I had a realization yesterday as I dug out the manuscript for the book I’ve been working on for the past year.

Recently, I wrote about my fear of writing. Yesterday, I realized it’s maybe not so much the writing it I fear — I love writing, it consumes me. And that’s the problem. That’s what I fear.  Being consumed by the writing.

I have always felt consumed by words. As a young girl, whenever my mother tried to talk to me when I was reading, my response was seldom gracious or kind. It was more along the lines of  ‘leave me alone. Can’t you see I’m reading?”  (honest. I didn’t know better. I was a teen!)

At school, I’d often spend my recesses walking around the schoolyard reading Ayn Rand’s, The Fountainhead, or Dostoevsky’s, War and Peace. And yes, the contradictions were lost on me at the time!

In my 20s, I started writing my first novel. It was about a 20 something married woman who gets hi-jacked to the cosmos to meet the man of her dreams only to discover, he wasn’t her husband. What to do? What to do?

In the final throes of my marriage, I thought I might be able to save it by writing romance into it. I decided to tackle writing a Harlequin Romance. To finish it, I sent my daughters over to Vancouver Island to their both sets of grandparents for 3 weeks while I house sat a friend’s home at Jericho Beach in Vancouver. I didn’t tell anyone I was in the city. Barely even saw my sister. I was so consumed with finishing that novel I didn’t want to be interrupted.

For three weeks I lived and breathed those characters and their stories. I was in heaven.

Coming up for air I discovered there really wasn’t much of my marriage to save, but I did have a completed manuscript.

And then I did what I’ve often done with completed things. I let it go. It wasn’t easy. Particularly the marriage part… Though I did send the manuscript off to one publisher who liked it and asked for some revisions.

I never did the revisions.

When my daughters were younger they always knew that any time I was sitting at my computer, fingertips flying across the keyboard was not a good time to disturb ‘momma bear’. She might be growly.

And I could be. Growly. Very very growly when interrupted.

And that’s what I’ve discovered. It’s not the writing it. It’s the being consumed by it.

Which begs the question… so what? Why are you letting fear dictate your actions Louise?

Hmmm…. good question. I do not want to be driven by fear. I want to be drawn by courage to do the things I love.

And I love writing. and I love the stories of the people I’ve met on the ‘other side’ of the street. Those incredibly complex, heart-driven, sensitive souls to whom life has given lessons that transcend the commonplace into that space where miracles happen — everyday.

See, one of the things I really felt working at a shelter is that it truly was a miracle that everyday, a thousand people woke up and took another step. They had lives most of us can’t imagine. Experienced things most of us could not endure. And yet, there they were, every morning, getting up and walking on.

It was, and is, a testament to the power of the human spirit and our collective will to live, to ascend hardship and pain and suffering, to cling to this fragile thread of humanity that holds us with a strength greater than even that of gravity’s capacity to keep us standing up.

As I write I realize — this has been my ennui. This has been the fissure of unease that has been quietly seeping through my being present to the wonder and joy of life. I am not writing the stories that move me. I am not sharing the awe and wonder I found working at a homeless shelter.

When I know better, I do better.

I have been the master of my own discord. I have been the keeper of my joy.

Yesterday, my eldest daughter called me and said, “Get over yourself mom. Your stories are amazing. People need to hear them. Stop stalling.”

I thank her. Because in her words I am reminded — To inspire my daughters to live their lives on the outside of their comfort zones, I need to be living mine fearlessly, passionately in Love on the other side of playing it safe.

Time to unleash myself. Time to set myself free. Time to let go and shine.

Namaste.

When we are born the earth shifts just a little bit. The space that once held no evidence of our presence opens and we are here, the start of our ripple, the beginning of our difference.

As we move through life, our ripple continues to move with us, the space we fill shape-shifting to reflect the words we speak, the things we do, the actions we take. Sometimes, our ripple is a series of beautiful, perfect concentric circles moving outward from our source. Sometimes, our ripple wobbles and bobs, loosing its definition in the rough waters we encounter.

And always, we are the source of our ripple. Always, we are the ripple-maker.

Not just some of us. All of us. Each and every one of us. We are the ripple makers.

