Paddling

Driving around the Colombia River Gorge I am awestruck by the natural wonders and the surreal beauty that the area provides through a backdrop of vibrant and alive countryside. Living in a world that is surrounded by beautiful landscapes, gorgeous scenery and amazing rivers, I have often wondered about the unknown places you can only get to through the water. The places between the banks of the river that are covered with a panoramic view of trees and foliage, that many people never get to appreciate or catch a glimpse of. My love for exploring and seeing new things, my genuine curiosity of life and what is out there, and my enthusiasm to try a new sport that so many people are amazingly passionate about, lead me to take a two day kayaking course through Wet Planet.



From the moment I arrived, and heard the passion in the kayak instructors words, I could see there authentic love for a sport that for them changed their life. Their eyes lit up when they spoke of the water, their sincere love for both the river and paddling for me sealed the deal, I was intrigued. I definitely needed to see what this was all about.




Through the course of the two days I learned a lot about myself, the river, and a sport that is rewarding and fulfilling. The course is for beginners, a chance to get your feet wet, take time with awesome instructors, and see if you fall in love with paddling as so many tend to do. Susan and Andy, the incredible teachers, taught us all the basics and all the logistics empowering us with the base knowledge you need to get started. Everything from safety, kayak equipment, how to paddle, and how to exit your boat to reading the water, what you are looking for and how a river works when you are paddling downstream.



The two days proved to give me just what I was looking for. My growing curiosity of the remarkable places that are hidden all around me began to be satisfied. As I paddled the waters, looked around at the beauty that was ever so slowly being etched into my heart, I was thankful for this time that I was given. The peaceful flow of water lead me to unbelievable rapids and as I used the skills that I was taught, I realized why there was genuine passion behind the instructor’s words as they spoke on the sport that they love. As Susan and Andy watched, lead, and motivated us through the water, I was energized when I began to catch on and perfect the skills and excited even when I would miss the mark knowing that they were there to coach and strengthen my abilities. Both of them with their calm manner and gentle teachings lead the way down the river and directed me through my journey.



It has been a week since the two day class and needless to say I am a proud owner of a new Kayak… Well used kayak but definitely new to me and I am completely enamored with the sport and the areas that it will lead me to. All over the world or in my back yard, I will see the beauty that is waiting to be seen and remember to be thankful for every minute of the time I have on the water. Thank you Wet Planet for giving me the skills I need to get started, you were amazing.

Force of the push

I have thought on this subject often. I have written on it, created controversy with it, and processed different opinions on it. So I will write about it once more. Contemplate on truths and listen to what I know to be true….

Why do you think it is that we always want what we can’t have? Do you think that we would want it if we could actually have it? Or better yet, would we want it if we had to force it to happen. Or would the force of the push be enough to halt our hearts and change our minds… Maybe it would it become the clarity that we need in a foggy haze of what we only think will make us happy?

Well I have found that wanting something is part of life. I think that the urge to have something else, something that seems so right in your head, yet is just out of reach, is intoxicating and habit forming. May it be circumstances, life, fate or whatever you want to call it, you have to wonder if that thing you want, that you can’t get enough of in your head, is really better kept as a thought, a fantasy, in this life that is stifling and stagnant and desperately in need of excitement at times. As time goes on, life plays out, we realize habits are stronger than we realize. If the goal is to break the habit, maybe with time we can see that habits are nothing more than that, and once we fracture the habit in the slightest way, we will be able to see truth.



Is this romanticized version on life what keeps a dreamer a dreamer, a lover a lover, and a fighter a forever fighter for something better, something great?

Maybe

Maybe there are times in our life that the habit of the want is stronger than what we actually know to be true and just maybe stronger than the authenticity of the dream, which all too often is a skewed idea of reality and what is true.

Or maybe there are exceptional times when there is a reason why you just can’t give up. When you know that the thing you can’t get out of your head is your true happiness. Your piece that is missing from your spirit, that light that makes you shine stronger when you have it, then when you don’t.



