2020 was an absolute circus, but I thrived with a lot of help from my friends

 

As I look forward to the New Year of 2021, I need to reflect on what will soon be the Old Year (and thank F, aimiright?!?).  

I started 2020 newly single and subsequently about to leave the country, funemployed, and living under someone else's stairs Harry Potter style, minus the magic wand.  That's completely untrue - single Sheri DEFINITELY had a magic wand whose powers dimmed the lights for the entire subdivision while in use.  

Leaving the country for nearly two months certainly aided in the process of getting over a boy.  I embraced the balm of space and time and let equatorial sunsets, ocean waves, new travel buds, and the best damn cousin in the whole world distract me from mourning my old life and moving towards one whose shape I could not yet see.  That act, that conscious decision, to let the people that loved me to care for me cemented some feelings of place and security in the town I now think of as home.  

I've been reflecting on home and place and belonging in a landscape for a while now.  No breakthroughs or deep realizations, but a strong confirmation that community matters A LOT to me.  Community as a synonym for town, sure, but more intimately as a collection of people that care for and take care of each other.  

Turns out I'm a social introvert that NEEDS human interaction and touch.  Having physical contact in the forms of hugs from friends and regular massage taken away for months was gruelling and when I felt the loneliest and lowest this year.  Touch, and not even in a sexual sense, is near impossible to replicate and something I find so soothing and comforting.  

Community takes many forms for many people - book clubs, sports teams, coworkers, housemates, family, many besties.  My community, my network, my support is multiple sports teams and clubs, a gaggle of diverse girlfriends, a cousin bestie on speed dial, and coworkers I deeply trust and respect.  It took time and effort to build this for myself in Dawson Creek, but the love, support, and returns I've received have been deeply nourishing in what should have been an isolating and lonely year. 

I strongly credit the role physical activity and conscious exercise played towards positive mental health this past year.  Frequent power walks around town for groceries, dog walks, errands, or just simply to leave the house and get out of my head.  Leisurely bike rides around Dawson Creek's gravel and paved side roads.  Hiking the trails around Tumbler Ridge  At-home weights and HIIT videos that I did "together" with my friend across town.  Swimming.  New sports of curling and cross country skiing.  As an athlete, I know how to care for my physical body, so that's what I comfortingly returned to and simply hoped my emotional and mental health would follow.  It mostly worked.  Most of the time.  

So while 2020 was not what or where I thought it would be, I am still pretty damn proud of a handful of accomplishments: 

• Bought my first place
  
  
• Solo two-night backpacking trip in Jasper
  
  
• Received RPF designation
  
  
• Recerted NL

  

My star of 2020 - Millie. How single people without pets in this pandemic year made it remains a great mystery to me.  She ensured I never slept in, let me hold her as I wept for times past and uncertainty ahead, and is stellar company. 

So, even as I am finishing this year much as I did last - no husband, no job and no f-ing kids - it's in a much better state and headspace. 

I hope 2021 sees you enveloped in community and love - whatever, and whomever, and where ever that means to you! 

Wilma, new foster kitten

Wilma joins us from a busy foster home in Fort St. John where there were three dogs and another cat.  In our comparatively quiet home, her and Millie are now mostly friends.  Mostly.

When not duking it out in the Kitty Battledome, they`re parkouring off the furniture and wrestling on top of our sleeping bodies.

They`re both total cuties and we`re still on the fence as to whether we`ll keep Millie or not.  Luckily we`ve been able to postpone that decision as no one has shown any interest in adopting her.

At the prompting of a well-connected woman, who is quickly becoming a favourite friend in Chetwynd, I attended a volunteer orientation at one of the primary schools at lunch.

Car free and usually care free, I debated the  merits of walking or cycling in a developing northern snow storm.

Both would get me out of the house. Pro.  I could get there faster cycling and read a novel longer.  Pro.  I was going to a school and they would have a bike rack.  HUGE Pro.  A book club mate and the inviter to the event had recently dislocated her shoulder from a cycling fall - on dry pavement - hmmm, possible con.

I cycled there.  It was chilly.  I felt hardcore.  The wind blew snow into my exposed face both ways.  Con, con, con.

There was delicious carrot soup waiting when I arrived at the school and two fun kitties when I returned home. Pro.  

Leveled up, first town snow and Millie has a twin

An overnight wet snow thwarted my cycling into my Occupational First Aid Level 3 practical exam.  I had been cycling in each morning the three-ish kilometers (uphill) from home and was annoyed I wouldn't be able to do it for the final day.  

Cycling clears my head, the gentle incline into town revs up my heart rate and the twelve minute ride allows me to ponder and prepare for my day ahead.  I courageously cycle on the right hand shoulder of the highway for a couple hundred meters where a recent construction project by the town has destroyed a once-perfectly-usable pedestrian path (in its place is an awkward switchback with deep gravel that even those walking in get bogged down).  

For the past two weeks, I have been at the (allegedly haunted) Northern Lights College completing OFA Level 3.  It's a course I have been encouraging employers to put me through - when I had employers - and decided to do it myself when I had the time.  

