake. Considering that it was during a year where I had experienced a lot of upheaval in friendships at home and at school, it had meant a lot. Despite being the older sibling, I’d been the one tagging along with him and his friends, and they’d actually welcomed me. We’d even willingly shared a bedroom and a bunk bed in middle school (my bedroom had sat abandoned), spending our free time playing a GameCube we’d bought together and then a PS2 on a tiny TV in his (our) room. There had been a lot of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle missions, a LOT of Smash Bros Melee and Soul Calibur II tournaments, and countless Gauntlet Dark Legacy campaigns. I used to read him books before going to bed; he’d look down at me from the top bunk, where I sat in his computer chair, doing the voices to whatever book I was reading, my feet propped up on the mattress in my bottom bunk. We used to lie in each of our bunks and play Gameboy too, usually Pokémon Silver/Crystal or YuGiOh. We’d started out having to share a single Gameboy Colour and a single copy of Pokémon Silver–imagine having to negotiate who got to play when, which starter to choose (we agreed on Cyndaquil the first time, but I stuck with Totodile for every playthrough after that), and which Pokémon to raise to create our main questing/gym parties! Thankfully, a year or two later, we had acquired a Gameboy Advance as well. It was only two to three years we shared a bunk bed, but those were some of my favourite childhood memories — and considering the things I had gone through around that age, I think it meant more to me than it had to him. Even after I moved back into my own room, I still visited his room in order to play video games. I’m grateful that kid welcomed me into his space, his friendships, and his life like that during those years. We grew very distant as teenagers and young adults… but we’re making up for it now.
I could really go for a Gauntlet Dark Legacy campaign again.
Just for old times’ sake.
(I always mained as the early-unlockable sorceress-style character medusa! My brother mained as the warrior or jester, and his best friend who often joined us mained as the wizard — best augments were the phoenix familiar and being turned into Pojo the fireball-spewing chicken, obviously).
The writing circle meet-up last weekend was just as interesting as the first one that I went to, but for an entirely different reason this time. I didn’t participate all that much during the meet-up proper — the energy was a little different than the last time, where we were all sort of discussing in small groups and having fantastic conversations that spanned a wide array of subjects. The gathering felt somehow a little sour this time. That is, until people slowly left and there were just two of us at the table, the other person having spoken even less than I had during the gathering.
The thing about introverts is we become more talkative and relaxed the smaller the gathering becomes. So I took a chance and asked her if she’d like to sit a little longer to talk some more… and she was happy to. As it turned out, she writes screenplays which is a format I’ve never attempted before, so I had plenty of questions about it and we both got to talk about our WIPs and the differences between our preferred formats. As obvious a thing to say as this is, it’s truly comforting and fun to talk to fellow writers.
We probably would have stayed to chat even longer had an organizer not come up to us in the restaurant we were in and asked us if we were there for a “language exchange” meet-up that was being set up in the area ours had been in. We said no and excused ourselves, paid for our drinks, and parted ways.
On the way home I perused my local comic book shop to admire their wall of Gundam plastic model kits (I refrained from buying one on the spot), and to take a look at some of the newest comics and graphic novels on display (it’s not new, but I still need to get the latest Saga volume), and then I left to take the long way home because the weather was fantastic (warm, but with a cool breeze).
I hadn’t intended to do any shopping at all during my walk, but when I noticed that Nordstrom was in the last couple days of its store closing sale, I couldn’t resist taking a look (a couple weeks before, I’d nabbed a heavily discounted YSL lipstick I’d had my eye on for years) and ended up finding a very comfy pair of leggings along with a holy grail find of two bras in my (specialty petite!) size in a style that I liked. Talk about lucky.
I didn’t have the energy to make anything complicated for supper when I got home, so I made a comfort meal of そうめん (cold noodles) with side dishes of cold tofu and sliced tomatoes. As always I had to fend Scout off several times, as he wanted to either sniff or stick his paw into the noodles, but after that we just relaxed and ate side by side.
I bought great new PS4 games when I was in Japan, but wouldn’t you know it? Instead of playing those, I’ve been hooked on replaying Dragon Age Inquisition instead. I finally cleared the trebuchet battle (without lowering the difficulty, heheh) so I set about exploring Skyhold and clearing up some minor quests before bed. And then woke up in the middle of the night and played some more until I could fall back to sleep.
Before that, though, I made some more notes for the next story, which I expect will be a novella or at most a short novel. Even now I’m still more or less in the outlining phase, but that Sunday, I did start the writing proper, though with a lot of false starts. It’s been in my mind since 2018, so I have bits of writing from that year and 2019 to incorporate in it (or discard if it no longer aligns) which is rather exciting in and of itself. A bit of spring cleaning for the imagination, you might say.
I even added another old art piece to the home page — void/eden from 2018.
