A PRAIRIE JEWEL

 

 

Autumn nipped on the heels of summer as I headed west on the #1 highway. My Ford 150 with two kayaks loaded in the back, didn’t seem to mind the extra speed I demanded from it. Just before leaving that morning, I discovered my water heater had flooded my basement. Waiting for the plumbers put me three hours behind schedule. My paddling buddy, Barb, would arrive at the Kinbrook Island Provincial Park, AB well ahead of me. While my time management compulsion screeched an alarm, the wiser part of my brain whispered, “Relax, this is not a bad thing.” While I preferred the responsibilities around transport and loading, Barb had no problem choosing campsites and dealing with park personnel.

I had conceived of the idea of paddling Lake Newell, while trying to find a meeting point between her home in Radium, B.C. and mine at Sask Landing, SK. Years earlier she had suggested Lake Newell as a possible choice for a paddle and been told it was just a big slough. Having paddled on enough of them in Saskatchewan, I negated the experience.

Now I headed toward it with enthusiasm. I’d done my homework. Lake Newell was formed by the Bassano Dam in 1914. The Bow River that fed the dam ran into the lake via a seventy-three km long canal, creating a clear-water reservoir 14 kms long and 64.4 km’s squared. A lake this size could easily give us a couple of days of kayaking fun. Anticipation of discovery fluttered, like a butterfly breaking free of its cocoon, in my chest.

Going into the unknown always provides challenges. The first came when I missed the east turn-off into Brooks and sailed past the west turn-off. After snaking around several ramps on and off the highway, I found the right exit and drove the 14 kms south of Brooks that brought me to the park. A road running through wetlands, forms a bridge into the park.

Barb waited by the gate, book in hand. Both prolific readers, wait times, for us, are just excuses to fall into a new story line or absorb facts. After enthusiastic greetings, she led me to the area she’d selected for our tents. An astonishing two hundred campsites spread across a crescent of land facing the lake. It was shoulder season and the park seemed empty. Barb had chosen a campsite close to the boat launch, and public washrooms, but isolated from much of the rest of the park. I jumped out of the truck under a shower of the last of the fall leaves. Looking up I noticed the vigorous swaying limbs of the trees shading our site. Wind! I followed Barb to the water’s edge. A long crescent of sand end at the stacks of rock that formed the boat launch, making it appear like a medieval stronghold. The beach lay abandoned, but for a few gulls circling over head. I could imagine people jostling for space on a hot summer’s day. The 32 kph wind blew straight across the lake, slapping large waves onto the shore with the regularity of a percussionist striking a drum. There would be no kayaking today. Setting up camp became our priority.

The electric site comprised of a small U-shaped piece of drying grass with a peninsula of gravel wide enough for two vehicles jutting into the middle, leaving three possible grass spots for a tent. Barb’s erected tent claimed one of them. With dismay, I saw underground sprinklers had saturated one side of it. They’d come on just after she got things in place, Barb explained. She had already spoken to the park about the incongruous rule stating tents must be erected on the grass strips, when they continued to water. Ridiculous! Park personnel available stated they had no control over the sprinkler system. What did the hundreds of campers do through the summer months when the sprinklers came on? Thank heavens, for the remainder of our time the system watered in other areas or was turned off for the season. However, we were faced with a wet tent and contents. Even the sleeping bag had soaked up it’s share of moisture. We spread everything out over bushes and tables to dry, erected my tent and headed out to explore the park.

Campfire cooking and sharing good food is a huge part of our outdoor adventures, so despite the wind we had, a delicious barbecue rib dinner and a fun evening and retired replete after a full day.

Morning arrived in soft pinks and golds, with not a breath of wind to mar the day. We made quick work of breakfast, packed snacks and headed for the truck. The boat launch runs down into the water in the shelter of a large peninsula built with rocks. Once in the water you either paddle back past the beach towards the wetlands behind the park, or you go around the tip of the peninsula and find the south part of the east side of the lake. We chose this route.

