Happy

Day 115

Thursday 27^th of June

Sometimes I think it is hard to remember how happy we were together. There are events that are possible to remember and highlights that catch the mind. Happiness is an emotion though and not a thought, I think that means it is harder to recall. A thought is something that can be stored and rethought. Brought back out from time to time and thought again, changed, merged, returned to the original and thought again. As such they can be remembered, like a place or a time of year, you can go back and be there again.

Emotions are much less tangible and I think that makes them more elusive. When you are experiencing an emotion it is full power. The emotion can be everything, or just part of a thing, however it is at its fullest in the moment and retaining or returning to an emotional sensation is an impossible feat I suspect.

Looking at these photos from May 2009 I think I can grasp at a sense of how happy Stacy and I were. 

We are on our way to a weekend away and stopped at a beautiful roadside country café. Stacy ordered a burger, as is her want, I ordered Devonshire Tea. The photos capture the moment when Stacy decides she now wants Devonshire Tea as well.

I knew this was going to happen, she knew this was going to happen and we are both so in love with each other and the spectacular relationship we have built that this is something we are happy about. I play the inconvenienced husband, Stacy plays the cheeky and doted on wife. We share my scones with jam and cream and are so happy it comes tearing out of the pictures. 

Out with the pack

Still good in Canberra, Holmes and I are plus one dog and minus one house mate. Frisbee training is going well, I'm getting stronger and staying interested.

I'm doing a little writing as well, it is laborious, however it feels good to do. Here is a sample from the other day. This is set 2 days after I picked Stacy, and 15 other new staff up from the airport in 2001.

Mid lick of my heartily heaped ice cream I lost control and the loaded cone seemed to gently fall through space to touch down intact on the gas station floor. Sanitation level; questionable.  It sat there proudly with the cone facing directly towards the ceiling and with a jaunty tilt back towards the booth where Stacy and I were sitting. Somehow the ice cream had sustained less damage than my rapidly melting ego.

A moment of still followed which seemed to stretch unexplainably. I looked at the ice cream, I looked at Stacy. Stacy looked at me, then she looked at the ice cream. As a woman of decisive action, and with a keen sense of the cheeky Stacy briskly reached down, picked up the ice cream, licked all the way around the edge and gave it back to me.

The momentarily stunned reaction from the booth was convincing shattered by Stacy’s completely infectious and irrepressible laugh and life returned to normal. That is except for my world view which had been shaken up and was only slowly settling back into something recognisable.

One of the most beautiful, funny and contagiously likable girls I had ever met just licked up ice cream that had fallen on a country gas station’s floor. She had done this for me so that I could continue to enjoy my ice cream. 

Canberra, and frisbee

Friends, family, followers. Hello.

I'm in Canberra.

So far it has been a really good move. The place looks great as you can see from the photo. I'm feeling very welcome here with Jonno and Hebs in their place, and also with the Canberra community. Physically welcome and socially welcome, it is a quality way to feel.

It's all fairly casual with a daily schedule that I can modify as I go. I'm filling up my time effectively though with a few good activities. Some gentle exploring and capitoline familiarising, a bit of highly exciting Roman tourist research for my upcoming trip, plenty of hound walking and hanging time, a healthy dose of board game/movie/dinner themed socialising, and a fat chunk of frisbee training, playing and travelling.

The World Games team is preparing aggressively and i'm loving being a part of it. Check this quick video out for a little sense of the action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I_ZJHtOTgU&feature=plcp

Also if you are a facebook type of character you should "like" the team page to follow on the happenings:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Crocs-2013/215211021944045


I've had some good time for reflecting and recording as well and i'm finding that process to be valuable as an emotionally helpful activity. I'm writing up a general reflection of internal experience type of thing every few days and that is all of a sudden 10 000 words long.

I've also been making an attempt to record the Stacy and Mike story. I'm still on day one and i'm 3000 words into that. It could be a long 12 years to write down. Yesterday I could pretty much picture the interior of the big yellow school bus as I looked back from the front seat across the group of staff we had just picked up to big haired, bright eyed, youthful Stacy. Sitting in the very back row singing The Joker by The Steve Miller Band with the whole bus rocking along.

