What Stayed -What I Chose to Keep

 

The theme of May is nostalgia and memory. I chose it because Mother’s Day is this month, and while working through my poetry, my mother appeared once again, bringing with her something I had not fully realized before. A part of me that is also her.

We shared a history that women of neither generation openly acknowledged or talked about. I wish that silence had passed with time, but it hasn’t. There is a statistic I have remembered for years, one that still makes me terribly sad. One in three women will experience sexual violence in their lifetime. It is called many things, but when it happens to a child, it is still violence. It is still a violation.

 I have five granddaughters. Statistically, two or three of them may experience or has experienced some form of that harm in their lives. That thought weighs heavily on me sometimes.

I am not entirely sure why this is where my mind went tonight. This week was supposed to be about “what stayed,” and at first all I could think about was mental pain. Maybe it is because this is Mental Health Month. Maybe it is because memory does not separate itself neatly into pleasant and unpleasant things. Our memories are often built from the moments that shaped us most deeply, and for many women those are not always happy memories.

What happened changes you. I know that now. It changed my mother. It changed me. It changed my daughter. Trauma leaves behind fear, anger, shame, and mistrust that can touch nearly every part of life if we let it.

For a long time I believed that was the only thing that stayed.

But as I kept writing, I realized something else stayed too.

Compassion stayed.

I often say that I do not know how to love properly, but people tell me I have a big heart. What I understand best is compassion — recognizing the pain in others because I know what pain feels like myself.

 I try to listen more than I speak. I try not to judge people too quickly because I know how much hidden suffering people carry. I give hugs instead of harsh words whenever I can. Sometimes my words still come out wrong, and when they do I think about it for hours afterward because I genuinely do not want to hurt anyone.

 My father used to call helping others because you can “being a good neighbour.” That stayed too.

So did determination.

People have called me stubborn all my life, but I think much of that stubbornness is really resilience. I decided long ago that I would never live only as a victim of what happened to me. Life has given me many setbacks, including cancer, but somehow I have continued moving forward through all of them.

And maybe that is part of what stayed as well — the refusal to let suffering make me cruel.

I remember when I told CAS about what had happened to my daughter. My mother was scandalized by it, but my daughter protected her own daughter fiercely from experiencing the same thing. That matters to me. The silence did not continue unchanged. Something shifted between generations, even if imperfectly.

That realization may be the most important thing I have learned.

We are not our history.

Our experiences shape us, yes. They leave marks. They influence how we move through the world. But history does not have to repeat itself forever, and pain does not have to consume every corner of our lives.

We still have choices.

 I may not always be able to prevent painful things from happening, but I can choose what I do afterward. I can seek counseling. I can learn coping strategies. I can remind myself that what happened was not my fault. I can remember that I am not alone in suffering and that I do not have to spend the rest of my life trapped inside old pain.

What stayed was not only hurt.

Compassion stayed.
Resilience stayed.
Choice stayed.

And after everything, I still want to be kind.

A Bit of a Shift This Week

Bit of a shift this week. I’m experiencing SAD symptoms even though it’s no longer winter, which is making today’s writing difficult.

I did manage quite a bit after hearing from the radiologist that there is no recurrence of the cancer. Even so, it took me about a week to return to most of my usual routines. During that time, I spent a lot of it working with ChatGPT on pins for my Pinterest boards. I uploaded Awakening and Becoming Visible from Currents of Becoming a poetry book I’ve been planning and added a couple more lists to “Things I’m Learning.”

 

I also started a new board that I still can’t name in any coherent way. It began as Grandmacore (Grammacore), inspired by a set of pins that felt connected to the values I grew up with. An article called Grandma’s Rules really sparked things, and I spent time turning those ideas into pins and building the board around them.

When I stepped back, though, I could see it had drifted off brand. I tend to prefer soft watercolor and pastel tones, but these pins leaned heavily into sepia. It works for a vintage feel, just not the one I was aiming for.

I tried again using my May palette—cream, blush, and moss green. I liked the look, but I still couldn’t find a clear direction. The board seemed to want to be too many things at once. In the end, I hid it and stepped away. If I can’t find cohesion, I’ll likely take it apart and reuse what I can elsewhere.

