Post Bullying - Recovery Starts With Questions

Questions.  Ahhhh ... most of us who have been through the trauma of workplace abuse come out of it with many questions.  Among them are:  "Why me?";  "Why did they target me?"; "What did I do to them to cause all of this abuse?"  At some point when the continued, unrelenting attack on the very core of our being devalues us completely that we ask ourselves (or at least I asked myself) this question:  "Who am I?" My answers to this were part of the original posts of this blog.

The main questions for me at this point are:  "What does reclaiming myself look like in this situation?";  "How do I go about it?"

That is a challenging question and a daunting endeavour to even contemplate, let alone initiate.

There are no simple solutions.  No simple answers.  No magic wands.  Garnering support on the journey back is challenging because so many good people simply don't understand what workplace abuse is all about.  What it does to the target or victim.  Even the term "victim" is discredited because the victim is not supposed to have a "victim" mentality.  After all, that would be bad for morale in the workplace ... and we must protect the workplace at all costs.

After all I've been through that I feel that I have the right to use whatever terminology I choose.

 In reality, I am both a target and a victim ... as well as a survivor.  I am a target because I was targeted for certain behaviours such as isolation, exclusion, gossip, character assassination, etc.

I am a victim because of the damage that the constant barrage of criticism, investigation, inspection, etc. did to me both physically and emotionally.  Damage which continues two years and counting post workplace abuse.

At the same time, although I am not fully recovered especially physically, I am a survivor.

Why?

Because at the end of the day, I am still alive.  I have not succumbed to either suicide or mental illness.  I have not allowed myself to "self-medicate" in any form.  I have struggled and I still struggle.  Each forward movement takes effort.  So much effort that I feel as that I'm walking in particularly sticky mud up to my ankles.  Muck which will not let go.  Muck which hangs on, clinging to me.  Trying to pull me back.

Back to a place of darkness.  Back to a place where I was not happy.  A place where my strengths were devalued and my weaknesses exaggerated.  A place that in reality I cannot go back to.

I was, for all practical intents and purposes, fired.  Or rather dismissed. Semantics.

Compelled to sign an agreement to resign in a donut shop with only a Union official present.  No HR people.  No forewarning of what was about to happen.

 I liken this experience which became a trauma in and of itself to a prisoner being awakened by heavy pounding on the cell door, manacled, frog-marched outside to a waiting firing squad, chained to a post and summarily shot.  No warning.  No kindness.  Brute force and control.  Oh yes, the prisoner knows he's in a cell.  S/he might even know that they've been sentenced to death  But not they did not know the when.  The shock value at its worst.

In my situation, I knew that my value in the workplace had been severely devalued.  I knew, at least in the periphery of my being, that I was perceived by significant others such as HR and management as being the cause of the problem.

I didn't know, however, how far things had gone.  I had been absent from the workplace for over a month.  I was on short-term disability attempting to recover from two back-to-back stress breakdowns.  Close to suicide, my specialist felt that I needed to be separated from the workplace in order to heal.

He could have given me a one-way ticket for a 72 hour evaluation under the Mental Health Act but sent me home instead after asking and assessing the answers to two questions:  "Was I a danger to myself i.e. suicidal?" and, even more importantly in this situation, "Was I a danger to anyone else i.e. the people who were causing the symptoms?"

The answer to both questions was no.  While I was close to becoming suicidal, at that point I was not.  While I was angry, and rightfully so, at what was happening in the workplace, I was not likely to hurt them.  Most of them were bigger then me, including the women.  And while they may constitute a significant Goliath to me, my name is not David.  Nor do I have any skill with the slingshot.

Among the questions asked were:  "Did I have access to weapons - as in guns?"

The answer was no.  The main deciding factor was that I had built up a support system among a few trusted relatives and friends - the main one of which was my husband.

That support system has made all the difference.

Although, I have been battered and bruised (badly), that support system is what has allowed me to survive.  To get up time and time again.  To work on recovery.

So why do I keep going back to the past?  Why do I keep mentioning and reliving that terrible day in the doughnut shop?  Why don't I just "let go" or move on?

