Romancing the Genres: kayaking

According to the online Oxford Dictionary of English, peace can mean freedom from disturbance and/or tranquillity; or, mental or emotional calm; or, a state or period in which there is no war or a war has ended.

In no particular order, here are five things that bring me personal peace, i.e. tranquility and mental calm:

Baking – I’ve only recently come to realize that baking for family and friends is my love language. Hey, I’m a slow learner. Not only does time spent in the kitchen with flour, sugar, butter, and eggs fill me with a sense of peace, but it also brings me joy when the fruits of my labours are enjoyed by those I care for.

Knitting – An excuse to sit and let my thoughts wander while being productive. Like day dreaming with permission, hehe. Particularly calming are dish cloths knitted with a pattern I make up on the fly. Quick, easy, and if I purl when I should have knit, no one will care about the goof because the dish cloth will still do its job. No pressure.

Photo by Margarida Afonso on Unsplash

Camping – What I’ve called communing with nature is what some now call forest bathing. I’ve been reaping the benefits of camping under the stars, far away from civilization, for years. Sure I miss the flush toilet, sure I curse the biting bugs, but watching the moon glimmer on the lake whilst I’m serenaded by loons and owls is worth the primitive conditions and the occasional itchy bite. And waking to the sounds of birds tweeting, squirrels chattering, and frogs practicing their diving is something I treasure. Even the astoundingly loud patter of rain on the tent is calming.

Kayaking – Exercise whilst sitting, surrounded by the mysterious depths of ocean, lake, or stream. Though the streams I’ve explored aren’t terribly deep, so there’s not much mystery, unless the flash of a fish catches my eye and makes me wonder what species it is. The lake is a bit more mysterious, but I’m pretty sure the dark water is hiding only fish, diving turtles, and slimy weeds. I find the ocean a bit scary so I tend to not think about what lies in wait beneath the surface. (Particularly in recent years when Great White Sharks have been spotted in my area.) I’ll happily sit and let the tide or wind carry me where it will whilst I watch the Ospreys fish, wait for the Great Blue Heron to catch something, and pray the seagull doesn’t poop on my head.

Pulling weeds – Another mindless and productive activity that allows for wandering thoughts, and gives me something to show for the time spent outdoors in the sun. I’m striving for a meadow rather than a lawn and so am judicious in the weeds I pull. They are just misplaced wildflowers after all. I have a large planting of what is called bog thistle that I’ve decided needs to go – it’s in the way of foot traffic to and from the hen house. But I’ll wait until late fall to dig it up so the goldfinches will have time to feast on the seeds.

Photo by Gary Fultz on Unsplash

What all these activities have in common is they give me time and space for my thoughts to wander. I can’t tell you what I’m contemplating as I sift flour or wind yarn, not because it’s a scandalous secret (I wish! Wouldn’t it be fun to hold a scandalous secret?) but because it’s ho-hum stuff like “I wonder what that bug is” or “the neighbour’s dog WILL NOT SHUT UP!” or “I wish I had pre-cut parchment paper for my round cake tins”. After a while, even those thoughts fade and I’m left with a feeling of tranquility, a large pile of weeds added to the compost pile, or a few dozen ginger snaps.

Luanna Stewart has been creating adventures for her imaginary friends since childhood. She spends her days writing spicy romance ranging from contemporary to paranormal. When not torturing her heroes and heroines, she’s in her kitchen baking something delicious. She lives in Nova Scotia with her patient husband, two spoiled cats, and five hens.

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I had planned on telling the story of when I was ten, and my father was assigned to work in Taiwan for the Agency for International Development in the early sixties. After flying to San Francisco, we had a few days to explore the city, driving up and down steep hills in a convertible, with my mom in a panic 😊. Then we landed in Hawaii where they put fragrant leis over our shoulders. I don’t remember much, except the perfumed air on the breezes and the incredible fresh fruit.

