Some mornings are hard for bouncing out of bed, like yesterday.  I see the snow-covered lawn when I open the blinds.  Some days are difficult to talk about passions, what you love.  You feel this lethargy down to your toes.  Much easier to just languish, rest on my duff and read someone else’s  words of passion.

I had high hopes for today.  The morning started with sunshine, no fresh snow on the ground.  We talked about politics over breakfast, of charismatic leaders like Tommy Douglas, Pierre Eliot Trudeau, Jack Layton, etc.   I thought about how passionate these men were, in the way they talked and in the way they carried themselves.  I bemoaned our present day lack of such politicians.  I was suffused with a desire to write of my own passions.

But now, here I sit.  Words are difficult in coming.  I get up to make a pot of coffee.  Passions – where are they?  What are they?  Do I have any fires to light?  I do know that I love words.  But they are failing me now.  They are not falling off my fingertips.  It is a struggle to find them.

Struggle is something that is familiar to me.  It permeates my life.  It is not a good way to talk and I am making a conscious effort to re-frame my vision, my words – so that I see life as a challenge of effortless ease and not a struggle.  After all, what is life without effort, without thought?

I thought about the challenges of my childhood.  The things that rubbed on me was I didn’t know how to swim or to ride a bike.  My parents did not allow me to have a bike nor to take swimming lessons.  I did not understand why at the time. Perhaps it was they couldn’t afford to.  But those two things left a big hole in me.  Funny.  I felt I was less of a person, lacking confidence.

The lack did me no harm.  That lack pushed me onward as a adult to fill that void.  Perhaps it taught me the beginnings of passion.  I was well into adulthood before I could ride a bike or swim.  But I was determined and I succeeded.  My first bike was a second hand manual one that cost $7.00.  They delivered it since I did not have a car and I didn’t know how to ride it home.

Can you believe that it took me a whole summer to learn how to float?  Every day off, I would pack up my suit, cap, goggles and towel and head to the YWCA pool.  It was monotonous and I was depressed as hell, but I persevered.  I had already completed THE ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED course but still couldn’t float.  Slowly, slowly I floated and swam, not like a mermaid perhaps, but I could do ten laps once upon a time.  And it has been a few years since I have ridden a bike with confidence.  So now I need to get back on that horse again without fear of falling…and failing.

In my mature years, my challenge was Sheba.  And what a challenge.  People was surprised and asked:  Why did you get a baby at your age?  I was puzzled myself for I was not at all a dog person.  The only answer I have is that she was meant for me.  And what a challenge she was/is.   We are together still.