Ah What a morning!

Headed out this morning at 6 am ...in the dark.....the streets were quiet and peaceful. Heading back an hour later, the skies were lighter but there was a great bank of fog hanging low in the valley as I drove home amongst the traffice. Twenty five minutes later as I headed back into town, I crested the hill and there was the sun, shining in all its glory, in a beautiful clear blue sky. I could see the fog bank now hanging over the bay area in the distance. Down the hill into the city the streets were busy with traffic, but the skies were clear and sunny, the air crisp and cool.
Fall my favourite season of the year.....it has arrived!

Tradition and Connections

It is the second weekend in September and the annual Cowichan Exhibition is in high gear. It is the 143rd year of the fall fair in this community. Over the years it has changed and somewhat shrunken but there are still the old timers and many new families join in and share their talents and gifts. Two years ago it moved from the land that once belonged to my great Uncle to another farm further out of town. There aren’t as many farmers as there once was nor as many women baking pies but still, the fair carries on in great tradition.

My family has been going for as long as I can remember and in tradition, we go in the morning and look at all the exhibits and see who made what and what they won. I never entered anything as a child but my children entered a few things over their growing up years. Then each year we go home for lunch and return to the fair around 4 pm and at 5pm we all have Chinese food. If you want to see the Evans gang at the fair you just have to go to the Chinese food stand at 5 pm and there you will find us.(Many of our extended family and friends know this and will show upJ) Followed by this we sometimes check out the barns if we haven’t previously done so, pet the horses, "ah" over the cute bunnies and try to avoid the cow droppings in between and then we wait for the evening music to start. These last 15 years the highlight for my daughters has been to take my Mom on the Tilt -a -Whirl ride because Grannie just loves it and laughs and giggles through the whole thing. It is a good time and we all look forward to it. Grannie is 76 this year and still going strong.  This is our special “girl“ time together each year.

                                            Dad and Mom enjoying another year at the fair

My friends who have been in this community for the past 8 years had never been to the fair and were thinking of coming on Saturday so I told them I would see them there and some of the things we could do as I felt they would need some "family connections" to really see what the fair was all about. Well they texted Friday night to say they were going that night so I replied “have fun”. Now I must admit, I kinda chuckled to myself at the time because I thought...they are not going to have much fun and be wondering what one does at the fair but I also hoped that they may run into a few people they knew and make some of their own “connections” with friends. Well I ran into them this afternoon and they never said anything but I brought up the fact that there wasn’t much to do at the fair and I could tell that they totally agreed with me. I tried to explain to them about the fair but really didn’t know what to say because they are right...there isn’t much there.

No, there really isn’t a lot to do at the fair if you don’t enjoy watching animals being judged or horses jumping over rails or seeing which old tractor can pull the furthest, but what there is, is connection. The fair is where you will see people that you may only see each year at the fair. A time when you reunite, find out how each other’s year has been and wish each other the best for the coming year. You’ll get to see your friends’ children or grandchildren, hear their accomplishments and share in a few laughs.  This morning in fact I was witness to the most beautiful event. A young woman who was born with Down syndrome, who my children went to school with, was sitting on a bench a few feet from us. I looked over and her boyfriend was down on his knees and he slid a beautiful ring onto her finger and asked her to marry him. She squealed in delight, leapt up into his arms, they shared a loving kiss and then she ran over to show us her beautiful ring...he followed and very proudly stated that is was a good ring and it had only cost him $28.00. They were two very innocent, young, loving people and their joy and love touched my heart.

So the small town fair....not much there if you’re not an old time farmer, not much to do if you don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on rides but what there is there, is history, tradition and lots and lots of connections. And you may just get blessed as I was today, to see love in action.

Fears

A friend of mine wrote about following our fears a few weeks ago.  At first when reading it I didn’t really like what he had said. I mean who wants to follow their fears, most of want to run from them. Yet it has gotten me to thinking about my fears. I am not really sure what my fears in life are. I suppose my greatest fear would be to lose one of my children but that is a fear that you cannot follow and hope I never have to face.

I spent many years of my life living in fear, the kind where your heart races, your body feels hot and you are almost immobilized with the fear. I had fear that I would do something wrong, fear that either my children or I would be hurt, fear that I would be left alone and not be able to support myself and my children, fear of just being alone.  I lived with those fears but did not follow them....instead I escaped from them.  It took courage but the freedom of living without that fear was such a relief.

I would like to think that at this stage of my life I could follow my fears instead of running from them but I honestly am not sure what my fears are. I have written before about change and how I do not deal well with it so maybe that is my fear and also the fear my buddy spoke of. Yet the thought of change doesn’t “scare” me the way it did in my past.  I also am no longer stressed over the errors I make at work, I still get angry with myself when I mess up but I don’t dwell on them, I just correct them the best I can and carry on. I have learned that we all make mistakes and without mistakes in our lives how would we ever learn.  I now live alone and spend many hours with myself so although I get lonely at times, I no longer fear being alone...in fact many days I welcome it.

So I have now reached the point where I am wondering, if I have no fears am I really living life. Have I gotten so comfortable in my personal and work life that there are no challenges to cause me to feel fear? I obviously need to spend some time thinking about this. I have been working on a bucket list for this past year, doing things that I have wanted to do, some that were physically challenging for me but the only fear would be that I would be unable to finish...really nothing to be scared about. I was nervous singing in a choir concert for the first time but I wouldn’t call that fearful. Maybe my idea what fear differs from what others feel as fear. Maybe I have mixed up the feeling of being “scared” with the feeling of “fear”. There are other things that I don’t want to do but it isn’t that I am scared  to do them....like eating stuffed mushroom caps....I just really don’t want to. I guess I would need to make some major changes in my life to be able to follow my fear....try something totally off the wall.  Take off on a new adventure, change my place of employment, or move to a new town. I suppose these would cause me to be nervous and cause me to worry but I am not sure I would be feeling fearful.  I do have a fear of heights. When I step close to the edge up on the mountain my heart races so I suppose I have a fear of falling off even though I know I won’t. I don’t really have a desire to go cliff climbing but should I try it in order to follow my fear?

If you are not feeling fear, or following your fears are you living life to the fullest? How does one “follow” fear? Any thoughts?

p.s. after walking with a friend this morning....maybe I need to change the word to worry as I do worry a lot about life and I think that is different from fear.