Today, my daughter Alexis tells the story of a man who once found himself at the homeless shelter where I used to work. He wasn’t a perfect man by any means, but then, nor was he the most imperfect man who ever lived. He was just a man. A man with his own back story, his own life story, his own set of circumstances that, at the age of 55,  lead him to a place he never imagined he would ever end up, a homeless shelter.

In Terry’s case, except for the last two weeks of his life which he spent at a hospice, the homeless shelter was the last place he slept. The last place he called his home. He didn’t like it there, at the shelter. He didn’t like living amidst 1,000 people, having no privacy, no say in what he ate or where he slept or how he drank his coffee even. But then, most of the others didn’t like it any better either. Living in a homeless shelter isn’t something to be liked. In fact, it’s best if you don’t like it as that could give you the impetus to move on, to sort things out so that you can find yourself away from the place you never imagined you would end up.

For Terry, his finding himself away from the shelter never happened. It’s not that he didn’t try. He did try. Very hard. He turned up at cash corner every day hoping to be picked up for odd jobs. And when he wasn’t working, or looking for work, he volunteered constantly at the shelter, letting people onto elevators, showing visitors to where they wanted to go, leading the newcomers to the people they needed to see.

The challenge for Terry was, cancer had a bigger say in his destiny than he had planned. And in the end, it was the cancer that took him on May 31, 2011.

Now that could be the end of the story, except, here’s the thing about ripples, once they’re released they take on a life of their own. They float outward through time and space, bumping up against the ripples of others, creating waves in unknown places, stirring up spirits in unseen waters.

That’s the thing about ripples. We all make them, but none of us control their reach or impact or duration.

Sure, the Prime Minister or President or Pope know their ripples are mighty, but what they cannot know is how and where and when and what the reach of their ripple will cause someone else to do to create a new and different, and sometimes desired and sometimes not, new ripple from their reach.

We gotta be careful with our ripples. They have staying power.

I often use the story of a police officer whose words made a difference in my life when working with women and men who have experienced abuse and are searching for answers. I met the police officer at a time when I was rippling in fear and self-loathing and confusion because I knew the man who had promised to love me forever was lying, cheating, manipulating and scheming — and I was scared. I went to see the police to ask for help but because of the circumstances, there was little they could do. As I was leaving the police station, the detective with whom I’d been speaking said, “This isn’t love. Love doesn’t hurt like this.”

At least, that’s what I remember him saying. Maybe the words are not exactly how he put them, but I knew at the time, he spoke the truth. But I was already too deep, too lost, too frightened to listen deeply.

Fast forward another two years of living hell and the man who promised to love me is arrested and I am reeling in the aftershock of release from the confines of that emotional hurricane. As I sit on my bed, crying and shaking and shivering and praying for guidance, the words of that police officer come unbidden into my mind. “This isn’t love. Love doesn’t hurt like this.”

And that’s when I knew the truth. I wasn’t healing from a love gone wrong. I was healing from abuse. Because no matter how deep I dug into the things he’d said and done, I was always digging into lies. From hello to good-bye, I love you to I hate you, you’re beautiful to you’re ugly, he was the lie and there was no truth to be found in searching for my answers in him.

I had to look within me.

It is over ten years now since those dark days of abuse. And still, the ripple of that officer’s words resonate. Love doesn’t hurt. People hurt. Eachother. Themselves. The world around them.

And always, we have the choice. To make our ripple one of love and harmony, peace and joy.

Or to create discord, anger and pain.

Me, I know the ripple I want to make and so I do my best to ensure my ripple is always a reflection of what I want to create more of in my life.

My daughter wrote today of a man I once knew who in our brief encounter reminded me always that while we may not have control of the winds of change around us, we always have control of how we navigate rough waters.

And in our passing through, we create a ripple that even after we’re gone, can continue to move out into the world and inspire others to do the one thing we are born to do, Live. Fearlessly. Passionately. Completely in Love.

I burnt a pot of rice last night. Yup. I burned rice.

Now, you may think I’m revealing this to demonstrate my lack of culinary skills but it wouldn’t be true. I’m a good cook. In fact, at moments, I can be inspired in the culinary arts. It’s just, when doing the mundane, I sometimes forget to pay attention and in my lack of focus, accidents happen. Like burned rice.