Jostling for space and prestige, cottages lined the shore. Happily, we ducked in and out of piers sight seeing the private properties. Entertained for a short while, I felt relief when we rounded a curve and broke free of man’s mark on the lake. Now nature flaunted her riches, thick brush danced around high stands of Spruce, Fir and Cedar. Trembling Aspen and Green Ash twirled the last bright leaves against the sky, like children swung high by doting parents. The heavens were brilliant blue and cloudless. As the afternoon crept on, the sun unimpeded by cloud, heated the air. We shed a layer of clothing, then another. We paddled into a small bay and landed on a curve of sand, determined to cool off in the water. No sooner had we picked a spot for our dip than a man and woman appeared on the ridge above us. We continued paddling southeast, hoping they’d leave and we could return for our swim. It appeared that soon the shoreline would change to prairie grass, low and flat. We had abandoned the best spot. However, when we retraced our route twenty minutes later, it was to find the man had launch his kayak and was paddling around OUR bay while the woman walked two dogs on OUR beach. Sweating and tiring, we headed for the boat launch. The launch is well constructed but long. We decided loading and unloading each time we paddled wasted too much time, so by-passed it and pull our kayaks up on the beach closest to our campsite. There were so few people around we concluded they would be safe.

Once we landed, I retrieved the truck from the launch lot, and we hit the beach for a swim. It was September 16, but after an initial chill, the water refreshed. On the way up from the beach, we found the parking lot filled with emergency vehicles. We wondered if there had been a boating accident or drowning. Shortly, we realized the Search and Rescue was running a simulation. Boats and inflatable rafts were launched in quick succession. Paramedics opened the backs of ambulances and stood by. The firemen in bright yellow gear moved around their trucks. Over the water we could hear voices calling on walkie talkies and satellite phones. My admiration for S&R and their volunteers is high. Watching them practice for several types of emergencies reassured me help is close no matter how wild or isolated the adventure.

The next morning, we woke to wind. High waves formed white spume around the rocky peninsula of the launch. We pushed out into them and headed north, gaining some protection from the waves in the wetlands. We saw few birds, as it seemed most had started their long flight south. The high reeds protected us from the wind, and we explored several expanses of water reached through narrow passages. A few times we came to dead ends that forced us to backtrack, more typical of channels in a river, but that just added to the fun.  From our kayaks we could see a path winding atop the high ground through the wetlands. Interpretive signs dotted its lazy length.

Finally, knowing we had to take-down camp and drive long distances, we headed back to the beach. Spontaneity is always the best part of any adventure. With a quick nod of agreement, Barb charged into the water beside me. Fully dressed, we shivered through one last interaction with the lake.

Each trip into new territory serves up the unknown. All of my new learning from Lake Newell proved pleasant. Its expanse and clear water were a revelation. However, as someone attracted to rocks, it was the shoreline that held me entranced. It seemed like the entire lake was rock covered and blasted out of a rock base. Most of the rock was placed there by man, but somehow Mother Nature had molded her landscape, embedding this jewel into a rock casing in the middle of the bald prairie. I recommend you take your paddle in hand and search out this treasure.

 

 

I NON WANT

Today our yoga meditation focused on non wanting. This grabbed my attention, as moments earlier I had been non wanting big time. I non wanted the inevitable love scene in a romance where two people shower together, and instead of a quick clean-up, hasty dry, hit the bed, the counter or the floor, they make love in the shower for six pages. Shower sex! All I can think of is the gallons of water running down the drain. This especially bothers me when this takes place on a yacht or cruise liner, or in a trailer, where we know there is a limited amount of fresh water in the holding tank. It bothers me in a household when they carry on until the hot water runs out. I sometimes wish the icy water would turn their girl/boy parts blue in retaliation.

I non want people leaving the water running from the tap while they brush their teeth. How hard is it to turn it on and off when needed? Or those that throw their clothes in the laundry after every wearing when they aren’t dirty, or run the water the entire time they wash dishes.

I non want when I hear a friend bragging about the thirty-minute shower he takes – his way to decompress after work, and wonder of many others are indulging in this wasteful practice. How can you live with social media raging on about the green movement, the droughts, the decreasing amount of fresh water on the planet, and say, “Oh well, I don’t have to help out”?

I non want each time a new damn is built holding back more water so a few farmers can get a better yield, or more power can be harnessed to feed the expanding need for electricity. I non want a culture that never looks ahead far enough to say, “Hmmm maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

Like everything on our planet, water is a precious and limited commodity. I non want to watch it disappear.

WHO SAYS I’M OLD?

It’s starts with something little. “Cash or credit, ma’am?” You look around wondering with whom they are speaking. Not me, I’m no ma’am yet! In fact, I never plan to be a ma’am. But somewhere between ma’am and “Can I help you with that?” the label OLD is applied. When I let my hair grow in white, for the first time in my life men stopped giving me a second look. “White hair, not interesting, not interested.” And yet, an article on publishing my thirteenth romantic suspense had just appeared in the local paper.

