Life is a Highway*

Yesterday a 12 hour trip stretched into 13 - and that it wasn't longer was because I didn't stop to eat dinner, just picked at some tortilla chips and drank ginger ale - or it would have been 14.

Not that I'm any stranger to 14 hour road trips.  It's just that I'm that much older - and tired-er.  I would have stopped somewhere except I was heading for home, my own bed - and no 'extra' medication with me.  I'd only packed enough for the week.

I cranked my music, sang when I felt like it (croaked would be more accurate) and allowed my mind to muse.

Everything was going fairly well until I headed west out of Hinton.  There was a massive line up of stopped vehicles with nothing on coming.  Yes, our fifth season is well under way.

Almost winter, winter, still winter, spring, road construction.

I nearly turned back to Hinton - except - home was 5 hours away (hopefully) and no medication with me.

*Tom Cochrane's Life is a Highway came to mind.  I didn't have that CD with me, but there are other song writers with other songs that use the same metaphor and I get it, I really do.  Especially at this time of my life.  I've had plenty of rough road, detours, road construction - it all makes perfect sense to think of life as a journey.

The weather yesterday was pretty much perfect for a long road trip.  Through Alberta it was plenty of blue sky, not hot, traffic was steady but not too much in the way of craziness.  When we hit the mountains, the clouds coming from the west had stacked up against the mountains so the blue sky was mostly obliterated, but the textures, the value scale of the greys, the beams of sunlight piercing through made for a delight to the eye.

In the photo above you can see the clouds stacked up against the Rockies, just visible in the distance.

I was reminded that when we decide to make changes in our lives, it has to get 'worse' before it can get 'better'.

Heading home to a packed schedule, I had been dreading the next few months.  As I wound my way through the Rocky Mountains (always the same, ever changing) I was able to think about the coming days and weeks.  Relish the week I'd just had, think about the 12 students I had the privilege of interacting with - their gentle good spirits, their willingness to help others, their excitement as they grasped principles, their delight as things began to make sense and their eagerness to go home and weave the samples, understanding that samples are practice so that we can become better at this craft that we love so.

While at Olds I got the news that level two at Yadkin didn't meet minimum requirements but there are now 10 in level one.

The next opportunity for level two master weaving would be in BC on the Sunshine Coast - sometime in April, I've been told.  I'm not sure what is being planned for Cape Breton, if Dianne will try level two again next year (I assume so as she is working hard to develop the program at the Gaelic College), then Fibre Week at Olds.  This year Fibre Week coincided with the Calgary Stampede, which made things difficult for some of the fibre producers, so I heard they were going to look at their timing.

I reaffirmed my desire to continue teaching the program, so I hope that I will be able to do so - not just from the college standpoint, but from my own health.

But life IS a highway.  It has ups and downs, twists and turns, it has pot holes, subsidence and road construction.

But it also has blue skies, fantastic cloud formations, beautiful landscape, loving people to meet and get to know.

And I get a new loom next month.  What's not to love?