A Horseback Wedding

 

A Horseback Wedding

We had decided to get married on the September long weekend. This way we could have a long weekend every year for our anniversary.



I wore a beautiful strapless white gown that was simple with elegant silver embroidery on the front. My head adorned with the veil my mother wore on her wedding day.



I was about to marry a man that wasn't particularly interested in horses and that I had never ridden with.



We had been together nearly two years by this point and I was certain that I was making the right choice despite his uncertainty of my equine obsession.



It was hot. A little too hot to be September but there we were on the sandy banks of the Eagle River dressed to the nines, in the neighbors horse pasture.



Our guests were all standing. Chairs weren’t something I thought about. My mind was more preoccupied with the idea of riding my horse in a wedding gown and that was as extravagant as I wanted to get. The wedding was so simple that we didn't even hire a photographer.



So our guests stood and watched as my dad rode Angel, a white quarter horse cross who was indeed an Angel, alongside my Norwegian Fjord cross and I.



My brother and my best friend had spent the morning decorating the horses manes. The beautiful double maned bay gelding had never seen so many tiny bows in his life but he wore them proudly as he carried me towards the isle.



We met Brent and the rest of the wedding party at the edge of the sand. My father helped me down off the back of my my beloved horse and led me down the isle.



The sand was hot on my bare feet but I didn’t care. I was just happy that no one made me wear shoes, despite the fact that I insisted on riding my horse.



Passing me off to Brent my father told him “She’s your problem now”.



My soon to be husband happily took me as we clasped hands. There was an overwhelming moment of quiet before the ceremony began and I could feel the birth of the rest of my life as it became real.



"Is there anyone here that has any objections?" said the Justice of the Peace. He wore a delicate white long sleeved cotton shirt and his wife had spent the morning carefully French braiding his long silver hair. The whole scene looked like something out of a fairytale.



NEIIIGHHHH!! Ranger whinnied.



"Your horse is objecting" he said to me. Unsure what my response might be.



I could feel my soon to be husband suspended in a moment of terror as he wondered how I would respond to Rangers objection.



"He'll live" I told the Justice of the Peace.



Relief and joy washed over my husband.



17 years later today, we're still madly in love, he still hasn't ridden with me but we find ways to stay involved in each others worlds even though our interests are so far apart.

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Killer Whales At Work

It was a nice morning the world was quiet and you could feel the the darkness starting to take back it’s place in the day. There’s a shift I can feel in the world around me as we begin our decent into the darker half of the year. 

There is just as many days in darkness as there is in light and just a few weeks ago the days were the same length only getting longer. I can’t complain really, it’s light out at 5:00 am and stay that way until well after 10:00 pm but I can feel it in the air. We’ve begun the decent into darkness. 

I worked on my writing this morning compiling all the old bits and pieces that could make up a story to see if there might be a chance that somewhere in the wasteland of words there might be a story. Then it was time to hit the gym. 

This week I have decided re-embrace the rest based lifestyle that I had worked so hard on a year ago. My heart has told me that it’s time to learn to relax or become permentenlty broken. My body however needs to move so we’re learning to come to an agreement. 

Today I put on my Fitlist and danced with my hoop. Setting up the space and getting my head back into the game I’ve decided that this will be the week I get my sustainable routine in place and my head an gym ready to begin the works outs again next week. 

All too soon it was time to go to work. The drive was dreary and I was already missing the brief moment of summer. A summer that seems to have slipped away into the dreary days of another wet season in the Great Bear Rainforest. 

I drove the windy gray road and noticed that the tiny set of twin fawns close to Masset still wasn’t with their mother. They seemed to be gumming the tender grass at the side of the road. They were small and their spots seem to be clinging to them more so than the fawns with obvious mothers. 

Everyday I see them alone my heart breaks a little, at least they have each other, I tell myself. It;s so hard not to interfere with wildlife so tame. Understanding the importance of colostrum and mothers milk in the infant stages I find it hard not worry about their health. 

Brushing off my concerns for the orphan twins I kept on my way to work. It was a day full of endless things to do. That is one of the things I love about my job, there is no shortage of things for me to keep busy doing. Then as I was busy working away from me a I heard “I saw a killer whale”.

I dropped everything and ran outside. Everything stops for whales in my world and they were the first whales I had seen all year. They were also the first killer whales I had seen on Haida Gwaii. 

The moved fast with the currents of the tide. Their black fins coming up out of the white caped water. Excitement and awe filled my being. What a special treat. 

Killer whales are ominous of death in the Haida culture, or so I've been told. 

Today I watched some of my old habits wither and slowly collapsed under the weight of the new hope I carry. Maybe that old life I’ve been fighting to shed has died and been taken away. 

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Dinner With the Wild

 

Dinner With the Wild 

July 12, 2023 

Salmon berries were on the menu for dinner tonight. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to cook, I simply didn’t really feel like eating. 

The day had been long and stressful and it was everything I could do to muster the strength to take the old man out for a walk. Tonka had sulked a little more than usual last night, even though it had been almost a month since I was able to do anything he was keeping score like ponies do. Last night should have been his turn. 

With the weight of today's stress clinging to my skin I mustered up the strength to head outside to take my pony for a walk. 

He greeted me at the gate. His copper coloured coat glistened in the sun and wind had swept his forelock to the side just perfectly. He really is a stunning pony and was looking less and less his age everyday. My mind wandered to the fantasy where his cart is welded back together and we drive off into the sunset. 

I put on his halter and we started down the driveway. The connection of a 20 year partnership sizzled comfortably between us. I thought about all the wonderful things we had done together and how grateful I was to have him in my life. 

