Who Says 60 or 65 or 70+ is the New Retirement? Not Me! 💥
Forget about “golden years” and endless retirement parties! Did you know the top reasons people over 60 are staying in the game are all about doing work they LOVE and having the freedom to call their own shots? 💼✨
Yeah, that’s right! We’re not slowing down, we’re just getting started. Who wants to sit on the sidelines when there’s so much more to experience, learn, create and contribute? 🚀
Two months before I turned 70, I left the ‘formal’ workplace to cheers of “Enjoy your retirement!” But here’s the thing: retirement wasn’t for me. I craved adventure, new challenges, and the chance to make a real difference doing something that excites and energizes me.
That’s why I created the Radiant Bold Aging Masterclass: 3 Transformative Practices to Ignite Passion & Joy in Your Life Everyday! It’s all about rewriting the rules of aging and designing a life that lights you up. ✨
Are you ready to:
Ditch the outdated retirement script and embrace a vibrant, purpose-filled life?
Discover your passions, unleash your creativity, and tap into your boundless potential?
Connect with a community of like-minded adventurers who refuse to let age define them?
If you’re nodding along, then this masterclass is for YOU. Let’s redefine what it means to age boldly and joyfully! 🔥
I created the image a year ago for the 2023 She Dares Boldly Calendar – she continues to stir my imagination and fits well with today’s post.
The calendar page turns, November makes its entrance, embodying the silent prowess of a leopard stalking its prey, rich with anticipation and a deep, intrinsic knowledge. The Arctic winds, far from being mere specters on the horizon, now gently lap at the remnants of these gilded autumn days, whispering subtle reminders of an October snowfall that is gracefully receding into the embrace of memory.
Seated at my desk on this first day of November, I gaze upon an open calendar, its pages no longer saturated with the relentless demands of meetings, deadlines, and the constant pressures of projects to complete and new ones to conceive. This chapter of my working career within the not-for-profit sector, which began as a six-month contract with an employment services agency two years ago, has come to a close. The final email has been sent, the last phone call concluded, and the proverbial ‘i’s dotted and ‘t’s crossed.
My gaze shifts to the traffic, steadily flowing across the bridge towards the city center, mirroring the river that glides silently by, steadfast between its banks.
Memories surface of a time four years prior when I last stepped away from the formal workplace, worn and burdened, feeling empty, like a broken vessel filled to the brim with exhaustion and heartache. The tumultuous final months in that workplace necessitated a retreat, a six-month respite devoted solely to healing, rejuvenation, and reigniting my imagination and sene of being present, free from life’s encumbrances.
Today, however, I step away with a heart buoyant with achievement and energy, poised to embrace the opportunities I am creating to ‘live large’ and ensure my most meaningful contributions to the world reflect the change I aspire to both create and embody.
I am enveloped in gratitude. Gratitude for the prologue to my formal working career, a narrative that truly resonates with my passions, abilities, and creativity. Gratitude for the privilege of collaborating with a team of unparalleled dedication and accomplishment, committed to both the clients we served and the agency’s mission. Gratitude for the lasting friendships forged, with individuals who have indelibly impacted my life and the world. Gratitude for every moment, every lesson, every connection.
As I stand on the threshold of the days, weeks, and months to come, excitement courses through me. Excitement for the potential to create, build, and achieve; for the dreams I have tenderly nurtured; for the seeds I have sown in the fertile grounds of autumn’s repose; and for the promise of a new day that awaits me with each sunrise.
In this moment of reflection and anticipation, I am anchored by a profound sense of gratitude. I carry with me the lessons and memories of the past, and step across the liminal space of the past fading away and the future unfolding with an open heart, ready to weave a tapestry of dreams and actions in the rich soil of possibility. Here’s to the journey ahead, filled with boundless potential and the promise of newfound adventures and fulfillment.
