It's like

I thought about you today

I remembered you when it was, pouring rain

water droplets chasing each other round the pane

It's like you had me in mind

Oh it's like you love me

Oh it's like you care

And when I see this all around me

It's like my doubt isn't there

I've got to hand it to you

I love the fall it's how I'm moved

Trees being stripped just to be made new

It's like you had me in mind

Oh it's like you love me

Oh it's like you care

And when I see this all around me

It's like my doubt isn't there

At the top of this mountain view

It's not invisible to you

Not a word in this great big outdoor living room

It's like you had me in mind

It's like your hand is in mine

Oh it's like you love me

Oh it's like you care

And when I see this all around me

It's like my doubt isn't there

falling again

This week I am back at the office filling in on my days off from the cottage. I am in reminiscent mode of when I first came to Calgary in the fall and things, rather a feeling, is washing back over me. I stifle a smile and roll my eyes up as if the memories are in the top right corner of the room.

Summer had gone and I was starting to absorb the fullness of autumn. Change was the title, uncertainty the thesis statement and the cursor was blinking on the proverbial page. There, then not. There, then not. Waiting for me to start typing. Something.Anything. But how do you write your life when you don't know what the hell you are doing?

I adore fall, it is my favorite season and mostly because it makes me pensive. Something rises in me. Something art, something creative. Fall changes me. It rearranges the furniture in my heart. Furniture that has always been there but looks fresh when you move it around. Perspective is funny that way, isn't it.

Often fall adds a new rug to the collection or decides to omit the antique lamp that was never turned on in all the years it's been dawning the space I lived within.

Where, I wonder, do those pieces go? To another living room or to the dump? Is some of my new collection recylced to me like the gorgeous vintage coffee table of 2009? Is someone missing it or were they glad to see that part of their life go. It inspires me and I hope it will always "work" in my space.

Fall forcibly changes me. It is out of my hands and I look forward to that. It's silly but I prefer it that way. What will it bring me this year?

Last year I think it brought me choice. I sat on choice for a while and am now wearing it in slowly. Like a big chesterfield brown with big orange flowers.

I like it now that it has grown on me and my space wouldn't be the same without it. I'm comfortable with it being there and the tacky pattern no longer intimates me. Its familiar and I am in charge because it knows I will have it covered in an instant with fresh polka dot fabric if I choose to.

I am hoping this year fall will bring me a love seat. One with deep cushions you can sink into and doesn't mind when you do.

I can hear my granmothers voice in my head "don't flop on the furniture!"...

"I'm not" I'd say. "I'm falling".

My 25 in my 25th.

Hi friend,

All caught up on my previous posts? Great!

Have I told you that I have challenged myself to do a list of 25 things in my 25th year?

Truth be told, I need your help to accomplish some of them. You in? Awesome!

Theses are the things that are left on my list that I'm going to need help with:

-touch a snake (Do you have a snake?) (..oh you..please try and be appropriate)
-help on a farm for a day (do you have a farm?)
-volunteer for a day (do you have an organization I've never helped out with before?)
-learn to make sushi (do you know how to make sushi or would like to go sushi-ing with me?)

I know what you are thinking, that's only 4 tasks, have you completed 21 so far?

negatory, these are just the things I need help with.

Things I've completed are:

-belaying
-get a facial
-go to dance class
-go hiking

There are others I don't need help with that aren't completed:

-go on a vacation
-buy five colored shirts to add to my wardrobe of black, grey and all things neutral
-read the Bible in its entirety
-finish my weight loss goal
-go surfing
-go sea kayaking
-get a tattoo

I know what you are thinking again! (no, I'm not couins with Chris Angel)

I haven't put the whole list up as some of them are personal.

I will keep you posted though on progress if you like.

Let me know if you can help!

Meaghan Ellen

Wish you were here

I'm here all the way in the Northwest Territories on a Canadian staycation. It wasn't planned this way but it's how it turned out.

You see, I should be in Calgary cleaning up children's vomit and snuggling babies but alas I am enjoying the sun and warmth of familiar faces in Hay River.

Sometimes you don't realize you needed a rest until rest happens and you are overjoyed by the silence of a house, uninterrupted sleep, scheduling nothing but visiting and being freed from any routine commitments.

I'm not sure I ever have wanted this so much in my life as I do now. A sure sign I am growing old. That and shift work is hard. A sure sign I have a real job.

Normally, when planning a trip, I cram every last moment with something in hopes of not being let down by "nothingness". Nothing is what I am here to do.

It's a good chance to catch up on sleeping, reading, resting, playing the piano in a sanctuary of none, indulging in girly magazines (I'm so into the denim trend ladies), excercise and just being. Oh, and I guess blogging. My true love is to just be (not to be confused with Anna's true love, doing).

Do you ever feel like your whole life is so crazy that even your body is out of sync. Perhaps it's not just the busy of your world but the stress or the worry or the perpetual planning. Shift work has made my stomache say "I don't know if I'm hungry, what time of day is it again?", my eyes look caved in and darkened, my skin puffy and my intestines preparing for world war 3 (I have colitis, I'm not trying to be unlady-like and gross).

It's like running so hard trying to reach a destination and when it finally approaches the brakes on your feet fail you. You just keeping running because that's all your body has known and has been pushed to do for the last however long.

