I have often thought of a random woman I met in 1992. I couldn’t remember her name or even the actual year until I recently found my little cycling book where I had noted the date and her name.
Joan ran the Root Seller Inn on Mayne Island. I had reserved the place for one night for our all-woman annual bike trip. I don’t remember any real details about her or the place except that she was so happy for us. Pleased that we were taking the time and doing this trip. She had even found a movie that she thought would be ideal for a group of women.
We watched it that night. I remember little of the movie, but what I remember is the kindness and the joy with which she offered it to us. I’m guessing that since it was 1992, it was probably a VHS video.
Two seemingly innocuous things have embedded themselves in my mind ever since I first experienced them on that little island.
The first was this. Joan showed us around the place and what I recall is her bathroom. Maybe we were to share it? I don’t recall. There was a stack of cassette tapes on the counter and a little radio/tape deck. When asked, she told us that she liked to listen to classical music while she soaked in the tub. I might be making up this next part, but I’m sure there was candles and incense on that counter as well. I thought it all sounded so wonderful and amazing. Classical music and a tub. Wow.
The second thing that struck me about Joan was when she explained that there would be all sorts of breakfast things laid out for our morning. Coffee, teas, yogurt, fruit, granola and the other usual suspects. “But,” she told us, “I won’t be here when you first get up. Every morning I take my coffee and I go down and sit on the dock. I love to start my mornings by greeting the day while sitting by the ocean.”
This woman did not talk about how busy she was. She didn’t tell us all the things we should learn to do for our own self-care. Instead, she simply lived her life well. And because she did, and whether she intended it or not, she was giving me permission to do the same.
In 1992, I was still working as B.C.’s only female log broker. I wore a mouth guard to save my grinding teeth. My neck would often seize into stiffness, and in the morning, my fingernails left imprints on my palms from the fists I clenched at night. I regularly had week-long headaches and, here’s the best part, I thought it was all normal. In fact, I kind of thrived on the adrenalin and loved that when our morning alarm rang, my first thought was the phrase, ‘hit the ground running’.
Fool that I was.
Back then I loved to talk about working hard and playing hard. Our bike trips were the playing hard part. My God we had fun as we sweated and worked our bikes up and down hills. At night we drank and danced and woke up to do it all again. Over the years, our trips morphed. We stayed in so many inns, B&B’s, hotels, motels and endless campgrounds. But it is these two memories of Joan that have lodged in my brain, like pebbles tumbling over and over on that long ago seaside shore.
Because it was Joan who gave me permission to think there might be another way to live.
Because of her I realized that it is not selfish to take care of ourselves. If anything, by living well, we are granting others to do the same.
Over the years I have become very good at taking time to play in my art studio, to meditate and walk, to read my books (during the day!) and to generally go at a much slower pace. I certainly never think of ‘hitting the ground running’ unless it is with a keen sense of irony.
I dug up that little cycling book and looked up the name of the movie. And then you know what I did? In the middle of a Tuesday afternoon? I threw the headphones on, wrapped myself in a blanket and watched the movie on my laptop. Yes. I. Did.
Did I feel a little bit scandalous? Well, yes.
But when Kevin tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Are you actually watching a movie??” I lifted my headphones only long enough to say, “Yes, but it’s research…” snapped them back on and kept going. “Don’t work too hard,” he said. But he was smiling.
As I write this, I’m smiling too, because I think Joan’s long-ago example has finally reached complete fruition. It’s funny, because this was my fear when we first retired. I was terrified that I’d lay around watching daytime TV and drinking margaritas by noon. But none of that happened – although today might have been the start of that slippery slope.
Oh well.
If you’re tempted to follow suit, I recommend going full-tilt with the experience. Indulge yourself. Eat a cookie or two while you take in the show. Think of it as expanding the joy in the world. You never know who might be learning from you.
I no longer make apologies for my lovely life. Like this past Sunday morning when I sat on the sun-warmed bench by the marsh sipping my morning coffee and greeting the morning.
If someone wants to come along and tell me I’m lucky, well…I will have to wholeheartedly agree.
But if I’m really pushed about it?
I can always blame Joan.
And just in case you too, would like to watch a lovely little movie…
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~ Marianne Williamson
Hi Colleen,
I saw your story about the Quebec cycling trip in Adventure Cyclist online and loved it. It led me here, to your lovely blog. Thank you for this piece.
I’m a long-distance cyclist, currently on Quadra Island and just setting out on an open-ended trip. I’ve been amazed at how the old mindset (I “should” be doing X, Y or Z — anything other than what I’m actually doing now) continually crops up.
