Session one

He said: "This doesn't have to look like anything"

I said ok.

I cried. That's what I do in his office, ever reassured to see 2 boxes of tissues in his office upon my arrival.

I told him I am a bitter, angry woman.

I do my yoga practice (sometimes) and omit the closing prayer. I am inconsolable, uninspired, and have lost faith. I just keep getting up and doing what I have to do and going back to bed.

He said: "This doesn't have to look like anything"

He means my grief.

I am not reaching out to friends. I respond when they call on me. I'll even meet them for breakfast, but I don't have much to give. I don't initiate.

I am concerned about losing my friends. And I can't make myself do more to connect. I am remote. To them, to myself. 

I am tired, exhausted from working, and from holding it all together.

This doesn't have to look like anything.

My grief, he means.

There is no right way or wrong way to do this, he means.

There is just this moment. And the next. I wake up and do the laundry. I drink water. It's Sunday and I'm supposed to call my father. I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't call. I feed Chicken, change her water. Start hand washing my cobalt top to wear at work this week. Roll out the yoga mat. Take off Dona Farhi's book off the shelf and do a backbending practice. Mr. August is at our friend's birthday brunch. She is not only having a birthday but also having a baby any minute now. Their place will be packed with happy people. I notice my mind getting busy with the problem of my absence at that party. And then I let it go. I'm not there. I'm here. In this moment. This doesn't have to look like anything. Yoga ends in savasana. I go down to change the laundry. I make coffee. I eat brunch.

In the next moment, I am lost. What comes next on a Sunday? On this Sunday? There is cleaning, walking, making supper, talking on the phone, reading The Globe and Mail. What order do they go in?  

Oh yes, I remember now. This doesn't have to look like anything. I can just make it up, jerry-rig it together with chicken wire, and call it a day, call it a grieving period. I can just do my best. My best, he says, will be good enough.