Transitions, Transformations and a Little Photography
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Community
I was challenged recently to think about the communities I have lived in and the communities that I have passed through. What were some key characteristics of them and how did I feel being in them?
There are so many different kinds of communities that are linked to geographical circumstances and cultural practices. In North America where we have so much space there are communities that are spread wide apart with lots of space between properties - providing privacy, but also isolation. People with garages behind their homes or attached to them have the further challenge that they can enter and exit their abode without having to come in contact with anyone. Contrast this with other neighbourhoods where people live in row houses or condos with communal walls or floors/ceilings. There can be a definite lack of privacy, but also more interaction and community. There are also new communities being built around communal green spaces to encourage interactions.
Bluebird Season
This is the busy time of year for the bluebirds and for monitoring their activity - exciting times too. As I’ve mentioned before the bluebirds return from their winter homes in early to mid March and they start building nests in earnest by the beginning of May. Once the nest is built and shaped to a perfect cup the female loses the feathers on her abdomen - called a brood patch - which enables her to transfer maximum body heat to the eggs after she lays them.
Once the nest is finished she starts laying eggs - one a day for 5 - 7 days and two weeks after the last one is laid they start to hatch all on the same day! This is when the real work begins - constant feeding for both the male and the female while the little ones form feathers and grow big enough to fledge from the nest some 18-21 days after hatching. What a an amazing cycle to be able to witness and collect data from.
How to Tell a Good Story With My Life
I know that is an odd way to start this post, but in effect that is how the idea for this whole post started. Kory and I have been working on getting out of our comfort zone a bit more and just getting out more which includes actually coming up with date night or date day ideas. Full disclosure - he excels at this so much better than I do (for example the puppet making workshop was his idea). When he suggested that we attend a workshop titled (How to Tell a Good Story With Your Life) we thought it was about writing and that it would be a cool thing to attend on a Saturday morning.
Boy were we wrong about the topic, but I digress. We showed up at the venue where there were about 8 or 9 other people (Kory had gone to a workshop put on by the facilitator (Val) previously and enjoyed it - a setting your intentions for the New Year sort of thing).
Elders’ Wisdom
I do love when the universe feels the need to provide me with a strong life lesson and there is no warning that it is coming my way. These lessons tend to knock me on the head and get my attention - quickly. When I take the time to stop and really pay attention then the lesson tends to go easier, however I must admit to rarely being wise enough to do that.
I’m more of a quickly assess the facts and take action kind of woman - yes this habit has gotten me in trouble a time or two and I’ve been working on slowing down and being more intentional about what actions (if any) I take. Slowing down, getting curious and spending more time gathering facts tends to change the way I view a situation and how I go about responding.
Mountain Bluebird Season
For the last four years between April and August I have been fascinated with small vividly blue migratory birds - yes mountain bluebirds. During this timeframe they fly back to Alberta from their wintering grounds in the southern US and northern Mexico. It is a long way for these small birds to travel and their return to this area is specifically for nesting and raising new generations of mountain bluebirds.
I was able to get out this week and do a nest box monitoring run to see if they have started nest building. The last time I was out was towards the end of April and I saw a number of mountain bluebirds, but with the changeable weather that included snow and cold spells - there was no nest building happening.
Focus - Attention and Savouring Life
How many times have we heard this phrase as we were growing up - attending a boring event or classes at school. I’ve just finished reading a book titled Rapt by Winnifred Gallagher and I must say that it has been very impactful and not really what I expected. That’s a great combination in my mind and it makes it easy to recommend this book for those interested in attention or living a more focused life.
Early in the book is a quote by Ellen Langer who says that “the term mindfulness wouldn’t be necessary if most people didn’t have such an impoverished, static understanding of what ‘paying attention means’.” Let me start off by saying that I am rather envious of Langer’s ability to put together words and the way she turns a phrase - it tickles my brain.
Sensory Overload
We have 5 senses, or do we? I have recently finished reading a book that I highly recommend for anyone interested in the natural world, wildlife, insects, birds or fish - you name it Ed Yong covers is in his book An Immense World.
He talks about our sensory bubble which is the part of an animal’s surroundings that it can sense and experience - its perceptual world which he describes as their umwelt (a German word meaning environment or surroundings). I really like that description as it helps me to recognize that the way humans perceive the world is not the same as other animals or insects. In fact when a person, animal or insect perceives the world differently we can have difficulty understanding or relating.
