by Sandy Bassie

Place, yes

Two minutes to 7am here. I hurt. I had a good stretch at physio Thursday. I had two good walks with my son. I notice this year there is a lot more flab on my body. I am aging. There are things I want to say and may run out of time. I am strange person. I have always been aware of time in odd ways, long and small, eternal but moment by moment. I live somewhere in between. Place is very important to me. I start to hear the word show up around me and realize how long place has been a concept I value.

Place, beneath the bushes, the gentle arc and quiet rustle of belonging or belongingness, in and among. Creatures live there. I visit. A simple moment or several of childhood. Impractical. A place of ideas and the calmness to feel them. I watch tiny snails, a bee, birds further along in the bush. Learning that silence bring near. The air is warm, the ground cool where shadows intersperse. The world is teaching me about itself. I talk to the bush, the snail, the bee. And I hear my mother calling. Get out of there, you’ll make yourself dirty, what are doing anyway? Words dribble out, but she shouts them away, and I follow her, back to the house.

I’m taking a course, talking to friends, using words I do not know. Sharing again, and again, the story of how I raised my sons, how I left their father, how I am getting by, working and aging. How language played such a large role in our lives, and ways communication took it all apart, caused questions to reframe and restructure my actions, my choices, my beliefs (maybe those).

Places are important to me; behind the couch, under the bed, the back of my closet silent and dark. Places pressed in, embedded in memory, safety and fear, a need for space, a need for closeness. The weight of those imposing their strength, my mother, ex husband, my sons at times. The weight of arms tender in love, a kiss on my head, a hand on my back, the difference of hugs. Safety, compassion, ardour, defense. Are we bonding? Yes. The questions of love. Mom safe? Yes. My son, holding on, learning a hug is more than a touch, ritual of grace we teach when they’re small. And now, in his 30’s my oldest holds me when he hugs.

Writing. It’s how I think at times. After yesterday’s class, I lined up several (ok, more than several) videos to listen to while I work, clean, putter, learn to feel my apartment and not push it away. It is strange to hear people talking about things I’ve been telling those in my life in different ways for years. I have questions on a few integration places. How to ask them into spaces not my own. I consider how many words I have put into this computer the past five years, more than that, twenty or more, and longer if you count early poetry. But specifically, words of memoir and memory, sloshing around, my mind like a swamp. And my body, my poor body, I ask it so much. Push it too hard, and not hard enough to keep it in shape. Pain triggers sleep, drifting awake. Memory intrigues me. I watch others in my course hold phrases and words, work concepts, make frames. I do that best when I hold it all loose. Like these words, in this place, where I watch them appear. Do they come from my brain, or my heart, or where else? They roll down my arms, past shoulders that scream, through channels of nerves and the lump on my arm, out fingers and palms held above keys, where pain hits an 8/10 as I type. But why do I write? Shift in my chair? Make adjustments to angles, how I sit, where I face.

Somewhere in the ribcage and down into the gut, and upward to my throat, where the muscles hurt for days when you smile for hours at a birthday or a wedding, convocation, those we love, those we honour, and embrace. In my body, the knowledge tingles, lights up my eyes, even through the burning, pins and needles, sharp biting pains. The space in my ribs grows greater in size, it changes unseen, unnoticed by the world. But it’s there pressing down, embedding a fine seed; is it hope, is it dream, determination to go on? Purpose and joy, desperation over need. It’s there in awareness talking, something sacred, something real. It’s the place of expectation, I wage war with myself, get in trouble with my mother or my ex who can’t see that this place is very special. It’s the place where I wait on moments of grace, time extended to allow my ability to wait. Ability too often is taught to demand. We break trust with ourselves and don’t realize what we’ve done. We take this home, this body, this mind, fill them with consumption, stale air, and say we’ll pay.

So I sit, in this place, let my hands bypass my mind, let my mind open, my eyes close, breath slow. I feel my body shake. This broken house, this tiny home, rocked by the world and by myself. Slowly, I let the rocking become small movements back and forth, the rhythm of ages, foot on the cradle, silence of peace.

This house is my home, my comfort, my joy, place of waiting, of meeting, outside and within. Yes. To past, to future, just yes.

by Sandy Bassie

Life and Meaning

*possible trigger, difficult subject*

If life and it’s meaning had a liturgy for me, that liturgy would be tears. I cry often and easily. My mother used to say I enjoyed being miserable. It may appear that way at times, but to me tears are tiny trails of prayers. Offerings without words. The dancing of light upon the waters. They are not always sorry, and even when they are, loss doesn’t come without joy. Loss implied something held, even temporarily that had value to lose.

