My Writing Story.

“Write for an hour.” Antoinette instructed.
“An hour?” my mind screamed. “What will I write for an hour? What needs explored this morning? What will come I wonder?”

When I signed up for this day of Life Writing I wanted to investigate the part of my story that seeks expression in my memoir. It has been a journey, a long journey.

It began as I travelled on a train across the deserts of Iran 40 years ago. Fresh eyes, young and innocent of the world I wrote a travel log of our honeymoon to Afghanistan. Back then my inner world was not a place I visited, it remained off limits, unexplored, not worthy of my attention. A forlorn, forbidden place where if I dared to enter I would find terrorists, demons filled with unspeakable shames and secrets. It was many years before I was forced to open the book of myself.

When I returned from India a few years later I wrote an article about hairdressing in the Himalaya. I though it worthy of National Geographic but when it was rejected by a travel magazine I filed it away in a box that I carted from London to NZ to Australia and finally Canada.

My life changed dramatically in 1984 as I plunged into mother hood. I did not want to forget the extraordinary life of travel I had lived, the wild places and people I met on those ‘once in a lifetime’ journeys. I carved out space in my busy life to write. In the small back bedroom, I closed my mind to my surroundings while I recorded our adventures on our first computer.

I showed these writings to a trusted mentor Jack Shallcrass. His comment took me aback. “Wilma we need to know about your thoughts and feelings.“ My files were pushed into the box to be forgotten as I raised my family.

Becoming a mother I propelled me into my feelings. I remember the awe I felt as my fully formed baby boy was placed on my stomach after 14 hours of labour. Love at first sight, careful examination revealed he had no squint. His brown eyes, in his perfect pixie face, framed by his dark hair, gazed at me wide and alert. A miracle. As he grew feelings poured through my body, weariness, exhaustion, anger, frustration, irritation, boredom, despair, depression, hope, joy, play, compassion, and love.

Years later the children grown, I wrote a draft of my life and now I am re-crafting this, some days it feels as if I am wallowing in my past.

Last night on facebook I watched photographs Louise Hay the writer who in the eighties gave me priceless tools to love and design my own life. She was dressed in a filmy magenta top celebrating at her 85th birthday party with vigor and enthusiasim. I felt warmth as if her love reached out to me across cyber space and through the computer screen. More than that I was inspired that she is still writing and living life full of meaningful activities.

Why write a memoir? It is about the growth of me, my unique story, my own unfolding, life’s process of revealing mySelf to myself. Each step not wrong, not bad, but necessary to my journey towards wholeness. In this happy day world of linear thinking and rationality where emotions and wandering are judged as wasting time, unacceptable, or downright wrong, I can’t think of anything more valuable than trying to express my growth, my development, my authenticity on the page.

A trundle from Moraine Lake to Lake O'hara



Clive chomping up to Obabin Pass

 



Heading up to Obabin Pass on nice firm snow - it was icy on the
other side and we had to use our crampons
oh no I nearly wrote tampons!



Jeanette and looking back to were we had come from
over the passon the left  well you can't quite see it but you get
the general idea -right!

Evidence of Climate change - this used to be a warm
shallow sea  and now its a place where
there is 9 months of winter and 3 months of poor sledging!



Our intrepid group plunge down into the next valley



baby marmot ahh!

Eiffel Lake in the early morning with Wenchemna Pass on the right.

Indian Paintbrush

Here are the files that I want to share with you.

I sent these using Elements Organizer. Find out more: http://www.adobe.com/go/pse_photoshopelwin_en

Light on Mary's Lake ok this should be the last photo!!
Well computers are a mystery - it started out at the top and now here it is
so apolgise from the creative order of things.

Nothing like returning home to find out how far I have come ……or not!

Life is like a kaleidoscope. Holidays, new places, new experiences, revisiting home, enduring relationships are like a turn that produces a fresh vibrant pattern and demands self reflection. Big stuff happens in the crucible of family - illness, job loss, retirement, growth, grief, laughter, joy all between the bookends of birth and death. These and the voices from my ancestors that echo through my bloodline and mitochondria challenge me to see the broader picture, to expand my vision.

My choice to move away from judgement and criticism, teaches me to be conscious of my intentions for loving connection. I remember we are all works in progress when I look behind hurtful words to see the light, the sacredness, the divinity hidden by a tricky personality and tough life circumstances.

