on holidays

i'm in toronto, anxiously awaiting my friends to wake up so we can continue the connecting, chatting and silliness. the two friends i'm staying with make me laugh more than anyone else in the world. tonight all of my toronto friends will gathered and i will likely feel like the luckiest girl ever surrounded by such unique, beautiful and quality human beings.

on sunday i will head up to owen sound to go to a folk fest with my mom (one i grew up going to, the first time being when i was a month old...yes...once upon a time i was that infant being welcomed into the world by music and being carried around by my hippy parents).

and then off to my mom's cottage in a lovely town called Southampton on the shore of Georgian Bay. I'll be there for most of two weeks along with the rest of the family. its been a while since we've all been together. i can barely wait for the sandy dunes, the beach swings, the cold water and the sunsets. i'll post pics if i can, but likely it will be a quiet two weeks with little internet and phone access. i could use that kind of quiet!

happy august and i hope the view from wherever you are is beautiful.

may your love light be so bright

what you dream in the morning, may you dream at night
may your love light be so bright it diminish the darkness
that comes without warning and in no particular way
and threatens to blow you away

i wish i could tell you all the pain's in your head
that it all would be better if you'd just do what they said
but if the voice that is talking is never your own
then who's going to tell you that you've finally come home

~ferron

this week has been....dare i say....magical.
i've seen so many beautiful live performances that has my heart swelling and the songs in me asking for attentiveness. the exchange of energy between performer and audience (especially in the small intimate venues i go to) is so beautiful. kind smiles, so much laughter, unabashed appreciation, singing along, tapping toes, rocking out.

and serenading me through these days is this song, which is titled with one of my favourite words ever. resilience.

YES

i've been pondering the word YES lately.
i know, a fairly simple three letter word we say dozens of times a day.
but you see...

for the last few years i've been working on connecting with the word NO.
my boundaries in life were dreadful and i've been working on building those walls where necessary and trusting my intuition when things are asked of me beyond my expected energetic output! during these years, the amount of energy i needed to keep for myself far outweighed what i had to give to others. it almost felt like i had 2 decades of excessive social output to recover from. but now i trust myself to make better choices and boundaries about what i have to give in this world. the part of me that is a 'giver' is finding different ways to give.

when i was first connecting with NO it was a very physical, tangible experience. if i didn't say it when my gut said to, I would get nauseous and my throat would feel constricted. this would happen multiple times a day. and it wouldn't go away till i dealt with what i needed to speak more truthfully about. i'm much better at saying NO now. it took serious practice to get it right, but now it comes easy.

but the need to say NO hasn't felt quite as important, now that it isn't such a difficult word to say to people. now that i'm not afraid of what their reaction to it will be. and putting up these boundaries has created a bit of a solitary protective existence for me, which served me quite well for a while. yet lately i've been wondering how to step out of these boundaries and take more risks again, trust that i won't fall into the arms of danger and will stay standing on my own two feet.

and so YES is re-entering my life.

when i think of YES, i can't help but recall this love story. it makes me cry every time i read it. i think of all the things that have manifested in these last few years and how much i want them to thrive once i truly let them out into the world. i think of how much of a romantic i am and that YES..i do want to meet and marry someone i can call MY LOVE. i think of all that i had dreamed that my life would be and how much more vibrant and beautiful it is turning out to be (even in my struggles).

so every day i am noticing how YES feels.

its not a ball of tension in my throat. rather it is singing with all i've got.
its not nausea. but its butterflies and blushing red cheeks as i welcome passion back into my life (or at least the prospect of it).
its engaged communication, generous smiles, kindness and being truthful.
and its that little dance i can't help but do (kind of a run on the spot pump my arms to the sky geeky kind of dance)

i'm not settling for contentment. i've got a heart that is slowly re-opening and a new way of being in this world.
though i will likely not tattoo it on my hand, i can already feel how much its thawing me.

its safe to let go again.
and its time.

so i say YES again to life.