by Sandy Bassie

Identity expressed in names

I hope I’m not wrong messing with my identity by writing under my maiden name from this point forward. I don’t dislike my everyday name, but the majority of things I have written with it come from connections with a lot of trauma growing up, married, divorced, losing the love of my life I met late and had only a short while. I’m still Sandy to a few thousand people I love and see regularly. Inside, there is still a part of me that never quite was the person who hid below the chaos and didn’t follow an art degree, or a writing degree. She’s still in there. How do I let her take a role in what I do?

My question, today, do I leave my current blog under this name and just write certain thoughts here. Do I move it with the shift to ‘writer’s name’? A lot of what has been here the last five years is me processing grief losing Jack. I am 90% done the poetry chapbook I did the last two years on our relationship; grief, but also joy. I’m 40-50 thousand words into the memoir written around marriage and divorce I left in 2016 and start writing 2019. I can’t escape the sensitive places my children flinch over things written there, but one wanted me to go back to my maiden name at the time, and the other tenses over his part in some of the trauma. It’s complicated. But life is complicated and I never quite leaned hard enough into the name given me at birth. I’m curious.

So the question is what does a smooth transition look like? I have a few things written years back in allpoetry.com and have played with my name off and on there. It’s an easy first step. What next? Is it better to make a new email and website? I’ve been doing the blog here in WordPress since 2008 without letting myself get too deep in the weeds of writing beyond just whatever is on my mind. I have been checking the bottom of websites of people I know here and few other writing groups (as I follow WP in YouTube and learned you can use the program but host it elsewhere).

I don’t want to pay much yet to build a site. As I lean into retirement, I have several books and some art that I want to tie to a central location from the other apps. I am suffering quite a bit from oversleep and pain the last year. I don’t feel very productive. I write about and work within categories coming from abuse, trauma, mental health places in life that have me seeking identity and joy through a sensitive register. Will this shift or is this my field?

I’m asking others’ advice. Other than that, it’s take tiny steps and discover.

by Sandy Bassie

The Long Road

Two days ago, the decision, yes, I’m going. Weather has been distraction, playing over in my mind, pushing the word logic to the forefront, making me question it’s purpose and use. Of course there is logic to safety concerns, changes in plans during weather events. I followed online news and updates, official and off the cuff, called on friends and family to report back what they saw, but even so, weather shifts.

Is there really a way to align potential and definite? In the moment, maybe so, but time and distance give a lot of leeway. As much potential for error as success, and travel allows opportunity for distant factors. Life was like that so many years. One day’s promise becoming another’s remorse. If only there was a little remorse on the other’s part; or so I wished. Being the only one carrying the weight of decision and remorse is wearying. Those days are longer than the promise days, so much longer.

I learned this the hard way, through years of days given to promises often ignored, left unfulfilled.

Driving is much like any other relationship. There is promise, fulfillment, communication too fuzzy to be clear, silence turned into action, swift changes you didn’t see coming. Of the two, marital or vehicle, I tend to find the second more relaxing, more predictable, more defined. Even with similar flaws in communication, patterns are navigated on visual evidence for the most part. There is ability to see and predict, plan how to react, and given the worst, a certainty you will react in most situations. By the time marriage gets to needing to react to the visible dangers (because that is what I think of saying reaction to certainty) too much has been internalized as complaint, an excess of words we are told don’t do damage, knowing full-well that they do. Reaction becomes harder. Back bite, not movement. Questioning self as much as other, assuming fault will be assigned, and I’ll get the short end of the stick.

On the road, I had enough early practice to create certainty around my skill. The tests were designed to show comprehension and application, not tricks to undefine and unmake who you are. Driving, even with a punch to head or gut, gave me focus outside of the rage. Eyes still on the grey line ahead, defining space and purpose, a sense of composure I managed to maintain.

So deciding to go on an actual trip, with defined designation, stated purpose and plan, against this and the weather; I knew my skill and really only had weather and other drivers to anticipate. Taking a break, slowing the journey, having needed necessities and contact list, were all calm outcomes for issues that could come up. Snow, freezing rain, slushy roads, these things I knew and had navigated before. That left only the extra attention given to how others navigated the same conditions and whether anything I saw changed any of my own decisions.