I was gifted the opportunity to work with the amazing Ewan Nicholson and the team at Inter Pipeline to create a video of Andrew — a Prospect client who has been part of the Inter team for the past four years. What a wonderful final project to leave on!
Before I left Calgary, a wise friend posed a provocative question that nudged at my preconceived notion of a “successful” trip.
My Writing Corner – the stickies are the setting for each act of the play I’m writing
“All I really want is to at least draft the first act of the play I’m working on,” I shared with her, the phone line bridging the distance between her in Ottawa and me in Calgary.
“But what if you don’t write a single word?” she mused. “What if all you do is follow your heart’s call in every moment? Isn’t that, in itself, success?”
It’s frustrating when someone highlights the glaringly obvious, particularly when it’s the exact thing I’ve been sidestepping.
So, what defines a successful trip? Or, extending that thought, a successful life? For me, it’s not merely about achievements but feeling truly fulfilled. It’s the profound joy of self-acceptance and an inner tranquility with who I am, right here, right now.
What if my ‘solo writer’s retreat’ yielded not a single penned word?
After the nerve-wracking drive yesterday that resulted in a flat tire, I decided to take a breather from the challenging narrow roads. A day for my frayed nerves and strained shoulders. And yes, a massage is top of the list when I’m back!
Instead, I wandered, read, napped, and yes, wrote. Surprisingly, I even wrapped up the first draft of Act 1. Yet, thanks to my friend’s piercing question, I wasn’t viewing this through a ‘success’ filter. This was about me showing up authentically, basking in every moment, every breath, as Greg McKeown explains in “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less”, it’s about my “highest level of contribution”.
Venturing into the quaint hamlet of Garrykennedy on the shores of Lough Derg, I nestled into a cozy chair at Larkin’s Pub, a comforting fire warding off the crisp Augumn air.With a glass of wine in hand and an amazingly delectable bowl of Seafood Chowder, I scribbled and penned thoughts into my journal, the bar’s mid-afternoon quiet punctuated by the murmurs of two other patrons.
Later, I meandered along the shoreline, letting the rain-kissed air envelop me, the stillness of the moment a pure embrace.
It was quintessentially Irish—a day where success wasn’t quantified by accomplishments but by my immersion in every little thing.
That said, if someone could please explain to me why the Irish, known for their unhurried approach to life, speed at 80/km on these sinuous single lanes, I’d be eternally grateful!
The Unknown Path
by Louise Gallagher
Someday, you will step onto a path
not knowing
where it will lead
following its winding ways
into the unknown
that awaits
when you let go
of having to know
paths not taken
before you walk them.
Someday, you'll discover
the answers you seek
lay beyond
the paths you know.
(The poem was written while sitting in Larkin’s Pub, warming myself by the fire)
This week, I submitted a piece to the OpEd page in the Calgary Herald, and it’s in the paper today.
I’m pasting in the copy below.
It’s all about aging bravely – yet here’s the thing. When the editor said he was sending over a photographer, I demurred. “Hey! I’m almost 69. I don’t do photos.”
“Ha! Where’s that bravery now?” he queried back.
“In the face of a camera lens, bravery runs to the hills,” I joked (kind of).
Alas, there are a few grains of truth in that comment. Vanity clings like a barnacle to a whale. No matter how much I ‘grow up’ – or grow older it’s a constant freeloader gnawing away at my self-esteem!
Anyway, Darren the photographer, was charming. He showed me the photo he was going to use to make sure I was happy with it — and for those who wonder what on earth am I working on, they’re paper mache bowls for the Christmas dinner table. (the OpEd editor thought they were giant eggs! 🙂 )
OPINION: For baby boomers still working, you have nothing to fear but your own insecurities
Louise Gallagher, at her home studio, realized the only thing holding her back as a baby boomer in a return to the working world was her own biases and insecurities. PHOTO BY DARREN MAKOWICHUK /Postmedia
Baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1965, have played a significant role in shaping Canadian society. Aged 55 to 74 now, boomers continue to impact society through the Great Retirement. Record numbers of boomers are leaving the workforce, causing employment shortages in Canada.
