Of tiles and paint and baseboards...

Sam and I have been living in our next great adventure for the last 3 years.

This nearly hundred year old house I bought has its own heartbeat, its own energy and changes all the beings that spend considerable time in it. I bought the house because of the feeling it exuded - in fact, the same day that I saw this house (which had not been tended to properly in nearly 50 years and is STILL in a constant state of renovation), I saw a house for the same price that was completely finished and beautiful, same size, the whole bit. But there was a chill that was caused by more than the contemporary design of the remodel. Something felt off in that house. Something I could not put my finger on and although the price and location were right, I refused to put an offer on it. My real estate agent didn't understand. My father did. When I told him that it felt bad to me, he ripped up the listing and we moved on. When we came to the house I own now, which had been listed for over a year and a half (an eternity in the real estate world at that time) and i exclaimed "This is the one!!!!" in the middle of the dirty shag carpeting and old floral walls, I thought my estate agent was going to have me committed. But commission is commission and ultimately the client's happiness is the goal, so we closed a week later and that dirty shag was all mine.

This house has changed a lot in the last 3 years. It existed as a community space for a long time. It's had many hands of love build it up and its fair share of people who have used it as a safe harbour. The shag is gone, the oak floor underneath exposed again after a 40 year hibernation and the rest of the rooms need some time and energy to bring them up to the original vision I had for them that first day I saw them. It takes a lot of compromise to live with multiple people, especially rotating groups of people, and I'm afraid that this beautiful house received the brunt of those compromises. It has served us well. But now the last roommate has moved out and yesterday I stood in the wide space of the front room (that has never been my room before) and promised this architectural matriarch that she would reach the full potential of her glory.

There's work to be done. There's adventures to be had (I've never even poked my head into my attic! what is up there??? perhaps the cats should go first!) and there's dreams to be realized. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the people that have given so much of their time and energy into this house. Now it is my turn to finish what I started that first day.

A whimsical bedroom
A sun bathed office
A western themed bedroom for the boy of complex description
A spa like bathroom
A country dining room
A languorous living room
A retro style kitchen
A guest apartment in the basement
A garage studio/gym
A cascading deck
A rockery, a vegetable garden and a water feature
A home

The king of my world

Sam is the king of my world.

He is the most consistent being in my life and no matter what i do, no matter how i feel that i fail him sometimes, no matter what is going on in my life, Sam believes in me whole heartedly.

In a blog that I follow, Cheeky Monkey writes about about how "we approach every experience hopelessly lost in the fog of our own perspective", that the meanings of words get lost in our past experiences and that once "you sail your words out into the world; suddenly, they are no longer yours to steer." Subsequently, saying what you mean doesn't necessarily communicate what you mean. I speak to Sam sometimes with made up words, strung together silly sounds and he always gets what i'm trying to say. The boy of complex description says that Sam speaks gibberish, but i think that Sam just speaks the language of my heart. It's true when Cheeky Monkey says "Words are tricksy. The real mystery is not our constant failure to communicate but the possibility that we are ever truly understood."

There are no conditions on Sam's loyalty. I am afraid of human love and loyalty with its conditions and negotiations. I'm so tired of trying to get it "right" with the threat of emotional blackmail when i don't. I want/need people in my life that get that the getting things right part is the intention part, the working it through part. And I have those people, of course I do. It's just easy to forget that when you're being held captive by your own insecurities about what other people think about you.

Defining yourself from the inside out. That's the secret. That's the core. And that's the only thing that will ever make you free.

Is this real life?

Did you ever wake up from a dream and realize that it was real life you were dreaming in, watching your days slip by and just getting through?

Do some people live their whole lives like this?

I ran by the corn fields at the quarry and realized I hadn't listened to corn grow in a really long time. Somebody told me once that if you lie in a corn field on a hot summer day, the corn grows so fast that you can actually HEAR IT popping and cracking as it pushes skyward. Is it true? I can't remember. It's been a long time since I've laid in a corn field. Too long.

