Judy Price is Writing

At long last there is a warmer feel to the air and a sunnier outlook.

At least it is Spring today!  A gift to enjoy, and I did. 

One daughter is overseas and the other leaves tomorrow to join her sister, before embarking on an adventure further abroad.

I have been one of those very fortunate parents to have both children living close by. 

Being a mother of girls, and a single woman, it was especially gratifying for me as we all grew our relationships into friendship. 

How special is that!!!

Soon I will feel their absence.  Tomorrow in fact.

Easter without them will not be the same.

I have commented in earlier posts that holidays are lonely times without a partner.  Even more so without children to share each festive season.

Just need to change it up!  I have become quite adept at doing that in recent years.

Nothing stays the same.  That applies to me and my life as well.  

Perhaps I am a late bloomer, much like our April daffodils this year!

Better late than never . . .

Where do I begin?

My week in the sun gave me more than I anticipated.

All four elements were experienced simultaneously.

Earth under my feet, fire from the sun, water overhead from passing clouds or in the sea, and air continually embracing me with warm breezes.

My eldest and her delightful company provided me the rare opportunity to connect with her and experience our relationship in a new enlightened way.

I will not get any more personal than that in my writing here, just to say a wonderful soul entered our lives enabling us to find our way to peace and understanding.

What more could I want from one week?

The inner voice I mentioned in my last post was more difficult to hear on this trip than I had imagined.

There were distractions.

One moment on the beach reminded me of the words I had last written and ironically it occurred on my last day there.

That evening the voice I heard was outer rather than inner and I believe those words were also gifts from God . . . .

Sun, Sea and Sand

First day of Spring according to the Vernal Equinox, although the temperature is off the mark. 

Not long from now, the air, as it warms, will carry all of the sweet scents of this season.

Unlike yesterday, when my mud hike through the Rouge Valley, although sunny, was accompanied by a very cold wind chill.

My group encountered ice-covered trails mixed with mud-covered ice boulders, and bogs of thick muddy clay forests to negotiate.

As I navigated an outdoor obstacle course, our allied forces with UN sanction were conducting air strikes to implement a no-fly zone over Libya.

More lives will be lost in the quest to ultimately stop the genocide the Libyan dictator is perpetrating on his own people.

Quite the opposite from the peaceful revolution scenario that unfolded not too long ago in Egypt.

And then of course, there is the grave situation in Japan.

When I absorb the grief in this world, I become like a sponge, and I can no longer function normally.  The heaviness of it all weighs me down. 

Laughter does not come easily, nor does sleep.

My body, mind and emotions are exhausted.  Restlessness stirs me to find healing.

It is time to seek the sea, sand and sun which will enable me to transition from winter to spring.

As smooth grains of sand caress my feet while soothing waves serenade my soul and warm sunlight bathes my being, I will listen to the inner voice that can only be heard in the stillness.

It seems that the past few times I have been trying to find some balance outdoors, the damp cold seeps in and chills me to the bone. 

My immune system then becomes compromised, allowing a virus to take hold.

Before Christmas it was a sinus flu whose lingering after-effects took a very long time to dissipate; this past week the stomach flu, whose course is thankfully briefer .

As I have no choice when illness occurs, I give in to it.

During recuperation, as I regain my strength, the investigative tendency to track my own behaviour to determine where, when and how I might have picked up the ‘bug’ kicks in.

I begin by looking at the length of incubation normally required for a certain type of virus to grow.  Then I count backwards from the appearance of my first symptoms.

Based on where I was at that time I ‘guess’ how I was exposed.  Then I try to determine what I can do differently in the future to avoid a re-occurrence.

What can I say, other than I have an ‘analytical’ mind.

This particular time it seems ironic to me that I was with naturalists who were teaching ’tracking’ skills in the snow.

I not only learned that I am continually observing connections in our natural world, I also realized that my investigative mind is always ‘tracking’ my own behaviour, along with the unwanted microscopic organisms that choose to inhabit my being at various times!

Tracks in the snow   

What a winter this has turned out to be! 

I recall wishing for snow one year ago to enable my snowshoeing event to go ahead.  Not this year!! 

Most are wishing for spring right about now, and the rest have either escaped to the heat in the southern hemisphere or are die-hard snowboarders/skiers.

Then there are the horrific reports of genocide occurring in Libya, where those oppressed people are being crushed for attempting to break free from an abusive dictator’s regime.

Waves of change are spreading throughout the Arab world as most of us elsewhere helplessly watch and wait to see how our governments can influence a positive outcome that will minimize casualties.

