Mexico

So I am out of the snow of B.C.’s Kootenays and into the sun and heat of Puerto Vallarta Mexico.

When Paula and I got back from our two weeks south, my head was bursting with ideas.   Creative ideas!  Ones about painting and writing and.. living:

Lots about living actually. 

But it was a bit of a rocky start… seeing as how I had left my computer in a motel room down south and had a week to wait to see photos of the landscapes in my head.  Turned out to be a good week, and a good  reminder to slow down and look around.. I really didn’t need to rush head first into all those ideas.

Paula and I spent a whole day painting. 

OK.. I am not really happy with any of the work I did, but I needed to get started again.  Get back to a creative life.. find my mojo again.  Creatively I have not done much since mom passed a year ago.   It takes time to heal and it is not easy to get back into it, but it will happen.  To help myself along I have given myself the gifts of sunshine and a creative space of my own. 

The road trip south with Paula was the start of the journey and we got to work painting the red rocks, the brilliant landscapes that had taken our breaths away on our road trip.  We used reds (which I discovered I really don’t like) and oranges and burnt everything.  We used dirt from the earth itself. It was an interesting process.  I had been excited to create, and yet when faced with the canvas and the tools I stumbled.. but I stumbled on.. and I painted.

I left the day’s efforts on Paula’s big tables drying and, after cake and good wishes on Paula’s second 42^nd  birthday, I went and saw the girls. 

In Nelson my attention was drawn to real estate, which wasn’t the case when I was there for two weeks in the summer and had lots of time.  On this visit too I found the girls really grounding.. I know for sure now that I need a place of my own.  A space where I can be the grandma that travels and paints and writes, but also cooks and plays with grandkids in her own space, not a place borrowed for the night or a week or even a month or year. 

A day or two later I was looking at houses in the Crowsnest Pass, and, it started to snow.  I remembered why I hate it when Canada shifts seasons.. Summer is lovely and winter too, makes you forget how hard the area fights to get there. 

Sure the fall is lovely: the air gets so fresh you can taste it and the colors are brilliant in their beauty in the sharp clear air.  But that lasts like.. days!  Maybe only hours!  Change is messy and it sneaks up on you when you aren’t looking and then pounces in all its ugliness.. like it thinks you won’t notice. 

But I did notice.  It couldn’t be too sneaky because Paula and I were south and came back in the middle of the change.  One day we are drinking beer in the sunshine and the next driving in weather that scares me and has me wading through a cold wet mess in socks and sandals.

Change is often like that.  All full of itself, arrogant, ugly, unyielding and sometimes even dangerous.  People don’t like the mess and use it as an excuse to avoid it.  But if you really want to live a full life, you have to deal with the messy bits.

George drove me to Calgary in the snow.  I love George.. he is smart, generous and gentle.  But the journey served as yet another reminder of why I was heading south.  Without a warm place of my own to nest in, Canada is just not very friendly when the country is in the middle of ‘the change’. 

I had to wait at the airport in Calgary for hours.  I impose that on myself.. I hate to be late for anything.  But the Calgary airport is under construction and it was like sleeping in someone’s basement.  It was not pretty, smelled bad, and I don’t like vending machine food, it makes me just a little bit in my tummy!  But this too will change.  Next time I sit at that airport, and I know I will,  it will be lovely and new and offer any amenity I desire.  It just takes time.. and we have to put up with the mess.

Sitting on a cramped airplane, only to land someplace where you have to wait for yet another plane without the local currency or the motivation to get any, well, that is change too: and it has brought me here.

Here where a lovely, warm face welcomed me at the airport and gave me a tour of a city that has indeed changed since my last visit, before introducing me to my new space.

Here, where the humidity frizzes my hair even more!

Here, where I can walk four blocks to one of the most beautiful beaches in the worked.

Here, where a local guy grows and roasts the best coffee ever!

Here, where the food is soooooo amazing, abundant and affordable.

Here, where everyday is a sunny day.. or at least warm!

Here amidst the colors of the sea and the mountains.

And the noise..

I am here to listen to that noise; the people, the music, the birds and the sea.  I will drink the beer, eat the food and enjoy the creative muses around me. 

I am here to embrace, make and enjoy the messy business of living.  I have set my intentions and will work hard to find my creative muse and enjoy this new decade of the gift that is my life.