Heading out...goodbye Canada...

posted by Patty James @ 5:32am, Friday 30 April 2010.

Today I watched the sunrise over the Falls, and said my farewell. They are powerful and peaceful at the same time and I am happy that I was able to experience them.

I met some nice people while I was here. A young woman who now knows my life story. She kept asking questions and seemed interested. She wanted to know more and thought I was brave. She had very strong opinions about certain things and I am interested when people say with such certainly that this or that is not right or acceptable or whatever the opinion is. The twenty-something women that I know-my two daughters included-have a much stronger sense of self that I ever had; well until lately. It is still hard for me to speak my mind sometimes. I certainly can voice my opinion with conviction about kids and health related issues, or if  I feel an injustice has been done to others, but to stand up for myself is harder. I will take a cue from the younger women and speak up for myself as well. I think my generation was taught somehow to be good girls, to keep everyone else happy, to not rock the boat and perhaps even that someone elses feeling are more important than your own somehow. I know this wasn't done on purpose, but was a society thing. Considering this, my daughter's are not like this, thank goodness. They are polite, of course, but speak their mind, Olivia in particular. You never (capital N) have to wonder what she's thinking.

At dinner last night, I had a conversation with a man who is moving to the Philippines. He's tired of the weather and the cost of living in Canada and is having a home built, 3,000 sq. ft., on the beach for $45,000. His property taxes are $6.00 a year and he will be able to live like a king for $600.00 a month he says. He went on and on about what he is planning to do. He isn't allowed to work there I guess, but he is going to lease a bar and hire people to run it. He says that is not considered working, oddly enough. I could go on, but you get the gist that he is either very excited about his soon to be life or else is tying to convince himself to be. I wish him well. My journey was completely baffling to him. His life is only about his life and he would never take a personal risk for someone else. He didn't say it quite so directly, but that was basically it. That's o.k., I understand. His life is tidy and organized and planned out. I understand that need. My life is anything but.

I have pretty much planned out the rest of the journey/project and after I iron out some details, I will post it. This will be a separate post most likely tomorrow when I am back in Pennsylvania. Kids interviews' on Monday at my friend John McGran's house in Drums, PA. I have know John for a long time and look forward to finally meeting him in person.

Yesterday I had a conversation with David Abbot, the editor at Sonoma West Times and News, in Sonoma County, where I'm from. We chatted for quite a while. He was a pleasure to speak with. He asked lots of questions and is going to write a feature story on Shine The Light. He is going to call me again next week to chat again. There was also an interview with the Indianapolis newspaper, which has a very wide readership-260,000 subscribers. I am not even going to Indiana, so the article was good of them to do.

Lots more media coming up. It will actually be non-stop until mid June now with interviews and media. This last week was the lull before the storm! I'm ready!

Since I don't have a kitchen or a home, I haven't really had a free flowing creative outlet. I bought some paint supplies about 10 days or so ago, and yesterday finished a painting that I had planned to finish here. My plans for the painting have now changed and I have decided to auction it off for a charity which believe it or not, it is not STL. I'll tell you later who it is for and why.  It looks better in 'person' than it does in a photo. It's my version of Van Gogh's 'Three Sunflowers in a Vase.' It was fun to sit by the window looking at the Falls and paint. Very nice..











Now I am now going to download the videos onto my external hard drive, which is one of the things I learned to do in the computer class I took on Tuesday. I will start to gather and organize my things and yes, I look forward to picking up Patch and Wilma today. I needed a break for sure, but I miss them!

Lots and lots of thoughts about the remaining year, but I'll tell you all that later....