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

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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

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