Do you smell it? The hint of wood smoke in the air? The slight stench of decay?
Do you notice a taste on the back of your throat that is a touch more acidic than the sweet brine of spring?
Do you hear the silence as it settles, as the birds, the whales, and the tourists leave?
It’s a divine time of letting go before the cold and cozy solitude of winter.
Except there are 6,000 events on Haida Gwaii. And just as I wrote that a car alarm started going off. I can’t write while it’s going off. I can’t think at all.
I’ll wait… Oh thank goodness, it stopped. Well if that wasn’t the universe reflecting an inner, felt experience, I don’t know what is.
While I tuned into the — OMG it started again. We definitely have a problem here, and as with many problems, I hope that someone closer to it can solve it quickly. I’m waiting again. It must be an older car. Newer ones don’t go off for that long.
Yes, it stopped. Where was I?
While I tuned into the quiet experience of approaching fall, my mind flashed with all the events that will have me expertly crafting every cozy fall day into something that resembles anything but the trainwreck it threatens to be.
When that car alarm sounded, my brain switched attention. My body tightened. My thoughts stilled as my senses opened.
My amygdala kicked in to evaluate my safety. While my immediate surroundings seemed fine, and my left hemisphere managed to send the message that it was just an errant alarm and not a brazen midday thief, the pitch and persistence of the alarm kept my nervous system in Flight, Fight, Freeze mode.
This is what chronic stress and anxiety is like. A car alarm that won’t shut up, preventing you from doing any non-essential survival task, such as writing prose for your local newspaper.
When life throws you challenges, it’s important to remember that we can’t function well until the sense of threat diminishes.We can’t go to all 6,000 events and honour what our body and soul needs.
This year has been a personally challenging one. And the year before. Well, maybe it’s been a challenging five years, but in any case — my personal car alarm is going off.
And that’s okay. The more I pause and let it ring until I can regulate myself back to safety, the less it feels the need to ring.
I suppose it’s more of a honk than a ring. If the joyous, honkeriffic honk-request gesture my lightly esteemed colleague Chris Williams wrote about in last week’s edition is the bright side, the incessant car alarm is the shadow side.
It’s a nagging reminder to face our anxieties so we can live a life where attending 6,000 events in three months is totally possible, even enjoyable. For a complete events listing, check page , follow Alissa MacMullin on Facebook (that woman deserves a medal), check out the Haida Gwaii Trader, talk to someone, and look for posters at all islands locations. Happy fall!