I get that. Change can feel catastrophic, even if it’s something we’ve always dreamed about. It often feels like a door slams behind us long before we’re ready to leave the building.

Sometimes I miss parts of my life so intensely that they’re almost tangible. But the past I long for is illusory. I forget that those times I miss so much often felt as uncertain and messy as the present can feel right now. Even if I could re-insert myself into the past, I’m not the same person I was back then, and I wouldn’t react to situations in the same way.

Clinging to the past is grasping at a vapor.

Much of my longing isn’t for the times themselves but for what they represent. I miss my children’s childhoods, but I don’t need to go back to actively raising them. What I really miss is the ability to protect them, nurture them, watch them absorb new experiences and knowledge. I miss the mom friends I had back in those days, watching their children grow alongside mine. When I miss practicing law, it doesn’t mean I want to dive back into the intensity of that world–it’s missing a sense of accomplishment and purpose, using my mind in a very specific way. And missing my band days? No, I don’t want to sing in a band anymore. I just miss who I was back then, the rush of being onstage, the chance to craft a song.

I appreciate the opportunity to time-travel through my memories. Distance provides insight. Revisiting the past helps me understand more than I did the first time I passed through.

Maybe this is what I’d tell my mom, who cried long after she moved into the new house she eventually came to love: change doesn’t move us forward in a straight line–it’s multidimensional. Everything we’ve experienced stays with us. When I loosen my grip on a past event itself, memory gives me new ways to understand who I was then and am now.

And this can lead to some really wonderful places.

For those unfamiliar with mummering, it involves people disguising themselves and coming to your house to make you guess who they are. Their heads will be covered with cloth, making them resemble the Scarecrow from the 1939 movie version of The Wizard of Oz. Their hodgepodge clothing might be stuffed with rags or pillows so that if you poke them (this is a poking situation), you won’t be able to ascertain their body shape. If you answer their knock on the door, they will distort their voices to ask “Any mummers allowed in?” I’m not sure what happens if you say “No.”

Once you figure out a mummer’s identity, they will remove their mask. Then you’ll get to feed them, provide drinks, and become a mummer yourself so that you can join them at their next stop.

This sounds like a zombie apocalypse movie to me.

Mummering has a long history in Newfoundland, most likely brought by settlers from Ireland in the early 19th century. Still, I can’t unknow the fact that mummering was outlawed in Newfoundland in 1861 after a group of masked mummers killed a man.

Which basically confirms every one of my deepest fears.

Newfoundland may be ground zero for mummering, but since the tradition usually occurs around Christmas, I thought a June visit would be safe. It wasn’t. The St. Anthony Iceberg Festival celebrates icebergs, Vikings, spring … and Newfoundland culture. This meant that most of the events happening throughout the region happily promised a visit from mummers. I took these as warnings and knew I’d have to choose carefully if I didn’t want to miss out on other experiences.

I took a closer look at my fear. Which part of mummering concerned me the most? It was supposed to be fun. What made me want to hide?

Covered faces. Disguised voices. Concealed identity. What could possibly go wrong? But if I was being honest, the scariest part to me was that a mummer might force me to engage. I avoid audience participation at all costs. I did not want to be the target of revelry, no matter how “fun” it was cracked up to be.

Continuing southeast across Newfoundland, I finally found a mummering experience I could deal with on my own, safe terms: a performance at the Twillingate New World Island Dinner Theater. It was a Newfoundland “kitchen party” filled with songs and traditions, including … guess. Up on the stage far away from me, dancing mummers appeared. They pranced around with ugly sticks and enthusiasm. I told myself they couldn’t reach me without alighting from the stage and bolting over rows of tables. There was no chance for contact. All I had to do was watch and learn.

I did not hyperventilate or run from the room. Nor did I look away.

But–I still don’t want to meet mummers up close and personal.

Context is everything. I do understand the need to create diversions and entertainment in the midst of a long, isolated winter.

But, please, don’t come to my house.

