Turning 5.
01 Jun 2012 2 Comments
It’s been coming…for 50 years in fact and now it’s here and it seems surreal to me that I am turning 50 years old today. Well happily for me, it’s 50 years young, silly, wildly adventurous, wisely astute, imaginatively free, joyfully juvenescent, playfully young. I love my life!
Like winning an Oscar…which will clearly have to happen during the next fifty years….turning 50 is kinda an auspicious milestone in a gal’s life. Five decades of learning, loving, making connections, experiencing this world, creating stories and building an authentically happy full life. Sometimes it feels just like yesterday I was five and Mom was hosting my birthday party playing the hokie-pokie and shaking all about, making me my favourite strawberry shortcake with pink icing and cherries and asking me to blow out the candles and make a wish. Little did I know it was all going to come true, and some.
I am the luckiest girl in the world. Turning 50 is a piece of cake and I feel the brightest and best in all of my life. The number doesn’t faze me in the slightest. Call me five or fifty – how I feel is inspired by how I think, how I express myself and how I see this awesome sauce world we all get to play in. I am the luckiest girl in the world.
So over the past few weeks, I’ve been noodling the past 50 years, and last weekend up at my little piece of heaven in the woods, while lying in the grass, moving clouds, I was reminiscing all the highs and lows and lessons I’ve encountered, and pondered if I had figured out any great mystery to happiness up to now. And not that I know any magical secret or am preaching some unicornian gospel… but this is what I came up with…and well …in the least, you should respect your elders!
Be grateful… for your health, for the opportunity to work, for whatever your purpose is, for being able to move, to see, to hear, for having a good hair day, for that first sip of coffee or red wine, for laughter, for the lessons, for the sound of birds, the colours of the rainbow, for freedom, for your imagination, for having a choice, for this day.
Cherish your relationships….my incredible parents, my inspiring sister, my extraordinary friends, my loves, my free-spirited co-workers and wacky strangers along the way.
Be observant. See, taste, smell and feel all the colours. All the elements. Listen to the animals. Be one with nature.
Be kind. Be generous. Be silly. Dare yourself daily and eat fear for breakfast.
And most of all, be real. Be honest. Be yourself. Choose happiness.
Yea, that’s it. Whatcha expect, I’m just five. So in honour of living a hellisiously full life…here are a few, in no particular order, of my most memorable 50 moments in the last 50 years!
- Falling in love.
- Playing Barbies with my sister Susan.
- Watching my first kitten “Beanya-boobala” being born.
- Honouring my parents, Elly and Pinky.
- Being chosen as a high school cheerleader.
- Working at Club Med.
- Singing the blues on stage.
- Kamperslut.
- Jeff Siegerman.
- Theodore – my Tibetan Buddhist mediation teacher.
- Brownie of the Year – 1969.
- Riding a camel – “Valentino” and camping on the Sahara dessert.
- Being Buttercup in HSM Pinafore – grade 8.
- Taking Mum’s ashes to Machu Pichu.
- Giving a monkey my Dad’s watch in Katmandu.
- Getting gonza with James.
- Seeing Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Leonard Cohen.
- Wiccan Fest.
- Feeding chipmunks on my step at the cottage.
- Going to NFLD with Ducky.
- Dip N Sip Girl’s Nights.
- Road trip across Canada with Mark.
- Breaking and healing. Being lost and found.
- Hiking the West Coast Trail.
- Proving them wrong…I wasn’t dumb and I could write.
- Lifting the veil and believing in magic.
- My Gurls: Dips, Mel, Jodie, Tracey, Mira, Cathy, Sue, Meli, Jennifer, Jen, Kelley, Dana, Momo, Rocky & Rach.
- My Boys: James, Chris, Tom, Brian & James, Murray, Rich, Johnny, Frankie and Ian.
- Fabric shopping with Mum.
- Kate Sharpe – “Julie isn’t real”.
- Perennial and Top Drawer Creative.
- The faeries living in our chandelier.
- Giving up control…letting go of fear.
- Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex and more sex!
- Nepal, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Morocco, Turkey, France, Spain, Peru, Huntsville, Mars.
- Buying my first house.
- Dave’s Cave days.
- Little people… Terra, Cyan, Orion, Naia, Madison, Veronica, Ben, Benjamin, Tessa, Owen, Nami and Claire.
- Learning to love myself.