It's fairly magnificent to spend some time back there in 2001 with the memories.

Some nice casual adventures to come, and some thumping intense frisbee work as well. I think i'm in the right place for now.

Mike

Lack of

I'm off driving today.

There was a period this afternoon that was very peaceful. I haven't felt the touch of responsibility rest so lightly for a long time.

I was coming from nowhere and heading to nowhere. I did nothing yesterday and have nothing to do tomorrow.

My only task today was to keep the car on the road.

Nailed it.

Next

Hi folks

I'm home from Montana with tidings of a strange and snowy land.

It was a great trip back to my northern hemisphere home, here are some images.

                                         Snowing

                                          Birds

                                          Snowing at house

                                          Moon, snow, atmosphere

                                          Big sky

                                          Debi's car, Dave's truck

                                          The road to Santa's workshop

                                                   Tree

Get the picture? 

It was a really good trip, lovely to spend some time with Stacy's extended family and friends. We all loved being together and feeling the same kind of feelings. It was hard to leave, and be left. 

Right now I'm back in Brisbane and it is beautiful. Man I do love it here. I'm feeling weird about not having a home though. I'm back in the parents house which is a great option and a very empathetic place to be. It does however have a strange time warp quality. Did the last decade really happen? I have some memories and yet here I am back in my teenage room. Strange, and a little disconcerting. 

I do have a plan though. On Wednesday this week Dad, the hounds and I are taking a road trip down to Canberra. I'm going to spend 6 weeks or so down there; writing, training for frisbee and sharing a pseudo-bachelor type of lifestyle with good old Jonno Holmes. It feels like a good move. 

After that I've got an international plan that will take me on this well worn path: 

Brisbane

Big Bear Lake (Maggie we are keen for a quick visit, 18th through 22nd July, Jonno and I, cool?)

Miami

Cali, Colombia 

Bogota, Colombia

Rome

Turin

Bozeman, Montana

Denver

Daytona Beach, Florida

Brooklyn

Detroit??? Joey, it better be good mate

Southern California

Brisbane at the end of October

If you are in or around that track, or want to talk me into a detour then get at me, i'm pretty much just poking around and seeing what diffuses, from and to. A time of sharing and connecting, drifting and finding, being alone and then also not alone. 

I'll keep blogging it out from time to time. Also to follow some of the frisbee news get onto the site, 

http://aussiecrocs.net or follow the team on facebook 'Crocs 2013'.

Righto, love

Mike

A Montana Funeral

It has been a couple of days since we held a funeral for Stacy here in Great Falls.

It was another beautiful service that was both pretty difficult to be at, and also a wonderful time of remembering and of celebrating.

We took some video again and while it is both fairly glary and also not great from a sound perspective there is a chance some of you may be interested in viewing it. Excuse the absent editing, and brace yourself for a few tears.

Quite a few people mentioned to me that being able to watch the video from the Brisbane service some weeks ago was a helpful experience and my hope is that the same is true now.

For everyone who was able to be at the service on Friday and for those who sent their thoughts our way thank you. It has been really helpful to me to feel wrapped up in the community and I do think that the healing pathway is with each other rather than alone.

Plenty of other action over here to report on include 2 to 5 inches of snow today, however for now here is the last 20 minutes of Stacy's funeral service.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3iLA92ToIx0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

All my bags are packed i'm ready to go

Righto folks i'm off on the next thing tomorrow morning. I'll be in LA for 8 hours and then Montana for just under 2 weeks.

I'm looking forward to getting right into the midst of the US branch of Stacy's community. I expect it will be a mixed experience with some hard times and some great memory sharing. Overall it will be an important time of reconnection after a long period of Stacy and I being away from North America.

I'm planing on keeping the blog up to date with happening so check back from time to time. I've had a lot going on and there are some good plans in the works so I think there is blog fodder to keep me typing and hopefully keep you informed and interested.

Lots of love from me to you and back this way too.

Mike