One thing that did come out of it was experimenting with images. I tried recreating my living room setup and ran into trouble describing a wall hanging my daughter gave me. Uploading a photo instead made a big difference. The first result stayed very true to the space and surprised me. The ones after that were decent, just not as strong.

 

Yesterday I tried using photos from my trip to the Y. Those didn’t work as well, mostly because the photos themselves weren’t great. I’m planning to try again and be more intentional about what I take. I’m not even sure where I’d use them yet, but I’m curious to see what happens.

I walked to the Y yesterday morning for my swim class. I ran out of energy about halfway through but kept going. It was my own doing—I forgot to eat before I left. Even having a grilled cheese after class didn't help. I still needed a ride home and ended up taking a nap. A reminder that with diabetes, regular meals really aren’t optional.

I’ve also been thinking about the people I see around me. Living where I do, most of what I see is Caucasian, with some Indigenous presence. Being French Canadian, I’ve always thought of myself as mixed, though it’s a bit more layered than that. My mother was English with Black ancestry, and my father was White and Indigenous.

It’s an unusual mix, but it has its advantages. I’m 65 and don’t look much over 50—aside from the hair, which shifts between silver and white depending on the day. Slight side step there but matches the way my mind is working today.

It also leads into May, which brings Mother’s Day and a pull toward memory and nostalgia. I’ll likely write more about nostalgia. Memory tends to live in my poetry. Nostalgia, for me, is about continuity—the things I learned and valued growing up, especially the parts that lead back to my mother.

 

If this kind of reflection resonates with you, you’re welcome to follow along. I’ll be leaning into nostalgia and continuity as we move into May. For now, I’m taking this as a week of small returns—to routine, to energy, and maybe to a few things I thought I’d left behind.

Not the Kind of Adventure I Expected

Tests, quiet fear, and the small ways I kept going while I waited. 

The type of adventure I have been on this week is a little different than the others. It started with a pain in my left shoulder. I assumed it was just a simple rotator cuff issue and didn’t think much about it. I worked around it, took something for the pain, and carried on. I do regular self breast exams after my run-in with breast cancer a few years ago, and I noticed a strange texture along the skin that connects my underarm to my breast—on the left side, the side that was operated on. I noticed it, but I didn’t really notice it. I told myself it was probably just skin changing with age… but only on the left side.

I didn’t go to the doctor until I put on a bra and saw the swelling on the outside of my left breast. That was the moment it shifted from something I could ignore to something I couldn’t. The doctor didn’t seem too concerned, but he sent me for a mammogram. The next day, they called and said there was some thickening and that I needed to come back for an ultrasound. That was on Monday. 

There’s a space that opens up when you hear something like that. Everything keeps moving—appointments get booked, days go on—but underneath it, there’s this quiet thread of what if. I didn’t go to the Y this week. I needed the time to sit with it, to be quiet, to not have to be anywhere or do anything for anyone else.

Instead, I worked on my poems. I didn’t think of it that way at the time, but looking back, that’s how I was handling it. Sitting with words that didn’t quite fit, turning them over, letting them be messy, staying with something until it felt a little more true. It was something I could hold onto while everything else felt uncertain.

Yesterday was the ultrasound. When the doctor told me it was only a swollen sebaceous gland, the relief was immediate—physical. I remember making prayer hands on the bed without even thinking about it. Just… thank you. I don’t know much about sebaceous glands, but I do know they are not cancer, and right now, that’s enough. I’m nine months away from being five years cancer free.

 This week didn’t look like much from the outside, but it was. It was a week of waiting, of quiet fear, of trying not to get ahead of myself, of finding small ways to stay steady while I didn’t know. The poems, the pauses, even the decision not to go to the Y—those weren’t just small choices. They were how I got through it. I think this is what a small adventure looks like sometimes—not going somewhere new, just staying with yourself while you wait to find out.

I’m still here.
Still paying attention.
Still finding my way through, one small thing at a time. 

Learning Not to Fix Everything

This week didn’t go the way I expected. Not in any dramatic way—just small things. A thread stalled, a tool didn’t behave the way it used to, and I found myself sitting with a question I couldn’t quite answer about friendship. Nothing big, just enough friction to notice.

 

And that’s where this week seemed to settle. Not in fixing anything, but in paying attention to how I respond when things don’t go the way I expect. It turned out to be less about solving problems and more about noticing my habits around them.