Late May through early June is the best time to catch sight of icebergs as they drift down Iceberg Alley, a maritime corridor stretching from Labrador down the coast of Newfoundland. There are several prime iceberg-viewing spots along their way south: Twillingate, Bonavista, St. John’s–we plan to hit them all. But for now we’re in St. Lunaire-Griquet/St. Anthony, at the tip of Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula, just in time for the region’s Iceberg Festival. Even though it’s mid-June, the Iceberg Festival is a celebration of spring’s arrival.

We’re not alone in our fascination with these giant frozen visitors. During our travels, we meet people from all over the world who have come simply to follow the icebergs. They find them on their own or make use of the many Facebook groups and websites tracking the location of the season’s behemoths. Icebergfinder.com in particular uses satellite data as well as crowd-sourced photos to keep searchers informed and on the move. You can even sign up for iceberg alerts.

Most of the icebergs we see along Iceberg Alley broke off from glaciers in western Greenland maybe three to six years ago. They’re at least 10,000 years old, but their drift south from the frigid Arctic is the beginning of their end. By the time they reach Iceberg Alley, their days are numbered. They can’t survive the warmer air and water temperatures of the Atlantic Ocean.

We see this with our own personal iceberg in the cove. It changes every day. First, the smaller side breaks off, leaving the “mother ship” in a spurt of independence. Each day, the runaway part of the iceberg floats closer to the shore. It breaks into multiple pieces along the way. One morning, I look out the window to see most of the pieces (“bergy bits” or “growlers,” depending on the size) scattered across various points of our shore.

These particular bits seem destined to melt all alone on our remote shore, but some bergy bits get put to use before they can vanish completely. Icebergs are composed of snow that fell thousands of years ago, long before the atmosphere contained modern pollution and industrial chemicals. Because of this, water from the trapped ice is remarkably clean. Ice cubes made from iceberg water are a thing: people harvest the ice to use in drinks. Local restaurants hack off pieces of bergy bits to chill cocktails. Quidi Vidi Brewery in St. John’s is proud to brew Iceberg Beer, crafted with iceberg water potentially 10,000 to 25,000 years old.

I know that everything has a life cycle. Still, it seems to me that something that has survived for thousands and thousands of years, navigated ocean currents far from home, and finally sailed majestically along the Newfoundland coast (to our viewing pleasure) deserves a better death than the slow, lonely melt we witness outside our windows. The remaining hunk of our iceberg looks smaller and more resigned with each passing day. It’s still in place when we leave, but it’s noticeably diminished, like it knows it’s only a matter of time before it, too, breaks apart to disappear upon the shore.

I hope it at least ends up in a cocktail.

This time I crossed the border in New York. WAZE diverted me from the busy Champlain crossing on I-87, leading me along back roads to enter Lacolle, Quebec from Overton Corners, NY. There were no snaking lines here. The only other car in sight pulled away from the customs booth as I stopped and awaited my turn to be ushered forward.

The customs officer was a Québécois, jovial and enviably bilingual. He started with a joke about how eager I’d been to roll my car forward to his booth. He breezed through a few standard questions about where I was going and how long I planned to stay. Then he veered into questions I’d never heard at a border crossing before: how long had my husband and I been married? Which one of us was the patient one (one of us had to be for a marriage to last so long)? There were a few obligatory questions about weapons and dangerous substances, but they were tossed out as if the answers didn’t really matter, sort of like when my neighborhood wine store asks me (an obvious product of the last century) if I have I.D. This official was more interested in whether we had sufficient medical insurance in place to cover this trip …

…which is when it hit me. The difference between this border crossing and my last went beyond the fact that this was not a popular crossing point. Our customs officer didn’t believe there was a chance in the world that we were dangerous. Why? Because in his perception, we were old. Cute, basically harmless old people just sort of meandering across the border for a little holiday. He was more concerned about senility and medical coverage than he was about whether or not we had an arsenal stashed in our trunk.

I wanted to jump up and down and yell, “Oh, yeah? I could STILL be dangerous if I wanted!” But that seemed like a bad move.

Besides, he wasn’t entirely wrong.

In 2019, I still dyed my hair dark, resting in the illusion that it somehow made me more vital. I’d reached the Peace Arch after driving across the U.S. from the East Coast to Seattle and was about to drive back through Canada. My perception of my own capability was riding high. In fact, I had every intention of taking another massive road trip the following year.