Yong talks about senses being divided into chemical and mechanical categories with magnetic properties being part of one or both of those classifications.
Values, Comfort Zones and Growth
I have sat down to write this blog post a number of times and I keep getting stuck - as usual this caused me to pause and reflect on the why. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand what values are - they are the rules or guideposts that we use to define the boundaries of our lives and how we want to live our life - in essence they form our identity. When we’re living authentically within those guideposts there is a feeling of congruity to our lives - a sense of meaning and purpose with an everything is right in my world kind of feeling.
It also wasn’t that I didn’t know what my core values are - I’ve spent time working through this and figuring out what is important to me and how I want to show up in my life, no, it seems to me that there was a disruption - a discordant feeling about what I say are my core values and how I was living my life.
Puppet Making (Part 2)
The second Saturday arrived all fresh and full of creative potential and we pulled up to the studio excited to see how the face moulds turned out. Our first job was to carefully extract the polymer face mould from the plaster form using various tools and gently prying away from the edges - the eyes and nose portion was the toughest to remove as we didn’t want to pull too hard and rip or tear the polymer which was still quite soft and malleable.
Slowly but surely we extracted the faces and excited exclamations could be heard from each of us - we were thrilled with how the faces had come out - the details and textures were captured so well. You’d think we were done with the level of satisfaction expressed by everyone.
Puppet Making (Part 1)
It’s funny how interconnected things can be - like my husband finding a puppet making studio that gives classes and is affiliated with the father of a guitar friend of his. Add to this him getting the notion that this would be a fun thing for us to do with a couple of our friends - none of whom are into puppet making, but they were still up for it as it sounded fun and creative. Those are the kinds of friends who are important to have in your life - people who are up for something off the wall and new just to be able to hang out and have some fun together.
Now if you’ll recall I’ve done a few posts about not feeling very creative (I wrote about it here) and I historically have felt all sorts of resistance inside myself when I think about doing something new -
Journaling
I have always been known as being able to take in a lot of information, consolidate it in a concise way and identify gaps/questions or next step actions to be taken. It is one of my super powers and it has served me well over a very long career. When I started thinking about retiring this was one area of my life where my thoughts seemed a jumbled mess and I lacked any clear direction.
I first talked about retiring about 5 years before I actually did - I kept coming up with reasons excuses for not calling an end to my career - other people who were part of my succession plan unexpectedly retired, the start of a significant industry collaboration that I was part of, COVID - the list was endless. I couldn’t seem to pull together a cohesive case for letting go and calling it a day to focus on different activities and purpose.
Even when I finally sat down with my boss to discuss my plans and declare a timeline, I had doubts and second, third and fourth thoughts about it.
Singing Bowls, Salt Caves and Music
I’m sure the title of this post either resonates (sorry for the pun) or leaves you scratching your head. A few years ago Kory started really delving into music theory and historical transitions around frequencies - to the point of doing a deep dive into healing sound frequencies. It was fascinating to learn about the origins of Gregorian Chants and how the Rosslyn Chapel (featured in the DaVinci Code and just south of Edinburgh in Scotland - we visited 3 times during our time in Scotland) featured symbols in the stonemasonry that correlates to healing sound frequencies (do a search if you’re curious).
All of this research led him to singing bowls which are crystal bowls formed to resonate at set frequencies when tapped with a mallet or circled with the mallet at varying pressures.
Finding Peace
I must admit that writing about my mum’s battle with dementia was quite emotionally challenging, however the response that I received was very heart warming. I had people sharing similar experiences and how it affected their families, ideas and thoughts of how they’ve navigated the challenges of care giving or being long distance care givers. It was a post that really felt like it resonated for many and created some lovely connections which I really appreciated.
Since that blog post I have had all sorts of thoughts of things that I would have liked to have included, but I either didn’t think of them, or I was concerned about the length of the post. I’ve decided to do a follow up post and talk about some of those things and some of the new things that I’ve been looking into around dementia.
Country Living
We’ve been living “in the country” - well let’s be honest we’re just outside of the city limits - for about 18 months now and while we’ve spent a lot of the time in renovation/chaos mode, I feel like I’ve spent enough time in the new living situation to appreciate some of the differences from living within walking distance of the city centre. I thought I’d write about what it’s been like - the good the bad and the unexpected.