It’s not that I burned the pot dry. It was dry to begin with. I hadn’t yet put the water into the pot. Just the rice. And then, I turned on the heat and remembered something I needed to do in my office. Left the kitchen. Got distracted by the piano, which still sits in the hallway since I rearranged the living room a few weeks ago. Slid sideways to get through the gap between the piano and the wall, which lead to the inevitable rumblings in my mind about my poor planning on moving it out of the living room in the first place (though the living room looks so much nicer without it!) which lead me to think about the email I need to send to check-up on the woman who is receiving the piano once she gets finished cleaning up and restoring her flooded home.

Right. Two things to do in my office. Call my bank to order new cheques (something I’ve been meaning to do for weeks now) and mail the friend of the piano woman. Oh, and I should send that application off to the University where I want to take a course. Oh right, gotta write the letter to go with it first. I really should make a list. Where’s my iPad. I’m trying to teach myself to keep track of my To Do’s on my iPad. Oh right. I left it at the office downtown. Pen? Paper? Is there not a single pen in this house that writes?

Forget it. I’ll just check my email. Oh look. A cute video about a cat thinking it’s a dog. It’s only a couple of minutes long. I must watch it now. If I don’t, I’ll forget and I could use a good laugh right now. And there’s always time for laughter. Laughing, I watch the video and think about sending it off to family and friends when I see my daughter’s car pull into the driveway. Oh good, she’s home just in time for dinner.

Dinner!

The rice!

Too late.

Smoke is billowing down the hallway, into the dining room, living room… everywhere.

Note to self. Check the batteries in the smoke detector. The fact it didn’t go off during that conflagration is an indication of its non-working state.

Do you have any idea how acrid and clingy burnt rice smoke is? Or how it sticks to the bottom of the pan, adhering to the metal surface like a barnacle to a whale. Ain’t no removing it. Which means, I not only burnt the rice last night, I lost the use of one of my favourite pots.

Which also means, we didn’t have rice with the delicious shrimp sauce I made with tomatoes, onion and Pernod and leftover Squash soup I’d made for C.C. the day before in an effort to appease him for having given him my cold while we were on holidays. Instead, we ate pasta. It was already cooked. See, I’d made the pasta when I made the shrimp dish and then decided rice would be so much better with my sauce. More delicate. More able to soak up the flavours. So, I’d put the pasta I’d already cooked aside and set the pot of rice on the stove, only to end up eating the pasta I’d begun with. It tasted okay, but you know, rice would have been so much better!

Note to self. Plan ahead. Stay focused and don’t let dogs who want to be cats fool you. A cat is a cat. A dog is a dog and never the twain shall meet.

I never did get my cheques ordered nor did I send off that application. I really should make a list. Now, where did I put my pen? Are there no blank pieces of paper in this house? Oh wait. I’m trying to teach myself to use my iPad for list-making. No. Wait. I’ll have to do it later. I forgot my iPad at my office downtown.

Oh well. It wasn’t all a disaster. My daughter loved the shrimp sauce with pasta and I did get to enjoy a few moments with her before going off to a community association meeting with a co-worker. When I walked into my co-workers house where I was picking her up, she asked, “What’s that smell?”

“I burned my To Do List,” I replied.

Yup. Burned it right onto my retina’s so that I at least don’t forget to order new cheques and get that application off. Deadline’s coming up and I don’t want to forget about the course I want to take.

Maybe I should write myself a reminder on my iPad?

Now where did I put that silly thing?

Oh well, in lieu of finding my iPad, here’s the video I watched!

The other day, my daughter Alexis wrote about how she just couldn’t make it to the washroom in time.  Her blog, Shit Happens, is hilarious, and insightful. In her vulnerability (revealing you pooped your pants on the way home from work kinda takes down all the walls) she discovered that her fear of ‘looking good’ to others got blasted away in the aftermath of her revelation. The next day, Alexis shares that

The best part about pooping your pants in public is that after suffering through the humiliation of that experience, there is hardly any shame-inducing scenario that one could dream of that could ever elicit that level of embarrassment again.

This morning, reading Ann Koplow’s blog, What I’m Avoiding, reminded me of Alexis’ insights –when we come clean with our fears, when we open ourselves up to ‘being real’ by fearlessly facing our trepidations, our self-concerns, our judgements and our inner lies — we live life on our own terms.

