I’ve gone back to school again.

The program is a post-grad Art Therapy diploma, which is extending my knowledge and the kinds of work I’ll be able to do. We started at the end of June and will finish January of 2028.

I had the distinct pleasure of meeting my cohort colleagues last month, spending an intensive residency of two weeks in East Vancouver. We learned together, made art together, and got to experience first-hand the power of art as a therapeutic medium.

While FIFA fever gripped Vancouver, I had the luxury of staying with a long-time friend in the Hasting Sunrise neighbourhood, looking out over Burrard Inlet from the north and west sides of the house. My friend is situated up on the hillside with an almost unobstructed view. I spent many evenings reading after class, looking up to see sights like the photo here.

When I wasn’t reading in the evenings, I walked parts of the city that I frequented 30(!) years ago, including walking past places I used to live, used to work. I don’t know if it was the art therapy learning or just the phase of life I’m at now, but the physicality, the somatic qualities of memory were incredibly present throughout the two weeks there.

Palimpsest (noun): (1). writing material (such as parchment or tablet) used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased. (2). something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface. (definition: Merriam-Webster).

One evening while walking down a residential block, I was struck by the physical memory of opening the gate, laughing with someone, going up the walkway and entering one of the houses. Suddenly, the whole floor plan of that house was present in my memory/mind: the location of the bathroom, what it was like to look out the kitchen window, and where the couches and other furniture were the one time I’d been in that house decades before. If someone had asked me if I’d been to house parties when I was younger, the answer would have been yes – but I’d not necessarily have been able to articulate any one particular one, or any specific location.

I had definitely been here. On Victoria Drive. In that house.

These days more and more I’m experiencing memory in this deeply layered way. I tried to describe it to a friend as a flip book – each of the pages has a static image, but all of them together give a complete picture. The word ‘palimpsest’ is the closest single-word descriptor of the sensation. The experience of all these different intangible times being present in the present, undetectable and invisible to others, but washing through my cells.

The experience of learning is like this, too. The psychology, the relational skills, the art-making and explorations of this art therapy program. . . all of these are new layers, new pathways through old neighbourhoods. I’m finding myself standing in front of metaphorical houses of memory, or of prior learning, thinking “I know this floor plan. . .I know this view“. It’s new, it’s fresh, AND it’s deeply rooted, connected and layered with all the life experiences, learning, and unlearning that I’ve done to get to this moment.

I’ve been home for a few weeks, metabolizing everything while doing the work of further learning, of more coursework. I’m deeply grateful for the cohort that I’m learning with, their generosity, their knowledge. Each of them is already so established in their own lives and experience, their own efficacy. We have the privilege of co-constructing our knowledge together in this new context, each person bringing their own palimpsest of experience to bear and to share. Our learning will be the richer for the honouring of it.