bravery – 2nd Avenue

A wish for bravery & joy

I’m stealing a New Year’s wish from Neil Gaiman to share this year. He posts these kind of wishes most years and they’re all really lovely!

This one rings particularly true as I step into a very unknown future! There’s a whole lot of newness to look forward to in Calgary (job, home, yoga studio, friends, climate), very little that’s nailed down, and infinite possibilities for happiness!

It’s a New Year and with it comes a fresh opportunity to shape our world.

So this is my wish, a wish for me as much as it is a wish for you: in the world to come, let us be brave – let us walk into the dark without fear, and step into the unknown with smiles on our faces, even if we’re faking them.

And whatever happens to us, whatever we make, whatever we learn, let us take joy in it. We can find joy in the world if it’s joy we’re looking for, we can take joy in the act of creation.

So that is my wish for you, and for me. Bravery and joy.

~ Neil Gaiman, author
New Year’s wish from 31 December, 2011

Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year and an incredibly brave and joyful 2015!

Unforeseen fearlessness

By nature I am not fearless. I am a worrier, a planner, a nail-biting worst-case-scenario imaginer.

But somehow, suspended more than 25 metres (82 feet or around five stories) above a marble floor on steel mesh, I became unflinchingly brave.

We went to K21 last week specifically to see in orbit – an interactive exhibit by Tomás Saraceno. K21 is one of the three venues of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (or state art collection) in Düsseldorf and in orbit is the largest piece they’ve ever displayed.

It’s made up of three interconnected levels of steel mesh, interspersed with giant inflated spheres and suspended under the glass roof of the Ständehaus building. Saraceno was inspired by spiderwebs and spent years studying how different species create different patterns.

in orbit is huge and strange and amazing from all perspectives – particularly from within.

Visitors can don coveralls and climb into the structure; becoming part of the exhibit, altering the tension on the steel wires, and interacting with each other and those watching.

While waiting to get into the coveralls, I was impatient. During the very short safety briefing, I started to get a bit anxious. And then walking up the scaffolding (which felt less than rock solid), the butterflies started. As I trepidatiously put a first foot on the mesh, my heart was pounding. Looking down and seeing the polished stone floor five floors below, I began to think this was a bad idea.

I quickly dropped my bum onto the mesh out a self-preserving instinct that increased physical contact would mean increased safety. The path of least resistance led to a steep down-slope and before I knew it I was sliding down the mesh as though it was snow and I was on a toboggan.

That slide brought on a childlike sense of elation and my nervousness evaporated. While part of my brain still screamed “Stop!” when I moved from overlapping layers of mesh to a single stratum, I got quite comfortable being suspended.

I climbed the ‘walls,’ attempted a couple yoga poses, flopped onto the pillows, ‘swam’ on my belly, marveled at the huge blown-up spheres, clambered along the wires, reveled in the novelty of walking on air… all while I grinned madly.

I could not anticipate my fearlessness before stepping onto the mesh, but there it was. Brave, adventurous, blithely embracing the amazingness of the moment.

Travel while you’re young

In the last month I’ve noticed a lot of net chatter in favour of travelling while you’re young (most notably this piece from Huffington Post). Or maybe I’ve been more predisposed to notice these kinds of articles as we’re preparing for our own travels – although we just barely count as young!

My husband and I have entertained the idea of living in Europe since about 2004, when we less-than-seriously looked into getting UK visas. After spending time in England, France, and Germany last fall and my husband’s Eastern European adventure with my brother in the spring, we decided we were serious about living in another country.

Outside of a short stint in California, I’ve lived in Canada my whole life. While I love my country and I know living in another country will be challenging, I want to become immersed in a new way of life. I yearn for the empathy that comes with understanding how others live, the depth of cultural appreciation that cannot be gained simply as a tourist, and the insight that will come from recognizing all the ways cultures are alike and distinct.

After spending about a year applying for positions in Europe and getting no nibbles, my husband and I began evaluating options for moving overseas without jobs in place. We discovered this summer that we both qualified for visas under the German/Canadian Youth Mobility Agreement and the French/Canadian Youth Exchange Agreement – although we had to apply by mid-August when my husband turned 36.

The short timeline mobilized us and we applied for German visas a few days before my husband’s 36th birthday. When our visas were granted in just two days we took this as a sign that we were in for smooth sailing. Within a week we had signed the paperwork to list our condo, told our families and close friends, and begun the process of whittling down our possessions. Unfortunately, our hopes for a smooth transition out of our condo were scuttled by building re-piping work (five weeks of construction in our unit!) that meant we took our place off the market.

The construction is coming to a close, our condo is listed again, and now we’re hoping for a quick sale. We have just a few weeks left in Vancouver as our flight from Calgary to Frankfurt is November 4, with our year-long German live/work visas starting the day we arrive.

We decided to fly out of Calgary to get an Air Canada-operated flight (our dog, Sofie, is just the right size to fly in the cabin with Air Canada, but too big for most other airlines) and to spend a few days with my husband’s family. Tickets are booked, Sofie’s started the process to get certified for travel, and we’re counting down the days until our German adventure gets underway!

We picked Germany over France pretty much by flipping a coin. I was in favour of France, my husband was leaning towards Germany, but neither of us were opposed to either. Perhaps it was the beer and pretzels that cemented Germany as the front-runner!

We’re planning to start our German year with a couple months in Berlin and hope to travel to parts of Northern Germany (Hamburg, Hannover & the North Coast), along with Belgium, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic while we’re Berlin-based. Maybe we’ll even brave Scandinavia in the winter!

We’d like to be further south in the spring and summer to explore into France, Italy, Switzerland, and that area and to allow my husband the chance to do some cycling trips through the Alps. We’re being pretty loose with the planning and being open to wherever the experience takes us.

Ideally, we hope to stay in Europe for at least a couple years, but we know that life (and visas!) could take us in unpredictable directions.

One of the things I’m most looking forward to is moving outside my comfort zone by being exposed to a German way of thinking and shaking up the routines I’ve settled into in Canada. I want to re-learn how to do things I take for granted now (like grocery shopping or taking public transit) and expand my horizons.

We’re looking for adventure and the opportunity to re-invent our day-to-day lives; embracing the idea of traveling when you’re young… and when you’re not so young, too!

Nature loves courage

Nature loves courage.

You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up.

This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it is a feather bed.

~Terence McKenna
American author, lecturer, and psychonaut

It’s okay to be scared

Being fearful is not generally well-regarded. Scared cats are looked down on. Courage and bravery are rewarded, nervousness and uncertainty are not.

I’m reminding myself that it’s okay to be scared.

I think that many people are ashamed when they feel afraid. There’s this thing in our society that you’re not allowed to feel scared. You have to be a man and put on a brave face, but we all have fears.
~Eli Roth
Director, producer, writer, and actor

There is validity in being scared. It’s a normal, reasonable sense of self-preservation that makes us fear physical pain, emotional hurt, the unknown, and all the things we can’t control.

I don’t have to push those feelings away. I can acknowledge them and let them resonate… and know that they don’t have to control me.

I can be afraid and still be brave.

Courage is doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared.
~Edward Vernon Rickenbacker
WWI fighter pilot