Goals

My goal is to update this blog everyday.  but life just keeps getting in the way.  Is it just me or are the days going by extremely fast? They say it's not possible to think of more than one thing at a time, but I feel like at any given moment my mind is filled up with a mental to do list the size of the Mount St. Helens with the possibility of a detrimental explosion. 

Lately my life has been whirling me around and dropping me off in areas of life I had never explored.  I can honestly say I had never given one ounce of thought as to what color chiavari chairs I might want my guests to sit on during our wedding ceremony.  

I realize now I just never imagined what being engaged entailed.  Erik and I were together for 5.5 years and yes, I occasionally "encouraged" him to propose.  I swore to both of us I wouldn't be one of 'those' brides.  I wouldn't worry or get angry or cry or be high maintenance in aaaany way! I totally became one of those brides. 

We got engaged last September and the first wedding planning-y thing my husband-to-be (no matter how hard I try, there's just no cool word for fiancé) and I did was  to attend a bridal show in January.
It was then and there that I realized I didn't know what Chantilly lace was and that drove me head first into a panic attack.  

and following that, for the months of January - April, I dove head first into finding out as much as I could about planning a (good! fun! relaxing! beautiful!) wedding, and so I made goals! I had lists! I joined pinterest, I took a trip to Portland and spent 9 hardcore days trying to find us a barn to get married in.

It was fun, but for some reason I wasn't having fun.  Erik and I were getting into arguments, I felt drained, mentally and physically.  I realized I needed to set goals and I needed to ask for help.  So I asked my future marital partner (nope, does not sound cool.) to help. and help he did. He stuffed envelopes with invitations and wrapped red needpoint thread around twine until his fingers fell off.  It came time to send the invitations about an hour before I was to head to the airport to go visit my family in Miami.  As we were putting the last stamp on the last enveloped Erik asked if I was sure I wanted to send them.  Did I want to think about it while I was away and then we could talk when I got back home?  and it was in that very moment that I realize I had been behaving totally un-rad-ly, and I was actually making my dream partner (ick) question whether he actually wanted to marry me.

I went to Miami and then came back from Miami just as it was turning spring in Montreal and something shifted us both into a really calm place. A place we'd wanted to be in all along, but we were meant to find the road together.  The last month we've really been acting as a team during our twice a week wedding planning meetings.  and this is why I'm marrying him.  Because we work so good together.  Because our lives are about so many tiny details coming together to create real big things. It's feels good when two hearts are open to each other.    

hello old friend

As you probably haven't noticed, (since I only have 2 followers!)  that I've been gone for quite some time! Long enough for my sister to have moved to Miami, and long enough for me have visited her there 7 times. (so far!).  Long enough for my friend to get pregnant aaand have a handsome baby (Hi Julian!) and long enough that I am engaged and planning our wedding.

crazy.

I never thought I would get married. but I always envisioned taking someone else's last name.  Ironically, I will be doing the former but not the latter.

I've needed to do so much self-help googling in the past few months, in between all of pinterest pages and knot budget calculating, and cyber-trips to Oregon, if you could peek a glimpse at my google bar you'd find some pretty disturbing queries! I'll leave them up to your imagination.  But i will say this:   This blog always finds its way to my inbox at the perfect time.  It might not be for everyone. It's definitely not for the person whose sole purpose in life is to get married to someone (anyone!) and live happily ever after.  It is for us, the anxious people of planet earth who know that relationships and marriage don't automatically equal harmony and bliss.  That sometimes, relationships create anxiety and fear and doubt.  It's about learning how to be open to and feel those dark places inside of us.  For that is from where true growth and healing emerges.

Another blog I've been super addicted to is Bubby and Bean and it is mainly for this reason that I have decided to blog again.  Bubby and Bean makes me feel so good about life! I imagine Melissa, the blog's owner, sipping chamomile tea on her porch with all the windows open while listening to velvet Underground and composing her daily blog updates.  It's an inspirational blog on all accounts and she has really fantastic taste.  Check it out!

Until next time keep it on love,

Tasha

the day autumn turned wintry.

It seems like only yesterday:

I discovered the magic of David's Tea

and got baskets of the crispiest, juiciest orchard apples on the corner of St. Laurent and Laurier

and warmed up next to my imaginary fireplace with a curled cat in my lap

and watched the leaves change colors on the street my grocery store is on

and wished the ducks a great trip

and today, with about as much subtlety as a 6am alarm clock, i peeked out the window and saw the most beautiful of terrible sights:  Winter.

Welcome.  It's kinda halfway nice to see you again.

Moksha yoga

Hot Yoga.

The scene: You're dripping sweat as though you just walked towel-less out of the shower, beside other people dripping sweat in a room full of noisy nose breathers, led by a teacher who is trying to get you to balance on your hands with your knees up in your armpits.

best thing ever.

Not every class is necessarily enjoyable. Sometimes I leave wanting to snap twigs in half on my head but sometimes I leave there feeling......something different.  Each class is a new class with a new intention or a new observation about my body or my thoughts or my emotions, but in learning to be open to listening..sometimes i leave there feeling like I am in the midst of personal and universal transformation.

no big deal though.

I've been reading Living Your Yoga by Judith Lasater and It's about carrying the awareness we often embrace during yoga class, into the daily practice of living in the world.  What has been the most surprising realization for me thus far, is that how I feel, how I act, what my thoughts are during a yoga class a perfect mirror of how I feel, how I act and what my thoughts are in my day to day.

One example is if we are doing a challenging or difficult pose during class. I tend to push through, stiffening and tightening myself, in order to appear (to others as well as myself) as though I can properly (and seemingly easily) hold the posture.  My knee will be screaming at me, or my back will be telling me it's too far, but instead of listening, I'll go a little further into the posture anyway, thinking that If I go deeper, I'll come out the other side.

In life, if I'm in a particularly challenging or difficult situation, I tend to fight through it, knowing there is pain here, but tightening and fighting back, thinking that if I appear to be in control, it means I actually am in control. 

We all secretly know there is very, very little we can truly control in this world. So we get it where we can, right? 

The lemon Letter

I started a blog a while back and called it the lemon letter


It is mostly a couple handfuls of entries that went from brain to screen while my boyfriend Erik and i were on tour for his solo project.
The tour was an adventure. We saw oceans, ate many gummy candies and were surrounded by friends and family but i'm just going to say about halfway through, i began to feel feelings that i thought i'd buried deep enough to be able to pretend they didn't exist anymore. turns our they exist and i still hate them enough to try once again to bury them.  It is for that reason that i am throwing the lemon letter into the pit of despair, where hopefully it will remain, with my unsorted baggage and unpaid parking ticket, forever. or until I become a better person for it.

So, we went to the west coast and made our way south and then east playing some music "shows" in support of Erik's solo project called ScienceFiction. Now, I can't speak for him, but to paraphrase what I've heard him say of the trip/tour was that it was possibly the single worst trip he's ever taken with his girlfriend ever.  (ok, not paraphrasing).  Now that we are back, he didn't just change his blog title, he changed the name of his entire solo project! (hey, erik, there's still a little room in the pit of despair if you want to throw a previous, to remain mostly nameless, solo project in there).

So in the spirit of new beginnnings, I hereby present you with a link to Erik's new project which he has made available for free, forever, on his website.  It's a lovely record and I think so partly because I kiss him, but mostly because i find it an honest, meaningful album. 

Listen to the album Houses by Holland Creek