Now that I’ve achieved a state of relative health,\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n returning to the hospital always feels like stepping into a church, into the holy. Everybody there, whether they know it or not, are in a state of pilgrimage, of prayer.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the atrium a motley assembly of musicians formed. They were a group of people recovering from mental health and addiction issues, with a few ringers tossed in to add some structure to their compositions. The conductor, an energetic and wiry tangle of holistic cliches, worked hard to inspire her students but most of them remained tense, staring flatly at the floor rather than the crowd that had gathered across from them. Their voices were thin and straining, but still, the congregation rose with the music, an original composition called, \u201cComing Through Darkness.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n And how did they do that?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n How did each one of them push trauma to the side to stand where they were that day?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Oh Lord, let their music, that glowing idea, comfort us all.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n And then down the hallway there was a display of art created by patients as part of their therapy. Out of all the generic scenes of landscapes and flowers and pets, there was one work that stood out to me. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Mary of the Roses.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n As if floating above the others, as if shining.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n And I imagined the woman painting it, how with each brush stroke another layer of her anxiety fell away until this new, beatified horizon emerged.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n As I left the hospital, a First Nation’s man beating a drum stood outside on the sidewalk, the flames painted on a food truck rising behind him.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n