On silence, on caretaking, on self care and kindness

I keep sitting down to write about the last few months and somehow the words all seem too big, clumsy and wrong. I don’t have the lines of the story yet, and I don’t have the last chapters resolved, and it seems like this season has really been a journey whose words are still taking shape in the light and dark muddle of things. And I’ll be honest: I’ve been tired. Tired past my bones, tired in my spirit. I’ve been wanting to share a bit of my experience through all of this, and on reflecting on it, I’m not sure I can properly convey all the strength and grace my mom has shown though all of this - how much she’s had to go through - and so as I write this all out, I’m trying not to speak for her, say too much or summarize her experiences as my own.

In the summer, my mom was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. In the fall, she moved in with me to begin treatment, and on Thanksgiving we almost lost her. I am so happy to write that she’s doing better - there’s a journey left ahead, but she’s been able to spend more time back home, we take little walks around my neighbourhood, and her and my dad have even adopted an “emotional support cat” named Jasper.

During all of this, I’ve taken on less sessions and I’ve been so grateful to my clients who’ve been so flexible and understanding with my longer editing turnaround, rescheduling sessions, and slower response times. I stopped booking new sessions around October, but I’m slowly opening up my availability, while also creating + forming big plans for recraft in 2020, as well as doing more therapy work. Lots of new stuff coming next year - but I’m approaching it all slowly, steadily, and with a deeper recognition of the power of my voice in the world and an understanding for self care.

This year I’ve been working on my self care stories, and I had no idea when I began them that self care would be such a meaningful and poignant part of 2019. I knew that self care wasn’t always easy, but it’s hard. For any of you out there for caring for others, anyone feeling heavy about taking needed time to rest when someone you love is hurting, know that caring for yourself is caring for others. Burn out is real. Take time to walk by the river. Take time to sit in your backyard. Take time to have a slow coffee on a long morning and listen to the rain fall out the window, ask for support, find a therapist you resonate with - it’s ok to not be ok, and it’s ok to ask for help.

For those of you navigating the medical system in any way: keep asking questions. Keep making phone calls. Don’t be afraid to push - kindly, gently, directly. We are all in this world doing our best to navigate it, and not many of us know what’s next, or how long a waitlist is, or how long is too long to wait for treatment. Even for me, coming from a (very small) background with Northern Health, there was so much I didn’t know, didn’t understand, felt anxious about. There were days I sat at my table and made 8 hours worth of phone calls. There were times I called my mom’s pharmacist so much they knew the sound of my voice. There have been times when I’ve felt so angry, frustrated, full of grief, anxious - completely lost in a system that often seems to work without human kindness, without the awareness of how wonderful my mom is - How needed she is, how much of a light in the world she is, and how desperately care was needed.

I am happy to say that my mom now has a wonderful team working with her - it took time for things to get moving, but now that they are going forward, I feel incredibly grateful for a thousand small kindnesses: how her ER dr always remembers her, phone calls from her oncologist checking in, incredible CGH paramedics, the team of pharmacists that answer all my anxious questions, the gentle kindness of BCCA nurses and the nursing hotline, how the morning after my mom was placed in ICU her good friend met me at the nursing desk and just wrapped me up with love. There are a thousand more kindnesses I could mention: care packages, prayer shawls, muffin drop offs, soup made with love, check ins, long talks, all of the people who have made space and offered support. My cousin Melissa even came down for just over a week to help out, which was so needed. Jamie has stayed up all night with me, helping to care for my mom after rough chemo rounds. I couldn’t have done any of this without him. My family has been so good at checking in with each other and supporting one another. In all of this, I know we all feel very lucky and very loved.

My mom is spending more time back home now with my dad and her little cat - the stairs at their place are still tough, but I know how good it is to be home and feeling cozy. During chemo rounds she comes back here, but with every round I’ve seen an improvement. The process of cancer is so individual, down to the type of chemo delivered to every patient, to their reactions, to the support network surrounding them - and there’s a lot about cancer that never gets talked about - if you’re looking to support someone going through treatment or caring for someone who is, reach out to them. Don’t be afraid to be present for them. Illness can be so isolating, and sometimes it's hard to know what to say when someone is hurting and you don’t know how to fix it - but there is an amazing gift found in being with people, in sitting next to them in grief, or pain, or hardship, even if it’s on the other end of a phone call.

For now, we’re moving into a slow Christmas, and I can honestly say that’s ok. The world slowed down to a crawl this fall, time seemed to slip, and I’m not sure I remember most of August. But there is a gift in the quiet, a refocusing in time - and I’m content to just sit by the river and let it flow.

*Images and story posted with permission from my mama.

my friend, el.