And, seeing as this is my one and only life (that I know of), living it on my terms is way better than living it on someone else’s.

I think it’s one of the things I admire about my daughter the most — she is fearless in her willingness to go inside and get dirty. And in that state, she is willing to open up, be vulnerable and let go of shame and self-limiting beliefs and behaviours that would keep her from living on the wild side of being free.

It took me a lot of years to get there — and there are still days when I struggle with appearances, wrestle with doing the right thing versus the expected, jostle with turning up regardless of what others say by tuning out the noise of what I perceive to be their condemnation, criticism, judgement and/or expectations.

My inner critic can be deafening — and when I give it free rein, it is deadening.

Because, when I’m giving the critic free rein, I am not listening to my heart. I am not hearing my soul calling me to breathe, to be, to surrender and let go of my thinking to make way for my being, present, here, right now.

I have been struggling with direction lately. Struggling with a sense of ennui that is robbing me of focus, attention, and commitment to doing the things I am truly passionate about. I’ve been drifting.

Sometimes, it is okay to drift. Sometimes, the drift is where the quiet finds us. And in the quiet, we hear our soul calling us to be still. To stop running and simply slow down to a walk or even a crawl. And sometimes, in the drift we find it’s not the winds of change hurling us about, it’s our fear of change that keeps us moving away from where we truly dream of being.

And in the drift I find the nexus of my ennui.

I have a book I started working on last year — Lessons in Love: Everything I know about being human I learned at a homeless shelter. — Lessons in Love chronicles the amazing world of the homeless shelter where I worked — its people, its happenings, and the love and humanity I found working there.

I’ve been avoiding working on this book.

It’s time to come clean. To face my fear. To recognize that ‘avoidance strengthens fear’ and in my avoidance of writing Lessons in Love, I’ve strengthened my fear of writing.

I’ve been drifting for far too long. Filling my time with ‘otherness and otherlies’ that don’t add up to a whole bunch of anything, to avoid facing my fear of writing.

Because seriously… that is what has risen as I sat in the silence of my meditation this morning and let my inner guide give voice to my fear.

I am afraid of writing!

Kind of a funny fear when you know I write here every morning.

But Lessons in Love isn’t this kind of writing. It has a structure that I have been rebelling against. Time to take heed of my friend Maureen Doallas‘ words which she wrote me some months ago — don’t begin with the lessons. Begin with the stories. The stories are what makes Lessons in Love powerful.

I am a story-teller.

I don’t fear telling stories. What I fear is giving advice. Sounding like I know or have the answers.

I don’t have your answers or anyone else’s. I know that.

But I do have mine. And when I get still, real, real still. When I stop running from my heart, I can hear my soul calling me to simply tell the stories without trying to make them be the answer.

The stories are not the answer, but they do illuminate the darkness of homelessness, poverty, pain and suffering with the one thing I know is always the answer — Love.

Because what I learned working at a homeless shelter is easy to sum up — No matter the question — Love is always the answer.

Namaste.

My Catholic roots are woven throughout the memories of my childhood. Friday evening Rosaries, listening to the clicking of the beads as they passed through my mother’s fingers, her whispered Hail Mary’s as she prayed the decades and began the cycle again and again as I impatiently waited for it to be over so my sister and I could go out and play.

Saturday afternoons in the quiet of the church where my sister and I helped her ‘do the flowers’.  The careful carrying of the vases of week old flowers to the sink in the back of the sacristy, the pouring out of the stale water, the careful selecting out of still living plants and the placement of the new flowers that waited by the sink, wrapped up in old newspaper.

Then there was Sunday morning with its inevitable rush of getting four children all dressed up in Sunday best, out the door and in the car and down the road to church. Sitting on the hard benches. Swinging my legs, looking around, being poked by my sister and poking her back and then, the inevitable admonition from my mother to sit still, be quiet, pay attention. On Sundays, there was no breakfast until after the 10am Mass. I prayed the sermon would be short, the greetings afterwards of neighbours and friends even shorter. Always, my father would meet someone and invite them back for breakfast. Always, they came. My father’s breakfasts were legendary.

