It be worth it just to see it.

Gratitude. It changes everything.

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Well, maybe not the wrong side but definitely the side, pressed against my bedside table, one foot hanging over the edge like a precarious young climber thinking about her first rappel. I have had house guests for the past month. AMAZING women who have come to see new cities and share in some debauchery. I have also been sharing a bed with them and when your bed is a double it means... waking up with a foot hanging over the edge every morning. So anyway, this is scenic route of the story by the way, I woke up with a burnt hand from the night before, aching and a little bruised set of IT bands from a lovely massage, tired and a little frustrated that I had to be a grown up and take my car in to get the power steering fixed on my day off. I really just wanted to hang out with friends and eat sushi at some point. It might be too much to ask for. I was just grumpy and as things kept changing from the plan I had in mind I got even more grumpy (remember I don't like change...). Gratitude changes everything, it's change I can get on board with.

Some earlier actions resulted in me taking the Canada Line home from the dealership. As I looked around there were people of all ages, dressed in all fashions, speaking easily half a dozen languages. There wasn't much interaction between people that didn't know each other but I was flashed a few smiles and kind offers of an empty seat. As I continued to look around, head phones in ears, I was so grateful to live in a city so diverse, once that set in I realized how grateful I was that I didn't have to battle traffic or directions or parking on the way home. I was grateful for how peaceful the train was and how it was a really good temperature and also that when it ended there would be coffee waiting for me a few short steps away.  As my plans shifted again I decided to take action in my slightly less, but still grumpy morning. I would pick up my tiny soy cappuccino and take it for a walk down by the water, people (let's be honest, puppy) watch then make some breakfast. I did just that and as I was sitting watching I saw something that made my day. A handsome man with his son in a baby carrier on his front holding the hand of his curly haired daughter walking on the sea wall. The only snippet of conversation I heard was "I do it so I can create" from the father. This struck me as such an important conversation to have with such young minds. I couldn't help but smile.

Heading home I stopped by Urban Fare. Usually out of my price range today I decided to splurge on a few luxurious ingredients for a perfect breakfast. I am addicted to their hummus. I picked up bright roasted red peppers, salty goat feta and flavourful sun dried tomatoes. I used butter in my omelette, something I almost never do, cranked up the country tunes, and ate it with fresh tomatoes and avocado on the side with a french press full of my favourite coffee. I was surprised at how delicious each bite was (I am not known for my cooking skills. Even breakfast) and grateful that I was lucky enough to be eating this feast for one. Seriously, if you don't believe me come over and I will try to recreate it.

All in all I was inspired by the simple things in life and finding beauty in them. It is our connections to others that make this all worth it. And using butter in our omelettes once in a while.

So now that my day was looking in a distinctly upward direction I popped on this TED talk. It will make you a better person. Promise.

What are you grateful for today?

She's Electric.

The great teachers say 'you are where you are meant to be, you are here'. Tonight, when I needed something more, I was meant to be in a room of the most inspiring and loving group of women.

These days I am a little self centred. It is not in the manner that I am constantly putting myself above others, no, in fact I am still struggling to do that more. I am simply very introspective, my world revolves around my life, my day, how I feel. I feel very stuck in the middle, out growing (maybe just no longer interested) in what was so appealing before and drawn toward other new adventures but maybe not quite ready. I feel like I have one foot on each side of the gap and haven't quite worked up the nerve to jump forward. Needless to say tonight was what I needed. Way more than I expected.

It was my first baby shower and to be honest I had a haughty sense of disinterest in the matter covering up a large dose of fear. Now, don't get me wrong, I love babies and I love the mother to be more than I can explain. She is truly my oldest and dearest friend. My disinterest was not aimed at her nor her lovely friends who planned such a wonderful evening. It truly was a defence mechanism to hide behind. Covering up a nagging feeling that I wasn't far enough along. Arriving I had no idea what to expect. What I  received was an opportunity to connect with beautiful, intelligent, brave women from all different backgrounds, educations and facets of my T's life. In the room I still felt a little alone in the crowd. Like an island standing firm in the crashing surf. Slowly the rough coastline being washed away by the soft and yielding water. I met women who, in honestly I am not sure if they knew how strong, brave, stunning they were. Each was magnificent in their naivety to it. Each at a very different stage in life, regardless of marital status, number of children, stage of pregnancy or place in their education or career. Each exactly where they were meant to be.

It may be needless to say that I was truly moved and inspired by how much love there was. The effort and thought into each of the gifts, the fact that so many busy women came by, the kind words that were spoke. Everyone coming together simply because they love my oldest friend and her child. That is what is truly remarkable about women, that is what is remarkable about the girls in my life.

