Something caffeinated

Happiness is finding a coffee shop that is open in the evening. Finally my long drought is over! Or, as my sister aptly put it, I have "finally discovered the rare breed of small-town coffee shop." After many months of pining for a little place within easy reach where I could go in the twilight hours to relax, mingle and putter around on my laptop, a small coffee shop has opened in the downtown core that could effectively be the answer to my prayers. 

I discovered a long time ago, while I was slaving through my 5 year degree in Theology, that I do not do homework well at home alone. Where it is quiet. Where it is lonely. Where the silence itself is distracting. Where there is no one around to keep me accountable to do my homework. There any stray thought is an opportunity to be pounced on and eagerly taken advantage of, like a moth to a flame.  Destruction was only "one pretty light" away.

That was when I discovered that I actually focus much better in places where there are people and background noise. It's as though the bored parts of my mind, which would typically be doing cartwheels in my head when I try to focus on anything that does not involve them, get subconsciously distracted by everything that is going on in the background around me, allowing me to work in peace. It's my subterfuge on myself: distract the distracters hehehe. Of course the cup of caffeinated tea that finds its way inevitably into my hand probably helps as well.

Now that I have my evening coffee shop, I see many productive nights in front of me. It feels as though a part of my life has been made complete - coffee shop, where have you been all my life?  It's amazing how one little thing can make home feel more like home.

Something beautiful

Once upon a time (about a year ago) I discovered that one of my core values is beauty.  And by beauty I am not talking about manufactured attractiveness - the "if I visit my hair stylist and wear makeup for the pictures then maybe I won't be embarrassed to show my driver's license to everyone" perception of beauty, or the "I don't care who I date as long as he has a six-pack (and I'm not talking about beer), yum, yum, yum" deluded manner of thinking.

 

 No. The beauty I am talking about is the beauty of creation as demonstrated by the sun dipping behind the mountains setting the world on fire with an almost other-worldly glow. 

 

 

It's the beauty of a person who finally finds his or her self-confidence and learns how to smile from the heart. It's the beauty of a community that unites together and supports one another through tough times.  It is found in the simple and spontaneous moments of life.  It's when you see or hear something that just takes your breath away and you think to yourself "Ah, that's beautiful."

 

Beauty is all about perspective; about seeing the world as God made it and realizing that it is good.  It seeks to find the value in everyone and everything.

 

 



Another core value for me is "sanctuary".  And no, before the question comes up, I am not talking about a television show, a wildlife reserve for birds, hippos or iguanas, or the sacred interior of a church building (although the word could apply to all three, and I have watched the television show).  The "sanctuary" I am discussing is found in the silence, the stillness, the solitude; there is beauty there too.  But sanctuary for me is not simply an absence of people and of noise.  It is a state of being: of being completely myself, of being completely whole.  It is when I come face to face with myself and with God and see myself in perspective to Him and realize that I am loved and complete in who I am – even if the person who I am is not perfect and does not always act in a way that is beautiful. 

 

 

Sanctuary is an inner space where I feel a sense of worship towards the divine.  It is where I surrender and release the need to be in control and turn my eyes to the El Shaddai and in the process of losing myself in Him, I rediscover who I am.

It might be the influence of the these two values that have helped pique my interest in photography.  That or it was all the hiking with my crazy friend where we kept finding amusing photographic opportunities like this:

 

Either way, the fact is that I have become addicted to the feeling of finding moments of beauty, sanctuary, and yes even humour and capturing them in that instant so I can share the same wonder that I feel with the rest of the world.  When you learn how to look at the world in a certain way it becomes all the more amazing.

Something somewhere

 

If you haven't figured it out already, I will spell it out for you: I am a small-town girl.  I grew up in the heart of the Kootenays in British Columbia.  I was born in the same hospital my dad was born in.  I had the same teacher for social studies in grade 10 as he did too.  It's one of those communities where everyone knows your name, or at least knows someone in your family.  "Who are you related to?".... "Oh yes, I used to be good friends with them! We used to play pictionary together every Sunday night while the kids watch the weekly Disney movie on CBC.  How are they doing?  Tell them I said hi!"

