Blessed

I am so blessed.

Blessed to be alive, blessed to be living this particular life. Blessed to be living this moment - this exact point of right now.

The secret to happiness? I don't dare to assume that I know that. But I'll tell you what I know for certain. Happiness absolutely is related to our ability to be here now - to take in our blessings and to celebrate them - and to realize that we are being showered with blessings by a benevolent universe right now.

The Buddha said, "What you think you become."

Mike Dooley (a far more contemporary version of a Buddha-like persona) said, "Thoughts become things, choose good ones."

So I think, that in order to keep this joy and happiness flowing, singing, bouncing and pulsing through my life, I simply have to remember, every moment of every day, how blessed I am.

And I am.

Let There Be Work

I don't think I will ever stop working. When work is a pleasure and when it fulfills those needs that drive us, why stop?

I realized this week that now that the "pressure" is off my work and the stress has disappeared, I enjoy it. I no longer dread Mondays. "Working days" are like any other day. Filled with anticipation, serenity, happiness. I like the flow of my weeks - and that includes how much I love my routines. I don't think it's just me. I think we are creatures of routine. I like doing laundry on Wednesdays and Fridays and shopping on Thursdays. I like my little morning rituals - out with Abby, shower, dress, feed Abby, breakfast, make the bed, fire up the computer - and so on.

And I like the flow of a work week. Even though I now embrace every day, rather than counting down to Saturday, I still like walking up Saturday morning and thinking, "ah - the weekend!" I like each individual day and what it brings.

Time is relative? Oh yes. It used to go too fast. Then it went too slow - now it flows just right. The glory of each moment has me wanting to hug myself and squirm, as though my body can't contain all my emotions.

Today - a wonderful photo-taking walk on the back 40 - this afternoon, a hike on Extension Ridge - and I'm packing a flashlight, just in case. Really, it doesn't get any better.

Parlez-vous Francaise?

I think one of the many secrets of having a fabulous, adventure-filled semi-retirement is to do things you love - things that expand your horizons, things that stretch your comfort zone, things that engage your mind and things that are just plain new or a re-visitation of activities you once loved and have had no time for.

Truth is, I love learning and I love languages. With that in mind, I called the Wentworth Language Centre today to inquire about French classes. I want to get beyond my halting, high-school level French and actually become fluent. I want to be able to "think" in French when I speak it. I was told that the next eight-week session begins next Tuesday. Too soon, I said.

After I hung up, I asked myself, why is that too soon? Really - why? I can afford it easily, The time is perfect. If not now, when? So that's it, I'm enrolled. So excited.

What's next? Spanish? Italian? What other language would be fun to learn and speak and think in?

Yoga

Yoga tonight. I like yoga - I like the peace, the serenity, the stretches and especially the final relaxation/meditation when I get a chance to experience the full chatter and noise of my mind.

Tonight I had a lovely insight. My mind emptied (for a split second) as I listened to the CD of chanting. Then a thought: everything, every single event in my life has brought me to this perfect moment.

My next thought was, "Great, I'll blog about that!"

Sigh

Space Scrubbing

Today I almost completed my space scrubbing. Space scrubbing is a very important activity and a big focus of The Advancement of Excellence - the third program in the Excellence Series. www.excellenceseminars.com or www.contextinternational.com.

Space scrubbing is something I seem to do instinctively whenever my life undergoes a big change. And, of course, this semi-retirement gig is the biggest change I've experienced in decades - well, one decade at least. Last week, I tossed stuff, I cleaned out stuff, I moved stuff to the garage. Yesterday I put said "stuff" into the car. This stuff included: a pink lampshade, computer cables circa 1992, a chipped blue vase, a bread basket, a Chinese tea pot, a kettle, a game of dominoes, a computer monitor, an angel candlestick - well, you get the idea. The recycling depot welcomed me with open arms.

But first, I drove to the bank, deposited a nice big fat cheque and bought a bank draft that I dropped off at the Toyota Dealership, thus wiping out my car debt.

By the time I got to the Morrell Nature Sanctuary with Abby, I was practically bursting with song. Space scrubbing will do that for you. I hiked the trails in a state of near bliss. I felt - and feel - abundant, wealthy, rich beyond imagining, clean, light and ready for all the good things the universe is about to drop into my lap.

