Need for speed…….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(all photos @spasmicallyperfect)

 

Am feeling rather tired after having spent about 12 hours on the back of a snow mobile over the last two days. What a blast! Considering this was my first time on something as powerful that wasn’t enclosed in air bags, I think we did rather well.  More importantly; we survived without accident, injury or worse drowning.  Don’t get me wrong, snow mobiling isn’t really dangerous provided you stick to the speed limit and stay on the marked trails.  Which we did. At least most of the time….

Muskoka is full of lakes and therefore it is no surprise that some of the marked trails lead over the frozen water. Trouble is, ‘marked trail’ means marked on the map, not necessarily on the lake.  To that add fresh snow that covers the previous tracks and you’ve got a potential for disaster. Now, mostly the lakes are frozen, however ice shifts, creates cracks, leaves open water or unexpected speed bumps or both. Not something you want to come up against and so following the trails of riders before you helps a lot. The blowing snow made it almost impossible to see and before we knew it, we were  lost on the lake of Bays, one of the bigger lakes in the area. Let me just say, I said a 40 minute long prayer (you can’t just leave the lake anywhere either, you have to find a snowmobile path that guarantees that you make it up the shore) only interrupted by undivided focus holding on: as we learnt from the avid snowmobile driver at the rental place: when you see water you have to floor it, physics should (should?!!!!) carry you.

I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy to set foot on land as I was this morning after we finally got off that forsaken lake. We parked the machine and decided to go for breakfast to calm our nerves.

“No more lakes”, I informed B. , “I don’t care if I have to walk home instead!”. After that, we followed land trails which lead through an absolutely stunning variety of forrests. Stopping for photo shoots was a hassle: untie helmet strap, pull off helmet, pull off gloves, unpack camera, take pictures until your fingers start going numb at which point you pack up the camera and find it almost impossible to restrap your helmet as your finger tips no longer adhere to your brain’s orders, finally glove one back on and then trying to get glove two fitted air tight into the jacket arm…… that’s when B. usually re-started the motor, as if that was going to help me speed up!

Speaking of speed, it seems that I don’t mind it. The thrill of sailing on the edge of capability, hearing the mind negotiate with the machine and terrain, and thanking some higher power for having had a hand in not overshooting that last bend, reminded me of downhill ski races years ago. Yes, I may have gotten older, but as long as it doesn’t involve getting on an airplane, I still seem to have some guts. Whether in the driver or the back seat, each required some heavy butt-shifting while slaloming around the tree trunks. I prefer the backseat, more time to admire the landscape.

Tomorrow is Friday and they are calling for a blizzard. Perfect. After all the winter activities this week, I can definitely use a day of chilling before the fire place.

Heaven’s dust

(@spasmicallyperfect)

The Angels must be sweeping Heaven this morning
as gentle snow falls silently through the white lined trees.
The sun is hiding, leaving Earth to bathe in her own beauty,
the beauty of simplicity,
an array of lines,
light vertical birch boles sprouting bare, diagonal branches skyward
against the dark trunks of wrinkly pine trees, their heavy arms hanging,
while the rolling shore across the lake breaks up the horizon
and closer yet, an endless number of tiny ice crystals accumulate until,
below them they have buried any grounds on which life’s creatures may wander.
But creatures none are to be seen, no bird’s song to be heard,
so all I am left with on this late January morning is the magnificent gift
of hearing the Earth breathe, accompanying my own,
before one last adjustment drowns all individuality.

When beauty warms the cold

(all pictures @spasmicallyperfect)

Slept wonderfully through my first night in the ‘wilderness’, proof of that is waking up at 3.15am rested enough to be convinced it’s time to get up. I could attribute it to the fresh Muskoka air but then truly I do feel that the upgrade from a Queen to a King size bed is mostly responsible. What a difference! Can’t wait for a full week of what sleep truly is meant to be.

Finally jumped out of bed at 7am, beat the sunrise over the frozen lake and by 7.10am I already had each and every one of my camera lenses spread out on the dining room table. Tried to shoot through windows but I’ll have to redo it from outside the warming walls. Spaz, if you want the reward you better go an earn it! And who cares about frostbite, you weren’t a manicure type of gal to begin with.

