I realized that I'm constantly thinking about Chris because I hadn't replied to his email, and it was sitting there flagged in my inbox. I'd been reading this thing about how you need to turn towards the problem. Like how you want to lose weight, but always put off starting an exercise regimen. Or how people throw away bills without opening them. How if you face the problem head on then it takes away its power. If you eat a frog first thing in the morning, then the day can only get better. So, I spent an hour crafting my reply to Chris, agonizing over the tone and grammar. But it's done and gone and no longer in my inbox, and I feel so much better. And then I faced a lot of other small problems like organizing my closet and taking a pile of stuff to the donation bin and weeding my garden plot and going down to the gym to run on the treadmill. Turn towards the the problem.

It's been grey here all weekend. I lay in bed last night just thinking. No phone, no books, no nothing. Just me lying in bed staring out the window towards the other apartments and the glowing cloud cover. Thinking about my life and what I want and who I am and where I want to be. It's strange to shut everything off like that and just be.

I find myself drawn to writing and creating when I'm left to be myself. I tend to forget about this side of myself when I'm caught up in everyday life. That I used to draw and paint and play in a band and dream of writing something real. I do still create in some ways, and when I'm in ballet class I find myself centred and in self. And then I sit for 8 hrs drafting service connections for a new correctional centre or counting valves on a proposed water system for a quantity takeoff and wonder what the hell I'm doing with my life. I do love what I do a lot of the time, and it more than pays the bills, but my heart is often elsewhere.

I walk around my neighbourhood in the drizzle, and there are lineups of people outside of the brunch places, and it smells like coffee and frying onions. Girls walking in and out of the community centre with yoga mats slung over their shoulders. Couples riding their bikes down the alleys. Condensation running down the insides of the windows in the craft brewery. A cat lurking in a bush outside of an apartment building, dryer vents pushing out smells of Bounce sheets and stale cigarette smoke. A crow on the wire, next to the ubiquitous dangling pair of sneakers. A dad walking past with a little girl on his shoulders with a balloon tied to her wrist. The smell of fresh rich humus and vegetables from the community gardens.