These are the frustrations many people have voiced with me.  The reality is that workplace abuse and the bully in the workplace are traumas just as surely as the shooting at Columbine more than a decade ago was for those who survived it.  I remember reading in a newspaper article on the tenth anniversary of that tragic day about a survivor who said that people keep telling him to forget about it, to stop thinking about it but that he can't.  It is still with him every day of his life.

That is trauma in a nutshell.  It's not that you, the victim or target or whatever, can magically let go.  From the moment the first shot at Columbine was fired, trauma entered these people's lives and forged a tight grip on them which does not easily let go.  Not without therapy.  Not without a lot of work and effort.  Not without a support group.  Not without help.

Part of the purpose of the realignment of this blog is not only to invite you on my journey to share the good times, to learn from the bad, but also to give you tools help you understand the traumatized person in your life and what that person is dealing with on a daily basis.  Or if you're the traumatized person, to let you know that (a) you're normal and (b) recovery is possible.  Like with Lydia in the previous blog, it takes a lot of hard work and determination.  But it is possible.

First, we need to lay down a strong foundation which will start with my nest blog.  Like a contractor laying down the foundation for any building project, it needs to be strong.  It needs to be able to withstand anything which might come against it.  It has to be done right.

And to do that, takes time and effort.

So please, dear reader, I ask you to bear with me as I start to lay down a strong foundation from which to build on.

Join with me in the journey.  Hope on the bus.  I welcome and solicit your comments and feedback.

Psychological Recovery Mirrors Physical

On my journey, I've often tried to get people to understand what is happening within me and the challenges I face by drawing parallels between physical injuries/illnesses and then comparing them with the emotional/psychological situation/injuries that I face.  Sometimes it seems to work.  Then there are the other times....

Today's blog is going to feature such a journey; a traumatic journey in the physical realm.  A journey widely followed by people in our area.  One which anyone can understand.  A traumatic event which has changed not only a young girl's life but her family's as well.

Their journey began one bright sunshiny May day.  A normal day. Filled with normal things.

Until ....

A garbage disposal truck driver got distracted for just a minute - and found a stopped school bus, lights flashing in front of him.  He tried to avoid a sure collision by attempting to pass on the right.  A young girl was getting off the bus.  His truck hit her slender body, throwing her 30 feet down the road.

Lydia Herrle is a survivor.  Her story is well-known in our area.  The community came together.  People prayed.  They tied green ribbons around trees, poles, fence posts, you name it to show their prayer support for this family.  Her family set up a blog to keep the community informed of her condition during the tense first days after the accident and continued making progress reports daily for months.

A year after the accident, Lydia is a miracle in progress.  Still recovering.  Still with no certainty that she will recover fully, her family is grateful for the Lydia they now have.  The Lydia that lay motionless in a coma for months.  The Lydia they thought they would never see again.

A huge part of Lydia's remarkable recovery is her own drive and stamina.  Her desire to get well.  To work hard.  To set goals and work to achieve them.

Lydia had to start at the beginning.  She had to relearn how to eat.  How to walk.  How to brush her teeth and her hair.

Those who us who suffer from psychological trauma are also on a journey of recovery.  Our journey is less understood.  Certainly there are no headlines.  In  many cases, people are not even rallying around us to support us through prayer.  No green ribbons lining the roadways.  We are invisible to those outside the situation just as our plight was invisible to those who worked with us.  The bystanders.  The onlookers.  HR.  Management.  The Union.

Our injuries are not as cut and dried as broken bones and brain injury.  Nor are there therapies to help us advance, to regain what we've lost in many cases.  We're on our own to figure things out as best we can usually with no to limited support.

We are actively discouraged from telling our stories.  From becoming visible.  Sometimes this discouragement comes from well-meaning people who just don't understand.  People who think we're whiny.  Or that we just won't let go.  Other times this discouragement comes from those who caused the damage in the first place.  It also comes internally from fear of what these people might do if we come out of the closet of workplace abuse.

We are perceived in a negative way as though we were somehow the cause of the trauma that happened in the workplace and has affected us and our families.

