Category Archives: storytelling

Ways a Moment Breathes

I was told that humans can expand their lungs 60% in capacity when they breathe. That full breath—as large as the universe—rains a counterintuitive calm through the spine and nervous system. I’ve had to rebuild my lung capacity, breathing into a spirometer to track my progress. In those early days I could only lift the blue plastic ball in the tube the height of a fly, then the height of a matchbook, before weeks passed and I could breathe the universe again.

There have been times when moments felt beyond vast, as if as large as life. In these times, I could feel my DNA, the building blocks of me, held in the bodies of my parents and their parents and so on, all the way back to before homo sapiens, then before mammals, then to that first creature to breathe on this planet impossibly destined to create me. In these moments where I felt so magnificently small and part of something so vast, I could feel my body extend thousands of millions of years into the future as particles and ideas and interactions sent on their course of collisions to who knows where. I could act on plans years and decades away as though they sat at my feet. I could act, not with certainty, but hope.

Abraham Lake, where sea fauna excrete methane caught in bubbles under clear ice. (Kat Dornian)

More often, now, there are moments so small, just a smile on my face and a breeze in the air. A moment of just hearing the gentle stream of water hit the sides of the tea kettle—listening for the boil. Smelling the aromas of cardamom and cloves and cinnamon lift in the air. All sounds, smells, and glittering light passing as soon as they appear. More often I need these fleeting moments. I need to focus on the next thing in front of me without becoming overwhelmed with the many paths one decision can take. I know this slowing down and focusing has been what I’ve needed, but the inability to hold the broader moment scares me and later fills me with the most regrets. But I never regret a moment of simply stopping to enjoy.

What I love about moments is the ambiguity of the amount of time they hold, like the length of a string or the air in a vessel. Moments, no matter how ephemeral or vast, seem best when perceived widely and openly.

Awoken

The time to sing dawns.
Wren, robin, finch and jay rouse
sleepy Helios
with beaks and lyres blazing,
plucking notes from dusky streams.

—Kat Dornian, 2025

The Roar Within

I wrote this micro fiction a few months ago. Fantasy isn’t a genre I tend towards, but it was fun to explore in a tiny way like this. Enjoy!

A fierce growl rippled from the cave where Merrybevin was to gather lion-seed for next week’s ceremony. Her knees shook as she reached for her spell vial. She sprinkled the contents and hummed Grandfather’s spell. Her shaking knees unlocked. She squinted into the inky depths to see gleaming teeth. Merrybevin inched towards the roar within. 

She hummed the spell again. The creature growled, “I don’t want to eat you, but I’m… starving.” 

Merrybevin fumbled for a portion of meat. “This is all I have. Take it!” 

A toothy grin formed, “You’re kind. This will do.” The tiny cat stepped out of the shadows, and delicately ate.

Grieving

I want to share a bit of cancer-related grief I’ve been feeling recently. It might not seem huge, but grief doesn’t revolve around the ominous losses alone. 

I’ve been a swimmer since before I have conscious memory. My grandparents and parents would take me to the pool at Village Square every Sunday until I started swimming competitively with the Dinos around age 12. Swimming was an escape for me during a couple particularly traumatic events in my childhood—a house fire and the sudden loss of my father. It was the only place I didn’t talk much about my life, allowing me to simply exist. Being in the water felt stabilizing in those tumultuous times, and I insisted on attending every practice I could.

A white-skinned, brunette man with red swim trunks and trucker's tan holds up a tiny human in a red bathing suit. They're in shallow water of a pool. Other swimmers can be seen in the background.
My dad and I in the pool. I’ve been swimming since I was a baby!

After I retired from competition, I always bought gym memberships with access to a pool. Covid and cancer have changed that. Obviously, pools were closed with so much else when Covid struck in 2020. But, with my cancer diagnosis in the summer of 2021, I have only been able to take a few measured risks even though pools have reopened. Namely, a dip in the ocean and a visit to the Radium Hot Springs, both with ready access to showers and small, off-season crowds. The thing is, I have low neutrophils (a white blood cell key to fighting infections and healing tissue), and I can’t justify putting myself at increased risk from pools and water.

Low neutrophils have probably been my most impactful side effect. Yes, I detest all the hair on my bathroom floor, but thinning hair hasn’t bothered me too much since I prefer shorter hairstyles. Neuropathy (numbness in hands and feet) is mild in my case. I dislike the fatigue and chemo-brain, but it generally lasts only a few days. But low neutrophils (aka neutropenia) have delayed my treatments numerous times. Neutropenia makes me cautious in crowds and poorly ventilated areas. I take extra precautions when doing chores. My husband and I still wear masks almost everywhere. But even these adjustments don’t feel as significant as losing my access to swimming. I’ve felt less choice in letting go of swimming.

In the spirit of change and adaptation, I have found kayaking and canoeing a welcome return to the water, albeit no replacement for swimming. I still miss being in the water, gliding smoothly with a concentration on my stroke alone, enjoying my solitude. I can’t wait for kayak rentals to reopen for the season—only a week away! (Maybe I’ll buy a foldeable kayak this year.) Plus, I’m diving headfirst into a supportive three-day canoe expidition for young adults with cancer at Poisson-Blanc Reservoir in Québec next week. Nonetheless, the extended absence from water since last summer has contributed to my grief around swimming these past few months.

A short-haired (almost bald), peach-skinned person in sunglasses smirks into the camera while a blue-life jacketed man with a black cap paddles the canoe. They float above turquoise water with a rocky mountain and spruce forest in the background.
My BFF and I canoeing on the Bow River in Banff last summer.

Just a bit of mourning for the swimmer I am/was. Loss is loss in all its forms. I welcome change as I attend to the grief.

Magpie’s Menagerie

The following story is an experiment in a “rough-verse“ storytelling. I want to get more of my meandering stories onto the site alongside my personal updates. Most—like this one—will be first drafts as I move more value onto practice than perfection. This is a start.

“Magpie with Cape v1” by Kat Dornian

Magpie’s Menagerie
by Kat Dornian

Magpie collects her things.
A beautiful array of knick and knacks:
Buttons and foil, beetles and fluff.

Magpie arranges them, day in and out.
Adding to her hoard, lovingly displaying
the ribbons and caps, rocks and cones.

Magpie searches for more.
Flitting about for the debris left out
on steps, on stones and hidden in coves.

Magpie is never satisfied.

Magpie re-arranges, again, everyday.
Button here, ribbon there, fluff below, rock above.
Her newest foil scrap lacks a spot.

Magpie places and re-organizes.
Worrying about the collection —
trying the foil here, the foil there.

The lovely foil

Wind blows a mighty gust.
Catches foil, carries it away:
Flitting and floating, falling and falling.

Magpie sails after foil.
But she’s too late.
Lovely shiny sparkly foil, caught by River.

River takes foil far
while Magpie screams down stream—
desperate cackles and mournful titters.

Wind and River pass by.
Watch Magpie as she woefully sorts
buttons… beetles… fluff.

Magpie spies on River.
She pleas with Wind at every sunset,
expecting her foil to be returned.

“Foil is long gone, far past,”
River and Wind whisper to Magpie.
Still, Magpie clears the perfect spot.

River turns to ice, Wind turns cold.
Magpie nestles deep in her nest:
Beetles and rocks, buttons and ribbons.

An old scrap tickles her.
A treasure long neglected
across the months of spring to autumn.

Magpie remembers now —
the way the tarnished thing shone before it was forgotten
and coaxes it from hiding to its spot.

The lovely foil.

Wind may one day play though
and take old foil to the River.
But now, it cradles under Magpie’s breast.

Treasure for this moment.