I was recently asked to reflect on and share a personal story with an incredible group of women about courage, vulnerability and stepping into the unknown. This is what I shared. . .
My husband and I moved to a country house about a year and a half ago. The motivation came after the death of my mother, the sudden death of my husband’s sister, crime was getting ridiculous in the city we lived in and although we lived in a beautiful condo overlooking the Humber River, the negative energy from some of the mostly affluent elderly people living in our area was palpable. It’s not the future I saw for us. I always yearned for the spaciousness of the country and thought who knows how long we have, let’s just do it.
Living on a rural property and being in nature is incredibly beautiful and restorative, but also brings you face to face with your own vulnerability in the world; our closest neighbour is a quarter kilometre walk away, the beautiful towering trees that surround our property and provide fresh air, could fall at any moment; the spring thaw brings flood risks and I don’t think we’re alone in thinking that this past winter was a lot. We’ve seen the Northern lights from our driveway, befriended the chipmunks and birds, see foxes and deer occasionally walking through our property but also hear the howling and barking of coyotes in the night. It is a reminder that although we are surrounded by beauty, we are always vulnerable. And within that balance, we live.
The ice storm that my community experienced recently was an in-your-face reminder that climate change is real and none of us will win against nature. We need to rely on each other and our global community to survive, but sometimes the scariest things in life are not the threats of the natural world around us, but the people in it. If our neighbours to the south wanted to attack us and take our land one day, we’d be vulnerable. We are so dependent on technology that when systems fail like power and internet, we feel helpless. As we get older and specifically as women, the physical parts of us that for some have defined our womanhood become areas we need to be weary of; we are vulnerable even to the invaders within our own bodies.
I woke on the Sunday after the worst part of the ice storm and slowly looked out my window and saw that our patio was ice free and that the trees surrounding our property had accumulated just enough ice to give it a wintery sheen. The creek beside our home that appears during the spring thaw was at high flow but the systems in place to keep the water flowing away from our property were working. We had power and over the course of the morning, the ice started to gently fall away from the trees as the temperature began to rise. I breathed a thankful sigh of relief. That is until I started to hear about the communities effected to the north of us and saw the power outage map in our own community. Only a small percentage of the map had power, and we happened to be one of those lucky few.
What is the courage part of this story? When there are real or perceived threats all around you, effecting you or the people and communities you care about, you start to understand in a visceral way what matters and what doesn’t; what you are capable of and that almost nothing is in our control. Similarly to how the current administration to the south has given us the gift of unifying our country in a way that was so needed, and each of us remembers what values we either stand for or aspire to, the constant reminder and threat of death (which is a natural part of the cycle of life), makes me truly appreciate what it is to be alive. I finally understand that when I feel afraid, it means I’m still alive and I celebrate it. Just getting up each day and choosing to show up, engage with people and build an authentic life with an uncertain future is my courage story. To walk with the constant fear but not give into it. It is the balance of life, it’s only when you know you can lose it at any moment, that you can fully appreciate even the simplest pleasures and interactions in life. And feel a deep connection and compassion for people and all living things that are experiencing the exact same thing; whether they are aware of it or not; whether they love you back or not. Fear is aliveness; and choosing aliveness is my act of courage.