In 2019, a few months shy of my 66th birthday and after almost 20 years in leadership positions in Calgary’s homeless-serving sector, I was ready to embrace the Great Retirement.
The first six months of what I called “my reinvention” were great. Lots of time visiting with my toddler grandson in Vancouver, volunteering, time in my art studio creating and sharing my love of creative expression in art shows and art-journaling classes.
Life was good. And then, my husband was diagnosed with COPD, my 97-year-old mother took her last breath just before COVID-19 hit and the world shut down.
Lockdowns kept me busy in my art studio and kitchen, while video calls kept me connected. By the end of the second autumn of COVID’s rampage, however, I realized something was missing. I felt aimless and lost, constantly pondering my purpose.
Was it time to go back to work?
I made a plan: Dust off my resume. Contact colleagues in the not-for-profit sector about contract work. Get the word out I was in the market.
The plan had one drawback. The idea of re-entering the workforce after a two-year hiatus at the “ripe old” age of almost 68, caused me to break out in a sweat. I was afraid.
Afraid of what, I wondered? Rejection? Being laughed out of a boardroom for suggesting I still had value?
Fortunately, a former co-worker, now CEO of Prospect Human Services, an employment services not-for-profit, called one day and asked if I knew anyone interested in a contract role in my areas of expertise. I quickly recommended myself. Within a month, I was working from home three days a week, learning a new sector, team and organization.
Problem was, though I was energized and excited about the work, my unconscious biases around aging were tripping me up.
We live in a world where ageism is prevalent; it’s seen in the absence of older people in the media we consume, from models in fashion magazines to movie leads. We idolize youth.
Our internal age biases are more subtle. We use terms like “having a senior moment” when we misplace our keys, even though we’ve habitually lost our keys. We make jokes about older people and talk about aging as a nasty business not for sissies.
Re-entering the workforce in my late 60s, I discovered I held biases and fears about being older, not because my workplace didn’t welcome me, it did. My unease was because I was uncomfortable in my aging skin.
Even though there was no evidence I’d lost my ability to contribute to the execution of an organization’s strategic plan, when I first re-entered the workforce, I worried that anything I did that revealed my lack of sector knowledge would be chalked up to my age, not the fact I was on a steep learning curve.
The average age of the organization is 41. Scanning 120-150 faces on all-staff video calls, I didn’t see a lot of faces fitting the baby boomer profile. I worried about fitting in.
Competency issues followed. I worried I’d never remember, let alone learn, all the data and information I needed to do my job, including, making a difference — to anyone.
On the job I’ve learned, I had nothing to fear but my insecurities, and their value is insignificant compared to the knowledge and experience I’ve accrued over 40 years of building my career. Those 40 years have provided me with a lifetime of wisdom to draw on that informs and enriches all my interactions; whether at the boardroom table offering cogent ideas on what works and doesn’t work to build the organization’s public reputation or in the staff cafeteria cleaning up after myself.
I turn 69 in a couple of weeks. Before I returned to the workforce, I’d never have said the number out loud.
Now, it no longer scares me — because returning to the workforce has taught me it’s time to grow up and stop treating age as a dirty little secret. It’s time to accept age is an asset that increases in value with every breath we take.
Resilience is in all of us. It’s just, for some, access is blocked by life circumstances and events that lead to choices that undermine resiliency’s ability to play a part in creating a life of grace and ease.
And living a life of grace and ease, at any age, is, at least to me, a wonderful way to live.
When I make choices that undermine my body, when I think thoughts that disrupt my peace of mind and break down my confidence and belief in myself, I am not only weakening my resiliency, I am hurting the person I need the most in this life — me.
I need me to be strong, healthy, confident and full of grace to move through this world, creating better in my wake.
And to do that, I must take care of all of me — my whole body – head, heart, belly, torso, limbs, eyes, ears, mouth, skin, skeleton, arteries…. All of me.
