Cherry Blossoms, Grassy Hills and Stairs

A lot has been going on, and things have changed, but everything is still the same: I am still behind with my uni projects and unable to work on them, and my living situation is still totally messed up. The good thing is that I did finish the big personal project as planned, thus giving myself the birthday gift I had wanted: having it done and submitted. No news from the receiving end yet, but hopefully soon. I am antsy for the second stage of the project to get moving!

Focus has been totally off for the past few weeks. It was a bit of a weird holiday at first, but now I'm simply tired of this state of things. I can't wait to get back on top of things. I hope that my new living quarters will become liveable by Friday evening, so that I can have a bit of time to unpack at least some of the boxes and make the place at least a bit cozy before I head to the airport on Saturday evening. Guess who is coming to town? ;)

I'm trying to work through some emotional issues. In my head for now, but I hope to transfer my deliberations on to paper (or blog) in the near future. I seem to have tripped on the snare known as 'bad stuff from the past.' In the meantime, here are some joys I had intended to share, but never got around to it.

~~~ CN Tower Stair Climb for WWF in late April

I braved the 1776 steps and did extremely well. Apparently the average time to climb is 30-40 minutes. I was very nervous, but dead set of not exceeding half an hour. Well, I did it in less than 20 minutes and the climb was everything but the dreadful exertion I had expected. Very happy.