I highly recommend purging your physical space. Clear it out. Make room for new things. Start with the closets and cupboards and the garage, the attic, the basement - check those hidey holes you don't often glance at. When that's done, what else is there? Debts? Discharge them. Nagging chores you've been putting off? Do them. Heck, I even got out my sewing kit and repaired my favourite turtleneck sweater. And believe me, if you know how I feel about sewing, you'll understand how far I stretched to scrub every last inch of my space.

All that's left now is to move garbage to the curb - one week at a time. Oh yes, and wash and vacuum my car. It's all dated. The Advancement of Excellence offers wonderful advice that clears the mind of those nagging chores: do it, date it or dump it. The last one refers to nagging chores you know you will never do. Realize you will never do them/it and delegate or just tell yourself the truth - that it will never get done - and forget about it.

I've done it - I've dated a couple - and I am so ready for the adventure to continue. I don't think I've been this excited since I was a four-year-old on Christmas Eve. Come to think of it, I may be even more excited than that.

Maybe not every day

This is Abby - one of the great blessings in my life. This photo was taken when she was eight weeks old. Thoughtful, isn't she? She still considers things carefully - well, most things. Not food - or anything that vaguely resembles food.

But on to the topic that the headline hints at. I have decided not to hold myself to "I should write my blog every day." Nope - I am semi-retired. I can make my own rules - like writing when I want to, which, given how much I love writing, will likely be quite often, maybe even more than once a day on occasion.

Just don't yell at me if I miss a day, okay? I am on vacation - semi-permanently.

Goody Enough

On my hike this morning through Yellow Point Park - in the rain and in the sun - I mused about the Law of Attraction, or, as I like to think of it, Thoughts Become Things (think good ones).

This is one law I believe in as solidly as I do the law of gravity - it exists whether we believe in it or not. I can see quite clearly how everything in my life is a result of my thoughts. And where do my thoughts come from? They are a result of my beliefs, most of which I accumulated when I was very young, certainly too young to consciously choose my beliefs. Naturally, as I grew older, I became more conscious but I have had to do some pretty serious work to unearth beliefs that weren't working for me.

At this point in my life, I want to be very clear about my thoughts and my beliefs - I want to be very clear about what I want because, sure as shootin', I'm going to get what I think about. I have accumulated an awful lot of beliefs about relationships that do not serve me. To whit - I've been single for ten years, during which time I have had two miserably failed love affairs, neither of which nurtured me. To list all the beliefs I have about relationships here would take a very long time and far more soul searching than I want to do. Besides, I don't think it's necessary. What I tell myself now is that I am happy and I don't need a relationship. At the same time, I work at changing my mind about that in a very intellectual sort of way. I am concerned that I don't desperately want a relationship. I think I "should" want one. Somehow or other I want to want one - I want to get some emotion into this want - some oomph!

I was thinking about this on my walk and the thought occurred to me that perhaps the mere fact that I worry about not wanting a relationship badly enough is, in itself, enough wanting. Maybe, just maybe, that's all the proof the universe needs that I'm ready.

Goody enough?

Maybe so. In fact, I think so because as this thought developed, I smiled rather broadly as I walked - I had the same sort of "aha!" feeling that I had earlier this year down in Big Sur when I understood the reason I was single: I was (quite rightly) avoiding the perpetuation of my relationship history. The thought that put a big smile on my face on that occasion went something like this: "I want a relationship unlike any I have ever had before! I want to experience something brand new! I want a relationship that is mutually loving and joyful and full of respect and fun and - well - all good things, including passion."

So there you go, universe - over to you.

What else do I want? I've pretty well put it out there that I never want to worry about money so I know that I will always have enough to live comfortably. But I am also a tad addicted to budgeting. So it's time to up the ante. I want more - I want affluence. No - not billions - but a million or more - yup, I can handle that. Once again, over to you, universe. Do your thing!

Health? That goes without question. That's one I'm so sure of I don't even need to think about it. I'll probably be climbing Everest on my 101st birthday.