In the week since I’ve put a bit more work into a short story that’s been percolating in my brain for a number of months and I finished translations for a few more アリス九號. lyrics (though they still need a bit of editing before I can post them). Though given that I worked yesterday, I’ll be spending a good deal of time, I expect, giving in to Scout’s requests for naps and pets…
Sounds like a good way to spend an afternoon to me 🙂
p.s. I ate yogurt all throughout childhood without any issues, but when I became a teenager, the smell suddenly started making me gag and ever since then I’d been keeping my distance from the stuff. Well, wouldn’t you know it? I recently figured out a way to trick my brain into eating it again! I take plain greek yogurt, slather it in my favourite salsa, and eat it with chips as a replacement for sour cream! Paired with the salsa, as long as I eat it while its still cold, I really can’t smell the difference between it and sour cream. I wonder if I’d be able to eat it with pierogis and green onion…
One year ago today, I met Scout and brought him home with me.
The rescue estimated that he was about four years old and so gave him an estimated birth date in March, based on when they’d rescued him. But because I adopted him just a month later, I decided I might as well celebrate both dates at once. As a five-year-old, Scout is far more relaxed living in the apartment than he was for the first few months that I had him.
He’s decided that he doesn’t mind taking baths (but hates drying off), that mirrors are interesting, that both coffee and bananas smell yucky, that it’s bedtime as soon as his human cuddles under the the duvet in bed, that breakfast is at precisely 6am (…but that it’s fun to try to wake his human up an hour before that), that the food dance does make food tastier, that he can see his human coming home from work if he patiently scouts the sidewalk from the windowsills, and that going to the vet is nothing to worry about because he gets to come home afterwards.
Scout still has a bit of a wild streak in him, but he’s a people-cat and loves spending time with me and meeting other humans. It took us several months to bond after the adoption, but I feel so lucky that he eventually chose me the way that I chose him.
I also feel lucky that, despite all his rambunctious energy, when it’s time for me to sit and write or develop or get my creative juices flowing, Scout is usually quite happy to quiet down and take a nap next to me.
I gazed at the full moon over a copse of trees through the window of the train this morning on my way to work. In my mind, though, I was back there with you, swaying… dancing… a ray of sunlight finding its way to us from over the horizon.
Yesterday afternoon, I went to meet with a friend from university at the Galerie Lee Matasi Gallery in the Byward Market where she was showcasing her artwork. The last time I’d seen Stephany was at the same place this past June for the vernissage of the Ottawa School of Art’s graduation art exhibit, to which she’d contributed several pieces, having just completed her program. That evening, the place had been sweltering and positively stuffed with guests, so we’d had very little time or space to have a proper chat, especially since so many others had come out in support to see her work.
In stark contrast to that first meeting, the gallery yesterday had been quiet and cool, virtually empty of guests other than us. When we’d exchanged hellos, she led me through the front doors and then turned off to the right side, ducking into a bright corner room with high windows and an exposed ceiling. With the afternoon sunlight giving the entire room even, natural lighting, and the soft yet bright colour palette of the pieces she had put up, the space felt effortlessly warm and inviting.
My gaze was immediately drawn to one watercolour in particular, however, and it took some effort to look elsewhere. The piece she had called Affection was just that beautiful.
Though Stephany is an interdisciplinary artist, she has a particular affinity for watercolour, a medium she has been passionate about painting in since I first met her. All of the experience she’s had in painting with it, cultivating her talent over the years, really shows in her pieces.
We had the little space to ourselves when we arrived, and Stephany was kind enough to oblige me with in-depth explanations on the meaning of each piece in the room; I took a picture of her artist statement when we arrived, but I didn’t read it until later that evening. The artist statement feels appropriately professional and left plenty of room for the viewer to form their own impressions of each piece.
On the other hand, Stephany’s in-person explanations for Re-connect were deeply personal, as she had a warm, sometimes humorous anecdote to tell me for each piece. The exhibit as a whole is a tribute to her mother, who passed away. In acrylic paint, a medium that her mother loved, Stephany reproduced four photos that her mother had taken and shared on social media for family — photos of things that represented elements of who she was as a person.
For some paintings, she took extra care to make colours true-to-life (a particular brown bowl that her mother had always made a certain Cambodian salad in represented the taste of home), while for others, she embellished the subject of the photograph, paining it the way that her mother’s aura had felt (in Bloom an ethereal flower is held up for the camera in her mother’s hand).
The piece she had called Crabapples had sort of stumped me when I had first seen it in the graduation exhibit; as pretty a painting as it is, I just hadn’t been able to guess at the significance behind it. Yesterday, I got the answer. Stephany explained that whenever they’d gone to parks and come across crabapple trees, her mother had excitedly gotten out a plastic tub of a container and they’d picked the best specimens to bring home to be made into a spicy dish that Stephany assured me is very tasty. I couldn’t help but laugh in surprise, because I’d grown up believing they weren’t edible. Her anecdote completely changed the way I viewed that painting, especially with the way she described her mother’s enthusiasm.
