Hello, Inspiration Archives

Hello, Inspiration {1}: Beauty Shots

January 4, 2015 by Farewell Stranger ·

I looked at my WordPress year in review and it told me I had 30 new posts in 2014. Thirty. 30. That seemed a ridiculously low number to me until I realized it was less than one a week and then, frankly, it seemed high. I really didn’t write a lot last year.

I’ve sort of lost my writing mojo. I started feeling vulnerable for reasons I haven’t fully determined (or perhaps have chosen not to fully explore). I would start to write a post in my head and not get past the first sentence. First paragraph, sometimes, but mostly the words just never came together. I wrote a lot of posts in my head that way—far more than 30—but it’s not a terribly productive approach.

I closed out 2014 with a little bit more inspiration than last year, though not my usual, perhaps over-exuberant, dose. As of this fourth day of the new year I have all kinds of goals and plans and no shortage of sources of motivation, because, dammit, I’m ready to get back to feeling inspired. And one thing I’m going to do is create some of that inspiration for myself.

In my very early blogging days, I used to do regular posts under the Hello, Inspiration heading. They featured things that inspired me, like the ones that seemed to appear when I needed them or those that came up in several different places as if to say pay attention. After a while I just randomly tagged things with that category when it seemed to fit, but I’d like to go back to deliberately sharing things that inspire me. So here’s the first in the official series of my sources of inspiration, which I’m hoping to update weekly.

One thing I love is amazing photography. Not long ago I found the Facebook page for a photographer named Neil Zeller who is local to me, and his shots are amazing. Breathtaking in the most literal sense of the word. He photographs things I love, like mountains…

…and cityscapes…

…and our tower, which I have such sentimental, childhood feelings about. I have to get a copy of this print:

He also shoots trains (oh my heart):

…and scenes that are so stunning it’s hard to believe they are from this same planet where we do mundane things like buy groceries:

Neil’s images fill up my Facebook feed, and I like them all so he knows they’re appreciated (and so Facebook’s fancy algorithm will keep showing them to me). Seeing them creates the sort of pause in my day—the deep-breath, contented-sigh kind—that I so desperately need. The first shot above is one from his Aurora series, which might be my favourite. Seeing that is on my life list, and I’m inspired at how often he manages to catch this sight. Maybe one day soon I will as well.

All images © Neil Zeller Photography

Filed Under: Hello, Inspiration · Tagged With: gratitude, photos, spreading the love

On the Road to Reykjavik

September 4, 2014 by Farewell Stranger ·

After dipping down below the acceptable depression threshold a few too many times recently I did a little thinking. It started out primarily as a WTF attitude (as in why me? Why again?!) but perspective comes from the strangest places.

What are you doing to take care of yourself? people often ask. Do you get enough sleep/exercise/time to yourself? And the answer to all of those is, mostly, yes. I mean, yes and no (because does any parent of young children really get enough?) but I think I do okay in those areas.

The trouble is I haven’t been doing the right things. I’ve become really good at sitting on my bed after the boys are (finally) asleep and browsing through Facebook. I can read status updates and comment and click that like button with the best of them. It’s definitely a retreat, but it’s not exactly fulfilling.

That realization (as obvious as it might be) didn’t really become clear until I was talking to a friend recently. This guy — a firefighter, sort of a guy’s guy — asked a simple question: “What’s your outlet?”

What’s my outlet? Um, gee. That’s a good question. I like to write and I like to run, but have been doing neither on a consistent basis.

“You know that giant LEGO Death Star in my basement?” he continued. “Yeah, that was an outlet.”

I pictured him escaping his three kids or a long day at work by going to the basement and slowly, literally piece by piece, putting that together.

That’s what I need – not a LEGO Death Star, but a project.

In my last race package was a brochure for Team Diabetes and, unlike most of the brochures I get in race packages, I had kept it. I’ve supported the Canadian Diabetes Foundation in various ways for a long time because I’ve had several family members affected by diabetes. Most personally for me was my Grandma, who was legally blind after losing much of her sight to the disease.

True to my largely impulsive nature, I had a look at the Diabetes Association’s website and found myself signing up for a Team Diabetes race in Reykjavik, Iceland next year. I registered without worrying too much about the slightly intimidating fundraising requirement, because I needed a project and this would be it. (Or one of them, anyway. I’m nothing if not ambitious when it comes to finding projects to distract myself with.)

Photo credit: Islandsbanki Marathon

I’ve already got some fundraising plans and some donations from supportive friends. And I’ve got a bit of a posse too. After I signed up, 6 friends (so far) did as well, and more are thinking about it.

Fundraising for this event will be a challenge and a bit outside my comfort zone (especially because I hate asking for money), but that’s sort of what I like about it. It’s something to focus on other than who has posted a new photo to Facebook. I’m excited about it, so that qualifies it as an outlet, don’t you think? I do, so here I go on something that is just for me – not me as a mom or anything else. Just me on the road to Reykjavik.

