Day 3: Building a Mandala to Celebrate the Self

When I was eleven-years-old, my family moved to a small, southern Alberta town about a two-hour drive north from Calgary. My mother was remarrying her third husband, a man we had only met a handful of times. Her first husband, my father, had abandoned us on the commune once the exodus began. My mother, devastated by his departure, abandoned us too in retaliation. She met her second husband during her travels, but that marriage was cut short by a game of Russian roulette. My mother swore she would never remarry again, but the vow gave way to the promise of stability during a time in our life when we were the most unstable. Despite the circumstances, he was a jovial person. While anyone would have been better than the bruisers and coke pushers she was notorious for finding, he was kind to her and to us. That was enough for me.

The new space of stability provided just enough solid ground for my mother to begin falling apart. A steady income meant an uninterrupted access to beer. Soon she climbed her way to the top of the ranks of the misfit society’s queen of the party. Even back then, I could feel her crash coming.

Our home was not a safe one for me. I had no way to protect myself against her drunken rages or the hands of the people she brought in. The only way I knew to adjust to the changes was to change myself. And so, I chose to grow up. I changed my water for coffee, candy for cigarettes, sodas for alcohol. By eleven years-old, I was partying alongside the best of them, never once being asked or guided to explore how I felt on inside. I was too young to consider the consequences of my actions and too heartbroken to learn from them. It was a traumatic cycle that kept me spinning in its reels for years.

When I wasn’t drinking alcohol, I was drinking coffee. It’s rich brown waters nourished a pathway to real connections not frayed by a heavy buzz. Rivers of coffee carved out conversations in the bedrock of my immovable pain with adults in my community who took the time to treat me as a friend, not like a child. It was over coffee that deals were made to secure my lodging and food in trade for my being a nanny or housekeeper. It was coffee that became the true sacred waters of my life.

Today I place fresh coffee on my altar to celebrate all the help in my life that a simple cup of coffee helped to bring. 

I celebrate the sharing of a cup. 

I celebrate its rich, bitter beans— a perfect analogy to my own life. 

I celebrate all the connections made, especially those lost and forgotten to time, for I know they were the softest moments my life had to offer me. 

My prayer for today: “May I always remember how a simple act of connectedness can change a life, and may I have the courage to be that person for another when I’m called.”