Find Your Sky

Years ago, I volunteered briefly at a women’s shelter. One of the exercises I had the women do was erasure poetry. We took pages from old books and scratched out words until a poem would emerge from the words we kept.

FIND YOUR SKY was one of my poems. Or, its title.

The three words became a mantra.

A way for me to hold onto beauty in the midst of chaos.

Little did I know then that a pandemic would hit us, that I would catch Covid in 2023 and battle Long Covid for years. On some of my most difficult days when standing in the shower was the most grueling thing I did, when I was in my pajamas at 4 o’clock in the afternoon and had to choose between making a piece of toast or pouring yogurt in a bowl, I stopped finding my sky. Sometimes I would catch myself looking out into the garden, but I’d look away. Not worth it, I’d think.

Time went on.

I slowly began to gain a little strength, and one day I read somewhere that the mind and our thoughts—most specifically the way we believe in ourselves and our strength—plays a powerful and vital role in our healing. That afternoon, I shuffled out of my front door and looked up at the sky. I know it sounds corny, but it felt like a coming home. Like the universe was saying, “I got you. You got you.”

Soon after, I picked up a camera and began shooting little fragments of the natural world, of birds and other animals. Of anything really. These photos I call chips of sky, moments I freeze in order to remind myself that the brain is permeable and incredibly smart, that what you focus on matters in your recovery.

Every Friday, I will post a photo and write a tiny something about it, hoping to give all of you out there, who are battling something big and/or small, a surge of joy and optimism.

Hope you join me!