What matters most are little things

There are men that somehow just grip your eyes and hold them hard like a spell and such was he, as he pointed the flashlight in my direction and with inflection, all bundled in woolies and lumberjack red, his face unshaven—said, as I turned my head—“The lady that’s known as Lou.”

It made everyone laugh as he carried on his narration, drawing us into the story.

The husky rendition of “The Shooting of Dan McGrew,” echoed across the little bay in the south arm of Rainy Lake as six hardy sailors sat around a mighty campfire taking turns reciting the poetry of Robert Service.

I sat there listening to the banter and the tales of the night, clad in my own version of woolies and a toque, and I was so very thankful that I didn’t pull out of the weekend adventure like I’d considered doing—and all because the weather was nasty.

Mother Nature, who would not be moved, threw a cold, windy party for the Rendezvous Yacht Club’s annual fall cruise. But as I am learning, sailors are seldom moved from the love of the sail and while they sail with safety paramount, they are a determined lot of jolly, brave and roving tars.

Admittedly, I had a big whimpering lip in the days, hours, and yes! minutes leading up to the fall cruise as I watched the weather forecast marry Murphy’s Law and slide into the belly of winter.

Despite my misgivings, I channeled Stan Rogers and his song “Northwest Passage” and forged on with my own brave counsel. I was determined to crack the ramparts of my hesitation and take passage over to the adventure.

I quit shaving my legs to gain an extra layer of warmth and packed enough long johns and wool socks to outfit a small team of lumberjacks. I would wear three layers of clothing at all times, lipchap and no makeup. (Thankfully my captain is farsighted.)

As I dragged my rock-weight baggage to the trunk of my car it was all I could do not to run screaming into the house, duct tape myself into my housecoat and hide under the bed until I missed the boat. I felt like the “little engine that could” battling one or two wheels stuck in a vat of molasses.

So I belted out, ”Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage . . .” and the northerner in me rallied!

Late Friday afternoon I drove across the Noden Causeway to meet up with my captain and his sailboat and I looked out over the lake at the seething boiling cauldron as ice-cold rain pelted my windshield.

I was sure I’d lost my mind.

I stood in the rain on the dock and watched the “Morning Dove” dip and swing it’s way to me across the channel. My teeth chattered up a dentist’s bill and my frozen carcass, clad in the pathetic little raincoat I’d found hanging in the barn where it had been collecting pigeon feathers since 2006, was numb and shivering from top to bottom.

I was sure I was off my rocker.

But it was too late for the quitter in me to win. I had one last tantrum, the likes of which looked like “Yosemite Sam” having a fit over an undone plan, and then I stepped onto the boat and sailed from land and the world dropped away.

That night, while we were tucked in a bay on the lake and well-anchored, the gales of November came two months early and blew the pants off September, yet I was safe and sound and warm and happy in a v-berth with the sounds of such a monster raging outside.

And the following night after a day’s chilly sail to the next anchorage and before the mighty campfire drew us in at night; I kicked Mother Nature’s booty and jumped in the cold lake. Emphasis on cold and on screaming how cold it was. Extra emphasis on fun. 

Robert Service wrote a poem about finding the joy in little things and I concur.  

When I ponder, amid this tangled web of fate, about what a fantastic summer I have had, it is the seemingly little things that have brought me the most joy; among them, holding my captain’s hand, a little boat that dips and swings, a sail that fills with wind, the stunning fall colors along the lakeshore, and being in jolly roving company around a warm fire while the words of Robert Service and the songs of Stan Rogers flowed freely through us.

It’s the little things that matter most. Thank you.

(Now hurry up Spring 2013 so we can go sailing again!)

The dog rules on earning one's keep

I was sitting on my wicker couch by the creek a couple of days ago on one of those windy September afternoons that produces very bad hair and smacks of a season I am not yet prepared for.

Where did the summer go? I could have sworn it was June 1st just yesterday and now suddenly I’m seeing more leaves on the ground than on the trees. The furnace has been turned over on a chilly night or two, and hot chocolate is starting to sound like a good alternative to a cold glass of water.

I am a first born list maker and the one I wrote out at the beginning of the summer with all the “to-do’s” I wanted to accomplish before mid-September is sadly little more than half-done.

This one-woman show needs a genetic scientist, a DNA swab, and a cloning program in order to get things done around here.

As I was sitting there by the creek, I asked the dogs when I might expect them to earn their keep and help out. All I got was a wet-nose rub and sloppy lick of canine jowls across the hand I’d just washed.

Then “Dot” promptly trotted to the spot on the ground nearby, where the cat had spat out a mouse’s giblets (now covered in flies) and ate them, then looked at owner as if to ask, “Does that count?”

Owner wanted to throw up but was afraid the dog might eat that too, so instead walked off towards the barn to bang her head on some boards in the hope of shaking up a plan to duplicate herself once, maybe twice.

The dogs followed me in—no surprise on that score.There’s always something better for dogs to do wherever I’m headed—or so I assume—seeing as how they are but a sniff away from me at all times.

And as I entered the barn that day, they were right on the mark.

The canine capers tore from zero to 60 in record time as the pigeon that lives in the hayloft made a run for it, having been found pecking at some old grain seed in a pail sitting on the main floor of the barn.

It was all I could do to duck out of the way as the bug-eyed bird scaled the free space over my head and soared up the stairs to his safety zone, trailed in high gear by a frenzy of fur and barking.