Enough wishes? Nah. We're allowed infinite wishes. After all, we made the rules of the game and we're way to smart to place limits on ourselves. But that will do just for now.

Did I mention that I've never been happier in my life? I am so open to everything that's coming my way.

Small Pleasures

Today I am intensely grateful for the small pleasures of every day life - hiking the Abyss in patches of sunshine and glorious autumn colours, the taste of rich, dark chocolate, watching the dogs run and play on the trail, finding and exploring brand new trails, a hot lavender scented bubble bath, the coziness of my home.

But I ask myself, why do I call them "small" pleasures. Surely, given the joy and serenity they create in my heart, they are large, immense, gargantuan pleasures. I am blessed that I can create such enormous joy and happiness so very easily.

Book Review: The Happiness Project

I'm a writer - and a reader. So it stands to reason that I'm going to write about the books I read, especially now that I have more time and will be purchasing even more books. (Reader alert: buy Chapters/Indigo stocks now!)

I recently finished reading The Happiness Project. I'd been resisting it - just another one of those "by-the-numbers-self-help-books" I thought. Well, gentle reader, was I ever right!

I'm not going to pan this book completely. After all I read the whole thing and if it had been all that bad, I would have given up at chapter 2 or 3. The book gave a few helpful tips but to wrap an entire book around a couple of items is, I think, a rather audacious idea. But I do think it fits into the current North American mindset: give me a pill; give me a quick fix; make it easy; I want step by step easy to follow instructions.

There is no magic pill. The answers are inside and we have to do the work to listen, to discover who we are and then to be the best "me" we can be and from that solid base to do the best we can.

What I found particularly curious about The Happiness Project was its utter lack of happy. It's a very serious book. You won't get any smiles or laughter out of it. The writer is a researcher - hence an analyzer with a large dollop of controller tossed in. I lost track of how many times she used the phrase "Studies show that...." but I promise you it was at least a dozen times too many. It's just not a joyous or uplifting book - and I think that it ought to be.

On the other hand, this book will have great appeal for people who like charts and graphs and who hate to go on a trip without a road map, GPS system and overnight bookings for every stop along the way. If you actually have to schedule in spontaneity, you'll probably get a lot out of this book, like more efficient ways to schedule your moments of serendipity.

And good for Gretchen Rubin. She has successfully tapped into a zeitgeist - people are forming Happiness Project support groups all over the U.S. - which, I am sad to think, says a lot about the state of happiness today.

Done! (well, almost)

I'm so pleased with myself. The cleanup is complete - or as complete as it can be until I take everything to the recycling depot. That's on the agenda for next week.

I wonder why it is that throwing things out always makes me feel so good - much, much better than accumulating more stuff? Interestingly, most people I talk to would agree with me. So then, when we're feeling down, why do we go shopping (retail therapy)? Wouldn't we be better served to get rid of stuff - give it away, toss it, recycle it? And it's better for the planet too.

As a matter of fact, I've left just a tiny bit of clutter here and there (mostly there - there being the kitchen - the last place I cleaned so I was running out of steam) just so that I could make myself feel good again in the future by tossing more stuff.

Okay, I'll tell the truth - I could have thrown out more paper too. But I hit the "feel good" level and that's Goody enough for now.

A Closer Walk with God

This is one of my favourite photos taken from the Maple Mountain trail. This is one of the places I hike. People have asked me why I hike -  I'm passionate about it and I've been doing it for years. As I have more time for myself now, I'll be hiking even more.

Reason number one - see above photo. It's the sheer beauty of it. In my experience, two legs will take me to places of beauty that no other transportation can equal. And visual beauty speaks to my soul. It overwhelms me with feelings of gratitude. When I look out on a vista like this, I feel truly blessed. I feel closer to God - whoever or whatever he or she is.

I also hike because the act of walking, especially for long periods of time, puts me a state of semi-meditation. Some - actually most - of my creative ideas come to me while I hike. I remember hiking on the slopes of Mount Garibaldi some years ago when the entire and complete lyrics of a song dropped into my mind (heart). I wrote them out when I got home and they went on to win first prize in a radio contest. Garibaldi, like Rainier, is one of the sacred mountains.

