Everyday Boy

Running & Watching

Fall brings with it a couple of annual traditions: a yearly run for breast cancer, both in memory of my late aunt who was diagnosed in 1999 and in support of survivors and their families; and a jaunt to the local international film festival, be it the Calgary International Film Festival, Hot Docs in Toronto, or the New York Film Festival - I've been lucky to sample some fine films over the past couple of years.

In Calgary it's been a tradition for the past three years to run with family and friends in Canada's CIBC Race For The Cure - an event I've dearly missed participating in the past couple of years.  Last Fall though, I enjoyed running in a race for breast cancer in New York through a sunny Central Park, and this year I once again dusted off the ol' running shoes and participated in Vancouver's Race For The Cure.

Fortunately the rain held off and it ended up to be a perfectly overcast but bright day for a run.  As the race began there was a gospel choir on a stage belting out Love Will Lift You Higher And Higher - an inspiring way to start.  And of course it also didn't hurt running beside lot's of cute woman.  The ratio of men to woman actually didn't hit me until I went to the washrooms at B.C. Stadium, and the woman were spilling over into the men's washrooms.  One guy at the urinal even turned to me and said, "This just doesn't feel right," as twenty or so woman line-up at the stalls behind us.

Unfortunatly I missed my personal best time by eight minutes - running the 5 kilometers in about thirty minutes, but in the end I was just happy just to be able run all the way through.  Between my attempts at jumping back onto the volleyball court, and hammering out this run, I was sadly reminded that I not in very good shape these days.  But thanks to all of you who supported me in the run - I really appreciate the donations you sent along.

After the run I took in more of theVancouver International Film Festival.  I've managed to see four films so far.  Two films were from Quebec - La Neuvaine, a slow paced melancholic film that spoke to me about care, hope and presence in the face of tragedy and despair, and Their Brother's Keeper - Orphaned by AIDS, a wonderfully intimate documentary looking at how the AIDS pandemic is creating sibling families throughout Africa - kids raising kids as their parents die before them.

The other two films were a Korean costume swordplay thriller called Duelist - an entertaining and often funny romp that the director said was a metaphor for clashes in love and romance, and Estamira - a beautifully shot film chronicling a 63 year old woman's affliction with schizophrenia, in the garbage dumps near Rio de Janeiro.  To me Estamira brilliantly juxtaposes the rape of a woman, and the rape of the earth - and some of the subtle and glaring consequences from the brutality of each.  It's hard to listen to the main character's angry rants sometimes, but you begin to understand them as you begin to hear more about her past.  I don't know if I was reading into it too much, but even Estamira daughter admits that you hear much truth welling up from Estamira despite her psychosis.

All four films were great, but I'd highly recommend Their Brother's Keeper and Estamira.  Both are quite heavy films to bear, but they are well worth the watch.  I've finally gone through the listing of the 300 or so films playing at the festival, and I hope to squeeze in as many screenings as my body and schedule can handle.

Space To Breathe

We have had some beautiful weather here the past little while, so Leroy and I went to a couple of beaches this past weekend and threw the frisbee around.  We went to Wreck Beach, where clothing is optional and the hippy vibe is alive and well: colorful textiles were laid out for sale on racks and sand, a massage table was set up amongst some of the large logs rolled up along the shore, and Latin foods and margaritas were being offered by some of the local vendors walking around.  A fun place to hang out with - as Seinfeld would point out - a lot of good naked and a lot of bad naked.  I happily kept my clothes on - and fortunately, so did Leroy.

We also drove out to White Rock earlier in the day, a small beach town about forty-five minutes away, staking out a spot along the rocky shore.  As I can't swim if my life depended on it, I was happy to lie in the sun, catch up on some reading, and people watch, while Leroy took a dip in the water.  Lot's of folks were out with their little ankle biters - both tots and furry pets in tow, all splashing around in the low tide - the odd boat, canoe or kayak passing in the distance.  Frisbees were thrown, seaweed tossed and thoughts began floating through my mind as I read Mary Oliver's words on metrical poetry and breath:

A cardinal attribute of breath (or breathing) is, of course, its repetition.  The galloping foot beats of the heart, that spell fear.  Or the slow and relaxed stretch of breath of the sleeping child.  In either case, by their repetition, they make a pattern.  Truly this pattern is as good as a language.  It reveals a great deal: the depth of sleep, the stress or the ease of the breather.  If the pattern changes, we know it reflects something important - mood has plunged, or health has been touched by crisis, or the inner life, without being seen externally, has pressed upon the heart, has tightened or loosened the lungs.  It is as good as a language.  We sigh.  We pain.  We reveal ourselves.