The watercolours, meanwhile, were Stephany’s recreation of three family photographs that held particular significance for her, each transformed through the aesthetics of her soft yet vibrant colour choices.
When she’d answered my (many) questions, she let me finish admiring the watercolours — that is, until she let out a sigh of annoyance, punctuated by a short laugh. When I asked what was wrong, she showed me how someone had rearranged her business cards so that they no longer went in the order they had been meant to go in. Originally, she had arranged them so that taking one card (the Witch in the foreground) would reveal a different card (the Familiar in the foreground), each with her name and contact information on the back. I snapped a photo of her artistic vision once she’d rearranged them. I was laughing at her being particular about the setup, but only because I know I would have had the same reaction.
I took home a card with the pensive Witch in the foreground, in case you’re curious.
When everything was back in order, we left the gallery and headed for La Catrina, a small family-owned churreria/café in the Market, whose fare I have thoroughly enjoyed several times now. We both decided to try their churro ice cream bowls to cool down, and they were exactly as delicious to eat as they sound.
Though… we got chased out of the restaurant courtyard by a very insistent wasp soon after we started eating. Luckily our churros were entirely portable, so we took it as a good excuse to walk through the Market and then over into Major’s Hill Park, the good weather having attracted plenty of locals and tourists alike.
We considered crossing over the bridge into Gatineau once we reached the little lookout over the river that gives a clear view of the Parliament from the back, but it was getting hot and we were both in need of a cold drink. So we headed back the way we had come in search of iced tea.
At the tea shop, we both immediately set our sights on their jasmine tea, of which there were two varieties, and had a laugh with the worker behind the counter when we asked what the difference between the varieties was and he admitted he wasn’t certain. Flavour-wise, one was just a bit more strongly scented than the other; the other difference was that one variety was the type of leaf that has been carefully rolled by hand (that is the type that I have at home, that I drink on special occasions).
I first tried jasmine tea when I went to Japan in 2012, and had lunch at a Chinese restaurant there. It was a good meal, but easily overshadowed by how much I had loved the delicate fragrance of the jasmine tea. It remains one of my favourites, still. Stephany explained that it is a variety that she drinks often because it was a fragrance her mother adored (she grew a jasmine tree and used to pluck the blooms and tuck them in Stephany’s hair). It was a cool coincidence that we both immediately gravitated to that particular tea.
We decided to take a walk around the terrace of the Rideau Centre as we sipped our iced jasmine teas, and by that time, it was late afternoon so the sun was turning a golden orange and preparing to set. Even though I have lived most of my life in Ottawa and went to the Rideau Centre often starting in my teen years, it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I realized you could actually go up onto the roof and that there was a nice, quiet terrace up there.
We’d covered so many topics by that point in our conversation that, finally giving in to sitting down on a concrete bench, we got out our phones and began exchanging photos and anecdotes about our cats (hers, Marcel, is a grey tabby that, like Scout, gets into a great many shenanigans). We laughed. We talked about family, creative pursuits, developing a good work-art-life balance, and about web design. And then we parted ways and went home.
To be brief: it was a really good afternoon.
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You can find Stephany Lay’s portfolio, shop, and socials [ here ].
This was the first morning I haven’t woken up in a cold sweat in at least a week.
Also, it was my birthday yesterday.
Ah, the little things we take for granted.
I couldn’t get this Friday, my actual birthday, off work so I took Monday off instead, and I have every intention of using the long weekend to get more words in and do some much-needed cleaning up in the apartment. I celebrated my birthday by having a private crying spell (a yearly tradition), and feeling silently grateful that I am still alive — a feat that manages to seem both miraculous and nondescript.
I received messages from family, friends, and acquaintances, wore a favourite outfit to work, and afterwards, went grocery shopping with my parents. When I got home, after having given a very excited Scout his supper, I noticed that I’d just missed a phone call from my grand-mère and so I quickly called her back, hoping she would pick up. She did.
We had a short, but really heartening conversation, laughing a lot about nothing, really. It feels like a privilege to have conversations with her now, because for a very long time, I hadn’t been able to.
When I was really little, before the age of six, maybe earlier, I spoke French quite readily. I am told that French had been my first language, the language that my papa and I spoke to one another in, the only language his side of the family understood and spoke.
I have a crystal-clear memory of being in my grand-mère’s vegetable garden behind her house, and explaining to her that a coccinelle, in English, was a ladybug. She’d been showing me how they were nibbling on the leaves of some of her plants, and I’d been excited to share the word with her. I must have been three or four years old, and we would have been visiting my grandparents on their farm in Québec for summer vacation just before heading on back to Gander, Newfoundland, where were living at the time. She still has that memory too. Because it was the last time I truly spoke to her until I was well into adulthood.
