Wanderlust and Words

I went shopping yesterday and bought some foam hand soap. I LOVE foam soap. It's just so much fun. It makes using public washrooms so enjoyable. There was this great washroom in Deep Cove, BC with strawberry-scented foam soap - awesome! Now I know that it is completely trivial and frivolous and materialistic and not environmentally correct to enjoy foam soap. On the other hand, life is short so it makes sense to enjoy every single moment. I bought vanilla chai-scented underarm deoderant too.

A three-day holiday is either too long or too short. I think I tried to cram in too many things, but it was fun nonetheless. I used to live in Winnipeg, and it was a bittersweet experience to realize that both the City and myself had changed and moved on. There were familiar sights alongside unfamiliar ones. And the memories kept surging back. I had my first proper apartment in Winnipeg, bought my first couch and bed. I led Brownies in Winnipeg and got a Master’s degree in Public Affairs. Winnipeg was once a major transportation hub for Western Canada, and the tall, old buildings in the Exchange District bear testimony to its past with columns, ornaments and panels witnessing to past grandeur. I was really looking forward to going to The Forks, Winnipeg’s market and crafts centre. I was hugely disappointed as it didn’t bear even the remotest resemblance to Granville Island. There was a large food court, some restaurants, and some stores selling trashy tourist junk. It’s a beautiful set...

I’ve been attending the Big Fat Ass Dance Class this autumn – and it’s been the highlight of my week. Aileen, who leads the class, says there is one simple goal – to have fun. And we do. We move to music, play games, laugh, and get a good workout. There are 28 of us in the Friday morning class, ranging in age from our early 20s to our 60s. We start out with the Name Game – using our bodies to introduce ourselves and to express how we’re feeling at that particular moment in time – so people act out being sleepy or frazzled or happy. We go on to move our bodies in a wide variety of ways. We throw an imaginary ball, imitate each other’s movements, form a blob and move together like a flock of birds. It is so unusual for us in modern society to use our bodies to express ourselves. I love just moving freely – raising my hands in the air, swaying with the music, using my body to express happiness or grief. I was particularly moved when Aileen talked about our lower abdomen as the second ch...