Struggling to find work in the environmental field, successfully completing this course will hopefully give me a few more options in town and outside when I move on from the Peace.   

Ride the trail for Elizabeth

Ride the Trail for Elizabeth: Cyclists Ride Together to Create a Safer Trans-Canada Trail

EDMONTON, ALBERTA, August 2013– Cyclists, supporters, family and friends will ride in solidarity to show support for Ride the Trail for Elizabeth, a cross country campaign to raise awareness and promote the completion of a Trans-Canada Trail that will be accessible and safe for cyclists.

Elizabeth Ann Slovis got on her first bike at the age of 50 and immediately fell in love. An avid outdoor enthusiast, Elizabeth, alongside her husband Edmund A. Aunger, would spend their summers cycling the Trail. Though the Trans-Canada Trail was not always smooth or safe, Edmund recalls Elizabeth’s passion for the Trail she loved, “she wanted to devote her retirement to getting the Trail properly developed and completed - ensuring accessibility and safety for all cyclists”. On July 14th, 2012 while Edmund and Elizabeth were biking along the Trail in Prince Edward Island, Elizabeth was struck and killed by a drunk driver. She was 63.

Survived by her husband and her three sons, Edmund S. Aunger, Richard Aunger and Gregory Aunger,Elizabeth’s dream of a safer Trans-Canada Trail lives on. Edmund Aunger has carried on his beloved wife’s vision and started the Ride the Trail for Elizabeth campaign. A campaign that will see Edmund cycle across the country in five stages each summer, beginning the first leg of his journey on July 1st, 2013 in Victoria, British Columbia and finishing in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island on July 2017.

Edmund will be arriving in Edmonton on Sunday August 25, 2013 marking the completion of his first leg. We invite you to join Edmund on the steps of the Alberta Legislature on Sunday afternoon at 3:00pm as we rally in support for a safer Trans-Canada Trail. More importantly, we invite you to celebrate the completion of Edmund’s first leg, the power of a united cycling community and the realization of Elizabeth’s dream. We hope to see you there. Ride on.


Please join Ed on his ride. He will be leaving Devon around 9am, cycling on Highway 19, and then into Edmonton, Trans Canada Trail from Terwilliger to Hawrelak Park. He will be leaving the Hawrelak Park pedestrian bridge about 2pm and continuing to the Alberta Legislature for a 3pm rally, followed by a ride to the Trans-Canada Trail head in Louise McKinney Park.

For more info: http://www.ridethetrail.ca

Buy, sell, swap your ride

Events like Edmonton's annual bike swap make me homesick for a bigger centre with such sustainable happenings.  If you're looking for new wheels in either Calgary or Edmonton, be sure to check out their sales on May 4th 2013, at the Calgary Parking Authority’s City Centre Parkade from 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm in Calgary and May 11 in Edmonton at the Glengarry Arena, 13340 85 Street.  Again the sale runs from 2:30 pm until 4:00 pm. Bike intake for both runs from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm for both cities with a $2 admission fee.  Happy cycling!

Commuting continued

I’m continuing to cycle to work despite daily 10-15 centimeter forecasts of snow in the B.C. Peace.  It’s not pleasant, enjoyable, pleasurable or any other synonym of the aforementioned three kilometer commute.  Chilly; slippery; scary-mask wearing; uphill; dodging pickups spinning out and confused motorists; winter cycling is turning into an extreme sport. 

Would I love to remote start a vehicle and hop into its waiting warmth instead of layering up and taking to two wheels?  A loud YES! But I choose to be car free this summer and am unwilling to pay for the convenience, ahem silliness, of owning a car in a small town.  Pedestrian and bike friendly it is not – there’s an overwhelming lack of sidewalks, never mind bike lanes in Chetwynd – but I maintain it’s better, or at least less bad, than owning a vehicle. 

As the handful of trails paralleling creeks that link schools and subdivisions are better suited for dog walking, nature strolls and midnight meanders than commuting I’m relegated to the road.  A road which, throughout much of the province is a bustling highway that briefly slows to 50 km/h, carries transports, log and coal trucks and motorists baffled at sharing a lane with cyclists.  Add in some concealed-by-the-snow ice and equally hidden holes and it truly is a recipe for a deadly spill. 

Sure, I’ve been offered rides but some lingering sense of pride, stubbornness, or a desire not to be an inconvenience prevents me from accepting.  No longer employed in the vicious, demanding and ultimately unforgiving forest industry, I still feel there’s something to prove and a toughness that can only be cultivated in the boreal to maintain.  I recognize it’s absolutely ridiculous to jump onto an exposed bicycle and slip around alongside one-ton pickups yet I continue to do it – at least twice a day.  

Fall snow

Nervously glancing at the forecast, I grudgingly changed into my winter cycling tires.  Man! Am I ever slow!  Accustomed to city slicks for far too long, the new mountain bike tires feel like clown shoes on my otherwise speedy steed. 

My three kilometer journey to my still-new-to-me part-time job lengthened to 16 minutes from 12, I couldn't comfortably use high gear, the sound from the tires was deafening.  With pre, and in all likelihood real, winter so hard in the north, it’s no great mystery why it’s barely populated by a smattering of small towns. 

