In the end, I didn’t want to go.
But the trip had been in the works since June 2013.
I had met Minto Schneider in Saskatoon at the Travel Media Association of Canada’s conference. She was there to promote Ontario’s Explore Waterloo Region. When we met for our appointment we immediately knew we had a fit. She was promoting Mennonite country and new cycling routes and I loved writing articles for Adventure Cyclist magazine.
I pitched the idea of cycling into my Mennonite roots to the editor at Adventure Cyclist magazine and we launched the plan.
For just over a year we went back and forth, figuring out dates, a photographer, logistics and then…it was finally time to board the plane.
In the meantime one of my closest and oldest friend’s was diagnosed with a particularly horrible cancer. Throw around words like chemo, radiation and transfusions and all I wanted to do was crawl into her bed and hold her forevermore.
Apparently life doesn’t really work like that.
And thinking that I was the only one that could truly be there for her was a particular type of ego-centricness that I am working hard to let go. She has an amazing network of friends and family that wanted to be there with her too, and I, well apparently I, had made a commitment that now involved a lot of people.
If there’s one thing a good Mennonite girl understands, it’s words like commitment and self-discipline and showing up when you said you would show up.
And so.
I’m writing this from Balzac’s, a fabulous little coffee shop in Stratford. There is the wonderful ongoing melody of espressos being pulled, happy chatter and the smell of fresh croissants. Last night, after eating at The Church, I watched the incredible tap-dancing dynamic musical, Crazy For You, at the Festival Theatre. I was transported and uplifted. The night before I watched a different live performance in the little town of St. Jacobs. It was a wonderful rendition of A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline.
In the days between I have cycled past Mennonites and Amish in horse-drawn buggies, canoed down the Grand River, met a wonderful new cast of characters each day, ate a table-groaning feast in the home of an Old Order Mennonite family and even had a chance to ride in one of those horse-drawn buggies.
In short, it has been an adventure and it’s not quite over yet.
I am exhausted, but in a different way than I was at home.
In these last few days I have done more laughing than crying. I have had the opportunity to truly change gears and renew myself. From over here in the land of corn fields, dying sunflowers, ruby apples and long trails, I realized that I am no use to my friend if I’m running on empty. I don’t yet know what my story for the magazine will look like, but I know that I have gathered some great memories.
It is said that change is as good as a rest. I am a firm believer in the redemptive therapy of travel, and this has been another good reminder, that, like meditation, discovery of the new is a wonderful way to get out of the continuing monkeymind chatter in my head.
Then again, maybe the best way to re-focus is to cycle with a canoe on your head.
There’s always that…
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What a great post, and the CanoeHead picture is wonderful, perhaps award-winning… made me laugh out loud and want to understand physics more to understand how it is possible to do such a thing.
I’m so glad you went on the trip, and that we can depend on your reliability and followthrough to help protect you from too much ‘muchness’. I know in my experience the mind is diabolically good at creating a vortex within which normal thought and right-sized reflections of ourselves are impossible.
I went to an Anglican service – make that TWO – yesterday after seeing Bishop Melissa Skelton host a discussion with five local artists on ‘Spirituality in Art’ and leaving so impressed at the depth of the conversation.
As I was leaving the church after the first service (the Super Sunday Steroid Seniors Service, a brisk 45 minute liturgical workout) I heard the most gorgeous trumpet solo and felt compelled to return to the pews ‘just to hear the music’. Instead found myself being drawn in for the second time that morning into reflection, a sense of spiritual peacefulness, and profound gratitude for both the content of the morning and the company in which I encountered it.
Normally my Sunday reflection is simply sleeping in, a practice that has amply satisfied me (or so I thought) for so long, followed up with coffee and reading of the Saturday Globe and Mail, full as it is of not only rich cultural content but a smorgasbord of woe from around the world as accompaniment.
What a difference, and what a reminder of the need for careful tending of my soul’s garden so that it can sustain me on those dark days that march – like dispassionate armies of grim certainty – through me like the moon follows the sun.
I can’t wait to read your article from this trip and see the photos, and feel you present and shimmering like the golden soul you are, knowing the burnishing of sadnesses are adding to the light you shine into the world.
You never cease to amaze me Laurie. What a beautiful story of those two nourishing church services. You’ve inspired me to see what I can find in Vancouver that might provide the same experience (I wish I could describe the same level of loveliness from my recent foray into an Ontario Mennonite church. I think I’ll be writing about that some time soon).
I love the idea ‘of careful tending of the soul’s garden’. I have been very conscious of holding that ideal in whatever I do lately…keeping my day’s demands very simple and low-key since my return from this trip and being very gentle with my expectations of what I need to accomplish.
Thanks again for your thoughtful and considered comments. Always a gift…
Sorry to hear about your friend but glad you went on the trip. It’s truly amazing how travel can heal seemingly unhealable wounds.
Thanks for sharing
Shaun
www.thislifeintrips.com
Thanks for stopping by and for your comments, Shaun.
I checked out your site and see that you’re well-acquainted with the wonders of travel and how a geographical shift in perspective can be a huge help.