North American society has taken to ageism, and it’s no longer gender biased. It used to be only females who had a use by date on them. Recently a 79-year-old man told me, “My family perceives me as old, because I look, move and communicate a tad differently than I did before, but so do they year to year. Now, I might as well be in a different room, because I cease to exist. They think I have nothing left to offer.”

My daughter visited this spring when I had an ill spell. Her loving heart just wanted to nurse me back to health, but by the time she left I felt like I should be checked into a long-term care home. While I saw myself recuperating and back in my kayak, she pictured me in a wheelchair heading for helpless.

I am told as a boomer I am an albatross around the necks of the younger generations. By sheer numbers our needs outweigh the declining tax base following us. Our children and grandchildren carry the weight of covering the costs of the hospital beds, doctors, and long-term care facilities we will need. I feel I should apologize for living too long and becoming an inconvenience to them. Yet, along with a large percentage of boomers I am still in my home, looking after my needs, supporting charities and paying taxes. Boomers are still volunteering and doing the jobs our younger generation won’t, including raising their children. We are valuable mentors, sharing our vast treasure chest of knowledge with others.

I am inundated with stories about what will happen to me as I age — threatened with a long, slow degenerative process. But I don’t have to wait for it – my God! All I need do is pick up a magazine and scare myself to death. Now!

So why am I letting the media freak me out now? For years I lived in a constant state of act and react, twitching like a frightened rabbit when I read butter will kill me – olive oil is the way to go. No sooner do I adjust to cooking with olive oil, than I am informed the white bread I’ve been eating for the last 50 years (a particular favourite, let me add) brings me closer to death with each bite. Face it I’m a goner, I conclude, as I shift to whole grain everything.

Years ago, I became a member of the I’m going to die a long, slow, nasty death club. I bought subscriptions to magazines that forecast every catastrophe that could or would happen to me. I  tuned my television into show on aging that left me unable to sleep at night and turned up the volume on my car radio when a guest starts talking about the statistics around heart attack. I force fed myself the latest results in science and technology, which are moving so fast there is a nonstop production line of them. What’s with our world, that instead of encouraging people to put the good stories out there, we all demand ‘conflict and drama?’ One of the advantages of attaining considerable years is pooh poohing the fear mongering the media pitches.

Where’s the story about the 92-year-old driving his 86-year-old wife to the restaurant for dinner?  Where’s the story about the 94-year-old who flies to Victoria to golf with his daughter? Or the 102-year-old who learned how to run the computer in his long-time care facility and makes customized greeting cards for the staff and live-ins? They exist – I know these people, who are trucking along with a few physical failings. They’re living large, because they refuse to see aging as a scary Ghost saying, “BOO! Your mortality is showing!”

Mortality is part of my birth package. Late at night it comes to visit. But it didn’t scare six-year-old me from climbing to the top of the highest slide. Or frighten me away when I did a solo paddle down the South Saskatchewan. So why, at age seventy-five would I say, “I’m too old. I better not.”

Many of my peers insist they still feel like they’re thirty. I know I do. The energy inside me determines my age, not chronological time. Turning 75 this year didn’t stop me from doing a headstand or driving to BC to kayak two new lakes. It hasn’t stopped me from hiking the hills at the Landing, or driving into Saskatoon to shop and visit friends. I can keep up with my yoga instructor, and spend days on my feet baking for family.

I just came back from downhill skiing at Panorama. I fell a couple of times, but still bounce and keep going. We’re lacking snow this winter, but as soon we get enough of the white stuff I’ll be out on my snowshoes and x-county skis. Winter bonfires with friends – you  bet!

Instead of wasting time imagining how horrific it will be to depend on a pacemaker to keep my heart ticking, to lose my faculties to a stroke or my toes to diabetes, I’m better served filling my life with the eight habits studies show are consistent life style choices in our octogenarians.

 

I have a good chance of living a long life. The average age is now 81.75 years. Many people I know are centenarians. I met a woman from NL who lived to 107 years old. I think of all she packed into her life, and the quality I can bring to mine. The exciting conclusion is I have so much more I can learn and give. I am enthusiastic about the years I have left, because I’ve already learned one of life’s profound teachings. The best path to longevity is loving and being loved

A study done on octogenarians listed seven qualities that are common in their long, rich lives. These masters of living:

1. Accept and trust life, don’t beat your head against it.
2. Find humor in the situation, there is always some.
3. Wake up each day with a purpose.
4. Have faith in mankind.
5. Balance your life spiritually, mentally, physically.
6. Build a support group with people of every age and type.
7. Be willing to take risks – get out there and live.
8. Give something back.

