Follow Your Heart

It’s early Sunday morning.  I wake to watch the sunrise one last time before we leave this nature escape.  The loons laugh and call across the lake as if they own it; and they do.  The noisy gulls seemed to have followed us up from the shores of Lake Ontario to The Georgian but for some reason they are not near as annoying to listen to up here.  The sandy beach is empty except for me.  The water gently laps the edge of the shore and I collect small stones that fall between my fingers and slide back into the warm bay.  I could stay here all summer and watch this natural drama unfold in all of its wonder and seasons.  I would live in my summer attire and chase Frisbees all day long with my son on the powdery sand.  I would write stories, poems and love letters to my soul from the edges of large rocks and from under sweeping large trees but the reality is; nothing lasts forever – not even this.

Today we will pack up and load the RAV for the long trek back down the golden Hwy #400 passing all the cottage shopping stores and through Holland Marsh one of my favoured memories where fresh filled fields adorn the earth and fill the air.  The land of Ontario sun is quite beautiful and intensely hot and despite the sunscreen thwart I covered myself in, I have a sun braised forehead to prove it.  Here in all the wilderness of life I don’t look for mountains anymore or ponder the thoughts of monsoon rain for days on end.  I don’t wait for time to pass and things to change that never could back on a mountain I tried so very hard to call home.  Instead I embrace the small wonders and moments of each day back here where that familiar feeling of coming home and all its adventure of seasons of change welcomes me in and tightens its grip.

Reflecting on the life decisions I’ve made, going west was in its time a want in just the same way returning east has been.  I have no regrets of the years that have passed or what they have weaved in this tapestry of life.  There are bright patches of love and happiness, of children, laughter, dancing and joy.  There were also patches of discontentment, worry and distrust that enveloped and nearly swallowed me whole on the side of a mountain I used to call home.  And though the discontented patches are small and weaved somewhere closer to the middle, the edges of my life continue to brighten and rejoice in the reality of the now in which I live.  It’s not about the pain or the crooked roads in which life was stitched; it’s about the learning from the yearning of what I wanted and what I needed to freely be me.

Over the course of patch discontentment, I didn’t sit in a counselor’s office or take medication and though I had many reasons to do so, I didn’t take up any deathtrap habits either. I didn’t stand on the edge of life and say it was over or point fingers at the demons that stood before me; instead I somehow I remained strong and followed my heart.  And though in the midst of vulnerable crises some of my choices could have been more wisely sought out, despite all that – I made it through to the other side and all the way back home anyway.  The truth is life changes our hearts in all of its death, loss and winning.  Some  situations we choose and some we just seem to get hit with.  I suppose it’s all in how we choose to walk, run, fly, swim and stand the course of what we’ve been given.  I have no trophies on display in the museum of my life, no purple hearts or life merit awards but instead just the scars and well earned wisdom.  The Olympics won’t call me out for the race of a lifetime nor will the Nobel Peace Prize land in my lap and that’s just fine by me.

You see last night I dreamt I won the lottery, I dreamt that some sort of machine kept tossing out large sums of money similar to a slot machine spitting out all its coins – just for me.  In my thrill and awe I accepted and filled my pockets and purse with all of the contents to overflowing and the money kept coming.  I like to refer to this experience as metaphoric dreaming.  And its this kind of dreaming that is good for the soul.  I like to take the view that from where my life stands at this moment, I have won the lottery less the money. And so, beautiful people if you have read this far and get what I am aim to convey, this is ‘how’ and ‘why’ I make the choice to love my life and everything in it.  Not only would I recommend sunscreen and eating your greens but also take care to follow your heart in all of its crooked paths even when the going gets tough – because your heart is the one true compass in life that knows more than you do bout which direction to take you.  And when you come full circle, and you will  – you will recognize all of it and that cup of something will continue to overflow into every part of life.  And so as I pack up my son from this wonder and beauty of the North turning back towards the city I think of the happy times we are sharing in the now.  Though my heart aches for one I call my own, I can’t change the reality of his return on a westward plane in the weeks ahead but I can change how I choose to live all our valuable time out.  And because of that, I can and I am; in all of life’s promises of goodness and trust continuing to follow my heart.  ~<3~