And so, I took a moment to focus on where my own breath is these days.  I felt out of breath at the end of this last month.  More full of sighs than anything else.  Sighs of both relief and anxiousness as another transition is around the bend with a lot of unknowns still out there - along with sighs for folks I know who are struggling.  And now I feel like I'm holding my breathe, as I wait for some sense of certainty - and ask the proverbial which way now?

Cycling In The City

My sister and cousin are kindly shipping my bike out to Vancouver so I can zip around town this summer.  In the meantime, with the commuter challenge just ending last week, Leroy bought a community bike for us.

I took it out for a spin tonight - up over to Commercial Drive, a funky neighborhood strip of restaurants and stores, and then west towards the city.  Colorful dragon boat terams were out along the river practicing their strokes for the races at the end of the month, and lots of folks were out biking, paddling and walking.  Vancouver has a great pathway along the water called the sea wall which runs all over the city.  It's nice and flat with lot's of picturesque scenery - the sailboats along the water, the shiny modern architecture of the city, the blue mountains and of course the busy beaches.

I crossed over Cambie bridge, and followed the the sea wall all the way to Kitsilano beach where I watched some of the beach volleyball happening there.  I hope to find some tournaments or leagues to join this summer.  I'm beginning to find some energy again.  I think the fresh air and exercise has been helping.

One Peak Down, Four To Go

It was a weekend of losing friendly bets on my part... our community has joined the swelling ranks of poker enthusiasts, designating Friday nights as poker night - and I finally got around to participating in the 5 Peaks Trail Running Series with a fellow co-worker, with friendly wagers between our departments.

After losing all my chips at 3am I stole some shut eye before driving out to Cypress Mountain at 8am for the 5km race.  The weather was pretty miserable.  The mountain was enveloped in mist and fog, and it rained for portions before, during and after the race.  By the end of the race it was a chilly 9 degrees Celsius (48 degrees Fahrenheit).

All in all though it was a fun albeit muddy, wet and tiring run through the woods.  I found that you had to really concentrate on the trail - making sure of each step over root, rock and puddle.  At first I tried sidestepping the mud but at some point you just say screw it and actually start aiming for the mud.

Surprisingly, at certain points going down-hill, dodging tree branches hanging over narrow stretches of trail, and making sure you don't bump into the person ahead of you - you get the same rush you would if you were mountain biking. Of course the uphills were the same too - equally torturous.  I couldn't see how folks could run up certain sections.

I was very disappointed with my time of 50 minutes - but I'm looking forward to the next one to improve on it.  I plan on being a bit more prepared next time.

The Grind

I finally got out and did the infamous Grouse Grind - a trail of wooden steps and large rocks, hidden in trees, shadows and sunbeams.  It's a popular hike among the locals because of it's intensity... and it was in the news for a bit because an American from Wisconsin went missing from the area.  It's only about a 3 kilometer long hike, but it's a very steep ascent.  It was quite apparent from the start why they call it a grind.

Halfway up the gondola passed by through the trees, quietly whirring along on it's cable, me cursing under my breathe wondering why I decided to hike up.  I've never seen so many stairs in my life!  But I must say it was good to be enveloped in a forest of trees again, plus I love the people you meet along the trail - down to earth folks you can easily strike up a conversation with.  I managed to get some gardening tips from an older middle-aged woman before she left me in her dust.  I tried to keep the number of folks passing me even with the number of folks I passed, but I think more and more people were passing me the higher I got.  All in all it was a very humbling experience.  I managed to do it in just over 1 hour.  A fellow recently broke the record, running up the trail in 24 minutes!  Craziness.

Up at the top I sat and watched some of the grizzly bears they have in captivity and took in the wonderful views - even spying Mt. Baker in the distance.  I ended up walking up a to a higher point on the mountain up by the ski lifts and took this panoramic:  Grouse Mountain is in the center, the city of Vancouver just above it, and water leading off into the ocean to the right.  It's something I've definitely been needing these days - to take a step back for some perspective.