In the end we all are the same in our humanity. We all have seen things we wanted but couldn’t have, thought of places we are eager to visit but don’t know when or how we can get there, and we all have felt love and then lost it. These all exhibit our longing for something else, illustrates how without true experience we decide for our self that it will be right for us. As I progress in this life, I am finding there are few things that are real and true and actual. My God that is leading my path is real, my one true thing. I have decided that in this life, if I find myself longing for something, if I begin wondering about what could have been, or never was, it is then that I will turn my head up. I will believe that if I don’t have it, or if life just isn’t going the way I want, there is a reason. I will continue to be silent and listen, opening my heart and surrendering to my path.

Quick to judge

Today I was thinking about people, about the completely unique qualities that separate one of us from another. I was thinking about the matter of judgment, to judge another, what that looks like and how it even sounds just saying it out loud. Our world is full of people that are quick to judge and quick to tell you how to live a better life. We are quick to judge another for a wrong they have done, or a decision they have made. We judge situations people are in or circumstances they are involved in. It seems daily I see people speak on things they don’t know about. Speak on others lives or choices, their rights or their wrongs, and then feel completely justified with what they decide to be true for another.


In a perfect world we would all have been trained from an early age the difference between right and wrong, good and bad. We would all have been made to see hurt and pain, and then directly relate that to actions that were taken or words that were spoken. We would all be able to correlate the knowledge of our actions with the effects they create. Then we could rest assure that we all had the same perception of common sense, a general awareness of right and wrong. We would feel the same hurt and feel equal pains. Of course with this vision, It would be completely reliant on the fact that we would have all been taught the same in our morals or ethics, seen the same things and gone through the same trials, therefore making common sense a general acuity.



Since we all come from completely unique, diverse and exclusive backgrounds, is there really such a thing as common sense? Does everyone really have the same outlined description of right and wrong or crime and punishment?




We all are completely different in our pasts, where we have been and who we have met along the way. Our trials vary vastly from person to person, country to country. We feel things and see life entirely from different standpoints due to our different curvy roads that we are on. Because what each of us has been through, and where each of us has been, makes our outlooks on life neither right nor wrong but as distinctive as each and every one of us. How can I judge another when I have never seen what they have seen, felt what they have felt? As alike as we are in humanity, conditions and situations throughout our life play a role and without knowledge or forethought begin to shape our ever changing paths creating different views on life.




We all are beautiful because we are utterly irreplaceable. We speak differently and sing differently, we look different and think different. Who are any of us to judge another, when we don't truly know what we are speaking about… In a perfect world right and wrong, crime and punishment, would be black and white. Common sense would be just that, and we could rest assure that we were all on the same page. But we are different; our perceptions on life are diverse. I have come to know this... if we continue to look inside ourselves, be quick to assess our own identities rather than others, we are more likely to create inside what we are so eager to have others live up to.


“It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind, that you alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others, and therefore unto yourself.” ~ Kahlil Gibran

Fear of Forgetting

I used to have a fear that time will make you forget. With the decision to move on, sometimes forgetting is your goal and other times it is the complete opposite. Depending on the decision you are making in your life, forgetting can be what you need but other times forgetting seems terrifying. There are moments in our life when we change our minds or go a separate way. We may find that without fully realizing it, we are holding onto the memories and grasping to not forget. Maybe our fear lies in forgetting what at one point we thought we knew to be true.



So why as humans do we want to hold onto the past, keep the memories alive in our mind and alive with hope? Why do we make the decision to change course and then hold onto the fear that time actually will make us forget. Why do we fear forgetting a time or person that was perfect to us. Why do we not hold onto the fact that our minds will store the beauty that was true and store the memories safe within your heart. As I sit here today I am wondering if it all goes back to the fear of time, the fear of hours and days, months and years that seem to pass so quickly making you forget what you once felt so passionately about. The fear that time will ultimately seal the deal. Time will make you forget the path you got off or the person you left behind.