There are a number of things that we got right with this move and for the most part I would say that we did a good job anticipating the differences/challenges that we’d face, but there were still a few surprises that neither one of us saw coming. One of the big drivers for this move was to be closer to nature and be able to spend time enjoying the peace and quiet away from the hustle and bustle of inner city living.
Year End Reflections
December 18th was the last strength training session for my amazing class with our trainer Erin and my fellow senior ladies. It’s been a challenging year with various group members experiencing injuries - mine has been a prolonged elbow strain.
We’ve trained hard and reached all sorts of new PR’s (Personal Records) as we’ve focused on improving core strength, balance, cardio and muscle development. I really appreciate Erin’s approach which is very well rounded with a particular focus on good form and preventing injuries. I wrote about my strength training journey hereas well as my 2025 goals.
I had set a stretch goal of being able to do proper push ups (10 was the target), dead lift 200 lbs and do a pull up.
On the bookshelf
I thought I’d do a fun post about what I’m reading as there are some interesting intersections in the books I have on the go right now. It has become a running joke with my friends what book I’m reading as I start many conversations with, “I’ve been reading this book and…..” Before I start I should come clean about a few things - like the fact that I usually have multiple books on the go at any given time - right now there are eight in varying stages of completion and my hope is to finish them before the end of the year.
I actually keep a running list of all the books on my to read list as well as those that are recommended for me to read and yes I do keep track of the ones I’ve finished. Right now there are 51 on the to read list, 23 on the recommendation list and 39 finished in 2025 (this doesn’t count the 8 outstanding).
In the waiting
I’ve had a very impactful few weeks where some random interactions have left their mark on me and I’ve continued to think about them long after spending time with these people. Two very good friends are having a tough time - suffering - and there is very little that I can do (I hate feeling helpless!). My first reaction/response is to try and fix it - help them - make it better, but I can’t. However, there are things that I can do like offer support - let them know I care and am thinking of them. These are small things, but maybe they matter more than the big grand gestures.
I have been sending one friend random texts of photos that I’ve taken - just something to distract her or let her know I’m thinking of her. More than anything it’s that connection - that knowing we’re not alone that I think is important. Or perhaps I’m annoying the heck out of her and she’s too Canadian to tell me to quit it - I don’t think that is likely, but the thought does occur to me.
Expectations and Growth
It’s ironic that this is a common theme for me in my writings - expectations - disappointment and growth. Maybe there is something here for me to learn - or relearn - or keep on learning. The excitement of the first day of the retreat led me to expect all sorts of amazing photographs to be made in subsequent outings and the morning of day 2 just didn’t live up to those expectations.
Interestingly we’d had a conversation about something similar the evening before - Jean-Pierre spoke of a workshop he’d been to many years ago where he’d been given an assignment the first day and he’d nailed it! The feedback and discussion were full of promise and potential - leading him to think that he understood what he was at the workshop to learn - bring on the next assignment please! Unfortunately, things did not pan out as expected - the next image did not live up to his expectations of feedback
Paradox - Contronyms
I imagine that when some people read the title to this week’s post there were some curious or even confused looks - like where is she going with this or what the heck is she talking about now. I’ve been really enjoying some challenging reading lately which has caused my brain to stretch into different areas that I usually don’t think about or consider. This often causes me to either go around in circles, tie myself up in knots trying to work through things or figure them out - which is a good thing in my view.
I have been reading about paradox (ie., something that seems contradictory or against common thought, but may be true upon investigation) and I really like that idea - the juxtaposition of these apparently contradictory items and then curiosity leading to a mind expanding truth.
Hopefulness
I feel like I bandy this word around (as do most people I know) far too freely - we hope that we win the lottery (guess I’d actually have to buy a ticket to realize that hope) - we hope that we do well in school, work, relationships and we hope for some purpose or meaning to this life. Now that is a pretty broad range of hope. It is defined as an optimistic emotional state characterized by the desire for a positive outcome with a belief in its possibility or likelihood, but I also found this definition a feeling of trust. Wow that made me stop for a second - it actually gave me chills.
Somehow that feels more connected and meaningful for me - it resonates more than having an expectation of a positive outcome - which feels flatter and more transactional to me. A feeling of trust - well for me, trust is all about vulnerability and connection. This makes hope seem more active to me whereas the first definition seems more passive - and let’s face it - I like to dive in rather than sit on the sidelines waiting for things to happen.