Day 13: Waiting for Spring at the speed of 28.9 km/sec.

The hardest part of March is the wait for Spring.  I want to get out and plant my sweet peas.  They are the first seed to go in the ground.  As soon as the ground thaws, I plant my sweet peas.  Last year, I had finally seen my dream wall of sweet peas come to reality.  I remember the wall of sweet peas that my Oma had on the Flatrock farm and I wanted one of my own.  I couldn't pick sweet peas from her garden, so my garden became the redemption and I pick lots of sweet peas over the summer and fall to give to people.  In the fall, I let the remaining sweet peas go to seed and then I collect the seed so I can share seed with others and also have seed to plant in the spring.  I still buy a few packets to plant, but only because there is joy in doing so.  I guess I don't really need to buy more as I have plenty... but when I got for my spring shopping seed spree, I pick up some sweet peas too.  Maybe the variety addition to the garden is beneficial.  But I think its just pure joy to see the blooms on the seed packet and then I get to start dreaming.  

Spring is the only season I wait for.  Summer just comes, Fall and Winter just come.  I don't wait for them.  But I wait for Spring.  I look out over the snow laden ground and wait.  

I think Spring and my flower garden are what keep me excited about my annual trip around the Sun.  After almost fifty eight trips, I need a little motivation to look forward to another 940 million kilometre journey.  That trip could be exhausting if I felt just how fast I was going... 28.9 km/sec.  I'm so glad I don't feel it except for the passage of time on my bones and body.  

What slows me down from that 28.9 km/sec is the patience it requires to watch the snow to melt again.  

 

Day 12: Where are you Spring?

Today is March 1.  March is my favourite month for three reasons and they all are about beginnings and they happen in the last two weeks of the month.  

The Beginning of Spring... although from the picture of my garden, it doesn't look like spring is around the corner any time soon.  

The Beginning of Me ... my birthday is in March.  

The Official Beginning of my life with my husband... our anniversary is the day before my birthday.  

I went shopping yesterday for flower seeds.   My excitement at the prospect of being able to plant them came one to two months before I can actually get them in the ground.  So now I am wavering between being elated by the possibilities and depressed at reality.  I am more excited that usual to get in my garden and start the flower growing process again.  I have a new neighbour who likes flowers too.  I figure it will be a great opportunity to connect with her in nature.  

Yep... sad, depressed and mopey... time to get back to puzzling for another six weeks.  

 

Day 11: "Courage is a love affair with the unknown"

 "...to choose fear as a companion during hard times is akin to wearing a weighted vest instead of a life jacket when you're learning to swim.  The goal is to learn to coexist with our fear.  To see it clearly for what it is and understand where it comes from.  To think of fear a worried relative -- the nervous, hand-wringing cousin who's quick to anticipate disaster.  If that prophet of doom has to be along for the ride, I'm choosing to carry it around as a passenger but I will never let it get behind the wheel."  (Gillian Deacon "A Love Affair with the Unknown") 

I am reading a book, although a slow process, called" A Love Affair with the Unknown"  by Gillian Deacon.  It's one of those books that has come along beside me on my journey... not to convince me of changing direction, but to encourage me that I am already on the right path.  

Embracing the unknown like a welcome companion is where I am heading.  Certainty, for me, has been an abusive partner.  I finally had enough.  There are still unsettled waters on this journey, but I am far less concerned with the outcome.  

I am not good at making new friends.  Acquaintances, sure... but friends... that is challenging for me. I am far too comfortable with people who have been my life for decades.  They either know a lot about me and still love me, or they found out things about me and are not as excited as I am to reinforce the relationship.  I am comfortable with both.  I expect that some will stay and some will be more distant.  I try to balance the flow of information for those who are staying so they don't get too spooked.  For the most part, people who have invested decades in a friendship aren't that easily knocked off their horse.  

Making a new friend, that comes with a load of challenges.  What do I reveal about myself in the first few meetings?  How often to do we need to meet up to establish a friendship?  What are my obligations, if any, to be on my best behaviour.  When will I be able to be really real?  How long do I have to wait to call them a friend? What if they move in next door?  

When there is space between people, there is less expectations of a lot of time requirement.  However... what happens when you can just walk across the street to their house?  

The picture in today's post is of a beautiful crabapple tree that bloomed in our neighbour's yard for as long as I lived at my house.  We enjoyed it's blooms every spring as we could see it from our kitchen window.  Last year that tree was cut down as the house and yard underwent a massive renovation.  This month, there is a new homeowner.  

I've had the chance to visit her and enjoyed my initial meetings.  But that passenger, that cousin that rides in my car is distracting my driving.  Fear is creeping in and I'm not sure how to address it.  I have lost friends.  How do I not remember that feeling?  

I have spent the last year writing to strangers and far away penpals.  They seem safe.  They aren't close enough to require more of me that one or two letters a month.  But I can't hug them.  I like hugs.  I gave one to my new neighbour yesterday.  