But a lot happened in the years following that 2019 border crossing. Loss, births, weddings …life-altering events come at you no matter where you are, and back then, we absorbed each change against the frightening backdrop of a global pandemic. Why shouldn’t someone in 2026 perceive me differently from my six-and-a-half-years-younger self? I WAS different.

At least that perception thing cuts both ways. The way others perceive us can be startling, but my own shifting thoughts and understanding are what allow me to view each trip through a different lens. I see things I missed before, discover details that once seemed irrelevant.

I wasn’t quite ready to leave the customs checkpoint. The encounter felt like a fun welcome to Quebec. Besides, I’m convinced that with a little more time and conversation, the customs officer might have figured out that like most people, I don’t fit the stereotype he conjured by merely noting the birthdate on my passport.

That’s the real gift of travel, after all. It keeps giving us chances to look beyond generalizations, both in the people we meet and in ourselves.

I switched my odometer from miles to kilometers and pulled away from the booth. Sure, people might perceive me differently than they did six years ago, but I see the world differently now, too. And, honestly? Trying to stay the exact same person forever is highly overrated.

This is not the week for that. I’m prepping for a road trip. There are lists and superseding lists spread across my kitchen countertops. Random piles of supplies are staged in different areas of the house, waiting for me to figure out the most efficient way to pack them into my Prius. Add to the mix our five-year-old granddaughter, come to stay for a few days. Toys, art supplies, and books have joined the cacophony. There’s an air-mattress on my bedroom floor piled high with enough stuffed buddies to populate a pre-school class. A visit with Charlotte is laced with wonderful question after question and a great deal of interactive play. It’s the very best kind of exhausting.

This is just another phase of my life. I’ve always been busy. There have always been things to do, tasks to complete, schedules to juggle. The cast of characters and needs may change, but I’ve always been more of a verb than a noun.

Virginia Woolf famously wrote that in order for a woman to write fiction, she needs (among other things) a room of her own, uninterrupted space to not only create but to think. I would expand that: in order for a woman to navigate the demands of a hectic life, she needs a place of her own to not only create and think, but to simply BE. The space can be tiny. Sometimes, it’s by necessity carved out of a bigger room. But it needs to be wholly hers, arranged as she needs to inspire clarity amidst the whirlwind outside its boundaries.

It took a long time for me to admit that I sometimes require a moment (or twenty) to recalibrate. We’re programmed to keep going. It feels like weakness to need a breather, however brief. But energy can’t continually pour out without providing an opportunity for it to refill.

I do have a space of my own. It probably speaks only to me, but that’s all it has to do. It’s my island of calm, my place to take a deep breath, gather my thoughts, and remember who I mean to be.

The most effective re-fuel allows you to bring your best to the world once you re-emerge into it. I’m not always good at that. I have to be careful to use my space for renewal rather than escape. But I’m a work-in-progress and a huge fan of tiny fresh starts.

Like now. It’s time to leave this room, assess all the moving pieces, and add my own unique energy to the constantly shifting mosaic that is life.

Looking northeast from the South Pier, I see the wide-open vista of Lake Superior. That’s when I begin to sense what might have drawn me here. Duluth is situated at the westernmost tip of this deepest and largest of the five Great Lakes. When you’ve lived your whole life on the east coast of the U.S., as I have, it’s easy to forget that there are significant waterways other than the Atlantic Ocean and the rivers that empty directly into it. But together, Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior make up 84% of North America’s fresh surface water. They’re vast inland seas, complete with heavy currents, mercurial waves, and violent storms that rival anything the salty ocean can dish out. They bring their own distinct mystique and maritime culture. Attention must be paid.

Most of the freighters cruising beneath the Aerial Lift Bridge are lakers, ships built specifically to travel the Great Lakes. They can’t survive on the ocean. They’re long and narrow, structurally unable to ride an ocean wave without snapping in two. Some can’t leave the Great Lakes system anyway–they’re too massive to navigate the St. Lawrence Seaway, the only connection to the Atlantic Ocean able to accommodate large commercial ships. Because a laker lives its life on the Lakes, never encountering salt corrosion, over 25% of them currently sailing are over sixty years old.