The calamity up there was phenomenal. Not only was it a deafening racket but a fine and steady stream of old hay dust poured through the cracks in the floor caking everything below including my hair and the five nice pieces of newly-painted screen door trim that could have used another hour’s drying time.

The helter skelter was not my idea of dogs earning their keep and a few choice words from the ‘Alpha’ pulled them off pigeon duty and to outside where, pumped with doggie endorphins from all that flurry, they sped off into the field in pursuit of the invisible intruder.

I got busy in the barn and the next thing I knew two hours had passed as I’d fallen into those chores that had been a part of the half-done list of mine.

The dogs had come and gone tenfold during that time, wandering aimlessly in front of the barn doors as I had banned them from entry.

However by the time I finished up and headed back to the house the chumps were nowhere to be found and for a moment I reveled in the quiet of their absence.

I should have known something was up.

No sooner did I walk into the house did the two saps come racing out of the field, and straight past me and through the open door.

The stench of wild animal poop was wretched and unmistakable and when I looked upon the disaster I’m sure my bottom jaw cracked as it hit the floor.

Both dogs’ backs were covered in brown doo-doo; their fur matted with it and hay stubble. Obviously they’d rolled in it in the field and marked themselves in a canine victory rub.

I wanted to duct tape them to the barn wall and walk away but they looked as happy as a pig in . . . .  well, you get the idea.

And for a split second there I smiled thinking, “who am I to decide what constitutes a dog earning its keep around here?” and then I realized I’d just been hired to wash them off. 

Think twice and choose wisely

Sometimes when I open my mouth what comes out are words I wish I had never said out loud. I’ve made that mistake a few times lately and of course the afterlife of regret lingers longer than it’s welcome, like the smell of campfire in my hair that takes two or three shampoos to wash out.

In Gordon Livingston’s book “Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart” he expands on what he believes are “30 True Things You Need to Know Now.”

He’s a hard sell realist for someone like me, who has a much lighter and playful view of the world despite having faced dark sides of it. Nonetheless Livingston’s advice is worth pondering.

He expands in chapter one about “If the map doesn’t agree with the ground, the map is wrong.”

In my book, chapter one would focus on “Don’t say the first thing that comes to mind because it’s probably a bad idea.”

The latter advice tends to contradict my belief in going with one’s intuition or in telling one’s truth, but sometimes even I, too, mistake what’s on the tip of my tongue and mind as the right thing to bring forth to the world around me.

Needless to say when I recently asked a woman I was acquainted with and didn’t see often when her baby was due—as I glanced at her tummy—and her eyebrows suddenly amalgamated in a flat stare that surpassed even my very best such expression, I instantly understood the definition of comeuppance.

The little chap already was eight months old.

The words “I’m sorry” suddenly seemed like the stupidest two-word sentence ever invented and the humiliating exposure of what to say next was as painful as the blistering sunburn I got in the summer of 1972. 

At that moment I wanted to pull a portable black hole from my pants pocket, throw it down in the middle of the department store, jump in and teleport to an overcrowded fish market in Shanghai, China.

I considered using a portable hole a couple of other times this week to escape the tornado that true change spins into life when working full time after a long draught.

And there were a couple of times during the “Adjustment Reaction” period that I was sure I was duct taped to perpetual cycles on the “Round Up” amusement ride at the Emo Fall Fair.

In fact the ride was such that I wore myself out and forgot to get off and write a column last week. That disappointed me greatly.

My captain believes there is a silver lining to be found in most conundrums. 

All I had to do was miss one week of column writing to find out that I have more readers that I thought I did as many of them made known to me my lapse in their regular reading schedule.

I can assure you this train of thought is not headed for the dead-end rail. And thanks for pushing me back on to the track.

Smart is as smart does

 Maybe my pets can read and thus know that I write about them. Maybe when I’m gone to work they make themselves at home in the living room (where the “Dog Rule” manual states they are not allowed) and read my column in the newspaper or maybe they surf my online blog for the latest scoop.

Nonetheless something is up. I have a sneaking suspicion that the animals are in cahoots with each other. “One-upmanship” appears to be on the rise around here.

I say this after getting up from breakfast at the kitchen table this morning to find that “Millie” the cat barfed up an unknown substance on my bedspread that I can only describe as something I’ve seen in the movie “Alien.”

And as I hauled the quilt outside to scrape off the juicy chunks before throwing it in the washing machine I looked out over the farmyard to see Cash writhing his snout continuously in the grass as Dot furiously swung a black and white rodent to and fro in her teeth.

It only took a matter of seconds for the stench to reach my nostrils.

It was 7:30 a.m. and already my day had more lead in it than a 20-gauge shotgun shell.

Oh, how easily I could have gone off like that shotgun but I decided to disengage from it all and “go with the flow.”

I’m smart like that.

As I stare out my bedroom window from my writing desk just now, I watch as a robin perched on the clothesline prunes its feather and then poops on my new pair of freshly washed jeans hanging below where bird sits. Hmmm.  It’s a “Fables of the Green Forest” kind of morning.

A Facebook notification “bling” lights up my iPhone and I see that my favorite reporter just left a comment on my recent status. “Fascinating observation,” was his remark to my new mantra I posted.

I have a “Quotes for Work” file on my computer and I dredge it often for brain food.

I’m smart like that.

I added a new quote to it on Friday—“Worrying is like praying for what you don’t want.” 

