Adventuring Onward

Today has been another energetic day of visiting, walking, and shopping. Our adventures started this morning with breakfast at the 9th Avenue Cafe at 102-1001 West Broadway, just blocks away from our temporary abode. We had returned there this morning because of the lovely welcoming smiles, prompt service and delicious meal that we had received yesterday morning. 

Then it was on to The Vancouver Flea Market on Terminal Avenue, where we were greeted by a small white car covered in colorful letter magnets. The gentleman that owned the car was almost as colourful and had placed Elmo in the driver’s seat!

Broad plywood tables covered in blue tarpaulins were uncovered as the Flea Market opened. Then, on cue, venders covered every inch in every imaginable item ~ clothing, jewelry, electronics, workshop tools, kitchen ware, carvings ~ definitely innumerable in number and type. A jewelry counter held our attention and the very patient vendor ultimately held some of our money!

Licorice and hula hoops were next at Commercial Drive Licorice Parlour. Found at 1002 Commercial Drive, this tiny store has over 60 varieties of licorice. Kate, Daisy and I did purchase a fairly decent supply of licorice. We have been taste testing it throughout the afternoon and evening. I neglected to try out the hula hoops but was able to witness one youngster doing just that with a pink and white hula hoop. If you like hula hoops and licorice, this store also offers hula hoop lessons. You can find this interesting store on Facebook.

After lunch and a shopping trip for an early Thanksgiving Dinner set for tomorrow, it was back to our lodgings with the groceries. After getting groceries in, we separated for a short while. Kate settled in for the afternoon, Daisy went home to her apartment and I went for a spin with my son, Jason, and my two grand dogs, Eva and Dexter. (Dogs not shown - too excited to sit still!)

Jason took me on a lovely drive through the city, two excited dogs in the back of the van. Arriving at a broad beach, Jason and I seemed to have left the city of Vancouver in the distance. Jericho Beach curved long and sandy along the water. The energy of Eva and Dexter, one young grand-dog and one getting on a bit, was a thrill to watch. Swimming, a bit new for young Eva and easy on old hip joints for Dexter, was really all about who gets to the orange ball first and how much water and sand can be flung about.

There were charming quirky bits at each of our stops to colour the days adventure. A lovely quiet energy ended the evening, with a stroll through the cool evening to Daisy’s apartment for tea.

“Be careful going in search of adventure ~ 

it’s ridiculously easy to find.”

~ William Least Heat-Moon

Fairly Traded Energy

My sister Kate and I needed just a bit more energy to stop and have coffee after a long day. First going out to breakfast, then a walk to and around Granville Island, lunch with niece Daisy, riding an Aquabus to Dock 7 and finally a walk through Vancouver’s midst to Gastown. We were greeted at Warboy Salon in Gastown by co-owner Jeff Ward. (Did I mention that he is my eldest son?) We visited about many family happenings, as well as a well known Saskatchewan artist, Bob Boyer and his works. (Did I mention that his son, Jonah, is the other owner of WarBoy Salon?) 

At the end of our visit, it was time for coffee. Son Jeff suggested that we go to East Van Roasters where, not only was there good coffee, but really, really good chocolate.  What follows really clinched the deal.

East Van Roasters is a “non-profit social enterprise of the PHS Community Services Society. We provide support and training to the women residents of the Rainier Hotel and other downtown Eastside housing initiatives.” A fully registered charity, they ask only for community's support for those women seeking to return to the working world and to better not only themselves but the hand that their lives have dealt them. Those companies, like East Van Roasters, and the women who are being assisted need a lot more energy on a daily basis than one day of vacationing that Kate, Daisy and I enjoyed.

Supporting this business was a very fair trade.

East Van Roasters is located at 319 Carrall Street Vancouver, British Columbia  Canada

and can be contacted at 604-629-7562 or INFO@EASTVANROASTERS.COM   

Their website is http://eastvanroasters.com/

WarBoy Hair Salon is located in Gastown at

22 E Cordova

Suite 107

Vancouver, BC V6A 1A4

“We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and 

prosperity of our community.... Our ambitions must be broad enough to 

include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.”

~ Cesar Chavez

Compounding Energy

It is easy, in the cold light of day, to forget about the ‘starry wonder’ of any evening. All the sharp angles, hard surfaces, wet and damp of rain could really put one off of believing that childhood nonsense of universal energy touching everything.

I set off again today. This time on a shorter adventure. My sister Kate and I have taken an airbnb in Vancouver, B.C. despite each of us having grown children (I mean adult offspring) in this vast and busy city. While said offspring are working or schooling, these two mature sisters will poke about and explore for a couple of days. On the weekend we’ll have our visits with family.

