diaryofthephoenix – Diary of the Phoenix

hello 2021

Posted on January 2, 2021 by J.A.B.

As I think we all are I’m reflecting on 2020 today, relaxing in my writing space sipping a coffee, the dog snoring at my feet. It was not the year that we expected it to be, was it? I was hopeful at the end of 2019 I felt like the turning of the year would magically put behind me so much turmoil. I was looking to 2020 as a new beginning after so many personal endings. I was looking to rebuild and create. I wanted a calm year, where I could rebuild and find some peace after the biggest battle of my life.

Not all of that came to fruition. A global pandemic shifted a few things around.

I did find more peace; in the lockdown that cultural idea of busy as a badge of honor was shattered for me. I am still not sure how this change will affect my life as a whole, how it will colour my perception when we move into the post pandemic landscapes. Right now, I like the new pace of my life has taken.

The last part of the year I have been posting less even though I am writing more. I made a writing goal in Feb 2020 and so far I have kept it. With this goal has come a change in my writing. The flavour of what I scribble has shifted form tear filled emotional vomit to a more processing reflective thing. It means I’m posting less, even though pages are being filled up. This blog you are reading and the Instagram account that accompanies it, were first though on in Jan 2018. It didn’t go live until that fall, but it still feels like a birthday of sorts this Jan. Into 2021 I am not sure how it will grow, it’s a bit of an unknown right now. The writing I am doing had been very healing, unlocking a new flavour of grief, personal insight, and self knowledge. It feels too personal and underdeveloped to share much of it yet…. leaving a suspended feeling around the Diary of the Phoenix. I know that the fire is out, the smoke and ashes are cleared. Maybe this is the regrowing of feathers phase. What I have descoved is that the mess of it and the not knowing is totally ok.

All in all, I am grateful for the year that was 2020. It was not what I planned or hoped for, yet somehow on the whole it managed to be very healing and re-centering for me. A bunch of things I had planned and set out to do, did not happen. The anxiety that came up for me within the illolation, the stress of my work in healthcare, and the ever changeing landscape as the world reacted, got in the way of most of my plans. I think the theme for me was one of acceptance. Acceptance of my circumstances, my states of mental health, my limits, of peoples reactions to fear. I had to embrace a new kind of unknown, things that I believed to be stable and permanant weavered, weakness in our economies and culture were exposed. Even now the impact on our word and what it will look like a year from now is blury.

In spite of it all I am ok. I found a new sence of freedom in this crazy year of restricted movement and contact. I’m still processing it all.

I have no idea what 2021 will bring me, or the world in general. How ever this unfolds I will be am almost sure that I will be ok.

Air, journal

Within the Pause

Posted on May 17, 2020 by J.A.B.

Within the pause… this quiet place in time where all the cars stay parked on Monday mornings. Cafes are closed, everything is closed, the whining din of the city has been hushed. Birds song fills the rainy spring air, emboldened squirrels plant their bums in the middle of our urban garden-scapes. There is a surprising sense of relief. There is no where I have to be… not really. My day to day has been paused

When I wake up each day is stretched out before me now, like a canvas awaiting the stroke of my brush. With in the pause there is time for reflection. Questions I seldom have a moment to ask come boldly forward. Why do I feel I need to do it all? Am I enjoying the picture of life I am drawing? What is it that I find necessary? Do I even miss that? In this new world of limited movement, and closed doors I am finding a new freedom.

There is no guilt in not doing things right now, I can just choose to sit, or read, or play. I have no schedule. Its like those long summer days at home with the kids before school and lunches. Like living in a vacation day, filling my curios mind with things I enjoy. And I am seldom bored. I think I really dislike the routine of school. I dislike packing lunches most of all, and empathize with the kids feelings of monotony toward sandwiches.

I have spent the last few years starting and re-starting over with the changes that have been my journey. Right now, it seems this unique thing has happened, this moment of open potential; where I can experience my life devoid of everything I have taken on and signed up for over the past decade. What do I want the memories painted of the canvas of my life to resemble? With in this moment I am choosing.

journal

And the Goddess Sighed

Posted on March 21, 2020 by J.A.B.

I was struggling lost in my grief; and the Goddess said “You are not alone”

“Yes I know, I know I'm not alone. I'm part of the Great Cosmic world,
we're all connected,” was my reply

But she knew I did not know and so.....

My world grew a bit darker, my emotions engulfed me, becoming
bigger than I could hold. I had to reach out, I had to reach out of
my darkness. To the people who care, who love me.
It was only then I learned that I was not alone.

When my heart was so heavy, I could no longer carry it on my
own. I had to lean or fall to the floor. I learned to lean on the
people that will answer a call at 3 a.m. Those that listen, who
are not afraid of my fear, who are not afraid of sadness.

The people who are able to love a whole person, even the pieces
we feel shameful about, the ugly parts that we try to hide form
ourselves. They came spilling out of me onto many a kitchen table,
because my heart was broken open in my grief.

In the warmth of these kitchens with tea in hand, tears falling to
the table, I was not alone.

I learned that we truly are connected. The love between friends
can move across a room in a look of compassion. Injecting my grief
with their light. Our shared words can be carried inside us, pulled
out when we need them. Our laughter flows through it encircles us
and billows out into the world we create.

I'm never alone, I'm surrounded by more love that I could have ever
imagined. It exists beyond time and our mortal senses.

Then the Goddess sighed;
and I could feel in my breath the rhythm of the ocean tides

- j.a_b