wise words

Frozen Movements.

What do you do when you feel you’re due for a little bit of too good to be true? Does it push you forward or push you away? Does it fuck with your freedom?

I had a couple of comfort convos today about just that. Finding the freedom and hidden fabulous of tough times. There’s a glow of greatness in absolutely everything that falls at your feet or in front of your face. I do believe that. Even when it shakes up your sensitive soul. I also believe that it takes the continuation of life’s great dance to make believing it a habit as oppose to just head filled hopes. Time is a blessing. And the transitions that two-step there way into your life are a blessing.

I’ve really rambled about life alot lately. Sometimes I don’t even know if my rants make sense but they make sense to me. Four years ago I felt one of those transitions. At the time I had been frozen for years. Life offered me it’s hand and said dance with me a new way. I didn’t expect to continue experiencing the transitions as much as I have but I almost get high off of them. Maybe I look for them and that’s why I notice them. I can’t wait for them, even when they’re challenging, because they’ve only brought me freedom. And I full out love a good challenge. Even if it took a minute or a day or months for the transition to mold me and make me realize why it spun me to the right. Because it was right. And I was left to be better. I challenge you to accept them in all forms. -k

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‘Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of nowhere and sometimes in the middle of nowhere you find yourself.’

Life Observations from the Peanut Gallery.

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Please excuse me if I don’t talk too much, it’s loud enough in my head.

Mama asked me today if I was happy. I said yes. And I wish that for everyone and I don’t want to lose it. And it’s taken me some time to find the place where the madness and the mellow meet. Where they mold into magical type moments with the people who love like you do. Stay away from people who make you feel like you’re hard to love. Don’t say maybe if you want to say no. Balance hard work and wild nights wisely. They’re both equally necessary for guided growth and gratitude. Stop the analytical archery and listen to your intuitive heart; it always knows what’s best for your next steps and say somethings. Be the same person privately, publically and personally. The mesh of the meetings brought me happiness. I don’t make new years resolutions. The new year just reminds me to work on the ‘what I want to do’s’ that rumble through my head until I silence them with success. Baby steps beat the ‘but I wish I had’s’. Put the good energy that touches you to good use, it’s hard to find. Enjoy the damn good deep dark dreary dense delicate delicious daring doable dreamy damn good ride. I wish that for you. Here’s to new year good things, darlings/dudes. -k

‘In the end there doesn’t have to be someone who understands you… there just has to be someone who wants to.’ – Robert Brault

Therapy and Tea.

Creative expression is an addiction of mine. I crave waking up on a Sunday morning, making a cup of tea and endlessly scrolling through pinterest boards full of photos and quotes that fill your soul up to the top. And then writing the crap out of my reaction to a photo or quote. Thinking about it now, it’s a therapeutic thing. When the soul has been emptied of a little confidence or belief, I believe in finding something to repair it. I’ve heard this before –> There are poems inside of you that paper can’t handle. How beautiful and true. When words are locked up in my insides I always find it easier to express them through photography. It’s definitely a favourite creative outlet of mine. I’ve been stopped in my tracks on my daily commute a lot this month due to the city shifting into winter mode. The puddled streets and snowflakes and sun hanging on to the buildings because it doesn’t get to play as long at this time of year has made me pause. And as I sit here now at a loss for words, I’ll drop a photo I took this week to explain the rest. Happy Sunday. -k

Please excuse me if I don’t talk too much, it’s loud enough in my head.

photo (1)‘Have no fear you will find your way. It’s in your bones. It’s in your soul.’ – Mark Z. Danielewski

The Path of Unpredictability.

Quotes or wise words that my eyes touch and my mind swallows or spits out through the day often lead to brain purges on this page.

It’s a mucky Monday. As I tucked my phone in my pocket to protect it from the rain, the following word song repeated in my head. I had just read it.

I admire people who choose to shine even through all the storms they’ve been through.

And then I looked up.

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And what I saw was a physical formation of those words; the tower representing a person and that it still stood tall and unaffected by the hits it had taken through rain and thunder and snow and sleet. Through hurtful words, losses, road blocks and unpredictability. It was still notable. It was still shining.

Last night I got kicked in the gut by the unpredictable. And I can say that this is the first time that I didn’t wither by it’s blow. The path of unpredictability is equally frightening and exciting in my eyes. But this has come to be my outlook after many meetings with the harsh realities of unpredictability. And surviving those meetings. In fact, triumphing from them. (Even if it took a day or week or months to realize this.) I always believed in the saying, ‘If you think it, it will come.’ Positive thinking. It has finally become not just a thought but a tattoo. I live it. And knowing what is next is no fun. Saying you fought the war and won? That’s a high.

It’s a mucky Monday but I’m okay with it. -k

And there it was, everything she ever wanted. She could see heaven, it was real.
But it was only a second later that she realized she would have to walk through hell to get there. – j.s. uili

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

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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

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Signs.

photo-16What if I fall? Oh, my darling, what if you fly?

I do believe in signs from the universe as guidance in verifying that you are in the right place. Mom always said they’re out there, you just have to ask for them. She also said white feathers mean that your angels are with you. So white feathers are kind of a comfort thing. -k

The ‘G’ word.

Growth. I’m looking at it from an entire life aspect right now. It’s way past midnight and I’m sipping on wine and there is no one to tell me that it’s time to go to bed because I’ve grown in years. I’ve aged on the calendar. But when do we stop growing in life aside from the physical? There is always a little bit of a childlike demeanour in our bones. I think it’s incredible that we don’t stop growing. With growth comes untouched opportunities and new territory. And most of the time it is fuel towards happier days. This makes me want to get out of bed in the morning.