My long deceased mother thought; I the black sheep was godless. Now I know that by going home if I remember to step into my godliness and see that in other, the visit runs much more smoothly. Still old patterns attach like super glue and in my humanity if I slip from this ideal, I know to have been present, to let go, to forgive is to have done my best.

Raindrops keep falling on my head.

Actually they were not raindrops but more like gazillions of jugs of water that have fallen out of the sky in Edinburgh these last couple of days, accompanied by nature's wild symphony of crashing tymphanies and rumbling drums.  It was like a flash flood running across the ancient cobbles cleaning away litter and endless cigaratte stumps. Friday I escaped into the book shop and left puddles on the floor.

Yesterday after a wonderful sunny morning appreciating the elegance of Edinburgh, the castle and Princes street gardens huming with a cacphony of languages, the heavens burst open as Clive, Des his brother and wife Jane and I  set out to walk along the hidden valley of Rosslyn Glen.  The sheets of rain soon added dramatic atmospherics to this magnifcent valley of mixed forest, beeches trees, Scots pine, sycamore, and oak draped with fragrant honeysuckle.  We clambered along the muddy path happy in the knowledge that we humans are the top of the food chain in Britain. The size of the trees and the density of the foliage, the steep sandstone cliffs, combine to make this another of nature's wonderous masterpieces.

I belong among the wildflowers

Just back from three weeks trundling around mountains in Austria and France with our Scottish university friends Fred and Allison.
We hiked for 9 days in the Zillertal Alps.

Highlights were scrambling over 3 steep snowy passes. The Austrian Huttes were impressive in particular the chateaux like Beliner Hutte complete with two little pigs running around eating the plants. (What would the Canadian National Parks say to that?) We walked amongst red azaleas, electric blue genetians, magenta saxifrage, yellow buttercups to the whistle of marmots as they dissappeared into their burrows, and the thunderous sounds of rushing waterfalls.

Lowlights - day three it began to rain at lunchtime, poured as we sweated over the pass. We were dripping by the time we reached the warm hut. One hour later we looked out of the window to SNOW - just felt like Canmore! Still we managed to continue the next day inspite of 6 inches of snow and swirling cloud. Sometimes following the path was like connecting the red dots painted on the rock but that day it was like braille.

 Down from the mountains we boarded a train to Innsbruck and then onto Geneva were we picked up a car on the French side of the airport as it is cheaper. What a complex road system! You need swiss francs in switzerland and Euros in France - so we avoided Switzerland.  We drove to Allison's brothers ski chalet in La Rossiere like an eagle eryie with fantastic views over waves of mountain ranges. Here summer arrived and we had a week enjoying many hikes with amazing views of Mont Blanc consciously soaking in the hot rays before returning to Scotland.

The final couple of days we delighted in the ancient town of Annecy, with its vibrant markets and patesseries. People walk and bike everywhere with shopping baskets spilling over with lettuce, spring onions, cherries, apricots and of course baguettes.

The next stop was C.E.R.N. - here 27 kilometres of underground tunnels are used to explore the collisions of streams of protons in hope of finding out what happened in the first three minutes after the big bang. 3000 of the planets brightest scientist from many different countries seek solutions to this problem.

Final evening we spent enjoying a leisurely French meal on a splendid patio, surrounded by sweet smelling roses, enjoying the ambiance, food and speculating about the lives of those around us.

Scotland Bewitches - 2



Kildonan House B&B - wonderful and comfortable.



Yoga in the great outdoors. Awesome.



A perfect evening on Eigg

Scotland oh so green.
And who's that cavorting on the bridge



Yogi on the edge of Eigg

Scotland Bewitches - 1



Drop dead gorgeous - that's the view of course!
That's Rhum and Muck in the distance
where we were heading.

 

Just little bit offroading on the way to Sanna Bay from
Ardnamurchan point - the most westerly place
on the British Isles



Can you imagine a traffic light on Scotland's
most westerly point!

 

Here I am on the Island of Mull - the sun is still

shinning! We had just been to the silvery beach

of Calgary.

Donna the piper welcomes us to Eigg
Her little dog howled in synchrony.



People have been living here for 5000 years.

Who said it rained in Scotland. Day one on Arran and we
were HOT!