Fourth month of the regular year, first of the Hebrew calendar, times overlapping in interesting ways. Counting things, things I count upon. Work brings stability, a regular pattern, expected activities. Home is becoming a home again. Jacob comes to visit. I have an eight week course that allows me space to have him visit. People say it all the time – being alone is not good – have your kids, friends, family come visit you, make time and space to entertain. I do not entertain. We seldom had friends come for tea even when we were in a community that often extended invites after church. Not us. We went out, but we did not invite in. Strange that, how patterns form. Would I have been that way in another life? Could I have learned to relax and prepare a meal. Perhaps.

I bought myself flowers this week. A simple bunch from my local Walmart; cut flowers for a vase. A bit of colour here beside me at the table. Cheerful and bright. Why that’s relevant, I don’t know. It’s not that important and yet.

I’ve made several people mad at me this week. The reasons are unclear, but I take it at face value. I have hurt someone. I apologize, stand back, wait and see. I cry a few tears, but nothing like the tears of frustration and regret I wept years ago, for my ex, my partner, my mother, or years back for grandparents and inlaws. There is an ebb and flow to loss and return. The thought comes more calmly now, small realizations of what is and may be alongside of the things lost. There is love and that’s enough. I’ve been learning to hold gently things I believe, things I think I need. A lot more time is present lately.

Friday, unexplainably, time folds in; the sharp deep stab of pain I felt three years ago surges over me. Death draws near and stares, its eyes pits of darkness I want desperately to allow. I do and don’t. Was it something in the night? Something I dreamed? All I know is I woke at death’s door and it was wide open, waiting. That was twelve hours ago or more. Several phone calls and texts. A drive down to the cemetery and back. Late for an online course where words from my texts and words from calls, where even the rabbi called back, whether I was Jewish or not. He said he listened to my message and wanted to call.

A friend joined me at the grave, stood holding me while I wept. Nodded and listened even though it’s not a recent loss, but just one reactivated by time and season, family I don’t have. Is this something others go through? I so often think, this is just me, my life, too much loss where I love. And knowing I wouldn’t take it back, not a moment; every second worth the pain it brought. Love, as my course today reminded, is action, like faith, and trust, relationships intertwined. I wouldn’t change it, miss the opportunity I know G-d gave. How could I? I prayed and prayed for this love, this chance to trust and be trusted.

I have a thousand things to do before it’s my turn. Family and friends reminding me I can’t give up, and besides I made a promise to listen to Jack, to his instructions and belief, “you’ll live to be a hundred”. Oh so far away. Is it really a hundred or was that an estimate you made? I called the cemetery, got an update on my grave, the payments I’ve made, next steps and things to account for so whenever it comes, I won’t leave Joshua with the costs that it brings. Like going through my stuff. That needs the many years. I have to shorten that time. Make life more presentable here. Free up the space. Tidy cupboards and floor. I can do it. I just don’t. And today, I asked Lin if avoidance could be the plan; holding off the inevitable and the tug of darkness and dark days. If I don’t clean, it’s a broken promise, and a way to delay. Am I tricking myself into waiting, riding out one more wave, where grief hits like shock, capsizing. Or am I just still avoidant from the days of ugly words and labels and blame? I really don’t know which, and it makes a difference. Impacts the choice. Directs the days.

Maybe I’ll listen another time through. Course material. See what the evolution of religion looks like to philosophers, scientists, and students. That and maybe pray.

Tomorrow is work. Something for my hands. My heart and my mind will have to look after themselves. But at least if I’m moving and doing and interacting with others, there is hope it will fill in the time, keep edging on towards what the future holds. And don’t ask questions. Let’s give questions a small break.

by Sandy Bassie

Irony

My last post started with being sick but not contagious. This is the reverse. Day four calling in to work to say I’m not coming in today. There are things going around, but there are always things going around. I don’t always catch them, and they don’t always catch me. But last week, four days into return to work from a five day bereavement to deal with my ex husband’s passing, the shock, emotional but also physical. Timing and so many other things relating to past, present, future, the week he died and the following week when my son came down to deal in person with end of life things, and his brother came up to also stay with me from funeral to when his brother returned home. Three people with too much stress and memory crammed into a tiny one bedroom apartment. I don’t know how we got through, but we did, and I looked forward to returning to work with its expected, usual, daily repeated retail stress and stresses; and the people there who keep me sane, remind me I’m strong and make life worth showing up to do daily things.

I was tired, and sad in a subterranean way. Not surface, no tears yet, no certainty of grief.

But memory in body, taking over what the mind could not do. Displacement a habit. Move emotion to the side; look, see, do. Keep moving. A smile, a greeting, handclaps and hugs. Years tied up in seconds. Old familiar faces becoming more than just a phrase I remember from some vague song or poem. I know these faces, and most of the names. Some I forget because I forget a lot and have no place to hang them in the life of today. I hate that I forget, and yet a part of me knows, I trained that skill for good reason, very young, and even before this. No wonder I am sick. Dust from long years. Practiced dissociation, not intentional, but real, holds at bay the things forgotten, wanted and unwanted memories at loggerheads for space. No just space, but motion. Emotion. Allowing out the things told “No”, long lines of things there waiting for expression in a breath. Depth beyond this shallow breathing, deep like the hugs I received.