I am reminded of a story my Captain told to me last week over a cup of coffee. He, who is wise in sweet form, was recalling his school days and English class and the dry spells he encountered when it was time to write a story. His teacher told him to think of a favorite quote and then write something about it. It made all the difference in removing his creative block.

“Worrying is like praying for what you don’t want.”  I found this most fascinating observation marked as “Zen tip #89” on one of the websites I frequent. I’m not sure what the first 88 tips are but they must be totally awesome, given my opinion of #89.

I freely admit that I worry a lot, even though I spend an inordinate amount of time reading and studying the ways in which not to do that.

I worry about the old, rusted, tried and true gears of my life like finances, paying bills, affording house repairs, and fitting life into life’s busy schedule and I’ve discovered that I do most of this unproductive nonsense while riding my lawn tractor.

In fact, that light bulb just went off last night, being Sunday, when I was cutting the front lawn.

I would start off anticipating the upcoming first day at my new full time job—a true story that begins on August 29^th—and by the next go ‘round of the lawn I’d be right back in the mud of worry.

I’d realize where I was in my head, change tracks and kick start the excitement again about the new adventure in employment and then unknowingly wander off into the land of fret by the time I’d made a full circle again.

And if my recall is as good as I think it is, it seems to me I’ve rode this tractor on similar mental grounds before during the hazy times of the past where my mind would get sucked into the dark vortex of stewing and suffering about all the reasons why my ex-husband had chosen a life that didn’t include me.

Back then by the time I was done mowing, I’d be reduced to nothing but a drained soul with no possibility or hope—and for someone with a great passion for the power of positive thinking this mind ritual I put myself through was grave business.

Maybe I need to hire someone to cut my grass?

I’ve written so many times about the power of choice, choosing my thoughts the same way I choose my clothes every day—choose wisely. I’m still learning.

So the “worrying is like praying for what you don’t want,” quote has struck a chord with me. I don’t want to focus on the things in life I don’t want.

Thoughts become things. Choose good ones.

Sometimes I’m smart like that.

From here to the kennel and back

I’m staring at a blank screen. My mind is empty and the clock is ticking. This scenario doesn’t happen to me very often when it’s time to write my column. It means my life is sailing along on with calm winds at my back and my slate is relatively clean.

Of course, all I have to do is put the latter paragraph into writing and my neck of the woods erupts into a plethora of dog barking and cat frenzy, giving me plenty of fodder to scoop into a 550-word essay.

First of all my canine capers are hardly ever on leashes around here. For the most part “Dot” and “Cash” know where their boundaries are and unless provoked by the one who occasionally gets too close to the property line and whose incessant woofing sound like canine expletives and “You want a piece of me, dawg?” my two four-legged friends stick to home plate.

The only other times the four-legged frenzies are missing in action is, as I have said before, when a skunk or other small rodent dares venture within sniffing distance—or after I bring them home from an extended stay at the “Doggie Hotel.”

Once out of the car and on home ground the dogs disperse into the wilds to take the poop they’ve been holding back since they left home and then head straight for the house where inside they flop down and fall asleep for hours relieved to be back on familiar territory.

It’s always the same comical routine. They watch me line the back seat of the car with drop sheets and they know it’s time for a car ride. Doggy excitement abounds as they race around the yard yapping like the “Frisky Puppy” in a “Looney Tunes” cartoon.

Then they sit so patiently yet teeming with adrenaline as I slip on their dog collars and leashes and open the door to the back seat of the car as they leap in.

My goal is to get behind the steering wheel before they explode into the front seat with all that dog hair. I rarely win that battle.

It’s really quite an exciting ride to the dog kennel for all of us creatures. Dog noses are shoved out open car windows into the wind, tongues are flapping, ears are flopping, tails are wagging, and their driver is smiling and thinking about how much she is looking forward to the “dog days” off.

But all canine caper joy screeches to a halt when they bound out to play in the kennel field and then see the gate close and realize I am leaving them behind. The howling and whooping begins as my foot hits the accelerator and I tear off into the land of the free. I’ve often wondered how long the dogs can hear my squealing joy as I disappear down the highway.

Dogs know the sound of their master’s car. When I return days later to pick them up, I still am out of shouting range when the sound of Cash hailing my arrival with his version of joyous whooping and howling frenzy reaches my ears.

Repeat excitement ensues on the ride home except that I’m wearing ear plugs to save my hearing from damage done by ecstatic and energetic hollers from two capers who shout “I Miss You When You’re Gone!!!” as if they just won the lottery.

But then, what am I thinking?  They did win the lottery.

The funniest part of all is when after arriving back home and with a couple of hours of rest and relaxation under their doggie belts, I jest with “Do you want to go for a car ride?”

Dot looks up at me from the floor with a flat stare while Cash already has leapt from his sleeping spot and through the screen door before  “Do you . .” is out of my mouth.

There’s never a shortage of laughter around here.

Put the dark energy to rest

 My soul sister told me the other day over tea that she wants to “live in color.” The desire was voiced after sharing her sadness about the recent death of a friend. We talked a long time about this and we both had a compelling sense to fall into the world with our eyes closed and our arms outstretched.

Why? Why not? After all, none of us are guaranteed much of anything in this life other than the moment we are in. It makes sense to me, too, to live in color as much as I can.

Above my writing station is a quote by author and former Liberal Party politician Michael Ignatieff that reads, “One of the greatest feelings in life is the conviction that you have lived the life you wanted to live—with the rough and the smooth, the good and the bad—but yours, shaped by your own choices, and not someone else’s.”

The philosophy therein is mine—body and soul.

