Love – Page 14 – Rant and Roll

Putting in a little elbow grease

OH MY GOD KEN!

SOMEBODY JUST CALLED!

…

Please play this song as you read this post because I am utterly obsessed and listen to it constantly and I like to pretend that as I walk about town that it’s the soundtrack to my life and we’re just at the mid-way point montage and everyone is like – WILL SHE MAKE IT?

And the answer is YES! YES SHE WILL!

Dear readers.

What adventures have you encountered of late and which hearts have grown five sizes from the lips of new kisses and which faces have been warmed from this bright sun’s wide strong rays and which eyes seem ever the brighter from a clear sky that looks to float just out of arms reach, and yet touches everything with the softest of fingertips so that we might all blush the lightest blue?

Regale us with your stories.

Because of late everything is so beautiful.

On Saturday morning I woke up at six, pulled my legs out of bed and ran seventeen kilometers. The early morning air was cool enough to keep me going, but I cannot say that the heat did not creep.

Because the heat always creeps.

Afterwards, I arrived home, showered and then hopped on my bike.

It’s been over a year since I last rode atop my noble steed. My “champagne green” beauty of a cheapskates find that I love because once I get into that saddle I forget all pretense of “taking it easy” and just GO GO GO.

Biking is funny to me because I never think of it as exercise because I am utterly committed to “looking cute” any time I do it.

I will never, ever ride a bike in running shoes.

I would rather be strung up from my (non-running shoed) toes.

And yet I will never go slow.

I am a study in contrasts.

And sillyness.

I biked to the Big Sisters BBQ and then back, a journey which totaled another twenty kilometers in the searing mid-day heat of a long and magnificent Vancouver summer day.

Once home I took a few minutes to sit.

The next day I biked from News Westminster to Kits Beach.

And then from Kits Beach back home.

This too is pretty far – about 56 kilometers.

Coming back, the sun was slowly sinking back from whence it came (Godzilla’s guest bedroom?) and the breeze kicked up and everything felt aglow with the possibility of a summer, and Sunday nights and family dinners, and young romances, and new friendships, and everything was heightened by the butterflies that fluttered about my stomach because I truly believed that anything and everything is possible and so very likely to happen.

Arriving home at nine, sweaty and salty and sand-touched and sun-kissed, I ate all of the Greek yogurt and blueberries that one famished and helmet-haired gal could manage.

I am also a master of disguise.

On Friday night we ate a lot of nachos.

On Saturday I watched Old Boy.

OH(LD) BOY.

I need to start investing in some iron clad undies because goodness knows I really don’t sufficiently gird my loins when taking a chance on more, shall we say, non-traditional cinema.

As perfectly summed up in a text message between myself and the friend with whom I watched the film:

ME: You had sex with your daughter and then you cut your tongue out?!>! O________________o

HIM: I hope no one reads my phone now.

ME: HAHAHAHAHA. Good point.

I am learning to see.

See so many things.

“Oh, what strange wonderful clocks women are. They nest in Time. They make the flesh that holds fast and binds eternity. They live inside the gift, know power, accept, and need not mention it. Why speak of time when you are Time, and shape the universal moments, as they pass, into warmth and action?” – Ray Bradbury

Enjoy these long, eternity-tinged days.

For you and they are filled with magic.

Sometimes fabricated, always real

For almost two straight years I wrote faithfully here at Rant and Roll.

Without exception, I published posts on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (and often Tuesdays and Saturdays, depending on when extra inspiration would strike.)

Nowadays, it’s less that I am uninspired to write (in fact I find myself reaching for my laptop more often than not – what with the unending stream of ideas percolating away inside of my brain. Sometimes I actually imagine these conceptions as small nuggets of gold, and my mind as one giant, ever swirl-swirl-swirling miner’s pan.)

It’s just that, I just can’t seem to keep track of days, hours, space, and time – let alone said nuggets.

Flip open my computer on any given day and you will find three or four half-finished posts (as well as three or four half-read Grantland, Jezebel, and Deadspin articles.)