The times that I do spend doing things like laying in corn fields are usually procrastinations from "real life important duties"... you know, like laundry...? A friend of mine posted on his facebook about a retreat he had attended where he meditated in silence with 20 other people from 4am to 9pm for 10 days. (I bet he felt awake after that) . One person commented on this experience saying that he had a lot of time on his hands. His response - it's life, we have nothing BUT time. ahhhhh. epiphany. nothing BUT time. It's just how we choose to use it. This kink in my neck is making me wish I was using it to be at the massage therapist right now.

Sam is a right now kind of guy.

So, tonight perhaps Sam is in charge of the planning. Sam can decide the adventure and we will see where we end up.

Mortal Combat

My adventures this weekend were not with Sam. I planned a 16 course surprise adventure banquet for the boy of complex description to be able to spend time together doing things other than working on something or healing (although i'm not sure that it is ever possible for me to completely avoid doing those things internally). the weekend was indeed surprising and not just for him. the parts that he tells me were his favourite were not what i would have predicted and they were echoed by my own - making me think once again whaaa??? who are you? where have you come from? are you in fact real? [i have questioned him at length on the reality of his existence. i remain unconvinced. still investigating. is it possible to believe something so hard that you will it into being?]

500 days of summer at the princess theatre ripped my chest open and left me feeling awed and raw. someone wrote one of my stories and played it for me. a story i am not finished. a story i am stuck somewhere in the middle of. perhaps not stuck, perhaps unenthusiastically moving forward in. there were ACTUALLY lines that i have ACTUALLY said in this ACTUAL situation. subconsciously i was convincing myself that my end could be different as the movie progressed, that the ends of stories were seldom the same. then zoey deschanel opens her mouth and says "i was sure with him, the way i never could be with you" and my subconscious shrugged its defeated shoulders and shut up. argue, dammit, put up a fight! my subconscious remained silent and a hole began expanding inside me where hope had been. do not feel sad for me, dear reader, holes need to open to be filled with new enriching emotions. i know this intellectually, even if i can't feel it just yet.

the rest of the weekend of adventure was funny, entertaining, energetic, outrageous and beautiful but i couldn't get back the carefree feeling i had at the begging, swinging at Goldie Mill Park. underneath it all, i felt heavy. the burden of realization, maybe. the painful grasping of acceptance. i am fighting every urge to cling to my favourite. to use his love to fill this space, to push out the pain. i am fighting not to grab and take, to make him my caretaker. this is NOT what i want, no matter what else i feel.

this is not the overwhelming darkness overtaking me like in my past lives. this is sadness working its way through back behind positive emotions from the things i am experiencing. i know because when i yelled MORTAL COMBAT at the storms battling while we ate bbq on the front porch last night and the boy of complex description laughed in a half humoured, half hysterical way, that was real joy and real love that i felt. mortal combat, bah, i'm so witty!

The third option

There is a tornado warning, so naturally Sam and I go to the Quarry. I dare those stormy clouds to do their worst, but they drift off in the breeze to wreak havoc in a neighbouring city. Having failed at subduing my cantankerous mood with bad weather, I decide to run into the dark muggy forest in hopes of being kidnapped by monsters or eaten by wild beasts.

In the past I have found several ways to self harm. I have been drugged but that made me numb in a way that I couldn't live with. Recently I made myself a solemn promise. I am welcome to kill myself, but the only means I am allowed to do this is to run myself to death. In my darkest moods, I run and pray for my broken heart to burst into fragments or my sobbing lungs to collapse in on themselves. I have never succeeded [obviously], either the adrenaline lifts me out enough to get a brighter perspective or the energy from throwing up from exertion leaves me too tired to care anymore. Those were the only two outcomes that I had experienced from this ingenious plan. I had never even considered the possibility of a third. Until last night.