I noticed how quickly I want things to work properly. The system should behave, the routine should hold, and the plan should still fit. When that didn’t happen, my first instinct was the same as always: figure it out, adjust it, fix it.

But this week offered something quieter. Sometimes the answer was to refresh, restart, or simply let it go. Not everything needs a workaround, and not everything needs my full attention.

At one point, I caught myself thinking I had lost momentum. It felt like I had somehow undone the progress I made earlier this year, like the routines I built in January and February had slipped out of my hands. But looking at it now, that’s not what actually happened.

My system didn’t fail—it shifted. My energy dropped, my focus narrowed, and the things that usually matter stopped feeling important. Not because I’m weak, but because something in me didn’t feel safe.

 

Fear has a way of settling in quietly. It doesn’t always show up as panic; sometimes it’s just a steady “what if” sitting in the background. Once that thought is there, everything else slows down whether I want it to or not.

There were different kinds of days this week, and they didn’t all feel the same. There were flare days, where the pain came back louder than I expected, and foggy days, where I couldn’t focus long enough to stay with anything. There were also what I’ve started thinking of as waiting days—where the best thing I could do was keep things gentle and let time pass.

None of those days looked productive in the usual sense. But they weren’t useless either, even if they didn’t give me anything I could point to at the end of the day.

I saw the same pattern showing up in other places too. I started looking at travel—what it might take to go somewhere a little farther from home. For a moment, it turned into something big, complicated, and expensive, something that didn’t fit my life at all.

So I stepped back and changed the shape of the idea. What I’m working toward now isn’t one big trip, but something smaller and more manageable. One simple trip, something close, something I can actually follow through on without it becoming overwhelming.

The same thing came up in how I help people. I’ve been offering water and a snack at my window, nothing formal, just something I can do. At first, I found myself thinking about how to make it better—what else I could add, what would make it more helpful.

But what I’m learning is that keeping it simple matters more than trying to improve it. Something to drink, something to eat, something steady. That’s enough, especially if it means I can keep doing it without wearing myself out.

Even in quieter moments, the same idea kept showing up. I found myself thinking about what a “friend” really is, not in a heavy way, just as a quiet check-in with myself. What I realized is that I might not be missing people as much as I’m missing a certain kind of connection.

Something steady, easy, and known. That’s different from having nothing at all—it just means what I have doesn’t quite match what I expected it to feel like.

There’s a pattern here I’m starting to recognize. When something doesn’t work, when something doesn’t fit, or when something feels off, my instinct is to fix it right away. I want to make it better, smoother, or more complete.

But this week offered a different option. Let the broken thread stay broken, let the unused thing stay unused, and let the question sit without a full answer. Not everything needs to be resolved to be okay.

 

By the end of the week, something small shifted. I don’t need everything to work perfectly to keep moving forward. Sometimes it’s enough to notice what’s happening, choose the simplest response, and leave the rest alone.

That might not feel like progress, but it is a kind of steadiness.

And right now, that’s enough.

Going Anyway

 Not what I planned. But I didn’t turn back.

I’ve been thinking about this whole “small adventures” idea, and I don’t think it looks the way people expect it to. It’s not big outings or full days planned out. Most of the time, it’s me standing in my kitchen trying to decide if I’m actually going to leave the house or not.

This week, I did.

The plan was to go to the Wednesday Farmers Market. Easy enough. Fifteen-minute walk, nothing complicated. I talked myself into it, got out the door, walked all the way down there… and it turns out there is no Wednesday market anymore. I just stood there for a minute thinking, well… now what.

 

That would have been a perfectly good excuse to turn around and go home, and I was tempted. But I’d already done the hard part—the getting out the door part—so I kept going. I crossed the bridge into East City, stopped at Tim’s for a few minutes to rest, and then carried on to the spa where GD#1 works to check out those shower steamers she mentioned.

From there I went into Foodland to pick up the groceries I’d meant to get at the market. Not what I planned, but it worked. After that I wandered a bit along Hunter Street, half-looking for a bus stop and half just seeing what was around me. I didn’t find the bus stop, but I did find a Vinnies, so I went in to warm up for a few minutes.