If you want to support me in my fundraising goal, you can donate here.

Filed Under: Better world, Hello, Inspiration · Tagged With: living life, running

Look to the Sky

January 16, 2014 by Farewell Stranger ·

I left work late tonight, as is often the case these days. But I guess the days are indeed getting longer, because instead of being dark the sky was full of brilliant tiger stripes of colour – pink and red and orange and wisps of blue. The city skyline was a barely lit silhouette, and at the end of the wash of colour was the outline of the mountains and a brilliant, golden glare as the sun started to sink behind the horizon. It was incredible. Stop-to-take-a-picture incredible. (But of course no picture I could take would ever do it justice.)

I breathe deeply when I see sunsets like that (even if I’m in my car). And in doing so I pause, sometimes just figuratively and often just for a moment, and think about something other than what I have to do next.

Your comments on my post about missing inspiration were interesting. Good interesting, even though I don’t agree with many of you, including my mother. (Sorry, mom.)

Here’s the thing: I like that wide open space of a new year. I love the anything-is-possible feeling. I thrive on change and possibility and new. Day-to-day life gets boring pretty fast, and if I don’t have something to jolt me into a new perspective I will blink and 20 years will have gone by and my small boys will be big and all I will remember is how much laundry I did.

That is not how I wish to live my life.

I realized, upon reading (and railing against) some of those comments on that last post, that I don’t necessarily want some huge, gigantic goal and I’m not really looking for change. But I also don’t want to let life just happen. I prefer living with intention.

That’s why I’ve chosen one word as a guide post for the last few years. It’s why I have a life list and why I breathe in sunsets.

So where does that leave me? I’m not sure yet. I will probably start by committing to my one word for 2014 (and sharing it here). I’m going to make some changes to my day-to-day focus and schedule. I’m going to move away from feeling stuck in the everydayness of wake/feed children/commute/work/commute/feed children/put children to bed/walk dog/do dishes/fold laundry/repeat.

I’m going to look to the sky. And see where it takes me.

Filed Under: Hello, Inspiration · Tagged With: Life list, living life, One word, perspective

Tea and Quiet

December 17, 2013 by Farewell Stranger ·

‘Tis the season, as they say. Life is busy enough as it is, and now we rush around trying to get ready for Christmas. I feel as though it may whiz past me this year, whether I prepare for it or not. And yet somehow that’s okay.

I’m on the computer less, reading more. I’m writing less, playing more.

I’m finding quiet when I need it and where I can.

Are you?

Join Greta from Gfunkified and I for #iPPP (iPhone Photo Phun), a weekly link-up that requires nothing more than a blog post with a photo from a phone camera (any phone camera, not just iPhones). We want to see your funny, your yummy, your heartfelt, your favourite phone photos of the week.

This will be our last #iPPP link-up of the year. Happy holidays! We’ll see you again in the new year.

Filed Under: Hello, Inspiration · Tagged With: #iPPP, family, favourite activities, moments

Finding Magic

December 3, 2013 by Farewell Stranger ·

You won’t often find me blogging about work—I try to keep some space between work and blogging, and there’s not much I could (or would) say that would be of much interest to anyone else—but yesterday was a pretty cool day.

For months now we’ve been working towards a big announcement and one that I knew would be pretty cool. But I really didn’t imagine how cool. You see, I work for an airline and we’ve done something as part of our partnership with Disney. It looks like this:

I knew what the design entailed but I hadn’t actually seen it, because I wanted to keep something a surprise. So when I went into our hangar this morning in time to catch the last rehearsal of the big reveal I was pretty excited. We ran through speeches and introduced Mickey Mouse and played the video…and then the curtain dropped. It just… I mean, it looks SO cool.

The team responsible for the event did a really good job. The lighting and music made for a really fun atmosphere, and Disney provided the crowd with Mickey ears that light up in sync with elements of the show. When they changed from random colours on the heads around the room to coordinated colours I was reminded of why Disney has the market on magic firmly in their corner.

There was a huge curtain covering half the hangar and at the end of the presentation it dropped. It was totally a goosebumpy moment.

So why am I sharing this with you? Because this working-mom-of-two gig is hard – way harder than I imagined it would be. I’m struggling with it – the hours, the commute, the normal, corporate-job frustrations. We all have them, and I don’t know what the answer is. Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe this is just how it is when our kids are small.

But I had a moment of magic at work yesterday, and it was nice, and needed.

I know not everyone has Mickey Mouse visit them at work, but I bet we all have a source of magic in our lives if only we take the time to look for it.

What’s yours?

I’ve joined Greta from Gfunkified as co-host of #iPPP (iPhone Photo Phun), a weekly link-up that requires nothing more than a blog post with a photo from a phone camera (any phone camera, not just iPhones). We want to see your funny, your yummy, your heartfelt, your favourite phone photos of the week.

Filed Under: Hello, Inspiration · Tagged With: #iPPP, photos