I sleep to these feelings. I sleep to the pain. I’ve been sleeping for years, dreaming battles I fight for some things hard to name, or for children and family, houses a lot, place in communities where religion features as camps and retreats, leaders good and bad, saving sanctity where I can, if I can tell what it is. Dreaming is hard, it steals restful sleep. I lie wasted from rest, like illness, like this week. My body screams purge. I let it. I must. It doesn’t give me a choice when pushed to the edge. Still it’s ironic how like and unlike extremes are in moments of testing. Yeah, I’ll leave it at that, and I’ve written this slowly, so now back to work. Day two may be hard, like yesterday was; full of pain, lack of energy, sitting too much.

I’m glad for the work that I do away from home. It’s repetitive in ways, like waves pushing me into pattern I know, folding pants, hanging shirts, emptying changerooms and returning things to place. I haven’t managed that at home yet in ways that I’d like – too much redress for the effort – I’ll get there, I will. There is space now in his leaving, sad to say, but there is, a letting go on his end I needed him to take. Give me freedom to think and freedom to breathe, without guilt, too much guilt just from taking up space. How does that happen? I couldn’t quite tell, but I’m writing more easily this week and last, even while sick. Some bits are still ugly, I didn’t make them that way, just allowed them to the page. I allowed them to say what is remembered, how it was said; I wonder if memory may come now that he’s dead? What a terrible thought if it’s true. I can only wait and see.

I hope that he’s safe, regardless of all that went between, the words, the curses, other things as well. We talked about some of it and what I’m writing, and why. Irony that he knew, that I visited, even though, and just because, that we talked through his questions and worries and all that he hated laying in that place. Still he wondered why God loved him, and why he was alive. Tough questions right to the end.

Irony and illness, strange bedfellows, strange friends.

Be well, John.

by Sandy Bassie

Articulation

I’m sick. Not contagious, catchable sick, but it is sick. I can feel myself swimming almost to the point of passing out. Dreams. No sleep. This is an ugly place.

But I work today; 9:30 and hour or two from now I’ll be on my way. I told myself I will make art. A collage of images creating form. Structure and the like. Articulating.

I’m shaking. I hope I make it today. Tonight, I will go to bed early. Miss my class. Let myself pass out. Hopefully not wake in the night again. That’s what I did last night. Asleep by 8pm and awake at 10pm to watch people talk, a reading mostly. Interesting.

Maybe they’ll let me start early, 9am leave early. It isn’t much.

This place scares me. My head swimming from exhaustion and chocolate. Did I mention the chocolate? Punishment I bought. I know it’s not reward. It isn’t even help. I did eat supper, a can of stew. I’m still in the place where eating is off. How many years has it been? No words. No words. I need to move, relax myself. And forget the rest, how walking soothed abuse. One pattern, then the next. Changing pace, changing steps, changing direction I walked, the side of the road. Little distractions, then sleeping at the church. Because it was quiet, because it was safe. I had the key from three different groups, and well still used benches rather than chairs. I could lay down unseen on the hard wood surface, curl into myself. An hour, maybe two, sometimes three if middle of the day and kids not coming or going to school.

I’d sleep on the floor, on the steps at the front. Same deal, same idea. Out of sight, out of mind.

Writing this shakes. Shakes aren’t allowed.

Articulation is hard, both verbal and movement. Pushing words past my teeth, over tongue, out of lungs. Not easy at times. And still, they may or may not articulate. I stretch when I can. Sometimes I can’t; not allowed say my words, unspoken but heard. Not aloud.

What will I make? What will I draw. Frames and framing and framing the frames. Too silly by far. I am silly, I think. To move’s what I need. Get up and go. If I lay out paper and glue and magazines and scissors, will I do it when home? Will I make the scene?

I need to do it for my own good. I built a YouTube channel and three short talks, so I’m thinking of topics and words and ways, things we frame, what we think, how we think and how we frame it in telling and retelling. So I want to create, images, thoughts. Something to stare at when I talk to the screen. Or I talk to the people I talk to there. Articulate thoughts in better timing and better shape, better frame and frame of mind.

Articulate.

I’m two and half days past physio this time. Edging along. Moving to pain.

Get up, go to work, get food, go to sleep. Repeat and repeat. Oh, and write out more words. Almost 2,000 in the memoir yesterday. Borrowed and created from pages of thoughts. If I don’t muck this up and can get them to form, I may have a book. I have people to read. People are important in so many ways.

