Not an Ending
I turned 66 on the 3rd.
It was an amazing day. Marie was back to work and I decided I was going on an excursion. She suggested I take the grand-girls to Victoria for the day. As is nearly always the case, Marie’s suggestion was brilliant.
A horse carriage ride, the Bug Zoo, Miniature World, lunch at the Bard and the Banker, Munro’s books and tea at Murchies, bookended with beautiful ferry rides from Vancouver. It was a magical day.
While we were relaxing on our carriage ride, my thoughts turned to a subject that’s been on my mind a great deal this summer. Simply put, I’m not done!
I’ve been coasting a bit the last little while. Grateful for the work that comes in, but not looking much beyond that. I was comfortable. But something’s been niggling me, I’m not someone who has ever coasted and the feeling wasn’t sitting well.
The feelings didn’t have anything to do with my creative work at the beginning. It was more about my relationship with myself — coasting on health and fitness, coasting on relationships and connections. Not liking what I saw in the mirror, or in the rare images of me, was disconcerting.
So back at the beginning of summer, I decided to stop coasting. This had nothing to do with work, I’m comfortable, remember? I decided to sort my health and fitness out, walking more, lots more, and really watching what I eat. Specifically almost cutting out the ultraprocessed food I do so love! I used the MyFitnessPal app to track the calories in and out, and with that focus, the weight has come off and I feel energized. I was feeling so good that on the morning of my birthday, I actually ran with Marie for the first time in a long while — a fantastic ‘I can still do it’ feeling!
Sitting at coffee and chatting with Marie, I was describing how I was feeling, how the health and fitness changes were a catalyst for my next ‘stop coasting’ exercise, and how I was thinking about my creative work — how I’m actually not comfortable coasting at all.
So I’ve started looking at how I run things, how I do my creative work — the photography and video, whether for portraiture, events or travel, the website, my social accounts, how people find me, the tools I’ve been using out of habit rather than because they’re the right ones to use. Some of that is admin stuff, nobody’s ever going to see that, but some of it you probably will see, like this blog post.
On the ferry ride home the cloud formations were so dramatic. The girls ran wild on the deck in the wind and the imagery I was creating filled me with wonder. I don’t know where this new chapter’s going. I’m walking into it anyway.