By then I could feel I was done. Not the good tired—the kind where you know you’re pushing it. So I listened to that and called a Y-Drive to get home. And honestly, I was pretty proud of that whole thing. Not because it was big, but because I didn’t quit when the first plan fell apart.

The only picture I took was from the bridge by Quaker Oats. I’d hoped to find a path along the water on our side, but it’s all fenced off now. Still, standing there for a minute, looking out over the river, it felt like I’d actually gone somewhere.

Good Friday was a quieter version of the same idea. I took a longer loop instead of going straight to Jeff Purvey’s—Park to Dalhousie, onto the bike path, around through Townsend and Rubidge. I got there, stood in line for a bit, and nothing was moving. I could feel my energy dropping, so I left and ordered fish and chips instead.

On the way back, though, I ran into Larry and stood there talking with him for a few minutes. Nothing big, just a bit of conversation, but it broke up the walk in a good way. He’s been moved somewhere better, which I’m glad about. He’s getting older now—not as old as me, but getting close.

 

Then Monday came around and I went to Aquafit. Before we even got into the pool, I ended up in a conversation in the change room while we were getting ready. Just a few minutes, nothing important, but those small bits of talking seem to matter more than you think they will.

After class, I went home, rested for a bit, and later in the afternoon I walked down to Brookside Plaza to check out the new Salvation Army. I didn’t need anything—I just wanted to see it. That’s kind of what all of this is, I think. Not big plans, not big energy, just a bit of curiosity and a willingness to go anyway.

When I look at the week, it doesn’t look like much. A couple of walks, a class, a few short conversations. But it doesn’t feel small. It feels like I’m not stuck in the same way.

And if you’re dealing with the same kind of stuff I am—low energy, pain that comes and goes, days where everything feels heavier than it should—you don’t need big adventures. You just need something. Something that gets you out the door and gives you a moment where you’re not just sitting in it. That’s enough.

This week, I’m thinking about trying the bus. I’ve got the pass, and I keep looking at it like I’m waiting for the “right” plan. I might just go to the terminal and get on whatever bus comes first. That idea makes me a little uncomfortable, which probably means it’s a good one.

Small Adventures: Moving Through April Slowly

 Doing what I can. Letting that be enough.

As this month begins, I am doing well.

I go to the YMCA once a week. I walk every day—no less than 2,000 steps—which, if you know me at all, you’ll understand is a big step forward. I’ve gone from 250 steps at the end of December to 2,000 now.

My weight is finally below the 200 lb mark, coming in as low as 196 lb, but mostly around 198 lb. By the end of April, I hope to bring that to a steady 190.

 

How I’m going to get there is fairly simple. My plan is threefold:

1. Continue my weekly Aquafit class and add some chair yoga at home
2. Take a daily walk—sometimes as an adventure, sometimes just to enjoy the sun
3. Prep and eat only what I prepare (no takeout), including a weekly trip to the local farmers’ market

I’ve created a system for food prep, a realistic budget, and a journaling structure that allows me to be both practical and artistic. That part feels steady now.

So this month, I’m turning my attention outward—mainly toward my environment.

The first is getting out in public more often. I’m exploring a couple of groups I can join for social exposure, and one of my small adventure tasks is to interact with people I meet along the way—even if it’s only a nod.

The second is putting procedures and simple checks in place for housework. I’m not looking for a white-glove routine, just something I can live with as I move through a version of spring cleaning.

Fifteen minutes a day is the goal.

 

I want to be as ruthless as possible using the keep, toss, give-away method. My intention is to reduce what I own by half. I don’t know if I’ll get there—but even 25–30% would help me feel less closed in by my things.

The last area I’m working on is self-care—but not in the usual way.

I want to get my hair cut every three months. I’m also considering a simple skincare routine—not because I feel I need it, but because I enjoy things like facemasks. That might be where I begin—one facemask a week.

I’m also rethinking my wardrobe. I recently discovered my colours were done incorrectly, so this feels like a good opportunity to build my first capsule wardrobe.

 

I know I can do most of this.

But if I learned anything from March, it’s this: pacing matters.

I need to go slowly instead of trying to do too much too quickly. So I’ll keep that lesson close—doing what I can, not everything I want.

If you’re also learning to go slower while still moving forward, you’re not alone.

 

🌸Spring Emerging

This is the last post for March, and spring has started to show up in small ways.