Falling back asleep if I sit here too long. Getting dressed, getting coat on, getting boots, getting gone.

I’m a mess, but I’m learning, what I fear, what I don’t. What I fear until I do it. What I will do regardless of fear. Apparently a lot. So I’ll share a little listening for those who don’t yet know, and I’ll think of what it looks like now and as I go. Mixing in the people from wide connections and wider space. Articulating as carefully as I can, as honestly as I can, as politely and with grace. I hope all of that is true and that it comes through in what I say. 

Let me know what you think. If you like, you can follow. It may be a mishmash.

I will write and may share little pieces and thoughts. It’s a challenge to myself to express things I love, things I hate, things that scare me, things I avoid. It’s one tactic I use when I’m struggling to move on – extend the road, redraw the line, increase the time and journey but take a step. I hope this works.

And I’m sorry to the people who think I’m naturally brave. I’m not. I just fake it and keep going. Sometimes it costs me sleep and dreams I’d rather not have then I face myself and the world and keep moving. It’s uncomfortable, you may not like the journey so feel free to opt out. If you hang in there, I’ll try to engage, but I overload at times, quite frequently in fact.

My thanks to those who love me regardless of the mess.

I am slowly building life around me. And I’m glad.

by Sandy Bassie

Resolution

It is the end of another year, with a few days to go.

Each of the past three years, I have told myself “finish my memoir”. The more I work at it, the more classes I take, the more people who comment, I begin to see patterns. Stress points. Ways I’m holding back; some good some bad. Looking at lists of things I cover, how I organized it from day one versus day 100 or 1000. There are a few people and places I come back to who have encouraged me and given me tips on how I am approaching things and how I can approach them. Every time I pull out a list, a comment, books, binders, computer files to read, something is highlighted and comes into clearer focus. Resolution.

I want to slowly (honestly recognizing my process) develop a website and am thinking about what I want. I have some roughed in pages here, not really useful yet. But also see a number of people using Substack which goes out in email format I think. Ages ago, I asked one writer friend about it as an option and got a link to a few other writer sites who use it. I think very slowly when I’m not thinking too quickly. One reason is the residual dissociation that lingers around ‘no fly zones’ in my life. Writing being one of them. Communication, people connection, telling my story. It doesn’t exist beside an on/off switch that I could conveniently flip as needed. No, it’s somewhere wired into the works – what’s that phrase people use – I forget.

Last night, I pulled out binder notes and again sat to rewrite (transcribe) pages I stacked in order of importance based on the people and resources offered to me the past three years. Some things won’t change, some will be in different location in the telling, and some things are new since my first draft went out for comment to a friend and then some instructors. The couch is in a new place. I’m working on a lap desk. I have a fresh stack of paper and I hope the little things like that will be enough to tip the scale and let me bring this to a different resolution. Allow the focus to move in and out, look at timings and influence, things near and far.

This year, it is also important to me to complete a chapbook of poetry, and begin telling things I written here about me and Jack and the brief span of our life together. How and when that will come together can determine itself, but I want to be intentional in keeping notes and where or how I place them.

On December 18th, I did a ten minute talk ‘sharing my story’ at Stories On Stage. At that length of time, no it is not my whole story, but I did enjoy the bits I shared. Thoughts on words, life, motherhood and children. A lot on language and why words matter to me. I want to do more of this alongside continuing in written forms; memoir, here, poems. Some of the difficult topics come more naturally just talking about them and in the past year, they have intersected with places I broached working through crises of faith and community that got mentioned in memoir notes and worked out more talking with people following Jordan Peterson, a few others, and talking among themselves about a thing they call The Meaning Crisis. I thought it was just me, but given some reasons why, I think I’ll forgive myself for being a little dense or self focused.

This week (yes, I’m writing in bits over several days) I have worked on basics of a YouTube channel. Name, about, interests, why, why, why am I doing this besides I like to write and hear myself talk. While half kidding, I more aware of my delight in sharing conversations and interests with others, including my writing community, faith communities, local connections through art, and general life. I am enjoying these more and more, and appreciating the way being part of others’ lives invests in my own.

Wish me well. It’s a new, old journey taking new trails. I may get a bit tangled up at times, but the adventure is always ahead of me.

And yes, I’m working on my memoir (first one) and other writing goals. It feels good.

by Sandy Bassie

Nineteen

Nineteen, the stories I didn’t write. Posts in drafts, some even complete. Saturday, I read a piece for my writing group and hopefully soon I have words for a speakers night next week. In my head, on a good day, the plans run amok, excited to race with full energy across ideas they line up for things I can do. A website, this blog, podcasts and art, stories and memoir and people I know. Questions to answer and ask as we talk. All good plans, I just need focus and energy maintained.

