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By doriluthy, December 31, 2006 9:30 pm

Today is the last day of 2006. here’s the numbers:

• July was birthday #28
• September is now 4 years in Vancouver
• September 8 years with Dustin, May was three of marriage
• June Pink’s 11th birthday
• May/June had 3 weddings (Em, Jason, Lisa)
• New places visited this year: Australia, Ottawa, Merrickville (I’ll be back Jenna!)

Maybe it’s the music, but I’m feeling a bit sentimental right now. I once knew a man named Hugh McKinley. A poet, writer, scholar, opera singer!, he was so full of life and eternally willing to take chances for the thing he loved more than anything- his Faith. He was alive with love for what he believed, and wanted to share this beautiful thing with other people. I admired him so much for this unwavering Faith, and took his compassionate advice to heart. Before I went to Latvia in 1997, I asked Hugh what I should do, how could I grow and learn? I was a youth with big life excitement, but with so many fears of the future and unsure of my place on this planet (oh how things change so slowly!). What did Hugh say? “Make yourself uncomfortable. Then you will learn the most about yourself.”

It’s been almost 10 years since that great adventure. And here we are now coming to the end of 2006. This has been a year of many learning opportunities, and I am seeing again how the time has come to really make myself uncomfortable. I left my job as of Friday the 29th. Who is my new employer? Me. Thanks to unwavering support from my husband and a new sense of inner determination, I am finally taking the leap I should have taken years ago. Oh of course, it is said you are never ready until you are ready, you have to learn through phases to get to where you need to go…  But I’m ready to get uncomfortable again. That great sense of adventure and Faith that took me to Latvia in 1997 for those challenging 8 months, I am looking for again. I seem to have been wandering undirected for some time now, passing time by filling days with tasks and jobs, finding only some rare time for delight and inspiration. I’ve lost track of what the dream is, and now when Dustin asks me ‘what is the vision’ I am at a loss for words. Grrr. I feel like going to the woods, meditating, fasting, shaving my head (joking moms), and getting really uncomfortable. Actually, I think I’ll head south to my heart-home in the woods in Oregon. Aunt Barb has lots of tea, a pottery studio in her garage, and hugs that never end. Next Friday- a train ride south, a fire place to stoke, quiet chilly mornings, walks in the wet woods,  Persian rugs and lots of cousins… Some time for mourning what has passed and is lost, and then also to celebrate and plan for a new beginning. Necessities for the next stage of my life: Amelie soundtrack. my sketchbook. hand knit wool socks (thanks gram Carol!). Hugh McKinley’s soft smiling advice.
Have you ever done a life/time allocation chart? I haven’t in a couple years, and it’s time! This usually involves a pack of multi-coloured markers, a big piece of paper, and a few hours to ponder. I start with a drawing of myself in the middle, and then i write/draw words around me- start with the big things: family, career, body/health, spirituality, etc. and then i write bits about each one of those things, no matter how realistic or not, just write what comes out. A lovely opportunity to see what is in your head and heart about life. I highly recommend it.

I’ll write from Oregon.

ciao.

Comments (2)

By doriluthy, December 14, 2006 7:52 am

Wow, this is exhausting. I have been working 11.5 hour days this week, on my feet all day discussing the wonders of pottery with anone who walks up to our booth, trying to avoid the terrible habit of boredom eating, and smiling! don’t forget to smile! all day long. I am pooped. I have been wanting to write a post about the great day I had on Monday (my day off)- i did a self-guided “what’s over there?” tour of Parliment Hill, got to go up to the Peace Tower (amazing 360 views of Ottawa and Gateneau) and I saw the Memorial Chamber (possibly the most ornate room on the planet. it was unbeleivably beautiful and very moving), and then I explored the area around here, did a little shopping, got my hair cut (eek! short!)…

But the cats on Parliment Hill- this is the funniest thing about this serious city. Oh Ottawa, you had me at “meow”…
For those of you who sent me contacts in Ottawa, sorry I haven’t contacted anyone yet- i come home around 10:30, send a couple emails, put my feet up and usually fall asleep in front of the boob tube after an hour. HGtv (home and garden tv) has become my favorite channel. any suprises there? I will write more about these easy addictions in life another day…

Is it almost over?

ciao.

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By doriluthy, December 6, 2006 6:44 pm

I meant to write this post before I left for Ottawa, but here i sit under an almost full moon in Canada’s nobel capitol city. It is lovely and cold here, a winter like I remember from my youngest days in South Dakota. Not like a Black Hills winter, but an Eastern South Dakota winter, where the snow stays, it’s cold cold cold, the wind blows dry and persistent. Somehow, I seem to recongnize the smell of this air. It reminds me of my childhood, standing waiting for the bus there on Bank street, turning in and out of the cold looking up the road for the bus to come- back in the day, my brothers and I had a small hut we would stand in to wait. It was an ice fishing shack that my dad put up every winter to help keep us kids warm as we waited for the school bus. I can’t remember what colour that shack was- maybe Jack or Justus could post a comment to remind me?

