Scars and Milestones

Years later and I'm still moved to inaction by this time of year, still unable to shake it from my bones. My heart senses the shift in time and reminds my soul that once again, it's here.

The deaths of those amongst us are marks upon our lives. We still wear the imprint of young death, heavy in our eyes and in our voices, even for a few moments a year. It taught all of us who bore witness that life is fragile and our legacies are much more of a present, rather than future, matter.

It is often this time of year, a few weeks into January that I am reminded. I am listless, fatigued without reason. I am quick to cry and fall ill, if only in my heart. It creeps up before my mind even puts the pieces together. My body, scarred with the memory, reverts before I catch on. Eleven years later I am still haunted by the images of those weeks, tear stains on green blazers, the grey carpet of my classmates floor, how cold the ground was through my leather shoes in February.

It's taken work to get from there to here. Where trust was hard to muster and keeping a stoic exterior my suit of armour,  I have slowly learned to let the light in through the chinks, along with the people. I'm not close to being good at it but I've found someone who's strong enough to trust that I can only get better. What I'm looking for is not pity, I am no victim. What this time of year reminds me is that everyone is marked by some tragedy, it is what makes us human. It can't be covered up or fixed. Scars heal with time but never leave the body in their entirety. Be gentle with yourself and others, you never know what's lurking in the shadows of another's eyes and know that the events that mark our lives as milestones along a road they always do so for some good, never just bad. 

Back to the Mat

It may sound selfish or immature but I've really felt like I needed to see some positive change for the minimal work I've been putting into getting back to me, back in shape, and generally working off some of that brie and turkey I ate while at home in the bosom of my family.

Luckily I've been reminded of why I loved practicing yoga in the first place. Over the past few weeks I've taken to practicing to my yoga DVDs, in my sweat pants, in my "living room" (yes, the only room in our place is the "living room") while my boyfriend/roommate is at the gym. The magic of yoga is, while each practice is different, the difference are perceivable. It's instant gratification. I have noticed I am stronger through my vinyasas, my heels almost touch the floor in down dog, I'm sleeping better and it's not so hard to roll out my mat and get down to business. I've practiced maybe 5 times. Now, I know from experience not everyday is going to feel better and those days are the ones I am going to learn lessons on the mat, but in the meantime it's inspiring to remember what a yoga high feels like and that getting a bit of exercise, me time, and peace is not the hardest part of my day.

Old Julia

It's been a long time. Since a lot of things.

As cliche as it sounds change has been one of the only constants in my life over the past few years. The handful of organizations I've worked for, the three different cities in three years, different homes, different friends, countless different roles I've played. Trying to cope with this change along the way has left me sick a lot, I am not as svelte as back in my stretchy pant days by any means, a lot has had to slide to keep from floundering and I've been trying to stay ahead of the curve without taking care of myself.

The tide is starting to shift, I can feel it. Being home, out west, by the lake and in the mountains, recharged my batteries and now I am here, ready to take on what I hadn't felt strong enough to do while I was trying to manage everything else.

So this is not a list of goals, intentions or resolutions. I simply want words on paper stating that I will get back to being who I am, hitting the reset button makes the process sound far easier than I know it will be. Getting back to my yoga practice, on my mat (the one that feels like home), to my books, to writing and photography, that is what lights me up and brings me back to who I am.

So 2014 is not the year of anything new, it is the year of "old Julia". 

Find the Weakest Thing in you and Beat the Bastards with it

There is always a pull. My life is one dreamed in extremes and lived somewhere in the middle. Nothing is half way when played out in my head. I either live east or west, big or not at all, as a lone wolf or deeply entrenched in a pack. Constant flux, 4 cities in 4 years, 2 jobs in 8 months. Just numbers upon numbers lighting the truth that I crave both constant, extreme change and deeply rooted stability all at once, hopping that, like the ebb and flow of the waves of the pacific, it will calm my soul and excite me.

Frantic Stillness

I'll take any little piece of nature I can get my hands on these days. Even if this means my balcony over looking the freeway, neighbours mere feet away, the sound of the GO train screeching into the station audible over the hum of the traffic. Sitting out here, or on the roof of a heritage building downtown, reminds me of home in some way and it humbles me to remember a place deep and far away of driving through the rockies, our Volvo station wagon a spec on the valley floor.

I cling to the idea of the future, as I am prone to do and have so much practice in. "In 10 years" I tell myself and those around me, "I will look back on all of this and chuckle to myself, how I was just on the cusp of figuring it all out, having all the pieces start to fall into place". I am not there yet, I am reminded with the incessance of a jack hammer.