While awaiting Kate’s arrival, a prowl around this charming apartment satisfied my curiousity. After a long ferry ride, it was time to stretch my legs and stretch out into the neighbourhood. Restaurants close by - Malaysian, Vietnamese and a coffee shop all open. Vietnamese was my choice and a good one!  

What does all of that have to do with universal energy?  I couldn’t see any sparks of gossamer, strands of sparkling starshine. As I stood on Deck 4 on the car deck I could feel a manifestation of energy rumbling and vibrating beneath my feet as we pulled away from Swartz Bay Terminal.

Everything and everyone around me was using energy to move about or maybe to just sit still and gaze at the water. Is this energy different from the energy of the stars, moon or sun? I don’t believe so. It is only the manifestations of energy that forms differently. It has been most interesting to ponder these things today. The world feels very different but is so much the same.

“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, 

it can only be changed from one form to another.”

~ Albert Einstein

Starry Wishes and Wonder

Deep inside a wish flutters softly, silently

One tiny point of heart light beaming into galaxies of stars

Soul’s energy invites universal energy into a child's heart.

Thermonuclear fusion - science speak for starry brilliance burning in a far away place and a time is caught in a child’s prayer, face turned up to the night skies.

Tiny pin pricks in vast and darkly velvet night skies

send gossamer bindings back into the heart of a child.

Pure energy ~ luminous threads in the dark.

A child’s wish no longer a whispered prayer,

but a connection in this great web and flow of energy.

City lights outside window and door dim starry grandeur

make the world solid and sharply defined

yet all around and in everything

energy flows and bounces off surfaces within air and mass

through cloud, rainbow and on the wind

as part of a universal answer to anyone’s wishes and prayers

Magical thinking or the logic of quantum physics?

Is quantum physics a language of energy to connect us to the stars?

“Starlight, starbright

First star I’ve seen tonight

I wish I may, I wish I might

have the wish I wish tonight.”

English Language Nursery Rhyme

What about Energy?

where does one begin to write about energy

the energy to get up in the morning

the energy to get to work

drained of energy before work is done

build up of energy in electric excitement or a flash of anger

all internal energies 

no obvious beginning

always seem to be just running out

draining away

until a change occurs

a person enters or leaves a life

a job is found or lost

family is together or apart

energy

the energy to 

exist one second longer

survive one more day

Energy

The energy to 

live life to the fullest in each moment,

have fun with life one day at a time.

Energy will always exist.

How can I befriend the energy that is mine?

“I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote the blues.”

~ Duke Ellington

Miss Communication

Miss Communication

Miss Communication was ready for work. She almost had all of her books, fact sheets (well most of them) and some resource materials. She had already passed on pieces of information to some, and couldn’t really remember to whom or about what.

Even if she hadn’t been certain of her facts, Miss Communication knew that her information brought a smile to many sad faces. Her job description was not to put all of the facts in order, nor to do proper fact checking. That was someone else’s job. She was just to gather facts, some of which only looked like facts, and present them to whomever wished to speak with her.  

She sometimes felt that she was like the pinched face old woman at the grocery store on the corner that handed out samples of tasty cheese. Proud of her own smooth and smiling face, she also wasn’t even old - not really. Everything she said sounded fresh and new, even if it was old. If it was old information, she had learned how to put a new and pleasing twist to it. Colorful bits of distraction that really led no where ~ but Miss Communication didn’t know that! With no particular employer, she was just a volunteer for any workplace that needed information passed outside of formal, and sometimes boring or very frustrating, meetings. 

Miss Communication was a bit confused and hurt though. At first she was always welcomed with her bits and pieces of good news. Then, for no reason at all, people began turning their backs on her.  Refusing all of her news that had been so welcome. Some people were even angry with her! Hurt and rejected, Miss Communication became smaller and smaller until she vanished only to reappear inside the staff room in some other workplace.

“News told, rumors heard, truth implied, facts buried.”

~ Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut

Slam

Slam

The door slammed. It had been slammed louder before along with the tinkling of falling glass. Slamming the door this time barely satisfied still simmering anger. “No mess to clean up this time”. Barely audible mutters stumbled behind her as she strode out the front door.

The argument, and it was the argument, had been short and with few words. This time. Any attempt at real communication had been lost long ago in vicious, gloves off sparring. Drowned out in hysterical volume. Beaten into submission by mean spirited language.  

Who’s fault was it? Where did the argument start? When did it start? What was even the point of the argument? Too many words, too much emotion, power struggle....that was it. Power struggle. A struggle to be right. To be wrong hurt her soul in a uniquely crushing way.

Desperately wanting to turn back, her feet kept moving away.

“The irrationality of a thing is no argument against

it’s existence, rather a condition of it.”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche