Walk the Creek

I want to tell you a little bit about my "happy place".  When I was little, I used to spend a few weeks each summer in a place called Beazer, Alberta.  My grandparents lived there, and I was lucky enough to get to go and stay with them.  Beazer, at that time, had a population of maybe 30 people.  If you blinked as you were driving by it, you would miss it, and it was off the main road, therefore it was not a place that people even knew existed. 

In Beazer, during the summer time, it was as though time didn't exist.  You know, those lazy, hot sunny days spent reading in the shade, swimming at the swimming hole at the creek just down the road, and playing the occasional baseball game with the kids down the road.  And then of course at night there would be the game of kick the can, with the same kids down the road.  It was just fun.  I remember taking out my drawing pad and some pencils and setting up my own little easel of sorts, and sitting out in the sun, attempting to draw the mountains.

You see, Beazer is right back up in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, with Old Chief Mountain as it's backdrop to the world.  Thus, if you look at the picture on the left of this blog you will get a beautiful idea of why I loved it so.

But the best thing of all, was when Grandpa would ask me to go fishing with him.  I really loved to do this.  We were not allowed to go walking to far up the creek without him, because there were bears that roamed the country there.  But if he was going, we could tag along.  I remember how we would spend hours just walking up the creek, he throwing his fishing rod in the occasional deep hole, and me just wandering behind him trying to find the perfect skipping rock.  We never talked a lot, we both just loved the peace.  I can't even explain how it made me feel.  I think there are only a few other places on earth, that could bring that peace that I remember feeling there.  Contentment that all was right in the world, and nobody or anything could break that.

I long for that again in my life.  The peace and contentment that all is right in the world.  The simple life of being in the moment of the day, and forgetting that everything else out there matters.

I have been doing much reading and pondering lately, and I have decided that my "theme", so to speak, for the New Year of 2014, is going to be "The Simple Life".  I need to get back to that peace I felt when I would "Walk The Creek" with my Grandpa.  Simplify!   I will get into more details as it gets closer to the New Year. 

But for now, if I can enjoy Christmas, I will have succeeded at a rather large success.  Smile and groan........