Vincible Difficulties: March 2012

HEY! HO! LET'S GO!

Let's begin a proper blog post - one that does not include bullet points of my life because that's boring and impersonal (I think) and this isn't that kind of blog.

I honestly though can't tell you what has happened in the past 2 weeks. This is how it goes really: wake up between 5 and 6am, get ready for work, leave at about 8am and walk the 45 minute (quick-paced) journey to work. Get to work, work for 8 hours with an hour lunch and then walk home. Get home, put clothes away, grab clothes for tomorrow, eat dinner, watch Friends, go to bed.

This is why I have nothing to report about the last 2 weeks. To be completely honest, nothing has happened. With the exception of a few things:

ONE I got my celtic cross tattoo done before I started work on February 22, it is now fully healed and I've posted a picture below:

On my left side down my ribs - really hard to get a good picture!

TWO Went to Elie, Fife during 9-11 of March for a Pause Retreat. So the 1 hour silence gathering that I go to on Wednesdays had organized a trip to Elie as part of a "Pausing weekend". Trying out being in a space that allowed for Pausing throughout the day without the interruption of life essentially. Got a lift from Phil and he drove the near 2 hour drive to Elie... during which I was car sick and it sucked majorly! Anyway no upchucking and made it to the house. The house was gorgeous and so well equipped with everything you could possibly need. Did I mention it was right on the water?? So Friday night we all sat around and shared in supper and conversation. Really casual but a perfect way to open a relaxing weekend. We even went out to try and catch a glimpse of the northern lights - though unsuccessful because of clouds. Nevertheless I just stayed outside for a bit to be with the cold and the darkness on the beach. The waves rolled up and receded back with such rhythm it began to sound like music. The sky was so dark everything around you lost it's definition and was pitch back. Just you, the beach and the stars. The stars - oh man, there were so many. I don't think I've seen so many stars in so long and I miss being amongst the stars. There's something so calming about staring at hundreds of stars with flickers of brightness sparkling from among them. To interrupt the calm though - Kurt, Tom and Tim were throwing a frisbee around and because of the slight wind, sometimes it would come dangerously close to my face. Erin was hilarious and would duck for cover with a little squeal even if the frisbee was nowhere near. So we retreated back to the house for sleep but I knew I was going for a walk the next morning to acquaint myself with this place.
Saturday morning I spent about 3 hours in the 'pausing' room before I had breakfast with Phil and Emma joined us a bit after. Oh there were 13 people who went on this retreat and there were 5 bedrooms. Anyway, after breakfast I popped on my wellies and left. I just began walking along the beach and slightly in the water along the shore. I felt the cool water through the rubber of my boots and the pressure of the waves push against my stride, I could definitely do this every morning if I had the chance. In conjunction with the serene nature I was surrounded with, I found two shells that I thought would make nice souvenirs of my time in Elie (grabbed one for you mum!). So I kept walking along until I reached a point that I felt I wanted to diverge and head onto the sidewalk and more into the town. The houses were so beautiful and the sidewalks were thin and well-treaded. Today the sky was so clear and the sun shone down on all the emmaculate gardens that filled the front yards of these homes - I just wanted to plop myself in the middle of this one garden and lie down looking at the white clouds glide across the blue in the sky but I restrained myself and kept walking. I walked all the way to the beginning of a highway-looking road and just felt I'd go right. Kept walking along the sidewalk until it disappeared and I was confronted by a large football (soccer) field. It was beautiful - completely level field with uniformly lush, green grass covering it. Behind the field were little rolling hills that continued throughout as far as the eye could see. I followed a road to the water were there were huge boulders lining the banks of the shore - to my left, a lighthouse and to my right, partial beach mostly covered by the high tide. I went right. Climbed down the rocks onto this tiny beach and stood there looking out. As I looked out, my eyes narrowed out the structures to my left and focused just on the horizon. All that water and space - I wanted to hop in a boat and go out to the middle of nowhere just to feel the stillness. But after a while I realized the water was not still right now and had pretty much eaten half the beach to my right but I didn't really want to go back the way I came so I threw my bag up this wall and climbed up onto this ledge with brush along it. Balancing along I walked until I reached the stairs and hopped down into the water that had covered a bit of the stairs I could reach and walked up to the road. When I got back, a bunch of the people had just finished a football game on the beach and were relaxing in the sun. I sat with them for a moment before heading back inside.
