california

My New Year.

My sweet summer is gone. It doesn’t feel like summer is signed, sealed and sent away on Toronto streets due to some last minute heat from the sun but this is the time of year where shifts happen. More Raptors news on my social feeds and planning for upcoming events means the countdown to my new year is on. I’m so ready to dig in.

But I’m so happy thinking about the summer that was. Snapshots of summer have been slapping me in the face all day. I saw a lot. A lot of things I’ve never seen. And I am so thankful for the days on opposite coasts. Someone said to me on a Sunday morning in a city that wasn’t mine (when we were absorbing wordy memories of yesteryears while staring at a new day warming up in front of us over java) to store these moments in your mind for yourself and the people you are with instead of capturing them to share on social platforms like the ways of the world. The two of us, we had changed since our last meeting, but what hadn’t changed was me cringing at the fact that my camera was still sleeping at home. But then I just let it be. (It was NOT easy, trust me, I crave my creative outlets and the excitement of creative visions.) To be places and see the seconds in moments that no one will absorb but you is kind of awesome. Especially when you’ve got someone to talk about it to down the road. And pictures just never live up to the moment that was. It has stuck with me, for me (and you) to see.

And now? With grace and guts I’m tackling new endeavours. That’s the only way to do it. You know that saying, ‘act like duck; keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like hell underwater’? Uh huh, honey. I’ll be quacking all month until some of these visions that keep slapping me in the face become reality.

And when the nights are darker than most because my thoughts cloud the moon,
the thought of your face, two breaths between us, makes me sleep;
the blurred dream of a someday soon.

But the pics I did grab? Uh huh, honey. Next trip? Vancouver for Raptors training camp. Back to the west coast which will always have a piece of my heart. -k

I was always an unusual girl. My mother told me I had a chameleon soul. No moral compass pointing due north.
No fixed personality. Just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and wavering as the ocean. – Lana Del Rey

West Coast Ways – Day Four.

A few days ago I raced up Yonge Street on my way to yoga beside a twelve-ish year old girl in the same chucks as me. She carried a skateboard, we both had our headphones in and she wore the cutest little floral skirt. We kept getting stopped at the same streetlights and when I turned left, she turned left, and when I turned right, she turned right, weaving the same path with different destinations. We were most likely listening to different tracks and worrying about different nit-picky problems and daydreaming about different ideals because there are -insert your guess here- years between us. I don’t even know if she noticed me. I just read a quote from John Steinbeck that says, ‘I wonder how many people I’ve looked at all my life and never seen.’ Different intention but cool point. I noticed the girl because she reminded me of myself back then. A little bit of tomboy tendencies while staging the independent women status before the term ‘women’ legit fit into your life.

We spend the first half of our lives planning the future and the second half reliving the past. When does it change from one to the other?

That’s what’s on my mind as I relive the final day of San Francisco in iPhoto. It was my third time in California and each trip has settled into my life where I stood at a fork in the road and had to decide if to go right or left. Ended this trip ‘on top of the world’ in the pics below. Always search for that feeling. Until next time, SF. -k

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. – Oscar Wilde

West Coast Ways – Day Three.

I asked a friend the other day, ‘how’s that bucketlist of yours looking?’ I found a version of mine folded up in the back of my journal this summer with the date 2006 on it. The wild part about it was that I sat there ticking off some dreams that became reality when I didn’t even realize I was putting energy into making it happen. Some were small like surf in Malibu and my continuous quest to hit every baseball stadium across the states which is a work in progress. But some were on the next level scale like host my own TV show and get a photo professionally published. I’ve been given the same advice more than once in my life from people that I admire with great respect; write down what you want even if you don’t know how you’re going to get there. And keep writing because as the pages fill up things with scribbles and scratches, things will become clearer and you’ll find yourself checking off bucketlist dreams one day too. I challenge you to try it.

One of my little wishes was visit wine country in California. So the ladies and I set foot on Sonoma Valley soil on a Sunday funday last month. Check. -k

What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create. -Buddha

West Coast Ways – Day Two.

It’s Friday night in Toronto and I’m sitting on my balcony while the rest of the city says cheers to the weekend and fights the urge to tame the wild child inside of them. I’m watching them chase each other down the street six floors below. It makes me kinda happy because I know that buzz of being in a good place. That feeling of letting the bad shit go.

Saturdaaaay in the park was pretty perfect in San Francisco. Dolores Park reminded me of Trinity Bellwoods here in Toronto. The eclectic people pulling together parties of four or five or fifteen on a patch of grass with a view of the city that you seed with hopes and what ifs and scary but reachable success. I’m at the age where I flutter between back then and the future, unsure of tomorrow but sure of what I want tomorrow to be. The ‘on top of the hump’ part with the anxiety but excitement for the free fall. And these mini time outs from reality to relax and laugh and discuss where you are and where you want to be with people in the same boat kind of fuel your drive. I spoke with people that ventured from across the states and Canada that all met on one blanket and unknowingly said cheers to getting here.

And the view? Well that just adds to the awesome… -k

Room with a View.

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you
because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.
Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it. – Ronald Dahl

Sitting on top of the world in San Francisco. -k

West Coast Ways – Day One.

You know the saying, ‘I left my heart in San Francisco’? I think you can only nod your head to it’s truth when you set foot on the hills of the city. What an incredible place. I have a bad case of fernweh and I crave packing my bags and settling somewhere in the sky for a few hours, en route to adventures that I’ve never experienced, with good music, a big book and a bag of trail mix. And a celebratory glass of wine. Especially when you’ve got your good friends flying with you. Cheers to the days ahead. Cheers to life really. Life takes you places for reasons if you take a moment to absorb it. If you take a moment to just sit still and look at what is in front of you. So I found myself in San Francisco with a few girlfriends with damn good souls. I was lucky enough to experience a little touristy exploration and some true SF local days with our friends that have settled their lives there for now.

The first couple of days we did the touristy thing as seen in the photos below. Stepping out of the house in the misty morning with coffee in hand and my camera and walking the streets, I was already in heaven. The buildings are unreal. Every house has so much character and it’s own little story. Like, who lives there? Then we grabbed a bike from Fisherman’s Wharf and I knocked off ‘bike the Golden Gate Bridge’ on the bucketlist, finishing in Sausalito with a glass of wine on the sunny waterfront. Because of the feeling in my tummy and in my skin, I already want to go back. Find things that make you feel like that. -k

And at the end of the day your feet should be dirty, your hair messy and your eyes sparkling – Shanti