"Don't Tip the Boat!"

I am too lazy to look back at all my posts here, but I am almost positive that I had mentioned in one, that I was going to quit giving in to the habit of feeling blue or something to that effect but you know how it goes with New Years resolutions and old habits. One is so hard to keep and the other so hard to "not keep" doing and wouldn't you know it, I've once again found myself in that dreadful rut. The good thing is that I've finally become aware of it and that is the first step to moving away from it (once again!). Mind you, we've had so much rain that maybe the grey skies have also had something to do with the blahhs. Oh well, someday the sun will return, both within and "without" if you know what I mean.

On a lighter note, we recently got a couple of kayaks as I may have mentioned, and last weekend, we went to a safety workshop. We learned how to get into our kayaks, both while just at the shore and in the event that we ever get tipped out. There were about ten people in the class, and with the instructor Bob in the water, we each had to tip ourselves out of the kayak and then he showed us how to get the water out, get back in, and then remove the rest of the water. It was hard to over-ride the natural instinct to "not tip the boat", but once I was in the water, it wasn't scary at all. I can't say that I was the most graceful at getting back in (but on the other hand, I also wasn't the most grace-less!) and once you know how, it's actually pretty simple. The body of water that we were on lies between New Glasgow and Pictou and the day that we were there was smooth as glass and amazingly warm.

Don is taking some photos for Bob to use on his website for advertising so we are going to go back when he has his new shipments of boats in and on that day we'll take ours and then after the photo session is done, we will put them in the water and cruise the coastline there for a couple hours. It's really very pretty and I'm looking forward to it. Anyhow, enjoy the photos of the workshop.

Can you just look?

Salad bowl in front of me, clean vegetables strewn across the counter, I happened to glance up from what I was doing and saw the big tree on the other side of the driveway and noticed that its branches were bent as it bowed before the blustering wind, and the bottoms of the leaves made it seem as though the tree was a paler shade of green. The rain blew against those branches, blew against those leaves and they glistened as they tossed and thrashed. My hands paused at what they were doing as I stood quietly, motionless, and made a conscious effort to look, to see, but not to label or allow names or descriptions of what I looked at, to come into my mind. And all around the edges of my consciousness it was as though those words that describe what we look at tried to slip themselves in through the cracks, to force me to allow them, to consider them.

Later on, when I called Don in to come and eat, I told him about my little experiment. I said to him, "it is a very hard thing to look at something without getting involved in a conversation with yourself about that which you see". To just look and not think about how big it is, how many small branches are bending in the wind, what color, what texture......to just look at it. And his response was priceless. He looked for a couple minutes to test my theory, and then he said "not if you are a man". And I laughed, and was reminded of a comedian that I watched once. He said to all the ladies in his audience, "girls, next time you ask your boyfriends what they are thinking about.....and they say "oh nothing"........believe them.

Enjoy your day, and don't forget to look.....just look.

Enveloping, enshrouding and encapsulating....

To arrive at this moment in my life, at this time in the worlds journey seems a curiousity. We humans have all careened through our days and years, on auto pilot, with some vague destination in mind that for far too many of us, turns out to be unreachable. We live in the belief and the hope that some future date will bring us the joy that our spirit seeks and discover repeatedly that it is still somewhere down the road, somewhere on the time-line of life, ahead of us. Our failure is that we don't look to this moment, right now, for that fulfillment. We neglect to stop and experience what is. To let it roll around us, bump up against our legs, rising higher and higher, enveloping, enshrouding, encapsulating us until we are forced to inhale it in, so that we are filled and covered with the now, part of - what is. This moment, right now.

Over the years I've enjoyed writing letters to various members of my family, letters to the editor upon occasion, and of late, writing posts on various forums that have held an interest for me. My appreciation of the written word when I was a child, bordered on obsession. And from time to time, I've entertained the occasional impulse to write my memoirs, such as they are, and I tell myself, for the sake of my children. So that they will know who I am. But, and doesn't there seem to be a "but" far too often, of late, I've come to a new realization that as humans, we are all compulsive thinkers and that we have reduced and limited our lives to words and thoughts which are really only more words, just rearranged differently to accomodate the newest mood that we find ourselves in. We live in the past, which doesn't exist any more and base all of our hoped for tomorrows on it.

