This is awkward.

A small card that reads “patience”. In the background are blurry yellow flowers, candles and wood.

Is anyone else feeling super awkward about this transition out of COVID-19 restrictions?

It’s nothing like how I thought it would be. I was somehow imagining a feeling of total freedom and safety, everyone out in the streets, in restaurants. Hugs are back, stores are open, take a lick of my ice cream, let’s go to the dentist.

I imagined that the relief would be palpable, bright and everywhere. Was that just me?

Of course that’s not what’s happening. And how could it be? Transitions are challenging at the best of times, and this one has so many layers.

Also, in-between periods can be incredibly lonely. How do we stay present in this formlessness? How do we keep walking when our paths are pitted with anxiety, risk and uncertainty? How to we advocate for what we need, and how do we even know what we need when everything is changing?

I don’t know much, but I do know that writing can help. Laying down words can let us tell ourselves the story of this moment, and belong to that story more fully. If you’re looking for a prompt, you might want to try:

These are the days of…
What I need the most right now is…
I’m ready for… / I’m not ready for…

Writing alone can be hard, so if you’re looking for some company along the way, we have a few spots in summer workshops (this one, this one and this one) and we just launched a new program for busy parents and caregivers trying to recover their spark this summer. And as always, there are coffee sessions.

While we’re here though though, can we let a beam of relief shine through? Even just for a sec?

I learned something important about relief last week from one of our community members, Paula.

Britt, beloved coach, who has been on an intense journey since her cancer diagnosis in the winter, got through a very big surgery. It went well. The surgeon was pleased.

In the flurry of happy activity after I found out, I sent a quick note to Paula, since I knew she’d been holding her breath that day. She wrote back right away and said:

Hold tight to that sense of relief. You need to feed your own souls with this news. 

I exhaled, closed my laptop, and slept for a very long time.

Relief is a slippery thing. I often feel like, “More hard stuff is right after the corner, so why pause here?” But I came back to Paula’s advice over and over in the last week. She was right, it felt so good to feel the relief of that moment. And this moment. Complicated though it is.

So, where is Firefly in this re-opening?

It’s hard. After a lot of talk and consultation, we’re not ready to plan in-person workshops and retreats this fall. With lack of clarity on the provincial level, persistent fears around variants, the intense paperwork of contact tracing and all our sentient, human uncertainty, it’s just complicated.

We may add some later, but we’re still on Zoom for now. We’ll get our fall schedule up on the website in the next couple weeks, and open registration on July 27th.

And whatever happens, a big part of our business will remain online. We love our new Zoom friends. We’re here for you, for the long haul. Coffee Sessions will continue weekdays at 9am, we’ll keep trying new large format online programs and Stay at Home Retreats, and some of our small group workshops will still be taught through Zoom.

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Here we are, in the beauty of awkwardness, in the work of transitions, in relief, and the struggle to feel it.

Here’s to being in this very moment, as together as we can.

In it with you,