When we landed in Taipei, and watched as a red carpet was rolled out to meet the plane, we found out we were the first jet to land at the airport. We walked the red carpet to cheering dignitaries from the city and the country.

Unfortunately, this story doesn’t make a great blog, because that is all I remember. Except as an adult, it is my claim to fame to declare I once walked the red carpet. 😊

So instead, my blog will be about my life’s journey in the book I most recently edited, The Inn on Gooseneck Lane. I realized how much of myself I put into the book. Just snippets of my life at various stages, that added detail to various scenes.

My hero, Brad, is an outdoor adventure leader, who has settled down in his small Vermont hometown, to help his mom recover from breast cancer surgery. He’s bought a sporting goods store. And ends up helping the local inn owner with a cross-country ski week for the over-fifty crowd. In this one paragraph description, there are many areas that have touched my life.

Photo taken by Nancy Vosburgh-Zane

My mom, who just turned 94, has had two bouts with breast cancer, but all ended well both times. Both my son and I went to college in Vermont. My niece recently attended college in Vermont. On the return trip home after visiting her, is when I thought up the bare bones of this book, as I drove along a gurgling creek running down a mountain. And when I passed a tiny lane with a bridge going over the roaring creek named Gooseneck Lane, I knew I had a story. In my head I plotted the story all the way home to Maine.

The gurgling, mountainside creek reminded me of years earlier when I visited Vermont, and stumbled on a sweet, small, artsy town, with inns and bed and breakfasts. A town that made it’s living supporting artisans and outdoor adventure activities.

My work at an environmental college has included working with adventure therapy students. One who helped train a seeing-eye dog, her dog being the first to take part in the new college program. So that dog spent many hours sitting in our office, learning to concentrate on her handler and ignore all that was going on around her—what a sweet pup.

Yaz - my grandson's dog

And lastly, I worked at L.L. Bean as a retail store cashier where I spent many hours in the camping and boating / biking departments.

So many of my life’s “travels” found their way into this book.

· Wine tasting, paired dinners and weddings, which I organized at an inn in Maine when I was the dining manager.

· Numerous other events that I planned for schools and non-profits, where I traveled all over the country to host the events.

· Memories of visiting my grandmother in a small town in New York, including her antique teacart that now sits in my mom’s apartment, her Waldorf salad which was one of my grandmother’s favorite things to make, and her gardens full of rhubarb (and the basement full of rhubarb and dandelion wine.)

· My own outdoor employee adventures of kayaking (ocean and mountain lakes and river rapids), archery, a shotgun shoot, winter camping and cross-country skiing, to name a few. All the experiences that gave me a better understanding when helping customers in the retail store in Maine and assisting on the grand opening of the first store out of state in Virginia, where I put in a week’s work in three days.

· Wine-tasting trips in Sonoma County in California, where I also planned an alumni event.

· The famous Maine ice storm, where I was one of the lucky ones and only lost power for less than a day. But I was alone, fending for myself, knowing a huge oak tree limb had just crashed to the ground inches form my kitchen window. I could have used the help of my hero, for sure.

· The trauma of loving and losing a high-school sweetheart. And then finding him again.

· And the painted fiberglass cow art—yes, a true story and a sight to behold in small-town Vermont where I traveled to a friend’s wedding. (See below for fun link to painted cows)

All these adventures and artifacts from my life found their way into The Inn on Gooseneck Lane, a fact I didn’t realize until I revisited and revised this book over a year after I wrote it.

So, my question to you - What shows up in or repeats itself in your life, years after a physical or personal journey? I’d love to hear your stories.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

~ cottages to cabins ~ keep the home fires burning ~Delsora Lowe writes small town sweet romances and contemporary westerns from the mountains of Colorado to the shores of Maine.Author of the Starlight Grille series, Serenity Harbor Maine novellas, and the Cowboys of Mineral Springs series, Lowe has also authored short romances for Woman’s World magazine.