I was taught in a “Time for Me” workshop last year to use “I-statements” when sharing my thoughts and feelings with others. 

It’s a hard lesson to employ, especially when I want the nods of support of the people I’m talking with. Using “I” instead of “we” “you” “they” when sharing feelings on a subject can be daunting and leave me “out there” on a ledge by myself.

But at the dimming of the day I know that if I don’t take off my own skin and stand naked in my very own beliefs about a thing, I have done myself a severe injustice.

So at the advice of my soul sister, I return once again to a subject I thought I had left said and done in this fickle world of writing about my life adventures. This is where putting my honesty into the hands of my readers can come back to me as a hot poker to niggle at half-stitched scars.

Some of what I write here is hiccupped on repeat, like an old record skipping over the same six words.

I cannot remember the last time I wrote in anger, but this time I am angry. The reason for this particular column is twofold.

It is a clearinghouse for my frustrations once again about the archaic reactions based on old and rusty rules of socially acceptable time frames for grieving born in another century. 

And in my “readership wish book,” it is warrior’s stand for anyone else out there who has been through the grief grinder and who may be wading through an ill-supported system as they make their way back to life.

I am here to remind you that your grief is unique, your recovery in your own way is unique and there will be hurdles. Be a hurdler.

What is the biggest chance you have ever taken?

I know what mine is. The biggest chance I ever took was a deliberate leap to find happiness again and I am appalled that, still, I meet up with careless-mouthed dream stealers in my bid for a happy life. 

No one in this whole wide world can tell me that I don’t know how life can change in an instant. I learned that lesson the hard way when I drove into my yard on a cold winter night and found myself helpless in the face of death.

But it was not the end of my life; it was just the beginning of a different one. I am driven to grow from all the walks of my life and anyone who knows the many, many hardships I have experienced, knows I am not a quitter. I am not wedded to my past. I am a strong and beautiful soul and my goal is to be happy.

And yet despite all my strengths I am weak. I am human. I hurt.

Suffering a loss, whatever it may be, is a unique experience for each of us. For those of us trying to find the happiness we want and deserve please don’t take us down.

Remember those six words. And I repeat.

“Mouth closed, ears open, presence available.”

Wisdom unfolds in sweet form

First of all, I am writing this with sea legs and if I didn’t feel the floor under my writing desk in my bedroom I would swear I was on the sailboat socking through the waves on Rainy Lake. It’s incredible how the human body continues to process motion some 20 hours after setting foot on dry land.

I suddenly have visions of the old salt “Santiago” from the novel “The Old Man and the Sea” and wonder if he had sea legs after his long fishing voyages.

As I quiet the bobbing visual that is my laptop screen I’m also thankful that sometimes “the more you know” is best left unknown in a dark place.

I was sitting in an outhouse on an island campsite on Rainy Lake doing my thing Sunday night after a long day’s cruise, as the last slices of light poured in through the cracks of the old wooden door at the dimming of the day and making it hard to see.

I already was batting zero with my little shred of toilet paper but if I’d have realized I was sharing limited and personal space with a very large brown recluse spider, dangling as it were just outside my peripheral vision, my screams would have disintegrated the structure and my sailor friends who were sitting around the camp fire, would have had to build a new “poopatorium” for the campsite.

The incredible event would have become part of the adventurous log of sailing stories that include the “Bagel Incident” I heard told by “Sailor T” this weekend.

Thankfully my captain waited to tell me about the arachnid until I was far enough away from the outhouse to save them all a lot of construction work. He is wise in sweet form.

I have a “bucket list” and although the remote Kettle Falls Hotel on Rainy Lake wasn’t on it, everyone else should add the amazing destination to the register of wonderful spots to visit.

It was the happening place to be Saturday night as crewmembers of the Rendezvous Yacht Club docked their fleet and weary bones there after the annual 25-mile “Kettle Falls Regatta.”

Lucky me to be first-mate on the “Morning Dove,” for my inaugural Kettle Falls race where I fast-tracked my way to understanding that on a sailboat a “leech” isn’t as gross as the one you get between your toes and “aft” is not the slang term for the time of day that comes post-lunch. A “sheet” is not what’s on my bed and “boom” is not just a verb—and the noun can knock you off your feet if you’re not paying attention.

Saturday evening was something out of a storybook for gals like me who don’t get out much in life to experience the new and unknown. I was mesmerized by the hotel’s history and the entire and entertaining world of the Kettle Falls tradition that becomes the Yacht Club members after they lower the main and lift and alight the atmosphere there with a glass, a song, and plenty of spirit.

I was sitting in the moment on the hotel screen porch happily listening to guitar music, tapping my foot to the rhythm, and holding the warm hand of my captain and thinking about the times I have second-guessed whether or not I deserve all the good things I want out of life. 

Sometimes those things are as simple as a day off and sometimes those things are much more important in my life and yet remain for one reason or another in neutral while I debate outcomes and unknowns instead of going with what feels right.

How many of you reading this right now can relate?

Go buy a bag of “Dove” individually wrapped chocolates.

Sailing home across the lake on Monday afternoon, my captain and I took a snack break and each opened our chocolate and read each other the caption on the inside of our wrappers. It’s uncanny sometimes the messages life gives us if we just listen.

Later that afternoon we crashed for a power nap at anchor on the bunks across from each other in the boat cabin and as I was just about to saw off for my “15,” my captain looked over at me and repeated the message he’d read earlier.