Eight hours, two stops, an hour given to body recovery and basic needs. I was good. In a few days I repeat it all in reverse and hope it goes as well as the drive up. I know the road, the length of time, the conditions of this season, and my skills.

I wish I’d been as well prepared for the journey long ago I began and then ended abruptly when danger hit an indefensible state and divorce finally framed the outcome. Winter. Travel. It expresses itself in many ways.

by Sandy Bassie

5 X 5 and see it goes

I have the link to the photo prompt I mentioned in the last post. I meant to write on it yesterday after work, but somehow the hours between 12 noon and supper ceased to exist, at least from conscious memory. I’m learning that energy and its connection to both health and activity runs on automatic or maybe just autonomic. Every nerve has weight to it, pitches into things, like the keys on a piano. Low feels heavier than higher tone, and sound moves sleep and wake patterns like my foot on the pedal. I’m yawning again already when I’ve only been active since 9am today.

I wrote a poem to a group conversation around a YouTube stream. Playing with each other as we watched for patterns and expectations, all the usual happenings the group enjoys. The video was a discussion on Trinity; doctrine, not movie character. People of different viewpoints agreeing to disagree. I had fun watching for key words and opinions while playing my own game with words in poetry. The draft is done and shared with the friends in question. I may also read it to my writer’s group this coming weekend. I’ve promised them something to read.

Between listening and typing, I vacuumed two spaces, sorted clothes for keep or give away. And all that remains now is find art supplies and ask if I can trust myself to nap 10 minutes only before I log into the virtual class. It’s that or face down into pencil sketch. Even telling myself do things in 5 minute increments, I have a suspicion I’m taking on too much somehow. More than fibromyalgia and pain are coping with while trying to stay awake.

Better set two alarms and turn them up. Two peaceful hours of art, and see if I need more rest, or can continue the 5 by 5 minute game.

by Sandy Bassie

Yesterday, today

A note to a post in Canada Writes, the writers group in Facebook that I joined the one or two times I submitted to CBC. A photo prompt of a girl in a tree, laying along a branch. Time and timing of a thing that they did.

I didn’t participate in your contest during Covid. To me, Covid was a 30×60 foot fence made of self-check-out terminals, a wall of gum and chocolate, random interest items forming a laneway in, and the trapped emotions of rules and loss. It still sits like a snapshot of all that’s hard in my life. Wonder at how losing something good threw me back into trying to leave what came before, and how I dangle between the sanity provided playing in writing prompts and all the trauma that fills the broken frames that litter my memoir attempts. I’m copying this and adding it to my January blog days where I hope to put enough words to soothe the flow. The little things along the way that prod me along, working hard to convince me that sharing is not the end of the world. I’ve been telling myself a story my whole life and I’m still here. Yes, I need pills for my thyroid, where I held too many emotions, and my blood pressure that peaked 200 too many times, fibromyalgia and anxiety that hold hands with PTSD, coaxing it to try one more day. So I cry when I write. big deal. I cry when I don’t write too. And days like today, which are many, give me reasons to add words to a page, and like something that happened in the night that had me putting notes in my current journal, questions that pull reasons and thoughts already written in places in my memoir notes, one more approach to the stories I tell myself about what and when and how, the too many words and fractured lenses through which I see my life. The layers that get me in trouble with family who cope in different ways. It’s probably stupid writing all these things. It’s ok. People who want me to write have convinced me it’s good to share the things I share. It’s brave, not stupid, and it has opened me up to a lot of the brave things that keep me going. Talking about it gives reasons for others to look at their lives and challenges in hopeful ways, or at least to know they are not alone. So here I am, a photo prompt that isn’t what I wrote, but did contribute to what will go to my blog, and lets me one number past where I started on the clock the day, and one breathe past what went into my journal about head, gut and shakes. Hello day.

by Sandy Bassie

Another year, another start.

First day of January 2026. The morning is half done and that’s about all that is done. Time.

By afternoon, I did accomplish a few things. I visited the neighbours and when home, I dug deep into clearing out my bedroom. It’s been story boxes of papers, books and other things, but I’ve been saying for a few months that I need to clear them out and make it possible to remove the queen bed. In November I bought a twin frame and mattress knowing the smaller bed would allow me to use the space better for some of the art things I want to do. I need a place to set up an easel and be more consistent in creative pursuits.

