Yesterday I took a stroll to the beach. The sun was shining for the first time in what feels like forever here on the West Coast, drawing me out of my funk. The wind was sometimes fierce, but feeling the rays of sun warm my face brought me a sense of calm and reassurance. The tide was incredibly low, and with a cautious persistence, I crossed the rocky, exposed ocean floor to find myself walking barefoot on the smooth wet sand of a far out sand bar.
Following the flow of the light surf as it lapped over the sand, I was immersed in the world of the seagulls, seaweed and seashells. I felt as my body relaxed and my mind slowed as I followed the story of my present reality, traversing a path back towards the true land. I set myself down against a log, allowing the weight of my body to settle into the warm, dry sand, which sweetly accommodated my presence.
As I looked back over the portion of beach that I just travelled, I appreciated the contour of the city far in the distance; however, I was more enamoured with the experience of my journey that had just taken place in the foreground of it all. Especially how living that story on the sand bar is really what allowed my body and mind to calm. And I was reminded of a quotation from one of my most favourite novels, Life of Pi, by Yan Martell:
“I have a story that will make you believe in God.”
(*Spoiler Alert*)
When I first read Life of Pi in a Canadian Fiction class over 15 years ago, I was skeptical that any story could be so powerful to inspire faith in a Higher Power. And, not surprisingly, when I got to the end of the book, I agreed with the Narrator (and Martel) that the story of the Animals in the life boat is a much better, more meaningful, truer account of Pi’s journey to salvation than the real, factual account of events that allowed Pi to survive his horrific reality.
Why, I asked myself, would this be the thought that comes to mind in this moment on the beach? Was I imagining myself washed up on the beach, wondering where my “Richard Parker” ran off to?
No. I was thinking about how Pi took an impossible to describe story of human desperation for survival, personified the intangible human emotions, and weaved them together into a story that would illustrate the beauty of our humanity.
I sat with that thought for a while as I sat in silence on the beach. As it does often, my mind ventured back to thoughts of my career – of the new direction I want to follow without quite knowing the right steps to take.
I thought about the complicated, scientific, factual reality of female physiology. I thought about the number of years of training, studying, practicing, and counselling of women that I have done in order to understand that female physiology, as an expert. And I sat with the reality that it has taken me years of teaching this to medical students, and then to patients, to find the best, simplest, yet most accurate ways to discuss an infinitely complicated process so that anyone can understand it. So that any woman can understand the seemingly incomprehensible cycle that unfolds in her body every month.
And I thought about the disbelief and disappointment I see creep over my patient’s faces as the realization of miscomprehension of their own bodies settles into their mind. It never stops feeling like a failure of self – not just for the patient, but for me as their caregiver, as another woman who, by chance of her career choice, has the privilege and honour of understanding her own body with more certainty.
As I watched the tides of the sea ebb and flow down the beach, I thought, There must be a story that can be told, a story like that of the animals in the life boat, that can speak to us in a way that makes the complicated easier to understand. There has to be this story in everything. And in this moment I finally understood what Martel meant when Pi said that his story would make you believe in God. There is an energy, a language of emotion, a way in which we connect with the greater world, that when spoken to, helps us understand our lives on a deeper level. This is the belief in the Higher Power.
There is an energy, a language of emotion, a way in which we connect with the greater world, that when spoken to, helps us understand our lives on a deeper level.
With this realization, I lifted my face to the sun, I closed my eyes and I followed my breath. I watched as a story began to unfold within my mind:
The story of a small egg, or a seed, I’m not sure, releasing itself from the confines of it’s previously comfortable home. Or maybe it was thrust out – I’m still not sure. But she was floating – searching for her way.
And the home she left behind was mourning her departure but was also hopeful that she would find her way.
And in the last moment, she reached out and felt herself simultaneously grab onto and be caught by the outside world.
She was in a forest now, and it was dark, but fresh, comfortable, with a soft floor that she could feel herself sink into. But she needed to continue walking along this long path – that was taking her somewhere – she didn’t know.
The forest was changing around her – it was becoming more green, more lush, almost too dense to see the right way to go. The canopy was blocking the light and she felt lost.
She didn’t know that her home, her mother, was sending out her song of hope and heartsore – creating this lush beauty in her world, that would further grow and develop her seed.
The young woman didn’t know that this forest was built by her and her mother over the whole of her existence. That their love for each other created a song that nourished the world she was part of.
And she didn’t know that the world called out to her without her knowing – and it changed her just enough to long for something more from life. And now that she was looking for it, she was scared. But the forest was going to take her the rest of the way.
Despite it’s beauty, its ravishing overgrowth, its calming ambience, the forest air was heavy on her shoulders.
She sat down to think, to become one with the new world around her, in an attempt to make sense of her world.
And the question hung in the air: “Where do I go from here?”
And then she become one with the world.
And the story ended there.
I opened my eyes and looked up at sun, now midpoint in the sky. I lowered my gaze to the water in front of me and eventually across the sand to look down at my bare feet. I thought to myself: “This story feels like ovulation.”
And, simultaneously, like the character in my story, I was both caught by the absurdity of my conscious thought, as well as grasping at the realization that I have the story of Ovulation inside of me, waiting to be told. I left the beach, my mind spinning with inspiration. A wonderful, powerful, confident walk home from the beach gave me just the right amount of time to solidify the foundation for what I have to do next.
Holding my own Space 
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