"Give yourself permission." "You could write about that,” he said with a smile.

Wisdom unfolds in sweet form.

Variations on the 'last tack'

Sailing has sparked a fresh start in so many ways for this gal, who is standing up and cheering because her ship has come in. 

I am happily involved as a budding member in the Rendezvous Yacht Club and learning as much about life and myself as I am about the master art of sailing.

I have spent many years reading books and studying philosophies that revolve around the “power of now” and other modalities that harness my thinking into the moment at hand and away from the yesterdays and tomorrows and unknowns.

Learning to sail on Rainy Lake these past few weeks has done more for my focus on the present than all the books I’ve ever read or ever will.

Wind can shape the land, shift the desert, move fires across forests and drive you crazy when you are having a good hair day.Wind is both my teammate and my opponent and is becoming a most intriguing source of study for me in watching the waves on the water.

When I am out there on the lake and playing my small part in the warrior bid to sail I find myself thinking back to the tall ships that brought our ancestors here to Canada from overseas and oh, the long and arduous journey it must have been to harness the wind across the expanse of an ocean.

Our people must have jumped up and down to see land and the final leg of the voyage.

I am smitten by the freedom from worry that sailing brings to my heart and soul and while the big ship adventures of the past intrigue me, I have yet to empathize with any joy those yesteryear passengers might have had in getting off the boat.

When I’m out there sailing, not one cell in my body wants to go home.

My captain understands this. I suspect all sailing captains understand this.

My captain and I have often talked about the “last tack” that must occur before heading to shore and how he often wants to put off coming about on that last tack as long as he can because he knows the world will slowly creep back in on him once he steps off the boat.

Aye.

The reality is of course that we all have to get off the boat and back to our worlds and each time I step off onto the dock I try to do it with intention and not regret.

So far I am infused with such a sense of well being when my foot hits the dock I really can’t imagine not welcoming whatever is waiting for me.

Of course, I can say that now.

Recently in my neck of the woods my intuition waved a red flag of caution in the seconds before I opened the porch door and my fear of the unknown was the reality I found in the porch. 

What was that I wrote last week about dogs?

“We (and me included) in our fear of the unknown could take a life lesson from a dog.”

“Note to Self” and “Dog Lesson #2”: Do not leave an anxious dog in the porch during a raging thunder and lightening storm when you are away from home.

The doorframe into the house was in shreds and the metal threshold and flooring were torn off at the landing into the kitchen.

One dog looked guilty while the other one just sat there shifting his gaze back and forth, refusing to make eye contact with me.

I’ve often thought “Cash was lacking a few brain cells but that day he was smart enough not to look at me and the “Medusa” snakes emerging out of my hair when I saw all the damage his cohort had done trying to get herself in the house and away from the storm.

Right then I wanted to eat my copy of the book “Peace is Every Breath” by Thich Nhat Hanh in the hopes that it would calm me down.

Thanks to my good Dad and the inventor of wood filler, I think the door will recover.

I also think “Dot” is scarred for life in a storm but if I ever need to get rescued out of a cave blocked by boulders, I’m sure that dog would qualify as the “jaws of life.” I am amazed she still has teeth.

And life goes on. Here’s to another last tack and on to new horizons.

My youngest offspring, whom I often forget is only on the cutting edge of 22, is off to greater adventures in southern Ontario prior to University start-up next month.

She is the epitome of a city-driven soul and the small town life—no matter how fantastic it is for the rest of us—has never been in her blood.

Sail on Heather!

Followers make good teachers

Sometimes I think I’m “all that” and I am!

And then I do idiocy and dig my bicycle out of a two-year storage, plunk on a helmet made for a bigger brain and pedal like the dickens (because I was going to be late) the 8.5 km to work.

About two kilometers into the stupidity was when I rolled my eyes to the wind and said out loud in my self-deprecating voice things that I shall not repeat in public. My saddle bones were smoldering from bike seat friction, my lungs were on fire, and I’d lost feeling in my right hand from gripping the hand bar too tight.

I may be over zealous sometimes but I am not a quitter.

About four km into the madness, as I brewed up a new language of expletives, I became aware of an unknown creature running behind me on the country road and spewing loud, guttural huffing noises.

A large black bear with sharp teeth loped its way into my imagination and I knew if I turned around I would realize my worst fear—I was about to be his breakfast.

Many times I have been in my car on this same road minding my own business when a hairy, matted beast such as this has tromped out of the bush to stop and stare menacingly at me as I drove by.

On that morning as I listened to the hungry panting carnivore close in on my apple bottom, I didn’t think I had any energy left to escape.

Never underestimate yourself.

Without looking back I tore off like “Whinny the Race Horse” at the stretch to the finish line and a bag of oats.

Before I knew it the huffing sound faded and I was far enough ahead to risk looking back. I had my middle finger sign at the ready and was churning up a few choice words as I turned to look over my right shoulder at the loser.

The black thing and its long tongue flapping madly from side to side still was running at full speed towards me.

It was my dog, “Cash.”

Never in his life had he left the yard by himself except to take a pee in the field next to the house. This 4 km journey was for him a blind race on faith to stay close to me. 

When I’m at home working in the yard, Cash follows me everywhere I go. He braves meat-eating gnats and the summer heat to stay near me. When I am inside the house, he will lay as close to me as the dog rules allow. Even when I’m in the “loo,” he will move from his spot in another room I’ve been in and into the hallway outside the bathroom.

