Early this past spring, Jim and I were invited to join my brother, Daniel, and his partner, Victoria, on their cycling trip to Scotland.  At the time of invitation, we had no idea whether we would go or not.  We had known they had been planning this trip for several years and we had known the trip was to occur in September of this year.  We simply had not known or even considered, that an invitation would be offered to us.

For some reason we had trouble making the decision of whether to accept the invitation or not.  (Read my earlier blog on this here)

The key issues for us were threefold; did we want to go to Scotland, a country that was not on our imagined Life List; did we have the money in our budget; was Jim’s heart up for a week long ‘moderately difficult’ cycling adventure?

Jim and I talked it over, put the decision aside, took it out again, re-examined it and finally said, “We’d love to!”  The truth was, of the three issues guiding our decision, we really hadn’t been able to give an unequivocal ‘yes’ to any of them.  Scotland wasn’t on our list so we had no idea if we wanted to go, we did not have a secret stash of money set aside for such an adventure and cycling would more than tax Jim’s heart.

The carefully weighed three factors influencing our decision turned out not to be the spark that lit the ‘yes’ fire under us after all.

Four years earlier, in September of 2014, Victoria’s dad, Bob, had embarked upon this identical trip.  Solo.  Eight months earlier, Victoria’s mother had died and in the ensuing months Bob spent a lot of time with Daniel and Victoria, hiking, biking, horseback riding and snowshoeing.  For our part, we simply set one more place at the table and included him in all our family events.

Unknown to anyone, Bob had undiagnosed heart issues and he died suddenly while on the second day of his cycling trip in Scotland.  Victoria wanted to finish the trip for her dad, hence the September 2018 bike trip.  She wanted us along because of our relationship with her Dad.

And this was how we found ourselves cycling along some very narrow roads through the breathtaking Highlands of Scotland last week.

As it is with so many things in life, what starts out for one reason, often continues for others.  So it was with this trip.

Each of us thought we were completing the trip for Bob.  We were to follow his exact route and we hoped to find the place where his journey had ended, and then to continue on to complete the trip.  We had a picture from his cell phone, the last picture he took, that showed him in front of a distinctive sign.  We also had the police report describing the location – on the corner near the farm of ….  We also knew his time of death.  With this information in hand we set out on Day Two of the trip like amateur detectives with somewhat nervous hearts.  Jim’s role was that of navigator, Daniel was support person and I was simply bearing witness.

After about two hours of cycling we came to the sign from the pictures.  There was no question we were getting closer.  We stopped and thought about Bob here and imagined how his adventure had been going.  Once we started cycling again, we climbed a short hill and noticed the road bearing to the right.  Immediately after the curve was the farm described in the police report.  Clearly Bob had taken his final picture, one of him smiling with pleasure, only minutes before his death.

In her imagination, Victoria had a vision of her Dad in a ditch. Nothing could have been farther from the truth.  The little corner where he died was absolutely stunningly beautiful.  There was a wide gravel shoulder, there were two large shade trees and the view overlooked a lush green meadow, dotted with sheep.  There was such a feeling of peace here that we got off our bikes and stood in silence.

Tears soon followed as we remembered Bob together, gave thanks that we were travelling together and that we felt peaceful. 

Victoria let us know when she was ready to move on.  She told us that she was perfectly content and that even if we did not finish the trip, she would feel the journey was complete for her.  It turned out that the journey was not at all about finishing the proposed trip, but rather about finding peace in her Dad’s untimely death.

Each one of us is travelling a journey, many journeys in fact, in life.  We all travel the journey from life to death, but within that we travel many, many smaller journeys too.  Some last only moments, some days and some years.  Some of our journeys are exciting ones; new jobs, new babies, challenging projects, and cycling holidays.  Some of our journeys are difficult ones; navigating cancer, grief, lost dreams and disappointments.

Each of us need good travelling companions as we journey.  We need people to walk with us as we journey.  We need people to read the map and navigate the tough spots when we cannot do it ourselves.  We need support systems and we need witnesses.  At the same time, we also realize that others need these same things from us.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What role am I playing in this journey?’
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Elizabeth creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups.  Contact Elizabeth to learn how to be your best self as you travel your most important journey of all; the journey of your life.
 

This summer and fall Jim has been working on one of his passions; birding.  Not watching, although he does love that too, not feeding, although he loves to watch the little ones feed at the feeder, but banding.  He’s working on his certification to become an official bird bander.  In another life he should have been a biologist, or a forest ranger or something that involves nature.

