Thoughts about being blown a little off course

January 20th......'Gold In Jade Water.'

I'm into a gold phase and so I found this photo taken in Hong Kong. Not being a shopper I actually didn't rave about this city when I first went as, apart from Stanley market, I hated the mass of crowds and seemed to spend the whole of my few days unsuccessfully seeking out somewhere quiet. These goldfish/koi /carp [what are all these names...... the same thing or not?] were in a garden behind a hotel and gave me some peace. The second time I went back to Hong Kong I enjoyed it much more and didn't waste my time, and everybody else's, whining and complaining, but just took the Tylenol and went along with the busy, chaotic and noisy flow. I found some quieter space walking round the top of the Peak trying to find where my brother had lived years before and wishing I didn't have to get back in that tram again..... which is really a funicular railway on an immensely steep slope which gave me the heebie-jeebies.

I used to wonder why they didn't clean the water in Asian ponds as it always looked so murky until I learned that it is purposely done! The jade green colour actually takes a lot of work to achieve with clay usually lining the bottom of the pond and the rocks are carefully placed around to create shadow. Often I look at things too quickly not appreciating the work and thought that, in this case, has been put in to achieve a natural look! The gardens are welcome in those busy Asian cities and their simplicity, and sometimes starkness, is perhaps a welcome diversion from the onslaught on the senses everywhere else. Their aim, after all, is to provide a corner of tranquility.

I can't let today pass without wishing all the best to the United States and their new President and the feeling of hope and change that he brings will affect us all here too. Whatever would you do on your first day at the job there?

January 19th......'Pure Gold.'

Today I have my final colour and there being only seven in the rainbow I have decided that this one has to be the pot of gold at the end. I took this photo round about 1977 on a visit with Gary to the President Steyn Gold mIne in Welkom. We flew there on a day trip from Jo'burg with a group, but I've no idea how we came to be on that Chamber of Mines tour. I do remember though having to wear overalls and a helmet with a light strapped on and thinking that it wasn't all so hunky-dory as we hurtled and clattered down to the base of one of the deepest mines in South Africa in a cage. I was terrified and also surprised to find offices and a large brightly lit tunnel down at the bottom with a railway track. A train took us as close to the face as possible and then we crawled on hands and knees hitting the jagged sides of the tunnel as it was only just big enough to scramble through to get to the exposed face where the blasting was done. We were told we were something like two and a half miles into the earth at that point. Way too much information!  

My photo shows it being poured into bars and someone said if we could pick one up with one hand we could take it. Apart from that, I only remember that the flight home was delayed for ages because of one of those spectacular Free State electric thunderstorms which kept everyone huddled in the bar. So much so that by the time we did finally leave, nobody would have cared if we had been hit by lightning  and the whole plane applauded when we took off. Gold is difficult, dangerous and hard to get at you have to dig hard and so it's appropriate that it's my last 'colour'. 

January 18th.....' A Change in Routine.'

 

Thank You, Nicola for sending me this photo of the unusual hoar frost last week in the lane to her house just outside Winchester. Thank goodness we sent the Arctic temperatures over to Southern England last week leaving mini icebergs in Poole harbour and ducks skidding on the frozen sea in Christchurch. Weird weather..... here it's only the East of Canada which is struggling now with the cold but I hope we've seen the end of it on this side. 

Last week I got three letters from people whom I don't know but who were writing for advice as they grapple with that confusing stage of understanding what they have been told and how their treatment will go. I hope I gave them some encouragement as those before me did to me. It is easy to feel overwhelmed at this stage as you enter a world and vocabulary that seem so alien. It is odd how your attachment to hospitals and doctors creeps up on you and how your perspective about them changes. At first this unwanted mulitude of tests, appointments, visits and waiting rooms seem impossible to fit into your routine. They unsettle and unbalance you and you would rather not be there. As you accept that this is how it is, this in fact, becomes your new routine as the old one becomes harder to hold onto, and this brings a certain security and familiarity that is in a way comforting. I have read that many people find the end of all their treatment as confusing and unsettling as the beginning. There is nobody to ask advice from anymore and no-one to check with that any aches or pains are nothing to worry about.  As I come to the close of my 'colouring' phase, although I am not yet at the point of being abandoned by the team, I am at a point of a change in routine.

After Monday, I'm not yet quite sure what happens though I know I have some tests before going down to Victoria in a month but quite what and when I don't know. Throughout this I have learned that I am not in control  but know that I will be sent on my next off -course detour soon enough and so soon a new routine will fall into place. 

January 17th....."In the fog.'

This photo of Vancouver in the cloud and fog last week comes from the local paper. The city is in deep trouble with cost over-runs on the Olympic Athlete's Village and is definitely in a bit of a fog about what to do. Good advice for them could be this verse below taken from the Tao and it just as well applies to me.