Coming to Barry’s Bay to visit Andrew and Ursula has become a tradition C.C. and I treasure. In the past, we have come in the fall to witness the turning of the leaves and to spend the ebbing of the summer season with our hosts as they prepared to return to Calgary for the winter. Andrew and Ursula, like so many people of Polish descent, are fiercely proud of their heritage. In 1859, the Kashub’s fled Poland to settle in the Barry’s Bay area in what is recognized as the first Polish settlement in Canada. Streets, towns, valleys, rivers, lakes all bear the mark of this proud people and their efforts to settle what was then a wild and unpopulated area of the country.

As a young married couple, Ursula and Andrew brought their family to Barry’s Bay every summer to the secluded bay where their beautiful summer home now sits. Back then, the family lived within the confines of a one room cottage that served as kitchen, eating area and sleeping quarters for their family of 5. Today, the land Andrew’s father purchased over 60 years ago with two friends, has been subdivided into 4 lots where Andrew, his brother, Conrad and two other sons of the original owners have built their summer retreats. Surrounded on either side by Crown Lands, there are no other cottages on the bay. It is quiet, serene and peaceful. And it is steeped in Polish tradition.

Whenever we’ve come in the fall, we’ve visited the site of the Karpaty Scout Camp a place where Ursula came as a young girl and later as a young wife to share her love of the outdoors and Polish tradition. For 50 years, the Camp has been the site of hundreds of a jamboree where young boys and girls come to the banks of Halfway Lake where the Karpaty is located, to learn the ways of the forest, and always, the ways of the Catholic church.

At the Karpaty is a “Cathedral in the Pines” where every Sunday during the Scout camps, mass is celebrated outdoors.

Yesterday was the beginning of the Scout Camp jamboree. It was also the first mass of the season and the Bishop, as well as the Polish ambassador were in attendance. We had to go.

It seems that no matter how far I have come from wondering where God lived from Monday to Saturday, and wanting to know why girls couldn’t be priests, the rituals of my childhood run deep within my body. As we sat outdoors and the congregation prayed and the priest recited the liturgy in Polish, the responses came naturally to my mind.

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,

Holy, Holy, Holy,

Dominus Deus Sabaoth.

Lord God of Hosts.

Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua.

Full are heaven and earth of thy glory.

Hosanna in excelsis.

Hosanna in the highest.

It didn’t matter that everyone around me was speaking Polish. It didn’t matter that I didn’t understand a word of what they were singing. The essence of the words lived within me.

Yesterday, I sat amidst the pines, listening to the mass recited in Polish, and felt connected to life, to nature and to a faith I have long ago left behind as I learned to carve my own spiritual path in the world.

And yesterday, I was reminded that no matter what path I carve, it is the security of my roots that gives me the freedom today to explore my path without fearing where it will lead me. For in my roots is the unshakable belief that even though I no longer practice the faith of my childhood, this is a world of glory, and this is a life to be lived in joy and Love in a universe of great mystery and wonder.

We fly home this evening. West across the Canadian Shield. West across the prairies towards the rugged ridges of the Rockies that line the horizon, and, as one rancher said, “block the view”.

The view here at the edge of the lake is peaceful. Grey on white clouds spread themselves across the sky, drifting aimlessly by. The lake ripples where bugs flit and fish jump to catch them. A Bluejay calls from the feeder and a chipmunk chatters in a tree.

We are flying home.

Yesterday, Andrew took the ‘younger women’ on a boat ride down the lake, through the narrows into Madawaska River. As we drifted slowly down the placid channel, his brother, Conrad, appeared on his SeaDoo and invited me to climb on. I ditched my compatriots in the boat and climbed aboard.

What a blast! We sped across the surface of the lake, water pluming behind us. The sun was red hot. The water wet and refreshing against my face where it sprayed up to hit me. We sped down the river to the far end where two dams block the flow, creating energy for the valley. Back again, up the river, under the bridge in Combermere, through the channel and out into the wide open lake where the wind had picked up and the waters were choppy.

“A miracle is when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A miracle is when one plus one equals a thousand.”
― Frederick Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace

Yesterday was a day of miracles and wonder. A day where doing the math added up to a whole lot of magic.