Over the winter on any given Friday, he and his friend Daryl could be found in our garage, dust masks in place, sawing up wood to make bird boxes, bat houses and bee houses.  This was part of a project for the Priddis Greens Golf Course who holds status as an Audubon certified golf course, and who needed an upgrade for their bird houses.  The particular birds being attracted there were the Mountain Bluebird (with my new knowledge of the four-letter identification system used, I’m guessing these are the MOBB – I could be wrong but it sure sounds good!)

If you have never seen a Mountain Bluebird (MOBB), you’re missing out.  (I’ve just been told the official four-letter ID code is MOBL – I still prefer MOBB!) Their beautiful bright blue-turquoise feathers are unparalleled in beauty.  They are a medium-sized bird, between the size of a chickadee (BCCH) and a robin (ARBN).  We loved watching for them when we lived on our acreage for they heralded the coming of spring.  Now living in the city, we see less of them since they stick to the Bluebird trail, out of the urban areas.  The Priddis Greens Golf Course happens to be situated on Bluebird habitat, so they were interested in encouraging these little beauties to come to nest on the course.  And so, it came to be that the construction project in the garage took flight.

When spring came, the boxes were mounted just before the arrival of the birds and Jim and Daryl were thrilled that out of 75 boxes put up, almost 50 were inhabited in this first year.  And as it so often happens in life, what starts out as one thing, soon becomes another.  Once the bluebirds arrived, the boys knew they needed a system to keep track of them.   In the early weeks, they went out to the course, clip board in hand and recorded the number of babies in each box. 
A few weeks later, before the babies were ready to leave the nest, Jim went out with an official Mountain Bluebird bander, Don, to learn the official ropes.  Jim loved his day and voila, a new passion was born. 

Before long, the clipboard was replaced with a spreadsheet, the circle of banders was increased to include more friends and new banders at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary in Calgary.  Jim managed to land himself a volunteer position at the Sanctuary, where once a week, he stole out of bed before five o’clock so he could continue to understand the art of banding.  Each week he arrived home excited to share his new knowledge.

Apparently, to catch the birds, the sanctuary uses something called mist nets.  Think of them as very fine badminton nets.  Birds of all species fly into, and become temporarily trapped in the nets.  Jim and the master bander, Steve, head out to the nets, and one by one they gently remove the little birds from it, and drop them into individual, clean, cotton, draw-string bags.   Surprisingly, the little (and big) birds are not stressed by this. 

Once in the bags, the birds are taken to the banding table where they are identified, examined for health and age, measured, banded and released.  Jim is amazed at the way the birds simply lay back and allow the process to unfold.  Needless to say, the incredible experience of the master handler plays a big part in this.

This whole idea of entanglement, examination and release got me thinking about life.  How often in life do we get tangled up?  We find ourselves in situations that make us feel trapped, afraid and unsure how to move forward.  Often, we are unable to see our own pattern of behaviour that lands us in the same position over and over again.

If only we could take a deep breath, become more master bird-bander-like and use the opportunity for simple observation.   What if we could look at our mess of tangles as a scientist might; with an eye for looking at data without adding all the judgements that could accompany it.  What if we could sit quietly and think about, perhaps even keep notes about, what got us to where we are, how often we find ourselves in a similar situation, how we even build our own nets that trap us, and what we might do differently to avoid finding ourselves there again.  And then what if we could simply set ourselves free?  I’m thinking our four-letter code might become NTGL and a five-letter code might be PEACE.
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My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What does untangled look like for me?’

Elizabeth is a life and leadership coach in Calgary, AB.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups and she creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you or your organization to figure out to stop tangling yourself in your own nets.

What a crazy week it’s been.  In the news, Colin Kaepernick, who I wrote about in an earlier blog, Too Good to Be True?  was revealed as Nike’s newest secret weapon in their newest advertising campaign, and in my little corner of the world, I completed my first ever bike race, the Sea-to-Sky Gran Fondo, a 122km race from Stanley Park in Vancouver to Whistler, British Columbia.

I’ve been preparing for this race since last Thanksgiving when the idea was hatched at the dinner table over turkey and pumpkin pie.  Step one of my training was simply uttering the words ‘I’m in!’.  Knowing full well that bike racing is very different from the road racing (running) I’ve been doing for years, I realized I had a learning curve ahead of me.

