Sailing to Satisfaction

My Staycation has sailed into a bit of Vacation with a ferry ride to Vancouver, a GPS guided drive to WarBoy Salon in Gastown ~
A wander about as Jeff finished a shampoo and styling then strolling out for coffee with Jeff in the sun!
To Jason’s home with the dogs until it was time for supper with
sons Jason and Jeff, niece Daisy, family friend Jerry and this writer
out to Shabusen Japanese Restaurant for delicious sushi, 
We are all full to the brim! And with no pictures!!
Recovery from a full day with full stomachs!

Recovery = Satisfaction!

“To be able to look back upon ones life 

in satisfaction, is to live twice.”

~ Khalil Gibran

Cleaning Up

Washing and scrubbing
Rinsing and draining
Dirt sluiced down a drain or a ditch
Leaves swept up and recycled for compost.
Grainy sand and dirt of this world ~
relatively easy to scrub up, pick up and toss away
Dirt that clings to the soul from carrying out the trash of this life
difficult to recognize, 
invisible to touch, 
letting go ~ a task of the heart.
Made light by the joys all around ~ 
joys can be difficult to recognize, 
invisible to touch, 
recovery ~ a task of the heart.

“The human heart has a way of making itself large again

even after it’s been broken into a million pieces.”

~ Robert James Waller, The Bridges of Madison County

Something Is..

Something is the eagle that just circled high in the blue sky above in front of my eyes when I looked up to the sky to find a word.

Something is the car that just went past carrying it’s driver

to work, to Grandmother’s house, or just out for a drive.

Something is the harsh caw caw of shiny black crows

announcing their dominance in the flight world and to each other.

Something is the dog barking in the distance beneath the crows and eagles

and on the same plane as vehicles and sirens and walkers strolling past.

Something is a siren!!  Loud and insistent, roughly pushing everyone aside screaming ‘GET out of my Way!! 

there’s an emergency somewhere, fading into the distance, disappearing leaving only fading questions in air.

Something is the rustling of leaves in the trees 

by uncertain breeze or a busy squirrel;

leaves letting go and drifting ~ 

messengers that summer’s end is only days away.

Something is the life all around us 

that comes and goes in waves of living sound and voice

to be caught and tossed away into the wind.

Something is recovery of awareness and wonder of the life around us.

To miss something is to miss our lives.

“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”

~  Aristotle

Staycation Day Six

This week has been lovely. Lots of walking, my usual extracurricular activities have become merely one order of each day. Up to three hours each morning on my patio for writing and coffee have started sunny days. Recovery of myself and my time in each day has been a joy.

Now I never have been a big on touristy things, but there are certain things that I do when away on holiday. If you look in the top right hand corner of the photo you’ll see a pair of earrings ~ new earrings are a given when I travel. Today, I took myself out for lunch then to the Royal Museum to meet with a good friend. I toured the Viking exhibit while she went about her duties as a docent. Afterward we met up, went to Brown’s Social House on Douglas Avenue and sat in the sun and ate hamburgers. A stroll home through the park through dappled sun ended this lovely day!

The Royal Museum's Viking exhibit was a wonderful. So many cultural stories. Recovery of artifacts outlining a culture that many of us have only heard about in the movies. Did you know that Vikings didn’t have horns on their helmets? Turns out they were birds! The horns arrived in opera and movies. The Viking society was a very patriarcal society with a strong community focus until changes in religion and politics arrived. The Viking exhibit is at the Royal Museum until November 11, 2014.  

This exhibit is also very interactive. I found that my learning, maybe conditioning, was to stand with my hands behind my back and ‘not to touch.’ Not so here. There were runes, not unlike Scrabble pieces or fridge magnets, with a comparative alphabet and directions to spell your name. Fun! Other panels that children and adults alike could touch and manipulate. A real sword that could be lifted to feel it’s weight. And of course amulets, work tools and photographs of digs and resurrected long houses.

And a bread recipe for those interested in culinary arts. Because my photography didn’t pick up the recipe for Viking bread - here it is:

About 150 g. barley flour
About 50 g wholemeal flour
2 tsp crushed flax seeds
About 100 m. water
2 tsp lard or butter
A pinch of salt

Work all the ingredients together into a dough and knead. If the dough is too wet or hard, add flour or water. Let the dough rest cold for at least one hour, preferably longer. 

Shape the dough into flat cakes (about 1/2cm thick). Bake them in a dry cast iron pan on the store over medium heat, a few minutes on each side, or in the oven at 150 degrees, for 10 - 13 mintues.

Next trip to the museum will be the Living Languages Exhibit, a permanent feature at the Royal that opened June 21, 2014.

“It’s a lovely experience walking around a museum by yourself.”