From skimming across the lake on a SeaDoo to walking barefoot across a blanket of pine needles into the forest to spy into a birchbark hut some unknown wayfarer created years ago in the quiet of the sheltering pines, to laughing and chatting amidst a group of friends celebrating the birthday of someone dear, to sitting on a dock with the delightful 12 year old granddaughter of the ‘birthday boy’ kicking the water with our feet and blowing bubbles from a giant wand to watch them float effortlessly down towards the water, it was a day of miracles and wonder.

And when it seemed it couldn’t get anymore full, we drove back from the birthday party in the silky darkness, down the dirt road towards the cottage, the trees pressing in on either side. As we reached the meadow that spreads out at the corner, just before we turn along the lake shore, we spied a deer standing at the side of the road. I turned off the lights and we sat in the dark watching her move slowly to the other side.

And that’s when we spied them.

Fireflies. Hundreds of them. Tiny bubbles of light shimmering in the darkness of the meadow beside the car, floating on the night air.

We sat breathless, our eyes wide as we watched the magic of their flight. Slowly, lights still off, I drove forward. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

When we returned to the cottage we were all still buoyed up by the beauty of what we’d witnessed. We sat and chatted and shared a glass of wine and laughed and spoke of the wonder of what we’d seen.

And then, we four ladies decided it was time. A new day had just been born and it was time to celebrate with one last dip into the lake. Shedding our clothes and donning robes, we traipsed down to the dock, turned out the flashlight and dove in.

Above us the stars littered the sky, a blanket of twinkling lights cast across the black velvet night like diamonds on a jeweller’s cloth. We found the Big Dipper and its brother. Cassiopeia. Aries. And a host of constellations we could not name all danced above us, their brilliance slipping in and out of the Milky Way that reached far and wide.

But even the light of the constellations could not dim the joyful sparkle of the fireflies that flit about us, skimming across the water.

These are the days of miracles and wonder.

We fly home today. Back to where my daughter is still displaced from her apartment. Back to where people are still digging out from the debris of a flood that swept the everyday happenings of my city away. Bact to where the Stampede goes on “Come Hell or High Water” in defiance of Mother Nature’s blast. Back to where my home calls me to return and be once more at peace.

We fly home and with me I carry memories of wedding vows and time with family. Of connecting once again with good friends, old and new. Of laughter and joy and relaxing in the sun. Of rain showers falling in the night, of chipmunks chattering and leaves rustling with the stories of the breeze.

And the magic of fireflies reminding me that there’s nothing to fear in the dark when I open my eyes to the miracles all around.

I have always wanted to visit Bancroft, Ontario. Don’t know why. It is just a name of a town (pop. 3,700) that sits on a map somewhere near Ottawa, a forty-minute drive from Barry’s Bay where we are spending the week.

Yesterday, I got my wish. C.C. and I traveled to Bancroft to check it off my list of ‘places I must visit.’

As far as picturesque or artsy or interesting goes, Bancroft doesn’t rate high on the list. Highway 60 drives into the main street, running for two blocks along the York River before forking, east and south. There’s a playhouse that has a full summer theatre playlist, a McDonald’s, DQ and at the far, far end of downtown, a Canadian Tire. And, there’s the IDA drugstore where I experienced a first when stopping to buy a can of bug spray.

“Are you 60?” the woman behind the cash register tentatively asked as she rang in the sale.

I think the look of consternation on my face confirmed her trepidation in asking me the question. “No!” I promptly and vehemently replied. “But he is,” and I pointed at C.C. who was standing a few feet away. (My motto – always deflect when faced with confusion, bad news or simply the truth!)

“She’s always throwing me under the bus,” he jokingly replied, graciously accepting that his age got us the ‘Senior’s Discount’ on the day.

“I’m heartbroken,” I told him over a late lunch at the MIrrors Inn on Lake Paudash, a beautiful waterside restaurant 15 kilometres south of Bancroft. “It finally happened. I’m looking my age.” Oh, that and the fact, I qualified for a senior’s discount.

Ok. Well not quite. My birthday is in December — that’s when I qualify officially for senior’s discounts for the under 65 set. Until then, I can keep throwing C.C. under the bus.

Perhaps that’s why I finally did go to Bancroft — to be reminded of the necessity for humility in my life.

