Follow Me

This could be big me and little me. Lou and Ti-Lou. It would be even closer to reality those two were wearing jeans and a T-shirt. I love the image though. It's exactly the kind of things I used to do and still do. climb trees, walk on tracks, trying to balance somewhere, smelling the flowers, being totally in the moment, breathing deep, high on life, with the sun beaming down on me. That's my happy place. That and writing of course.

I was sitting here pondering why I haven't been coming more often to this place where I can put words down. I'm realizing now it's out of wanting things to be right. You know, the right spelling, the right punctuation, the right sentence structure, saying the right things so as not to offend or alarm anyone. 

Is it any fricken wonder I prefer to let the words spill out of me with the flow of my pen across my notebook than coming here where it goes out into internet space where I have no idea who reads it or what becomes of it ? 

It's awfully limiting the need to be right, the fear of being judged that we all carry around like a pack on our back. We need to drop that back pack. 

Through my many years of working with and writing with people, I've repeated over and over more times than I can count, the importance of kicking that inner critic to the curb and keeping the pen moving on the page in order to not give that little bugger a chance to stop you in your tracks and here I am realizing it's exactly what often limits me from showing up on my blog. 

If there's one thing I'm learning and re-learning all the time and especially now with the online course I'm doing with Natalie Goldberg, it's to silence that nasty monkey mind that constantly bombards us with the need for perfection that tells us if we screw up it for surely means we're not worth the paper we write on. 

I do let loose on paper but when it comes to the screen and the keyboard, I still need a lot of practice. So here I am practicing the art of imperfection. Just allowing. Just being. Just letting my fingers dance across the keyboard and being okay with what happens.

~~~

I'm doing a lot of writing these days and loving every minute of it. There never seems to be enough time to sit and practice writing but, since the beginning of the year, I've made a promise to myself to make it more of a priority and am I ever reaping the benefits of it. 

It's my aim to make this commitment broader and bigger as I move forward through the remainder of the year. It's where I am the happiest, most satisfied, most connected to my inner and outer world, to a sense of something bigger than what I see here. It's my form of meditation, my form of prayer. It's where I need to be. 

You want to follow me?

Sheltering In Place

Last Sunday was Mother's Day. It was an emotional day for me. Maybe it was for a lot of moms. Especially this year with how life and the living of it has changed with this whole Covid-19 thing.

May 10th - Missing my girls, my grandchildren, my friends. Missing what I used to know as a "normal" life. I've heard from all my girls but it's not the same as live face to face visits. My heart is heavy. I want to see my people. Let's hope each one of us learns through these challenging times.

May 11th - I wonder, how sheltering in place is affecting my perceptions of solitude and loneliness? It's a big question. A difficult one to answer even after over two months of having social distancing and isolation requirements in place. 

Solitude has always been a nurturing word for me. It still is. I love the moments of solitude I can snatch here and there during a day, or weekend. In fact, it's crucial to me. But I also need time for connection. Not so much the casual, "hello, how are you?" kind of thing but the more intimate connections. Deep connections with people are what give me life. I cannot exist without them.

So I'm discovering just how essential both solitude and connections are to my well-being. Yesterday, Mother's Day, I longed for connection to loved ones. I was thirsty for the real thing. A need to be face to face instead of on a screen, a need to touch them, hug them, kiss them, sit with them, hear their stories, be in their presence and to see for myself how things were unfolding in their lives. 

I couldn't. And it got to me. And our isolation from each other was made even more apparent by a parade, if you can call it that, through town. It consisted of two fire trucks, one RCMP car, one car decorated with a Mother's Day banner on each side of it, and one vehicle pulling a platform with the Falher town Mascot-someone dressed in the Honey Bee costume. They were all blaring their horns and sirens and waving at people as they went up and down each street.

Something in me unleased. and I choked up. I couldn't get the lump that sat in my throat to go away. Tears pushed their way to the surface. It caught me of guard. Surprised me. I remember having the thought, What the hell is going on? Why am I so emotional over a few vehicles going around town to cheer people up. Why is it making me cry? What is it trying to tell me?  

It spoke of our truth, my truth, our reality of the moment and how our world has changed. It signified compassion and caring, reaching out, making a difference, being heard, being acknowledged, knowing we're not alone, knowing we are all in this together. In that moment, I felt we were all One. 

It spoke to me of caring, of the need everyone has right now to be told, "We know it's tough, we know you're hurting, we know you're wondering when this is all going to end, we know you miss your loved ones. We are together in this. Let's not give up hope." 

It was the thought, the meaning behind the action, the reaching out, the acknowledgement -  that's  what counts, that's what touched me. It's what I believe in. It's what matters to me. It's humanity reaching out to humanity. That's why it brought a serge of emotions for me. Deep sadness mixed with deep love and also a big hooray!

Hooray for being witness to the gifts that come from or out of tragedy. This is what I look for in life, in people, in myself. What are the gifts hidden within the trials and challenges we're face with? Let us pull these out of the rubble at our feet, the lost lives, the hurt, the pain, and the grief. 

I'm not at all asking that we deny the reality of what is happening around us. None of that can be denied, nor should it be. It's reality. Many lives have been lost. Many challenges have been faced and many more are coming. But Oh My God! Let us also see the gifts of caring, of love, of learning to be humble, of simplifying our lives, of discerning what our priorities are, of being aware of how precious our freedom to come and go as we please is and how fortunate we've been to have that freedom.

These are all things that this Covid-19 situation is bringing to our awareness if we stop long enough to ponder and reflect and drop down to a heart level. 

Don't allow circumstances to take you. Don't allow yourself to shut down because it's too hard or too painful. Stay alive. Stay connected. Stay awake. There's tragedy there's pain, there's hurt, there's isolation, there's huge challenges. But, that's not all there is. There's love, there's light, there's caring, there's a deepening of who we are, an awakening, a deeper consciousness, and the possibility of a much better world in the long run. Be here. Be present. Be One with each other. Be true.

Last Day

Those two were having a serious chat today. They had lots to say and one was as determined as the other to stand their ground and say their piece. But all in all it was a friendly conversation I'd say.

Our last day of soaking in the pools here at Harrison Hot Springs. There are 3 different outside pools each one at different temperatures. When you get to hot in one you can move to one or the other of the two cooler ones. 

Plus there's a building with two inside pools. One is a fairly big warm and deep. The other one is a  hot circular pool with soft music playing in the background. This one is meant for soaking, relaxing, and reflecting.

It was difficult to find a time where I could snap a picture with no one in the pool but I finally got one.

Tomorrow is a day of travelling as we make our way back home. We leave here at 7 in the morning and I figure we should be home by 7 pm or so. Drive to Abbotsford airport. Fly to Calgary with a 2 hour stop over. Then fly to Grande Prairie. Followed by a two hour drive home. Then it's back to reality and back to work.