How I found Squam

Sharing this story for anyone who believes in, or is looking for examples of, the universe listening and giving us what we sought.  As a romantic at heart I love to believe that is possible, but the Sheldon of my personality always chips in that what is actually happening is my unconscious mind responded to an articulated request.  Whatever!  If you state it, and plan it, it will happen I reckon.  So the story...

About 7 years ago my friend Louise Gale blogged about Squam. She shared photos, and stories and it looked amazing.  She was living in the USA at that time, a Brit abroad. I was a Brit at home, aged 40 with a new baby.  I loved what she wrote and whilst I loved my precious little man I envied her that opportunity to live the life she loved.  My journey to parenthood was over years of fertility treatment, so I also beat myself up a little for having the greatest treasure in the world and still wanting something more.  My clear memory is packing all of my art stuff into a large cupboard and joking to a friend that that  will be in there for 5 years.  As it goes, it was but that's not the story...

Role ahead to 2013 and a cold winters day in NYC. I had by now moved to Canada via work ( wish for it and it happens.  I thank Louise again for guiding me in dream boards and making dreams come true).

  I headed to the airport early as I hate to be late. Traffic was absent, lights were green and I got to Laguardia so early that they put me on standby for an earlier flight. At the risk of sounding provincial I had never been on standby before...it was quite exciting.  I get on that flight, and sit next to a lady wearing a beautiful shawl. I unpack my essentials and settle down.  My essentials being a ball of yarn and a crochet hook.  The minutes I did that she burst out a laugh and said " I don't believe it".  Turns out she was commenting on the odds of sitting next to a fellow yarn nut. Over the course of the flight I learnt that she was high powered exec by day and an awesome sample knitter by night. Folks design patterns and she road tests them.  She gave me great tips about Toronto, my new home, and told me about Ravelry.  Who knew there was a on online community for knitting and such?

A few days later when I had time to stop and not think I checked out Ravelry and there was an icon for Squam...that thing that I had heard about over 5 years before but hadn't thought of since.  I checked it out, I signed up for Fall 2014. I had no means to pay for it and when It came to pay the balance I recall asking Elisabeth if there was a wait list so that some one else could take my spot.  That wasn't possible so I scratched around and found the money somehow and off I went.  It was amazing, and you can read about it in my blog under Squam, Calm and Slow.

So was that fate, serendipity, cognitive something or other? Don't care, it's a recipe for success I reckon. Stop, think, or stop and stop thinking, see what comes into your mind...you want it - ask for it...it arrives.

I'm looking for something

I am home alone this morning. My husband gets back from the city later today after a 2 night "me time" break. I go away for work or fun quite a bit.  Huge gratitude to everyone that I am able to do that, especially the fun parts.  So last winter as the snow looked like it was staying for ever my husband said that he fancied a weekend away in Toronto. Nice idea I thought, but who will look after small person?  " Well you will Fiona, I'm going alone".  I'll admit that my mind went at 300 miles an hour from "how dare he; what's he up to; it's alright for some" and then I applied the brain brake and realized that this was a great idea.  He gets to sit in silence if that's what he needs; he gets to drink beer in a bar and watch sports that he is only now starting to understand, like Curling.

So he's off having fun and being the smartest man alive he also seals the deal this time by asking "do you want anything from the L'Occitane store".  Smooth!

So I'd planned mummy and me time with Small person.  Nothing elaborate, just a meal out Friday and a trip to the movies Saturday.  Turns out that when you are 8 you don't need your mum so much, you prefer friends. Apparently people have studied this. I can vouch for it being true because on Friday night he fidgeted throughout the meal and acted like he was sugar high and then he dumped me for his mate who asked him for a sleep over. I could have said no but I have learnt that dragging him kicking and screaming with me with the order "we will have a nice time" is exhausting and not so much fun. So, home alone, plus cats. Strong tea and calabrese toast with Scottish Marmalade. It's so quiet I can hear the silence.

Having had time to myself this weekend I have been sorting things out, in the house, at my bank and in my head. I tried to explain introversion to others at work this week, but I'm not sure I did it that affectively. I said "everything that I see, feel, need to do, need to understand, every imagining of any kind is a file in my head. So when we are at work and it's busy, and we need to work out what to do first, all of those questions are files in my head, additional files.  My head ( physically larger than it should be for sure, as my family have mahoosive heads) has to hold all of the information.  So when I check a box on a survey that says " workload is too high or not fairly shared out" what I mean is there is too much to fit in my head.  It's not about my ability to prioritize at this point, because if you imagine hundreds of files shoved in a finite space there is no room to sort them and move them around. It just becomes a pile of stuff wedged in a box.

That to me is the crux of introversion  - it is the beauty of being able to think before I speak and the burden of having a very full head.  So the challenge then becomes about doing thing that silence the thinking. Doing absorbing things that have me focus in the moment. I am back doing yoga. It's helping but I still find that the silence in my head is a new space that get filled with thoughts on how to solve that work conundrum.  It will take time and practice, probably over a lifetime I reckon.  Another way that works is to get lost in a crowd of people who are just like me.  It's kind of diversity in reverse in a way but if I go camp out in the woods with my tribe the need to "work it all out, whose who and why" isn't needed. My brain slows right down...and that my friends is why I am going twice to Squam this year. Woot woot!

Namaste

Cemetery in the woods

Sunday morning, breakfast behind us. Small person and husband have a day of doing nothing planned but I want to do something. It's mild for February, around freezing point, a little bit of ice in the shade. What to do, what to do? I decided to just get in the car and see where it went. It went to Tim Hortons drive through...well this is Canada, and I haven't had a coffee in around a hour so coffee it is.  Then I drove onto the Mcmichael Art Gallery which is magically 3 miles from my house.  Somedays living in a small town north of the burbs can be boring or overly franchised.  But then I remember that the greatest collection of Canadian Art (IMO) is 12 minutes away...and off I go.

 

Sometime I go inside but mostly I walk around outside. Today I took a different path and then watched 2 chipmunks playing, up trees, down trees, through hollow logs. It was very cute and they were surprisingly loud and squeaky. I walked around the sculpture garden. Huge bronze statues. I liked them in their setting, as they were so out of scale and hard looking against the trees.  I walked through an art installation which I think was about the river of dreams. Sign was in French so I had to guess a few word.  12 massive weather vain like structures along a frozen stream. Each one had a message in a bottle hanging from it... I read them all.  Again, I likes the fact that this was so large and incongruous but it didn't touch my heart.

Then I wandered on to what the map called "the artists cemetery". At first I thought I'd detour to avoid that but why? Go have a look. As always the thing that I would have avoided if I'd let myself dwell on it too much was the best experience. I had no idea that six of the Group of Seven artists were buried, with their wives, in a circle in the trees. Before I came to Canada I had not even heard of the Group of Seven. Now I am learning as I go, and their art is a spiritual connection I have made with my new home. The cemetery and graves is a circle of granite rocks with their names carved out. The rocks symbolizing the Canadian landscape that they captured in their art in the 1920's and 1930's.  I'm still processing the experience...how people, live, are great, have a profound impact that remains when they are gone, and then there is a circle of rocks. The trees keep growing, the chipmunks play on.  I stood in the silence, my bare hand on a tall tree, trying to feel something. I have trouble feeling feelings, nobody's perfect. But what I did see after standing still was more detail.  It was as if more of the nature came into focus.  I liked that.  I took a lots of photos of foliage for a study of the colours of winter that I am starting on later today...simple pleasures

Namaste
Fiona