Ten to fifteen percent of the ships arriving at the Port of Duluth are ocean-traveling salties. Smaller than lakers, they entered the Great Lakes system via the seven locks of the St. Lawrence Seaway, which gradually lifted them approximately 226 feet to finally access Lake Ontario. From there to Duluth, the ships navigated the series of locks, rivers, and lakes that connect each Great Lake to another. The salties pay close attention to the calendar. Come winter, the St. Lawrence Seaway freezes, shutting down completely from around late December through late March. If an international ship doesn’t pass back out to the ocean in time, it risks spending winter trapped on the Great Lakes. Most salties exit the Montreal locks long before the weather can touch them.

I originally came to Duluth for the bridge, but I think I’d go back for the chance to see a ghost ship. These are the freighters that reach the Canal in frigid winter. Without salt, the Lakes freeze at 32 degrees. Heavy winds create a constant frenzy of spray. By the time a ship reaches the Aerial Lift Bridge, it can be sheathed in hundreds of tons of crusted ice, gliding through the canal like a white specter.

You can use the Duluth Harbor Cams to watch the Aerial Lift Bridge in real time. Check the schedule; maybe you’ll catch a freighter passing through on its way to port. Listen for the horn-tooted exchange between ship and control house as the ship approaches the bridge. Initiated by the captain of the ship, it’s usually the Captain’s Salute (one long blast followed by two short ones). The bridge operator will respond with the same pattern, welcoming the ship to the Port of Duluth.

Here is my orchid:

And here is what I know:

Orchids–at least the kind most of us have in our homes–are tropical plants. They like comfy, warm temps. They love humidity. (Clearly not my spirit-plant; they are as different from me as potentially living things can be.)

What orchids don’t like is over-watering. Even I know the ice-cube technique where you put ice cubes into the orchid pot and then forget about watering for a week. (In this the orchid and I are well-matched, since I often forget about watering for a week.)

I also know that after blooming like a normal houseplant, an orchid goes dormant for several months. Flower stems shrivel, often becoming dry and brown. Leaves droop and wrinkle. The once-resplendent orchid looks … well, dead.

We have already established that I am a terrible gardener. I try hard, but it appears that the only plants I can successfully grow are herbs (and not even ALL herbs–what do you want from me, cilantro?) But a potted flower? That’s not even outside. I should be able to handle that.

Here are some of the answers I’ve received when asking how to determine my orchid’s true state-of-being:

“Wait. You’ll know.” (Apparently, I don’t.)

“Just leave it alone. Orchids never die. It may take years, but they always come back.” (Years during which I inadvertently have a dead plant displayed on my shelf. As if my gardening reputation weren’t bad enough.)

“Look for little spikes. Those will be new blossoms.” (Little what, now?)

“Be patient. Keep doing the ice-cube thing.”

“Be patient. Stop doing the ice-cube thing.”

It’s been suggested that if it looks that bad and bothers me that much, I should just chuck it and pick up a new one. After all, you can find orchids at most grocery stores. But I don’t want to give up on any orchid before its time. I want to TRY.

Huh. While snapping photos of my orchid just now, I realized that the last leaf vanished some time overnight, and that something new-ish appears to be pushing up from the bottom of the stem. It may even be green. IS THIS A GOOD SIGN?

Any help is greatly appreciated. And while we’re at it, please tell me why my cilantro hates me.

As always, comments are welcome in both the Comments section of this post and via jillmorrowbooks@gmail.com.

Both my orchid and I thank you in advance.

Who can sleep with all this worrying going on?

It’s easy to see why anxiety runs rampant at night. Darkness shrouds way too much. Even familiar tangible objects appear grotesque and unrecognizable. There are physical reasons for the angst, too. Fluctuating cortisol levels, a sleepy pre-frontal cortex, and an unfiltered amygdala all conspire against us. Additionally, the middle-of-the-night brain is freed from busy distractions. It isn’t processing the information load that keeps it occupied during the day. Schedules, tasks, constant planning … all gone, leaving a void that anxiety is only too happy to flood.