Structure. That’s the word, a struggle for me. I need to move things to see them. Touch and slide the couch down the wall. Just imagining it by the window doesn’t tell me much. I need to interact. Talk to my life and my things. A habit picked up doing alone all the years with my kids, years avoiding their dad, never sure of his mood or the impact it would bring. There is a tangible element; opposite the drawing away that happens too often in this place. Unformed. Uninformed.

I open my computer, begin to type. Writing is the easy part. Hands on the keys, heart to the page. Free of constraint. If I tense, I go to sleep. Sleep was escape from the time I was young to present it seems. In my dreams I see structure, a layout of form, stories created like problems to solve. Here, I am strong, I can see, know my strengths.

Two years I have promised myself a memoir; done. Both years incomplete, a failure of plan. But each one brought something new to this game. I took courses that dug deep into how, what and why I write the way I do. I’m better for doing it and will get better next year.

There are new questions on the table I’ll answer and ask. Whether I can succeed is a good one, but if not, make a start. Build a slow framework and let my hands feel their way through what it is that I want for myself and for sharing. Try new things – like a podcast, find a website I like. New poems and essays, something tangible to show me the memoir I write. Inch by inch, go slow, keep to pace. Don’t be so hard on myself. I carry great weights.

If I’m honest, this year I have given more than I know. Accomplished healing and run a race that asks my all in so many ways. And though I’m tired, always sore, feeling age, I have more ideas to tackle and am giving myself permission to work it out differently, adding pieces as I go, building up strength and stability.

I may lack grace, but bring it on, ask me how, ask me when. Now. I write now, and can gather up the pieces, dropped threads, broken seams, over stretched reach and cramped effort. Welcome to today. Let’s give it another go. Trust my instincts and the pieces for the sorting that will come. Then read, read, read to the people that I know; writing groups, online groups, friend groups, family.

Let the ebb and flow of words drift at times and settle. Trust those who love me. They have pushed me when I stall. Love and appreciation fill my heart when they do. And words come easy when I’m trusting they will come. Thanks you to my people. You are more wonderful than I can ever say, and when I’m finally done this one books, and begun several more, keep your elbows at the ready. Nudge and nudge again.

My heart sings for joy, and you are its song. Just for being you.

Thank you.

by Sandy Bassie

Does AI Overload?

Was sure I hit ‘publish’ but maybe I dreamed it.

Three days into an overdue vacation, my mind still turns to questions: How are they doing at work? How far behind are they? Who is looking after returns?  My body looks the other way. Immediately seeking my bed, illusion of rest. Eyes fixed on the ceiling, I abandon hope of sleep and give in to playing games, matching pieces, learning words, pretending I will do some cleaning when I get up. 

There’s a gap somewhere between responsibilities I’ve taken on and those I own. A glitch in the system holds me in place. Almost. When I’m very quiet, I feel the tremor, nerves, muscles, something else return, return, Some imagined starting line that made sense but has no place in memory. Disturbing. I like when things line up – dot to dot, puzzles edges, a ruler line that doesn’t slip. 

The weight of this week does not compute. I see the days, the dates, the times. I coloured things by categories, try to work inside these lines. What a laugh. I ended up with ten days off rather than five because my lines don’t work, did not line up. Ninety days of saved up hours became five days with time on my hands and another five for family and friends. 

Silence may be golden to some, but it spins my wheels with nowhere to go. There is plenty to do, I haven’t done, and only three trips to blue box down the hall. Four carboard boxes sit in my car, waiting. If I fill them, we can take a run to the local Thrift, and another stop for outside and trees. Uncomfortable. I don’t know why. 

I’m wasting time, not yet into the day, wondering if a list would help and if I asked it, does AI overload?

by Sandy Bassie

Do I Think Too Much?

This is at least a month old. I have a pattern of holding off posting. I hope it indicates thoughtful reflection and not procrastination coming from uncertainty. But there is a lot of that available, and probably more to come.

I’ve been thinking about people a lot the last two years. Life, health, community, food, places to live, our impact on each other and our world.

I think of health workers who told me in 2020 that the pandemic would likely run 2 years, maybe more. I think of retail drivers who asked about my experience with customer expectations over supply patterns. The question came last year and still applies. Or teachers who came through when I was at cash. They were stressed and appreciated me understanding the difficult dynamics of balancing safety and frustration in day to day interactions. Family, friends, customers, coworkers at times butting heads over our different perspectives and experiences of life shifts across the miles, locally and beyond. At times comforting, at times arguing our beliefs and expectations about how the world works. Learning more than we knew about our neighbours, towns and cities, regions, provinces, nations and countries.

Questioning.

It’s been an interesting few years. I read and talked to people about my thoughts and questions, realized we impact each other more deeply through personal choices than I’d realized. I’m still doing that, still wondering what we think of as normal.

