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An odd duck (goose)

IMG_2945My path is covered with Canadian Geese. Apparently I’m the only one out walking who is kind of scared of them. The only reason I got as close as I did for the picture is because I had Dottie the Dotted Dog with me for protection. Other people walk right up to the geese saying “hi” or throwing breadcrumbs. And to be fair, these geese seem to be pretty harmless. I just keep thinking about the mean geese along the Bow River in Calgary who have chased me down honking (and pooping – man they poop everywhere).

I stood today on the path and looked at the Canadian Geese floating all over the place on the water. A Canadian Invasion (snicker). But, while as a fellow Canadian I probably should have been finding things in common with them, I was drawn to that odd goose – and the mate of the odd goose. I see this pair often floating along with the Canadians. It interests me how although they aren’t the same kind of geese, they seem to be completely accepted into the flock.

I was thinking this morning that I very much relate to that odd goose. Trying to fit in and be part of the crowd, yet sticking out in ways that can’t be hidden. In ways that shouldn’t be hidden. Because that goose is the “odd goose” in this situation just by being. It can’t change who it is to fit in with the others no matter how badly it may want to (although I can guarantee that goose spends a lot less of its life thinking about how it fits in to a crowd than I do). It shouldn’t change who it is, and obviously (based on the fact that I see these geese all together often) it is accepted for who it is even though it’s a “bird of a different feather”.

I have spent a big chunk of my life thinking I was the only one who was insecure, had issues, felt like I didn’t fit in, didn’t belong. Everyone else always seemed to know what they were doing, had lots of friends, were happy in life, had confidence. Feeling that I was the only one with issues often left me feeling isolated, and often led me to make poor friend choices (ugh). Interesting how as I have gotten older and have talked to more people about this how I have discovered that pretty much everyone has all those same insecurities. Maybe some people just fake it better than others.

One of my favourite quotes is Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. So very true. Once I remember that it makes it so much easier to just let things go (like water off a goose’s back).

Today I celebrated this odd goose who reminded me that you just have to be yourself. Just be you and float along in life with those around you.

So, today for my 11th day of my 44 days of happiness I am happy that I’m settling into being ok with being myself. Celebrating that at times we all have to be the odd goose to stay true to who we truly are.

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Happiness is doing something you love with someone you love

Last year the kids and I were lucky enough to spend the entire summer home in Calgary. We got to do so many things that we aren’t able to do on our shorter visits. Topping that list was being able to simply do the things that we would do all the time if we lived there – we were home long enough to actually feel like we lived at home. We had that grounding, loving feeling that comes from the stability of being with people we love in an environment we feel nurtured in.

The kids were able to go riding a few times over the summer. Horseback riding is the thing that makes my heart sing. Everything else that I’ve found in life that I’ve enjoyed since has only been discovered because I haven’t been able to have horses since we moved away from home. When I’m riding, my spirit is at peace.

I spent many hours walking up and down the field with the kids on Princess (who is a very manly gelding he would have you know). Watching their joy and happiness while learning to do something that has brought me so much joy and happiness was a spirit lifting experience.

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The closest thing I have here to the peace that I get with a horse is my river walks. Today the weather was 16C (don’t ask me fahrenheit -I can’t even spell that word without looking it up – it just makes no sense to me) and Jenna and I went for a little walk along the river after school

She wasn’t very excited about it to begin with. But, as she pushed off down the little hill on her scooter she yelled over her shoulder “I don’t know why I didn’t want to come, I love being down here” and off she vroomed down the hill. We stopped and looked at twigs and leaves and found a little bunch of flowers starting to peek out of the ground (yay).

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The only thing she said was missing was that we hadn’t seen any of the herons. I told her that usually they’re not around in the afternoon, that we have to come in the morning to see them. No sooner had I said that than we looked across and there was Henry Heron trying to blend into the scenery. Jenna made me stop and take a picture of her with him in the background.IMG_1337

I enjoy my quiet morning walks, but it’s even more special when it’s shared with someone I love.

Today on day 10 of my 44 days of happiness I am happy that I have people with whom I can share the things I love. Happiness is doing something you love with someone you love.

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The history of love

A few years ago I read the book The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. I enjoyed the book, and it’s probably time to read it again because I can’t remember most of what happened in it. But, there was one character who stood out for me – Leo Gursky – as someone I already am, or someone I could see myself turning into. Leo is an elderly man who has moved from Poland to New York. He spends his days terrified that he will die and that no one will notice him gone. He does things like make sure he goes out for a cup of coffee and then “accidentally” dropping his change all over the place. His goal is to make sure that someone notices him every day. That way if something happens to him, at least someone would be able to say – yes, I saw Leo, he was out getting coffee.