"Deal with the difficult

While it is still easy.

Solve large problems

When they are still small.

Preventing large problems

By taking small steps

Is easier than solving them.

[Tao Te Ching 63]

January 16th....'Remembering Old Harry.'

Just as some foods make you feel better, certainly some places lift your spirits and so I've found a photo of Old Harry Rocks in Dorset. This is an excellent place for a New Year Walk to blow away the cobwebs and get blown to pieces. So this is one of my favourite walks and I miss it......we were lucky when we lived in Dorset to have this coastline at our doorstep. But there are places here which do it for me too! Living in such a paradise can only help with the R and R I'm enjoying at the moment and now the snow is going finally we can see it all again!

I had my pre-colouring visit to the Doctor today in readiness for my last true Medicine Monday as long as my cell count is fine. After that, my three weekly visits will be for Herceptin only and people I've spoken to who are on that call it their Maintenance Plan and it hopefully doesn't have the problems that go along with the other. Surprisingly, though I wouldn't have expected it, this is a place too that today lifted my spirits as I realised that this first phase is coming to an end.

January 15th......'Soul Food.'

These little cups are the Korean equivalent to fast food and are a delicacy on Jejudo, a little island off the southern tip of the country. Wait for it ...those are little live octopus..i? with their legs waving about outside the cup. No, I didn't try one as I didn't fancy those little suckers latching on to me on the way down. I do like my octopus but I like them cooked, however; the locals there love them and tried their best to get us to buy them.

Often in class the idea of 'What is your soul food? comes up. I'm not sure why; either in discussion about being homesick perhaps or to do with texts about food. There is always great conversation and my trips to different Asian countries have made me appreciate and understand their opinions more. Compared to North American tastes, Asian food is nowhere near as sweet and so is often healthier. Familiar food is a huge component of feeling comfortable and settled in a foreign country.There is a limit to how continually we want to eat the local food when we aren't used to it!  Koreans in Nanaimo particularly miss their food as there isn't yet a big enough community here to support restaurants and shops. Our familiar food can be called our 'soul food', something that we want to eat when we are feeling a bit low or out of our comfort area.

When living for several months with a Chinese family, I really enjoyed their food but it was always Chinese! I really yearned for something more familiar. Although I like rice, I really didn't want it for three meals every day and began to leave some in my bowl. One day I came home and found Mrs Chang and her daughter staring at a toaster oven on their kitchen counter. An hour later at supper time they called me down and pointed to the oven clearly showing that all was not well. It was on a heat of about 150 Centigrade and in the midlle was a large potato which, as we tested it, was brick hard. I showed them that the oven needed to be much hotter and that it would take an hour or so. Later they called me down again and with great ceremony put it on my plate. I was so touched that in an effort to make me feel more at home they had cooked me some of my 'soul food.' 

Instinctively if you ask me what my first soul or comfort food was I would say dripping honey on hot buttered toast.  I haven't eaten it for years but it reminds me of childhood. I think perhaps another soul food might be mashed potato. Most recently it seems to be Vietnamese soup [pho]!

January 14th......'Pots of Vegetables.'

 With Lucy flying over to Korea yesterday I have been rooting around in my photos and came up with this one of kimchi pots, which I loved when I was there and so have many photos of them.They are used to store kimchi as the cabbage, or other vegetables, ferments and gets that unique taste. I'm one of those weird people who really love it which is just as well as it 's eaten with every meal there ..even breakfast! One of my students came to our house to help me make it and I've made it a few times but it never tastes as good as the real thing. When we were at the University in Seoul, we were taught how to make it by a very respected chef. In Korea anyone of Master level or a respected specialist in an area of the Arts is known as a National Treasure and so we were taught by National Treasure #7. Isn't that a lovely idea. Could Jamie Oliver be a National Treasure?

Korea was a great surprise as it wasn't at all what I expected. It is surprisingly like BC in scenery and even climate .....full of pine forests, mountains and valleys. As with many Asian countries, they have exquisite taste in all things aesthetic  but it's just unusual at first compared to our Western sensibilities.The pottery, painting, food, music and architecture is all so competely different it's no wonder that the students miss their little country when they come here to study.

I'm sure Lucy will enjoy being there again. The people are delightful, the public transport good and the food delicious...why wouldn't she?

January 13th......"Slow Moves Again.'

  After a few months off, I went to a Tai Chi class again this morning. It looks deceptively easy, slow and lacksidaisical but it creeps up on you especially if the muscles haven't done it for a while. I felt pooped after two hours and it was only because I'm so stubborn that I didn't  give up half an hour before the end. I needed to get back to class as I was finding the sequence of 108 moves too hard to remember and anyone who watches me closely on my rocks on the beach will see that I repeat sections and miss out chunks in the middle! Like many things; there are two ways of doing it; quick and without much thought or slowly and with intense concentration. Guess which one I usually do? Today I really slowed down to do those moves slowly and tried to find my 'bubbly spring' [it's in yout feet] and centre my hips. Again now I remember how to Part the Wild Horse's Mane, Hit the Tiger and work the Fair Lady with Shuttles. And no.... the names don't really help in remembering what to do.