My initial reaction was anger at the dog for following me on the road and yet, why should I have been surprised to see him desperately racing to my bike and me that day.

Dogs come into our lives with joy unbounded and teach us the meaning of true devotion. They rest themselves against our souls and make us a part of theirs.

And if someone out there believes a dog has no soul, it is my firm belief they’ve never really loved a dog.

I caught myself in sudden shame after one or two angry shouts to my dog that day because I realized Cash was only doing what was in his heart and the dog rules did not apply to his reasoning about staying close to me.

We (and me included) in our fear of the unknown could take a life lesson from a dog.

“If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.”

The view of the captain and crew

In general terms I do not like ants. They show up inside the house where they are not welcome and on occasion there is the one ant that is so much bigger than I expect and it freaks me out.

But on the other hand ants also fascinate me and I have great respect for their fortitude in the world.

Their load restrictions bar none, they have incredible focus, and despite formidable and recurring odds ants don’t dally. They strive to rebuild a world they want to live in. They don’t lie at anchor or drift in life when things get messed up.

They are captains of their own ships.

There comes a time in our lives when we have difficult decisions to make in order to get where we really want to go. The winds of change affect us all. How we make it through these often-stormy times depends on the set of our sails.

My very favorite author Mark Nepo wrote;

“Discovering who we are is like breaking a trail up the side of a mountain. Yet the deepest friendships begin when we look into the eye of another and discover that they have been there too.

We carry whole worlds within us as we brush by each other in the supermarket to read mayonnaise jars. The entire drama of life churns in our blood as we rush underground to catch a train. We are always both so known and unknown.”

If a few months ago someone had predicted that come summer, besides having a very happy heart, I would be learning how to sail and be in a sailboat race at the same time, I would have said they needed new batteries for their crystal ball.

But who am I to roll my eyes at what’s in store for me. My beliefs in the Universal Plan are well known. It swallowed me whole in January and then challenged me to carve a new path to the peak—and carried me some—to reemerge stronger and into a beautiful open sky.

I discovered once again that taking chances is worth it and I also learned a little more about what it really means to live in the moment when I took part Saturday in the Rendezvous Yacht Club’s “Mermaid Rock Regatta” as a very green thumb crew member of the “Morning Dove.”

I had the time of my life navigating and watching the sails tighten close to the wind as I learned to coexist with Mother Nature.

And I have a whole new respect for the wind (or lack thereof) and the sailors who venture out in “egg-fry on sidewalk” heat to sweat navigate an often dead calm courses purely for the love of the game.

The lessons I learned were many and most of them could be applied to life as much as they relate to the art of carving out a workable sailing path with the lake wind. 

Little did my Captain know that his shipmate teetered on making an appearance that morning at the docks as she paced back and forth in front of the mirror making petty excuses on why she should stay home.

I kept trying to start my inner trolling motor. I’d get it going a little bit and get on track and then it would quit and I was paddling and paddling and having trouble getting to Point B.

It was all about anxiety and my comfort zone and it sickened me. I realized that my comfort zone where everything was predictable and I was always safe at home meant that if I didn’t take chances I would have no beginning, no middle, and no end to the story of how I came back to life.

Tony Robbins is right. “If you change nothing, nothing changes.”

And as I was sitting on the boat that day fully present in my happiness, I looked over and my Captain was looking at me and was grinning too.

I wanted to stand up and recite to the seagulls from the poem “Invictus.”

“I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul!”  

Mark Twain penned, “20 years from now you will be disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the one’s you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Someone very special to me has Twain's mantra on the wall in his office and by all accounts it holds some of the best advice I’ve yet heard.

Sail on.

Homeland security division on high alert here

Short, sweet, and to the point.

That’s my goal as I write this at 4:30 a.m. on a Tuesday—paddling madly against the tide in the procrastination bay of time frames for my column.

I’m not sure where the last week went. I lost track of it at “Hello” and then was whisked away by the infinite chores in my neck of the woods.

I often think that even 24 hours of sunshine wouldn’t be enough time for me to get done all the things on my list.However there one “to-do” I don’t have to worry about around here and that’s homeland security.

I have my own four-legged officers and they run a very tight border operation. Who needs a high tech system installed when there’s two skunk-bomb sniffing, wild animal chasing, squirrel and chipmunk patrol canine units whose only fee is a daily dish of dry kibble and the occasional scratch behind the ear.

I am one lucky lady. My world is protected by the dog equivalent of the Paladins of Charlemagne’s court in ancient Rome.

Even at 2:30 a.m., in otherwise quiet times in the country, I can be raised from the dead of sleep by the warrior dog whose sniffer works overtime under the open kitchen window where he lays on his blanket in the house.

Whatever it is outside that walks in noiseless wild animal shoes triggering “Cash” to jump out of his dream world and into a barking frenzy, must be scared to death. Heaven knows the ceiling in my bedroom has more than one set of fingernail marks where I’ve clung like a petrified “Sylvester the cat” in a Bugs Bunny cartoon when my homeland security system went off while I was asleep.

Every once in a while I think I would like to own chickens and let them “free range” the farmyard, until I see what happens when a pigeon makes one wrong move by landing on the ground here. My chickens would never have a moment’s peace with “Dot” on shift.

Even a snake’s skin shed by its owner has no chance of deteriorating in the summer sun as nature had intended. If Dot sniffs one out, she snaps it up and whips it around in her jaws until it’s in tatters and poses no threat to the safety of international peace.