I spoke English with my mom and with her side of the family (who only understood and spoke in English) but I had favoured French in my early childhood, apparently. That changed for some reason (or maybe a host of them) around the time I turned six.
Whereas before, I had spoken in French with both my papa and my other relatives, I suddenly became terrified of speaking in French around them. I understand French, and particularly the thick, Québecois country dialect that my relatives speak, very well. I went to a French school and was completely fine speaking in French there, but in the presence of my close family members or relatives, I could no longer utter a word. I would merely nod my head yes, or shake my head no. After many years, I was able to start saying the words oui (yes) and non (no). Then in my teenage years, I became able to add s’il-vous-plait (please) and merci (thank you) to my yes/no utterances when I wasn’t too anxious.
I always knew what I wanted to say, and the words would form in my mind, but I couldn’t get my mouth to open — or if it did, no sound would come out. And when it did, it was limited to the phrases above.
I couldn’t say je t’aime (I love you), so I’d give my grand-mère a hug instead when she said so to me, and hope she recognized the sentiment being returned in my expression as well.
Though I was never formally diagnosed, I had likely developed selective mutism as a child.
In my late twenties, I began speaking a little more. Just a little, and only when I was one-on-one with a relative, which I had avoided as much as possible as a child and as a teenager, because it had made me feel too anxious, knowing I couldn’t hold a conversation with them.
Knowing they couldn’t understand why.
I… couldn’t understand why.
A couple of years before I turned thirty, after a long, slow decline in health and mobility, after going from being a hardworking, hands-on farmer, to a person receiving round-the-clock hospice care, my grand-père passed away peacefully. The last time I’d visited him, he’d regaled us all with some stories (including one about a time he’d taken my grand-mère on a date), and had been trying to make us all laugh, as he usually did. Just before it had been time to leave, he’d taken my hand and exclaimed, c’est si p’tite! (it’s so tiny!) and started crying through a laugh. Everyone else was crying. I couldn’t, not until later, privately.
I just held his huge hand. Smiled warmly back at him.
It’s how I wanted him to remember me.
So many people packed into the church the day of his funeral, so many more people than I had expected, so many people that I didn’t know. As one of his immediate family members, and as his oldest grandchild, I’d been one of those lining up along the pews to greet each guest who arrived, each one of them stopping to offer their condolences and to shake our hands as they filed in and took their seats. It felt strange, like I should be offering many of them my condolences instead, because some of them had known him far better than I did, even though I only exist because he once lived.
I still spoke very little at that point, but my grand-mère had made a request of me a few days earlier; she had wanted me to read a prayer in French, aloud, during the ceremony. I didn’t know how I would manage it. I didn’t know if my voice would fail me. But it was important to her, and I’d given her so little over the years, given my grand-père even less, maybe, so I accepted. The night before the funeral, my grand-mère handed me the prayer which had been printed on a sheet of white paper, then folded twice. It was long. It took up the entire page. She took my hands and thanked me for agreeing, told me how much it meant to her that I would read it. I believed her. I didn’t know how I would do it, just that I needed to. Just that I wanted to.
I read it over several times, but didn’t memorize it. Couldn’t.
There were butterflies in my stomach.
I had an accent now when I spoke in French, my first language.
It was sad, but it was reality.
Partway through the ceremony, the priest called me up to the front of the church, and I held the paper in my hands, stood up, and went up to the microphone, smoothing the paper out on the little stand in front of me, holding my tears in check the way I had been the whole day, while everyone else cried.
I began to recite the prayer, and my voice worked.
It was amplified by the microphone, echoed throughout the hall.
I said the words for both of my grandparents, and then I returned to my seat, shaking, finally.
My relatives all expressed their gratitude afterwards for my having recited the prayer, my grand-mère most of all. I was glad — am glad — that I could do that for her. That small-huge thing.
.
The weather that afternoon was perfect. Sunny, warm, but with a nice breeze.
We went back to my grandparents’ house, to their farm with its little mountain view in the distance, and stayed outside till supper, most of the cousins (and some of the aunts and uncles) playing catch and football on the lawn near the vegetable garden, while I sat under a tree in front of the house and read a book, my close relatives stopping by in ones and twos to comment on the book I was reading in Japanese, and to talk to me a little, while I did my best to respond in shaky French.
I like to think that my grand-père was gifting us that perfect outdoor weather as a final goodbye.
It’s such a good memory, and incredibly bittersweet.
After that day, I started being able to have conversations with my grand-mère, even ones over the telephone — which is saying a lot, because for most of my twenties, I couldn’t even have conversations on the phone in English.
I initiated a ten-minute conversation with my grand-mère on the phone yesterday.
And we laughed, and caught up, and chatted, as though we’d been doing it all our lives.
That does still sort of feel like a small miracle.