I have been feeling sensitive about my upcoming birthday. Sensitive and somewhat leary. I have always loved my birthday. Always celebrated every age with gusto. But 60 sounds so much older than anything I’ve been before — and it is. It’s a brand new decade and obviously, as I discovered yesterday, a brand new opportunity to experience ‘senior’s moments.’ But, I have been pushing back against the fact my birthday is one of those ‘marker events’ this year. Pushing back against the inevitable — and obviously visible — pull of time to draw me foward into another decade.

Time to let my resistance go. Time to celebrate that this age isn’t about getting older, it’s about celebrating all that I’ve experienced, and learned, upon this journey. It’s about acknowledging that with age comes wisdom, and in my wisdom, I am blessed to know life isn’t about what happened in the past, or even how much past there is to remember (or forget). It’s all about making the most of what is happening now and cherishing what is.

What is true for me today is that I have an amazing life. How blessed am I!

I am loved. I love. Deeply. Passionately. Completely. I have family and friends whom I cherish and who cherish me. I have work that fulfills me, that calls to my heart, mind and soul. I have the freedom to express myself creatively, however I choose because I live in a country in which freedom is a way of life. A country in which freedom of the individual to speak, act, do and be is at the foundation of what it means to be Canadian.

I am free.

I went to Bancroft yesterday. It wasn’t a red letter day or even by any stretch of the imagination. But it was fun. I got to spend it with the man I love, experiencing time for just the two of us to connect, to enjoy, to cherish each other.

And it was a day to remember — I’m only as old as I think.

Which means, I get to re-think turning sixty. I think I’ll make it, turning wisety — old enough to know, wisdom doesn’t grow on trees, it grows through age. And I’ve got the years to prove it!

And in the meantime, until that day in December when I can officially say, “I’m wisety”, I’ll just keep throwing C.C. under the bus. He won’t mind. He loves me!

“I was already searching,” Viva, our guide of the Madonna House, tells us when asked what made her choose to join the Apostolate community in Combermere. It was 1985. Guessing her to be in her late 60’s, I wonder what drew a 40-something woman to the monastic life. The same thing that calls people today, she later tells me. God.

It is what she finds most appealing, satisfying, nourishing about living such a communal lifestyle — knowing she is living God’s purpose for her amidst 100+ others walking the same path.

It is no small decision to live this way. It takes a period of discernment, For Viva, 9 years. You begin as a trainee and then, after two years, commit to the promise of — Poverty. Chastity. Obedience. — at which time you become a novitiate. Throughout the following years, there are many chances to commit to the promises, and to have your faith challenged, until you know, throughout your entire being, that this is the life God has called you to live.

Poverty. Chastity. Obedience.

These are the three commitments at the foundation of the Madonna House Apostolate. Founded in 1947 by Catherine de Hueck Doherty, who came to the Combermere area with her husband to retire, the Madonna House Apostolate are a community of

‘lay men, lay women, and priests, united in Christ to form a community of Gospel love and expressing this love in the works of the Apostolate.
Living the Gospel. Evangelizing through our everyday lives. Serving in hospitality and availability.
We are pilgrims…traveling in poverty to find security only in Christ… journeying in chastity to love and serve Christ in every person… living in obedience to be concerned only with God’s will… belonging too the Catholic Church and faithful to its teachings.” (from the Madonna House Apostolate brochure.)

For an hour Viva leads Ursula, Tamara, Renata and I through the beautiful grounds and orchards of the community, sharing its history and its present day, her gentle sweet voice as melodic as the birdsong that emanates from on high in the mighty pines that stand sentinel in the forest. We cross a wooden slat bridge, ‘that Catherine walked every day’ Viva tells us, through a swampy bog where a bullfrog croaks and dragonflies flit with abandon. The sweet, succulent smell of honeysuckle and pine embraces us, the warm moist air tickles our skin.

It is peaceful. Calm. Meditative.

We walk through the forest at the edge of the water into a clearing where two tiny cabins sit, surrounded by towering pines, one at each side of the clearing. The smaller cabin was where Catherine lived when illness began to steal her away from the daily happenings of the community. Eventually, it became her spiritual advisor’s abode when she moved into the larger, one room cabin on the other side of the clearing. It is here that she spent her final years. It is here she wrote and read and prayed. It is here she died on December 14, 1985 after a long illness. It is here her spirit was reunited with her God, the God to whom she had devoted her life, and her life’s work, to celebrate and honour with every breath she took.