Too often, thoughts moving at a hundred miles per minute, we forget to just "be" in this moment, to be in the now..........................can you feel your heart beating and when did you last sit and just experience it doing what it does each and every moment of the years that you have alloted to you? When was the last time you sat, with no tv on, no music, no one talking, and gave your mind a rest? Turned the "thinking machine" to off. When was the last time you tried to just sit and "be"? In that quietness lies a link to the divine, in that silence lies the link to the peace, if only for the briefest of moments, to the peace that your spirit craves. In that moment,.............but only til the words begin again.

There will be no memoirs because they are only words and are not the real me. I am not words, my past no longer exists and my future is only a fantasy and I only exist in this moment, right now. We each have a single opportunity to experience each other in this briefest of instances. Let's not obscure what there is to know with a muddle of sounds and labels and old stories that only tell what kind of image we each see and want the world to see. Instead, feel this moment, the two of us, as it bumps up against our legs, rises higher and higher......

Still Renovating and renovating and renovating....

Will it ever end? Considering that I have a to-do-list with about ten items on it (and I'm sensible enough not to discourage myself by including absolutely everything), I think the answer to the question is "no, it will never end". The latest project is screening in the side porch. And so to that end, we had to start out by putting rails on it. Now I gotta tell you that Don loves his nail gun but it makes me nervous even though I appreciate the ease and convenience of using it. So he's happily nailing rails on and all of a sudden, no more nailing and he's dancing around holding on to his finger. I dropped what I was doing and looked over his clenched hands and sure enough, he's done it! Nailed his finger. Fortunately only his finger! "I'll turn off the coffee pot and then I gotta put the horses back in the paddock" and Don said he would clean up the tools.

Now normally, the compressor is heavy and cumbersome enough to need two hands to lug it out but, and I did not see this myself, Don grabbed that baby up with one hand and hustled it into the garage with hardly a backward look. By the time I got back from the barn, the tools were tidied up, the garage door closed and locked and Don was sitting in the car. And off to the hospital we went. What a day! Put an end to the porch work for a few days, but the nail didn't go through the bone, just slipped underneath it and so it wasn't long before we were back at it. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the nail and the finger, but you do get to see how nice the porch is looking so far. Next week I hope to be putting the screen on and then old fashioned screen door and then I can cross one item off the to do list. And that will leave how many? Hmmm, was that nine, or ten or....

Hum a little tune while we wait for the sun.....

A few weeks ago I happened to look out the windows that overlook the backyard and was amazed to see a mob of robins. I lost count at 25 plus because of the constant movement and business of these messengers of spring made it hard to keep up. So the birds have declared that spring is here, now if only the weather would catch up. An occasional warm day, but then several chilly ones, rain too. But it will come, and then we'll all be happy.

And as the robins are here, I'm sure that the little hummingbirds will be back if they are not already. Where did I put my hummingbird feeders? I will have to search the cupboards and get them out there pretty quick. We had a couple of hanging baskets last year too and we'll repeat that and in a couple years my trellis will be covered with honeysuckle and then it will be like a smorgasborg for hummers.

Oh dear, the rain has started again, but I still have faith that the sun isn't far behind.

Stanley Street, After....

So I thought you might like to see our little project that has been taking ages (or so it seems) to complete. The first pictures here are obviously the "after" pictures and if you continue on, you'll get to see what we began with. The house is about 75 years old and the lady who lived there previously was elderly and not well, so for decades nothing was done to it. So we insulated, some plumbing, new windows and siding and lots of paint and elbow grease among other things. So there you have it.

More Stanley Street, After....

So now you've seen what can be done with a little imagination, a lot of elbow grease and a couple bucks (or three or....). and the next are the icky "before" pictures.