A couple of years ago I received word that a friend of mine had suddenly passed away. We’d fallen out of touch, but she’d never been far from my mind. I was always so busy when I’d head back to Thunder Bay, trying to fit everything in, and my last two visits - we just never made it work. I stayed up to date through social media, we spoke from time to time, and I thought of her as just there - I thought nothing of messaging her out of the blue, I figured we’d meet up again someday, and that when we did it would be like no time had passed at all.

Being far away and so out of touch - I felt like it wasn’t my loss to grieve. I felt the loss deeply - I still feel it - but it came hand in hand with a lot of guilt for not checking in with her. Now, almost two years later, I find myself wandering through the places I knew her on social media - seeing what books she was loving on GoodReads, visiting her Facebook page, looking over and over again through the archive of photos I still have of that free and disjointed time from ages 18-23, that time straight out of high school - plays, days at the lake, endless yard sales, book clubs, talking true crime - all the countless times we sat in my ‘92 Buick, drove down country roads, and imagined what our lives would be now. Her death was sudden, and heartbreaking, and as unfair as any death can be - especially for someone in their early 30s.

She was sarcastic and blunt with a heart of gold. I called her el, but her real name was Sara. She was smart, and opinionated, and she could give the best eyeroll I’ve ever seen to this day. She was creative, an actress - throughout film school I tried to find parts for her whenever I could because really, the best bonus of making a movie was making a movie with your friends. She was an amazing actress. I saw her once in A Midsummer Night’s Dream - and to this day it’s the only play me and my attention span have been able to go to twice. She shone, in all her dark humour and sarcastic glory. She sparkled, but she’d think it was really lame that I said that. She starred in my terrible first silent film, “Muninn”, about a young girl who is haunted by the memory of her friend who’d passed on. She starred in a few more films for classmates, she folded in - she always belonged in her one of a kind way.

I catch myself sometimes still thinking that it’s a world with her in it. This isn’t a bid for more photos - although take photos as often as you can - it’s just a space to share that today, on this sunshine-filled afternoon, on her birthday, how I really wish I could go pick her up for a country drive. I want to tell her to listen to My Favorite Murder, because she’d love it. I want to hear about what she’s doing, her thoughts on movies, music, fandoms, to mosey on over to the secondhand bookstore, to sit on a dock on Lake Superior while the sun goes down and the mosquitoes swarm, making art in our journals together, taking long exposure photos, road trips in along the shore of northwestern Ontario - on fire with possibilities.

A cozy little room for reading & visiting

I have always loved a good guest room.

In her house, my Nan had this beautiful blue guest room. When I slept over, I always shared a room with my Nan - we’d watch Murder She Wrote, do the dinner dishes together, and then turn in with my hopping up onto her giant bed with a little step stool. Her bedspread, curtains, and wallpaper all had the same wheatfield pattern, and when my Nan fell deeper into dementia, I would sometimes wander into her room and feel so much comfort in that connection of memory between the quiet routine of our sleepovers and how much her personality was reflected in how she decorated her tiny little duplex - wood paneled walls, teak furniture, brown rug hook hangings, and violets everywhere.

I was rarely allowed in the blue guest room so that it stayed nice for guests, but it, too, reflected her personality. Purple and blue floral wallpaper with one white stucco wall. A chenille bedspread, decorative blue and purple pillows, and blue shag carpeting - it became my mom’s room when we moved in with my Nan, my brother’s when my mom moved into my Nan’s room, and my room when my brother moved out. It was fitting because no matter how long I lived in my Nan’s little duplex it was always and forever still her home, full of her memories, and reminders of the vibrant person she was in every carefully curated corner - it made sense that we all spent some time in that room she’d allocated especially for caring for and comforting visitors.

I was always taken with the fact that she had this dedicated, decorated space just for helping people feel at home in her home. One thing I was really excited about in moving into our little house was making our own little guest room - and while in between visitors it doesn’t stay as pristine as my Nan’s did (it’s a bit of a storage collector), it’s been really lovely - almost therapeutic? - to prepare it for visitors, and think about all the ways I can show them love, and care, and comfort in this tiny bright space.

I’m moving into this house s l o w l y it turns out, and that has meant waiting for each room to really become what it needs to be. I think the guest room is finally finished, so I wanted to share it with all of you. We just had a good friend come stay for a couple days, and next week my dear friend Amy is coming to stay, so I’m looking forward to getting it ready for her, too. My goal is always to have a space where people feel comfortable just closing the door for a bit for an afternoon nap, or reading a book or two, and recharging, with the lovely trees overhead behind the house, and the stellar jays & sparrows flying around the garden, and occasionally our cats aggressively sneaking in for cuddles.