I’m still struggling with exhaustion, whether from injuries that are not quite done healing, fibromyalgia symptoms, or winter patterns with plows in the night, this has been a difficult year for energy. The rotator injury I picked up in the summer, and the cut that had two stitches removed last Friday, are improving. I decided I will only work in five minute increments, resting as needed, and approaching the bedroom that way is seeing more movement than just trying to tell myself, push through all at once. I’m also allowing naps when I start to yawn; setting the alarm for 20 – 30 minutes. Just enough to let energy reset. It doesn’t feel like I’m achieving enough, but I am too hard on myself and if I’m going to survive retirement, I need to pace myself and be kind.

So, I’ll try notes the same way. Short and medium writing bursts. Let myself use prompts. Allow myself to stop and lay out as I feel my body start to swirl, circle the drain. Energy drains quickly now, and the challenge for the last third of life will be to learn new ways to navigate it. That being the case, I’m circling now and leg muscles are twitching. These signs have told me sleep since I was 30, and they say the same now.

I’ll be back with another note soon. If do well practicing this, maybe each day with the short ones. And see how I do with longer projects as I go.

by Sandy Bassie

October 2, 2025

Placeholder title. Write in my journal. Let my mind drift, hover over the things I did this morning. I did exercises for my neck, worked through a Drops lesson on Hebrew (boy am I slow), watched a video on how to learn, watched another. While listening, I took a shower, thought back to childhood and the I brought to adulthood. I miss the cat picture I made from torn magazines. Greys, blacks, I think I think I used more light greys than whites. I wish I had a photo. I have no idea where it went, who threw it out and when. This has bothered me for decades. It comes up frequently in thoughts about other things. How I taught Jacob. How I took and dropped out of university half way through Teacher’s College, right after getting married. That bothers me too.

It shows up in a variety of ways in the memoir that’s half finished on divorce and leaving. Why does it have a place here, where I’m thinking about skills I have and grew? It usually makes me think back to my first Teacher’s College placement, a grade 2-3 split where my primary assignment was to work with the lowest reading group: what I learned was how much I already knew, and the importance of observation and instinct. Following my gut. Jacob.

In the shower I thought back to the birth of my children: with Joshua, waking in the night, telling the nurses that he needed to see me, knowing that it didn’t match their schedule, but understanding how it connected to what we had been through during his birth. It was rough, and this night visit mattered to whether and how we started our connection. With Jacob separation was by necessity, a week in controlled oxygen, things inserted between us, incubator, gloves and gowns. Doctors and surgeries, calendar dates filled with tests for him and us, so much to learn and do; I learned to watch intently.

Jacob’s first day home, I noticed his anxiety, withdrawal, overwhelmed. We went to upstairs to rest and as I placed him in the yellow bassinette we’d been given as a gift, I took one of the baby blankets, tiny layette thing, smaller even than a crib. I draped it over the top of the bassinette and pulled it open just a few inches. Placing my hand down gently on his back, I stroked him, just my thumb. I felt words flow between us, tiny bursts of air. I let our eyes meet, opened and closed mine, like my thumb across his back. “It’s okay. You don’t need to be afraid. We can go slow. Let’s start with the bassinette, one room, one place at a time. We’ll get there.”

Why did I do that? Why did I even think he’s understand? Like the girl in grade 2, it was something I saw and couldn’t place, a look, a movement; a difference from the boys. Explaining reading and language, I could see she was lost in a different way. Jacob was the same. Something too many, too much, I felt it in his look. And like with the students, I started with smiles, with reassurance. I’d seen how it worked and applied it again. I knew what it was to be afraid, I too withdrew in school, at home, and for a long time, hid in silence. “I can do this”, I thought, “This is our place, we can do this”, and gradually, we did.

*** *** *** ***

I write short pieces. I’m patient.

Reading through long works is hard.

I did well in school, but it was effort.

Even art scared me, essays too.

I learned to be afraid at home.

Mixed messages, abuse, subtle meanings,

misunderstood. I learned that right answers

had nothing to do with being correct,

though I was corrected often.

I learned to hide.