I have read, on more than one occasion, that life often comes all at once or makes us wait while nothing seems to be happening and both are challenges. These days I feel I am in the middle of both at once. While everything has changed dramatically in the past six months nothing is quite where I wish it would be, wishful thinking that it would be perhaps. While rapid and immense change is both hectic and unnerving it is the stillness after that makes me anxious. Trying to catch up to the next big thing.

So this is where I stand. Neither here nor there, stretched thin across the country as I used to be. Trapped in a moment between what was and what I see so clearly to be just around the corner. There will be a lesson in all this. I can taste it in the air, turing prematurely to fall, our summer front heavy and drifting into a comfortable coolness. 

Independence in my Veins

It's different out here. I guess it's different everywhere. Red necks, ignorant, spoiled. Those who think only of the oil and forget the impact that being the centre of energy in Canada has on the environment. Trucks. Country music. Stampede. Alberta gets a bad rap from the very west and from the east (or as they like to be called... central Canada... or centre of the universe), but that's ok with me. You only really get it I think, if you are an Albertan. By choice or by birth.

This post will be no rant on the places that don't get it. They likely never will, just as I will probably never truly understand why people love Vancouver the way the do or why many come to Toronto and never leave, it is a choice I don't think we even make consciously. It is in our bones and our hearts. No, this post is a love letter to my home. My people.

Having lived all over I have always been proud to be an Albertan. The cerulean vastness of sky is imprinted in my brain, the sound of thunder rolling across the prairies, the smell just before it's going to rain, the alpine glow that is incomparable. The nuances are what tie the people together. The black soil is under our skin, big skies are deep in our lungs and where prairie meets Rockies is where are hearts reside. And the people are different. Ranchers and explorers are our heritage. The weight in our bones as we drive down highway 1, or 3, or 22X remind us of where we come from. The land. The sky. The West.

So in light of the immense challenge that my home, that my people, have faced recently, and continue to face, I have never been so proud to know that this is where I come from. While outsiders look on with pity and uncertainty about how fast this little city can recover, Albertans have an unwavering faith, no it's more than that, it is a deep understanding that life is not always easy, but that we are made of the stuff that is so strong, works hard and has always had a keen sense of community. Summer drought ruins crops, cold snaps kill herds, mountains avalanche, rivers flood; this is life out west but Albertans have worked hard since the very beginning to make a place and name for themselves from nothing. There is something different in the hearts of people there.

So I am proud to be from the place where the brave rescue the helpless. Where strong hands instinctively know how to fix and save, to bring life in the face of hardship. Especially in light of the mayor of my current city I can't explain how grateful I am that Calgary has Nenshi. I have never forgotten the day I voted for him in the gym of my elementary school, and I likely never will. He gives me faith that not all politicians are untrustworthy. He helps me believe that true leadership still shines through the bodies of men in positions like his. He is a beacon to the rest of the country of what the true spirit of Alberta is.

So while my old neighbourhoods are slowly drying out, the true extent of the damage being revealed, I am updated by friends that people are just as people always are in Calgary, open doors, open hearts, ready to roll up their sleeves at a moments notice. Even here, at work, there is worry that Calgary will not be ready for Stampede. I found it a strange remark as knowing Calgarians, if there is a minute possibility that it can happen they will find a way. "Come hell or high water" is the poignant message being shared across the city.

At the end of the day it is often in the greatest challenge that we discover who we truly are. Calgarians have always known. They have just accepted that who they were was nothing extraordinary, just hardworking with a sense of unity, rarely have they given a damn about what anyone else sees them as. This has all changed, I think and hope. More of the country is getting a glimpse of the Calgary I know. And love.

My heart and best wishes are with everyone of you, yes those of you who are not at home as well. Seeing my city in devastation has been tearing at my heart strings but experiencing the Alberta spirit reminds me why I hold my head high when asked where I'm from I say 'Calgary' every time.

To donate to the Canadian Red Cross relief efforts click here.

Built for this.

And sometimes just like that, like lightning out of a clear sky, it comes back like it never left. To call it homesickness would be a misrepresentation of the facts. It is the distance and longing. The tug of heartstrings West that I know all to well. I was brave and stupid all at once to think that years or circumstance would change it all. It's in my bones and I can feel the weight of them, heavy with memory and understanding.

I was built for the skies. The ones that leave alpine glow on the Rockies, the ones that turn cerulean to dove grey and bright coral. The ones that are so immense that they free even the heart most locked up. I was built for driving fast on stick straight highways and black soil, and calving in spring, harvest in fall. My heart and soul were made to flit up scree slopes and through lodgepole pines. The muscle memory as clear as yesterday. An unwavering independence, a western heart synonymous with freedom. And it aches for just that. For home. For community. To be filled with mountain air and the dust blown across the fields. For something missing. Something more.