Place: Turtle Island

Time: November, 2023

I was thinking about how much I love the desert as I flew over the Grand Canyon at sunset, face squished against the tiny airplane window watching the shadows spread through the cracks in the golden earth like veins, and it was all so perfect and magical, just like sitting in a beach chair by the fire, craning my neck at the Leonid meteor shower in the night sky over Cabo, just like running along the breakwater back home in Victoria with seals poking their whiskers above the ocean surface, eating their breakfast while the pink and orange sun rises behind the clouds and I realize what a gift it is to notice these things, fill my lungs with fresh coastal air and scream with joy at the magic of the universe instead of screaming with terror at the cruelty raining from the sky wondering who else in my family is going to die and it makes no sense because we are all tiny constellations of energy, blood and souls colliding, loving, living and dying in wildly different realities based on where we emerged from the womb when really we share one mother and I am consumed by the feeling that I am grateful for this life and I must do more for my siblings while I am here so that they may notice more magic instead of fear.