Skip to main content

31 Days: Brave


About a month ago, I made a trip to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. It is 250 miles south of the Artic Circle at 62.4540° N, 114.3718° W. That's way north. It took me 12 hours of traveling to get there. I was terrified. I'm not afraid of flying, I was afraid of going all that way by myself. Of navigating 3 airports, of finding a hotel shuttle, and visiting a new city on my own. But I did it and look at how my bravery was rewarded. I saw the Northern Lights.

 For the most part, I did just fine navigating by myself. I did take a wrong turn in the Calgary airport when heading to the gate and was met with locked doors and the fear of missing my plane but I took comfort in the fact that 3 other people had done the same thing.

 I also survived being the first on the agenda of the conference for earth science editors, the purpose for my trip to Yellowknife. 

I had some of the best fish and chips of my life, twice, in this place called Bullocks' Bistro.

I saw this plane land on water.



And this crazy road that has been reshaped by the ice underneath it.


I also got to spend some time with a person who makes me laugh constantly and another person who may be one of the sweetest people on the planet. And did I mention...



I SAW THE NORTHERN LIGHTS!

I am so glad I was brave enough to go it alone and spend 12 hours on a total of 3 planes. The experience and the boost to my self-esteem for doing it were almost as priceless as seeing the Northern Lights. Almost. I'm going to be brave more often.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Five Minute Friday: Roots

Lisa-Jo Baker (lisajobaker.com) hosts a weekly event on her blog called "Five Minute Friday". The rules are 1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking. 2. Link back here and invite others to join in. 3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community.. So here's my first try at this. Today's topic was Roots. Roots – I think about my grandparents who lived on a farm until my grandfather’s diabetes worsened and they moved to a town with a hospital nearby. My father still says he wished he could have kept that farm. I think of my grandmother who was a widow for 20 years. Every year she would stand over my PaPa’s grave, wishing she was with him. I think of my parents, a product of those grandparents, how hard my father worked to put 2 girls through
10 comments
Read more

Five Minute Friday: Time

Five Minute Friday is a writing event that has writers spending five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing them at http://katemotaung.com/five-minute-friday/ . This week's word is Time. Sometimes time feels like this, like we are in it. Standing inside it, watching life pass by. It is so easy to get stuck in a time - in our pain, in our hurt. We hear the ache tick away in our head like a giant clock. Time, instead, is a gift. More time with family, more time to accomplish goals, more time to see the world. When you are hurting, it seems like time takes forever. One day turns into another day, turns into another day. When we hate a job, the five days of time that make up a work week seem to go on forever. But those five days are also a gift. Because these days, a job is not a guarantee. I want to see time as gift, not as a chore. I want to be on the other side of it, wishing there was more of it. Making the most of every hour, minute, and second instead of
6 comments
Read more

Five Minute Friday: Dwell

Five Minute Friday is a writing event that has writers spending five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing them at http://katemotaung.com/five-minute-friday/ . This week's word is Dwell. I have thought about this word a lot - where should I dwell. After my divorce, I had a big decision to make - did I buy X's half of the house and continue to dwell where I had for the past 15 years or did I sell and move to a new dwelling. After crunching numbers and weighing my options, I decide to stay in the house we had bought together. Because, when it came right down to it, I loved my house. I felt safe there. I try not to dwell on the sadness that happened in this place but instead try to dwell on making it my own. I have painted rooms in colors X would have never agreed upon, I have bought artwork that he would never have hung. I want to dwell in a place that reflects who I am. When the yard is full of weeds and the basement full of water, I long to dwell in
6 comments
Read more