Leah Perrault

Over the last few months, I have been thinking a lot about the way that places and spaces hold us. Walking through our old neighbourhood for the last time, I walked under aged elm trees, whose branches provided cover from a gentle rain. In other seasons, that park was a playground of snow, and a mountain of leaves. It was a space that held our family so beautifully over the last few years.

This spring, I noticed that my rhubarb plant was getting overgrown. I was not going to be able to use it all. That same week in May, as often happens in a world full of grace, someone on social media was asking for a rhubarb plant. I made arrangements for her to pop over to split it so it could be transplanted.

There is a part of me that cannot resist the beauty of dandelions releasing single seeds on the breeze. They are an icon for me of the lessons of letting go.

It is always tempting to resist the hard and painful parts, to hate the stretch marks, and run away from the challenges. And, it is so much more helpful to me to see how the stretching can make more space.

If Easter is about dying as well as resurrection, then I shouldn’t be surprised that the new life is as earthy as the death. Rot has to be cleared away, dry bones rehydrated, muscles reacclimatized to movement. Resistance needs to fall away. These things take time and practice, at least in my experience of my own humanity.

It gives me such pure joy to marvel at the ice in the puddles, to lose myself in exploring the micro-universe, to delightedly smash the ice through. And this can be true also in my soul.

The world is a hot mess right now. I am not sure there is a better way to say that. Everything feels upside down and unbelievable. Pope Francis declared a jubilee year of hope; now he’s praying for a world praying for him in a hospital bed.

Diefenbaker Lake is a deep section of the Saskatchewan River that cuts a T-shape through the south-central part of our province. The lake is part of the landscape and the story of our lives, and today the lake is a metaphor for my grief.

January in Saskatchewan brings cold, clear days with hoar frost and ice crystals catching light in the air.

Twice, I was very pregnant in Advent, and I thought a lot about how riding on a donkey might bring on labour. With each month of pregnancy, babies occupied more of my body – as well as my mind and heart. And with birth, these little people become literal parts of my body and soul existing in the world distinct from me.