DOWN BY THE LAKE

Today, I decided to expand my horizons by walking along the waterfront trail.  I've lived near this town for thirty years, but have never walked this section of shoreline.  Now that its hunting season, and I need a dryish place to start breaking in my new boots, (I'm not kidding about Camino III), it seemed like a good choice.

I wasn't expecting much.  It was a gloomy morning, and the pink tinge out over the island portended rain.  Still, I took the camera with me because you never can tell what you might see.

As I set out, words like spare and sere were in my head.  From the cold grey prison walls, to the hidden sun gleaming  bleakly off the aluminum surfaces of  a sculpture at the marina,  to the lake, already looking like molten lead, as it does when you just know its nearly gelid; everything spoke of limitation, of decline. I walked past the sometimes spooky, reputedly haunted, and empty asylum, hoping for at least a frisson.  But instead I saw a broken window transformed into a darkly beautiful mirror.

Form and texture have become pre-eminent, and everything is quite still. 

.

 This makes the colour that is left, wet green algae, duck feathers of impossible brilliance, garlands of  persimmon- hued bittersweet, all the more precious. 

 A strangely coloured squirrel stands out against the grey water.  We have black and grey squirrels aplenty, but sometimes interbreeding produces a redhead!

 The view out to the Island is like a Japanese meditation garden, and I could stand and look at it for a long time.

THE MOVEMENT CURE

Solvitur Ambulando.

We had our first hard frost of the season last night.  So, when I suited up for my walk, I had to find hat and gloves and some layers.  I'm in training again, as of this morning, for my next Camino, whenever that might be.  I was tired of being a slacker.  I've been pinned to my office chair for weeks now, which makes me feel creaky and stiff.  I had to walk on the road rather than in the bush, since its hunting season, and even though I have a jaunty red jacket, I've heard enough horror stories about stray shots and people going off half-cocked that I thought I'd take a walk on the tame side.

What a gorgeous crisp sunny day.  The frost rimes made it evident that even the humblest roadside weeds have fantastic sculptural forms. Now that the leaves are down, I can see the cloud banks which form daily over giant Lake Ontario, 20 km to the south, though capturing them effectively on film eluded me this morning.

I didn't overdo it.  I let myself walk at the pace which was comfortable. In the spirit of Making Time to Live I tried to notice every sensation in my body; the fingertips tingling with cold, the nose running, the tightness in my hips, the pains in my knees.   I wasn't fussing; just paying attention and trying to accommodate what was going on  with me.  I tried to stand up straight and tall as I walked along, trying not to look like a chicken with my rear end stuck out, on account of my tight back.  Pretending that I had a 15 kilo pack strapped on helped with that.  By the 3km mark I was walking more quickly.  None of the stiffness had gone, and my left calf had added a new note to the symphony of discomfort but I, the me that lives in this body, was feeling fine!  I decided to take a detour down a new road they are building in the neighbourhood, for some new houses.  The second my feet hit the gravel surface, everything lightened up.   The last half of the walk was much more enjoyable, as my gait had to open up and soften in response to the shifting, uneven surface of the clay and gravel base.  As if I could have forgotten how hard pavement is on a body!

Even though I'm a total NIMBY* about this new subdivision, there were some things I liked about the road.  I can see a new vista through to the big old farmhouse on a hill about 5 km away and ,right now at least, the disturbed soil in the ditches on both sides of the excavation has been colonized by some large, rough member of the mustard family, so there are banks of yellow on either side all the way along. There aren't any houses on the road yet so its a nice place to walk alone in a meditative sort of way.

Now that I'm home I can feel how the cold has seeped into my arms and legs.  It's invigorating!  I have stretched dutifully, and now I'm ready for another six hour stretch at the desk.  And I have a new vista on my mental horizon also.  In there, Camino III is underway.

* Not in my backyard

STORM AFTERMATH

Makes me believe in luck.

CHAOS AND RESOLUTION

All the leaves are down, thanks to the outer bands of wind from Hurricane Sandy.  We battened down all the hatches and made sure our emergency supplies were in order, because the prediction was that we'd be on the track of the storm, but a windy night gave way to a lovely morning.  We're waiting for the rain.  I have a funny feeling that there will be some drenched Halloween goblins and sprites out tomorrow night, trick or treating in the rain.