Anyway, I am staying in a long-stay apartment/hotel. It is actually bigger than my place in Vancouver!! I am amused by this little piece of square footage. It’s a strange mixture of old and new- basically a hotel room that hasn’t been updated in 10 years- that dark green carpet and upolstry on the furniture… but the view of the twinkling lights is so nice. I woke up this morning to peer down at what looked like a long winding pathway, but is actually the Rideau Canal, a bit frozen and covered in a light layer of snow. It’s pretty cold here, not freezing cold, but cold enough that people from Vancouver would be complaining VERY loud. The people in Ottawa say, the weather’s not too bad today.

So the buttons! Here’s the story: i woke up Sunday feeling very inspired to clean and organize bits of my life that hadn’t been cleaned or organized in a long time. Perhaps your wondering if this has anything to do with the fact that i spent the entire day on Saturday in bed. I assure you, NO. I had been thinking (perhaps even dreaming?) about doing a clean out of one very specific place for a long time… that place was my grandma’s button box. It is a large tin that at one time held christmas chocolates- i’m sure you know what it looks like, a metal octagon, with little idyllic drawings of winter scenes on the sides, a lid, a small handle. I think it was Russells chocolates? Anyway, it had been my grandma’s button box for as long as i can remember. well, when I inherited this piece of history when she died almost 7 years ago. (wow, i can’t beleive it’s been that long… but I’ll blog about my gramma Dori another day). Apparently the move to the west rainy coast was not a good move for this box, because it started to rust on the inside, and being only an occassional button user, i realized after the past 4 years the rustiness was getting worse and worse, and actually ruining alot of buttons! NOOOOOOO!! Not the BUTTONS!!

Long story short: clean, clean, clean, organize by colour, sort by size and style, throw out rusty ones, broken ones, then fall in love with beautiful ones, resort, repack, the end.

Here’s a couple photos:

ciao!

Such is LIFE

A day in bed

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By doriluthy, December 2, 2006 11:31 pm

It’s true! i’ve spent the day laying in bed!! I’m not sick, or tired or sad or anything but truly, absolutley, indulgent. And because today, possibly the last day for weeks to come, I have nothing urget to attend to (well only one thing, and i managed to do that, you guess right, IN BED!) I have spent it laying here with my sketchbooks, laptop, magazines, and the cat.
It is my absolute most indulgent thing to do. Sleep in late, drink tea that husband brings, eat oranges that husband brings, get up to help with dinner, eat dinner, go back to lay in bed. And now at 10pm on this first Saturday in December, I am quite possibly the most content i have been in ages. YAWN!

If i had felt such a need to write one, my day’s to do list would have included: Daydream. Stretch. Snooze. Pet Cat. Daydream more. Draw floor plans for an imaginary tropical beach home. Search IKEA website for imaginary house plans kitchen cabinets (I settled on Akurum/Adel birch or white. But probably white). Read lots of craft blogs. Think about the colour red.

Oh how lovely the occassional indulgences can be.

On another note: My mom just came back from a trip to Israel on pilgrimage to the Baha’i Holy sites; she filled me in on the beautiful experience and I remember with great love the few days i spent there in 1998. I am so glad she had a chance to go! I can’t wait to see the photos and hear more stories!
ciao

Such is LIFE

Noel’s adventures

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By doriluthy, December 1, 2006 8:06 pm

I just got off the phone with a friend from way back in South Dakota days. He’s living in Portland now, working for a big tech company, and having a blast in that funky place. Really, as far as cities go, Portland is tops. And Noel for sure belongs there. He was telling me about this new place he moved into.

“I think the neighbor is crazy”
Crazy? Like crazy crazy?

“yeah, he came over the other night with a helmet and a 6pack. Turns out the helmet’s for his 1950’s go-carts that he has. Oh, the beer is too. So it’s around 8pm, and we spend the next 4 hours racing around the back streets of Portland. We stopped a couple times at some bars.”

where do you park your go-cart at the bar?

“oh we just pull up to the front door and park them there. We stopped at this one hipster bar downtown, when we walked in everyone looked at us real strange. REAL strange.”

u-huh.

“bike paths, back alleys, sidewalks, the road too, but you have to be really careful of cars. They would just drive over you. You’re like only 2 inches off the ground, surrounded in steel and a motor at your back. After 4 hours of that, i couldn’t feel my hands or my ass.”

Did you say you think your neighbor is crazy?

“yeah, I have to park down the block now and sneak in to my place at night after work so he won’t see me coming home. As soon as he thinks I’m home he comes running over with helmets and beers. I guess most of the neighbors like him, he’s been here a long time. Except one lady down the road- she hit him with a rake when he was driving by on his go cart. Yeah, it was bad. I guess he got some money out of it, though.”

Noel, it seems like all the really cool stuff in life is reserved for you.
“Yeah, it’s really hard to turn down go-carts and beer.”

People I have lived with

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