After a bacon and eggs breakfast (eggs taste so much better on vacation), B. and I dressed up in winter gear and wandered out onto the lake. Truthfully I was a bit nervous, back home there are clear signs when a lake is safe (frozen enough) to be walking on it, but I guess in Canada and especially Muskoka they’d never get enough sign supply. So while Hubby ventured out in front of me, my mind was spinning trying to remember what to do should he or I or both of us go crashing through the ice. Just the sort of thing that would happen to bloody tourists……..

We survived. And since this wasn’t thrilling enough, Hubby decided that we should cave in, live on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the rest of the week and with the saved money rent a snow mobile. I was glad that one of us had to drive the car back, as I hadn’t expected this monster of a machine. I should have known that B. wouldn’t wait until tomorrow morning when I was fresh, awake and courageous enough to face a new day, even if it included sitting on a powered sled. Fine. I dressed up again, this time with a helmet and off we went.

Now, for anybody who ever decides that it would be better to rent a double seater over two one seaters, let me just warn you that this is only a good idea should you be in the driver seat. It is no problem speeding along at 60km/h if you see where you are going and know you have the power to slow down at any given moment. Those 60k feel ten times as fast when sitting in the back, holding on for dear life, and instead of seeing the trail ahead you just feel bumps indicating you’re about to iceroad rash yourself straight into Heaven. Not before yelling your lungs out, which really, you could have saved the energy as no matter what organ strength you thought you had, it is a mere whisper against two helmets, the motor and the wind.

Well, today apparently wasn’t the day we were meant to die (no worries, there are two more days of opportunity), and once I successfully threatened Hubby into taking it easy(er), it was actually fun. For about 30 minutes. After that the second option for leaving this earth on an snowmobile opened its doors: freezing to death.

Back home at the cottage, I warmed up, then took my camera and ventured out on my own for an hour, discovering the landscape how God intended, on foot. This place is absolutely stunning, even if Nature has paled down its colouring, the subtle hints of blue, charcoal and gold, coated in fine diamond dust create a sanctuary for tired eyes. The late afternoon sun warmed my face as I sat on the snow covered dock, staring into the tranquil bay. And in that moment there was no season more beautiful than winter.

Just what I needed

Yesterday, as I was coming out of the Canadian Tire loaded with two new pairs of snow shoes, trying to hold on to them as the minus 20 something windchill hollered around my body, I couldn’t help but wondering why on earth we had decided to spend our January vacation up North. If it was cold in Toronto, it was colder up North. I’m not a big fan of steel drums but as my hands shrivelled while trying to unlock the car, I wished we had decided for another Caribbean cruise.

At exactly 9am this morning, we pulled out of the drive way, the back of our Jetta station wagon packed to roof, in the back seat our Golden Retriever, obviously looking forward to the adventure. Bryan and I looked at eachother, smiling as to convince ourselves that it wasn’t going to be as bad (as cold) as we both imagined. 

The 3 hour drive was magnificent, the endless crystal blue sky above the plains of untouched snow, only interrupted by groups of pine or maple trees dotted with big cotton balls left no option than to admire it in silence. The snow mobile tracks along the highway side and crossing over the frozen lakes got us excited. Even though we had decided that the rental prices seemed rather outrageous, it was now clear that we would just have to try it. “You do get to see views that you wouldn’t on foot or by car”, Bryan tried to convince himself, meanwhile I was figuring out how to take pictures and drive a ski doo at the same time (probably not).

The cottage is beautiful, actually it’s pretty much perfect. It’s simple, but upscale, not the usual ‘roughing it’ feel, but for  two hardworking people who already have a house to tend to, it’s such a relief to arrive at a place that already is clean, ready with everything from bath to tea towels, wine openers to filled salt and pepper shakers. I love the fact that there is just enough and not a single piece more, unlike our home that over the years magically has accumulated stuff. After our first day which was spent exploring the place and shopping for some groceries, I’m sitting at the dinner table hearing absolutely nothing. Looking through the windows, it’s so dark that the only thing I can make out are a handful of white lines; birch trees soaking up the faint path lights.  In the window a reflection of my face, lit by the laptop screen. And for a moment it feels as if I’m the only one in this world.

No way, I would have felt like this in the Caribbean, at least not on a cruise or in a resort. There is a chance that by tomorrow, as we bundle up into our winter gear wish we were elsewhere, but for now, I have a strange feeling that once more, I’ve just gotten what I needed most: nature, silence, time and a piece of world in which I can actually hear myself loud and clear.