And not just all of me – but all of the world around me for we are all connected. We are all part of this one planet. This one giant ball of matter spinning around the sun, giving birth, dying, regenerating, renewing, evolving.
We are all connected to everything. Part of the same matter, lifeforce, world.
And in this world, me, the individual, is a microcosm of the whole earth. When I stress my resiliency, I am stressing the resiliency of all the world around me.
Taking care of me, no matter my age, takes care of all the world around me, decreasing the stress I place on the world.
And that’s why taking care of myself as I age, being conscious of the choices I make is so important.
When I don’t, I put more stress on my body, the people who love me, the people and systems that are there to care for me when I’m not well or capable of taking care of myself, the world all around.
Limiting stress is good for me – it’s good for everyone.
And that’s what I’ve realized this week as we’ve explored ‘Resiliency’. If I want it to be strong and capable of supporting me when I really need it, I need to take good care of me in the here and now.
Years ago, I heard a story about an eagle who was raised in a chicken coop and because of his environment and companions, believed he was a chicken. One day, another eagle high above saw him in the coop and couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t eating all the chickens. They were perfect prey.
The eagle swooped down from above, confronted the eagle who thought he was a chicken and asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
The eagle who thought he was a chicken thought the eagle was there to eat him and was scared. Eventually, the eagle who could fly said, “Look, come fly with me once and I’ll prove to you that you’re an eagle, not a chicken.”
The eagle who thought he was a chicken agreed, but first, he had to go say good-bye to his chicken coop companions… just in case.
The eagle who thought he was a chicken ran into the chicken coop, slammed the door and laughed. “I’m the smartest chicken in this coop,” he said to his companions who were all cowering in the dark afraid the eagle outside was going to eat them. “I just fooled that eagle!”
And the eagle who thought he was a chicken never learned how to fly.
It’s possible that the eagle who thought he was a chicken was also displaying great resilience. He figured a creative solution out of his dilemma and survived to fight another day — and that’s the challenge, an eagle who doesn’t know he can fly turns from predator to prey. Rather than soaring, his resilience his expended fighting for survival every day.
We humans are hard-wired to fight for our survival every day. Survival is in our DNA..But, when we don’t know, or never had the opportunity to explore, our possibilities, we spend our time in survival mode. We don’t have the energy, nor the awareness that beyond survival there is mystery and awe, wonder and magic, beauty and possibility.
Life is the game of survival.
My friend Diana equates it to swimming in a lake. You know how to swim. Your’re strong. You can easily swim an hour. Maybe two. But three… four… five… Add in boats. Water-skiers. Flotsam. Deadwood. All the resilience in the world isn’t going to keep you from tiring out. Your very survival is at risk.
Which says to me, resilience isn’t about strength. It’s about our ability to overcome obstacles, endure hardship and make it through to the other side.
Challenge is, in life, there is no other side to dying. It is our only way out.
As we age, it is perhaps the fact it is our only way out that can make living so much more precious, beautiful and awe-inspiring.
Life can be hard. But… with age, the beauty can outweigh the hardships. The inherent magnificence of our human nature can shine so much brighter than the darkness we’ve come through, the hardships we’ve endured, the obstacles we’ve climbed over, when our focus is not on surviving but living.
As we age, the realization ‘the end’ is not just some ethereal thought shimmering far away on a distant horizon, but rather, a near and closing-in companion. In that awareness, the sweet juicy preciousness of life can fill our senses with the realization, fighting to survive is a one way street to nowhere but the end of life. Why not let it go and start swimming with abandon in the sea of life, filling each day with joy, harmony, serenity and love?
Thank you everyone for being my companions on this journey. I am fascinated by where it’s taking me. Curious about the unexplored mysteries it holds. Enchanted by each gem I am discovering as I let go of believing I ‘know what it’s all about’ and instead, lean into the questions blowing in on the winds of change all around me, inviting me to flow with them into the sea of my life abounding with joy, harmony, serenity and love.