It is probably no accident that one of the mandalas I made at a workshop yesterday turned out to resemble the eye of a hurricane.  But it was representing order out of chaos, how individual waves (like snowflakes, I suspect no two are exactly alike), create a regular pattern, and are a constant.  Waves can be experiences, trends, mutations, but the overall impression is a comforting order.

And what I was thinking of while I was drawing was how I fell in love with the Cantabrian sea in Ribadisella ; sleeping with the windows open so I could hear the intake and exhalation of the breath of the sea on the shore.

MAKING TIME TO LIVE

Yesterday was a beautiful example of what makes Indian Summer precious.  Balmy; about 20 degrees celsius, sunny and cloudless.  A perfect day to be outside doing things which you love.  We took the dog for a walk through fields of milkweed gone to seed.  We go for that walk almost every day,  but the idea of impending winter when those fields will be hidden under a white blanket heightened my enjoyment of the beauty of the silky white fluff bursting from the seedpods, a harbinger of snowflakes to come.

After that, I went to the farm to see my apple loving pal, Chester; and audit a natural horsemanship clinic, with Neil McLeod, from Manitoba. Watching him make contact with horses in a way which made sense to THEM was inspiring.

The name of this post comes from another blog.  Making Time to Live is an initiative of a pair of friends living in Spain, the point of which is to remind people of how great it is to get out into the world and use their imagination and creative powers to create a richer life for themselves, and by extension, everyone who reads their posts and/or hangs out with them. If you read my blurb in the header on this page, you'll see that's close to the reason I started my blog.  So, I'm joining them!  Maybe you'd like to?

HOMESICK

I'm homesick for my blog. I miss writing, but I haven't experienced anything SO amazing that I wanted to tell you all about it.  I've seen amazing things, like a great rendition of Pirates of Penzance, at Stratford, the view from Rock Dunder, (which I've talked about before), the amazing colours of the autumn leaves; a convoy of eighty flatcars of military vehicles stranded on a siding, all because one of the gun turrets on a tank was swinging freely, posing a hazard to other trains on the adjacent tracks.  For want of a clevis pin, an army was lost??  But there has been nothing that really said to me--Yes, this is something I want to share with everyone.

I'm tempted to believe this:

But what I really want is the return of the ability to see the amazing in everyday life.  Although.....maybe an amazing adventure would jump start things?

PILGRIM AFTERGLOW

I was working downtown the other day when I heard a voice behind me; a woman just back from a trip talking to her neighbours....she'd obviously had a great time....

As I alphabetized the books on hold, my ear was caught suddenly by a phrase..."She wants me to do the Norte, but I'm thinking about the Via de la Plata"  Ah! I thought, no wonder she sounds so happy.  She's just been on the Camino!  Sure enough, when I turned (surreptitiously) I saw a stocky middleaged lady with a recent tan which spoke more of wind than sun; fleshy, freckled, strongly proportioned calves, and a t-shirt bearing a shell motif.  She was a pilgrim, alright, and a newly minted one at that.  I could practically see the nimbus round her head.    Later that day, a couple of books came across my desk, destined for a woman at another branch; one a favourite Camino memoir, and the other, a complete set of maps of the Camino Frances.  Another one, I thought.  I smiled happily to myself at the idea of another adventure launched, another challenge accepted, another lifechanging experience in the making.

This past week I've been sharing my home and environs with two friends from Oz whom I met on my first Camino in 2008. We've been talking non-stop, not just about the Camino, but I can't deny that its still a major topic of conversation, as we pick up the threads of the past, and actually have time to talk about things we saw, people we met, and the fun we've had together.  We've managed to enjoy ourselves in the present too!

 I heard a miraculous story the other day from a woman whose life has been changed by the walk, and she hasn't even left home.  Her family situation is a difficult one, and while her husband took some time to reflect by going on the pilgrimage, she prepared to leave him.  Now that he's back, she's guardedly optimistic.  "He's different", she says.  Long may it continue, I say.