Letters to Viv: Where We Surface

Solitude is its own rhythm. Underwater is where we gather breath for the next surface, the next chapter, the next connection.

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,

There's a loon out on Lake Ontario.

I watch it slip under the water, gone for a beat, then rise again farther out, shaking the lake from its feathers.

I keep staring at that hidden part, the swim no one sees.

Photo by Ray Hennessy on Unsplash

Loons spend a lot of time on their own. Being alone isn't strange. It's natural.

And when they're under, you never know where they'll come back up. It's almost a game, waiting for that sudden break of the surface.

We're the same. We don't always know where we'll rise, or who we'll be when we do. But like the loon, the surfacing will come. And when it does, it can be somewhere new, somewhere that surprises us.

Those stretches when you're with yourself, quiet, underwater. Not empty, though. Something is moving there.

Every time you resurface, you come back with more of yourself.

That's what the loon is showing me today. Being under isn't a gap to fill. It's where you find your own rhythm again, your own lungs, your own breath.

So if you're in the water now, Viv, stay until you feel the pull to rise. You'll know when it's time.

xo,

Tanya

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