*** *** *** ***

Jacob woke me from this place. He walked me through a thousand fears. My mother said my life was over the second I had him, and I knew that though her words were right in many respects, in much bigger ways, Jacob saved me from hiding and taught me to become myself. Writing his story is writing my story. I’ve been asked many questions about what I did, what it was like raising him, what I learned and could teach others; his teachers, 1:1 workers, his and my friends. I’ve told and retold those things many ways through the years; stories into the moment where a need arose. This may be different, though the stories are the same. Writing and telling have their own rhythm, they bubble like springs, but they move in different ways. I want to enjoy this, I want to learn as I go, like I did in living it.

One day, this may be a book with a title and cover. I hope my fingers on the keys and things I say while typing tell me what they are and how I will know when find the right ones.

by Sandy Bassie

Slowing down is hard

Lately, I talk more of retirement, exhaustion, pain. I can laugh at myself writing these words, knowing how many decades I’ve talked about pain in different forms and situations; mental, emotional, physical. In ways the physical is worse because it inserts itself so tangibly into every moment of every day. But that doesn’t negate the other types of pain. They cause their own distractions, and have become far too good at it over years. The one thing I appreciate is that I’m learning to distinguish between them and the ways they speak of themselves and among themselves.

This change of paragraph is an example. I look at the last sentence above and realize I sensed a change of topic or pace. But when I landed in the empty space here below, it was very empty. Inside and out. Too present in it’s form to express what the form is, or was, or felt like; and so I sat. My body tangible and aware of the couch on which I sit, the places that touch with various points of pressure, the shape of my body on the couch, not upright, but stretched out, one heel one and the other hanging over. More distressing is the internal awareness, almost a form of pain, where food in the gut, but emptiness in my chest and a slight wobble of head where I can’t tell if there is actual weight or simply a pause in thought staring at what’s going on below.

I’m not a fan. Not of the tightness in my shoulders, the burbling in my gut the clench in my lower abdomen or the way my brain or thoughts have begun flipping through pages; topic, last night’s dream. I’ve had a series of dreams this week. They share a similarity, some form of danger, shared venue for work or accommodations, and a call to determine what they mean. On waking, I am very certain I am supposed to know what they mean. They aren’t quite like the ones I had back in Acton, pre-divorce. But they do involves houses and backyards, people hiding or needing to hide. I’ve started to yawn, to float just above falling back asleep. I can’t. I have no time for more sleep. I start work in an hour. My body would choose to ignore that and push me back under the covers of dreams, make me take another look, another run at understand, at knowing the something I am to decide. Yesterday, I wrote long notes. Today, none.

Whether this is important or not, I do not know. I just need to finish this note, to dress for work, and to walk out the day, and let things wind down how they will. I’m looking into retirement, and a bit afraid that I’m going too slowly for the realities at work. Will I find myself without work soon than I’m ready? My system is humming, not with anticipation, but nerves, fear, disjointedness. I waste more energy on navigating this place. I’m fighting the fail, the fall into sleep, perhaps late again to work, and struggling against this all day.

I put water in the sink, dishes in the water. I came and sat down, just for moment, half an hour ago. I’m swimming in the thought, in the yawn, in the dream. Why do my dreams not go away when I wake? Why do they linger the next hour or so, hovering?

Tonight I will finish the dishes. I will make the same meal I’ve eaten all week. Two bowls of salad (cereal bowls) and three strips of chicken. A cup tea, coffee, or milk. Poke at some words, watch a YouTube, and allow myself to drift away. I’m sorry words, it’s time to get up. Put my feet on the ground, hold onto the wall if I need it, get out the door and into the air. Slow walk across the street and into the building where work waits for me. How brave am I this week? Will I make it official? Shift to part time? Next step on the journey? I don’t know, but again, I don’tr know what I want, when I want and how. I wish I had time to think out more words, but I really am almost falling asleep. I’ll stop for coffee on the way, and come back later and maybe get this done.

For now, slow steps. Repeat after me, I must retire. Slowly ease my way out, and ease my way into art and other things. Take the pencils to work. Draw.

by Sandy Bassie

life … and the kitchen sink

Good advice is easy to come by, and simple to apply, if you don’t overthink. This week again, I got good advice at physio. I spend enough time there for old and ongoing injuries; ones so familiar, they really shouldn’t be called injuries anymore. I got stretched, asked about a few exercises, launched into ways I thought I could remember them and again went home with a chuckle hearing, “Sandy, don’t think so much.”