Day 10: The Beauty of Benign Beliefs

"Beliefs aren't right or wrong... they are just interpretations of the data given.  Maybe the actions that arise out of those beliefs can be labeled as right (or helpful to the common good of humanity ) or wrong (unhelpful to the common good of humanity).  The beliefs in and of themselves are just beliefs and benign for the most part." (RN - Day 10, 2025) 

This is a postcard that I am letting go of today.  I have held on to it for at least twenty years.  Today it heads to Germany to meet up with a donkey lover and maybe a new friend.  

I wonder how fitting it would be for this postcard to be mounted in a lot of the organizations in this country.  Would it speak to a truth that no one wants to verbalize?  How many organizations are headed by a committee of people that for the most part don't behave much more dignified than these "asses".  It would explain the marketing behind such a postcard.  

Through all four readings today, I found a quote that stood out on beliefs.  It seems to line up with my donkey image quite well.  Beliefs would be okay if they were something that stayed in a person's individual being as a way to navigate life.  But so often, beliefs end up around the board room table.  That is where things get messy and breed conflict and wars.  It makes me wonder if the donkeys would have been better at those kinds of meetings than humans.  Maybe less destruction would occur if there was just some simple braying at the nonsense of consolidating beliefs into a doctrinal statement.  

I want to laugh hard when I see organizations declare beliefs as their foundation.  It seems ludicrous that when you gather a certain amount of human beings at one place, that you would think there would be an authentic consensus on previous agreed beliefs.   There has to be just as many beliefs that come to the to party as people.  But it seems necessary for these organizations to label certain beliefs as what that organization embraces as a whole.  Do all the individual humans then just automatically "believe" just because it is written down that the organization embraces those beliefs?  Why do I highly doubt that?  Conform yes, but believe, I doubt it.  

I think for people to want to be a part of the community, they will agree to sign on the dotted line as agreeing to the beliefs... and then no further thought is required as to whether they actually believe them.  I was one of them that was willing to sign without real thought as to what I was signing.  

If you gather a bunch of donkeys, their braying may sound similar.  To our human ears, we can't make any distinction between what one donkey is saying to what the other donkey is saying.  It's all noise.   That is what happens when individual minds don't have a place to be heard and understood.  In most organizations, the individual mind is not beneficial to the operation of the organization.  It is crushing for some people to figure that out after they have invested most of their life in to that system.  It's heart breaking to wake up and realize that it was never about you.  You were only a cog in a machine.  

I embrace a lot of things now solely on "belief".  Beliefs are core to every human.  They can change over time, but they are still a vital component to our existence.  What devalues them is when they are taken from the individual and forced into a corporate structure.  

I wrote last year that beliefs were benign.  Maybe they are... but benign still means they are present, they are just not dangerous to life...  until they get to the board room.    

Day 9: Curling up in another corner

"I can't understand what is so threatening about not believing in something.  There is a world of things not to believe in and a world of people not believing in them.  So why does my not believing in this one little thing make it such a big deal.  Maybe because in some people's worlds, that one "little"thing... isn't so little.  It is everything.  Maybe my not believing in "it" and being okay means that "it" may not be that big of a deal as a whole.  I can understand then that unbelief may come across as threatening.  I hope humanity evolves past this and sooner than later." (RN... 2024, Day 9)  

I have a cat bed on my puzzle table.  For the most part my cat Twinkel sleeps there.  He's the boy of the family.  I share that picture on Day 3 this year.  It keeps him off my puzzle.  He is well behaved for the most part because he has a place where he is included.  

Yesterday our other cat Sofie, came and curled up on the puzzle table bed.  She has a few other options in my office, but she chose that one.  After twelve years of sharing our house with these two feline furbabies, we have come to know a few things about them.  They like their own places, but those places are also free to be encroached on by the other.  So sometimes there might be a quizzical look from the one cat when the other cat is curled up in a spot more commonly used by their housemate.  There can be one of two responses.  One cat can chase the other cat out... which is more of a Twinkel response than a Sofie response.  The other option is that the displaced cat finds another place to curl up.  That happens more often.  

I found the opening quote in one of my Day 9 readings this morning. I think I am quite lucky to have two cats that for the most part can find another place to curl up.  That isn't how most humans behave when someone encroaches on their well established territory.  We still don't know how to share well on this planet.  We don't know how to dwell together in our differences.  We don't know how curl up in another corner when our bed has another cat in it.  Oh how I wish we could see more of that in our world.  

Day 8: The Questions I want to ask my New Doctor

 

I woke up this morning pondering how my first meeting with my new GP (Doctor) will go.  It's been over six years since I have been in to see a medical doctor.  But to my credit... I haven't been sick or sick enough to warrant a visit.  Because of that, I lost access to the clinic I was a patient at for ten years and a doctor I had for the same amount of time.  

My Mom turned me on to a female physician who is accepting patients in a town close to her home.  I jumped on that.  I have an appointment in a month to see her for the first time.  