I needed to clear my head yesterday afternoon, so I got ready and went out for a walk downtown, intent on eating my first gelato of the year. We’ve only just barely started spring in earnest, but it was already 30 degrees with the humidity, and the streets were filled with people in sandals, pushing strollers, eating out on restaurant patios, and admiring all the tulips blooming in the parks and city planters.
With mint chocolate and rosewater flavoured gelato in-hand, I wandered up the streets towards the park, deep in thought. I spied a chipmunk dashing through an expanse of tulips and wondered what it must feel like to be that little creature, to live that exciting little life in this comparatively huge city.
For all its wonder, for all the amazing innovations we’ve managed to make, human life feels, sometimes, so unnecessarily complicated. We so often long for things that we cannot actually have, or that were never for us to begin with. Our world isn’t just made up of a little territory, our home range, or a migratory path — it’s global. It takes practice to like and appreciate what you have when you are constantly shown all the other possibilities that exist. It takes practice to understand, as an adult, that slowness and quiet are luxuries, when the rest of your days are filled with packed schedules that don’t leave you any time to think. When you constantly think to yourself, how is it already insert-month-here?
It is Sunday, as I write this, and outside my desk window a light spring rain has been falling, making all the vegetation and brick buildings I can see look so much darker, more vibrant with the rain. After all the heat we’ve had this past week, the rain has been sorely needed. It is Sunday, which also means that I’m indulging in my weekly cups of coffee… meanwhile, Scout hunts birdie (his favourite toy, a red bird) on the bed.
Funny story about birdie…
That toy started off being attached, by a string, to a stick so that I could make the toy fly around and land for him to catch it. He enjoyed that well enough for a few days, but eventually started getting annoyed with me. At a certain point, he started catching birdie in his mouth, setting the toy aside, and then attacking both the string and the tip of the stick where the string was attached. Until finally… snap! He bit clean through the thick, springy string and liberated birdie!
Oh, was he ever pleased with himself! I cut the rest of the string off birdie afterwards, laughing, and he’s been carrying birdie around in his mouth ever since. He likes for me to throw birdie for him as well so he can catch it, tumble around with it, and then bring it back to me for another throw. The toy is starting to lose some of its stuffing, so I’ll have to sew it back up soon… I’ll also have to see if I can buy a backup, though I’m sure he’d realize it’s birdie-the-second, and be annoyed with me again.
Speaking of which, shortly after the birdie’s liberation day, I came home from work to find that Scout’s bag of insect-protein treats had been curiously torn open, the treats strewn across the living room floor. When I asked Scout what had happened, he gave me a look of practiced innocence and then went about snacking as I tried to remain stern and not laugh. I suppose the treat-fairy must have liberated the treats from their bagged oubliette. We may never know.
When Scout first came to live with me, he was very curious about the bathtub, and loved to get up on his hind legs to look into the tub (whether it was filled with water or not), but he wouldn’t jump into it. Brave as he is, he is nothing if not cautious. He had to carefully study the tub over the course of a couple of weeks before he finally jumped into it of his own accord. He absolutely loves it in there now. Whenever I go in to use the toilet, he’ll follow me (I’ve given up on shutting the door behind me) and then hop into the tub to play behind the shower curtain. He is not a fan of showers, because this means he has to wait outside while the water is running. Sometimes he will meow at me in protest. He prefers when I take baths so that he can stick his paw in the water and take a nap on the bathroom floor.
On my way back from my walk yesterday afternoon, I kept stopping to admire the cherry trees in bloom, the surest sign of spring that there is. The driveway of my childhood home has always been flanked by two dark pink cherry trees, so I grew up gauging the changing of the seasons by the way that those particular trees looked at any given time of year; I love their gnarled branches, and how both trees together used to form a canopy over the driveway, whether they were flowering, laden with leaves and cherries, or covered in snow and ice in the winter.
Before the pandemic started, I’d decided I was going to move to Japan and so in preparation had gotten rid of a lot of my things, taken a part-time sales job while I sent in applications and prepared for a JLPT exam (that, at least, I accomplished), and then… the momentum that societies worldwide had been functioning on changed or stopped entirely. Borders shut down. A lockdown was put in place in my city. The new job that I had started had to let me go because of lockdown-related shortages (thankfully, the government covered me and many others financially during those months). I had to cancel the trip I had planned and paid for to Japan for that month to go see THE ALTERNATIVE in concert (they had to postpone the concert, too). The last overseas teaching job I’d applied to turned me down shortly after, and I gave in to despair, my mental health deteriorating as the lockdown lengthened, the pandemic showing no sign of letting up.
It’s hard to think about that period of my life, for a lot of reasons. I feel shame at how I acted. I feel shame at the beliefs (not to say delusions) I came to hold. I don’t really want to revisit those here. But it took me far longer than it should have to understand that I had the ability to change and improve my immediate circumstances and wasn’t as “stuck” as I had come to believe; that started when I moved out of my parents’ house and into an apartment again and began living by myself. It was a relief to all of us. Even though it wasn’t what I had truly intended to do, it was a step towards the goal I’d originally had. That real subsequent isolation also allowed me to face a lot of things that I hadn’t allowed myself to face before then, and it allowed me the privacy to finally start online therapy which I hadn’t been willing to do in earshot of my family members.