There may even be a Youtube video or two for your viewing pleasure.

So where does that leave me? Where does that leave us?

Pretty much at the same place where I have been treading water for the last six or so odd months.

You see, I just don’t ever remember life being quite this bonkers – always barmy yes, but never to the extent where I feel as though days are simply slipping between the crooks of my fingers and the dips of my toes.

But the crazy thing is (and the big difference from six months ago), is that I don’t feel scared or upset by this.

(At least not anymore.)

Because these days, the warm weather, and fantastic runs, and fabulous friends, and fantastical reads – and all the other magical magic that make up this incandescent, resplendent, and transcendent life of mine – make me want to cut each day up into one million of the finest fragments and carefully sew each one into a soft and sinuous blanket that I may wrap myself in for all of the ages.

And they make me want to share it all with you.

Whenever,wherever the time may be.

Some things.

Sugar (da da da da da daaaaa)

I haven’t eaten junk food in six days.

That is six more days than my previous longest record.

Prior to this almost-week, I am fairly confident that had I ever been the subject of a medical autopsy (as opposed to all of those recreational autopsies), the corner performing the operation (always Dana Scully in my imaginaiton) would have found my corpse to be comprised of 1/3 Rogers product.

However, in a bid to curb my anxiety, up my health-quotient, improve my running (just in case I ever decided to full-on try that competitive racing thing), decrease my chance of familial-susceptible diseases, and just in general TRY SOMETHING NEW – here I am.

The ex-chocolate bar queen.

And you know what?

It’s been the absolute best six days of life.

(It would seem as though in a bid to replace my discarded crown, I am now the queen of excessive use of hyperbole.)

Marc and I have been cooking amazing dinners, eating the delicious produce grown from our very own backyard, and taking the time to sit outside and enjoy our meals.

I cannot quite explain to you how nice it is to bide my time and prepare a delicious and nutritious dish, instead of eating seven oreos and then complaining about how much my stomach hurts, and then dreading the task of forcing a few bites of a meal down my throat (only to be starving three hours later and repeat the first step which would then ensure a redux of the hurt tummy blahs.)

I think this renaissance (can it be a renaissance if you never remember living the process a first time around?) will be one I stick with.

She was looking pretty beat.

A post-Tough Mudder snap:

On the plus side, I carried my 180 lbs partner 100 meters and was the fifth woman to finish the course.

On the downside:

and

Old friends.

Revisiting this genius:

So if Bradbury is my all-time favourite author of life, Heinlein is definitely in my top-20. The dude can not only write, but sweet mother of pearl does he ever make you think.

He may not make me quake, and cry, and shake, an die like ol’ Ray, but Bobby A too has a few tricks and treats up his sleeve.

Dance break.

About a boy.

Look at this dude.

HE IS SO CUTE I CANNOT EVEN.

This August will mark eleven years that I have had this brilliant, bonkers man in my life.

That is like – more than one third of my life.

(That is like, MORE THAN A LONG TIME OF MY LIFE.)

How do you even spend that much time with someone and now bludgeon them to death with a pineapple one morning over brunch?

I have no idea.

Good thing we never eat brunch.

Anywho, he’s just such a marvellous person who makes my silly little heart smile all the time, and sometimes I feel like a broken record just waxing eloquent all the live-long day about all of the full-stop brilliant things he is doing with his life, but I don’t care because he is a difference maker and world builder and all of his energy and brilliance shines light into the lives of his many students, and his words, and deeds, and thoughts and passions impact so, so many who come up to him and say “thank you thank you” and those who may not even know it, but who will wake up one morning, on a sun-drenched Thursday morn, and just think to themselves, “wow.”

Because that is what I do.

Everyday.

This one goes out to the one I love

Look at these damn crazy kids!

Oh, my heart.

Dance, magic dance

I just spent the last half an hour or so watching highland dancing videos on Youtube.