- Angus, Pagan, Fiend, Lola, Harriet, Marley, Zsa-Zsa, Bartholomew & Raphael, Spaghetti & Mrrp, Winston, Joe Bunny, Buddy, Tippy and Lumpy.
- NYE Dance marathon with Murray.
- Loving and losing Mum and Dad.
- Every day is Halloween.
- Watching Beluga whales play in Moose Factory.
- Winning an Oscar…ok a girl can dream.
- Captain Morgan & The Mermaid.
- Point Pleasant Park in Halifax.
- Grandpa Jojo giving me my first piano.
- Bathing with the elephants in Nepal.
- Today.
Major loviation and here’s to the next 50 years to come! Let the adventure begin! xx
Prepare to gather and collect your thoughts.
01 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
Call me nuts. Call me squirrelly. But my rodentia senses are tingling.
Something quite exciting, quite amazing and quite near impossible to believe is happening. But I believe it.
This morning I noticed the rotten planks of wood on the back of my sunroom had been torn off and scattered across the deck. The work of rebellious raccoons? Frisky faeries? Idiot neighbours? I think not. My RDJ Sherlockosity honed in on a small pile of peanuts, neatly arranged to spell out a name. A name you all know. A name some of you fear, some of you hold in the highest regard.
You know who I am talking about. I dare you to say it. Say it out loud damn it!
Crackhead Betty has come home.
I KNOW!
How did she find me after 4 years of leaving Kamperslut? After the tornado? After the horrible neighbour’s dog ran all the squirrels out of the forest? How did she defeat the wood zombies? Highjack the hillbillies? How did she hitch a ride from Huntsville to Toronto? Find out that I had moved? Crossed busy streets? Survived on a hobo’s pack of acorns and seeds? I’ll tell you how.
One word. Loviation.
For those of you who don’t know Betty … she is one famous pigeon-toed, puffy-lipped rodent from the back woods ghetto. She’s got the fur of a ruby slipper and the song of a tortured soul. Fearless is her middle name and her heart’s as black as coal. I had the fortuitous pleasure of meeting Betty on a path up at my cottage. She wouldn’t let me pass. She was clearly from the wrong side of the tree and had an attitude that would scare off a pack of wild turkeys…and in fact did. She had kamikaze moves that made Bruce Lee look like a showgirl and a shrill that would deafen dolphins. But I knew she was misunderstood. I knew she just needed a friend, someone to show her love…and so I made it my life’s mission to do just that. After months of death-defying patience and warding off viscous attacks the likes of King Kong (queue chest pounding visual) she let me scratch her little head and at that moment the chick-a-dees burst into song, the dragonflies painted a rainbow in the sky and all the unicorns began to dance. We were one. We did everything together. She even spent an entire winter inside the cabin after the tornado left a little hole in the roof for her to make herself at home. We drank wine, ate chips, and did peanut art. We were the best of pals. Then she disappeared. Some said Hollywood called. Others whispered alien abduction. But I think she ran off with Zordock and have the life she always dreamt off. All I know is a day hasn’t passed without me thinking about her.
And now she is back. We’ll sit and chatter for hours, cracking peanuts by the pound and we’ll sing little squirrel songs, nuturing the love we’ve found. The moral to this furry tale – look far beyond the shell. For the hardest nuts to crack is where the sweetest love may dwell. Never give up on love.
P. Nut Lowry
My voice.
29 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
Ever since this bumpy year began I seem to have lost my voice, my written voice. I’ve looked for it several times, but it went into hiding somewhere it didn’t want to be found. It would poke at me and blurt things out at the most inopportune moments, in a tourette-like rant of incoherent nonsense and horror…then run tauntingly, gesturing its silence back to its vacant soulless cave. I’ve felt like I’ve had a strangle hold on me and constantly short of breath. I’m mad and I’m sad and I’m pushing through it like a frenzied herd of zebras trying to find their way back to the field…but the field no longer exists.
So today as I arrived home, I noticed my idiot neighbour has once again, without asking my permission parked in my parking space. I don’t have a car. I never park there. But on occasion I may have a guest who might want to. It’s really no biggie but what drives me to the brink of spending time behind bars…is the inconsiderate assumption that they can just do what they want without even asking me. Wrong day to park in my spot. I relayed a few choice poignant words that fall under the Wrath of Patty to these ill-considered curb-side criminals asking ever so Pollyannaques politely to move their van and in the future if I ever see it in my space again I will have it towed. I don’t think we’re going to be sharing sugar over the fence in the near future.