This is seemingly new to me and I feel resilient bouncing back but I just wonder what kind of effect this would have on someone if it were their whole life? It certainly has made me appreciate this week off so much more. I feel like I have won the lottery. Cue game show music *You have just won a brrrrannnd new 12 hour drive to the middle of no where canadaaaaaaaaaaaa. For some you think this is crazy. For me it is really true bliss.

I know this isn't my typical type of blogging but in the spirit of getting back into the things that make me relax I hope you can appreciate this post for what it is (a little bit off, a little bit serious, a little bit like its 8 in the morning and my body won't allow me to be in bed anymore as it's all I've done in the last 30-ish hours)

I'm sure once I have wiped the smug look of my face from feeling like I have escaped normal life and they can't find me in paradise, I'll start asking myself stupid questions or a playful squirrel will inspire more blogging.

I'm not going to end now with a charge for you to seize the day or any crap like that. Get things done on your list, there's a time for everything.

Glad to be back,

Meaghan xoxo

Like a Child

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 1 Corinthians 13:11

The other day at Winners whilst I was perusing the racks (of clothes), a slippery shirt dropped of the hanger. As I crouched down to grab it and as I looked up, I felt an old familiar feeling. Surrounded, hidden and smitten.

When I was a kid, I loved to hide in the clothes racks from other shoppers. When they would pass me by and I'd go unnoticed, I got this butterfly tingly feeling in my stomach and would think "yes, hehe! They didn't see me". I was an espionage of sorts or maybe just plain old sneaky and depending on the season, I may had just literally pulled the wool over their eyes. The round clothes racks were the best because they gave a full circle coverage.

The only full circle coverage I get these days are from my bra.

Funny though how one small thing can bring you back to a feeling, a state or place you've been or once dreamed you would be. Maybe it's sparked by a conversation with an old friend or an object from your childhood.

I like to buy candy I once enjoyed as a kid to make me feel small and innocent again. Coconut aroma anything brings me to past summers and certain songs to past love interests.

The most surprising is when you pass a stranger in the crowd and you catch a scent of perfume and it reminds you of someone you knew. I close my eyes and think of that person even if for only that moment or longer if I choose.

Maybe it's one single word that can trigger a whole reel of emotion. Sometimes it's blissful and other times it's evasive. Your day is carrying on as normal as a day in your life can be and something small, even unmentionable picks you up out of the present and tosses you backwards into a stream of guilt or embarrassment. It's about a conversation you shouldn't have had, the time you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and the worst, a misunderstanding you never could fix. You're tortured again by what you've done or haven't done. What you've said or haven't said. Who you were or who you weren't.

It's silly, really, but I love a good unexpected trip via time travel. I'd like to collect these moments but that's sort of the beauty of them. They come and go as they please.

I wish sometimes I could crawl on the cold tile floor under organized garments (hopefully long and almost to the floor like coats) and tuck my feet in as close to my body as I can. Hugging my knees tightly and slowing my breath I'd be once again be a child.

...Until of course my mom would then find me and it would just be...


game over.


!

Church Obesity

I went for an early spring jog the other day since I could see the pavement. I don't know why but when spring approaches and the pavement clears of snow, I get an overwhelming urge to lay down on it and maybe even give it a kiss. Perhaps I thought if I tried running I might get a version of that experience if I tripped.

Anyways, as I was lightly jogging (I don't want to exaggerate and say I was running just for the sake of a good post) I saw other people doing the same (okay, they were running). They were real runners though. You can tell by what they are wearing. Usually a little cap, fitted pants to the ankles and a bright jacket that rounds about their bum. I thought to myself "self, why is that you never see really obese people running? You always just sort of see the fit ones doing it" (though I was out and about prancing around the side walks in my non-running clothes a.k.a not fitted joggers and my jacket that sticks, not rounds, to my bum)

I came to the conclusion it is for the same reason that only really busy people who already serve themselves dry in the Church are always the ones to volunteer their tired selves again and again.

Church obesity.

One last thing I discovered on my outdoor excursion is that if you run downhill it makes you look way more athletic than you really are. That and I think I have shin splints.

Death by Life

So here I sit, updating you lovely folk on my adventures.

It's now March (welcome) and I am embracing it with open arms and a full heart. Every month forward from when winter begins is a month closer to spring.

At my new job, I get every 7th week off so this week I have been "vacationing" in Edmonton. I've been visiting, sleeping, tanning, working out, eating and spending much needed time with my grandparents.

I can't help to think one day I'll wish it were today again when I can see them, touch them, hear them and smell the familiar smell of the house I know will go away when they do.


Death is not a topic we refrain from in our family. We know each others wishes (yes mom, we will bury your damn dogs with you) and it's a conversation that frequents our table talk. Today at the restaurant my mom was encouraging my papa (grandpa) to finish the sailboat he starting building years ago that (insert my gaggy (grandma)) "just sits in our bloody garage". My papa told my mom he plans to finish it. Either that or convert it into his coffin. I laughed heartily and we all rolled our eyes because we all know very well he wants to be cremated. A funny joke to probably just our table. More wine anyone?

Anyways. I am very much alive but I said to my family today, "just so you all know (since I realized I hadn't expressed it before) I'd like a coffin and a grave". They hope to never have to worry about those details since they think they should be long gone by the time it is my turn but "you never know". You simply never know.

I'd like a white coffin.