True Love…

In this busy life, we commonly get consumed with those things we have to do as adults.  Seemingly simple things, like provide ourselves with shelter, food and basic medical needs.  All this adulting leads us to jobs, using technology/devices and participating in a lifestyle that can commonly be considered stressful.  Sorry if this sounds all Debbie Downer. It’s not. I love my life and enjoy the daily challenges which I have created based on my choices.  My partner, my friends, my career AND my pastimes.  

This week was a pretty solid representation of how I approach my life–a “snapshot” into Sue’s world.  I’d wrapped up four days of work (teaching water classes at the Athletic Club of Bend, two of the four mornings) and working with Tumalo Creek.  With all the prep and transition at TC there is a LOT going on and by the time I left for Bliss dance on Wednesday night my head was full. Just a little hip hop dance and I’m refreshed enough to drive my tired ass home, make dinner, clean up, snuggle the Pu Bear (my cat) and read for about 3.5 minutes before getting so sleepy I couldn’t stay awake.  Which leads me into Thursday, my first day off of my 3-day weekend. I’m always a little anxious on my first morning off. During the workweek I operate on such a tight schedule that I have to be very conscious of every hour…sometimes every minute. It takes me some time to shed that constant nagging in the back of my head telling me I shouldn’t just sit around and drink coffee.  So, that’s what I did. I sat around and drank coffee. I “puttered”. Truly I can’t tell you what all I did in the first 3-4 hours of Thursday, but somehow the studio is a little cleaner, there are more groceries in the fridge and I’ve paid some bills. Now it’s time for fun.

The weather was gorgeous, snow was groomed to a fine corduroy and some friends/co-workers were up at the mountain already.  Full transparency here… this was my first time up of the season, to downhill ski. Embarrassing, yes. It’s been a unique winter and frankly I haven’t been in Bend all that much on days off.  I chose to take a few runs solo to shake off the first day jitters. Or whatever that is. I was happily surprised to find that my legs felt pretty strong, and after about 5 or 6 runs I met up with the crew.  With the conditions as they were I think we rode well together. Had it been a super pow day, probably not, as my days of tree skiing… well they were fairly limited to begin with. But this? What transpired was just all kinds of giggly fun.  I love these people. It was awesome to ride/ski with them. In fact, I really can’t describe enough, what a smile it put on my face.

Having had such a great mid-day I was ready to get back to those more mundane tasks of “adulting” and prepping for my quick trip to Portland the next day. Portland and the Santiam canyon are where my guy lives (which creates an interesting dynamic overall, in my life).  I left first thing in the morning but met with Sam at Oxbow Park on the Sandy River where we’d decided around 9pm the night before, we’d meet and paddle. I’d rafted Dodge Park to Oxbow a few New Years Days ago with the American Whitewater group for their annual event. This time we were going to walk and then paddleboard Oxbow to Oxbow.  It’s only about 2 miles at most, and it felt like 10 minutes. But here is the “take away” and point of this post… it probably took us longer to drive shuttle, inflate my board and put on our gear than it did to paddle that short stretch. Sure felt like it. However, our love for paddling made it worth it. To have just 25 minutes on the water was better than not.  In fact, during the summer months when things get super duper busy, we’ll do a similar thing on the Santiam river where I’ve been known to LITERALLY run the shuttle–driving a car down to the Gates Bridge and then run back to the house where we jump on our boards below the house and eek out 25 minutes of paddling (by playing in standing waves or screwing around in eddies).  Because nothing makes the day better than doing something you love. It’s not paddling for everyone (and for me it’s also biking or nordic/alpine skiing). The point is that it’s better to do a small amount of something that makes you shine than not at all. And I don’t mean “shine” in “you totally excel at it” but shine with happiness. Shine with that feeling of giddiness.  It balances the less shiny aspects of life. So get out there! (Metaphorically. If you’re into knitting or ceramics you’d technically stay in), but what I’m saying is make sure you squeeze in what makes you happy.

Thanks for listening…see you out there on the frisky ripples!