I always find it odd that you often don't seem to find or understand things until it's the right time. I had often come across Tai Chi, but was never interested thinking it a bit 'old' and turned away from it. But so it is with many things that you only make use of them when you are open and the time is right to accept them. A colleague who teaches it had suggested I try but I never did. In 1998 I was working in Taiwan looking for things to do at the weekend, and so went to a 5am. [all in Mandarin ] class with him. He told me that he was working with the Honoured Master and that I should just join in the other class with the lesser mortals. I stood behind three Grandmas at the back and followed their moves. I wasn't very good and they grabbed my fingers, hips etc. and held them in place. At the end of the class, the Master came across and said something earnestly to me, which was translated as 'Breathe through the balls of your feet.' I huffed and puffed but found it almost impossible as I didn't really know what I was doing. He was standing there looking like a limp doll breathing in and out slowly. He gestured for me to push his shoulder which I did but he made me do it again much harder.Thinking I would push him over because he was much smaller than me, I hesitated but then pushed as hard as I could on his left shoulder. He absolutely didn't move an inch...didn't even sway....but stood straight as a rod; whilst I lost my footing. His translated comments were, 'See.... breathe through feet!' Along with the very sore leg muscles I had the next day I realised there is much more to Tai Chi than I had thought. It's a deceptively difficult exercise with great defensive and therapeutic results.

So ever since learning the moves, I have picked it up on and off as well as joining in classes in Asia. The photo above is of The Botanical Gardens in Singapore and once or twice I joined them under the cool trees here very early in the moring. The moving meditation, concentration and exercise is good for me right now.   

January 12th......'An Unexpected Trip.'

Finally we can see grass again at home and for those of us coastal dwellers the snow has all but gone. For the hunters and gatherers who live further up the  road near the forest there is still plenty around. I'm fed up with really snowy photos, but this one was taken in a sun filled 5 day break in Banff in August this summer showing snow where it should be...up a mountain. Jenny and I were about to rent a canoe here on Lake Louise and we spent a fun hour or so paddling up the lake towards the glacier until the air got too chilly and we turned round.

In August, the week before I started all this colouring malarky, Jenny was here on holiday and she and I decided, almost on the spur of the moment, that we would drive to Banff before I had to stay here close to the hospital. We did have fun doing the Thelma and Loiuse 15 or so hour journey taking it in turns to drive every two hours. The scenery was spectacular and it was very very hot. On the way we stayed at a funny little town in the Rockies which was preparing for its main event of the year..... 'Railway Days.' All at the last minute too a friend of Lucy's arranged for us to stay at the very full Banff Springs hotel for a very discounted rate. I have always wanted to stay there since I was enchanted by the picture of it on the top of my Aunt's biscuit tin when I was little. Even better; Lucy somehow got some time off and drove to join us from the Alberta side of the Rockies for three days. We hiked, rode horses, canoed, river rafted, swam and ate a lot. Most of all we laughed and giggled as the three of us shared a room and tried to find a bear for Jenny to see.

What was best about the few days was that somehow the Gods came together to make it all just work out beautifully. None of it was expected but sometimes things that aren't planned work out better than when they they are. My little car managed without a hitch, the sun gave us 30 degree weather, the 5- star hotel made us feel special and the added company of twenty year olds kept us young and entertained. It was a treat that more than prepared me for the following week. How blessed I was to be made to feel so loved and special . Thank you to Jenny, Lucy, Yan, Stephanie and James.

Janauary 11th.....'Ode to Eyelashes"

I thought you were just an accessory, a frippery to play with.

To dress up with lash thickener and to curl with a lash curler.

I even once covered you with a thicker, false more luxuriant pair

And made you suffer the indignities of eyelash glue.

You were there to flutter and bat and flirt with.

I used you  shamelessly to accentuate my feminiity

And wanted you to be noticed for your beauty.

How shallow, how naive, how misplaced.

You are no Paris, Posh or J -Lo full of bling.

You are the silent cleaner who comes in after hours.

You are the illegal worker who keeps the economy working.

You are the night cleaner of all busy necessary places.

Washrooms, airports, subways, train stations.

Invisibly keeping the floors and surfaces shining.

Brushing away dust and grime.

Working in the background without glory. 

How I notice it when you are not there.

When things don't work as well.

 

[Photo of Penelope Cruz wearing false eyelashes in a Loreal commercial for mascara!]