FINDING HOME                                                                   

                                              

                                     

Friday night was one of those night where sleep would not come.  After reading for a while I turned off the light and found myself trying to find that comfort spot, that place where I could let me body go and drift off into dream land.  That didn't happen.  An hour and a half later I dragged my body and my pillow down to the couch where the tossing and turning continued throughout the night.  I was wide awake at 6:30 and by ten to seven decided to get up and have a shower.  The hot water felt so good as it ran down by body.  I love the feel of that heat and hearing myself making guttural sounds of pleasure as it soothes my body and my soul.    

I got dressed and took Lukka (she's our dog) down to the beach for a walk.  She really isn't allowed there after June 15th but we occasionally sneak down there in the early morning.  I found myself standing at the edge of the sand, feeling the warmth of the sun on my body and such joy in my heart.   As an eagle flew overhead  I held up my hand and said "Good Morning Brother".    I never worry about whether someone is looking at me or listening to me talk to the eagles or any of the other creatures that grace my world.   I felt such gratitude at that moment, speaking to the creator about how grateful I am to call this island home, to be able to stand at the edge of the ocean or in the forest surrounded by cedars and fir or to feel the skin of the Arbutus after she has shed her outer layers.    I am grateful to feel home.  I have left this island numerous times for long periods, you know more than a weekend; longer than a week or two.   Every time I am returning home I feel such an overwhelming sense of joy: there's my home, my island and as much as I may have loved where I was, I am so elated to be coming home.  

I found this place in 1995 when I did a road trip across Canada with some friends.  I had been living in Toronto at the time and was excited that we were going to the coast.  I had been out west several times before and always felt so at peace when I was here, especially near the water.  When we were planning our trip we had been looking through my hosteling book and found a place on an island off the coast from Vancouver where you could sleep in a teepee.  We all decided right there and then that we were going to this place called Salt Spring just so we could sleep in a teepee and stay on an island.   

We arrived here late at night and couldn't really see much of anything.  Over the next five days we saw all the touristy sights, picked blackberries, made blackberry pancakes for breakfast complete with blackberry sauce and joined the others at the hostel late at night around the campfire.   With each day I felt more and more like I was home.  I felt like I could be me,  feel comfortable in my own skin, that I was someone with value.  I found myself more extroverted than I usually was, talking to complete strangers,  taking a group of people down to the ocean to watch the full moon rise not really knowing the path I was leading them on, not really knowing these people.  It didn't seem to matter because I felt different inside about me, about life and it was all good.  

My friends decided to go to Vancouver for the weekend.  Not me; I didn't want to go to the city.  I wanted to stay on this island.  I found lots to do myself, including going to the market, hanging out with other hostellers, even going for a job interview in Nanaimo, a place I immediately knew was not for me.   I met my friends at the ferry terminal in T'sawwassen and told them I was moving to Salt Spring.  They initially laughed at this statement but after a while realized I wasn't joking.  

I did move here, six months later, driving from Toronto in February, a really crazy time to do such a trip.   I had car problems, drove through snowstorms, slept in places where I felt this creepiness seep into my body and cried all the way down the mountain into Hope.  I slept in my car at the ferry terminal and arrived on Salt Spring to face snow.  This couldn't be right.  I had left the snow and  cold behind and thought I was coming to rain and clouds and early spring, not snow.    

I have never regretted this move even though the emotional costs were high.  I was leaving everyone in my life behind, going to a place where I really only knew the people who operated the hostel, and had no idea whether I could find a job or not.  

It has been a little over 12 1/2 years since I moved here and I would still fervently say this is home.  It's not a building or a particular piece of land or place; it's all of this island.  Sure I have favourite places and I love that the beach is just around the corner from where I live but there is so much here that I love.  I love the people who seem to be there for others when things are tough or tragedy has struck or someone just needs a little something to get by.   

I love walking down the streets and saying hello to all those I know and even those I don't know because it's okay to talk to strangers here, in fact it is encouraged to share a little love from our hearts to all.   I love the markets and the wonderful organic food I can buy from people I know, people who live here,  who care about the land and sustainability and buying local.    I have shared this home with my son and shown visitors the wonders of this place.  Now I share it with my beloved and it is so good to know that she shares the same love for this place as I do.   

