For many years I was a runner. I was in exceptional shape. But I wasn’t healthy. There is a fine line between consistency and obsession, and I crossed it. Six weeks into my third pregnancy, I came home from an evening run and disintegrated into the floor. That was it. A few weeks later, I was in my local swimming pool with a bright yellow noodle between my legs. Aqua-fit is the antithesis of running and the respite I needed after years of running my body into the pavement. After Luma was born, I traded classes for laps. I loved being in the water. And after so many years of running solo, I loved how swimming felt both solitary and communal. For five years, I swam two to three times a week. And then towards the end of last year, I found myself floating more than swimming. I’d often lay on my back in the deep end and just stare up at the ceiling. I’d move up and down the slow lane on my flutter board, careful not to collide with an octogenarian. By January, I’d stopped swimming all together. I was craving something different. That’s when I turned to yoga. I began with a few classes at my local community centre, and then when Covid settled in, one of my dearest friends in England organized for us to meet weekly on zoom with her yoga teacher, Ellie. We’ve gathered every week since April and over nine months, cultivated a beautiful archive of classes to draw on whenever we feel the urge. it’s been a gift to ourselves, and to each other. Most of the classes are yin –– slow, gentle and meditative –– and Ellie is often reminding us of the profound effect that slow, deliberate and gentle movement can have on the body. For someone who has lived her life filling each minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run this is new terrain. Sometimes, we’ll be in a forward bend for ten minutes or more. “Keep your resolve strong and your attitude gentle,” says Ellie. Back in the spring, I’d very often rest in child’s pose for the first half of the class. Olivia whistles as she exhales which makes me giggle. And her hair always ends up in a huge bouffant. There is a comfort and warmth and intimacy that I never imagined finding on zoom. Ellie brings such deep wisdom, intuition and compassion to the space. I have learned so much from her. My children walk in and out all the time, and in late July, our classes collided with the constant banging and drilling of builders. Ellie’s puppy, Benny yaps away in her Brixton flat and I can sometimes hear the sirens and airplanes over London. “What is it to meditate on a mountain if you cannot meditate in the market?” I don’t tune out the din, I am learning to be with it. I have no aspirations of a perfect pigeon or plow, and I couldn’t care less how far I fold into a forward bend. “We have nowhere to get to,” Ellie says. Olivia sent me a blanket and blocks and other props last month and what a difference all that makes. Surrendering, knowing when we need support, breathing, smiling through the discomfort, recognizing and honouring our limits, these are all lessons I am learning through our practice. It isn’t running. It isn’t swimming. It’s something new.

My mum has a handful of friends –– all certifiably bonkers –– that she’s known most her life. They’ve been through thick and thin together. And for the good part of a decade, they celebrated Christmas together. Christmas Eve was always a memorable affair. We gathered at our house, and my Mum (in cashmere, reindeer antlers and a festive pinny) did all the cooking. A turkey and a goose. Potatoes roasted in goose fat. Parsnips breaded in parmesan crumbs. Sprouts. Champagne jelly. And a Bûche De Noël. The grownups were three sheets to the wind before we’d even passed around the cocktail sausages. There were charades. There was a quiz. There were paper hats (sitting slightly askew) on everyone’s heads. Nowhere to go for the holidays? My Mum invited you to Christmas Eve dinner. Come one, come all. We laughed ridiculously. We ate enormously. One year, we even made it to midnight mass. Even as sultry teenagers, we loved our Christmas Eve fêtes. So much so that to this day, from opposite sides of the world, all us ‘kids’ send each other notes, revel in nostalgia, think of the laughter and the silliness and the brandy butter. Miss each other.

I bought a single hydrangea yesterday and plonked it in a short glass vase and I can’t tell you how lovely it looks. While I very much appreciate the imagination and whimsy of a multi-bloomed arrangement, a single flower is often all I need to see. Hydrangeas are a classic, and a flower I never tire of. Replace the water everyday and it’ll last a good while.

What I’ve always resisted about winter, beyond the bone-chilling cold, is how the city seems to shrink into itself. Between its barren Maples and empty terraces, there’s little sign of life. Without foliage to blanket the grey, Toronto is very concrete. The cold hurries us into our homes, and neighbours rarely stop to say hello. There are no kids on bikes, or elderly Italian ladies nattering on porches. All is quiet. All is still. And yet this year, there’s something in Winter’s repose that feels fitting. Perhaps, we’re all acclimating to the quiet, to not making plans, and to spending long hours in our homes. There is a time for everything. And winter is when we rest. It may have taken a pandemic to help me appreciate that.

I’ve been thinking about artists who work with one colour –– Kazimir Malevich‘s white on white paintings, Wolfgang Laib‘s installations of yellow dust and Yves Klein‘s cobalt blue sculptures. And I’ve been thinking about how there is freedom in focus, and how liberating it can be to set limits. For many artists, a single colour provides a gateway to “spiritual purity.” For others, it allows for greater focus on form, texture and process. Anish Kapoor, Robert Rauschenberg and Ellsworth Kelly have all experimented with monochrome. In a recent podcast interview, local artist, Nicole Kagan spoke about how she found freedom in working with nothing but school grade black ink and dollar store white paper. The limitations were liberating, she says. For a week she made nothing but intuitive black marks on paper. It was a reset. Setting boundaries and releasing oneself from the double edged knife of choice can usher in greater clarity and a more deliberate use of one’s creative energy. I think some people might say as much about this last year. That the limitations have been liberating. Enlightening, even. I leave you with a painting by Alteronce Gumby. Gumby’s canvases are slathered with a black paint that he makes himself, and that’s comprised of many colours mixed together. Monochrome. But look again, and you’ll see every colour of the rainbow.