Tag Archives: Family

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

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
On My Mind

Homesick

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is not a word that I use. It is not a word that I like because it connotes being taken over by something – this is, after all, what happens when we are sick. It is one thing to miss my family, which is the case every single day, but this is an emotion like love. It’s beautiful to notice because it means they matter to me. Missing my family is a deep sensation, one that I feel through my whole body, but one that comes in waves.

However, it seems that to be homesick is beyond what I feel. It is what I am, and it is consuming.

I settled on this word because I could not otherwise describe how I felt after a perfectly normal, pleasantly busy day over the weekend. Out of nowhere came the sense that a physical space was suddenly empty, as though it had been full of energy mere minutes before and something was now gone. In that empty space came the feeling that anything I tried to do, and I tried a number of things, had a missing piece that had not previously been missing.

Writing these words brings to mind when I was a child and I used to have a hard time during our one-night sleepover at camp. By the second or third year, we figured out that as long as I “didn’t plan to stay” and my dad had to bring my bag or pillow, I would be alright. I just needed a hug. When I was little, my dad could put my whole world back together when it seemed to fall apart.

Both age and life experience assure me that my world has not fallen apart. Quite the contrary, in fact. Rather, it seems like the larger world has moved on while my world is floating aimlessly, looking for somewhere to land. There is a fist over my heart and it is keeping me awake at night, which makes it difficult to focus during the day. I am exhausted when I get home and time ticks by more slowly than usual. Homesick. What else might I call it?

And just like being physically ill, this will pass. It will settle. Have some tea, take some time, and life in general will move on. Homesickness will quiet into its usual state, that of missing, and the world will fit itself back together.

Until then, let this be a visceral, bodily reminder that the people in my world are what make it go round.

Punakaiki, South Island, New Zealand – December 2018