One of my favourite parts is that that white chenille bedspread is the exact same one my Nan had on her guest bed.

So here’s our bright & cozy guest room.

Some guest room books, and a cute little house planter from Spruce Collective, vintage quilt from Circa Vintage, and that white bedspread is the very same chenille cover that sat on my Nan’s guest room bed.

This sweet Cultus Lake photograph was thrifted.

Beans and this Boston Fern are best friends and the fern should probably be a bit frightened. Little purple violets like my Nan loved.

Rocky Mountain Soap Company wellness spray (this stuff is delightful). The piano has nowhere else to live, so it’s serving as a little bookshelf/tv stand for now.

Jack and Audrey’s lovely body oil bought at Pick Eco Refills downtown, and a Minter Gardens pilea.

Antler from Kilnhouse Studio

Sweet little Godin mushroom print is thrifted, and the painting of my Grandpa is by Nichol Duenes of A Vintage Cloud.

Majestic. This poor fern.

Where the magic happens

Well, if the magic is a somewhat better organized cozy office through which I do hours and hours and hours of editing.

We moved last JULY, and last week during the snowstorm I actually took a breather and focused on putting my office together - and let me tell you, it’s glorious. Still cluttered, still dusty, but a functional space that doesn’t make me feel like the lady from Labyrinth who carries all her things on her back.

From “Labyrinth”, 1986. This is 100% the character I would be in the Labyrinth. She had some great stuff.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m always going to have a chaotic workspace. One of my report cards that got sent home to my mom in Grade 5 read something like, “Sarah needs to work on keeping her workspace organized and less chaotic”, and I still remember how I’d created a sort of cluttered magnificent island around my desk - surrounded by bits of paper, half-started projects, and whatever I’d lugged to school with me that day. I cringe a bit thinking about it, like - our messy workspaces are things we keep hidden in the deep dark comfort of our homes right?! - but I also think it was part of my process - when I make art, I make art messy - and it drives some people bananas.

All of this being said, I still like things to be in their place - I like when a space reflects me, when it feels creative and changeable and open. I still have lots of work to do but I’m really grateful for this little space - I have no idea how I got the mountains of editing I had this past summer/fall done in a space surrounded by half open boxes. At our old apartment everything was brown - brown carpets, brown walls, brown countertops and very few windows - and I don’t know if I can properly explain to you how grateful I am for these bright white walls and gigantic windows that open - it feels pretty awesome to start doing this space justice and making it a creative haven.

SO, without a lot of dusting and/or cleaning - or even any setting up, here’s a little peek at my workspace - a mixture of plants I’m barely keeping alive, a My Favorite Murder quote, and a mixture of prints and paintings from local friends, artists, and people who’s art I love.

I’ll update this further when it’s actually, really, honestly finished - but for now, here’s a little tour of where I do all my computer creative stuff.

I think I picked up that sweet little painting at a market, the ship from Spruce Collective, the lunar garland from Fern Craftwork, the swans from Rifle Paper Co, and that sweet little copper handprint is actually my brother Brad’s.

Jamie started putting these googly eyes on everything, except the glue on the back could probably withstand a nuclear apocalypse so this is just how my desk lamp looks like now. That beautiful plant I’m trying not to kill was a gift from my friend Jennifer Foik.

Hang in there, beautiful goldfish plant! I spraypainted the shelf from Ikea with gold metallic paint. I learned that a) metallic paint will chip/scratch very easily and b) make sure you dust that shelf before you paint it. A part of Beans’ hair will live on forever embedded into this shelf. The embroidery is done by my Great Aunt Buddig who was an amazing artist. This whole post could so easily just be photos of the wall above my computer though, let’s be honest. I love it so much.

A little rainbow from Lennon and Birdie, and a (bellows?) passed down from my grandmother.

This poodle was from Value Village where someone donated their entire poodle collection. I went back like 3 times and finally I just had to take one home. I still haven’t unpacked the majority of my books (we don’t have bookshelves anymore, and I feel super scandalous sharing that with you) - so I just have a few old standby’s sitting out here and there until I figure things out.

I just have a real soft spot in my heart for listening to records. Always reminds me of when I was a kid. - I can’t remember who made the macrame unfortunately, but I got it at a craft market.

Ok ok ok last one of this beautiful wall, my favourite part - and some more Fern Craftwork and a local grain piece by my friend Kimberly Francis. Our house is covered in her work - some of the very first pieces we put up on the wall.

Little vintage quilt from Circa Vintage on the top of my chair (workspace is still super messy - I need some external hard drive/wire hiding) and a sweet little rug hanging - again from a market, but I can’t remember who made it.