How paddling changed my life

Looking back on my life, I was very quiet and introspective. Although I wasn't outwardly expressive, it was all deeply internal and came out in my art and writing. I never felt that brave or that strong, and I never felt like I belonged anywhere. I grew up on a farm in Missouri, and I spent my childhood exploring the woods and the pastures and the little creeks around our house, writing stories, drawing, daydreaming, sitting in trees reading books, and snuggling the animals on the farm. I had two favorite places, and both allowed me to be in the midst of life, but not visible: the hayloft in the barn and the treehouse on the wide, rolling lawn facing the pond. Nestled in the arms of the branches, all around me millions of shades of green, my place in the tree was perfect peace.

When we sold the farm and moved to California right after I graduated from high school, I knew I had to keep moving forward. I opened myself to new adventures and did everything that was just scary enough to grow my courage muscles: I joined a swim team my first year in college and later won the California Female Pepsi Scholar Athlete of the Year Award (which only one female junior college athlete can win in California). I then finished my last two years of college at UCLA. I loved the literature courses of my major and graduated with highest honors. The world seemed to open up wider and wider: I studied abroad in Ireland, explored Scotland, England, and Wales, moved to Taiwan and taught English to children for one year, and later moved to Australia for graduate school for two years. Throughout all of this change, I was still searching for where I belonged. Deep down, I longed for a place that was home.

After all of that traveling and school, I ended up in Monterey in 2013. I had my dream job writing and editing educational materials for National Geographic Learning. I spent each Saturday walking along the Rec Trail by the ocean to the library to get my books for the week. One day, I saw it - a beautiful, white canoe gliding out to sea. I immediately felt drawn to it. It was calling to my soul. I went to the next recreational paddle, and I knew that I finally found the sport that thrilled me and woke up parts of me I never knew I had. I joined the Ke Kai O'Uhane Outrigger Canoeing Club and went to every practice and race. Uncle Les taught me how to paddle as one, and how to trust myself and how to trust others; this vulnerability was a good lesson to learn. Coach Dale taught me how to paddle OC1 and encouraged me to keep being brave. Because of that support and training, I won the 2015 OC1 NorCal Sprint Championship. Those first two years as a novice paddler was a magical time of growth for me and it has shaped how I have approached other challenges in my life. 

Canoeing helped me bloom in ways I never imagined. I found my voice, my courage, my passion, and my strength out on the water. The same feeling I had as a kid, sitting in the tree while watching storm clouds pile up, running as fast as I could down pasture hills in the warm, spring rain, and watching life from the warmth of the barn -- that same peace of belonging and peace of my true nature -- I finally found again when I would paddle out on the ocean, sit on my SUP or watercraft, and just be. There is a strange wildness in my heart that paddling on the ocean has brought out, or maybe that wildness and savage courage was always there, and was just too shy to come forth. I feel my Viking ancestors in my blood when I paddle down steep waves, chase the horizon, and feel the push and pull of the wind, tangling my hair into knots even as it untangles the knots in my soul.

The anchor that has kept me in Monterey the past five years, throughout various jobs and living situations, has been the ocean and the Ohana I found because of the ocean. Being able to go out on the ocean has been such a blessing. This Ohana is true family and true belonging. Being out on the water is my home. This is how canoeing has changed my life. 

The one thing that is always there is the ocean, and this sport draws in people of depth, generosity, and passion. It takes a strong heart to paddle on the ocean.

Turning 34

The child in my arms I longed for...

The man in my arms I hoped for...

The things I thought would be part of my life are not reality.

Turning 34...

Moving forward, into this future of haze, I wonder...

Who I am, where I belong, what can I offer the world?

It is always the same answer....kindness, love, compassion.

The dreams I have...are dreams.

The purpose I have is to love in any way I can -
The rest is just to live.

Faith is the victory that overcomes the world,

Despite any heartbreak or broken dream. 

Life Changes

It has been an interesting three days, but I know things will work out. On Tuesday, I got a 60 day notice to vacate my apartment because the owner is selling the home, and yesterday, I lost my job at the insurance company because they said I wasn't cut out for insurance. They said it was in no way a reflection on me or my work ethic and they said they all loved me as a person, but my boss said that I was too creative to work there and that I should be working with kids. They said they would give me a great reference though and that they would keep their ears open for other jobs. I really did my best in insurance, but I guess some things aren't good fits, and it can be a blessing in disguise. 