I came in and burst into tears. Then I found my voice. I wanted to write. I wanted to rant, share, speak, yell, scream, express myself, let it out, feel so I can deal and not carry it around all night scaring the cats. Maybe it’s not the inspiration I was searching for, nor the field of daisies I once ran through, it’s certainly not beautiful or poetic, but it’s real and it’s found its way to paper and once again I am speaking my mind. I can only hope it will find its way back to my heart one day soon. Thanks for listening.
Broken.
27 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
“What doesn’t kill ya…makes you stronger.” “It’s better to know now, then 5 years down the road.” “There’s more fish in the sea”. “Best way to get over a man…is to get under another one.”
Clichés. Truisms. Trite remarks that I don’t want to hear.
I don’t want to feel better. I want to feel sad.
I’ve broken my leg five times, my foot four, my arm, hand, collarbone and back once, my spirit for a spell and I do my best to break the mould every day.
Most recently, I’ve had my heart broken.
Shattered.
It hurts like hell. Like walking through glass on fire with acid poured all over you…not to be dramatic…because quite frankly that doesn’t even come close.
I am completely empty and I am completely full and the waves of emotions are like a tsunami coming out of nowhere. I’m drowning. My brain hurts. My eyes sting. My skin aches. I’m tired. I am so fucking tired. I walk into walls. I yell at innocent people. I yell at myself for being stupidly in love. I hate this.
I have no rhyme or reason. No lilt in my step. My pallet is battleship gray.
I pace. I cry. I talk out loud, I scream. It’s a sickness; being heartsick. Nothing helps. Nothing numbs the pain, the sadness, the brain space that struggles to hold on and to let go. It sucks pickles.
I know it gets better. Duh. Been here done that before…but I can’t get away from here fast enough…this molasses drip of transitioning from sad to mad to eventually glad is excruciating. I want it over – but the end is not nearly in sight and my feet are sore and covered in blisters and the road is rough and long.
Love is so amazing. So freeing and contagious. Such a precious gift. No wonder it hurts so much when it is lost.
“This too shall pass”. “Love is blind”. “It’s better to have loved and lost, then never loved at all”.
Lost keys.
11 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
I lost a set of keys on Sunday. Three to be exact. I have looked everywhere for them and I can’t find them. It’s like they have just vanished into thin air.
I’ve retraced my every step, frantically searching for clues, where I could have misplaced them. How they could have possibly come unfastened from my chain. Maybe they slipped through a crack or fell out of sight. Maybe I put them in the wrong pocket or haphazardly tossed them aside and they are lost in the abyss of paper work on my desk. Maybe they are playing a trick on me and mischievously hiding. I half expect them to show up, but they haven’t. I feel lost without them. It’s strange how such a small trinket can hold such important meaning. I miss them. I need them. I can’t lock my doors and I don’t feel safe. I feel exposed and it’s hard to sleep at night. I don’t have an extra set. I can’t just duplicate them.
I guess I’ll have to change my locks.
Being brave.
04 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
I always brag that I’m fearless. I mean I have some serious moxie and a crazy adventurous nature, but if I think about it I do possess some fears. They creep up at the most unexpected times and paralyze me. Maybe my crowing about being fearless has more to do about it being my choice, as oppose to when I experience something fearful that I didn’t choose to engage in. Go ahead…call me a scardy cat.
I was once told that fear actually stood for “feel everything and rejoice”. I like that. Makes it less scary. Feeling everything as oppose to not. Kinda like a release, a relinquishing of what tortures you inside. It shrinks its power once you stop giving it power. It also gives you control.
The couch doctors say to face your fears head on. Shake their hands, get to know them, have a drink with them and decide if you really want them to remain in your life. Not always so easy….but doable. I’ve faced some pretty magnanimous fears in my time – some life and death, some involved pickles. All were incredible lessons.
