Vacation Day 7: The last hurrah with the pets

The last full day.  I decided I should head home tomorrow. Give myself the time I need to acclimate and spend more time with kitty and Loverboy in our own bed.

I was wide awake at 7 a.m. even though I fell asleep after midnight. I sleep so much better up here. It’s so dark and silent. I would love to have a month – or more – in a place like this. Okay, a place like this on a lake!!!!

I am clarifying what I want in life. I want a wonderful partner. I want to live in the country on a lake, and I want to have more than enough money to accomplish that! I want to sleep well at night. I want to feel my own energy, not everyone else’s!

I have learned that I must spend less time on the internet. I’ve written 1/10 of a book since I’ve been here, without even trying. Though this certainly isn’t a book, it has the seeds of one.

I laid in bed for an hour today, sun streaming in, Loverboy and Kitty cuddled next to me. It was so beautiful. I made the bed, did the dishes leftover from last night, washed, brushed and flossed, made my instant coffee with a little evaporated milk and Stevia, then proceeded outside for my morning prayer. Except kitty was mewing piteously in the doorway. I gave in, harnessed him up with his kitty leash and let him out. Loverboy, too. They both proceeded to chase the chipmunks off the deck. The chipmunks, however, were fearless and kept coming anyway, trotting free as you please right past Kitty.  Loverboy felt the need to be the dog guard, however. So they approached in angles that were out of Loverboy’s eyeshot. It was like living in a Disney cartoon.

I held kitty on leash the entire time, but he did snoop around the cabin for the first time. He was outside for a solid hour sniffing the plants, nibbling the plants, swiping at the chipmunks and moths. I am kicking myself for leaving the camera inside.

After about 45 minutes, I brought them back in and began my morning prayers and meditation. The most important thought that came to me is this:

Imagination to reality?
I have a powerful imagination. It’s one of the advantages of being ignored and alone as a young child. I have to use that to imagine that I am loved, not unlike imaginary friends. I have to conjure up the feeling of being very much adored and safe. And, I have to imagine I love myself just the way I am. It can’t come from a place of authenticity (yet) because I don’t love myself the way I am. I am too fat.  And, yes, I think I’m too old, but I never, in a million years, want to relive any part of my younger days. I am SO glad they are over and am glad to be this age.

But, I can imagine I love myself. I can imagine I am looking at myself as an adoring, attentive mother, I can pretend I adore myself the way I adore Loverboy and Kitty. I would never say the mean things I say to myself to them. I would never torture them with fear and worry with which I torture myself.

It’s 11:32 a.m., Wednesday, July 11, 2012. I feel content and at peace. I feel loved and I feel safe. It is so good here. I forgive myself for not spending more time in prayer and meditation, I needed to go out and explore and have fun!  I needed to let go of trying so hard.

Confessions: I am sooo glad I don’t own this place! Otherwise, I would be doing yard work the entire time and not resting!  

Back to Nature

Took Loverboy and Kitty for more tours of the yard, and I brought the camera this time.

Loverboy and I trotted around the grounds and down to the lake; I bathed myself and him in Cutters, but even then, the buggies were merciless. What’s nice about the shores of Lake Superior is the lake breeze seems to keep the mosquito population down.

We ventured back and I decided to hoop again, and the chipmunks were brave enough to come up on deck and help themselves to sunflower seeds regardless. They’ve downed 5 pounds in two days.

 It’s very much worth the price of admission. There’s a pair and they take turns chasing each other away from the stash. Like I said:  A living, breathing Disney cartoon.

It’s magical to hoop overlooking the wilderness.  A tawny-colored moth landed on me at one point, and then, when I was done hooping, decided it wanted to hang out on the hoop for a while.  There were dragon flies and bumble bees and swooping hummingbirds.

Ruminating on Pea Soups

Afterward, I worked on The Voyageur, a book written in the ‘30s by Grace Lee Nute. I was intrigued by what I read about the voyageurs in a guide to Lake Superior, and wouldn’tchaknow, when I stopped at the local hardware store in Grand Marais to purchase a landline phone for this place (the other was out of commission and Monika asked me to pick another up if I was out and about), I found The Voyageur on the shelf. In a hardware store!

I had an interesting aha moment as I read it. My Mom is from Northern Ontario, so this has been an especially poignant visit because this region is the same climate – even though Mom’s home was about 10 hours north. The air smells similar, the plants are similar. It’s left me melancholy as I recall 20 years of visits to my grandmother’s house, a place that didn’t have indoor plumbing – except for the sink – until I was five years old. I remember bathing in a tin tub with hot water boiled over the wood stove. I wish I could have appreciated the towns remarkable isolation and that my grandmother’s home was a throwback to the 1920s. It was made out of logs, by the way. The walls were a foot thick. I also wish I was given the opportunity to spend more time in nature instead of in “town,” which consisted of a handful of rundown houses, a church, and a general store – The Hudson Bay Company, of course. It’s been in the region since the 18^th century, when England established it to attain an edge on the fur trade.

That said, when Mom was in grade school, the kids would taunt each other, like grade school kids are wont to do. The insult that got hurled at Mom was “Bohunk” for being Eastern European. Mom shot back with “pea soup,” a derogatory term for French Canadians.  Now I understand the origins of “pea soup,” considering the recipe of the food for the voyageurs – lyed peas (or corn) and bacon fat.

Forget pirate movies, by the way, someone needs to a movie about the voyageurs! They were tough, powerful, brave, romantic, artistic and styling. Before arriving into port, they would doll up in their finery – including scarlet sashes and ostrich plumes. They sang as they rowed and they paid the best singers more money. They betted their lives, and sometimes lost, as they canoed the waters of Lake Superior to the Lake of the Woods in Northern Ontario to the river valleys of Wisconsin and Minnesota. The goal: Furs.  They got on well with the Native Americans, because they treated them as equals (though I wish they hadn’t introduced them to liquor) and many married into the native community. They considered Natives equal.

 In the winter when they used dog sleds for transport, they invested in fancy outfits for their pooches. Although, I tell you, I had to skip over the parts where they described the treatment of their poor animals. It was so painfully cold that the dogs would roll over on their backs and kicks their feet in the air begging for little leather booties- they did not have them for every dog. Yes, they had little leather booties for their pooches back in the 18^th century.

What is disturbing is the early introduction of alcohol to the Native community. One missionary wrote, “The Indians spend one half of the year starving and the other half intoxicated.” This was back in the 1700s. When you see that toothless Native American standing on a street corner begging for money, he represents seven generations of alcoholism. '

I have now written nearly 10,000 words – 100,000 words makes a book. While this was mere fluff, it’s time for me to get serious and get writing. What to write about?

Accepting aloneness, and, more than that, thriving in aloneness.