Doubt

“Your doubt can become a good quality if  you train it. It must become knowing, it must become criticism. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoils something for you, why something is ugly; demand proofs from it, test it, and you will find it perhaps bewildered and embarrassed, perhaps also protesting. But don’t give in, insist on arguments, and act in this way, attentive and persistent, every single time, and the day will come when, instead of being a destroyer, it will become one of your best workers – perhaps the most intelligent of all the ones that are building your life.” — Rainer Maria Rilke

Everything Changes

Image via Desjardins Insurance.

You could say this is a time of transition.

Every time I look out the window, change is right there in my face. The seasons are changing before my eyes. Here in southern Ontario, the leaves turn colour very vividly in autumn, and there’s an intensity to the colour that makes a striking contrast with blue fall skies . . . or with dark purple-black clouds when there are storms on the horizon. The air is cooling, and strong winds make it feel even cooler than the thermometer might say. We are keeping windows open to let fresh air sweep through the house.

Oh, that reminds me! I have windows now. I’ve moved out of a basement apartment, and out of a city where I couldn’t afford much more than that. I enjoyed living in Toronto, but it’s so expensive and there’s so much uncertainty around housing and employment right now. I was beginning to feel so weighed down by the expectation that I’d always be scrabbling for purchase in a hard economy. Out here, in our new city, I’m starting to feel more hopeful.

Some other changes that have happened in my personal life: