Ten minutes to inner peace...

Happiness can only be found if you can free yourself of all other distractions.
Saul Bellow

This past weekend I took a fitness course.

We were asked to describe a fitness activity and how it effects us holistically.

One woman's answer was about mountain biking.

It was poetic, and thoughtful, and made you just want to jump on a bike and head out to the mountains.

I don't remember the exact wording, but it went a little something like this...

"You jump on your bike, and head out onto the trail. Your heart starts pumping and you legs start burning, and for the first ten minutes your only thought is ~ I just want to go home and sit on the couch~

Then you start to get into a rhythm, your mind falls into a zone of peace and you feel connected to the earth and the wind and the trees.

You feel one with your bike and can continue on for hours. Your soul feels restored."

Again I'm paraphrasing, but that was the general idea of it.

She did such a good job at describing the bike ride, and all the emotions that come with exercise that the instructor referenced her little speech two or three times through-out the weekend.

She also did such a good job at romanticizing the bike ride that I started to wonder why I don't enjoy my morning rides more...

Why don't I wake up an extra half hour early to spend that time, bonding with my dog and the earth and replenishing my spirt and nourishing my soul.

Hell, why don't I wake up an hour early to really get a good long bike in, since apparently after the first gruesome ten minutes you hit a point where you feel like a cycling goddess who can continue forever!

This morning, on my regular bike ride I realized why.

Her experience involves a personal challenge, combined with independence and freedom, mixed with a little adventure and remote woods paths.

Her bike is her ticket away from reality and the stress of the real world for awhile.

My experience involves a 2yr old husky.

My morning ride starts with strapping everything together.

My helmet to my head, my gloves to my hands, my pant legs inside boots so as not to get caught in the chain.

I then strap my dog to my handle bars and say the first of my morning prayers.

As we speed down the first little hill of our driveway my heart is always somewhere in my throat.

I have no thoughts of wishing I were back on the couch eating a bag of chips... I have no time for thoughts at all other than "Please please please stay upright"

This first moment of fear lasts for about 20 seconds, or until I get past the dreaded spot where I fell off the bike a few months ago.

I start to calm down as we round the first corner and head up hill.

Which is promptly where my dog stops pulling like a mad animal and lets me pedal up the hill with my own power.

It is heading down this second hill that I start my second round of prayers for the morning. My Hail Mary's are perfectly in rhythm with the pace of the dog.

It is also where I realize how un-awake, and un-co-ordonated I am as I try to avoid the ever changing potholes.

Should the cute little rabbit that lives halfway down the lane decide to peek out of the bushes and dart it's hoppy little butt across the lane, my morning prayers become interrupted by general Tourettes like hysteria.

Once I have survived the rabbit run, I have about 10 seconds to prepare for Hannah.

Our neighbours dog who is extremely friendly.

She loves people and Bandit.

Unfortunately she has not quite figure out yet that she can't actually get to me without causing a near death experience for all of us involved.

Sometimes she comes from the back of the house, sometimes from under the doorstep.

You never know.

So as I approach the house I do a mad scan of the entire yard searching for a blonde ball of furry potentially fatal energy.

It's like Where's Waldo for thrill seekers.

She's not usually out in the mornings. So these encounters are actually few and far between. I can generally pass by this house without incident.

But I am just like the American border patrol, constantly ready for an unsuspected attack.

Thinking that an attack (even a friendly one) is less than probable, is just the kind of thinking that puts you in the hospital.

Finally we come to the main road. The entire ride has lasted about a minute and a half so far... so you can see why it's so hard to actually get past that anaerobic ten minute stage to where life is bliss and you love exercising.

Choosing carefully at this moment which direction you decide to take is important for the rest of the ride.

To the right lies straight roads with a few hills, that the dog in his excitement, will actually pull you up.

The only draw back is the fifteen dogs that are roaming around their yard untied at such wee hours of the morning, that all happen to live in that direction.

Or you can turn to the left.

Dog-less and flat, it seems like the obvious choice.

Yet full of twists and turns.

The blind corners combined with foggy conditions actually make this direction as periled as being chased into the ditch by two German Shepards.

The decision is usually determined by the wind direction.

Going with the wind will leave you with the false idea that biking is easy, as the dog loves running downwind, and will take you quite far with little to no effort.