All said and done I walked away with a very different outlook on where I stand in the scheme of things that when I entered that room tonight. It is ok that I feel in the middle, that is where the growth happens, the adventure occurs, the fun spills over. Sounds pretty great to me.

This time it may be for real.

Well I am 3 days back into a daily yoga practice and a week without a drink. It feels amazing. It struck me that after Stampede and a weekend in Whistler it was time to get my life back on track. I got into conversation with a good friend yesterday about 'how I was doing'. Funny enough big picture I am starting to get it together. I am soon starting a great program, I have a wonderful place to live, amazing friends, incredibly supportive family. I am heading in a direction that both inspires me and will likely provide me with the lifestyle that I want; one free of worry about money and where I can ski, travel and be creative. The small scale, the little pieces are where I am feeling out of sorts. I let a lot slip this summer. My health, my practice, a few of my goals. At first they were swept aside because of the urgency of other matters but now I see it is still happing for two reasons.
1) I am failing to have integrity with myself and
2) I have a tendency to laziness and impulsiveness when the mood strikes me.
This realization is key for me. It is the first step in a series of baby steps to getting not just the big picture where I am content but also the whole picture, the puzzle pieces on the periphery but yet the ones essential to viewing the image. So that is where I stand, lots of work to do and not as fun or as gratifying in the short term as the big pieces but the foundation that I need and crave. I am excited to set this up. Get going on.

I was only for your very space

Sitting here in a coffee shop I can see the streets glittering from the rainstorm that just fell upon the city then stopped in an instant. The milk in my coffee is sweet, the music in my ears familiar, my eyes behind the lenses of my glasses are clear, life is good. There is a contentment that has crept up on me as of late. I feel grounded for the first time in a long time. My growth as a person has snowballed. Just when I think I am learning so much all the time I discover even more, every day. That’s what makes life exciting I guess. It has likely become obvious that lately I have been learning who I want to be for my self and with others. It’s hard I have realized but I know I need to be here for myself first. Put the effort into things that will sustain me over the long haul and not continue to put that off for things that provide me with instant gratification. A glass of wine, eating take out, spending money that just isn’t there on things that I just don’t need. Focusing on what I need, taking a stand for my wellbeing needs to happen first and foremost this time. With all this work that I’ve done I feel like I have made headway, away from anxiety and fears and into this place of being happy, being at peace, being content.

These moments are life and the only way I can describe them is as space. It is the feeling I get when I spring clean, getting out the old stale things, the things I kept because I added meaning to them not because they were useful or beautiful, not because they were both. The last few weeks have been an emotional and mental spring clean, right here in the middle of this season that is supposed to be summer. I am a little uncomfortable in the space, I’m not going to lie. I feel like I immediately have to fill myself back up, but I am holding back. Not rushing into anything, letting my passions for writing and photography and nature fill in where the others left off. These are the times when good things come to those who wait. There are the moments that create the moments we will never forget.

A dear friend passed a long a link earlier this week, a short article on Bon Iver’s connection with Canada. The final point involved an idea that is incredibly prevalent in my life these days in so many ways. “ While one song is called “Calgary,” Vernon maintains he has yet to visit the city. Instead, Calgary “seemed like a place I was connected to,” Vernon said. “[It’s] like when you think there’s someone out there that you could be in love with but you haven’t met yet.” I get that deep connection to place. The mountains bring be home, in Whistler or in Lake Louise, in Jackson Hole Wyoming where I have never been. Sometimes you just know and that connection is undeniable. This connection with place is so similar to our connections with each other, like Vernon mentions. In this place where I am now, and the place of so many of my friends and those around me, I too feel this connection to someone I haven’t meant yet. This gut feeling of a game of hot and cold. Figuring out step by step, back and forth to the right fit, to the other half, to the person who you never even knew you missed.

With that said and done, it’s finally sunny out in this city. I am off to the sea wall for some dog watching!

There's no denying the mess

Oh god it's late. I'm wiped. It's been a whirlwind of a week. My body aches from pulling myself up a mountain, among other reasons. My head pounds from not enough sleep. My eyes are tired even behind these lenses. I feel alive again. Really truly alive, something pumping through my veins where I was only numb before. And just like my Golden Girl told me, it is so much better to feel anything, even the aches and pains, than to feel nothing at all.

