coffee conundrum

Anyone else feel uncomfortable ordering coffee these days? As if learning to speak 'starbucks' wasn't difficult enough, the shop where I get my coffee has begun renaming its coffees after the region the bean was grown in: Rwanda, Ethiopia, Columbia.

The result, however unintentional, is that every morning I squirm uncomfortably as I order a 'Tall Rwandan' or 'Medium Ethiopian' to go. Doesn't the US grow coffee? I'd feel a lot more comfortable ordering an 'Extra-rich American' to get me going in the morning...

my yoga teacher made me cry today...

...it was in a good way but how do you explain that? Fears, doubts, blocks, obstinance and resistance - they all reared their ugly heads during practice this morning and my teacher called me on it. Upsetting, but good because he was right and I wouldn't even have noticed it otherwise.

If I were to transcribe my thoughts from practice this morning they would read as "nope...not going to...can't do that, CAN'T do that...not gonna do it...". After my umpteenth half-assed attempts, my teacher tucked down beside me and observed that I wasn't trusting him as a teacher or myself as a practitioner, that he knows my practice and has seen what I'm capable of achieving but I need to stop pulling back so I can let myself move forward.

Essentially, he told me to trust, have faith and let go - and that's why I cried, those are hard freaking things for me to do. An interesting mirror, and by interesting, I really mean ugly. I didn't realize that there was trust missing - but there is. I didn't realize that I was full of 'can't do it' - but I am. And I didn't realize that as much as I'm working to move forward - I'm working just as hard to hold back.

Making the unconscious conscious - that's good stuff.

I heart yoga.

and speaking of boyscouts...

...they were out in full force this weekend. My morning trip to the coffee shop was less a meandering wander, as per usual, and more a minefield of khaki munchkins. Their handlers, the parents, must have attended some sort of "apple hawking" workshop this year, the whole process was oddly organized with many of them doubling up. While carrying the benefits of providing company for their child and someone for them to roll their eyes at; it led to a conundrum for well-meaning citizens like myself: which cute, squeaky voiced child to donate to?

At first, I was unperturbed - I had strategies of my own. I packed my pockets with change, carried my apple high, and brandished my tiny white "I donated" square with aplomb mistakenly assuming that the latter two would act as my protective shield. Unfortunately, no one had informed the canvassers-masquerading-as-scouts what the square meant and I was accosted every few feet by not one, but two, army green donation boxes thrust hopefully at me. Predictably, I ended up donating to both.

Last night was different, it was the older scouts holding sentry outside the video and convenience stores, the ones who had outgrown scouts but don't know it yet. Or maybe they know it but their parents don't. Maybe last spring when sign ups were posted they were still scout-appropriate without indication that, come fall, they would have morphed into raucous, loud and, dare I say it, obnoxious preteens.

Thinking about this reminded me again of how quickly we change, not just the scouts, all of us. The overgrown scouts with their uneasy guffaws and awkward limbs were easy to spot but the rest of us? We're not so different.

Within the space of a few short months obsessions fade, clothing sizes change and tolerable situations change to intolerable and back again. Without the obvious reminders that accompany some changes - such as puberty - it can be easy to forget how fluid we are. That no matter what our age and stage, the only constant we can be sure of is the fact that we're going to change and that, at times, the transition will be so gradual that we may not even notice it ourselves.

things i learned in southeast asia

• That size doesn't matter but the label sometimes does. The same teensy weensy fish that was fascinating one second put me into a full blown panic attack the next when I was informed that it was a reefer shark
• The locals are fine, it's the people in uniforms you need to watch out for
• While riding atop the neck of an elephant may look cool, it is very, very itchy
• That the poorest country financially can be the richest in spirit
• That I'll get what I need when I need it - pay attention
• That although yells and threats may provoke action in other parts of the world, here they just make me look stupid. The sooner I learn to laugh, tease, and cajole - the better
• That I absolutely and truly and totally am never alone
• That it is terrible for my self-esteem to shop in SEAsia - "We no have your size, hee hee"
• That if I don't ask, I may never find out
• That it's best to see things with my own eyes and make my own decisions instead of accepting the reports of others
• That not everyone is a 'kindred spirit' but a surprising number are and I'll meet them when least expected
• Be patient - the boat will come sometime between 6am-10am.
• Also, be flexible - sometimes the boat just won't come and I'll have to take a bus.

a busy idiot or idiotically busy?

I've been thinking about being busy lately. I've been feeling overwhelmed, burnt out and stressed out and it's made me wonder whether I actually am that busy. Maybe the real problem is that I just don't manage my time that well? Or that I have incredibly poor stress-management skills?

Everyone is busy, people have written books about how busy we are; I should know, I've got one of them sitting in my bookcase, unread, at home. I remembered this book as I sat on the subway rushing from work to nightclass and my very next thought, that I should read the book, was quickly chased by the following promise: I will, just as soon as I can find the time....

At this point I caught myself, had one of those 'did I REALLY just say that' moments, and gave thanks that the conversation was a mental one. The up-side of being too busy to socialize - no one else is privy to my increasingly idiotic trains of thought ;)

i heart georgian bay

A few years ago I read a passage in "The English Patient" by Michael Ondaatje that literally brought my hand to my chest and sent me into one of those foggy eyed reveries that accompanies good memories. That I happened to be in Thailand at the time may have exaggerated my response to a small degree but I've never forgotten that somewhere in the 300-odd pages of text there was a passage that communicated 'home' to me in a way that I've never been able to put to paper.

I was reminded of this passage for the umpteenth time a few days ago while on our annual 'last time out this season' kayak trip. I've been tripping through the park we were in for 10 years and, as we moved through the water, I couldn't help but connect that island...this rock...that site... to memories from years past. My first trip there with M., the boy about whom I'll always wonder 'what if?'; that spot in the middle of the bay where V., too drunk to wait, leaned herself over the side of our teetering canoe and peed right then and there; that cliff where the boys insisted on cliff diving, scaring any training about handling head and neck injuries right out of my mind; and that campsite where G. and I spent our last weekend.

Yesterday, I borrowed "The English Patient" from the library to reacquaint myself with the passage that spoke so strongly to me of home that it stayed with me all these years. It took some time to find it but, eventually, I was successful. There it was, buried on page 296 in a book of 301 pages:

"I am sick of Europe, Clara. I want to come home. To your small cabin and pink rock in Georgian Bay".

When I found it, I had to read it twice - I was that surprised. "That's it?", I asked myself. Then I read it again and nodded to myself. That's it. The years of my life are spelled out across the sparkling pink rock that is Northern Ontario.

Summers spent at summer camp learning to canoe, kayak and pack enough belongings to last a week in a tiny little bedroll, never once suspecting that these would all be skills I would bring with me into adulthood. Weeks spent at Kilbear Provincial Park, a place I visited again this summer and realized how the years had passed: that the island I used to be afraid to swim to was nothing more than a large step away; that teenagers still climb the cliffs to sneak cigarettes and flirt with summer romance; and that the tradition of graffiti rock has survived only now the dates read "Smith family 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003" instead of the "1980, 1981, 1982" that accompanied my visits. With time has come new traditions like 'the last time out' kayak trip with my Aunt and Cousin last weekend where I think I surprised my Aunt by replying "None" to the question "How many children?".

In the city buildings are torn down and built over, forests are replaced by Walmarts, and friends move away but up north that tree just gets bigger, the islands hold their place, and that warm spot in the sun - the one on the rock with the built in chair at site 321 - that warm spot will still be there next year.