For some reason, reading about this reminded me of life transitions. (Maybe this is because lately, EVERYTHING reminds me of life transitions.) Most of the major transitions we experience occupy our brains with new information. They spark busy-ness. We leave home for new places, begin new jobs, launch new ventures. We build relationships, raise children. All of this expands our minds, requires planning and engagement. But there comes a point where the transitions in our lives shift from “filling” to “emptying.” Once-new places are now familiar. Children leave home to begin their own adventures. Relationships end. Retirement takes away deadlines and the immediate need to problem-solve. There are spaces where there used to be purpose, which is a perfect invitation to the brain to kick into that default mode that fills voids with anxiety. It can feel like Night Mind 24/7.

Night mind and life transitions may not be related. But they seem to share the scary, uncomfortable root that we lack control over what comes next while careening toward the unknown.

What do you do when night-mind feels never-ending? I’d love to hear input from readers, either in the comments section of this post or via email. How do you handle either garden-variety night mind or Night-Mind 24/7?

Although I love road trips, this will be my first since 2019. I’d originally planned this upcoming one for summer of 2020 but, of course, the pandemic changed everything. Beginning in March 2020, nobody traveled anywhere. We not only didn’t travel, we were afraid to leave home.

History is marked by events that change both the courses and perspectives of those who live through them. Plagues, major wars, natural catastrophes–it’s impossible to collectively experience these traumas and emerge the same as we were before they happened. Wherever we spent the pandemic years, however we absorbed the impact, we all have some form of PTSD. It touches each of us in a different way, but we have all changed.

As I re-visit this particular trip, I’m aware of how different I really am. In the past, planning a trip was exciting. This time, I’m tentative to the point of indecision. It’s hard to commit to a reservation without my mind ticking through every possible thing that could go wrong. I probably won’t believe I’m taking this trip at all until I pull out of my driveway and make it through several states unscathed. I’ve dealt with blips on past trips–car trouble, unfortunate route surprises, days where I wasn’t operating at 100%–but this is different. I feel like a target for disaster, like if something can go wrong, it will. I’m more vulnerable, less in control (with no relief to be found in the current world situation).

This makes the trip even more necessary. There may be a few more safety nets this time (looking at you, trip insurance), but I need to prove to myself that I’m still capable of doing this thing I love. I need more than ever to escape the limitations of time, to challenge the undercurrent of fear that has insidiously ingratiated itself into my mindset.

There’s no going back to who we were before. The best I can do is engage my babbling mind in the drive so that I can get in touch with who I am now and regain clarity about what really matters.

A friend once asked if something could be considered art if nobody saw it. It’s an interesting question, one easily transferred to writing. Is writing “legit” only if it transmits an idea to someone else? If so, how many readers are necessary to support that definition? Is there a threshold number of readers needed to validate a work?

The word “validate” brings up another nagging question. For most writers, writing seldom yields financial compensation equal to the time and focus it requires. Sometimes, it’s hard to justify diverting so much attention away from other “useful” endeavors. At what point does taking time to write become self-indulgent?

I want people to read what I write. Writing is meant to communicate. It longs to communicate. Ultimately, though, I believe there’s value in the birth of the idea, that moment where thought is given tangible form through solid word. It’s the creation that counts rather than what happens next.

I need to write for other reasons as well. Writing helps me navigate the world. It’s how I interpret what I experience. NOT writing is like blocking one of my senses. We all have a super-power like this, a filter that helps us process information. It can be music, art, even math. Whatever it is, it’s inherent to who we are and how we deal with our surroundings. That can mean everything from helping us understand to giving us a way to blow off steam or cut through anxiety. (You do not want to meet me in the wild when I’ve truncated my blow-off-steam safety valve by not writing.)

I’ve given myself permission to write again not only because of what it brings to me but because of what it helps me pour back into the world. I learned a long time ago that I’m hardly unusual–if I’m thinking something, there are other people out there who are thinking it, too. If my writing touches even one person at the right time, that can be enough incentive to keep going.

Of course, nothing can happen at all unless a thought is given expression. Fortunately, that’s the one part of writing I can control.