Spiral Dance

July 16, 2025.Reading time less than 1 minute.

My daughter and I are speaking again, and I am learning how generational trauma resurfaces – sometimes with a different face, and often with a new perspective. Quite the journey, this thing called life. (Image and words my own)

Trickster

February 14, 2024.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Without resources to deal with the trauma of my youth, I buried it. It would surface again, when as a young mother, I sought for a deeper understanding of life. I searched for the light and found only darkness – the truth of my own victimhood. I did not see how my obsession with healing – the […]

Trauma (tanka)

February 7, 2024.Reading time 1 minute.

Took some time to re-evaluate where my energy goes, as my health has been deteriorating lately. The one thing Myalgic Encephalomyelitis teaches is that energy for anything (be it mental, emotional, or physical exertion) is limited. Trying on a stripped back existence in order to reset. That has meant limited screen time. “The idle mind is the devil’s […]

Learning What Matters

February 21, 2022.Reading time 2 minutes.

Parents brought children to the occupation in Ottawa. They set up camp on a main thoroughfare, in front of apartment buildings and retail shops, and obstructed the lives of others. They honked their big rig horns, left their diesel engines running day and night, and set up barbeques, and food tents, and bouncy castles, and […]

Dormant

February 7, 2022.Reading time 1 minute.

There’s a restlessness in me that defies explanation. It’s not that I am bored – I have any number of creative projects on the go – it’s that I have a sense that I’m missing something, something that lies deep at my core. But what? And how do I access it? Something that is dormant […]

Trauma’s Shadow is Rage

September 22, 2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

“…he had always been popular and happy and things had always worked out.” (Holly LeCraw, The Swimming Pool) I close the book, feeling the rage shifting just below my sternum. It’s the second time this week […]

Tired of the Same Old Endings

June 1, 2017.Reading time 5 minutes.

“I’ve started to write short stories again – something I haven’t done since I was a kid.” “How’s that going?” “It’s disturbing, actually; the endings are the same even after all these years.” “Like what?” “Me in a straitjacket, completely mad.” “Oh, I see!” As do I – there are never happy endings, just a […]

Many Layers of Illness

September 30, 2016.Reading time 4 minutes.

“Could my life history have contributed to this illness?” I asked my therapist one day. We’ve been seeing each other now for the better of three years and it seems the trail of ‘stuff’ is never-ending. “I think it is fair to say that given your childhood, your marital history, and the years you did […]

What Memories Linger?

August 26, 2016.Reading time 3 minutes.

“My dreams have turned violent lately, lots of blood. What could that mean?” “What does blood represent to you?” “Well passion, life giving, but these dreams have a woman being decapitated, a baby being cut with scissors, and it always occurs in connection to my childhood home.” “Not life giving, then.” “I usually convert the […]