Tracks

I went on a road trip recently and found that sometimes when you put bliss (taking photos) and pain (car breaking down....twice) together, you can see yourself more clearly as you play out each role.

I love taking photos. I love the feel of seeing colour and depth come together in a picture that you can then show someone else. I enjoyed the new people I met on the road and the companion I was travelling with. The weather was incredibly warm so we enjoyed firesides outside in the evening and walks on the trellis train track in the afternoon. There were family moments where forgotten laughter emerged; the past was the past, and now we start over.

Then there was the car breakdown. Creating this little nervous edge in my neck the minute it started acting up right until a full blown break-down while it was being towed back home four hours away! The fun of trying to understand the purpose of this long drawn-out delay became the challenge. At each roadblock we encountered, my companion and I tried to see the beauty of how perceived negative situations immediately changes the perception of your whole trip! I forgot to take pictures, my passion lying in the back of the car to attend to the more "urgent" reality. I became stressed and felt betrayed by the bursting of my road trip bubble with such distractions.

The funny thing is that I stretched through all of that. I saw myself in a way that I had never before and I realized that I have morphed into a whole new person from how I would have reacted to my car breakdown a few years back.

We're all right on track. It's when we forget that we look over the side of the bridge and see the water is really far down instead of just relaxing in the confidence of the track to get us to the other side. The track can seem really long and narrow, but in that small place, you can really see the substance of who you are and how you've grown.

Keep on Tracking..........

Later,

PC

Flirting

I was thinking of how much fun I had playing pool the other night with total strangers!

My partner was a fun, easy-going guy, that wasn't shy in giving me pool tips. I landed up kissing him at one point because we lost that round to the other team! It wasn't complicated or uncomfortable. It just felt fun and flirtatious; something I haven't done for a really long time.

So what are the guidelines for harmless flirting? How can you really enjoy the simple pleasure of the opposite sex without it becoming complicated? When did harmless flirting become inappropriate? Did we leave our Femininity behind the door of Independence?

I think we need to get back to the basics of what felt good and young. Stop thinking and just enjoy. Relax and trust your instincts so you can go with the flow.

Letting Go of Fixing

Today I am working from home with a cold. Yay.

M is here too of course, trying to stay focused on her home studies.

I feel so much when I talk with her and she expresses how hard it is to be alone at home, doing something she HATES (academics) while all her friends are at school. Her choice was to leave school, but now there is this vacum and I CAN'T FIX IT!!

I want to. I am so conditioned to do something, to fix it, to take a plan of action, that to just sit and try to encourage her, listen to her, hear her, while not doing any of those things is brutal. I don't want to get in the way. She needs to run her course and play her game exactly the way she is. She is not broken or getting it wrong. I hear myself say that but there is still this restlessness to do something about it.

She has such a beautiful voice and sweet spirit when she is just being that I know this still time in her life is perfect for what she is creating for herself. I need to really trust that this is right in line with what needs to be, otherwise it would not be! But to sit by and watch the tears run down her face and know that she is lonely and feeling confused as to why she is needing the game to be played out so differently than her friends has been challenging.

I know she will come through this and enter into her full joy and abundance, but like most of us, sitting in the unknown is frightening.

I actually prayed for her last night before I fell asleep. I am not one to pray so much because I know that we all are the true spirit of God and don't need to look outside ourselves for anything that isn't already inside of us. BUT it felt good to express my feelings to myself out loud as if to plug in to an understanding and creation that goes beyond my own understanding.

Going to get groceries now!

Until next time,

PC

Natural Beauty

Photo by Photo Chik
Kelowna, BC
Mission Hill Winery

My girls and I were discussing natural beauty tonight. J and M both said I was beautiful and didn't need to compare myself to the fashion beauties at my workplace.

It's hard to keep your equilibrium when you are constantly surrounded by the loud voice of "must keep up"! The funny thing is that voice is not coming from them, but from inside me.

Since I discovered arthritis in my foot which resulted in a bone spur that doesn't allow me to wear any kind of sexy fashionable shoe or boot, I have felt a loss of something. My walk is different. My confidence in how I enter a room or finish off an outfit with the right shoe has been compromised. I have felt different and am slowly working my way back into my own skin. I used to have my insecurities, but I knew who I was in a certain way. Now it's all different.

I have started working out in ways that feel balance the "handicap". I imagine it's like being blind and suddenly discovering a sense of smell you never knew you had. The funny part is that it's never a loss, when you feel deficient in something. It's just an opportunity to pull out something within yourself that you never knew you had and wouldn't have discovered had you carried on in the way you always did.

I imagine how my mom felt through 20 years of cancer in five different ways. She must have had to re-invent herself at each turn. So why can't I? The strength is there; my character is being called up, and as my mom did, I do not want to be found wanting. She wrote a memoir that I would love to edit and publish someday called "The Gift of Cancer". It was her perspective that changed her outlook, not her circumstance.

So as I head to bed, I will dream of 3" heels on black patent boots as I strut down my busy downtown street, but tomorrow when I put on my low, slip-on, square toe, chunky heel pump, I will be grateful for the opportunity to feel the difference in my perspective!

Thanks Mom!!
PC

So I said to myself.....

OK, so I'm already back because I realized that my intro was perfectly......philosophical!
I enjoy going to the dark side now and then, but maybe not so much right at the beginning of a relationship!
So, here is the real intro.....
I like writing things down. I enjoy seeing my thoughts in words and I enjoy hearing the thoughts of others. I am thrilled to have a stage with which to enter into pictures and words that may provoke, inspire and entice others.

For right now, with just me, I am happy to be here, in this place.
That's all I need.
PC

Let It Begin With Me.....

Hello World
My first words
The first time I've exposed myself
How amazing to be here
I love the adventure
I am ready to speak
I am ready to share
I am ready to meet myself here
As much as I want to