I do over think, but my days off this weekend offer opportunities to enjoy. After a walk and signing up for a few writing events this weekend through Eden Mills Writers’ Festival, I decided I also needed to see local art friends I’ve missed working through our weekly get together. I had an early shift and nap, but made myself resist falling back asleep. By 7 pm I arrived at my friend’s house, pencil and paper in hand. Good call. Laughter, tea, a home-made chicken pie and deep reduction in the stress I’ve been carrying for months. They each worked on watercolour projects they have underway. I drew lines and circles I left incomplete in my sketchbook while I admired their work, took in words of wisdom, and remembered what it is to relax. I’ve missed them.

I don’t have a great excuse for not working on poetry, memoir, or art the way I wanted this year; a foot injury, flare up of neck and shoulder issues, overabundance of pain as distraction and cause for too much sleeping between work shifts. But I don’t count that as justifiable cause for too little writing, drawing or painting. My friends do. Their words refine my brief shrug at the issues of pain and frustration. I couldn’t find the bag of art supplies I brought a few months ago. I only have my sketchbook. That’s enough. My friends help me see the reality is a functional barrier, not just an excuse. They are happy to see me, and encourage me to come back next week again. Drawing circles is just fine as long as I am there. They too point at ways I overthink, ways I remonstrate myself for imperfections. Why I think I don’t deserve the good I find in words and smiles and moments shared.

They are good friends to have, and I am grateful.

I think back to last weekend’s visit from my son. How many times he made food, did dishes, suggested ideas for easy meals I can follow until he comes again. He’s patient with me. We had one emotional scuffle, the first day, but shifted more easily than we have into acknowledging it and moving on to things we appreciate in each other. I’ve promised to keep my fridge clean(er) and do dishes at least every second day. I’m poking through the excess of things I own. Things he may not need or want if life is shorter than I’ve been told. For some reason, family and friends see me thriving another thirty years. It’s a long haul to a steep age and may come about, but if not, steep better not represent the pile of things I leave for my son to sort. He’s been quite clear this is my mess and mine to solve. Knowing how kind he is in the day to day helps, I have to chuckle and agree I am working at it and will up my game if I must.

So today, as I finish this post, the kitchen sink awaits and a very small pile of dishes to fill it.

Wishing you smiles shared and a clean sink. 😉

by Sandy Bassie

I thought this was a writing blog

Several years ago when I started this blog, my intention was to write my thoughts and show my process of learning write beyond just journal notes. It seems mostly to be a place of reflection on life and growth, and places I stumble.

The dead silence the last few months doesn’t please me. I do peek from time to time as if words will magically appear, but mainly I have been hanging out online talking to friends and acquaintances about life and the world. This year reminds me how easily and deeply I stress about the past, present and future. Places I disentangle slowly from my body reactions or don’t. I’ve been sick four times this year, each one connected to a family relation and loss. Two funerals, one burial, memory still of Jack’s death in between. I used to be better at stubborning through things like this, though pre-divorce I did have a number of stress flus I had to face and got in trouble for having.

Writing, journal writing, used to help me offload some of the stress, but putting things that matter into forms you want to share doesn’t seem to have the same fixative qualities. People say “don’t write then” but I can’t not write. It is my natural language for times like these. So I write and file things, rewrite and lose things.

In July, it was a significant accomplishment to tell myself enough avoidance, get an editor, do a chapbook. August, September and working towards a second consultation or manuscript edit. Maybe a combination. This is hard. I have so much appreciation for the editor who is working with me, giving me homework to keep me at it, asking good questions and making me make decisions for myself.