For the GOOD NEWS, I did get a part-time job at the bookstore in Pacific Grove which I start tomorrow, and I might get that other part-time Pacific Grove Library job, too (I will hear on Monday about that one, but the lady said the paperwork was going smoothly). Then when I was at the gas station, I had this urge to buy a scratchers ticket (which I never do) and I won $100! I told the gas station attendant that it was a blessing, because I lost my job; we started talking and I told him that I have my M.A. in Editing and Publishing and then he said, "this is perfect! I need an editor! Will you be my book manager? I have 75,000 handwritten words need to be typed up and edited." So, it is just interesting how I'm being shuffled into the book realm again. I just have to be flexible and open for whatever happens, and to keep my chin up.

Finished!!

Today I finished the 30 day hot yoga challenge. It was the hardest physical challenge I have done so far, but I can feel the flicker of my pep and silly self coming back after a long winter of change. This challenge helped me get my mental focus back. There were days when my body was very tired, but the routine of going and the support of friends helped. On the tough days, I would have to be present in the moment, instead of thinking about how would I get through the class or how many things I had to do in my life. I take things to the extreme and have always been very hard on myself (perfectionist). Letting go of that pressure and doing something because I enjoy doing it is a lesson I can definitely apply to my whole life. I had a very dear friend tell me that I avoid things that make me feel negative emotions, but the negative emotions I feel are from my own insanely unrealistic expectations for myself. So...it is definitely a mindset I want to shift, so here are three things I want to do whenever I feel myself going to the extreme or being too "all or nothing" perfectionistic, I will

1. be present...mindful
2. be gentle with myself...
3. be grateful, especially in being perfectly imperfect

Other lessons I learned:

1. The pose I used to dread became my favorite - Camel Pose
2. I am more flexible than I thought
3. I can sweat a LOT (when I trained for the marathon, I never sweat this much!)
4. I can look in the mirror at my body and be grateful for what it can do
5. Crying is ok (after one class, I cried in the final savasana - I was incredibly stressed in my life and the physical and mental focus of the class helped me release and let down my guard which is very hard for me to do)

Time

On the edge of time...one second, then the next...

From then, before, and what once was,

To now, and forever what will be.

Time can be divided more so by moments, memories, and feelings.

This divided time - a gasp and hungry ache - 

Can sometimes be stretched;

moments, like currents or low-weaving music, hums through our lives without ever leaving us.

A ghost and a promise.

I live in longing for what was and yet could be,

A maddening balance of nostalgia and hope.

Challenge

I am over halfway finished with a 30 Day Hot Yoga challenge that I first started to gain my mental strength and focus back after changing careers. It has ended up being an unexpected healing from the inside out. 

In a 105 degree room, following 26 postures, I started peeling off old feelings, thoughts, and emotions while stretching and balancing my body. Each day, my heart is more grounded and my inner well of peace is filling up again. I've never felt comfortable in my body, but I am grateful for the new strength I am discovering (Standing Bow Pose, I'm loving you). It has been difficult since the Redding fire in July and the stress of evacuating my parents and nieces, but the past four months especially have been a tumultuous time with changing careers, figuring out if I was meant to stay in Monterey, and wondering about my place in the world as a 33 year old single woman. This winter was my season of dark soil--would anything ever bloom? 

I am looking forward to finishing this challenge, and continuing hot yoga while getting back into outrigger canoeing again. My back and neck injury I got in September doesn't give me pain any more (finally!). When you can't do the things that make you feel like you, it is destabilizing. But the time away from my favorite sport allowed me to focus on painting, composing, and writing. 

It is easier to look back and see the purpose of different seasons; in the moments of weakness and waiting, it is hard to be patient and peaceful. 

It seems like life is like an ocean tide....receive and release and be. 

Release

Be gentle with yourself...

But what does this mean?

You are a naked soul, longing, for the unsaid, unseen.

You are worthy of richness, joy, peace, and light,

Straining to "be" with all of your might.

Release the porcupine prickles of battle and stress.

The more you hang on, the more you're a mess.

Find balance in moments like sea tossing waves.

The peace of belonging is a buoy that saves.