Years ago, I’d tell people, “normal is just the fat part of the graph.” I instinctively knew, even then, normal was not shared reality. It has elements of sharing. I work and shop in the same place my customers do. Whether our buying power measures evenly or skewed in my or your favour impacts what we think of as normal in that shared space. It impacts our perceived roles, our beliefs about each each other and ourselves, our rights regarding our selves, our families, our friends and neighbours; the lady (assuming it’s a lady), or maybe it’s a kid, your kid, a fellow student who bags your groceries, serves your coffee, cleans your floors, guards the crosswalk, drives your kids to school. Low pay, part-time, retiree, starting out, stay-at-home mom, volunteer jobs we all – because we think, “we all” – even when we see the contrasts around us every day. I’d like to hope we did spend time the past three years thinking at least a little ‘outside the box’ of day to day. I hope we think without running too quickly back to normal, too quickly pulling the blind down on what others experienced, are still experiencing.

Pulling the blind down was a game my sister and I played as kids. Not a great game or necessarily nice one. Just one way of saying go away, I’m ignoring you, not now, later maybe. Me and my time, activity, opinion, property are mine and I am ignoring you. I wrote that perspective as a poem while in university; discouraged by fear and selfish acts. Not a great poem, perhaps, but good thought expressed in reverse. A question I asked to shape my life. Imperfect results, but still ask myself.

For who and what do I give ip my seat? Does it help or harm? Do I know how to tell?

I’m asking those questions again, knowing years of questions till that soil. They form and shape me even now. Places I’ve been, the journey I took, the family I have, those I have lost, houses and homes, work life and leisure. The balance and tilt, through my own actions and other’s. Take the wide way or narrow.

Do I write? For myself? Friends? Family? To paper or blog, anthology? Literary? Opinion? A thought or a book? Essay or email?

Notes I gather list websites for reference, pondering on actions governments take, reasons or logic, and how, like pandemic lessons I’ve learned, decisions impact in ripples beyond what they say.

Like homes in the greenbelt and roadways we need. Do we know what we need? Things become out of reach.

I don’t have the answers, just questions so far. If we this, if we that, what that will come from our choice? Is it even or fair, does it balance or tilt? Will the increase in homes help the poor and displaced, or add to their rank? Will the taking and giving of lands in this way, honour the treaties, peoples and past we’re just learning about, and our place in that role.

I don’t know. I don’t know how to see where we are on the journey. I don’t know how to tell ifchoices serve us all well. I enjoy driving backroads, more moderate pace. I enjoy driving highways if I’ve a long way to go.

The people, the pace; ‘new normal’ they say, as if words can rebalance. But this isn’t that, now isn’t then, and looking forward I see snapshots of past, hovering on the brink, like questions pausing asking me to see. There was a lot of hope in my past for things my children may never see. I hear it in their words. Not just my children, but others, seeing it too. Will they have families and homes of their own. I don’t know. I can’t answer that question the same way as twenty years ago. I think how smug I was when young, knowing we were poor but could still find a way to a basic home, a decent job, a family. I didn’t realize how much of that was those around me, ones who went before, the stability they had and handed down.

We will figure it out. Societies do. But what it will be and how it will look, someone else will draw that graph and label the fat part something they call normal. That doesn’t make it normal now. Day by day, work, home, work, stay. Repetition, the tick of the clock. Without others, without society, all that’s left is the pattern, the tick, tick, tick.

Opportunity is danger packaged in choices. What will I do with them? Whatever it is, that’s what is shared, whether or not I take care. What do I chase?

by Sandy Bassie

January 2023

Again, I know, it isn’t January, but this is ready now.

It has been a long year since June when I braved opening myself up again to the wrenching of fear and loss I’d begun to write about the previous January. Deciding to peer into the broader context of the CRC thinking it would help me write beyond how hard it is to lose your family, church and community. The bits of ‘faith’ I’d already braved in shorter version during my three years writing beyond the journal of my journey suggested by good friends to help me get through the process. 

Where was I when all the drama crept in. I was too busy battling why in my own context to understand some of what was happening. I was also in a different culture – one of the colonies – why are we talking about colonies? I’m still struggling with Jack’s determination to do something good at school, in his communities, intentionally putting himself into the spaces in between Canadian and Indigenous cultures and hoping for cross cultural understanding and dialogue. The places his later life touch the early years and almost of mine. I still remember Emmanuel College (albeit vaguely). I have spent too many moments since my move looking for the essay I know I wrote for the class topic on impact of the churches on indigenous culture. I can’t find it and don’t know what I said that spoke to why that had me going to the various libraries on campus looking for what I could not find. What fell by the way and got buried under the day to day needs of life unlike the one I envisioned. 