At the heart of his issue is loneliness. I think that’s why his character spoke so loudly to me. With all the moving we have done over the past 10 years, loneliness has been a common theme in my life. There have absolutely been days where I have felt like Leo. Where I felt like at least if I went out and did something to make people notice my existence (like dropping my change all over the place), people would know that I was alive.

I think this is also why the candy man at church speaks so loudly to me. He is out every Sunday passing out his candy and making friends at the church. If he’s absent one week there are 20 kids who are upset that he’s not there, and asking him if he’s ok the next week when he returns.

Believe it or not this actually fits in to my 44 days of happiness.

It was cold this morning. We are far enough south that we didn’t get any of that New England snow storm, but it was still cold. And I was feeling lazy. And I didn’t really want to walk. Even though I know that walk is so important for my spiritual wellbeing. Fortunately, Dottie ran and jumped in the car before I could break her heart, so we ended up heading out on the path anyway.

I have my regulars that I see on the path. There are a lot of seniors, but they’re all in Florida now – so it’s mostly other moms like me.  There is one other lady who is there walking no matter the weather. We laugh because I’m from Canada and she’s from Hawaii and we are the only people who can bear the heat and the cold all year to do our walks. The walk is as spiritually important for her as it is for me. We always stop and have a little chat when we run into each other. Sometimes we walk together, but we both have said how the quiet morning walk is what sets us up for the day -so often we just chat and then head on our separate ways.

Some days when I see my regulars on the path I think of Leo. Things aren’t as lonely now as they used to be but I’m still always so happy to see my regular people. The other ones who know how important that morning walk is.

So, today my moment of happiness comes from acknowledging that sometimes life is lonely, and like Leo it’s important to have those people who notice you. My happiness comes from having those people on my daily walk.

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My heron, my river

My herons and my river have been a huge force in re-stabilizing my life here. The herons and I have an interesting relationship. I’ve noticed that they don’t pay a lot of attention to the other people on the path, but we seem to have a real attraction to each other. Maybe it’s because I’m one of the few people who actually stops and stares at them, but they really seem to notice me (even on days when I don’t stop and stare). I figure it’s fair enough if I’m staring at them for a while that they’ll get upset, squawk and fly away. But often they either fly right ahead of me and land on the riverbank or they pop up right beside me from the water’s edge and fly away.

Yesterday I walked by Henry Heron (yes, I’ve named them) and as soon as I got beside me he flew away. I was sure he was gone, but instead he flew about 30 feet upstream and landed on a rock right by the edge of the water in a prime heron watching spot. This picture was taken with my iphone, I was maybe 20 feet away.

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He stayed there the entire time I stood watching (and taking pictures). As I continued up the path I came across the second heron (Heidi Heron). She was standing right beside the water on my side of the river – usually they’re on the far side of the river away from the people. She flew downstream right beside Henry. Then they both turned and flew upstream past me. Henry stopped a little farther up and Heidi took off. I figured she was off fishing somewhere else for the day.

I continued on my walk and as I crossed a narrow bridge in an area where there are NEVER herons I saw this: (can you see her? she’s hiding in the top right part of the picture)

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A most unusual place for one of the herons to be. Dottie the Dotted Dog and I stood on the bridge for a long while and watched her march up and down the water.

So, what do these herons mean? They make a point of making sure I notice them when I’m out walking. Why are they so insistent that I see them?

On purely a personal level, for a long time they helped ground me and bind me to home. I’d take a picture of Henry or Heidi and text it home to my dad. He would go out on a walk and take a picture of the heron that lives on the slough near their house. It helped remind me that no matter how many miles apart we are, we are still bound together. They were my birds of un-homesickness.

Spiritually, herons remind us of self-reliance, self-determination and independence. They remind us to go with the flow of life (ha! a big one for me now following my path of least resistance). A lone hunter with the ability to stand steadily on it’s own (amazingly long) legs – a reminder that one does not need a large amount of support to have the ability to stand on one’s own.

The Heron symbolizes balance – the ability to be strong and secure on the ground yet fly with grace and ease in the sky. They will wait patiently by the water but when they see what they want they go after it with no quickly with no hesitation. They represent the need for solitude as well as the one to explore (which is a big part of my morning walk). Herons are able to walk into deep water with no fear knowing that they will remain balanced on their own two feet.

So, pretty much exactly what the goal of my river walks are – to ground me, to remind me that I can stand on my own two feet. To encourage my self-reliance, to know I can walk into the water and remain balanced.