Of storms, loss, and sorrow, it all ebbs in time.

Be grounded in stillness, embrace the divine.

You only live one life-

You cannot rewind. 

Chiseling

The ties in my mind to memories

hold fast, a rigging that makes me

stand tall in who I am.

I recognize her--this past self.

But now, new memories burrow themselves and mark me, 

slowly chipping away at who I used to be.

Sometimes it scares me, becoming someone new;

or am I merely becoming more of who I am

A chiseling into reality.

Shoes

"Don't forget to wear your shoes!" was something I heard often when I was a kid. I would put on my shoes, run up to the barn, and then hide my shoes and socks in the tall grass by the blue, pasture gate. I'd then run with abandon, lighter than air, across the pasture. I remember the feeling of the cold, hard earth on my bare feet in March. I could feel spring coming. When the earth would start to soften and I could see my toe prints, I'd know the bright green shoots of wild onions would soon sprout, followed by the soft grass and then the tiny, blue wild flowers that looked like starburst fireworks. I think we are naturally very intuitive and connected with nature, and we forget this connection as we grow older and more distracted by things.

Poem during the storm

A world above,

A world below,

A shapeless fevered form - 

The wild growth up to the sky,

The wild void beneath unknown.

The light and spark of thought and life,

Clips the blooming dark.

The ripples spreading out now glow

With mirrored bands of hope. 

And such illuminates the soul,

And reflects, unto itself, each heart.

Blocks

This is a painting I did when I first moved to Monterey five years ago. I had been working on a landscape, but had leftover paint on my plate. I didn't want to waste paint, so I started painting this little duck (Jemima Puddle Duck from a Beatrix Potter story). In the original story by Beatrix Potter, Jemima was unwisely trusting and the story had a sad ending. I wanted Jemima to have a happy story and to go on an adventure. So she ended up on a trail in the woods to someplace wonderful. This is the part about painting that I love. I don't plan what will show up on the canvas. It kind of just happens. There is so much joy and playfulness in creating something....using the imagination and being flexible to the creative process. It is how I used to feel when I was a kid when I would spend hours drawing books and illustrating my little stories. I would use up crayons until they were nubbins. Anyway, this is one of my most favorite paintings, because it has hopeful energy in it. I gave it to some dear friends and they told me it is hanging in a nursery. It makes my heart so happy knowing that!! 

Right after this, I used up the last bit of paint on the plate to paint my sister's labradoodle, Sirius.

When I am painting, the most important part is the feeling or the expression of the eyes. When I create, the thing I focus on most is the energy and feeling that flows from the creation. I want people to look at my paintings and feel something good. 

Sometimes when I hit a block and have trouble painting, it is because I feel frustrated that nothing seems good enough. It seems flat, has no feeling, and doesn't feel meaningful. I know this is why I have sketchbooks packed full of children's book ideas and illustrations, but nothing ever seems good enough to send in. 

How do I get past that?

Paintings

Time's Tide

TIME’S TIDE
Time flows,
like the waves upon the shore,
teasing the toes of memories
as they try to leave their mark....
Time.
It rubs everything down until the sharp edges are gone.
Time,
ebbing,
has a salty sting.
Never stand still and lament
the nature of the tide.

Christmas Memory

25 years ago...it had snowed a lot the night before, and the world was a glittering palace - quiet and full of peace. My morning chores on the farm included feeding the cows. My boots crunched into the snow, leaving perfect prints on the way to the barn. Clyde, my tabby barn cat, sat on my shoulder as I walked past trees bowing over with the weight of the snow. Gentle moos greeted me as I snapped on the barn light. I filled the old Folgers coffee can with sweet, molasses grain to pour into the feed pans and then I filled the feeding troughs with alfalfa hay. As the cows ate, I thought of the Christmas breakfast waiting. There was the yummy Christmas pull-apart bread with candied fruits baked in, warming in the oven and buttery, and hot tea or hot apple cider with a whole cinnamon stick in each cup before we opened presents. Life has different chapters; this was a sweet and peaceful chapter. Merry Christmas, everyone.

Christmas in Connecticut movie and Emily Dickinson style poem inspiration

Hope is the thing of batter, That bubbles on the stove, And sticks to the ceiling without reserve, And never drops at all