The Shape and Structure of July

 

July has come and gone already. It has been filled with ups and downs and everything in between.

From Wikipedia: Spirograph is a geometric drawing device that produces mathematical roulette curves of the variety technically known as hypotrochoids and epitrochoids. The well-known toy version was developed by British engineer Denys Fisher and first sold in 1965.

The set consisted of differently sized plastic rings, with gear teeth on both the inside and outside of their circumferences. Once either of these rings were held in place (either by pins, with an adhesive, or by hand) any of several provided gearwheels (or rotors)—each having holes for a ballpoint pen—could be spun around the ring to draw geometric shapes

            

When I was a child, one Christmas I got a Spirograph set. It provided me hours of fun, drawing shapes and structures of various complexities, lines intertwining, overlapping, forming new patterns. Using coloured pens made my drawings even more pleasing and intricate, the different colours revealing the many layers underneath.  Google informs me that Spirograph sets are still being produced.

Patterns, shapes, structures. Routines.

Life’s a bit like that, isn’t it? Lines converging, separating, going off in a new direction, crisscrossing, forming layers and patterns. Sometimes we can’t see what the pattern means until we take a few steps back and look at the picture from a different perspective.

Routines are part of our daily lives, and without them we would feel untethered, lost, adrift. We need structure to have some sense of comfort and certainty as to where we are going, who we are. Until, by some choice or event, our routines change.  Sometimes we also need to break out of these patterns and routines, to let our minds and spirits roam free, experience new experiences, make new connections in our brains.

There are defining moments in our lives, big or small. Moments that re-shape and re-structure our thoughts, our lives, our momentum. Moments that upend our routines. Moments that make us pause and ask – what next?

My sister’s husband passed away this July, at 60 years old. Much too young. It shakes one up, as all deaths do, but more so when the deceased is young and part of your family.

July has also been filled with conversations, reading, writing, walking, reflecting. And in all these daily routine activities, moments to pause and ask – what does this moment mean? What is this day, this time, this action, giving shape to?

At lunch with the sister of a close friend, who is now also becoming a friend, the conversation turned to how timid we often are in revealing our true selves, our worth. Why this reluctance to shine a light on ourselves? Is it a belief that to do so makes one sound pretentious and boastful? Is it mostly women who feel this way? Men seem to upsell themselves with ease.

Reading. I’m currently reading – “This is Happy” by Camilla Gibb.

Why did I wait so long to read Gibb? She has been on my radar for a long time and yet, remained unread until this past month. Some days ago I read her novel, “The Relatives”, and as soon as I finished that, I took out “This Is Happy” from the library. One a memoir, the other a novel, but both books shaped by her life, her experiences of darkness, pain, pregnancy through a donor, heartbreak, aloneness. Shape, structure, defining moments – in her life, in all of ours. Pay attention, it says, to all the defining moments.

Writing, Not Writing. Staring at a blank page. Editing old pieces. Sending out query letters. Hearing nothing other than one polite decline. It’s the hearing nothing that’s a small defining moment each day. That makes you ask: What now? What next? Do I have it in me to keep at it? What shape will this narrative take? And yet…wanting to write, needing to write.

Memories. The sixth anniversary of my mother’s death. That small moment, with that one phone call, when I realized I was an old orphan. When you lose your parents, at whatever age, you still suddenly think of yourself as ‘orphaned’. The structure of your life shifts. No more elderly parents. No parents.

We all have moments in our lives when, in an instant, with a decision or an event, the shape and structure of our lives shifts and alters, whether we are prepared for those changes or not. It is better to be prepared, but not always possible.

All we can be sure of is that impermanence is in everything, all around us.