Skip the town, goodbye with no bad feelings no heartbroke, I hit the road

Birthdays, I try to ignore the idea that they mark changes in my life. Sure I love a good party but I try not to admit that they are significant markers in my life. Some haven’t been but most come during some kind of transformation. Some big learnings. This year I went home. Back to the place and people that fill me up. Make me who I am. The landscapes and connections that I define my world through. It wasn’t what I expected but life rarely is. It was better though. Less fairy tale/movie scene, more depth. More surprise. More adventure. More growing up. Less hanging on. It showed me clearly who my best friends are. Who cares more than they say. It taught me more about who I am, what I want, why I cry, why I smile.

The first big thing 26 taught me was to let go of relationships that don’t serve me. Things that I held on such an unrealistic pedestal to cover up the despair of not having my own shit together. I realized I can’t hope and wish a friendship to be exactly what I want I have to either be in what it is or let it go. For me this came up a couple times, each on a different end of the spectrum. It struck me like train that I want more than just the physical part of a relationship. I want to be inspired by who I’m with in a way that I can see these connections going past just being fun. I finally let this be ok. Stopped beating myself up for wanting more than a good time. On the other end when someone is so important to me I don’t want to lose them in my life I have decided to just let that be it. Let them be what they are and ask nothing more. Fact: this can turn out to be awkward as all hell for a while but I can say that a great birthday gift was getting to be friends with the people who I love, having them in my life in a real way – no more pressure. Big girl stuff. So what now? Some space and time and love to let everything fall where it may and not stress so much about fitting round pegs in square holes. I can say without a doubt in my pretty little mind – I am the most blessed person in the world for who I can say is on ‘my team’- the people who love me even when I cry or fight or drink too much fireball. I am beyond grateful for all of them.

This morning, as I sat on a patio in Whistler with the rain pouring down and mud splattered boys with mountain bikes paraded by I came to a realization in conversation with my Golden Girl. I hate crying. The most. It scares the crap out of me every time it happens. I am scared of being weak, showing I don’t have it all together all the time. We were talking about loss and how we are affected by it, what it feels like and then like a dam bursting I realized why I find it so hard to express this emotion. I cried a lot early February 2003. I pretty much didn’t stop for months. Every time I start again I am afraid it’s going to be like that. I never got that this was it. Never knew that this was why. It’s never going to be like that I realized. Not again. And it’s ok to cry sometimes. I am pretty sure it’s comforting to everyone, especially me, to see me not be strong for a few moments. To show a glimpse that maybe there is something less hard, more fragile but more beautiful in there.

So that’s it. Big week. Change will do that to us I guess. I am happily going forward, a little lighter, a little more open, a little less scared to not have to be strong all the time.

Home, Let me come home, Home is wherever I'm with you.

There is sometime about being home that makes you grateful for where you are, where you’re going and, maybe most of all… where you came from. I am aware that I am often guilty of not knowing what I have right in front of my face until I leave it behind. As someone with self proclaimed commitment issues it’s easy for me to feign disinterest or apathy until the hole in my heart where that was is too big to ignore.

Calgary gets a bad rap sometimes. Being conservative, brutally cold in winter, not being as metropolitan as its counterparts west in Vancouver or east in Montreal and Toronto. Always seen as the underdogs, always talked about as a place where people move “for work”, and rarely for anything else. There is something more though, and I for one am happy people aren’t dying to live here, it keeps the housing prices reasonable. Beyond that the startling light in the evening, the air, the way people are so excited that for a month the weather is stunning and the grass is finally green. It is home. That heart filling feeling. It is here, away from the spectacular ocean, the beautiful coastal range, that I feel most inspired, most lit up.

My favourite high school teacher used to say that there were three types of people: Prairie people, mountain people and ocean people. I wasn't sure which I was growing up but now I'm sure. My heart resides in the Rockies and the foot hills and stretches to the flat nutrient rich farm land. I never understood how it affected me but being home I am lucky to figure it out. Calgary is a small town. It is in every way impossible to go anywhere with out running into at least someone you know, and likely love. It is a tight knit community where yes, everyone knows everyone else’s business but … that’s the beauty. The sense of community and comradery is astounding. And even in the gong show that is Stampede it is still beautiful in the chaos.

We do not remember days, we remember moments. There were many times this weekend when I looked around in disbelief at how lucky I was that this is my home, this is where I’m from. I looked at my friends and couldn’t believe that I was blessed enough to have them in my life. I can say without a doubt I have the best people in my life. They are dance monsters, they hold me accountable to my greatness, they let me cry and they keep me laughing till I puke. Honestly. Sometimes.