~~~ Ohanami, or flower viewing, of the blossoming Japanese Cherry Trees

This is something I had only found out about last year, despite having lived here for a decade. Even though I was in Australia at the time, I was determined to make it this year. I did, and it was gorgeous. Although I have seen blooming cherry trees in the past, I had always treated the display as just one of the phases of spring. This time, I made sure to enjoy and appreciate the beauty.

~~~ Rolling down a grassy hill

A few days after my visit to the see the cherry blossoms, I returned with a friend. Alas, we were too late. The cherry trees were green, not white. We walked on through the park, slightly disappointed but still enjoying ourselves. The footpath took us to the top of a fairly steep slope and my friend remarked how the hill looked just perfect for rolling down. She had barely finished saying that when we noticed a few kids doing just that. We burst out laughing, and... followed suit. It was my first grassy hill roll in a very long time, and a great experience. I must remember to do it again in the future... once in a while, though without waiting two decades!

Send Me Some Sunshine, Send Me A Rainbow

Very very very VERY stressed. Upheaval. Deadlines. Moving. Hopes. Projects. Construction. Dreams. New activities. An upcoming visit. Frustrations. Unstable weather. Laundry. Stressed, stressed, stressed. Crazy wheel. One difficult thing makes another difficult thing yet more difficult, making everything even more difficult in turn.

Where do I start?

I've been working on a personal project since January. It took forever to get all the pieces together, but I finally have them. I am trying to have everything ready by tomorrow, and tiny little complications keep popping up. Logistics.

For various reasons, I'm very behind - drastically behind - with two uni projects. I need to be spending every waking moment on that, but I can't. Logistics.

I was due to move on the 11th. A couple of days earlier, I got told that the new place was not ready and found out that I could not stay longer at my old place because it's been rented out. I decided to camp it out somehow. Just a few days, right? I had my phone and internet service disconnected as planned. Logistics.

It's the 16th, and I'm still sleeping on the floor in my old apartment because the new place is everything but liveable. That state of the matter is unlikely to change any time soon. No clothes, no dishes, no food, no phone, no internet, no table or chair and a whole lot to do. Logistics.

Did I mention logistics? That says it all, so I'll skip the long story.

Perhaps I shouldn't be a rainbow chaser. How can you chase the rainbow if the drama never seems to end? :) The above paragraphs just barely skim the surface of a very complicated story. Good things? Plenty. :) Spring is here. Green leaves, and lily of the valley starting to blossom in the shade. Violets, and blooming cherry trees. Lush green grass. Rolling down a hill with a good friend, laughing out loud and inhaling the gorgeous sweet smell of strawberries. A new yoga course, and a new skating season, and good jumps. Ethiopian, Indian, Korean, Thai, Middle Eastern, Vietnamese, French and Polish food in expedient white takeout boxes. Thunderstorms and smell of freshness in the air. Random tunes playing themselves in my head over and over and over again. May, as in May the month. And never stopping to chase that rainbow.

In Every Peacock's Life

There comes a time

in every peacock's life

when he must consider

the size of his tail,

for the bigger the tail...

These words have been with me constantly over the past few days, primarily because last Sunday, I unexpectedly saw an amazing display of the blue-green plumage in all its glory. Not one, not two, not three, not four, but five Indian Peafowl's and just as many glorious fanned trains.
On a side note, I love Animal Planet and simply love the little 'tidbits'/breakers, like the peacock one. The three yawning lions are the best, though.



Yesterday, I twisted one of my desk lamps so that the light would fall on the wall, thus creating the dispersed 'hue' which I so love. Three small candles complemented the setup, creating indirect brighthness and atmosphere. I loved it. I played a few songs by a strange group known as Budka Suflera, including an old favourite about an old lonely household with its sudden eruption of colour and candlelight and violin and a white lady.
The refrain talks about daylight follows darkness, how tranquility follows a storm. Last night, I played the song simply because I remembered it while browsing old music, remembered that I had it on an old cassette. It didn't seem symbolic then, but perhaps it was.

April was not a good month. I was glad to turn the page of my precious penguin calendar and see the word May.

All the while, I've known what I need to do, but I was not doing it. It was not a happy odyssey. Perhaps it's because the calendar page has been turned, perhaps because it's my favourite month of the year, perhaps because spring is finally truly here, perhaps for some other reason -- but things seem to be looking up. I seem to be seeing little rays of "I want to."

Yesterday I got out of bed and didn't return, I didn't spend 45 minutes in the shower just so I didn't have to deal with the day, and actually felt that it would have been nice to go to work (had I not given the shift away).

Perhaps the past two, three weeks have been the way they have been for a reason. I don't yet know what the reason might have been, but I might just well be on my way to find out.

Earlier today, I did something truly cleansing. Unintentionally.

I will be moving soon, leaving behind a cozy apartment, the big tree in front of my bedroom window and the spacious deck out at the back. What on earth 'inspired' me to move out of a place with a deck right at the beginning of the 'deck enjoyment' season? I will be sailing through treacherous waters and the move might be a mistake, but maybe I will enjoy living there too.

I had not intended to deal with the packing and the boxes until the day before the actual move, but at some point today I found myself emptying the bookshelves and stacking boxes. Some I didn't have to pack, as they have been standing in the corners, untouched since I moved in last September (it's not only the deck that I didn't get to enjoy while living here).

What emerged took my breath away.

Space. Blessed space.

Can't describe it properly, I'm afraid. I despise clutter. Although it seems that sometimes, I need to let it grow, get a life of its own, just so I can enjoy a decluttering spree and once again learn just how much I despise it.

I will be pruning, letting go of a lot of things, cleansing and discarding over the next couple of months. I know it will feel good.

The past couple of weeks have been a lot of things, and one of them was a desperate quest. I fished out my guided meditation CD, mostly to help with sleep (which has been amazingly good recently - which I'm grateful for, though I'm not grateful for the reason why it's been good - which seems to have been avoidance...).

I didn't know that it was a part of the quest. The end of this particular journey seems to be the wish to (decision?) to turn meditation and mindfulness into the way, as opposed to the fix. It also entails discovering what colour I want the inside window frames to be in my dream house (one day, somewhere in time...) and discovering that no matter how appealing it might have seemed at first glance, I actually do not want to follow a certain philosopher's teachings. Nothing wrong with him or his teachings. I just realized that I don't want to follow anyone's teachings but my own.

A friend of mine had this line as her email signature: Everything happens for a reason, for everything there is a season. I am beginning to see the full meaning. It's for a reason that these words had been my own signature for the longest time:

I decided long ago never to live in anyone's shadow
If I fail, if I succeed, at least I lived how I believed

Lastly, I discovered a wonderful blog today. I am looking forward to the read. :)