Yet, I see so many parallels in Lydia's journey back from physical trauma and my own from complex PTSD.  Recovery is a long process.  For her, it involves different forms of therapy.  Her recovery is a 24/7 situation as she is continually working on going forward.  Challenging herself.  Resting.  It involves her entire family.

My recovery is also a 24/7 situation since I began the first phase in 2006 with an amazing therapist.  A journey of continually attempting to move forward.  Challenging myself.  Resting.  Learning to involve my family and lean on them for support.

This blog is taking a turn at the moment as I re-align it to move forward and invite others into not only my journey, but the journeys of those around them who are recovering from an abusive workplace.  Those who have been made to feel that it was something they did wrong.  To bring workplace abuse and recovery from workplace abuse out of the closet and into the open.

I hope you will continue with me on this amazing journey.

Coming Back to Life after Workplace Abuse

Most of the last several years I've preferred to remain like this - a shadow figure.  Seen but not really seen.

I feel a bit like Snow White, waking up from a very long sleep.  Actually, it's been more like coming slowly out of a coma - by minute increments.  A piece here.  Another piece there.  Connecting the dots.  Learning to live again.  To come awake - fully awake - to both the injustice and the beauty of life post-bullying.

Unlike Snow White there is no Prince Charming.  No kiss.  No dwarfs.  There is no happily ever after.  With workplace abuse, there rarely is.

There is, however, the vain, jealous queen aka co-worker peering into her looking glass inquiring who in the workplace is ... the brightest, the most competent, the most well-liked or well-established ... or whatever.  There is also a group of disenchanted townspeople or villagers aka bystanders willing to look up to, admire and follow the queen wherever she goes and believe without question whatever she says.  After all, she's the queen.  Who would think for themselves when someone else can think for them?  Isn't it easier all around that way?

For me, the awakening is about reclaiming myself from midst of the debris of my self-esteem which cloaks me like the wrappings around a mummy.  Or like an early morning fog.

Forced into silence by fear, my greatest awakening is realizing that I not only have a story to tell but a right to tell my story.  It's my story.  Uniquely mine.  Yes, it involves others who behaved in negative ways - ways that caused a lot of internal psychological and emotional damage and trauma - but that is simply a prop to propel the story of recovery on.  To make sense of the journey of recovery.

If the injury had been caused by a physical accident such as a car crash, there wouldn't be any issue in that regard.  It would be a no-brainer.  I would certainly be recognized as having a right to tell the story, to show the cast - or the bandages - or the bruises - or the stitches.  If the accident was traumatic or newsworthy enough, it would have been featured on the local news in which case there wouldn't be any questions of slander, libel or defamation of character.  But workplace abuse is different.  Because it's non-visible.  Because it operates best in a culture of silence.  Because too many people are willing to let it.

For me, the most consistent piece of the recovery process has been an attempt to move forward by focussing on my dreams to become a writer.  Lifelong dreams sidetracked years ago by the realities of life.

To start, I've taken two on-line courses:  Social Media 101 and Blogging 101.

Social Media was a fearful adventure for me.  I had to write a bio.  I had to get onto and learn how to use various forms of social media:  LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, etc.

I'd been on LinkedIn for several years, but was consumed by fear.  After all, if I could see others' profiles on LinkedIn, so could those who had caused all this damage.  What would they do if they saw my profile on LinkedIn and accessed this blog?  How would they perceive it?

I lived in fear.  I still do to a degree.

I was starting to slowly come out of the paralysis of fear when I signed up for Blogging 101 which has made me realize that the focus of my blog is on my years-long, on-going journey of recovery from complex PTSD.  Not primarily on what happened but what has been happening since then and because of it.  However, the two - the bullying and the recovery - are irrevocably intertwined since I couldn't be recovering from one without the other.

I value - and invite - your comments.  What would you like to see covered in this blog?  Would you be willing to tell me your story and have it featured on this blog?

I invite you, the reader, to join me on this journey.

