Photos: Muskoka River at River Rd., Bass Rock and Wilson Falls Rd.

Bass Rock, Bracebridge Ontario

Photos - Week 18

Unblogging the blog.

Folks there is no blog this week. Well actually there are two. One is an honest one about my experiences over the years living creatively with depression; the other is a funny one called: “If cleanliness is next to Godliness, I am headed south for eternity”.  Now if it were me reading someone else’s blog, I think I would go for topic two and give number one a definite pass. But that is not the type of topic that deep down in my soul, I need to write about just now or over the coming months of this project

When I first started the blog, it was to write and share about my life while improving health and exploring feelings as I move into the ‘senior’ years.  It’s very hard, harder than I expected, to write honestly each week.  And being honest, writing authentically is the one thing I promised myself from the very beginning. What I have found is that I have shifted in focus and become more concerned with entertaining readers.  This isn't a newspaper column; it's a personal journaled journey about a shift in life and making and accepting life changes. With no feedback really that the writing is being useful to anyone other than me, I have decided for now to keep the blogs private.  I am getting back on track – writing seriously each week without feeling the need to entertain anyone. Maybe some day there will be reason to share these weekly jottings with you all.  But for now the courage to do so quite honestly fails.

The good news is there will continue to be right up until next April 2011, at least 12 photos to share with you every week.  I hope you enjoy them! And "Trail Notes" as well - observations on walks in nature throughout the week.

Thanks for listening to my ‘unblog’ blog this week.   Please do continue to check in to see bits of beautiful Bracebridge caught in photographs.

Thanks for walking along with me on my footpath this week.

Gillian

WK 16: I am NOT fit to live with this week!

Steps down onto Wilson Falls East Trail

Well we all have those weeks where we are out of sorts, have uncomfortable decisions to make and just want it all to go away. PUUUUUUUUUUULEASE! This week I needed to make a decision about whether to continue on with my cracker biz - or not - for the upcoming holidays. Usually the big decisions get made mid-January when I sit down and figure out what I want to accomplish work-wise for the year and what will be the best moves both creatively and economically. But every summer when the sales dry up like a hot, arid Arizona desert and the bills loom for the upcoming holiday season the decision about whether to ‘do’ the holiday season must be made anew. I get into quite a slump emotionally wondering how it is all going to happen yet again. Where on earth the money to buy the mountain of supplies (these fill my living room, dining room and front bedroom – to give you some idea!) is going to come from. How all the work is going to get done  when finances force me to leave the holiday start until way too late into the summer (those THREE ROOMS of supplies must be transformed into crackers ready to ship for USA and Canadian Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Solstice and New Year in the space of only a few weeks). And where will the creative energy come from to grow even more fun crackers for older customers and find even better ways to sell them to new customers. When all is said and done I am not fit to live with this week. I admit it.

I’d like to say that these times are good for me. That they make me stretch my abilities in answer to what feels like a bottomless chasm of work-related demands that are blocking my positive vision. But honestly I am just about 60 and I want to take it A BIT EASIER thank you all the same. At least I think I do. I never have been one to like doing the same old thing time and again. I enjoy creativity, learning new ways to do things, meeting challenges head on. But - and I think this is true for most of us – I prefer to choose the challenges I ‘meet’! And therein has been my dilemma: The degree of choice-factor in this big decision has seemed pretty measly because honestly after more than 25 years of doing the same type of work, I can’t imagine doing, or wanting to do, anything else.

So the decision was made, somewhat inevitably, in favour of ‘doing’ the holidays one more time – despite the financial headaches and workload challenges.

There is no neat bow to tie up this week’s blog. Sorry. It’s just one of those honest weeks where life is tough and it’s about to get tougher for the next 4 or 5 months or so. And that makes it all the more important to savour the NOW of life each day and week and month going forward, to continue somehow to find the time to enjoy the beautiful walks on the trails here in Muskoka, to love my friends who are so dear to me, to savour this town and its people that I have already – in only two short years - so grown to appreciate. It’s important to not live only by an economic measure of ‘success’ or worry that this might allude us or pass us by altogether as much as we may wish for the benefits and ease it provides. But instead to value other meaningful measurements we ourselves set especially as we age – a stillness of the spirit, a growing oneness with nature, a sense of ‘place’ and ‘time’ in life and to welcome into our hearts our own particular dance with life - no matter the tune that is played.

Thanks for walking along with me on my footpath this week.
Gillian