The pandemic disrupted all of my plans, and I gave into despair and delusion instead of using the time I’d had while out of work to get my novel written… to get literally any of my short stories finished. To cultivate self-respect that would be worthy of respect from others. To use the financial support I’d been given while temporarily out of my new job to write fiction, to sharpen my translation skills, and to study for the final level of the JLPT so that I’d have even more job opportunities. I will always regret that. Even if the things I did, the private letters I wrote at the time comforted me in a way and did come from a genuine place, however warped they were by things I was dealing with in my home-life. But I can’t change the choices I freely made back then. All I can do now is reconsider what my goals are and how to get there from here.
After several months, I was welcomed back to my full-time position at the office and began life as one of the “essential workers” in the city that could go in to my physical workplace even when we entered more lockdowns. I carried a letter from my employer that would confirm I had the right to be out and use public transportation even during lockdown periods; that was an interesting experience that I may never (correction: that I hope never to) experience again.
And finally, in my own space, though I wasn’t past the sense of despair and certain bouts of delusional thinking, I began to write in earnest again. Though this had to be done around my work and commuting hours. Still does. I’ve gotten into the habit of spending my Sundays writing because I don’t normally have the energy to do any after work during the week (lately I like to do a bit of translating before work every morning, though, to wake my brain up).
Do I want to teach, do I want to write copy, or do I want to translate? Do I want to try again to live in Japan, or do I want to move to a city like Vancouver, where I can get a direct flight whenever I have the time and the means to visit? I don’t know. I don’t entirely know. Scout hasn’t given me a clue either, but he’s a little adventurer, and I feel certain he would be up to trying whatever I decide is best for us.
I find it so soothing to see 木漏れ日sunlight filtering in through trees; to be in partial shade where leaves are lit up a bright green wherever the sunlight is trying to pass through, shadowy everywhere else. The lens flare in the photo above has such incredible coloration, such a mysterious birdlike shape.
I got home and gave Scout his supper (which he was certainly delighted about — and he’s gotten very good at doing the food dance before I even start to do my answering pirouette), then set about making mine. Since I was able to get my hands on a very nice 長芋nagaimo at the asian grocery store (along with packets of 焼あごだしdashi, which they hadn’t stocked in forever) the week before, I was able to make my first batch of お好み焼きokonomiyaki in a long while (I make mine based off of this recipe). I can’t get any 青のりaonori here so I top it with parsley flakes instead. I used to buy お好みソースokonomi sauce but I stopped because I could never use all of it in time… I suppose I should hunt for a good recipe so that I can make it at home as needed. In any case, okonomiyaki is one of my ultimate comfort foods. And this time, I tried making it with a red cabbage! I prefer using thinner, softer cabbage for okonomiyaki and cabbage rolls, but this very thick variety was all I could get my hands on. Still, with extra nagaimo and steaming time in the pan, it turned out soft and delicious.
And gorgeous. Look at that mysterious purple hue.
And my maidenhair fern peeking out from the top of the right-hand photo… it really did bounce back from what had seemed at the time like death. The rain has entirely stopped now, and it’s turned into an afternoon just as sunny as yesterday’s. Scout has switched to enjoying the fresh air coming in through the open window in the kitchen… and I’ve now finished drinking all my coffee.
Yesterday, it wasn’t just the effects of the pandemic that had me ruminating, but also the grief I wrote about in the previous entry regarding how it had taken me such a long time to get the help I needed for my mix of mental illnesses. The event that initially caused PTSD in me as a pre-teen would not have had the prolonged, lasting effect on me, would not have snowballed into cPTSD if I’d received the treatment I needed back then. If someone had chosen to set my proverbial broken bone back then, I would not be trying to treat all the secondary effects now as an adult. I was a child when it happened, I was a pre-teen; there was no way that I could get the help I needed for myself the way that I am learning to now.
For this, and any other type of grief, it is true that there are really only two ways to make it better. You have to be able to face it honestly, to honour how you feel, and move through it, not bypass it. It takes time, and it heals in fits and starts. I felt so angry, such hurt yesterday, thinking about what might have been. And so I wrote up a storm in my private journal, and I let myself feel all of it, and then… I went for a walk to ground myself in what actually is. I can’t go back and change anything, though that fact alone didn’t and still doesn’t melt away my hurt as if it were nothing. I just let my thoughts take their course and stopped to find all the small details along my walk that reminded me of the beauty and mystery that there is still to be found here and now. The things that make my artist-brain light up.