Maybe it is because we have doubt. Humans have doubt. A sort of self evaluation of the choices we make and a way to establish that we made the right decision. As I speculate as to why this is, why we have an inner voice that seems to want to fight against us, I am continuously astonished by our human nature. We continue to have human doubts and demons, self evaluation and self critiques, making us wonder of what was or could have been and endlessly doubt our choices even when we know them to be true.

With all this, I feel a newfound empowerment. I believe even more so today that we are undeniably and ever so extravagantly a crazy collection of amazing, in depth, colorful, and beautiful people… Knowing we are able to trust our inner voice, our God that is in us, gives me a fresh sense of peace. Knowledge that we already know what is true, in the truest way we know how to believe, makes me feel confident in my ever changing current loves and choices, my path and my God.



Time will eventually heal any wound and time definitely is the ultimate power to make you forget. I can sit here and recall times in my life when I literally remember saying I am scared that time will make it easier to forget.I wanted to hold on, I was scared to let go, scared it wouldn't be there when I needed to go back in my mind. Right now I am finding comfort in time passing. Time is making my love for another grow stronger. Time is making me realize that my path is laid out. Time is showing me ever so slowly yet quicker than I realize that the things I need to forget are being forgotten but the beautiful people that have entered my life will forever hold a piece of my heart.Time is proving that all the love that we need is already within us growing stronger with time and greater with age.

Cut my chest wide open

Cut my chest wide open… As I was running the other day, listening to these words of the Avett brothers, I thought about how they remind me of my writing. I first thought how enamored I am with words and thoughts, feelings and emotions of our humanity. I then thought how when I write I literally feel my chest is being cut wide open. It’s as if I can feel myself being surrendered to transparency. I do this with a specific goal, to reach deep in my heart, find the words that I feel completely describe what my heart is feeling and make the paper feel my tears or my joy, my hurt or my pleasure. When the words come out, my hope is they become alive, a song with the lyrics becoming a part of you.

I was thinking about this, about how I have to let go of all barriers, all protective layers of my heart for me to completely open up and let others in. All in hopes that it will help another, open their minds and hearts to new ideas or feelings that are already inside of them, waiting to be let out. I have realized with this opening and ultimately pouring out of my feelings and heart, that it has its own potential for desolation if you will.



Last week I had a bit of a meltdown. Less dramatic than it sounds, but a bit of a contemplative and somewhat meditative state that had me feeling down. I took some time to analyze what it was that was bothering me. As I was writing last week, I realized that I was trying to relate to and fully feel what it was I was writing about. Doing this had me thinking of old loves, old hopes or dreams, times that I have had or seen others go through. All this so I could fully relate to and have a point of reference, searching my mind for lost and hidden emotions… It was then that I realized when I write, I run the risk of mixing old wounds with new loves in order to convey truth. I recognized then that I have to be strong enough to know the difference.


I think that there are times that I dive so deep into emotions and feelings from the past in order to relate to what others may be feeling that I run the risk of letting my mind wander to far, mixing fake with what is standing in front of me. As I ponder this again today, I think that with any artistic expression I feel you have to able to see life through experiences that you have had or have seen others go through. You have to dive into emotions that honestly may not be a healthy place to be. Be able to see the good and the not so good and be able to speak to both. Be able to relate to completely different types of people, see where they are and what they may be feeling.

I feel we all at times have been broken, need help getting fixed. Our hearts or our souls need words of inspiration and words that you can relate to. Words that make you feel normal when the world seems to make no sense. We all at times feel a little crazy; need someone to tell us that we are all the same in humanity. We all have hopes and wants that don’t always align with what we need. My hope is to forever let my chest be cut open. Let my heart remain unlocked to old feelings that can be of inspiration to others in there time, and also have peace knowing that my heart is in the moment of now.

