Day 29. Smile

Relentless winter;

Cold, bare, rough-edged, and icy

But the sun smiled.

Day 28. Purple

Purple was hard! Everything is black and white right now, which is kind of beautiful, but there was no purple to be found. I sought high and low for two full days.

Then last night I walked the cold, white river to the Forks.

And just when I had begun to give up on purple, I rounded the corner as the Red merged into the Assiniboine.

Purple was bathing all the ice and snow at the Forks, and everything had a violet hue.

The most concentrated of all the purples was right here: A purple light, bright as a potion, shining on this giant ice sculpture.

It was cold, and my camera was frozen so I had to use the camera on my phone.

Day 27. Breakfast

It may seem boring, ritualistic, unsatisfying, but this is my breakfast every day, forever.

Ground flaxseeds, sometimes pumpkin seeds, cinnamon, cardomom, hemp or almond milk, sometimes hemp protein with some stevia... all mixed in to a delicious 'cereal' and then eaten in the slow rhythm of the early morning.

Wake, climb down stairs, boil water, grind seeds...

Ritual makes my world go 'round.

Day 26. Magic

Magical/mystical day in the neighbourhood. Crystals on everything. A total wonderland.

magic up close

magic from afar

Orange dog in magic

Day 25. Yellow

When I saw that the topic today was 'yellow' I was so excited!

I instantly knew I wanted to take a picture of this big, old yellow home.

My friend Pam calls this colour buttercream makes it sound delicious.

It's the same colour I wanted to paint my house, but apparently it didn't fly around here and my second favourite choice won out (which was pale sage green, if you're wondering.)

I walk past this house as often as I can though, to soak in the buttercreaminess of it. And also to hang out in little, round Fisher Park right across the street from it.

Day 24. Food

Made today:

Pizza sauce with fresh herbs.

Wheat-free, egg-free, yeast-free pizza to put it on.

Day 23. Golden

Rush hour morning traffic, heading into downtown on a grey mid-winter Winnipeg monday is about the worst place in the world to look for golden.

I walked through the grey and white along the river this morning, in hopes of a warm golden sunrise, but it hid out behind the clouds. So I went up to the forks and then thought to come up onto the road for the way back, to walk errands and see what goes on there at that time of the day.

Grumpy faces were what was going on. Many of them, in cars, scowling, long faces.

It wasn't til Osborne that people started to look a little happier, smiling a bit, almost.

And funny; it wasn't 'til I got home that I found any actual golden.

Day 22. A favourite place I hadn't been to yet

This is the downtown of my city. But that's not the place I haven't been to. I've been there lots, and despite its sometimes stagnation and sometimes lack of character and sometimes excess of character, it's one of my favourite places.

My other favourite place, the one i haven't been to yet, is the moon.

Day 21. A journey

Just so you know, I realize it's a bit morbid to hang around in graveyards, but St.Mary's cemetery is one of the most beautiful places I know. I love it there.

Maybe because it's the final physical place for all these guys as they journey off to bigger things?

I love the feeling of the deep heavy earth, the stone graves as they contrast with the airiness and ether of the afterlife.

Day 20. Job

Day 19. Friends

Blurry picture due to wiggliness and manifested joy of depicted friendship.

Day 18. Bedtime

You know when people say they couldn't fall asleep because they had something on their mind? I don't say that. I always fall asleep. It's a true sanctuary and I love bedtime and its warm glow dimming to dark.

Day 17. Outside

Ferocious outside.

But beautiful too.

There is so much that we have tamed in this world, it's nice that in the midst of it is the wild, unchanged, unpredictable.

Day 16. Dark

I don't feel dark (foggy sometimes, hazy... bright and crisp on good days, but typically not dark) but I am here, relative to the bright white ice and the happy yellow building. It's all relative and for the sake of balance, I'll be the dark.

"From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Day 15. Handsome

Day 14. Empty

Mostly the river was empty on my walk today. Except for these hardcores who were snowshoeing and skiing and animals who haven't lost their playfulness underneath the snow.

This new (/old?) little structure just appeared today. I presume a place to sit when people are taking a break from skating/snowshoeing/skiing.

Today it was empty. The figure in the background passed it by, even.

Day 13. White

Today was a snow day! I love snow days. Especially when you have a big, frozen (now), river covered in snow to explore. There are paths carved in. One for skating and one for walking. It's pretty much bliss.

Especially for one snow-faced dog who likes to dig her entire head into the snow. Let to run on a big, white playground, the world is her oyster.

Day 12. Cold

This guy is gonna be.

As if Winnipeg's downtown is dreary, grumpy and cold enough (in demeanour) as it is.

For the record, I still like going downtown, despite my criticism. It's a place of pure potential isn't it? Rather than normal cities where things are built up around a downtown like it's a beating heart, our city's livelihood somehow goes on despite it's heart having stopped. That's pretty cool, and I'm not banking on anything, but there is still the promise of resurrection... one of my favourite things.

Day 11. Something that is hard for me

Sitting still. Forgiveness. Just being. Spontaneity. Not knowing. Surprises. Being too busy. Rushing. Moving slowly too. Sadness. Seeing sadness expressed. Choosing between a bunch of different things. Backbends. Belly breathing. A bunch of other stuff too.

Day 10. Something that is easy for me

Turning inward.

I am a recluse by nature or maybe I’ve been nurtured into it, but I like to try to balance that with expansive openness to the people around me. It’s an odd sensation to open up and to soften and to be a little vulnerable, but in some weird way, it feels right.

I feel like it would be easier in some ways to walk many roads alone. I feel like Thoreau was on to something when he went off to Walden Pond. I can barely read his book because I so envy the life that he lived there.

But something tells me that that isn’t full living. At least it isn’t what I am meant to live.

And then Thoreau says something like this:

‘How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.’ And during this time I began to wonder, was I truly living?

And I emerge from my forward fold and get clumsily back up into the world and smile, til next time. And then I do it again.