As I said, my mood was fowl and I wore my headphones so that I didn't have to interact with the dog walkers that frequent the place. Not that there were many - who comes to a wide open space during a tornado? Sam and I are thundering along the path into the forest area. There are really no people in this part. Sam loves it here. The forest is dark and dripping with humidity and mystery. He dives in and comes out several minutes later covered in mud and smelling awful. I am sure that he consorts with orks and bridge trolls while he is in there, but he won't say. And it's really none of my business.

We come to the end of the forest path. There is a gate to stop motorized traffic, a bridge up ahead, but between the forest and the bridge is a wetland. A mosquito infested, mud swamp laden wetland. It's a beautiful wild place when it is sunny, it is a nightmare when it is overcast and wet. It was overcast and wet. I stood at the low gate deciding whether or not the run was torture enough or if I should submit myself to bug bites and sloppy shoes, Tori Amos blaring in my ears that she was worth coming home to. Was I worth coming home to? Where was Sam? Off swapping stories with goblins, likely. I was leaning towards forgoing the swampland, shifting my weight to the ball of my right foot in preparation to pivot, when there was a disturbance in the foliage up ahead, about 10 feet from me. A monster come to eat me? Finally!!! But no, not a monster. A deer. Smallish. A fawn? No, a doe. And out of the bushes after her, not one, but two tiny, wobbly legged fawns. I am sure that in this crazy world there are people whose hearts don't skip for tiny new born creatures. I am not one of those people. Tori warbled that she only sleeps with butterflies and I stood there wide eyed, mouth agape. They were gone in an instant and even when i ran into the swamp and leaned over the bridge to scour the tall grass, there was no sign of them ever having been there. Making me wonder, like that time with the falling meteorite, if I had imagined the whole thing.

Then Sam was there, looking at me with concerned eyes, perhaps afraid that I might jump. I kiss him on the forehead, then repel from the Ork stench and realize I am standing ankle deep in swamp mud and being eaten alive my mosquitoes. We high tail it out of there and I skip over parading snails and try unsuccessfully to catch a baby toad that is hopping on the path.

By the time we get to the limestone pond where Sam washes off the stench of fantasy creatures, the somber clouds and my dark mood have both lifted. And when we climb in the car, permeating the upholstery with the smell of earth, I check my cell phone and am not sad that there are no new messages - because the boy of complex description is at work and there is no one else I want to hear from right now. Progress, I think.

New Friends!

The boy of complex definition and I have been looking for more people "like us", mostly people who don't feel constricted by the mainstream standard of reality.

Sam has a checkered past of mistreatment by humans and is often nervous of new ones. Other dogs he can also feel hesitant towards, with the fear that they may take his place.

I wasn't sure what would happen when we walked through the back gate of the home we had been invited too, but after a few seconds of assessing the situation, things were great. And when I met Logan the dog and Sweep the cat, climbed through the head high mint plants and poked around the chicken coop, I knew that these were the friends we had been looking for - and if I was able, I would have cooed too.

Hunting for Snakes at the Quarry

We went at dusk.

We hunted for snakes but all we found were a family of snails and birds, birds everywhere! The insects were chirping and the bullfrogs were bellowing and there was a stillness. It smelled like grass and dirt and summer. I worked for 3 summers as a canoe guide just west of Thunder Bay. There is something about water like glass that carries a peace that I have never experienced in anything else. I wanted to run up to the water and put a paddle in it and feel the ease that it would slice the water.

The Beginning

Sam and I are born adventurers.

Sam is a mix of border collie/beagle/spaniel. I am mostly human.

Neither of us are very good in the morning.

Both of us are aware of proper behaviour, but we could use some lessons on application.

Sam and I share a love of the outdoors, adventure and sunshine.

Our hearts are in the wilderness, but our bodies have spent too much time on the couch.

In an effort to remind ourselves to get outside more and enjoy life, we have started this blog to share some of our adventures and to let you come along and see what no one else sees...