Oh, how life likes to slap you in the face when you realize as you turn around to come home that the dog hates running upwind almost as much as he hates running towards home.

You are left with no choice but to drag a 45 pound dog that wants to go in the opposite direction back the 3 kms he just ran so effortlessly.

So if you are awake enough to remember this fact (I probably remember 5 out of 7 days a week, it's hard to think before morning coffee) you head upwind.

I never hit the wondrous "life is bliss" ten minute mark.

That's not to say I don't bike for ten minutes... I'm usually gone for about a half hour at least.

But the connection to the earth portion of the ride gets drowned out by the fear of my head actually connecting with the earth, and I somehow never reach that Zen state.

Perhaps if I didn't have the dog, I could bike on my own and enjoy the bliss that must come with a ride not peppered with near death experiences.

But then, who are we kidding here... If I had no dog I still wouldn't be biking off road trails somewhere with a Buddah-like grin on my face.

I would still be in bed, enjoying that extra half hour of blissful sleep.

Carefull what you wish for...

"Some days you're the dog; some days you're the hydrant."

This past sunday.. I was in a particularly lazy mood.

It had snowed all morning, I was on my fifth episode of Angel for the weekend, and I had defiantly decided that I would not get off the couch until weather conditions improved.

Then I got bored.

I had two choices, get some new songs ready for Bust-a-Move class that evening, or walk the dog.

These are always my two choices... exercise myself, or my dog. I have never been able to have both.

When the dog doesn't get his exercise he pounces around the house like a wanna be Mexican jumping bean and howls until you go insane.

When I don't get my exercise, my ass just grows.... and I don't really see it that much, so I don't really care.

Therefor the dog usually wins out, and instead of doing something constructive or creative with my body, I wind up doing something to tire him out.

I have had to get a little more creative since the biking accident that I'm still not ready to speak of...

So for the past week our "walks" involve me walking him on leash until we are out of the dreaded "chicken zone".

(Our neighbour has a chicken coop, and it is the dog's life mission to get into it, which makes one of my life missions keeping him away from it).

I then remind him I have a tupperware container full of gravy soaked treats in my pocket (the rest of Nova Scotia is terrified of coyotes, I on the other hand enjoy walking around the woods smelling like bait)

And I let him go.

And pray he comes back.

There have been moments, say the morning he decided to make friends with a grey seal.... the seal did not want to make friends back... fortunately everyone got away from that situation with no scars.

(If you don't count my throat and the amount of screaming I did- to no avail- that could have rivaled an Aerosmith concert).

But all in all it's been a successful week.

So I got a little braver.

I got dressed, loaded my I-pod with new possible songs, and made a choice to exercise both the dog, and my self.

Please note, that I live in the middle of no where... other than Sonny and his chicken coop, there is no one but my parents within a 4 or 5 acre distance.

And they've already seen me make and ass of myself a million times.

So that is why I felt comfortable heading to the beach to practice dance routines.

Well I will admit, at first I wasn't so comfortable.

I found a clear spot on a path, and tried to warm up to "Rompe", but couldn't, because I was too busy checking over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching me.

But eventually I got to our wide open beach, and decided to go all in.

Remember it's still mid-winter here, and it was in fact still snowing, but it wasn't windy so it wasn't cold.

I took off some layers and went from looking like this

to this

you can judge yourself if that's any improvement.

The dog by the way was behaving excellently. He was pouncing all over the grass, chasing imaginary mice or birds.

(I pretend they are imaginary, and just pray he never gets one. He's not very focused, so I don't believe he ever will,the ADD does not make Huskies very good predators)

And I was full on into choreography, Beyonce and J-Lo blasting from the I-Pod.

If someone had of happened to spy on that secluded beach they would have seen me, in my bright yellow "don't run me over" hat my Mom bought me. Punching and grapevining and petit battementing like I'm auditioning for some sort of cross between Rocky VII and Black Swan.

As I take a break, and call for the dog he comes barreling towards me from the far and of the beach. And I start to have visions of being able to do this all the time.

How great!! A chance to workout, and a dog that listens (at least to the word "treat") all at once!!

I'm a normal dog owner!!

No more 30 foot ropes that wrap around my niece at the beach and almost scar her ( literally) for life.

No more tying 20 pound weights to his leash to slow him down and tire him out.