I think it is the province of dreamers and romantics to constantly imagine what might have been and what could be; this is an incredible skill to have. But it can hurt just as easily as it soothes. It can motivate just as readily as it can demoralize. When your imagination is strong, making peace with reality and moving forward in a self-compassionate way isn’t always the easiest task.
It’s okay.
It’s okay to take your time. It’s okay. You need to.
I am repeating that reassurance to myself as much as I am writing it to you, reader.
During the month of August, I met up with Babs for the first time in a year in order to celebrate our birthdays, which are a few days apart, together. We spent the early afternoon in a museum, the early evening at a café, met up with another close friend for supper at a Japanese restaurant, and then the three of us hid away in a new bar for most of the rest of the night.
The Canadian Museum of Nature had a live owl exhibit set up on their back terrace, so that influenced our decision to visit quite heavily — that, and we both really love dinosaurs, and animals in general. This particular museum (which not that long ago underwent extensive renovations) has been a favourite of mine since I was a kid; I even slept in the museum overnight once when I was in Girl Guides!
We slept in the room with the rocks, stones, and minerals, in case you were wondering… it’s been a longtime tradition for groups of kids to sleep in the dinosaur room, but at the time, it was undergoing renovations, so we hadn’t been able to.
Anyway. The dinosaur room was predictably busy, so we set about seeing all of the other exhibits first, in the hopes that things would quiet down later on in the afternoon. Meeting all of the owls was a delightful experience; most of them were sleepy, or glared at us balefully from over one shoulder, but a few of them were very alert and interested. I got pictures of two in particular. Khaleesi was as regal as her name suggests and didn’t do much more than stare at us disapprovingly; she is the owl in the photo on the left. Rucker the barn owl, meanwhile, is in the photo on the right, and was incredibly quirky. He kept swinging his head from side to side so I swung my head in the same way, hoping to catch his attention… and I did! He flew closer to the bars and did some more curious staring and head-swinging and tilting (which I mimicked again).
Afterwards we did a tour of all of the permanent exhibits that we are well used to but still enjoy every time nonetheless. One of the new short stories I was working on for TSBA at the time had to do with seasons and animal transformations so I got a lot of inspiration from seeing specimens of some of the animals I’d been researching for the story. I’ve always liked how their arctic fox is partially hidden behind blocks of ice (that’s the photo on the left below). The birds’ permanent exhibit is utterly fascinating; the picture below on the right contains one of the sea birds I’d already done a bit of research about for the story so I was very excited to take a look at its powerful-looking wings through the glass with my own eyes.
One thing I find particularly cool about birds, is that some species have such huge differences in their plumage depending on their sex. There aren’t all that many species in Canada with such differences, but I see a lot of Red-winged Blackbirds in my neck of the woods, so I decided to take a photo of their specimens — the female has brown and tan feathers while the male is almost entirely clad in black with some bright shoulder pads for a little extra flair. Love it.
The insect exhibit is filled with just as many fascinating specimens (both taxidermized and live). On the left are spiders, scorpions, stick bugs, and dragonflies, while on the right are iridescent butterflies and beetles. I’m not saying I’d want these insects crawling all over me, but I do enjoy looking at their interesting forms.
Finally, we got to wander around the dinosaur exhibit and imagine what it might have been like to live among those enormous creatures. I took a photo of my own feet reflected in the glass in front of a triceratops’ hoof. I just love how the way that the bones curve makes them look almost dainty but that they would have supported an incredible amount of weight. My two feet put together are about the size of a single toe. Just fantastic.
After we’d finished at the museum, we headed to the Byward Market and made ourselves comfortable at a café in order to wait for our friend to join our party.
I mean that in both the woohoo sense and the questing sense.
Just to be clear.
Once our friend had indicated she was in the area, we made our way to the restaurant we’d picked to have supper at: Gyubee, a Japanese barbeque joint. After a good bit of wandering through a museum (a full day of work for our friend) and some walking through the Market, the huge all-you-can-eat meal really hit the spot. All three of us have known one another since high school (and earlier), and run missions together in Warframe with audio chat once in a while to catch up. Our friend hadn’t been able to join us for a birthday dinner the year before, so it was nice to sit down together this time!
Afterwards, we got a booth at a new bar in the Market called Apothecary. I am not joking when I say I made an unintelligible sound of excitement when we sat down because the decor and the vibe was so good. The outdoor lounge area is really cool, but the real bar is down in the basement, the stairway to which is tucked around a corner when you first walk in the door. Exposed brick, mirror windows, dried decor? Loved it.
My friends both tried out their cocktails (and they seemed pleased with the ones they tried), but those didn’t interest me all that much. I asked the server to ask the bartender to recommend a good scotch to go with the dessert that I’d ordered, and the bartender came over to ask whether I liked peaty flavours or not (the answer to that is yes: yes to smokiness). The dessert, meanwhile, was a very savory sort of strawberry shortcake (aptly named Strawberry ‘Shortcake’ — yes, with the quotation marks included). It was utterly unusual and delicious. I will definitely be ordering that again when I go back. The scotch I got was a Laphroaig Select, which I sipped with great enjoyment.
