Speak to me: How familiar voices bring one writer joy in uncertain times

In the middle of winter, in the middle of a pandemic, where do you go to find joy? Maybe it's a physical spot, or a memory. Our new Happy Place series explores both.

This First Person article is by Amy Grace, a writer and producer in film and television in Halifax. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

In the quiet of my mind, I find a space that is reserved for the voices of those I love and am learning to love. It is a sacred space. Like a hearth beside a warm fire where one holds out one's hands and feels the heat seep into the deepest part of their bones. 

It's like a well-loved and still heavy quilt that doesn't just give the body warmth, but gives warmth to the soul. 

Some of these voices have passed on from me. Some from death and some merely because our time together has come and gone. Yet their echo resides in the memories I have tucked into the corners of my mind. I am OK with that — the memories. 

Others, I continue to seek. Phone calls, FaceTime, and any sort of video call platform, but mostly it's their voice I crave. Their cadence, a music only they can give. 

Hear some of the voices in Amy Grace's life:

Inside my mother's voice I hear the 31 years of myself, a journey she has witnessed and has had to bear. I hear both the good and the difficult. We talk differently now and yet always slipping in and out of what was, to what is. She brings me back to my childlike self in ways that, at times, call the rebellious adolescent to the surface. Yet, just as quick, she is the warm comforter that glows around me when life throws lemon after lemon. She was the original safe space, and now, at times, I am hers.

The voices I crave are the women who know me. 

A cousin who lives far away now, yet can speak to almost every year of me. 

In her voice, I find hilarity, empathy, a need to ask more questions and unpack the history that made us. She lets me mince words and waits out the endless "examples" I weave. I find in her voice the safety of my childhood. My inner self seeks reckless authenticity over playing it cool and infinite exploration of thought over perfect prose. She brings me back to what it feels like to be me. 

There are many sides of oneself. The child, and the child that became an adult.

My best friend across the country knows this. I call her and hear my heart echoed in my ears. She lets me wax poetic with no judgment. She sifts through thoughts with me like one who flips through pages and pages of poetry and then stops, letting time and presence sit on something. Looking, waiting and giving it time to breathe. I find the sacred moments of a creative soul with her.

The voices I reach for continue. A friend whose voice speaks of cultivation and excellence, a colleague who collaborates and asks the questions that make my mind whirl with inspiration. 

These voices are the unique pieces of a quilt I make and wrap around myself when life becomes uncertain. 

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