photography

Spinning Out

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One of the things I tried while trying to escape myself was spin class.

Last winter, my yoga studio shut down once again because of covid. I didn’t know what to do with myself. This time, I was working, so I had less time to develop a home practice. This time, I was already struggling with my mental health, and yoga had been what was keeping me afloat.

For awhile I just floundered. Then my sisters urged me to try spin.

After the initial shock to my muscles, I found I liked it. It helped give me a focus, helped get me out of my head.

It wasn’t healing like yoga, though, so when a yoga teacher I knew starting offering classes, I was quick to sign up. Then my studio eventually reopened, so I started going there, too.

For several months, I attended classes at both yoga studios and spin every week. I thought I had it all figured out: just do it all and it would all help.

I was wrong.

Trying to get out of my head was making my head spin.

First I dropped spin. Sure, it had made me feel strong and confident, but it didn’t feel like me. I tried continuing with both yoga studios, out of loyalty and a feeling of obligation I’d created in my head. But when the new one stopped offering classes at convenient times, I let that go too.

Attending classes all over the place meant my attention was all over the place, too. With the return to a single studio, I was able to focus on a single path. I rediscovered the healing of yoga, and reconnected to my yoga community. One place, one headspace was all I needed.

I hope you, too, have a practice that feels like love, and a place to go that feels like home.

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Thanksgiving

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This Thanksgiving, I am grateful…

For a drive through the mountains of northern NB, covered with trees green and gold.

For heavy rain on a misty lake.

For a potluck turkey dinner with family crowded into a camp.

For a walk in the woods, breathing in the earthy scent of fall.

For making memories with my parents, my sisters, my son and my daughter, and my niece and my nephews.

For a Hunter’s Moon, humongous in the early evening sky.

I hope your Thanksgiving was filled with love and laughter, good food and great company.

Happy Thanksgiving! 🍁 🇨🇦

Easing Up

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Two lanes cut into one, just before the busiest intersection in town. They are doing roadwork, and it seems to be taking forever.

As much as possible, I avoid the area. It’s preferable to drive an extra ten minutes around than to sit and crawl along with the backed-up traffic.

But the part that made my blood boil, that no amount of yoga or breath training could calm away, was watching while drivers raced past in the right lane and nosed their way in. I sat in my self-righteousness, seething at their ignorance, their arrogance. Getting angrier by the minute as they jumped ahead of the line.

Then I found out I was wrong.

We were supposed to use both lanes, supposed to follow along and then take turns merging into one lane. But I, like most of the drivers in this place, figured I should get into the left lane as early as possible to ensure my spot.

At first, I was indignant. How else could it be navigated, how else could the traffic actually move along?

But then I sat with it, with my wrongness. And something surprising happened: Instead of holding onto the anger, I let it go.

I still avoid the area when I can. I still get into the left lane as early as possible (after all, it’s what most drivers here are doing), but now, instead of riding the bumper ahead of me, closing the gap for anyone seemingly cutting the line, I let them in.

And I let go.

I hope you find some ease in life’s traffic jams, some right in the wrongs. I hope you let go.

Paradox

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Now that I’m feeling like myself again, it seems like there aren’t enough hours in the day.

So many hobbies, so little time.

I want to read and knit and write and learn. I want to organize my desk and decorate for fall. I want to photograph and craft.

I’m better when I’m busy, but it’s easier being busy when I’m better.

When I was low, the hours felt long and empty. I was lonely, unsatisfied with my own company. I fell into the social media trap of comparing my life with the digital versions of others’ lives.

I tried to get busy, but nothing held my attention long enough or well enough to fill the emptiness.

But I persisted, and slowly, through yoga and meditation and many long walks on the beach, I began to heal. Through words spoken, written, and read, I found my way back to myself.

I once heard that you can’t sit around waiting for motivation to strike, you have to just begin and the motivation will come.

So I got busy, and I found my motivation to get busy again.

Currently reading: Supernatural by Dr Joe Dispenza (almost done!).

Today I’m grateful for crisp fall mornings, the changing colours, and fuzzy warm pjs.

The Write Time

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I never meant to stop writing. It just sort of happened.

The last post I wrote in 2018 was mere days after I’d separated from my husband. For awhile, I suppose I tried to pretend nothing had changed, but I could not have been more wrong. My whole life was about to take a turn; it was the beginning of a series of struggles.

At first, I just kept putting off publishing anything on my blog. What could I possibly say? There was some relief at having ended a relationship that had had its fair share of problems. But no matter how I looked at it, the effects were devastating.

The silver lining? It was the beginning of rediscovering my independence, my power, and myself.

Join me as I share some of my stories about finding healing in new beginnings, and about finding magic in moments otherwise missed or mundane.

I hope that you, too, have been able to find light in dark times.

Into the Light

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I lost myself for awhile.

It’s been four years since I last posted. Four years since I felt like myself.

But here I am, still standing. Standing stronger and lighter and more filled with love and hope than ever.

I didn’t know how much I was in the dark until I climbed back into the light.

I am back.

And I am here to share some of my stories, some of the hard lessons I learned, and how I found myself again.

This is a photography and life blog about finding the magic in the moments, about chasing the light.  

I hope you’ll join me on this journey.

Currently reading: Becoming Supernatural by Dr Joe Dispenza

Three things I am grateful for today: The smell of the rain, the colour of the sky before a storm, and not being in the direct track of Hurricane Fiona.

Into the Woods

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into the woods

Some days my son disappears into the woods.

Armed with nothing but his imagination and sense of adventure, he heads into the woods behind my parents’ house, often with his cousins and friends.  He’s done this on gorgeous summer days, drizzly evenings, and crisp snowy mornings.

I’m never exactly sure what he does there, nor do I care to go investigate.  I hear the occasional shout and the hard crack of wood against wood, so I know they’re safe.

The woods are the setting for untold stories, and the fallen trees are material for a fort. The darkness is a filter from the rest of the world.  There is just enough distance between this forest hideaway and the watchful eyes of parents to allow him freedom to invent without boundaries, to play without rules.

I can’t see my son when he’s in the woods, but this is what I know:  I know he is developing his independence, his creativity, and his appreciation for our natural environment.

He may come back to the house bug-bitten, scraped, or splintered, but he comes back happy.

Later…

I got to see the efforts of the boys’ hard work.  They proudly led me through the woods to their fort, and I was so impressed I went back for my phone so I could share what they had built:

Imperfect

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fence

I love these old iron fences surrounding equally old buildings in the downtown area of Kingston.

It was only after composing the shot that I noticed the broken piece I had focussed on.  I like that this repeated pattern is imperfect, that the attempt at order has been thwarted.

Life’s like that.