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Quitters sometimes win (something better)

Yesterday was crazy sock day at my daughter’s school. She was so excited, two weeks ago we came across the ugliest, craziest pair of socks and she convinced me to buy them for her so she could go to school and have *the* craziest socks. Well, she did wear those socks and had a lot of fun at school with everyone enjoying her crazy socks.

After school they move the crazy sock party over to the local roller rink and she decided she really wanted to go skating. She’s not had very much experience skating, but I was all for her going and hanging out with her friends and learning how to be more comfortable on her skates.

We went to the rink, paid to get in, paid for the skate rental, and paid for the thing-a-magig that she used to hold onto for balance. She went out onto the rink and I kid you not was out for 15 seconds before she was at the wall crying because she couldn’t make her skates move forward and saying she wanted to quit. I insisted that she head back out to the floor and show me how it was that her skates weren’t moving and after many more tears she turned around shuffled her feet back and forth and wailed “see, I can’t move, this isn’t working. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

So, with her standing there crying about how this was completely impossible to do after her 30 seconds of trying something in me snapped. I said “you need then to make a choice. Either we stay here and you keep tying to skate because trying it is the only way you’re ever going to get any better, or we leave and we go home.”

It went back and forth with her trying to convince me that she could just sit on the side and watch, or that she could go to the playzone (more money), or go get a snack (more money and crappy food). I was trying to convince her that at 9.5 she needed to finally learn how to make those roller skates do what she wanted them to do. After a few minutes of me whisper-yelling and her crying she got off, took off her skates and returned everything. We left the rink with both of us in tears (mine frustration, hers sadness). I pulled the whole “you’re going home and to your room. I am NEVER taking you roller skating again.” And she was sobbing “I could have won the contest for the craziest socks.”

I cranked out in the car the wonderful lecture about quitters and how quitters never get anywhere and how it was better to at least try and fail than it was to just stop and quit. That we aren’t a family of quitters (you know, every guilt trip in the book about quitting).

As we pulled up to the house I said that because she had missed her running club after school to go to this party and since she had not skated at all that she had to come to the river and walk the dog with me. So she sat in the car and cried while I went in and got the happiest dog in the world and put her in the back of the car.

By the time we got down to the river she was still crying and honestly at this time I was at a complete loss for words as to what to say. I realized that I’d got much madder than I should have and also knew that her crying always brings out the absolute worst in me. We walked down the path holding hands and I said that what had happened was over and that what we needed to do was try and focus on the beautiful area we were walking in and see how happy Dottie was and try and let it go. And then I decided to just shut my yapper and try and take everything in.

When I did stop talking and just walked with her holding onto her little hand the most amazing thing happened. She started processing out loud what had happened. She started with how she wished she hadn’t quit, that she had quit because she didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of her friends because she didn’t know how to skate, and that she had ended up looking like an even bigger idiot instead.

That pretty much stopped me right in my tracks. Who hasn’t not tried something new because the people around them already could do it and they didn’t want to look like an idiot? I think of all the things in school I was never brave enough to try because I didn’t want to look stupid in front of everyone else.

My heart went out to her. I shared what I was feeling and said that unfortunately almost everyone has had that same thing happen and that I was sorry I hadn’t been more sensitive to how she was feeling.

She kept on walking and talking and processing what she had been feeling and how she had handled it differently and how she wished she could go back in time and change it.

Then all of a sudden she stopped on the path and looked all around her and said “You know what mom? I’m pretty lucky that I’m here, it’s so pretty and this is actually a much nicer thing to do than to be inside roller skating. I will just let all that go because all it does is make me feel sad and I’m going to really take in how wonderful it is to be right here, right now.”

I have never been so proud of this little girl. I told her that quitting was when you simply stopped doing something and that I didn’t think she was a quitter at all. Nobody who was a quitter would be able to take a negative experience and be able to work through it so thoroughly and be able to see sunshine and joy at the end of it.

We held hands and walked along the beautiful path and my heart was so full of joy that I have been blessed with such an amazing teacher. I am thankful every day for my two kids, they have brought me more joy and love and fulfillment than I could have ever thought possible.

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Pay it Forward, Share the Love

This morning I ended up doing a walk by myself. For the past few weeks I have been walking with a friend which is lovely, but today she couldn’t come and I went to enjoy a walk along the river solo. I was walking over the bridge and saw a very happy looking lady walking towards me. It is normal for us walkers to give a smile and “good morning” as we pass each other and I was getting ready to do so to this happy lady when she stopped, looked at me and said “Melissa?” It was my Pastor, dressed in her workout clothes with headphones in happily bopping away to music on her morning walk. We stood and chatted a bit and then each carried on our way, both of us saying if we stopped too long we’d never get up the motivation to start again. 

