As I have often experienced in Kelowna since I moved here - there are no in between seasons. Not from Winter to Summer anyway. Spring is usually barely budding before it gets mowed over. We have snow and then BAM - it's 30 degrees celsius. As luck (for lack of a better term) would have it my air conditioning in my 2003 hub-cap-missing-no-radio-having-sweet-ass Carolla decided (cause it has a personality all unto it's own) to cease working two days ago just as the heat hit harrrrrd (say with PEI long "a" accent).
So I seriously was fucking mad.
Pissed right off, to be exact.
We took it in to the Air Doctor on Enterprise (shout out Air Doc!) who is, coincidentally a super nice honest guy and he couldn't quite figure out the problem, nor could we find the fuse box for that matter.
*To the guy who decided to hide the fuse box behind the steering wheel, what the hell buddy? I say "guy", because no woman would ever do such a thing.
Today when I was on my way home form work, driving along Glenmore road with the window down and my earbuds in (because remember I don't have a radio) listening to Alabama Shakes "Hold On", just getting so much inspiration from those lyrics, I realized, as per usual, that if I stopped and looked hard enough there was a very good message tucked away neatly in all of this.
The habit of getting in my car, assessing the temperature and then reaching for the knob, has become second nature. Even though I knew it didn't work, I still got in my car and cranked the fan to high...then it blew air at me that felt as good as someone farting in your face. Disappointingly, I turned it right back to "off".
So here's what came to me folks:
There isn't always a dial to turn when the heat comes. When shit gets real, I want to immediately reach for a quick fix; that food, that booze, that dial for cool, shut the noise off and pretend like I'm somewhere else. Sometimes there is nothing to reach out for. I suppose life is preparation for the hard shit and in this case all I can do is, hydrate, and sweat my way through it.
Life can bring on some pretty intense emotion provoking circumstances and situations and we simply can't always reach out and flick a switch or crank a dial. Sometimes we have to wade through the murky, stinky, sloshy, hot water to get to the clear cool fresh stuff - no not sometimes, most of the time - when we have chosen to not skim over our lives but rather delve in and go deep into our crud in order to pull out the real reason for existing.
Sounds heavy maybe, but really it's simple and for me. It was made pretty damn clear as the wind blew through my hair that summer was here and that I should own the heat that encompasses me. The hot but fresh gusts of summer breeze were letting me know that although I may not be able to turn the dial to cool air, I could crank down the window and sink in to warmth of the moment. Ahhhh the moment, isn't that where are the yummy juicy stuff is?
I don't have a convertible or a fancy ass ride. I have old school crank down windows, no power for this sister. In fact my ride is pretty ghetto (no offence to the ghetto and of course I am not comparing my lavished privileged life to that of someone living in less than ideal living situations) but it certainly gets the job done to drive in and out of town, quite comfortably I might add.
So in my quest for simplicity and elimination - of that which I do not need, I find myself noticing that when the heat gets turned up in my life, causing sweaty and sometimes painful discomfort, reaching for the knob to skip over what I need to work through is an injustice to what I desperately need to learn. What I need to be learned (and what I have been asking for) is to just "be". To live with little attachment, to always remember that I am a spiritual being having a human experience and I can observe all the gifts buzzing around me day in and day out - moment to moment - that I don't have to get sucked in to the drama tv show of my life.
I have a choice in every single succulent second - to co-exist with my experience or be a victim of it.
So if you see someone driving around singing loudly, while her children hide their heads under their blankets from both the singing and the vast amount of wind blowing through the car - don't feel bad that I don't have a/c, roll your windows down with me!
Where are you turning down the heat?
With Love and Gratitude,
Grace Karyn
So I seriously was fucking mad.
Pissed right off, to be exact.
We took it in to the Air Doctor on Enterprise (shout out Air Doc!) who is, coincidentally a super nice honest guy and he couldn't quite figure out the problem, nor could we find the fuse box for that matter.
*To the guy who decided to hide the fuse box behind the steering wheel, what the hell buddy? I say "guy", because no woman would ever do such a thing.
Today when I was on my way home form work, driving along Glenmore road with the window down and my earbuds in (because remember I don't have a radio) listening to Alabama Shakes "Hold On", just getting so much inspiration from those lyrics, I realized, as per usual, that if I stopped and looked hard enough there was a very good message tucked away neatly in all of this.
The habit of getting in my car, assessing the temperature and then reaching for the knob, has become second nature. Even though I knew it didn't work, I still got in my car and cranked the fan to high...then it blew air at me that felt as good as someone farting in your face. Disappointingly, I turned it right back to "off".
So here's what came to me folks:
There isn't always a dial to turn when the heat comes. When shit gets real, I want to immediately reach for a quick fix; that food, that booze, that dial for cool, shut the noise off and pretend like I'm somewhere else. Sometimes there is nothing to reach out for. I suppose life is preparation for the hard shit and in this case all I can do is, hydrate, and sweat my way through it.
Life can bring on some pretty intense emotion provoking circumstances and situations and we simply can't always reach out and flick a switch or crank a dial. Sometimes we have to wade through the murky, stinky, sloshy, hot water to get to the clear cool fresh stuff - no not sometimes, most of the time - when we have chosen to not skim over our lives but rather delve in and go deep into our crud in order to pull out the real reason for existing.
Sounds heavy maybe, but really it's simple and for me. It was made pretty damn clear as the wind blew through my hair that summer was here and that I should own the heat that encompasses me. The hot but fresh gusts of summer breeze were letting me know that although I may not be able to turn the dial to cool air, I could crank down the window and sink in to warmth of the moment. Ahhhh the moment, isn't that where are the yummy juicy stuff is?
I don't have a convertible or a fancy ass ride. I have old school crank down windows, no power for this sister. In fact my ride is pretty ghetto (no offence to the ghetto and of course I am not comparing my lavished privileged life to that of someone living in less than ideal living situations) but it certainly gets the job done to drive in and out of town, quite comfortably I might add.
So in my quest for simplicity and elimination - of that which I do not need, I find myself noticing that when the heat gets turned up in my life, causing sweaty and sometimes painful discomfort, reaching for the knob to skip over what I need to work through is an injustice to what I desperately need to learn. What I need to be learned (and what I have been asking for) is to just "be". To live with little attachment, to always remember that I am a spiritual being having a human experience and I can observe all the gifts buzzing around me day in and day out - moment to moment - that I don't have to get sucked in to the drama tv show of my life.
I have a choice in every single succulent second - to co-exist with my experience or be a victim of it.
So if you see someone driving around singing loudly, while her children hide their heads under their blankets from both the singing and the vast amount of wind blowing through the car - don't feel bad that I don't have a/c, roll your windows down with me!
Where are you turning down the heat?
With Love and Gratitude,
Grace Karyn
Comments
Post a Comment