All of this brings me around to God. I was thinking, a few weeks ago when I was signing up for Yoga classes, about the universal desire to have a direct experience of God. Buddhists meditate and Christians pray and all manner of people fast - and people take mind altering substances - all to have that direct experience.

Those who achieve the state - nirvana in the Buddhist tradition - report a kind of ecstasy - an understanding of God and the universe and themselves and - well - everything. Bliss.

I wondered if I had ever had that fleeting experience. I'm not sure. I think I've been close. At any rate, the entire point is to be one with God and to realize that you are, indeed, God. Now I believe this to be true - I have always believed this - and not only intellectually. I feel pretty darn sure that we are all one and we are all God. So , my question is, does it matter if I have a direct experience of God? As long as I know who I am, is that good enough? After all, I am happy; I feel blessed. I am excited about life. I love the feeling of going to sleep at night; I love getting up in the morning. I love my dog and my friends and reading and writing and truthfully, the list could go on forever (always ending in chocolate, of course - it has to end with chocolate).

I wonder if that is good enough. Just knowing. Or is it Goody enough?

Could be

Let the Cleanup Begin

No, this is not the "before" photo - this is the after. I prowled through my closet and my chest of drawers and filled three immense green plastic garbage bags almost to overflowing.

And still, I fear I may not have been as ruthless as I should have been. This is the beginning of a great "throwing away of junk" project that feels necessary to my new, freer status. But still - look at the far right of this photo - see all those clustered hangers? Yes, I know, I need to divest myself of those as well.

I tend to have a philosophy that if I can't see it, it's not really clutter. So when you walk into my house, it all looks rather charming and quite tidy if you ignore the stacks of books everywhere. However, you don't necessarily want to inspect inside the closet or open the kitchen junk drawer and junk cupboard. Yup - I actually have a junk cupboard.

That's all going to change. I am going to arm myself with garbage bags (note to self - purchase more garbage bags) and clean it all out. I will take it all to the dump (known as the Cedar Landfill if you want to be politically correct) and I will even shell out the sheckles required to allow me to add my garbage to the mound. I feel lighter just thinking about it!

A thought or two about retirement

Retirement (noun): meaning what exactly? "I'm tired again?

I prefer to think of it as getting new tires. Last year I got new winter tires for my car. It was the first time I had ever driven a vehicle with proper winter tires. "Bring on the snow" I yelled at the sky, knowing of course, and mentioning it to the nice man at Kal Tire, "Now that I have winter tires it won't snow all season."

And, of course, it didn't. So that's how I feel about my new set of tires. I am re-tired with brand new treads and I'll tell you, these treads will take on anything - mud, snow, ice, squabbles, gales, tantrums, rants - but of course, now that I am re-tired, none of that will happen. The sun will shine, all good things will come my way and I shall live happily ever after - probably with someone I haven't even met yet.

Don't expect this blog to be a conventional guide to anything. If you want an actual "guide" to re-tirement, I'm sure Dummies has a manual for it. This will be my personal account - what it's like for me. I'm 64 and single. I live in the country, above a stable, with my dog, Abby. I live a blessed life that is about to get a whole heap more blessings piled on it.

I don't know exactly what to expect from re-tirement but my expectations are high. I can tell you what I do not anticipate: playing golf, sitting back on the couch and clicking the remote; RVing; afternoons at the seniors centre quilting and carpet bowling.

I'm thinking of hang gliding next year.

Vulnerability

My big challenge today is to invite people to read my blog. I anticipate this great event with as much joy and relish as I do sticking my fingers down my throat so that I can expel my most recent meal.

I have always had this fear of exposing myself. What if people look at me and say, "Ugh - put it back!" Or, more likely, "You are so pathetic." Better yet. "Why on earth are you blogging? What makes you think you have anything even remotely interesting to share?"

Yesterday I read that if you insist on being a blogger, you have to blog every day. So here I am, setting myself up for rejection every day. The voice inside my head - and, believe me, this voice is an old, familiar friend, says. "You're not good enough."

pause

"You're really not good enough."

I listened to it in bed last night when I woke up at about 2 a.m. I listened until it morphed into "Not Goody enough."