Comfortably care and car free, I’ve been zooming around Chetwynd on a borrowed bicycle for the sunny summer and now frosty fall.  It's a slower, ponderous pace well suited to northern living.  Constantly conscious of how much I buy at the shops, the spacing of my appointments and the highly volatile weather, I've embraced my commute.  In addition to light (now moderate) exercise, caffeinated teas are pretty much a thing of the past for me as I arrive clear headed, smiling and rosy cheeked.  

  

"Good for you!" I'm practically knocked over from a high five upon arriving somewhere slightly sweaty and disheveled.  "I could have picked you up," as I carry my dripping bike into the back room at work on a soggy morning.  I continue to stand by my decision to take to my feet, pedals, and crazed car shares in a town where one truck per person is viewed as not enough.  

Dear Burma, gimme back my mates

I should have thought through my decision to sit in the front row of an Indonesian fire show a little further.  While I wan't on the receiving end of an on-fire/smoldering coconut husk, my neighbours weren't so lucky.  No obvious injurues or hospital visits required, just a stunned lass. 

Known for its theatre/music performances, I finally attended one on my last night in Ubud, Indonesia after my cocktail swilling flashpacker friends had moved on before I too was Thailand and real friends bound. 

Their pear-shaped visa run put a wee kink in my excited plans to see familiar Canadian faces.  After I hadn't heard from my friends 18 hours after they were due to return from Burma, I resigned that they must be in a bin.  In Burma. 

Rather, they'd moved on to Ko Phi Phi with nary a phone call or email until they were settled on that debacherous island.  I met Linda, a witty, chatty and interesting Brit.  After a quick meal, we stumbled into a jazz music festival for the King's Birthday.  Grabbing take-away noodles, our weight in rum we moseyed back over for a listen.  Both of us may have had boats to catch in the morning, but that didn't stop the rum flowing or the free Changs pouring in from the locals. 

Heavy headed I landed on Phi Phi, met my mates and proceded to do it all over again.  I once again had a boat to catch in the morning.  A dive boat. 

The seas were relentlessly rolly and big which did suprisingly little to quell my seasickness/raging hangover.   The King Cruiser was spectacular, the other two dives were average with the topside scenery taking all the points. 

Processing rice in Bali's abundant terraces

 Crazy big Balinese meal post-cycling/down hill cruising

 Gunung Kawi outside Ubud

 Generally sage advice

This performer alledgedly went into a trance and walked over/kicked around those coconut husks

 Nemo and his mates

 Cuddlefish

 Spanish dancer

 Shit viz, but that hooded figure is me in 27 degree water.  Brr.   

 From viewpoint on Ko Phi Phi

 Around Phi Phi

 View from my window post boys

I have no idea

Givin' 'er in Campbell River

"That's booty!" Mike excitedly exclaimed as I bent down to retrieve a pair of pricey, polarized, wear-over-existing-prescription-glasses sunnies. While he admitted to being slightly hungover from his wife Barb's birthday the night before, minor overindulgence wasn't going to slow Mike from showing three long-time travelers around Campbell River.

Mere minutes after walking in their door two days before, Quadra Island wine was in my hand, Barb was giving me my weight in Canadian hardcovers and Mike was jumping on the sofa chanting "D-bag, d-bag, d-bag," as I recounted yet another too familiar tale of a man being too good to be true. Lesson: Inquire if lovers are betrothed.

Hungover and happy, I set out with Mike and Barb to cycle what felt like the entire Island, hike a secret path to waterfalls, pop into a sunny pub, relax in their hottub and dig out my one clean top for Barb's birthday. NDP supporters, generously flowing booze and killer food compliments of fellow travelers and Mike and Barb's "new children" Kelsey and Ty solidified the evening as a returning-to-Canada highlight.

(Mike and I at waterfalls via a secret trail)

(Mike and Barb taking in rare Island sun)

I rolled into CR on the high of reconnecting with a friend in Tofino. Blessed with long sandy beaches, a town vibe that's All Island, struggling industry and wronged Aboriginals and the most impressive crew/camp house I have ever seen (they have a housekeeper!), catching up with Andrew after too many summers was seemingly secondary to the stunning islands, big wooded coastal trees and sunsets that held us long after our beers were finished and the actual event over.

(Looking out from Tofino)

(Waiting for the water taxi)

(Bedroom view!)

No Island visit is compete without a stopover of some sort in Victoria and I was fortunate to have two one-nighters with Chetwynd friends. In town for a teacher's conference, Gus met my float plane from the Sunshine Coast and we promptly got to the bottom of several pints before he passed me off to his lovely wife Rachelle. More afternoon brews, light shopping and an evening meal crawl followed before being passed off to Gus again. Several pubs later, we were exploring the Leg grounds and poking around the Empress telling ghost stories.

After meeting downtown Dan and I too set about getting to the bottom of several Island-brewed bottles before hitting up a uni pub. A few hedge dives, horrific nachos and cheese that are always a good idea at the time and a hungover farewell to the sea, I was Alberta and snow bound.