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UP AND BACK
Sunday Oct. 2, 2016
Defining normal isn’t what it used to be.
Not sure I understand ‘my normal’ well enough to offer a definition. When I visit family, spend time with grandchildren and travel to old haunts I wonder more and more if we define our own lives – or if they are defined for us.
Friday I managed conflicting tugs – need to do some work on two files I’d been dragging my feet on all week, and a new one I needed to get busy on: the proposal I’d promised to have to the client by Sunday. Tugging in an opposite direction, to “pack, drive, hug grandchildren” speaking in my ear, urging me to finish my early morning routine items, get packin’ and don’t waste valuable child awake hours.
Like most things in life, mind and body negotiate reasonable compromise – some morning hustle, print things to take along, making calls from the road, copying some work to a thumb drive, packing laptop and a few clothes – then a very long walk with Gusta, skipping my gym trip and hit the road.
Whirlwind trip. To Fort Saskatchewan and back to Calgary – seven hours driving in two days, cloudy and wet – half-harvested crops dot a landscape of baled hay, happy cows and busy traffic as weekenders and trucks filled the highway. Like a parking got going 120 km/hr. Visit duration doesn’t determine whether it was good, better or best. It was very good. I don’t visit enough. I keep saying I’ll visit more.
Returning to normal?
I’m on trajectory to somewhere – moving faster, seems clearer on direction; not an ‘in concrete’ plan, but more than a vague idea.
P.S.: a number of readers have written recently with questions about Gusta and why I’m not including morning walk reports with my column. The short answer: I’m changing my publishing/distribution process and ‘consistent time of day’. The more complete answer – I still walk early in the morning, write my column after that, but daily routines and all those things which mess with a well planned schedule/routine get wonky sometimes. So, after my walk each morning I do write a column which I’ll publish the following day – hopefully better polished and the ‘system’ will distribute the one I wrote the day before at a prescribed time. I’m still here, still writing daily – but trying to establish a new way of doing what I’m doing. And, I’m grateful for thoughtful readers who’ve asked …
written / published from Calgary, AB
Reader feedback:
NEED AN APP FOR THIS
Where is the Gusta sanity walk? She is the humanizing component!!!, SH, New Jersey
Missing your walks with Gusta, (am I missing something?) TA, Calgary, AB
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