Part of reclaiming my life - I can't ride a normal bike because of the affects of the psychological trauma so I had a bike shop adapt this one for my needs.  Thank you King Street Cycle, Waterloo, Ontario

Blogging 101

Dear reader:

 After publishing this blog for over a year, I finally decided to take a Blogging 101 course to see what I'm doing right - and what I'm doing wrong.  Actually, from what I'm learning, it is a surprise that I have any readers which means that I am very grateful for each one of you who takes the time to click on this poor old bear's blog - and read it.

What possessed you to click on this URL, to look at this blog?  What intrigued you?  Was it the title?  Was it one of the key words?  What are you looking for in your reading pleasure in a blog? 

Was it the word “deranged” which made you think of a psychotic blogger; one who rambles on without rhyme or reason? Or was it a totally different reason - like you already know me and have been involved in a part of my journey - even vicariously.

Whatever your reason for being here, I am glad you have come into my den.  Or is it lair?  Spider web, perhaps?

What is a deranged mind anyway?  Perhaps it is different things to different people.  My mind has always been independent.  Marching to its own drummer.  Going its own direction.  Sometimes switching focus on a dime.  People sometimes hard to follow my conversations, as I don't always say what they expect.  Or think in a conventional way.  I am different.   Proudly so. Therefore, I don't always fit in.  During this journey, I've learned to live with that.

This blog has changed direction - or perhaps more accurately gained focus - within the year and a bit that its been in existence.

When I started in January 2012, I simply wanted a forum for my writing style and technique.  As time went on, I became more and more away of the damage workplace abuse had wrecked in my life.  It was six months after the fact when the symptoms of severe stress started wrecking havoc in my life.  Altering the landscape of my existence beyond recognition.  Like Cologne during WWII completely destroyed during an Allied blitz attack.  Rebuilt.  But never to be the same as before.

Before the abuse started and continuing while it escalated, I was already involved in therapy with an amazing therapist.  Thus began the most amazing adventure of my life.  An adventure that didn't follow any logical progress, but leaped all over the map from one place to another ... and then back again.  Learning to value myself.  Learning to value others.  Discovering who was important in my life - and who was not.  Admitting that to those who should have been important ... and had not been.  Forgiveness. Trauma.  Confronting long term fears.

Even during the abusive situation, life was fun.  I was having a great time.  Reinventing relationships with Papa Bear, the cubs, sibling bear.  Seizing the moment for all it was worth.

Even when I was completely isolated by my co-workers, I continued to seize the moment and learn more about myself and how to handle these situations.  I learned that I did not need others to know my self-worth. I learned that I enjoyed myself and didn't need others to affirm me.   When my co-workers refused to talk to me and excluded me from office chat, I would simply talk to others in other departments.  I found ways to cope.  Time after time.  I worked things out in therapy, read books, analyzed the situation, attended conferences.  
And I grew - emotionally.

For the first time in my life, I was truly a happy camper.  Even in the midst of on-going, escalating trauma, I was happy.

Shortly before the end came, a worker from a different department said "What are you on?  You're always smiling.  No one can be that happy."  I grinned.  I tried to frown - but it just wouldn't happen.  Everyone (everyone not in my department that is) who was in the vicinity was laughing with me.  A splash of happiness in the cesspool of life (title of a book by Barbara Johnson).

And then the opposing faction raised the heat and began going to management and HR accusing me of things.  Even the union became involved - on their side.  Every small mistake was reported.  Small incidents which should have been kept between two people became fodder for office gossip after being reported to management.

Called into the office repeatedly.  Having to explain myself.  Phone calls at home.

Finally, I had two back-to-back stress breakdowns.  While I was "recovering" from the second one, out of the office, on short-term disability, the opposing faction wrong up a petition and submitted it to management and HR.  I never did walk back into the building again.  I was not allowed to.  Too ill to even think, devastated, crying uncontrollably, I signed away all my rights in a local donut shop with only the union representative present.

Since then, my journey has changed.  My landscape is filled with craters, darkness, fear of people, fatigue.  Even affects that resemble brain injury.


And yet, it's not all gloom and doom.  Never has been; never will be.

I continue the journey.  The journey of recovery.

I invite you, old reader and new reader alike, to join with me in my journey.

To rejoice when I rejoice; to weep when I weep.




I also invite you if you're new to this blog to peruse my old posts and visit the places I've already been.