Aha!

Gotcha!

I'm not Goody enough. And that's my first "retirement project." To be Goody enough. To be Goody all the time. Just me. Just what you see is what you get. Just to be blessed by being who I am and loving the Goody that I am.

Welcome to my blog.

It all begins somewhere and sometime

The truth is, I should have seen it coming. I should have known when I ran into the mushroom picker. If I'd had my wits properly about me, I would have known almost a year ago that retirement would come to me early. But I didn't have them about me and truth to tell, it's just as well.

I  spent the first day of my "semi-retirement" hiking up Maple Mountain with Abby and for the first time in at least a year I was completely in the present - feeling blessed and living every minute of the day. The sun had come out after days of rain and clouds and I swear it arrived today just to add to my personal blessings. Now wait a minute, I'm not powerful enough to command the sun, you say. I would have said the same a year ago - no longer. I have proof that I am spectacularly powerful - almost frighteningly so.

My proof starts with mushrooms - and now just any mushrooms - chanterelles, the queen of mushrooms. (I'm sure they're feminine with their frilly honey coloured hats set at a rakish angle).

I grew up revering chanterelles. They grew in great abundance in the Black Forest where I spent the first few years of my life. We used to hunt for them, bring home our copious haul and have them for supper, fried in great gobs of butter and accompanied by chewy black bread. Last year, I was in Tofino and ran across a mushroom picker who had just come back from the hunt and was selling his chanterelles on the sidewalk for $5 a pound. If you know anything about these golden beauties, you know that's almost giving them away. My brother, whose memories of chanterelles are as intense as mine, was gobsmacked. We bought two pounds and brought them home where I fried them up in butter and served them with fresh rye bread. Rick and I were blissful.

Which brings me to this past September. I was hiking on the Westwood Ridges with a friend, telling her my chanterelle story because it was a year to the day that my brother and I had been out to Tofino. I waxed nearly poetic about the mushrooms. I could almost taste them. If only I could relive the experience.

Minutes later a tall, gumboot-shod man popped out of the woods carrying a ten-pound bucket of chanterelles. Would he sell me three pounds? Yes, of course he would. For the first time all year I happened to have my wallet with me because I'd planned to stop at the bakery on the way home. He happened to have a plastic bag and stuffed it with three pounds of chanterelles at $5 a pound.

Coincidence? I think not (therefore I am not?). Now, if I'm powerful enough to conjure mushrooms out of the wilderness, what else can I create? Well, apparently, an early retirement. When I turned 64 on September 23, all I could think was, "One more year until I retire." I couldn't bear to wait. I wanted to retire now! I could see and taste the joy and serenity and freedom of my life. But a whole 12 months! Akkkkk.

Every day, I woke, living for the weekend, imagining the months flying (or more likely, crawling) by. So should it come as a surprise when my publisher asked to have a meeting with me on Thursday to tell me he had to cut  back dramatically on my assignments because the recession had hit and he was shutting down one of his papers? Should I really be surprised? Of course not.

But how am I to make up the shortfall? Freelance work, of course! Even better - what if I didn't have to fill it with work? What if my mother, who had some money to give away, wanted to give me enough to make my life comfortable until my pensions kicked in? Well now, wouldn't that be ideal?

So she did and here I am - I have exactly what I wanted. The secret to all this, of course, was focusing on what I wanted, not how I was going to get it. I honestly had no idea how I was going to get the mushrooms - or how I was going to retire NOW. Didn't matter. What counted was begin extraordinarily clear with emotions, mind, body and soul all aligned on what I wanted. The universe took care of the rest.

It even brought out the sun today.

I feel about my retirement (ok - semi- retirement although it doesn't feel terribly semi) is like beign reborn. I honestly feel as though my life is - well, not starting - and not really starting over - but rebirthing itself. I feel excited, yes but more than that, I have a sense of deep innner joy, peace and serenity.

I am going to re-define what retirement is. I know that these are going to be the best years (30? 40? more?) of my life. It is now - right now - that amazing things are going to happen. New relationships. Travel. Friends. Love. Horizons expanding - new languages, new planets - enough to fill me a hundred times over.

Let the retirement begin!