Wendy had brought so many books for the pause room just in case people wanted to do some reading and so I grabbed these couple books. Two with random facts about everything and anything which I thoroughly enjoyed, and another with the message of peace. The first one I read said "All glory comes from DARING TO BEGIN". I absolutely loved it and carried it with me the rest of the day. Erin, Kurt and I made dinner and then later on for supper we had a scrumptious casserole and some intense conversation... along the lines of sexist imagery in our media. That took us about an hour into the evening before we decided we were going to play a game that whoever could participate in if they wanted. It was called First Impressions. I kid you not this game was based on playing with people you did not know very well or maybe ones you did and could knowingly judge them based on their personality. SO the game is about 400 cards you pick from with a bunch of descriptions of a person on them and then whoever is playing picks from the other players the person most like the card. Most of the cards were so harsh like this one that emphasized being empty inside but still a good person. So we played and because people did not know me very well I got the majority of ones about being mysterious - one being calm on the outside but once you get to know them they are quite an interesting person, which wasn't half bad! (compared to others that some people in the group got pegged with) But it was all in good fun and we were all laughing pretty hard throughout the whole game.
So Sunday morning - just the last bit of being in this space, I took my coffee cup outside with me and enjoyed my coffee on the beach with the exposed rock and low tide. Later I took some action shots of Erin and Kurt and some others playing football on the beach. Then it was time to go home and I was again car sick but had a really good talk with this girl, Ish, who moved on her own to Edinburgh to study and has been here for 10 years. She introduced me to Ben Howard which I in turn think you should give a listen to. I'm currently listening to The Wolves.
Monday of this week - busy, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday - busy. EXCEPT, a co-worker, Traci asked if she could walk with me home and kind of surprised I said yes and we began walking. About 15 minutes in she said she was going to meet a friend from uni and asked if I wanted to join. Heck yes! Anyway we went to this great French bar and hung out for 3 hours with her friend Adam. I absolutely loved Adam and his immaculate hair. We talked about everything and laughed about some interesting stories from their time as casting agents. I hope to see Adam again soon, thinking about going dancing since he has so many connections in the city. It'll be a good way to get to know Edinburgh. I think this Friday we (Traci and I) are going to mention going out with the people from work, mostly so we can all hang out because Traci resigned on Thursday of last week and Friday will be her last day. Long story short - her boss is terrible and she can't handle it anymore. I feel for her but also a little guilty that I've got the best bosses ever because her boss... it's pretty bad. Anyway I hope I can still keep in contact after she leaves because she's really great and easy to talk to. She's also from the USA which makes it easier to understand what she says (haha) and that might have something to do with her being easy to talk to.
So Saturday, Erin, Kurt and I hosted a get-to-know your flat building party. We had anticipated no one showing up but three different flats out of the 9 showed up and hung out for an hour all together in our lounge and shared in tea and treats. I definitely count that as a success. I met Sid and Greg from the top flat and across from them Andy and Emma. Right above us lives Ester who has lived here for 45 years and raised her two daughters here. I was so nervous about being bombarded by strangers and trying to find conversation but I think that I've come so far since being in Vancouver that I surprised myself with how easy conversation came. I just forgot about structure so to speak and talked about anything that was on my mind that I'd like to know about someone new. Sid and I talked about music and french politics and about a party he was excited to be going to this weekend. I think we could be mates - we both are very similar and awkward (haha). Afterwards Erin, Kurt and I went to Calton Hill just cause we felt like it and invited Wendy who joined us later and we all threw a tennis ball around. There was a group doing yoga in the grass and a large amount of tourists basking in the sun and snapping pictures. During what I called Hot Potato, we practiced not saying sorry when you threw it a bit off or you didn't catch the ball. Wendy brought it up because everyone says sorry - it's involuntary and you are not responsible for the ball going way off because of a bad flick of the wrist. By the end, no one was apologizing and we got to 21 catches without a drop. It sounds like a weird connection but in truth not apologizing constantly and just continuing throwing the ball in good company made it all more relaxing and enjoyable. I think it was because once you start apologizing, it's expected to be a pattern whenever you mess up. Then, when you neglect to apologize for something that the other people might find warrants an apology based on the previous apologies, it becomes a stigma and might be carried throughout the rest of the game which is just silly.
Afterwards, we walked over to Simon and Jonny's who had invited us over to their house for tea. We sat around and I enjoyed the good conversation, which believe it or not, I actually contributed to :) I think it was mainly because it had to do with the mistreatment of animals which I am pretty passionate about addressing. So we packed up and headed home and Erin and Kurt had invited over a couple from the college for dinner, so we all ate dinner and I politely retreated to my room so they could entertain their friends and I could crash in my comfy bed.
Today I woke up at around 6am with a stomach ache which didn't subside until about 2 hours ago. But now I feel good and thus am finally updating. I will now update every Sunday because it's much harder updating every couple weeks - hurts my brain to remember that far in the past with detail!

Below are pictures, miss you Elie.

Love.