This weekend has been a lesson in what I want, what I value, what lights me up, inspires me, what I need in my life to be. I will always be from Calgary.

In the words of Paul Brandt (yes, this is the cheesiest thing I have ever writtern):

It Doesn't matter where I go this place will always be my home yeah I've been Alberta Bound for all my life and I'll be Alberta Bound until I die. 

One for the road.

There is something that makes me a better person. That brings me home, makes me laugh. It centres me, focuses me, lets me take risks, feel like I am living big. Living full out. It takes me to the middle of mountains so humbling that it is next to impossible not to be inspired. My heart beats a little fast in anticipation, my muscles remember their tasks like the summer months never existed. My feet itch to get boot into binding. My mouth can't help but smile. Even at the thought of it.

Skiing.

And ever summer, usually before I even realize summer is here, the ski movie trailers come out and I know the count down has started. Sorry fair weather friends, I'll give you till the end of August then... pray for snow.

When you're in it... there's no losing only winning.

These are the times. The times when the skies are darker, when it takes more energy to take one step forward and two back, when the motivation is there but just can't push it's way to the surface. There are days like this. Days that feel a little harder to pull through. Like you are dragging your feet. Like your heart is a little to shrouded. These are the days when you can't help but be more vulnerable. They are the times when as a result, you connect with people. These are the times that even the strong ask for help and in doing so learn something. These are the days that what inspires us takes precedent, these are the days that the little things count. The times when we remember we got through the lows last time and we also remember how good the highs are. These are the days that a little dark reminds us what turning on the light does. Breaking up the night.

These are only days. These are only times.

What would you do?

What would you do if you could not fail? What would you try if you were guaranteed to succeed?

I remember being asked these questions on the first day of a job. What do you really want that you are afraid to go after? Ask yourself,  throw caution to the warm summer wind and go for it. It might pull you out of any gloomy late spring slump you were settling into.

Give you something you never even knew you missed.

So my twenty-fifth year is coming to an end. For someone who is as overly introspective as myself I have, of course, been thinking a lot about what this year meant to me, what I learned and what inspired me, changed me.

It started out rough. I was working a job I didn't love, falling out of relationships, never dealing with the root causes but just trying to cover up the symptoms. It was fun sometimes but I created more and more drama for myself, always attaching an expectation to everything I did. I was always stressed, always worried, never myself. I did everything I could to grasp at all the things I thought would make me happy and if I got them tended to not give any space for them to grow. A flame with no oxygen will burn out. I was burning out. I fought hard for all these things. To me if it wasn't hard it wasn't worth it. I spent a lot of last summer in tears over why things just didn't work out. I had pity parties and it was getting me no where.

I would like to say I got my act together last fall. It sure seemed as though things were on the up and up. I was in the role that I expected myself to be in, and was expected to be in. I was busy, I was learning. My posted goals said what I thought they wanted, my private goals, the ones lovingly saved as my computer desktop, said something completely different. I was living one life and dreaming of another. Things changed the day I took a stand.

And ladies and gentlemen, that is my biggest learning from being a quarter century old.  From the moment I took a stand for what I truly wanted, for what my heart and gut told me were right, things started to fall into place. Twenty five went from being a year I couldn't wait to move on from to one of the best of my life. So what did taking a stand look like? I quit the job that taught me so much of what I know but that I no longer loved. I spent almost 4 months of self employment ( and unemployment) figuring out what I DID want, applying to school, moving west. I did pretty much exactly what I wanted to do. I wrote, I took pictures, I practiced yoga. I drank on Wednesdays, skied during the week, went on road trips, went to bed early, had dance parties in the kitchen by myself. I stopped looking for people, jobs, ideas that fit a checklist and started looking for ones that made me smile, made me content, inspired me. I did things because I loved them not because I wanted to get somewhere, not because I expected a result. I just gave what I had. I studied hard but wasn't really sure if my late applications would be accepted and low and behold I got into my dream school. Life is sweet. Things just kind of fall into place these days. It isn't hard. At least it isn't a struggle. It feels right. That's the funny thing. Joseph Campbell, one my favourite authors, said, more eloquently than I will here, that when you are following your bliss, when you are taking a stand for the life you are meant to be living, it is the path of least resistance. This in combination with an idea very prevalent in yoga, that of not attaching expectations to your actions, are how I am trying to life my life now. When you don't expect one thing or another of people they don't disappoint and you can enjoy their company more.

Long story short, twenty five, I am sorry I gave you such a hard time. You were great to me. Thank you with all my gratitude for helping me become who I am today.