STRETCHING YOUR WINDOW OF GENEROSITY

 

There is a small window of time when the world erupts with giving. What is it that causes this massive move toward generosity for a few weeks on either side of Christmas? Much of it comes from Christian teaching of the Christ story turned into family traditions passed down through hundreds of years. It is impressed on us that at Christmas you look outward and give. One must assume in these days of crass consumerism we are driven to it by a hundred commercials interrupting our radios, TV, and social network platforms, by advertisements blazing at us from store displays, and other people bringing up the subject of Christmas shopping. I believe a vast increase in charitable giving happens because people are gathering last-minute deductible expenses for their income tax. Oh, how our purse strings open when we think we will get something back for our spending – generosity indeed.

During a recent meditation, the leader spoke of generosity and led us in an exercise about feeling generosity for someone we liked. This wasn’t about buying a gift or sending an e-transfer. We were asked to imagine all the things we would want for that person. Want to try it now? Happiness – can you picture the smile on a person’s face when they do something they love? Can you imagine how good they feel when paid a compliment, or the sense of safety words of reassurance would bring them?

We would all be better, the world would be a more peaceful place if we exercised this type of generosity throughout the year, expelling into the universe quantities of good thoughts, words and actions toward a loved one, ourselves, a stranger on the street. I think one of the most generous acts of all would be if we could stop judging using old biases to make hasty decisions around people, situations, world events. I catch myself in a miserly frame of mind mentally criticizing someone I perceive as slovenly, or people ambivalent to others’ needs, or oblivious to what is going on around them while they inconvenience everyone else (I even judge myself harshly for this).

Feeling compassion or love and reaching out is part of the human design. Being aware of these feelings is the first step to acting on them. Generosity is smiling at a passerby, giving a kind word to a friend, or a compliment to the man fueling your vehicle.

So back to that small window of time. Let’s expand it from a few weeks to fifty-two. And while we’re at it let’s grow our awareness so we take in the people around us who could use a little generosity and catch ourselves when we’re judging. The world is imploding, in the Middle east, eastern Europe, and our neighbour to the south. Add in the catastrophe’s caused by global warming and there is nowhere we look that isn’t facing huge challenges. We may cope with them by judging, hiding, or ignoring the reality. We would be better served if we made these things wake-up calls for generous thoughts and acts. We all want world peace. I believe, opening our hearts and pouring out generosity is the only way we’ll make it happen.

 

A TRUE LOVE

In three days, my husband and I fly to Ontario to attend a Celebration of Life for our son, Ryan, who died August 6. It will be a tribute put together by his wife and the military, attended by friends, members of his military family, and close family who want an opportunity to say goodbye to a man who touched and changed their lives. I anticipate experiencing an emotional gambit from sorrow to joy but will find and keep the joy.

Part of the happiness will come from spending time with my two granddaughters. On this occasion I am taking them each a small but meaningful gift. It is a photo of their parents before the girls were born. The love Ryan and Lisa feel for each other shines out of the picture, and will find its way into my granddaughter’s hearts, and remind them of what they observed of their parents’ relationship. Ryan and Lisa sacrificed for each other throughout their lives, taking turns as one  put an opportunity for advancement, or left a place they’d prefer to live, or turned down an exciting experience in order to help the other reach a goal. And they gave generously to each other through the twenty-three years of their marriage, demonstrating the value they placed in their partner with spa days and roses, an archery set and tickets to a NFL game, a warm kiss or a joyful smile. What they had is rare. I never met a couple more ‘together’.

When Ryan became ill with pancreatic cancer, Lisa took every step of his treatment, illness, pain and suffering with him. And Ryan found the strength to face that evil disease with grace and humour and led her through the agony of lost hopes and futures with tremendous courage.

I hope, for the rest of their lives, the girls will use their photo as a symbol of what can only be described as true love, and will look for and emulate that love in their own relationships.

I, too, have a photo of Ryan and Lisa, because even after fifty-three years of marriage, I need the reminder that love is sacrifice, compromise, generosity, compassion, all giving – and eternal.