I hung somewhere between my mom’s judgement of my personality, the life she thought I deserved (I never did figure out her parameters either positive or negative) and the confusion I felt watching others around me seemingly understanding themselves and their lives with far greater ease. I’ve been picking at it as I write the past few years, and talking about it with my ex husband, John, somewhat since he approached me for help with our eldest son around Christmas 2021 and a coffee July 2022.

We talk about our churches in Acton. My struggle with who we are as church.  I talked to him about Jack, indigenous connections and visiting his current church when a brother of one of the members from Acton came to do a presentation on Indigenous Ministries and some art they had on tour. It’s all still out there in the network of connections. Communities set to have their own divorce of sorts if some of the discussions I read are accurate. A denomination here barely 100 years old. Older in the States. I’ve watched others go through church splits but not really understood at the time the depth of the cut. Not until my own crisis, and I had Jack to help me get through that; we talked about timing and building in the midst of divorce. I guess if we could do it others can, but I feel sad for those who will go through it alone. 

I’m not even sure if alone is the right word. Yet it fits. Like all the times you read of those alone in the crowd. Like not knowing  you are alone or in crisis until everyone else leaves and you just stand there staring. 

This will bear some thinking and a lot of patience. I’m behind the times even when I lived in the midst of them. I’m facing words I do not know or understand. Watching them fly by my head unsure whether to duck. Waiting for the repeat to get a better look. Realizing the ugliness of a decade or more of words thrown at my head have done good work preparing me for this place.  Those and Jack’s gentle words have shaped me. God is good, gracious and loving, and even the dumbest questions will get answered in time. “I don’t understand” or “but why” are loaded ones I’ve asked and this year some of the reasons for asking are finding their place ‘on the table’ beside the weight of books and dictionaries. 

I’m going to be alright. I still need to practice planting my feet, extending my bravery where it tends to shrink back. But I feel more myself again than I’ve been this past year. 

My book is changing shape, looking more like me than I was allowing. I am looking ahead at things I will write when it is done. Some more about Jack and his journey and ours, the faith ones that surface, my life still ahead. I hope the people I care about will find their feet too. In my small church and their church plants, partnerships and mission ventures they support, I think they are strong. I know they are bold. They must be brave – they rode things out with John and me in our years there and the last ones coming apart. I hope there’s good things they learned in the process that they can turn to good things for the years ahead. I believe they will. 

For whatever it’s worth, I took good things away and grew a lot in the community I lived in, the churches I was involved with and the networks they formed. The people and their hearts for each other, those are the best parts. I stay in touch at least a bit, have visits when I can, love and am loved. I’m building new connections here, welcoming other into my story and place, being welcomes to theirs. Some long term, long distance, long views ahead. 

I smile thinking of how big my community has become, the ways and the people who grow it, and their people farther out. The world breathes in new and old, the breath of G-d from the beginning of things, the verse I repeat that holds me, comforts me still, “in the beginning,..”  I look it up, listen and let it seep into my bones. I read it in English and Hebrew, listening to the sound. It’s more than the words and more than I understand.  It’s a lot like raising Jacob, and I still don’t understand. But something in the mystery, in the trust that it demands, holds still and lets me question, and the questions make me smile. 

I shake my head often at myself. At the journey that I’m on. Beginnings and beginnings I hope I weather well, and I’ll keep reading and enjoying all that perplexes me. I’m still a kid, asking why and watching G-d show me how. 

Meanwhile, today’s smile is finding interlinear bible sources with audio readings in Hebrew. I listen and think of love for Jack, his sons and friends. Letting language speak to story, like Jacob learning ASL, and my mother-in-law encouraging me to sing ‘Ere Zij God’ an old Dutch Christmas song. Feeling the fulness of other places, other cultures, other’s words building things into life from oh, so long, ago. 

Thank you, January, you’ve been a good month so far, and I’m glad. 

Note: this is the second piece I have written recently, where I set it aside, intending to find a suitable image and return, yet gone on with other things. The timing feels right, though I can’t justify why. I’m four sessions into Halakhic Man, by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchic, and enjoying it immensely.

by Sandy Bassie

Edge of What?

I meant to have a summer post; September, October, November posts. I’m not sure where they went. Too much looking over the edge. I had bronchitis in the summer; lost three weeks work. My trauma got retriggered last spring and slogging through it, writing got stuck. That makes sense when I’m writing about things connected to what triggered me.

Last week, my counselor and I talked about managing joy. Setting boundaries to pace it. I trigger to joy too. That probably sounds odd to people who don’t have trauma issues or overwhelm easily. I’ve been doing well aside from the ongoing pain issues from life and last year’s injury.

I have good neighbours and coworkers. Patient family. I’ve been receiving compliments in my writing groups. Those trigger me like joy. processing what it feels like is exhausting. I’ve been practicing listening to my body when it needs to rest, and not pushing it too hard, too often.