Thank you for joining me in the journey.

Looking forward to see what's around the next bend in the journey.

The Worst 6 1/2 Weeks of my Life ...

From a Deranged Mind Perspective.

My life - as I knew it when I woke up that morning - changed in one moment.  The moment my body came crashing down on the floor with all the weight on one place - my wrist.

The pain was ... well ... astronomical.  

I remember screaming as I lay half in and half out of the bathtub.  Papa Bear had no idea what had happened but could surmise that whatever it was I hadn't drowned.  I was making way too much noise.

Up to this point, life during that time period had been very difficult for me anyway.  The on-going process of recovery from trauma wasn't going well.  People, especially people close to me, misunderstood and turned on me.  Venting frustration and overall disapproval.  Saying things like:  "After all, you don't have cancer."  Even saying that the emotional recovery I'd experienced and was an on-going process was heading the wrong direction.  Shaking my fragile self esteem to the very core of my being.  Thus ushering in a different phase of the journey.  Acute psychological trauma/injury  heaped on top of everything I'd been dealing with up to that point.

Life once again became a daily struggle.  Not just to survive, but to maintain even a facade of normalcy.  I struggled daily to regain what I had lost.  To deal with the present trauma.  Affects piled onto affects.

And then my mother died.

Coming back from the funeral, what little strength and resources I had were completely exhausted, I could barely function.  Everything was a chore.  There was no energy left.  Zip.  Zilch.  Nada.

Even simple things like grocery shopping overwhelmed me.  Life as I knew it came to a screeching halt.  Unable to do the simplest things.  Unable to enjoy life.  Unable to cook and prepare meals for my husband.  Unable ....  My world seemed to circle around that one word.  With "not understood" coming in a close second.  Only people walking closely with a victim of trauma, PTSD, etc. understands what it's like.  Outsiders looking in don't have a clue.  Not because they're intrinsically mean, but because
"it" doesn't have a name (i.e. cancer) that their mind can grasp.  And because they're not motivated enough to read the literature available and research trauma, how it impacts the victim and how to walk with, encourage and support the victim.

Most of that time from September to mid-November  before I broke my wrist is only a blur in my mind.  One grey day after another.  A struggle to get through.  To cope.  The most common feelings:  being overwhelmed; exhaustion.

Then I broke my wrist.  My right wrist.  My dominant one.

If I thought things were bad before, they suddenly got worse - much worse.

My life already defined by "couldn'ts" became much more limited.  I couldn't dress myself at first.  I couldn't knit. I couldn't crochet.  I couldn't even write.  I couldn't open cans.  Even making the morning coffee required some creativity.  Now my life was even more defined by the word "unable" as emotional fatigue/injury collided with the physical.

Constant pain.  My swollen fingers protruding from my blue cast like fat, green sausages.

Most of the things that kept me halfway sane, like knitting, crocheting, writing, were gone.  Driving too.  I became a "shut-in" for all practical intents and purposes only leaving the house, my safe place, when escorted by someone, usually my long-sufferin' spouse.

Christmas was coming on.  More couldn'ts.  I couldn't make presents. I couldn't drive to buy presents.  I had no idea what to buy people anyway.  Ideas wouldn't come, the mind was so disabled.  Overwhelmed.  In pain.

Even the painkillers weren't working well.  The help that normal people receive when they're going through a difficult period i.e. a diagnosed disease simply wasn't there.  No meals brought in - even though it was physically impossible to prepare any.  No phone calls of concern.  Nada.  I was left, for the most part, on  my own to struggle through and meet my/our basic daily needs as best I could.  My therapist told me that I needed to rest in order to heal.  But how to do that?  How to rest when every formerly mundane, routine task (a) still needed to be done and (b) required more effort and creativity than ever?  How to rest when the outside support just isn't there?

Yet, somehow we made it through.  I say "we" because it was Papa Bear taking care of me, taking care of his "injured" den mate   He did the dishes.  He carried laundry up and down stairs.  He opened cans of cat food (for which the cat was immensely grateful).  He cut my meat.  He drove me places.  He even dressed me the first few days.  Always sheltering me.  Always watchful.