Like the faith that held her up, the room is sparse, simple, modest. It is not a faith of gold and gilt and ornamentation. It is a faith from deep within her soul. A faith that continues to inspire her community of Apostolates to give up their worldly goods and walk amongst us serving however they can to ensure the poor of the world receive the care they need.

I took a walk in the woods yesterday. I wandered the orchards and gardens of a place where God speaks softly and sweetly through the hearts of those who have made the commitment to follow His path through their commitment to Poverty. Chastity. Obedience.

I was moved. Touched. Inspired.

I felt my heart widen. I felt my breath deepen. I felt Love embrace me with every step I took deeper into the mystery and beauty of this place that transcended the every day happenings of my world and transported me to a time and place where God lives in the hearts of all.

I am sitting in the screened in porch, looking out over the lake. It is raining today, a soft sultry rain that lays moist against the earth. A gentle breeze whispers to the leaves stories of the places its been, the things its seen through its travels. I watch the raindrops spit against the surface of the lake, the birds become quiet in the rain.

I am peaceful.

Yesterday, I went swimming. I was surprised.

Normally, C.C. and I journey here in October. It is usually one of our friends last weeks at the lake house before returning to Calgary in time for the winter season. Usually, the lake is ice cold and I am the only one braving (the locals call it ‘crazy’) its waters. Usually, I leap in, gasp and scream and curse the frigidness of the water and flail about for a few brief strokes before racing for the ladder at the end of the dock. It is exhilarating. Refreshing. Renewing. And it is cold. It makes me laugh and scream and dance about. It makes me feel alive.

From the frigid waters to the house is a hundred feet and I cross it fast to find comfort in the steam room which I’ve ensured is nice and hot before I enter the waters.

It is my ritual every day we are here in the autumn and while I pretend it is excruciatingly cold, I love it.

Yesterday, the waters were welcoming. Not hot. Not cold. Welcoming. Silky smooth against my skin, they felt like butter melting on warm cinnamon toast, buoying me up with their velvety arms as I swam out from shore towards the middle of the lake.

It was relaxing, refreshing, renewing.

And when I climbed up the ladder to the dock, I lay against the warm wooden slats and let the sun soak into my skin, the air caress my legs as the conversation of C.C. and Renate and Tamara (our hosts two grown daughters) wafted around me. There was no place to get to. No need to be. Nowhere to go. There was only there, in that place where I was in the moment of experiencing the beauty and wonder all around me.

Later, after dinner, we wandered down to the dock and sat in the evening light. Pink gauzy clouds floated above, their reflection drifting lazily across the water’s surface. Two loons bobbed in the bay, a turtle slid across a rock and splashed into the water.

We laughed and joked and Tamara and Renata shared stories of the people on the lake, this lake where they have spent their childhoods and grown roots and run along the shore and swam in the waters and water-skiied and bbq’ed and snuck a kiss with a boy behind the barn and stared up into the star-filled sky late into the night. This lake that has witnessed the years pass from childhood delights to grown-up angsts and joys and moments to remember. This lake that has been a silent witness to the seasons passing. This lake that has, as Renata called it, ‘the taste of home’.

Eventually, the evening bugs began to thicken and the others walked back up to the house. Unwilling to let a moment slip away without my tasting of its treasures, I sat alone upon the dock and watched the sky turn from cerulean to indigo. A lone star peeked out from night’s blanket until I finally had to accede to the critters flitting all around. Bidding the night adieu, I let go of savouring the night and slowly walked back up towards the house.

Another day was done beside the lake, and my soul is soaking up the joy of having to be nowhere but exactly where I am, luxuriating in summertime at the edge of the water.

And I wonder. What if… I could carry the luxury of my soul into the city? What if amidst the concrete and the traffic noise, I let myself fall into the waters calling me to take a breath, to sit quietly at the end of the day and simply be present? What if, I expand my senses to embrace the memory of that moment, sitting at the edge of the water, feeling the night settling around me to allow myself to simply become, present where ever I am?

What if all I need to feel myself present to the world around me already is within me?

What if, I never need to go away to find myself where I’m at?

(ps — my little device that let’s me transfer photos from my iphone to ipad is not working. I’m going to work on getting photos posted so you too can savour the beauty of the moment with me)