My winter training looked a lot like it normally would have. I rode the stationary bike, kept up with yoga, strength training and dance and threw in a few runs for good measure.  With spring refusing to commit this year, it was May before I was able to get my road bike out and dusted off.  My first ride was not pretty.  I did not feel strong, I did not feel confident and I wasn’t sure what a training program should even look like.  The only thing I had to draw on was marathon training.  This, I knew, involved a long run every week, and other shorter runs in between.  With nothing else to guide me, I decided to apply this same strategy to biking. 

Recognizing my lack of confidence, I wondered if having a training partner might help.  Scrolling through the rolodex of my family and friends in mind, I thought of my friend Rhonda.  We had never done any training for anything together.  But I knew she had a bike; she and I had completed one ride together earlier in the year; a 17km ride around the Glenmore Reservoir, followed by a stop at a coffee shop. 

I agonized about whether to ask her.  Most people think these endurance adventures of mine are crazy.  I know this because they tell me.  I wondered what Rhonda would think.  She had been on a few adventures of her own, but not on a bike race.  Back and forth I went in my mind.  My saboteur was having a ball with this one.  Finally, I sent her a text, telling her what I was doing and asking if she would like to join me in a ride once each week to help me train.

Rhonda’s response was quick and sure. ‘Yes!’, was her reply.  Only later would she confess that when I mentioned that we would start ‘short’, perhaps a 60km ride, she began to wonder what she had signed up for.  Sixty turned to seventy.  Seventy to eighty.  Eighty to ninety.  Ninety turned to a double summit of the Highwood Pass.

We clicked right away.  Our riding compatibility just worked.  After a few weeks I dared to suggest that since Rhonda was doing all the same training as me, she might consider registering for the race too.  This time her response was less quick.  I suppose I wasn’t using my saboteur as much by then so she had started paying rent in Rhonda’s head.  It took a few weeks, but eventually the response came, ‘I’m in!’

Many times, as we trained, we wondered if we were crazy.  Neither of us slept well on Monday nights, anticipating our early morning Tuesday rides.  The mountains at Whistler, already big in real life, grew in our minds.

This past week, on September 8th, our big day arrived. We lined up in Stanley Park, in the dark, with Vancouver’s beautiful skyline at our back, along with some 4700 other riders.  The rain clouds loomed and we debated, ‘Rain coats on or off?’, ‘Full gloves or half?’, ‘Foot booties or not?’, ‘Crazy or not?’

The race couldn’t get started quickly enough for me.  As usual, I felt the sting of tears as O Canada was sung pre-race.  And then, finally, we were off.  For seven hours we pounded up those mountains, through cloud, and rain, and cold and even a flash of sunlight.  We stopped at aid stations for fuel and to wait for slower members of our little group.  We laughed as we passed the ‘Bacon Station’, where, you guessed it, they were grilling and handing out bacon!  With one kilometer to go, Rhonda and I waited on the side of the road for the rest of our group to join us so we could cross the finish line together.  I smiled the whole way.

In Colin Kaepernick’s Nike video, he says, ‘Don’t ask if your dreams are crazy.  Ask if they are crazy enough.’  When he first took a knee two years ago, Colin Kaepernick likely wondered if he was crazy.  He also likely could not have imagined what his ‘crazy’ would bring to his life.

This line from the ad kept running through my head as I rode.  I know I am doing things that are just crazy enough when I feel alive doing them. I felt alive when we first talked about this race last Thanksgiving.  I felt alive when first invited Rhonda to join me.  At that time, I could not imagine everything that invitation would bring to my life; a wonderful training partner, an incredible friend, a dream-sharer.  And I felt VERY alive last Saturday.

In any good life there needs to be some crazy; something that makes us feel alive.  It will be different for each of us.  For some it will mean taking a course, for others it means leaving or staying in a job or a relationship.  Some will find crazy in a new hobby or skill.  Each of us knows what is crazy for us. 

My friend, Chad, and his sister Carena, just finished the seven-day, Trans Alpine Run across the alps through Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy.  Crazy?  Maybe.  But I’m looking into it.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What is ‘Crazy for You?’
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Elizabeth is a life and leadership coach in Calgary, AB.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups and she creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you or your organization figure out how to bring the right kind of crazy into your life.

My sister, Mary, was taking a course in Moncton, New Brunswick in August and she tacked on a few extra days to head to Sussex to visit with our cousins and only living Uncle and Aunt who live there.  Uncle Roy is my Dad’s brother.  He is the youngest of four children.  His six children, our cousins, hold such a special place in our hearts and in our book of childhood memories.

