I am on vacation and my days taste sweet like blueberries and salty like the ocean licking my toes right this very second. In short: heaven.

And something has shifted in the last few days: I’ve been writing copiously. I’m posting daily (in fact I’ve got pieces in reserve!). I’m flirting very seriously with a book proposal. My cousin Kevin Brooks and I are planning a project together and it is wrenching and real and joyous. He’s such a rock star.

In short, the creativity fairies and elves are paying visits every night – and all day, every day. (I’d like to thank the Goddess, aka my mother, for allowing my children to shadow her adoringly and for keeping us fed and loved for the last four days.)

I am completely on my own time table and I’m living according to the whims of my body: eating when I’m hungry, sleeping when I’m tired, writing when the words light me up. (And kaboom if it isn’t a lightning storm!)

The last few days have been some of the Best Damned Days, and this has got me thinking about all the rest of the Best Damned Days of my life and what they have in common. In short: how do I live like this all the time? What fruits do I need to fuel a juicy life?

(Some of) My Best Damned Days:

- 21. Boyfriend. Big Love. Winding our way up the sea-to-sky highway to Squamish, me pressed into his back on the back of his motorcycle, to hike The Chief. Chipmunks. Chattering jays. Sunlight tickling the trees. The top of the world. Riding back, sweaty, exhausted, sweaty exhausted transcendant loving, falling asleep in the middle of the bed in the middle of the day in a puddle of sunlight.

- 36. No boyfriend, just a man I’m letting make me crazy. A moody grey-coated walk through Crescent Beach early in the morning, before the world gets there. I find a clam shell on a bench near the beach, probably dropped by a hungry, crafty seagull to crack it open. The bench is painted pale green, and some gentle artistic heart has hung two baskets of scarlett geraniums on it. It is colour genius. It is guerilla beauty. A gift. The clam shell seems like a promise. I walk, and think about the ethic and practice of care I provide my children, and vow that I will insist on the same for myself. The healthy lunches and snacks I pack for my kids: I will pack them for myself, too. The way I war – quietly, uncomprisingly, insistently – with anyone who might let my children down or cause them unwarranted pain: I will insist that others show up for me, too. I clutch the clam shell as I walk and I start to breathe out, from my toes. I am letting go. I am hanging on. I will live up to the love I need. I will have the clamshell dipped in silver and hang it on a long black velvet cord. I will wear it. I promise.

- BC Ferries. Going to Pender Island as a child, seeing whales. A killer whale breaching near the side of our little boat. There will be no fish caught today. Going to UVIC. Going home. Going to Vancouver with my boyfriend to look for our first apartment together, and seeing pods of orcas off the side of the ferry. Taking two ferries to my parent’s house and sleeping for a day when I get here. I had no idea I was so worn out. Water. Boats. Wind. Everything shines.

- My daughter singing the song “Maybe” from Annie, which we just saw at Theatre Under the Stars, which is an exercise in sweet loving summer goodness. The song, about Annie’s mother, as it should be: maybe she reads/maybe she sews/maybe she made me/a closet of clothes. My daughter’s version: maybe she blogs/maybe she writes/maybe she goes out/on Friday nights.

- Theatre Under the Stars. Theatre Under the Stars. Theatre Under The Stars. I can’t say it enough. Picnics, blankets, sunshine surrendering to the embrace of the night sky, Stanley Park, and the miracle that is nine year old Michelle Creber who absolutely inhabits Annie. My three year old daughter announcing to everyone in sight “It is my birthday! Annie’s here for me!” and leaping up when Annie arrives on stage and to welcome her with a shriek with delight: “Annie!!!!”. Dancing in the aisles. Belting out “Tomorrow” with all the ‘R’ sounds converted to ‘W’s. An agent giving me a card and telling me she’s got it. Yes she does. She sparkles.

- Countless twinkly days with my babies.

- Many days in libraries, or coffee shops and being alone together.

- Christmas lights. They make me melty and hot. We don’t need to go into that here.

These are the good-days ingredients:

solitude. communion. love. food my body loves. physical. cerebral. sunshine. water. wifi. nature. rest. my babies. help with my babies. journey. books. words. coffee. create. shine.

I don’t need all of these things, every day. But I think I need most of them, most days.

And this is a bit of a surprise. My usual approach to nature is pave it and put up a coffee shop. My ideal camping trip involves cracking open a hotel window. Yet, when I chalk up my list of shiny happy bittersweet days, they almost always involve sunshine and water and wild spaces. And fresh food – newly picked berries, salmon, tomatoes so bright and ripe they almost require sonnets in their honour.

So I need nature. I need wild spaces and good food. I need to be able to follow the whims of my body. I need adequate rest. I need to stop seeing the inside of 5am. I need my children. I need more help with my children. I need time. Oh, how I need time: to write, to read, to think, to surprise, to see.

Vacations can be revelations and revolutions.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 4:26 am and is filed under Family, Meaning, Purpose. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.