Intersections
Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends
On Thursday evening (and honestly, every day since) I had the most wonderful conversation with a person I met because I hosted her and her husband through AirBnB, one where we talked about challenging our views on how to deal with the homeless, with the human need to have a certain equilibrium when it comes to danger and the research on why so many people feel the need to believe that vaccines are dangerous because they haven’t seen an actual disease outbreak up close and personal. We chatted about music, and why a song without a good baseline that may have a nice melody is like a vacuous woman with heavy makeup to make her look nice. We spoke about why it’s difficult to do things when we have so few good examples, and why it’s important to have a legal will.
There is something so immensely special about the intersection of human lives that the internet cannot and will never replace. I love the internet, truly I do, but when we were discussing what we will pass on as a grandparent, I think I would talk about growing up in a family and starting my own family that research and talk about life and challenge the status quo, who converse face to face with no backlit devices.
I’ve seen this saying floating around.
If you want to live a meaningful life, imagine yourself ten years from now then ask yourself what you'll wish you'd done by then. Then do those things.
I want to be more generous with my money. I want to be physically active all year round. I want to play more board games, eat more vegetables without dip. I want to enjoy places. I want to go for more walks and take more swims.
I’d say I want to be “happy” but I think The Oatmeal is right about the fact that I’d rather be interested, in the zone, engaged with life and feeling things.
And finally, I never want to burn with anger for longer than a single day.
And we can run away
Swimming in the sunlight everyday
Paradise in your eyes
Green like American money
After many years of financial struggle, it seems like we might finally be catching up, at least a little bit. I have a VERY small nest egg which over time I hope to build up to fill the overdraft at the bank. I am feeling a little less like it’s all going to go to heck. I’m going to be working a lot over the next few weeks to get everything ready to go. I feel good about our decision to have the “summer of fun” this summer. Spend time feeling less stressed instead of struggling, even when there’s danger on the horizon, even when things could shortly take a turn for the worse. Even when we don’t know what tomorrow brings, there’s joy for us if we only take hold of it. Sing in the shower, and in the car, and the kitchen while the dishes are being done. Take every appropriate opportunity to find joy. I’m getting better at it and it’s had wonderful effects in all sorts of areas.
I can only fix myself though, and to some small degree, others who want my help, and even less often, my wonderful husband. Good thing there’s not much there to fix, right?
We carved our love in the mountainside
We soaked our hearts in the rain
And I, waited my whole life, for you
Yesterday Paul and I went out pokemon hunting after supper, and it was glorious. We fought a huge gym down several levels and won another smaller gym in minutes, tons of fun. Paul also manned both phones as we drove down a long commercial street nearby and spun as many pokestops as we could.
Today after a glorious chat with our AirBnB guests, we headed out for the afternoon to the second location of the Table Top Cafe, the 124th street location. Paul picked Bohnanza, a bean growing game I played once many moons ago, and that was fun and low key, then we transitioned to a quick game of King of Tokyo, which unfortunately wasn’t as fun with 2 players as I had hoped it might be after playing it with 3. Then we played another nifty game called Junk Art - so using over 60 colourful wooden pieces to create jenga-like danger sculptures, and every challenge is like a new kind of game. Wonderfully unique, I am 100% a fan. Unfortunately due to the nature of the game with a wooden box and SO many pieces, it’s far, far out of my price range right now, so we’ll be looking to play at the cafe as much as we can.
This just goes to show why board game cafes are such a fantastic idea.
And then, surprise surprise, after playing Pokemon casually at the cafe the entire time we were there (and sometimes a tad more than casually to be fair) I got to capture a Valor gym on the way home, turn it blue, and briefly wave at a fellow Team Mystic player who was adding another Pokemon to the gym before I left.
When we got home I ended up chatting with our guests again, which has been a great pleasure. They’re leaving tomorrow, but I’m just so grateful we’ve met. Perhaps if we ever head out north to Peace country we’ll look them up!
It was a wonderfully fun night, and I’m feeling grateful for the chance to enjoy every day.