When we were kids, as the end of the school year approached and summer was almost in reach, the excitement in our house would begin to mount.  We knew we would be going to ‘The Farm’ for our holiday.  At the time I believed we were rich beyond belief.  None of my friends went on a driving trip, pulling a homemade tent trailer.  None of my friends had been to New Brunswick.  None of my friends got to help milk cows, and put in hay, ‘go out over the hill’, and even sleep in a hay loft.  None of my friends went to The Farm.  Uncle Roy and Aunt Muriel’s farm.

It didn’t matter that I, and several of my siblings were extremely motion sick and spent most of the three-day car journey in a less than glamourous state.  It didn’t matter at all.  What mattered was that the journey took us to our beloved cousins and their home, The Farm.  The Farm was a dairy farm as were many of the farms in Kings County, located just outside of Sussex, along the Kennebecasis River.  When you operate a large dairy farm, you don’t get to go on holidays away from the farm.  Cows need milking morning and night and this ritual keeps a dairy farmer firmly tied to the farm.  To us as kids, this of course, was all part of the intrigue.  It seemed as though our cousins lived such a glamourous, adventure-filled life and we just could not wait to be a part of it.

Our days on The Farm were full.  We loved being able to join in with the work.  Getting up early to go to the barn for milking was magical.  Finding new-born kittens in the hay loft felt like a far better ‘attraction’ than any we might have found in Disneyworld.  Our days were full of farm chores, fresh air and freedom.  Our evenings were spent building forts ‘out over the hill’, playing baseball, coming up with pranks and singing together in the kitchen.  It was magical.

We had six cousins on the farm and two more just on the other side of Great Uncle Frank’s house.  Our grandparents lived there too.  We too had six kids in our family at that time.  We loved that we were exactly the opposite of Uncle Roy’s six kids.  Their order was three boys, followed by a girl, boy, girl.  We were three girls followed by a boy, girl, boy.  Somehow that made us feel even closer.  We usually only stayed on The Farm for about ten days but by the time our holiday there ended, there was crying and grief of the deepest kind.  Each year we vowed to write letters to keep in touch.  As the months of each year went on, the letters dwindled but the memories did not.

You can imagine my shock then, the first night Mary arrived at The Farm for her weekend visit in August when her text arrived, ‘THE FARM IS SOLD!!!!’. 

This shouldn’t have been a shock.  We knew my cousin Terry and his wife Marcia, who took over the farm from Uncle Roy and Aunt Murial years ago, had put the farm up for sale quite some time ago.  But a big, now very modern dairy farm does not sell over night.  So, when one year and then another went by without a buyer, I put it out of my mind.  Even last year, when Jim and I stopped in for our visit during our Canada 150 Tour, knowing the farm was for sale didn’t mean I really believed it would sell.

The truth is, in the last forty years, I’ve only been back to The Farm three times.  That is, in person.  In my mind, I’m a regular visitor there.

For me, The Farm was so much more than just a place to go for a holiday.  The Farm grounded me, and all who went there.  On The Farm, however we showed up was absolutely perfect.  No judgements were ever made and no expectations were put upon us.  Oh, we had to tow the line and follow the rules but never did we believe that we were not enough just how we were.  It was a place of incredible acceptance.  It was a place I felt I could be myself at my best.  It was a place I learned about nature and about the natural cycles of life.  It was a place I found great peace.  And it was one of the few places where after our mother died when I was just ten, I continued to feel ‘seen’.

When Jim and I got married and talked about our dreams for how our life would be, I wanted us to create a home that had a feeling like The Farm.  I wanted people to feel welcome and accepted in our home.  I wanted dreams to thrive in our home.  Jim had not been to The Farm; he had not met my East Coast relatives.  It took us fifteen years to save the money to take our children there when they were eight and ten years old.  It was well worth the wait.  Jim fell in love with it and with my cousins and aunt and uncle just like I knew he would.  I think his favourite part of our visit to the East last year was standing in Terry’s newest barn in fascination, watching the robots milk the cows.  In my mind, my Grampy was sitting on his little milk stool doing the same.