The Habit of Love

“You know it's love when all you want
is that person to be happy,
even if you’re not the reason
behind that happiness”

~~~Ah love and loss and hope and wants… How they seem to all go hand and hand. I feel as woman we so often put countless hours into the processing and wondering on which one is real. What guy will win our heart and then on to wondering if they are worth catching a glimpse of our eyes. I wrote the beginning of this blog months ago and then never finished it. As I reread the words, I couldn’t help but think about all of the conversations with my girlfriends these last few months. Hearing all of their hearts and wants I am seeing that we so often mere each other in alike desires and hopes. So I decided to think about these words once again, reflect on the subject of love. These words that I wrote from before, just may come in handy to help my girls while they are on what at times seems like an endless course of love and life….~~~~


I can’t help but wonder if loving you is a habit. A form of self indulgence really that is neither real nor fake because to claim it as real would be like making it something that was alive in the first place and to claim it as fake would take away from the aliveness that it felt like at the time. I think that love comes in many forms and when you want to move on and something grabs your attention, it is easy, but when life is stagnant and somewhat monotonous you hold onto a memory of aliveness that for all you know was never real to begin with.

So the question remains… Are there times we hold onto the thought of another merely because of a habit, so as to not have to move into a season of unknown? So many loves in our life are intense; we feel we fell in love for a reason so we hold onto what it was that made our heart race and our mind entangle in there web. And if you have to fall out of love, if you are not given a choice, what does that feel like? As if you are running and you’re not sure where you are running too. There is nothing you feel could change your mind on what you sense is supposed to be. So it starts, you start to go in circles hoping the circle will open up to an unlocked road, an open course of how you feel your life and love is supposed to go.


In our hope for love we catch a glimpse of what love seems to be, without truly knowing if that is what will even make us happy. Through countless hours on the phone with my girls and through my own heart I have seen both. Seen wants and desires and what works and what doesn’t, and through all this I in turn stumbled across what to me seems to be what we all are looking for. I am finding on this curvy road, when something feels right, when your heart races when another walks in the room and you can’t get enough of their smell or their thoughts, when you want to see their eyes that shine with you reflecting in them, that is when you have found what you are looking for.

So to think about the question, are there times we love another merely because of a habit….. maybe. Maybe love will forever be a natural habit that we fall into because we don’t want to let go. But with that, maybe if we feel in our hearts that it is plainly and undeniably unnatural to let go, then just maybe that is when it is real. Maybe that feeling is what we all are looking for and once we realize it, then we will realize we have found what we are looking for.

Run full force

As I sat quietly today reading 'Into the Wild' for a second time, so much of his words I felt I could relate to. Maybe it wasn’t the words at all; maybe it was a respect for the young man’s way of thinking. My life and my thoughts seem to encircle his mentality of less being more. Letting go of titles and honors that are irrelevant, letting society say what it will about money or fitting in but having peace of mind knowing it will have no impact on my life or my fulfillment.



As I sit here in my backyard, staring over the cliff to the beautiful river below, I think about how it’s this time and these moments that are real. Out of all that I am getting out of life at the moment, this to me says it all. Sitting here in the country away from the hustle and bustle of Starbucks or Malls, Applebees or Tanning salons, I feel more like me. Every day I wake up, drive around this stunning area and am in amazement that we live here. We are in a beautiful part of the world, with all of its wonder and all of its simplicity being etched ever so slowly into my heart.



As I reflect on who we all are, how without true intent we get wrapped up in spending our time deciding what T.V shows to watch, or what restaurant we will go to that night. We worry about what job we will take and what title it will ensue. We agonize on what kind of car we will drive and how much money we have. I have realized that none of that matters. As yes we do need money to buy food and to survive, we also can grow our food and waste less. We can spend less time worrying what kind of car we will drive, and just be content and thankful when we have a car that runs. Be grateful when we have a job and try to make an impact on another’s life through our daily interactions.



Downsizing my life this last year, giving away excess and living simpler, has given me a new appreciation for what it is we need. Relying less on material objects to create happiness has been freeing and eye opening. It has given me the ability to see that our life is alive and shifting with rivers that flow in unbroken course and mountains that are waiting to be climbed. My loves and my talents are waiting to be used until I have nothing left. As I sit here in silence, quiet as I have been these last few months, I think about how I am energized and ready to run full force. Run it out and remember to stop mid stride to acknowledge every minute of my gorgeous life.