“Mr. Groundhog” didn’t know what hit him the other day either when Dot spotted him sitting on the woodpile cleaning his buckteeth.

I happened on the scene while walking to the barn on a mission and caught a glimpse of the little rodent’s wide-eyed surprise as Dot, in her Usain Bolt impression, sprinted across the farm yard in world record time and in a flying leap cleared the wood pile and disappeared behind it taking the groundhog with her. 

Within seconds she bolted back over the woodpile with the mortified groundhog in her fangs. I expect it was experiencing what it felt like for me at the Emo Fair one year when I was thrown about on the “Tilt-a’ Whirl” ride.

The only difference is that I survived the ordeal. In a scene from the movie “The Quick and the Dead” suddenly I had a groundhog carcass to dispose of.

If Dot had had her way, she would have guarded her rodent prize until she was old and grey, and there wasn’t much I could do to distract her from standing over victory other than lock her in the house while I disposed of the critter.

However, as I soon found out, chucking the woodchuck into the bountiful grassland marsh that layers my property here certainly was not the answer.

Two days later while hoeing the garden I looked up to see Dot hovering over the puffy groundhog cadaver in the middle of the yard after she had been on a search and retrieve mission. 

Burying it in the field with a shovel six feet under wearing a “hazmat” suit was my only recourse to preserve the standards of homeland security set by the canine soldier that Dot is.

Often while on a scouting operation to the edges of the farm border, Dot will return black as night with dirt and I know some encroaching gnawing mammal has likely met its maker before it had a chance to set up camp.

Short, sweet, and to the point. 

Listen a little harder to their stories

In his book “Illusions,” Richard Bach penned, “You teach best what you most need to learn.”

I write about a lot of life’s little quirks, home runs, jagged points, and ocean waves. I’m not sure I do this to teach anybody anything.

In fact I write to help heal my life and learn from my somewhat windy journey. However my readers often tell me that what I write about helps them, too. I appreciate their feedback very much.

Today I miss my grandparents, Joe and Florence, who died in 1996 and 2006 respectively.

They made me a very rich woman, though not in the “bullion” sense. And though it be true that I live on the farm where they once did and I am land rich in a smaller sense of the word “acreage,” this also is not the prosperity I now attend to.

I’m talking about the “helping Grandpa in the barn” rich, the “lunch at Grandma’s on Fridays” rich, the “listening to them talk about the past” rich, and “all the lessons about life they taught me,” rich.

I once asked Grandma what she thought the most important life lesson was that she could offer me. She said, “Tell the truth.”

I live by that rule as best I can.

My grandfather taught me not to refer to anyone as “she” or “he,” but to use their proper name. I still am learning to do that.

There are days, though far less frequent than when I first moved to this house, when I come home from town and walk in the door and the smell of  “Juicy Fruit” gum tickles my nostrils and I swear my grandmother’s spirit has been here, checking in to see how things are going.

I always hope she likes what she sees and that the old place still feels like home.

I shake my head at how much time has passed—and seemingly quickly. So much has happened in my life since 2006 and sometimes I feel like I have just begun to live again—and of course once again, I have.

Funny enough I still find myself on a graduating path to change my surroundings to reflect me.

I stepped into a fresh goal path to that end recently, fueled I suppose by the newly shingled roof on this aged farmhouse. Strangely the old white siding, peeling in the sun, was tempered a bit after a 40-year-old scabby roof was made anew. 

So I started to think about changing up color and space and found myself in discovery of cabinet drawers and old trunks that still contained some of the “old world” charms of yesterday. Interesting how that is still possible after six years.

As I was perusing the charisma that spoke to my grandfather’s DNA of keeping everything, such as vintage Massey Ferguson tractor parts boxes stuffed with the old broken piece he’d replaced, I suddenly longed to ask him more about his life as a boy and as a farmer.

I wanted so much to again listen to him talk about the old days of logging the bush with horses and building fires to keep warm on cold winter days. I wanted to ask him all about the barn and what he thought I could do to save it from the winds of time.

I found a rolled up felt pouch lined with countless knitting needles laid carefully by size for the next time my grandmother would have been looking for the one to complete her latest knitting project.

And then there was the sewing kit—a beautiful small wicker box layered on the bottom with buttons, oh the buttons, and filled with old thimbles and darning needles laced with bits of thread from the last repair.

I touched everything in that box and my longing to ask my grandmother about the women who taught her how to quilt and sew, flowed out of my heart. And I wanted to listen again and again to her tell me about how this old house was moved here on a trailer bed in the 1940s.

I wanted to ask both of my grandparents about everything they could remember about their lives, so that I could write down the things I had missed and thus not have so many answered questions.

In his song “Smile As He Goes Home,” Kim Churchill—a most amazing singer/songwriter from Australia who performed at Cornell Farms in mid-June—sang about the importance of the older generation and the value of their legacies and to connect with them before it’s too late.

I did do that with my grandparents and I have much to be thankful for in what they taught me about their lives and how my own has unfolded in their light.

I still wish I had listened a little harder to their stories. Don’t miss your opportunity to do that with the people you love.

Act the way you want to feel

Monday, June 25, 2012

I have a photograph of my late grandmother Florence Drennan on the wall facing where I sit and write. The photo was taken in 1929. Grandma is 14 years old and one of eight young girls in wool cloche-style hats trying to be still for the photographer. Some of them are laughing. My Grandmother has an ear-to-ear closed mouth grin and looks ready to bust a gut at something funny that must have been circulating among them that day so long ago.