You should probably do this too because, for lack of a more eloquent descriptor, THEY ARE AWESOME.

I love watching these videos because they totally jazz me up, and I remember the good old (olden) days when I too used to be a highland dancer.

No joke.

From the ages of five to twelve, I flinged, reeled, and jigged with the best of them.

And I loved it, truly.

In so many areas of my life, my passion for dance bled through: Instead of walking places, I just danced. Sitting at the computer, I would curl my feet up into tight points, always trying to strengthen my arches, and I would hum different bagpipe tunes under my breath while I wrote tests.

More than anything, I really wanted to be Canadian champion, and more than that I really, really wanted to get married in my National costume.

A little highland dance background:

National costumes are different from Highland costumes (Highland being the “traditional” outfits that will most likely spring to mind when you think about highland dancing.)

National outfits instead are much softer and, in traditional terms, much more “feminine.”

This makes a lot of sense when you think about how the dances you complete in the Highland outfit are the Fling, Sword Dance, Seann Truibhas, and the Reel, whereas the dances associated with the National costume are the Blue Bonnets, Lilt, and Flora Macdonald.

Not exactly hard core stuff.

I highly doubt any Englishman felt a quake or two in his boots upon espying a bunch of bonny lasses, heel-toeing about to the Blue Bonnets Over the Border.

The Sword Dance on the other hand?

There’s no way in heck you’d want to mess with the crazies jumping about on top of multiple, sharp sabres.

Anywho, highland dancing was my total jam pretty much all through out elementary school. I even spent two weeks away from home after the summer of grade four at a dance camp in Red Deer, Alberta.

I stayed in the college dorms all by myself, ate at the school’s cafeteria (I had a punch card that let me know how much money I had left on my tab!) and signed up for different activities through my dorm mother and dance lead (the oldest girl in my training class.)

Every morning I would put my hair in a bun, put on my tights and leotard, and walk across the campus to class.

I don’t know if to this day I’ve ever felt as grown up, mature, and accomplished as I did at eleven during those two weeks.

The pièce de résistance was when a young piper asked me out the night that we went to the carnival. (What was this, Dawson’s Creek!?)

I mean, the guy couldn’t have been older than thirteen, but this basically exploded my on-the-cusp-pubescent mind.

A BOY LIKES ME AND IS ASKING ME OUT.

CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT GUYS.

I didn’t think things could get any more epic until the last night of the camp: all the dancers participated in a big gala, and we all performed the group dances we had been practicing over the length of the camp.

(I loved my group’s dance SO much that I practiced it every day for the rest of the summer.)

At the end of the evening, they announced the dancer who had won the scholarship to return following year’s camp, free of charge. The winner would also receive free accommodation, food, and receive a small living allowance over the course of the camp.

And would you believe it?

They announced little old me as the winner!

I was so shocked I didn’t really know what to do, so I kind of just continued sitting there, smiling like the pint-sized loon that I was.

I remember two older girls sitting behind me said something like, “Way to go Vanessa! You totally deserve it!” They then kind of pulled me out of my chair and pushed me towards the stage.

It was such an unbelievably happy moment for me walking up there to receive my certificate. I had just spent two weeks doing something I loved more than anything in the world, with a new group of friends, in a setting where I felt incredibly grown up.

Over the years I have definitely enjoyed other similar moments – different iterations of that pure joy and incredulity – but this one was definitely my first.

And watching these amazing videos is a great reminder of the brilliance of that feeling.

I hope so much that you too have a similar memory.

And if you do, take a moment and just sit back.

And press play.

No post on Sundays!!

On this Oscar Sunday, to celebrate all things cinematic, I made this:

It’s not over!

IT’S NEVER GONNA BE OVER!

…

(Man I never even watched this movie, yet this exchange has been making Marc and I laugh like loons for years! At the time of its release, he was working as a projectionist at one of our local theatres and according to him, he’s seen the film as many times as Ryan Gosling, “wrote those goddamn letters.”)

I DIE.

Happy Sunday all!