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3 to 5 pm.

It often took us until 3pm to get down to the beach. The intensity of the day waned. I was restless to touch the ocean.

The hours between 3 and 5 pm near the Nicaraguan ocean are some of my favourite.

We would get into the truck, bump down the rocky road, and pull onto the sand. Sometimes I would walk. The air was just perfect. Warm. Barely clothed, yet still felt wholly wrapped in something. Butterflies often led the way. The monkeys made quiet throaty sounds from high above.

Once there the kids, this time, would mostly just run straight in. This was our fifth time visiting with them. Visits before there was hesitancy and fear at times as just when they got comfortable, a wave would win, or a jellyfish would warn. Those things happened this time, but somehow they all had come to an understanding. My eldest, over the years preceding was leaning towards a bit of anxiety. This was an uneasy puzzle to my husband and I as it wasn’t something familiar to either of us and we didn’t understand it or where it was coming from. In the ocean this year though, she fell back to herself. She played for hours, wanted to keep walking further and further out, yelled at the waves, dove under, jumped through, marched out to show me where the tentacle landed and then ran back in. She was free, she was in control, I could have watched her for hours. I exhaled that bringing her here was doing what I hoped it would.

My youngest, marches to her own music. She is slight. She yearns deeply for love and acceptance and if she senses them out of reach she can twist and turn with grief and without peace. She would have wandered right into the middle of the Pacific I think. There was no consideration of the difference in the size and power of her will and that of the water’s. Yet, she was always the first to tire of the ocean and end up on the sand; completely by herself, with hands and feet and thoughts digging and digging and digging. Every day. There she would be, just digging and murmuring at the ocean’s edge. My instinct was always to go to her – she must be sad being alone over there while we are all out here. But that was never the case. I don’t know what that sand did for her but whenever I walked over there she was light and at utter ease.

Once our needs were met we would eventually wander out and away from the ocean. The girls would find some shade and start a game of some sort together. Scott would resume his book. And I would stay at the water’s edge, spread my towel, in the now mellow sun, and be. I love so many things about our visits to Nicaragua, but for some reason, I can’t get the feeling of this specific time out of my head now.

Lying in the sand. Feet dug into the slightly more firm, cool sand. Hair salty, limbs tanned, lying near naked with no judgement, feeling so equally fully alive and at rest. The ocean and sun and birds there. I would read. Fiction. I would marvel at how the words were written so so long ago but that the author was describing my reality. I would get lost in a character and relate. I would daydream and dream and think and release. I haven’t been able to pick up a book since leaving Nicaragua because I’m struggling to understand how to get lost in one without that feeling of warmth and sensuality on my body and total expanse in my mind.

The sun would eventually just slip low enough and the ocean would calm just the faintest bit and then one of them would walk down to me. Maddy, glistening in sand from each strand of her long, wavy hair down to her completely obscured toe nails, might come down and wonder what I’d like from her restaurant. Isla, thoughtful and emerging and still wanting to be so much like her mother, which I know is fleeting now, which both stirs dread and excitement in me as I know she can, in fact, be so much more, might come down and lay her towel beside mine and just try to absorb what it was I was. Or, Scott might come down. Just come down to see if I had had my fill of me. Sometimes it seems that his entire desire on this earth is to make sure I get my fill of me. I have yet to find the words to give this gesture and pursuit justice. He didn’t care what the answer was when he came down to check, as he could wait.

But it would be time. We would shake off and walk over to our friend’s hut. It would be near 5pm. He would share food and drink with us and we would all share smiles and laughs. We would learn such stories of his family’s life. How can that be? And then we would pack in the truck and bump back home.

Nicaragua, 3 to 5pm.

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Burrito Nirvana.

Step 1. Go to Tacofino and get some of their burrito wraps to use. They sell them in packs of 10. Seriously, go now or don’t bother with the rest. Might as well get a vegan burrito with tempura yam while you are there to fuel your creative juices and understand what we are going to try to achieve here.

Step 2. Make beans and rice however you like, but this works well:

https://www.thespruceeats.com/vegetarian-bean-and-rice-burrito-recipe-3378550

Step 3. Make some yam tempura: use a flax egg instead of a real egg and don’t mess with not keeping it cold when it says to.

https://rasamalaysia.com/tempura-recipe/

Step 4. Have some salsa / hot sauce / chipotle “mayo” / avocado / sprouts close by to stuff in.

Step 5. Wrap it like this. The “sides” first!!!

Enjoy!!

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Marathon thoughts. 2.

My brother.