But I’m learning to take the days as they come, and trusting that I, too, will learn the balance that Joan — and you — are modeling.
So glad to have found you online!
Kelly
And what a treat to find your lovely comment Kelly. I used to spend quite bit of time on Quadra when we lived in Campbell River (many years ago:) and loved it.
I would enjoy hearing more about your open-ended trip – I love that idea.
I’d love to hear more about your journey as well. I’m headed to the Sunshine Coast in a few days. Can I treat you to a coffee or tea?
Hope it can work Kelly. I’ve sent you an email.
Beautiful wonderful words.
Thank you Mary.
You’ve triggered a number of memories, Colleen.
First, as a fellow Menno, I’m sure that you can appreciate that a bath is (or used to be) a job. And back in the day before hot water and reliant on a well, that meant a few minutes to scrub in a galvanized tub before the next (dirtier) bather and another pot of hot water was thrown in. Still, the tub was a step up from the chilly rinse water saved from the morning’s laundry and hopping up on the counter to dangle my skinny legs into the sink.
At age 19 I had a roommate during a conference who said she was going to take a bath. What? On a Thursday? Then she turned down the lights, languished and splashed in there for more than an hour! She made lovely little splashing sounds that I can hear to this day. Before that, all I’d ever heard from the tub was that sound a butt makes while moving around the bottom. I don’t think there is an English word for that, but there ought to be. The German rutch, however, does it quite admirably.
Your post also reminded me of Joseph Campbell’s memoir (and with all my books currently in storage I can’t verify the title as many of his books contained stories from his life). During the Depression he lived in a small cabin with a chair out front. There he would read all day–Spinoza and other philosophers. He described how his neighbor drove by in the early morning and returned in the evening to see him still sitting in the same chair reading, without any idea that this was work of the noblest kind.
Out of necessity I have become the Queen of Self Care. It’s a glorious Kingdom once you find your way around the numerous indulgences from stolen moments measured in seconds to hours which seem like seconds.
Let’s rewrite the old blues tune. Let’s change it to “Hello, morning. Sit down.”
I love all of this Lynda. Your story of the roommate is the exact encounter I’m talking about. Someone just going about their life and doing something, that to us, feels amazing and extraordinary. And so she planted that seed for you and who knows what she still remembers and what inspired her from her encounter with you?
Ha. I remember the Saturday bath so we’d be all sparkling for church on Sunday. Saturday night was also when the dreaded bobby-pins were X’d over my head to provide the requisite curls of a special ‘do’. Good Lord.
Joseph Campbell got it like no one else eh? What a wonderful soul.
And yes, I’m humming the new/old blues tune. It’s very addictive 🙂
So awesome that you remember that encounter with Joan. Obviously she left some kind of impression! As I read your words, I can feel how it must have shifted for you. Who you are today is SO far from that person who “hit the ground running.” Maybe it was that pace of life that primed you for these years of choosing? Surely they helped you to know what it is you don’t want to do with these days we are gifted? If so, good.
I’m not sure why it’s so hard for a person to read in the afternoon. I have a dear friend who is mortified with the idea that a person could sit on the couch in the light of day and read. A book. Something that gives you pleasure when you’re “supposed” to be doing another thing that is surely more productive than… reading in the daylight hours.
There’s a balance, for sure. We all have bills to pay and responsibilities (I’m sure you’ve heard,) but we also have this wonderful thing called “choice.” We can plan the plan that gives us, well, even one afternoon where we crack open a book and we read. Or soak in a hot bath with classical music floating through the steamy air.
Good for you that you accept all of it. No apologies needed. We are often so tied to the idea that doing more is being more. What a farce that is!
Enjoyed your post very much.
Now I think I’ll fill the tub and light some candles and just breathe.
Blessings to you Gwen. May your tub always be full and the candles always bright 🙂
My mother was constantly chastising me for having my ‘nose in a book’. Seriously?!
And then again, who knows about memory? Maybe she only said it once but it looped in my head for most of my life. This quote by Peggy O’Mara kind of explains things what might have happened there, when she says, “The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.” So whether it was once or always, somehow I learned that reading was an indulgence, only to be allowed after everything ‘real’ was taken care of. Yet, we all know, at least on an intellectual level, that it is such a worthy thing to do.
And yet. And yet.
I think it’s true that my early years of franticness, along with the death of Kevin’s dad, and my mother, made me think hard about how I wanted to spend the hours allotted to me. Stuffing my days full of busy-ness found themselves shifting to the bottom of the list.
And now, I too, am going to fill a tub and sink into it with gratitude for the abundant luxury of hot water. We are so blessed. Thank you for your wonderful comment Gwen.