Happy New Year to you!
May 2015 bring health, happiness and joy and whatever else your heart desires.

Our house is in disarray with boxes packed and empty ones waiting to be filled. Our check list of “things to do” is getting smaller as we get closer to move day. We have 20 more sleeps at the BITCH and then we will spend two nights with friends and then the first night at our new home will be on the 22nd. Pretty darn exciting.

So many changes.

Another change worth noting is that my best friend and her husband are retiring! Their office and house are in disarray as well. They too, are packing and moving boxes, changing numbers, and looking at this next year with wonder and excitement. Shutting down a business cannot be easy.

I just want Joe and Sandie to know that Ken and I wish them the best in the next phase of life. I’m sorry I never got to see Joe be Judge. I always wanted to get kicked out of a court room! 🙂 I’m also hoping this means we will get to spend more time with them.

Years ago, they took a stab at retirement and traveled all over the world. During this time, we bought a huge world map and hung in our hallway. It was fun to point to the different places they traveled and it was a terrific geography lesson for me.

Last week, we took the map off the wall. I packed it up and sent it off as a surprise prize to someone in the states. I’m not telling who, but he just won a huge battle with Chick-fil-A and I thought it would be nice for him to know people “around the world” are on his side!

So, goodbye 2014, I have no complaints. Okay, there were a few whining moments, and it could’ve been nicer to some friends, but there you go.

Hello 2015!
I’m looking forward to the next… well, the next everything!

I’m sitting at the table and wishing you well.

The numbers have been a topic around here ever since I got the Fitbit. Tracking how many steps I take each day is fun. Counting how many words I write is interesting and counting how many calories I eat — doesn’t happen.

Still, the numbers have been in play this year.

Yesterday we had another number day, but this time we had to give up a great number and settled for an okay new one.

We are changing the utilities from one house to another, so we will have a new phone number in our new house.

It may seem silly, but one of the best things I like about living here is that we have a very cool phone number. I am sad to see our 0888 number go. I begged and begged, — and we do not get to take it with us. Deep sigh.

However, I spent quite a bit of time with Amy at the phone company yesterday. We did our best together to figure out “bundle deals” for TV, internet and telephone. So many special rates, that aren’t really special at all —especially after all the up-selling they are quite good at. Apparently, I need the cooking channel! 🙂

The hardest part of it all was choosing a new phone number. Amy was great in letting us choose from a list. She spent a lot of time looking up available numbers for us. I told her we had memory problems and would need a very simple number — preferably one with three eights starting with a zero! Dang it if she didn’t try to find it for us.

Amy was surprised that most numbers with eights were already taken. She didn’t know eight was considered a lucky number for most Chinese people, and that some of us white folks think so too.

Starting January 22, Ken and I will have a whole series of new numbers that will be used to locate us.

Here are a few for your records in case anyone wants to know.
Beginning January 22, 2015

Our new address will be:
6476 Samron Rd. • Sechelt, BC V0N 3A7

Our new phone number will be:
604-885-9808

We now have four eights in the number, and while 9808 is okay – I really will miss the 0888 number. Still, I guess if Little Productions can give it up, so can we.

I would love to be a fly on the line, when the next lucky person to sign up for telephone on this rock, and someone, maybe even Amy, is able to say… well, 0888 is available.

My motto for 2015 has been settled on.

Sit at the table!

This actually has been a goal of mine for years — yet, I rarely do it.

This next year, I’d like to set the tone and literally, sit at the table.

I’m good with sitting at the table figuratively as well. Finding a chair at the table involves participation for me. I plan on participating in a lot of new activities this coming year, but most of all I want to sit at the table to eat.

Few people know, I eat most meals alone, in my cave. It is a bit embarrassing to admit it, but there you go. I’ll sit at the table when we have company or we are invited out, but at home, I grab a plate and disappear, leaving Ken at the table alone.

This habit goes way back — that’s no excuse. My family had a hard time gathering around food and when we did, nothing good came of it.

I remember one of the first times I sat at a table to eat. I was 18 years old, and at the home of my then boyfriend. He was the seventh child in a family of 14, and at dinner they ALL gathered to eat and talk. It was one of the most amazing experiences I’d had to date. I was shell shocked and in awe.

I think about it each time I slip away with my plate. Yet, I’ve continued to eat alone over the years.

In 2015, in a new house, with a new view, I have a new motto, that I hope will break an old habit.