Or as my grandmother used to say: a place where the fox and the deer say goodnight.

Wrestling with fear

 (photo @spasmicallyperfect)

 

One of the lessons I’ve learned in this life is not to become complacent. With whatever it is, from growing flowers to relationships to myself. And yet again, I’ve caught myself having ignored or better failed to have given the proper amount of attention to one aspect of my life: fear.

It’s not the failure itself that bothers me here, I’ve been around long enough to realise that’s the way my life works, it’s not about the perfect record, it’s about not giving up trying. What disturbs me here, is the magnitude with which this oversight or probably more accurately ignorance has come crashing down. I’m a strong person, I have a in some ways narrow but strong belief system, one that I can always count on.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been battling with what started out looking like the flu, then stress, then January blues. As I am writing these lines I feel my stomach and chest knotted up, having to force myself to breathe and tears just waiting to fall any given moment. I am writing this, because still, I’m better.

Because I know what it is. I know why I am here. I know that along the last 6 months of my road things have come up, that needed dealing with, and I didn’t do it. I don’t think I conciously avoided them, for that isn’t really me. Life just got very busy and like most of us, it takes less to figure out that work, family, friends, homes etc need attention than to realise that we do.

I feel like I’m standing looking into the garden of my soul, my secret, holy garden of energy and it’s massively overgrown with strong, dark vines, that block most the sun from getting through.

Yesterday I sat down and documented all the ones that I could see. And now that I’ve written them all down, I see them as just that, vines of various sizes and strengths that need to be assessed, some cut, some dug out, some may turn out to be fake, some may even still linger as part of my garden and are ready to resprout any moment.

The path ahead looks daunting. But that doesn’t matter. For I remember the garden, I remember what it’s made of, how beautiful it blooms, I can still feel it underneath of all of the obstacles, the pain, the fear.

And now that I’ve realised where I am, and what is wrong there is but one way to go. Forward.

All I have

“It’s the most important thing I have”, she said softly.

“Really, it is all I have, it is the only thing  that separates me from everybody else, that is truly my own, the only thing that is –

me.”

 

There wasn’t anybody listening to her. She was talking to herself, wandering through the winter day, her face cold from the wind, her soul warmed by this surprising, intimate moment.  The desperation she had felt building within herself over the last few weeks started to crumble and the impact released tears she hadn’t been able to shed before.

 

Her thoughts continued.

“It has been with me all my life. No matter what the conditions around me nor what roads I took, it has never left me, it has been constant. Through the years, I

heard it

took it for granted,

cherished it,

despised it,

ignored it,

fought it,

questioned it,

thought I lost it,

called for it,

lived it.

It has the strength to rob me of my sleep and appetite, the power to send light into the darkest places. It is relentless, even when my mind and my heart falter. It is the last thing that can be heard when all else is silenced.”

 

She felt a smile form on her face. There was no mistake. She was listening to it now.

 

Her voice

Something to ponder

I met up with a colleague of mine at lunch yesterday. She was talking about cutting down to 40% so that she could focus on her business. One could not only see but feel the passion in her eyes.

When it was time to return to work I said: “Ok, back to your other passion”.
She responded: “No it isn’t”.
Somehow we got to talk about choice of view and that’s when she blurted out:
“The thing that I’ve noticed is that people usually choose between bad and worse rather than good and bad, or heaven forbid, good and incredible.
Yes, I choose to work here, but not because I love it, but because it is better than having no job and loosing the house.
Yes, I choose to be with this man, not because he’s the man of my dreams but he sure beats being alone or in an abusive relationship.
I think most people have settled into choosing bad over worse. And they get by talking themselves into that they have made this ‘better’ choice.”

There it was. That feeling of curious discomfort. Proof that I will have to ponder this a little further.

