All posts by Rebecca Michelle

Educator, traveler, reader, blogger. Loves learning, black coffee, and friendly people.
On My Mind

Zaidy

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I’m supposed to be a writer, which means I’m supposed to have words.

I’m supposed to be a writer. I have no words, so instead I’m repeating myself.

But this isn’t about me, actually.

It’s about you.

Crossword puzzles. Cups of coffee. Taking in the world from the balcony. Stories of the past whenever we were willing to listen. Those young men have a lot to learn when it comes to cutting bagels.

You kept up a running commentary about the state of the world as we drove to your mechanic and related the ethnic and neighbourhood shifts of Montreal. You read the Gazette every day and you’d seen the world change. You had opinions and you made me laugh.

I’m smiling to think of the quips that often came under your breath when you didn’t know anyone was listening, or maybe you did and maybe that was the point. I’m smiling at the expressions that took up your whole face when you’d share a conspiratorial glance and a grin. 

I saw you happiest that one summer at the lake and I’ve missed it ever since. When you smiled, it was impossible not to smile back.

I’m not at my most eloquent and I wish I could be. Maybe the rest of the words are caught up in the waves of feelings that we all rode together, some frequent companions and some too fleeting to even be consciously known.

We were there, and you knew we were there, and we knew that you knew. 

We were all there and you are right here.

I miss you. I love you.

May your memory be a blessing.

On My Mind

Time

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I know little about Einstein and relativity and understand even less.

I know that time is relative in the colloquial sense for it seems to speed up or slow down based on how busy, anxious, excited we are.

Time is cooperative based on our expectations and experiences, which has nothing to do with time itself.

Time has gone faster since I’ve gotten older because there’s more to look back upon, as well as greater consideration of what is to come.

Time is a construct of minutes, hours, days, calendar pages. Time is sunrise and sunset, too early or too late or not long enough.

Right now, time is waiting. And time will continue when the waiting ends. Time is an indicator of the present rather than a means to mark the past or future.

I know I set my watch back six hours when I landed here and in just under a week I’ll set it forward again. Time will not have changed.

It is I, instead, who have changed.

Lake Bled, Slovenia – January 2020
On My Mind

I Saw

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Some news came from home earlier this week, the kind of news that you start to expect at a certain point but are still caught utterly unprepared when it comes.

And I’ve been away a long time.

We had a storm last night that was more wind than rain. The wind persisted throughout the day but the sun came out in full force this morning. The leaves turned gold and sparkled. A friend and I have been tracking the colour changes in a certain tree and almost all the green is gone now. There was so much green on Monday.

The sun came out this morning, and so did a rainbow.

I don’t believe in signs, but I also don’t not believe in signs. A roommate in university told me she saw ghosts at the end of my bed. I shrugged. Maybe she did. I have enough of them, though I didn’t know it at the time.

I don’t believe in signs, but this morning I saw a rainbow.

I saw a rainbow, and when I opened the window to take a photo for a friend, it slowly faded away. I laughed, put down the camera, and looked up again. There it was.

Call it a sign, if you’d like. I’ll take it. Regardless, it was a reminder to look, and appreciate, and breathe.

Weimar, Germany – October 2021