Feeling Like Summer

We made a trip out to White Rock today, which has a great stretch of beach, boardwalk and shops - only forty minutes from Vancouver.  It was a beautiful sunny day with lots of people milling about.  At one section of beach there was a kite festival of sorts happening, with about fifty of them soaring high above in the light breeze, all sorts of colors, shapes and sizes creating patches of kaleidoscope sky.  It was a joyful sight to see, kids and adults alike maneuvering their creations around or others just letting their kite strings sit under rocks and have them find their own way.

Chris took us to what he tells us is the best fish and chip place in White Rock, and it certainly lived up to it's reputation, both in it's tasty food and funky ambiance - it's walls and ceilings strung up with all sorts of funny signs, pictures and memorabelia.  If you're ever in the area be sure to eat at Moby Dicks Restaurant.  You can eat in or take a bucket of fish and chips out to the beach... yup, I think we're going to make it a habit of visiting the area as often as we can this summer.

Hatha Yoga & Missing Bono

We had a day of team-building and program planning at work today.  We ended up going to a local Radha Yoga Center and eatery - a nice cozy loft space with hardwood floors and red brick walls, about ten minutes away from my house.  It was my first time trying any form of yoga and I ended up enjoying it very much.  We went through an hour session of basic hatha yoga stretches and poses, which were quite meditative and relaxing.  I liked the focus on light, on breath, and on our bodies as centers of energy.  I also found it interesting that the starting pose is based on a mountain - a sense of stillness, and solid groundedness.  I'm going to try to work out a low-cost deal to attend a few sessions each week, with the center being so close and the yoga being an ideal way to be more aware of my body... okay, and the instructor is quite cute too.

Afterwards we had coffee at Blenz in Yaletown, where I just missed seeing Bono.  A few of my co-workers saw him with his security detail a few moments before I arrived.  It's been a popular pastime for folks in Vancouver the past couple of week:  Where's Bono?  We then crossed the street and had lunch and a brainstorm session at a place called Capones.  There's been low moral at work since I've been here, and it's beginning to be addressed with an overall orgnanizational re-focus and affirmation of the good work that's being done.

I'm trying to figure out how to boost morale at work myself, but I'm not a huge cheerleader type, so I'm finding it a bit of a challenge.  I guess in the end it's about nurturing hope and laughter, and keeping things light.  I was grateful to receive an e-mail from my friend Heather, who works as a nurse, and gave me some good tips on how to not burn-out as a front-line worker dealing with sad stories day in and day out.  It's been my biggest challenge the past few months; how to live out advocacy and care without letting the work suck you dry to the bone.

Hunting For Whales & Treasure

... staring out into the blue Pacific, which ran without a clear transition into blue space, I felt that the ocean was immense, endless, bottomless.  There was something beyond human comprehension about its immense variable size, since the Amazon, the Nile, The Danube, the Mississippi, the Ganges, all the rivers, floods, and sewers in the world could enter into it ceaselessly without the surface level ever changing an inch. - Thor Heyerdahl

Area of world's oceans and seas: 361,000,000 square kilometers, 71% of earth's surface.  Area of Pacific Ocean: 166,000,000 square kilometers, 33% of earth's surface.  Volume of Pacific Ocean: 710,000,000 cubic kilometers, half of earth's liquid water. - From an imformation sign along the beach.

Sunday was another beautiful day of sun and clear blue skies.  In the morning we went to Radar Hill, a vantage point which was used to bring ships in during World War II, where we enjoyd a nice panoramic view of Clayoquot Sound: it's beaches, the ocean, the mountains and the coastal rainforests.  We then drove south to Long Beach where we walked along the shoreline, dipped out feet into the water, and took in the surfers catching some waves.

For lunch we went to a favorite local restaurant called Sobo, where we had fish tacos with wild salmon, halibut and fresh fruit salsa, mexican shrimp cocktail, polenta fries with spicy caesar dipping sauce, shrimp cakes with mustard sacue, and a thai style green papaya salad.  The food was scrumptious, with very fresh and distinct flavors, and all quite reasonably priced - a recommeded lunch stop if you're ever in Tofino.

After lunch we met up with the Native American couple we met on Friday, Hudson and his wife Jan-Marie, along with their nephew Terrace, who kindly took us out on their twenty-one foot boat, called Ten Wolves, for some whale watching, salmon fishing, and treasure hunting.

