My dear friend Susan offered me an image a year or so ago. It was in relation to my work life, and my ongoing efforts at reinventing myself and what I’m offering to the world. Susan saw an ever-expanding web of connection, but without anything anchoring the strands at the perimeter.

The image resonated, and not just for my work life—it holds for the rest of my life as well. I contribute to events, often initiate them, but in some fundamental way I stay separate. This has left me unrooted, occasionally blindsided, and easy prey to the shifting sands of emotion.

When I visited my childhood home of Bamfield in September, a reclamation process started that I didn’t know was possible—or even necessary. It seemed to anchor something deep within me that continues to unfold. It got me thinking about my ancestors and I’ve been digging through old papers. I came upon this piece about my grandmother, Wilhelmine. I can’t remember how I came by it and there is no author listed, but the following excerpt beautifully captures the situation she found herself in and how she dealt with it over the years:

Wilhelmine Vanden Wouwer (nee Muller) was born in 1880 Batavia. Her father was a Major in the Dutch Colonial Army who retired to Brussels with his Javanese wife, four daughters and one son. Wilhelmine was past marriageable age when she agreed to come to Canada in 1914 to join Alidor Vanden Wouwer. They had been corresponding since 1912, when Alidor met her during a trip home to Brussels. He had built a simple house in West Bamfield in 1911 and readied it for her arrival, but his failure to meet her at the train station in Vancouver was the first of many disappointments for the woman who had grown up in a well-to-do family, in a cultured society. Alidor was 13 years her senior and had already had a hard life aboard sailing ships and then working several preemptions on the coast and in Barclay Sound. He never made much of a living for his family, which came along quickly: Johnny in 1915, Gabrielle in 1917 and then Cecile born in 1919 during an extended stay in Brussels. That was her only trip home and except for a short visit to Bamfield by one of her sisters, Wilhelmine had only packages and letters to remind her of the world she left behind.

Wilhelmine spoke little English despite spending the rest of her days in Bamfield. She spoke French to her husband and children and was described as reclusive. Poverty did not prevent her from observing the niceties in the Vanden household. She played the piano and sang to her children and was fond of poetry. She sewed hankies from flour sacks and kept them in a basket with fine scented soap. A pound of ground round became delicious fricadelles that fed the family for days. Her double-fried pommes frites were renowned, as were her pies. The large garden provided vegetables, berries, fruit and lots of potatoes. A $5 order from Woodwards that came on the Maquinna once a month provided the butter and other staples that her garden could not supply. Afraid of boats, she seldom went across the inlet, but could not resist the movie nights held at the Cable Station.

My grandmother was adventurous, resourceful, cultured, creative, and hardworking. She was probably in her kitchen right next door when I came into the world at the Outpost Hospital, and no doubt inspected me before Dad took me and Mum to Port Alberni on his boat, the Ju-Ju I. Even though she died when I was five years old and my memory of her is faint, I feel a growing connection with her.

Wilhelmine may not have had the life she hoped for when she left Brussels, but her courage to act allowed all that followed to exist. Her story lives on due in large part to my sister-in-law Judith’s deep and heartfelt dive into the Vanden family history. Her book, Our Whole Bamfield Saga – Pioneer life on Vancouver Island’s West Coast, goes well beyond my grandparents’ story, encompassing many other courageous pioneers who chose the wild west coast to call their home.

When I am able to look at life from the broader perspective of history—my family history—I see the web, and my place in it. It comforts me. It connects me. It anchors me. I may not have all the threads of my work world cohesively gathered just yet, but they are coalescing as something fundamental in me begins to settle.

What anchors do you rely on in your life? How do you draw upon them to support your own unfolding? Let me know, I’d love to hear!