I’m guessing that my heart will eventually catch up to my mind on the selling of The Farm.  It really is time.  It is part of the life cycle of this place. Once I’m done feeling sorry for myself, I know I’ll have an abundance of gratitude and comfort knowing the memories I have of this place have helped make me who I am, have helped create the home I live in, and have given me confidence to believe that I am enough.  That’s a pretty good harvest from one Farm.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘Where is The Farm in my life?’
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Elizabeth is a life and leadership coach in Calgary, AB.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups and she creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you or your organization to figure out how to bring The Farm to your table.

It’s been another sad week for the world.  The news has been filled with stories about the life and service of Senator John McCain from Arizona, who died on Saturday, August 25th.  It isn’t often that a Senator invokes such an outpouring of love and grief upon their death; clearly Senator McCain was a special man.

As I’ve listened to and read many accountings of stories from his life, from his time in the military, to his capture and holding as a POW, to his release, to his service in politics, to his family life, the thing that is so interesting is the steadfastness with which he travelled his time on this earth.  As people who knew this man well, and some who knew him not as well offer their memories of him, each story sounds the same.  The setting and the characters are different of course, but the theme is always exactly the same.  Anyone who seemed to interact with this man, in the spotlight, behind closed doors or in the quiet of his own home, discovered they were always dealing with the same man.  He did not seem to be one person in one setting and then become someone different in another.  He was consistently himself.  As far as I can tell, that meant he was someone who was honest, kind, who put country before politics, and who believed that service to something bigger than himself was what gave his life meaning.

It’s very easy to write these words. It’s very easy to think that I could aspire to this standard.  In reality, he made it look much easier than the rest of us find it to be.

Times like this give us pause.  For those of us who are introspective, it is times like the death of someone who is greatly admired that cause us to wonder, even if only for a brief moment, what our enduring legacy will be.

I can never be a John McCain.  I’m relieved to know this.  It is far too much pressure to try to be someone else.  Goodness knows, I have trouble enough being myself some days.

As I’ve thought about Senator McCain this week, I’ve pictured people going to see him for the past sixty or so years.  Some may have been seeing him in his place of work.  Some may have seen him at public events.  Some at family events.  Some may even have seen him in regular everyday activities.   What people seem to have been saying is that no matter where they saw or interacted with this man, they always knew what they would get.  They would get the exact same person every time.  What a comfort this is.

It made me think of times when I have gone to see some incredible wonder of our world.  How disappointed I would have been if when I had seen the Rocky Mountains for the first time, they had decided to be less majestic.  Or if when I had gone to Niagara Falls, they had decided to back off on their force.  Or what if the elephants and giraffes had all chosen to lie down on the plains of the Maasii Mara when we had our safari there.  Or if the sand on Bondi Beach had decided to turn grey when we walked that shore.

Recognizing that each of my examples involve non-humans, the idea remains.  We long for things to be exactly how we know they are at their best.  This holds true for humans.  This was true for John McCain and it sounds, by all accounts, as though people were not disappointed.  This too holds true for each of us.  When others choose to spend time in our presence, they long for us to be exactly how they are hoping we will be; they long for us to be at our best.

The question becomes then, what does it mean to be at my best?  It does not mean to become like John McCain, although that would not be a bad thing.  It does not mean that I can never have a bad or weak moment. It does not mean I cannot be disappointed or hurt or in grief.  It does not mean that each seminar, workshop, client appointment, and meal I create must be a work of art.  It does not mean that each bike ride or run I go on must be better than the one before.  It does not mean I need to smile when I am sad, or be the life of the party when I am weary.

It does mean I have a responsibility to myself, to figure out what makes up my character, and to act with integrity to align to that minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day.  Our character is something we chose.  It is not gifted to us, nor can it be taken away.

I have a fairly good understanding of what I want my character to be made up of.  I strive to live with integrity, to hold an open mind, to learn to be less fearful of things that are unfamiliar, to have a loving and welcome home, to encourage others in their pursuits, to be a good friend, sister, daughter, mother, grandmother and partner, to be a contributor, to add to society and to continue to challenge myself.  I hope others find acceptance in my presence.  I also strive to recognize my shortfalls, apologize when I notice it is needed and to find joy in all places in my life.

I hope I never get there. It would be such a disappointment to wake up some day and think that I have become as good as I can be.  I think if John McCain had been given another ten years on this earth, he would have continued to have put himself in situations that challenged his character; I also believe he would have found ten more years worth of ways to make his character shine through.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What part of my character am I revealing?’
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Elizabeth is a life and leadership coach in Calgary, AB.  She provides leadership coaching for individuals and groups and she creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you or your organization to figure out how what character you hope to be known for.