Apprenticing in the art of the pause

How did I get here so quickly? Middle aged and lurching along in life while grasping for a chance to pause. 

I came out of my mother’s womb with ideas, plans and much work to do. Ambitions have rolled out over my lifetime in various forms, neighbourhood  backyard plays, high school fundraisers, community art shows, provincial policy changemaking, national movements and business, I am sure I have missed a few. My initiatives have roared forward (mostly), I think because I have been lucky. People have believed in me and even to this day, I can’t hear when someone says “No, you can’t do that”.

In my second year of life, my brother was born. He is the lens through which I have seen my whole life. Through that lens I see joy, friendship, love, humour, innocence, complexity, injustice, powerlessness, poverty, adversity and pain. I have always cared for him and him for me. This past decade I have cared for him daily in our home. It is an incredible weight to carry and it is my absolute privilege. 

One day in the pandemic I woke up exhausted and suffering. 

I picked up a pencil and started to draw, then I picked up a brush and started to paint. Sitting with some paper, lost colour and shapes is nirvana. The world stops and I can breathe.