~ Brad Pitt

Book Review - A Tale of The Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

A Tale for The Time Being is a complex and layered novel full of darkness and light. The story begins in Tokyo with Nao Yasutani, age sixteen, writing in her diary ~ being read by Ruth on a small island in Desolation Sound in British Columbia. The diary was found washed up on a beach, in a Hello Kitty lunchbox sealed in plastic bags, by Ruth. The true value of this recovery was not realized until Ruth’s partner, Oliver, lets curiosity get the better of him. He opens the carefully wrapped package and found not just a diary, but letters and a watch. Nao, who wants to tell her great-grandmother’s story, wanders, as teen-agers are wont to do through the minutae of her life, her father’s life,  her great uncle’s time in World War II but misses telling her great grandmother's story. Jiko is 104 years old and a Zen Buddhist nun. However, it is Nao's relationship with her great grandmother, old Jiko, that binds and soothes the traumas that have been and are to come, as well as the life and death decisions of suicide for not just Nao, but her father and her great uncle who had been a Kamikaze pilot. Another character, a Jungle crow native to Japan, appears in the story on Ruth’s island and seems to be another Time Being linking all of the characters past and present.

An intriguing read, this novel promoted some great discussion in my first book group of the season. Questions about our environment, history and human relationships linger with many possibilities discussed.

“She smiled.”Life is full of stories. Or maybe 

life is only stories. Good night, my dear Nao.”

~ Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for The Time Being

Title: A Tale for the Time Being
Author: Ruth Ozeki
Publisher: the Penguin Group
Publication Date: 2013 (Hard cover)

Type: Fiction
Format:  Soft Cover (2014)
ISBN: 978-0-14-318742-4
Type:  Fiction

Repost - Behaviour Shouts Too Loudly from Nov. 17, 2013

Addiction to alcohol or drugs is a funny thing
not haha funny
but very unpleasantly odd.
Behaviour under the influence is 
awful
maudlin
dramatic
maybe even criminal
(of course there’s the ‘happy’ drunk).
Whatever - it is unwelcome
communication difficult
memory totally unreliable.

Addiction, a chronic brain condition, is invisible. 
Behaviour is in your face, flagrant and irritating.
There are many more adjectives for the behaviour of active addiction.

Recovery from addiction
is not just sobering up
sleeping it off
cleaning up
in a day or two
or a couple of weeks.

Recovery from addiction always starts
with detox - whether at home or in a facility.
Now that’s unpleasant 
physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually
everything crushed and soiled.

Recovery from addiction
is mopping up wreckage from the past
rolling up sleeves and getting your hands dirty
while getting your life clean.

Recovery can be done alone - but not easily or comfortably.
(Often called ‘white knuckle sobriety’)
Honesty, kindness and respect, when life and loves have not always
been treated with honesty,kindness and respect, a necessary ingredient.
There are folks out there who provide this ingredient - 
some men and women of the communities we live in.....go out and find them..

“You were sick, but now you’re well again, and there’s work to do.” 

~ Kurt Vonnegut,  Timequake

Recovery Day - Victoria, BC

My knees have stopped shaking. I’m no longer nervous but I still feel a strange anxiety leftover from this afternoon's adventure. I was pleased to be asked to participate in this celebration for the removal of stigma ~ the purpose of Recovery Day. I was one of several speakers at Recovery Day here in Victoria BC. Held in Centennial Square, hundreds of folks filled this lovely community space in downtown Victoria. Booths displaying many community supports, and some from out of Victoria wrapped around the square. A lemonade stand, doughnut cart and a Mexican food cart offered tasty wares to the hungry and thirsty crowd. 

Before I started writing this I realized I had not taken a picture of this busy fair-like scene and my brain seemed to freeze sometime today despite an amazing hot afternoon. Several speakers were ahead of me - thankfully. When it was my turn, I opened my short speech with a reading of re-post from last year. This 'letter' is very representative of many situations in addiction. Reviewing my nursing interests in withdrawal management or detox, I then concluded with the reminder that more and more senior citizens are needing addictions care that is more complex.

Here is my repost from July of last year:

Hi Cheyenne,

You may not remember me. I was your nurse when you were only thirty-four and in a treatment center for the first time. I think of you often and finally decided to write.

How are you? I guess you would about 57 years old now! I remember you today  as distinctly as I did then. How are all those kids? Grown and off on their own I’m sure. A soccer mom with six kids and a loving husband. Ashamed and crying because of the mess that you said that you had made of your life.

You told me your addiction all started with the pain pills your doctor prescribed after some major, and very necessary, surgery. You described how your life slowly unravelled and ultimately spiraled out of control. Out of control for you meant draining the family’s bank accounts and lying to the family about so very many things, while trying to keep the ‘good mom’ cover from slipping. You did get yourself and your family in a pretty rocky place!

I remember so clearly how you cried and, almost, wanted to die. You told me that what you really wanted was to get control of your life again. The crying slowed and your green eyes met mine when I asked, if had you known your fate, would you have taken that first pill. “Of course not.” was your adamant and firm reply. From then on, you worked hard at righting the mess of your life.

Because of how hard you worked, and how clear you were in your intention to move forward, I can’t help but think that you are maybe even a grandmother now, gathering all of your grandchildren to you. You told me how the power of addiction stripped you of your maternal instinct to love, protect and instruct. All the staff watched as you pushed the power of addiction away and took your own power back - for you and for your family.

Hope all continues well with you and yours,
Take good care, 
Susan

“No one is immune from addiction; it afflicts people

of all ages, races, classes and professions.”

~ Patrick J. Kennedy