In the middle of some difficult work, my nights filled with dreams in which I must take on my mother’s life in a room darkened by motheaten drapes, photographs tacked to the wall. In my own room, a wide window, a pair of elk toes dangling from a hook, a tiny birdhouse woven of willow and grasses just beyond. I am doing the difficult work, keeping a journal with dreams, answers to questions posed by a wise woman, descriptions of the past, of places, of recurring behaviours. And on my desk, my morning divination:
Friday, January 4th, 1929
Now is life very solid or very shifting? I am haunted by the two contradictions. This has gone on for ever; will last for ever; goes down to the bottom of the world–this moment I stand on. Also it is transitory, flying, diaphanous. I shall pass like a cloud on the waves. Perhaps it may be that though we change, one flying after another, so quick, so quick, yet we are somehow successive and continuous we human beings, and show the light through. But what is the light? I am impressed by the transitoriness of human life to such an extent that I am often saying a farewell–
–Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary
A few nights ago, I dreamed of where two rivers meet, the Thompson and the Fraser, a bridge crossing, an osprey taking long strands of orange ribbon to its nest in the trusses, I dreamed of the scent of rabbitbrush and sage, the long dry vistas.
And everywhere the sound of water.
...Theresa Kishkan 
This post makes me feel restless and curious to learn more: about the difficult work, about you taking on your mother’s life, about the room with the motheaten drapes. Intriguing and haunting.
It’s a long process to untangle some old riddles, Leslie. And I have a sort of process I’m trying to follow. It’s difficult and sad but necessary. Writing through the dark…