enfinblue's diary

enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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in principle I am warming up to middle age

You know, I was running along the canal and thinking, "If I go home and write in my diary about how I just ran along the canal in the dark and thought this and that, my diary really will be the text equivalent of watching fish swim around and around a little glass bowl."

Only I'm probably less interesting to 'observe' than are little fish with big googly eyes. (Though I assure you that I have big googly eyes, too, in real life. And I can even make a fish face quite readily.)

So, I was running along the canal tonight and looking at the lights twinkling on the dark water and thinking that I can handle not being a serious runner any longer. I can handle slinking around in the dark and forcing cold air into my lungs on occasion.

I will always be free to invigorate myself.

And the thing is that invigoration can come from many, many things. Thank you to a number of people, not the least teranika for this.

I'm trying to appreciate not only the still waters on the canal, but the idea that I can achieve a similar state of being within myself. It seems more and more likely and possible with each step and each day.

The canal is filling up again, after having been drained and cleaned. A couple of weeks ago the water of the little lake to which I run had receded and in the dark I could hear the ducks squawking on exposed shoals and rocks close to shore.

The water crept up on me. I just suddenly noticed the lapping blackness and realized that it was there again.

But of course it's there again; it's what we skate on in winter.

The canal and winter skating always reminds me of Ottawa as a little town. I think of pictures of girls with 1950s curly bobs and homemade coats and toques skating hand in hand. And from my own life it reminds me of meeting my brother when he was in university here a number of years ago. We took turns taking pictures; I was wearing a big, red sweater.

You can skate for five miles/eight kilometres. During or at the end one of course consumes copious hot chocolate or hot apple cider, and a queue de castor/beaver tail. A beaver tail is essentially a donut--let's face it--but it's flat and freshly deep fried and covered with a sprinkling of cinammon sugar or lemon sugar. It's rather nice. And I'm not much, shall we say, of a donut person.

Of course I'll take a bit of caribou--harsh bootleg spirits--in Quebec City over a beaver tail, any day (but beggars can't be choosers :)).

I'm so full of smileys. For no reason. Work is going dreadfully--nothing worse than working on a project that can simply not be finished in the time alotted. (You know you work too much when they start turning the lights out on you in your government office tower--and I'm not permitted to put them back on...)

Well, that's it for my mundanity tonight. I just made a thick, steamy, chocolatel-y cup of hot chocolate and I will use it to warm my insides as well as my cold hands. (Cold hands, warm heart, you know.)

Incidentally, the scientist sent me a little haiku poem, which I think is sweet. He's a rather charming fellow, if not immediately suitable for dating.