Tonight I hung out with a very brave person. A person who has left me inspired and humbled. It was unexpected. Really unexpected. My sister has been in the hospital since Christmas. It’s no secret we have a tumultuous relationship. But she is sick and alone and needs me, so I am doing what I can. She is one brave mother fucker. She is experiencing symptoms of a stroke although yet to be confirmed and hopefully it is something else more easily fixable. But she has no feeling in her right arm or hand. She can’t pick up a pen, let alone write and if you think for just a minute about all the millions of things you need your good arm and hand to do – from the basics like being able to give your cat its shot of insulin to your artful pleasures like painting…it’s pretty damn scary. It’s scaring me. So I asked her how she is coping with this unknown body of fear and she said “by just taking it one minute at a time and not letting myself go to the dark side.” Funny because she lives on the dark side, but she sure shed some serious light in my small world tonight. She isn’t letting the fear control her. She is taking control. That’s inspiring and truly fearless.
Please get better soon little sis.
Things I learned from Fiend.
02 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
Josephine…aka “Fiend” is my cat. I actually still call her a kitten even though she is over 2 yrs old – it’s just she’s never grown and is Tinkerbelle tiny in size…she sleeps in a thimble…really. Anyways, he is my constant source of massive adorable loviation and never ceases to put a smile on my face.
We couldn’t sleep last night, so were hanging out during the wee hours having a little mother-daughter chat bout our 9 nine lives, fur balls, catnip…you know stuff we have in common. Anyways…she’s a really good listener and at the end of it I got some incredible insight from my little ginger monkey on how to be in this wacky world….
- If you have a cute bum, flaunt it.
- If someone is mad at you – just rub up against their leg. (Apparently works like a charm)
- If you can’t do something naturally – do it your own way. (Fiend can’t meow, so she quacks)
- Be friendly – even to strange little black dogs that snort and fart on your blanket.
- It doesn’t matter where you came from or how hard your life may have been – you can turn it around. (Fiend was abandoned at 4 wks in the woods and ate toads to survive)
- Catnip is the key to unlocking the imagination and finding your source of supreme creativity. (You should see Fiend dance…1 word – Baryshnikov)
- Rolling around on the carpet feels good. Do what feels good.
- It’s good to know the difference between real and fake. Harriet is real…sparkly mouse is fake. (Works with people too)
- Hiding and pouncing out at someone is fun.
- Trust that you will be fed.
- Being able to put your leg over your head can come in handy.
- Don’t sweat stuff. (Have you ever seen a cat sweat?)
- If you think you can’t balance on the banister – you won’t. So try, fall off and get up and try again.
- Squirrels are intriguingly weird. Duh.
- When all else fails give a gentle head-butt.
- There’s nothing better than cuddling with someone you love…ok you don’t even have to be that discriminating. (Fiend’s words)
Pixie magic.
01 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
It’s a new day. Yesterday is so last year.
I love new days! New beginnings. Fresh slates of tabula rasas. I don’t know what this year is going to bring. I’m still unclear on what I’m suppose to do, to be, to wear to school tomorrow. Luckily I like surprises.
I expect there will be some hic ups, furballs, pebbles in my shoes…there always are; makes life interesting and those days help make us smarter, tougher, more empathic, appreciative of the good ones. And as sure as I am an Irish Polish Pixie … I know there will be even more days filled with giggles, sunshine and unicorns.
I hate it when people call me a Polly Anna. Makes me kick up some serious dust. Trust me I’m no where near that nice. But I do choose my choices very consciously and carefully. And I usually err on the side of loviation. Sometimes it’s harder than others, and sometimes I fuck up, sometimes I’m self serving, sometimes abundantly giving, and sometimes I’m ridiculously reckless…in a good way. I’m human. Ok…I’m not…I’m a Pixie. And we Pixies (however few and far between) have special powers…kinda like when lucky charms meet perogies. But that’s all I can say because anymore and I’d have to kill you …part of the Pixie Promise… so I won’t…just trust me, you want me on your side.
Pixies are very clever monkeys. We have microscopic vision (except at night), we get our strength from marshmallows and we have an enormous capacity for seeing beauty. I see it all the time, in everyone and everything, and if I had one wish for all the non pixies, on this planetary plane, on this new day…it would be to open your eyes as wide as they possibly can be and see everything that is before you and see it with appreciative, generous, loving eyes and say shanks, ain’t this thing called life swell. It’s just a little Pixie trick in finding the secret of being happy. Choose it.
Major loviation, x pixie
Shiny and new.
