Falling into Flight untangles a daughter’s complicated relationship with immigrant parents — her angry Russian mother and quiet Finnish father — as she grapples with the mysteries of her own body and self during the long years of growing up. And it offers insight into a life experienced through the arts: first as a young enthusiastic dancer, then as a thoughtful — and equally enthusiastic — dance critic.

After her parents die within months of each other, Kaija begins to experience increasingly debilitating physical ailments that have no clear diagnosis. Finally, after many referrals to specialists, her doctor suggests psychotherapy to get at the root of the symptoms. Initially reluctant and disbelieving, Kaija embarks on a five-year journey into a past that she has long suppressed.

Along the way, the reader is taken not only into the often baffling and troubling world of her childhood, dominated by a tragic and unpredictable mother, but also into the magical world of dance. Kaija’s passion for moving fully in time and space brings a pulse to the words on the page, taking the reader inside the extravagant steps and shapes of dance — and also inside the very contemporary struggles of perfectionism and anxiety, which together wield such power to both inspire and damage.

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Then one morning I woke to a familiar darkness inside. A shroud muffled every thought and feeling, too dense to shift, and was still there a few days later when I sat opposite Dr. B in his office.

My first words were an apology for feeling “a little depressed,” definitely an understatement. “I often feel a bit down before my period begins,” I said.

“What happened?” Dr. B asked, ignoring my excuse.

“Nothing in particular.”

It was the best answer I could come up with, having no idea what triggered this latest attack. But, as if I had said “something” not “nothing,” Dr. B waited expectantly and I plunged into our session, pinpointing the start of the depression to the drive home with a friend at the end of an afternoon: The air had become heavy; I was ill at ease and wanted to be alone.

He nodded, again looking expectant, and a description of the afternoon poured out, starting with our decision to do some shopping after lunch. As if I knew where my words were heading, I explained that in the first store we visited my friend spotted a gorgeous black dress, then, because it was too small for her, insisted I try it on. When I emerged from the changing room, she groaned good-naturedly, wishing it would fit her like that. The salesclerk pointed out the price tag, marked fifty percent off. They both said how good the dress looked on me, how good I looked in it. I could see from my reflection in the full-length mirror they were right: We were a beautifully integrated unit of fabric and flesh.

Alone in the changing room, stepping carefully out of the skirt’s immaculate expanse, I wondered how often I would wear such a formal dress. It would need a lot of ironing and, if I gained a mere ounce, the zipper wouldn’t close. Focused on practicalities, remembering the other seldom worn dresses already in my closet, I pulled on my own clothes and returned the dress to the rack. My friend’s face shut down with disappointment; so did the salesclerk’s. The euphoria of being the exact right size — the perfect size for the perfect dress — trickled away.

Mom used to make dresses for my sister and me, which always fit perfectly because if they didn’t, she would take in a seam or move a button. The first was green chiffon, for my ninth birthday. The following summer, she made a yellow sundress, with delicate spaghetti straps she said were “very sophisticated, really for older girls.” Wearing it, I felt sophisticated like the dress, like an older, smarter, more attractive girl. Once the sewing became too much of a chore, Mom would exhaust herself shopping for store-bought dresses, proud of her great finds at bargain prices.

The last dress was white, with blue piping, a present for my twenty-eighth birthday. Sleeveless, with a tight bodice and flared skirt, it was exactly the right size, though too formal and fitted to be something I’d choose myself. “Except for the colour, it was similar to that black dress I tried on,” I said.

Even without Dr. B’s keen glance, it was obvious the coincidence — a white dress that transforms into a black one — was significant.

“I only wore the white dress to go out with my family. My parents seemed to like me in it.”

“You wore it to please them,” Dr. B said, “just as you considered buying the other dress to make your friend and the saleslady happy.”

His simple statement, weaving together past and present, revealed connective tissue between two events despite their huge separation in time. It meant my depression wasn’t random, but part of a larger pattern of behaviour, suggesting a soothing sense of order to which I clung. I left Dr. B’s office relieved at finding this surely very manageable trigger: Depression can feel so big and deep and inevitable, as if it carries existential truth, and yet here it had been caused by a mere dress.

Minutes later, descending the stairs, subtext wormed its way into consciousness: I was the kind of person who worries about the opinion of others. This became the sorry refrain playing in a loop in my head as I drove home following the familiar route — through the roundabout and the four-way stop, bumping along in the 12th Avenue traffic, stuck at the inevitable red lights. Even though my father and mother were both dead and gone, even though I was an independent middle-aged woman, I was still as driven to please — if not them anymore, then whoever happened to pass by.

I would never be free of my parents’ influence. Our relationship remained a source of psychic energy I couldn’t seem to mature beyond, the need to please was too deeply embedded: not just in my interactions with other people, but also in the creative drive I began for the first time to question. That, too, was reduced to no more than a way to gain approval, a stupidly onerous way.

My usual eagerness to be in front of dancing bodies quickly devolved into little more than a bad habit, the immersion into a choreography’s shapes, colours and sounds no longer straightforward and consuming. Suddenly I was in it for the money, but when I protested the low fee for a current assignment — a newspaper obituary on a prominent choreographer — my editor’s only response was that at least obituaries were better read than the arts pages. My typically small readership seemed shameful, now, too. The bubble of devotion, the belief dance mattered in and of itself, had burst.

I became discerning over what shows to attend; “discerning” is how I described it to myself, but really it was reluctance to risk a night at the theatre. I would estimate the likelihood of being bored, which happened more frequently. Staying up late to finish an overnight review, instead of being absorbed by the play of words, I wanted to go to bed. The incessant research demanded by writing wore on me: There was always more to know, a new wave of enthusiastic people and ideas to explore. As for slogging over another profile or feature, the prospect of learning about yet another artist’s life, transcribing the interview and then writing and re-writing, filled me with dread.

Psychotherapy had gone too far, exposing the petty motivation that got me out of bed each morning, offering nothing to replace it. Now what was I supposed to do with my life?