Return From Paradise...

48 hours ago I was sitting on the banks of the Spray Lakes, south of Canmore, Alberta.

I drove in, alone, pulled into one of the plethora of empty camp sites, parked the rental, and meandered down to the shore.
What surrounded me defies description almost - for I lack the prowess of the poet and posess nothing but my own clumsy words...

Behind me, a forest of evergreens...
Before me, and on either side, mountains, lake, blue, blue Alberta skies dotted with cotton candy clouds, more trees...
And most staggering of all - not another human being.
The sound of loons.
Lapping water.
Wind.
The noisy silence of The Rockies...

For a gal who now lives in the heart of Toronto's littered, piss-soaked, teaming streets - this was near impossible to absorb for the first while...To think there was a time, before I left Alberta, that the Spray Lakes invoked little more than a, "Yeah - it's pretty nice here," embarrasses me to no end.

I believe that I truly experienced AWE for the first time in my life.
I wanted to weep, but was too overcome to do so...
I have never inhaled with such GREED. If only I could have filled my luggage with Alberta air, I would gladly have abandoned my wardrobe!

So - why the trip, alone, to the mountains?

Sadly, I have felt at the end of my emotional tether of late - and am lacking the clarity to even say why....And I like to think of myself as 'pretty damn smart' - so the cloudiness confounds!

I have a good life.
A wonderful husband, who is a good friend, who makes me laugh, who challenges me and helps me to grow...
I have the greatest friends that ANYONE could ask for, ever. Truly.
A career that has continued to afford me a comfortable life, with gigs that other actors have envied at times...
I have a great apartment, filled with beautiful things...
The fridge is full of food...
I'm growing a container garden on the deck...

So.
WHY do I feel restless, empty, unsatisfied - BORED?
The worry is, of course, that "nothing will ever be good enough"...which leads to the thought that these feelings will never pass...Have I bought into the advertiser's pablum that "happiness and fulfillment" are just around the corner, in the next jar of anti-wrinkle cream? Were you to examine the contents of my medicine cabinet - you would think so!

I WANT MORE!!!

But more of what? I don't know....

There's a saying in theatre, "Less is more"....And maybe that's the thing. Maybe I have TOO MUCH? Maybe if I was a little more worried about where to find food, or where I was going to sleep at night....I wouldn't have time to feel BORED with my cushy life. GOD - I just don't know!

I think I may be having a pre-mid-life crisis...HOW BORING.

Here's something odd though....While I was in the mountains, surrounded by nature....These thoughts and feelings seemed to soften, to lighten up and even fade a bit under prairie sun. Mother Nature reached down and caressed my forehead the way so many mothers do when the brows of their children are furrowed....I was overcome by dreams of log-cabin-life, of running a Bed and Breakfast in Field, BC....of simply being in a place that I don't have to be afraid to take my shoes off and walk barefoot through the grass for fear of treading on a syringe, or broken glass...or a used condom (seriously).

I moved to Toronto to pursue my CAREER DREAMS...but in doing so, have so lost my connection to nature that I don't remember what it feels like to lay in the shade of a tree anymore...

I had no idea that I was a Prairie Girl, until I left the Prairies...And in the time that I've lived in this Big City I have come to realise something about the Prairies vs. Big City living:

On the prairies - your eye travels, uninterrupted, to the horizon...And it takes you OUT of yourself. You feel SMALL against the vast canvas of the prairies and 360 degrees of SKY...and if you sit and breathe it all in, it makes your problems seem small too. In Toronto - my eye travels 12 feet to the windows of my neighbours across the deck, or it travels across the street to the Dollar-rama, blasting music and selling hooker wear while junkies and angry city-dwellers rush by, cursing at each other...And out of sheer self-preservation your eye...and your problems bounce back at you, and so become MAGNIFIED...And the bounce back happens over and over as your soul searches for the horizon, only to be met with concrete and grey...And, before you know it, you're depressed and angry all the time - and telling strangers to ,"Go fuck themselves" doesn't seem at all unreasonable...

I miss Alberta.