When I was about 19 years old I decided I had enough of the third-party identification through my parents.  I wanted to be known simply as myself, and not as the daughter of so-and-so.  That's one reason I decided to move to Calgary.  It wasn't a place I necessarily wanted to go.  It was the big-city, too big, and I was a small town girl.  They had divided freeways with four lanes!  I remember the wonder and awe I felt the first time I drove up the Deerfoot, my brain trying to compute the logistics of four lanes all travelling in the same direction.  When I finally found a place to live, I decided to limit my experience of the city as much as possible.  If I was going to live in the North-West quadrant, then I was going to work in the north-west, and I was going to church in the north-west, and I was going to shop for groceries in the north-west, etc., etc.  I was going to join a small church and go to a small Bible college and lead as quiet and sheltered life as I could within the big city.  You can take a girl out of the small-town, but you can't take the small-town out of the girl.  Touché.

As the years went on I began to develop an attachment to Calgary. At first it was really hard for me, being away from the mountains and everything else familiar.  But as I began to explore and expand my horizons and take beautiful pictures like the one I posted above, of downtown Calgary from Edgeworthy park, the city began to feel more and more like home.  That process only took about 7 years.  Some things have taken longer, like a raising a child.

Now I am back to living in the small town that I grew up in.  And, to be honest, there has been a bit of an adjusting period here too.  Like the first time I went for a walk downtown after 5pm and realized that absolutely everything was closed.  It was a tragedy!  There wasn't a single coffee shop open, with the exception of Tim Hortons or the newly branded McCafé.  My broken heart is still trying to mend.

  

Something berry good

 

I have a fascination with berries.  Maybe it is due to my mountain upbringing, where every second berry plant you come upon the side of the trail is edible.  Or maybe I just think with my stomach.  But here in B.C. it is not uncommon to go for a stroll down the highway and BAM! in the ditch there is a daring bush full of delectable, juicy, ripe saskatoon berries just begging to be eaten on the spot.  Or to take walk near the beach by the tree line and ending up spending the entire afternoon huckleberry picking instead of swimming like you originally came for. True story.  And then there are the wild raspberries and wild strawberries - not as popular in some circles but a valid edible choice nonetheless.

 

The irony with this photo is that it was not taken in B.C., nor is it of an edible berry.  I took it in Calgary, AB near a place I used to work. I was fiddling around with my iphone on a lunch break, and these berries probably made me think of food.  After all, they are the exact colour and size of the huckleberry, which is my favourite of all the berries.  They have so much tastiness packed into such a small package, both tangy and sweet at the same time.  When you bite into them the flavour explodes into your mouth and fills it, and it is easy to get caught into the trap of eating them till your mouth turns blue. True story, many times.

 

The thing that I've learned about huckleberries is that not everyone appreciates them like I do.  If people have grown up in another province, say Saskatchewan, then the huckleberry is too tart for them.  Or maybe it's because the berry tends to grow on the sides of mountains, and people who have an attachment to the flat lands might hold a unconscious prejudice against things that will only grow in the not-so-flat lands.  That's another interesting fact about huckleberries - they refuse to be domesticated.  There is no such thing as a huckleberry farm, in the same way that there would be a blueberry farm.  No, if you want to pick a huckleberry, the best thing to do is to travel up a deserted logging road up the side of the mountain in your 4x4 and find one of those clear-cut areas that was cleared out a few years ago.  That's where all the best berries are.

 

This weekend I am going huckleberry picking.  And I am excited, because it is a family tradition.  And because I love huckleberries.

Something priceless

 

This is an old-school Sony voice recorder machine.  I would call it vintage, except I did some research and found out that most old recorder machines are now rendered pretty much priceless, which is a euphemistic way of saying "worth nothing even if it still works".  Which sucks, because this one still works.  It belongs to my mother, and it belonged to her father before her.  It's sort of like a family heirloom, except not. 

Currently I have been trying to sell this voice recorder on the behalf of my mother, as she is trying to downsize and this particular model has been cluttering up our storage room for a coon's age, which is a hillbilly way of saying "a really, really long time."  The problem is that this particular model is unique.  That is, I can't find it anywhere on the internet, even EBay, so chances of it finding a warm and loving home are looking slim to none.

