I’ve been loosing it a bit lately. Trevor, my massive tabby buddy has yet again found himself spending nights at the emergency vet. Urinary crystals in male cats can end a life very quickly. Despite my experience living with critical illnesses, I do not fare well when those I love are in life threatening situations. Powerlessness is not my jam.

A former friend who sat with me while I cried about the cancerous threat to Laura’s life told me to stop it. She told me I needed to be a rock. That was the last time we spoke. I don’t anticipate her receiving a Christmas card from me anytime soon.

Now?

I’d likely ask her what kind of rock I needed to be?

As a Nova Scotian, the instant images that come to my mind when I think of ‘be a rock’ are the famous rocks of Peggy’s Cove. The shoreline of the cove rolls with white granite. Granite is an intrusive rock, formed when magma cools slowly beneath the earth’s surface.

Imagine yourself as magma - all hot and bothered, cooling slowly beneath the surface of the earth. With that in mind, granite seems to have a kind of internalized violence that comes with the slow cooling and hardening process. It’s no wonder that this ‘intrusive’ igneous rock has ripped my clothes and skin with such violence.

In times of crisis, it’s likely not a great idea to imagine yourself as granite.

Basalt is another volcanic rock you’d find around here. The balancing rock on the edge of the Bay of Fundy are basalt. There’s an issue here too. Balancing rocks eventually topple over. So, if it’s stability you’re after, perhaps basalt is a bit too much like bath salts and an unworthy image in times of crisis.

If I were any type of rock, I’d be a sedimentary rock. Layers of sediment pile up over time. Under pressure, they fuse together. These include rocks like sandstone, limestone gypsum, shale and coal.

These rocks are easy to break. Shale, sandstone, limestone and gypsum can crumble under our fingers. Coal is easy to smack apart with a hammer. Under distress, I crumble and flake like a sedimentary rock. As for coal? That dirty little blight doesn’t change as much as you think.

Some believe that if you put enough pressure on the carbon based coal, it turns into a diamond. Not true. Fake mews. Coal turns into a different type of coal. Diamonds? They get formed much further than this.

So many of us are under intense pressure these days. The notion of curling up in a ball and becoming a big heavy, hard lump may seem appealing. Expectations to show up and be solid like a rock, usually reflect what someone else wants from us. These expectations are seldom possible to live up to.

So, instead of going all Rhymin’ Simon and attempting to be a rock. Be water. Through consistent, maintained effort, water topples rocks and transforms the earth. Water persists. Water is constant. Water always wins.

And if someone suggest that you ought to be a rock, divert your attention elsewhere and flow away from them.