And of course the annual Oscar preparations are underway as I write this.

Tonight I will be watching as several superb films and those involved in their creation will be honoured and rewarded for their impact on viewers like me.

This will be a diversion as chaos in other parts of the world continues.

When devastating tragedies occur around me, the only control I have is to find my balance.

Inner peace enables me to pray for others in the universe who need comfort in their suffering and strength in their struggle.

It is a small gesture that combined with others empowers all.

Just when I thought, “What’s the point?”  I found a reason to watch the Super Bowl tomorrow!

Normally, I look forward to this ‘game of the season’. 

Not this year. 

With other world events that seem to trivialize sports by comparison, at least for me, this will prove to be more than a good distraction after all. 

Shaun Suisham, although some spell his name Sean, will be kicking for the Steelers. 

And the ‘kicker’; he is Canadian! (pun intended) !!

Now, for all those Americans who thought the CFL meant the U.S.A. ‘college football league’, we, north of your border, do know the game of football! 

Some of the rules differ, that is all. 

Personally, I find your game more strategically exciting. 

The CFL is actually the Canadian Football League, although Shaun was never part of it. 

Being such an illustrious high school player in the Ontario small town of Wallaceburg, Shaun received a football scholarship which took him to the states.

The rest is his history as the saying goes, and tomorrow, who knows!

There may be more history in the making.

I, for one proud Canadian, will be watching!!

As a blizzard whitens this cityscape,  my thoughts turn to another Snow City, this one a popular cafe in Alaska.

Of course the temperature on sunny September 5th in Anchorage was far above the minus double digits experienced here today!

One of the local men, a few evenings prior, had given me a tip on how to avoid the long wait to get a table at the diner, provided I wouldn’t mind sitting at the counter for breakfast.

As a single, and used to eating lunch and dinner at various bar counters throughout my stay, breakfast in this same fashion was eagerly anticipated.

I enjoy conversing with whoever happens to be on either side of me when I am seated at a bar/counter, especially when the person is an entertaining and interesting man.

This meal proved to be no exception.

After lining up behind two male tourists, a counter seat became vacant.  When neither man moved to take it for himself, I asked politely if either would mind if I grabbed it.

When they realized that I was there alone and not waiting for two seats together as they were, they both apologetically ushered me to the counter before anyone else behind me could take the coveted spot.

I thought to myself, too bad they couldn’t have sat on either side of me, attractive and ‘gentlemen’ as they were!

However, after ordering a deliciously huge breakfast which I patiently waited for to indulge my appetite, a very friendly man sat beside me, and immediately began a conversation.

He had flown from Fairbanks to Anchorage for the day before heading back.

As he was interested in learning my story, I shared that I was divorced and single, which motivated him to reveal photos of his lovely family.  He is a happily married Utah resident.

While enjoying a friendly and funny breakfast hour, I do believe he was sincere when he unexpectedly volunteered his opinion that any man, including my former husband, was a ‘fool’ to let me go!

As it turns out, being a pilot with a major airline, he was waiting to fly the aircraft back to the lower 48.  This was his regular route when in Alaska.  

After more enlightening exchanges, which accompanied my delicious meal, I was ready to depart.

When I walked away from  Snow City Cafe, my body, mind and soul were all very well-fed!  

Last summer, my first full day in Alaska involved encounters with moose; four of them to be exact.  One bull calf, two cows and one bull on the Coastal Trail.

Thankfully during this time, I was on a bicycle.  At least I felt safer on a bike.

Being alone, and cycling along as I turned around a curve on the trail, I really don’t know who was more surprised!

Me or the bull calf moose who was to the left of me and advancing toward me.

We both kept going as his ears perked up, and all of a sudden he turned around in front of me and scampered speedily into the bush where his mother was feeding.

I cycled past and turned my head to see them both amidst the trees. 

I contemplated stopping to take a picture of them, and then remembered what I had been warned the day previously.

Moose can kill a person with one kick of the leg!

I was glad he had found his mother instead of passing in front of me.

Then she would have come out of hiding to find him, and that is not an encounter I care to think of!

As I carried on, not far from my destination I saw a female moose or cow walking in the same direction as me on the same side of the trail.

To my left I also glimpsed a pair of bull moose antlers among the trees.

This time I stopped, readied my camera and snapped two photos of her.

When she had joined her mate on the other side of the trail I pondered whether to continue on or turn back, when another cyclist appeared behind me.