Nightly travels

I dreamt about Thailand.
This was the first time it appeared in my peaceful darkness despite the many family accounts I had heard.
How we got there, nobody knows, that’s how dreams work. Plunged into the midst of things, a busy part of a major city, oddly without scent filled with colours and noises. A strangely odd place to say the least.
We get on an elevator to our rental flat, once we get there, we find ourself in a rotating bedroom as high above a place I’ve ever been. I’m too tired to freak about how we are ever going to get rescued should a fire break out. I look out the sections of windows, the whole room is a circle, it’s intimidating the height and nausiating. Can’t believe someone would really stay here and be comfortable especially at this speed of rotation.
We sleep, we wake up, we walk over into another room that we hadn’t noticed before, this time square and for some reason not rotating. On a floor I notice something that looks like a furry, handsize cockroach with wings. I seem to remember being told about bugs here, yet before I can alert my husband to please get rid of the thing, it turns into the weirdest looking dog I have ever seen. Magical without the charm.
Then I notice the floor. A torn up, dirtish red leather layer hides away some beautiful laminate. Ah, guess the owner don’t trust the foreign renters to take care of their place.
We think about making breakfast but then this place doesn’t inspire me to eat. We decide to continue our discovery tour through the city that should have probably been Bangkok but didn’t look anything like the real thing, more like I would have imagined a mix between rural China and Brazil. Another mystery; this time there is no elevator, the door leads right onto the street level.
Time to get rid of Hubby, he’s tossed from the dream, to be replaced with an old friend. I’m not asking how it happened, questioning occurances in dreams while in it is rather a waste of time. Still hungry I begin to walk past the hundreds of little stands that sell nothing that I recognise or whose owners speak anything I ever heard. I don’t feel comfortable at all, remembering that it takes at least 3 days to get used a new environment like this. No idea where I got that piece of information from. It doesn’t matter.

Then a modern type of food truck with a big picture of a vietnamese springroll. Yes, I can eat that and ignore the fact that on the picture there’s a long fishtale hanging out. Oh well, it’s bound to be different here than what I’m used to picking up in Chinatown. The lady speaks perfectly English, is of Chinese decent and rather aristocratic looking. She tells me of the three houses she owns, one here, one in Australia and one in Germany. But since the economy has crashed, Switzerland has gotten too expensive to visit and she’s back here making money by selling to the tourists. Knowing how Europeans like to see their food presented, she does well compared to her sales colleagues in the area and all it took was a photo and a clean presentation.

Friend and I sit down in the middle of the big court, wondering how we found eachother yet absolutely aware that this is how it’s supposed to be. I lean against his shoulders, bite into the roll and watch the scenes around unfold.

Suddenly a wave of happiness floods me. Yes, this is how it’s supposed to be. As crazy as this is.

Next thing I know, Hubby is back and is crawling out of bed. Gone are the sights and sounds, it’s pitch black and time to get up.

Damn.

First ‘real’ day back to work

I was in the office on January 2 but today feels different. There is anticipation fluttering around in my stomach but also weight to be felt on my shoulders.

“It is all up to you”, some voice inside and around me whispers.
“Whether you take it slow or fast, whether you meet all your expectations and how you react when you don’t. That’s the beauty of it all. You are a manager and therefore responsible for your staff. You get paid to make a difference within the company. But you remain human, the beautiful and spasmicallyperfect human that you are. Those two don’t have to contradict themselves. In fact you know that you’d sleep better at night, if Spaz was let in to work a little more often.

“And time. You know the value of it and you know where you tend to loose it. You know what you need to do and also what you are able of accomplishing. When it comes down to it, it isn’t that hard. It’s going out there and giving it your best shot, on any given day. That doesn’t always mean you get the same amount of things done or can do them to same extent. What it means is that you try. And that you fail. And laugh. Not because it’s funny (unless of course it is) but because you are happy to have learnt how not to do it.

That’s all it takes. Because that’s all that you expect from yourself. Because you don’t care what performance measures say (after you’ve learnt what there is to learn), whether or not your boss uses the right words to compliment or critique, whether the company’s performance system recognises and better rewards your accomplishments correctly.

You know what you are fighting for and you know that your fight is the right one. How long it is going to take isn’t up to you. Whether you get there or not however is. ”

Yes, I’m ready for my first day back.

Have a splendid day everyone.

I don’t believe in getting things for free…..

… but I do believe that once you start making an effort, you’ll be rewarded.
(photo @spasmicallyperfect)

It’s early in my 2009 writing journey. But yesterday morning as I decided to get up and write rather than turn over and snooze which resulted in an early morning post, it brought me two early comments from new readers. There are days where I’m lucky to get two comments at all.

As I browse the blogs of those kind readers, I’m left with a smile. Yes, just my type of blog writers.

Any new journey may seem hard, but if that first and maybe second step is taken, the universe seems to find a way to reciprocate. There, in plain sight is a small message just to let you know: Hey, I see you, I’m with you.

Thank you. I got mine.