Different Lanes, Same Pool
A note from Linda McLaren:
“Please know that I am doing well, practicing what SoulGuiding has taught me – to be present today. Some days are good and some days are hard, all days have blessings. I am living in Edmonton with friends who have opened their home to me, allowing their lives to be disrupted by me and my cat, Maia. We are lovingly held."
The other day, I took advantage of Edmonton's free recreation centres and went for a swim. It was wonderful to feel buoyant and move my body through the water, swimming back and forth. Almost effortless. It surprised me. It was a heavy day for me. My body was weighed down with grief, my limbs felt a thousand times their weight. The movement of heavy limbs propelled my body through the water, rhythmically, methodically, almost meditatively. It was purposefully slow. In the weight of sorrow, it was the only speed my body could embrace.
My daughter was there too. She was swimming in a different lane, intent on her speed and distance, passing me multiple times. On that day, it did not matter. We were both embraced by the movement we needed; hers fast, mine slow. Both meaningful and purposeful. She was in her lane and I was in mine. Together, yet separate. One pool, two lanes.
On August 16, folks began to return to Jasper. Until that point, we had all been having the same experience. We were all evacuees. On August 16, we began swimming in different lanes. It was bound to happen – not by exclusion, but by the nature of this disaster. Some homes are standing, some are not. Re-entry brought with it an intensity of emotions. I can only write from my perspective of one who lost her home, but I sense for those returning, it too was a day fraught with much emotion.
As we move into the phases of re-entry/recovery I sense more powerfully this separation of experience, this notion that we are swimming in different lanes now. It is hard. I suspect it is hard for all of us, in different and similar ways because, even though we are swimming in different lanes, we are still in the same pool. We are still the community of Jasper. All of us have been impacted by this wildfire that has caused this separation of community.
I read the stories people have so bravely shared on Facebook: anger, fear, joy, and hope. It’s all there. I see folks working as hard as possible to get us all back. Still, it doesn’t feel like enough, for any of us. Being away from Jasper, I know my feelings of isolation, of feeling left behind, of sadness that will not be satisfied.
On days when the weight of my separation slows me down; when the unbearable weight of the reality of my homelessness wants to crush me, I need to remember that day in the pool. How my daughter and I swam together, side by side, each in our lanes, each in our rhythms yet held together in that one same pool. How the waves of her movements joined the waves of mine.
There are days I wake up and wish that all of this could be gone, that in some mystical fairy tale kind of way, I could go back to July 22 and we could have a redo. I wish by some miracle that all of us could be back in Jasper at this very moment, that there were homes enough for all. I hope for that day.
For now, when my emotions are too raw to even touch, I try to remember that the waves of my movement join the waves of your movement, and yours join mine because one day my hope will come true. On that day, I will want to know that we remembered we are still swimming in the same pool. We are a community, together. We are Jasper together. May peace be us.
Linda McLaren
s an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada. She was ordained in 2016 after a long vocation in health care where she worked as a registered nurse. Linda is passionate about the intersection of health and spirituality, and believes that health outcomes are improved when the concept of holism is integrated into healing-oriented areas. Linda completed SoulGuiding in 2022.
She's currently a companion in SoulMentoring.
Read more about Linda's spiritual direction practice here