I want to interrogate her.  That is the energy I'm feeling right now.  I guess I could just be a subservient patient and just get along with her protocol.  But I am a little more interested in what she can do for me.  I realize that because of our Alberta Health Care system, I don't have to pay (aside from my taxes) for her services.  Maybe that comes with a lot of baggage.  Maybe I don't have a right to be picky.  But that doesn't stop me from wanting to ask some questions before I commit to our "relationship". 

Do you eat meat? (I'm a carnivore.  I would like to know if she can support that regimen as a valid way of health for me.  It will be a little more challenging if she is a vegan. ) 

How old are you? (Maybe I don't have a right to ask that question.  But if she's in her 30's, then I will know that she hasn't experienced menopause yet and all her knowledge of it comes out of books and other people's anecdotes.) 

How do you view sugar? (This one is a no brainer for me.  If she hands out lollypops for the children that are in her care, then that is a red flag for me.  That tells me she's not very concerned about nutrition as a way of promoting health.) 

Will you still accept me as a patient if I refuse cancer screening? (This one is a big one for me.  I figure if I have a problem, I will address it at the time it happens.  But I am beyond needing preliminary cancer screening as I see it has  become a money maker for the medical system. I don't need regular invasive procedures just to pad her pocket book. I am already doing everything I can with my food intake to ward off cancer. News Flash... stop the intake of sugar.  Cancer cells love sugar. ) 

I can't think of any more questions right now... but I might have more given enough time.  After all, doctors here in Canada are in high demand and it's not like "Little House on the Prairie" where you can just walk into Dr. Baker's office and have his full attention.  That world doesn't exist anymore.  

I added a picture of a Ribeye steak that my husband barbecued for me.  It was delicious.  This is a picture of what keeps me alive now.  I hope I can convey that to my new G.P. somehow.  Maybe I can't ask her all the questions I want to in the ten minutes I get for our initial meeting. But maybe I can show her a picture of this ribeye and let her know that I'm in better health because of it.  

I posted about my Carnivore Journey during Lent in 2024 on "The Carnivore Atheist" .  It's been a two year journey for me so far.  I don't want to go back.  I only wish I could express that to my new doctor.  

Day 7: The Hardest Part of Love is Letting Go

 

I wonder, sometimes, if letting go gets any easier the more loss I have.  I look ahead to the possibilities of what can happen to someone I love and realize that loving them means letting go of my desire to have them around all the time.   This is a lesson I have learned so many times before.  

I was a teenager in the 80's and I heard a lot of songs back in the day.  But what escaped me a lot of the times was the artist behind the song.  A song can be so familiar, and yet when I Google it, I find that I know nothing about the band or singer that made that song so popular.  "Letting Go" is one of those songs.  

The Band is called Straight Lines.  They are a Canadian Band.  Who'd thunk!  I just learned that today.  I've had that song go through my head countless times when I have had to let go in some form or other.  What is so amazing about the lyrics is that they can make you cry over any form of love.  It doesn't have to be romantic love.  

Nine years ago, I had to let go of someone very precious to me.  Letting go the last time was preceded by a lot of previous times I had to let go of that boy.  My nephew Ben was 26 when he died in a vehicle accident.  Just that would have been enough to make it tragic... but there is much more to the story that just added to the tragedy and the additional practice of "Letting Go" involved.  

When I listened to this song this morning, the tears flooded out of me.  I looked at his picture on my wall and then looked over at the picture of his Mom who died in a motorcycle crash over two years ago.  I had to let go of her too on numerous occasions.  They are both gone and my pain is brought to life again when someone still living requires me to let go again.  I am tired of so much tragic loss in my family.  Letting go again seems like giving in to the next heart ache.  But the choice is mine to embrace the "Hardest Part of Love".  Maybe that is where Love shines the most.   

"Letting Go" by Straight Lines

They say that if you love somebody
You've gotta set them free
And if you really love somebody
You gotta let them be

Well, I don't wanna tie you down
We both need room to grow
But it's so easy havin' you around
And the hardest part of love is letting go

It's easy to depend on someone
To be part of your life
And all the time you spend with someone
Could make you hold too tight

Well, I don't wanna tie you down
We both need room to grow
But it's so easy havin' you around
And the hardest part of love is letting go

The hardest part of love is letting go
The hardest part of love is letting go

They say that if you hold on to it
It's gonna slip away
But if the feeling's really true
Then you know it's gonna stay

Well, I don't wanna tie you down

We both need room to grow

But it's so easy havin' you around

And the hardest part of love is letting go

Letting go

Letting go

The hardest part of love is letting go

(Released in 1981:  Writers David Sinclair and Bob Buckley.  Key members of the Canadian band Straight Lines included: Bob Buckley: Vocals, Keyboards; David Sinclair: Guitar; Peter Clarke: Bass; Darryl Burgess: Drums (original); Peter Padden: Percussion; Geoff Eyre: Drums)