At Thanksgiving, visiting family and long-time friends I’ve missed is one place I found joy and some overload. The driving was hard on my neck and back; almost 3,000 km by the time I got home. Travel and work pain hangs at 8/10 most days and sleeping is the worst. I roll over onto the pinched nerve and muscle aches and can’t get back to sleep. I’m behind on writing and reading homework. Have gone to zero music nights. I work. I sleep. I work again, and I will edit this again today in the hope I will actually post it.

Last summer, the layers of life catching up with me. June, one year past Jack’s death and funeral, one year past my fall at work the week after his funeral. Wishing so much for ongoing relationship with his children that may not come. I got through the memorial in late May, and tipped over into early June. Longing for connection, I talked briefly to Jack’s boys, who I’d still like to know and love through their life. Their lives are just forming and his death rocked them badly.

Me too. I think it all caught up with me. Old stress and new. I’ve been writing on faith this year. Not a lot, but begun. And then June, six years away from church, working on healing, an email arrived announcing the annual meeting of the denomination my ex-husband and I attended. Life and memoir at a point looking back to faith, church.

I probably shouldn’t have watched it. Realistically I’d stayed away needing to heal. I was naive thinking I was ready. This was their first, post-Covid Synod with delegates meeting in person rather than handing off to a Board for decision. I felt for them. They had a collected Agenda, a long list of topics, 2016 on; the same year I left my ex. A tough list including use and misuse of power, racism, safe church ministry, restructuring, new graduates or candidates for ministry, and ‘celebration’ of 25th year of women’s leadership and ordination. The kicker though was a report committee with the long title “A Committee to Articulate a Foundation-laying Theology of Human Sexuality”. I naively thought myself far enough past abuse to be curious about these topics and what they’d say.

For the whole of my 36 years married, many of the above topics weighed on me in different ways. I wanted to hear them say they were looking seriously at the damages that had been done in the various areas, places they’ve dealt with, maybe even seeing the ways they overlap, the reasons people have spoken up on struggles within their church contexts. I wanted to hear the positive things they would put in place for the future. I wanted to hope.

I wasn’t prepared for the way it hit me; the video sessions, discussions, debate. My body shifted back to places if abuse, heard words weaving in and out, tone and texture off somehow. Tones too familiar, words felt misused. Memories of abuse, of 2016 leaving my house, my family, my church and my friends. Things I’ve been writing about the last few years aiming at memoir. And getting through the last two years upstream against pandemic and death. All the years life and death tugged me this way and that. Logic, not logic, love that isn’t love. Rules black and white to my colours. I know this place. It isn’t good.

And grief, so much grief. I listened, repeated, repeated again. Synod swirled around like a sinkhole drowning the ground.

July, I got sick, recuperated, reminisced. Not from Covid or Jack or the loss of my mom. But faith, church, marriage, fear. Synod bled into past, danger, divorce. I caught Bronchitis, first time in seven years. I was raw. Sat in sunshine, wrote memoir, bundled to cold. I’ve been working again five years, taken no sick time until this last year. Now my third leave from work – two bereavements and this, my health giving in. Not Covid they said, an infection in my lungs. Bronchitis.

I coughed and I slept. Watched synod again. A four-day course for writing cheered me a bit. I wrote quite a lot. I rested some more. Most time I spent sleeping. Remembering the past. I’d often get sick, ‘stress flu’, just from life, anger, abuse, judgements and pain.

I haven’t missed that, don’t want want it again. I’m doing quite well since I left, I am told. Starting to do better from the pain of last year. More strong than I realize, not bitter or unkind. Good friends help me listen. Coworkers keep me sane. They watch over me. I’m lucky. I’ve been blessed many ways.

What happened this year with Synod, raises more pain and grief, but I hope also joys. I am finding new understanding with family and friends. I spoke with my ex, several coffees and meals. Curious if he saw Synod. “Not interested,” he said. I showed him my memoir. One story, that’s all. “Have to start my rebuttal,” he joked, “but good that we talk”.

I don’t know what this year brings, but I hope it brings love built in tough places, strong connections and faith. I want Jack to be proud. He said I am strong. He valued my faith, my loyalty, being kind. Looking back, looking forward, it’s the one place I stayed through all of life’s messes. Allowing questions of faith. God at my side.

I’m no better or worse than most people, I think. I ask the hard questions. I’m hard on myself. But I sense open spaces for kindnesses learned, more space given to listening to myself and to others. Some panic, but less fear. I’m practicing brave.

Not stupidly standing too close to the edge. But I’ll look to the distance, that not-quite-seen shore, trust God for answers, the right moment to ask. Walk, enjoy the earth, breath and creatures, examples of rest.

Time again to write. One day my words may mean something. I hope they bring life.