It’s cherry blossom time in the West End. This year the first blossoms came very quickly on Comox and Barclay Streets, with tiny star-like flowers that thickened to something like a veil or net of blossom, but never quite came together in a solid mass of colour. These are now falling, and their remaining flowers are smothered in red-brown leaves.  We are now into the second wave, the Akebono and other

Now I’m through with my course, and moving back and forth from country to country, life to life, I find that I’m never quite sure what to write for my monthly post. While I was taking my Counselling Psychology Masters, I could easily tell the story of something that happened or something I’d learned over the last month as an ethnographic moment in an unfolding journey. Now, after graduation, life

It’s that time when you begin to see very faint signs of spring. The weather’s a little warmer, even if the rain continues. Under the big trees on Barclay Street, at the Heritage Square, white snowdrops are just pricking their way out of green buds. Now that my course has finished, and I’m hesitating about entering practice as a counsellor, I find myself living very much in the moment. I

It’s a month since we came back to Vancouver. The week before Christmas was unseasonably cold, with snow lying on West End roofs, sidewalks, and streets for days on end. It’s now warmer, and the relentless Pacific Northwest rain has returned. I’ve become familiar again with morning choices of waterproof clothing (raincoat or gortex?), footwear (rubber, hiking, or leather boots?), and decisions over the size of umbrella. We check weather

It’s been five months since I last wrote. I began writing this post in the living room of our HDB flat in Bukit Batok, Singapore. Nine o’clock in the evening, and the children at the playground below have fallen silent. The ceiling fan turns above me, and the block opposite is lit up — the long strip of light that marks the lift lobbies on each floor, and then random

In the last week of June, we had a glimpse of summer: two days when the temperature was in the high 20s, and cycling in the West End became perilous again. We’d ride from dazzling light to dark shade under the thick horse chestnut and maple trees, and out into the light again: cars would jerk to a halt, their drivers’ eyes struggling to adjust. And then, on the morning

In May, as Spring moved uncertainly into summer, things slowed down for me. I formally graduated from UBC with my Masters’ in Counselling Psychology on May 19th, and then spent some time putting together an application for Registered Clinical Counsellor status with the BCACC. But I’ve had a hiatus from counselling itself: it feels strange now to enter occasional zoom seminars online and to fumble for my headset, or wait

Our slow-motion Spring continues in Vancouver. The weather’s alternated between sunshine and rain, but it’s been consistently unseasonably cold. The cool weather has extended the seasons, slowing down the process of change. As I write, we have just finished the third and final wave of cherry blossoms, petals now coating the streets in what looks like pink snow, and the green of leaves now coming to the trees. We’ve had

The last few weeks have been quieter than I anticipated. I’ve been finishing my work both in my second Family of Origin group, and with the individual people I’ve been in conversation with at Jewish Family Services. Contact hours have gradually been replaced by paperwork, first for practicum, and then, in preparation for graduation, putting together my application for Registered Clinical Counsellor status with the British Columbia Association of Clinical

I began writing this month’s post at Harrison Hot Springs, on a week off from my practicum. During my only other week’s break in the practicum so far, over Christmas and New Year, I found myself refreshed when I returned, and I also found some of the people I’d been in conversation with changed: they’d had a chance to stand back a little from the counselling process, and to reflect,