This motto will remind and encourage me to step up, and participate.

I plan to sit at the table and share meals and conversation in 2015.

I know this sounds weird, but there you go.

   Merry Christmas!

When people are really ready for change, sometimes you hear them say, “I will do anything!” I hear it with addicts all the time. It usually comes right after a beat down or right before real change takes place. The feeling of not being able to go on as things are, gives way to a willingness and openness we didn’t have the day before. “I’ll do anything” is a strong statement. We believe it when we say it, we believe it when we hear it.

The problem I see, and why folks relapse, is that when we say, “I’ll do anything,” we are looking for a change in how we feel at that moment. We rarely think through the reality of having to do “anything” again and again and again and again.

We become willing and in our imagination, we think, I’m willing to go to a meeting, I’ll tell someone my secrets, and change my thinking. I can do different. It isn’t until we start to feel better that we forget the ‘I’ll do anything’ promise, and find ourselves saying, I don’t really feel like doing that… again today.

I’m thinking of this today, because I’ve been asked to speak for someone who is celebrating three years of sobriety tonight. And I’m thinking back to three years as one of the hardest places to be in sobriety. One year is amazing, everyone cheers you. 30 years is incredible as in a way, you’ve figured out how to live without booze. But, three years, while totally worth it, is a bit of a grind on the road.

The routine of sobriety, the reality of living sober can become stale.

At three years, you find you can do it. You’ve had the experience of staying sober when you wanted to drink, you made it through the holidays before. Chances are someone you loved died in the last three years and you did the next right thing, you made it. Good things happened too, relationships healed, health returned, you got a promotion or an award and still didn’t drink. At three years you have pretty well experienced all the traumas, dramas, joys and celebrations to be had and will have at various levels of life. You know how to stay sober. You know what to do when you get that itchy and scratchy feeling. You’ve done it for three years and then…

Reality sets in. This is it. This is what you do, who you are. You are no longer a new comer. You are not an old timer either. Attention and help of others turn away from you. You become one of many: a man among men, a friend among friends. The changes you made on a daily basis, may seem boring today. Same ole, same ole. You haven’t missed  meeting, you make the phone calls, work the steps, make and keep commitments, you have a new routine, new friends and hangouts. You are sober.

But, addicts love the highs and lows of life; the all or nothings. That, I’ll do anything has become a routine that works. And usually at three years we wake up and some of us say, “I’d like to do anything … else.”

The difference between tedium and rhythm is actually rather subtle. Repetition, sameness, routine, rut, practice. The energy with which we approach daily routine can be mundane or interesting. Tedium lacks energy, may even drain you. Rhythm puts a little dance in you.

At three years it is really important to find the rhythm in the daily routine that works.

I salute my brothers and sisters in sobriety. I encourage you to keep on keeping on and keep on. Embrace the rhythm, because in sobriety, we truly can do anything!

Walking in the dark is different from walking in the light, just as bushwacking trails is different from walking on the pavement. I like to mix it all up, so this week I’ve been listening to music instead of books or podcast while I venture outside. Music provides me a totally different experience than a spoken story.

I put the iPod on shuffle and let it choose any of the 1126 songs I have on the crazy thing that is smaller than a pack of smokes! Oh the technology!

The biggest difference I’ve found when walking to music and not the spoken word is, that at times, I need to pull over and dance! Some songs just demand a different beat than left right, left right. Some songs demand a hip hop, swing and groove.

I’m not really shy, but it’s a good thing I don’t cross paths with my people when I go galavanting. I dance about as well as I sing and yes, with headphones on I know I am singing loud if not in tune.

The other really fun part of listening to music on these walks is similar to enjoying the art work on our walls. So much of our music (and art) collection is by friends.

Just this morning, on the shortest day of the year, I took a super long walk and in the shuffle in my ear I had the joy of walking with and dancing to the variety of songs and styles by such talented friends as— Christine Duncan, Troy Tilly, Lynn Williams, Buff Allen, Bobby Kap, and Art Hudson.

Sometimes the shuffle grabs a chapter of a book and I have to hit skip, and today just before I came to Lot 15 for a long practice on this short day, I heard the famous, Jan Parker in my ear asking me to “Please raise my hands!” So, I did.

Life is grand. Happy solstice everyone.

When I first started walking out at the Cape after what a lot of us long term Bowen folk called the rape of the Cape, it was hard.