I saw a robin at the beginning of the month. This week, the geese came back. Now I’m waiting for the buds and the dandelions.

 

It doesn’t happen all at once.

And I think that’s what this month has been like for me too.

When I started this series, I didn’t expect it to be this hard—or this revealing. I thought I would see progress clearly, something I could point to and name.

But what I’m noticing instead is quieter than that.

The days don’t feel quite as heavy. There are moments where my energy lifts just enough for me to notice it.

Not a big change.
Just something beginning.

This month didn’t go the way I planned.

I thought I could handle more—two Aquafit classes, a couple of studio classes—but it didn’t take long to realize I wasn’t there yet. One week of that was enough to put me out of commission for the next.

So I adjusted.

By the end of February and into March, I was down to one class a week.

Not what I wanted—but something I could actually sustain.

And it worked.

I kept going. I learned the routines. I started to feel a little stronger. It got easier to move around the house.

More importantly, I showed up.

Every week. Even on the days I didn’t feel like it. Even on the days where I spent more time arguing with myself than getting ready.

I still went.

And somewhere along the way, that started to matter more than how much I was doing.

It’s only been three months, but something has shifted.

 

Not in a big, obvious way. But enough that I can feel it.

I’m a little stronger. I have more energy around the house. Things that felt impossible a few months ago don’t feel quite as heavy now.

My blood sugar and blood pressure are slowly coming down. The pain days and low days are still there—but not as often.

And I’m learning.

I’m getting better at reading my body. Knowing when to keep going and when to stop. Accepting that just because my mind wants to push doesn’t mean my body can.

That alone has made a difference.

But the biggest change hasn’t been physical.

It’s been the arguing.

For months, every class meant hours of back and forth in my head. By the time I got there, I was already worn out.

I still showed up. But it was hard.

Somewhere around the equinox, that started to shift.

I decided I was done with the fight.

I’m going to that class. Once a week. That’s it.

And without that constant argument, everything feels a little lighter.

Not easy. Just easier.

March always carries a certain weight for me.

My mother’s birthday falls near the end of the month, and even now, years later, I find myself remembering. The sadness has softened, but the reflection is still there.

We were just beginning to repair our relationship when she passed. I didn’t understand then what my father meant when he said we were too much alike.

I understand it now.

When I think about endurance, I don’t think about pushing harder anymore. I think about staying. About continuing, even when things aren’t ideal, even when the pace is slow.

That kind of steadiness matters more to me now than effort for the sake of effort.

The equinox felt like a turning point—not because anything suddenly changed, but because I made a decision.

I’m done fighting with myself.

I will show up. Once a week. That’s enough.

And for the first time in a long time, I’m actually proud of that.

As March comes to a close, I’m not starting over.

I’m choosing what comes with me.

I’m carrying forward what I’ve learned about my limits—how to work within them instead of against them.

I’m keeping the consistency. One class a week. Movement where I can.

I’m continuing to learn—about my body, how I think, and even small things like French and the programs I use every day.

What I’m not carrying forward is the constant self-doubt.

I’m not arguing with myself every time I need to leave the house. I’m not expecting perfection. And I’m not measuring progress by how much I can do in a day.

That hasn’t worked.

What does work is steadiness.

Right now, I feel more stable than I have in a long time. Not perfect—but steady enough to build on.

And that’s what I want to protect.

With the ice and snow receding, I find myself wanting to be outside more.

I may not be ready for more than one class a week, but walking is different. It’s something I can do at my own pace.

So for April, I’m keeping things simple.

I’ll continue with my weekly class, and maybe add a second—Chairfit, Tai Chi, or yoga. Nothing fixed yet, just options.

Alongside that, I want to move outward a little more.

I’ve been collecting ideas for small adventures—things I can do close to home, at my own pace. Not all at once. Just something to look forward to.

Walking. Exploring. Taking photos again.

Those are things I used to enjoy.

And they feel like a good place to begin again.

Not with pressure.
Just with curiosity.

 

This month didn’t give me a clear result.

What it gave me was something quieter.

A better understanding of what I can sustain. A little more strength. A little less resistance.

Spring doesn’t arrive all at once.

It shows up in small ways.

And right now, that’s where I am too.

Not starting over.
Just beginning to unfold.