If I post this today, it’s one more step. If I go to the store to pick up the magazine in which a friend has two stories, that’s another. Being sick is no fun, but these two things I can do to provoke more words and hopefully a finished email reply on the chapbook’s next appointment.

by Sandy Bassie

Waters on which to drift away

Friday, we went to Irvine Creek, my son and I. Saturday, I came home from work early, sudden almost pain and distress, a kind of disorientation I’ve had off an on the past month that doesn’t seem to be blood pressure (that shows optimal) and my manager wondered if it could be silent migraines. Possible. There are several possibles. I’m on vitamin D now because it’s very low. Calcium is another addition, along with regular multivitamins. I’m old, I joke and half mean it. Life goes so quickly and we stay so busy, we hardly notice the lengthening of the line behind in the mist of the one ahead.

Jacob says I must learn to cook, practice, and teach him. He emphasizes practice. I’ve been going through clothes and books. Too small, okay, how long have you had this? Too many things stored where I can’t get at them and too long between cleans. That’s been going on forever, since I was a child. This odd obsession with hiding things to keep them safe. And is it really an obsession when you know it’s one and you know it’s why. My sister getting to keep our room, my closet open access even to newly purchased and not yet worn clothing she wanted to try. She’s a generous heart, dear sweet soul, but back then we were not allowed to be friends and so no template for how to solve things one shouldn’t ask or mother would interject with angry words. We’re learning now and doing well. Life is all about learning, practice, never too late.

Well, not accurate, some things are too late because they get snatched away, not offered in good timing. Things like that; regrets, Jack would say, “you only regret the things you didn’t do.” I didn’t appreciate the depth of his statement at the time. I do now. I regret losing him, not reapplying to the replacement position in Chissassibi that fall. Wondering what if I did. I’m back to parenting part time and it’s nice to have the company, but it burns me at both ends. Jacob is very patient with my online class (nearly done) and the occasional bible studies I do with a pastor who has time on a Jewish discord. The one I’m on the last year and a bit, talking to friends, learning some Hebrew, and missing Jack in less tragic, ongoing healing ways. Jacob and I often take our walks in the cemetery. We stop to check the flowers, water them, talk about or to Jack, then go the long way around the inner roads, stopping here or there to look at a memorial, talk about why one section is all soldiers, another all slots in a wall, their markers in tiny frames. It is a beautiful place of flowers and trees, and we look at where I will be, the plots around me filling in. I want him to be ready when the time comes. He’s seen so much loss in life too. Grandparents as a baby, my younger son meeting neither of the Bassie side, nor my father who wouldn’t speak to us the ten years past Joshua’s birth. A stupid thing, that’s how they go. My dad and I wanting to see each other, but not getting past John’s anger or Sarah’s. Communication. It’s held an odd place in my life and still does.

Jacob’s communication is improving lately. I have said that same phrase for years as it slowly progressed. This has been a year of notable pace. If I was better, or younger, I’d have tracking books out making note of every observation. But those were days my work was my children and my time was theirs with fewer distractions. But even then, I seemed to be always hurrying. I don’t hurry as well lately. I’ve been writing this an hour by now. Some cereal in between. But I only have one hour left until work and my fingers are slowing down, the back of my head into my jaw is threatening, hopefully not what we had yesterday. Some of that may be the walk Jacob and I took down to Irvine Creek. I was telling him about me and Jack, crazy old people, carrying his canoe down those stairs one day when all the usual access points in Elora were disappearing. We made it down and back with a little more ease than I did on Friday. We must have been younger, one of our first years perhaps. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost eight years since I met him and three since he’s been gone. I’m glad my children knew about him. He wouldn’t meet mine unless he introduced me to his, but they knew, they had that much. It helps.

I wrote a long letter to Jack’s sons today. How their rejection hurt me. Physically, emotionally, contributing to the panic attacks, stress, health issues. I’m leaving for work. It will sit in my email server and I’ll stare at it again tomorrow. I need to go more to Irvine Creek. I think that’s why I had to quit early yesterday. The long stairs, the strain. My body not used to the long steps. A man said they are replacing them. Tourist steps. I have to go before that, even if I can barely walk after, I need the ones I remember, the ones we struggle down and back up with that red canoe, or was it the blue one. He had several and favourites. I’m tired. More than tired. and I want to put my feet in the water. Write tears with my finger tracing water bug swirls. I remember going under when I was nine or ten, not able to find footing at our cottage in Georgian Bay. I feel like the last three years, sudden slip and drift away. I didn’t then, I won’t today.

How do you tell children they have hurt you so deeply?