So many trees were cut down, roads were made and paved, and the area was chopped up into 10 acre lots costing zillions of dollars. It was hard to go out there with the old idea of what was. The trails we used to hike were gone or were now hard to find. I lost my bearings out there. I would get confused between what was, and what this super fancy development was becoming.

First off my friend Sue gave me walking poles, then she talked me into walking out there. It’s beautiful and there is a lot to explore. Besides we didn’t have to drive somewhere to get some exercise walking.

Sue is an explorer at heart. I don’t think I am. I like things a certain way and am slow to embrace adventure. I’m also lazy and prefer the easier, softer way. I like the path already paved so to speak. But, if I was to walk with Sue, which I really enjoy, then I was to explore. She was always ready to go out of the way, off the trail to see what is over there.

As my fitness improved, I got more adventurous. I started bushwhacking on my own between paved roads and marked trails. I did this mostly to add or subtract time to my daily jaunts. It also became fun to see the different lots that are for sale. (Lot 15 is still my favourite)

This morning, I found a new path. One of the few benefits to this development is the creation of trails. They are starting to pop up here and there. They are marked by pink ribbons as the trail is not worn, but it is somewhat of a path.

I started down one of these this morning. At times, I had to stop and look around me in all directions to find a pink hint of where to go. Only twice did I not find one, but it was easy to turn around or continue until I did. The bushwhacking practice made me brave to explore on my own and I can’t wait to show Sue the new territory to explore and to realize I too am now curious about what is over there.

I think this practice is giving me a new skill.

Several thoughts are on the run right now. I feel like if I just post a funny picture or easy haiku here, my work is done. But, for me it isn’t satisfying and in the words of a truly self centred person I know, “I’m not here for you.”

Writing is as much of a personal practice as Tai chi and qigong are for me. TT Liang said something like — first I practice to learn, then I practice to progress and now I practice because it is a part of me. Like so many lessons I heard over the years this one makes more and more sense at time goes on.

I get it. There are things I do on a regular basis that are just a part of me, and when I can’t or don’t do them, I feel funny.

The last few days I’ve been limping around the house with a 94% certainty that my foot was not broken. I am not sure what I did or didn’t do to it, but the top of my foot was swollen, bruised and super sore. Also, I’m a bit of a whiner and poor Ken had to hear all about it.

I have to say this sore foot hindered the daily walks I’ve come to really enjoy. I’m not obsessed with them…. much.  I have come to the point that they are a big part of my day, and I admit to feeling funny when I don’t get out for them. As I was whining last night, Ken said I sounded like my father. Ouch!

Yet, thinking about it, this is probably the first time I’ve truly felt empathy for him and his situation.

Dad has been an athlete his entire life. Running, swimming, weight lifting, cycling, skiing, skating, you name it — solo sports and active stunts are his thing. Now, he can’t do what he has always done and he struggles.

At first I was short with him, I told him to take up some new hobbies. I encouraged him to learn to play bridge, read more, play chess… I see now, that that those are not helpful suggestions to someone whose only comfort is in personal physical achievement.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but the habit of activity is important, still it has to be tempered with the ability to rest and change when injury or illness creeps in.

As I whined about not being able to take my walks, I was grateful for the wonderful practice of qigong. It is different for sure, but still quite satisfying.

My foot is not broken. After pouring loads of Chinese bruise juice on it, I am 100% sure. So, this morning I strolled to my practice spot and glided through the 108. It was not a perfect practice, I am guarded on my foot and my balance was off, and yet, I do not want to be hung up on what I can’t do.

And in perfect timing my friend Allyson sent this link to me, it is just what I needed to read!

I’ve written three songs in my life time. Well, I should say, I’ve co-written three songs in my life.

The first was a Christmas carol I wrote with Sally Bivins in grade 5 or 6 about the Beatles… you know, Following Ringo Star…

The second was about getting high on a Thursday afternoon, and the third, Sam and I wrote on one of our travels. We called it, Smart Versus Pretty and it had a very catchy tune.

So, after spending today in town, a couple of hours in the barber chair, and the skills of Cody the hair dresser, with his clippers and products and such, I’m flipping my hair about and singing….

“I’m feeling kinda pretty today!”*

*Lyrics by Jan Parker and Sam Masich

I got a Fitbit in October.

It keeps track of how far I walk each day.

Every once in a while, I get an email from the Fitbit people with interesting and inspiring reports.

Today I got this one!

I’ve basically walked across Hawaii! Pretty cool eh!