He is younger, but often growing up I felt he was way ahead. He was an easy athlete. Whatever sport he turned his eye to, he did well. He excelled at all the sports I barely had the guts to try. He was an easy friend. He made many great friends and kept them for years. Crowded rooms were OK. He lacked drama. He just did things: snowboarding, back country skiing, mountain biking, sailing, Ironman, wedding parties, camping, traveling, windsurfing, kite surfing, talking. Things I would love to do in another lifetime.

He was there when my first was born. After her dad, he was the first to hold her. That picture I will hold in my mind’s eye forever. He was genuinely thrilled. For us.

I think he thinks I can do anything. I think he looks up to me, which I often think is bananas. He can make me laugh like very few others. His sense of humour is my jam. His laugh, yup, his laugh, I’m a fan.

He recently went through something big. I thought I knew how to be there for him, but I don’t think I did. I still don’t think I know how. As he moves towards coming to the other side of this, as most do, he is changing. Which of course is both to be expected and applauded, revered really. Yet, what I’ve come to realize is that I’m grieving. Grieving the loss of someone. The someone who was my idea of my brother, my brother I thought I had all figured out. I thought I knew the entirety of him and had a vision of who he’d continue to be. The scruff, the nonchalance, the silly, the ease; all the things that simultaneously could be both endearing and infuriating. That was my brother. Then he started to change, I wasn’t ready. It’s selfish, but it’s true.

This is not the first time this has happened.

So it gets me to thinking, how many of us know and where are our deepest selves? Are we awarded glimpses of it right from the start? Does it change? What is the price of not knowing? When we become lost, how do we find our way back?

I see her most weeks, if not daily. In certain seasons, several times a day. She is sitting there, a little empty, turned in, looking at me for answers. I most certainly never have the answers. She is tired, she is losing her health, she has resigned. We talk about various things: what to eat, what to do. Are you sleeping? Do you get outside? Do you have help? We get no where. And each week she reappears. And each week I wonder if next time I can help. Ultimately, she has lost herself. Her center is closed, snuffed out, a slow ribbon of smoke where a lush valley once was. Nothing will change until she finds her way back. And of course it is much harder to find your way back to a place you’ve never been. I think what I now know is that I can help throw some bread crumbs, but in the end, the steps are hers to make.

I think this happens to most of us in one way or another. I think this is what most of us are chasing. Ourselves. The inside. The way deep inside. The inside that turns us right the fuck on. The part where, if touched, leaves you feeling light, alive, vibrant, ignited. I think you need to touch that spot regularly to thrive. The less you do the harder it is to reach the next time. And when it becomes out of reach we try so hard to replace it, not even knowing that that is our goal: a substance, a person, an act, a taste, an achievement, a thing, a like, an amount. It never works. Or does it?

If I flip through the Polaroids of memories and try to pull out the ones where the fire was glowing neon bright, there are common themes: music, exertion, intimacy, creativity, heat, alchemy, prowess, hard landscapes. But it’s not black and white. I’m not so sure how bright the fire was burning during some of my schooling, but on the other hand, when I walk into a Board room now, people pay attention and my words are heard and I think, just maybe, I can change things. Flame grows. There have been many a long run where I was definitely running away and not towards, but yanking on an oar or covering ground with ease and a deep beat in my head, that’s when the tip of that flame turns a little blue and starts to dance. It’s also not obvious. It took about forty years to find the substances, the pursuits, and the ground that fanned rather than dampened. It’s also not easy. How long did it take to allow another being to reach in, add a little kerosene, and not be afraid of the sparks?

So me, my brother, and her, we are all just the same. We are all just the same. We need the same. We need to feel the glow and the wild of what makes our eyes dance, our pores open, and our insides expand. So when we finally tap into that, I hope you notice it. I hope you make space for us and watch what we can do and then you go ahead and touch that place too.

Grief has a season, I hope mine is over and I can do this for you now, you deserve it. My brother.

xo j

PS. I warned you that was going to be a marathon of thoughts. 😉

PSS. The marathon was great. Consider my fire right the fuck lit.

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Easy meals to get started with.

Have you watched The Game Changers yet? It’s on Netflix, it’s dark and rainy season, what the hell are you waiting for?

Now once you’ve done that, and you are pumped, then here are a few easier meals to try.

Also, never underestimate the simple stir fry / bowl. Cook up some quinoa (1 cup dry for a family should do) and put that on the bottom of your bowl. Stir fry your favourite veggies in a bit of healthy oil (think kale, variety of mushrooms, zucchini, onions, pepper) and throw some/a ton of those on top. To make it a bit heartier you can add some tofu. To win the skeptics over opt for some smoked tofu, dice it into cubes, throw it into a little bit of oil on the stove and lightly fry it, and throw that on top. If you are a sauce person then try: lemon tahini, peanut sauce, or miso sauce etc.