I found the photograph among my Grandmother’s things after she died at the age of 91 in 2006. It’s my all-time favorite photo.

It resonates a “carpe diem” lesson for me. The fresh young faces whisper to me the message about not wasting time waiting around for the right moment to do something that makes me happy.  I am reminded to live out loud and that I deserve to be happy.

I think we all deserve to be happy.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about happiness, having recently been introduced to someone who among other attributes just finished reading “The Happiness Project.”

On Page 23 there is a Buddhist quote, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”

I’ve had the same book sitting yet unread on my bookshelf since I bought it shortly after it was published in 2009. I started reading it yesterday.

A counselor I saw in late January while I was on the bleeding edge of a personal tragedy told me outright that I deserved to be happy. At that moment when all was dark and cheerless I really didn’t appreciate the happiness warrant for my life but I soon discovered that he was right and that he was talking about the attitude I take to my life table of contents.

“No deposit, no return.”

I believe in and I love myself. I think I’ve done a very good job of coming back to a full albeit new life, while honoring the one I had to leave behind on that brutally cold winter’s day. I’ve worked very, very hard to do that because I believe I deserve to be happy.

Some people have said to me, “That was fast.”  I try not to let the comment hurt my heart because I know the archaic reaction is usually based on the old and rusty rule of socially acceptable time frames born in another century. But it hurts anyway.

None of us really has any business making a comment like that to someone who has been through the grief grinder. This much I know is true.

It’s very easy to sit in yesterday. There’s no challenge in doing that. The tape reel is recorded and burned and doesn’t mind replaying for us as many times as we would like to sit in on it.

And for all my self-care work there are still times when the past would have me sucked into its movie where I am welcome to mope until everyone else thinks it’s time for me to move forward and direct my own play.

Moving forward through the intersections of life is risky. Look both ways and go.

It is my belief that grief, no matter the source, is not meant to be overcome. I don’t think we are supposed to conquer grief, but—to paraphrase the poet Rumi, to treat it honorably because someday somewhere somehow it may be clearing you out for new delight.

The balance is tedious, constant work. Sometimes I do it well, sometimes I do appallingly, but I will never stop striving for everyday happiness again.

Life is windy and as my new friend reminded me, “You can’t change the wind, but you can adjust your sails.” Thank you.

I may be a child of the wind to my dying day, but I’ve got a big sailboat and her name is “Bring It On.”

The bond around here sticks like glue

Monday, June 18, 2012

The news has probably been out there for a long time but I just found that our ear lobes never stop growing.

That’s just great—there goes one more part of my body headed south without my consent.

Perhaps I could postpone the imminent downward droop with duct tape. Goodness knows the super adhesive is my back-up plan for putting other things in their place.

I’ve used duct tape to hold my pinky toe against its digit neighbor so it didn’t hurt so bad after I broke the little buddy kicking a big rock that I couldn’t pick up.

I’ve also used it to tape extra car keys to the underside of my car, although know that I’ve made that a public announcement I’ll be forced to find another locations for said keys.

I’ve also used duct tape as a substitute for a hair removal system on my upper lip.  I only did that once.

I seem to recall that my ex-husband, Peter, used duct tape to wrap my Christmas present. After the flat-stare look on my face, he only did that once as well. 

 

As an entertainment technique I’ve used it to cement my five-year old grandson to the kitchen floor. It was his idea, although I’m sure he got the inspiration from his Granny, who is well-known in her neck of the woods for her (albeit empty threat) cautioning thrown to her mischievous little peppers, that ignoring the house rules will result in being duct-taped to the wall.

My grandson had a rip-roaring time in his attempts to extract himself from the vinyl flooring and in the end required the assistance of his “taper” to wiggle free.

Oddly enough the experience did not deter him from challenging the house rules five minutes after he was re-mobilized.

And all I heard after that was “Can we do that again, Granny?”  In my mind’s futuristic eye I pictured my grandson standing at the front of the class during “Show and Tell” at school as the teacher asked him to share what he’d done over the weekend and him blurting out in pinching detail that his grandmother had duct-taped him to the floor. The teacher would make one call and I’d have a child advocate counselor on my doorstep.

And while I did not follow through, I will admit that I desperately fought the compulsion to duct tape my daughter’s 18-month old golden Labrador to the side of the barn after it ran like a wild racehorse through my yard headed for my garden, during a recent dog-sitting weekender.

My own canine capers, which stood motionless on all fours with their jaws dropped open and struck stupid by the visiting terror, I think would have helped me secure their nemesis after she bowled them both over during a flying leap over my picnic table.

Using my Alpha voice I threatened to duct tape the dog if she didn’t settle down, but my Hurricane Tribe must have tipped her off about my meaningless uttering.

However I did put Mya on the end of a leash and tried to walk the excitement out of her. The result was my upper torso thinking it had just been “dragged down the street by two Great Danes.” I came home dragging my knuckles on the gravel road and duct taped my popped-out shoulder joints back into their sockets.

Currently, as I sit here thinking about how to end this column I realize I am pulling on my ear lobe.

What are some of the best duct tape decisions you ever made? Sometimes you know right away when you do that. Sometimes it takes a bit of looking back over your shoulder to see that you did.

In this moment I cannot lay claim to the latter.

I looked back over my shoulder to see if I’d left the roll of adhesive on my dresser and a big wad of my nice long hair got stuck to a wide upended piece of duct tape that was sticking up from where I’d wrapped my shoulder joint.

Help.