Ontario, Not so On-terrible

So, finding myself at an internet location is not so frequent as I would have supposed – little in the world of updating has been happening. Since my travels through the Midwest I stopped at my sister Jane’s home in western Ontario and enjoyed time with her and her family (however the camera was forgotten in my pack so no photos). From there I traveled east through highway re-construction projects to Central Ontario to connect with my other sister, Corry, and her brood. I’m struck by the way my brain has unloaded my memory of maps and highway systems of Ontario – I spent more than a dozen years living in different parts of Ontario and I still get lost making my way through communities across the province. To be sure, a map of Canada purchased in Colorado does little to help me make my way from one place to another! There is probably deeper meaning here somewhere.

Time with Corry morphed into a roadtrip to the Algonquin Park area of Ontario to visit with my girlfriend, Sue, from high school. Sue and her husband have purchased an “off the grid” waterfront property north of Huntsville which is beautifully quiet, treed, and private. The glamour girl I knew in high school has grown into a still-beautiful mother with a genuine appreciation for Nature. Swimming in the lake and listening to the loons from my tent helped me quiet my anxiety and frenetic activity and further clarified my yearning to be near more water and fewer people. Sue’s memory of our teenage years together afforded me the chance to integrate parts of my story I failed to know were still hanging out with slivers and fractures.

I have now landed for a few days in Peterborough, Ontario where I completed my undergrad degree at Trent University almost 15 years ago (how can this be?). My lovely niece, Alex, is walking a similar road to her namesake uncle and gypsy aunt as she enters her 4th and final year at Trent, though probably with greater centeredness and clarity of spirit than the previous generation. My mother has recently moved from her seaside home in Nova Scotia to also land in Peterborough. She wishes to enjoy the experience of community from a cityscape, abundant with people and opportunities – it is a delightful twist of fate that the two of us are moving in opposite directions simultaneously and able to meet in the middle and feel connection.

A couple of days ago mom and I drove to my Uncle Jack’s home near Alliston, Ontario for lunch and a visit. This time with my mom, my uncle, his wife Melody, and my cousin Leslie was a miracle for me. I had not seen Jack in over 11 years and I acknowledge that I was afraid of what he would think about my “flakey” life including my short marriage, subsequent divorce, unsecured career, and the current “magical mystery tour” I am choosing. I suppose he became a projection of my own inner-critic message that a nearly 39 year old woman should be more rooted and centered in her life. Instead, what I felt being around my uncle was not judgment but rather love and acceptance. I felt courage stir in me to be more authentic with him rather than guarded and I shared with him how he has always been such a significant force in my life – even through long periods of separation and distance. In many ways, he inspired me in my youth towards material and professional success but this has since evolved into a desire to live authentically, on my own terms. This is what I have learned from him.

I still don’t know where I am heading, I don’t even know where I will be this weekend coming. Somehow this seems like the point – to surrender my thoughts and plans of the future for a deeper connection to the intelligence of Life as experienced through the messages around me and listening also to the wisdom of my body. Staying in this moment and trusting that I will land where I need to. I would not have known that visiting family and friends along the way would have afforded me the opportunity to revisit some ghosts from the past. Connecting with these ghosts has provided me with some pieces of my personal puzzle, insights into moving forward with integrity and faith.