I am home now. After two-weeks away, we drove back over the weekend, stopping along the way in the Okanagon wine-country for some tastings and relaxation.
My heart is full.
The time with my daughter and her family, including newborn Ivy, was pure love.
My heart is heavy.
We are back on this side of the Rockies.
In wine country, C.C. and I rented a delightful Air BnB for three nights. We visited Bench 1775 Winery where we married five years ago, as well as a couple of other favourites and a new one too.
Wine tasting at Nichol Vineyard
It was a beautiful, relaxing respite.
It was also the shortened version of the trip we’d planned for our anniversary in April that was side-lined by Covid.
Covid changes are visible everywhere in wine country. There are limits on the number of people allowed in the tasting rooms at a time. Screens in front of the servers and social distance circles on the floor. Our favourite bistro at Liquidity is closed – though you do get a gift of a wonderful bag of fresh veggies from their garden when you purchase wine.
And yet, despite of and because of the changes, there is a beautiful, relaxed, slowed down pace to it all.
On Sunday, the last winery we visited was a new one for us, Nighthawk Vineyards. Daniel and Christy, the owners, were on hand to pour and share their stories of life as ‘farmers’ as Daniel calls it.
As we sipped and asked questions and Daniel shared his love of wine-making and farming, which he discovered 9 years ago when they purchased the property, we felt the warmth of the late afternoon on our skin and savoured the view of the small lake at the edge of their property tucked between the hills that surround their property.
It was an enthralling and inspiring sojourn.
Their two adult sons also work with them, creating a beautiful story full of the mystique and mystery of viticulture soaked in their love of family and their desire to create wines and experiences that reflect their deep commitment to the earth and environment and exceptional customer service.
The reflecting pool at Liquidity
Sitting in the late afternoon sun, savouring their delicious offerings, breathing deeply of the bouquets of the wine dancing on our taste buds and the gentle late afternoon breeze caressing our faces, I felt my body relax into itself as I said a little prayer of gratitude afor Love and life and people who create with such passion and integrity and share their gifts so graciously.
And when we were done, We drove back down the mountainside towards our little cottage, our hearts full of this time together.
The view from Bench 1775 – where we got married
When C.C. surprised me with his plan for our trip home, I whined. I wanted to get home. To be in-place again. I was tired, and not all that happy about stopping off.
I’m so glad he was patient and persistent and wise enough to know, I was tired enough to not know what I truly needed. The respite in wine country was perfect!
Home again, today I unpack, take a long walk with Beaumont and settle into being in-place.
While in wine country, I spent the mornings at our cottage, sitting on the deck painting and creating in my art journal. As with all the pages in this series, one of my mother’s prayer cards is collaged into the background – a now invisible thread weaving her prayers for everyone.
The text woven into the painting reads:
“We are the memory keepers. The weavers of threads of beauty and mystery and wonder into the warp and weft of life.
We are the story-tellers. The speakers of truth shimmering with grace and love into the tapestry of life unfolding as we journey through time and space.
We are the story-creators. The women gathered at the well throughout the ages. The women dancing around the fire, tending to the vestal flames of life on earth. Bearing life. Gestating. Birthing. Communing. Divining. Weaving.”
Namaste
PS. I am back home but not back regularly to these pages. I am relaxing over the summer, divining my schedule, and giving myself space to create so will be posting irregularly. I hope you visit and leave a comment. It is always such a gift to hear your voices and ‘see’ you here.
Have you ever laid in bed, late at night, listening to a faucet drip? Remember that moment in between each drop? You hope it stops. You fear it won’t and then… the next drip sounds and you wait again.
One part of your mind says, ‘get up and do something about that drip’.
The other part, it wants to believe it will just happen naturally. The drop will stop dripping all on its own.
And so, you lay there wavering between the hope it will stop, and the fear it won’t.