No more driving around the neighbourhood with half a steak out the window hoping he'll come home.

(I simply need to keep that half a steak in my right hand pocket)

As he draws nearer, I have visions of having a new songs every week for class and at the same time a dog that is calm and happy .

As those visions clear, I get a clearer vision of my dog.

And the half of an animal carcass hanging out of his mouth.

As I try to convince him that he wants a stupid half a piece of Milkbone, smothered in turkey gravy instead of half a frozen seabird he found out on the marsh I realize.

I'm a normal dog owner.

Whose dog will roll in stinky things, run through swampy mud puddles and bring me back 6 month old carcasses he finds along the way.

Some times the grass seems greener on the other side, usually all you find when you get over there is they use stronger smelling manure to fertilize it with.

Something Worth Mentioning

Now that it's all over, what did you really do yesterday that's worth mentioning?  ~Coleman Cox

Nothing.. that is what I did yesterday (I apologize to any clients that I had yesterday... but nothing came to mind)

Okay now that I think about it, I did have a very good conversation with one of my clients yesterday.

She had a problem, and although I couldn't offer her a solution I did assure her that she wasn't the only one who had a teenager who was driving her to the looney bin.

See... like I said.. not really anything worth mentioning.

So today I changed that.

Today I signed up for "Bust-A-Move". A fundraising campaign for a breast cancer clinic being built at the IWK in Halifax.

I need to raise $1000 by March 27th 2011.

Sure.

No problem.

And tomorrow when I wake up I will be able to say... "Hey guess what I did yesterday, something worth mentioning"

And then I'm fairly certain that I will say "WTF??? I Hate Fundraising!!!"

I mostly blame a certain period of time in my life that most like to call "Sr. Year"

Also known as the year I lost my mind and decided to become Grad/Prom minister.

I fundraised my a$$ off, only to have half girls in the Sr. Class come to me a month before prom and beg me not to spend any money on decorations just to give it all to families in Africa to by pigs and goats.

Thank You Oprah.

And Mrs.Walsh for showing that episode in class..... and then turning around and using the hard-raised money to pay for a flat screen TV for the new school.

Oh yeah, and don' t forget to give the credit to the next graduating class.

So yes, you might say I'm a little bitter from my last fundraising experience.

But the chance to shake my booty with Paula Abdul is just too good to pass up.

So I'm dusting off my pledge sheets and practising my "please help my cause" smile.

But this time I'm not doing it alone.

When I saw that you had to raise $1000 a few things came to mind... mostly time, and money, and my lack of both.

As someone who is three weeks away from moving into a brand new home, I am actually closer to a Pollyanna character than I am to the benevolent Aunt Polly...

And as most of my friends well readily point out, I don't have time for a coffee or a phone call most days, let alone hours on end to beg, borrow, or steal my way to "strait up' glory.

So I decided to get someone to do it with me.

Since I don' t actually have any rich friends, with extensive ticket selling experience and nothing to do with their time but wish someone would ask them to make some cold calls, I roped my sister into the deal.

You know.. cause she's got nothing better to do.

Well yea, she's a mother, and runs a business, and volunteers for every tourism event that happens in the county.

But I thought in between teaching her daughter to skate, checking guests in, creating a giant leg lamp for a parade float, and having a life of her own she could squeeze in some time for breast cancer too.

I actually thought I would have to twist her arm, didn't take much, guess it must be a hereditary thing, taking on so much that you wake up with panic attacks.

But we're a good team I think... she's good at getting people excited about things, and I'm good at managing my panic attacks.

All we have to do now is think of a better name than "Team Shannon and Beth". And figure out how to work the donation site. And exercise for 6 hrs strait come Mach 27th.

As Jimmy Johnson said "The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra."

Unfortunately for us that little extra describes the difference between a $25  registration fee and a $1000 donation collection.

If I sound a little worried about this mountain of a goal we have in front of us (yes it is a mountain... in no world is $2000 between 2 people in 4 months a mole hill) that is because I am.

I'm also terrified.

Although not nearly as terrified as someone who has just found out that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

So I am going to swallow my fear and bust my booty to contribute a small portion towards a huge goal of having a state of the art, all inclusive center to help make that experience even a little bit easier for them.

To donate please go to my donation page

http://bustamove.kintera.org/shannonandbeth