Which is why it is currently sitting in the garage sale pile.  And if no one claims it there, it will head towards the dump.  The stinky, heartless, lonely dump.  Does anyone out there have a heart and want a priceless unique vintage voice recorder?  I'm sure it has at least another coon's age left of life.

Something about me

 

This picture says something.  Such as, I don't easily fit into a box, especially a small one.  Or, that all the world's a stage and we are only actors within it.  Or - at the very least - I am a goof, when I want to be. 

 

Of course, the picture also comments on the season: obviously summer since shorts are not usually winter fare in Canada.  The event: it's a place I would wear sandals and take my red purse (it seems I like pops of colour in my wardrobe), and yet isolated enough that no one seems to be staring at my obviously ridiculous antics.  The place must be old, since the moss is overtaking the abandoned rock platform I am standing on.

 

All of these inferences would be correct.  But what the picture doesn't say is that I was taking a walk around a historic island that day in the heart of the Kootenays, in British Columbia with a friend I met in Bible school.  On that island is a quaint little old home from the 1800's that was styled after a Russian Orthodox cathedral.  Outside on the lawn I found this rock base and pretended it was a stage for a performance.  In the midst of my "performance" that's when my friend snapped this picture.  And we laughed about it. And then we moved on.

 

Another thing the picture doesn't tell you is that my personality is not only goofy.  It is actually quite reflective.  I actually have a hard time blogging without spending time totally focused on my thoughts.  And as fascinating as those might be, they don't make for interesting pictures.  (Or do they.....?  Note to self: spend one entry posting pictures entirely related to my thoughts.)  To tell you more about my reflective personality I would probably need a picture like this:

 

What this picture says: I am a person who likes to journal in beautiful places.  I also like to take pictures of myself journaling in beautiful places.  I will sometimes hike by myself to these beautiful places just so I can journal.

 

What this picture doesn't tell you is that this place is only about a 25 minute walk from my home.  And that this particular day, as I walked up the path of the mountain, I had come across a bear.  In fact, I walked up behind one that didn't see me and quickly backed up so I wouldn't startle it.  Since it was blocking my path down the mountain, and I didn't have any bear spray, I decided to walk up the mountain instead.  Maybe not the best decision - but join me in my logic, which thought if I went up, maybe I could find another way down. 

 

The only problem was that when I had taken no more than two or three steps up the path, another big huge hunk of brown shaggy fur ran across my path away from me.  I had just startled another bear.  So there I was, trapped between two bears on the side of a mountain with only my journal to protect me.  I pulled out my cellphone so I could phone my mom and tell her where to find my body.  I got her answering machine.  Deciding not to leave a message (no point in causing unnecessary panic right?), I recalled what lessons I had been given in my childhood on how to deal with bears - the kind of lessons that all good rustic mountain folk receive.  Point#1: bears are more scared of you than you are of them.  Point#2: if you make noise while hiking, that will usually scare off the bear before you come upon them.  Point#3: Never come between a mother bear and her cubs.  Point#4: If a bear attacks drop to the ground on your face and put your hands around your neck to protect it. Point#5: Don't go hiking alone.

 

Since I couldn't do anything about point#5, and I had gotten lucky on point#3, I decided to take advantage of point#2, to trust that point#1 would remain true and I wouldn't have to deal with point#4.  So I started talking aloud, looking for a big sturdy stick with which to defend myself if necessary, while angling myself down the mountain, off the trail, away from the two bears.  I bent down to check one hefty looking branch only to find it had been rotted through.  Then I looked up to check on the situation.  Another brown furry face was staring at me. Was that a third bear, or the second back to take another look?  It looked like it wasn't sure if it wanted to run away, stay and stare at me, or attack.  Human burgers? I decided that it was a fantastic time to keep talking and walking.

 

So that was what happened before I took this picture.  I walked away from the bears, and instead of going straight home as most sensible young women would, I found a rocky ledge overlooking the valley and sat down and started journaling.

 

See what kind of stories a picture can tell!