This dessert included herbs, sour cream, and delicate little edible flowers… dusted in silver sugar.
Just… so pretty.
On the sidewalk outside my apartment on the way home, I stared up at the sky, which was surprisingly clear, and managed to see one little shooting star. I didn’t make a wish — I just felt grateful that the sky was so clear and that the street was dark enough to let me see so many stars from where I was standing.
Also, being that I am a huge アリス九號. fan, the sight of the shooting star immediately made me think of several of their songs, chief among these being shooting star… hopefully the reason is obvious! But their discography is peppered with songs that make you think of space so there are plenty to choose from. Another favourite, lesser known astral-body track of mine is 天体アンブレラ (tentai UMBRELLA – ‘Celestial Umbrella’), which Saga apparently composed after watching a nature documentary featuring northern lights, the lyrics to which match that motif. Recently, they released the very gentle track 星降る夜には君を想う (hoshifuru yoru ni wa kimi wo omou – ‘I think of you on starry nights’).
And then there’s Stargazer:, which is part of their album GEMINI, which they’re going to be playing in full, in concert at the end of this month for their big 17th anniversary. I love that album. It is a little universe, it has inspired a lot of art out of me, and this concert in its honor is going to be incredible and inspire me even more.
One of its influences is the band LUNA SEA, of course, a song from whom Saga recently did an epic cover of:
I’m getting delightfully off-track.
All of the above made for a nice, low-key birthday. Which is fitting, because I don’t really celebrate mine anymore. I kind of prefer to pretend that the day-of is any other day and then find reasons to celebrate it secretly in other ways on other days. See: the above concert.
See also: this cake that I made back at the end of June for Saga’s LUNA SEA themed birthday. It’s lavender chocolate sponge with a dark chocolate glaze, and a blueberry jam astral body… garnished with lavender flowers, rose petals, and silver sugar globes. It was inspired by certain themes in GEMINI, as well as the fact that there was a drum and bass “jam” in the concert I watched the day before I made it (Saga plays the bass). Obviously I couldn’t actually give the cake to Saga, so effectively it was a birthday cake for myself before my actual birthday. It was delicious, in case you’re wondering. I decided not to make a cake this week… though I may make some of my classic mint chocolate chip cookies instead!
All of that being said, I do share the same birthday as 圭 from BAROQUE, who played a concert that day, an excerpt from which is in the following video:
Finally, given that I am now in my dirty thirties and am supposed to be doing whatever the hell I want, I decided that for the first time in my adult life, I would don a knee-length dress and go out of the house with unshaven legs. Did I nearly run back inside after having taken two steps outside the apartment building? Yes. But I took a moment to psych myself up, put my keys resolutely in my purse, and started walking to the bus stop. I’d like to say I felt extremely empowered and liberated, but the reality is that I felt somewhat free while also feeling rather awkward. No one really paid much attention (as expected) except for two women who gave me dirty looks, and the sensation of the wind blowing the hairs made me feel ticklish, which I thought was pretty funny.
I felt awkward simply because I’m not sure I particularly like how I looked and felt in the dress with my legs exposed that way, but it could just be something I’d need to get used to. I might like the sight and the feeling better wearing shorts, for instance. But it was good to try it anyway. Now that I’ve done that, it feels like I truly have a choice. I can go out with hairy legs whenever the hell I want to. Or I can choose to make them smooth. The choice is freeing.
The last time I had hairy legs in public, I was a twelve year old in gym class. One of the so-called popular girls in my class pointed at me one day and yelled “EW!! You don’t shave?!”
I was mortified. Up until that point, I’d barely noticed the hair on my legs. It was like background noise. Just an inseparable part of the skin on my legs. Her disgust changed it into something I became hyper-aware of to the point where, for many years, I couldn’t bear to bare my legs in public even after shaving them.
So I’d like to go back in time to that fateful moment, right before the gym teacher walked in (good dude — he also taught music class… tried and failed to teach me guitar), lock him in his office, show up as the supply teacher, go up to my younger self, and be like “WHOA! You don’t shave?! That’s awesome! High five! Time to play ballon-chasseur ya little hooligans!”
I used to feel like my body hair was an inalienable weapon being implemented against me by biology and society at large. I deflected it by anxiously covering up or getting rid of it; even one visible hair on my legs was too much. My god, the shadow of shaved hair follicles under the surface of my skin was too much. I would shave myself to the point of bleeding, I would wax or epilate, and it was never enough. I could see it. I could see it.
I used to have nightmares about going outside unshaven.
But the reality of the experience was perfectly anticlimactic.
The fear is gone.
I’ve handed that decades-old anxiety back to society, and freed up emotional space for other things.