Like the child learning to feed the wolf of kindness and grace, or the nasty harbinger of grief and misery, we go through each day making decisions between drips and drops of time passing. Between choosing hope over despair. Possibility over holding on. Love over fear. The known over the unknown.
In our quest to hold on to what we know, we are blinded by our fear of losing what we already have. Trapped in the fear we will lose it all if we let go, we cannot see that letting go is the initiation rite of passage we must pass through to discover the joy of flying.
Yesterday, on a bi-weekly call with two beautiful women friends, I shared how I fear letting go of ‘this space’ to create a new, exciting platform from which to launch my ‘next phase’.
I know. I know. Who says I need a next phase anyway? Heck! I’ve paid my dues. Done my service to humanity. After almost 20 years working in the homeless serving sector, I ‘deserve’ to ‘go quietly into the sunset’ or some such trite apothegm.
Fact is, I say I need, no wait, want a next phase. I want my life to have meaning that is purposeful and of service to humanity. Not because it feeds my ego. It’s not my ego that yearns for sustenance. It is my soul, my heart, my ‘person’.
I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward to explore a different terrain than the not for profit world I embraced so whole-heartedly in the past. A world that gave me great joy and fulfillment.
And see, there’s the thing, right there. It ‘gave me’. Past tense. It is not of the present.
What brings me joy today?
The peace and tranquility of my life is lovely. But as I told my friends yesterday, I miss the feeling of being busy. Of juggling many things. Of making purposeful decisions about big ideas.
Ahhh yes. I miss big ideas and big thinking. I miss feeling like I am part of making change happen.
I don’t want to go back and I cannot go forward without letting go of this space between the drip and the drop.
The end of this month will mark my one year anniversary of freedom from the 9 to 5, which as my daughters remind me was more my 24/7.
It has been a year of challenges. Of gut-twisting growth and heart-wrenching breakthroughs. Of soul-defying deep dives and fear-inspired pushing back.
I am ready.
And that’s the exciting part. “I don’t know” is a beautiful place to start my exploration.
I crave depth. Substance. Meaning.
Always have.
I crave growth. Creative expression. Connection. Belonging.
The question is: Am I willing to let go of holding on to what is, to fall into the unknown that is calling out for me to soar and discover all that is possible beyond what I already know? Am I courageous enough to live the questions with grace?
As Rilke so beautifully said,
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
Rainier Maria Rilke
The question is: Am I courageous enough to live the questions knowing the answers can only be lived through letting go of holding on to what I know?
Am I willing to let go of holding on to what is, to fall into the unknown that is calling out for me to soar and discover all that is possible beyond the edges of all I know?
Ooohhhh…. What heady, exciting, life giving questions to live everything now!
In the winter, when I sit down at my desk in the morning, it is usually dark.
I find it comforting. The soft darkness of the room enveloping me, the glass in front of me separating me from the air outside, which on a morning like this when the thermometer registers a chilly -32C, is a good thing.
This morning, the sun was already up by the time I sat down.
I slept in.
I think it’s becoming my new normal. To fall asleep and to rise later.
But I’m not sure I like it, or at least have adjusted my creative juices to the shift.
I have always been a morning person. Creatively, that always meant the muse was most active in the mornings. Words flowed easily. Ideas sparked naturally. Images cascaded onto the canvas with ease, in the early hours, slowing down as the day progressed.
It’s not to say that the rest of the day isn’t filled with creative expression. Just that in the morning, I don’t think about the process. I am one with the process.
It is possible that this current late rise phase is because of the cold that has settled into my body like a bear curling up in his den for a long winter’s nap. No sense coming out until the temperature outside rises.
Or, it could be that because of the absence of a formal workplace with its time clock demands and deadlines, my body and mind have decided I can relax.
This morning, as the sun peeked in through the blinds and I lay in bed contemplating my day, it dawned on me that I am in the final quarter of my first year of being in this rejuvenation phase of my life. And then, later, as I sat at my desk writing, I realized my math was, as it often is, somewhat wonky!