I started crossfit and it has been about three weeks. I feel like I’m in recovery mode everyday. It feels like the muscles in my muscles are sore if that is even possible. I’ve been walking like a T Rex from sore legs all week but I’ve grown both in my physical capacity and in the ‘I can do this’ belief zone. Growth is addictive if you put effort into it because the result is matter-of-factly pretty awesome.

During one of the crossfit workouts this week where we had to run laps around the track, rotating between running forwards and backwards in the same direction, I started thinking about growth. (And the guy on my tail giving me some friendly competitive motivation.) As a self employed artist, where hustle comes with the territory and there is no 9-5 schedule to get you out of bed, you need to push a little harder. Those runners on your tail are good for you. I think this applies to taking the next step in any ‘job’. But I’ve had multiple conversations this week about the thought of going backwards before going forwards in career. It’s scary. Sometimes you need to risk that, trusting that a little slide in status, workload or paycheque will soon catapult you to bigger and better. And my run on the track that day was the perfect metaphor. It actually calmed the anxiety of some choices I need to make. Because even though I was running backwards which was so much harder, I was still running forwards around the track. Once I hit a certain point I was able to turn back around and run forwards and pick up speed.

Running has been in my life for a lot of reasons, both physical and mental, and now it’s teaching me life lessons too. Leap, soar, jump. Who would have thunk. -k

Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still. -Chinese Proverb

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Shifting Point.

In an eclectic store with a coffee shop in the front and barbershop in the back, in my city, in the west end yesterday morning..
Somewhere between crossfit challenges and catching up with the good ol’ crew for Canada Day..
While people in my city were sleeping off hangovers..
While people in my city were planning afternoon bbq menus..
While the city was my favourite type of quiet due to the midweek holiday..

I sipped my post workout coffee and had a conversation about the slight shifts of priorities and life stuff with a couple of other people who have also hit the shifting point. Some may call it a ‘get your sh*t together’ point. I know the approximate time it happened in my life but I think life experiences influence the shifting point more than age does. It didn’t come in a box with a bow on top after I blew out my birthday candles.

Change is inevitable. Progression is a choice.

Some of the discussion in that store bled into my current practices:
– For years my friends have been going out on Saturday nights while I stay home to write scripts or learn lines and meet deadlines. I’m used to it. Now that my weekends are a little bit lighter I join friends but choose to see my pillow at a decent hour too. Going to bed early and getting up early makes me feel good. It’s good to have those ‘when your latest nights are your greatest nights’ moments too. I secretly like doing the opposite of what the world is doing.
– Working out used to be for vanity purposes years back. Yes, I chose a career where looks influence opportunity so this is still amid the mix, but now it’s more for piece of mind and lengthening life. I would be even crazier than I am now without the outlet of hot yoga and long distance runs. And it becomes incredibly addicting when a physical challenge seems unreachable and then your body conquers fear. Yesterday I carried a human on my back while running a mile for crossfit. Since my mindset has shifted from vanity to quality of life, I have never been this strong, both physically and mentally.
– I have always had to eat fairly ‘clean’ due to the way my body has chosen to befriend food. But it has been pretty cool watching the people around me be influenced by it. I also commend my European upbringing. If you wanted cookies you didn’t buy them you made them. I believe in balance. I believe in eating a good piece of pizza and a beer. I’m far from perfect but I strive for real food to trump processed food because there are so many positives. My fella would nod to it after spending some time with me and shifting his outlook as a foodie. Do people give me a hard time when I pass on a burger and fries? Absolutely. At first it was difficult understanding why I was judged for choices out of my control and what seemed like smart ones. It was a health choice I had to live by that in the end has led me down a good path. There are some pretty crazy additives out there. I prefer to keep that stuff in the soles of my shoes and not my burger bun.
– Sleep more. This is coming from an insomniac that gets her creative peak at 2am. Naps save lives.
– Surround yourself with people that provide fuel to being your ultimate self. There’s healthy competitive and destructive competitive amoung friends. I’ve experienced both and it’s mind-blowing that the latter exists. Say yes to social time with new people. They can you bring you things that you’ve been missing or unconsciously looking for.
–  Read books and take notes that help make you a better human. There is guidance everywhere.
– Do things for others without the need for thank yous. Pretend there has been an apology where there wasn’t one to help close chapters.
– Figure out where you want to put your energy. It’s precious. So is time. Fill it well.

The less you give a damn about what others think, the happier you will be. 

These are just a few shifts that have helped open doors and bring a little more happy around me that I talked about with good people yesterday morning. It’s like when friends start getting married and having kids and you have crossed that line or you haven’t. And you meet people who are on the same side of the line as you.

The other day while I was swearing under my breath about the humidity during my hills workout my motivation showed up. A  man asked me what I was doing out there on such a hot day. I told him I like challenges but it’s hard today. He told me he’s 68 years old and loves a nice, hot day for running. He runs regular 5K and 10K races. Then he asked me if I want to race up the hill for a few rounds. He kept pace the entire time. I want to be like him when I grow up. But the only way that it’s going to happen is if I keep bringing more good things over the line onto this new side of my shifting point. -k

That’s the best revenge of all; happiness. Nothing drives people crazier than seeing someone have a good f’ing life. – Chuck Palahniuk

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