
My dear friend and yoga instructor said it in class one morning and it's been with me ever since:
Stillness between two waves of the sea
It's a line from a T.S. Eliot's “Little Gidding", the last of the Four Quartets. It made so much sense to me.
The waves won't stop rolling: children growing up and out. Parents aging, moving and downsizing; September back to school; hybrid work; changing body, changing mind.
In the city, I rarely do I feel the breaks. I leave as often as I can.
I feel better when I can get to the water. This summer I had a cottage weekends in Algonquin Highlands and went night swimming with my teens; kayaked in the Laurentians; did tower top yoga on the Malahat Skywalk on Vancouver Island looking out the Salish Sea and swam at Chute du Calvaire in the rain. I even screamed my lungs out and danced my butt off to the Foo Fighters.
The cure for anything is salt water - tears, sweat, or the sea. Isak Dinesen
In a few weeks, I'll be back in Newfoundland with some dear friends. There's nothing sweeter than hiking along the coastline with people you enjoy breathing in the salt air.
As I transition to autumn it's good to remember what soothes me. Katherine May's book Wintering is a lovely read to help with that. In it, she reminds of the earth's natural ebbs and flows and the rituals we can do to help in transitions.
It can be a small ritual. I seem to prefer that word over routine or habit.
Right now, it's listening to a playlist I made for a dear friend I'm missing while doing weekly meal prep -- chopping salad fixing, slow cooking curry, roasting veg. It's changing the bed sheets and spraying them with Saje Sweet Sheets (not a plug, I honestly love it).
Stillness in movement.
All of that feels good.

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