Rushing out into the ocean, with white spray and foam trailing behind us, we stopped a little ways off the coast to wait and watch for signs of whales.  After bobbing for about ten minutes like a cork in bathtub, Terrace spotted a spray of water in the distance - a whale coming up for air, and so we sped on towards the horizon.  Hudson opened a small hatch at the front of the boat for Chris and I to take turns popping our heads up and keep watch from there.  Josh and Terrace took watch along the railings on the side of the boat.  There was a group of four whales migrating together, every once in awhile coming up to the ocean's surface to spray some water through their blowholes, bending their backs and flashing their tails in the sun for a fleeting moment.  It was a cat and mouse game of trying to come alongside them without disturbing them too much.  They would often shift directions on us, coming up every five minutes or so on different sides of the boat.  Between their submergings the ocean became silent, water lapping on the boat, until we saw them again and the boat's engine kicked into gear.  At times I thought I could hear them below us, as I imagine whales sound - a booming squeal of thunder.  We were quite happy to see these enourmous creatures, if ever so briefly.

After following the whales North, all the way up to Bear Island, we tracked back south along the coast and found a spot for Terrace to drop his fishing line and try and catch some trophy salmon.  Unfortunately, the fish weren't biting, so we sailed inland and stopped along a shoreline where Hudson's grandfather used to live to try our luck at some treasure hunting.  The land where his grandfather's hosue used to be was now run over with trees and bushes, but there were still remnants of settlement in the shorline of rocks and seashells - pieces of glass, disehes, and rusted metal.  But the treasure we were seeking were small two-hundred year old blue beads that the Spanish would trade barrels of to the Native Indians for dried fish.  Sure enough, spending a quick few hours combing through beautiful rocks and crushed shells of diffent shapes and sizes, coming across crab legs, fish vertabrae, and even a tiny egg insect embryo, we found at least one blue bead for each person.  I felt very lucky in finding four of them as poor Terrace didn't have much luck finding one, and hasn't found one in the times he's looked the past thrity-five years.  Each bead is about the size of a pea, some with cut edges, and a hole bore through them.  The bead hunting was a pleasant way to round out the day, as the sun slowly set on the horizon.  We slowly made our way back to the fisherman's wharf, taking time to look at eagles and heron in their nests and along the docks.

Spring Retreat In Tofino

Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over.  A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys.  It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness.  A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike.  And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless.  We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. - John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley.  From North To The Night: A Spiritual Odyssey In the Arctic, by Alvah Simon (43).

I had my first ferry ride across to Vancouver Island on Friday morning as we headed off on our retreat. We caught the 10:30 ferry from Englishman's Bay to Nanaimo. The morning was bright and gray, with fog clinging to the islands around the bay, and closing in around us the further we went into the straight. After taking in the headwinds on the bow, I went up to the exposed upper deck, to watch the swath of white sea foam marking the ferry's path behind us. The winds were gusty and the water choppy. In the distance I could see a bird flying against the strong wind, and I thought how can it possibly make it across the water? It looked so small, like a black cloth flapping and struggling against all odds. When I looked again, I couldn't find it.

From Nanaimo we drove on winding roads through stacks of green forests and lakes. We stopped to take in a few waterfalls along the way, and walked through a mossy forest and alongside a quiet stream. Back on the road we come upon an elderly Native American couple with a flat tire on the side of the road. Chris, with such a big heart, rallied us to help them fix their tire in a small town down the highway, and replace the flat.  In the end, the couple and their two grand kids invited us for Chinese food in Tofino, and offered us to go whale-watching on the Sunday. After such an adventurous day on the road, we settled into our beach retreat accommodations, and happily soaked in the hot tub that night - sipping Bailey's underneath a canopy of star-light.

Breaking In The Running Shoes

I went for a run this afternoon and quickly found out that I am in very poor cardiovascular condition.  For a twenty minute run I was sucking wind pretty fast and had to walk quite a bit.  It was not a pretty sight.

But I think I finally found a better running target to shoot for this year instead of a marathon.  Good ol' Mountain Equipment Co-Op pointed me towards their 5 Peaks Trail Running Series.  I'm going to aim for their five to six kilometre sport courses to begin with.