We slowly made our way down the road where the forest opened up to the ocean. The blue sky draped over the distant mountains that were green with the rich forest. An eagle circled above the shallow waters as the tide slowly drained the inlet leaving behind a swirl of shimmering greens, blues and browns. 

Opening my ears to let the texture of the sound in I heard the calls of small birds hidden away from my sight. The grass rustling in the gentle breeze and the buzz of the horse fly that had followed us from the barn. 

Peace washed over me and ounce by ounce the weight of the day let go of the grip it had on my skin. 

A large red berry glistening in the sunlight caught my eye. I slipped it off its home on the salmonberry bush and into my mouth. It was juicy and sweet. 

Tonka took the opportunity to enjoy a sweet treat of his own. The smell of clover mixed with salt air drifted by as he blew with approval. 

We continued down the road stopping at all the berry bushes to fill both our bellies with the goodness of summer on Haida Gwaii. 

2.13 Km we walked today snacking and enjoying the wild world around us. Some of the local deer were cautious when they saw us even though they often spend time visiting the horses in the pasture.They seem to pretend they don’t know them as soon as they’re out in public. Tonka doesn’t seem nearly as bothered by the shallowness of this friendship as Punki is, so they barely acknowledged each other as we all wandered about snacking on the bounty of the season. 

One human crossed our path, I suspect this was most likely a tourist. They seemed almost shocked to see a woman with a small pony doodling down the road looking like an eccentric old lady with her giant pet. We nodded politely and went back to experiencing the nature that surrounded us. 

When we arrived back home one of the ravens was here to reluctantly greet us at the bottom of the driveway. I thought about all the wonderful animals that share their space in the world with me and the last bit of stress fell. With my belly full of berries and a happy pony we hiked back up the driveway ready to face another day tomorrow. 

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Today I was Easy - A Good Day with ADHD

Friday I chose to run and slowly started breaking my body into the idea of learning to run again. The thought of not being able to outrun even the slow dumb zombies in a zombie apocalypse not only entertained me but concerned me as well.  

While I don’t suspect that’s a threat I’ll have to face, there are real life threats that could have me appreciating the ability to run. Like chasing a naughty pony through the ditches of Port Clements or outrunning a swarm of malicious blood thirsty noseems. 

In case you're unfamiliar with noseems they are the smallest of the pesty flesh eating flie and they hurt the most. They are so small in fact that just one of them is nearly invisible to the naked eye. Here on Haida Gwaii a swarm of them can turn the sky black if the wind stops blowing. Just the thought of being close to one of those swarms makes me sure that my plan to encourage my body to run again is a good one. 

Friday was the night before last now. Having stayed up way too late the night before writing it was apparent that I was going to have to make up for lost rest. And so I did. 

I spent the day curled up in comfortable clothes and on a whim rebuilt the website that I had accidentally deleted a week or so ago. I even made sure that I had my customary weekend nap and I took it really easy on the stimulants. 

It felt good to be inspired and relaxed. It felt good to be into something and hyper fixated without being physically hyper. 

I worked all day and into the night on the website. There was suddenly so many solutions to so many thoughts that fluttered around in my brain making it hard to create a plan forward with my vision. 

One of the cursed blessings my ADHD blessed me with was the ability to see many futures unfold at once quite quickly. Sometimes I have the rare privilege of just seeing now and soon in one reality but my mind unfolds so many possible realities in my imagination that it’s hard sometimes to keep track of what I really want. Especially when they all look like fun. Then before you know it I want all of them and off I go on an impossible tangent to do all the things. 

This was my stuck point with the website and with the business. I want it all and I want it all now. My excitement to create and provide some cool content left me in a world of wondering what direction to go on first. 

In the end I decided to let the people decide. Afterall all the paths forward look like they’ll be a lot of fun to create, I’m just glad I won’t be the one to decide where to start.

Most of today was spent finishing the first tier of my diabolical plan to see how the world approaches living a healthy lifestyle. There is so much more than just diet and exercise that need to be considered in health. After all so many people don’t have access to healthy food or time and energy to workout because of financial responsibilities.  

Maybe we should take financial health just as seriously as we take physical health. We should talk about the difference between mental, emotional and spiritual health, because those things are not the same and need to be worked differently and honored differently when we work on creating health in our lives. Social and sexual health come naturally to some people but for many of us we live in bubbles of “”EEEEEEWWWWWW People..” So how do we honor and strengthen those parts of us? 

Seven pillars to strengthen. Seven parts of the human to honor and work with. Seven colours to make up the rainbow because all the the parts should run alongside each other sharing in the beauty of life. 

Health is not black and white. Health is a rainbow. 

The passion oozed from me as I saw my idea come to colourful light on the page before me. Recognizing that I was doing work that made my soul happy made it that much better. 

Throughout the day I would wander out into the garden and once again let my soul lead the way. The ADHD runs thick through this human because I did not focus on one project or one spot all afternoon and still got a tremendous amount done. 

I did not fight with myself. I did not push myself to do what I thought I should be doing. I did not require a good excuse to switch tasks part way through the garden time I just left myself alone and did what I wanted to do. After all, it's a garden. Who cares if it's the garden that ADHD built. It’s getting built and that’s what matters. 

It was hard to come in from the garden but it had to happen. Laundry needed doing and I was wearing clothes that needed to be washed. 

After 2 years of trying to solidify this routine it finally felt easy. The clothes went into the laundry, and I chose an outfit for tomorrow. Then I transferred the smoothie cups into a freezer bag and prepped the daily protein drinks for tomorrow. Whey protein has changed my life in ways I can’t even begin to describe for fear that no one would believe me if I tried. 

I felt grateful to be getting together all the things that make me feel good. After feeling like garbage for so long, to feel good was the most amazing thing in the world. Everything felt easy tonight. Even going to be feels like it might be easy tonight. 

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