He had not yet seen a moose on the trail, so when I told him about the four I had encountered, he was eager to continue hoping to snap a shot.

I followed him until the remaining trail took its toll on me and my bike which had ‘flat’ tires! 

Now I love to hike, but not with a bike in tow.  When I realized that I had two more uphill miles to go like this, having already cycled nine, I decided to turn around.

The mostly downhill nine miles back were fast and fun!

Until I got to town when I needed to go slowly uphill once again to get to the bicycle rental shop.

That is when I had the brilliant idea to walk the bike the rest of the way.

As I stopped and stepped off the bicycle onto the sidewalk, which was soaking wet due to an overflow from an ‘overhead hanging-basket plant watering machine’, I slipped and fell scraping my knee!

Bleeding, dirty and wet from both water and sweat after biking eighteen miles, I was subdued to say the least!

Welcome to my first day in the Last Frontier. . .

As the old year draws to an end and the new one is about to begin, I am ready for a new beginning where an ending has occurred in my own life.

For the past few years, I have mistakenly believed that my ‘last love’ would be my ‘soul mate’.

In this the autumn of my life, several months of it have included an attraction to someone who felt familiar, known and comfortable.

His soul was like a mirror to mine, reflecting back to me what needed healing in my own.  I did not realize this truth at the time, which often happens without the benefit of ‘hindsight’.

This individual guided me through my grief when my mother died, which deepened the bond I felt.

It was a shock; actually paradoxical to me, when I discovered that with all of the comfortable feelings I had for him, passion was not one of them.

In spite of that reality, had he allowed me to do so, I would have continued on that path hoping to fall ‘in’ love with him.

Knowing my struggle with this paradox of how I could feel such a comfortable connection to this man’s soul but not passion for him, a friend of mine recently quoted to me another woman writer’s thoughts regarding ‘soul mates’.

What resonated with me was the idea that a ‘soul mate’ is actually someone whose soul mirrors one’s own, to reveal what needs to be learned about oneself.

In my case, the familiar depth of pain I connected with in this man’s soul, was telling me that mine needed healing.  I know that now.

Being a caregiver throughout most of my life, I was not looking at myself, but rather was trying to share my own perspectives which I hoped might help him to heal his pain.

The truth is that only he can heal his soul in his own way and time, should he choose to do so.

My responsibility is to heal the pain in my own soul.

I had already begun this process several years ago through embodying my emotion in the poetry I composed which I am not posting online.

Then I continued healing in nature through hiking. 

I encompassed this as a ‘task’, wrongly thinking that the more disciplined my approach, the faster the healing would occur, which has had pros and cons.

The physical effects are tangible, yet the emotional relief is temporary. 

In the beginning, I was ‘running away’ from the pain of my grief while hiking quickly on the earth that grounded me.

My approach has since changed to one of just ’being’ in nature while walking.

My blog writing, which began as part of my grief healing process, has now become a passionate pursuit that brings great enjoyment to my life.

With the revealing insight I have recently acquired (thanks to my good friend) and shared here, I am now ready to sincerely thank each ‘soul mate’ who has entered and left my life for the incredible gifts that their souls have provided to my own.

Additionally, I have drawn closer to the ‘spiritual light’ that is the most powerful healing tool of all.

Above all else for me, this is my one true ‘last lasting love’.

One week today is Christmas!

A few weeks ago I wrote that I was ready to inwardly and outwardly prepare for His arrival.

In the interim, illness has prevented me from shopping, decorating, festive dinners and parties with friends; the outward trappings.  

However, I am happy to report that this ‘downtime’ afforded me the opportunity to be still and listen, to travel inward more easily.

As life would have it, one of my siblings needed surgery during that time and is now recuperating. 

My quietness allowed me to send constant healing prayers and positive wishes.   

We might not all be able to celebrate together this year, yet will be close in spirit.

Now that I am ready to play ‘catch up’ with some holiday traditions, I found the last Christmas card my mother gave me the year before she died.

Seeing the words of love and well wishes written in her own steady hand brought tears to my eyes and a smile to my lips. 

I could hear her voice speaking to me as I read what she wrote.

Her card is on display with the others I have received. 

Her favourite wreath now graces my door.  Little reminders of her are all around me. 

My Dad is always in my heart, especially during this season. 

He was Santa for his family every year throughout his lifetime!

Feeling the ‘pinch’ with less than a week to go, I expressed my thoughts to my children and their outpouring of support brightened my day.

Messages of faith, hope, love and peace are Christmas blessings which are sent in a multitude of ways, just when needed the most.