I left the formal work-world May 31st of last year. That puts me into the 7th month of re-designing my life. Lol — given that there are 12 months in the year, I’m still almost two months away from the final quarter.
Just goes to show, some things never change. No matter the changing circumstances of my world, math has never been, and still is not my forté!
But lots has changed. Where once I bemoaned sleeping in, now I welcome its luxury.
Where once I told myself I ‘had’ to go to sleep by a certain hour, I’ve relaxed my standards and let my natural rhythms have their way.
I also no longer feel compelled to fill my calendar with ‘things to do’, meetings and coffee dates. In fact, given the weather and this cold, I may not schedule anything until spring, just in time for the bears to come out of hibernation.
Everything changes and somethings just say the same. What hasn’t changed for me is the delight I feel every morning when I arise knowing my day is mine to organize, let loose, let flow as it may.
Baby, it’s cold outside, but inside, well, let’s just say I’m off to the studio to put it back in order — something I haven’t done since clearing off the tables which I needed to use for Christmas dinner. We went away, my daughter moved in for three weeks and used the open floor space as her dressing/suitcase area.
They moved into their newly renovated home last night and now… I am off to play.
Of course, that’s after I take Beaumont to the park for a short, and I mean short, romp. Even with his new coat and boots, it’s still too cold out there even for a furry friend.
(BTW – stay tuned for Sundays with Beaumont — he has a lot to say about his new outfit! Spoiler alert — he’s not impressed. 🙂
One of the things I am noticing about this ‘here-in-my-world not out-in-the-world workforce’ place is I am enjoying my kitchen more and more every day.
I have always loved to cook. I am intrigued by the opportunities to experiment when I dive into the process, the curiosity it ignites with its constant invitation to explore, ‘what would it taste like if I add…?’ or ‘what would happen if I do…. this….?’.
And then, when life got busy, really busy, I started spending less time in the kitchen. When every moment was determined by the extra minutes I could carve out from beneath the pile of to do’s that kept rising higher than the laundry waiting to be sorted on top of the dryer, cooking became a rote process. It took time and where was I supposed to find more of that?
In my newly embraced ‘here-in-my world not out-in-the-world workforce’ mode, I am spending more time thinking about food and the kitchen. I am pouring over recipes, checking Pinterest for ideas on what to do with this ingredient or that vegetable, dreaming up soups and sauces with the savoir-faire of a sous chef in a fine dining establishment (okay it’s more like at a ‘diner’ establishment and a sous/sous/sous chef but a woman can dream!)
And it’s been fun.
Cooking is a form of creativity for me. It is meditative. Relaxing. Soul-filling. And, having more time to spend delving into its mysteries and wonders is a gift — and one my beloved dearly appreciates as he is the beneficiary of my desire to keep creating in our beautiful kitchen!
Some lessons learnt savouring time in the kitchen include:
Like life, cooking is an art form. It is best experienced with all your senses awakened and attuned to your environment and everything in it.
Creating food is one part alchemy, one part science and the rest is all just pure love, joy and curiosity. Sprinkle liberally. Douse everything and everyone in love.
Food is about all our senses. It not only has to taste, feel, look and smell good, it also needs to evoke an emotional response that ignites our gratitude, joy and aliveness.
Cooking is all about being. It’s not something you do. It’s something you experience by being immersed in the curiosity of its alchemy and magic, savouring each moment, tasting each morsel of energy created by the act of creating meals to nourish body, soul, spirit and wholeness.
It’s fun to cook; alone or with someone(s) special. It’s always heart-filling to share your creations with another or more than one — remembering that it’s not about the food you’re creating or eating, it’s all about the community you’re building when you gather around a pot on the stove or around the table and share in a meal created with Love.
I am spending more time in the kitchen savouring the opportunity to create and imbue our home with my love of creation.
Dare Boldly 