I reached my halfway point and was on my way back when I saw her coming towards me again. I was glad because although we’d had a nice chat, I had been wanting to talk to her and had completely forgotten what I had wanted to say when I first saw her. (I’m not a morning person.) 

We both said how much we enjoyed our walk and how beautiful the day was, as she was turning to go I stopped her and said that I’d been wanting to talk to her, and had been meaning to drop in to the church to see her but never seemed to actually do it. I said that I wanted her to know what an important person she was to me and how much she’s helped me, balanced me, and taught me in the time I’ve been here. That I am so thankful that she is in my life and what a blessing getting to know her has been. She was full of emotion and gave me a big hug and thanked me for saying that, that it made her heart happy to hear it.

I left feeling very joyful that I had shared with her how I felt, and again very thankful that I did have her in my life. She is a lovely lady. I said about her yesterday that she is a Woman of God and would be one whether she was a Pastor or not. She lives by her morals. 

As proof that when you give out something to the Universe you get it back, when I got home I had a message from Jenna’s teacher. She left me a long text saying how much she loved having Jenna in her class, how she was just pure joy, kindness and happiness to teach and get to know, and how lucky she felt to have been able to spend the past year with Jenna. 

It was such an uplifting way to start the day. Everyone that I saw after that also seemed happy and joyful. Whether that was because I was in an elated state to notice it, or if the Happy Virus is spreading through town I will never know. But Today is a great day to pay it forward and share the love!

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Walking Unplugged

With the arrival of some spring-like weather I’ve been getting out for my morning river walks again. I got cold and wimpy through the long, cold winter (and then into the cold, rainy spring), but I’ve been back at it for the past few days and it feels fantastic. It’s such an important part of my morning in helping me get grounded and settled into myself for the day. I always make sure to stop and be grateful for a few moments that I am fortunate enough to be able to do these quiet morning walks.

One really important part of my walks is that I go *by myself*. I don’t walk with anyone, I don’t have any electronics going (I do take my phone with me just in case there’s an emergency or I see something cool I need to take a picture of), and I just try to empty my mind. Which sounds easy but is excruciatingly difficult for me. I spend the first half of my walk fretting away whatever chatter is going on up there and then usually am able to settle into enjoying the walk for the second half. Usually. Sometimes I’m either starving or have to go to the bathroom (a killer when you’re walking by running water) and am trying to rush through it.

I notice how many other people I see on the path who are engrossed in their phones. Texting or doing something like that. There are lots of people running and walking listening to music – I don’t have music on walking, but I totally understand the need to when jogging. It’s the only thing that would help keep me running. But, there’s also a lot of people either reading, texting or talking on their phones while walking. Which I don’t get at all because it means they totally miss all the cool things that are out there.

Such as this thingey I came across this morning:

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Thinking about how I *don’t get at all* how these people immerse themselves in their phones and miss out on the beauty of the walk made me think about how I sometimes fill my day with white noise. Sometimes I get upset at the kids for wandering around the house holding their laptops (headphones on thank goodness) watching a show, completely oblivious to what’s going on around them – usually what’s going on is me trying to get their attention. Then I reflect on my own behaviour. I both love and hate our portable devices. I think they’ve helped make it much easier to take the quiet out of the day. I’ll listen to music while I get ready. I have the iPad hooked up in the kitchen so I can watch a show on Hulu while I am cooking or doing dishes. I watch the iPad while I’m on the elliptical (otherwise I die of boredom), sometimes I even soil a yoga practice by having something playing in the background (a show that is, not music). Much too often when I’m bored or lonely I turn on a show instead of opening a book or heading outside.

Although I’m noticing now that I’m more aware that those moments are becoming less. When I’m bored and have some downtime I’ll try to head outside with my book – even sometimes just sit out there in silence and listen to nature and watch the birds and my fish. Living here has brought a lot of quiet into my life. Some welcomed, some not so much. But I think there’s a big lesson to be learned in it. To welcome and surrender to the quiet. Every moment doesn’t have to be filled with some mindless noise or mindless activity. I’ve found that those quiet moments bring up thoughts and feelings that sometimes aren’t so welcome and that the immediate instinct is to go fill those noises up with the white noise of TV or Facebook. But also those quiet moments bring real, pure, golden thoughts and feelings and emotions which I would have missed. I’m trying to bring more of those into my life and I’m pretty sure one of the best ways is to find more ways to unplug. Which is incredibly difficult for me a lot of the time.

Except on my walk. It’s the only place in my life right now I never have the desire to be plugged in. So, I will keep up the walking, the peace, the “unpluggedness” that comes with my morning walk.

Namaste

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