November snowfalls are like April ones in that they come every year and yet we’re always surprised to see them. This one was particularly unexpected. And a little jarring, to be honest. It wasn’t so much a practical unpreparedness –– my family is always buying winter boots in a snow storm –– but an emotional one. As I trudged through the slushy sidewalks of Kensington Market this morning, I felt like I’d time traveled through Autumn, past the festive season and the New Year, and landed bang on some ordinary weekday in February. My whole journey from home to market and back felt so viscerally mid-winter that if not for the sight of bright pink roses peeking through the snow in a neighbour’s garden, I may well have believed that it was. Thank heavens for pops of pink! Thank heavens for the last remaining autumnal leaves, tiny crimson catchalls for the snow. All signs that it is indeed mid-November. A month to expect the unexpected. Like wierd weather and time travel. Or is that just life?

Ambivalent is such a good word, one that I use a lot. I didn’t used to, in fact, I’m not sure I even knew the proper meaning of the word until a few years ago when an acquaintance used it to describe me. Given that I was eight months pregnant with my third child a state of conflicting emotions now seems apt. But in the moment, her passing comment, thrown into our sidewalk conversation like parsley on a salad, felt like a punch to the stomach. We were chit chatting about whatever women with children in the same playgroup chit chat about when she just came out and said it; “you seem ambivalent about this baby.” Immediately, I launched into a monologue about the joys of motherhood and how excited I was to welcome another child. Was my inner conflict so transparent that a virtual stranger could see it? I felt exposed. Vulnerable. Ashamed. And then angry with her for stirring feelings in me that I’d tried so desperately to keep static. It took days to reconcile all the many emotions unleashed in that one tiny encounter. Years later, equipped with a clarity that only hindsight gives us, I wish I’d been able to say, “yes, I am ambivalent,” followed by a cordial, “bugger off.” I wish I could have understood that her comment was as much a reflection of her inner workings as it was mine. And I wish I had known that the ambivalence I was feeling, as natural as it was, would soon be replaced with a certainty of heart so fierce that it’s hard to imagine having felt any other way. Today, I see ambivalence to difficult situations as a gift because it means that I’m allowing myself a fuller human experience. It’s funny how a fleeting encounter can tap into something quite profound, and sometimes even, induce a change within us.

It was “Sandcastle” that first drew me to Wolfgang Tillmans. It wasn’t so much the image but what the image represented that resonated with me. We know that by break of day the tide will have washed it away, and yet we still build it. It’s the possibility that this one might survive and the knowledge that we can re-build if it doesn’t that spurs us forward. And of course, there’s the sheer joy of turning sand into turrets. Sandcastles are the best of human spirit. Hope. Resilience. Love. Creativity. A reminder that nothing is permanent. Tillmans is such a prolific and influential photographer, but for me, it’s about this one photograph.

“I’m not strange, weird, off, nor crazy, my reality is just different from yours.” ― Lewis Carroll.

I don’t often walk through Mount Pleasant cemetery, once every few years, but whenever I do, I’m reminded what a beautiful pocket of the city it is. Today was particularly lovely, with leaves all shades of dried fruit, and an early morning light that made everything feel so hopeful and alive. I’m always curious to see how a family chooses to immortalize a loved one, and most specifically, the words they select to do so. How to distill a life into a poem, quotation or phrase. You can tell the Jewish graves by the stones placed upon them. I happened upon one today with more than thirty stones of different shapes, sizes and colours. As much as I adore flowers, roses wither and dry up, stones are permanent. If there wasn’t such a chill in the air, I might have spent more time reading through the many, many inscriptions. There’s always next time.

There was a white t-shirt with delicate red flowers that Iole wore so much that it practically disintegrated. It was one of those insignificant items of clothing that imprints itself in your memory in the most significant way. My daughter, age 7, galloping down Robert Street on a broom. My daughter, age 8, lifting her little sister on to a swing. Or eating an ice lolly. Or tying her brother’s shoe laces. Or falling off her bike and grazing her knee. In my memory, Iole is always wearing that t-shirt. Even when she wasn’t. “Do you remember that Ralph Lauren t-shirt that Nonna gave you, the one you wore eight million times?” A vague recollection washes over her mascara smudged eyes. “How can you not remember it? It was your favourite.” I searched through my phone — hundreds and hundreds of photographs –– and there it was, 2016/17, the white t-shirt with delicate red flowers. There were other t-shirts. And dresses. And rompers. But that’s the one that stands out. That’s the one that reminds me of Iole in that window of time. A window so fleeting, so challenging, so beautifully and wonderfully intense that my memory could only hold on to so much. A t-shirt. And the girl who wore it.

“The key to success is to start before you are ready.” Marie Forleo.