Sometimes I think about other places to live, far away places, other islands, but for now this is home for me, my beautiful island home and for this I am grateful.  

What about you:  where is home for you,  is it a house, a building or  a place?    How did you find it or did it find you?   

I Love My Body

The other night as the rain fell I lay in bed feeling the dampness in my bones.  My knees ached and as I tried to stretch them out I felt a tightness that ran from my hips to my toes.    My fingers asked to be rubbed and held.    As I lay there trying to find that comfort spot in the bed I found myself kneading the back of my neck, those knots that seem to live there permanently.   Lately nights seem to be full of tossing and turning, feeling the kinks and pains that seem to rack my body lately.  

In my wakefulness I thought about this body of mine and all it has been through in these 62 years.   I remembered doing cartwheels in my forties, one after another after another, laughing at myself and the joy of feeling like a kid.   When I was young I would climb to the top of trees and feel no fear of falling, of loving the view that lay before me; it was like being in another world, feeling closer to the sky.   At one time I decided to learn Karate.   Don't ask me what type because I really don't remember; it was the painful type.   It did feel good though, to feel strong in my body, my core.  I could do 50 push-ups followed by the same number of sit-ups without loosing my breath.   I honestly don't know when I last did a push up or if I even could.   


This body birthed two children, neither birth being easy, if there is such a thing.  I carried around this extra weight rubbing the beautiful buddha belly talking to the child growing inside me.  There were days when I couldn't believe that I could get so round.   The other day someone was talking about mowing their lawn and I remembered carrying my son around on my back pushing the lawn mower over our three quarters of an acre, a piece of land that wasn't flat.  It took hours to mow that lawn or so it felt like at the time.   


Several years ago a friend and I decided to walk around Cowichan Lake, a total of 56 kms., as a fundraiser for an organization we volunteer with.  By the time I crossed that finish line my feet were covered in blisters and I felt ready to pass out.  You should have seen my friend;  she had on a pair of sandals that she had worn for years and a mini-skirt; not what you would expect to see at this kind of event.   I've always been a walker but that was the furthest I have ever made these feet go.   My feet reminded me of that fact for days.  


My body has climbed to the top of a mountain in Austria.  It has paddled all of South Moresby in the Queen Charlotte Islands.   It has endured attempts at jogging or running.   It has been burned by the sun and put up with my sitting on a cold snow filled mound waiting with my camera for a beaver to appear from it's home.  I never saw that beaver.   


Over the years I've gained and lost weight, loving and hating my body with each pound that came on or off.   There are pictures of me that I actually hate to see.  I wonder who that woman is, she can't be me, I don't look like that.  Those are the pictures of me when the weight is on.   I remember last year showing a picture of me when I was thin to a group of people, telling them that even then I thought I was fat.   I sometimes wonder when do I just say okay, this is me and I am beautiful, I love this body of mine.    Some days I feel like I can accept this me, live with the extra weight but most times I dream of being thinner.   I wonder if it is the messages that we receive about what beauty is, of thin being sexy, more acceptable, that influences even me, me who rants about there being a size 0.   


I am truly grateful to my body for all it has given me, for putting up with all I have done to it over the years, for the abuse it has taken at the hands of others, for my pushing it to the point where it just says stop in it's own way, for carrying my two children and a third that never made it, for being there through this love hate relationship.


I'm finishing with this poem that I wrote.  

I Love My Body

she stands naked in front of the mirror

chanting her mantra to herself

afraid to say the words out loud

I love my body, I love my body

she believes it will make a difference

to how she sees herself

that if she can love the hills and valleys

the extra bits that have miraculously appeared

that it will somehow all just disappear

and she will feel the heat of sexual desire

parade around in lacy things

straddle her lover

devour her with kisses

 she stands naked in front of the mirror

chanting her mantra to herself

I love my body, I love my body

as the words float away

 in total disbelief

What about you.  What is your relationship with your body?  What has your body endured?   Do you feel that the messages we are given have affected how your feel about being in your own skin?