Even while working a physically demanding full-time job, he came home and did the daily chores.

How to end this posting?  Usually, I find something positive.  Some hope.  Something on the up side to leave my reader with; however,  there are times in life,when not much positive is happening and the best one can do is deal with what life has thrown at them.

This was such a time.

Rough Spot on the Journey

Sometimes my walk through PTSD, trauma, severe stress and its aftereffects resembles the photo above.   A walk on a pier.  Except that when the bear (who strongly resembles Papa Bear) reaches the end of this pier he will stop, maybe take a look around, turn and head back to tierra firma.  Not so with victims/survivors of trauma.  It seems like in my journey, the on-going journey through trauma and recovery, is like that walk on the pier.  Except the trauma doesn't know enough to stop at the end of the pier, look around and turn back.  It keeps on going straight ahead off the pier and and into deep water.  With no warning.  It doesn't even know that the pier, the safe territory, has ended and unfathomable depths are ahead.  Uncharted territory.

Also, unlike the picture above, there is no lighthouse to warn of shallow water, rocks, or other dangers. To guide us from danger to safety.

In the journey of trauma, especially since so few people understand it - unless they've embarked on the journey themselves or are walking with one who is - the journey is largely based on trial and error.  Stumbling into deep water i.e. extreme fatigue, stuttering, memory loss, loss of cognitive skills, balance issues, et al. and then working with each affect individually to find a solution.  Rest.  Right brain activity.  Going out with someone rather than alone.  Staying inside where it's safe.  Determining who are the safe bears in the den.  And, most importantly, who are not.  Finding out what works - and what doesn't.

I was suddenly plunged into such a time on my journey during the latter half of 2012.  Unexpectedly.  I didn't even see the cliff (or the end of the pier) until I had unknowingly stepped off it and found myself falling, falling, falling....

A person I had considered safe was going through rough waters of their own - and started lashing out at me.  Hurtful words.  Words that caused significant re-injury to an already fragile psyche.

Words like:  "After all you don't have cancer."  "You turn everything around to yourself."  "I don't think you can go an hour without using the words 'I', 'me' or 'my'.  (I dare you to try it.  Since our worldview begins with ourselves and radiates outward, this is an impossible task - especially (a) in the middle of a shopping trip and (b) when the other person is not following the same guidelines).

This ushered in a whole new phase of re-injury and trauma, depression, which as day followed day began to resemble brain injury.  During this time, I was following a blog about a young girl in our area who had been hit by a truck and her journey through physical recovery from the injuries and also from the brain injury caused by the impact.  As I read the blog, I began to see some (slight) similarities between this girl and her journey toward regaining what she had lost and my journey.  She often felt overwhelmed when re-learning skills.  Re-learning skills, i.e. therapy, would leave her so exhausted that she would have to take numerous naps during the day.  She would become overwhelmed with the task at home.  Irritability followed.  Frustration at not being able to do the things that she used to do easily.  Etc.  And, also, not understanding why the truck had hit her.  Why she had been traumatized.

Going out for a short time left me exhausted.  Trying to plan a meal or go grocery shopping left me overwhelmed.  I stayed home in my safe place more and more.  My life constricted by the sensory and other overload imposed on me by the re-injury, the re-traumatization.

Brain injury?  Was it possible that I had sustained something similar to a brain injury through the trauma?

I broached the subject with my therapist who said that trauma creates chaos in the brain.

Chaos in the brain.  Who would've thunk it?  Not me.  Not the people who inflicted the various traumas on me.  Nor the people walking with me.

As I walk through this particular phase of the journey, a phase in which my cognitive skills go up and down on any given day; a phase where words sometimes dessert me and I resemble a mentally deficient person; a phase where the physical affects such as extreme fatigue, lack of balance, etc. are still there, I'm learning to go with the flow.  To embrace life as it presents itself in my current circumstances.  To enjoy what I still have.  And to value those who have chosen to walk with me.  Those who have not given up on me as the journey progresses.

Once again, thank you to all those who are walking with me on the journey.  Helping me up when I fall.   You are my lighthouses.  The light shining in and illuminating the darkness giving me hope when all seems hopeless.