31 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
Tick tock. Tick tock. There goes that damn hand inching closer and closer to the all encompassing hour of power, the metronomic madness of minutes slipping away into a vortex, now only seconds till the stroke, the strike of Cinderellaesque magnitude where in an instant of all-or-nothing pith, the futurity of our being changes in a blink and we are catapulted into a new conception of time, space and possibilities.
Or perhaps I just won’t bother to wear a watch.
I’m not a fan of NYE. I have nothing against the day, other than it’s the last day. I don’t like last days. For some twisted reason the evaporating hours pinch, poke and prod me to take stock of the year’s days, weeks, months, feats, fears, failures, accomplishments, triumphs, gifts, joys, surprises, loves, losses, wonders, should haves, could haves, dids, wants, don’t wants, wishes and make a last ditch attempt to make sense of it all while contemplating the seeds I’d like to plant tomorrow. No pressure.
I’m usually more organized – but I’ve been idling, avoiding, ok…down right slothful about getting to this task. Usually it’s all neatly typed by now in rows and charts and sections highlighted with lots of colour…ok I’m joking…sort of. But this year…it’s remained on my “To Do” list…untouched…I’ve been too busy living. It’s been an incredible year. Amazing in fact. Bountiful in so many ways. It’s been a year of changes – all for the better with new places and people to inspire me, tickle my fancy and make my life fuller. I think I’m calmer and more go with the flowish. I pushed myself and I learnt and did some super cool grown up things and embarked on some even more amazing life adventures. And more than anything and more than at anytime before in my life – I believe I truly and authentically tried to live in the moment, the best that I could. Which then nudges my noodle to ponder the possibility that a long and ruminating review of 2011 has already been accomplished, acknowledged and appreciated in the moments I met them. Whoa llama that was easy!
So shiny and new. Like a new penny, like a new day, like a new hour or minute. Like sun diamonds dancing on an ever-flowing river… there’s always something new right around the bend. A pleasant surprise, lessons, heartache, headaches and supreme happiness. I’ve come to realize it’s not so much about turning a huge stone tablet on the next chapter of “Elfa’s Great Adventures”…but more like a series of little post-it note snibblets, sneak peeks, blinks, winks, hmms, umms and yumms in each little unveiling of the story that is being written. Shiny and new – it’s a choice, an opportunity, an adventure, a freedom that is ours with each and every breath.
So goodbye and thank you to a most awesome year, a beautiful period of time filled to the brim with extraordinary souvenirs of life. Let the next chapter unfold.
Peace, love & abundant happiness – all around.
All I want for Christmas is…
23 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
A unicorn. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.
Simple enough, right? Well, not exactly. Because I want a real one. And yes Virginia, they do exist. And even though the Unicornians of the universe say that these wildly precocious, paradoxical, pure and magical woodland prancers can only be captured by a virgin…I just want to remind you all that I tamed Crackhead Betty the Kamikrazy Squirrel and really…what magnificent beast wouldn’t want to lay its weary head in my lap? Just saying.
Not only would I truly, madly and deeply love my unicorn, he’d come in rather handy as his beautiful spiral horn can actually neutralize the effects of poison, heal the sick, prolong life and believe it or not – act as an aphrodisiac….when you lick it. It’s true… I’m not pulling your horn.
The unicorn is the gatekeeper of the forest veil; they are symbols of wizardry wisdom manifesting great power yet maintaining gentle grace. They are known to frolic with an ambrosial voice, have a fanciful fetish for lavender and they love rainbows. OMG that sounds exactly like me! I have to have a unicorn…we’d be the bestest friends ever!
All jostling aside. As much as I know my unicorn is out there, I also know that it’s up to my unicorn to find me. Rare and precious magical beings don’t come by a dime a dozen. They take time to present themselves and be invited into your realm. All I can do is put my unicorn love out there, lay a path of gumdrops to my door and keep an open heart and mind and be ready. Surprises are what makes life awesome and half the bliss is just waiting, wondering and celebrating the elation every time I capture a glimpse of its white tail out of the corner of my eye.
So on the eve of Christmas Eve – the night of sublime magic, wishing and believing in beyond a question of a doubt that what you dream for can come true…my wish for all of you is whatever your unicorn is – be it a trinket or toy, a purpose or truth, more wonder, more adventures, more firsts or a renewed abundance of health, wealth, peace, harmony and love –may whatever you wish for find its way to your heart.
…There were green alligators and long-necked geese, some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees. Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you’re born. The loveliest of them all was the unicorn. I believe.
