Weathering Storms

The great snowstorm of 2013 has come and gone, leaving in its wake beautiful patterns and shadows of life, the kind I don’t always notice - like the ones in these pictures.  Precipitation it’s called, but it is so much more than that isn’t it?  Storms like the kind that we’ve been having…they have a different quality to them then the ones I remember from when I was little, but there’s still some similarities between them.   Storms are stories, after all.  This storm gave me a lot of time to think and do, and I realized that I’d actually been thinking a lot lately about what it means to weather a storm; physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.  

I spent the last seventy or more hours holed up in my house, aware that as far as storms go, I was blessed. My power didn’t go out, I had clean water to drink and enough food to cook for myself.  I started trying to use baking soda, lemon juice and vinegar to clean my house instead of chemical cleaners – a part of my ongoing battle to make more informed and sustainable decisions about the way I live.  There were many things to do that were interesting and fun and to top it off, I was in excellent company.   

I’ve had a lot on my mind lately and its manifested itself in this strange process of reaffirming what is important to me, what drives and excites me and what I feel matters most at this stage.  Another line of thinking emerges almost immediately from these questions that sort of ends up sounding like this: What am I going to do about all of these things and how will they end up unfolding in my life?    

Hard questions to answer at times, but here's what I’ve come up with so far.  It’s not an ultimate answer by any means but maybe elements of answers or elements of the path I want to travel down and how I want to do it.  Maybe that's enough.  Anyways - here it is:

Write.  Read.  Draw.  Play Piano. Study Physics. Write Music.  Sew.  Imagine. Create.  Blog.  Care.  Tell Stories.  Speak.  Help.  Smile.  Laugh.  Let Go.  Eat Well. Exercise.  Drink Water.  Honour Treaties.  Listen.  Hear.  Encourage.    

When I boil things down, these seem to be some of the things I like to do.  I should probably really add relax or meditate in there somewhere too because I noticed that it’s really quite easy to get caught up in thinking about things.  It can be downright overwhelming, actually.  While feeling overwhelmed, it’s incredibly cool when people reach out and try to help you with a nice gesture, be it helping you shovel your way out of the snow (even if you don’t plan on going anywhere) or sending some encouragement and well wishes.  These were the things that I appreciated during the storms I’ve endured – the physical ones and the other kind. So for anyone out there going through a similar pattern of self-reflection or weathering a storm of some kind, I hereby send good and happy energy your way.  I hope very much that you can find a space to be content, grateful and open for the shimmers of light that life brings, that you can find a way to be happy being you and I very much so hope that you are safe.  Because, well because - existence is cool.  

Let’s enjoy it.

S