What time are you ?

 

(Left: Big Island, March 6th 2015. Right: my backyard, March 6th 2025)

The infrastructure of my life has been challenged in a myriad ways over the past several years, and some of those ways occurred simultaneously. As is often the case, the convergence of inconveniences (''contrariétés'') or adversities can feel overwhelming and the loss of cues, ''la perte de repères'', even more dizzying. Within one week, two such changes destabilized me. On a Monday morning, and when I typically work from home, I was about to get ready for my busy clinical morning in parallel with the supervision of two medical students. I received a text from my manager saying that until further notice, I could not go to my office because apparently there had been a flooding. Many thoughts poured over me, namely worrying about the source of the flooding (my office door faces the bathroom), and especially the fact that I have a lot of water-averse items in an office I have occupied for the past 7 years. And as an academic who has been working at that institution for almost 13 years, that is a lot of books, papers and research ideas. Not to mention art from my kids, my patients and nice objects from all over the world that always gave a ''homey'' atmosphere so appreciated by my patients. I rushed to the clinic, with my water boots and books in my car, and removed everything from my office (even though the main casualty was a box of papers soaked under my desk, I still had to remove everything because of water damage that would necessitate cutting the dry (well not so dry anymore) wall). The origin of the leak was some mysterious closet in the hallway... I packed and was done within 3 h, quite an exploit since this was not a planned move, I was doing that between patient visits (from another office) and as I was packing, I had the unpleasant ''plongeur-at-the-restaurant'' experience, not fast enough to pack my boxes for helpers to take out, just like I hate washing dishes when 2 people wait for me with their drying cloths. 

What was the universe trying to tell me ? Overflow of emotions (because flooding of water may symbolize that) ? Was it a warning that I need to start this ''death cleaning'' I hear more about, or put my life in order ? Or simply that life is impermanent ?

And there was another situation pertaining to my house that rose the stress level a few days later.

All to say that I feel like I have been floating in an ocean of uncertainty for quite some time. So whenever I discover that I still have some of the things I was wearing several years ago, I find it grounding. 

The two pictures show the movement of a whole decade... The picture to the left, taken in 2015 during a vacation, popped up on my memories yesterday. I wanted to create a similar portrait 10 years later. To compare current me, with earlier me... I was pleased to know I still had the same olive-green Eddie Bauer t-shirt and turtle necklace I had bought in a Colombian Island called San Andreas many decades ago. The green stud earrings, bought in Minneapolis over a decade ago, were nowhere to be found, most likely one of the many earring casualties from the countless moves or travels over time. But I found a pair of drop earrings received for my birthday recently and that were also green.

I have made an inventory of many of the things that were lost, or gained, over the past years, in previous blogs. My whole body has gone through a lot. Yet, I was surprised to see how I still look like me. This sense of continuity provided comfort especially in my life circumstances that have been drastically modified. The first picture had been taken by my ex, during a family vacation where I was surrounded by a lot of liveliness when my sons were little, and the second was time-delayed taken by me, another example of my shift towards more independence and self-reliance. And that includes no longer letting myself be defined by someone else's opinion of me... This practice also allows me, through my inventory, to do a study of the soul, just like sketching artists develop their ability to draw anatomy by doing their own self-portraits. I have trained myself most of my life to look inside, and this heightened ability towards introspection is used at my work and in life, and put to the service of those in need, while I observe what stories, and what time their whole being can tell. And throughout this process, I practice what I preach, which is learning to know and befriend oneself, and realizing once again that we are our longest relationship ever.

I have been imagining looking at my life from the outside, as if it were made into a movie. And to get there, I will eventually start with a book, which has been writing itself for a while now. On many occasions, the opening line of a chapter from the book of my life pops up. A line to describe the quiet scene in a movie that won't have any dialogue, but will be worth a thousand words, like seeing me, sitting by my window at 5 pm, eating a leftover of kidney beans with green olives, nuts and crackers before heading to meditation, a simple dinner because I had a more elaborate lunch made of sautéed veggies. And the reason why I am sitting by the window is to catch the declining sun's warm rays. To warm up. To find comfort in an unchosen solitude.

The pictures we have can tell stories, but the in-between does even more. Between these two moments well filled with all shades of green, there has been, without a doubt, like between the hands of a clock, the soul movement of a rich decade.