Today is Thanksgiving Sunday, and it’s my Dad’s heavenly birthday. Six years ago, on October 11, 2020, I wrote a reflection about my relationship with him. At the time, I was recognizing how much of my life I’d spent seeking his love, approval, and acceptance, and how my own inner work had helped me see our relationship differently. My Dad married my Mom and adopted my sister Margot and me when I was three. Because of him, I also have my brother Greg. There are so many layers to a life together, and not all of them are easy to understand while we’re living them. One thing I’ve come to appreciate is that love doesn’t always arrive in the form we expect or wish for. Sometimes it takes years, distance, loss, and a willingness to examine our own stories before we recognize what a relationship has taught us. Today I’m driving to Vancouver to celebrate Thanksgiving and another family birthday. My cousin’s wife shares this date with Dad. On Tuesday, my Aunt and I will travel to Vancouver Island to visit my brother and his beautiful partner. There is something lovely about spending four hours driving and remembering traveling these high mountain passes with my parents. And feeling grateful for the people who are no longer physically here, like my parents and my sister, while celebrating the people who are. What if gratitude isn’t about being thankful only for the moments we cherish? What if it is also about recognizing how the complicated ones have shaped our capacity to love, understand, and appreciate the lives we’ve been given. Happy heavenly birthday, Dad. Thank you for loving me in your way, and for being part of the woman I’ve become. As you think about the people who have shaped your life, whose love have you come to understand differently over time? Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends. 💜 Trust what’s yours, Pamela

“I’d like to understand more about...” Finish that line with a question you care about. Then add: “The moment that made me wonder was...” Describe that moment before trying to name a book, course, or project. A question becomes easier to explore when it has somewhere real to begin. At Something Is Stirring on October 22, a question is enough to bring into the room. What experience sits underneath the question you can’t quite leave alone?

Think of something you’ve written down, mentioned to a friend, or imagined more than once. Write: “Each time I return to this, I’m trying to understand…” Stay with that sentence for a few minutes. Look for a particular moment, question, or connection rather than deciding what the whole idea should become. Then underline or highlight the line that makes you want to keep writing. You now have somewhere specific to return to, even if the larger idea is still unclear. What is different about what draws you back this time?

Choose something that has been on your mind: a question, a story, a half-written page, or a subject you keep reading about. Give it five minutes before naming what it should become. What do you notice—a memory, a connection, even the urge to dismiss it? What about it makes you curious? You are gathering information about your relationship with it. Complete this line: “Before I decide what it means, I notice…”

There are ideas we think we're supposed to write about. And then there are the ones we keep thinking about when no one is asking us to. The question we return to. The story we keep telling. The subject we find ourselves reading about again. The sentence we can't quite leave alone. We can dismiss that repetition because it doesn't seem useful yet. But what if your attention is telling you something? You don't have to know what the idea will become before you give it more of your attention. Sometimes interest comes before understanding and fascination comes before language. And sometimes we discover what matters to us because we finally stop dismissing the very thing that keeps bringing us back.