Category Archives: Lifestyle

Work, rest, play, or all three at once

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What did you do for work this summer?

For rest?

For play?

How often did you work, rest and play at the same time?

Those questions were the topics for discussion at my church recently, and we were surprised to discover how often we choose to spend our time doing things that feed us in more ways than one.

Rocky shoreline of Lake Huron
I spent some time this summer on the shores of Lake Huron.

Gardening, for example, is work for sure, but meditative and joy-filled too. We take days to prepare for camping trips and more days cleaning up after, but the time spent resting by the campfire or playing in the lake make it all worth while. A hike up a forest path accelerates our heart rate and strains the muscles, and then we get to enjoy the view and sleep really well at night.

When those questions were asked of me, writing came to mind.

Facing down the blank page is hard work.

Writing is hard work. Whether it’s paid work for my jobs or labouring over the second draft of my novel, I must give of myself mentally, physically and emotionally—sometimes painfully—to get words on the page.

I also play with the words, move them around, change them, and chew on them until they feel just right. I feel that jolt of joy when I know that I’ve captured some elusive idea exactly right.

I’m a writer because it’s something I need to do. When I have fulfilled that need, expended the energy and played with ideas, gratified rest follows. Even if I know a work is not complete or that I will need to revisit a paragraph or concept, I rest with the same sense of accomplishment that the hiker experiences at the top of the mountain. The rest serves my writing too. When I step away and then return, the time away gives me fresh perspective and I see ways to make the work even better.

What did you do this summer? Did it feel like nothing but work? Did you play? Have you rested?

The garden sanctuary I look at when I am working, playing and resting while writing in my back yard.

Happiness is . . .

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Welcome mat reading "this is our happy place, at the bottom of a set of stairs.

This is the welcome mat below deck of the Pride of Baltimore II, a Baltimore Clipper tall ship, circa the War of 1812.

The crew of the Pride of Baltimore II find their joy on a craft that catches wind in mighty sails that carry them across the bounding main — and the Great Lakes. They rest easy on a ship that can anchor when needed, save them in peril, and fire up weapons to fend off foes.

  • A sturdy anchor
  • Preserving life
  • Fire when needed

Their happy place is nothing like mine — I prefer dry land, uncrowded sleeping space and luxurious showers — but I find joy in knowing that the crew of the awesome tall ship is in their happy place when skimming across glinting waters .

What is your happy place?

  • Happiness is a forest walk
  • Happiness is a day of baseball
  • Happiness is reading by a still lake

New and beautiful out of old and broken

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Some days I feel ancient.

Some days it feels like so much of my life, so many people and events, lie on the path behind me, how much more can be ahead?

On those days, it’s helpful to stumble upon trees like these growing together on my friend’s property near Lake Huron.

A twig sprouting out of the sawed-off portion of a cedar trunk

A sprout of a completely different kind of tree is growing through the trunk of the sawed-off trunk of an old tree.

I searched from all sides and from high and low angles, and I could not find the root system for the younger twig. It is below ground, an integral part of the roots of the cedar.

The largest trunk on the original cedar was cut off—a loss that must have felt like the end. But no! Something unexpected was hiding there all along, intertwined with the roots, waiting to spring to life.

Temenos: Sanctuary

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I am away for a short vacation at a place that looks very different from this, but is a sanctuary nonetheless.

Where is your Temenos?

Bless that which you want: Vacation

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Four people making the letters of the world love with their bodies.

According to the ancient Polynesian wisdom of Ka Huna, shamans of Hawaii use the power of words and mind to build self-esteem to heal the self, others and situations.

The wisdom says: Bless that which you want.

If we are jealous of others who received something we desire, or if we declare ourselves unworthy of receiving it, that drives away the object of our desire.

It’s impossible to bless something and be negative at the same time.

Blessings expand positive and creative energy and reflect it back to us. Blessings increase the good in our lives.

I’m taking a short vacation. I bless the mental break, the time for reading, the visits with family and friends, the swimming and the sunshine. I bless that when I return I will be rejuvenated.  

What do you want? Take some time to bless it.

Two Muskoka chairs facing each other on a lake-side dock.

The beauty of making do

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We replaced kitchen cupboards at our cottage on the weekend.

The old ones had been there for decades—probably since the 1950s when my father-in-law bought the place. They were functional, but not perfectly so. The drawers, without sliders, squeaked closed, wood against wood. One cupboard door was hung crooked and sprang open again if not closed with authority.

I was excited to replace the old cupboards with units that had proper shelving and drawers the slid home easily with a quiet thunk at the end.

And then we took the old ones apart.

Those gliders on the wooden drawers? Hockey sticks. (Canadian stereotype alert!)

The side panels were pieces of used decorative paneling (that I suspect he picked up for free from a discard pile somewhere). Every screw used to cobble the whole thing together was different. He’d obviously empty every jar of used screws in his work shed.

  • Hockey stick gliders
  • Decorative panel drawers
  • The place where every used screw in his wood shed found a home.
  • It’s possible that no new wood used in the entire structure.

We bowed down to the skillful frugality of my father-in-law, the King of Making Do. What we found behind the smooth white front was a masterpiece of creative re-purposing that gave new meaning to the term “custom kitchen.”

He was teenager during the Great Depression and those years of poverty marked him. He lived Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Re-purpose, Recycle before it became an environmental mantra.

It was marvelous. And so beautiful.

Syd, if you’re out there somewhere, I hope you know that I am bowing down to your work and the beauty of making do.

Bank of lower kitchen cabinets
The new look: Functional yes, but not NEARLY as interesting.