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God bless you.

Until next time....

Time Out ...

... from recovery for a wee respite to indulge in photos, walks and other enjoyable things.

A very wise bear (aka one of my cubs) advised me early on in my process of recovery to discover my passions.

Passions.  The things that make me tick.  That put that spark and sparkle in my face and eyes.

What are they?  

Photography for one.  Writing.  Creating/crafting.  Travel.  Walks.  They all interrelate.  The camera goes with me whenever I travel or take walks.  I've learned that photo ops come at unexpected moments so to always be prepared (like a good former girl scout shout).  Furthermore, I also write about those times.  Those times of brief respite from the daily task of recovery.  Those times of joy and wonder.

Sometimes the best photo ops are found in my own back yard.  Take this one I shot Saturday April 6th of two robins in my lilac tree.  A cold morning.  It almost looks like Mama and Papa Robin are having a discussion which probably started out with Mama Robin taking Papa Robin to task (in a snarky Robin chirp):  "Why did you insist on coming here when we could be in Myrtle Beach sunning by the ocean wearing my brand new bikini, enjoying the surf, sand, sun and warmth?"

Later the same day, Papa Bear and I went on an adventure to the local annual Maple Syrup Festival in Elmira, Ontario.  Our annual pilgrimage.  Camera in tow.   Although we went early, people were there in abundance.  Everywhere.  The main street was blocked off and filled with all sorts of vendors selling all sorts of products from food and crafts to ... well ... maple syrup.  Not just any maple syrup, mind you, but locally made maple syrup.  On the way to the festival, we passed trees with sap buckets and collecting lines.  Just the week before, I had my first taste of maple sap which tastes like slightly sweetened water.  Even with the crowds, it was a good day.  And being able to relieve it over and over again via the pictures makes it even better.

Then there's the crafting, my favorite right-brain activity which has helped to keep me sane while enriching others' lives at the same time.  Those who read my other blog, The Naked Knitter (http://knittingaunatrurel.blogspot.ca/) are acquainted with this passion.  Last weekend, in between watching birds in my backyard and attending the Maple Syrup Festival, I was engaged in my least favorite task of creating - doing the finishing.  Weaving in the ends so that the finished work will not unravel.  Making the fringe for the afghans on the right and left in the picture (identical pattern - made with different yarn weights and hook sizes so that one is a youth afghan and one is for a baby).  Afterwards, the passion to take pictures asserted itself with this whimsical idea of hanging them on the clothesline.  This way, I will always have the pleasure of reliving the thrill of seeing these three afghans take shape beneath my fingers long after they have been sent far away to a new (hopefully forever) home.

Then there's the creative spark of the bear who shares my den:  Papa Bear.  His spark usually manifests itself in the humorous.  The unexpected.  I bought this container of playdough for use in my on-going therapy re: broken wrist.  The idea was to squeeze it thereby adding flexibility to my stiff fingers.  Also to pull it apart which uses and strengthens other muscles.  Papa Bear, though, had other ideas.  More creative ones.  I laugh every time I see these fingers pointing out of the container (and yes, I did leave them be).  I couldn't resist.  The playdough is or more value (laughing value) to me in this shape then it is in its regular shape.  After all, playdough is cheap and there is more in the store.  Fingers?  Well ... if provoked I guess I can always give the provoker the finger....

I had more pictures lined up to share, but decided to end with this one in the interest of keeping this posting short enough to keep the reader's interest all the way through.  Books are good.  But not if they're a blog posting.  I managed to capture this little guy on a walk about a week or two ago, on the St. Jacobs (Ontario) Millrace trail.  We often walk this trail.  Although I'm not usually able to walk the full length and back anymore, even a small outing is good.  Getting a photo op like this one exhilarating as these little guys flick and flitter about.  Never staying still for very long.  Always on the move.  Camera shy. They refuse to pose.  Impatient.  But I finally managed to catch one on camera   Which makes me the winner ... at least this time.

These are the things that give me joy.  That put the spark and sparkle back in my eyes.

These are the good times.  The mini vacations from life.