Letters to Viv: Feather by Feather, Pastry by Pastry

Somewhere between ash and almond croissants, I’m becoming the woman I said I would be.

Letters to Viv
Open, soul-packed letters to the kind of human I write for: the curious, creative, exhausted by the hustle, and craving something more. I’m writing to you (and me).

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Dear Viv,

Gratitude is sweaty. It has sand in its shoes. It forgets where it put the car keys.

It’s me sitting in the French sun, with a heart still tender in places, letting the warmth settle into my shoulders. The ache sits there too. They share the same patch of light. No drama, more like two grown women having tea together.

Life stretched me thin for a while. The kind of stretch that changes your posture. And now something inside me is standing a little straighter. The light feels closer. Or maybe it’s simply that I’m in France and the sun is performing like it’s auditioning for a lead role. Either way, I clap.

The air smells different here. Damp earth waking up. Flowers pushing through like they’ve somewhere important to be. Trees are budding as if they’ve quietly forgiven winter. Spring has arrived, and I feel it in my chest. It makes far more sense to begin a year now, with mud on your shoes and petals on your sleeves, than in the dead of January when everyone is hungover and pretending to be disciplined.

So I sit here and take inventory.

I’m grateful for my health. For fingers and toes that still wiggle on command. For a body that carries me across cobblestones and countryside roads. For the fact that I can rent a car in a foreign country and drive like I know my arse from my elbow.

The people. Long dinners. Loud laughter. New friendships are forming over shared stories and second helpings. French pâtisseries that look like they’ve been sculpted by angels with excellent butter boundaries.

I’m grateful that I am winning awards in this new career. That words I once hid are now travelling without me. That someone, somewhere, read something I wrote and felt something. That matters.

And yes, there is fear. It sits politely at the table.

Money questions. Career questions. Home base or horizon. Roots or wings. The unknown hums in the background like a slightly dramatic soundtrack.

I let it hum.

Some days I feel like a phoenix still half in the ash, feathers slightly singed, wondering if flying again is a solid plan. Other days I feel the strength returning. Muscle memory of belief. A steadier gaze in the mirror.

And then I remember…

I have meditated in a temple with a monk in Thailand. I have stood at Machu Picchu and felt small in the best way. I have hiked the levadas in Madeira with legs that complained and a spirit that did not. I have watched the sun drop into the sea in Spain and thought, this, this is living. I have lived in a French château and solved fictional murders with semi-caffeinated writers.

Ten-year-old me would be beside herself. Possibly demanding a tiara.

Time is finally mine. Mornings unfold slowly. I wake without an alarm. I write where I want. I move when I want. I order pastries with reckless confidence in my pronunciation. I get to choose.

So much of this once lived in imagination. And now it lives in my hands. Tangible, warm and oh so very real. This is not nothing.

Viv, we are allowed to hold gratitude in hands that still tremble. We are allowed to feel steady and wobbly in the same afternoon. We are allowed to build a life that feels like ours, even while we’re still figuring out the blueprint.

I feel stronger. In a carry-my-own-bags-through-the-airport way. In a steady-breath-before-a-decision way. In a I-know-myself-better-than-I-did-last-year way.

We are becoming. Feather by feather. Pastry by pastry.

Pastry by Pastry!

With you in the sun, crumbs on our lips and courage in our pockets.

XO,

Tanya

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